The White Princess

  Henry makes him go on foot, leading a broken-down old horse, with one of his followers in chains, mounted up. The man in the saddle, grim-faced, is the sergeant farrier who ran from Henry’s service to be with the boy. Now all of London can see him, head bowed, bruised, tied to the saddle like a Fool. Usually people would throw filth, and then laugh to see the rider and the humiliated groom spattered with mud from the gutters, showered with the contents of chamber pots flung from overhead windows. But the boy and his defeated supporter make a strangely silent pair as they go through the narrow streets to the Tower and then someone says, terribly clearly, into a sudden hush: “Look at him! He’s the spit of good King Edward.”

  Henry hears of this the moment the words are out of the man’s mouth; but too late to call the words back, too late to deafen the crowd. All he can do is make sure that the crowd never again sees the boy who looks so like a York prince.

  So that is to be the first and last time that the boy has to walk the streets of London inviting abuse. “You will confine him to the Tower,” My Lady orders her son.

  “In time. I wanted the people to see that he was nothing, no threat, an idle foolish boy. Nothing more than a little lad, the boy that I always called him—lighter than air.”

  “Well, they have seen him now. And they don’t call him lighter than air. They don’t know what to call him, though we have told them his name over and over again. And the name that they want to give him should never be spoken. Surely, now you will charge him and execute him?”

  “I gave him my word that he should not be killed when he surrendered to me.”

  “That’s not binding.” Anxiety makes her overrule him. “You’ve broken your word for less than this. You don’t have to keep your word to such as him.”

  His face is suddenly illuminated. “Yes, but I gave my word to her.”

  My Lady turns a furious glare on me, accusing me at once. “Her? She never had the nerve to ask for mercy for him?” she suddenly rages, her face filled with hatred. “She never soiled her mouth speaking for such a traitor? For what reason? What did she dare to say?”

  Coolly, I show her a mutinous face and silently I shake my head. “No, not me,” I say icily. “You are mistaken, again. I have not asked for mercy for him. I have not spoken for or against him. I have no opinion on the matter, and I never have done.” I wait while her anger curdles into embarrassment. “I think His Grace must mean another lady.”

  Horrified, My Lady turns back to her son as if he is betraying her, as if it is she who is suffering infidelity. “Who? What woman has dared to ask you for his life? Who do you listen to—instead of me, your own mother, who has guided every step of your way?”

  “Lady Katherine,” he says. He has a silly little smile on his face at her very name. “Lady Katherine. I have given my word of honor to the lady.”

  She sits in my room like a dignified widow, always in black, with her hands always filled with some work or another. We sew shirts for the poor and always she is hemming a sleeve or turning a collar, her head bowed over her work. The chatter and laughter of the women go on around her, all the time, and sometimes she raises her head and smiles at a joke, and sometimes she quietly replies, or adds her own story to the conversation. She speaks of her childhood in Scotland, she speaks of her cousin the King of Scotland and of his court. She is not lively, but she is courteous and pleasant company. She has charm; I sometimes find myself smiling when I look at her. She has poise. She is living in my court and my husband is visibly in love with her and yet she never shows, by so much as a sideways glance to me, that she is aware of this. She could taunt me, she could flaunt herself, she could embarrass me, but she never does.

  She never mentions her own husband, she never speaks of this last extraordinary year: the little ship that took them to Ireland, their lucky escape from the Spanish who would have captured them, their triumphant landing and victorious march from Cornwall into Devon, and then their defeat. She never speaks of her husband at all, and so she avoids giving his name. The great question—what is the true name of this young man who never walks past her without a smile—is never answered by her.

  He, himself, is like a nameless person. The Spanish ambassador addresses him once, in public, as Perkin Warbeck, and the young man turns his head slowly, like a playactor, like a dancer, and looks away, far away. It is a snub so confident, so graceful, that you would swear that only a prince could do it. The ambassador looks a fool, and the boy looks mildly regretful that he is forced to cause a moment’s embarrassment to a man who should have known how to behave.

