The White Queen

SPRING 1479

My boy George, always a slight baby, starts to fail before he reaches his second birthday. The physicians know nothing, the ladies of the nursery can suggest only gruel and milk, to be fed hourly. We try it, but he grows no stronger.

Elizabeth, his thirteen-year-old sister, plays with him every day, takes his little hands and helps him to walk on his thin legs, makes up a story for every mouthful of food that he eats. But even she sees that he is not thriving. He does not grow, and his little arms and legs are like sticks.

“Can we get a physician from Spain?” I ask Edward. “Anthony always says that the Moors have the wisest men.”

His face is weary with worry and sorrow for this, a precious son. “You can get anyone you like from anywhere,” he says. “But Elizabeth, my love, find your courage. He is a frail little boy, and he was a tiny baby. You have done well to keep him with us this far.”

“Don’t say that,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “He will get better. The spring will come and then the summer. He will get better in the summer for sure.”

I spend hours in the nursery with my little boy on my lap, dripping gruel into his little mouth, holding his chest to my ear so I can hear the faint patter of his heart.

They tell me that we are blessed to have two strong sons: the succession to the throne of York is surely secure. I say nothing in reply to these fools. I am not nursing him for the sake of York, I am nursing him for love. I do not want him to thrive to be a prince. I want him to thrive to be a strong boy.

This is my baby boy. I cannot bear to lose him as I lost his sister. I cannot bear that he should die in my arms as she died in my mother’s arms and they went away together. I haunt the nursery during the day and even at night I come to watch him sleep, and I am sure he is growing no stronger.

He is asleep on my lap one day in March, and I am rocking him in the chair and humming, without knowing I am doing so, a little song: a Burgundian lullaby half remembered from my childhood.

The song ends, and there is silence. I still the rocking of the chair, and everything is quiet. I put my ear to his little chest to hear the beating of his heart, and I cannot hear the beating of his heart. I put my cheek to his nose, his mouth to feel the warmth of his breath. There is no flutter of breath. He is still warm and soft in my arms, warm and soft as a little bird. But my George has gone. I have lost my son.

I hear the sound of the lullaby again, softly, as softly as the wind, and I know that Melusina is rocking him now, and my boy George has gone. I have lost my son.

They tell me that I still have my boy Edward, that I am lucky in that my handsome boy of eight years old is so strong and grows so well. They tell me to be glad of Richard, his five-year-old brother. I smile, for I am glad of both of my boys. But that makes no difference to my loss of George, my little George with his blue eyes and his tuft of blond hair.

Five months later, I am in confinement awaiting the birth of another child. I don’t expect a boy, I don’t imagine that one child can replace another. But little Catherine comes at just the right time to comfort us, and there is a York princess in the cradle again and the York nursery is busy as usual. A year later and I have another baby, my little girl Bridget.

“I think this will be our last,” I say regretfully to Edward when I come out of confinement.

I had been afraid that he would note that I was growing older. But instead he smiles at me as if we were still young lovers, and kisses my hand. “No man could have asked for more,” he says sweetly to me. “And no queen has ever labored harder. You have given me a great family, my love. And I am glad this will be our last.”

“You don’t want another boy?”

He shakes his head. “I want to take you for pleasure, and hold you in my arms for desire. I want you to know that it is your kiss that I want, not another heir to the throne. You can know that I love you, quite for yourself, when I come to your bed, and not as the York’s broodmare.”

I tilt back my head and look at him under my eyelashes. “You think to bed me for love and not for children? Isn’t that sin?”

His arm comes around my waist and his palm cups my breast. “I shall make sure that it feels richly sinful,” he promises me.