‘George has bad news from Warwick,’ Richard says to me shortly.

I wait.

George’s face is grim, far older than his twenty-seven years. ‘I have found Isabel’s murderer. I have arrested her and brought her to trial. She was found guilty and put to death.’

I feel my knees weaken, and Richard gets up from his chair and presses me into his seat. ‘You have to be brave,’ he says. ‘There is more and it is worse.’

‘What can be worse?’ I whisper.

‘I found the murderer of my son also.’ George’s voice is a hard monotone. ‘He too was found guilty by the jury that I sent him to, and was hanged. These two, at least, will be no danger to you or yours.’

I tighten my grip on Richard’s hand.

‘I have been inquiring ever since Isabel’s death as to her murderer,’ George says quietly. ‘Her name was Ankarette, Ankarette Twynho, she was a maidservant in my wife’s rooms. She served Isabel’s meals, she brought her wine when she was in labour.’

Briefly I close my eyes, thinking of Isabel accepting the service and not knowing that she was being cared for by an enemy. I knew that I should have been there. I would have seen the servant for what she was.

‘She was in the pay of the queen,’ he says. ‘God knows how long she has been spying on us. But when Isabel went into childbirth and was so happy and confident that it would be another boy – the queen ordered her servant to use the powders.’

‘Powders?’

‘Italian powders: poison.’

‘You are sure?’

‘I have the evidence, and the jury found her guilty and sentenced her to death.’

‘He has only proof that Ankarette named the queen as her employer,’ Richard intercedes. ‘We can’t be sure the queen ordered the murder.’

‘Who else would hurt Isabel?’ George says simply. ‘Was she not beloved, by everyone who knew her?’

I nod blindly, my eyes filling with tears. ‘And her little boy?’

‘Ankarette went to Somerset as soon as Isabel was dead and her household dismissed,’ George says. ‘But she left the powders with her friend John Thursby, a groom of the household at Warwick. He gave them to the baby. The jury found them both guilty, they were both executed.’

I give a shuddering sigh, and I look up at Richard.

‘You must guard yourself,’ George cautions me. ‘Eat nothing that comes from her kitchens, no wine but from your own cellars, have them open the bottles before you. Trust none of your servants. That’s all you can do. We cannot protect ourselves from her witchcraft except by hiring our own witch. If she uses dark forces against us, I don’t know what we can do.’

‘The queen’s guilt is not proven,’ Richard says doggedly.

George laughs shortly. ‘I have lost a wife, a blameless woman that the queen hated. I don’t need more proof than that.’

Richard shakes his head. ‘We cannot be divided,’ he insists. ‘We are the three sons of York. Edward had a sign, the three suns in the sky. We have come so far, we cannot be divided now.’

‘I am true to Edward and I am true to you,’ George swears. ‘But Edward’s wife is my enemy, and she is the enemy of your wife too. She has taken the best wife a man could have had from me, and a boy of my making. I shall make sure she does not hurt me again. I will employ food tasters, I will employ guards, and I will employ a sorcerer to protect me from her evil crafts.’

Richard turns away from the fireside and looks out of the window as if he could find an answer in the sleety rain.

‘I shall go to Edward and tell him of this,’ George says slowly. ‘I don’t see what else I can do.’

Richard bows his head to his duty as a son of York. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Richard never tells me in detail what passes between the three brothers in the meeting when Edward accuses George of taking the law into his own hands, packing a jury, inventing charges and executing two innocent people and George replies to his brother that Elizabeth Woodville set murderers on Isabel and her baby boy. Richard only tells me that the gulf between George and Edward is perhaps fatally wide, and that his loyalty to one brother is on the brink of destruction because of his love for the other, and that he fears where this will take us all.

‘Can we go home to Middleham?’ I ask.

‘We go to dine at court,’ he says grimly. ‘We have to. Edward has to see I stand by him, the queen cannot see that you are afraid of her.’

My hands start to shake, so I clasp them behind my back. ‘Please . . .’

‘We have to go.’

The queen comes to dinner white-faced and biting her lips; the look she shoots at George would fell a weaker man. He bows low to her, with ironic respect, a flowery court bow like a player might make as a joke. She turns her shoulder towards George’s table, speaks constantly to the king as if to prevent him even glancing at his brother, leans close to the king at dinner, sits at his side as they watch an entertainment, allowing no-one else near him; certainly not George, who stands leaning back against the wall and stares at her as if he would put her on trial too. The court is agog with the scandal and horrified at the accusations. Anthony Woodville goes everywhere with his thumbs in his sword belt, walking on the balls of his feet as if ready to spring up to defend his sister’s honour. Nobody is laughing at George any more, not even the careless Rivers family who have always taken everything so lightly. Matters have become serious: we all wait to see what the king will do, whether he will allow the murderous witch to guide him, yet again.


BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, MAY 1477

‘I am not afraid,’ says George. ‘I have my own powers.’