The White Princess

Composedly, she takes her seat, folds her hands in her black silk lap, and looks at me. I note her earrings of black and the only other piece of jewelry that she wears, a gold brooch that is pinned to her belt: two gold hearts entwined. I permit myself a small smile, and there is an answering warmth in her eyes. I imagine that we are never going to say more than this.

  We line up to prepare to enter the hall for dinner. I go first as queen, My Lady walks at my shoulder, slightly behind me, and Lady Katherine Huntly must come next, my sisters taking one step down the order of precedence. I glance back and see Cecily’s pale face, her lower lip pressed tight. She is now fourth behind me, and she does not like it.

  “Is Lady Huntly going to return to Scotland?” I ask My Lady the King’s Mother, as we proceed into dinner.

  “Surely she will,” My Lady replies. “What would she stay here for? Once her husband is dead?”

  But apparently she is in no hurry to leave. She stays until my husband has completed his slow progress from Exeter to the palace. The outriders come into the stable yard and send a message to my rooms that the king is approaching and expects a formal welcome. I order my ladies to come with me and we go down the broad stone stairs to the double entrance doors, which are held wide open, welcoming the return of the hero. We arrange ourselves at the head of the steps. My Lady the King’s Mother’s ladies stand beside us, she makes sure she is on the same step as me so that I am not more prominent, and we wait in the bright autumn sunshine, listening for the clatter of the horses’ hooves.

  “Has he sent the boy directly to the Tower?” Maggie asks me as she bends to pull out the train of my gown.

  “He must have done,” I say. “What else would he do with him?”

  “He hasn’t . . .” She hesitates. “He hasn’t killed him on the way here?”

  I glance at the boy’s wife, all in black like a widow. She is wearing her black velvet cape against the cold and the gold brooch of twin hearts is pinned at the neck.

  “I haven’t heard,” I say. I cannot help a little shiver. “Surely he would have sent word if he had done that? To the boy’s wife if not to me? Surely I would have known?”

  “Surely he wouldn’t have executed him without a public announcement,” she says uncertainly.

  Behind us, in the darkened hall, I hear the constant ripple of noise as the servants come through and run down the stairs to the stable yard so that they can line the road to watch the king come home in triumph.

  First we hear the king’s trumpets, a victorious bray of sound, and everyone cheers. Then there is another noise—a ridiculous “tootle-toot-toot!” from someone on the roadside, and everyone laughs. I feel Maggie stand a little closer, as if we are somehow threatened by the “toot-toot” of a toy trumpet.

  Around the corner come the first riders, half a dozen standard bearers carrying the royal standard, the cross of St. George, the Beaufort portcullis, and the Tudor rose. There is a red dragon on a white and green ground, and a red rose for Lancaster. Only the Round Table of Camelot is missing from this ridiculous display. It is as if the king is showing all of his badges, naming all of his antecedents, as if he is trying to demonstrate his claim to the throne that he only won by force of arms, as if he is trying once again to convince everyone that he is the rightful king.

  Then he comes, wearing his enameled breastplate but no helmet so that he looks martial and brave, about to fight a battle or a joust. He is beaming, a broad bright confident smile, and when the servants on the roadside and the people from the nearby villages, who have been running alongside the procession and now line the road, cheer and wave their hats, Henry nods to one side and the other as if agreeing with them.

  Behind him come his usual companions, the men of his court. No one else is in armor, the rest are all dressed for a day’s ride, booted, caped, one or two in quilted jackets, and among them, a young man I don’t know, who attracts my attention in the first moment, and then I find that I can’t look away from him.

  He is dressed like all the others, with good leather boots—his a dark tan color—a good pair of brown breeches, a thick jacket fitted across his broad shoulders, and his riding cape rolled and belted on the saddle behind him. His bonnet is of brown velvet and at the front of it he has a beautiful brooch with three pendant pearls. I know him at once, not by the brooch but by the golden brown of his hair and his merry smile, my mother’s merry smile, and the proud set of his head that is just how my father used to ride. It is him. It has to be him. It is the boy. He has not been sent to the Tower, nor brought wrapped in chains, nor tied backwards on his horse with a straw hat crammed on his head to shame him. He rides behind the king like one of his companions, like a friend, almost as if he were a kinsman.

