Philippa Gregory - The White Princess

The court is hushed; even in the nursery where there should be spring sunshine and laughter, the nurses are quiet and they forbid the children to shout or run around. Elizabeth is sleepy and still in her cradle. Arthur is all but silent; he does not know what is happening but he senses that he is living in a palace under siege, he knows that his place is threatened, but he has been told nothing about the young man whose nursery this was, who did his lessons at this very table. He does not know of a Prince of Wales who preceded him, who was studious and thoughtful and the darling of his mother, too.

His sister Margaret is guarded. She is quiet as they order her to be as if she knows that something is wrong, but does not know what to do.

Their little brother Harry is starting to insist on having his own way, a stout little boy with a shouting laugh and a love of games and music; but even he is quietened by the haste and anxiety of the palace. Nobody has time to play with him anymore, nobody will pause to talk with him as they move swiftly through the great hall, busy with secret business. He looks around in bewilderment at the people who only a few months ago would always stop and swing him up to the ceiling, or toss a ball for him, or take him down to the stable to see a horse, but who now frown and hurry past.

“S’ William!” he calls to Thomas Stanley’s brother as he walks by. “Harry too!”

“You can’t,” Sir William says shortly, and he looks at Harry coldly, and goes on to the stables, so the child stops short and looks around for his nurse.

“It’s all right,” I say, smiling at him. “Sir William is just in a hurry.”

But he frowns. “Why no play Harry?” he asks simply, and I have no answer that I can give him. “Why no play Harry?”

The king deploys the whole court against the news from Malines; there is nothing more important. Lords and councillors go to Ireland at his command and speak to the Irish lords and beg them to remember their true loyalty, and not to run after a false prince again. Traitors are forgiven in a rush of generosity, and released from prison, sworn anew to loyalty with us. Old forgotten alliances are reforged. Ireland must be made secure, the people of that country must turn their hearts away from a darling boy of York and cleave only to Tudor. One of Henry’s small trusted circle goes to Bristol and starts to muster ships for a fleet to patrol the narrow seas. They have to look for ships coming from France, from Flanders, from Ireland, even from Scotland. The boy seems to have friends and allies everywhere.

“You are expecting an invasion?” I ask him incredulously.

There is a new line on his face, a deep groove between his eyebrows. “Of course,” he says shortly. “The only thing I don’t know is when. Of course the other thing I don’t know is where, nor how many they will be. Those are, of course, the only important things. And I don’t know them.”

“Your spies don’t tell you?” Despite myself, my voice has a touch of scorn as I speak of his spies.

“Not yet, no,” he says defensively. “There are secrets being well kept by my enemies.”

I turn to go to the nursery, where a physician is coming to see Elizabeth.

“Don’t go,” he says. “I need . . .”

I turn back, my hand on the latch; I want to ask the physician if the better weather will make Elizabeth stronger. “What?”

He looks helpless. “No one has tried to speak to you? You would tell me if anyone had spoken to you?”

My mind is on my sick child, I genuinely don’t understand him. “Speak to me of what? What d’you mean?”

“Of the boy . . .” he says. “Nobody has spoken to you of him?”

“Who would do so?”

His dark look is suddenly intent, suspicious. “Why, who do you think might speak of him?”

I spread my hands. “My lord. I really don’t know. Nobody has spoken to me of him. I cannot think why anyone would speak to me. Your unhappiness is clear enough for everyone to see. Nobody is going to talk to me about the thing that is driving my husband . . .” I bite off the rest of the phrase.

“Driving me mad?” he asks.

I don’t respond.

“Somebody in my court is receiving orders from him,” he says as if the words are wrenched from him. “Somebody is planning to overthrow me and put him in my place.”

“Who?” I whisper. His fears are so powerful that I glance over my shoulder to see that the door behind me is shut tight and step towards him, so that nobody can hear us. “Who is plotting against us in our own court?”

He shakes his head. “One of my men picked up a letter but it had no names.”

“Picked it up?”

“Stole it. I know there are a few men, come together for love of the House of York, hoping to restore the boy. Maybe more than a few. They worked with your mother as their secret leader, they even work with your grandmother. But there are more than these—men who pass daily as friends or comrades or servants of mine. Someone who is as close to me as a brother. I don’t know who to trust—I don’t know who is my true friend.”

I have a sudden chilling sense, Henry’s daily experience, that outside the closed door, beyond the carved panels of thick polished wood, there are people, perhaps hundreds of people, who smile at us as we go into dinner but write secret letters, store up secret weapons, and have a plan to kill us. We have a large busy court, what if a quarter of them are against us? What if half of them are against us? What if they turn against my boys? What if they are poisoning my little daughter? What if they turn against me?

“We have enemies in the very heart of this very court,” he whispers. “They may be the ones who turn down our beds, they may be the ones who serve our food. They may be the ones who taste our food and assure us that it is safe to eat. Or they may ride alongside us, play cards with us, dance holding your hand, see us to bed at night. We may call them cousin, we may call them dearest. I don’t know who to trust.”

I don’t promise him my loyalty, since there is no comfort to be had in words anymore. My name and my house are his enemies, my affinity may be massing against him; mere words will not overcome that. “You do have people you can trust,” I assure him. I list them for him, as if I am singing hymns against darkness. “Your mother, your uncle, the Earl of Oxford, your stepfather and all his kin, the Stanleys, the Courtenays, my half brother Thomas Grey—all the people who stood by you at Stoke will stand by you again.”

He shakes his head. “No, because they weren’t all beside me at Stoke. Some of them found an excuse to stay away. Some of them said they would come but delayed and were not there in time. Some of them promised their love and loyalty but flatly refused to come. Some of them pretended to illness, or could not leave their homes. Some were even there, but on the other side, and begged for my forgiveness afterwards. And anyway, even of those who were there—they won’t stand by me again, not again and again. They won’t stand by me against a boy under the white rose, not one who they believe is a true prince.”

He goes back to the table where his letters and his secret ciphers and his seals are carefully laid out. He never writes a letter now, he always composes code. He hardly ever writes so much as a note, it is always a secret instruction. It is not the writing table of a king but of a spymaster. “I won’t detain you,” he says shortly. “But if someone says so much as one word to you—I expect you to tell me. I want to hear anything, everything—the slightest whisper. I expect this of you.”

I am about to say of course I would tell him, what else does he think I would do? I am his wife, his heirs are my beloved sons, there are no beings in the world that I love more tenderly than his own daughters—how can he doubt that I would come to him at once? But then I see his dark scowl and I realize that he is not asking for my help; he is threatening me. He is not asking for reassurance but warning me of his expectation that must not be disappointed. He does not trust me, and, worse than that, he wants me to know that he does not trust me.