Virgin Widow

by Anne O'Brien

  My thoughts had wandered, deaf to those who spoke around me, eyes focused on the brilliant gems on the Queen’s right hand. Then I blinked back to my surroundings, my senses alert.

  What was that? I looked around me.

  Something had happened to spike the tension again. Margaret was angry, red-faced with emotion. Prince Edward governed his features. Isabel was staring directly, furiously, at me. Beside me the Countess inhaled sharply. Whatever it was, I appeared to have become the centre of attention. What had I missed? I looked helplessly towards the Countess whose return gaze slid along the edge of pity. The Earl caught my eye, stern and unsmiling.

  What had I done?

  ‘How dare you suggest so outrageous a step!’ Margaret demanded, surging to her feet.

  ‘An excellent suggestion,’ Louis disagreed. And there he was beside me, actually taking one of my hands in his. What had he said? And what was it to me? All I could think was that his hand was uncomfortably hot. My inclination was to snatch mine away, but I could not, so stood and endured his sweat-slicked palm sliding over my fingers as he repeated the suggestion that had created such passions.

  ‘Your Majesty, I know that the Earl of Warwick is more than willing to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage to your son. You should grasp it with both hands. It is an inestimable offer.’

  ‘For whom? I see nothing of value in it!’

  The words circled my head, moths around a dangerous flame, whilst I tried to pluck them from the air and make sense of them. The Earl offering his daughter…? But I was his daughter. And to wed Edward of Lancaster, who would one day be crowned King of England?

  By the Virgin! How stupid I must be, how blindly slow to see the new direction here. What my feelings were, I had no idea. I could barely grasp the words, much less their implication. It was not real. Surely I must at any moment awake from a dream—a nightmare—to find it all a mummers’ charade. Heart lurching sickeningly, I turned my head to see what the Prince might think. I couldn’t tell. Those hazel eyes were quite still, fixed on me, deep in some consideration that I could not read. Then he smiled. Gave a little bow as if it would be the greatest pleasure in the world for him to take me as his wife.

  I will be Anne of Lancaster, Queen of England.

  ‘No! I will never consider it.’ Margaret destroyed that thought.

  And I breathed out slowly against the constriction in my chest, part-fear, part-excitement. Of course she would never agree. What could Louis have been thinking? Since it had taken a miracle for Margaret to come to speaking terms with my father, she would hardly consent to a closer alliance with the prospect of her future grandchildren, the future rulers of England, carrying Neville blood in their veins. There was nothing for me to worry about. Astonishingly, my first thought, and it came to me as a heartfelt relief, was that I would never have to face Margaret of Anjou as her daughter-in-law.

  But another revelation crept in to supersede the first. What if the original proposal had not come from Louis? What if my father had broached it? His oblique observation on board the ship off Honfleur, meaning nothing to me then, now came back to me. You, my daughter, will be made welcome at all events. Had he had this marriage alliance in mind all along?

  Surrounded as I was by a major battle of wills, I began that day to learn a lesson in political manoeuvring. Louis might have the nose for duplicity, but when power was at stake, the Earl could be as self-interested as the French King. Perhaps neither could be trusted.

  There will be a price to be paid.

  Another of the Earl’s now apparently portentous statements that I in my ignorance had misinterpreted. I had presumed the price would be paid by my father’s dignity. Or even by Clarence’s ambitions. Now I saw I had been wrong on both counts. I was the one to pay the price. And it had been in the Earl’s mind from the moment we had left the shores of England.

  Margaret blazed with fury, her small figure almost shaking with the emotion, hands balled into fists at her side, as if she would strike out at anyone who came close enough to risk her wrath. Certainly she was beyond considering her choice of words as she vented her anger on the King of France.

  ‘Is this to be what I must do in return for French gold?’ she demanded of Louis. ‘I have made the alliance you wanted with this man. Is that not enough? Do I have to take the daughter as well? Do I have to bind the royal blood of my son to a commoner and a traitor?’

