Jean Plaidy (19 page)

“It was a great tragedy,” I said.

He took my hands and smiled at me. “We have to forget it, Anne. We have to start afresh.”

He looked at me rather shyly and then, drawing me to him, kissed my lips.

I was still bewildered. The contrast had been too sudden. A warm contentment was beginning to creep over me. It was like the old days at Middleham. Richard was back in my life.

There was much to look forward to. We talked for a short while in a leisurely way, recalling the old days.

Coventry will always have a special place in my thoughts, for I had entered that city feeling all was lost and there I found hope for the future.

I did not know what was happening to Queen Margaret. I did not see her so was unable to tell her of my good fortune. Poor Margaret! How different her fate was from mine. She would be the king's prisoner, his deadly enemy. In spite of his generous leniency, I could not believe there would be a very happy fate in store for her.

         

Isabel was waiting for me at Warwick Court in London. I ran to her and we were in each other's arms, clinging together.

“Isabel!” I cried emotionally. “Is it really you? My sister, I can't believe this is true.”

“It is. It is,” she cried. “And Anne…how thin you are! I must look after you, I see.”

“So much has happened. There is so much to tell.”

She put her arm through mine and, looking over her shoulder at the attendants in the background, went on: “I will take the Lady Anne to her chamber.”

I had wondered fleetingly why I should be going to Warwick Court, which had been one of my father's residences. It was the custom for property of traitors to be confiscated. But of course Isabel was not a traitor, being the wife of Clarence who had repented in time.

The room to which I was taken was one that I had occupied on other visits to Warwick Court on those rare occasions when the family had been in London.

She shut the door and we were alone. She stood looking at me and I noticed how she had changed. I suppose she had never been the same since she had lost her baby. Memories came back to me of that terrible night at sea when I had watched that little body being consigned to the waves. How tragic everything was!

“I have thought so much about you,” said Isabel. “To be with that terrible woman.”

“You mean Queen Margaret? She was formidable. But I grew to be quite fond of her, in a way.”

She smiled and shook her head at me. “You were always too easily beguiled. And betrothed to that young man! Her son! I have heard such stories about him.”

“I never knew him. I only feared that I might have to.”

“Well, that is over now and you are back with me. George is going to be your guardian. He will look after you.”

“George!”

“Of course. It must be George. Isn't he my husband, and you are my sister. It's natural.”

“Perhaps our mother?”

Her face clouded. “What of our mother? I worry about her. What will become of her? Our father is branded traitor and she, his wife, they will say shared his guilt.”

“What else could she have done but what she did?”

“That, sister, is not considered. She was with him. She helped him. She was against Edward and therefore I fear for her.”

“The king is not unkind. He was good to me.”

“George spoke for you…begged that you should be brought here.”

“I thought it was Richard who spoke for me.”

She smiled. “Oh, perhaps Richard, too. But the king has put you in our charge, which is the natural thing to do.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But how I do wish we could hear from our mother.”

“George will let no harm come to her. He knows that would hurt me. We can trust George.”

I felt an uneasy qualm. I had never felt that I could trust George. I could not forget that it was only a little while ago when he was with my father. He had thought he could drive his brother from the throne and take it himself. And when my father's prospects were in doubt, George immediately made peace with Edward. Was that a man whom one could trust?

But he was Isabel's husband and she cared for him. She should, of course, know him better than any.

She was looking at me with concern. “You are so thin,” she repeated. “And you look pale. I am going to look after you. I shall keep you quiet for a while, make you rest and go early to bed. My poor little sister, you are too young to be at the center of drama as you have been of late.”

“I am so happy to be with you, Isabel. If only our mother could be here I should be content.”

“Who knows? She may be joining us. George will see what can be done. Now you will rest. Are you hungry? Come and lie down. I insist. I will sit with you and we will talk…and talk.”

I obeyed and she did and, although a certain peace crept over me, it was tempered with faint feelings of apprehension.

Perhaps I could not believe that after all the stirring events of the past I could ever live quietly and at peace again.

         

I was exhausted and slept well. In the morning a woman came to attend to my wants and to my pleasure I saw that she was Ankarette Twynyho whom I remembered from the past.

Ankarette was the jolly, talkative woman who had been widowed when she was quite young and had served Queen Elizabeth Woodville for a few years before coming to us. She had been a favorite with the queen, perhaps because of her avid interest in people and her talent for gathering gossip. I remembered Isabel's telling me that the queen had recommended her. It was a pleasure therefore to see Ankarette.

“The duchess has been so anxious about you, my lady,” she said. “She could speak of nothing but her dear sister, the Lady Anne. And when we thought you were going to marry Prince Edward…I can tell you we were all dismayed. That would have put you good and truly on the other side, would it not, my lady?”

“Alas, Ankarette, I was not consulted in the matter.”

“That's so my lady. I often think how lucky some of us be when it do come to mating. There was I with my Roger. I could have been a contented wife…but the Lord saw fit to take him.”

“So you have suffered, too, Ankarette.”

“Aye. But I've had my good fortunes and one of them has been to serve the duchess and now you, my lady.”

“I am pleased to see you again, Ankarette.”

She was indeed assiduous in her care for me; and it was from her that I discovered what was happening outside Warwick Court.

