Sir Thomas Cooke, one-time Mayor of London, was an avid patron of beauty. His mansion was crammed with bright manuscripts, rich rugs and furnishings, painstakingly collected over his years in King Edward’s favour. He was not a young man, and when Earl Rivers with a score of armed men burst in upon him he was afraid, but he was calm. They came upon him writing at a carved oak table in the solar where slatted sunshine beat through the oriel and danced upon the polished floor. For the sake of his wife and children, huddled terrified behind him, he clung to composure. He had heard enough of the Woodvilles, and of the Queen, to know himself powerless before them, and however guiltless, already guilty. So he laid down his quill gently, and confronted Earl Rivers, father of the Queen. Sir John Fogge, tall and blustering, had a deposition in his hand; impotent as a tossed leaf, Cooke listened to the gale of words.

‘And so, sir,’ finished Fogge, ‘we come to arrest you for your treason:

Behind his chair Cooke’s wife began to weep softly.

‘I have always been loyal to King Edward,’ said Cooke. ‘His Grace will remember, if I am permitted audience.’

Sir Richard Woodville said disdainfully: ‘The King is unlikely to visit you in prison. I have warned him on occasion of your Lancastrian sympathies. Now we have evidence of it.’

Sir Thomas smiled palely, wondering who had been bribed to lie against him.

‘When may I petition the King?’

‘The King is from London.’

Cooke’s spirit dived. So this was truly the Queen’s doing, and all hope lost. He asked Sir Richard mildly:

‘Why is the Queen’s Grace so full of hatred?’

Outraged, they thrust him to his feet, and bade him keep his treasonous tongue from the Queen. They forced him down the narrow oak stairs and the sunlight followed sadly, licking the rich carvings, down into the bright Hall. Upon the wall there, the Jerusalem tapestry sprang and glittered. The besieged city of gold shone with an almost holy splendour; the bright knights battled upon it in fierce silence. Sir Thomas thought: fair knights, come to my aid! Against slander and ruin, and the Queen’s cruel whim. Sir Richard Woodville also drank in the tapestry, all eight hundred pounds’ worth of it. Mentally he set Cooke’s trial for the day after tomorrow. There were enough perquisites in this mansion to grease the lawyers. Edward would know nothing but admiration for his ministers’ zeal. And Elizabeth! He thought: it will give pleasure to her who has helped us to our height. Turning to the guard, he asked: ‘Are the wagons ready?’

The men nodded, and he gestured about him. ‘Leave naught. Load up.’

‘Where for, my lord?’

‘The Jerusalem arras for my lady wife’s apartment. All else to the Queen.’

And he smiled at the remembrance of Jacquetta’s recent inspiration.

‘Queen’s Gold,’ the Duchess had said. ‘An ancient due of princes, seldom used these days. See that Cooke is fined and that my daughter profits thereby.’

He had kissed her, marvelling.

‘But the tapestry is mine,’ she said.

Sir Richard rode back to Westminster, where the Queen was lying-in. The child was another girl, to be named Mary in honour of the Virgin. Outriders were within the Palace with news of the King only a few days’ ride away. Alone with her parents, Elizabeth listened from her couch to the tale of Cooke’s arrest.

‘He, too, clung close to Warwick as well as to the King,’ said Earl Rivers. ‘Men say he sent messages to France; privy plots. Heads have been lost for less.’

The name of Warwick salved the last infinitesimal pangs of conscience she might have owned over Cooke. She closed her eyes.

‘Fine him heavily,’ she said.

Two days later, Cooke was committed to King’s Bench prison. The sum exacted was eight thousand pounds. And, under the archaic right of England, Elizabeth claimed one hundred marks per every thousand pounds. Queen’s Gold.

Every time she passed the costly arras, swaying and shimmering in Jacquetta’s apartments, an old sore healed a little. The old, jewelled dreams were crystallized, and the nightmares, together with that day at Bradgate, fled. Even Melusine seemed to be part of the past; as if she had stamped their lives with success and left them, knowing that all would be well. That even Warwick would soon fall. Elizabeth went in daily duty to the Christian offices, and thought no more of Melusine, other than as a thing of improbable mist. On the day of Edward’s return she was shaken from this complacency.

He came to her bower like a boisterous warm wind. Among cushions she sat, glowing with the peculiar freshness that follows childbirth. Her long hair fell in two thick braids to her knees, and her gown was a cunning weave of azure and green. Near by the Princess Elizabeth occupied the knee of her nurse, Lady Berners, and the baby Mary mewed softly in her cradle. A trapped bee buzzed drowsily against the oriel and somewhere near a minstrel plucked a gittern. Elizabeth held out her arms.

‘Welcome, my lord,’ she said softly. Edward looked well, brown from the summer riding, and leaner. He strode to the cradle and surveyed its contents. News of the birth had reached him on the road, and his brief disappointment at another female child was past and over. He tickled the infant, kissed the small Elizabeth, and threw himself down beside the Queen.

‘A good sortie! Fine hunting we had,’ he told her. ‘God’s Lady, Bessy; there was a deer as high as a house, and I shot her through the lungs with my first quill. It reminded me of our meeting, sweet heart!’

‘And the oyer and terminer?’ She twisted her fingers in his long dagged sleeve. ‘Did you find unrest in your shires?’

‘Naught to complain of,’ he replied. ‘I hanged a few, pardoned a score, and lightened the purse of many.’ His face was suddenly sober.

‘You are sad?’ she murmured.

‘I heard today about Tom Cooke,’ said Edward. ‘I’d have staked all on his loyalty; yet your father says …’

She said quickly: ‘My father and his knights have proof, Sire. Cooke was untrue to your cause.’ She lowered her lids. ‘It’s hard to be betrayed, my lord. I feel for you.’

‘Yes,’ he said heavily. After a moment his humour brightened again. He tipped up her chin; chaffing her, said: ‘Feel for me, do you? My cunning, lovely lady!’

‘Sire?’ (sharply).

‘Minx, jade, witty wanton Bess!’ He pulled her into his arms, laughing. ‘In what law book did you read of that ancient right? Queen’s Gold! You mulcted poor Cooke right well – what will you do with all this gold, eh? Buy folderols to send your lord love-crazed … silk atop, and silk below …’

His fingers strayed. Lady Berners coughed.

‘You are not angry,’ Elizabeth murmured, relieved.

‘Nay, sweet,’ said Edward with a kiss. ‘It’s fitting; Queen’s Gold for a queen. My Queen. My love. My fate.’

‘Shall I withdraw, your Grace?’ ventured Lady Berners, who had been discreetly watching.

Edward sprang easily up from the cushions. ‘Nay, madam, I go myself to find my tardy ministers and see what trials await me in the Council Chamber, what arguments have been afoot in my absence. I’ll see you anon, love.’

‘Soon?’ Her hand detained him.

‘Tonight,’ he promised. ‘We’ll have supper together here, to celebrate my safe return. Lord, I’ve missed you, Bessy.’

‘Tonight!’ she cried. ‘I’ll order your favourite dishes – goose patty, heron …’

‘Syllabub! And you!’ He kissed her fingers and left. The bee rattled and whined against the window-pane. Elizabeth motioned to Lady Berners to kill it. Then there was a tremulous silence, heavy as the thick sunshine beating in, almost as if the day were waiting upon a judgment. She dismissed a vague unease and summoned her women to make her ready for the King’s next visit. Sometimes her toilette took as long as four hours. The long white-gold hair must be combed sleek as a fountain; then there was the skilled application of litharge of lead to combat any rough skin, and the rose water rubbed into every inch of her white body. The small blunt hennin with its gauzy veil must be fitted tightly so that no vestige of hair showed above the domed forehead. In this way, when the King’s hands finally loosed that spun silver fall, the effect would be even more startling. This day the Queen had a small eruption on her neck. It filled her with anguish. She bade her sister Catherine fetch a bloom of periwinkle, the Sorcerer’s Violet, with which to heal the blemish. She bent to stare into the burnished mirror, satisfied and yet unsatisfied with her image, the mouth like a flower, the cloudless blue eyes. Her breasts, heavy with milk, swelled above the loose gown. The King would be intent on love. She hoped his passion would spend itself swiftly; she needed to talk to him, to learn more of policy, of who was her enemy, who her friend. Especially she needed news of Warwick, so seldom seen at court. She was anxious to know his whereabouts and, if any, his plans.

The tiny pimple worried her, and the feeling of unease returned. Lady Berners brought the swaddled infant for her to bless good night. Then the women dispersed, leaving her within a silken frame of candles that gleamed upon the massed white roses round her couch.

Westminster Clock struck seven, followed fractionally later by other, distant sounds, for Westminster, fittingly, was always first. Sweet chimes, deep voices all over London, tongued the hour. The Council meeting would be ended; in truth, it would have been over for some time. She rose and walked about to calm a ridiculous apprehension. Edward would be here soon; possibly one of his more garrulous ministers, Hastings perhaps, had kept him. Then she heard voices, coming faintly from outside the thick oak door.

‘For the love of God, let me pass!’

She clenched her hands. That was Anthony, sounding full of frenzy. She heard the guard telling her brother, with firm reverence, that the Queen had retired. A halberd, struck aside, clanged against the door. She went, opened, and confronted the two pikemen and her brother. All three knelt.

‘Let Lord Scales enter,’ she said.

He came in swiftly, white-faced. ‘Your Grace,’ he gasped.

‘Anthony. What’s amiss?’

His hands were trembling as he caught her sleeve. A little hound, sharing his fear, slunk at his side.

‘Your Grace … Bess. I had to warn you. The King is angry.’

Her mouth suddenly dry, she said: ‘What have you done?’ thinking: how can he have offended Edward? Only last month he was made Governor of the Isle of Wight, and Knight of the Garter … Edward loves him.

His eyes darted about. ‘Nay, madam. ’Tis none of my doing – but yours.’

‘Mine!’

Then she heard the King’s steps in the corridor, felt them too, for they shook the oak. Also another noise, a queer buzzing drone of fury. Outside, the halberds slithered apart, and the King, muttering in his throat like a madman, burst into the room. His face was crimson and stained with tears. He took two paces towards Elizabeth, saw Anthony, and flung out a pointing arm towards the door.

‘Leave us, my lord,’ he said. But Anthony hesitated, his face more ashen than before.

‘Leave us!’ cried Edward, choking. The hound crept near his boots and he kicked it viciously. Anthony gave a low obeisance, caught up the dog and backed out of the chamber. Elizabeth felt her heart pounding, the milk pulsing in her breasts. There will be a sick baby tomorrow, I must appoint a wetnurse, she thought with wild irrelevance.

Edward was looking at her with a terrible expression, of contempt and even hatred. Above all, with the look of a small boy whose favourite toy has been wantonly smashed.

‘My lord, Edward, my lord,’ she whispered.

He made a harsh muffled sound, half oath, half sob. He picked up the first object to hand, a crystal vase containing a single rose, and threw it violently so that it smashed into a million slivers. Then he walked blindly away and buried his face in the bedcurtains. Timidly she approached him and he wheeled to face her, eyes blinded by more tears. To him she was a blur of blue and green and silver. A red thread coursed down her cheek where a flying splinter had struck it. He raised his hand to destroy the blue, the green, the silver and the red, and heard her faint voice.

‘Your Grace I am but lately up from child.’

The hand dropped. She thought it prudent to kneel, laying her hand upon his embroidered shoe.

‘My lord,’ she said softly and quickly. ‘I do not know my fault; tell me, so that I may amend it.’

He was like the Edward of Grafton, babbling witlessly, laughing and crying low. He swore on the saints, on God’s Body, God’s Mother. The storm gave way to his dreadful accusing voice.

‘Why, lady, why? Was it not crime enough to steal the Seal for your own purpose? But to take Desmond’s life away! Desmond, who never did a knavish thing, or an act that was not knightly … Desmond, my truest creature in all the world, whom I loved like a brother! Blessed Christ, lady! You chose the right weapon with which to wound me! But why? Why?’

She must answer; silence in this moment was folly. Her mind rippled like a silvery fish through excuse after excuse, flicking them aside as likely to feed wrath. All the while she thought: I repent naught. I did not know the King loved Desmond so much as this. Yet it is right he died. He mocked me.

‘Men said Desmond was a traitor to your Grace,’ she whispered. It was the best, the only answer.

Edward’s lips curled.

‘Men said’ he repeated with contempt. ‘Tell me then, lady, were his infant sons traitors too? What evil were they brewing in their schoolroom, that they should also die? Do you know, madam, what your hirelings did? They took them from bed, those two little knaves, and stabbed them! Pray Jesu, madam, you never know the grief that is their mother’s now!’ He groaned aloud. ‘The Butcher did his work – I cannot punish Tiptoft, for he acted under your command in Ireland.’ He turned from her. ‘Go! I’ll not look upon you.’

Suddenly, coldly self-justifying, she said: ‘Desmond was hot of tongue, my lord. He spoke words unfitting for a prince’s ear. He called me …’

She said the unforgivable nickname, hating it even in her own mouth. Then she saw the fresh contempt in Edward’s eyes.

‘Madame,’ he said, heavily sarcastic, ‘if I were not insulted, neither should you be. ’Twas a jest …’ His face crumpled again. ‘Tom loved a jest.’

He wept bitterly. Elizabeth, cold with dread, poured upon him a spate of pleading, promises. She swore it was for his sake that she had acted, that she could not bear to hear their love defiled, not even on the lips of a friend. All these pleas dropped like stones into the torrent of his grief, and left no trace. Finally he faced her again, eyes shadowed with bitterness.

‘I fear, Madame,’ he said slowly, ‘I very much fear, Bessy, that you have become unkind.’

In these almost charitable words there was terror. She would rather he raged again, broke more furnishings, or struck her. The candles were still wavering gently, the white roses banked to perfume their love-pleasure. Was it too late? Yet the weapon of her body seemed blunted. He looked only at her eyes.

‘I’ll leave you now, lady,’ he said, after a while. ‘And I advise you to spend your gold on Masses for the soul of Desmond and his boys. Expect me when I choose; it will not be soon.’

Wild, imploring, she said: ‘My lord, you have not eaten. You must not ride again without at least a void of wine …’ She picked up a little silver bell.

‘I’ll not eat or drink with you, lady’, said Edward soberly. ‘Get to the chapel and pray for Desmond. As for my other pleasures, I’ll take them elsewhere.’

Never had he been unfaithful, so closely had she bound him. Now the chain was breaking, and this brought more fear. Was this the moment? The moment when Raymond, hearing that his heirs, the sons of Melusine, had butchered one another, cried: ‘Begone, odious serpent! Contaminator of my noble race!’ ?

She held out her hands, but he was already at the door. As if he cursed her, he turned and said,

‘I go, to spend my time with a lady who is kinder than you. And should I sire a child on her, this is my will: that the child shall be brought into your household, to attend you. If it is a boy, it shall be named Thomas, in Desmond’s memory. If it is a girl, it shall be named Grace, to compensate for your own gracelessness. Whatever it is, it shall be a constant reminder of your evil work this day.’

As he closed the door, he saw her, wraithlike, hands clasped, head still high, and he thought of Elizabeth Lucey. Silly, clinging she might be, but incapable of such acts as the queen had wrought. Then he thought of the woman, lately admired on his progress. There had been promise in those green eyes, compassion on that mouth. Anything, to take his pain away. The sun was not quite down. He would ride from the City.

‘Our most good and gracious Queen Elizabeth, Sister unto this our Fraternity of our blessed Lady and Mother of Mercy, Saint Mary Virgin, Mother of God.’

This was her title, bestowed by the Skinners’ Guild, who had loaded her shoulders with the pelts of a thousand small beasts. Bright stippled ermine, marten and miniver, she wore them over an azure gown, edged and latched with gold. Here at Fotheringhay she was glad of the furs’ warmth. Even in high summer, the ancient castle seemed exposed to the north winds, while the dank breath of the marshes pervaded every room. She stood on the river bank beside the sluggish Nene, and a breeze rippled and flattened the reeds, and her furs, with a silent, wandering hand. She watched the barges carrying the King and his entourage towards the landing stage. They were gold and silver, and all along the prow and sides the Sun in Splendour merged with the White Rose. Standing in the foremost craft Edward towered like a pagan sea-prince behind the curved figurehead shaped like the falcon of York. As the barge drew near, she could see that he was happy. His humours were as fair as on the day he left London to gather an army for his latest campaign.

