Free The White Queen by Philippa Gregory Page A

don’t care for my name or for
     my pride anymore. As long as I can have him once more, that’s all I want, just to
     love him; all I want to be certain of is that I will see him again, that he loves
     me.”
    Anthony folds me in his arms and pats my back. “Of course he loves you,” he says.
     “What man could not? And if he does not, then he is a fool.”
    “I love him,” I say miserably. “I would love him if he were a nobody.”
    “No, you wouldn’t,” he says gently. “You are your mother’s child through and through;
     you don’t have the blood of a goddess in you for nothing. You were born to be queen
     and maybe everything will come out well. Maybe he loves you and will stand by you.”
    I tilt my head back to scan his face. “But you don’t believe it.”
    “No,” he says honestly. “To tell you the truth, I think you have seen the last of
     him.”

SEPTEMBER 1464

     
    He sends me a letter. He addresses me as Lady Elizabeth Grey and inside he writes
     “my love”; he does not say “wife,” so he gives me nothing that can prove our marriage
     if he should deny it. He writes that he is busy but will send for me shortly. The
     court is at Reading, he will speak to Lord Warwick soon. The council is meeting, there
     is so much to do. The lost king, Henry, has still not been captured; he is out somewhere
     in the hills of Northumberland; but the queen has fled to her homeland of France demanding
     help, so an alliance with France is more important than ever before, to cut her out
     of the French councils, and make sure she cannot have allies. He does not remark that
     a French marriage would do this for him. He says he loves me, he burns up for me.
     Lover’s words, lover’s promises: nothing binding.
    The same messenger brings a summons for my father to attend the court at Reading.
     It is a standard letter, every nobleman in the country will have had the same. My
     brothers Anthony, John, Richard, Edward, and Lionel are to go with him. “Write and
     tell me everything about it,” my mother commands my father as we watch them mount
     up. They make a little army themselves, my mother’s fine brood of sons.
    “He will be calling us to announce his wedding to the French princess,” my father
     grumbles, bending over to tighten his girth under the saddle flap. “And much good
     an alliance with the French will do us. Much good it has ever done us before. Still,
     it will have to be done if Margaret of Anjou is to be silenced. And a French bride
     would welcome you at her court, a kinswoman.”
    My mother does not even blink at the prospect of Edward’s French bride. “Write and
     tell me at once,” she says. “And God go with you, my husband, and keep you safe.”
    He leans down from the saddle to kiss her hand and then turns his horse’s head down
     the road to the south. My brothers twirl their whips, raise their hats, bellow a farewell.
     My sisters wave, my sister-in-law Elizabeth curtseys to Anthony, who raises his hand
     to her, my mother, and to me. His face is grim.
    But it is Anthony who writes to me two days later, and it is his manservant who rides
     like a madman to bring me his letter.
     
    Sister,
    This is your triumph, and I am glad to my heart for you. There has been an earthshaking
     quarrel between the king and Lord Warwick, for my lord brought a marriage contract
     to the king for him to marry Princess Bona of Savoy, as everyone was expecting. The
     king, with the contract before him and the pen in his hand, raised his head and told
     his lordship that he could not marry the Princess for—actually—hewas already married. You could have heard a feather fall; you could hear the angels
     gasp. I swear I heard Lord Warwick’s very heart pound as he asked the king to repeat
     what he had said. The king was white as a girl but he faced Lord Warwick (which I
     would not want to do myself) and told him that all his plans and all his promises
     were as nothing. His lordship