Free The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory Page B

longer an awestruck little girl; I am the daughter of her enemy and the murderer of her father and
brother. And I am sorry, deeply sorry for all that has happened – but I cannot tell her so, and she makes it clear she would hear nothing from me.
    After a month of this I cannot eat my dinner at the ladies’ table. It sticks in my throat. I cannot sleep at night; I am always cold as if my bedroom in her household is whistling with a
chill draught. My hands shake when I have to pass something to the queen, and my sewing is hopeless, the linen covered with spots of blood where I have pricked my fingers. I ask our Lady Mother if
I may go to Warwick, or even back to Calais, I tell her that I feel ill, living at the court among our enemies is making me sick.
    ‘Don’t you complain to me,’ she says shortly. ‘I have to sit beside her mother at dinner and be chilled to my soul by that witch’s ice. Your father risked
everything and lost. He could not hold the king a prisoner on his own, the lords would not support him and without them, nothing could be done. We are lucky the king did not have him executed.
Instead we are in a fine place: at court, your sister married to the king’s brother and your cousin John betrothed to the king’s daughter. We are close to the throne and may get closer
still. Serve the queen and be grateful that your father is not dead on a scaffold like hers. Serve the queen and be glad that your father will seek a good marriage for you and she will approve
it.’
    ‘I can’t,’ I say weakly. ‘Really, Lady Mother, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, nor that I could disobey you or Father. It is that I simply
can’t do it. My knees will give way rather than walk behind her. I can’t eat when she watches me.’
    The face she turns to me is as kindly as stone. ‘You come from a great family,’ she reminds me. ‘Your father took a great risk for the good of his family and for the benefit of
your sister. Isabel is lucky that he thought her worth the effort. We may now be in some discomfort but that will change. You show your father that in your turn it is worth us making an effort for
you. You will have to rise to your calling, Anne, there is no point being weak and sickly now. You were born to be a great woman – be one now.’
    She sees I am pale and shaking. ‘Oh, cheer up,’ she says roughly. ‘We’re to go to Warwick Castle for your sister’s confinement. It will be easier for us there, and
we can stay away from court for four months at least. There is no pleasure in this for any of us, Anne. It’s as bad for me as it is for you. I will keep us at Warwick as long as I
can.’

WARWICK CASTLE, MARCH 1470

    I thought we would be happier every mile we were away from the court; but only weeks after we get to the castle, my father sends the groom of his chamber to tell us that he
wants to see the two of us in his room. We enter his privy chamber, Isabel leaning heavily on my arm and holding her swelling belly as if to remind anyone who might forget for even a moment that
she is still carrying the child of the heir of the King of England, and he will be born next month.
    Father is seated in his carved chair with the Warwick crest of the bear and the ragged staff bright in gold leaf behind his head. He looks up when we come in and points with his quill pen at me.
‘Ah, I don’t need you.’
    ‘Father?’
    ‘Stand back.’
    Isabel quickly releases me and stands perfectly well on her own, and so I take my place at the back of the room, put my hands behind my back and trace the linenfold panelling with my fingers,
waiting until I am called on to speak.
    ‘I am telling you a secret, Isabel,’ Father says. ‘Your husband the duke and I are riding out to support King Edward as he marches on a rebellion in Lincolnshire. We go with
him to show our loyalty.’
    Isabel murmurs a reply. I can’t hear what, but of course it doesn’t matter what she says, or what I