The White Queen (6 page)

And there—without warning—there is a horse at the door and a rider sitting tall on
it, a banner over his head, the white rose of York uncurling in the breeze. My father
stands in the open doorway reading a letter. I hear him say, “Tell His Grace I shall
be honored. I will be there the day after tomorrow.”

The man bows in the saddle, throws a casual salute to me, wheels his horse, and rides
away.

“What is it?” I ask, coming up the steps.

“A muster,” my father says grimly. “We are all to go to war again.”

“Not you!” I say in fear. “Not you, Father. Not again.”

“No. The king commands me to provide ten men from Grafton and five from Stony Stratford.
Fitted and kitted to march under his command against the Lancaster king. We are to
change sides. That was an expensive dinner we gave him, as it turned out.”

“Who is to lead them?” I am so afraid that he will say my brothers. “Not Anthony?
Not John?”

“They are to serve under Sir William Hastings,” he says. “He will put them in among
trained troops.”

I hesitate. “Did he say anything else?”

“This is a muster,” my father says irritably. “Not an invitation to a May Day breakfast.
Of course he didn’t say anything except that they would be coming through in the morning,
the day after tomorrow, and the men must be ready to fall in then.”

He turns on his heel and goes into the house, and leaves me with the gold ring, shaped
like a crown, spiky in my pocket.

My mother suggests at breakfast that my sisters and I, and the two cousins who are
staying with us, might like to watch the army go by, and see our men go off to war.

“Can’t think why,” my father says crossly. “I would have thought you would have seen
enough of men going to war.”

“It looks well to show our support,” she says quietly. “If he wins, it will be better
for us if he thinks we sent the men willingly. If he loses, no one will remember we
watched him go by, and we can deny it.”

“I am paying them, aren’t I? I am arming them with what I have? The arms I have left
over from the last time I went out, which, as it happens, was against him? I am rounding
them up, and sending them out, and buying boots for those who have none. I would think
I was showing support!”

“Then we should do it with a good grace,” my mother says.

He nods. He always gives way to my mother in these matters. She was a duchess, married
to the royal Duke of Bedford when my father was nothing but her husband’s squire.
She is the daughter of the Count of Saint-Pol, of the royal family of Burgundy, and
she is a courtier without equal.

“I would like you to come with us,” she goes on. “And we could perhaps find a purse
of gold from the treasure room, for His Grace.”

“A purse of gold! A purse of gold! To wage war on King Henry? Are we Yorkists now?”

She waits till his outrage has subsided. “To show our loyalty,” she says. “If he defeats
King Henry and comes back to London victorious, then it will be his court, and his
royal favors that are the source of all wealth and all opportunity. It will be he
who distributes the land and the patronage and he who allows marriages. And we have
a large family, with many girls, Sir Richard.”

For a moment we all freeze with our heads down, expecting one of my father’s thunderous
outbursts. Then, unwillingly, he laughs. “God bless you, my spellbinder,” he says.
“You are right, as you are always right. I will do as you say, though it goes against
the grain, and you can tell the girls to wear white roses, if they can get any this
early.”

She leans over to him and kisses him on the cheek.
“The dog roses are in bud in the hedgerow,” she says. “It’s not as good as full bloom,
but he will know what we mean, and that is all that matters.”

Of course, for the rest of the day, my sisters and cousins are in a frenzy, trying
on clothes, washing their hair, exchanging ribbons, and rehearsing their curtseys.
Anthony’s wife Elizabeth and two of our quieter companions say that they won’t come,
but all my sisters are beside themselves with excitement. The king and most of the
lords of his court will go by. What an opportunity to make an impression on the men
who will be the new masters of the country! If they win.

“What will you wear?” Margaret asks me, seeing me aloof from the excitement.

“I shall wear my gray gown, and my gray veil.”

“That’s not your best; it’s only what you wear on Sundays. Why wouldn’t you wear your
blue?”

I shrug. “I am going since Mother wants us to go,” I say. “I don’t expect anyone to
look twice at us.” I take the dress from the cupboard and shake it out. It is slim
cut with a little half train at the back. I wear it with a girdle of gray falling
low over my waist. I don’t say anything to Margaret, but I know it is a better fit
than my blue gown.

