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

by Lesley Nickell

  This was dangerous ground, the ground of state secrets, and Anne almost asked her to lower her voice. Yet she could not resist asking, ‘How do you know?’

  ‘His grace proved it to my mother. She never told me how, but afterwards she was far more hostile to the Tydder than she ever was to my lord the King. One of the reasons why she let us out of sanctuary was so that we could find husbands quickly and be out of the Tydder’s reach.’ Elizabeth spoke of her mother a little satirically, and with no sentiment whatsoever. Anne was convinced that she would never have unburdened herself so unreservedly to Dame Elizabeth Woodville as she had to her aunt. That cold spell was well broken. The Queen longed to see this girl, who had all her life been a political pawn, securely and happily married, so that in the warmth of mutual affection her personality could open to the sun, as her own had done during those idyllic years at Middleham. But, if it happened, it would be beyond her span. She must merely do the little that was in her power to help bring it about.

  ‘I shall speak to the King,’ she repeated. And Elizabeth, who was not insensitive, heard the change in her tone and began to feel superfluous. The Queen’s eyes were suddenly luminous in her peaked face, and she was not seeing her niece at all.

  Anne was contemplating what speaking to her husband would mean, tonight when at all costs she must keep herself awake. For everything between them was changed. No longer was she the questor, groping in the dark for a meaning and a purpose. Because of what Katherine had courageously undertaken to tell her - and despite his anger Anne could imagine the bleak relief which would flicker through his eyes at her assumption of his duty - because of it her way was clear. He was the one who would be left behind. For the first time in their lives together, she could offer him strength and compassion. In the weeks or months remaining to her she must teach him not to be afraid, as she was not afraid, and give him enough love to sustain him throughout his loss of her. She must share with him her serenity of acceptance.

  Thereafter her health declined rapidly. One of the royal physicians who had attended the Queen’s sister the Duchess of Clarence in her last consumption had observed the same phenomenon in the Duchess’s case: from the time when the news of fatality was broken, a rapid sinking, as though in eagerness to embrace the promised end. But there was a great difference, the doctor remarked to his colleague, shaking a sage head; the Duchess Isabel had gone in terror of her husband, especially since the loss of her newborn son, and death could scarcely have been more dreadful than facing his wrath. Queen Anne, on the other hand, could not have been more beloved, or more cherished, by her husband.

  Indeed, Richard exercised a considerable amount of his royal power to ensure his wife’s comfort. He had of course sent for Katherine, and then for his son, because she was fond of them. Several others - Lord Lovel, Robert Percy, John Wrangwysh - were found business which would keep them in London for the rest of the winter, and so in constant attendance on the King and Queen. He offered also to send for the dowager Countess of Warwick, but this Anne would not allow. Her mother was an ageing woman, who should not be dislodged from her comfortable apartments at Middleham to make a long midwinter journey, especially for a purpose which would distress her. Besides, she had never been anything of a companion to Anne, who kept to herself the fact that since leaving Yorkshire she had scarcely noticed her mother’s absence. All the friends whose presence she did need were gathered together at Westminster, and in other ways too Richard tried to recreate, far away, the home where they had been happy. London, that still-alien city, was not the setting either of them would have chosen for such a time, but Wensleydale was beyond their reach, and in any case a place full of ghosts, living and dead; and soon Anne was too ill to be moved even to the comparative proximity of Windsor or Greenwich.

  So the crowded rooftops of London were blotted out by tapestries conveyed from the solar at Middleham; the altar cross and monstrance presented to the chapel of Middleham Castle by the Earl of Warwick took their places in the Chapel Royal of Westminster Palace; and the coverlet embroidered with birds from the Duchess of Gloucester’s bed, now threadbare and fading, appeared in the Queen’s sickroom. Richard attempted again to give Anne a kitten, but still perhaps with a curious loyalty to the memory of Kat, she refused. Artfully he compromised, and gave one to his daughter instead, who always happened to bring it with her when she attended the Queen. Less aristocratic than Kat, the tiny creature was consequently less dignified and more playful. Anne never laughed so freely as when the black and white scrap of fur, neatly arranged on her pillow, suddenly took mock-fright at nothing and charged haphazardly about her bed until, alarm over, it dropped just as abruptly into deep slumber. Sometimes it was still asleep when Katherine left, and since she said it was a pity to disturb it, the kitten remained.

