Virgin Widow. Anne O'Brien

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      Yet, when we were alone, still she was unquenchable.

      ‘Duchess of Clarence.’ She spun in a circle, her silk skirts brushing against the tapestries that decorated the walls in the corridor where we walked. ‘A royal brother for my husband. Wife of the male heir to the throne of England. Would you have believed it? I could be Queen of England. I could almost pray God that the Woodville woman only carries girls and not the son King Edward longs for. Am I, a Neville, not more worthy to rule than she?’

      ‘Isabel!’ Her vicious condemnation of the Queen shocked me.

      ‘What?’ She tossed her head so that her veiling shimmered in the light. ‘No one likes her. Why should I wish her well?’

      I could not argue against it, so did not. ‘But would you wish to be Queen?’

      ‘I would!’

      There was no talking to her. She looked at me as if I were the least of her subjects, as if she might insist that I kneel before her in reverence, as the Queen did at her churching after the birth of her daughters. I escaped before it crossed her mind.

      I knew which royal brother I preferred.

      

      Well, it did not last. My good fortune was of short duration, my betrothal and Isabel’s being cancelled as quickly as they had been implemented. Hardly had I become used to the prospect of being a Plantagenet bride than Richard was peremptorily summoned to London to present himself at Court before his brother, King Edward. The brief dictate contained no indication of its purpose. Nor did Chester Herald who delivered it, gloriously apparelled in his Plantagenet tabard. He waited, impatient and dust smeared, to escort his young charge back to Westminster with no explanation. Or if he knew, he was not saying.

      I existed in those following days in an uneasy agony of uncertainty. My first concern—would Richard ever return to Middleham? It was generally understood that he would take his place at Court eventually when he came of age, at least a year into the future. But would Edward demand his presence early? Never had the hills around Middleham when I rode out with Isabel and Francis seemed so empty, so lacking in colour and excitement.

      ‘When do you think he will return?’ I asked Francis once again.

      ‘Don’t ask me. You keep asking me and I know no more than you.’

      ‘Will the King have heard of the proposed marriages?’

      ‘If he hasn’t, he must be a fool. And a fool Edward is not! Our King has a network of spies second to none.’ Francis stared thoughtfully between his horse’s ears. ‘Apart from that, what in God’s name was the point in the Earl swearing Clarence to secrecy? That man has no knowledge of self-control or discretion. D’you think the Earl wanted the King to discover—to save time telling him?’

      I thought about this as the sharp breeze whipped my pony’s mane and my veiling into a thorough tangle. ‘Will the King allow it, d’you suppose, or will he forbid it?’ Isabel had cantered on ahead with a groom in attendance. I would never have raised the subject if she had been within hearing distance. The whole household was complicit in a silent campaign to distract her from either her outrageous dreams of grandeur or her immoderate fury that the King might indeed denounce her royal union.

      ‘He might forbid it.’ Francis’s reply, his bland expression, was entirely diplomatic. Until I caught the twitch of the muscle in his jaw as he hid the laughter. ‘Don’t fret, Anne. If you can’t have Gloucester, you can have me after all. You can be Lady Lovell and reign over all my establishments!’

      ‘Ha! As if I would want you!’

      ‘About as much as I would want you, sweettempered Anne!’

      I gave up, sighing. There was no sense or help here. I kicked the pony’s plump sides and followed my sister.

      

      Richard was not to stay at Westminster and immerse himself in the heady delights of power and politics as I had feared. He returned to Middleham within the month, without the Earl who, whatever his feelings on the matter, was sent to head another official embassy to the Courts of Europe.

      ‘The King! He won’t allow it, will he?’ I asked within minutes of Richard’s escaping from my mother’s presence.

      ‘No. He won’t. He said he wouldn’t countenance it, by God!’Well, that was blunt enough.

      Richard took my arm and pulled me along with him as he strode down the steps into the courtyard, round the buttress and into the enclosed garden between wall and keep.

      ‘What did the King say?’ I asked when he finally stopped and I could draw breath. I did not know what was uppermost: disappointment at my un-betrothed state or relief that life would settle back into its normal routines.

      ‘What didn’t he say!’A ghost of a smile flittered for a moment as he leaned back against a rose-drenched wall and puffed out a breath. ‘I have never seen Edward so angry. Not so much with us—Clarence and myself—but with the Earl, I think for his presumption. Although Edward’s words were short and sharp enough when he summoned the two of us to hear his opinions.’ A harsh laugh. ‘Especially when Clarence had the temerity to inform him that he thought it was as good a match as any and what was the problem with it? Enough to say—Edward has forbidden it. And informed the Pope that there must be no dispensation on pain of England’s severe displeasure.’

      ‘So that’s an end to it?’

      ‘Yes. We are no longer betrothed.’

      I scowled my disapproval of what I could not change. ‘How did he find out?’

      ‘Clarence, of course.’ Richard’s mouth curled in disdain. ‘He couldn’t avoid bragging, over a surfeit of ale, his good fortune in snaring a wealthy Neville heiress!’

      Well, Francis had read that situation accurately enough. Away to our right, from the open window up above our heads, there was the sound of some commotion. Then a squawk of sheer outrage, from Isabel. Richard raised his brows and, as one, we withdrew further behind the overgrown roses.

      ‘Does Edward consider that we are not high enough for a Plantagenet match?’ I whispered.

      Richard shrugged, patently uncomfortable, but without reply, until I nudged him impatiently. ‘Anne—’ he turned to look at me, our heads close together under the perfumed overhang’—it’s not that Edward thinks you’re not high enough. It’s the direct opposite—that he would not want the Nevilles to be too close to the centre of power. If Elizabeth fails to bear a son, Clarence will become King if Edward dies before him. And Isabel would be Queen, putting your father the Earl far too close to the throne. Edward doesn’t want it. I understand it, I suppose. So instead of not being important enough, you are far too important to be taken lightly into an alliance.’

      I nodded sadly, even as his treating me as his equal in political understanding pleased me inordinately. How would I not appreciate the importance of his pronouncement, when politics had been discussed around me and over my head at every meal as far back as I could remember. ‘I understand. Strong political reasons.’ A favourite phrase of my mother’s. Now I knew what СКАЧАТЬ