The White Queen

by Philippa Gregory

  Elizabeth and I sleep in each other’s arms, listening to the water pouring off the roof of the abbey and cascading onto the pavements. In the early hours of the morning I start to hear the dripping sound of rain leaking through the slate roof, and I get up to start the fire again and put a pot under the drips. Elizabeth opens the shutter and says that it is raining as hard as ever; it looks like it might rain all day.

  The girls play at Noah’s Ark and Elizabeth reads them the story from the Bible, and then they prepare a pageant with their toys and roughly stuffed cushions serving as pairs of animals. The ark is my table upturned with sheets tied from leg to leg. I let them eat their dinner inside the ark and reassure them before bedtime that the great Flood for Noah happened a long long time ago and God would not send another, not even to punish wickedness. This rain will do nothing but keep bad men in their houses, where they can do no harm. A flood will keep all the wicked men away from London, and we shall be safe.

  Elizabeth looks at me with a little smile, and after the girls have gone to bed she takes a candle and goes down through the catacombs to look at the level of the river water.

  It is running higher than it has ever done before, she says. She thinks it will flood the corridor to the steps, a rise of several feet. If it does not stop raining soon, it will come even higher. We are not at risk—it is two flights of stone stairs down to the river—but the poor people who live on the riverbanks will be packing up their few things and abandoning their homes to the water.

  The next morning Jemma comes in to us with her dress hitched up, muddy to the knees. The streets are flooding in the low-lying areas and there are stories of houses being swept away and, upriver, bridges being destroyed, and villages being cut off. Nobody has ever seen such rain in September and it still does not stop. Jemma says that there are no fresh foods in the market as many of the roads are washed away and the farmers cannot bring in their goods. Bread is more expensive for lack of flour, and some bakers cannot get their ovens to light, for all they have is wet firewood. Jemma says she will stay the night with us—she is afraid to leave through the flooded streets.

  In the morning it is still raining and the girls, at the window again, report strange sights. A drowned cow frightens Bridget as it floats by beneath the window; an overturned cart has been swept into the waters. Timbers from some building go by rolling over and over in the flood, and we hear the thud as something heavy hits the water-gate steps. The water gate is a gate only to water this morning; the corridor is flooded and we can see only the very top of the ironwork and a glimpse of daylight. The river must be up by nearly ten feet, and high tide will pour water into the catacombs and wash the sleeping dead.

  I don’t look for a messenger from my brothers. I don’t expect that anyone could get through from the West Country to London in this weather. But I don’t need to hear from them to know what is happening. The rivers are up against Buckingham, the tide is running against Henry Tudor, the rain is pouring down on their armies, the waters of England have risen up to protect their prince.

  OCTOBER 1483

  Richard the false king, appalled at the betrayal of his great friend and the man he had raised to be Constable of England, takes only a moment to realize that the force mustered by the Duke of Buckingham is enough to defeat the royal guard twice over. He has to raise an army, commanding every able-bodied man in England to rally to his side, demanding their loyalty as their king. Mostly, they turn out for him, albeit slowly. The Duke of Norfolk has held down the rebellion in the southern counties. He is sure that London is safe, but he has no doubt that Buckingham is raising troops in Wales, and that Henry Tudor will sail from Brittany to join him there. If Henry brings in a thousand men, then the rebels and the king’s army will be well matched, and nobody would bet on the outcome. If he brings in more than that, Richard will be fighting for his survival against bad odds and against an army led by Jasper Tudor, one of the greatest commanders that Lancaster has ever had.

  Richard marches to Coventry and keeps Lord Stanley, Lady Margaret’s husband and the stepfather of Henry Tudor, close at his side. Stanley’s son Lord Strange is not to be found at home. His servants say that he has massed an enormous army of his tenants and retainers and is marching to serve his master. Richard’s worry is: nobody knows who that master might be.