It was she who told me how Queen Margaret had ridden, as a prisoner, in the triumphant procession into London when Edward returned to the capital, king once more, with the Lancastrian armies in full retreat, and the man who had called himself Prince of Wales now dead and his mother the queen, whom the people had hated, vanquished while her husband, poor old Henry, was a prisoner in the Tower.

“Poor soul,” said Ankarette. “I could almost find it in my heart to be sorry for her. True, she has brought great trouble to this country. Ah, if only poor King Henry had been the man his father was…then we should have had none of this War of the Roses. But then we could not have had King Edward…and he's the man the people want. He's a king…every bit of him. So you see, my lady, that is life. A bit of good…a bit of bad…both meted out to us all. Let's hope we've had our share of the bad for a while and now let's have a strong dose of the good. But the shame for that poor queen…a captive driven there with the victors and her husband a prisoner…her armies defeated. No matter what she is, you must spare a thought for her.”

“Yes,” I said. “She would suffer deeply. I grew to know her. She cared so much for her son. I think perhaps that now he is dead she does not mind so much what happens to her.”

“Poor soul,” said Ankarette.

It was not long before there was more startling news, and it was Ankarette who imparted it to me.

She made a habit of going into the streets and talking to people whenever she could. It was sure that when she was in the country she must have missed this a great deal, but here at Warwick Court, she had ample opportunities and because it was in London, at the center of events, she could keep us well informed.

Thus I heard of the death of Henry almost as soon as it had happened.

She liked to talk to me because I was particularly interested in what the people thought; and this was an item of such magnitude that everyone would be talking about it. Indeed it was not long before the rumors began to be circulated.

Ankarette said, “They have announced that King Henry died in the night…the very night of that very day when King Edward rode in triumph into the city. He died, they said, of displeasure and melancholy.” Ankarette raised her eyebrows. “There are some who are asking if people can really die of such maladies.”

“He was without a doubt very weak,” said Isabel.

“He was weak of mind, my lady, but do people die of that?”

“I suppose,” said Isabel, “that if a man is sufficiently afflicted, he can die of anything.”

Ankarette shook her head. “They are already whispering…”

“Are there not always whispers?”

“To die at such a time, they are saying. He was kept alive, some say, because he was mad and unfit to rule. If he had died before…while the prince was alive, that young man would have been ready for the crown…a king, some would call him instead of a prince. That would have been dangerous. They are saying that the king had been allowed to live while there was the threat of the prince. But now he is dead, there was no longer any need to keep the king alive.”

“You listen to too much gossip, Ankarette,” said Isabel.

“It is one way of learning what is going on, my lady.”

“One learns a great deal about what people
think
is going on.”

“And somewhere in it there might be a grain of truth,” insisted Ankarette.

“What will this mean?” I asked.

Isabel said, “There will no longer be a threat from Lancaster. The prince and heir is dead. King Henry is dead. The House of York is next in line. So whatever was thought before, everyone must see now that Edward is the rightful king.”

“The House of Lancaster still exists,” pointed out Ankarette. “There are the Tudors.”

“They descended from Queen Katharine, wife of Henry the Fifth, I believe,” I said.

“Through Owen Tudor,” said Isabel. “They are bastards.”

“Some say there was a marriage,” I reminded her.

“Nonsense,” she retorted. “The House of York is now firmly on the throne. There is no one to displace them now. I am sorry for poor Henry, but he did not care much for life.”

“I wonder what Queen Margaret feels now,” I said.

“Oh, you are too kind to her, Anne,” said Isabel. “She has caused great trouble. Now that is over. There must be an end to war.”

“That is what people are saying,” said Ankarette. “But they also say that King Henry was murdered…and the people do not like a king to be murdered.”

“Well,” said Isabel. “He died of displeasure and melancholy. That is what we are told and let us believe it.”

“One cannot always believe what one would wish to,” I replied.

“Perhaps not. But it is often comfortable if one tries to.”

She was right, of course, and poor Henry, I believed, had had no great wish to live in his clouded world. For him it could have been a welcome release, as it was for the House of York and the nation.

His body was exposed at St. Paul's for the people to see and some said there was blood on it, which gave credence to the rumor that he had met a violent death. Afterward they took his body to Blackfriars and there it lay for a while before it was taken by barge to Chertsey and buried in the abbey there.

There was a feeling of relief throughout the nation. The popular King Edward was on the throne, and this was surely an end to the War of the Roses.

The days passed slowly at first and then more rapidly. I was so relieved to be with Isabel and to know that Richard would be coming to see me whenever he was free to do so.

Isabel told me how distressed she had been when George had turned against his brother.

“It was our father who persuaded him,” she said. “He adored our father. He looked up to him so much.”

I was amazed. Did Isabel not know that George adored only himself and had harbored a grudge because he had not been born the eldest son and above all things he wanted the throne? I suppose our father had promised him that—or hinted at it, more likely. Our father had been too wise a man to have put his trust in Clarence. But Isabel loved him. That surprised me really, although of course he was rather handsome; he had his brother Edward's good looks, but he was not quite as tall, not quite so handsome. It was a case of “not quite” with George. But I supposed he would be considered attractive until he became petulant, bad-tempered, and treacherous, and no doubt love was blind to these faults, which was fortunate for Isabel.