by Anne O'Brien
The Queen, Elizabeth, was with him. It was an unexpected sight, to touch the heart and the senses, since they were spending a few precious hours together, alone. Edward lounged in a high-backed chair before the fire, a sumptuous robe cast, open, over shirt and hose. A cup of wine was at his hand, a hound sighed in the warmth, its head resting on his crossed ankles. Elizabeth curled at his knee, leaning against his leg, her hair, all the lovely silver gilt of it unbound and free, drifting on to her shoulders and across his thigh. A cosy domestic scene, entirely private, of man and wife enjoying the quiet at the end of a day, with more than a little hint of sexual satisfaction in the way the king’s hand stroked that silken hair. Uncomfortable as an interloper in this intimate moment, I found myself taking a step, then another, in retreat, until Richard’s hands clasped firmly on my shoulders, holding me in place.
It was the profoundest sensation. How could I be standing here in the presence of the King and Queen, yet all my attention be drawn to the man behind me? Of being conscious of nothing but the warmth and support of his hands. I felt the strength of his clasp and of his body at my back, the whisper of his breath against my neck. Then it was over. His hands slid away and I stood alone.
‘Do we disturb you, Edward?’ Richard asked.
‘Yes!’ Edward turned his head with a lazy smile. ‘But now that you are here you’d better come in. An unexpected visit—but a pleasure. Come and sit.’ Dislodging the hound, he pushed a stool towards me with a casual toe.
Still guilty at encroaching on their privacy, and ridiculously moved, I was suddenly transported back to just such intimate moments at Middleham with the Earl and Countess. But now my family could never be reunited. Destroyed, blighted with treachery…Shocked, I found myself struggling against tears of self-pity, fighting to resurrect my previous anger with Richard, with Edward, with the world at large.
‘Do sit,’ Elizabeth invited with a soft laugh, edged with mockery. ‘You look tired, Anne. And, if I might say, a little the worse for wear. What happened?’
I realised I still clutched the creased remnants of my veiling. I could not imagine what sort of picture I presented. ‘It’s a long story!’ I sighed, suddenly very weary.
‘Then tell us,’ Edward invited.
Silently, I raised my brows at Richard.
‘I see!’ Edward laughed. ‘What’s afoot, Dickon?’
I sat, leaving Richard to prowl restlessly and tell the tale. Typically, he lost no time in coming to the point. ‘I want to wed her.’
Edward immediately glanced at me, then fixed his stare as he sensed my hostility. ‘Ah! But does the lady wish to wed you?’
‘She is…reluctant. She doubts my sincerity.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘You’ve hardly played the role of interested suitor these past days. No lady cares to be ignored as if she did not exist.’
I felt like some strange creature, newly discovered under a stone, with three pairs of eyes picking at my thoughts. And I felt the heat glow in my cheeks. Richard hitched a shoulder, the nearest he came to admitting his fault, but I saw the tinge of equally disconcerting colour mirror mine. It delighted me that he was as embarrassed as I.
‘There were reasons…’ he stated. ‘But now I need to convince her. Do you have any objection to the match, Edward?’
Reasons? What possible reason could there be? But Edward was answering.
‘None in essence. An excellent match, despite everything.’ His smiling eyes became sly. ‘But I know one who will object, from here to the gates of hell and back!’
‘Since when do I need to take Clarence’s ambitions into consideration? And particularly in the matter of whom I marry?’
Clarence? It reminded me. Without thinking of the company, spurred by earlier events of the evening, I interrupted. ‘Where’s Clarence now?’
‘I don’t know. Should I?’ Edward looked from me to Richard and back.
‘He was summoned, urgently, by a squire in royal livery, to attend on the King,’ I explained. ‘Which, I now presume, was a ruse.’
Richard’s careful composure immediately cracked into a smile that lit his whole countenance. ‘My brother is, I trust, engaged in a lengthy and entirely tedious discussion on some trivial point of trade with Burgundy. I hope it will last at least another hour.’