  As January passed, Anne’s expeditions from her chamber became more and more restricted. Even to go as far as the chapel for mass induced fatigue and sometimes a fever; a short walk left her gasping for breath, and every effort might bring on the endless, debilitating cough. So her world narrowed, and Richard’s lovingly constructed fiction took on verisimilitude. Surrounded by the people and objects of another existence, her imagination was at liberty to dwell in it. Although her appearances in public were at an end, she was not isolated from events. Understanding that as much as ever she needed to be in his confidence, Richard continued to discuss with her his dilemmas and decisions, to ask her advice and opinions. Since there was a certain tendency, even among the best-intentioned, to treat her because she was ill as if she was losing her wits, she was gratified, and gathered up her weary faculties to do him justice. She learned that the Tydder had made a definite commitment to invade when the campaigning season began, and asked her husband if he should not be in Nottingham. There was no danger yet, he said, and in any case all was prepared; the Welshman was under surveillance. And in the spring?

  ‘I will not leave you,’ he said definitely, ‘until the Tydder is at sea. Only England’s extremity would take me away.’ And Anne prayed to God that he would not have to choose between them.

  Then there were the visitors. Her doctors disapproved and told her she should be resting in quietness, but when she asked why they shuffled and mumbled Latin. To put them back in countenance, she kindly assured them that she would send everyone away as soon as she was tired, and received her guests as long as she had the strength to talk or listen. It was mostly listening, particularly when Frank brought his lute and Katherine her guitar. Frank protested that his fingers had stiffened from signing too many official documents, but he had not lost his old skill, and with Margaret and John harmonising folk-songs, the old home-made musical gatherings returned. Whenever he could, Richard sat on a footstool by Anne’s chair, or on her bed, and listened too. Despite the excellence of the royal choristers and musicians, reputed to be the finest in Europe, she declared that to her ears my Lord Lovel’s consort was the sweetest by far. Frank ran his fingers through his blond hair, and smiled deprecatingly.

  At such times her closely-knit circle of friends was able to forget its reason for being there, and to take pleasure in the make-believe. Anne was changed greatly since Christmas, and not only by the emaciation which almost daily seemed to suck flesh from her bones. In the kind candlelight of winter afternoons they saw also her calm and relaxation, her willingness to enjoy what they brought her. The tension which had dogged her since Richard became Protector, the sheer effort of the past nine months since her son’s death, had dropped from her. In surrendering to the force that struck her down, she had found a purpose: to make a good end. And while they were with her it was difficult to be depressed by it.

  It was not she who needed their help, but the King, and he could not be helped. In her presence he caught a reflection of her tranquillity and managed to live briefly in her certitude. Apart, he was already a broken man, although one who would soldier on nervelessly in his job of ruling and defending his country to his last breath. Henry Tydder would find
it no easier to take England because King Richard was losing his wife.

  Once only did he betray himself, when he came to her in the fading light of an early February day. She was drowsing under the eye of an attendant, who quickly scuttled away at the irruption of the King, and she struggled to her elbows to find him at her bedside. Through the dusk she could not distinguish his expression, but his hands were trembling.

  ‘What ails you, my love?’ she whispered, and at her voice he slipped to the floor and covered his face.

  She reached out to touch his hair, and when he could speak he said, ‘They are taking you away from me.’

  ‘Away?’

  ‘Those hell-spawned doctors, may God curse them.’ It was so unlike him that she could only wait, brushed with the dread which only came to her now in connection with him. He pressed his fingertips into his eyes, trying to dull mental with physical pain, and collected himself a little. ‘You are coughing blood,’ he stated flatly. Yes; it had happened several times lately. ‘They say your illness is contagious and that I have a duty to avoid infection. A duty!’ He gave a wild bark of laughter. ‘What else will duty take from me before it’s done?’

  ‘So you must not see me again?’ Anne asked steadily, keeping her own hand on his head from trembling.

