Virgin Widow (21 page)

The door opened, without even an attempted knock as polite warning, the announcement as shattering as a thunder clap.

‘This will go no further.’

Queen Margaret stepped across the threshold, still in her festive velvet and ermine. Still crowned with gold, yet as pale as her son was flushed. She stalked to
the bed, close beside the Prince. It seemed to me that her whole body throbbed with furious, barely controlled energy.

‘Out!’ she ordered, barely glancing at the women, her eyes only for the Prince. ‘Get out!’

The women scuttled for the door, tripping over their hems in their flight, but my mother stood firm. I thanked God for it.

‘Your Majesty!’ The Grand Vicar drew himself up to his impressive height. ‘What can you imply?’

‘I
imply
that this marriage will go no further.’ The Queen barely glanced at him. Her eyes were fixed on her son’s face. ‘I have no intention of being ambiguous, your Grace. There will be no consummation.’

‘There must be a misunderstanding, your Majesty,’ gabbled the priest. ‘There is no cause to forbid this union of these young people. All is correct by my hand and in the sight of God. It is most acceptably done!’

‘For you, perhaps. But all is not acceptable to me!’

I sat open-mouthed. So, momentarily, did the Prince as if he could not believe the exchange of words. I looked towards the Countess, seeking an answer. Surely this was not what she had expected. Had it been decided that because of my lack of years this completion of the marriage bond should be postponed? Had the Queen, in arbitrary judgement, suddenly at this eleventh hour decided that I was too young to permit the physical union? I had not
thought so. I would not be the youngest bride to accept her husband’s demands in bed. I would not be the youngest royal wife to carry a child.

‘Madam! In God’s name…!’ At last the Prince reacted, leaping from the bed and shrugging his arms into the bed robe, as if to face this crisis naked would put him at a disadvantage. I remained where I was, unable to even think what I should do next. Inconsequentially I was aware that my husband’s show of awe-inspiring masculinity was a thing of the past. I forced myself to sit without moving and allow the scene to play out. Edward quickly had the furred garment belted tight.

‘I demand to know, madam—’

‘I do not have to explain myself. You are my son and you will obey me.’

The Grand Vicar intervened, planting his feet like an oak. ‘I would advise you, your Majesty, that you have no right to dictate to the Prince in this matter. He is of age and so can determine his own behaviour towards his wife.’ His hand clenched around his pectoral cross as if to invoke the power of the Almighty.

My mother merely stood, speechless, frozen. I watched as panic played across her features.

By this time the Prince had found his confidence, but lost any ability to remain cool. ‘By the Rood, madam! I demand an explanation. This woman is my wife before God and the law and I should bed her.’

‘Your wife she may be. But this marriage will not be consummated.’

‘Why not? In God’s name, why not?’ Gone was all filial respect. The Prince shouted his disbelief.

‘I forbid it.’

‘You
forbid it!
I
am Prince of Wales. My father’s heir, heir to England’s crown.
You
have no right to forbid it.’

‘I can and I will.’

Edward took a step forwards towards her. A dangerous step. He lifted his arm, the flat of his hand raised. We held our breath as it appeared for one horrifying moment as if he would actually strike the Queen. The volatile temper, the unbridled violence I had suspected in the Prince was about to be displayed.

‘My lord. Your Majesty. Let us not be carried away with hot humours.’ The GrandVicar cleared his throat to draw attention, stepping forwards nervously. When Edward’s arm fell to his side, he continued in low tones, ‘On what grounds do you take this step, your Majesty?’

The Queen did not even look at him, or even at me. I was as nothing in her plans. She continued to hold her son’s blazing gaze. ‘It is not required that I give an explanation.’

‘Tell me!’The bark of anger that echoed from the walls startled us all, the Prince’s beautiful features obliterated in a furious scowl. ‘Explain to me!’

Whilst I simply sat in the great bed and held my
breath for the outcome of the trial of strength between mother and son, I saw the jewels glint on the Queen’s breast as she inhaled slowly. Her glance flickered to my mother, then to me, and finally back to the Prince. When she spoke I knew that this had always been her plan, and that we were all tied securely into it with no way out. ‘There is no reason why you—all of you—should not know,’ she explained with terrible reasoning. ‘If there is a way out of this marriage for me, any way at all, I will take it. If I can have it annulled, I will do so. Monsieur de Warwick will be a creature of mine. I will never be one of his.’

