‘Whose was the dish?’

‘Yours.’

I say nothing. I feel nothing. Not even surprise. For years Elizabeth Woodville has been my enemy and even now, with her released and living at peace in Wiltshire, I can feel her grey gaze on the nape of my neck. She will see me still as the daughter of the man who killed her beloved father and brother. Now she sees me also as the woman who stands in the way of her daughter. If I were dead then Richard would get a dispensation from the Pope and marry his niece Elizabeth. The House of York would be reunited, the Woodville woman would be dowager queen once more and grandmother to the next King of England.

‘She never stops,’ I say quietly to myself.

‘Who?’ Richard seems taken aback.

‘Elizabeth Woodville. I take it that it is she who is suspected of trying to poison me?’

He laughs out loud, his former impulsive crack of laughter that I have not heard for so long. He takes my hand and kisses my fingers. ‘No, they don’t suspect her,’ he says. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I will guard you. I shall make sure that you are safe. But you must rest, my dear. Everyone says you look tired.’

‘I am well enough,’ I say grimly, and to myself I promise: ‘I am well enough to keep her daughter from my throne.’


WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 1485

Twelfth night, of all the nights of the year, is one where shapes shift and identities flicker. Once I was the kingmaker’s daughter, raised in the knowledge that I would be one of the great ladies of the kingdom. Now I am queen. This should satisfy my father and satisfy me, but when I think of the price we have paid, I think that we have been cheated by fate itself. I smile down the room so that everyone can know I am happy with my husband dancing hand-in-hand with his niece, his eyes on her blushing face. I have to show everyone that I am well and that the insidious drip of Elizabeth Woodville’s poison in my food, in my wine, perhaps even in the perfume that scents my gloves, is not slowly killing me.

The dance ends and Richard comes back to sit beside me. Elizabeth goes to chatter with her sisters. Richard and I are wearing our crowns at this final feast of the season, to show everyone that we are King and Queen of England, to send the message out to the most distant shires that we are in our pomp. A door opens beside us and a messenger comes in and hands Richard a single sheet of paper. He reads it briefly and nods to me as if a gamble he has made has been confirmed.

‘What is it?’

He speaks very quietly. ‘News of Tudor. No Christmas announcement of his betrothal this year. I have won this round. He has lost the York princess and he has lost the support of the Rivers affinity.’ He smiles at me. ‘He knows he cannot claim her as his wife, everyone believes she is in my keeping, my whore. I have stolen her and her followers from him.’

I look down the long room to where Elizabeth is practising her steps with her sisters, impatiently waiting for the music to start again. A circle of young men stand around, hoping that she will dance with them.

‘You have ruined her if she is known throughout the country as broken meats, the king’s hackney.’

He shrugs. ‘There is a price to pay if you venture near the throne. She knows that. Her mother, of all people, knows that. But there is more—’

‘What more?’

‘I have the date for the Tudor invasion. He is coming this year.’

‘You know this? When is he coming?’

‘This very summer.’

‘How do you know?’ I whisper.

Richard smiles. ‘I have a spy at his ramshackle court.’

‘Who?’

‘Elizabeth Woodville’s oldest son, Thomas Grey. He is in my keeping too. She is proving a very good friend to me.’


WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, MARCH 1485

I have someone to taste my wine, I have someone to test my food, but still I weaken steadily though the days grow lighter and the sun is warmer and outside my window a blackbird is building a nest in the apple tree and sings for joy every dawn. I cannot sleep, not at night nor in the day. I think of my girlhood when Richard came and saved me from poverty and humiliation, I think of my childhood when Isabel and I were little girls and played at being queens. It is incredible to me that I am twenty-eight years old, and there is no Isabel, and I no longer have any desire to be queen.