The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1)

by Lesley Nickell

  It was the Abbot who attempted to end the tragic spectacle. Approaching the Queen from his place of retreat by the door, he laid his hand gingerly on her arm.

  ‘Be of good comfort, my daughter ...’ he began, but he faltered lamely to a stop. At his touch, a violent shudder shook her and she recoiled as if from something loathsome. She flung out her hands to ward him off, and as she did so the Prince’s head, unsupported, fell askew back on to the cot; one dead arm slithered over the edge and dangled.

  Margaret’s eyes snapped wide, seeing and understanding at last the decay that was before her. Her fingers drove deep into her hair, tugging at the roots in torment. She began to scream, not the ritual mourning wail of before, but a howl of pain and loss and outrage against the injustice of God. The body of her son lay as it had fallen, indecently sprawled, and the flying ends of her hair flicked at his cold flesh as she lurched from side to side in a paroxysm of anguish. Tears were flowing now, the tears she would not shed before, and mingling with her own blood, for she was raking her nails down her cheeks in frenzied self-mutilation.

  This was too much for Sir William Stanley. Cynically unmoved as he was, he could not allow his prisoner the freedom to destroy herself. He called two of his men, who shouldered through the huddled petrified groups of monks and women at the door, and strode forward purposefully. The Abbot’s voice pursued him, the feeble protest lost among the screams of the demented Queen.

  ‘My lord, my lord....’

  The graceless scuffle that followed was nothing but a blur in Anne’s memory, less distinct even than the preceding events. She was at one moment standing in the reek of the infirmary, at the next bumping in a chariot, at the next stationary again and being served with a bowl of broth by a brightly clad page. Her companions were still with her, and they were in a small panelled chamber with carts and hoofs rattling outside the window. The Queen was there too, but Anne avoided looking at her, and she was not making a sound. Anne drank the broth mechanically, although it made her empty stomach heave. The page took the bowls away, and it might have been hours later that the door opened again and someone else came in. He paused on the threshold and glanced slowly round the room, taking in all the occupants. Then he inclined slightly towards the chair where Margaret sat, and said, ‘Madame, would you come with me? His grace will receive you, with your ladies.’ Without a word the Queen rose to obey, but as the young man turned to lead the way his eyes lighted on Anne, as if by design. Her atrophied senses took in little of his appearance, but it seemed to her that his lips widened into a brief smile before he moved on.

  They were taken to a high chamber full of people, and at one end on a dais were two tall noblemen. The ghost of an old fear, of two old fears, touched Anne’s heart. Their guide bowed before the taller of the nobles, who held out his hand in a familiar fashion and drew the young man up beside him. Margaret, foremost among the party of women, stood with her head drooping.

  ‘Well, madame.’ The voice, deep and easy, rang through the hall and Anne knew it down the years. ‘You owe our country much blood and many widows’ and mothers’ tears. I will speak no more of your guilt because I think you have now tasted its grief for yourself. We shall show you more mercy than you deserve.’ The King’s gaze swept over the woebegone figures of the ex-Queen’s companions, and even Anne acknowledged that it softened. ‘Ladies, we shall use you gently. You have suffered enough. The war is over.’

  ‘Sir William?’ Stanley stepped forward, square and smug. ‘For your good offices, we place Dame Margaret in your custody for the present.’

  As Stanley accepted his charge, the young man on the dais spoke to the King, who bent to listen, placing an arm round his neck. At his left the other spoke, and Edward took him also into the compass of his arms. One tall blond lord and one slight dark lord, linked together by the casual affection of the King. Anne saw that they were talking about her, and although the concentrated attention of King Edward and the Duke of Clarence should have frozen her, the presence of Richard of Gloucester obscurely made everything well.