‘You want room to annul the marriage,’ the Countess murmured, aghast. ‘So if my lord of Warwick fails, my daughter will be cast aside from an incomplete, unconsummated marriage. You will put an end to this marriage before it has even begun, and with such humiliation for my daughter. It is cruel!’

‘I will not be dictated to in this manner…’ the Prince broke in, but the Queen waved him aside as she focused on the accusation.

‘Cruel, Madame de Warwick?’ Margaret was on firm ground now, victorious ground. She oozed confidence, even allowing herself a smile. ‘Not cruelty, but a matter of political necessity. I will do whatever needs to be done to restore to my family what is theirs by right of inheritance. You of all women should know
of such things. You have been raised all your life surrounded by political intrigue. You were married for the sake of land and titles. Where is the cruelty in that? It is what we do. Why should you be so surprised?’ Now there was a lick of disdain, sharp as a whip. ‘I will not tie my son to a marriage that will bring him no advantage.’

‘My husband has risked his life for you and the Prince.’

‘We still do not know that Warwick will be successful.’

‘The Yorkists are in flight! My father is crowned King again,’ howled the Prince. ‘What more do you want?’

‘I want all Yorkists run to ground and dispatched. I want no hostile forces on English soil. Even now, Warwick can still fail. What if the Yorkist upstart should return from exile with a Burgundian army at his back to restore him to the throne?’ It seemed that my bridal chamber had suddenly become a chamber of war as Margaret hammered home the fears that drove her. ‘Could Warwick stand before such a force? I doubt it.’ She looked again at me, an expression of pure distaste. ‘If he fails, what use will it be to me for you to be tied to the Neville girl, nothing but an embarrassing burden on us if Warwick can offer us nothing. In that eventuality I want you free to take another bride who can bring us power and military force. I will not be moved on this.’ The Queen faced
the Prince. ‘You, my son, will now obey me by returning to your own rooms.’

To give him credit, he still stood his ground before her. ‘I refuse to do it. She is my wife. I demand to stay here.’

‘You’ll not defy me, Edward. I have not brought you up to defy me. If you try, I will have you taken by guards and locked in your chamber. And I shall continue to keep you there until you bow to my wishes.’

‘You would not dare!’

The Queen was unmoved as her lips curved in a thin smile. ‘I would. You know I would.’

I thought the Prince would explode with passion. He might be taller, broader than her slight figure, but the Queen’s will filled the room. All the determination that had carried her through defeat and exile, humiliation and penury was distilled into sheer force as she stared down her son. Would he retreat before this overwhelming force? I was not at all sure. At that moment, if he had worn a sword, I swear that he would have drawn it. It spurred me into action. I abandoned the linen, my own acute embarrassment, and leapt from the bed. It was so few steps to fling myself to my knees at Margaret’s feet.

‘Your Majesty.’ I felt the shame of my shivering flesh as I knelt with head bent. What I hoped to achieve I had no clear idea, simply knew that I must speak out and fight for recognition of my own position in the
marriage. ‘We are legally bound, your Majesty,’ I urged. ‘The Prince is my husband. I beg you—’

‘In name only. Get up.’ She would not even listen. ‘You will remain a virgin until my son is acknowledged before Parliament as heir at Westminster.’

The violence that I had seen building inside the Prince, hot and deadly, erupted to scald all of us. Pushing to my feet, I stepped out of his destructive path as he swept the cups and flagon from the night stand, spilling the contents in a blood-like pool across the floor. ‘I will not be refused. I will not be ordered to my rooms as if I were a child.’ He kicked out at the bed hangings, tearing some of the fragile cloth, making the dust motes dance. He hurled a jewel-encrusted candle-holder to crack against the wall. Then in some irrational redirection of anger, he turned his ire on me.

‘I should have known that marriage to you would bring nothing but disaster. It would bring me no satisfaction, but dishonour and insult. That I, a man, not a boy to be ordered and lectured, should be barred from your bed…I wish I had never set eyes on you. You have shamed me. I wish I had refused the marriage in the first place!’

