But Isabel is not happy. My mother and I cannot understand why she is not exultant. We think she is tired in her pregnancy for she will not walk out in the bright cold mornings, and takes no pleasure in the sharp autumnal air. She is anxious, though we and all our loyal household are triumphant, revelling in our rise to power. Then one day at dinner, my father’s Master of Horse, the most trusted and reliable man of his household, is announced. He walks the length of the hall, which falls silent and whispers as he hands a letter to my mother across the high table, and she takes it, surprised that he should come into the hall still dirty from the road, but knowing from his grave face that it is urgent news. She looks at the seal – my father’s standard of the bear and ragged staff – and then, without saying a word, she goes through the door at the back of the dais into the solar, leaving us in silence.
Isabel and I and the dozen ladies of her chamber eat our dinner, trying to look untroubled under the hushed scrutiny of the great hall, but as soon as we can we withdraw to wait in the presence chamber outside the solar, pretending to talk cheerfully among ourselves, horribly aware of the locked door and the silence behind it. If my father were dead, would my mother be weeping? Does she weep? Actually, can she weep? I have never seen my mother weep. I find I am wondering if she has that capacity, or if she is forever hard-faced and dry-eyed.
If my father’s Master of Horse had given her a letter telling us to come to London at once for Izzy’s coronation would she not have burst out through the door with the good news? Does she cry out in joy, I wonder? Have I ever seen her dancing with exultation? The red afternoon sun walks slowly along the tapestried walls lighting up one scene, and then another, and still there is no sound from her room.
Finally, in the evening as it is starting to get dark and the servants are bringing in the candles, the door opens, and my mother comes out, the letter in her hand. ‘Fetch the captain of the castle,’ she says to one of her ladies, ‘and the commander of the personal guard. Command my lord’s steward, and the groom of the chambers, and his Master of Horse.’
She sits in her great chair under the canopy embroidered with her noble crests, and waits for the men to come through the double doors, bow, and stand waiting. Obviously something important has happened but there is no way of telling from her impassive face whether we have triumphed or are ruined.
‘You ask her,’ Isabel mutters to me.
‘No, you.’
We stand with the ladies. Our mother is seated like a queen. She does not order a chair for Isabel, which is odd. It is as if Isabel’s baby is suddenly not the greatest baby that will ever be, as if Isabel herself is not one step from being queen. We wait for the men to come and line up before her to hear her orders.
‘I have a message from my husband, your lord,’ she says, her voice hard and clear. ‘He writes that he has restored the King of England, Edward, to his throne. My husband, your lord, has made an agreement with King Edward and in future the king will be guided by the natural lords of the kingdom; there will be no newcomers.’
Nobody says anything. These are men who have served my father for many years, through good battlefields and bad; they are not likely to stir and comment at ominous news. But the ladies shake their heads and whisper. Someone nods at Isabel as if in sympathy that she is not to be Queen of England after all and need not think herself special any more. My mother does not even look at us; her gaze is fixed on the wall hangings above our heads, and her voice never trembles.
‘We are going to London to demonstrate our friendship and loyalty to the rightful King Edward and his family,’ she says. ‘My daughter the duchess will meet with her husband George Duke of Clarence. Lady Anne will attend me of course. And my lord sends me more good news: our nephew John is to be betrothed to the king’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth of York.’
I snatch a quick glance at Isabel. This is not good news at all; it is utterly terrible. My father has taken up another pawn just as Isabel feared, and she is put aside. He is marrying his nephew into the royal household, to the royal heir, little Princess Elizabeth. My father will get a Neville on the throne one way or another; this is his new way. Isabel is the old way that he has surrendered.
Isabel is biting her lower lip. I reach out for her and, hidden by the widely spread skirt of her gown, we grip hands together.
