The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1)

by Lesley Nickell

  ‘Is it a boy? Oh Anne, is it a boy?’

  ‘We don’t know yet ... In a little while.’

  In the last stages, she needed the support of Isabel’s grip almost as much as Isabel needed hers. And when Ankarette called on her to take the child, she could not stand up. Its head was enormous, poised unsteadily above the wrinkled body and puny limbs. The eyes and mouth were only screwed little folds of flesh, and there was froth around the chin. Under the slimy streaks of blood and water the skin was tinged with blue, and so was the cord that still attached it to its mother. It was a boy. Torn between repulsion and wonder, Anne held the little thing at arm’s length, while Ankarette collapsed on to her bed and Isabel lay spent and still. Suddenly, after all the striving, there was no sound but the creaking of the shipboards. Anne crouched there, frozen into an attitude of display, her body empty of sensation, until Ankarette spoke, her voice rough with fatigue.

  ‘You must tie the cord, and cut it. There are scissors.’ Dumbly Anne obeyed, fumbling with tired and slippery fingers. The child did not stir where she had laid him beside his mother and Isabel made no move towards him. Then Ankarette said sharply, ‘It isn’t crying.’ Anne stared at her sister’s baby, wondering stupidly why the attendant should begrudge them all a little peace. But as she stared, the meaning filtered through the haze of her weary mind. No crying. No movement. She advanced her hand reluctantly towards the tiny chest. No heartbeat.

  ‘No. He isn’t breathing.’ She could hardly breathe herself.

  ‘Shake it. Turn it upside down and shake it.’ They tried, gently, vigorously, desperately, to shake some breath into the small empty body. It was no good. Anne hauled herself up the ladder, into the blue of a brilliant April afternoon. On the larboard bow the cliffs of Cap Gris Nez sparkled in the sun. A gentleman who was leaning on the rail, enjoying the change in the weather, detached himself and came towards her expectantly, hastily disguising his distaste at the wretched appearance of his mistress.

  ‘Her grace is delivered. But the child is dead.’ Losing her foothold, she slithered painfully back into the cabin. They were all still there, laid out neatly on their four pallets as she had seen them on first waking, four apparent corpses, only now there were five. The tears of despair blotted them out, and she groped her way to her own bed. Before they had even dampened the straw pillow, sleep claimed her.

  ‘You evil trollop! You killed my son!’ The harsh accusation cut cruelly into her oblivion. George of Clarence was standing over her sister, his head nearly touching the rafters. Even in the poor light she could see the hysterical rage that distorted his face. Involuntarily she recoiled, and to her terror he turned on her, swaying over her pallet until the fur edge of his robe brushed her hair. ‘And you connived at it. Oh, I know what you two were up to, alone down here. She smothered him and you let him die.’ Choked with horror, she watched speechlessly as he returned to his wife and took her by the shoulders. ‘Admit it. You could be burned for this. Admit it, you witch!’ He was shaking her while he abused her, and in dreadful parody of his child that they had tried to save she did not resist, but let him toss her about like a rag doll, mouth slack in an ashen face. It was too much; beyond, the Countess was trying to rise with broken whimpers of distress, and the two gentlemen with the Duke started forward to stop him.

  A thin voice cried, ‘It isn’t true. She nearly died herself. She wanted him so much.’ Anne could not believe that it was she who had protested. But a more commanding voice was raised against the outrage, and as Warwick entered Clarence let Isabel fall back on to her bed and wheeled to confront the Earl.

  ‘I gave you leave to board my ship so that you might visit your wife,’ Warwick said, and there was no trace of the old deference to the King’s brother. ‘I did not expect you to treat her like one of your whores.’

  ‘She killed my son—’

  ‘Rubbish.’ His father-in-law silenced him incisively. ‘She’s proved she can bear sons. As soon as she has recovered her health you can get more.’ Driven on to the defensive, the Duke flung back his head and looked down his nose at the shorter man. His anger had changed to sneering scorn.