  Louis was unperturbed. Taking Margaret’s arm in a hold that could not be resisted, he led her aside to a window embrasure where he bent his head and proceeded to drop words of heavy persuasion into her ear. If my mind had not been centred on the enormity of the suggestion, I could guess the content of the advice. The marriage would tie Warwick into the scheme, his loyalty ensured for all time. He would never act against the chance of his daughter becoming Queen. Louis’s soft tones, the faintly hissing syllables, continued on and on, drifting across to us. Margaret listened, but with no alteration to her set features. Sometimes she replied shortly, with sharp hand gestures, whilst her son watched her across the distance of the room, with a fine groove between his brows. As for the rest of us, we stood like statues. Eventually Louis straightened, speaking so that we all must hear.

  ‘Yours is the final decision, your Majesty. But you must weigh the costs to your invasion plans if you reject her.’

  ‘I know the costs far too well, your Majesty,’ the reply snapped back.

  Margaret returned to the dais as if unwilling to give my father the advantage of height, lifting the weight of her skirts to face him. The interlude had at least given her the time to harness her temper.

  ‘I am told that I must give you an answer. This is my answer. Did you think I would leap at your offer, Monsieur de Warwick? I find it beyond belief that you would offer your daughter as my son’s bride when you once deliberately challenged the legitimacy of the Prince’s birth. Such hypocrisy is not to be borne. I will not agree.’

  ‘Consider the strength of our joint attack on England, your Majesty,’ the Earl urged, trying to repair the damage. ‘Consider what your son and I can achieve together for Lancaster.’

  ‘My audience with you, Monsieur de Warwick, is at an end.’

  I was rejected. So much hatred expressed in such controlled sentences.

  It was late when we returned to our accommodations. The end of a long day with strange doors opening and closing. I made my curtsy to the Earl and Countess, too tired to think any more. I saw the same exhaustion etched into every face. Clarence followed Isabel, halting briefly by the door to look back to the Earl, face drawn with self-pity after the momentous decisions.

  ‘It was all for nothing, wasn’t it? I betrayed my brother, broke my oath given before God to be loyal to my King. And for what? What have I achieved? Nothing.’

  There was no reply anyone could make in denial.

  I had all but stretched out my hand to the latch on the door when, without warning, it was flung back to thud against the wall. Dramatic to the last, Margaret of Anjou stood on the threshold, the Prince a step behind. She strode into the room to come to an abrupt stop close before the Earl, eyes feverishly searching his face.

  ‘I have been persuaded. Very well, Monsieur de Warwick. I will agree. My son will wed the girl.’

  ‘Your Majesty! I am honoured! You have all my gratitude.’ Showing no surprise at this reversal in his fortunes, the Earl bowed, hand on heart.

  Margaret continued, driven by some strange emotion. ‘Don’t thank me. It is against all my better judgement, but I am led to believe that I must.’

  ‘Our alliance will restore Lancaster.’

  ‘That is my one hope. I pray for it every minute of every day. But one thing I will not allow.’ Her features hardened further. ‘I will not allow my son to accompany you on the initial invasion.’

  I saw my father stiffen. ‘Surely that is our strongest weapon, your Majesty—to show Prince Edward of Lancaster to the nobility of England and give them a figurehead for t
heir allegiance.’

  ‘I will not allow it. The Prince will travel to England with me, once the invasion is begun and victory is secure. Once Edward of York’s hold on power is destroyed. Then the Prince will take his place at the head of the troops, in his father’s name. That is my final word on it.’

  She extended her hand, stiffly gracious. Allowed my father to salute her fingers. If she felt any distaste over the contact, she mastered it admirably. As did my father in accepting the Prince’s absence. Removing her hand from my father’s hold, Margaret held it out to me.

  ‘Come here.’

  I obeyed. Stood before her.