  It is Henry the king who rescues the court from the scandalous sight of a paroled traitor snubbing the ambassador of our greatest ally. We expect him to reprimand the boy and send him out, but instead the king blunders off his throne, down the presence chamber in a hurry, turns towards my ladies, catches Lady Katherine’s hand, and says suddenly, “Let’s have some dancing!”

  The musicians strike up at once, and he takes both her hands and faces her. He is flushed, as if he is the one who has made a blunder, instead of the pretender and his wife. And she is as she always is, as cool as a stream in winter. Henry bows to start the dance, she curtseys, and then she smiles, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Radiant, she smiles at my husband and I can see his heart lift at that small, tiny approval.

  PALACE OF SHEEN, RICHMOND, CHRISTMAS 1497

  The Christmas season brings my children home to me. Henry, Margaret, and Mary return to us from Eltham Palace and Arthur comes from Ludlow with his guardian, Sir Richard Pole, and my darling Maggie. I run down to the stable yard to greet the troop from Ludlow as they come riding in, on an evening when the persistent cold rain of the day is just turning to swirling flakes of snow.

  “Thank heaven you are in before it got any colder!” I fall on Arthur as if I would save him from darkness itself. “But you’re so warm!” I stop myself exclaiming “and so lovely!” for my oldest boy is, as he always is, a revelation to me. In the few months of his absence he has grown a little taller. I can feel the wiry strength of his arms as he hugs me, he is a prince in every sense. I cannot believe this is the baby I held in my arms and the toddler whose steps I guided, when I see this coltish youth whose head now comes to my chin, and who steps back from my embrace to bow to me with all the elegance of his grandfather, my father, King Edward.

  “Of course I’m warm,” he says. “Sir Richard had us in a breakneck canter for the last half hour.”

  “I wanted to get in before nightfall,” Sir Richard explains and he dismounts and bows low to me. “He’s well,” he says shortly. “Healthy, strong, and learning something new every day. He’s very good in dealing with the people in Wales. Very fair. We’re making a king here. A good king.”

  Maggie tumbles down from her horse, curtseys to me, and then bounds up to hug me. “You’re looking well,” she observes, stepping back to scrutinize me. “Are you happy?” she asks doubtfully. “How is everything here? His Grace the King?”

  Something makes me turn and look towards the shadow of the doorway, to the open door. The torchlight is behind her, but I can see the silhouette of Katherine Huntly, her velvet dress black against the flickering darkness of the doorway. She is watching me greet my son, though her own baby boy is far away tonight and she is not allowed to see him. She is hearing my son’s guardian say that he is a good Prince of Wales though she thought her own son was born for that position, and he was always addressed with that title.

  I beckon her forwards. “You remember Lady Katherine Huntly,” I say to Sir Richard.

  Maggie curtseys to her and for a moment we three women stand still, as the drifting snow swirls around us as if we were untitled statues in a wintry garden. What should the names be on the bases of the statues? Are we two cousins and a sister-in-law, destined to live together in silence, never speaking the truth? Or are we two unlucky daughters of the defeated House of York and an imposter who has won her place with us by the low means of ch
arming the king? Will we ever know for sure?

  His Grace the King appoints six ladies-in-waiting at his own cost to serve Lady Katherine. They will work for her, as my ladies serve me, running errands, writing notes, giving small gifts to the poor, keeping her company, helping her choose her clothes and dressing her, praying with her in chapel, singing and making music with her when she is merry, reading with her when she wants to be quiet. She has her own set of rooms on my side of the great palace: her bedchamber, her privy chamber, her presence chamber. Sometimes she sits with me, sometimes she joins My Lady the King’s Mother, where she gets a chilly welcome, and sometimes she retreats with her ladies to her own presence chamber, a little court within a court.