“When the king himself came to dinner at your invitation?” she exclaims. “Why wouldn’t
he look twice at you? He looked well enough the first time. He must like you—he gave
your land back; he came to dinner. He walked in the garden with you. Why
wouldn’t he come to the house again? Why wouldn’t he favor you?”

“Because between then and now, I got what I wanted and he did not,” I say crudely,
tossing the dress aside. “And it turns out he is not as generous a king as those in
the ballads. The price for his kindness was high, too high for me.”

“He never wanted to have you?” she whispers, appalled.

“Exactly.”

“Oh my God, Elizabeth. What did you say? What did you do?”

“I said no. But it was not easy.”

She is deliciously scandalized. “Did he try to force you?”

“Not much, it doesn’t matter,” I mumble. “And it’s not as if I was anything to him
but a girl on the roadside.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t come tomorrow,” she suggests. “If he offended you. You can
tell Mother that you’re ill. I’ll tell her, if you like.”

“Oh, I’ll come,” I say, as if I don’t care either way.

In the morning
I am not so brave. A sleepless night and a piece of bread and beef for breakfast
does not help my looks. I am pale as marble, and though Margaret rubs red ochre into
my lips, I still look drawn, a ghostly beauty. Among my brightly dressed sisters and
my cousins, I, in my gray gown and headdress, stand out like a novice in a nunnery.
But when my mother
sees me, she nods, pleased. “You look like a lady,” she says. “Not like some peasant
girl tricked out in her best to go to a fair.”

As a reproof this is not successful. The girls are so delighted to be allowed to the
muster at all that they don’t in the least mind being reproached for looking too bright.
We walk together down the road to Grafton and see before us, at the side of the highway,
a straggle of a dozen men armed with staves, one or two with cudgels: Father’s recruits.
He has given them all a badge of a white rose and reminded them that they are now
to fight for the House of York. They used to be foot soldiers for Lancaster; they
must remember that they are now turncoats. Of course, they are indifferent to the
change of loyalty. They are fighting as he bids them for he is their landlord, the
owner of their fields, their cottages, almost everything they see around them. His
is the mill where they grind their corn, the ale house where they drink pays rent
to him. Some of them have never been beyond the lands he owns. They can hardly imagine
a world in which “squire” does not simply mean Sir Richard Woodville, or his son after
him. When he was Lancaster, so were they. Then he was given the title Rivers, but
they were still his and he theirs. Now he sends them out to fight for York, and they
will do their best, as always. They have been promised payment for fighting and that
their widows and children will be cared for if they fall. That is all they need to
know. It does not make them an inspired army, but they raise a ragged cheer for my
father and
pull off their hats with appreciative smiles for my sisters and me, and their wives
and children bob curtseys as we come towards them.

There is a burst of trumpets, and every head turns towards the noise. Around the corner,
at a steady trot, come the king’s colors and trumpeters, behind them the heralds,
behind them the yeomen of his household, and in the middle of all this bellow and
waving pennants, there he is.

For a moment I feel as if I will faint, but my mother’s hand is firm under my arm,
and I steady myself. He raises his hand in the signal for halt, and the cavalcade
comes to a standstill. Following the first horses and riders is a long tail of men
at arms; behind them, other new recruits, looking sheepish like our men, and then
a train of wagons with food, supplies, weapons, a great gun carriage drawn by four
massive shire horses, and a trail of ponies and women, camp followers and vagrants.
It is like a small town on the move: a small deadly town, on the move to do harm.

King Edward swings down from his horse and goes to my father, who bows low. “All we
could muster, I am afraid, Your Grace. But sworn to your service,” my father says.
“And this, to help your cause.”

My mother steps forward and offers the purse of gold. King Edward takes it and weighs
it in his hand and then kisses her heartily on both cheeks. “You are generous,” he
says. “And I will not forget your support.”