  She was separated from the other women and lodged in a house nearby. The mistress of the house, a comfortable soul married to a cornchandler, fussed over her guest and talked incessantly, even when she had put her to bed and ordered her to sleep. Her stream of chatter passed meaninglessly through Anne’s tired mind; she was more bewildered by the good woman’s concern for her comfort than she had been by the neglect of the past months. She submitted to her ministrations and said nothing. To a monologue of gossip her hair was being combed the next morning when the Duke of Gloucester was announced. The goodwife stopped in mid-anecdote, blushed crimson, and plumped to the floor in a deep courtesy as he entered.

  Anne saw his reflection in the looking-glass, standing inside the door, scarcely aware of the stout woman squeezing breathlessly past him out of the room. She stayed where she was, staring in the mirror, and his image came beside her, and the eyes met hers. Brown, as she remembered them, but their expression was strange: troubled, searching for something in her and not finding. At last he said stiltedly, ‘Madame, accept my condolences on the loss of your lord husband.’ She looked down at her hands and noted with dull surprise that she was still wearing a wedding ring; the mourning she had assumed for her father had not needed change.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Her voice sounded oddly - perhaps it was days since she had spoken aloud. Another silence hung uneasily between them.

  ‘They are caring for you, I hope,’ said the Duke.

  ‘Yes, your grace.’ She could feel that he was asking her for some response, but she could not tell what; it was too difficult.

  He moved abruptly out of her view and said in slightly muffled tones, ‘We shall be leaving Coventry soon. My brother of Clarence has offered to take you under his protection until we reach London. There you will be able to go to our sister the Duchess. Later perhaps your lady mother will be permitted to join you too.’

  ‘My mother?’ Anne was shaken far enough out of her lethargy to turn and face him. The Duke was by the bed, intent on a signet on his right hand. ‘My mother was drowned.’ She had heard nothing of her since they had left France on separate ships.

  ‘Why no. Did you think she was?’ Glancing up in quick sympathy, he lost his diffidence for a moment. ‘She came ashore at Portsmouth and took sanctuary at Beaulieu when she heard … about Barnet Field. My brother the King is keeping her under surveillance. I’m glad that I’ve been the bearer of some good news. They should have told you before.’

  ‘Messire de Josselin would have told me ... but he disappeared. I don’t know when or where.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Was he a friend?’

  ‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘But he used to attend on me and tell me things.’

  Encouraged by her garrulity, Richard took a pace towards her. ‘If there’s anything I can tell you - any way in which I can serve you....’

  ‘Your grace is very kind.’

  ‘No, no. Not kind at all.’ He drew a breath to say more, and then stopped, unsure once again. As he hesitated, Anne caught a glimpse in the young man he was of the boy he had been, tongue-tied before the greatness of his mentor the Earl of Warwick, and she was seized with a desire to explain what had happened to Kat. How she had been hustled out of Warwick Castle at daybreak, barely awake, and how in the flurry of packing the poppet had been mislaid. She wanted him to understand how miserable she had felt, how long she had mourned.... But the lean jawline was freshly shaven, the furrow between the long brows was ingrained; he was grown and mature, and had forgotten the follies of his childhood and the conspiracy shared with a little girl. Anne would not shame him by recalling it. He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I mustn’t keep you longer from your tiring.’ It was not what he had been going to say. ‘Though it is a pity to bind your hair,’ he added shyly. Somewhat embarrassed by his own boldness, he muttered that he would send the goodwife back to her, and departed with as much haste as courtesy would allow
.

  She turned again to the glass, and pushed her fingers idly through the mass of pale hair that framed her face. No one had ever commended it before; its only virtue was its length. Although she had resolved long ago to dismiss all memories of that part of her life, they were edging back irresistibly: the grave obeisance he had made her as he took her favour to wear in the lists; the way he had noticed her new blue gown. He had always been kind to her, and even now, when she was nothing to him, he was kind still. For a moment she pondered that mute appeal he had made to her, trying to fathom his meaning. What could he want that she could give him? But the possibilities all slid away from her, and she had not the will to pursue them. The mere effort of so much thinking left her fatigued and close to tears. She wished that he had not come.