‘You set it up!’ I glared at him.
‘I did. I got Clarence out of the way,’ he explained to Edward, ‘with a royal summons.’
‘And then he got Francis Lovell to set a trap with drunken riff-raff from the Golden Lion to abduct me!’ I added, still ruffled by the abduction.
A roar of laughter filled the room. ‘Did he now!’ Then became serious again, his mind focused. ‘So, as we were saying, if Lady Anne agrees—but we are still not certain of that, are we?’
I opened my mouth to reply, furious when Richard answered for me.
‘Yes, she will. She must.’
‘I have not said so!’
‘But you will!’
‘I dislike…’ I dislike your masterful arrogance!
Edward intervened. ‘Enough! Let’s presume that you can persuade her and win her compliance, Dickon, though I wouldn’t wager on it. There’ll be a need for a dispensation. You’re too closely tied as cousins to wed without.’
‘I don’t see a difficulty there. Warwick got his papal dispensation for Clarence and Isabel. Where there’s enough gold…’ Disturbingly Richard was staring at me, weighing up some internal debate, before he turned back to his brother. ‘That’s not the problem. But I have to ask…will there be difficulties with her inheritance?’
‘Difficulties?’ Edward pushed himself to his feet to stand face to face with his brother…or was it against him? For a moment I was unsure and there was no longer humour in his reply. The atmosphere in the little room had switched instantly, acquiring a bite. ‘Too gentle a word by half. It’s a good match, as I said. I can see strong advantages in it, for you and for the security of the realm, to have Warwick’s daughter close tied, but there’ll be an explosion over it. You know it as well as I. We’ll just have to juggle the consequences and contain the damage. But hear me, Richard—I’ll do whatever it takes to stop a return to war and conflict in England. Even if it displeases you in the process.’
I could not follow the drift of this. I could feel apprehension building tight in my chest as Richard’s grim expression and reply matched his brother’s. ‘And you hear me, Edward, King or no. I’ll fight Clarence every inch of the way. Whatever the cost.’
‘I know you will,’ Edward retorted, temper now showing its teeth. ‘And you don’t give a damn over the dangerous position it could put me in!’
‘No, I don’t. I want her and I won’t let him stop me.’ Edward’s quick spark of anger was again reflected in Richard, fierce as wolves claiming their prey. Until Richard’s aggression dissipated with equal speed. ‘No, Edward…that’s not true. I don’t wish danger on you or to the hard-won peace. Too much blood has already soaked the land. But I’ll not allow Clarence to dictate the terms on this. Anne will not be robbed of what is rightfully her claim on the Countess’s possessions. And I want her as my wife.’
‘And as I said, I’ll support you as much as I can,’ Edward agreed.
Whilst I was left on the periphery to try to untangle the issues. My inheritance. My status, with my sister, as my mother’s heiress. I looked across at Elizabeth. Her expression was beautifully guarded, but she too knew the implications here. Why was my inheritance such a crucial matter of debate?
I stood because I was too anxious to sit. I took a step towards Richard, forcing him to look at me, away from the King.
‘You say you want me as your wife, Richard. And then you talk about inheritance. Is that all there is between us from the past? The wealth and land that will come to me at my mother’s death? Do you, after all, only wish to wed me for the value it will bring you?’
Perhaps I was naive to ask it. Was I wrong to expect mo
re at Richard’s hands? Had I not been led to believe that there was more between us in those heady days before our exile? Foolishly I had expected, longed for, love from Richard because he held my heart in his hands. Now it seemed to me that he had dug a grave and buried that love, covering it over with a common lust for a wealthy and well-born wife. Hearing the plea, the tremor of despair in my voice, I flushed with ripe embarrassment, but pursued the point. ‘Are you so insistent on my compliance because of the Beauchamp inheritance that will come to me?’
I had not realised what mud I was stirring up.
There was no compassion in Richard’s answer, only a stark realism that struck home, as it was intended. His explanation was brutal.