It was a year since the quarrel, and slightly less since he had returned, strangely sombre, from his unknown leman. That very night he had taken Elizabeth again with a hating passion, resulting in yet another daughter, Cicely. He had not been wroth at this, and had jested, surveying his baby daughters: ‘It takes a man to get a girl! And by God’s Lady, I am three times a man!’ He had gone down in person to Chepe to buy her a necklace and girdle in gem-starred gold; had heaped new honours upon Anthony and Thomas, her eldest son. Staring at the barges, she saw caskets, fardels containing silver and jewels sitting cheek by jowl with the royal library and a cage of singing birds. So he was bringing more gifts, priceless relics from the shrines of Norwich. She caressed one hand with the other, feeling her diamonds ice and the shape of a pigeon’s blood ruby. The costly fur blew about her face. Yes, Edward was hers again.

Close by a stern voice spoke, turning her jubilation to impatience.

‘He has dallied too long, that son of mine.’

Proud Cis! Be still, arrogant old dame, thought Elizabeth. Yet she turned modestly to acknowledge the presence of the King’s mother, that unbending matriarch in whose honour the latest infant had been named. Still wearing her widow’s weed, unjewelled, ageless and potent, she stood gazing at the King. Fotheringhay was her demesne; at her waist a vast bundle of keys made music in recognition of the fact. Unease was bred of the old Duchess’s presence. Every time the bowed eyes met hers, Elizabeth imagined their accusation: Unlawful Queen. Remember Eleanor Butler! No question that the Duchess would ever speak of Eleanor – the succession of York was too precious. Yet always in her mind there was that discomfiting hint of a secret sorely kept.

Together they knelt as Edward leaped on to the little quay. He raised and kissed them, then his approving eye raked the lines of battle-tents set up in the meadow, and the milling hundreds of waged men who had come to his service, in preparation for the affray. With his wife and his mother, he moved across the sward where blown dandelions and buttercups formed a shimmer of misted gold, like froth on metheglin. He talked excitedly of the latest rumours reaching from his northern territories, and seemed amused by the audacity of a nameless rebel.

‘Rising against me!’ he cried. ‘Some poxy peasant too cowardly to show his colours. Believe me, madam my mother, and mark well, Bessy. He shall be fried in his own fat.’

‘He has wrought much damage, by all accounts,’ said the Duchess of York soberly.

‘Ah, a few dwellings burned only – more complainings for my oyer and terminer.’

Elizabeth smiled up into his eyes, wondering how long he could be persuaded to tarry at Fotheringhay. She was unmoved by the rebellion; Jacquetta of Bedford had dismissed it, saying that Mars rode high in the King’s favour. Cicely of York said suddenly:

‘The Frenchwoman – have her agents to do with this rising?’

‘The witch is in France,’ replied Edward bluntly. ‘Where, like her predecessor in sorcery, she should be put to the fire – for my father’s and my brother’s deaths.’

‘Yes!’ said the Duchess sadly. She fingered the great reliquary at her breast. But her eyes were on Elizabeth, a glance like a chill wind.

They ascended the castle steps, ahead of the nobles disembarking from the other barges. Elizabeth felt great satisfaction at entering, with her royal husband, Cicely of York’s demesne. Accompanied thus, she lifted her head high and prepared to pass under the portcullis which bore the falcon in the fetterlock, the grim insignia of York. Then someone trod upon her train. She was almost dragged off balance; the gold clasp about her throat bit into the flesh like a ghostly restraint. You have no place here. Somewhere far behind in the ranks she heard a young man’s laughter and recognized it as belonging to Sir Francis Lovell; but his was not the offending foot. She swung quickly round, even as the pressure on her garment lifted, and confronted Richard of Gloucester, already on his knee. His head was bowed, his thin restless hands spread behind him in the accepted attitude of supplication.

‘God’s pardon, your Grace,’ he said levelly.

A tart reply sprang to her lips but Edward forestalled it.

He smote the seventeen-year-old Duke on the shoulder and genially bade him rise.

‘Guard yourself, Dickon,’ he said gaily. ‘No brother of mine shall vex a lady!’

The smile that passed between them angered her, for it was token of the things she could not share, and it lay upon the mouths of those who had loved the unspeakable. Yes, Warwick; Gloucester in particular had loved him at Middleham, like a dog. Now, with his gloomy asceticism, he came to haunt her court. She pressed her lips together and moved into the Hall. There was her father, already clad in half-armour, willing to join forces against the tawdry rebellion. And there was young John, similarly arrayed, blond like Anthony, and with the same fine-boned arrogant face. Warmly she pressed his hand. Poor John, who shared a bed with Warwick’s aged aunt! Rich John – who had lemen by the score and wealth immeasurable. She smiled at him conspiratorially. He grinned back, cocksure, lithe; her youngest brother. She loved him, with a greedy proprietary love. The clothes he wore, and the new burnished harness were bought and paid for by her body and her wit. He was mischievous, too, a studied breaker of hearts. We are a great family, she thought; we shall endure.

Later at the banquet there was entertainment. The pageantmen appeared in the story of St. Elizabeth. A blond boy knelt in prayer while angels supported by wire and pulley descended with divine tidings. This disguising, by a happy accident, was the same as that performed on her coronation progress; she felt doubly Queen, almost secure. Once or twice she let her eyes wander to her adherents; Sir John Fogge, Lord Stanley and his brother. Dr. Morton, Margaret Beaufort. Tiptoft was there also. Again she marvelled that a year, and the good humour engendered by the prospect of battle, should have so shortened the King’s memory. For he had made Tiptoft, Desmond’s executioner, Constable of England for life; free to behead, to impale obscenely, the King’s erring and innocent subjects alike.

Close to her chair stood Anthony, in a peacock doublet. She beckoned him, whispered: ‘Dear brother! Do you remember the time when you would not take me from Grafton on your charger?’ He flushed, answering quickly: ‘It was fate, my liege. Fate that you stayed at Grafton, fate that took you to court, returned you home, and gave us these famous days!’

‘Oui, vraiment,’ she answered, for an instant transformed to Marguerite’s Isabella, then rushing like a snowball on a slope through the time of widowed, bereft Elizabeth to this high moment. The thoughts made her dizzy. Minstrels were playing a rondeau and Edward had given the signal for dancing.

‘I will partner our liege sister,’ said John, brushing past Anthony’s extended hand. She smiled at both brothers, stepped from the dais and began to glide and swoop, curtsey and kiss lightly.

‘So, my lord, you are to play the soldier,’ she mocked him tenderly, as the viols shrieked and the tabor throbbed like the wings of a captured bird. ‘You shall bring me the rebels’ heads on a platter.’

‘It will be time wasted,’ he scoffed. ‘All this money and these accoutrements to ride north after a handful of disgruntled serfs. I would liefer hunt bigger game.’

‘It’s enough, for your first campaign,’ she said.

He bowed in the dance, flourishing his long pointed shoe. ‘Some there are who prate as if we were to ride against the Turk!’ He wagged his chin vaguely in the direction of the royal dais, where one or two of Edward’s captains stood awkwardly among the ranks of Woodvilles.

‘Richard of Gloucester,’ he added disdainfully. ‘The King’s pet and popinjay. He sickens me with his talk of loyalty, his fussing with weapons, his book-learnt strategy. And Edward listens to him.’

‘He loves him,’ said Elizabeth, halting suddenly so that the following dancers tripped on their gowns. She looked covertly at Gloucester, then dismissed him from her mind. ‘What of Clarence, though? I do not see him here.’

‘He has more sense,’ said John dourly. ‘Doubtless he is hunting on his own manor. There is better sport in stags.’

She danced next with her father. He was as light on his feet as John and, she thought, more handsome than ever. Her feeling of contentment grew. She was flanked by her family, her noble brothers, her pretty sisters like a cluster of bright blossom near the dais. Sir Richard Woodville led her back to Edward’s side; the King was dicing with Lord Hastings; Hastings, looking unhappy. He had a weak mouth; somehow this added to her confidence. Edward talked while the dice rattled. He spoke of the proposed affray.

‘We shall split into three sections, northerly, ringing the rebels … thus.’ He drew patterns in spilled wine. Richard of Gloucester stood behind him, watching. Once he bent to murmur, and directed the King’s carefree finger to an easterly point in the map. Edward looked up, impressed. Irritation was born in Elizabeth.

‘You seem skilled in warlike policy, my lord,’ she said. ‘You are experienced?’

She watched his pallor turn to unhealthy rose. He said softly: ‘It’s true I’ve never ridden on campaign, your Grace. But, be it my first or my last, I ride for my King.’

Edward cried: ‘Bravo!’ spinning the dice, in such a good mood that, thought Elizabeth, had the Devil appeared to mouth platitudes he would have applauded. Quietly she said to Gloucester: ‘And your brother Clarence? Why is he not here, putting on harness?’

The blush grew. From her eye’s tail Elizabeth saw her father, smiling; behind him, the radiant figure of Anthony, his arm about their sister Catherine, and young John, grinning broadly at Gloucester’s discomfiture.

‘Is he a traitor?’ she pursued.

‘He is our brother.’

She raised her plucked brows. ‘In the Book, brother shall rise against brother; this, my lord Gloucester, is no warranty of good faith.’

Edward threw down his dice for the last time. ‘Soft, Bessy,’ he said. ‘Clarence is lazy; there’s no harm in him.’

‘He is loyal, God willing,’ said Gloucester. Then he turned and left the dais, thrusting through the skein of dancers and out beneath the stone archway leading from the Hall.

‘Such uncourtliness,’ said a soft voice. Lady Margaret Beaufort stood beside Elizabeth. Emboldened by the Countess’s murmur, the Queen said tightly: ‘He had no right to quit my court so …’ Then she saw that Edward watched her. He said casually: ‘Gloucester is weary. He is young to wear the duties of a captain.’ The eyes warned: Look not with anger upon those I love!

Later, when the fire in their bedchamber was burning down, she stood against the window-slit through which were visible the dusky lines of tents with their tiny glimmering lanterns. The night wind, with its salt marsh tang, blew about her face. Edward’s arms came round her from behind, and she turned from the sight of tomorrow’s array. Within the resentful walls of the Yorkist stronghold she went to him, glad and lissom as a serpent.

Northbound to Newark, the army left in splendour. The banners flounced above it, screaming colour at the sun. Like a lengendary figure of farewell she stood, while the royal party mounted. The King’s stallion was black as Lucifer; against it all the other horses looked pale. Roan and bay, whirling dappled grey, coats like smoke. She kissed her handsome father ardently, and gave a special smile to young John, cool as a pearl on this his first foray. Lord Hastings’s mount was wild and kicked up dirt. Richard of Gloucester went by, too preoccupied to give her more than cursory obeisance. Anthony rode behind him, the sun flirting with his silver plumes.

Soon they were only a thin erratic thread on the skyline. With her sisters, Elizabeth moved back into the castle, where she gave orders that her household should remain another week at Fotheringhay. She sent women to prepare her most priceless gowns; she would wear them in hopes of enraging Proud Cis.

One stray thought remained, like a riderless horse. Clarence loved to appear in armour more costly than his brothers’ and with weapons polished to an unbelievable glass. Why, why was Clarence absent?

One of the women was screaming, frightened keening yelps like a houseless puppy, and the noise filtered to Elizabeth, sitting very still in Garden Tower apartments. Before her, a courtier was still on his knees, his cloak and boots chalked with riding. His doublet breast was torn where, for safety’s sake, he had ripped off the device of Lord Hastings; this, a black belled sleeve on silver, he held in his hand. He had needed to ride thus anonymously through two days and nights, or the rebels would have killed him. She heard him relate this in the same way as she heard the shrieking outside – the shrieking that drifted high about the merlons of the Tower and shivered into silence; she heard and did not hear. Down the corridors of her mind the messenger’s first words rolled, like a long echo going away.

There were a lot of names, and all had colours. The King: bright blue and gold, with a cage round it – for Warwick had the King fast a prisoner, having ambushed him in the north … Hastings, and Richard Gloucester – both dull brown, having fled, escaped. Anthony her brother: a rainbow name shot with fear and hope, for the King had bidden him flee for his life, and where was he now? George of Clarence: over the courier’s head, and through the window, she could see ravens; pecking at the battlements. Black. The colour of Clarence, who had allied himself to the foul field. To Warwick, blacker than black.

‘None realized that they were so close, my liege,’ said the courier promptingly. He wished the Queen would speak. His knees ached; he was broken from fierce riding. ‘Clarence took Earl Warwick’s daughter in marriage at Great Calais. He is his sworn man.’

There were two other names, names that dripped redness and grief. She saw the face of young John, her brother, smiling in the dance; his body brightly harnessed for campaign. She saw the vivid merciless grace of her father. As if by alchemy she saw change; she witnessed their deaths as clearly as if she had been a bystander. The faces of father and brother were red dripping ruins, held aloft by the hair, while, far below, their bodies leaked more redness into a pile of straw. Warwick himself held a head in either hand, and laughed.

She said: ‘Oh, Jesu, mercy.’ From the crowding, unquiet throng of her household came whispered amen, like sea on shingle. Emboldened, the courier continued. ‘Not only your Grace’s father and brother were beheaded, but also Lords Pembroke and Devon. Because Earl Warwick …’

‘Call him not by his name.’ The words were like swallowed ice. ‘Refer to him, henceforth, as the Fiend.’

‘Yes, Madame. All four were beheaded because … the Fiend vows they were evildoers and succubi, draining the strength from the King and wealth from his coffers. Your Grace,’ he said anxiously, ‘Lord Hastings sent word that you should take your daughters – and your two sons by Sir John Grey – from the Tower to a place of greater safety. Already Clarence rides on London with Archbishop Neville, Earl … the Fiend’s brother.’

The icy feeling spread and hardened in her breast.

‘We shall not leave London,’ she said. ‘We shall adjourn to our Palace of Westminster.’

As the still tableau of her household began to dissolve, hurrying all ways, she trembled and said softly:

‘So! He ranks us with succubi, demons! We, who are descended from the house of Luxembourg, from the blood of a …’

Margaret Beaufort’s narrow face swam into her vision. A small slender hand gripped Elizabeth’s sleeve. In the Countess’ black eyes was knowledge, warning. Say naught that can harm you, the eyes pleaded. Then the Countess was whispering, new alarums mixed with advice; There were things undisclosed by the courier, fresh assaults from the foul one. Reynold Bray had been busy with ear and wit. Concerning Jacquetta of Bedford; they must go to her at once.

‘My mother?’ said Elizabeth, low and harsh.

‘She is in danger,’ replied the Countess. ‘The Fiend seeks to lay her low.’

‘Ah, God’s blood, he is a canker,’ said the Queen. Her feet and hands were icy, as if she had lain for days in snow.

‘And we will cut him out!’ said Margaret Beaufort, strongly. ‘Come, my liege. We must find her before the Archbishop reaches Westminster.’

Jacquetta had been told of her husband’s death. The news had robbed her of her wits. In a grim mask of sorrow, her once-clear eyes were opaque and wandering. It was also suddenly apparent that she was no longer young. The Duchess had taken to painting of late, and now the spots of cochineal paste stood out like round wounds on each bloodless cheek. Alarmed, Elizabeth saw her thus and realized that those knowing eyes, that mighty spirit, were for the first time in retreat, and thought: Jesu! what shall I do, without her guidance? and more wildly: How have we offended Melusine … I have followed her dictates, I have captured and enslaved a prince. I have endowed palaces and colleges with my wealth, and I have spread my stag’s hide over the whole of England. I have borne children … Here the pattern fell to pieces. She bore sons, and what have I? Three frail and pretty wenches. She shook her head involuntarily. This is madness, and no fault of mine. Melusine never had an enemy like the Fiend!