  Richard leads his forces south from Coventry, to cut off his betraying friend Buckingham from the uprising of our forces in the southern counties. He plans that Buckingham will cross the Severn River to enter England, and find no allies but the royal army waiting grimly for him in the pouring rain.

  The troops move slowly down the churning mud of the roads. Bridges are washed away and they have to march extra miles to find a crossing. The horses of the officers and the mounted guard labor chest-deep in glutinous mud; the men march with their heads down, soaked to the skin, and at night when they rest they cannot light fires, for everything is wet.

  Grimly, Richard drives them on, taking a little pleasure in knowing that the man he loved and trusted above all others, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, is also pushing his way through mud, through swollen rivers, through incessant rain. This must be bad weather for recruiting rebels, Richard thinks. This must be bad weather for the young duke, who is no seasoned campaigner like Richard. This must be bad weather for a man dependent on allies from overseas. Surely Buckingham cannot hope that Henry Tudor has set sail in storms such as these, and he will not be able to get word of the Rivers forces in the southern counties.

  Then the king hears good news. Buckingham is not only facing the driving rain, which never stops, he is constantly attacked by the Vaughans of Wales. They are chieftains in this territory, and they have no love for the young duke. He had hoped they would let him rise against Richard, perhaps even support him. But they have not forgotten that it was he who took Thomas Vaughan from his master the young king and executed him. At every turn of the road there are half a dozen of them, guns primed, ready to shoot the first rank of men and ride off. At every valley there are men hidden in trees throwing rocks, firing arrows, setting a shower of spears down through the rain into Buckingham’s straggling force until the men feel that the rain and the spears are the same thing and that they are fighting an enemy like water, from which there is no escape, and which drives down mercilessly and never stops.

  Buckingham cannot get his messengers to ride into Wales to bring out the Welsh men loyal to the Tudors. His scouts are cut down the moment they are out of sight of the main column, so his army cannot swell with hard fighting men, as Lady Margaret promised him that it would. Instead, every night, and at every stop, and even in broad daylight on the road, his men are slipping away. They are saying he is an unlucky leader and that his campaign will be washed away. Every time they line up to march they are fewer; he can see the column on the drowned road does not stretch so long. When he rides up and down, cheering the men on, promising them victory, they don’t meet his eyes. They keep their heads down, as if his optimistic speech and the pelting of the rain are both the same meaningless noise.

  Buckingham cannot know, but he guesses that Henry Tudor, the ally he plans to betray, is also beaten by the wall of water that never stops. He is pinned in port by the same storm that is blowing Buckingham’s army away. Henry Tudor has five thousand mercenaries, a massive force, an unbeatable force, paid and armed by the Duke of Brittany—enough to take England on his own. He has knights and horse and cannon and five ships, an expedition that cannot fail—except for the wind and the pouring rain. The ships toss and yaw; even inside the shelter of the harbor, they twang at the mooring ropes. The men, packed inside for the short journey across the English sea, vomit with seasickness, miserable in the hold. Henry Tudor strides like a caged lion on the dockside, looking for a break in the clouds, for the wind to change. The skies pour down on his copper head without pity. The horizon is black with more rain, the wind is onshore, always onshore, keeping his ships shuddering against the harbor walls.


  Just over the sea, he knows, his destiny is being decided. If Buckingham defeats Richard without him, he knows he will have no chance at the throne. One usurper will be changed for another, and he still in exile. He has to be there at the battle and kill whoever is the victor. He knows that he must set sail at once, but he cannot set sail: the rain pours down. He can go nowhere.

  Buckingham cannot know this, he knows nothing. His life has shrunk to a long march in pouring rain, and every time he looks back over his shoulder there are fewer men behind him. They are exhausted, they have not eaten hot food for days, they are stumbling in knee-deep mud, and when he says to them, “Soon be at the crossing, the crossing to England, and dry land, thank God,” they nod but don’t believe him.