  Richard was baffled. At chess that night he allowed his brother to capture his queen and checkmate him with only a token resistance.

  ‘What’s the matter, Dickon?’ asked Edward. ‘You’re surely not too tired to make me fight for my victory?’ They had spent all day preparing the army to march out of Coventry in the morning; now their dispositions were made and they sat at ease over a chessboard and a bowl of wine. But when Richard did play games, he tended to take them seriously and play well. The King surveyed him shrewdly. ‘If you were any other man, I would diagnose a woman.’

  Startled that Edward could divine his thoughts with such facility, Richard denied that anything was wrong.

  ‘Why don’t you go and join George at a bawdy house? That would drown your sorrows better than wine.’ Edward watched with a grin as his young brother’s mouth pinched into primness. ‘But, jesting apart, tell me, Dickon. Is it our cousin Anne that plagues you?’

  ‘You’ve been spying on me!’

  ‘Not I, lad. I can’t spare the time. Some of my loyal subjects apparently have less to do.’

  ‘I only went to make sure that she was well.’

  ‘And is she?’

  Richard picked up one of the rooks and examined it closely. ‘She is very low. I think she grieves for her husband.’

  The King raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘For her father, perhaps,’ he corrected, and he was no longer bantering. ‘You have little cause to fear Edward of Lancaster, Dickon. The marriage was not consummated.’

  ‘How do you know that!’

  ‘Spies again. It was common gossip at Margaret’s court. The young bastard did everything his mother told him. But if there had been any liking between him and Anne, surely he would have defied her and lain with his wife. He never did.’

  His brother was shaking his head slowly, reluctant to believe him. ‘She was so distant... it is too soon.’

  Edward reached over and covered Richard’s hand with his own. ‘Do you still want her?’ There was no answer, but the young man’s eyes were raised to his brother’s, who read his heart in them. With a vigour that sent the chessman spinning into the rushes, Edward wrung his hand. ‘Then to her, man!’ he cried, and the gentlemen and pages in the far reaches of the room were jolted out of their own quiet occupations and turned to stare at their King. Then to Richard’s relief he dropped his voice as he asked, ‘Has Marja taught you nothing?’

  ‘This is different,’ Richard protested in an embarrassed undertone.

  ‘Not altogether. This may take longer, that’s all. Don’t give up so easily.’

  ‘You … approve, then, Edward?’

  ‘I don’t oppose it. She’s a poor match for a prince now, whatever her market value in the past. She’ll bring precious little with her. But you know that as well as I do. At least she’s no pawn any longer. If she’ll take you - and she’d be a fool not to in her position - you shall have my consent.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The Duke of Gloucester bent to retrieve his rook in order to hide his emotion, and set it on its square. ‘Shall we play?’

  Even so, it was not until they reached the outskirts of London that he found an opportunity to visit Anne again. She had been carried along with the victorious royal army in much the same way as she had travelled with the Lancastrians. Her new custodian, the Duke of Clarence, provided lodgings and transport for her, but she never saw him, or anyone else she recognised. In her grey world where even drawing breath was a labour, nothing was of much significance. Only the thought of Richard’s visit, drifting occasionally into her mind unbidden, roused her for a time to worry and aimless wondering. But wherever she was, and however uncertain her grip on reality, the words of the mass were the same, and the beads on her rosary meant the same prayers. In her overwhelming weariness she leant on the familiarity of God. Often enough on the journey to London she was lodged in a house of religion, and she would find her way instinctively to the chapel and kneel for hours, while services began and ended, and her beads slid through her fingers, and her knees grew numb. Once she forgot to go to her bed and was awoken, cramped and chilled, still at the prie-dieu, by the bell for Prime. No one noticed her and no one missed her.

