The Kingmaker's Daughter

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘Come on, Iz, we can go into the cabin. We’ve never had the best cabin before.’

  We go to the door that opens onto the main deck but as she puts her hand on the brass lock the ship dips and she staggers and falls against the door, which yields suddenly, making her tumble into the cabin. She falls against the bed and I scramble in behind her and get hold of her. ‘Are you all right?’

  Another big heave of a wave sends us tottering to the other side of the little room and Izzy falls against me and knocks me against the wall.

  ‘Get to the bed,’ I say.

  The floor rises up again as we struggle towards the bed and Isabel grabs the raised edge. I cling to the side. I try to laugh at the sudden swell that made us stagger like fools, but Iz is crying: ‘It’s a storm, a storm like I said!’ Her eyes are huge in the sudden gloom of the cabin.

  ‘It can’t be, it’s just a couple of big waves.’ I look towards the window. The clouds that were so light and pale on the horizon have darkened, and lie in black and yellow stripes across the sun, which is itself growing red and dark though it is still the afternoon.

  ‘Just clouding up,’ I say, trying to sound cheerful though I have never seen a sky like this in my life before. ‘Shall you get into bed for a rest? You might as well.’

  I help her into the swaying bed but then the sudden drop of the boat into the trough of a wave, and the smack of the impact as it hits the bottom, throws me to my knees on the floor.

  ‘You come in too,’ Izzy insists. ‘Come in with me. It’s getting cold, I’m so cold.’

  I heel off my shoes and then I hesitate. I wait and it feels as if everything is waiting. Suddenly, everything goes still as if the world has suddenly paused, as if the sky is silently waiting. The ship falls quiet, becalmed on an oily sea, and the wind that was blowing us homeward, steadily east, sighs as if exhausted and ceases. In the calm we hear the sails flap and then hang still. Everything is ominously horribly quiet.

  I look out of the window. The seas are flat, as flat as if they were an inland marsh and the ship wallowing on silt. There is not a breath of wind. The clouds are pressing on the mast of the boat, pressing down on the sea. Nothing is moving, the seagulls are gone, someone seated on the crosstrees of the main mast says ‘Dear Jesus, save us’ and starts to scramble down the ropes to the deck. His voice echoes strangely as if we were all trapped under a glass bowl. ‘Dear Jesus, save us,’ I repeat.

  ‘Take down sail!’ the captain bellows, breaking the silence. ‘Reef in!’ and we hear the bare feet of the crew thundering on the decks to get the sails taken in. The sea is glassy, reflecting the sky, and as I watch it turns from dark blue to black and starts to stir, and starts to move.

  ‘She is taking a breath,’ Izzy says. Her face is haunted, her eyes dark in her pallor.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She is taking a breath.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say, trying to sound confident but the stillness of the air and Isabel’s premonition are frightening me. ‘It’s nothing, just a lull.’

  ‘She is taking her breath and then she will whistle,’ Izzy says. She turns away from me and lies on her back, her big belly rounded and full. Her hands come out and grip either side of the beautifully carved wooden bed, while she stretches her feet down to the bottom of the bedframe, as if she were bracing herself for danger. ‘In a moment now, she will whistle.’

  I try to say cheerfully: ‘No, no, Izzy . . .’ when there is a scream of wind that takes my breath away. Howling like a whistle, like a banshee, the wind pours out of the darkened sky, the boat heels over and the sea beneath us suddenly bows up and throws us up towards the clouds that split with sickly yellow lightning.

  ‘Close the door! Shut her out!’ Izzy screams as the boat rolls and the double doors to the cabin fly open. I reach for them and then stand amazed. Before the cabin is the prow of the ship and beyond that should be the waves of the sea. But I can see nothing before me but the prow, rising up and up and up as if the ship is standing on its stern and the prow is vertical in the sky above me. Then I see why. Beyond the prow is a mighty wave, towering as high as a castle wall, and our little ship is trying to climb its side. In a moment the crest of the wave, icy white against the black sky, is going to turn and crash down on us, as a storm of hail pours down with a rattle that makes the deck white as a snowfield in a second, and stings my face and bare arms, and crunches beneath my bare feet like broken glass.