In the chamber corner a stench was rising. It tickled Eizabeth’s throat and brought on a genteel fit of coughing from Lady Margaret Beaufort. The latter glanced swiftly about and determined the odour’s source – a black candle was alight. She extinguished it and threw it under a deep chest.

‘Her Grace becomes indiscreet,’ she said softly. Elizabeth turned to her.

‘Margaret. How much is known?’

‘Too much,’ said the Countess. She leaned to where Jacquetta sat glassily and said: ‘Your Grace, the images. The waxen images . ‘Elizabeth looked at her, startled. ‘Did you disclose them to anyone?’

In a voice like a sad little wind, the Duchess answered: ‘Aye, once. To the nuns of Sewardsley … they wished for knowledge. There was one whom they would bring down – their Abbess, who used them ill; they sought my secret and I showed them.’

Margaret Beaufort hissed with impatience. Blankly the Duchess looked at her.

‘My lord is dead,’ she whispered. ‘My knight. The handsomest in England …’ Her eyes blurred, went away somewhere far off.

‘Madame!’ cried Margaret. ‘Warwick is upon us … you are to be tried for sorcery unless we act at once. Your Sewardsley nuns have tongues like clappers, for they even told my clerk! Where are the images now?’

The Duchess sighed, and began talking in a sleepwalker’s monotone of her dead knight’s grace, treading the ash of lost passions, muttering as if at that moment they bedded together. The frank demented speech of love. For an hour Elizabeth and the Countess rummaged fretfully in chest and coffer, eventually breaking the lock of a tiny box. There, lying unquietly upon a piece of silk was the tiny Edward, streaked with his own blood, and the misshapen facsimile of Warwick, still cinctured with the iron band.

‘Make up the fire,’ said Elizabeth. From outside came the faint sound of horsemen riding; the sounds of steel and iron and commands. When the flames leaped she took the two figures firmly in her hands. She was more than loath to destroy the King’s image, so in precaution she murmured: ‘May this heat add only power to the Sun in Splendour,’ casting the image into the fire’s heart. At the sight of Warwick’s little figure her lip curled back like a rabid hound’s; she called down a curse upon him for the twentieth time. As she watched him melt and coagulate among the burning logs, a desperate question formed: Will he never die? She turned from the fire to Lady Margaret, whose black eyes net hers calmly, without surprise or censure.

‘So, ’tis done. Your Grace, be comforted. Now–’ practical again – ‘are there witnesses?’

Jacquetta’s voice startled them. ‘Witnesses …’ she quavered … ‘but no proof. Ah, my sweet lord …’

She was a shell, bereft. But Margaret Beaufort was doubly strong, immensely comforting, and to her Elizabeth now turned again.

‘Margaret. Will the Fiend slay the King?’

‘Rumour says yes,’ replied the Countess. ‘But I think otherwise. Bray says he is at Pontefract, royally housed.’ She took Elizabeth’s hand. ‘Come, my liege. Let us confront Archbishop Neville. Surely,’ she mocked; ‘the Church will not be a party to the murder of an anointed King!’

With a small entourage the Queen rode to Westminster, mantling her face against curious stares. The streets were black with people. Volatile and distraught, vague news lately in their ears, they ran alongside the train, grabbing at the outriders’ stirrups. Was it true that Ned had been beheaded up north? Where was he? Jesu preserve him, wherever he was! Towards Westminster Hall, a knot of people chanted Edward’s coronation song. Elizabeth, while motioning to her escort to whip the runners back, was greatly comforted. She alighted outside the Exchequer, and, lifting her velvet robe to plant each small slipper firmly down, mounted the steps to her own Council Chamber. Behind her the mob growled encouragement, and Margaret Beaufort whispered: ‘They are loyal to a man, and Burgundy has already sent word promising support.’

There was an armed guard flanking the Chamber door. They wore Clarence’s Black Bull upon their livery. The Queen’s men marched forward; she heard argument, saw the shaking heads. She threw off the loose velvet hood and stepped forward, small and vital among the tall armoured men. The ranks parted at once, for the guard, unsure, dare not lay hands upon the Queen’s person. She entered: the Chamber was bright with new hangings, those of the See of York. Elizabeth’s chin went up in cool anger. There upon her dais, sat George Neville, the Archbishop, and this sight fed her wrath. She resolved, glaring at him, to have him down from that perch more speedily than he had ascended to it. Next to the dais stood Clarence. He had put on flesh; uneasy triumph clothed his fair Plantagenet face. As she walked towards him the red vision crossed her mind. The heads of father and brother, weeping blood. Clarence’s hands were folded on his sword-hilt; his new wedding-ring was jewelled and prominent. The Fiend’s son-in-law! So she marked him down.

Archbishop Neville rose, extending his hand and suddenly full of doubt, as Elizabeth, Queen of England, advanced and outside the, walls, loyal London clamoured for their King’s return.

For Elizabeth, it was a nightmare test, to be endured not once but many times.

They were felling a tree, with great lusty strokes. She could hear the whine of the falling axe, the crash of the steel on timber. The great bole bled white slivers. They were bringing down the Queen’s Oak, while she stood in Whittlebury Forest, watching, powerless. The thunderous blows gained pace and vigour. She flung out her hands and wrenched from the tossing dream. Still sleep-bemused, she lay blinded by a tress of her own hair. The noise went on, and she identified it. She was not in Whittlebury, she was in the Tower state apartments, and someone beat on the outer chamber door. The bolts were drawn; she heard voices – a man’s urgent, summoning, and Renée’s, as high and hysterical as that day, nearly a year earlier, when they came to tell the Queen that her father and brother were slain.

She slipped from the bed. Fear, odorous and stomach-churning, was all about her once more. She thought, suddenly: Edward is dead! Realizing that which she had always harboured and never dared examine: Edward’s death is my own downfall. Without him … She dared think no further. She stood shivering in the curtains’ dark velvet cave, her mind racing over the past year, recognizing the mistakes made by the King, and her panic gave way to fury as she remembered how he had ignored her counsel. The resentment shown by the Londoners at their King’s imprisonment by Warwick had been shared by the greater part of England. Love Warwick they might – for his ostentatious lordliness and his bonhomie, for his roast oxen and free gifts – yet where the King’s person was concerned that love stopped short. Within a month of Warwick’s coup, Edward had come riding back unharmed from Yorkshire to a tumultuous welcome from all the prominent Londoners. He had been like a schoolboy, tickled by the jest of outwitting Warwick in popularity. Even then she had had the notion that he took it all too lightly. And he could not resist playing the magnanimous ruler.

She had gone on her knees to him.

‘For God’s love, Edward, have Warwick beheaded! He has proved himself a traitor, like your brother of Clarence. Kill them.’ Her imagination fattened on hatred. ‘Let Tiptoft impale them on the highest point of London Bridge!’

Freshly shaven, clad in new white velvet, Edward had listened to her at a banquet ordered in honour of his safe deliverance. He had looked at her with a strangely cynical knowledge.

‘Bessy, Bessy,’ he said quite gently, ‘how you do hate my lord of Warwick!’

She gasped. ‘But, Ned! He rose against you! He invaded our Council with his minions. He laid hands upon your sacred person and–’ sadly – ‘he murdered my father and my brother, both your true men!’

He nodded, briefly commiserating. ‘My heart bled for them, in truth. But–’ He shook his head decisively, ‘I shall not play the tyrant. I have offered Warwick the general pardon, and he will soon come here to accept it.’

Sickly, she said: ‘And what of Clarence?’

‘Foolish,’ said the King. ‘Ambitious, disloyal. Yet still my brother.’

And his glance slid upwards to where, left of the dais, Richard of Gloucester stood; she knew then that Gloucester had been Clarence’s advocate, as always prating of brotherly love and forgiveness. She looked at the young Duke with a savage steel-blue flicker that carried all her jealous resentment: Edward had spoken for half an hour to the company, praising Gloucester for his courage during the affray and the nobility of his endeavours in obtaining the King’s release. Hastings came in for a share of this glory too, and smirked under it.

Elizabeth sought out Anthony. He, praise God, was whole and sound. She embraced him with a lover’s fervour.

‘Did you do naught to ease the King’s plight, sweet lord?’

He shrugged. ‘He sent me to Norwich when we were attacked, for my own safety; Warwick hates me most of all. But I would have aided the King, if I could.’

‘And now you are Earl Rivers,’ she said sadly, and he bowed his head saying: ‘Aye, Jesu preserve my murdered father’s soul!’

‘Thank God I have other brothers.’ No more would she think of poor young headless John. She thought of Edward, master seaman, Lionel, now Bishop of Salisbury; Richard. She would look to her own sons, Thomas, newly created Marquis of Dorset; young Richard Grey. Edward’s daughters too must be protected from the Fiend. She was indignant that the King had promised Elizabeth, the first-born, to John Neville’s son. This knight, said he, although Warwick’s brother, had remained loyal throughout. As if any Neville were less than a demon, a traitor!

‘Warwick is not quenched,’ said Anthony, voicing her own thought.

She cast a desperate glance towards the King. He had donned the Order of the Golden Fleece, bestowed by Charles of Burgundy. By this token he signified to all that Burgundy was his ally, and to hell with France! There had been more talk of Marguerite, who, it was said, was only awaiting the chance to rise again. But during one of the skirmishes following Edward’s release from the northern fortress, King Henry, witless and saintly as ever, had been captured.

‘They found him sitting under a tree, singing,’ said Anthony. ‘While Edward put the enemy to flight. They ran so fast they shed their jackets … they called it ‘Lose-Coat Field’!’ He laughed. ‘Old. Harry came willingly, still whistling the same tune: “if my lords do but love one another …” ’

“… All will be well,” said Elizabeth, but she did not laugh. The certain knowledge of Warwick’s undiminished spleen persisted. When Clarence and Warwick came a few days later to bow the knee in contrition, she was doubly certain of his ill-will. Hatefully close to her own small silkclad feet he knelt, and the King took him by the hand. Warwick was leaner, his black curls were traced with silver. The large grey eyes flared to meet Elizabeth’s, and she felt the steel of his will. The sight of him hurt her heart. All her curses turned inward and festered impotently. So she turned her uncompromising loathing upon Clarence and saw the meekness on his face give way to bafflement. Self-confessed traitor though he was, the Queen’s malevolence startled him.

Warwick would rise again; she knew it. And here, at the Tower, in the quailing oak of her bedchamber, in Renée’s yelps, and the slither of a drawn sword, was the proof of her foreboding. She flung on a silk robe and pushed through the bed-curtains, to stand, hard-eyed, while one of two messengers knelt and thrust a parchment towards her. He and his fellow were both pale, scarred by wind and mud. Renée was still volubly dispensing grief. Elizabeth thought fleetingly: she had seen much disaster, both in Marguerite’s household and in mine; yet I should be the one to scream! She turned and struck Renée in the face; the screams diminished to a sob. To the messengers she said: ‘Tell me, quickly. Is the King dead?’ the while unrolling the parchment and seeing, in a quick surge of relief, that part of the letter was written in Edward’s own flambouyant hand. Written at Doncaster …

‘He is exiled, my liege,’ said the man. ‘He and the Duke of Gloucester and your Grace’s brother, Earl Rivers; Lord Hastings and others. Warwick’s army came upon them by night. John Neville led the rout – he was enraged because the King had taken his earldom away and bestowed it on Lord Percy.’

Yes, she had warned him in vain. Never trust a Neville! She said: ‘Where is the King now? I must join him instantly.’

‘Your Grace,’ said the courier desperately, ‘he’s half-way to the Low Countries. They took ship at Lynn, with only the clothes on their backs. Read, Madame.’

Candlelight flickered on the message, penned by a panicking clerk, and all ink-blots. Her eyes leaped to the postscript written by Edward.

‘Twenty thousand men are at our heels. God keep you, dearest, my Bessy. Get you to Sanctuary with our little maids …’

Ah God, she thought, he has left me. Left me alone to the Fiend’s mercy. Curse him for it. Nay, (hastily) rather Jesu preserve him for without him I am doomed. To Renée she said: ‘My clothes, now. We, too, will ride to Lynn; command one of my brother Edward’s ships and follow his Grace.’

The courier gave one pitying succinct look at Elizabeth’s swollen body. Had the Queen lost her wits? She was seven months gone with child. And she, following his eyes to what she had, for the moment, forgotten, thought in despair: why must I be enceinte at such a time as this? Ned takes his pleasure, pardons the Fiend, then puts the North Sea in between us …

‘Madame!’ said the bearer, urgently. ‘Collect your daughters and let us be gone to Sanctuary. There’s a boat waiting below.’

He was no hero, and he wished the Queen would hurry. He had heard enough tales of slaughter to frighten him. Warwick rode on the Tower itself, to rescue witless Harry Six, who had been housed there since after the battle of Lose-Coat Field.

Dressed in her furs, Elizabeth met her household at the steps of the watergate. Through the archway rain fell in drifting spears and the wind moaned up the slime-green stairs leading to the river. A handful of men held torches high, and the flames billowed and swirled with a ghastly leaping light. A flurry of wet dead leaves, blown by a far-off gale, slapped against the portcullis. Agitated by tempest, the swollen river flowed by, black, then red in the cressets’ glare. Frightened, the nurse, Lady Berners, was fussing over her three fair-haired charges: Elizabeth, in her fifth year the replica of her father, Mary, a year younger, and eighteen-month-old Cicely. The gentlewomen wore an odd assortment of garments hastily donned, and were shivering with cold and fear. Margaret Cobbe, the midwife, had her little coffer of medicines firmly beneath her arm. Renée was still sobbing. Elizabeth said sharply:

‘My mother! Where is the Duchess of Bedford?’

‘Here, my liege.’ Two more women were supporting Jacquetta along the narrow way. She came like a brittle-winged black bird. The wind tugged her widow’s veil, and blew it aside, revealing the crudely rouged cheeks, the vacant stare. Elizabeth set her foot upon the slippery step while the torchbearers milled about her, whispering: ‘For God’s love, Madame, take care!’ their hands trembling protectively about her cumbrous body. She had begun the descent when there was a cry from Renée.

‘My liege, wait! We have forgotten someone!’

She stopped, half-turned. The esquires saw her shudder and marked it down to the cold. Oh, Renée, Renée, she thought. I had hoped that none would notice. How the past follows us! One of the men was already running back to the nursery.

‘Oh, my liege,’ said Renée, laughing and crying. ‘We had forgotten Mistress Grace!’

The man returned after a moment. He held a drowsy baby girl clasped against his mud-splashed doublet. Secretly he hoped the Queen might reward him – with a coin, or even a smile – for saving the bastard daughter of King Edward; the child by whom all seemed to set such store; this flaxen mite, who shared the princesses’ nursery. But the Queen gave no sign of approval. She looked down once at the yawning infant, drew her furs about her and proceeded down to the waiting boat.

‘Rest easy, little maid,’ said the esquire kindly. He had six sons and longed for a daughter.

As they rocked on the black water, Elizabeth sat stonily withdrawn. On either bank cressets flamed eerily as Warwick’s advance guard entered the City; she saw them, but paid little heed. The cold reproachful wind tossed the dark river around their small craft. Mary was crying, and Jacquetta of Bedford muttered to herself. Elizabeth heard neither of them. Her mind was filled with Edward’s angry voice, two years ago, in the chamber with the white roses and the damning grief.

‘I go to spend my time with a lady who is kinder than you. And should I get a child upon her … it shall be a reminder of your evil work this day! Oh Desmond, Desmond …’

As Westminster Sanctuary loomed ahead, dimly lit by monkish tapers, the Queen glanced down once more at the living token of her guilt. And Mistress Grace, seeing only beauty, stretched out her arms and smiled.

Lancaster! Lancaster!