  Their road rounds a corner to the crossing of the River Severn, where the waters are shallow and broad enough for the army to march into England and face their enemy instead of fighting the elements. Everyone knows this crossing point—Buckingham has been promising it for miles. The riverbed is firm and stoned, hard as a road, and the water is never more than inches deep. Men have been crossing to and from Wales at this point for centuries; it is the gateway to England. There is an inn on the Wales side of the river and a little village on the England side. They are expecting that the crossing will be flooded, the river running deep. Perhaps there will even be sandbags at the doorway of the inn, but when they hear the roar of the waters they halt as one man in utter horror.

  There is no crossing. There is no land that they can see. The inn in Wales is drowned; the village on the far side has disappeared altogether. There is not even a river, it is out of its banks so far that it is a lake, a watery waste. They cannot see the far side: England. They cannot even see a downstream or an upstream. This is no longer a river but an inland sea with waves and its own storms. The water has taken the land, swallowed it as if it were never there. This is not England or Wales, this is water, this is triumphant water. The water has taken everything and no man is going to challenge it.

  Certainly, no one can cross it. They look in vain for familiar landmarks, the track that ran into the shallows of the river, but it is deep underwater. Someone thinks they see something in the flood and with a shudder they realize that it is the tops of trees. The river has drowned a forest: the very trees of Wales are reaching wildly for air. The world is not as it was. The armies cannot meet; the water has intervened and conquered everything. Buckingham’s rebellion is over.

  Buckingham does not say a word; he does not give an order. He makes a little gesture with his hand, like a surrender, a palm-raised wave: not to his men but to this flood that has destroyed him. It is as if he concedes victory to the water, to the power of water. He turns his horse’s head and he rides away from the vast churning deeps of it, and his men let him go. They know it is all over. They know the rebellion is finished, defeated by the waters of England that rose as if they had been summoned by the very goddess of water.

  NOVEMBER 1483

  It is dark, almost eleven o’clock. I am on my knees, praying at the foot of my bed before I sleep, when I hear a light knock on the great outside door. At once my heart leaps, at once I think of my son Edward, of my son Richard, at once I think they are come home to me. I scramble to my feet, throw a cape over my nightgown, pull the hood over my hair, and run to the door.

  I can hear the streets are quiet now, though all day they have been buzzing with the return of King Richard to London, and there has been endless talk of what revenge he will take on the rebels, whether he will break sanctuary and come against me, now he has proof that I raised the country against him. He knows this, and he knows the allies that I chose: Lady Margaret and the false Duke of Buckingham.

  No one can tell me if my kinsmen are safe, captured, or dead: my three beloved brothers and my Grey son Thomas, who were riding with the rebels in Hampshire and Kent. I hear every sort of rumor: that they are run away to join Henry Tudor in Brittany, that they are dead in a field, that they are executed by Richard, that they have turned their coats and joined him. I have to wait, as does everyone in the country, for reliable news.

  The rains have washed away roads, destroyed bridges, cut off whole towns. News comes into London in excitable bursts, and nobody can be sure what is true. But the storm has blown itself out; the rain has stopped now. When the rivers go back into their banks, I will have news of my family and their battles. I pray that they have got far away from England. In the case of defeat, the plan was to go to Edward’s sister Margaret in Burgundy, find my son Richard in his hiding place, and continue the war from overseas. King Richard will grip the country with the power of a tyrant now, I am sure.

  There is a repeated tap on the door and someone rattles the latch. This is no frightened runaway, not my boy. I go to the great wooden portal and slide back the porter’s grille and look out. It is a man, as tall as me, his hood pulled forward to hide his face.

  “Yes?” I say shortly.

  “I need to see the dowager queen,” he whispers. “A message of great importance.”

  “I am the dowager queen,” I say. “Tell me your message.”

  He glances from right to left. “Sister, let me in,” he says.

  Not for a moment do I think it is one of my brothers. “I am no sister of yours. Who do you think you are?”

  He pushes back the hood and lifts the torch that he carries so I can see his handsome dark face. Not my brother, but my brother-in-law, my enemy, Richard. “I think I am the king,” he says with wry humor.

