‘Probably nothing,’ I say into the quietness of the room. The messenger lifts his head and looks at me as if he would say something, and then puts his hand over his eyes as if the spring sunshine is too bright, and drops his head again.
I can delay no longer. I put my finger under the sealing wax and it comes easily from the paper. I unfold it and see that it is signed by the physician. He has written only four lines.
I look up but I can see nothing. I realise my eyes are filled with tears and I blink them away but am still blinded. ‘Send for the king,’ I say. Someone touches my hand as I grip the letter and I feel the warmth of Elizabeth’s fingers. I cannot stop myself thinking that the heir to the throne now is Teddy, Isabel’s funny little boy. And after him, this girl. I take my hand from hers so she cannot touch me.
In moments Richard is there before me, kneeling to me so that he can look into my face. ‘What is it?’ he whispers. ‘They said you had a letter.’
‘It is Edward,’ I say. I can hear my grief about to burst out, but I take a breath and tell him the worst news in the world. ‘He is dead of a fever. We have lost our son.’
The days go by but I cannot speak. I go to the chapel but I cannot pray. The court is dressed in blue so dark that it is almost black and nobody plays games, or goes hunting, or plays music, or laughs. We are a court that has fallen under an enchantment of grief, we are struck dumb. Richard appears ten years older; I have not looked in my own mirror to see the marks of sorrow on my face. I can’t care. I can’t find it in me to care how I look. They dress me in the morning as if I were a doll, and at night they drag the gowns off me so that I can go to bed and lie in silence and feel the tears seeping out from my closed eyelids to wet the linen pillow.
I feel so ashamed that I let him die, as if it were my fault or that I could have done something. I feel ashamed that I did not breed a strong boy, like Isabel did, or like the handsome Woodville boys who vanished from the Tower. I feel ashamed that I had only one boy, only one precious heir, only one to carry the great weight of Richard’s triumph. We had only one prince, not two, and now he has gone.
We leave Nottingham for Middleham Castle in a rush, at once, as if by getting to our home we will find our son as we left him. When we get there we find the little body in the coffin in the chapel, and the two other children kneeling beside it, lost without their cousin, lost without the routine of the household. Margaret comes into my arms and whispers: ‘I am so sorry, I am so sorry,’ as if she, a little ten-year-old girl, should have saved him.
I cannot reassure her that I don’t blame her. I have no reassurance for anyone. I have no words for anyone. Richard rules that the children shall now go to live at Sheriff Hutton. Neither of us will ever want to come to Middleham, ever again. We have a small funeral and see the coffin go into the darkness of the vault. I feel no peace after we have prayed for his soul, and paid the priest to pray for him twice daily. We shall create a chantry for his little innocent soul. I feel no peace, I feel nothing. I think I will feel nothing forever.
We leave Middleham as soon as we can, and go to Durham, where I pray for my son in the great cathedral. It makes no difference. We go to Scarborough and I look at the great waves on a stormy sea and think of Isabel losing her first baby and how losing a baby in childbirth is nothing – nothing – to losing a son grown. We go back to York. I don’t care where we are. Everywhere people look at me as if they are puzzling about what they can say. They need not trouble. There is nothing to say. I have lost my father in battle, my sister to Elizabeth Woodville’s spy, my brother-in-law to Elizabeth Woodville’s executioner, my nephew to her poisoner, and now my son to her curse.
The days grow brighter and warmer and when they throw the gown over my head in the morning it is made of silk rather than wool. When they walk me into dinner and sit me like a puppet at the high table they bring me spring lamb and fresh fruits. It grows noisier at dinner, and one day the musicians play again, for the first time since the letter came. I see Richard glance sideways at me to see if I mind, and I see him recoil from the blankness of my face. I don’t mind. I don’t mind anything. They can play a hornpipe if they like; nothing matters to me any more.
