‘Babies can fail very suddenly,’ I say weakly. ‘You know that.’
‘They say he was well at bedtime and died before dawn,’ he says.
I shiver. ‘Babies can die in their sleep,’ I repeat. ‘God spare them.’
‘It’s true,’ he says. ‘But I have to know if he just fell asleep, if it is innocent. I am leaving for Warwick right now. I shall have the truth of this, and if I find that someone killed him, dripped poison into his little sleeping mouth, then I will take their life for it – whoever they are, however grand their position, however great their name, whoever they are married to. I swear it, Anne. I shall have vengeance on whoever killed my wife, especially if she killed my son too.’
He turns for the door and I grip his arm. ‘Write to me at once,’ I whisper. ‘Send me something, fruit or something with a note to tell me. Write it in such a way that I will understand but nobody else can know. Make sure that you tell me that Margaret is safe, and Edward.’
‘I will,’ he promises. ‘And if I see the need I will send you a warning.’
‘A warning?’ I don’t want to understand his meaning.
‘You are in danger too, and your son is in danger. There is no doubt in my mind that this is more than an attack on me and mine. This is not an attack solely on me, though it strikes me to the heart; this is an attack on the kingmaker’s daughters and his grandsons.’
At his naming this fear I find I am cold. I go as white as him, we are like two ghosts whispering together in the shadows of the chapel. ‘An attack on the kingmaker’s daughters?’ I repeat. ‘Why would anyone attack the kingmaker’s daughters?’ I ask, though I know the answer. ‘He has been gone six years this spring. His enemies have all forgotten.’
‘One enemy has not forgotten. She has two names written in blood on a piece of paper in her jewel box,’ he says. He does not need to name the ‘she’. ‘Did you know this?’
Miserably, I nod.
‘Do you know whose names they are?’
He waits for me to shake my head.
‘Written in blood it says: “Isabel and Anne”. Isabel is dead, I don’t doubt that she plans you will be next.’
I am shaking in my fear. ‘For vengeance?’ I whisper.
‘She wants revenge for the death of her father and her brother,’ he replies. ‘She has sworn herself to it. It is her only desire. Your father took her father and his son, she has taken Isabel and her son. I don’t doubt she will kill you and your son Edward.’
‘Come back soon,’ I say. ‘Come back to court, George. Don’t leave me here alone at her court.’
‘I swear it,’ he says. He kisses my hand and is gone.
‘I can’t go to court,’ I say flatly to Richard, as he stands before me, in rich dark velvet, ready to ride to Westminster where we are bidden for dinner. ‘I can’t go. I swear I cannot go.’
‘We agreed,’ he says quietly. ‘We agreed that until we knew the truth of the rumours that you would attend court, sit with the queen when invited, behave as if nothing has happened.’
‘Something has happened,’ I say. ‘You will have heard that the little baby Richard is dead?’
He nods.
‘He was thriving, he was born strong, and now he dies, only three months after his birth? Dies in his sleep with no cause?’
My husband turns to the fire and pushes a log into place with his booted foot. ‘Babies die,’ he says.
‘Richard, I think She killed him. I can’t go to court and sit in Her rooms and feel Her watching me, wondering what I know. I can’t go to dinner and eat the food from Her kitchen. I cannot bring myself to meet Her.’
‘Because you hate her?’ he asks. ‘My dearest brother’s wife and the mother of his children?’
‘Because I am afraid of Her,’ I say. ‘And perhaps you should be too, perhaps even he should be.’
LONDON, APRIL 1477
George returns to London and comes at once to his mother’s house to see Richard. My ladies tell me that the brothers are together, behind closed doors in Richard’s council chamber. In a little while one of Richard’s trusted grooms of the household comes and asks me will I attend my lord. I leave my ladies to their excited speculation and walk across the great hall to Richard’s rooms.
When I enter I am shocked at George’s appearance. He has grown even thinner during his absence, his face is lean and weary, he looks like a man who is undertaking work he can hardly bear to do. Richard glances up when I come in and holds out his hand to me. I stand beside his chair, handclasped.
