Free A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck by Judith Arnopp

expressed their love for us. But I sense Henry’s uncertainty; he is not yet used to showing himself to his people and is unsure how to get them to love him. He is so fearful of an assassin that when he is in public his shoulders tend to hunch and his eyes dart uncertainly from side to side. It is not an endearing picture of a king.
    For days the palace is in upheaval as he prepares for a few months on the road. On the last night he comes to me in my chamber but, fearful of injuring the child, he does not lay with me. As if I am a child that cannot get by for a few weeks without guidance, I am given a list of instruction.
    “Be ruled by my mother, she is my mouthpiece in all things.”
    It is always so, I wonder that he needs to remind me. His mother, who has spent her life fighting for her son’s concerns, is not content to be called by the long-winded title of My Lady, the King’s Mother , but has taken to signing herself Margaret R., as if she is herself the queen.
    I do not stoop to fight her; I know I cannot win. She stands upright beside me while the king’s horse is brought to him. Henry is fiddling with his gauntlets, shrugging his fur cloak higher about his neck. He glances at me and away again before I can speak or catch his eye.
    He is riding north, into Yorkist territory. There may be people there who will speak out against him, or worse. For the first time I feel a thrill of fear as I contemplate the possibility of an assassin. In the crowd-lined street it would be easy for an unknown hand to strike against him … or a small army of them to rise suddenly. Henry is the last of his line.
    My hands travel to my belly. It is flat yet, his child is not yet making himself known, but I am vulnerable … we all are. Security is not a luxury of kings but for Henry, whose enemies are legion, it is worse. If I lose him now, I will be alone, my unborn child at the mercy of the cruel world.
    A sudden craving for his reassurance washes over me. I want to feel his gentle touch on my hair, his kiss on my forehead. I step forward, reach out to detain him and whisper in his ear to keep safe. But before my fingers can grasp his cloak, Lady Margaret steps between us. She kisses him on both cheeks in the French way and issues some last minute instruction, no doubt telling him to be sure to wash behind his ears.
    My hands fall to my sides. Through a blur of tears I watch Henry mount; he gives a quick, tight smile and raises his hand in farewell. Then he calls to his outriders and they clatter away, leaving me at the mercy of his mother.
     
    *
    I keep to my chambers as much as I can, closet myself with my favourite women. We busy ourselves fashioning tiny garments for the new prince. Anne Parry softly reads a passage from the Bible, and a minstrel strums a lute in the corner. When Anne’s voice fails I tell her to put the book away, and to while away another hour, we each take it in turns to sing. When Elizabeth Stafford sings the cuckoo song, I am whisked back to my girlhood when I would delight to sing before my father’s court.
    Beside me, my cousin Margaret remembers it too and her eyes fill with ready tears. She has been weeping on and off for days, unhappy at the marriage Henry has proposed for her to his cousin, Sir Richard Pole. She has reduced several kerchiefs to shreds as she constantly beseeches me to intervene with Henry, both to delay her marriage and to allow her brother Warwick to leave the Tower.
    To alleviate her misery I promise to do all I can, but I don’t know how I am to approach the matter. Henry never encourages any intervention from me and, with the constant rumblings of discontent from the Yorkist party, I can quite see why he would want to keep young Warwick close. I wonder if there will ever be peace in England. I had hoped that my joining with Henry would satisfy the warring houses of York and Lancaster, but now I lose hope. In the early days of our marriage I secretly rooted for York, but now I