  ‘I do not choose you as wife for my son, but I must accept that the enemy of my enemy must become my friend.’ Her lip curled as if she would accept no such thing. ‘Let us hope you can learn to bear yourself as a princess. My son has been raised from the cradle to know that he is Prince of Wales. Edward!’ Imperiously she called to him. ‘Come and meet your bride. She has become the key to the door that is England, the route to your throne, so it seems.’ She regarded me with an uncomfortable intensity that lacked even a vestige of tolerance. ‘Here is your bride, Edward.’ She joined our two hands with hers, enclosing mine within her son’s and her own, small and soft, yet strongly binding, making us both the prisoner of her will.

  I tried not to pull away, not to squirm in discomfort at what I read in her face—that I was not more attractive, that I was a despicable Neville. Whatever she thought of me, the deal was made. I was now the betrothed of the Prince of Wales.

  ‘My Lady Anne.’ Margaret had released us and Edward brought my thoughts back to him with the firm pressure of his fingers. ‘Allow me to say how fortunate I am to win so charming a lady as my bride.’ He lifted my hand and kissed my fingers with cool lips, his eyes never leaving mine. More green than brown in the candlelight, they were bright, his smile warm and reassuring. He did not hate me. It made the leaden lump of anxiety beneath my heart ease a little. ‘I think Lady Anne will make me the perfect princess,’ he remarked.

  ‘We shall see.’ Margaret’s stare raked me from head to foot. I shivered inwardly. ‘I would speak with you tomorrow. Come to my chambers, in the afternoon. We must become acquainted.’

  It was not a thought to encourage a night of restful sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  I PRESENTED myself at the apartments of the Queen, Margery beside me in self-important attendance at the insistence of my mother. ‘You’ll need some Neville support in that rabid den of Lancastrians. If I do not accompany you, Margery must.’

  I wondered what my father would say if he knew that his Countess was so little won over to our new political allegiance. I suspected that my mother’s heart would remain Yorkist to the end. As for my own, I was not entirely sure, but I valued Margery’s solid presence at my side. Dry mouthed, belly queasy, I braced my shoulders as Margery knocked on the outer door, her lips suitably downturned in disapproval.

  ‘This is not the marriage I would have chosen for you, my lady,’ she hissed once again in my ear.

  ‘Nor I.’ My nerves leapt like a pot of eels. ‘But the Prince is kind and handsome…’

  Margery frowned at my easily won admiration. ‘Handsome? Maybe he is. And a dammed Lancastrian, son to the Angevin vixen!’

  ‘Hush.’ I scowled at Margery’s viciousness. At least my mother had the tact to keep such thoughts to herself.

  The door was opened.

  The lady-in-waiting, Lady Beatrice as I was to discover, tall and angular with sharp features and as forbidding as her mistress, ignored Margery and looked through me as if I did not exist as she opened the door wider and waved us forwards. ‘Her Majesty is waiting,’ she stated, leaving us to find our own way.

  So I had been found wanting by at least one member of the Queen’s household. How dare she overlook me in that manner! I lifted my chin. Strode forwards through one reception chamber after another, beneath the anonymous painted gaze of past kings and ancient dignitaries, towards the partially open door, my mind on decorous outward show despite the rebellion in my heart. Under my mother’s instructions, I had dressed carefully, a plain veil with a simple filet, without ostentation or exuberance. The Queen could not take issue with my demeanour. But what would be her mood today? I raised my chin another inch, my mother’s advice in mind.

  ‘Be respectful, mind your words. But be honest. And never forget that you are a Neville.’ Then she had added, caustically for her, ‘She should be glad to get such a bride for her son, an untried, pretty youth who has no kingdom and no hope of getting one unless your father takes a hand in the game.’

  So my heels struck the stone paving with authority as I marched forwards, only to come to a halt in the partially obscured doorway, hearing voices within. My presence went unobserved. Which was indicative enough of the force of the exchange of views within, the venom in one of the voices at least.

  ‘It is my wish, madam, to accompany my lord of Warwick to England immediately. And I will do it, with or without your permission!’

  ‘You will not. I forbid it.’