  ‘Close the door!’ Izzy screams again and I fling myself against it as the wave breaks on us, a wall of water crashes down on the deck, and the ship shudders and staggers. Another wave rears above us and the door bursts open to admit a waist-high wall of water which pours in. The door is banging, Isabel is screaming, the ship is shuddering, struggling under the extra weight of water, the sailors are fighting for control of the sails, clinging to the spars, hanging like puppets with flailing legs, thinking of nothing but their own fragile lives, as the ship rears, the captain screaming commands and trying to hold the prow into the towering seas, while the wind veers against us, whipping up enemy waves that come towards us like a succession of glassy black mountains.

  The ship reels and the door bangs open again, and Father comes in with a cascade of water, his sea cape streaming, his shoulders white with hail. He slams the door behind him, and steadies himself against the frame. ‘All right?’ he asks shortly, his eyes on Isabel.

  Isabel is holding her belly. ‘I have a pain, I have a pain!’ she shouts. ‘Father! Get us into port!’

  He looks at me. I shrug. ‘She always has pains,’ I say shortly. ‘The ship?’

  ‘We’ll run for the French shore,’ he says. ‘We’ll get in the shelter of the coast. Help her. Keep her warm. The fires are all out, but when they are lit again I’ll send you some mulled ale.’

  The ship gives a huge heave and the two of us fall across the cabin. Isabel screams from the bunk. ‘Father!’

  We struggle to our feet, clinging to the side of the cabin, hauling ourselves up on the side of the bunk. As I pull myself forwards I blink, thinking I must be blinded by the flashes of lightning outside the cabin window, because it looks as if Izzy’s sheets are black. I rub my eyes with my wet hands, tasting the salt of the waves on my knuckles and on my cheeks. Then I see her sheets are not black, I am not dazzled by the lightning. Her sheets are red. Her waters have broken.

  ‘The baby!’ she sobs.

  ‘I’ll send your mother,’ Father says hastily and plunges through the door, fastening it behind him. He disappears at once into the hail. Now and then the lightning shows the hail as a wall of white, smashing against us, and then it is black again. The black nothingness is worst.

  I grab Isabel’s hands.

  ‘I have a pain,’ she says pitifully. ‘Annie, I have a pain. I do have a pain.’ Her face suddenly contorts and she clings to me, groaning. ‘I am not making a fuss. Annie, I am not trying to be important. I do have a pain, a terrible pain. Annie, I do have a pain.’

  ‘I think the baby is coming,’ I say.

  ‘Not yet! Not yet! It’s too early. It’s too early. It can’t come here! Not on a ship!’

  Desperately I look towards the door. Surely my mother will come? Surely Margaret will not fail us, surely the ladies will come? It cannot be that Isabel and I are clinging to each other in a thunderstorm as she gives birth without anyone to help us.

  ‘I have a girdle,’ she says desperately. ‘A blessed girdle for help in childbirth.’

  Our chests of things have all been loaded into the hold. There is nothing for Isabel in the cabin but a little box with a change of linen.

  ‘An icon, and some pilgrim badges,’ she continues. ‘In my carved box. I need them, Annie. Get them for me. They will protect me . . .’

  Another pain takes her and she screams and grips my hands. The door behind me bursts open and a wash of water and a blast of hail comes in with my mother.

  ‘Lady Mother! Lady Mother!’

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nbsp; ‘I can see,’ my mother says coldly. She turns to me. ‘Go to the galley and tell them they must get a fire lit, that we need hot water and then mulled ale. Tell them it is my command. And ask them for something for her to bite on, a wooden spoon if nothing else. And tell my women to bring all the linen we have.’

  A great wave tosses the boat upwards and sends us staggering from one side of the cabin to the other. My mother grabs the edge of the bed. ‘Go,’ she says to me. ‘And get a man to hold you on the ship. Don’t get washed overboard.’

  At the warning I find I dare not open the door to the storm and the heaving sea outside.

  ‘Go,’ my mother says sternly.

  Helplessly, I nod and step out of the cabin. The deck is knee-deep in water, washing over the ship; as soon as it drains away another wave crashes on us, the prow climbs and then crashes, shuddering, as it falls into the sea. For sure, the ship cannot take this pounding for much longer, it must break up. A figure, shrouded in water, staggers past me. I grab his arm. ‘Take me to the ladies’ cabin and then the galley,’ I shriek against the shrieking of the wind.

