The White Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  When the sun is setting and my boys are saying their evening prayers, blond heads on their clasped hands at the foot of their trestle beds, my mother leads the way out of the front door of the house and down the winding footpath to where the bridge, a couple of wooden planks, spans the River Tove. She walks across, her conical headdress brushing the overhanging trees, and beckons me to follow her. At the other side, she puts her hand on a great ash tree, and I see there is a dark thread of silk wound around the rough-grained wood of the thick trunk.

  “What is this?”

  “Reel it in,” is all she says. “Reel it in, a foot or so every day.”

  I put my hand on the thread and pull it gently. It comes easily; there is something light and small tied onto the far end. I cannot even see what it might be, as the thread loops across the river into the reeds, in deep water on the other side.

  “Magic,” I say flatly. My father has banned these practices in his house: the law of the land forbids it. It is death to be proved as a witch, death by drowning in the ducking stool, or strangling by the blacksmith at the village crossroads. Women like my mother are not permitted our skills in England today; we are named as forbidden.

  “Magic,” she agrees, untroubled. “Powerful magic, for a good cause. Well worth the risk. Come every day and reel it in, a foot at a time.”

  “What will come in?” I ask her. “At the end of this fishing line of yours? What great fish will I catch?”

  She smiles at me and puts her hand on my cheek. “Your heart’s desire,” she says gently. “I didn’t raise you to be a poor widow.”

  She turns and walks back across the footbridge, and I pull the thread as she has told me, take in twelve inches of it, tie it fast again, and follow her.

  “So what did you raise me for?” I ask her, as we walk side by side to the house. “What am I to be? In your great scheme of things? In a world at war, where it seems, despite your foreknowledge and magic, we are stuck on the losing side?”

  The new moon is rising, a small sickle of a moon. Without a word spoken, we both wish on it; we bob a curtsey, and I hear the chink as we turn over the little coins in our pockets.

  “I raised you to be the best that you could be,” she says simply. “I didn’t know what that would be, and I still don’t know. But I didn’t raise you to be a lonely woman, missing her husband, struggling to keep her boys safe; a woman alone in a cold bed, her beauty wasted on empty lands.”

  “Well, Amen,” I say simply, my eyes on the slender sickle. “Amen to that. And may the new moon bring me something better.”

  At noon the next day I am in my ordinary gown, seated in my privy chamber, when the girl comes in a rush to say that the king is riding down the road towards the Hall. I don’t let myself run to the window to look for him, I don’t allow myself a dash to the hammered-silver looking glass in my mother’s room. I put down my sewing, and I walk down the great wooden stairs, so that when the door opens and he comes into the hall, I am serenely descending, looking as if I am called away from my household chores to greet a surprise guest.

  I go to him with a smile and he greets me with a courteous kiss on the cheek, and I feel the warmth of his skin and see, through my half-closed eyes, the softness of the hair that curls at the nape of his neck. His hair smells faintly of spices, and the skin of his neck smells clean. When he looks at me, I recognize desire in his face. He lets go of my hand slowly, and I step back from him with reluctance. I turn and curtsey as my father and my two oldest brothers, Anthony and John, step forwards to make their bows.

  The conversation at dinner is stilted, as it must be. My family is deferential to this new King of England; but there is no denying that we threw our lives and our fortune into battle against him, and my husband was not the only one of our household and affinity who did not come home. But this is how it must be in a war that they have called “the Cousins’ War,” since brother fights against brother and their sons follow them to death. My father has been forgiven, my brothers too, and now the victor breaks bread with them as if to forget that he crowed over them in Calais, as if to forget that my father turned tail and ran from his army in the bloodstained snow at Towton.

  King Edward is easy. He is charming to my mother and amusing to my brothers Anthony and John, and then Richard, Edward, and Lionel when they join us later. Three of my younger sisters are home, and they eat their dinner in silence, wide-eyed in admiration, but too afraid to say a word. Anthony’s wife, Elizabeth, is quiet and elegant beside my mother. The king is observant of my father and asks him about game and the land, about the price of wheat and the steadiness of labor. By the time they have served the preserved fruit and the sweetmeats he is chatting like a friend of the family, and I can sit back in my chair and watch him.

