She doubts that I have secured a safe hiding place for Richard and that our plan of the changeling page will work. She knows that if I sent a false prince to keep Edward company, it is because I doubt my ability to get Edward home safe. She has no hopes of the uprising that my Grey son Thomas is organizing. She fears that we will never be rescued.

Ever since the morning when we heard the singing of the river, and then the afternoon when they brought us the news of Anthony and Richard Grey’s death, she has no faith in my judgment. She has not repeated her belief that we are cursed, but there is something about the darkness of her eyes and the pallor of her face that tells me she is hagridden. God knows, I have not cursed her, and I know no one who would do such a thing to such a girl of gold and silver, but it is true: she looks as if someone has put a dark thumbprint down on her and marked her out for a hard destiny.

Dr. Lewis comes again and I ask him to look at her and tell me if she is well. She has almost stopped eating and she is pale. “She needs to be free,” he says simply. “I tell you as a physician what I hope to see soon as an ally. All your children, you yourself, Your Grace, cannot stay here. You need to be out in the good air, enjoying the summer. She is a delicate girl-she needs exercise and sunshine. She needs company. She is a young woman-she should be dancing and courting. She needs to plan her future, to dream of her betrothal, not to be cooped up here, fearing death.”

“I have an invitation from the king.” I make myself say the title, as if Richard could ever deserve it, as if the crown on his head and the oil on his breast could make him anything more than the traitor and the turncoat he is. “The king is anxious that I take the girls to my house in the country this summer. He says the princes can be released to me there.”

“And will you go?” He is intent on my answer. He leans forward to hear.

“My boys must be released to me first. I have no guarantee of my safety or that of my girls unless my boys are returned to me, as he promised they would be.”

“Take care, Your Grace, take care. Lady Margaret fears he will play you false,” he breathes. “She says the Duke of Buckingham thinks that he will have your boys…” He hesitates as if he cannot bear to say the words. “Done to death. She says that the Duke of Buckingham is so horrified by this that he will rescue your boys for you, restore your sons to you, if you will guarantee his safety and his prosperity when you are back in power. If you will promise him your friendship, your undying friendship when you come to your own again. Lady Margaret says that she will bring him to make an alliance with you and yours. The three families: Stafford, Rivers, and the House of Lancaster, against the false king.

I nod. I have been waiting for this. “What does he want?” I ask bluntly.

“His daughter, when he has one, to marry your son, the young King Edward,” he says. “He himself to be named as regent and lord protector till the young king is of age. He himself to have the kingdom of the north-just as Duke Richard had. If you will make him as great a duke as your husband made Duke Richard, he will betray his friend and rescue your sons.”

“And what does she want?” I ask, as if I cannot guess, as if I do not know that she has spent every day of the last twelve years, ever since her son was exiled, trying to bring him safely back to England. He is the only child she has ever conceived, the only heir to her family fortune, to her dead husband’s title. Everything she achieves in her life will be nothing if she cannot get her son back to England to inherit.

“She wants an agreement that her son can take his title and inherit her lands, her brother-in-law Jasper restored to his lands in Wales. She wants them both free to return to England, and she wants to betroth her son Henry Tudor to your daughter Elizabeth, and to be named as heir after your boys,” he says in a rush.

I do not pause for a moment. I have only been waiting for the terms and these are exactly what I expected. Not through foreseeing but through the commonplace sense of what I would demand if I were in Lady Margaret’s strong position: married to the third greatest man in England, in alliance with the second, planning to betray the first. “I agree,” I say. “Tell the Duke of Buckingham and tell Lady Margaret that I agree. And tell them my price: I have to have my sons restored to me at once.”


Next morning, my brother Lionel comes to me smiling. “There is someone to see you at the water gate,” he says. “A fisherman. Greet him quietly, my sister. Remember that discretion is a woman’s greatest gift.”

I nod and hurry to the door.

Lionel puts a hand on my arm, less a bishop, more a brother. “Don’t shriek like a girl,” he says bluntly, and lets me go.