  ‘No. That far they would not go. But - oh, God, God! - they’ve forbidden me your bed.’ Before she had taken in what he said, he was weeping, with great rending sobs that shook the bed, and she could say nothing and do nothing to help him. For in the instant of his collapse her own serenity crumbled like a dream in waking, and she recognised the bitter reality. Here was their true parting. Whatever differences and misunderstandings had come between them, their physical accord had been complete, and it was indispensable. In every sense they had become one flesh, and to destroy that link would maim them both. Without it, the little time remaining to them would be immeasurably harder to bear. Foolishly, she had thought herself free of her wretched body, all spirit, half in heaven already, and yet the chains were still about her, dragging her back to earth, and she loved them too much to want to break from them.

  With a single cry of pure loss she twisted her fingers in her husband’s hair, and as convulsively he snatched her into his arms. For a long moment they clung, in blind terror at the forces that were driving them apart, but then she felt him change. When he spoke his voice was under control.

  ‘Anne. Are you very tired today?’

  ‘No. I’ve been sleeping most of the time.’

  ‘Would it please you to defy these physicians who can’t cure you, and heap useless tyrannies upon you to conceal their incompetence?’ Under control, but with an edge of danger and excitement which Anne, who had never seen him on a battlefield, had not heard before. But she understood him.

  ‘Might it not be dangerous for you, nevertheless? As they said?’ she asked without conviction.

  ‘As dangerous as last night, or the night before. And I don’t care. They shall not deprive us of our farewell. Do you want me, Anne?’

  ‘More than ever.’ He released her and went to the door, groping in the near-darkness for the key. When he had locked it he crossed to the hearth and threw on more fuel before coming back, shedding clothes as he came. A spurt of flame from the stirred embers lit his body as he lifted the coverlet, and she caught a glimpse of his profile, jutting nose and long chin, before he was with her, closing down upon her like the night. There was no hesitation, no fumbling. For thirteen years they had made love, with love, and they were perfect. In her enfeebled state she was no longer active, but his hands knew how to rouse her without striving, how to prolong and how to quicken, and how to raise them both to a height which was above sickness, duty and mortality, and beyond time.

  She took a pitifully long time to recover, these days, and as Richard gently wiped away the sweat, and held her gasping and shaking against him, he wondered briefly if it had been wise. But that was ridiculous. Of course it was not wise, it was reckless and shocking, and she had wanted it as much as he.

  ‘Forgive me?’ he murmured, and felt the tremor of laughter in her as she replied faintly, ‘With all my heart.’

  For a space they lay almost in silence. Once or twice she coughed and he was on the point of calling someone, but she stopped him. It was useless, she pointed out, she had a good supply of clean clouts, and anything else was just sympathy or hot air. Richard felt a humble admiration for the practical way, utterly lacking in self-pity, in which she faced what she had to face. Hers was the quiet courage that is seldom noticed, simply because it demands no attention. Heroic ballads are not sung about people dying of a slow and creeping disease. He drew her close again. In his hurry he had left the bed-curtains and the shutters open, and now that the fire had sunk a queer luminosity was filtering into the chamber.

  ‘I think it’s snowing,’ he remarked. ‘It was cold enough when I came from the Tower earlier.’

  ‘So it is. I remember that light from ... when?’ She pondered, and then said, ‘Of course. St Martin-le-Grand. There were some heavy falls that winter, and I always knew, from my bed in the infirmary.’ Anne had hardly ever mentioned that convalescence, and he did not know how much of it she recollected. ‘It was snowing when you first came to visit me,’ she went on. ‘There were flakes on your hair and your clothes, and you told me it was Christmas.’ That he had forgotten. ‘If you had not come, I would have died. And when Ned was born. Then at Nottingham. How many times you’ve saved me!’

  ‘Saved you? Don’t say it, Anne. More often I’ve condemned you.’

  She moved her head in denial, and her faint voice was emphatic. ‘That’s quite untrue. You gave me life as surely as my mother and father gave me existence.’

  ‘And now?’

  He spoke with naked anguish, and she pressed her cheek to his shoulder before saying, almost lightly, ‘I think perhaps God is jealous of my love for you, and He is punishing me. Especially as I pretended once that I longed to serve only Him. There must be some saints in heaven who loved on earth. I will ask them to intercede.’ He could not answer that, so instead he rose and mended the fire. That is all, she thought, now he will leave me. But he returned and lay beside her again. For the present, nothing else in the world mattered to him. As long as Anne needed him he would stay.

