The White Queen Read Free Page A

he says,
     and gestures to the chair beside him. I sit as if I am his queen, on his right hand,
     and I let him pour me a glass of small ale. “I will look into your claim for your
     lands,” he says. “Do you want your own house? Are you not happy living here with your
     mother and father?”
    “They are kind to me,” I say. “But I am used to myown household, I am accustomed to running my own lands. And my sons will have nothing
     if I cannot reclaim their father’s lands. It is their inheritance. I must defend my
     sons.”
    “These have been hard times,” he says. “But if I can keep my throne, I will see the
     law of the land running from one coast of England to another once more, and your boys
     will grow up without fear of warfare.”
    I nod my head.
    “Are you loyal to King Henry?” he asks me. “D’you follow your family as loyal Lancastrians?”
    Our history cannot be denied. I know that there was a furious quarrel in Calais between
     this king, then nothing more than a young York son, and my father, then one of the
     great Lancastrian lords. My mother was the first lady at the court of Margaret of
     Anjou; she must have met and patronized the handsome young son of York a dozen times.
     But who would have known then that the world might turn upside down and that the daughter
     of Baron Rivers would have to plead to that very boy for her own lands to be restored
     to her? “My mother and father were very great at the court of King Henry, but my family
     and I accept your rule now,” I say quickly.
    He smiles. “Sensible of you all, since I won,” he says. “I accept your homage.”
    I give a little giggle, and at once his face warms. “It must be over soon, please
     God,” he says. “Henry has nothing more than a handful of castles in lawless northern
     country. He can muster brigands like any outlaw,but he cannot raise a decent army. And his queen cannot go on and on bringing in the
     country’s enemies to fight her own people. Those who fight for me will be rewarded,
     but even those who have fought against me will see that I shall be just in victory.
     And I will make my rule run, even to the north of England, even through their strongholds,
     up to the very border of Scotland.”
    “Do you go to the north now?” I ask. I take a sip of small ale. It is my mother’s
     best but there is a tang behind it; she will have added some drops of a tincture,
     a love philter, something to make desire grow. I need nothing. I am breathless already.
    “We need peace,” he says. “Peace with France, peace with the Scots, and peace from
     brother to brother, cousin to cousin. Henry must surrender; his wife has to stop bringing
     in French troops to fight against Englishmen. We should not be divided anymore, York
     against Lancaster: we should all be Englishmen. There is nothing that sickens a country
     more than its own people fighting against one another. It destroys families; it is
     killing us daily. This has to end, and I will end it. I will end it this year.”
    I feel the sick fear that the people of this country have known for nearly a decade.
     “There must be another battle?”
    He smiles. “I shall try to keep it from your door, my lady. But it must be done and
     it must be done soon. I pardoned the Duke of Somerset and took him into my friendship,
     and now he has run away to Henryonce more, a Lancastrian turncoat, faithless like all the Beauforts. The Percys are
     raising the north against me. They hate the Nevilles, and the Neville family are my
     greatest allies. It is like a dance now: the dancers are in their place; they have
     to do their steps. They will have a battle; it cannot be avoided.”
    “The queen’s army will come this way?” Though my mother loved her and was the first
     of her ladies, I have to say that her army is a force of absolute terror. Mercenaries,
     who care nothing for the country; Frenchmen who hate us; and the savage men of the
     north of England who see