  Prince Edward prowled to the window, moving out of my line of sight, and back again to take up a determined stance before the Queen who sat where the light from the window could fall on the needlework on her lap. ‘In my father’s absence I should lead the troops into battle.’

  ‘My son!’ The Queen folded her hands neatly on top of the linen as I saw her struggle for patience. With her son, she had a care. ‘You have no experience in the field.’

  ‘I have the heart for it!’ Although I could not see the imprint of temper on the Prince’s face, I could hear it in his reply. ‘What I lack in experience I will make up for in dedication. I am trained in all matters of warfare. It’s more than time I saw battle and put my skills to good use. Richard of Gloucester is little more than a year older than I and he is Constable of England.’

  ‘I know. And so you shall.’ Margaret leaned forwards and would have touched his arm, but he pulled sharply away. ‘Have I not brought you up to fight for your inheritance? But not until victory is in our sights.’

  ‘So why not let me go? Why do I have to wait? I am no child to be wrapped up and cosseted, kept here in silks and velvets whilst others take on my duties to my kingdom.’ I could almost see the passion begin to heat beneath his skin, his features tight with a fierce intensity. Again he could not remain still, but marched the length of the room, flinging his arms from his sides as if he would engage in immediate combat with his enemies. ‘Spawn of York! I would tear them limb from limb. How I managed to keep my hands from Clarence’s throat when he approached you…! I would punish him and his brothers for their misdeeds until English soil is red with Yorkist blood. I’ll have them executed on the battlefield for daring to lay hands on my father. Every last one of them—dead, despoiled, their bodies cast aside in the mud for Lancaster to trample.’

  He flung back to stand once more before the Queen. ‘Do you remember when you had the heads of their father and brother—York and Rutland, as well as Warwick’s own father—spiked on the gate of York for all to mock and wonder at? So I would impale the quartered bodies of the rest of that thrice-damned family on the gates and bridges of London. King Edward as he styles himself. Clarence. Gloucester. Edward’s misbegotten children with the Woodville woman. What a victory that would be!’ His voice fell to a plea. ‘Let me go, I beg you. My father would place me at the head of his troops without question. Why will not you?’

  I sensed Margery slide a glance in my direction, but refused to meet her eyes. I knew what she was thinking—it mirrored my own line of thought. Unease slithered beneath my skin at such a show of uncontrolled temper, even as I understood the reasons for the Prince’s rage. The insecurity of life in exile, the constant wearying anxiety over what the next day would bring, had taught me much. Yet such vindictiveness shocked me.

  Queen Margaret remained unperturbed, and adamant. ‘Edward, it must not be. You must become a cunning
politician as well as a good soldier. If I allow you to cross to England in the first line of invasion, what would happen to our cause if Warwick betrayed us? What if he handed you over to Edward of York as a symbol of his goodwill towards his old master, as a hostage in exchange for York’s forgiveness? What a bargaining counter you would be. I don’t trust Monsieur de Warwick and neither should you. As for that creature of York who holds your crown, he would clap you in the Tower beside your father whilst Warwick returns to power at his side. Do you think I would risk that? Until the Yorkists are overthrown, I will not. I don’t trust our Neville ally.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ the Prince shot back. ‘But I still say it would be a grave mistake to allow Warwick to go back alone and consolidate his own power. Men who oppose York will flock to his banner. They should flock to mine.’

  Now the Queen gripped her son’s arm, resisting strongly when he would have stepped back, and she pulled him to his knees beside her chair. Although she lowered her voice it was still perfectly audible in the quiet room. ‘You are all I have in whom to put my hopes. When York is deposed and your father released to wear the Crown again, only then shall we return. And I will be at your side to rejoice at our victory.’

  ‘But none of the glory will be mine. It will all be Warwick’s, and I shall be bound to him by chains of obligation,’ the prince spat with petulant temper. ‘As for this damned marriage…’

  Every muscle in my body tensed.

  ‘Quietly, my son,’ Margaret murmured. ‘Nothing is yet certain.’