Read Online The White Queen by Philippa Gregory - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Philippa Gregory
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but victory never comes
and peace never comes and the kingship is never settled.
Anthony’s messenger gets to the point. King Edward’s army has won, and won decisively.
The Lancaster forces were routed and King Henry, the poor wandering lost King Henry
who does not know fully where he is, even when he is in his palace at Westminster,
has run away into the moors of Northumberland, a price on his head as if he were an
outlaw, without attendants, without friends, without even followers, like a borderer
rebel as wild as a chough.
His wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, my mother’s one-time dearest friend, is fled to
Scotland with the prince their heir. She is defeated, and her husband is vanquished.
But everyone knows that she will not accept her defeat, she will plot and scheme for
her son, just as Edward told me that I must plot and scheme for ours. She will never
stop until she is back in Englandand the battle is drawn up again. She will never stop until her husband is dead, her
son is dead, and she has no one left to put on the throne. This is what it means to
be Queen of England in this country today. This is how it has been for her for nearly
ten years, ever since her husband became unfit to rule and his country became like
a frightened hare thrown into a field before a pack of hunting dogs, darting this
way and that. Worse, I know that this is how it will be for me, if Edward comes home
to me and names me as the new queen, and we make a son and heir. The young man I love
will be king of an uncertain kingdom, and I will have to be a claimant queen.
And he does come. He sends me word that he has won the battle and broken the siege
of Bamburgh Castle, and will call in as his army marches south. He will come for dinner,
he writes to my father, and in a private note to me he scribbles that he will stay
the night.
I show the note to my mother. “You can tell Anthony that my husband is true to me,”
I say.
“I shan’t tell Anthony anything,” she says unhelpfully.
My father, at any rate, manages to be pleased at the prospect of a visit from the
victor. “We were right to give him our men,” he says to my mother. “Bless you for
that, love. He is the victorious king and you have put us on the winning side once
more.”
She smiles at him. “It could have gone either way, as always,” she says. “And it is
Elizabeth who has turned his head. It is she he is coming to see.”
“Do we have some well-hung beef?” he asks. “And John and the boys and I will go hawking
and get you some game.”
“We’ll give him a good dinner,” she reassures him. But she does not tell my father
that he has greater cause for celebration: that the King of England has married me.
She stays silent, and I wonder if she too thinks that he is playing me false.
There is no sign of what my mother thinks, one way or another, when she greets him
with a low curtsey. She shows no familiarity, as a woman might do to her son-in-law.
But she treats him with no coldness, as surely she would if she thought he had made
fools of us both? Rather, she greets him as a victorious king and he greets her as
a great lady, a former duchess, and both of them treat me as a favored daughter of
the house.
Dinner is as successful as it is bound to be, given that my father is filled with
bluster and excitement, my mother as elegant as always, my sisters in their usual
state of stunned admiration, and my brothers furiously silent. The king bids his farewell
to my parents and rides off down the road as if going back to Northampton, and I throw
on my cape and run down the path to the hunting lodge by the river.
He is there before me, his big war horse in the stall, his page boy in the hayloft,
and he takes me into his arms without a word. I say nothing too. I am not such a fool
as to greet a man with suspicion and complaints, and besides, when he touches me,
all I want is his touch,
and peace never comes and the kingship is never settled.
Anthony’s messenger gets to the point. King Edward’s army has won, and won decisively.
The Lancaster forces were routed and King Henry, the poor wandering lost King Henry
who does not know fully where he is, even when he is in his palace at Westminster,
has run away into the moors of Northumberland, a price on his head as if he were an
outlaw, without attendants, without friends, without even followers, like a borderer
rebel as wild as a chough.
His wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, my mother’s one-time dearest friend, is fled to
Scotland with the prince their heir. She is defeated, and her husband is vanquished.
But everyone knows that she will not accept her defeat, she will plot and scheme for
her son, just as Edward told me that I must plot and scheme for ours. She will never
stop until she is back in Englandand the battle is drawn up again. She will never stop until her husband is dead, her
son is dead, and she has no one left to put on the throne. This is what it means to
be Queen of England in this country today. This is how it has been for her for nearly
ten years, ever since her husband became unfit to rule and his country became like
a frightened hare thrown into a field before a pack of hunting dogs, darting this
way and that. Worse, I know that this is how it will be for me, if Edward comes home
to me and names me as the new queen, and we make a son and heir. The young man I love
will be king of an uncertain kingdom, and I will have to be a claimant queen.
And he does come. He sends me word that he has won the battle and broken the siege
of Bamburgh Castle, and will call in as his army marches south. He will come for dinner,
he writes to my father, and in a private note to me he scribbles that he will stay
the night.
I show the note to my mother. “You can tell Anthony that my husband is true to me,”
I say.
“I shan’t tell Anthony anything,” she says unhelpfully.
My father, at any rate, manages to be pleased at the prospect of a visit from the
victor. “We were right to give him our men,” he says to my mother. “Bless you for
that, love. He is the victorious king and you have put us on the winning side once
more.”
She smiles at him. “It could have gone either way, as always,” she says. “And it is
Elizabeth who has turned his head. It is she he is coming to see.”
“Do we have some well-hung beef?” he asks. “And John and the boys and I will go hawking
and get you some game.”
“We’ll give him a good dinner,” she reassures him. But she does not tell my father
that he has greater cause for celebration: that the King of England has married me.
She stays silent, and I wonder if she too thinks that he is playing me false.
There is no sign of what my mother thinks, one way or another, when she greets him
with a low curtsey. She shows no familiarity, as a woman might do to her son-in-law.
But she treats him with no coldness, as surely she would if she thought he had made
fools of us both? Rather, she greets him as a victorious king and he greets her as
a great lady, a former duchess, and both of them treat me as a favored daughter of
the house.
Dinner is as successful as it is bound to be, given that my father is filled with
bluster and excitement, my mother as elegant as always, my sisters in their usual
state of stunned admiration, and my brothers furiously silent. The king bids his farewell
to my parents and rides off down the road as if going back to Northampton, and I throw
on my cape and run down the path to the hunting lodge by the river.
He is there before me, his big war horse in the stall, his page boy in the hayloft,
and he takes me into his arms without a word. I say nothing too. I am not such a fool
as to greet a man with suspicion and complaints, and besides, when he touches me,
all I want is his touch,
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