‘George has bad news from Warwick,’ Richard says to me shortly.
I wait.
George’s face is grim, far older than his twenty-seven years. ‘I have found Isabel’s murderer. I have arrested her and brought her to trial. She was found guilty and put to death.’
I feel my knees weaken, and Richard gets up from his chair and presses me into his seat. ‘You have to be brave,’ he says. ‘There is more and it is worse.’
‘What can be worse?’ I whisper.
‘I found the murderer of my son also.’ George’s voice is a hard monotone. ‘He too was found guilty by the jury that I sent him to, and was hanged. These two, at least, will be no danger to you or yours.’
I tighten my grip on Richard’s hand.
‘I have been inquiring ever since Isabel’s death as to her murderer,’ George says quietly. ‘Her name was Ankarette, Ankarette Twynho, she was a maidservant in my wife’s rooms. She served Isabel’s meals, she brought her wine when she was in labour.’
Briefly I close my eyes, thinking of Isabel accepting the service and not knowing that she was being cared for by an enemy. I knew that I should have been there. I would have seen the servant for what she was.
‘She was in the pay of the queen,’ he says. ‘God knows how long she has been spying on us. But when Isabel went into childbirth and was so happy and confident that it would be another boy – the queen ordered her servant to use the powders.’
‘Powders?’
‘Italian powders: poison.’
‘You are sure?’
‘I have the evidence, and the jury found her guilty and sentenced her to death.’
‘He has only proof that Ankarette named the queen as her employer,’ Richard intercedes. ‘We can’t be sure the queen ordered the murder.’
‘Who else would hurt Isabel?’ George says simply. ‘Was she not beloved, by everyone who knew her?’
I nod blindly, my eyes filling with tears. ‘And her little boy?’
‘Ankarette went to Somerset as soon as Isabel was dead and her household dismissed,’ George says. ‘But she left the powders with her friend John Thursby, a groom of the household at Warwick. He gave them to the baby. The jury found them both guilty, they were both executed.’
I give a shuddering sigh, and I look up at Richard.
‘You must guard yourself,’ George cautions me. ‘Eat nothing that comes from her kitchens, no wine but from your own cellars, have them open the bottles before you. Trust none of your servants. That’s all you can do. We cannot protect ourselves from her witchcraft except by hiring our own witch. If she uses dark forces against us, I don’t know what we can do.’
‘The queen’s guilt is not proven,’ Richard says doggedly.
George laughs shortly. ‘I have lost a wife, a blameless woman that the queen hated. I don’t need more proof than that.’
Richard shakes his head. ‘We cannot be divided,’ he insists. ‘We are the three sons of York. Edward had a sign, the three suns in the sky. We have come so far, we cannot be divided now.’
‘I am true to Edward and I am true to you,’ George swears. ‘But Edward’s wife is my enemy, and she is the enemy of your wife too. She has taken the best wife a man could have had from me, and a boy of my making. I shall make sure she does not hurt me again. I will employ food tasters, I will employ guards, and I will employ a sorcerer to protect me from her evil crafts.’
Richard turns away
from the fireside and looks out of the window as if he could find an answer in the sleety rain.
‘I shall go to Edward and tell him of this,’ George says slowly. ‘I don’t see what else I can do.’
Richard bows his head to his duty as a son of York. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Richard never tells me in detail what passes between the three brothers in the meeting when Edward accuses George of taking the law into his own hands, packing a jury, inventing charges and executing two innocent people and George replies to his brother that Elizabeth Woodville set murderers on Isabel and her baby boy. Richard only tells me that the gulf between George and Edward is perhaps fatally wide, and that his loyalty to one brother is on the brink of destruction because of his love for the other, and that he fears where this will take us all.
‘Can we go home to Middleham?’ I ask.
‘We go to dine at court,’ he says grimly. ‘We have to. Edward has to see I stand by him, the queen cannot see that you are afraid of her.’
