‘Jacquetta herself showed it to me. She said that I would know a life when I rose very high and fell very low. Now I am going to rise again.’ She extends her forefinger as if pointing and then she draws a circle in the air. ‘You rise and you fall,’ she says. ‘My advice to you is to guard yourself as you rise and destroy your enemies as you fall.’
Finally, after several applications, we receive the dispensation from the Pope, so that Edward and I, though we are distant kin, can marry, and there is a quiet ceremony with little celebration, and we are put to bed by my mother and his. I am so afraid of my mother-in-law the queen that I go to the room without protest, without really thinking of the prince or what is to come in the night, and sit up in bed and wait for him. I hardly see him when he comes in, as I am watching his mother’s avid face as she takes his cloak from his shoulders and whispers ‘goodnight’ to him, and goes from the room. It makes me shudder, the way she looks at him, as if she wishes she could stay and watch.
It is very quiet when everyone has gone. I remember Isabel telling me that it was horrible. I wait for him to tell me what to do. He says nothing. He gets into bed and the thick feather mattress sinks at his side and the ropes of the bed creak under his weight. Still, he says nothing.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say awkwardly. ‘I am sorry. Nobody has told me. I asked Isabel but she would say nothing. I couldn’t ask my mother . . .’
He sighs, as if this is yet another burden that has been put on him by this essential alliance of our parents. ‘You don’t do anything,’ he says. ‘You just lie there.’
‘But I . . .’
‘You lie there and you don’t say anything,’ he repeats loudly. ‘The best thing you can do for me, right now, is to say nothing. Most of all don’t remind me who you are, I can’t stand the thought of that . . .’ and then he heaves up in the bed and drops on me with his full weight, plunging into me as if he was stabbing me with a broadsword.
PARIS, CHRISTMAS 1470
The King of France, King Louis himself, is so delighted with our wedding that he bids us come to Paris before the Christmas season and celebrate with him. I open the dancing, I am seated on his right hand at dinner. I am the centre of attention for everyone: the kingmaker’s daughter who will be Queen of England.
Isabel comes behind me. Every time we walk into a room she follows me, and sometimes she bends and frees my train if it is caught in a doorway or sweeping up the scented rushes. She serves me without a smile; her resentment and envy is obvious to everyone. Queen Margaret, my Lady Mother, laughs at Isabel’s sulky face, pats my hand, and says: ‘Now you see it. If a woman rises to greatness she becomes every woman’s enemy. If she fights to keep greatness then everyone, men and women, simply hate her. In your sister’s green face you see your triumph.’
I glance sideways at Isabel’s sulky pallor. ‘She’s not green.’
‘Green with jealousy,’ the queen says, laughing. ‘But no matter. You will be rid of her tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I ask. I turn to Isabel as she sits beside me in the window seat. ‘You are going tomorrow?’
She looks as stunned as I am. ‘Not that I know.’
‘Oh yes,’ the queen says smoothly. ‘You are going to London to join your husband. We will follow almost immediately, with the army.’
‘My mother has not told me,’ Isabel challenges the queen. ‘I am not ready to go.’
‘You can pack this evening,’ the queen says simply. ‘For you are going tomorrow.’
‘Excuse me,’ my sister says weakly, and rises to her feet and curtseys low to the queen, and briefly to me. I curtsey and scuttle out after her. She is tearing down the gallery to my rooms, I catch her in one of the beautiful oriel windows.
‘Iz!’
‘I can’t stand another storm at sea.’ Isabel rounds on me. ‘I would rather kill myself on the quayside than go to sea again.’
Despite my reassurance, I put my hand to my belly as if I fear that I too might be with child and my baby too would be put in a box and thrown into the dark heaving waters, just as they did to Isabel’s little son.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Isabel says shortly. ‘You aren’t pregnant, and you aren’t just about to give birth. I should never have gone on board. I should have refused. You should have helped me. My life was ruined then . . . and you let it happen.’
I shake my head. ‘Iz, how could I refuse Father? How could either of us?’
‘And now? Now I have to go to England to join him and George, and just leave you here? With her?’
‘What can we do?’ I ask her. ‘What can we say?’
‘Nothing,’ she says furiously. She turns and walks away from me.
‘Where are you going?’ I call after her.
‘To tell them to pack,’ she throws over her shoulder. ‘To tell them to pack for me. They can put in a shroud for all I care. I don’t care if I drown this time.’
King Louis has provided an elegant little merchant ship, for Isabel to go with a couple of ladies to keep her company. My mother, Queen Margaret and I are on the quayside to see her leave.