  Someone points him out to the people on the roadside and they start to jeer, an ugly noise, and someone shouts, “Traitor!” Someone else makes a mock bow, and a woman screams, “Smiling now! You won’t smile for long!”

  But he does smile. He lifts his head and he nods in acknowledgment to one side or the other, and when some silly girl, taken by his easy charm, shouts “Hurrah!” instead of an insult, he sweeps his hat from his head with all the charm and easiness of my father, King Edward, who could never ride past a pretty woman on the roadside without throwing her a wink.

  Bare-headed in the bright autumn sunshine, I can see how his gold hair shines. This boy’s hair is straight, cut long and smooth, falling to his shoulders, but I can see where it curls on his collar at the back. His eyes are brown, his face tanned by the weather, his eyelashes long and dark. He is the most handsome man in the whole court, and beside him, dressed in his shiny new armor, my husband the king looks like a man trying very hard.

  The boy is looking anxiously at the ladies of the court as they stand, waiting on the steps, until he sees his wife, and he throws her the cheekiest grin, as if they were not in the most terrible circumstances that anyone could imagine. I glance sideways at her, and see a different young woman altogether. The color has flooded into her pale cheeks, her eyes are bright, she is dancing a little on the spot and gazing at him, blind to the king and the parade of banners, radiant, as if the joy of seeing him is greater than any other worry in the world. As if it does not matter very much what circumstances they are in, as long as they are together.

  And then he looks from her to me.

  He knows me at once. I see him take in the elegance of my gown, the deference of my ladies, and that I hold myself like a queen. I see him note my high headdress and my richly embroidered dress. Then he looks into my face and his smile, his roguish laughing smile, just like my mother’s irreverent joy, shines through. It is a smile of complete confidence, of recognition, of delight in his return. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from running forwards to greet him with my arms open wide. But I cannot stop my heart lifting and I feel myself glowing as if I want to cheer. He’s home. The boy who calls himself my brother Richard is home at last.

  Henry holds up his hand for the cavalcade to halt and a page boy flings himself from his horse and rushes to take the king’s bridle. Henry dismounts heavily, his armor clattering, and he walks up the shallow steps towards me and kisses me warmly on the mouth, turns to his mother and bows his head for her blessing.

  “Welcome home, my lord,” I say formally, loudly enough for everyone to hear my greeting. “And blessing on your great victory.”

  Oddly, he does not make any formal reply, though the clerks are waiting to record his words at this moment of history. He turns a little to one side and then I see him gasp—just a tiny little betraying breath—as he sees her: the boy’s wife. I see the color rise in his cheeks, I see how his eyes brighten. He steps towards Lady Katherine and he does not know what to say; like a lovestruck page he is breathless at the sight of her and wordless when he should speak.

  She drops him a low, deferential curtsey and when she rises up he takes her hand. I see her lower her eyes modestly, and the little hint of her smile, and finally I underst
and why she has been sent to be my lady-in-waiting, and why her husband rides freely among the king’s men. Henry has fallen in love for the first time in his life, and with the worst choice he could possibly have made.

  His mother, who was watching every step of her son’s victorious arrival, invites me to her rooms that evening before the grand victorious dinner. She tells me that Henry has appointed two of my ladies-in-waiting and taken two from her court to serve Lady Katherine until he can find suitable ladies to wait on her. Apparently Lady Katherine is to have a little court of her own, and her own rooms; she is to live as a visiting princess of Scotland and be served on bended knee.

  Lady Katherine has been invited to go to the royal wardrobe to choose a gown suitable for the feast to celebrate the king’s victory. It seems that the king would like to see her wear another color, other than black.

