Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

“How did Warbeck ever get out of this alive?” Lady Margaret bluntly demands of Henry, as the three of us stand, looking at the ruin that was the king’s apartments, the charred roof beams open to the sky still smoking over our heads. “How could he survive it?”

“He says that his door caught fire and he was able to kick it open,” Henry says shortly.

“How could he?” she asks. “How could he not die of the smoke? How could he not be burned? Someone must have let him out.”

“At least no one was killed,” I say. “It’s a miracle.”

The two of them look at me, their faces like a mirror of suspicion and fear. “Someone must have let him out.” The king repeats his mother’s accusation.

I wait.

“I shall make inquiry among the servants,” Henry swears. “I will not have a traitor in my palace, in my own wardrobe rooms, I will not be betrayed under my own roof. Whoever is protecting the boy, whoever is defending him, should take warning. Whoever saved him from the fire is a traitor, as he is. I have spared him so far, I will not spare him forever.” Suddenly he turns on me. “Do you know where he was?”

I look from his flushed angry face to his mother’s white one. “You would do better to discover who set the fire,” I say. “For someone has destroyed our most valuable goods to burn the boy out. Who would want him dead? It was no accidental blaze in those rooms, someone must have heaped up clothes and kindling and put a flame to it. It could only be someone trying to kill the boy. Who would that be?”

It is the way that My Lady stammers that gives her away to me, listening for one of them to lie. “H—he h—has dozens of enemies, dozens,” she says flatly. “Everyone resents him as a traitor. Half the court would want to see him dead.”

“By fire? In his bed?” I say, and my voice is as sharp as an accusation. She drops her glance to the ground, unable to meet my eye.

“He’s a traitor,” she insists. “He is a lost soul, a brand fit for burning.”

Henry glances at his mother, uncertain as to what we are saying. “Nobody can think that I wanted him dead,” he says. “All I have ever said is that it would have been better for Lady Katherine if she had never married him. No more than that. Nobody could think that I wanted his death.”

His mother shakes her head. “Nobody could accuse you. But perhaps someone thought they were doing you a service. Protecting you from your own generosity. Saving you from yourself.”

“If he had died, then Lady Katherine would be a widow,” I say slowly. “And free to marry again.”

My Lady takes the cross at her belt firmly in her hands and holds it tightly, as if she is warding off temptation. I wait for her to speak but for once she chooses to be silent.

“Enough of this,” Henry says suddenly. “We should not be troubled amongst ourselves. We are the royal family, we should always be united. We have been saved from the flames and our household is safe too. It is a sign from God. I shall build a new palace.”

“Yes,” I agree. “We should rebuild.”

“I shall call it Richmond, after my title and my father’s title before me. I shall call it the Palace of Richmond.”

ON PROGRESS, SUMMER 1498

The boy continues to sleep in the rooms of the wardrobe in the different houses as we go on our summer progress along the coast of Kent following the pilgrim road to Canterbury, the high hills of the Weald spreading out around us. As the warm sunshine makes the hedges green and the apple trees bob with white and pink blossom, Lady Katherine allows the king to buy her new clothes, she stops wearing mourning black like a widow, like a woman who has lost her husband, and instead puts on the king’s choice for her, a gown of tawny medley, trimmed with black velvet, which sets off her creamy skin, flushed now with early-summer sunshine, and her dark shining hair that she wears under the bonnet of tawny velvet that he orders for her.

They ride together, quite alone, leading the court, and I and my ladies follow behind, the gentlemen of the court with us, the boy among them, sometimes riding near to me and smiling across.

Henry orders a new riding coat for himself, tawny velvet—like hers—and he and the young woman match perfectly as their horses go side by side down the trim lanes of Kent, cantering when the ground is soft, walking on the stony roads, always a discreet distance ahead of the rest of us, until we come in sight of the sea.

Henry talks to her now, he has found his voice, asking her about her childhood and her early years in Scotland. He never speaks of her husband, it is as if the two and a half years of her marriage never existed. They never speak of the boy, they never refer to him as they ride together. She is courteous, she never pushes herself forwards; but when the king orders a new saddle put on a new horse for her, she is obliged to ride with him and smile her thanks.

I see the boy as he watches this, and I see his brave smile and the set of his head, as if he were not watching the wife he loves being taken away from him. He rides behind them, noting how she leans towards Henry to hear something he says, how Henry puts his hand on her reins, as if to steady her horse. When the boy sees this, his chin comes up and his smile brightens, as if he had sworn to himself that he will be afraid of nothing.

For me, it is a curious pain to watch my husband of more than twelve years ride away from me with another woman, a beautiful young woman, at his side. I have never seen Henry in love before; now I see him shy, charming, eager, and it is like seeing him anew. The court is discreet, forever coming between me and the king and his constant companion, falling back to ensure they are uninterrupted, entertaining me so that I don’t watch them. It reminds me of Queen Anne, whose health was failing even then, silently watching her husband seek me out, and how I danced with him before her. I knew I was breaking her heart, I knew that she had lost her son to death and was now losing her husband to me, but I was too dazzled and too entranced to care. Now I know what it is to be a queen and see the young men of the court write poems and send letters to another woman, see someone else be named as the most beautiful woman of the court, the queen of everyone’s choice, and see your husband run after her too.

It is a humbling experience, but I don’t feel humbled. I feel as if I understand something that I did not know before. I feel that now I have learned that love does not follow merit; I did not love Henry because he impressed me as a conquerer of England, as a victor of battle. I loved him because I first came to understand him, and then I pitied him, and then my love just flowered for him. And now that he does not love me, it makes no difference to how I feel. I love him still for I see him being, as he often is, mistaken, ill-judging, fearful, and this does not make me jealous but, on the contrary, it makes me tender towards him.

And I am not even angry towards Lady Katherine for her part in this. When she dismounts from her expensive new horse at the end of a beautiful day and Henry puts her husband aside with one touch on his shoulder, so that she has to slide from her saddle into Henry’s arms, she sometimes looks over at me as if this is no joy but a trouble to her. Then I am not angry with her, but I am sorry for her, and for me. I think that no one could understand how I feel but another woman, no one could understand her dilemma but me.

Lady Katherine comes to my rooms at the end of the day, to sit with my ladies, and finds that I smile at her gently, patiently, just as Queen Anne used to smile at me. I know she cannot prevent what is happening, just as I could not help myself with Richard. If the king honors a woman with his attention, then she is powerless under his admiration. What I don’t know is how she feels. I fell in love with Richard, who was King of England and the only man who could rescue me and my family from our descent into obscurity. What she feels for the King of England, married as she is to a declared traitor who is living on borrowed time, I can’t imagine.