I slip through the door and go down the stone steps that lead to the stone corridor. It is shadowy, lit only by the daylight filtering through the iron gate that opens out to the river. A little wherry is bobbing at the doorway, a small fishing net piled in the stern. A man in a filthy cape and a pulled-down hat is waiting at the doorway, but nothing can disguise his height. Forewarned by Lionel I don’t cry out, and dissuaded by the stink of old fish I don’t run into his arms. I just say quietly, “Brother, my brother, I am glad with all my heart to see you.”

A flash of his dark eyes from under the heavy brim shows me my brother Richard Woodville’s smiling face, villainously covered with a beard and a mustache. “Are you all right?” I ask, rather shocked at his appearance.

“Never better,” he says jauntily.

“And you know about our brother Anthony?” I ask. “And my son Richard Grey?”

He nods, suddenly grim. “I heard this morning. That’s partly why I came today. I am sorry, Elizabeth, I am sorry for your loss.”

“You are Earl Rivers now,” I say. “The third Earl Rivers. You are head of the family. We seem to be getting through heads of our family rather quickly. Do you, please, hold the title a little longer.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he promises. “God knows, I inherit the title of two good men. I hope to hold it longer, but I doubt I can do better. Anyway, we are close to an uprising. Listen to me. Richard feels himself secure with the crown on his head, and he is to go on progress to show himself to the kingdom.”

I have to stop myself spitting into the water. “I wonder the horses have the brass neck even to walk.”

“As soon as he is out of London, his guard with him, we will storm the Tower and get Edward out. The Duke of Buckingham is with us and I trust him. He has to travel with King Richard, and the king will force Stanley go with him too-he still doubts him; but Lady Margaret will stay in London and command the Stanley men and her own affinity to join us. Already she has her men placed in the Tower.”

“Will we have enough men?”

“Near on a hundred. The new king has made Sir Robert Brackenbury the constable of the Tower. Brackenbury would never hurt a boy in his care-he is a good man. I have put new servants in the royal rooms, men who will open the doors for me when I give them the word.”

“And then?”

“We get you and the girls safely away to Flanders. Your sons, Richard and Edward, can join you,” he says. “Have you heard from the men who took Prince Richard yet? Is he safe in hiding?”

“Not yet,” I say fretfully. “I have been looking for a message every day. I should have heard that he is safe by now. I pray for him every hour. I should have heard by now.”

“A letter could have gone astray; it means nothing. If it had gone wrong, they would have sent you news for sure. And just think: you can collect Richard from his hiding place on your way to Margaret’s court. Once you are with your boys and safe again, we raise our army. Buckingham will declare for us. Lord Stanley and his whole family is promised by his wife, Margaret Beaufort. Half of Richard’s other lords are ready to turn against him, according to the Duke of Buckingham. Lady Margaret’s son Henry Tudor will raise arms and men in Brittany, and invade Wales.”

“When?” I breathe.

He glances behind him. The river is busy as ever with ships coming and going, little trading wherries weaving in and out of the bigger boats. “Duke Richard-” He breaks off and grins at me. “Forgive me, ‘King Richard’ is to leave London at the end of July on progress. We will rescue Edward at once, and give you and him long enough to get to safety, say two days, and then, while the king is out of touch, we will rise.”

“And Edward our brother?”

“Edward is recruiting men in Devon and Cornwall. Your son Thomas is working in Kent. Buckingham will bring out the men from Dorset and Hampshire, Stanley will bring out his affinity from the Midlands, and Margaret Beaufort and her son can raise Wales in the name of the Tudors. All the men of your husband’s household are determined to save his sons.”

I nibble at my finger, thinking as my husband would have thought: men, arms, money, and the spread of support around the south of England. “It is enough if we can defeat Richard before he brings in his men from the north.”

He grins at me, the Rivers’s reckless grin. “It is enough and we have everything to win and nothing to lose,” he says. “He has taken the crown from our boy: we have nothing to fear. The worst has already happened.”

“The worst has already happened,” I repeat, and the shiver that goes down my spine I attribute to the loss of Anthony my brother, my dearest brother, and the death of my Grey son. “The worst has already happened. There can be nothing worse than our losses already.”

Richard puts his dirty hand on mine. “Be ready to leave whenever I send the word,” he says. “I will tell you as soon as I have Prince Edward safe.”