The name was carried in the beating hoofs, in the hiss of the rain, in the rattle of spur and bridle and arms, as the Earl of Warwick, flanked by a score of harnessed men, rode on London. And he recalled how in his youth, among the fresh winds of Yorkshire, the toast had always been: ‘Death to Lancaster!’ Now Lancaster was his buckler and battle-cry; it jangled sickly in his ears. The outriders growled it, like a talisman to ward off ill. Warwick rode for Lancaster and yet he rode for England, and at an unthinkable price. Memory rose like bile. As the miles swept by – dull, damp November roads treacherous with leaves – he was back, in thought, at Angers, in high summer. There and then, he had wrought the impossible, for England’s good name. He, whom they once called ‘le conduiseur du royaume’ had grovelled like the meanest cur. To a woman!

Blood sprayed from his rowels; his horse shrieked and went faster. Riding mechanically, he saw again that French council chamber with its effeminate furnishings: fanciful tapestries, curlicued window-frames. The sun brightened the rich blue and green of the carpet. He had had time to study that carpet minutely, kneeling on it for the best part of an hour before a woman whom he hated more than any other. Save Isabella Woodville, who by her guile had brought him to this.

He knelt before Margaret of Anjou; she who had ridden with fire through England, who had set his own father Salisbury’s head on Micklegate. To Margaret, whom he had denounced publicly all those years earlier, he sued for aid. She was his only hope, with her French troops and King Louis (the wily old spider, hand-rubbing upon the dais) ready to uphold his kinswoman in any overthrow of England. Warwick had always found Louis’s attentions flattering and it doubled his humiliation that Louis had to witness this sickening confrontation. Yet he, with his long Valois nose for intrigue, had engineered the meeting.

At first Margaret would not speak at all. Her eyes were two cold flames, gazing somewhere rapt and lost. Warwick was null; an entity so loathsome that he had ceased to exist. Yet he persisted; he had rehearsed a speech until it was a second skin on his tongue. A classic paean in which he abjured all his past insults against the Frenchwoman. He debased himself absolutely yet left room for his usefulness to be gauged. He had been careful to ride to Angers escorted by sumptuously armoured men. During his plea, while Margaret stared stonily away, he drew his sword and laid it symbolically before her. To all this he added a soupçon of flattery; flattery in truth, for Margaret’s beauty was much diminished. At last, one flicker in her eyes showed her resignation to the hideous fact that she and Warwick needed one another.

While Louis, like a pander, washed dry hands and quirked his lip, Margaret deigned to address her old enemy. She berated him in a hoarse and searing voice, opening old wounds – the death of Suffolk, Clifford, Northumberland, and Beaufort of Somerset. He was amazed at her long memory. He knelt abjectly; the carpet’s green and blue merged, shimmered. No fury like a woman’s, he thought, and was himself angry, his thoughts turning again to the one responsible; the Woodville witch. Sweat trickled down inside his shirt. There was a grinding in his vitals, a constant discomfort around his middle which he had had for a long time and grown used to; this day, however, long kneeling and tension made it unbearable.

His witch-hunter, Thomas Wake, had mentioned waxen images, had repeated the description given him by one of the Sewardsley nuns. No trace of them remained, however, and Wake had seen no physical proof. As for the nuns, they were all under a terrible penance imposed by their bullying Abbess; they could speak to none. He thought: God’s Blood! – as Margaret’s ranting voice continued – I would fain have seen those Woodville women brought down; the old one walking the streets with a taper, and the other … the red lips, the sinuousness, the unjust, unholy power of her! Her image wound about him like a doom. Margaret was coughing, a rough draining sound. Beaufort of Somerset the younger stepped forward with wine, and Warwick raised his eyes.

Margaret gulped, taking wine like a man, wrist stiff. She said: ‘I have listened. Your words stink in my nostrils. Non! Jamais!’

Warwick said, douce as a maiden: ‘Most noble Queen of Heaven …’ and she turned, white with fury to Louis.

‘Hear how the dog mocks me!’

‘It will not hurt to hear him further,’ soothed Louis. He found Margaret’s histrionics irksome; he had housed and fed her for months and now hoped for some recompense.

‘Madame, I come in peace,’ said Warwick simply. ‘Join forces with me and return with an army. I will help you to claim the throne of England for–’ reverently – ‘your sacred son.’

A long silence followed. Hope trembled within him. Then Margaret said:

‘My son. My prince. Whom you called bastard!’

‘Your son, the Prince of Wales by right,’ said Warwick. ‘His father, noble Henry, lies now in the Tower sorrowing for you.’

Louis interposed. ‘To me, the scheme sounds fair. With French and English force, the realm could be snatched from Edward of March. French troops in the majority, though, monsieur. We would not wish for another debacle, as when Englishmen refused to follow …’

Warwick coloured at the barb, controlled himself. He said sagely: ‘True, mon roi.’

Margaret was waspish. ‘My lord Warwick, you are a traitor. Once you upheld Edward of March; how do I know you will not betray me?’

He said steadily and with truth: ‘Yes, Madame. I loved Ned of March, and gave him my heart’s loyalty. That was before he was ruined by his Queen.’

‘Ha!’ said Margaret, savagely amused. ‘Isabella! I doted on the child. She rose high.’ The amusement faded. ‘She usurped my own estate!’

‘She did, ma, reine,’ agreed Warwick. ‘And now she and her family are no more than night-thieves. They rob, degrade, murder. They must be dispossessed.’ His voice shook.

‘I do not trouble over which of your barons is robbed or which rewarded,’ said the Frenchwoman icily. ‘My concern is for my son.’ Her voice grew unrecognizably soft. ‘Le Cygne d’Argent … La Fleur d’Anjou!’

God, let us make an end, thought Warwick; she rambles of silver swans and flowers. He said stoutly: ‘The throne is promised to Edward of Lancaster, your son, Madame.’

He fancied she weakened, and again his hope built. ‘Well, Madame?’

‘Clarence!’ she spat the word. ‘What of his claim?’

Inwardly he sighed. She knew all. It had been folly, the way he had used Clarence, giving him Isabel, promising him the throne once Edward was deposed. But Clarence could be bribed, blinded with words, fobbed off.

‘There is no other heir,’ he assured Margaret. ‘Only your son, Edward of Lancaster.’

‘Vraiment.’ Then she shook her head. ‘I mistrust you, my lord. You will betray me.’

‘Madame–’ he had this last hurdle already breached – ‘I can make surety against that. Let your prince marry my youngest daughter, Anne. Then if I play you false, I butcher my own line!’

The Queen burst into ugly laughter. With renewed venom she beat Warwick with words. She would as lief marry her prince to a pig than to Anne Neville, who was unfit to tie the points of his hose, whose blood was scullions’ blood compared to that of the Swan, the Flower. He thought: Margaret of Anjou is mad; a different malady from that of Henry her husband; but mad none the less.

‘Ma reine,’ he said patiently, ‘the lady Anne and your son are all slips from the same tree. Are we not all descended from the great Edward Third?’

For a further hour they wrangled. Even Louis’s wily calm was tried by their arguments. A distraction was provided in the form of Edward of Lancaster himself. He entered with a train of foppish noblemen. He wore blood-coloured satin and looked older than his seventeen years. Strong and slender, with hard eyes; a warlike mien, Warwick thought approvingly.

‘I shall give the Prince Edward my stoutest captains for the affray,’ he promised. ‘We shall grind York into the dust and Edward of Lancaster shall be immortalized in the annals of chivalry.’

We shall grind York into the dust. The words were iron in his throat. For the first time he looked into his own mind; anguish writhed there like snakes, and every snake a Woodville. Why, oh God, did Edward ever wed her? Those small white hands have stabbed York to the heart.

‘Yes!’ the Prince was saying, sharp and bright. ‘I will ride on England, and claim my throne. I will wed your daughter, monsieur, and make England mine for ever!’

Queen Margaret looked appealingly at Louis, who spread his hands, smiled like a depraved cardinal. Warwick carefully rose from his knees.

‘It tears my heart, this,’ she said, sighing deeply. But I see there is no other way. One thing.’ She raised a fierce admonishing hand. ‘Your Anne shall have my prince. But they shall not lie together until Lancaster is strong in England. I forbid it!’

She looked ardently at her son. Warwick bowed.

‘So be it. When shall the arrangements be made?’ Margaret was coughing again. She said: ‘I care not; but let us ride on England soon.’

Louis said kindly: ‘I will arrange all. The contract shall be solemnized here, in the Cathedral of Angers.’

‘Bien.’ Margaret looked viperishly at Warwick. ‘And we will both swear on a piece of the True Cross to keep faith!’

Sweating, Warwick had quit the chamber at last. The pain in his bowels was like pincers. By sheer mental strength he threw it off, and rode to his lodging. Anne waited there for whatever news he brought. Waited patient, helpless, scarcely out of childhood. When he climbed the curling stair to her bower he found her weeping, as if she knew already that her destiny was tied to Lancaster’s star. In the next room her sister Isabel, Clarence’s wife, lay moaning in child-bed fever, nursed by two unskilled slovenly Frenchwomen. Warwick stood on the doorsill and watched while his youngest daughter dried her eyes. He knew more of her heart than she realized. Long ago at Middleham, when both she and Richard of Gloucester were children, she had given him her heart, lastingly, with every expectation of a happy marriage. Now Gloucester should never have her. Warwick had offered her to him once (at a price) and Gloucester’s loyalty had rejected the bribe. Clarence had had no such scruples regarding Isabel. Gloucester, Clarence, Edward! How long since they were all together? And who was it who had slashed that bond to ribbons? The endless permutation. All evil, all disorder, all betrayal. Like a great spider-web, it flung itself over the houses of Plantagenet and York. And inevitably at its nucleus – the divine corruption of Elizabeth Woodville.

So thought Warwick as he rode on London, to the heart-heavy beat of Lancaster! Lancaster! Unknown to him, Edward and Gloucester tossed on the North Sea, exiled into darkness. Something within Warwick brought forth a groan, and muffled words.

‘Ah, God, Ned! Once we could have conquered the world, and now I must ride against you!’

Butcher William Gould was on his way to the river. With him went his wife, three prentices, and half a beef and two muttons already rank from hanging in his Chepeside shop. The prentices were a necessary evil, brought along to shoulder the meat, and Mistress Gould had simply refused to stay behind.

‘You promised I should see the Queen.’ She caught up her kirtle and ran, trying to match her husband’s long strides. She was a pretty woman, dressed in her best scarlet houpeland trimmed with rabbitfur. A snowy wimple starched with arrowroot haloed her small bright face. Gould looked at her indulgently.

‘So you shall, dame.’ Although, as they fought the seething crush that spilled down Mincing Lane into Tower Street – fishporters, carters, vagrants – he wondered on this score. The last time he had gone to Westminster Sanctuary with the weekly carcasses, the Queen had been closeted; praying, Lady Scrope had told him tartly. Gould had smiled, knowing he had a right to inquire. For he had promised King Edward long ago, that he would succour ‘his Bessy’ in any emergency. And this was one, in truth.

Warwick’s men were conspicuous in the City. Everywhere the Bear and Ragged Staff or Clarence’s Bull were blazoned on tabards, carried on banners by small knots of wary-eyed foot-soldiers. Gould grinned as he saw how the Londoners persecuted these men – in little ways subtle enough to ensure impunity – a carelessly outthrust foot, a jostle, a curse half-spoken. Rancour fermented, and lately a lack of hope obtained. Two months had passed since Edward and his followers had been driven from the shores of Norfolk. It seemed that Warwick was master; all the frowns and praying, all the tears (Gould’s wife had wept copiously) could not gainsay this. And yet, on neither occasion when he had been admitted to the Queen had Gould seen tears or hopelessness – only a poised tension. Cool she is, the butcher mused, catching his wife’s sleeve as she migrated to a pedlar selling ribbons. Was she always? He wondered, unrealistically, what it would be like to bed the King’s Grey Mare.

He turned to chivvy the prentices who staggered redfaced beneath the reeking joints of meat. Royal meat! He pushed the youths in front of him so that he could watch their safe progress. At the corner of Tower and Thames Street where the way narrowed and the carved house-gables leaned drunkenly down, Gould’s little party was brought to a sudden halt by people sweating, swearing, elbowing. Gould was pressed close against the stinking habit of a friar, whose creeping lice transferred themselves to the butcher’s doublet. Incensed, he brushed them off and tried to push on, his passage blocked by a row of broad backs. Something or someone was coming; the people were straining on tiptoe; the hubbub of voices soared a semitone higher. Gould peered over the shoulders of a small fishmonger. From Billingsgate and Petty Wales, from Eastchepe and up from Dowgate on the Thames, folk were crowding towards a procession that filtered slowly from the Tower. The Tower itself looked unreal, an almost luminous grey-white against a hanging pall of fog. Several urchins were clinging on to a water conduit and Gould pulled them down, himself climbing to this vantage point, and craning upwards. The procession struggled nearer; they were Warwick’s men, and their coming was halted by a carter’s mischievously overturned wain. Vile language drifted through the misty air. Then the company came on, escorting someone who rode in their midst. A ragged cheer went up, followed by shouted insults. Throughout the crowd a shiver of incredulity ran as they saw who came; Gould whistled in amazement.

‘Why, the devil damn me!’ he cried. ‘They’ve got Daft Harry from his prayers!’

King Henry sat limply upon a spavined horse. A worn velvet robe had been flung about him and the Lancastrian collar of ‘S’s, green with verdigris, clanked upon his concave chest. He wore his black skull-cap crowned with a tarnished diadem, and in his hand he bore a staff from which three foxtails drooped: the emblem of Agincourt! Gould spat in disbelief. With one flaccid hand King Henry clutched the pommel of his saddle, and now and then looked at his homemade sceptre wonderingly as if it were a mysterious extension of his own arm. His pale face was expressionless, but his lips moved in a ceaseless babble of prayer.

Warwick’s henchmen nudged the horses into a trot, and Henry bounced in his saddle like a wooden doll. Trumpeters sounded an untidy fanfare. The leading knight raised his hand to the assembled mob.

‘Way for Henry of Lancaster!’ he shouted. ‘Lancaster for ever!’

He cast a savage look around, and one or two people grudgingly echoed the challenge. They were instantly set upon by the partisans of York. The fighting raised clouds of dirt; a fishmonger, with a crude White Rose sewn on his apron, smacked his neighbour in the face with a great silvery mackerel. Gould hoisted his wife up to watch the fun.

‘Lancaster!’ bawled the herald again. A storm of jeering arose. Soapy Jack, a great lummox who swept out taverns and sometimes lay day-long crooning in the gutter, bored his way head-first through the crowd. His wide toothless mouth drooled spittle.

‘Where’s Ned?’ he roared, bursting through the ranks of horses and men. ‘Where’s our Ned, then? You ain’t our King!’ Heedless of the blows raining down on him from the escort’s staves, he forced his way to Henry. Doubling his fist he punched the frail dark-clad figure hard in the thigh.

Henry’s sleepwalker eyes swivelled. He looked down in a sad daze at Soapy Jack.

‘Forsooth and forsooth,’ he observed. ‘Ye do wrong to strike the Lord’s anointed.’

Gould’s wife giggled all the way upriver to Westminster, but the butcher was pensive. He stretched his legs in their fine woollen hose in the bottom of the boat, and mused on prosperity. His own affluence had been brought about by King Edward and none other. Trade was better than he and his fraternity ever remembered it. But if Edward’s day were done … gloomily he recalled the old times, when Henry and his hated French consort sat at Westminster. Then, foreigners would trade rather with the Devil than with England. He looked at the great cranes dipping on either side of the Thames, the galleys and carvels and trawlers, from Flanders and Italy and Iceland. Bringing their treasures in trade for English cloth. Cloth meant beef, and beef meant gold for merchants such as himself, good marriages for his daughters, fine garments. He chewed his thumbnail savagely, and promised he would light a candle to Edward’s safe return.

