Rebellion (11 page)

[King Edward] was licentious in the
extreme: moreover it was said he had been most insolent to numerous women after he
had seduced them, for as soon as he grew weary of dalliance, he gave up the ladies
much against their will to other courtiers. He pursued with no discrimination the
married and unmarried, the noble and lowly; however he took none by force. He
overcame all by money and promises, and having conquered them, he dismissed
them.

Dominic Mancini

Her father had often said that uncertainty
was what made a game worth playing, and certainly she was far from sure that she could
win this one. She had not seen Edward, her suitor and her king, for several weeks.

On the last occasion his face had closed
suddenly, and he'd left without explanation or goodbye. She had not heard from him
since.

She'd affected indifference to this in the
face of her mother's strident comments, her father's quiet reproof. She did not love
him, this handsome boy, her king, but she loved the thought of him. Her life lapsed into
dullness when he was not there. How could she accept any suitor other than the king? And
how long could she continue to fend him off?

All her excuses were
wearing thin.

She was still grieving for her husband –
that had worked for a while. But it was nearly three years since her husband's death,
and recently the king had said that if she loved him, as she claimed, she would no
longer even think about her husband.

‘It is because I love you that I will not
give myself up so cheaply,' she'd said, and, ‘If you loved me you would be prepared to
wait.'

But on the last occasion he'd said, ‘Wait
for what?' and the look that sometimes entered his face was there, when he suspected she
was playing him for a fool.

‘Wait until we can be together
completely.'

‘Is it my crown that you love?'

He was no fool, this young man, though he
could sometimes be so indiscreet. It was one of the things she liked about him, that he
was not entirely open to her.

Of course, she'd said that she had no
thought of his crown – she knew she was not good enough to marry him. But she was too
good to be his whore. And he had accepted this, apparently. After a moment he'd said,
‘Then come back with me.'

‘As your whore?'

‘As my companion, my lady love.'

That was what, in her heart, she sometimes
believed she would have to settle for. And she did not know that it would be such a bad
thing. Alice Perrers had, after all practically run the kingdom and taken what she
wanted from the third King Edward.

But that Edward had been in his dotage,
whereas this one was young, and likely to grow tired of her and move on.

‘I will not come back with you,' she said,
‘and play courtesan while you marry someone else. How could I?'

The young king's face had darkened. ‘A king
must marry,' he said. It had nothing to do with love. Whoever he married, his heart
would be hers.

‘Is that what you say to all your whores?'
she said.

He had looked at her with
well-feigned surprise. ‘Since we met there has been no one else,' he said.

She had laughed at him then and after a
moment he had laughed too, and they had grown quite companionable. But then he had drawn
her to the couch and kissed her.

She allowed herself, in such moments, to
experience desire, because he had an instinct for pretence. In such close proximity he
could sense the smallest shifts and fluctuations of her mood.

He wound his fingers in her hair and kissed
her again, pressing her down. But she withdrew from him, becoming cold and still, until
he released her. Then she sat up at once, touching her hair.

She could sense him looking at her with –
what? Irony, frustration, rage? But she did not look directly back. She was afraid of
him in such moments, of his own capacity to withdraw.

‘Such restraint,' he said, infusing the word
with a world of scorn. ‘You should pass on your skills, my lady – they are too
exceptional to keep to yourself.'

She had nothing to say to this. She wondered
if she should weep.

‘You should take care, however, that what
you prize so highly does not grow old.'

She turned to him then, stung, for she was
several years older than the king. ‘At least one of us should prize what I have to
give.'

‘I can hardly prize it if you do not give
it.'

‘And if I do,' she said, leaning towards him
slightly, ‘how long before you throw it away?'

And he had said, equally low, ‘We will never
know, will we?'

She had stood up suddenly then, and
harangued him in words she shuddered to remember; words that a mistress might use to her
lover if she was sure of him, but that no subject would ever use to her king. She said
that she was no fool; that if he treated her this way already, how would he treat her at
court? Where she would be expected to sit not at his side, no, but in some lesser place,
and smile while he courted some other woman, or wait in her room while he slept in some
other woman's bed.

As she spoke, some genuine
anger rose in her, some buried rage at the impossible nature of the position she was in,
so that she was almost weeping in reality, tears of frustration and rage.

‘I will not grow old and fat bearing your
bastards while you sleep with every harlot in court, and perhaps even fall for one of
them!'

Someone younger, a virgin no doubt,
because there will always be someone younger and prettier than me
, she did not
say, and the king did not say there would be no one, ever, that he would love more than
her. He was looking at her with a mixture of injury and contempt.

‘Shall I take that as your final answer?' he
said, and when she did not reply he left.