  ‘Richard, when I’m dead you must marry again, soon.’ His revulsion from the idea was a physical shudder, but she persisted. ‘You must get sons. The country needs an undisputed heir. And it would be good for you.’ She was right of course, but he could do no more than say through stiff lips that he would think about it.

  ‘There is ... someone who might do,’ she said experimentally. ‘She’s very popular with the people and that would be a good thing. And she loves you.’

  ‘What? Who can you mean?’ He was upset, she could tell, at what he considered her bad taste, but now she could not go back.

  ‘Your niece, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Elizabeth? Nonsense.’ He did not believe her. In her representations to him for the girl to be moved away from London, she had spoken vaguely of a hopeless love for an ineligible nobleman. Yet it had occurred to Anne, in her hours of lonely musing, that this solution might be perfect. It was impossible for her to feel jealous of where Richard’s affections would be directed when she was not there. What was important was that he should not brood over her loss.

  ‘Yes, she does. She told me several weeks ago, but I had already guessed. The poor girl was very distressed, and was particularly anxious that you should not know it. And then I thought... You are fond of her, aren’t you, Richard?’

  ‘Fond of her, yes. But she’s my niece, Anne! My brother’s daughter. A kinship far too close for marriage.’

  ‘Yes, I knew there might be a problem about that. But the Pope could give you a dispensation. He did for us, and you didn’t even wait for it - remember?’ There was a long pause, and Anne’s hopes ebbed; she could sense that he was framing an answer which would make the refusal les
s harsh for her. ‘Tell me, dear heart. I shan’t be offended. Sick people are subject to strange fancies.’

  ‘Of course I am fond of her, and of her sisters.’ He was picking each word carefully. ‘And I have done all I could for them, because they are blameless. But their parents - or at least my brother - were not. They are all illegitimate, and if I should take it into my head to marry one of them it would make nonsense of my setting them aside in the first place. It would compromise my integrity and jeopardise my legal position. Do you see that, love? Neither my personal feelings, nor hers, must enter into it.’ He lay listening to the slight rasping of her breath, hating to disappoint her, but knowing that she would accept a rational argument.

  With a small sigh she said, ‘I should have thought of that. One loses a sense of proportion, being alone so much, with nothing to do but think. Poor Elizabeth. She must have realised more than I did. And I’ve betrayed her confidence.’

  ‘Only with the best of intentions. I understand why she was so eager to leave. I’ll see that she does, as soon as spring makes travel easier. Sheriff Hutton should be a haven for her. Meanwhile, I won’t inflict myself on her any more than necessary.’

  ‘Thank you, Richard. I wish she could be happy.’

  ‘She will be, one day. I’ll find her a good husband.’ Another silence, and this time it was Anne trying to order her words. He kissed her to encourage her. What was not said now would probably never be said.

  ‘The boys … where are they?’ And his answer came without reserve or hesitation.

  ‘They are safe. With Janet Evershed in Bruges.’ Her palpable relaxation of tension was reward enough for trusting her with a secret strictly kept. ‘They were in great danger in England, and I judged it wisest to hide them, for the present. Mistress Evershed is passing them off as her nephews, I believe.’

  ‘She’ll do it well. After all, she has enough real nephews to practise on.’ Anne’s tone was quite gay; she required no details, and she did not even wonder whether Janet’s brother John and her sister-in-law were in the secret. ‘From what John and Meg have told me of her brothers, she has at least one new nephew or niece every year! So that is where she was at Christmas. Do you remember when we first saw her, Richard? At Middleham ...’ And they reminisced, ranging from that first winter in the draughty hall in Wensleydale, to the happy return in triumph when their son had been installed as Prince of Wales in York Minster. Many memories, none of them bitter, for all the bitterness had dropped from their lives together like sediment to the bottom of a clear pool. The reflection was pure and whole and still, and neither thought, as they talked quietly in the circle of each other’s arms, of how soon, and how easily, it would be shattered. At last she sank to peaceful sleep, although there was a clamminess about her brow which would probably turn to fever. Richard did not move, feeling her incredibly slight frame against him, the slender bones seeming to press through non-existent flesh.