At Westminster Sanctuary they were admitted by a one-legged monk. He hopped nimbly on crutches to where the Queen had her apartments. Inside the gloomy building, Gould shivered. The walls were washed by river-mist, insidious and foul, and several high windows were cracked, inviting a killing draught. As if to darken an already heavy mood, a bell tolled and from the near-by Abbey came the ghostly plainsong of the brothers. Like a thin black rabbit, the lame guide skipped ahead; at the entrance to the Queen’s buttery four pages relieved the prentices of their burden.

‘Wait here,’ Gould instructed his boys. ‘Brother! is there a chance that we might see her Grace?’

‘She asks to see you,’ replied the monk, and led them down a short, fog-filmed cloister. Finally they reached a vast, lead-bound door behind which lay the Queen. They entered; they felt change, smelled perfume instead of incense, trod rushes instead of cold flags. There was a fair degree of warmth, and candles. Women, deployed meekly round the walls, were sewing, and four fair-haired small girls played at their nurse’s knee. Prone, Gould heard the Queen’s voice.

‘Come closer, butcher. I wish to thank you. We should, I vow, have starved without your aid.’

He rose, crimson with pride, and went forward to kiss the cool hand. Mistress Gould curtseyed and hung her head, then as the Queen spoke – words which to her disappointment she did not afterwards recall – looked up, and was bemused. She did not know whether to weep or worship. Mistress Gould had on her best gown and knew she looked well; Queen Elizabeth was not even gaily dressed, she wore plain black wool and no jewels. Her head was loosely bound in a netted coif. None the less, Mistress Gould, looking at that half-turned cheek like a crescent moon, felt herself plump and ruddy and gauche. The Queen was all silver; even her voice, each word high and exact like a lute’s song. Gould noticed something else: on his last visit, the Queen had been heavy with child, now she was as slender as a young maid. As if she read his thought, she said:

‘Master Gould, we have a most glorious advent to our royal house.’ She rose and crossed to the door of an antechamber; moving with a soft hushing of her long black gown. A sudden almost tangible air of joy filled the chamber. The monks’ distant devout song rose and fell. The Queen threw open the ante-chamber door.

‘Renée, bring in – our prince!’

Tears sprang to Gould’s eyes. He brushed them away as a week-old child was carried in. Swaddled like a chrysalis, it bawled loudly, drowning the distant anthem.

‘Oh, God,’ said the butcher, when he could speak.

‘A fair omen, Master Gould,’ said Elizabeth softly. You may salute the prince. Without your sides of beef I should not have had the strength to carry him.’

Gould, trembling, kissed the tiny hand unwrapped for this purpose. This he would tell his grandchildren …

‘His name is Edward, for his sire,’ said the Queen.

‘Whom Christ preserve,’ said Gould, choking. He had not realized how much York meant to him, and the merchants and goldsmiths and gildsmen all over Engand who loved Ned so much. Mistress Gould stole another peep at the Queen’s tranquil silvery face, as Elizabeth repeated: ‘A fair omen.’ Then the clear voice rose. ‘I have a message for all loyal subjects, Master Gould!’

They nodded, waited, scarcely breathing, while she spoke. Master Gould would have given half his estate to turn a somersault on the rushes; Ned was coming home! The Queen had had secret messages … Ned was safe, in Bruges, and already equipping a fleet to sail home and regain his kingdom.

‘Tell only your most trusted friends,’ said the Queen. ‘It will give them heart to resist – Warwick – to the last ditch.’

When they returned to the City, there was another crowd on Tower Hill. A hot-headed gathering, angry yet pleased to see the execution of one whom they had feared for his cruelty yet revered as Edward’s Constable. Butcher Tiptoft. The same herald who had bawled acknowledgment of Lancaster read the indictment. He stood at the foot of the scaffold; its planks were crusted with ancient blood.

‘In the name of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, representing all the greatness of Lancaster and the Crown, here is condemned to execution by beheading Sir John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester … as per the law of this land. For his treason and tyranny …’

He gave the signal quickly, hearing the uncertain growl of the crowd. Any execution these days was a hazardous affair. But Tiptoft, mounting steps that had run with the blood of many of his own victims, seemed in a leisurely humour. His bulging eyes surveyed the throng hungrily as if regretting the unsevered heads, the unripped bowels … it was almost, they whispered, as if he took some pleasure in his own execution, and this was too much to contemplate.

He knelt, saying loudly to the headsman: ‘I pray you, sever my head in three strokes. In honour of the Blessed Trinity.’

The watchers gasped, terrified by this holy heresy. Was the Butcher immune to pain? Seemingly he was, for he made no murmur as the obedient axe sliced a groove in his spine, then clove half-way so that the neck drooped from a yellow-sinewed stump. The final swing sent Tiptoft’s head gushing redly on to the straw. Sorcery, the crowd muttered.

Master Gould gave only cursory attention to this show. He was slipping from friend to friend, seeing smiles, hearing joyful incredulous oaths. Ned was coming home.

He stood before her, a weary Atlas, and her heart leaped upward to greet him. Leaped, as it had done years earlier, through love, for John’s return. Edward was greater or lesser than love; he was her salvation. He strode into Sanctuary where for five months she had waited with her needle and bright hessian saints. Ringed by little bursting cries from her women she rose slowly. In the instant before he took her in his arms she noted that his clothes were clean and fresh, and knew that he had been in London for some hours. He lived, and he was safe. Against his strong breast she exhaled her shuddering relief.

Shadows entered through the lead-bound door; courtiers, Abbot Milling and his monks, drawn like moths to the scene. Discreet, still pawns, they stood while Queen met King. She thought: we are all chessmen. And which way will the Hand move us next? And whose is the Hand? The choristers, heard through inches of stone, began their office. That sombre drone which had accompanied her labour. Plainsong and childbirth, combined in memory, oddly unpeaceful to her ears.

They were bringing in the prince. She felt Edward stiffen with excitement; his arm gripped her tightly. The prince. Edward’s great golden hand moved waveringly down to the mewling bundle. His fingers signed the tiny bald dome with the Cross. Then he wept. He moved to where the little princesses clung wide-eyed, around Lady Berners. The tiny Elizabeth raised her arms, was caught up and kissed. She was a beautiful blonde rosy child, sweet-temperedly smiling. Edward set her down, then in turn lifted Mary and Cicely. All the time he wept and smiled like a rainbow.

‘My lord,’ said Elizabeth, wanting his arm about her again, for the strength which had supported her over the past months seemed to have ebbed completely.

‘Soft, Bessy, I must greet all my little maids!’ He bent to the fourth child. To Elizabeth it seemed that his tenderness drew on another dimension, something mystically patterned, hateful.

‘Mistress Grace!’ He settled the child against his shoulder. She was also blonde, but her eyes were not blue like the others, but a clear vibrant green. Sad, adult eyes, that could have looked upon a time gone by. The time of Desmond’s death. The living token of past sin.

‘Are you a good maid, my Grace? Are you loyal to me?’

Delighted, the child buried her face in Edward’s fur collar. One eye peeped out at the assembly. She was loved. Loved, as she longed to be (the eye rolled, rested on the Queen) by the silver lady.

The women were sobbing with joy, watching the King’s demonstrations of tenderness, kneeling while he went among them with embraces; Lady Scrope, Lady Berners, Anne Haute. He kissed their mouths. Jacquetta of Bedford went to him blankly, unable to share joy or sorrow, immersed in senile memory. Lastly Edward returned to the baby prince, and stood, magnificent, his hand upon the cradle, ready to address the company. The shadows took on life, came softly forward; the gaunt Abbot Milling, the white-haired Prior John Esteney, their servants, offering round wine and ale. Anthony Woodville, a little worn from the vicissitudes of exile. At the sight of her brother warmth poured through Elizabeth. Then she saw Richard of Gloucester standing beside Anthony, and her smile died like sun under cloud. She had no reason to dislike him. He spoke seldom and now looked so weary that he might collapse. But Edward was speaking of him this moment, of Richard’s courage and integrity, extolling him above the skies. What now had he done to gain such reverence? She felt a scowl set like a mask upon her face. The child Grace was staring at her – this rankled too. Her hand moved in a quick impatient gesture of dismissal. The small face lost its happy light.

‘I come to reclaim my kingdom!’ declared the King. ‘Ah, thanks be to Jesu for the love of English folk, for the generosity of the Seigneur de la Gruythuyse, my mentor in Bruges. Good people, I am once more equipped to crush my foes!’

They had landed at Ravenspur, said the King, with their small army. York had opened to them. Laughing, he said: ‘I mounted the plumes of Henry of Lancaster and swore that I came only to regain my Duchy of York! Then southward … they flocked to my standard. We shall conquer.’

‘Amen,’ said Richard of Gloucester softly.

Edward, snatched up a cup of the Abbot’s flat brewing. He called for a toast – to Burgundy – to all Flemings who now formed part of his army. To his brother Richard who had upheld him, to his brother-in-law Anthony Woodville who had advised him – and to the blessed return to his side of George, his brother of Clarence.

She could scarcely believe it. Clarence, murderer of her father and young brother, again forgiven? Yes, there he was, the black-heart, the ill-omened knave. Having the wisdom to stand a little contritely apart. Armour bright, cheeks pink, helm beneath his arm. And Richard of Gloucester had been, once more, the peacemaker. The blood surged in her temples, throbbing, threatening. The King was relating how Richard had drawn his brother over from Lancaster; George would be welcome back at court. Her court! housing murder, treachery. In that moment she desired most fervently Clarence’s death.

Edward took them all from Sanctuary within the hour. She rested easily in the barge, the little prince’s cradle close to her feet. She smiled deliciously, her eyes upon Anthony; her beloved brother, whose charm offset the irritating presence of Gloucester, and the insult of Clarence’s nearness. The forbidding spires of the Abbey faded behind them. The river was excitable with March tides, the air fragrant with the promise of blown buds. To Baynard’s Castle on the Thames they rowed, past the cluttered wharves. Swans skimmed upwards before the craft, and on the banks the fishing-nets dropped jewels.

She lay one night with Edward before he left to gather more men. He was jubilant; the Archbishop of Canterbury had once again touched the crown to his King’s brow in Westminster. Yet there was a volatile nervousness about Edward, a creeping doubt. In her arms, he asked if she thought it were sin to do battle at Eastertide.

Have you forgotten Towton?’ she said gently. Eleven years ago, when I was enmeshed in sorrow. ‘It was Palm Sunday when you vanquished Lancaster.’ I remember that winter well; the snow covering Bradgate, the racking grief; the coming of the Fiend.

‘So it was.’ Edward sounded relieved. ‘A good augury. We put Margaret to flight, then.’

‘Now you give battle to … Warwick.’

‘Yes, who has joined with Margaret … for that boy whom he once called bastard … Edward, Prince of Wales!’ He laughed angrily. ‘Our own prince Edward is Prince of Wales, and none other!’ He was silent for a moment, then said uncertainly. ‘Yet I wonder … did Holy Harry breed that boy, or did he not?’

She said slowly: ‘Marguerite’s son is bastard. It is no lie.’

He raised himself in the bed to stare at her.

‘To fight a traitor,’ she continued urgently, ‘I would myself do battle on any day. Easter is no sin, if the day falls then. As for Marguerite …’

She told him. Of the days and nights, the tall figure passing ghostlike to Marguerite’s chamber. Her own silent vigilance.

‘What? You were there?’

‘Yes, Ned. Night after night the Queen took Beaufort of Somerset to her bed. She grieved outrageously when he was slain.’

‘So!’ Laughing with relief, with mocking triumph, he began to call Margaret whore with doubled venom. He seized and kissed Elizabeth, who, in the darkness lay and thought of Marguerite, who had called her Isabella and been kind. It was all a lost, gone, far-off thing. The vital issue was that Edward should win this battle, that the Fiend should be vanquished. Now that Edward of Lancaster’s bastardy was sure in the King’s mind, he would go into combat like a lion, certain of God and the right. She had given him this confidence. If only there were some way to ensure his victory! Her head throbbed painfully, her rushing blood made the sound of distant seas. If only the Duchess were still her prop and adviser, instead of the empty husk she had become. Edward was already asleep; she breathed this powerful warmth. Above the coverlet she brought her slender hands together, lay stiffly, entombed in thought.

Her mouth moved in a secret prayer; her ears strained for a silent voice. Within her mind, a swirling mist arose.

Warwick could see nothing. A giant white hand, ghostridden, clustered in blinding pockets about him. It clung to his armour, settled and dripped like tears. He was bleeding where a poignard had pierced his hand. Behind him somewhere in the treacherous whiteness lay the St. Albans road. To his left was the hollow called Dead Man’s Bottom, and all around him men fought and swore and struck wildly. He could hear the spectral clangour of their steel. He guessed that the King was in the heart of the affray, and half-knew that his own men and those of the Earl of Exeter were working across to the hollow on the lip of which Richard of Gloucester’s vanguard struggled. In the endless unnatural whiteness his own esquire appeared like a spirit wielding an axe, cried briefly on the saints and disappeared again in the chilling milk.

White as a woman’s body, white as a funeral candle, mist surged and eddied and closed upon him lovingly. Far behind as through a tunnel, he heard cries, screams, curses. The terrified neigh of horses, the long grunting anguish of a man spitted through the bowels. Easter Sunday. Half past five in the morning when He who died on Tree came again to his fellows. Eleven years ago, when that same Lord had passed through into Jerusalem, Warwick had fought – also in whiteness, the purity of snow. Shoulder to shoulder with Ned of England. As they should be fighting now, were it not for the Woodville – the witch. Fog filled his nose and eyes, fog imbued with silent mocking life, and he knew that his naming of her was correct. In his mind, her sinuousness, smooth forehead and red lips flitted ahead, wreathed by the smoke-like mist, beckoning him to death.

Somewhere, nearer now, fighting desperately against the assaults of Warwick’s reserve and Exeter’s men, was Richard of Gloucester. Dickon, with whom he had sat for so many hours before the great fire at Middleham; talking of everything under heaven; of love, war, Christ and philosophy, while the charitable flames fell smoothly on the faces of Earl and boy. Dickon, to whom he had, taught every nuance of battle, was holding out against the foe, and had asked for no reinforcements yet. Warwick knew this by the gasped messages from his own scouts. In all his dismay he felt a fierce and searing pride. The curling whiteness swooped to kiss his cheek, like the salute of a corpse. He thought briefly of Anne, his daughter, wedded in her heart to Gloucester, wedded on True Cross to the Frenchwoman’s son. His lips curled bitterly. Margaret had not even allowed that son to join the battle, and was keeping him safe at Cerne Abbey. She was only waiting to see whether Warwick kept his pledge. And here he was, staggering in mist, while his armies, selected from the hosts of Lancaster and the adherents of Neville, plunged about him, as lost as he. His esquire emerged again from the chilling blindness.

‘What passes?’ cried Warwick.

‘My lord … Oxford’s men were defecting! They rode south to Barnet, to loot and pillage. The mist has made them mad!’

‘And Sir John, my, brother?’

‘Lord Montagu makes for Edward’s troops – he attacks them from the rear. The Earl of Oxford is driving his men back from the town … but their defection has cost us sore …’

‘Fools, traitors,’ muttered Warwick. We need more men, he thought, and bitterly: would that I had Clarence’s sumptuous force with me. But Clarence is once again the King’s sworn man, and is he any less for that? Would I be less were I to surrender, now, this minute? The fog swung about him in coils, stinging his eyes. The groans of dying men assailed him. No, no. My followers would have perished for nothing.

He looked wildly about. ‘The reserve! Bid them advance to my standard!’

‘My lord, my lord,’ answered the esquire. The white blanket wrapped him, so that a disembodied voice spoke to Warwick. ‘We cannot – they can see no standard clearly.’

Lord Jesus, what a day!’

‘The day is witched,’ said Warwick softly. Even as he spoke, the mist suddenly rolled back, like a bland tapestry rising. It faded; gold threads of sunlight pierced the last smoky wisps. There was the fierce bray of trumpets, the grunt and thud and steel-swish of combat. Then from the south, a great crying: ‘Treason! treason! treason!’ The Earl wheeled, sword in hand. Now he could see – grey armour patterned with red, spouting wounds, a carpet of dead men on the periphery of his vision. There was the broken line of Hastings’s vanguard reforming, and dangerously close, the great fiery blossom of the King’s standard. A courier ran up, his face full of terror.

