The White Queen

AUTUMN 1469

Warwick returns to court as a beloved friend and loyal mentor. We are to be as a family that suffers occasional quarrels, but loves one another withal. Edward does this rather well. I greet Warwick with a smile as warm as a frozen fountain dripping with ice. I am expected to behave as if this man is not the murderer of my father and brother, and the jailer of my husband. I do as I am commanded: not a word of my anger escapes me, but Warwick knows without any telling that he has made a dangerous enemy for the rest of his life.

He knows I can say nothing, and his small bow when he first greets me is triumphant. “Your Grace,” he says suavely.

As ever with him, I feel at a disadvantage, like a girl. He is a great man of the world, and he was planning the fortunes of this kingdom when I was minding my manners to my lady Grey, my husband’s mother, and obeying my first husband. He looks at me as if I should still be feeding the hens at Grafton.

I want to be icy, but I fear I appear only sulky. “Welcome back to court,” I say unwillingly.

“You are always gracious,” he replies with a smile. “Born to be queen.”

My son Thomas Grey makes a small exclamation of anger, raging like the boy he is, and takes himself out of the room.

Warwick beams at me. “Ah, the young,” he says. “A promising boy.”

“I am only glad he was not with his grandfather and beloved uncle at Edgecote Moor,” I say, hating him.

“Oh, so am I!”

He may make me feel like a fool, and like a woman who can do nothing; but what I can do, I will. In my jewelry box is a dark locket of black tarnished silver, and inside it, locked in the darkness, I have his name, Richard Neville, and that of George, Duke of Clarence, written in my blood on the piece of paper from the corner of my father’s last letter. These are my enemies. I have cursed them. I will see them dead at my feet.