  I remember, wryly, that once I was commanded to wear a gown of the same cut and color as Queen Anne, and that everyone remarked how beautiful I was, standing beside her in a matching gown, and her husband could not take his eyes off me. It was the Christmas feast before the queen died, and she and I wore the same red gown, except she wore it as if it were her shroud, poor lady, she was so white and thin. I stood beside her and the color scarlet put a flush in my cheek and brightened the gold of my hair and the sparkle in my eyes. I was young, and in love, and I was heartless. I think of her now, and her calm dignity when she saw me dance with her husband, and I wish I could tell her that I am sorry, and that now I understand far more than I did then.

  “Have you asked the king when Lady Katherine is going home?” My Lady demands abruptly. She is standing with her back towards a mean fire, her hands tucked into her sleeves. The rest of the room is cold.

  “No,” I say. “Will you ask him?”

  “I will!” she exclaims. “I certainly will. Have you asked him when Pero Osbeque is to go to the Tower?”

  “Is that his name now?”

  She flushes, furious. “Whatever he is called. Peter Warboys, whatever they call him.”

  “I have had very little speech with His Grace,” I say. “Of course his lords and the gentlemen from London wanted to ask him about the battle and so he went to his presence chamber with them all.”

  “Was there a battle?”

  “Not really, no.”

  She takes a breath and looks at me, a sly cautious look as if she is unsure of her ground. “The king seems very taken with Lady Katherine.”

  “She’s a very beautiful woman,” I agree.

  “You must not mind . . .” she goes on. “You must not object . . .”

  “Object to what?” It is hardly a challenge, my voice is so calm and pleasant.

  “Nothing.” She loses her nerve before my smiling serenity. “Nothing at all.”

  Lady Katherine comes to my rooms before dinner obediently wearing a new gown from the royal wardrobe but keeping to her chosen color of deepest black. She is wearing the gold brooch of intertwined hearts on a thin chain of gold, lying over a veil of white lace that covers her shoulders. The warm cream of her skin glows under the fabric, veiled and visible at the same time. When the king enters my presence chamber, his eyes rake the room for her, and when he sees her he gives a little start, as if he had forgotten how beautiful she is, and he is shaken by desire all over again. She curtseys as politely as the other ladies, and when she comes up she is smiling at him, a hazy smile like a woman who laughs through her tears.

  Henry gives me his arm to lead me in to dinner and the rest of the court take their places behind us, my ladies following me in order of precedence, the gentlemen behind them. Lady Katherine Huntly, her dark eyes fixed modestly on the ground, takes her rightful place behind My Lady the King’s Mother. As Henry and I lead the way down the wide stone stairs to the great hall to the blast of trumpets and the murmur of applause from the people who have crowded into the gallery to see the royal family at their dinner, I sense, more than I actually see, that the boy who is to be called Peter Warboys, or perhaps Pero Osbeque or John Perkin, has walked past the woman who was once his wife, bowed his head low to her, and taken his place with the other young noblemen of Henry’s court.

  The boy seems to be at home at court. He goes from hall to stable to hawking mews to gardens and he is never seen to miss his way, never asks anyone which is the direction of the treasure house, or where would he find the king’s tennis court? He will fetch a pair of gloves for the king without asking where they are kept. He is comfortable with his companions, too. There is an elite of handsome young men who lounge in the king’s rooms and run errands for him, who like to call at my rooms to listen to the music and chatter with my ladies. When there are cards they are quick to take a hand, if there is archery they will take a bow and excel each other. Gambling, they are free with money; dancing, they are graceful on the floor; flirting is their principal occupation, and every one of my ladies has a favorite among the king’s young men and hopes that he sees her half-hidden glance.

  The boy falls into this life as if he had been born and bred at a graceful court. He will sing with my lutenist if invited, he will read in French or Latin if someone hands him the storybook. He can ride any horse in the stables with the relaxed, easy confidence of a man who has been in the saddle since he was a boy, he can dance, he can turn a joke, he can compose a poem. When they put on an impromptu play he is quick and witty, when called to recite he has lengthy poems by heart. He has all the skills of a well-educated young nobleman. He is, in every way, like the prince he pretended to be.