‘My lord, all is lost! In the mist, Lord Montagu’s men mistook the standards – they thought that Oxford’s Star was the Sun in Splendour …’

‘So they are butchering each other,’ said Warwick bitterly, listening to the screams.

‘Twas this cursed fog,’ said the courier, weeping with fright. Then, half-turning, he gave a shriek: ‘Oh, God protect us!’

A solid phalanx of armed men – the Sun flaunting above them in the haze – was bearing down on Warwick’s contingent. Struggling out of Dead Man’s Bottom was Richard of Gloucester’s force, depleted but swearing, and armed like a host of bloodstained killing insects swarming up the slope. The Earl cast a glance around him. While his own armies fought among themselves, while the last flicker of grave-cold mist tongued his neck, he knew defeat. Throwing off as much of his harness as possible, he followed his fleeing force. Dodging a knife-thrust here, and there the swing of a redclotted axe, hearing the deathly thrum and swish of a close arrow, he ran. He, whom they had once named ‘le conduiseur du royaume’, fled, towards the dawn-blue shadows of Wrotham Wood. Some half a mile ahead it loomed; dense forest, a sanctuary. Behind him, Ned’s armies roared, roared as he had taught them so many years ago. And Dickon of Gloucester came upon him from the right flank, in tight and orderly mesh, his archers firing from behind, his infantry hacking from before. As Warwick had taught him, too, at Middleham.

As he ran, another patch of mist like a low-flying ghoul enveloped him so that he stumbled, his hands thrown out; so that he cried upon the Virgin, and upon his wife, and lastly for mercy upon his King. That the King’s hand should be the one to take his life away. For they were upon him from behind, faceless shapes in the solitary swirl of white. He felt a gush of fire in his side, a lancing blow in his loins. He looked down, amazed, at the steel protruding from his belly. Right through his coat of mail; a weakened rivet, he thought foolishly. And yet how strange! Right through his vitals, where that ancient pain had been. He was falling. He saw her then. Trying to rise in the shadow of Wrotham Wood, so far, so near, hands slipping in the mud, he saw her. The silent winding-sheet had a face and coiled about him. The red lips smiled.

Edward of England stood upon a little knoll. The sun had conquered and the damp meadow sprang to greenness in the growing gold. The King lifted his sword high.

‘Blessed be God, who sent this day!’

‘A ragged, weary cheer arose. In the distance tiny figures still chased the men of Oxford and Exeter. Above, birds broke from the silence of fear and began tentatively to sing. The King clasped his brother and Lord Hastings about the shoulders. Anthony Woodville strode up, smiling.

‘Load up the dead!’ came the cry.

Stiff, as if already in effigy, they lay on the cold pavement of St. Paul’s. Sir John Neville, Marquis of Montagu, was on the left, his brother Warwick on the right. They were draped by thin loincloths and their wounds were terribly apparent. From the great hole in Warwick’s side and the gash in his belly, entrails protruded a little. Around the corpses candles had been lit, and someone unknown had laid a nosegay, the pale red dog-rose, between Warwick’s rigid fingers. The faces of the two knights were stern and far, detached by death with the look of contempt for things earthly. Throughout the days the people came, some weeping, some openly deriding. A drunken man harangued the world in general, until hustled away by an offended priest. But most folk had little to say. It was the end of the House of Neville, and too big for words.

‘He was a proud knight,’ remarked Butcher Gould, when his turn came to pass and stare.

‘He betrayed the King,’ said the little Billingsgate fishmonger behind him.

Gould recalled his prentice days and with a shred of regret the meals he had eaten at Warwick’s open door. There was the clattering tread of guards; together with the throng, the butcher was pressed back towards the side aisle. A herald cried: ‘Make way!’ The Queen entered, with her women. Gould’s wife nudged him. ‘Look!’ she whispered. ‘She trembles.’

Elizabeth was trembling with the astonishment of power. Strong, ancient phrases, in themselves meaningless, welled within her. It is written. In the stars. In all waters, lakes, meres, the sea. Her power was so great that none could withstand it. Her power is mine. She shook so fiercely that her women had to hold her on either side. A froth of spittle bloomed at the corners of her mouth. All around the voices were soothing, gentle. She was weak from recent childbed; she should not look too long upon the dead. But she did, she looked deeply at that unembalmed side, that gaping wound. She extended a quivering hand, perhaps to delve, but the press of women and courtiers nudged her away from her triumph. May you roast in the everlasting tortures of all damned souls, Warwick. The voices cajoled tenderly: ‘Come away, come away, your Grace!’ Oh, my Melusine, I thank you.

Then Richard of Gloucester pushed through the ranks. He was accompanied by two knights: Hastings, and Francis Lovell. Eyes red, and with nervous hands, he stopped before the two Neville corpses, went softly on his knees. She saw the tears falling, the whiteness, the written grief. She heard his aching, brooding voice.

‘Jesu give thee rest, my Warwick!’ To those who listened he said: ‘By St. Paul! I loved him well.’

He had lifted her unspoken curse with his benediction. She looked after him uneasily as he passed on. So Warwick was dead yet undead. His influence remained, heavy as a boding shadow.

All over London the cries resounded. Edward of Lancaster is slain! The French Bitch is vanquished! The cries beat up the walls, touched off mania from the leaning gables, rose and fermented even to the cold palaces of Westminster, Greenwich, Sheen. And at Baynard’s Castle, Edward King of England made merry. For the battle of Barnet with its mist which, men said, was sent by God, was all but forgotten. It was eclipsed by the new triumph of Tewkesbury.

Up and down the narrow streets, in the Council Chamber and in a thousand great halls, the flying tales ran; of the day with its fierce May heat and danger, the tide that swept the royal army, turning in its favour at the last. The fall of the Frenchwoman’s son, hot-followed in the field; the whelp gone, finished, dead. Clarence preened. It was his men who had struck down the young Lancastrian prince.

Dressed in pale blue sarcenet, Elizabeth sat beneath the royal canopy and listened impassively to the noisy talk. Edward crashed his goblet on the board in the excitement of re-telling. They fought in Tewkesbury Abbey – up and down the nave. They dragged Beaufort of Somerset the younger from behind the altar and shore his head off in the market-place. The whole tale was told in a roar. Edward was like a madman; they were all mad with nervous joy, as if they could not believe their skins were whole. During this saga, Elizabeth glanced across at Lady Margaret Beaufort. Her face was slightly drawn, thoughtful. She would doubtless sorrow in secret for Somerset, her cousin. What did she think of the fate of Marguerite?

Elizabeth beckoned, leaned close. ‘So the French Queen is taken,’ she said lightly.

They had brought her through London in a chariot, having to hold her down so that she should not throw herself beneath the horse’s hoofs. They had taken her to the Tower, where Henry lay, praying and groaning, but the two of them were kept apart. It was reported that Queen Margaret cried day long for La Fleur d’Anjou; she would not have it that he was dead. She was therefore a close captive, and something of an embarrassment to King Edward.

‘My liege, if you should see Marguerite,’ said Lady Beaufort, in Elizabeth’s ear, ‘pray commend me to her kindly.’

She looked straight ahead while speaking, to where King Edward, now standing in the middle of the Hall surrounded by merry courtiers, relived the battle again, with oaths and sweeping arms.

‘Why, my lady,’ said Elizabeth, also softly, ‘this is Lancastrian talk!’

‘All have their privy allegiance.’ Lady Margaret’s thin lips were amused. Unafraid, she looked at the Queen. Just as she had looked years ago, playing at chess. As if she knew the game would be hers in the end.

‘My liege, am I not your true friend and lover?’

Yes, and I need you, thought Elizabeth. As Edward crowed and postured, she looked for her friends. Tiptoft, alas, was no more, but there was Reynold Bray, black-clad and servile in a corner; the Stanleys, who fought on whichever side was best and always seemed to catch up with victory in time. A flash of scarlet silk caught her eye; there was Catherine, and her husband, young Harry Buckingham. She frowned. Harry was too flamboyant to be tasteful, but rich beyond dreams, and generous to Kate. Anthony, dear Anthony; unscathed by battle, witty, elegant, even now penning a rhyme on the table-damask, a poem to the King’s glory. Who else? Her glance slid, lithe as a fish. Ah yes, John Morton, Bishop of Ely.

Morton’s face was fleshy, all wattles and dewlaps, yet divided by a strangely ascetic nose, scimitar-shaped. His bulky body was covered by coarse black cloth. One lean and shapely hand lay on the giant crucifix at his breast; he looked the true divine. Seeing her eyes upon him, he bowed and with three fingers upraised in blessing, padded softly towards the dais.

‘How well your sons look tonight, your Grace,’ he remarked, after she had greeted him. Thomas Grey moved nearer to acknowledge the Bishop’s compliment; he was dressed in the swaggering doublet of high fashion, the sleeves like bladders, hose tight; a rich red gold chain adorned his chest. Richard, the younger, quieter son, wore the same pale blue as his mother.

‘Fine young lords,’ said Morton kindly. ‘Loyal and obedient, ha, your Grace? No rebellion there, I warrant. True to King and Church alike.’ His wattles quivered, his lizard eye slipped sideways, fell upon the knot of courtiers surrounding the King. Prominent there was Clarence, laughing and pantomiming a death-thrust with his poignard. At Clarence, Morton stared severely.

‘I very much fear me, Madame,’ he said slowly, ‘that there are others whose disposition is not so fair. I love our King, and would not see him betrayed anew. And for you, my liege, I make constant intercession that you shall, by God’s grace, remain supreme.’

His eyes were hard to see clearly, encased as they were in fatty wattles, but the points of light in them burned bright and alert. He spread his hands flat over his crucifix, and continued softly: ‘It is simply this, my liege. With Prince Edward of Lancaster dead, my lord of Clarence stands heir to the throne. During the rising, Warwick named him thus. Parliament gave assent, and the Act was not repealed.’

Anthony Woodville, who had come to stand beside the bishop, drew in a sharp breath; Thomas Grey spoke, manly, tumultuous.

‘My lord! He would never dare! Whom could he raise for his ally?’

‘There is a figurehead,’ murmured Morton. ‘A royal and saintly figurehead. A focus of upset, no more no less. In London Tower.’

The Woodvilles looked sharply at one another. Elizabeth’s mind raced. Henry. That wretched, other worldly scion of Lancaster. Over a decade, memory skipped like a bouncing bladder to reveal the pointing finger, the hysterical voice. She wore no gauge for Henry, in truth. Haltingly she asked the Bishop: ‘Tell me, your Grace. Would you think it safer if …’

The Bishop bowed his head, raised one shapely finger. ‘Madame,’ he said sonorously, ‘God’s ways are wonderful. The person concerned is mindless with melancholy. Maybe … if God should deliver him from the toils of this life … but who are we to ask God’s plan?’

Anthony spoke, sharp and high. ‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘For England’s sake; would not the cause be just?’

Elizabeth slid out her satin shoe, pressed her brother’s foot as hard as possible. Close, stood Richard of Gloucester, pale and sombre, detached from the roisterers, and Lord Hastings, wine-flushed but near enough to listen. The Bishop smiled.

‘But of course,’ he said loudly. ‘Aught for England is just. Or for those–’ he bowed to Elizabeth – ‘of the blood royal.’ Proudly she bloomed. Not until long afterwards did she wonder whether the Bishop had mocked her. With Morton one never knew.

Edward, shocked with the aftermath of battle, grew wilder still. He outdanced men ten years younger than himself; he swept his Queen into the wild salterello, he frightened his eldest daughter with a devil-mask. Again and again his cry resounded: Lancaster is dead! Lancaster is done! He laughed and wept in drunken emotion, recalling his own father, whose delight this day would have been. So afterwards, when the spilled drink and the greasy rushes alone bore witness to revelry in the deserted Hall, his mood was pliant. He sat in the chair of estate, twirling a broken flower in his fingers. He was alone save for Elizabeth and a hound cracking bones beneath the trestle. The summer dusk fell about him, the candles burned down. Through the arched windows came the prick of stars, and in every corner sepia shadows drew in like an ambush.

She shivered. She said simply: ‘I am afraid.’

He looked at her admiringly, her pallor, the silken veil of hair. He still desired her, even though her body was familiar. But not this night. He was tired, sad almost. God knew why; but as soon as the dancing finished the triumph in him had been replaced by melancholy.

‘There is naught to fear,’ he told her.

But she pressed closer, kneeling by his side, whispering the veiled suggestions, the cautions planted by Morton. Edward listened at first with a slightly contemptuous smile, then warily, and when she had finished he was chewing his lip, clear minded, unquiet.

‘So you see, Ned, Lancaster is far from done!’

‘I also had these thoughts,’ he admitted. Then, more vehemently: ‘Jesu! the cause is just! Shall all these bloody battles come to naught? Shall another rebellion break around one puling saint?’

He did not say who he imagined the instigator of such rebellion might be. Disappointed, she kept silence, and he continued.

‘My stomach goes against it. Yet it is kindness, really … snatch him to heaven ‘twixt one psalm and the next. Yes. Bessy, you speak well. If it were not heresy and against nature, I’d say you have a man’s mind.’

‘A woman’s heart, though, my liege,’ she answered, but he paid no need. He said only: ‘It is settled, then. Henry of Lancaster shall die.’

‘And Clarence?’ The words came out too eagerly. Edward’s eyes grew hard as he looked down at her.

‘Who spoke of Clarence?’ he demanded. ‘He will not transgress; he is pardoned once more forgiven. He is my brother.’

She bit her lip, looked away. Edward, sickened by decision and indecision, surveyed her. In the dusk she seemed fluid, her hair a film of radiance, her whole body diffused, spiritual. Sometimes he felt like crossing himself at sight of her, his Madonna, his goddess. Yet she should not speak as she did. Henry must die, he was of Lancaster; but Clarence, fair stupid Clarence, born of the same womb as himself … No, she should not even think of it. He must remind her of an old lesson. In the corner of the Hall, one of the shadows moved. It was a page, come in to fetch napkins for the laundry. Edward called to him.

‘Fetch me Mistress Grace!’

‘My liege?’ The boy hesitated; he was new to the household and did not know who Edward meant.

‘My dear bastard daughter,’ said the King.

The youth ran, returning with the infant in his arms. Rosy, half-asleep, she smiled, stretched out her arms – to the golden giant, to the silver lady, who once more turned away. Edward, weary and distraught, took the child in his arms with such roughness that she began to cry. With his lips in the soft curly hair he said:

‘Lancaster shall die, Bess. Ah, weep not, Grace!’

Above the child’s head, his eyes bored into Elizabeth, and spoke of Clarence. Be careful, Madame. Do not threaten those I love! But, as if to an empty room, he repeated:

‘Henry shall die. Quietly, swiftly. No need to shrive him. He is without fault.’

The long tide of Jacquetta of Bedford’s life was ebbing, leaving a desolate strand of memory and the old shipwrecks of those loved and hated. It was a night of strange winds that shivered the tapestry knights upon the Siege of Jerusalem; from her bed, the Duchess looked cloudily upon that stolen splendour. She lay lapped in goosefeather softness while her mottled hands spread and moulded the coverlet. The kneeling figures about the room were opaque, inconsequential; she had been shriven but Bishop Morton remained, also the clerk Reynold Bray, tongueing prayers in a ceaseless monotone. There were also two nuns, the nuns of Sewardsley, fresh from their penance. Silly, blabbering women! She remembered their betrayal of her over the waxen images and her fierce old heart cast a shred of rancour towards them; it was so tangible that one nun, frightened, looked up from her prayers at the bed where Jacquetta lay, formidable even in death. The Duchess’s eyes moved over faces, features, jewels. They loomed large and faded. There was Lady Margaret Beaufort, the clever little wench! The outgoing tide washed up admiration. And Morton, with his crucifix held aloft like some battle trophy. Together Morton and Margaret would guard her dream. That gilded staff of heritage … there she was; dry-eyed as befits a Queen. Standing straight and slender to watch the bearing out of the longship of Jacquetta’s soul. Elizabeth.

