"Please tell me how you felt when you first saw England."
Her eyes were hazy and a smile touched her lips, softening her face miraculously.
"The crossing! I thought I should die! And I was not the only one. I thought, I shall never see England. I forgot all my fears for the future. I thought: this is the end. This is death. They told me that as soon as my feet touched dry land the sickness would pass. It did ... for some of them. But not for me. It was horrific. My face and body were covered in spots. They thought I was suffering from the small pox. I pictured myself disfigured for ever. I thought: this is how my husband will see me for the first time. I was vain about my appearance. I knew that I had some beauty. Beauty is one of God's gifts. It is so useful. It wins special privileges. It is admired and treated with gentleness wherever it is. And I thought I should lose that. Beautiful people learn what a precious gift they have and once a woman has possessed it she will cling to it and cannot easily let it go. Imagine my feeling a young girl about to lose her beauty!"
"But you did not."
"It was not the small pox. I began to recover. My spots went as quickly as they had come, and I was myself again. I cannot The Reluctant Queen explain to you the relief, not only to me but to everyone. We disembarked at Southampton and there I was told that the king's squire had brought a letter of welcome from the king. Would I receive him, they asked? How could I not receive the king's squire? He came in so respectfully. He knelt before me. I was still feeling very weak, I remember. I was seated in a chair with rugs about me.
"He was a very gentle young man with a soft, sweet expression; he was most humble. He handed me the letter and I told him that when I read it I would write to the king. They said to me afterwards: "Did you like the squire?" and I said: "He seemed a most modest and worthy young man." Then they laughed. The squire, they told me, was the king."
"Why did he come to you thus?"
"He told me afterwards that he had feared I might be scarred by the small pox and he wanted to see me first to realise how badly I was marked. He wanted to be prepared in case he was going to be very shocked, and he did not want to betray his feeling on first sight of me. Oh, he is a very gentle, kindly man, but She was silent and for a long time sat staring into space, reliving it all, I supposed.
At length she said: "Alas, he was not of the nature to be a king when there were others fighting for the crown."
The softness vanished. She was thinking of those hated men: the Duke of York, his son Edward and most of all my father. Suddenly she seemed to remember who I was. She peered at me, frowning.
"Why do I talk to you, Warwick's daughter? I hate Warwick. I hate him more than I hate the Duke of York. York is dead now. Never shall I forget that head. Have you ever seen a head without a body?"
I shuddered and shrank from her.
"It is a good sight when it is the head of one you hate. And the paper crown ... that was amusing. He had so longed for our crown ... Henry's crown ... and it was meet and fitting that he should die ignobly wearing a crown made of paper. I see you turn from me. I am in truth a hard, cruel wicked woman. What did they tell you of me?"
I was silent, amazed by this sudden change in her. She was a wild and passionate woman and I did not always understand her.
There was another time when she said to me: "Why do I talk to you as I do, Lady Anne? I do talk to you, do I not? Let me tell you this. You do not understand. To talk to a child is like talking to oneself. Perhaps that is it. Warwick's daughter! Daughter of the man who ruined my life. Oh, I had forgotten. He is my friend now." Then she fell to laughing.
"Oh, if only Henry were strong! I should have married a strong man ... a man like Edward who calls himself King of England. A man like Warwick. What a pair we should have made! But they married me to Henry. He knows nothing of the evil ways of men. He is a stranger to evil. For him it does not exist because he does not possess it himself. He would be every man's friend, so he believes every man to be his friend. He shrinks from punishing his enemies. Oh, why am I talking to this child of matters she cannot understand?"
"I am understanding now," I said.
"You have told me so much."
She was looking at me, but I was sure she did not see me. Her thoughts were far away.
A little later she told me about the scene in the Temple among the roses. There was a meeting in the Temple." she said.
"It was all about the losses in France. Henry's father was the great victor. He strode through France, subduing the French. Harfleur, Agincourt, Orleans, Paris. It was all his. He would have been crowned King of France if he had not died. My Henry was in fact crowned there. And all that has been lost. They blamed it on Somerset. There will always be scapegoats. But the English were beaten because of divine intervention. It was Joan of Arc, with God's guidance, who turned the English out of France and made the poor weak dauphin a wise king. But Warwick, your father, wanted to turn my Henry from the throne and put his own king there. He wanted to show the world that he was the kingmaker. It is your father I speak of. Do you hear me, child!"
"Yes, I know," I said.
She looked at me and smiled suddenly, her mood changing.
"And you are his daughter, a meek, fragile child. Life plays tricks. King Rene', my father, was a lover of peace and poetry, and he sired me. I should be more fitting to be Warwick's daughter. Is that not odd of fate, child?"
"Yes," I said.
"It is very odd."
"I was telling you. They were at the Temple. The whole company was aware of the enmity between Somerset and your father. Warwick was blaming Somerset for the losses in France, which was nonsense. Warwick was blaming him because he knew he was my man; and Warwick was laying his plans then. I do believe that your father longed above all things to be king. He could not be, so he had to be content by making them. Somerset was a Beaufort ... grandson of John of Gaunt, who was a son of Edward the Third.
"Tis true that he was born out of wedlock to Katherine Swynford, but she afterwards married John of Gaunt and the children were legitimised. So you see why the Beauforts are a proud race."
"Yes." I said.
"I have heard that."
"They make their presence felt. Somerset despised Warwick. Where would he have been but for his marriage to Anne Beauchamp and through her getting the Warwick title and estates? To come to wealth and power in such a way does something to a man. He must for ever be putting himself forward so that none may doubt that he came to greatness through his own endeavours. You may have heard the story how they walked in the gardens after the meeting, to cool their tempers perhaps, and then Warwick picked the famous quarrel with Somerset, accusing him of ambitions which I believe Somerset had never dreamed of. I knew Somerset well. They said he was my man. That was why Warwick hated him. His hatred was really directed at me."
"Why should he have hated you, my lady?"
"Because he wanted to guide the king and I had shown that it was my place to do that. He hated me because I was strong and saw through his schemes. So he struck at Somerset ... my best friend ... but he meant the blow for me. There in the gardens he accused Somerset of bringing defeat and humiliation to the country. He talked of the great victories of the king's father which had been brought to nothing."
I shivered. I had heard so many times of the encounter in the rose gardens. But always from the other side. It was Somerset who was the enemy: Somerset who had lost the territories in France, who was the tool of that virago, the queen who was now our friend.
"It is clear why Warwick was for York. There are blood ties between them. He wanted to set a king of his choosing on the throne because he knew I would never allow him to govern Henry.