  Even the boy is given two servants of his own who go with him everywhere and serve him, fetching his horse, attending him when he rides, preparing his bedchamber, squiring him in to dine. They sleep in his room, one on a pallet bed, one on the floor, so that they are, as it were, his jailers; but when the boy turns to one of them to give him his gloves or ask for his cape, it is clear that they serve him gladly. He lives in the king’s side of the building, in the rooms inside the royal wardrobe, guarded like treasure. The doors to the wardrobe and the treasure house are locked at night so that—without being imprisoned in any way—it happens that he is locked inside each night, as if he were a precious jewel himself. But during the day he walks in and out of the palace, nodding casually to the yeomen of the guard as he strolls by, rides out on a fast horse, either with the court or on his own or with his chosen friends, who seem proud to ride with him. He takes a boat out on the river, where he is not watched nor prevented from rowing as far as he likes. He is as free and as lighthearted as any of the young men of this young, lighthearted court, but he seems—without ever claiming preeminence—to be a natural leader, finer than his peers, acknowledged by them almost as if he were a prince.

  In the evening he is always in my rooms. He comes in and bows to me, says a few words of greeting, smiles that curiously warm and intimate smile, and then seats himself near to Katherine Huntly. Often we see them talking, head to head, low-voiced, but there is no sense of conspiracy. When anyone comes near them they look up and make a place for whoever passes by, they are always courteous and charming and easy. If they are left alone they speak and reply, question and answer, almost as if they were singing together, almost as if they wanted nothing more than to hear each other’s voice. They may talk of the weather, of the score in the archery competition, of almost nothing; but everyone senses their irresistible affinity.

  Often I see them sitting in the oriel window, side by side, shoulder brushing against shoulder, knees just touching. Sometimes he leans forwards and whispers in her ear and his lips nearly brush her cheek. Sometimes she turns her face towards him and he must feel her warm breath on his neck, as close as a kiss. For hours in the day they will sit like this, quiet as obedient children on a settle, tender as young lovers before their betrothal, never touching, but never more than a hand-span apart, like a pair of cooing doves.

  “My God, he adores her,” Maggie remarks, watching this restrained, unstoppable courtship. “Surely he cannot always be at arm’s length? Do they never slip away to her rooms?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “They seem to have settled for being constant companions, but no longer husband and wife.”

  “And the king?” Maggie asks delicately.

  “Why, what have you heard?” I ask dryly. “You’ve only been at court a few days, people must have rushed to tell you everything. What have you heard already?”

  She makes a grimace. “It’s common talk that he can’t take his eyes off her, when they ride out he is always near her, when he dances he asks for her as his partner, he sends out the best dishes for her. He is constantly offering gifts which she quietly returns, again and again he sends her to the royal wardrobe, he orders silks for new gowns, but she will only wear black.” She looks at me, and finds me impassive. “You’ve seen all this? You know all this?”

  I shrug. “I have seen most of it now, with my husband. I saw it once before with someone else’s husband. I was once the girl that everyone watched as they turned their backs on the queen. I was once the girl that got the gowns and the gifts.”

  “When you were the king’s favorite?”

  “Just as she is. Worse than she is, for I gloried in it. I was in love with Richard and he was in love with me and we courted right under the nose of his wife, Anne. I wouldn’t do that now. I would never do that now. I didn’t realize then how painful it is.”

  “Painful?”

  “And demeaning. For the wife. I see the court look at me as they wonder what I am thinking. I see Henry look at me as if he hopes that I don’t notice that he stammers like a boy when he talks to her. And she . . .”

  Maggie waits.

  “She never looks at me at all,” I say. “She never looks at me to see how I am taking it, or to see if I notice her triumph. She never looks at me to see if I observe that my husband adores her; and oddly it is only her gaze that I could endure. When she curtseys to me or speaks to me, I think she is the only person who understands how I feel. It is as if she and I are in this together, and we have to manage it somehow together. She cannot help that he has fallen in love with her. She does not seek his favor, she does not entice him. Neither she nor I can help it that he has fallen out of love with me, and in love with her.”