The Queen came closer, one hand curved around the bedpost, thinking: so death clears my mother’s mind. When I needed her she was somewhere distant, locked away in thought. Now that the Fiend is no more, she comes to me again, purposeless. She bent so that her warm cheek almost touched the mother’s shrivelled face.

‘I cannot hear you, madam.’

‘Fair,’ said Jacquetta in a breath. She smiled. ‘Fair enough to grace the ramparts of Lusignan.’

Suspended in memory, the far-off day took on life. The leafy willows, the green and silver reeds. Two brindled trout lying in the shallows. All beauty and all power, departed now from the old voice murmuring so precisely. One word caught at her ear: ‘Danger.’

She answered, very quiet: ‘No more, madam. Warwick is gone; he burns in Hell.’

The Duchess writhed to sit up; Margaret Beaufort assisted her. ‘… Others!’ said Jacquetta. The word was wrapped up in the sigh and groan of the wind outside the walls. ‘Ned’s brothers will harm you. Queens can be brought down. Never doubt it.’

Morton’s black shape drew nearer the bed, and the nuns crept close. The Duchess’s hand made an angry, serpentine gesture.

‘Let them depart!’ she said, and a look from the Queen sent the nuns stumbling on their habits, quitting the chamber with a backlash of icy draught. Reynold Bray remained, a fixture, the reek of his clothes and his praying voice tokens of his presence. Morton still held his cross aloft. The Duchess caught at Elizabeth’s hand. In a surprisingly strong voice she said, ‘Listen, my daughter.’ Margaret Beaufort leaned near, and the Bishop, one on either side of Elizabeth.

‘Danger … Clarence.’ The words hissed and broke like random rain. ‘He will dethrone the King, and you. He suspects, but is not sure.’

‘Madame,’ said Elizabeth uneasily. The old eyes were as clear as a child’s, and full of menace.

‘He seeks the truth about the King’s marriage to Eleanor Butler. His spies go forth, night and day. Soon he will have his proof, and undo you.’

Elizabeth felt the blood rush up into her face. Her heart pounded; she gazed appalled at her mother, knowing that the closest of all secrets had been torn open wantonly before witnesses. Then the Duchess chuckled, a sickly rasp.

‘There’s no harm in speaking before the Bishop and Lady Margaret. They are your friends. Am I right, my lord?’

Morton, stroking his crucifix, half-closed his wattled eyes and bowed in assent. Margaret Beaufort’s clipped voice said, ‘Indeed, your Grace,’ and Jacquetta looked up triumphantly, but after a moment her face paled, her hands began to scratch once more at the bedcovers.

‘Open the window,’ she said faintly. Reynold Bray rose from his corner and threw the casement wide. A fierce gust roared in, lifting the Siege of Jerusalem so that the tassels upon it rattled in a skeleton’s dance. The Duchess’s voice, much weaker, called to Elizabeth. She leaned, shutting out Morton and Margaret. Very softly Jacquetta said: ‘Bury me at midnight!’

She was bewildered, and answered: ‘Midnight, madam?’

‘Aye, for such as we – you and I, daughter – it is the only time of grace. No demon can attack us at that hour. Bury me then so that I may–’ she gasped, retched – ‘sit with her on the heights of Lusignan.’

I will not, cannot do it, thought Elizabeth. It would cause comment. She wanders, her madness returns. ‘Rest, madam.’ Her voice was caught up and tossed in the gale through the window. Jacquetta was staring at her, one fading look of pride and warning. The tassels made their bony music, the wind thundered, mingled with the moaning rattle in Jacquetta’s throat. Lady Margaret touched the Queen’s shoulder.

‘She dies.’

Morton was gabbling the last rites and the holy unction trickled on Jacquetta’s brows. The casement, torn almost off its hinges, by a sweep of wind, hurled open and shut. As if summoned by this, there came priests burning ghostly tapers, the two white-faced nuns, and Anthony, weeping. Catherine, weeping and followed by the other sisters, richly gowned, tired from their corridor vigil. They knelt about the bed, making their soft farewell.

Elizabeth had imagined that perhaps some spirit of water and light would show itself, transfiguring Jacquetta’s face. That Melusine herself would manifest her power, bear up her loyalest servant. But there was none of this. There was only stillness; the first hint of waste, corruption. And of the grave, with its toad, its snail, its worm.

Edward was unfaithful. It was his privilege and prerogative. She guessed that he had dallied during the later part of their marriage with a dozen different women. Now he had abandoned any pretence at keeping these matters secret. All wives, she told herself, shared her situation, without complaining, but this philosophy, the very pattern of the times, did not lessen the hurt. Now he had three harlots at court; there was a pale pious girl who spent all her free time in chapel. She shared an apartment in Eltham hunting lodge with the King’s second favourite, a black-eyed Flemish slut. Both these women were fed and clothed sumptuously, but were seldom seen in the royal palaces. Jane Shore was different.

A hoyden, no more than seventeen, she was permanently at Edward’s side. She laughed incessantly, unprettily, like a corncrake shrieking. She had been plucked from the bed of a dotard husband and brought from Chepeside to the royal apartments. Edward was besotted, not only with her round body but with her constant witticisms. He looked upon her as a female fool, and for all the hours the jest continued, with variations, while Elizabeth listened to the distant, jarring screams and howls. She herself was still visited by Edward; he came often enough to make her almost yearly with child, but no longer did he call her his love, his fate.

She watched Jane with Edward, and with her own son Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset. He also, she knew, had enjoyed that plump jesting body, and Jane was in love with him. Not only Thomas would like to cuckold the King. Will Hastings, Lord Chamberlain and secret lecher, also desired Jane, the lowly mercer’s wife. Elizabeth watched and held her peace, hugging the hurt close. At Ludlow, she listened to the murmured words of Margaret Beaufort, now her dearest counsellor.

She may be useful, my liege.’

‘How? A common whore?’ The hurt emerged, red and bleeding, was surveyed by the Countess and vanished unappeased.

‘Be kind to her, Madame. She may be useful. See how Hastings lusts after her. Madame, believe me, I would befriend and advise you!’

Elizabeth was only half-listening. She looked out over the green bailey of Ludlow. She and the Countess were standing on the battlements. ‘Sweet Margaret,’ she said absently. The words emerged oddly like a peace-payment, the diplomacy of necessity, like the words recently penned by Edward to Louis of France. The Treaty of Picquigny was in progress. Peace to all men. Elizabeth looked sideways at the Countess; no, none could call her ‘sweet’ nor could they apply that to Morton. These days the Bishop was always near, standing even now like a sacred sentry, his robe fluttering in the breeze. The heir to England was at Ludlow, so it was fitting that Morton, so wise and holy, should oversee the little Prince’s destiny for a space.

Elizabeth stared out over the merlons at the vista of forest green; it was unbroken save for a silver trickle where the Teme glinted in the shadow of the Welsh hills. The fern-scented air touched her face soothingly. Yet behind her, where the spiral wound down through the intricacies of Ludlow Castle, a colder wind blew. Fraught with uncertainty, unseen future betrayals, it shivered her spirit. It nourished the nagging threat from those unknown, who might now plot and jest and speak her name. She drew her mantle closer. I am Queen of England. A wary inner voice answered: for how long? She thought: while Clarence lives, while Clarence’s spies go forth, my majesty is null and void.

One name, that of Eleanor Butler, could rip the cover off a bare and bleeding wound. Yet I dare not approach the King again, nor drop poison Clarence’s way. She longed to turn to Lady Margaret and say: What think you, my lady? You know of my feigned royalty, and that my queenship hangs by a thread. You know I must be ruthless, perjured, bent on exterminating all who threaten my estate. She looked into the berry-black eyes of the Countess; unknowingly she revealed her own desperation.

‘The King loves you well, my liege’, said Margaret softly. ‘As for his harlots–’ she made a disdainful moue – ‘men are men. Clarence has several lemen, and even Richard of Gloucester, before he married Warwick’s Anne, sired at least two children; a maid, on some country wench, and John of Gloucester, whom he keeps in great estate.’

Elizabeth wasted no thoughts on Richard of Gloucester, who had taken himself off, together with Warwick’s daughter, to the north country, and there remained. No, it was Clarence who ate at her peace like the red ant … the Fiend was dead, but Clarence lived. Moth-light, the Countess touched her sleeve, murmuring a distraction.

‘Look!’ she pointed below. ‘There rides your son, Dorset; how elegant he is, my liege.’

Thomas swaggered in the gallop. He rode a tall chestnut across the bailey. His brother Richard Grey lagged a little, on a slower bay. Thomas was laughing. Dorset, the cuckolder of kings.

‘She loves me!’ he had crowed, strutting, his rich threads catching the candlelight. ‘Jane loves me, Ned loves me, and we all love one another! What better fate?’ He was born to sail close to the wind; Elizabeth warned him to keep his triumph more discreetly; he had laughed at her, kissed her. Margaret was talking again, half-heard words.

‘I believe your Grace has never seen my son,’ she said. ‘My Henry Tudor. Descended,’ she said proudly, ‘from the royal house of France.’

Descended by bastardy, thought Elizabeth, but was suddenly too weary to argue the point. Let Margaret have her pride; she had little else. She folded cold hands inside her sleeves and said: ‘You must bring your Henry to court.’ Margaret’s sallow face leaped into life.

‘Your Grace is kind; I’ll write to him this day.’

And she told herself excitedly: the tide turns. The Queen, depressed, grows pliant and a little careless. It will augur well for Henry to set foot within the court. Both the Stanleys and Morton agree with me here. And if the Eleanor Butler secret were to be disclosed … Light surged across the battlements of Ludlow, touched off, in the Countess’s mind, by her wild dreams – dreams whispered to her in the passing breeze and fading as the Queen, suddenly brisk, said: ‘Come. Let us go down and see the heir of England at his lessons.’

They descended the spiral together. Elizabeth hugged the wall close as it dipped down and down, icy, solid, like the round limb of some long-dead monster. The Queen’s little slippers were soundless upon the narrow dizzying stair. The high-fashioned gown she wore concealed her latest pregnancy, being cut with a projecting stomacher and falling fold. As they passed by the King’s private chamber there came the chuckling shriek of Mistress Shore.

In the schoolroom, the five-year-old Prince Edward, the heir to England, sat yawning over a vast Book of Hours. Beside him, his tutor, Bishop Alcock, followed, as he read, the arrow-straight margin with the jewel-bright capitals. All the children were there; the living testament of Elizabeth’s past decade. Bess was nine, and sat quietly at her broidery frame; she raised her blonde head as her mother entered; she rose, curtseyed formally and sat down again. Mary and Cicely were dressing a baby doll. There should have been another sister, but Margaret had only lived eight months and was already a memory.

The Prince Edward got up at Elizabeth’s approach. He was very pale, with bluish marks under his eyes. He smiled sweetly and made a little bow.

‘Does he learn well?’ Elizabeth asked the tutor. Dr. Alcock inclined his black-capped head.

‘He’s diligent, madam. Kiss the Queen’s hand, your Grace.’ She felt moist warm lips on her fingers, and she laid her hand for a moment on the silky head. Her fingers passed downwards, absently, to his face. Like a puppy, he ducked his head to rub against her hand. She felt a sharp regret that she saw so little of him; but he was Anthony’s charge. He was the heir to England, and should not leave Ludlow until Anthony, as Governor, saw fit.

‘His Grace’s brow feels chill,’ she remarked, and withdrew her hand. Instantly there was a scramble to close the windows. The ferny scents diminished, to be replaced by dust and ink. Elizabeth felt a tugging at her skirt and looked down. Grinning like a bad angel, her second son, two-year old Richard, Duke of York, confronted her. He brandished a toy dagger. He screwed up his face, plunged his head into the folds of her dress. He whispered an unintelligible secret, then proceeded to run, like a whirligig, round and round the Queen’s spread skirts. It made her glad to watch him; he was as robust as his brother Edward was frail. An understudy King! Then, a child’s voice, oddly adult, chided the small Duke’s rudeness, a hand coaxed the dagger from his grip and straightened his doublet. Elizabeth looked into the green eyes of Mistress Grace; those eyes that stared so, full of the disquieting unknown.

‘I’ll see you anon, my lord,’ she told Dr. Alcock. Without looking back she went alone, to see the Governor of Ludlow Castle.

He did not rise instantly at her entrance, he was so immersed in his work. A Latin copy of the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers lay on the table before him. Sheets of translation were scattered on the floor. She looked fondly at his bent head; he was heedless of her so she placed her hand over the page on which he was writing. Frowning, he looked up, then sprang instantly to his feet, full of loving apology. He kissed both her hands, then embraced her heavy body.

‘Anthony! Sweet Anthony!’ It was months since they had met.

‘My liege, Bess. Too long!’

‘How does Ludlow suit you?’

He drew her down beside him on a settle, soothing her tense mood with his soft voice, jesting, pleasing her eye with his gold good looks.

‘I have just come from the prince,’ she said.

‘Your prince, my scholar,’ he laughed. ‘Alcock and I are schooling him in all ways of urbanity and nurture.’ A little frown of contempt puckered his brow. ‘York could do well with some renewal of elegance. Lately it would seem that York breeds lechers, vulgarians. Bess–’ more urgently – ‘you must not let the King grow careless. How goes it with France?’

‘The Treaty will be signed, although he cleaves to Burgundy still … ah God!’ she said suddenly. ‘I am so afraid.’

He looked carefully at her. ‘The King loves you,’ he said slowly. ‘Pay no heed to his diversions … you have his heart and always will.’

‘It is Clarence,’ she said, her lips trembling. Anthony smiled.

‘Naught to fear, sweet sister,’ he said. This was not the Anthony who had been afraid to take her from Grafton Regis when she pleaded with him. This was a man who was erudite, calm, skilled. He said casually: ‘I know all Clarence’s mind. His murmurings against you and the King grow louder. He is fickle, treacherous and foolish. He will overstep himself, and my agents will see to it that he does, and is condemned for it.’

‘You’re sure?’ she breathed.

‘Be patient,’ he told her. ‘Clarence will be the architect of his own ruin.’

She could have told none the reason why she went to the Tower apartments of Margaret of Anjou. Only the itch of a long memory, or a ripple of forgotten duty unconsciously felt, led her through the cavernous vaults and up the twisted stairs. Margaret’s door was properly guarded by pikemen wearing the. rose en soleil. Waiting while they went inside to prepare the Frenchwoman, Elizabeth conjured memories. That frail, vital face; the eyes that could flash fury or soften with love. That gem-starred blondeness, and the voice douce as a dreaming bird’s yet capable of harsh command. She waited, and remembered; then one of the men returned to kneel before her.

‘My liege, she will not see you.’

‘What?’ cried Elizabeth. ‘I command …’ A little perplexed, she said: ‘Tell her that Elizabeth stands without the door!’

‘I did, highness. She fancies herself mocked. She is intemperate with grief.’ He folded his hands on the haft of his pike. On his wrist the marks of five sharp nails dripped blood.

‘She may harm your Grace.’

Elizabeth felt in the pouch at her waist, found the dull coldness of a ring seldom worn. The pearl-and-ruby. The token of past friendship. The talisman of the beloved.

‘Show her this. Say I come in kindness.’

The man went in again, and she waited, tapping her foot. Impatience mingled with anxiety. Edward knew nothing of this excursion of hers. It could displease him. And who was Margaret, to gainsay her entry? Sounds crept through the studded oak; a voice raised in a scream, then silence, then sobbing. After a moment the pikemen held open the door. Elizabeth caught up her gown to ascend the worn stone step, curved like a bow from a thousand treadings. The guard said uneasily: ‘I must accompany your grace, and lock the door.’

