All through the cold days which grow increasingly dark and wintry I look for news of Isabel’s confinement, and think of her in the guest rooms of Tewkesbury Abbey, waiting for her baby to come. I know that George will have provided her with the best of midwives, there will be a physician nearby, and companions to cheer her, and a wet nurse waiting, and the rooms will be warm and comfortable for her. But still I wish I could have been with her. The birth of another child to a royal duke is an important event, and George will have left nothing to chance. If it is a boy then it establishes him as a man with two heirs – as good as his brother the king. Still, I wish I had been allowed to go to her. Still, I wish that he had allowed her to stay in London.
I go to Richard as he sits at his table in his privy chamber to ask him if I may join Isabel in Tewkesbury, and he refuses me out of hand. ‘George’s household has become a centre of treason,’ he says flatly. ‘I have seen some of the sermons and chapbooks which are being written under his patronage. They question my brother’s legitimacy, they name my mother as a whore, and my father as a cuckold. They suggest his marriage to the queen is invalid and that his sons are bastards. It is shameful what George is saying. I cannot forgive it, Edward cannot overlook it. Edward is going to have to act against him.’
‘Would he do anything to Isabel?’
‘Of course not,’ Richard says impatiently. ‘What has she to do with it?’
‘Then can’t I go to her?’
‘We can’t associate with them,’ Richard rules. ‘George is impossible. We cannot be seen near him.’
‘She is my sister! She has done nothing.’
‘Perhaps after Christmas. If Edward does not arrest him before then.’
I go to the door and put my hand on the brass ring. ‘Can we go home to Middleham?’
‘Not before the Christmas feast, it would be to insult the king and queen. George leaving the city so suddenly is insult enough. I won’t make matters worse.’ He hesitates, his pen raised over a document for signing. ‘What is it? Are you missing Edward?’
‘I am afraid,’ I whisper to him. ‘I am afraid. Isabel told me something, warned me . . .’
He does not try to reassure me. He does not ask me what was Isabel’s warning. Later, when I think about it, that is the worst of it. He merely nods. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ he says. ‘I am guarding us. And besides, if we left it would show that we were fearful too.’
In November I receive a letter from Isabel, travel-stained and delayed on the flooded roads. It is one of Isabel’s exultant three-page scrawls.