  “She could leave!”

  “She can’t leave,” I say. “She can’t leave her husband, she could not bear to leave him here, and Henry seems determined that he shall live at court, live here like a kinsman almost as if he were . . .”

  “As if he were your brother?” Maggie whispers, quiet as a breath.

  I nod. “And Henry won’t let her go. He looks for her every morning in chapel, he can’t close his eyes and say his prayers until he has seen her. It makes me feel . . .” I break off and I blot my eyes with the corner of my sleeve. “I’m such a fool but it makes me feel unwanted. It makes me feel plain. I don’t feel like the first lady of the court of England. I don’t feel that I am where I should be, in my mother’s place. I’m not even in my usual second place to My Lady the King’s Mother. I have dropped below that. I am humbled. I am Queen of England but disregarded by the king my husband, and the court.” I pause and try to laugh, but it comes out as a sob. “I feel plain, Maggie! For the first time in my life! I feel humbled! And it’s hard.”

  “You are the first lady, you are the queen, nobody and nothing can take that from you,” she insists fiercely.

  “I know. I know that really,” I say sadly. “And I married without love, and now it seems that he loves someone else. It is ridiculous that I should care at all. I married him thinking of him as my enemy. I married him hating him and hoping for his death. It should be nothing to me that he now lights up when another woman enters the room.”

  “But you do care?”

  “Yes. I find that I do.”

  The court prepares joyfully for Christmas. Arthur is summoned to his father, who tells him that his betrothal to the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon is confirmed and will take place. Nothing can delay it, now that the monarchs of Spain are confident that there is no pretender threatening Henry’s throne. But they write to their ambassador to ask him why the pretender has not been executed, as they had expected either his death in battle or a prompt beheading on the battlefield. Why has he not been put on trial and swiftly dispatched?

  Lamely, the ambassador replies to them that the king is merciful. As merciless usurpers themselves, they do not understand this, but they allow the betrothal to go ahead, stipulating only that the pretender should die before the marriage ceremony. That is mercy enough, they suggest. The ambassador hints to the king that Isabella and Ferdinand, the King and Queen of Spain, would prefer it if there was not a drop of doubtful blood left in the country, not Perkin Warbeck, nor Maggie’s brother; they would prefer it if there were no heir of York at all
.

  “Not Lady Huntly’s baby?” I ask. “Shall we be Herods now?”

  Arthur comes to walk with me in the garden, where I am huddled in my furs and striding out for warmth, my ladies trailing away behind me. “You look cold.”

  “I am cold.”

  “Why don’t you go indoors, Lady Mother?”

  “I am sick of being indoors. I am sick of everyone watching me.”

  He offers me his arm, which I take with such a glow of pleasure to see my boy, my firstborn child, with the manners of a prince.

  “Why are they watching you?” he asks gently.

  “They want to know how I feel about Lady Katherine Huntly,” I say frankly. “They want to know if she troubles me.”

  “Does she?”

  “No.”

  “His Grace, my father, seems very happy to have captured Mr. Warbeck,” he begins carefully.

  I cannot help but giggle at my boy Arthur practicing diplomacy. “He is,” I say.

  “Though I am surprised to find Mr. Warbeck in favor, and at court. I thought that my father was taking him to London and would imprison him in the Tower.”

  “I think we are all surprised at your father’s sudden mercy.”

  “It’s not like Lambert Simnel,” he says. “Mr. Warbeck isn’t a falconer. What is he doing coming and going so freely? And is my father paying him a wage? He seems to have money to pay for books and to gamble. Certainly my father gives him the best clothes and horses, and his wife, Lady Huntly, lives in state.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Does he spare him for your sake?” he asks very quietly.

  My face is quite expressionless. “I don’t know,” I say again.

  “You do know, but you won’t say,” Arthur asserts.