‘But, my lord, your condemnation is unjust.’ Could he not see that the fault was not mine? I faced him, my eyes a challenge, my hair falling thick and straight over my shoulders. Naked I might be, but I would
neither cower nor retreat before him. The only dishonour between us, the only shame, was from his unfounded words of accusation against me.

‘Enough! I’ll not speak with you!’ Fury flared into leaping flames. Before I or anyone could react, Edward thrust out a hand to grasp a fistful of my hair and dragged me against him so that I had to brace myself with hands against his chest. He ignored my cry of protest, of pain—of shock at the physical assault—and took my mouth in a kiss as vicious as it was startling. A hard press of lips, a scrape of teeth, my hair wound tight against my scalp. It was cruel, taking my breath, forcing my lips to part against my teeth. When he had had enough of me, he pushed me away, my lips bruised, torn so that I tasted blood.

‘My son!’ Margaret intervened, laid her hands on his shoulders, looking up into his face, her own softening. ‘Enough. Calm yourself. This is no manner for a man, a Prince, to conduct himself.’

‘You have made a mockery of my marriage, madam!’

‘No, I have saved you.’ Margaret’s voice was soothing. She reached up and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘We will work this out together. Later, when you are restored, I will come to your room and explain. Do you understand me? Now you must go.’

‘I want—’

‘No, Edward.’ Another kiss, gentle, tender. ‘You will be calm. I will come to you.’

The Prince, without another word, clutched his robe around him and strode from the room, with one final thunderous stare, as if he hated me.

The priest spluttered. The Countess looked stricken. Margaret watched with hooded eyes. I merely stood, my wrist pressed against the blood on my lip.

‘Since you are both still here, I have a use for you,’ she declared, making her own way to the door in the wake of her tempestuous son. ‘You will bear witness that this marriage is not complete. You, Anne Neville…’ she looked at me in passing uninterest ‘…will be acknowledged as Princess with all honour and respect as my son’s wife, but you will sleep alone. With Lady Beatrice in attendance to ensure that it is so. The door at night will be locked and I will keep the key.’

Then she was gone. Leaving the bitter dregs of my sham marriage to swamp the room.

Through the vicious heat of it all, followed by frozen shock as my room emptied of all the main players except for myself and my appointed gaoler, it seemed nothing more than the weird development of some nightmarish dream. Or a malice-driven plot from a childhood tale, into which I had by some magical means fallen. But then I heard the key turn in the lock, and knew that the Queen, single-minded, inflexible in her fury, would turn that key every night until she was convinced beyond her multitude of doubts that my father had fulfilled all his promises.
Until she was certain that I could not be jettisoned as so much worthless dross.

Even then I think she would find an excuse.

What would the Earl think of this Lancastrian treachery when the news reached him? In my shame I did not care.

It was not the bridal night I had expected. I sat on the edge of that vast expanse of empty bed, clad again in my chamber robe, conscious of the richness and luxury only at a distance. Those fine linen sheets, fit for a princess, would not be witness to the end of my virginity. Not now, not ever. Nor any succession of sheets, fine or coarse, as we made our journey to Paris, at Louis’s invitation to celebrate Christmas in the capital. I continued to sit in disbelief. What now? Should I simply tuck myself under the coverlet and go to sleep? Wait until whatever the morrow might bring? Held by a strange lethargy, I could not bring myself to do it. It was as if Margaret had drained my will and my senses when she had condemned me to this pretence of a marriage and ordered her son from the room.

Lady Beatrice, resentful, glowered from where she stood on guard beside the door. I choked back my feelings, part-sob, part-dark sharp-edged amusement as I imagined the scene. Did the Queen truly expect Edward to defy her, to return and break down the door? To insist on his physical satisfaction in the face of his mother’s denial? I knew that he would not.
Despite our short acquaintance, I knew the Prince better than that. After his loss of face the Prince would take himself to his rooms to prowl and sulk. Or to engage in some ferocious passage of arms where he cared little for the injuries sustained by himself or his unfortunate opponent. Or to hunt until his horse foundered and his ill temper was swept away by the heat of blood and the kill. Then would return full of boundless enthusiasm, disturbing in its extremity, to ignore what he could not change. To pretend that his authority had never been questioned.