The queen has the priory turned upside down until we can find two gowns of white – the colour of royal mourning in France. She wears a bleached wimple and coif that drains her stricken face of any colour so that she looks indeed like the queen of ice that they once called her. Three times Richard sends to the door of her chamber to demand that she come now, and three times she sends him away saying she is preparing for the journey. Finally, she can delay no longer.

‘Follow me,’ she says. ‘We will ride, but if they want to bind us to our horses we will refuse. Do as I do, obey me in everything. And don’t speak unless I say you can.’

‘I have asked him if I could go to my mother,’ I say.

She turns on me a face like stone. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she says. ‘My son is dead, his widow will have to pay the price too. He is dead and you are dishonoured.’

‘You could ask for me to be released to my mother.’

‘Why would I do anything for you? My son is dead, my army defeated, the struggle of my life is overthrown. Better for me to bring you into London at my side. Edward is more likely to pardon us as two women in mourning.’

I follow her out to the stable yard. I cannot deny her bleak logic, and there is nowhere else for me to go. The guard is drawn up, and Richard sits on his grey horse to one side. He is red-faced and trembling with anger at the delay, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.

She looks at him indifferently, as if he were a moody pageboy, whose temper is of no interest to her. ‘I am ready now. You may lead the way; the princess dowager will ride beside me. Your guard will come behind us. I will not be crowded.’

He nods shortly. She gets onto her horse and they bring mine to the mounting block. I get on and one of the elderly nuns straightens my borrowed white gown so that it falls either side of the horse, covering my worn boots. She looks up at me: ‘Good luck, Princess,’ she says. ‘God speed and a safe ending to your journey. God bless you, poor thing – little more than a child in a hard world.’ Her kindness is so sudden, and so surprising, that the tears flood into my eyes and I have to blink them away to see.

‘Ride out!’ Richard of Gloucester says sharply. The guards fall in before, behind, and on either side of the queen, and when she is about to protest Robert Brackenbury leans over, pulls the reins out of her hands and leads her horse. They clatter out through the arch. I gather my reins and kick my horse forwards to join her but Richard wheels his big battle horse between the queen’s cavalcade and me, and he leans over and puts his gauntleted hand on my reins.

‘What?’

‘You’re not going with her.’

She turns to look back. The guard has closed up around her and I cannot hear her voice but I see that she is calling my name. I pull my reins from Richard and say: ‘Let go, Richard. Don’t be stupid, I have to go with her. She ordered me.’

‘No you don’t,’ he contradicts me. ‘You’re not arrested, though she is. You’re not going to the Tower of London, though she is. Your husband is dead; you’re not of the House of Lancaster any more. You are a Neville once more. You can choose.’

‘Anne!’ I hear her shout to me. ‘Come now!’

I wave at her, gesturing to show her Richard, holding my reins. She tries to pull up her horse but the guard close around her and force her onward, a cloud of dust billowing up from the hooves of their horses as they drive her onward like a herded swan, down the road to London, away from me.

‘I have to go, I am her daughter-in- law,’ I say urgently. ‘I swore fealty to her, she commands me.’

‘She is going to the Tower,’ he says simply. ‘To join her sleeping husband. Her life is over, her cause is lost, her son and heir is dead.’

I shake my head. Too much has happened, too quickly. ‘How did he die?’

‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens to you next.’

I look at him; I am simply bereft of all will. ‘Richard, I am lost.’

He doesn’t even answer. He has seen such horrors today that my tears count for nothing. ‘You say I cannot go with the queen?’

‘No.’

‘Can I go to my mother?’

‘No. And anyway, she will be tried for treason.’

‘Can I stay here?’

‘No.’

‘Then what can I do?’

He smiles as if at last I have realised that I have to consult with him, I am not free. I am the pawn in possession of another player. A new game has started and he is going to make a move. ‘I am going to take you to your sister, Isabel.’


WORCESTER, MAY 1471

Isabel receives me in her privy chamber with three ladies in waiting. I know none of them. It is like meeting a stranger in awkward circumstances. I walk in and curtsey; she inclines her head.

‘Iz.’

She has gone deaf with greatness. She just looks at me.

‘Iz,’ I say more urgently.

‘How could you do it?’ she demands. ‘How could you come with her and invade us like that? How could you, Anne? You were bound to fail and face disgrace or death.’

For a moment I am aghast, and I stare at her as if she is speaking Flemish. Then I look at the avid ladies seated around her and realise we are speaking for the enjoyment of the House of York, we are a tableau of remorse and loyalty. She is playing Loyalty; I am to play Remorse.

‘My Lady Sister, I had no choice,’ I say quietly. ‘My father ordered my marriage to the son of Margaret of Anjou, and she commanded that I go with them. You remember that I did not seek the marriage, it was at my father’s command. As soon as we landed in England I asked at once to join my mother. There are witnesses to that.’