She takes one step towards the door and then she pauses. She looks us over, and then, as if inspired, she walks slowly past us, looking at each one. She inspects the queen and her daughters and her ladies as if we were her guard of honour. It is a magnificent long-drawn-out insult from the utterly defeated to her victors. The little Princess Elizabeth shrinks back behind her mother’s skirts to hide her face from the unswerving gaze of the white-faced prisoner. Margaret looks from me to Isabel and gives a slight nod as if she understands that I am now to be played in a new game, by a new player. She narrows her eyes at the thought of me being bought and sold all over again. She almost smiles as she realises that her defeat has knocked all the value off me; I am spoiled goods, destroyed goods. She cannot hide her amusement at that thought.
And then slowly, terribly, she turns her gaze to Jacquetta, the queen’s mother, the witch whose wind destroyed our hopes by keeping us in port for all those long days, the sorceress whose mist hid the York army at Barnet, the wise woman who delivered her grandson when they were hiding in sanctuary and came out to victory.
I am holding my breath, straining to hear what Margaret will say to the dearest friend she ever had, who abandoned her at the battle of Towton and has never seen her again till this, the moment of her utter defeat; whose daughter married the enemy and changed sides, and who is now Margaret’s enemy and is witnessing her shame.
The two women look at each other and in both faces there is a glimpse of the girls that they were. A little smile warms Margaret’s face and Jacquetta’s eyes are filled with love. It is as if the years are no more than the mists of Barnet or the snows at Towton: they are gone, it is hard to believe they were ever there. Margaret puts out her hand, not to touch her friend but to make a gesture, a secret shared gesture, and, as we watch, Jacquetta mirrors the movement. Eyes fixed on each other they both raise their index finger and trace a circle in the air – that’s all they do. Then they smile to each other as if life itself is a joke, a jest that means nothing and a wise woman can laugh at it; then, without a word, Margaret passes silently into the darkness of the tower.
‘What was that?’ Isabel exclaims.
‘It was the sign for the wheel of fortune,’ I whisper. ‘The wheel of fortune which put Margaret of Anjou on the throne of England, heiress to the kingdoms of Europe, and then threw her down to this. Jacquetta warned her of this long ago – they knew. The two of them knew long ago that fortune throws you up to greatness and down to disaster and all you can do is endure.’
That night the York brothers, working together as one dark assassin, go to the room of the sleeping king and hold a pillow over his face, ending the line of the House of Lancaster and bringing into their own home the treacherous death that they practise on the battlefield. With his wife and his innocent son sleeping under the same roof Edward commissioned the death of a King of England in a nearby room. We none of us knew that he had done it until the morning when we woke to the announcement that poor King Henry was dead – dead of sorrow, Edward said.
I don’t need to be a soothsayer to predict that no-one will ever sleep safe in the king’s keeping after that night. This is the new nature of making war for the crown of England. It is a battle to the death, as my father knew when Midnight fell to his knees and put his black head down on the field of Barnet. The House of York is ruthless and deadly, no respecter of place or person; and Isabel and I will do well to remember it.
L’ERBER, LONDON, AUTUMN 1471
I serve as my sister’s lady in waiting in the house that belonged to my father and has now come, with all his fortune, to my brother-in-law George. I am given all the honours due to my kinship to her in her household. I am not yet expected to serve the Queen of England as I am still in mourning, but when we get past this dark autumn into Christmas and spring, then I will have to go to court, serve both the queen and my sister, and the king will arrange for my marriage. My late husband’s title has been given to the son, born to the queen when she was hiding in sanctuary. He is Edward, Prince of Wales, just like my Edward, Prince of Wales. I have lost my husband and my name.
I remember being a little girl when my father told me that the queen had asked for Isabel and me as maids in waiting, and that he had refused her, for we were too good for her court; and I hug his pride to me, like a burning coal in a warming pan.
