The Kingmaker's Daughter

There is a noisy and joyful parade that takes George to my sister’s new big bedroom; the respect for my mother prevents it being too bawdy, but the men of the garrison bellow their encouragement and all the wedding guests throw flowers under her feet and call out blessings. My sister and her new husband are put to bed by an archbishop, twenty maids in waiting and five knights of the garter, in a cloud of incense wafted by half a dozen priests, to the stentorian bellow of my father’s shouted good wishes. My mother and I are the last to leave the room, and as I glance back Izzy is sitting up in bed, looking very pale as if she is afraid. George leans back on the pillows beside her, naked to the waist, his blond hair glinting on his chest, his broad smile very confident.

I hesitate. This will be the first night in all our lives that we have slept apart. I don’t think I want to sleep alone, I don’t think I can sleep without my sister’s peaceful warmth in my bed, and I doubt that Izzy wants George, so loud, so blond, so drunk, as a bed-mate. Izzy looks at me as if she would say something. My mother, sensing the bond between us, puts a hand on my shoulder and starts to lead me from the room.

‘Annie, don’t go,’ Izzy says quietly. I turn back and see that she is shaking with fear. She stretches out a hand to me as if she would keep me with her, for just a moment longer. ‘Annie!’ she whispers. I can’t resist the alarm in her voice. I turn to go back into the room as my mother takes me firmly by the arm, and closes the bedroom door behind us.

That night I sleep alone, refusing the company of one of the maids; if I cannot be with my sister then I don’t want any bedfellow at all. I lie in the cold sheets and there is no-one to exchange a whispered account of the day, no-one to tease, no-one to torment me. Even when we fought like cats in a basket, there was always the comfort of having Izzy there to fight with. Like the very walls of Calais Castle she is part of the scenery of my life. I was born and bred to be secondary to her: the beauty of the family. I have always followed behind an ambitious, determined, vocal older sister. Now suddenly I am alone. I lie awake for a long time, staring into the darkness, wondering what my life will be, now I no longer have an older sister to tell me what to do. I think that in the morning everything will be utterly different.

CALAIS CASTLE, 12 JULY 1469

In the morning things are even more different than I had dreamed in my solitary night. The whole place is wide-awake at dawn. The rumble of cartwheels from the kitchen yard to the quayside, the shouting from the armoury, and the scramble and haste in the basin of the port show that far from celebrating a wedding, Father is preparing to go to sea.

‘Is it pirates?’ I ask my tutor, catching his hand as he goes past me with a writing desk towards my father’s rooms. ‘Please, sir, is it a raid of pirates?’

‘No,’ he says, his face pale and frightened. ‘Worse. Go to your mother, Lady Anne. I cannot stop and talk now. I have to go to your father and take down his orders.’

Worse than pirates must mean that the French are about to attack. If so, then we are at war and half the English court has been caught in a castle under siege. This is the worst thing that has ever happened. I go to my mother’s rooms at the run but find everything unnaturally quiet. Mother is seated beside Isabel. Isabel is in her new gown but there is no excited chatter of bridal joy. Isabel looks furious, the women, sewing shirts in a circle, are silent with a sort of feverish anticipation. I curtsey low to my mother: ‘Please, Lady Mother,’ I say. ‘What’s happening?’

‘You may tell her,’ my mother says coolly to Isabel, and I scurry to my sister and pull up a stool beside her chair.

‘Are you all right?’ I mutter.

‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘It wasn’t too bad.’

‘Did it hurt?’

She nods. ‘Horrible. And disgusting. First horrible, then disgusting.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Father’s making war on the king.’

‘No!’ I speak too loudly and my mother shoots a sharp look at me. I clap my hand over my mouth and I know that over the top of my gagging palm my eyes are huge with shock. ‘Isabel – no!’

‘It was planned,’ she whispers fiercely. ‘Planned all along, and I was part of it. He said he had a great plan. I thought he meant my wedding. I didn’t know it was this.’

I roll my eyes towards the stony face of my mother who simply glares at me as if my sister is married to a treasonous royal every day of the week and it is vulgar of me to show any surprise.

‘Did our Lady Mother know?’ I whisper. ‘When did she find out?’

‘She knew all along,’ Isabel says bitterly. ‘They all knew. Everyone knew but us.’

I am stunned into silence. I look around the ladies of my mother’s chamber, who are all stitching shirts for the poor as if this were an ordinary day, as if we were not going to war with the very King of England that we put on the throne only eight years ago.

‘He’s arming the fleet. They’re sailing at once.’