  “Well, I don’t,” I say without a smile; but it makes him laugh.

  “Have done,” he advises me. “It’s over. I am ordained and crowned, and your rebellion has been utterly defeated. I am king, whatever your wishes. I am alone, and unarmed. Let me in, sister Elizabeth, for all our sakes.”

  Despite all that has been, I do just that. I slide the bolts on the little lantern door and open it and he slips in. I bolt it behind him. “What d’you want?” I ask. “I have a serving man in earshot. There is blood between you and me, Richard. You killed my brother and you killed my son. I will never forgive you for it. I have laid my curse on you for it.”

  “I don’t expect your forgiveness,” he says. “I don’t even want it. You know how far your plots went against me. You would have killed me, if you had the chance. It was war between us. You know as well as I. And you have had your revenge. You know and I know what pains you have given me. You have put an enchantment on me, and my chest aches and my arm fails me without warning. My sword arm,” he reminds me. “What could be worse for me? You have cursed my sword arm. You had better pray that you never need my defense.”

  I look at him closely. He is only thirty-one now, but the shadows under his eyes and the lines in his face are those of an older man. He looks haunted. I imagine he fears his arm failing him in battle. He has worked hard all his life to be as strong as his taller, thicker-muscled brothers. Now something is eating away at his power. I shrug. “If you are ill, you should see a physician. You are like a child, blaming your own weakness on magic. Perhaps you imagine it all.”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t come to complain. I came for something else.” He pauses, looks at me. He has that frank York look; he has my husband’s straight gaze. “Tell me, do you have your son Edward safe?” he asks me.

  I can feel my heart thud with pain. “Why do you ask? You, of all people? You who took him?”

  “Will you just answer? Do you have Edward and Richard safe?”

  “No,” I say. I could wail like a heartbroken mother, but not in front of this man. “Why? Why d’you ask?”

  He gives a sigh and slumps down in the porter’s chair, drops his head into his hands.

  “You don’t have them in the Tower?” I ask him. “My boys? You don’t have them locked up?”

  He shakes his head.

  “You have lost them? You have lost my sons?”

  Silent still, he nods. “I was praying that you had smuggled them out,” he says. �
�In the name of God, tell me! If you have done so, I will not hunt them, I will not harm them. You can choose a relic for me to swear on. I will swear to leave them wherever you have sent them. I won’t even ask where. Just tell me that you have them safe, so I know, I have to know. It is driving me mad not to know.”

  Wordlessly, I shake my head.

  He rubs his face, his eyes, as if they are gritty with lack of sleep. “I came straight to the Tower,” he says, speaking through his fingers. “The minute I returned to London. I was afraid. Everyone in England is saying they are dead. Lady Margaret Beaufort’s people have told everyone that the princes are dead. The Duke of Buckingham turned your army into his own, fighting to win the throne for him, by telling them that the princes were dead at my hand, and that they should have their revenge on me. He told them that he would lead them to avenge the princes’ deaths.”

  “You didn’t kill them?”

  “I did not,” he says. “Why should I? Think! Think it through. Why should I kill them? Why now? When your men attacked the Tower, I had them kept closer inside. They were watched night and day—I could not have killed them then, even if I had wanted to. They had guards all the time, one of them would have known, and they would tell. I have made them bastards and dishonored you. Your sons are no more threat to me than your brothers—beaten men.”

  “You killed my brother Anthony,” I spit at him.

  “He was a threat to me,” Richard replies. “Anthony could have raised an army and knew how to command men. He was a better soldier than me. Your sons are not. Your daughters are not. They don’t threaten me. I don’t threaten them. I don’t kill them.”

  “Then where are they?” I wail. “Where is my boy Edward?”

  “I don’t even know if they are dead or alive,” he says miserably. “Nor who ordered their death or capture. I thought you might have smuggled them out. That’s why I came here. If not you—then who? Did you authorize anyone to take them? Could anyone have them without your knowledge? Holding them as hostage?”