  ‘Lie with her again? That’s a pleasure I’ve willingly denied myself these past nine months. She’s as cold as a nun once she’s bedded - in spite of all the hot glances outside her chamber. She’s like her father promises all and gives nothing.’ Warwick’s hand was at his dagger, and if he had been a lesser man he would have used it then. As it was, his stillness was suddenly far more dangerous than all Clarence’s raving.

  ‘Leave my ship, my lord Duke.’ It would have taken greater courage than Clarence possessed to outface that contemptuous authority. Without another word he left the cabin. The women’s two attendants were weeping, and the Countess had hidden her head in her hands. For a moment the Earl remained rigid; then he shrugged and announced calmly to the company at large, ‘We sail for Normandy in an hour. At the first French port we shall put in and engage a leech and a nurse.’ His gaze swept over the sorry bunch of women, pausing on his elder daughter who, breathing heavily, had lapsed into unconsciousness, and coming to rest on Anne. He stepped towards her and said quietly, ‘How is it with you, child?’

  ‘Tired, my lord. That’s all.’

  ‘Don’t fret about the lord Duke. He was grieving and angry. He means no harm.’ Because he so seldom used kind words to her, Anne’s eyes filled with tears. He turned away from her weakness with an impatient tut, and was gone.

  The Countess was supported up to the deck by her two equally feeble women for the burial of her first grandson. With the shortened rites permitted to an unchristened child they committed the small heathen corpse to the ocean. The cries of the gulls as they flashed white about the mast were a mournful requiem. Anne wept softly, as she did most of her waking hours. Under the supervision of a French midwife, Isabel lay below, fighting a slow battle against childbed fever.

  Despite a now following wind, it was not until May Day that the Earl’s fleet dropped anchor in the harbour of Honfleur. Here at last the reception was friendly. The bear and ragged staff flew below the fleurde-lis on the lighthouse, and boats were thrusting out from the quay before the sails were furled. Anne did not see them, nor the effusive greeting given to Warwick by the port officials when they came aboard his flagship. The energy to climb up the companionway and take an interest in proceedings had left her. She was curled on her pallet in a maudlin state between sleeping and weeping; Ankarette, who was almost well, and shrill with the relief of dry land’s being so near, had to dress her like a helpless child.

  It was the stout lady-in-waiting who propelled her up the ladder to join her father and the welcoming deputation. She was pushed forward to have her hand kissed, but after so long a confinement she could not take in such a welter of strange people, flickering hands and swirling fur robes. Only two faces meant anything to her. Holding the painter of one of the little dinghies which lay alongside was a sailor with a black beard. He was staring at her with a startled concentration that told her he had finally discovered her identity. But when she caught his eye, he looked away with chagrin, as if she had deliberately deceived him.

  The other was among the Frenchmen, although standing so close to the Earl as to be almost by his side. He was talking rapidly, bringing one after another of the dignitaries to the attention of Warwick, who listened smiling with his head slightly bowed as though in respect. Soberly but sumptuously dressed with a great collar of silver lilies about his neck, the man gesticulated with the grace and confidence of a prince. And Anne was afraid. It was Bertrand de Josselin.

  Part II: WIFE

  1: VALOGNES

  Anne crossed herself and rose from her knees. Picking up her missal, she left the cool shadow of the church, where a lay sister was leisurely washing the flagstones, and passed into the

  cloisters. The arches were etched sharply in jade velvet on the brilliant emerald of the grass, and where the sunlight spilled on to the stone floor a pied
cat lay on its back, absorbing the heat ecstatically into the white fur of its belly. It was meant to catch mice in the pantry, but took as much time off as its appetite and the Sister Cellarer would let it, especially when the weather was fine. Anne stole towards it and squatted beside the spreadeagled body. The cat opened one alert golden eye, tensing to streak away if it was Soeur Agnes. Recognising a friend it stretched in sensuous anticipation and began to purr. One of the things Anne liked most about cats was the unabashed pleasure they took in life. As the creature pushed its nose eagerly into her caressing hand, she recalled her sympathy with Soeur Louise, a young postulant from Brittany, who had been caught stroking the cat by the Mistress of Postulants, and given a penance on the spot for carnal indulgence: a harsh judgement for such mutual satisfaction.