  She found on this evening the energy to rise when Vespers was over and attempt to drag herself back to the quarters assigned to her for the night. At the end of the nave, motionless in the shadows by the font, someone was waiting, and she knew it was Richard. Dressed in a dark gown, bareheaded, he assumed form as she approached and when she reached him he bowed, to her or to the altar, and fell in beside her without speaking. The cloisters were already dimming into twilight, though the sky was clear blue with drifting translucent cloudlets. They walked slowly, and again, as at Coventry, Richard was searching for something to say. It was all very well for Edward to cite Marja, he thought, yet it was useless to compare her with the waif at his side, sealed into the solitary cell of her own misery. She walked with him not because she wanted to, but because obedience to another’s will was bred into her. Perhaps she no longer had any power to choose, even to walk or not to walk.

  ‘I thought you might be lonely,’ he said. There was no answer. Loneliness and companionship too seemed to have lost their meaning for her. They turned a corner of the cloister and an early swallow swooped under the arch before them and up to its invisible nest. He tried a different tack. ‘John was wounded at Barnet. Fighting next to me.’

  ‘John?’ Her voice was thin, listless.

  ‘John Wrangwysh. You remember. I left him unconscious at Baynard’s Castle. His sister Janet is nursing him.’ She did remember. The long-legged boy who had carved her Kat. It was unfair of Richard to stir up the dead leaves of their childhood. ‘Maybe you would pray for him. He is very ill.’

  ‘If you wish it, my lord.’

  Another corner rounded, and he said, ‘Frank Lovel is still with me. And Robert Percy.’ Almost he seemed to be deliberately invoking the buried past. She had not believed he would be so thoughtless. But he must have changed so much more than she. ‘Frank plays the lute very well. And writes his own songs.’

  The pain of memory halted her. ‘This is ungentle in you, my lord.’ Her narrow face was upturned, the remoteness gone; the eyes awake, pools of anguish reflecting the last light of the sky.

  ‘Believe me, I had no intention....’ Distressed by her misunderstanding, Richard tried clumsily to explain himself. ‘I only hoped that you might ... remember them - us - with kindness. If I was mistaken, forgive me. It was all a long time ago and perhaps it’s ... best forgotten.’ There was a note in his voice which hurt more than the memories. If only he would tell her in plain words what he wanted, or if she had the insight to read his riddle.

  ‘I lost Kat,’ she whispered. ‘And then last year ... it was the end.’

  ‘Only if you will it, Anne.’ For the first time he used her name, and it woke a dim response deep within her.

  ‘I have no will.’ Driftwood has no will, she thought, and no feelings, but she walked on so that Richard had to catch up with her.

  ‘Does it trouble you to see me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then ... you do not wish me to come again?’ He knew it was unsubtle, that Edward would
laugh at him if he told and call him callow, but there was no other way of reaching through her unhappiness to the truth of her.

  ‘Are you going away?’

  There was a forlorn break in her voice which gave him the courage to say again, ‘Only if you will it.’ They paced the length of one side of the cloisters, his boots ringing hollow over the faint slithering of the hem of her gown. When they reached the door of the church, he decided, he would take her silence for dissent and leave.

  ‘Please come again.’ Richard could scarcely be sure that he had heard correctly, that his eager ears had not misconstrued a mere sigh. Glancing aside at her, he met only her bowed head and two hands clasped over her rosary and the folds of her gown, pale shapes floating motionless in the twilight. He must blunder on in his own way and risk frightening her away for ever.

  ‘Anne?’ At least she stopped once more. She could barely make out what lay in his hand, although she already guessed it. And perhaps it was this offer that she had been trying, in some contrary way, to prevent. To take it back, to take him back, would be an action too absolute for her to bear the consequences. It would have been easier not to move, to keep her fingers twined in her beads and the safety of God. If he had thrust it at her, or placed it round her neck gently as he had on the old castle in Wensleydale, she would not have needed to choose. But he was hard; he was forcing choice on her with his stillness and that appeal which at last was plain. She looked up at him, darkling beneath the arch of the cloister, and stretched out her hand. Richard placed the pendant in its hollow and their palms met, enclosing the devices of St Anthony and St Anne.