Only slowly, with a growing dread, do we realise that this is not a threat from Father, to teach them a lesson. These are not kinsmen who have been taken for ransom in the ordinary way: this is a declaration of war on the Rivers. Father accuses the queen’s own father and her handsome young brother John of treason and orders their execution. Without rule of law, without a proper trial, he has them brought from Chepstow to our stronghold, Coventry, and executed without chance of appeal, without a chance of a pardon, outside the hard grey walls. The handsome young man, married to a woman old enough to be his grandmother, dies before his ancient bride, his head on a block, his dark curls gripped by the executioner. Lord Rivers puts his head down in his son’s blood. The queen, stricken with grief, in terror for herself, separated from her husband, fearing that she will be an orphan, barricades herself and her little girls into the Tower of London and sends for her mother.

She can’t reach her. The queen’s mother, who planned the table for the children at the coronation dinner and smiled at me, is in my father’s power at Warwick Castle. Father creates a courtroom to have her tried and brings witnesses against her. One after another they come with reports of lights burning in her still-room at night, of her whispering to the river which runs near her home, of rumours that she could hear voices and that when one of her family was going to die she was warned by singing, spectral singing from the night sky.

Finally they search her home at Grafton and bring in the tools of necromancy: two little figures made of lead, bound together in a devilish union with wire of gold. Clearly one is meant to be the king, the other Jacquetta’s daughter, Elizabeth Woodville. Their secret marriage was brought about by witchcraft, and King Edward, who has acted like a madman since he first set eyes on the Northampton widow, was all this time under an enchantment. The queen’s mother is a witch who brought about the marriage by magic, and the queen herself is the daughter of a witch and half-witch herself. Clearly, Father will obey the injunction in the Bible that says Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and put her to death, doing God’s work and his own.

He writes all this to Mother, as we wait in Calais, and she reads it in her measured voice as the ladies sit around and forget to sew, open-mouthed with shock. Of course, I want Midnight to ride with his high-stepping stride over all the kingdom; but I cannot rejoice at the thought of that young man John putting his handsome head on the block. I remember how he looked like a lamb going to the slaughter at the coronation feast when they made him go handfast with his elderly bride – but now he is a slaughtered lamb indeed and he has died before the old lady. My father rebels against the rules of nature as well as those of kingship. The queen’s mother, Jacquetta, who smiled at me so kindly on the night of the coronation feast, has been widowed by my father’s executioner. I remember her walking into dinner with her hand in her husband’s arm, their pride and joy shining from them like candlelight. Yet my father has killed her boy, and her husband too. The queen herself is fatherless; is she to lose her mother as well? Is Father going to burn Jacquetta, Lady Rivers?

‘She is our enemy,’ Isabel says reasonably. ‘I know that the queen is beautiful and she seemed very pleasant, but her family are grasping and bad advisors, and Father will have to destroy them. They are our enemy now. You must think of them as the enemy now.’

‘I do,’ I say; but I think of her in her white gown and her high headdress and her veil of lace, and I know that I don’t.

For most of the summer we are in a state of constant excitement as the reports come from England that Edward, the one-time king, is living as our forced guest at Warwick Castle, that Father is ruling the realm through him, and the reputations of all of the Rivers are being destroyed. Father tells everyone that the evidence from the trial of the queen’s mother shows clearly that the royal marriage was brought about by sorcery, and the king has been under an evil spell. Father has saved him, he is keeping him safe and he will kill the witch and break the spell.

My mother has waited in Calais for news before; we waited here when my father fought one brilliant battle after another to defeat the sleeping king. It is as if we are re-enacting those days of victory and Father is once again unstoppable. Now he has a second king in his keeping and he is going to put a new puppet on the throne. The French servants who come into the city of Calais tell us that the French call my father ‘the kingmaker’ and say that no-one can hold the throne of England without his permission.

‘The kingmaker,’ my mother murmurs, savouring the word. She smiles at her ladies, she even smiles at me. ‘Lord, what foolish things people do say,’ she remarks.

Then a ship from England brings us a packet of letters and the captain comes to the castle, to see my mother in private, and tell her that the news is all over London that King Edward was born a bastard, not his father’s son but the misbegotten child of an English archer. Edward was never the heir of the House of York. He is base-born. He should never have been on the throne at all.

‘Are people really saying that Duchess Cecily lay with an archer?’ I ask out loud as one of the ladies whispers the gossip. The king’s mother, our great-aunt, is one of the most formidable ladies of the realm, and no-one but a fool would believe such a thing of her. ‘Duchess Cecily? With an archer?’