‘My nephew will be given a dukedom,’ my mother says steadily. ‘He is to be the Duke of Bedford. This is an honour from the king and a gesture of his goodwill to our nephew, my husband’s heir. It is proof of the king’s friendship with us and his gratitude for our care of him. That is all. God save the king, and bless the House of Warwick.’
‘God save the king and bless the House of Warwick!’ everyone repeats as if it were possible to wish for two such contradictory things at once.
My mother rises to her feet and nods to Isabel and me to come with her. I walk behind Isabel, showing the respect due to a royal duchess: a royal duchess – but not a queen. In one moment Isabel has lost her claim to the throne. Who cares about being a royal duchess if our cousin John is to marry the heiress of York, the king’s own daughter? Cousin John is to be a duke, and the king has signalled to his brother that he can easily make other dukes and bring them into his family. Father has other pawns to put on the board.
‘What will we do in London?’ I whisper to Isabel as I lean forwards and straighten her veil.
‘Show our friendship, I suppose,’ she says. ‘Give back the furs to the queen, return the coronation gown to the royal wardrobe. Hope that Father is satisfied with marrying our cousin into the king’s family, and doesn’t take arms against the king again.’
‘You won’t be queen,’ I say sorrowfully. Ignobly, I feel a secret little glow that my sister will not wear ermine, will not be the greatest woman in the kingdom, Queen of England and my father’s favourite, the daughter who fulfils his greatest ambition, the pawn that can make the winning move.
‘Not now, no.’
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, CHRISTMAS 1469–70
Once again Isabel and I walk into the queen’s rooms sick with apprehension. The queen is in her great chair, her mother Jacquetta standing like sculpted ice behind her. Our mother comes behind Isabel but before me, and I wish that I were young enough to get my toes under her train and pass unnoticed. Nobody will think I am charming today. Isabel, though a married woman and this queen’s sister-in-law, has her head down, her eyes down, like a child in disgrace longing for this moment to be over.
My mother curtseys as low as she must do to a Queen of England and comes up, standing before her, hands quietly clasped, as composed as if she were in her own castle of Warwick. The queen looks her up and down and her eyes are as warm as grey slate in icy rain.
‘Ah, Countess of Warwick,’ she says in a voice as light and cold as drifting snow.
‘Your Grace,’ my mother replies through gritted teeth.
The queen’s mother, her lovely face blank with grief, wearing white, the royal colour of mourning of her house, looks at the three of us as if she would cut us down where we stand. I do not dare to do more than snatch a glance at her before I drop my eyes to my feet. She smiled at me at the coronation dinner; now she looks as if she will never smile again. I have never seen heartbreak engraved on a woman’s face before; but I know that I am seeing it in the ravaged beauty of Jacquetta Woodville. My mother inclines her head. ‘Your Grace, I am sorry for your loss,’ she says quietly.
The widow says nothing, nothing at all. We all three stand as if we are frozen in the ice of her gaze. I think – well, she must say something, she will say something such as ‘fortunes of war’ or ‘thank you for your sympathy’ or ‘he is with God’ or any of the things that widows say when their husbands have been lost in battle. England has been at war with itself, on and off, for the last fourteen years. Many women have to meet each other and know that their husbands were enemies. We are all accustomed to new alliances. But it seems that Jacquetta, the widow of Richard Woodv
ille, Lord Rivers, does not know these conventions, for she says nothing to make us any easier. She looks at us as if we are her enemies for life, as if she is cursing us in silence, as if this is the start of a blood feud that will never end, and I can feel myself start to tremble under the basilisk hatred of her gaze and I swallow, and wonder if I am going to faint.
‘He was a brave man,’ my mother volunteers again. In the face of Jacquetta’s stony grief the comment sounds frivolous.
