Read Online The White Queen by Philippa Gregory - Free Book Online Page A

proof
     that the magic was ever there. The waters of the river where I dragged my ring from
     the flood have closed over. There is no proof that the magic ever worked. There is
     no proof that there is such a thing asmagic at all. All I have is a little gold ring shaped like a crown that may mean nothing.
    Mother is in the herb garden at the side of the house and, when she sees my brother
     and me walking together in stubborn silence, a pace apart, saying nothing, she straightens
     up with the herbs in her basket and waits for us to come towards her, readying herself
     for trouble.
    “Son,” she greets my brother. Anthony kneels for her blessing and she puts her hand
     on his fair head and smiles down on him. He rises to his feet and takes her hand in
     his.
    “I think the king has lied to you and to my sister,” he says bluntly. “The marriage
     ceremony was so secret that there is nobody of any authority to prove it. I think
     he went through the sham ceremony to have the bedding of her, and he will deny that
     they were married.”
    “Oh, do you?” she says, unruffled.
    “I do,” he says. “And it won’t be the first time he has pretended marriage to a lady
     in order to bed her. He has played this game before, and the woman ended with a bastard
     and no wedding ring.”
    My mother, magnificently, shrugs her shoulders. “What he has done in the past is his
     own affair,” she says. “But I saw him wedded and bedded, and I wager that he will
     come back to claim her as his wife.”
    “Never,” Anthony says simply. “And she will be ruined. If she is with child, she will
     be utterly disgraced.”
    My mother smiles up at his cross face. “If you were right and he was going to deny
     the marriage, then her prospects would be poor indeed,” she agrees.
    I turn my head from them. It is only a moment since my lover was telling me how to
     keep his son safe. Now this same child is described as my ruin.
    “I am going to see my sons,” I say coldly to them both. “I won’t hear this and I won’t
     speak of it. I am true to him and he will be true to me, and you will be sorry that
     you doubted us.”
    “You are a fool,” my brother says, unimpressed. “I am sorry for that, at least.” And
     to my mother he says, “You have taken a great gamble with her, a brilliant gamble;
     but you have staked her life and happiness on the word of a known liar.”
    “Perhaps,” my mother says, unmoved. “And you are a wise man, my son, a philosopher.
     But some things I know better than you, even now.”
    I stalk away. Neither of them calls me back.
     
    I have to wait, the whole kingdom has to wait again to hear who to hail as king, who shall
     command. My brother Anthony sends a man north, scouting for news, and then we all
     wait for him to come back to tell us if the battle has been joined, and if King Edward’s
     luck has held. Finally, in May, Anthony’s servant comes home and says he has been
     in the far north, near to Hexham, and met a man who told him all about it. A bad battle,
     a bloody battle. I hesitate in the doorway; I want to know the outcome, not the details.
     I don’t have to see a battle to imagine it anymore; we have become a country accustomed
     to tales of the battlefield. Everyone has heard of the armies drawn up in their positions,or seen the charge, the falling back and the exhausted pause while they regroup. Or
     everyone knows someone who has been in a town where the victorious soldiers came through
     determined to carouse and rob and rape; everyone has stories of women running to a
     church for sanctuary, screaming for help. Everyone knows that these wars have torn
     our country apart, have destroyed our prosperity, our friendliness between neighbors,
     our trust of strangers, the love between brothers, the safety of our roads, the affection
     for our king; and yet nothing seems to stop the battles. We go on and on seeking a
     final victory and a triumphant king who will bring peace;