‘You speak of the Beauchamp inheritance that will be yours.’ His voice was raw but without hesitation. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Anne. Without me as your husband, to fight as your champion before the law, you are unlikely to get an inheritance of any description! You will be a pauper, destitute, dependent on whoever might be prepared to offer charity until the day you die. Or forced into an unpalatable marriage with some hanger-on of Clarence who, for a considerable bribe, might be prepared to take on a penniless daughter of a dead traitor. Without me as your husband, that will be your future. A cold and bitter one.’
I felt the hot blood drain, to leave me white and shivering with cold. ‘I don’t believe you…’
‘Forgive me. It was cruel of me to beat you with the truth.’ Richard’s brows became a black bar, his eyes dark with anger.
‘She doesn’t know?’ Edward asked. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no reason why she should. Clarence will hardly have broadcast his plans and I doubt Isabel would speak out of turn. That lady will see where her best interests lie—to have it all arranged and the knots tied tight. And if you haven’t broached the subject, Dickon…’
‘What don’t I know?’ I could feel my temper flare again, fuelled by sick fear. ‘I wish someone would be plain with me! Ever since I joined Clarence’s household I have felt an undercurrent of something. Isabel suggests and persuades and speaks in riddles. And now you do the same.’ I forgot that I spoke with the King and the Constable of England. Or I deliberately ignored it. They were just two infuriating men who discussed the matter over my head as if I were witless, a woman to be manoeuvred round and managed for her own good.
‘Tell her,’ Edward stated simply.
So Richard spelled out my family’s treachery. ‘Clarence has ambitions. He wants the whole Beauchamp-Despenser inheritance of the Countess for himself. He wants the titles, the lands and income—everything. He can’t have the whole Neville inheritance because I hold the northern estates as a gift from Edward. But the Countess’s lands, the Despenser inheritance, for which you are joint heiress…Clarence intends to claim the whole in Isabel’s name as Warwick’s elder daughter, thus disinheriting you.’ His eyes held mine as if he willed me to accept this terrible truth. Willed me not to disintegrate beneath the blow.
‘But that cannot be. It’s my right…My mother’s inheritance will be divided equally between us. I have always known it…’ How could this be true? ‘No! Isabel wouldn’t!’ I rejected the thought. ‘I don’t believe my sister would be so callous.’
It would make me nothing but a destitute widow. I had nothing from my brief and fatal marriage to the Prince. So if Isabel took everything, what would become of me? It was suddenly clear as day. If I consented to become Lady Prioress in Isabel’s planned foundation, it would be the ideal solution for everyone. I would be shut away from the world, robbed of a voice and power to object, whilst Isabel’s conscience would be absolved from guilt, in that she had provided for me. If she had a conscience at all.
‘Don’t be under any illusions! You will find that she would,’ Richard spoke. ‘Think, Anne. Use your good sense. Think of what you know of her. Isabel will not stand with you against Clarence, and you know it.’ His words were harsh, provocative, refusing to allow me to fall into dismay.
‘But if it is the law—it surely can’t be done.’
‘By law, the inheritance is undoubtedly yours,’ Richard admitted. ‘But Clarence plays a clever card. He’ll argue before the Courts if necessary that as the widow of the Prince of Lancaster, your property is forfeit. You are as much a traitor as Warwick and the Countess, so the whole of your inheritance should go, in total, to Isabel who has proved herself a loyal subject of the King. And thus into Clarence’s hands. Who changed sides from traitor to loyal subject at the most apposite moment.’
‘But my marriage was not of my making.’
‘Clarence can make the argument and many would listen.’ Now there was the shadow of compassion in Richard’s eyes that wrung my heart. ‘You are a woman with unfortunate connections, and powerless in comparison with the influence of the Duke of Clarence.’
‘No…! I am a Neville!’
‘What will that matter if he persuades—or forces—you to enter a convent? Or if he arranges for you to wed some self-seeking lord who will do exactly as he is told by Clarence in return for a Neville bride? With no one to stand for you, what chance do you have? Only I have the authority to stand for you and thwart Clarence. I am the only man who can defeat him for you.’