  ‘God save us, God save us, we are lost!’ He pulls away from me.

  ‘You take me to the ladies’ cabin and then to the galley!’ I scream at him. ‘I command you. My mother commands you.’

  ‘This is a witch’s wind,’ he says horrifyingly. ‘It sprung up as soon as the women came on board. Women on board, one of them dying, they bring a witch’s wind.’ He pulls away from me and a sudden heave of the ship throws me onto the rail. I cling to it as a mighty wall of water stands before the stern and then washes down on us. It takes me, lifting me clear off my feet, only my hands snatching at the ropes and my gown caught on a cleat save me, but it takes him. I see his white face in the green water as it plucks him over the rail and he goes past me, turning over and over in the wave, his arms and legs flailing, his white mouth opening and closing like a cursing fish. He is out of sight in a moment, and the ship shudders under the hammer blow from the sea.

  ‘Man overboard!’ I shout. My voice is a little pipe against the pounding drums of the storm. I look round. The crew are lashed to their stations; nobody is going to help him. The water drains off the deck past my knees. I cling to the railing and look over the side, but he is gone into the darkness of the black waters. The sea has swallowed him up and left no trace. The ship wallows in the trough of the waves but there is another towering wave coming. A sudden crack of lightning shows me the door to the galley, and I tear my gown from the cleat that saved me and make a dash for the doors.

  The fires have been washed out, the room is filled with smoke and steam, the pans are clashing on their hooks as they lurch one way and then the other, the cook is wedged behind his table. ‘You have to light the fire,’ I gasp. ‘And get us mulled ale, and hot water.’

  He laughs in my face. ‘We’re going down!’ he says with mad humour. ‘We’re going down and you come in here wanting mulled ale!’

  ‘My sister is in labour! We have to have hot water!’

  ‘To do what?’ he demands of me, as if it is an entertainment of question and answer. ‘To save her, so that she can give birth to fishes’ meat? For without a doubt her baby will drown and her with it, and all of us with them.’

  ‘I command you to help me!’ I say through clenched teeth. ‘I, Anne Neville, the kingmaker’s daughter, command you!’

  ‘Ach, she’ll have to do without,’ he says, as if he has lost interest. As he speaks the boat yaws violently and the door bursts open. A wave of water sweeps down the stairs and breaks into the fireplace.

  ‘Give me some linen,’ I persist. ‘Rags. Anything. And a spoon for her to bite on.’

  Bracing himself he reaches under the table and heaves out a basket of bleached cloths. ‘Wait,’ he says. From another box he brings a wooden spoon and from a cupboard he produces a dark glass bottle. ‘Brandy,’ he says. ‘You can give her that. Take some yourself, bonny maid, might as well drown merry.’

  I take the basket in my arms and start up the steps. A heave of the ship throws me forwards and I am out in the storm, my arms full, and dashing to the cabin door before another wave breaks over the deck.

  Inside the cabin my mother is bending over Isabel, who is moaning steadily. I fall inwards and bang the door shut behind me as my mother straightens up. ‘Is the galley fire out?’ she asks.

  Mutely I nod. The ship heaves and rocks, and we stagger as it shudders. ‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘This is going to take a long time. It is going to be a long hard night.’

  All through the night my only thought is that if we can plough through these seas, if we can survive this, then at the end of the voyage there is the outstretched arm of the Calais harbour wall and the shelter behind it. There is the familiar quayside where people will be looking for us, anxiously waiting with hot drinks and dry clothes, and when we come ashore they will gather us up, and rush us up to the castle, and Isabel will be put in our bedroom and the midwives will come, and she will be able to tie her holy girdle around her straining belly, and pin the pilgrim badges to her gown.

  Then she will have a proper confinement, locked in her rooms and I locked in with her. Then she will give birth with half a dozen midwives at her beck and call, and physicians at the ready, and everything prepared for the baby: the swaddling board, the cot, the wet nurse, a priest to bless the baby the moment that he is born and cense the room.