She turned, said crisply, ‘Lock it, but wait outside,’ then entered, turning the iron ring-latch behind her. In the room there was a foul stench of sweat, and something else, the acrid smell of grief. Disorder reigned: strewn on the carpet, which itself was tracked threadless in one straight line, were torn parchments, letters half-begun. The silk hangings had been wrenched from one wall and lay in shreds. There was an overturned jug of flowers, their petals stamped and bruised to pulp. In one corner was a deep Dutch bed, its covers torn and tousled and bearing the traces of old blood. And, standing by the windowslit, looking towards the light, was Margaret – was Marguerite. The shadow and spectre of Marguerite.

She turned, and her face was visible. A cry of horror leapt in Elizabeth’s throat. Margaret walked steadily towards her on the worn path of carpet made by years of pacing. From the ruined face came an unrecognizable voice, cracked and harsh.

‘They said it was the Spanish disease, and they called me whore. But now they see it is naught but a deep canker that began in my breast and encompassed me. The legacy of my sorrow. God has seen fit to eat me up.’

One side of the face was clustered and corroded with small tumours, the other emaciated so that even the shape of the teeth was visible. Margaret’s skin was yellow as fresh gold. The hair once bound with pearls grew in sparse grey tufts, but half the head was bald. The hellish apparition moved closer to Elizabeth, extending the twisted tragedies of its hands.

‘You brought the ring,’ she said. ‘The ring I gave la sage Jacquette, your mother. How does your mother?’

‘She is dead,’ Elizabeth said faintly.

Margaret said with a ghastly smile: ‘She is fortunate then! I should kneel to you, Isabella, but I do not. Will you punish me?’ She touched the Queen’s rich sleeve. ‘So fair, so fine, my Isabella. Queen of Heaven!’

She laughed, she stroked her own dreadful mask with writhing fingers. Elizabeth thought wildly: I was mad to come here. She tried to speak steadily.

‘Madame, have you no women, no physicians? You should be nursed.’

‘My doctors despaired, and my women left me … or they died,’ said Margaret vaguely. ‘They were afraid … of my great beauty!’ Her laughter began again. ‘My beauty and my greatness! Behold my greatness!’ She coughed, the yellow sinews in her throat straining like cords. Elizabeth felt the burn of tears at the back of her eyes. A false, far image of the lost Marguerite, darting and skimming like a swan in the dance … the Marguerite of jewels and fire and love. Standing alone in the unused shining armour, braver and more soldierly than many of her courtiers. She said, choking:

‘Ah, Madame, that you should have come to this!’

There was something more than pity to make her weep. A prescience of certain doom. As if she had glimpsed, unwittingly, the forecast of a time to come. As soon as this thought arose she pushed it savagely away, construing it as a malaise born of Margaret’s dreadful presence.

‘I am dying,’ said Margaret. ‘Betrayed. They all turned upon me – slaughtered my flower in the field, murdered my poor, wandering husband. Did you know? Not a hall’s length from here, they snuffed the life from that kingly monk … Non! Isabella, you would not know of this.’

Elizabeth was silent. It was better so; confessions did only harm, and Margaret had shown violence to the guard. She therefore let Margaret talk on, while tears collected in a strange pattern upon the misshapen face. Yet she looked at the hands that had once held her own tenderly while their owner wished her well in marriage; and she murmured: ‘They have used you ill, Madame.’

‘One especially,’ said the Frenchwoman. ‘One who promised me the world for my son. Curse Warwick!’ Sadly she said: ‘Was it my fault? Was it my vanity? Vanité des vanités, toute la vanité!’

Which was worse, Elizabeth wondered, the weeping or the laughter? Worst of all was to see Margaret beginning to dance, a few trembling, parodying steps. See, Isabella, I am still fair! She came close, placing her arm about Elizabeth, who shrank in dread. She disengaged herself.

‘I am dying,’ Margaret said again. ‘And I am judged. Remember the old rhyme, ma belle? That you read so prettily that day?

‘Benedicite, what dreamed I this night?

Methought the world was turned up so down,

The sea had covered both tower and town …’

I have forgotten it … ah, yes:

I heard the sound

Of one’s voice saying: Bear in thy mind,

Thy lady hath forgotten to be kind!’

Perchance I was unkind. Now is my reckoning. So be kind, Isabella. Always …’

The arm clung again. Elizabeth averted her face. The canker could be carried on a breath. Margaret was singing in a ghost’s voice, moving her feet in that travesty of a dancestep.

‘We were so gay, in France, when I was a little maid. Oh, Jesu, Isabella, help me!’

‘How, Madame?’

She said: ‘I do not wish to die here in the Tower. I must go home to France.’

Shivering, Elizabeth said: ‘I will speak to Edward.’

‘Yea, go to the Yorkist butcher!’ said Margaret bitterly. ‘He who slew le pauvre Henri. You see, Isabella, they did not need to tell me. I knew the day and moment of the deed. I heard Melusine cry on the battlements, and I knew.’

Elizabeth’s heart began to beat in slow, thick strokes. The sunken eyes searched her face.

‘An old legend, you may not know of it,’ said the Frenchwoman listlessly. ‘But whenever sorrow strikes a royal house – Melusine wails and weeps nightlong. You’ll not have heard her, for the world is yours. Queen!’ She spat the word.

Yes, Queen, thought Elizabeth, chilled to the bone. Queens can be brought down. She looked again at Margaret, at the horrifying translation of her beauty. And they can be brought to this! She glanced quickly towards the locked door. Outside lay freedom, jewels, a soothing posset, music to forget by. No more of this painful, insufferable presence.

‘Madame, I leave you now.’ But Margaret went with her to the door, hanging desperately on her arm. With difficulty Elizabeth shook her off.

‘Give me your word, ‘Isabella. I would, I must, die in France.’ She began to cough, rasping, weeping. ‘If ever you loved me, child; this one favour. Bid the King release me from this place!’

Elizabeth reached the door and hammered upon it.

‘Promise!’ It was like the high wild cry of a bird.

She looked once more. Frail and ghastly, a living doom, Margaret stood there; also betrayed by Warwick, also a scion of Melusine, and also a Queen. A terrifying mirror image, a living, dying warning. She felt the chamber walls closing about her. For here, unmistakably, was destiny seeking to be placated. She retraced her steps, took Margaret in her arms. She pressed her face against the rotting, tear-wet cheek.

‘I promise, ma reine,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

Edward called for wine. More than half-drunk already, he sought in the cup’s red heart a panacea for guilt. An end to trouble. He swirled the liquor round, turning the priceless goblet so that firefly prisms streaked from the silver. Pretty … He swallowed wine and motioned blindly for replenishment. He felt the cup’s coldness against his mouth; the taste brought Clarence back. He, Edward, drank wine, and wine had drunk Clarence.

The King sat among his court, detached from all by a thin red veil. The faces about his dais were distant and drifted hazily. Their talk, geared to the sovereign’s mood, was discreet and soft. He heard their voices but their words were meaningless, for they were overlaid by the hammering echoes of earlier speech. Anthony Woodville’s voice, full of rich certainty, regret.

‘My heart’s blood not to tell you this, Sire. But Clarence is crazed with spleen. He has this day usurped the royal prerogative; accused and, hanged a woman said to have murdered his infant son. On your orders, my liege!’

It must be true, Edward thought. Trusted Anthony had come riding from Ludlow to tell him this. So Edward had seized and hanged two of Clarence’s men in retribution. It had not been enough, however.

‘Your Grace! Today Clarence burst into Council in your absence and incited the lords to rebellion. He’s high in madness. “Twas all they could do to prevent him crowning himself King there and then …’

His own rage had grown and burgeoned, while he stared into Anthony’s clear eyes. Anthony’s hand sought his, to steady him for the next phrase. Spoken without a tremor, for Anthony was courageous where the truth was concerned.

‘He declared that your Grace is no son of York, but the spawn of a French archer! and that England is ruled by bastards.’ The lines on his smooth face deepened in pain as he continued: ‘And that your Grace holds consort with witches.’

He had needed that steadying hand, feeling the blood leaping and throbbing in his head, hearing his own roar: ‘Enough!’ then falling mightily upon a couch. While Anthony bowed devoutly so that his face was hidden. Much later, he heard his own voice saying: ‘She was right. Bessy was right, and I would not listen to her.’ And fear for the future had stared him in the face, fear that Clarence’s wild accusations cloaked a deadlier weapon. Clarence had kept close with their mother. How much had he wheedled from that ageing saint? How much would conscience let her hide? She who was privy to the knowledge of Eleanor Butler …

Though Eleanor was now dead, she was his first and lawful wife. No Queen’s Gold for Eleanor, but Bessy was no more than the King’s concubine. The game was too dangerous. So, enough. Now he gripped the cup so that his fingers blenched. Clarence had chosen his own death, and a bizarre, unholy death it was. ‘To drown in wine, my brother!’ The plump bitter face smiling. ‘Can your Grace afford it?’

Nauseous, Edward wondered: had he drunk deep before he died? What was it like to feel such bloodlike redness filling the lungs? How much could a man swallow and remain afloat? And, Jesu preserve us all! What had the everthirsty Tower gaolers done – after they took bloated Clarence from the vat? To cast out horror, he began the mental calculation of the cost of a tun of malmsey given to every child named Edward in the realm … With the fifty thousand crowns from Louis of France, a pittance. Louis had paid for peace. No battle was joined, although Edward had taken to Picquigny a hundred thousand men at arms. Everything had ended in love and gladness, with Louis’s veined and spotted paw clasping the King’s upon a fragment of True Cross. All had rejoiced; save Gloucester. The wine-cup was again empty, and here was Gloucester’s remembered voice, to torment him.

‘For the love of God, Edward, spare our brother of Clarence!’

‘Edward, our honour is sacrificed for this shameful truce. Louis will betray us, mark me …’

‘Ned, my brother, let Clarence live!’

Now it was all over. Clarence dead; Louis paid off. Bess, the Princess Elizabeth of York, betrothed to the Dauphin of France as part of the bargain. And Margaret of Anjou sent home to France. He had been amazed by the fervour of Bessy’s plea for her release, and had acquiesced, for it was little to him where the dying woman ended her days. Now a chance, perhaps, for peace. He had soon silenced the army who had been cheated of their French battle. A few hangings, beheadings, and they came straight to heel. He was in his thirty-sixth year; middle-aged; time to settle down with a happy land under his gauntlet, his sons growing strong, his daughters beautiful. His Queen content and his mistresses willing. He lifted his heavy head and surveyed the courtiers. They shimmered behind the blood-coloured veil. Thomas and Richard Grey, laughing quietly together. Anthony, unrolling a gay Latin verse for the perusal of the Queen. Hastings, gazing in undisguised longing towards Jane Shore. Jane herself sat at the King’s feet, a foreshortened image of golden coiffed hair and two apple-round breasts. He touched her shoulder. She seemed very far away.

‘Sing,’ he commanded.

High and shrill like an untaught boy, she sang rudely about a lecherous clerk. He grew quickly bored with the ditty. Again the spectre of Clarence arose, bobbing to the surface of the vat like a great wine-bag, and the gaolers crowding with their pannikins held ready … Gloucester had wept when he learned that his plea for leniency had been in vain. Gloucester seldom wept; he was a good soldier. He had gone home to the North, to his Anne, where he would expunge his sorrow in fighting the Scots.

Edward called for yet more wine. Death drank with him, and the knowledge that Richard of Gloucester had been right – both about the French truce (for Louis could never be trusted) – and about Clarence, whom a spell in the Tower might have tamed. But Gloucester knew nothing of the dangers. He stretched his hand down to dabble between Jane’s breasts.

‘Eleanor,’ he said softly, drunkenly. ‘Eleanor’ And the Queen was suddenly at his side, pale, patting Jane’s head as she might caress a dog, talking swiftly over the high bawling song.

‘My lord, how you do tangle up fair ladies’ names! I have a boon to beg, a small one. The Countess of Richmond begs leave to present her son. Henry Tudor.’

In his vision the silvery face swung and dipped. Fighting the dizziness, he said: ‘Ha! Tudor cub? Fruit of Lancaster …’ and saw the narrow poised face of Margaret Beaufort, looking shocked. From out of a long tunnel her even voice said: ‘Your Grace, my family are all loyal!’ Some remnant of sense spoke in his mind, ridiculing the Countess, but the words were too difficult, and he nodded, saying: ‘Let him come.’

Behind the great doors, Henry Tudor was waiting. He had been waiting like this for almost all his twenty subservient, repressed years: in the house of Lord Herbert at Pembroke, or under the harsh rule of his Uncle Jasper, or, in exile after Tewkesbury, as a despised nonentity in the court of Francis of Brittany. Even now he had waited a week at Westminster for the royal summons, hearing the whispered instructions of Morton and the Stanleys, seeing the fretful excitement of his mother. And only he was calm. A generation of Welsh and Frankish blood moved softly in him, bidding him gather himself for new beginnings. A native ruthlessness told him that behind those doors he would find a court of fools. He gave a slight shrug to his patched doublet, smoothed his dry, rust-coloured hair. His face was long and lean, his mouth almost lipless. It was the face of a man older than twenty, and in it the eyes were as cold as a preying bird’s.

Then he smiled, and was changed. The smile lent wistfulness to his demeanour, so that he looked like a starved infant offering macabre love, and the predatory eyes grew lambent and wise. The mouth slid upwards in a bow and quivered. Before him a light-chink between the doors widened into vast radiance. An usher called his name. Across a mile of lozenged tiles he went, between the candle-flames and diamonds and quizzical stares. Once, the faintest ripple of laughter blew across his path and was unheeded by him. His thin shanks carrying him steadily, he advanced upon the coveted court of the Plantagenets.

He saw a sorry, drunken monarch, great belly straining at velvet, the ruined beauty of his face lapped in red jowls, pigeon’s blood rubies on his fat hands and breast. A blonde harlot at his feet. A fairhaired, lovely child (the eldest, Bess of York; his mother had primed him well); a nervous ageing minister; that would be Hastings. Next to him the Woodvilles, handsome Anthony, the sons of Sir John Grey; and Lionel, Bishop of Salisbury, who had the royal favour. Henry reached the dais and heard the King mumbling an uninterested welcome. Now for the obeisance, as he had been schooled. The right knee crooked – no trembling – and down, down to the floor, where the eyes must go. Obeisance. Abasement. The left toe stretched out behind, sliding on the red-black crosswork of the tiles. Now, the plump hand with its engorged veins beneath his lips. Dry lips; treason to leave spittle. Good. Good. Another moment of waiting. ‘Courtly manners, my young friend,’ said the deep, slurred voice. ‘Rise. You may greet our Queen.’

He raised his eyes. They slipped quickly across the intimidating semi-circle of faces, imprinting on his consciousness the friends, the foes, the ones unknown. Unerringly he registered their strengths and their failings. The Woodvilles, for example, were imperious as gerfalcons, and as fine-feathered. If such a bird were stripped, feather by feather, what remained? A bleeding, earthbound ruin, unable to prey. His eyes ceased travelling momentarily to greet the black omnipotence of Morton. The Bishop’s white hand lifted slightly; the Bishop’s hooded eye blinked in tacit approval.

Lastly, slowly, Henry looked at the Queen. He appraised her silks and furs. He noted that she was jewelled like a pagan princess. He guessed her age, saw that she carried those years well. Yet his unflickering eye marked also her inner disquiet, the torment of her lifelong insecurity. Whispering a humble greeting, he assessed her body and soul. It was as his mother had hinted. Elizabeth, the pawn of Richmond. For all her hauteur, ready to cling and listen and be led.

She, looking for the first time upon Margaret Beaufort’s son, experienced a strange recognition. It was like the sensation of meeting John Grey at Eltham. This is he, at last. Love, you are come.

But this was not love. It was the unknown, the recognizable unknown. Like the reprise of a song unheard, or the shadow of an unconscious dream. She withdrew her hand from that of the youth. With customary coolness she said: ‘We greet you well.’

The feeling remained, astounding in its certainty. As Henry Tudor scraped and bowed and backed from the dais, she knew that here was one of utter significance, for evil or for good.