My hands start to shake, so I clasp them behind my back. ‘Please . . .’
‘We have to go.’
The queen comes to dinner white-faced and biting her lips; the look she shoots at George would fell a weaker man. He bows low to her, with ironic respect, a flowery court bow like a player might make as a joke. She turns her shoulder towards George’s table, speaks constantly to the king as if to prevent him even glancing at his brother, leans close to the king at dinner, sits at his side as they watch an entertainment, allowing no-one else near him; certainly not George, who stands leaning back against the wall and stares at her as if he would put her on trial too. The court is agog with the scandal and horrified at the accusations. Anthony Woodville goes everywhere with his thumbs in his sword belt, walking on the balls of his feet as if ready to spring up to defend his sister’s honour. Nobody is laughing at George any more, not even the careless Rivers family who have always taken everything so lightly. Matters have become serious: we all wait to see what the king will do, whether he will allow the murderous witch to guide him, yet again.
BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, MAY 1477
‘I am not afraid,’ George tells me. We are seated by the fireside in my privy chamber at Baynard’s Castle. Unseasonal rain is running down the windows, the skies are heavily grey. We are head to head not for warmth but for fear. Richard is at court, consulting with his brother Edward, trying to reconcile his brothers, trying to balance the unending drip of poisonous advice that is the counsel of the queen, trying to counteract the unending gossip that comes from L’Erber, where George’s household speaks of a bastard clinging to the throne, a king enchanted by a witch, and a poisoner at work in the royal family. Richard believes that the brothers can be reconciled. Richard believes that the House of York can stand with honour – despite the Rivers family, despite their death-dealing queen.
‘I am not afraid,’ says George. ‘I have my own powers.’
‘Powers?’
‘I have a sorcerer to protect me from her spells. I have hired a cunning man named Thomas Burdett, and two others, two astronomers from Oxford University. They are very skilled, very serious scholars, and they have foreseen the death of the king and the throwing down of the queen. Burdett has traced the influence of the queen, he can see her path through our lives like a silver slime. He tells me what is to be, and he assures me that the Rivers will fall by their own hand. The queen will hand over her sons to their murderer. She will end her own line.’
‘It’s against the law to forecast the death of the king,’ I whisper.
‘It’s against the law to poison a duchess, and the queen did that without reprisal. I should like to see her challenge me. I am armed against her now, I don’t fear her.’ He rises to go. ‘You always wear your crucifix?’ he asks. ‘You wear the amulet I gave you? You always carry your rosary in your pocket?’
‘Always.’
‘I will get Burdett to write a spell for you to carry, deep magic to hold her at bay.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t believe in such things. I won’t believe in such things. We should not fight her with magic, it means we are no better than her. What are we to do? How far should we go? Invoke the devil? Call up Satan?’
‘I would have called up Satan himself to defend Isabel against her,’ he says bitterly. ‘For I have lost a wife I loved, to the queen’s poisoner, I have lost my baby to her accomplice, and before that a son, my first son, in a storm of a witch’s wind. She uses magic. She uses dark arts. We have to use them against her. We have to turn her own weapons against her.’
There is a knock at the door. ‘Message for the Duke of Clarence!’ someone shouts from outside.
‘Here!’ George shouts, and the messenger comes into the room and my husband Richard strolls in behind him.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he remarks to George, casting a frowning glance at me; he is determined that we must be neutral in the struggle between the two brothers. George does not reply, as he is reading the message over and over again. Then he looks up. ‘Did you know of this?’ he demands of Richard. ‘Or are you a part of it? Are you here to arrest me?’
‘Arrest you?’ Richard repeats. ‘Why would I arrest you? Unless endless gossiping and rudeness and glumness is a crime, in which case I should.’
George does not respond to this joke at all. ‘Richard, do you know of this: yes or no?’
‘Of what? What does it say?’