  I sleep in the chair as Isabel dozes and my mother lies beside her. Now and then Isabel cries out and my mother gets up and feels her belly which stands up square, like a box, and Isabel cries that she cannot bear the pain, and my mother holds her clenched fists and tells her that it will pass. Then it goes again and she lies down, whimpering. The storm subsides but rumbles around us, lightning on the horizon, thunder in the seas, the clouds so low that we cannot see land even though we can hear the waves crashing on the French rocks.

  Dawn comes but the sky hardly lightens, the waves come rounded and regular, tossing the ship this way and that. The crew go hand over hand to the prow of the ship where a sail has been torn down and they cut it away, bundling it overboard as waste. The cook gets the galley fire working and everyone has a tot of hot grog and he sends mulled ale to Isabel and all of us. My mother’s three ladies with my half-sister Margaret come to the cabin and bring a clean shift for Isabel to wear, and take away the stained bedding. Isabel sleeps until the pain rouses her; she is getting so tired that now only the worst racking contractions can wake her. She is becoming dreamy with fatigue and pain. When I put my hand on her forehead she is burning up, her face still white but a hot red spot on each cheek.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ I ask Margaret.

  She says nothing, just shakes her head.

  ‘Is she ill?’ I whisper to my mother.

  ‘The baby is stuck inside her,’ my mother says. ‘As soon as we land she will have to have a midwife turn it.’

  I gape at her. I don’t even know what she is talking about. ‘Is that bad?’ I ask. ‘Turning a baby? Is that bad? It sounds bad.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says baldly. ‘It’s bad. I have seen it done and it is a pain beyond pain. Go and ask your father how long before we get to Calais.’

  I duck out of the cabin again. It is raining now, steady heavy rain that pours down out of a dark sky, and the sea is running strongly under the ship and pushing us on our way though the wind is buffeting against us. Father is on deck beside the steersman, the captain beside him.

  ‘My Lady Mother asks when we will get to Calais?’ I say.

  He looks down at me and I can see he is shocked at my appearance. My headdress is off and my hair tumbled down, my gown torn and bloodstained, and I am soaked through and barefoot. Also, there is a wild sort of desperation about me: I have watched through the night, I have been warned that my sister might die. I have been able to do nothing for her but wade through water to the galley to get her a wooden spoon to bite on in her agony.

  �
�In an hour or two,’ he says. ‘Not long now. How is Isabel?’

  ‘She needs a midwife.’

  ‘In an hour or two she will have one,’ he says with a warm smile. ‘You tell her, from me. She has my word. She will have her dinner at home in our castle. She will make her confinement with the best physicians in France.’

  The very words cheer me, and I smile back at him.

  ‘Set yourself to rights,’ he says shortly. ‘You’re the sister of the Queen of England. Put your shoes on, change out of that gown.’

  I bow, and duck back to the cabin.

  We wait. It is a very long couple of hours. I shake out my gown; I have no change of clothes, but I plait my hair and put on my headdress. Isabel moans in the bed, sleeps, and wakes in pain; and then I hear the lookout shout, ‘Land ho! Starboard bow! Calais!’

  I jump up from my chair and look out of the window. I can see the familiar profile of the high walls of the town, the vaulted roof of the Staple Hall, and the tower of the cathedral, then the castle on top of the hill, the battlements, and our own windows with the lights shining. I shade my eyes against the driving rain, but I can see my bedroom window, and the candles lit for me, the shutters left open in welcome. I can see my home. I know we will be safe. We are home. The relief is extraordinary, I feel my shoulders lighten as if they have been hunched against the weight of fear. We are home and Isabel is safe.

  There is a grinding noise and a terrible rattle. I look at the walls of the castle, where dozens of men are working at a great windlass, its gears clanking and screaming as they turn it, slowly. Before us, at the mouth of the harbour, I can see a chain coming out of the depths of the sea, trailing weed from the deepest depths, slowly rising up to bar our way.

  ‘Quickly!’ I scream, as if we could cram on sail and get over the chain before it is too high. But we don’t need to race the barrier; as soon as they recognise us they will drop the chain, as soon as they see the standard with the ragged staff of Warwick they will let us in. Father is the most beloved captain that Calais has ever had. Calais is his town, not a town for York nor Lancaster, but loyal to him alone. This is my childhood home. I look up to the castle, and just below my bedroom window I can see the gun placements are being manned, and the cannon are rolling out, one after another, as if the castle is preparing for attack.