In one swift angry move, my mother rounds on me and boxes my ears with a ringing blow that sends my headdress flying across the room.

‘Out of my sight!’ she shouts in a rage. ‘And think before you dare to speak ill of your betters! Never say such a thing in my hearing again.’

I have to scuttle across the room to get my headdress. ‘My Lady Mother . . .’ I start to apologise.

‘Go to your room!’ she orders. ‘And then go to the priest for a penance for gossiping.’

I scurry out, clutching my headdress, and find Isabel in our bedroom.

‘What is it?’ she asks, seeing a red handprint across my cheek.

‘Lady Mother,’ I say shortly.

Isabel reaches into her sleeve and lends me her special wedding handkerchief to dry my eyes. ‘Here,’ she says gently. ‘Why did she box your ears? Come and sit here and I’ll comb your hair.’

I stifle my sobs and take my seat before the little silvered mirror, and Isabel takes the pins out of my hair and combs out the tangles with the ivory comb that her husband gave her after their one night of marriage.

‘What happened?’

‘I only said that I couldn’t believe that King Edward was a bastard foisted on his father by the duchess,’ I say defensively. ‘And even if I am beaten to death for saying it, I still can’t believe it. Our great-aunt? Duchess Cecily? Who would dare to say such a thing of her? She is such a great lady. Who would say such a thing against her? Won’t they get their tongue slit? What d’you think?’

‘I think it’s a lie,’ she says drily, as she twists my hair into a plait and pins it up on my head. ‘And that’s why you got your ears boxed. Mother was angry with you because it’s a lie that we are not to question. We are not to repeat it, but we’re not to challenge it either. It’s a lie that our men will be telling all over London, Calais too, and we are not to contradict it.’

I am utterly confused. ‘Why would our men say it? Why would we not forbid them to speak, as I am forbidden? Why would we allow such a lie? Why would anyone say that Duchess Cecily betrayed her own husband? Shamed herself?’

‘You think,’ she advises.

I sit staring at my own reflection, my brown hair shining with bronze lights where it is elegantly plaited by Isabel, my young face creased in a frown. Isabel waits for me to follow the tortuous path of my father’s plotting. ‘Father is allowing the men to repeat this lie?’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Because if Edward is illegitimate, then George is the true heir,’ I say eventually.

‘And so the true King of England,’ she says. ‘All roads lead to George taking the throne and me at his side and Father ruling us both forever. They call him the kingmaker. He made Edward, now he unmakes him. Next, he makes George.’ Her face in the mirror is grave.

‘I would have thought you would be pleased to be queen,’ I say tentatively. ‘And to have Father win the throne for you.’

‘When we were little girls playing at being queens we didn’t know the price that women pay. We know now. The queen before Elizabeth, the bad queen, Margaret of Anjou, is on her knees like a beggar asking for help from the King of France, her husband in the Tower, her son a prince with no principality. The present queen is hiding in the Tower, her father and brother dead on a scaffold, beheaded like common criminals, her mother awaits death by burning for witchcraft.’

‘Iz, please tell me that Father wouldn’t burn Jacquetta Woodville!’ I whisper.

‘He will,’ my sister says, her face grim. ‘Why else arrest and try her? When I wanted to be a queen I thought it was a story, like the legends, I thought it was all about beautiful dresses and handsome knights. Now I see that it is pitiless. It is a game of chess and Father has me as one of his pieces. Now he uses me on the board, next I may fall to one side and he won’t even think of me, as he brings another piece into play.’

‘Are you afraid?’ I whisper. ‘Are you afraid of falling off to one side?’

‘Yes,’ she says.


ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1469

This is our moment of triumph: the kingmaker deposing the king who has wearied him to install another, his son-in-law. It is my father who decides who will rule England. It is my father who makes and unmakes the Kings of England. And Isabel is with child, she too is doing just what Father requires, she too is being a kingmaker; she is making a King of England in her belly. Mother prays every morning before a statue of Our Lady that Isabel has a boy, who will be Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. We are a triumphant family blessed by God with fertility. The former king, Edward, has only three daughters, he has no son and heir, there is no prince in his nursery, there is no-one to bar George from the throne. His beautiful queen, so healthy and so fecund, can only make girls with him. But here we are, entering England a new royal family, a new queen for crowning, and she is with child. A wedding-night baby, conceived in the only night they were together! What a sign of grace! Who can doubt that it is our destiny to take the crown and for my father to see his grandson born a prince and live to be a king?