‘The king has arrested my friend, Thomas Burdett, my protector, my advisor. Arrested him and charged him with treason and sorcery.’
Richard’s face is grim. ‘Damnation. Has he done so?’
‘Arrested my closest advisor? Yes. This is to threaten me.’
‘Don’t say so, George. Don’t make it worse than it is. I knew only that he was thinking of it. I know that you have pushed him so far that he doesn’t know what he should do.’
‘You didn’t warn me?’
‘I warned you that your accusations and your spreading of slander and your insulting behaviour would cause trouble.’
‘He is in mourning for his wife!’ I protest. ‘He knows that she was murdered. How should he behave?’
‘Richard, you must support me.’ George turns to him. ‘Of course I have advisors to protect me against the ill-wishing of the queen, to guard me from poison and enchantments. Why should I not? When the whole court knows what she did to my wife? I have done nothing more than you.’
‘Not so fast! I have not accused the queen of murder.’
‘No; but have you set someone to guard your house? Your kitchens? Your wife? Your son?’
Richard bites his lip. ‘George—’
‘Brother, you must stand by me against her. She has taken my wife, she has her sights on me. She will murder your wife and then you. She is a woman of most terrible enmity. Richard, I call on you as my brother to stand by me. I beg you not to abandon me to her enmity. She will not stop until we three are dead, and our children too.’
‘She is the queen,’ Richard says. ‘And you’re not making any sense at all. She is greedy, God knows, and she has overmuch influence with Edward, but . . .’
George flings himself to the door. ‘The king shall not hurt one hair of the head of this innocent man,’ he says. ‘This is Her doing. She thinks to pay me back for the death of Ankarette. They think to take my honest servant in payment for the death of their spy and poisoner. But she will see that she dare not touch me. I am a royal duke – does she think my servants can be thrown into a common gaol?’
George dashes out to save Burdett; but he cannot save him. The royal inquiry into Burdett and his colleagues – for George has hired two other advisors, and possibly more – reveals a plot of spells and forecasting, threats and fears. Many wise people do not believe one word of this; but Thomas Burdett, Dr John Stacey and Thomas Blake, his chaplain, are found guilty of treason and sentenced to be beheaded. Thomas Blake is saved from the scaffold by an appeal to Edward, but the
other two are sent to die, protesting their innocence to the last moment. They refuse the traditional confession of their guilt that buys a man a quicker death and protects the inheritance of his heirs. Instead, they go to the scaffold like innocent men who will not be silenced, shouting that they have done nothing but study, that they are innocent of any wrongdoing, that the queen has turned their learning against them and has had them killed to ensure their silence.
George tears into the king’s council meeting at Westminster, protesting his innocence, protesting the innocence of the dead men, and has his spokesman read the words of their speeches from the gallows – powerful words from men about to meet their maker, saying they are innocent of any charge.
‘This is a declaration of war,’ Richard says shortly. We are riding side by side through the streets of London, on our way to dine at court. The queen is about to go into confinement yet again, to prepare for the birth of yet another baby; this is a dinner to honour her before she withdraws. She is leaving a court buzzing with gossip about witchcraft, sorcerers and poisonings. She must feel as if all the peace and elegance that she has worked for is falling apart. She must feel as if she is discovered, as if her true nature, the fish beneath the woman, is pushing its scaly head through her very skin.
It is a hot May afternoon and I am dressed very richly in red silks, and my horse has a saddle of red leather and a red leather bridle. Richard has a new jerkin of black velvet with embroidered white linen beneath. We may be going to dinner; but I have eaten already. I never take anything that comes from the queen’s kitchens now, and when she glances over to me she can see me with my fork poised to eat, crumbling bread, spreading the sauce with a spoon, and then putting my plate to one side. I pretend that I am eating food that comes from her kitchen, she pretends that she does not see that I am eating nothing. We both know that I think she will poison me if she can. We both know that I am not like George or my sister; I don’t have the courage to challenge her in public. My husband is determined to be her friend. I am easy prey to her ill-will.
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