At last the widow speaks. ‘He suffered the ignoble death of a traitor, beheaded by the Coventry blacksmith, and my beloved son John died too,’ the queen’s mother replies. ‘Both of them innocent of any crime, in all their lives. John was just twenty-four years old, obedient to his father and his king. My husband was defending his crowned and ordained king yet he was charged with treason, and then beheaded by your husband. It was not an honourable death on the battlefield. He had been on dozens of battlefields and always come home safe to me. It was a pledge he made to me: that he would always come home safe from war. He didn’t break it. God bless him that he didn’t break his promise to me. He died on the scaffold, not on the battlefield. I shall never forget this. I shall never forgive this.’
There is a truly terrible silence. Everyone in the room is looking at us, listening to the queen’s mother swear her enmity against us. I look up and find the queen’s icy gaze, filled with hatred, is resting on me. I look down again.
‘These are the fortunes of war,’ my mother says awkwardly, as if to excuse us.
Then Jacquetta does an odd, a terrible thing. She purses her lips together and she blows a long chilling whistle. Somewhere outside, a shutter bangs and a sudden chill flows through the room. The candles bob and flicker throughout the chamber as if a cold wind has nearly blown them out. Abruptly one candle in the stand beside Isabel winks and goes out. Isabel gives a little scream of fright. Jacquetta and her daughter the queen both look at us as if they would whistle us away, blow us away like dirty dust.
My formidable mother shrinks before this extraordinary inexplicable behaviour. I have never seen her turn from a challenge before but she flees from this, as she ducks her head and walks to the window bay. Nobody greets us, nobody breaks the silence that follows the unearthly whistle, nobody even smiles. There are people here who danced at the wedding at Calais Castle where this whole terrible plan was set in motion; but to look at them you would think they were utter strangers to us three. We stand in stony shame, quite alone, while the gust of air slowly dies down and the echo of Jacquetta’s long whistle goes silent.
The doors open and the king comes in, my father at his side, George his brother on the other side, Richard the younger York duke a little behind him, his dark head high and proud. He has every reason to be pleased with himself; this is the brother who did not betray the king, the brother whose loyalty was tested and stayed true. This is the brother who will have wealth and favour poured over him while we are in disgrace. I look towards him to see if he will acknowledge us and smile at me; but it seems that I am invisible to him, as we are to the rest of the court. Richard is a man now, his boyhood in our keeping far behind him. He was loyal to the king, when we were not.
George slowly comes over to our lonely little corner, looking away from us, as if he is ashamed to be with us, and Father follows him with his long loping stride. Father’s confidence is unshaken, his smile still bold, his brown eyes shining, his thick beard neatly trimmed, his authority untarnished by defeat. Isabel and I kneel for Father’s blessing and feel his hand lightly touch our heads. When we rise he is taking Mother’s hand as she smiles thinly at him, and then we all go into dinner, walking behind the king as if we were still his dearest friends and dedicated allies and not defeated traitors.
After dinner there is dancing and the king is cheerful, handsome and buoyant as always, like the lead actor in a masque, playing the role of the merry good king. He claps my father on the back, he puts his arm around his brother George’s shoulders. He, at least, will play his part as if nothing has gone wrong. My father, no less cunning than his former ally, is also at his ease, glancing around the court, greeting friends who all know that we are traitors and are only here on the king’s goodwill and because we own half of England. They smirk behind their hands at us, I can hear the laughter in their voices. I don’t look to see the hidden smiles; I keep my eyes down. I am so ashamed, I am so deeply ashamed of what we have done.
We failed, that was the worst of it. We took the king but we could not hold him. We won a little battle, but nobody supported us. It was not enough for my father to hold the king at Warwick, at Middleham; the king simply ruled from there and behaved as if he were an honoured guest, and then rode out and away when it suited him.
‘And Isabel must join the queen’s court,’ I hear the king say loudly, and my father replies without taking breath: ‘Yes, yes, of course, she will be honoured.’
Both Isabel and the queen hear this and look up at the same moment and their gazes meet. Isabel looks utterly shocked and afraid, her lips parting as if to ask Father to refuse. But the days when we could claim to be too good for royal service are long gone. Isabel will have to live in the queen’s rooms, wait on her every day. The queen turns her head with a little gesture of disdain, as if she cannot bear to see the two of us, as if we are something unclean, as if we are lepers. Father is not looking at us at all.
