Philippa Gregory - The Red Queen

“He has his own ambitions,” my husband remarks darkly. “He has royal blood in his line. He will be thinking that if the throne can be taken from Prince Edward, then it can be taken from Richard too. He would join with the queen, pretending to defend her son, and then take the throne for himself when they have victory.”

I think quickly. The Stafford family, with the exception of my weakly modest husband Henry, has always been extreme in its pride. Stafford backed Richard from spite against the Riverses; now he might indeed stake his own claim. “I’ll tell the queen if you wish,” I say. “But I would think him utterly untrustworthy. She will be a fool to take him as an ally.”

My husband smiles, more like a wolf than the fox they call him. “She has not many friends to choose from,” he says. “I would think she will be glad of him.”

A week after this, at dawn, my husband thumps his fist on my bedroom door and comes in as my maid screams and jumps up from her bed. “Leave us,” he says brusquely to her, and she scuttles from the room as I sit up in bed and draw my robe around me.

“What is it?” My first fear is that my son is ill, but then I see that Thomas is as white as if he has seen a ghost, and his hands are shaking. “What has happened to you?”

“I had a dream.” He sits down heavily on the bed. “Good God, I had such a dream. Margaret, you have no idea …”

“Was it a vision?”

“How would I know? It was like being trapped in hell.”

“What did you dream?”

“I was in a cold and rocky dark place, like some wilderness, nowhere I know. I looked around me: no one was with me, I was alone, none of my affinity, none of my men, not even my standard, nothing. I was quite alone, not my son, not my brother-not even you.”

I wait for more. The bed shakes with his shudder. “A monster came towards me,” he says, his voice very low. “A terrible, terrible thing came towards me, its mouth open to eat me, its breath stinking like hell, its eyes piggy and red, looking from right to left, a monster coming across the country, coming for me.”

“What sort of monster? A serpent?”

“A boar,” he says quietly. “A wild boar with blood on its tusks and blood on its nostrils, spittle on its mouth, its head down low, tracking me.” He shudders. “I could hear it snuffle.”

The wild boar is the emblem of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. We both know this. I get out of bed and open the door to make sure that the maid has gone and that there is no one listening outside. I close it tightly and stir up the embers of the little bedroom fire, as if we need heat on this warm June night. I light candles, as if to drive away the darkness of the hunting boar. I touch the cross around my throat with my finger. I make the sign of the cross on myself. Stanley has brought his night terrors in with him, into my room; it is as if the breath of the boar has whispered in with him, as if he will smell us out, even now, even here.

“You think Richard suspects you?”

He looks at me. “I have done nothing but show him my support. But it was such a dream … I can’t deny it. Margaret, I woke filled with terror like a child. I woke myself with my scream for help.”

“If he suspects you, he will suspect me,” I say. Stanley’s fear is so strong it has me in its grip. “And I have sent messages to the queen, as we agreed. Could he know I am his enemy?”

“Could your messages have gone astray?”

“I am certain of my man. And she is not a fool. But why else would he doubt you?”

He shakes his head. “I have done nothing except speak to Hastings, who is loyal to the core. He is desperate to secure the succession of the prince. It is his last act of love for Edward the king. He is deeply afraid that Richard might play false with Prince Edward. He has been frightened of something going wrong ever since Richard took the prince to the Tower. He asked me if I would join with him at a Privy Council meeting to insist that the prince should come out among the people, to visit his mother, to show that he is free in every way. I think he has sent a messenger to the queen to assure her of her safety and ask her to come out of hiding.”

“Does Hastings know that Richard has ordered his own wife to stay home? Does he think Richard might delay the coronation? Prolong his own regency?”

“I told him Anne Neville had no coronation gown, and he swore at once that Richard cannot be truly planning to crown his nephew. It’s what we are all starting to think. It’s what we’re all starting to fear. But I can’t see anything worse than Richard delaying the coronation, perhaps for years, perhaps till the boy is twenty-one. Delaying it so that he can rule as regent.” He leaps to his feet and strides barefoot across the room. “For God’s sake, Richard was the most loyal brother Edward could ever have had! He has said nothing but asserted his loyalty to the prince. His own nephew! All his enmity has been directed to the dowager queen; not against Edward’s son. And he has the boy utterly in his power now. Crowned or not, Prince Edward can only be a puppet king if Richard can keep him from his mother and from his kin.”

“But the dream-”

“The dream was of a boar determined on power and death. It was a warning; it must be a warning.”

We are both silent. A log shifts in the fireplace, and we both flinch from the sound.

“What will you do?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “What would you do? You think that God speaks to you and warns you in dreams. What would you do if you dreamed that the boar was coming for you?”

I hesitate. “You can’t think of running away?”

“No, no.”

“I would pray for guidance.”

“And what would your God say?” he asks, with a flare of his usual sarcasm. “He is usually reliable in advising you to seek power and safety.”

I take my seat on the stool by the fire, looking into the flames as if I were a poor woman telling fortunes, as if I were Queen Elizabeth with her witchcraft skills. “If Richard were to turn against his nephew, both nephews, and somehow prevent their inheritance, put himself on the throne in their place …” I pause. “They have no powerful defenders anymore. The fleet has mutinied against their uncle, their mother is in sanctuary, their uncle Anthony is under arrest …”

“Then what?”

“If Richard were to take the throne and leave his nephews locked in the Tower, do you think the country would rise against him and there would be another war?”

“York against York. It’s possible.”

“And in those circumstances there would be a great chance for the House of Lancaster.”

“For your son, Henry.”

“For Henry to be the last one standing when they tear each other to pieces in a fight to the death.”

There is silence in my room. I glance at him, afraid that I may have gone too far.

“There are four lives between Henry and the throne,” he remarks. “The two York princes: Edward and Richard, Duke Richard himself, and then his son.”

“But they might all fight each other.”

He nods.

“If they choose to destroy themselves, it is no sin for Henry to take the empty throne,” I say firmly. “And at last, the rightful house takes the throne of England, which is God’s will.”

He smiles at my certainty, but this time I am not offended. What matters is that we can see our way, and as long as I know it is the light of God, then it does not matter if he thinks it is the blaze of sinful ambition.

“So will you go to the Privy Council meeting today?”

“Yes, it’s at the Tower. But I will send a message to Hastings of my fears. If he is going to move against Richard, he had better do so now. He can force Richard to show his hand. He can demand to see the prince. His love for the late king will make him the prince’s champion. I can stand back and let him step up the pace. The council is determined that the prince should be crowned. Hastings can demand it. He can bear the brunt of showing Richard that he suspects him. I can set Hastings on Richard and step back to see what will happen. I can be warned by this, and I can warn Hastings and let him take the danger.”