The Red Queen

SUMMER 1484

I wait. All I can do is wait. I send out letters by Ned Parton, and Jasper replies to me, courteously, as to a powerless woman, far away, who understands nothing. I see that the failed rebellion that cost them their army and their fleet also spoiled their faith in me as a coconspirator, as a woman of power in the country they hoped to take. In the hot summer days as the crops ripen in the fields and the haymakers go out with their scythes and cut the hay, I see I am become as marginal as the hares that run from the blades straight into the snares because they understand nothing.

I write, I send messages. I scold Elizabeth Woodville, the sometime queen, about the behavior of her daughters, which is reported to me in more and more detail: their beautiful clothes, their importance at the court, their beauty, their lighthearted joy, their easy Rivers charm as they flow from one amusement to another. There were many who said that their grandmother Jacquetta was a witch, a descendant of Melusina the water goddess, and now there are many who say that these girls weave their magic too. Finest of them all is the girl who is promised to Henry but behaves as if she has forgotten all about him. I write to Elizabeth Woodville to call her to account; I write to the vain girl, Elizabeth of York, to reprimand her; I write to Henry to remind him of his duty-and nobody, nobody, bothers to reply to me.

I am alone in my house; and for all that I have longed all my life for a solitary routine of prayer, I am most terribly alone, and most terribly lonely. I begin to think that nothing will ever change, that I will live out my life here, visited occasionally by a jeering husband who will drink wine from my cellar and eat game from my fields with the special relish of a poacher. I will hear news from court, which indicates that nobody remembers me, or my one-time great importance. I will hear from my son, far away, and he will politely send his good wishes and, on the day of his birth, his acknowledgment of my sacrifice for him; but he will never send me his love nor tell me when I may look for him.

In my loneliness I consider that we were separated when he was such a little boy and since then we have never been close-not as a mother might be to her child, not as Elizabeth Woodville always has been to her children, that she raised herself, that she loved so openly. Now that I can be of no use to him, he will forget all about me. And in truth, in bitter truth: if he were not the heir to my house, and summit of all my ambitions, I would already have forgotten all about him.

My life comes down to this: a court that has forgotten me, a husband who mocks me, a son who has no use for me, and a God who has gone silent. It is no comfort to me that I despise the court, that I never loved my husband, and that my son was born only to fulfill my destiny, and if he cannot do that, I don’t know what use we are to each other. I go on praying. I don’t know what to do but that. I go on praying.

Pontefract,

June 1484

My lady,

I write to alert you to a treaty signed by King Richard and the current ruler of Brittany, who is the treasurer and chief officer (the duke being currently out of his wits). King Richard and Brittany have made an agreement. England is to supply archers to Brittany to help them in their struggle against France, and in return they will take Henry Tudor into imprisonment and send him home for execution. I thought you would want to know this.

I remain your faithful husband,

Stanley

I have no one that I can trust to send but Ned Parton. But I have to take the risk. I send one line to Jasper.

Stanley tells me that Richard has made agreement with Brittany to arrest Henry. Be warned.

Then I go to my chapel and kneel before the chancel rail, my face turned to the crucifix of the suffering Christ. “Keep him safe,” I whisper over and over again. “Keep my son safe. And bring him to victory.”

Within the month I have a reply. It is from Jasper, and short and to the point as always.

France,

July 1484

Thank you for your warning that was confirmed by your friend Bishop Morton, who heard it in France. I took some of our men and rode over the border to Anjou to attract as much attention as I could, while Henry took the road to Vannes with a guard of only five. He disguised himself as a servant and rode for the border, crossing it just a day ahead of the Brittany guard. It was a close-run thing and your son was calm in danger, and we laughed about it when we were safe.

We were welcomed by the French court, and they are promising to support us with an army and funds. They will open the prison gates for us to recruit an army of rascals, and I have a plan to train them. I have hopes, Margaret-

– JT