As soon as he had gone she had wept quite
noisily, as though her sobs would break her apart. But to her family she had to pretend
that all was well; to her mother, who questioned her closely; to her father, who did not
question her but gave her long, narrow looks. Then as the weeks passed and the king did
not return nor send any of the usual tokens of his love, her father had asked her to
accompany him on a walk.

‘It's raining,' she said.

‘Not any more,' he replied.

She took her time getting ready, wrapping
her cloak around herself slowly, for she knew what was on his mind.

He did not take long to get to it.

‘Your mother and I were wondering if you had
heard from the king?'

Obviously they knew that she had not.

‘We were thinking that perhaps you should
write.'

‘Write? To the king?'

‘It cannot do any harm.'

‘I cannot see that it would do any
good.'

‘It might make him – reconsider.'

Elizabeth Woodville expelled her breath.
‘And then what?'

‘What –?'

‘If he reconsiders. What am
I to do with him then?'

‘Then …' Her father shrugged. ‘That is
up to you. But it might be time to show him a little – favour.'

‘Favour?' she said.
A little leg or
breast
, she did not say. ‘And if I show him some
favour
,' she said,
‘and he still does not come back for more – what then?'

Her father said nothing for a moment, then
he said, in low, chilling tones, ‘Well, at least you will have tried.'

Elizabeth Woodville said nothing to this,
but she felt the force of conflicting emotions: outrage at the injustice of her
situation; fear that she might have lost the prize so nearly within her grasp; and
injury that her father should speak to her, his favourite daughter, in this way, making
plain the exact nature of her value to him and to them all.

She understood her family's disappointment
in her perfectly; she had failed them as she had failed herself. But what did her father
know about trying to fend off the attentions of a king?

You think it is easy?
she wanted to
say.
You think I have not thought about it – about him – every second since he
left?

In fact, his leaving had brought about the
effect that he had failed to achieve by his presence. She desired him. She desired him
utterly. She could not think about him without a rising flush of heat – the way he
looked at her or touched her sometimes as if he could not restrain himself, but somehow,
miraculously, he did. And sometimes he did not touch her but stood too close, so that
the fine hair on her arms rose and she could feel a sensation of heat in the flesh of
her thighs. Perhaps she did love him, she thought, with a sudden hollow feeling. Because
if she did, then she had certainly failed.

Without realizing it, her steps had
quickened and she had walked some distance ahead of her father.

‘I will not write to him,' she said. ‘You
can write if you must.'

Then no more was said of it until the letter
arrived from the king to say that he would be travelling north in a few days and
would be honoured to accept their invitation to lodge with them, for
the space of one night.

Her first response was a rush of relief. The
king was coming, she would see him again. But the relief was soon tinged with dismay.
Her parents had obviously written to him, and it was almost as bad as if she had written
to him herself. The dismay became tinged with a sense of humiliation, and something like
fear. For they had evidently invited him to stay and he had accepted
for the space
of one night.

She finished her meal quickly, leaving them
to discuss which room they would prepare for the king. She sat on the edge of her bed,
then rose and went to the window as if she might already see him coming.

It would be her room, she guessed; he would
sleep in her room because of its gracious aspect. Her younger siblings would be moved
out of their room for the night and she would be expected to sleep there. Because of the
adjoining door.

She touched her hair as though it might be
coming astray, although it was not. With one part of her mind she was already
calculating what she would wear, how she would look. Which was a distraction from her
inner thoughts: that he was coming and would stay for one night, when he had never
stayed before.

After the meal and all the usual
pleasantries they would retire to bed. And then what? Would he come directly to her
room, or would she be expected to go to his?

She could imagine, though she did not often
exercise her imagination, them both lying in their separate rooms with only a thin
partition between them, and an unlocked door. She could almost hear the sound of their
breathing as they lay. But it was as if her mind went blank at this point; as if for the
first time in her life she had no plan, and did not know what she would do.

The king decided to ride into
Yorkshire to see and understand the disposition of the people of the north. And he
took with him the Duke of Somerset and 200 of his men, well horsed and harnessed.
And the said duke, Harry of Somerset and his men were made the king's guard, for the
king had so much favour in him and trusted him well, as though a lamb rode among
wolves, but almighty god was the shepherd. And when the king left London he came to
Northampton on St James' day [25 July 1463] and that false duke was with him. And
the commons of the town of Northampton and that shire saw that the false duke was so
closely in the king's presence and was his guard, and they rose against that false
traitor the Duke of Somerset and would have slain him within the king's palace, but
the king with fair speech and great difficulty saved his life for that time
…

Gregory's Chronicle