I had never felt so lost and alone. Everything familiar was gone and in place of my gentle mother who loved me was this fierce woman who, in spite of her truce with my father, hated everything connected with him.
Amboise is beautiful perhaps one of the most beautiful small towns of France and the chateau is one of the country's most impressive. I shuddered as we approached. To me it looked like a fortress standing on its rocky eminence. It must have held many prisoners and I wondered how many of them had lain forgotten for ever in its gloomy oubliettes. The feelings of those prisoners as they entered that place must have been similar to my own. It was an ancient place. I remembered hearing that Julius Caesar had been here and had made the caves famous because he had used them to store grain, and ever after they were called Caesar's granaries. When one is on the brink of disaster such inconsequential thoughts will come into the mind.
The grey walls, green with moss, looked impregnable, and as we went under the arch towards the castellated walls, a terrible feeling of dread came over me.
The days that followed were some of the most unhappy in my life. More were to come as I grew older, but then I was prepared for evil; and had grown a protective shell of stoicism. At that stage I suppose life had been too easy for me ... until that terrible day when we had taken ship to France. Always my mother and Isabel had been with me. Now I was parted from them, to be in hostile company a hostage while my father redeemed his promise.
When I heard that the Prince of Wales was not leaving for England I was dismayed, but relieved when I discovered that he was not living with his mother. He was going on a mission, with Louis' blessing, to raise men for the armies which would be needed to defeat Edward. I had thought at first that I would have to endure his presence and that had alarmed me. It was amazing what pleasure even the smallest relief could give me.
I tried to find out all I could about this man who was to be my husband. It was not easy, for the queen's attendants regarded me with the same suspicion as Margaret did. They were very much in awe of her, which did not surprise me.
There was one thing I heard about him which filled me with apprehension, and made me feel that I had summed up his character correctly.
"The prince is a real warrior," I was told by one of the women who could not resist the opportunity to tell me.
"It was after the battle of St. Albans. Two of the enemy were captured ... both men of high rank. They were brought before the queen because the king was too feeble at that time to take his place. So there were these two ... proud gentlemen ... Yorkists who had been fighting against the king and queen. It was his mother's wish that the prince should be with her in place of the king at such times, and she turned to him and said: "What shall be their sentence?" The prince was only eight years old, but his mother thought he would have to grow up quickly and he did not disappoint her.
"They must be sentenced to death," he said.
"By what means?" the queen asked him. And what do you think the prince said?"
"I do not know. Tell me."
"He cried, "Cut off their heads!" There! And him only eight. His mother said that, as he had passed sentence, he must watch it carried out."
"And... did he?"
That he did, my lady. He sat there clasping his hands and smiling as the blood spurted out."
I shuddered. And this was the man they had chosen to be my husband!
Looking back, I do not know how I managed to live through those days. I dreamed of the wildest means of escape running away, joining gypsies, casting aside everything I had ever known ... anything to be free. I was terrified of this marriage. I waited in trepidation each day for the return of the Prince of Wales and for news of what was happening in England. My father would land: he had been well supported by the King of France; he had men and money. Could he overcome Edward? And when he did? I should be married then in very truth to this young man who, in my mind, was fast becoming a monster.
I could not bear it. I felt frustrated and so vulnerable. If only I could have talked to Isabel... explained to my mother ... pleaded with my father.
But in my heart I knew that none of these could avail me in any way... except give a grain of comfort to share my fears and sorrow. I was doomed.
I found a secluded corner in the grounds where no one went very much. A seat was cut into the thick stone of the castle. Overgrown shrubs surrounded it. I could be almost sure of a little solitude there and went there often to brood and ask myself if there was anything I could possibly do to avoid my fate.
I was sitting there one afternoon, and the hopelessness of my position swept over me afresh. My father could not fail to succeed. Very soon would come the news of his victory; then this sad frustrated life would change ... to something worse.
I could not bear it. The desperation of my plight swept over me and I began to weep silently. I sat very still and allowed the tears to trickle down my cheeks.
Then suddenly I heard a rustle in the bushes and, to my horror, I saw the queen approaching. She stood for a moment glaring at me.
"Why do you weep?" she asked.
I could not answer. I could only cover my face with my hands while the sobs shook my body.
There was silence. I guessed how she would despise me. She would be asking herself: what is this bride we have to take for my son? What sort of queen will she be? What sort of mother for the heirs of England?
In that moment I did not care what she thought. I just sat there, holding my hands to my face, finding some small comfort in giving vent to my grief.
After a while I let my hands drop. She was still standing there. She said in a voice I had never heard her use before: "What grieves you?"
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out: "I want to be with my mother and my sister. It is so strange here ... so far from home."
Immediately I had spoken I was ashamed of myself. My words sounded so ridiculously childish, and doubly so in the presence of this woman who had been my enemy before she knew me. She would deride me, despise me. Perhaps she would think me so unworthy that her son must not marry me at any price, I thought, with a ray of hope. But a crown to her would be worth any price.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"I am fourteen."
Did I imagine it, or was there a slight softening of her features?
"I was about your age when I first went to England ... to a foreign country ... to a husband whom I had never seen," she said slowly.
"It is a fate which overtakes most of us."
"I know."
She spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.
"So why must you be so sorry for yourself?"
"I suppose because it has happened to others, that does not make it easier to bear."
Tears never help," she said, and left me.
Oddly enough, that was a turning point in our relationship and later I began to learn a little about Margaret of Anjou.
It was only a few days after the incident that I found myself alone with her. She had dismissed her attendants so that she might talk to me.
She was a strange woman dominating and single-minded. She would have been a good ruler, but she lacked that power to attract people to her which Edward had in such abundance. She was strong; she chafed against defeat. It had been an ironical turn of fate to give her Henry the Sixth as a husband. There could not have been two people less alike. Yet it emerged that in a way they had been fond of each other.
That first occasion after that scene in the gardens was a little awkward, but during it she managed to convey to me that she was not devoid of feeling and not entirely unsympathetic towards me. She could understand the terrors of a child. After all, I was only fourteen years old and she saw that it was an ordeal to be taken from my mother and sister, the companions of my childhood, to be put with those who had been the sworn enemies of my family for as long as I could remember.