The rest of the lords and courtiers have gone to their lands for the summer, nobody wants to be in London during the hot plague months, so Richard and I will not stay long before we go on the long journey north to Middleham together, to see our baby again.

The day we are due to leave, I go to tell Richard that I will be ready within the hour, and find his presence chamber door is closed. This is the room where Richard hears petitions and applications for his judgement or generosity; the door always stands open as a symbol of his good lordship. It is his throne room, which is always visible so that people can see the youngest son of York about his business of ruling the kingdom. I open the door and go in. The inner door to his privy chamber is closed too. I go to turn the handle, and then I pause at the sound of a familiar voice.

His brother George Duke of Clarence is in there with my husband, talking very quietly and very persuasively. My hand drops from the ring of the handle and I stand still to listen.

‘Since he is not a true son of our father, and since their marriage was undoubtedly brought about by witchcraft . . .’

‘This? Again?’ Richard interrupts his brother scornfully. ‘Again? He has two handsome sons – one newly born this very month – and three healthy daughters against your dead boy and puling girl, and you say his marriage is not blessed by God? Surely, George, even you can see the evidence is against you?’

‘I say they are all bastards. He and Elizabeth Woodville are not married in the sight of God, and their children are all bastards.’

‘And you are the only fool in London who says it.’

‘Many say it. Your wife’s father said it.’

‘For malice. And those who are not malicious are all fools.’

A chair scrapes on the wooden floor. ‘Do you call me a fool?’

‘Lord, yes,’ Richard says scornfully. ‘To your face. A treacherous fool, if you like. A malicious fool if you insist. Do you think that we don’t know that you are meeting with Oxford? With every fool who still carries a grudge though Edward has done everything he can to settle with the embittered placemen who lost their positions? With the Lancastrians who rode against him? With every leftover out-of-place Lancaster follower that you can find? With every disgruntled squire? Sending secret messages to the French? D’you think we don’t know all that you do, and more?’

‘Edward knows?’ George’s voice has lost its bluster as if he has been winded. ‘You said “we know”? What does Edward know? What have you told him?’

‘’Course he knows. Assume he knows everything. Will he do anything? He won’t. Would I? In a moment. Because I have no patience with hidden enmity and I prefer to strike early and quick. But Edward loves you as only a kind brother could, and he has more patience than I can muster. But, brother mine, you bring me no news when you come here to tell me you have been a traitor before and you could be one again. That much I know already. That much we all know.’

‘I didn’t come here for that. Just to say . . .’

Again I hear the scrape of a chair as someone leaps to his feet and then Richard’s raised voice: ‘What does that say? Read it aloud! What does it say?’

Without opening the door to see him, I know that Richard will be pointing to his motto, carved in the massive wooden chimney breast.

‘For God’s sake!’

‘Loyauté me lie,’ Richard quotes. ‘Loyalty binds me. You wouldn’t understand such a thing, but I am sworn heart and soul to my brother Edward the king. I believe in the order of chivalry, I believe in God and the king and that they are one and the same thing and my honour is bound to both. Don’t you even dare to question me. My beliefs are beyond your imagining.’

‘All I am saying,’ now George’s voice is a persuasive whine, ‘all I am saying is that there are questions about the king and questions about the queen and that if we are legitimate and he is not, then perhaps we should divide the kingdom, fairly – as you and I divided the Neville inheritance – and rule jointly. He has all but given you the North, he has allowed you to rule it almost as a principality. Why can’t he give me the Midlands in the same way, and he can keep the south? Prince Edward has Wales. What is this if not fair?’

There is a moment’s silence. I know that Richard will be tempted by the thought of a kingdom of the North, and him as its ruler. I take one tiny step closer to the door. I pray that he will resist temptation, say no to his brother, cleave to the king. Pray God that he does nothing to bring the enmity of the queen down on our heads.

‘It’s to carve up the kingdom that he won in a fair fight,’ Richard says bluntly. ‘He won his kingdom entire, by force of arms in honourable battle, with me and even you at his side. He will not divide it. It would be to destroy his son’s inheritance.’

‘I am surprised to see you defend Elizabeth Woodville’s son,’ George says silkily. ‘You of all people, who are supplanted in your brother’s love by their clan. You of all people, who was his best friend and most beloved; but now you come after her, and after her brother the saintly Anthony, and after her commoner sons, his constant companions in every whorehouse in London: Thomas and Richard. But I see that the Woodville boy has a champion in you. You are a loving uncle, as it turns out.’

‘I defend my brother,’ Richard replies. ‘I say nothing about the Rivers family. My brother married the woman of his choice. She was not of my choosing; but I defend my brother. Always.’

‘You can’t be loyal to her,’ George says flatly. ‘You can’t be.’

Again, I hear my young husband hesitate; it is true, he cannot be loyal to her.

‘We’ll talk,’ George says finally. ‘Not now; but later. When the Woodville boy wants to come to his throne. We’ll talk then. When the boy from Grafton, the base-blooded bastard, wants to step up to the throne of England, and take our brother’s crown which we won for him and for our house, not for them – we’ll talk again then. I know you are loyal to Edward – I am too. But only to my brother, to my house and to the blood of kings. Not to that base-born bastard.’

I hear him turn on his heel and walk across the room and I step back to a window bay. As they open the door, I look round with a little start as if I am surprised to find them there. George barely nods at me as he heads towards the door and Richard stands and watches him go.


MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, JULY 1474

I order that our son Edward shall never be taken along the walkway of the outer wall to see his grandmother. I don’t want her to have anything to do with him. He bears a royal name, he is the grandson my father longed for. He is many steps now from the throne but I am raising him with the education and the courage of a king – as my father would have wanted, as my mother should have done. But she has cursed me and she has cursed my marriage – so I will not give her as much as one glimpse of my beautiful son. She can be dead to him, as she said I was dead to her.