  “And now to business,” he says to my father. “Lady Elizabeth tells me that she has lost her dower lands.”

  My father nods. “I am sorry to trouble you with it, but we have tried to reason with Lady Ferrers and Lord Warwick without result. They were confiscated after”—he clears his throat—“after St. Albans, you understand. Her husband was killed there. And now she cannot get her dower lands returned. Even if you regard her husband as a traitor, she herself is innocent and she should at least have her widow’s jointure.”

  The king turns to me. “You have written down your title and the claim to the land?”

  “Yes,” I say. I give him the paper and he glances at it.

  “I shall speak to Sir William Hastings and ask him to see that this is done,” he says simply. “He will be your advocate.”

  It seems to be as easy as that. In one stroke I will be freed from poverty and have a property of my own again; my sons will have an inheritance and I will be no longer a burden on my family. If someone asks for me in marriage, I will come with property. I am no longer a case for charity. I will not have to be grateful for a proposal. I will not have to thank a man for marrying me.

  “You are gracious, Sire,” my father says easily, and nods to me.

  Obediently I rise from my chair and curtsey low. “I thank you,” I say. “This means everything to me.”

  “I shall be a just king,” he says, looking at my father. “I would want no Englishman to suffer for my coming to my throne.”

  My father makes a visible effort to silence his reply that some of us have suffered already.

  “More wine?” My mother interrupts him swiftly. “Your Grace? Husband?”

  “No, I must go,” the king says. “We are mustering troops all over Northamptonshire and equipping them.” He pushes back his chair and we all—my father and brothers, my mother and sisters and I—bob up like puppets to stand as he stands. “Will you show me around the garden before I leave, Lady Elizabeth?”

  “I shall be honored,” I say.

  My father opens his mouth to offer his company, but my mother says quickly, “Yes, do go, Elizabeth,” and the two of us slip from the room without a companion.

  It is as warm as summer as we come from the darkness of the hall, and he offers me his arm and we walk down the steps to the garden, arms linked, in silence. I take the path around the little knot garden and we wind our way, looking at the trim hedges and the neat white stones; but I see nothing. He gathers my hand a little closer under his arm and I feel the warmth of his body. The lavender is coming into flower, and I can smell the scent, sweet as orange blossom, sharp as lemons.

  “I have only a little time,” he says. “Somerset and Percy are mustering against me. Henry himself will come out of his castle and lead his army if he is in his right mind and can command. Poor soul, they tell me he is in his wits now, but he could lose them again at any moment. The queen must be planning to land an army of Frenchmen in their support and we will have to face the power of France on English soil.”

  “I shall pray for you,” I say.

  “Death is near us all,” he says seriously. “But it is a constant companion to a king come to his crown through the battlefield, and
now riding out to fight again.”

  He pauses, and I stop with him. It is very quiet but for a single bird singing. His face is grave. “May I send a page boy to bring you to me tonight?” he asks quietly. “I have a longing for you, Lady Elizabeth Grey, that I have never felt for any woman before. Will you come to me? I ask it not as a king, and not even as a soldier who might die in battle, but as a simple man to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Come to me, I beg you, come to me. It could be my last wish. Will you come to me tonight?”

  I shake my head. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I am a woman of honor.”

  “I may never ask you again. God knows, I may never ask any woman again. There can be no dishonor in this. I could die next week.”

  “Even so.”

  “Are you not lonely?” he asks. His lips are almost brushing my forehead he is so close to me, I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek. “And do you feel nothing for me? Can you say you don’t want me? Just once? Don’t you want me now?”

  As slowly as I can, I let my eyes rise to his face. My gaze lingers on his mouth, then I look up.

  “Dear God, I have to have you,” he breathes.

