She turns on me a face like stone. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she says. ‘My son is dead, his widow will have to pay the price too. He is dead and you are dishonoured.’
‘You could ask for me to be released to my mother.’
‘Why would I do anything for you? My son is dead, my army defeated, the struggle of my life is overthrown. Better for me to bring you into London at my side. Edward is more likely to pardon us as two women in mourning.’
I follow her out to the stable yard. I cannot deny her bleak logic, and there is nowhere else for me to go. The guard is drawn up, and Richard sits on his grey horse to one side. He is red-faced and trembling with anger at the delay, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.
She looks at him indifferently, as if he were a moody pageboy, whose temper is of no interest to her. ‘I am ready now. You may lead the way; the princess dowager will ride beside me. Your guard will come behind us. I will not be crowded.’
He nods shortly. She gets onto her horse and they bring mine to the mounting block. I get on and one of the elderly nuns straightens my borrowed white gown so that it falls either side of the horse, covering my worn boots. She looks up at me: ‘Good luck, Princess,’ she says. ‘God speed and a safe ending to your journey. God bless you, poor thing – little more than a child in a hard world.’ Her kindness is so sudden, and so surprising, that the tears flood into my eyes and I have to blink them away to see.
‘Ride out!’ Richard of Gloucester says sharply. The guards fall in before, behind, and on either side of the queen, and when she is about to protest Robert Brackenbury leans over, pulls the reins out of her hands and leads her horse. They clatter out through the arch. I gather my reins and kick my horse forwards to join her but Richard wheels his big battle horse between the queen’s cavalcade and me, and he leans over and puts his gauntleted hand on my reins.
‘What?’
‘You’re not going with her.’
She turns to look back. The guard has closed up around her and I cannot hear her voice but I see that she is calling my name. I pull my reins from Richard and say: ‘Let go, Richard. Don’t be stupid, I have to go with her. She ordered me.’
‘No you don’t,’ he contradicts me. ‘You’re not arrested, though she is. You’re not going to the Tower of London, though she is. Your husband is dead; you’re not of the House of Lancaster any more. You are a Neville once more. You can choose.’
‘Anne!’ I hear her shout to me. ‘Come now!’
I wave at her, gesturing to show her Richard, holding my reins. She tries to pull up her horse but the guard close around her and force her onward, a cloud of dust billowing up from the hooves of their horses as they drive her onward like a herded swan, down the road to London, away from me.
‘I have to go, I am her daughter-in- law,’ I say urgently. ‘I swore fealty to her, she commands me.’
‘She is going to the Tower,’ he says simply. ‘To join her sleeping husband. Her life is over, her cause is lost, her son and heir is dead.’
I shake my head. Too much has happened, too quickly. ‘How did he die?’
‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens to you next.’
I look at him; I am simply bereft of all will. ‘Richard, I am lost.’
He doesn’t even answer. He has seen such horrors today that my tears count for nothing. ‘You say I cannot go with the queen?’
‘No.’
‘Can I go to my mother?’
‘No. And anyway, she will be tried for treason.’
‘Can I stay here?’
‘No.’
‘Then what can I do?’
He smiles as if at last I have realised that I have to consult with him, I am not free. I am the pawn in possession of another player. A new game has started and he is going to make a move. ‘I am going to take you to your sister, Isabel.’
WORCESTER, MAY 1471
Of course, Isabel is now the victor. Isabel is of the House of York, a faithful wife to the most handsome York brother. Isabel is the wife of the victor of Barnet, of Tewkesbury. Isabel’s husband is next in line to the throne after Edward’s baby son, only two heartbeats away from greatness. If Edward were to die, mopping up the fighting, if Edward’s son were to die – and even now the queen and the royal nursery are besieged in the Tower by Lancaster loyalists – then George will be King of England and Isabel would fulfil my father’s ambition and her own destiny. Then, I suppose, my father would not have died in vain. He would have a daughter on the throne of England. It would not be me; it would be Isabel. But he would not have minded that. He never minded which one of us achieved the throne as long as it was a girl from the House of Warwick.
Isabel receives me in her privy chamber with three ladies in waiting. I know none of them. It is like meeting a stranger in awkward circumstances. I walk in and curtsey; she inclines her head.
‘Iz.’
She has gone deaf with greatness. She just looks at me.
‘Iz,’ I say more urgently.
