A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck Read Online Free Page B

ordinary. Better to be an out at knee rustic at the mercy of nature than a richly clad princess at the mercy of her enemy.
    I pin my hopes on Mother, who will be waiting to greet me. She and Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, have known each other for years, sometimes friends, sometimes foes, but Mother is Queen Dowager. She will speak for me and see I am treated fair.
    Although it is many hours until dusk, I call to Sir Willoughby and beg that we may stop awhile. “We are tired,” I tell him. “We are unused to travelling so fast. You must think of the boy …”
    “The king bid us make haste. There is much unrest in the land and he wants to get you to safety as fast as he can.”
    I pull my mount to a complete stop and look down my nose at him. “We were safe at Sheriff Hutton, the people of the north would never harm us ; perhaps you should have left us there.”
    He reaches out and takes hold of the reins. “I do as my king instructs. You must save your remonstrations for him.”
    And so we ride on through the heat of the afternoon, my fingers on the reins are slick with sweat, my thighs aching, and my skin thick with the dust of the road. When we stop for the night at a priory I fall into bed, and for the first time since we heard of Henry Tudor’s landing in Wales, I sink into a deep, undisturbed sleep.
    The next morning, after Mass and a swift breakfast, I climb groaning back into the saddle. Warwick is whimpering. His kitten has fallen sick after being taken from its mother too soon, and it hangs over his arm like a ginger fur cuff. Margaret clucks at him in sympathy and he wipes away a tear.
    “Cheer up, Edward,” I say, trying to boost him. “We can get you another kitten.”
    As I kick my horse into position in the column, his tears start up again. “I don’t want another kitten, I want this one.”
    And I can sympathise. I don’t want this life. I want my old one.
    As we draw closer to London, we are joined by a great cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen who treat me with great deference. We become a procession, a royal entourage to demonstrate how well the Tudor king treats the women of his vanquished foe.
    Warwick is held behind and we are told there will be no triumphant entry into the city for him. He will be borne separately to the Tower; although he is a boy, and a backward one at that, he is too great a rival for Tudor’s peace of mind. When they are separated Margaret cries out in protest, but she is taken firmly in hand.
    “Be quiet, my lady,” Willoughby hisses. “You will see your brother later; he will come to no harm.”
    I reach out, take hold of her bridle.
    “Hush, Margaret, do as they say or it may be worse for Edward. I am sure Tudor will not harm a boy. If I am able I will do all I can to protect him.”
    And with all my heart I hope that is true.
     
    *
    We are reunited with my mother, lodged at the home of Henry Tudor’s mother in Coldharbour to await the pleasure of the king. For days, I dress in my best and wait for him to come. In the end I grow tired of waiting, tired of being cooped up indoors. Outside the summer is slipping into autumn and I crave fresh air, to stretch my legs in the garden and say farewell to the swiftly ebbing sun.
    Mother is resolute. “It is all going to plan,” she says. “I have always thought Henry would make a good match for you.”
    “He has not come near me; how can you think it is going to plan? And since when did a Tudor become a fitting match for a daughter of York?”
    “Hush, hush, my dear. You know your father suggested it once, to bind the houses of York and Lancaster and put a stop to the endless war.”
    She pushes me into a chair and begins to play with my hair, pulling it away from my face and tying it into a thick braid. She leans forward and speaks rapidly and quietly into my ear. “He will come. He needs you. He cannot hope to hold England without you. Many Yorkists who fought for him at Bosworth did so only because of