‘Never mind that,’ Margaret says briskly. ‘Into bed. You can share whatever it is tomorrow.’

‘She won’t share!’ I gulp down salt tears. ‘She never does. We were playing but then . . .’

Isabel laughs shortly as if my grief is comical and she exchanges a look with Margaret as if to say that the baby is having a temper tantrum again. This is too much for me. I let out a wail and I throw myself face down on the bed. No-one cares for me, no-one will see that we were playing together, as equals, as sisters, until Isabel claimed something that was not hers to take. She should know that she should share. It is not right that I should come last, that I always come last. ‘It’s not right!’ I say brokenly. ‘It’s not fair on me!’

Isabel turns her back to Margaret, who unlaces the fastening of her gown and holds it low so that she can step out of it, disdainfully, like the queen she was pretending to be. Margaret spreads the gown over a chair, ready for powdering and brushing tomorrow, and Isabel pulls a nightgown over her head and lets Margaret brush her hair and plait it up.

I lift my flushed face from the pillow to watch the two of them and Isabel glances across at my big tragic eyes and says shortly: ‘You should be asleep anyway. You always cry when you’re tired. You’re such a baby. You shouldn’t have been allowed to come to dinner.’ She looks at Margaret, a grown woman of twenty, and says: ‘Margaret, tell her.’

‘Go to sleep, Lady Anne,’ Margaret says gently. ‘There’s nothing to carry on about,’ and I roll on my side and turn my face to the wall. Margaret should not speak to me like this, she is my mother’s lady in waiting and our half-sister, and she should treat me more kindly. But nobody treats me with any respect, and my own sister hates me. I hear the ropes of the bed creak as Isabel gets in beside me. Nobody makes her say her prayers, though she will certainly go to hell. Margaret says: ‘Goodnight, sleep well, God bless,’ and then blows out the candles and goes out of the room.

We are alone together in the firelight. I feel Isabel heave the covers over to her side, and I lie still. She whispers, sharp with malice: ‘You can cry all night if you want, but I shall still be Queen of England and you will not.’

‘I am a Neville!’ I squeak.

‘Margaret is a Neville.’ Isabel proves her point. ‘But illegitimate, Father’s acknowledged bastard. So she serves as our lady in waiting, and she will marry some respectable man while I will marry a wealthy duke at the very least. And now I come to think of it, you are probably illegitimate too, and you will have to be my lady in waiting.’

I feel a sob rising up in my throat, but I put both my hands over my mouth. I will not give her the satisfaction of hearing me cry. I will stifle my sobs. If I could stop my own breath I would; and then they would write to my father and say that I was quite cold and dead, and then she would be sorry that I was suffocated because of her unkindness, and my father – far away tonight – would blame her for the loss of his little girl that he loved above any other. At any rate, he ought to love me above any other. At any rate, I wish he did.


L’ERBER, LONDON, JULY 1465

I am waiting by the door to the yard, for Father will come out this way, and perhaps he will see me and tell me what is happening. Isabel is in the upstairs room where she takes her lessons, and I am not going to go and find her. Isabel can miss all the excitement for once. I hear my father’s riding boots ring on the stone stairs and I turn and sink down into my curtsey for his blessing but see, to my annoyance, that my mother is with him and her ladies behind her, and Isabel with them. She sticks out her tongue at me and grins.

‘And here is my little girl. Are you waiting to see me ride out?’ My father puts his hand gently on my head in blessing and then bends down to look into my face. He is as grand and as big as always; when I was a little girl I thought his chest was made of metal, because I always saw him in armour. Now he smiles at me with dark brown eyes shining from beneath his brightly polished helmet, his thick brown beard neatly trimmed, like a picture of a bold soldier, a military god.

‘Yes, my lord,’ I say. ‘Are you going away again?’

‘I have great work to do today,’ he says solemnly. ‘Do you know what it is?’

I shake my head.

‘Who is our greatest enemy?’

This is easy. ‘The bad queen.’

‘You are right, and I wish I had her in my power. But who is our next worst enemy, and her husband?’

‘The sleeping king,’ I say.

He laughs. ‘Is that what you call them? The bad queen and the sleeping king? Well enough. You are a young lady of great wit.’ I glance at Isabel to see how she – who calls me stupid – likes this? My father goes on: ‘And who do you think has been betrayed to us, caught, just as I said he would be, and brought as a prisoner to London?’

‘Is it the sleeping king?’

‘It is,’ he says. ‘And I am riding out with my men to bring him through the streets of London to the Tower and he will stay there, our prisoner forever.’

I look up at him as he looms above me, but I dare not speak.

‘What is it?’

‘Can I come too?’

He laughs. ‘You are as brave as a little squire, you should have been a boy. No, you can’t come too. But when I have him captive in the Tower you can look through the doorway sometime and then you will see that there is nothing for you to fear from him any more. I have the king in my keeping, and without him the queen his wife can do nothing.’