  “I cannot be your mistress,” I say simply. “I would rather die than dishonor my name. I cannot bring that shame on my family.” I pause. I am anxious not to be too discouraging. “Whatever I might wish in my heart,” I say very softly.

  “But you do want me?” he asks boyishly, and I let him see the warmth in my face.

  “Ah,” I say. “I should not tell you . . .”

  He waits.

  “I should not tell you how much.”

  I see, swiftly hidden, the gleam of triumph. He thinks he will have me.

  “Then you will come?”

  “No.”

  “Then must I go? Must I leave you? May I not . . .” He leans his face towards me and I raise mine. His kiss is as gentle as the brush of a feather on my soft mouth. My lips part slightly and I can feel him tremble like a horse held on a tight rein. “Lady Elizabeth . . . I swear it . . . I have to . . .”

  I take a step back in this delicious dance. “If only . . .” I say.

  “I’ll come tomorrow,” he says abruptly. “In the evening. At sunset. Will you meet me where I first saw you? Under the oak tree? Will you meet me there? I would say good-bye before I go north. I have to see you again, Elizabeth. If nothing more. I have to.”

  I nod in silence and watch him turn on his heel and stride back to the house. I see him go round to the stable yard and then moments later his horse thunders down the track with his two pages spurring their horses to keep pace with him. I watch him out of sight, and then I cross the little footbridge over the river and find the thread around the ash tree. Thoughtfully, I wind in the thread by another length and I tie it up. Then I walk home.

  At dinner the next day there is something of a family conference. The king has sent a letter to say that his friend Sir William Hastings will support my claim to my house and land at Bradgate, and I can be assured that I will be restored to my fortune. My father is pleased; but all my brothers—Anthony, John, Richard, Edward, and Lionel—are united in suspicion of the king, with the alert pride of boys.

  “He is a notorious lecher. He is bound to demand to meet her; he is bound to summon her to court,” John pronounces.

  “He did not return her lands for charity. He will want payment,” Richard agrees. “There is not a woman at court whom he has not bedded. Why would he not try for Elizabeth?”

  “A Lancastrian,” says Edward, as if that is enough to ensure our enmity, and Lionel nods sagely.

  “A hard man to refuse,” Anthony says thoughtfully. He is far more worldly than John; he has traveled all around Christendom and studied with great thinkers, and my parents always listen to him. “I would think, Elizabeth, that you might feel compromised. I would fear that you would feel under obligation to him.”

  I shrug. “Not at all. I have nothing more but my own again. I asked the king for justice and I received it as I should, as any supplicant should, with right on their side.”

  “Nonetheless, if he sends, you will not go to court,” my father says. “This is a man who has worked his way through half the wives of London and is now working his way through the Lancastrian ladies too. This is not a holy man like the blessed King Henry.”

  Nor soft in the head like blessed King Henry, I think, but aloud I say, “Of course, Father, whatever you command.”

  He looks sharply at me, suspicious of this easy obedience. “You don’t think you owe him your favor? Your smiles? Worse?”

  I shrug. “I asked him for a king’s justice, not for a favor,” I say. “I am not a manservant whose service can be bought or a peasant who can be sworn to be a liege man. I am a lady of good family. I have my own loyalties and obligations that I consider and honor. They are not his. They are not at the beck and call of any man.”

  My mother drops her head to hide her smile. She is the daughter of Burgundy, the descendant of Melusina the water goddess. She has never thought herself obliged to do anything in her life; she would never think that her daughter was obliged to anything.

  My father glances from her to me and shrugs his shoulders as if to concede the inveterate independence of willful women. He nods to my brother John and says, “I am riding over to Old Stratford village. Will you come with me?” And the two of them leave together.

  “You want to go to court? Do you admire him? Despite everything?” Anthony asks me quietly as my other brothers scatter from the room.

  “He is King of England,” I say. “Of course I will go if he invites me. What else?”