  Indeed, he stands out from these handsome young men in only one thing. Night and morning he greets Lady Katherine by kneeling at her feet and kissing her outstretched hand. Every morning, first thing, on the way to chapel, he drops down to his knee, pulls his hat from his head, and kisses, very gently, the hand she holds out to him and stays still for the brief moment that she rests her hand on his shoulder. In the evening, when we leave the great hall, or when I say that the music must stop in my rooms, he bows low to me with his odd, familiar smile, and then he turns to her and kneels at her feet.

  “He must be ashamed that he brought her so low,” Cecily says after we have all observed this for several days. “He must be kneeling for her forgiveness.”

  “Do you think so?” Maggie asks her. “Don’t you think that it is the only way that he can touch her? And she touch him?”

  I watch them more closely after that, and I believe Maggie is right. If he can pass something to her, he makes sure that their fingertips brush. If the court is riding he is quickly at the shoulder of her horse to lift her into the saddle, and at the end of the day he is first into the stable yard, his own horse’s reins tossed to a groom so that he can lift her down, holding her for one moment before putting her gently on her feet. When they are playing cards their shoulders lean together at the table, when he is standing beside her horse and she is mounted high above him, he steps backwards until his fair head can brush against her saddle and her hand can drop from the reins to touch the nape of his neck.

  She never rebuffs him, she does not avoid his touch. Of course, she cannot; while she is his wife she must be obedient to him. But clearly, there is a passion between them that they do not even try to hide. When they pour the wine at dinner he looks from his table over to hers and raises his glass to her and gets a quick half-hidden smile in return. When she walks past the young men playing at cards she pauses, just for a moment, to look at his hand, and sometimes leans down as if to see better, and he leans back and their cheeks brush, like a kiss. Throughout the court they move, two exceptionally beautiful young people, kept apart by the specific order of the king and yet going through the day in parallel; always with one eye on the other, like performers separated by the movement of a dance who are certain to come together again.

  Now that it is safe to travel in England again, Arthur my son must go to Ludlow Castle and Maggie and his guardian Sir Richard Pole will attend him. I see them off from the stable yar
d, my half brother Thomas Grey at my side.

  “I can’t bear to let him go,” I say.

  He laughs. “Don’t you remember our mother when Edward had to go? Lord save her, she went with him, all that long way, even though she was pregnant with Richard. It is hard for you, and hard on the boy. But it is a sign that things are getting back to normal. You should be glad.”

  Arthur, bright and excited high on his horse, waves his hand at me and follows Sir Richard and Maggie out of the stable yard. The guard falls in behind him.

  “I don’t think I can be glad,” I say.

  Thomas squeezes my hand. “He’ll be back for Christmas.”

  Next day the king tells me he will take a small company to London to show the crowds Perkin Warbeck, the pretender.

  “Who’s going with you?” I ask, as if I don’t understand.

  Henry flushes slightly. “Perkin,” he says. “Warbeck.”

  Finally they have settled on a name for him, and not just for him. They have named and described a whole family Warbeck with uncles and cousins and aunts and grandparents, the Warbecks of Tournai. But though this extensive family is established, at least on paper, all with occupations and addresses, none of them is summoned to see him. None of them writes to him with reproaches, or offers of help. Though there are so many of them, so well recorded, not one offers a ransom for his return. The king weaves them into the story of Perkin Warbeck and we never ask to see them, any more than one might ask to see a black cat or a crystal slipper or a magic spindle.

  In London the boy gets a confused reception. The men, who have seen their taxes rise and rise and unlawful fines invade every part of their income, curse him for the expense that his invasions have caused, and groan at him as he rides by. The women, always quick to malice, start by catcalling and throwing dirt; but even they soften, they cannot help but admire his downturned face, his shy smile. He rides through the streets of London with the modest air of a boy who could not help himself, who was called and answered a call, who could not help but be himself. Some people rage against him, but many shout out that he is a fair boy, a rose.