The Red Queen

SPRING 1457

I have to stay in my rooms for another six weeks after the birth of my boy, before I can go to the chapel and be cleansed of the sin of childbirth. When I come back to my rooms, the shutters are down and the dark drapes have been taken away. There is wine in jugs and small cakes on plates, and Jasper has come to visit me and congratulate me on the birth of my child. The nursemaids tell me that Jasper visits the baby in his nursery every day, as if he were the doting father himself. He sits by the cradle if the baby is asleep, he touches his cheek with his finger, he cups the tightly wrapped head in his big hands. If the baby is awake, Jasper watches him feed, or he stands over them when they unwrap the swaddling and admires the straight legs and the strong arms. They tell me that Jasper begs them to leave the swaddling off for a moment more so he can see the little fists and the fat little feet. They think it unmanly for him to hang over the cradle, and I agree; but all the Tudors please only themselves.

He smiles at me tentatively, and I smile back. “Are you well, sister?” he asks.

“I am,” I say.

“They tell me it was a difficult birth for you.”

“It was.”

He nods. “I have a letter from your mother for you, and she also wrote to me.”

He hands me one sheet of paper, folded square and sealed with my mother’s Beaufort crest of the portcullis. I lift the seal carefully and read her letter. She has written in French, and she commands me to meet her at Greenfield House in Newport, Gwent. That is all. She sends me no words of affection or inquiry after my son, her own grandson. I remember that she told them if it was a choice between a boy and me, then they should let me die, and I ignore her coldness and turn to Jasper. “Does she tell you why I am to go to Newport? For she does not trouble herself to explain to me.”

“Yes,” he says. “I am to take you with an armed escort, and your baby is to stay here. You are to meet with Humphrey, the Duke of Buckingham. It is his house.”

“Why am I to see him?” I ask. I have a distant memory of the duke, who heads one of the great wealthy families of the kingdom. We are cousins of some sort. “Is he to be my new guardian? Can’t you be my guardian now, Jasper?”

He looks away. “No. It’s not that.” He tries to smile at me, but his eyes are soft with pity. “You are to be married again, my sister. You are to be married to the Duke of Buckingham’s son, as soon as your year of mourning is finished. But the contract of marriage and the betrothal is to take place now. You are to marry the duke’s son: Sir Henry Stafford.”

I look at him, and I know my face is horrified. “I have to marry again?” I blurt out, thinking of the agony of childbirth and the likelihood that it will kill me another time. “Jasper, can I refuse to go? Can I stay here with you?”

He shakes his head. “I am afraid not.”