His gaze goes past her to me, where I stand with my sisters, and we all curtsey together.
When I come up,
he is still looking at me, and there is a moment when all the noise of the army and
the horses and the men falling in freezes into silence, and it is as if there is only
he and I alone, in the whole world. Without thinking what I am doing, as if he has
wordlessly called me, I take a step towards him, and then another, until I have walked
past my father and mother and am face-to-face with him, so close that he might kiss
me, if he wished.

“I can’t sleep,” he says so quietly that only I can hear. “I can’t sleep. I can’t
sleep. I can’t sleep.”

“Nor I.”

“You neither?”

“No.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

He sighs a deep sigh, as if he is relieved. “Is this love then?”

“I suppose so.”

“I can’t eat.”

“No.”

“I can’t think of anything but you. I can’t go on another moment like this; I can’t
ride out into battle like this. I am as foolish as a boy. I am mad for you, like a
boy. I cannot be without you; I will not be without you. Whatever it costs me.”

I can feel my color rising like heat in my cheeks, and for the first time in days
I can feel myself smile. “I can’t think of anything but you,” I whisper. “Nothing.
I thought I was sick.”

The ring like a crown is heavy in my pocket, my
headdress is pulling at my hair; but I stand without awareness, seeing nothing but
him, feeling nothing but his warm breath on my cheek and scenting the smell of his
horse, the leather of his saddle, and the smell of him: spices, rosewater, sweat.

“I am mad for you,” he says.

I feel my smile turn up my lips as I look into his face at last. “And I for you,”
I say quietly. “Truly.”

“Well then, marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me. There is nothing else for it.”

I give a nervous little laugh. “You are joking with me.”

“I mean it. I think I will die if I don’t have you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I breathe.

“Tomorrow morning, I will ride in early. Marry me tomorrow morning at your little
chapel. I will bring my chaplain, you bring witnesses. Choose someone you can trust.
It will have to be a secret for a while. Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

For the first time he smiles, a warm beam that spreads across his fair broad face.
“Good God, I could take you in my arms right now,” he says.

“Tomorrow,” I whisper.

“At nine in the morning,” he says.

He turns to my father.

“Can we offer you some refreshment?” my father asks, looking from my flushed face
to the smiling king.

“No, but I will take supper with you tomorrow, if I may,” he says. “I will be hunting
nearby, and I hope to have a good day.” He bows to my mother and to me, he throws
a salute at my sisters and cousins, and he swings up into his saddle. “Fall in,” he
says to the men. “It’s a short march and a good cause and dinner when you stop. Be
true to me and I will be a good lord to you. I have never lost a battle, and you will
be safe with me. I will take you out to great plunder and bring you safe home again.”

It is exactly the right thing to say to them. At once they look more cheerful and
shuffle to the rear of the line, and my sisters wave their white budding roses, and
the trumpeters sound, and the whole army goes forward again. He nods at me, unsmiling,
and I raise my hand in farewell. “Tomorrow,” I whisper as he goes.

I doubt him,
even as I order my mother’s page boy to wake early in the morning and come to the
chapel ready to sing a psalm. I doubt him even when I go to my mother and tell her
the King of England himself has said that he wants to marry me in secret, and will
she come and be witness, and bring her lady-in-waiting, Catherine. I doubt him when
I stand in my best blue gown in the cold morning air of the little chapel. I doubt
him right up to the moment when I hear his quick stride up the short aisle, until
I feel his arm around my waist and his kiss on my mouth, and I hear him say to the
priest, “Marry us, Father. I am in a hurry.”

The boy sings his psalm, and the priest says the words. I give my oath and he gives
his. Dimly, I see my mother’s delighted face and the colors of the stained-glass window
throwing a rainbow at our feet on the stone floor of the chapel.

Then the priest says, “And the ring?”

And the king says. “A ring! I am a fool! I forgot! I don’t have a ring for you.” He
turns to my mother. “Your Ladyship, can you lend me a ring?”

“Oh, but I have one,” I say, almost surprised at myself. “I have one here.” From my
pocket I take the ring that I have drawn so slowly and so patiently out of the water,
the ring shaped like the crown of England that came with watery magic to bring me
my heart’s desire, and the King of England himself puts it on my finger for my wedding
ring. And I am his wife.