I was beyond speech. This was not arrogance in Richard’s claims, but blatant truth. Then my mind begin to race. I turned on Edward, casting all caution and respect to the winds.
‘Why can you not rule in my favour? If it is wrong, a trick, a manipulation of the law by Clarence, why can you not stand for me before the Courts? Surely you could demand that Clarence acknowledge what is mine by the laws of inheritance.’
‘It sounds a simple matter, but it isn’t.’ Edward’s voice might be soft with understanding, but his words were as cold as the grate of a key in the lock of a prison door. ‘It’s important for all manner of reasons that I leave the decision to the letter of the law. Because if I judged against him, it would drive Clarence to become my sworn enemy again. He’s fickle, self-interested and untrustworthy. I know it. But I need him with me not against me. His followers turned the tide for me against Warwick at Barnet. He’s popular and powerful and I cannot have him taking up arms against me. I won’t push the country into open warfare again. Not even for you, my dear. It’s unfortunate, some would say despicable on my part, but that’s as it stands. I’ll not be responsible for the spilling of more English blood.’
‘But you are the King…’
‘And as King I must abide by the law in such matters. I will listen to the arguments over your rights and I will make a judgement, but I will not willingly drive Clarence into opposition.’
I stood, head bent as I absorbed Edward’s damning explanation. Until my thoughts returned to most painful wound of all. ‘And Isabel knows of this. She would go along with Clarence’s plan.’
‘Yes.’
Of course she would. Isabel had been the one to introduce the thought of retiring to a convent, with the prospect of power and influence for me as Lady Prioress. If I had suddenly discovered myself to be surrounded by enemies, it was Isabel’s betrayal that hurt most.
‘She would shut me in a convent,’ I repeated.
‘Yes.’
‘It is unjust!’ I covered my face with my hands, struggling to hold back the tears that blocked my throat and threatened to spill. I would not weep! But the pain of it seemed like to overcome my will-power.
‘Anne…’ Richard was there at my side, but I drew back, resisted him.
‘No!’ I would accept no comfort from him. I did not even know that he would offer it. He wanted my land more than me. ‘I shall not faint or weep. I am not so weak. I am so angry!’ I muttered behind my fingers, even more furious that I could barely restrain the tears.
To my surprise it was the Queen who rescued me. A silent, critical observer so far, and still seated on the floor, Elizabeth leaned to tug on the hem of my gown to draw me to sit in the King’s chair at her side. ‘Sit here. It is not necessary for you to distress yoursel
f.’ As I sat, because my knees threatened to give way, she waved a hand at the King and Gloucester and I heard her sharp tone. ‘I will deal with this. Go and talk of how to really draw blood. You have done a good job here between you.’
‘She needed to know,’ Edward retaliated.
‘Yes, so she did. But now she needs some advice.’
So they withdrew to the window embrasure, and I sat beside Elizabeth. The revelations of the past hour sank in and became plain, but the hurt did not lessen and I wiped away the tears I could not control with my fingers. Until, to some extent composed, I looked up and found her pale eyes fixed on me. Speculative. A hard diamond edge. Certainly no compassion.
‘What makes you so indecisive?’ she asked as if she could not imagine such a state.
‘Richard says he wants to marry me.’
‘And so?
‘It’s all so complicated…’
‘I see no complication.’
‘I thought he loved me,’ I tried in the face of her palpable disdain. ‘But I think he loves my inheritance more. Perhaps he always did.’
I felt her eyes narrow on my face. ‘That need not be a bar to marriage.’
‘It would make for a cold future together.’
‘I presume you love him.’ I thought her lip curled a little.
I did not answer directly. Instead I spoke the one thought that came directly into my mind. ‘I think he killed Prince Edward.’
‘Perhaps he did.’
‘Does that not matter?’ Her icy self-possession, her brutal acceptance, shocked me.