  “Perhaps because Father just said you were not to go, and I advised you against it.”

  I shrug. “So I heard.”

  “How else can a poor widow make her way in a wicked world?” he teases me.

  “Indeed.”

  “You would be a fool to sell yourself cheap,” he warns me.

  I look at him from under my eyelashes. “I don’t propose to sell myself at all,” I say. “I am not a yard of ribbon. I am not a leg of ham. I am not for sale to anyone.”

  At sunset I am waiting for him under the oak tree, hidden in the green shadows. I am relieved to hear the sound of only one horse on the road. If he had come with a guard, I would have slipped back to my home, fearing for my own safety. However tender he may be in the confines of my father’s garden, I don’t forget that he is the so-called king of the Yorkist army and that they rape women and murder their husbands as a matter of course. He will have hardened himself to seeing things that no one should witness; he will have done things himself which are the darkest of sins. I cannot trust him. However heart-stopping his smile and however honest his eyes, however much I think of him as a boy fired to greatness by his own ambition, I cannot trust him. These are not chivalrous times; these are not the times of knights in the dark forest and beautiful ladies in moonlit fountains and promises of love that will be ballads, sung forever.

  But he looks like a knight in a dark forest when he pulls up his horse and jumps down in one easy movement. “You came!” he says.

  “I cannot stay long.”

  “I am so glad you came at all.” He laughs at himself almost in bewilderment. “I have been like a boy today—couldn’t sleep last night for thinking of you, and all day I have wondered if you would come at all, and then you came!”

  He loops the reins of his horse over a branch of the tree and slides his hand around my waist. “Sweet lady,” he says into my ear. “Be kind to me. Will you take off your headdress and let down your hair?”

  It is the last thing I thought he would demand of me, and I am shocked into instant consent. My hand goes to my headdress ribbons at once.

  “I know. I know. I think you are driving me mad. All I have been able to think about all day is whether you would let me take down your hair.”

  In answer I untie the tight bindings of my tall conical headdress and lift it off. I put it
carefully on the ground and turn to him. Gently as any maid-in-waiting, he puts his hand to my head and pulls out the ivory pins, tucking each into the pocket of his doublet. I can feel the silky kiss of my thick hair tumbling down as the fair cascade of it falls over my face. I shake my head and toss it back like a thick golden mane, and I hear his groan of desire.

  He unties his cloak and swings it on the ground at my feet. “Sit with me!” he commands, though he means “Lie with me” and we both know it.

  I sit cautiously on the edge of his cape, my knees drawn up, my arms wrapped around them, my fine silk gown draped around me. He strokes my loosened hair and his fingers penetrate deeper and deeper until he is caressing my neck, and then he turns my face towards his for a kiss.

  Gently he bears down on me so I am beneath him. Then I feel his hand pulling at my gown, pulling it up, and I put both hands on his chest and gently push him away.

  “Elizabeth,” he breathes.

  “I told you no,” I say steadily. “I meant it.”

  “You met me!”

  “You asked me. Shall I go now?”

  “No! Stay! Stay! Don’t run away, I swear I will not . . . just let me kiss you again.”

  My own heart is thudding so loud and I am so ready for his touch that I start to think I could lie with him, just once, I could allow myself this pleasure just once . . . but then I move away and say, “No. No. No.”

  “Yes,” he says more strongly. “No harm shall come to you, I swear it. You shall come to court. Anything you ask. Dear God, Elizabeth, let me have you, I am desperate for you. From the moment I saw you here . . .”

  His weight is on me; he is pushing me down. I turn my head away but his mouth is on my neck, my breast; I am panting with desire, and then I feel, unexpectedly, a sudden rush of anger at the realization that he is no longer embracing me but forcing me, holding me down as if I were some slut behind a haystack. He is pulling up my gown as if I were a whore; he is pushing his knee between my legs as if I have consented, and my temper makes me so furiously strong that I thrust him away again and then, on his thick leather belt, I feel the hilt of his dagger.