‘Come with me,’ Isabel whispers urgently to me. ‘You have to come with me if I have to serve her. Come and live in her household with me, Annie. I swear I can’t go on my own.’
‘Father won’t let me . . .’ I reply rapidly. ‘Don’t you remember Mother refusing us last time? You’ll have to go, because of being her sister-in-law, but I can’t come, Mother won’t let me, and I couldn’t bear it . . .’
‘And Lady Anne too,’ the king says easily.
‘Of course,’ Father says agreeably. ‘Whatever Her Grace desires.’
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 1470
The queen is never rude to us: it is far worse than that. It is as if we are invisible to her. Her mother never speaks to us at all, and if she passes us in the gallery or in the hall she steps back against the wall as if she would not let the skirt of her gown so much as touch us. If another woman stepped back like this I would take it as a gesture of deference, giving me the way. But when the duchess does it, with a quick step aside without even looking at me, I feel as if she is drawing her skirts away from foul mud, as if I have something on my shoes or my petticoat that stinks. We see our own mother only at dinner and at night when she sits with the queen’s ladies, a little circle of unfriendly silence around her, while they talk pleasantly among themselves. The rest of the time we wait on the queen, attending her when she is dressing in the morning, following her when she goes to the nursery to see her three little girls, kneeling behind her in chapel, sitting below her place at breakfast, riding out with her when she goes hunting. We are constantly in her presence and she never, by word or glance, ever acknowledges that we are there.
The rules of precedence mean that we often have to walk immediately behind her, and then she is simply blind to us, speaking over our heads to her other ladies. If the two of us happen to be the only ones with her, she behaves as if she is quite alone. When we carry her train she walks at the same speed as if there were no-one behind her, and we have to scuttle along to keep up with her, looking foolish. When she hands her gloves to us she does not even look to see if one of us is ready to take them. When I drop one she does not demean herself to notice. It is as if she would let the priceless perfumed and embroidered leather lie in the mud rather than ask me to pick it up. When I have to hand something to her, a book of tales or a petition, she takes it as if it had come out of thin air. If I pass her a posy of flowers or a handkerchief she takes it so that she does not touch my fingers. She never asks me for her prayer book or her rosary, and I do not dare to offer them. I am afraid she would think them defiled by my bloody hands.
/> Isabel sinks into a white-faced sullenness, does as she must do, and sits in silence, never volunteering a remark while the ladies chatter around her. As Isabel’s belly grows the queen asks her to do less and less, but not as a courtesy. With one disdainful turn of her head she suggests that Isabel is not able to serve her, is no good as a lady in waiting, is good for nothing but to breed like a pig. Isabel sits with her hands folded over her belly as if to hide the curve, as if she is afraid that the queen will cast her eye on the baby.
But still, I cannot see the queen as my enemy, because I cannot rid myself of the sense that she is in the right and we are in the wrong, and that her visible contempt for me and my sister has been earned by my father. I cannot be angry, I am too ashamed. When I see her smile at her daughters or laugh with her husband I am reminded of the first time I saw her when I thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. She is still the most beautiful woman in the world but I am no longer an awestruck little girl; I am the daughter of her enemy and the murderer of her father and brother. And I am sorry, deeply sorry for all that has happened – but I cannot tell her so, and she makes it clear she would hear nothing from me.
After a month of this I cannot eat my dinner at the ladies’ table. It sticks in my throat. I cannot sleep at night; I am always cold as if my bedroom in her household is whistling with a chill draught. My hands shake when I have to pass something to the queen, and my sewing is hopeless, the linen covered with spots of blood where I have pricked my fingers. I ask our Lady Mother if I may go to Warwick, or even back to Calais, I tell her that I feel ill, living at the court among our enemies is making me sick.