  Not that she often pitied the nuns. The Mistress of Postulants had been plagued by gout that morning; generally she was more of a nurse than an instructor to her charges. Since she came to Valognes over two months ago, Anne had found more reason to envy than to pity them. Saying goodbye to the cat, who blinked in reply, she crossed the grass towards the guest-house. The passages and chambers were deserted, so she relinquished the missal and her heavy head-dress and made her way to the Abbess’s garden. Under an apple tree her mother was sewing: the same frame, the same design, so it seemed, that she had worked upon all through Anne’s life. She lifted her eyes as Anne came through the gate, but made no other sign. No one else took any notice of her; the ladies were dozing, and Isabel stared listlessly before her, a book lying unopened on her lap.

  It was in any case only a courtesy visit. Anne spent a great deal of her time apart from her family, either at devotion or talking to the nuns. Indeed, she had asked and obtained permission to pray in the abbey church, instead of the guest chapel, whenever the sisters were not themselves saying their offices there. The Abbess, in granting it, smiled and commented that in the past a number of English ladies had taken their vows here. The seed had fallen into fertile ground. With as much speed as decorum would allow Anne escaped from the Abbess’s garden and went to find Soeur Madeleine, whom she knew would at this time of the morning be tending her herb beds. She had something important to tell her.

  The sister was waist-deep in lavender bushes, plucking the misty blue flower heads and dropping them into the plaited rush basket on her arm. Anne took up an empty basket and pushed in among the fragrant shrubs to join her. Having smiled a greeting at each other they worked in silence for a while, with the scent and the bees and the sun thrumming all around them. At length Soeur Madeleine said, without pausing in her task, ‘Well, Anne, what is it?’

  Anne paused, glancing shyly at her friend. ‘How do you always know?’

  ‘One grows used to reading moods, living in contemplation. Now tell me.’

  ‘I think ... ma soeur, I think Our Lord has spoken to me.’

  ‘What has happened?’ Despite the emotion trembling in the younger girl’s voice, the nun’s tone was serene.

  ‘It was a dream - no, more of a vision. Last night. I’ve been praying at St Anne’s shrine for two hours, and I believe she’s with me.’

  ‘Perhaps. Can you describe the dream?’

  Anne hesitated, closing her eyes against the golden radiance of the morning to summon up the tremendous presence which had come to her in the night.

  ‘I was lying in darkness – not just the darkness of my bed, but somewhere much colder and wider and more lonely. And then I was ... lifted up ... and embraced. I was afraid at first, but I could feel Him willing me to trust Him. His arms were round me, folding me close ....’ Groping for the words to define the indefinable, an echo of the sweetness which had possessed her rippled again through her body. ‘Oh, Soeur Madeleine, it was so wonderful, I can’t describe ..., but when it happened I was so secure and full of love that in return I wanted to give myself ...’ She faltered into exalted silence. Soeur Madeleine was regarding her with grave sympathy. ‘I wish I could explain.’ Anne was a little dashed by her friend’s lack of response. ‘Surely it was a sign from God?’

  ‘It may be. You must wait.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To be sure. The Devil can speak to us too through dreams and our own longings.’

  ‘But my longing is for God. You must believe me, ma soeur.’

  ‘I do, Anne. But you mustn’t be proud.’

  ‘Proud?’

  ‘Yes, and think that you know best. People change - grow up - what is right today may be wrong next year. There was a girl who came here, burning to serve Our Lord. The Mother took her without a dowry because she was so much in earnest. Yet before she was through her novitiate she left us ... for a young man from the town.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that!’ Anne was shocked by the implication.

  ‘Of course not. It is simply to warn you against being too hasty. Giving your life to God must be a decision of your reason as well as your heart.’

  ‘But if I know that He came to me -’ She was interrupted by the bell for Sexte, tolling from the abbey church. Soeur Madeleine placed her basket on a stone bench by the path and took Anne’s hand,

  ‘Go on praying, and I shall do the same. Ask your confessor’s advice. And be patient. If God needs you, He will not let you escape Him.’

  She went away, threading briskly through the beds of rue and rosemary, and a cloud of white butterflies rose in the shimmering air and wavered about her white figure. Anne sat down on the bench and crushed a flowerhead in her palm.

  Burying her nose in its fragrance, she tried to shake off her disappointment. When she had arrived at the convent, she had been in a state of collapse scarcely better than her sister’s, and of all the nuns who had tenderly nursed them Soeur Madeleine had been the most devoted. As she recovered Anne came to rely on her for spiritual as well as material comfort. She had found it easy to talk to the girl from Poitou, who was only six years her senior, and who seemed to understand the half-articulate aspirations she had never confided to anyone else. To find a place where she would be useful and not in the way: it had grown on her, living in this peaceful and ordered community, that her place might be here.

  And her overwhelming experience of last night, when God had possessed her utterly, had convinced her of it. She had hoped that her friend would be as moved as she, that she would agree this was what they had prayed for, and that she would approach the Mother Superior on her behalf. Instead she had almost snubbed her, almost disbelieved her. But then Soeur Madeleine was no mystic; she had often admitted as much - Anne hastily lighted on the excuse. The youngest of seven daughters of a nobleman ruined in the French civil wars, there had been no marriage portion for her, and that was why she had taken her vows. She was practical and prosaic, and she had to work to find her vocation. A Martha rather than a Mary, she called herself wryly, and now Anne began to see what it was that her admired friend was lacking. Direct contact with God was not given to everyone. With a thrill that was half fear and half pride, she wondered whether she was one of the elect.

  Should it be so, there was no time to be lost. She knew instinctively that steps had to be taken urgently. First she must win her confessor to her side - although she did not intend to entrust him with an account of her vision - and then if Soeur Madeleine did not respond to her appeals she would have to approach the Mother herself. Anne quailed a little at the prospect of another interview with the benign yet aweinspiring Abbess, but the courage would come to her. Together her two allies would speak to her father as soon as he returned. This part of her plan was the most vague in her mind. She could picture herself receiving the Abbess’s blessing as a novice in her house; the wedding ceremony when crowned with flowers she became the bride of Christ; the eternal stillness of her cell as she knelt at her offices; but not the reaction of the Earl of Warwick to his daughter’s request. She dismissed the shadow of doubt. As the sister had said, if God needed her, He would not let her escape.

  But in any case the Earl would probably be glad to b
e rid of the burden of his youngest daughter, since she had never been anything but an encumbrance to him. He had been occupied in matters of high state ever since their landing in Normandy, as the honoured guest of the King of France. His family, settled in the guest-house of the convent, had seen nothing of him, and little, until lately, of the Duke of Clarence who had gone with him; his absence had contributed largely to the tranquillity of their existence. In the past two weeks, however, the Duke had reappeared in the district. Fortunately he spent most of his time in Valognes, where Warwick’s men-at-arms were quartered. He was in an evil humour, and every visit he made to the convent was an unwelcome violation of its atmosphere. No one dared to ask why he had left the French court.

  Anne stood up and wandered through the herb garden, scattering the powdered lavender on the perfumed air and thinking about the day when the door of her cell would shut out the anger and cruelty of the world and leave her alone with God.

  That evening she and her mother were hearing Vespers when there was a disturbance at the door and someone came in late. From the corner of her eye Anne saw Clarence sketching a genuflexion and the sign of the cross before kneeling beside the Countess. Once or twice during the service she fancied uneasily that he was looking her way. Always disturbed by any sign of interest from the Duke, his behaviour on the ship had turned her disturbance to apprehension. She resolved to remain in the chapel after Vespers, and trust that he would have gone by the time she emerged. After the Blessing she kept her eyes fixed on her missal, but even so she sensed, as those beside her rose to go, another baleful glance directed at her.