Finally the king is driven into agreement with her and he himself undertakes the work of prosecuting his brother, and nobody – not one single man – speaks in George’s defence. Richard comes home after the last day of the hearing with his shoulders bowed and his face dark. His mother and I meet him in the great hall and he takes us into his privy chamber and closes the door on the interested faces of our household.

‘Edward has accused him of trying to destroy the royal family and their claim to the throne.’ Richard glances at his mother. ‘It’s proven that George told everyone that the king was base-born – a bastard. I am sorry, Lady Mother.’

She waves it away. ‘This is an old slander.’ She looks at me. ‘This is Warwick’s old lie. Blame him, if anybody.’

‘And they have proof that George’s men were paid to go round the country saying that Thomas Burdett was innocent, and was murdered by the king for foretelling his death. Edward heard the evidence for that and it was good. George certainly hired people to speak against the king. George says that the king is using black arts – everyone supposes this is to accuse the queen of witchcraft. Finally, and almost worst of all: George has been taking money from Louis of France to create a rebellion against Edward. He was going to mount a rebellion and take the throne.’

‘He would not,’ his mother says simply.

‘They had letters from Louis of France addressed to him.’

‘Forgeries,’ she says,

Richard sighs. ‘Who knows? Not I. I am afraid, Lady Mother, that some of it – actually, most of it – is true. George hired a tenant’s son and put him in the place of his own son, Edward of Warwick. He was sending young Edward to Flanders for safekeeping.’

I draw a breath. This is Isabel’s son, my nephew, sent to Flanders to keep him safe. ‘Why didn’t he send him to us?’

‘He says he did not dare to let the boy stay in England, and the queen’s malice would be his death. They cited this as evidence of his plotting.’

‘Where is Edward now?’ I ask.

‘The child is in danger from the queen,’ his grandmother says. ‘That’s not proof of George’s guilt, it is proof of the queen’s guilt.’

Richard answers me: ‘Edward’s spies arrested the boy at the port as he was about to take ship, and took him back to Warwick Castle.’

‘Where is he now?’ I repeat.

‘At Warwick, with Margaret, his sister.’

‘You must speak with your brother the king,’ Duchess Cecily tells Richard. ‘You must tell him that Elizabeth Woodville is the destruction of this family. There is no doubt in my mind that she poisoned Isabel, and that she will destroy George too. You have to make Edward see that. You have to save George, you have to safeguard his children. Edward is your nephew. If he is not safe in England you have to protect him.’

Richard turns to his mother. ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I have tried. But the queen has Edward in thrall, he won’t listen to me any more. I cannot advise him. I cannot advise him against Her.’

The duchess walks the length of the room, her head bowed. For the first time she looks like an old woman, exhausted by sorrow. ‘Will Edward pass the death sentence on his own brother?’ she asks. ‘Am I to lose George as I lost your brother Edmund? To a dishonourable death? Will She have his head set on a spike? Is England ruled by another she-wolf as bad as Margaret of Anjou? Does Edward forget who his friends are, his brothers?’

Richard shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. He has removed me from my place as Steward of England, so that I don’t have to rule on the death sentence.’

She is alert at once. ‘Who is the new steward?’

‘The Duke of Buckingham. He will do as his Rivers wife tells him. Will you go to Edward? Will you appeal to him?’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I will go to one beloved son to beg for the life of another. I shouldn’t have to do this. This is the consequence of a wicked woman, an evil wife, a witch on the throne.’

‘Hush,’ Richard says wearily.

‘I will not hush. I will stand between her, and my son George. I will save him.’


BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, FEBRUARY 1478

Duchess Cecily goes as she promised to see Edward, certain that she can make him commute the death sentence into exile. When she returns to Baynard’s Castle from court, they have to help her out of her litter. She is as white as her lace collar and she can barely stand.

‘What happened?’ I ask her.

She clings to my hands on the steps of her great London home. She has never reached out to me before. ‘Anne,’ is all she can say. ‘Anne.’

I call for my ladies and between us we help her into my rooms, seat her in my chair before the fire, and give her a glass of malmsey wine. With a sudden gesture she strikes the glass away and it shatters on the stone hearth. ‘No! No!’ she screams with sudden energy. ‘Don’t bring it near me!’

The bouquet of the sweet wine fills the room as I kneel at her feet and take her hands. I think she is raving as she shudders and cries: ‘Not the wine! Not the wine!’

‘Lady Mother, what is it? Duchess Cecily? Compose yourself!’

This is a woman who stayed at court while her husband plotted the greatest rebellion against a king that England has ever seen. This is the woman who stood at the market cross in Ludlow when her husband ran away and the Lancaster soldiers sacked the town. This is not a woman who cries easily, this is not a woman who has ever acknowledged defeat. But now she looks at me as if she can see nothing, she is blinded by tears. Then she lets out a great shaking sob. ‘Edward said that all I could do was offer George his choice of death. He said that he must die. That woman was there all the time, she never let me say a thing in George’s favour. All I could win for him was a private death in his room in the Tower, and he can choose the means.’

She buries her face in her hands and weeps as if she could never stop. I glance at my ladies. We are so shocked to see the duchess like this that we all stand in a helpless circle around the grieving mother.

‘My favourite son, my own darling,’ she whispers to herself. ‘And he has to die.’

I don’t know what to do. I put my hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Will you not take a glass of something, Your Grace?’

She looks up at me, her beautiful old face ravaged with grief. ‘He has chosen to be drowned in malmsey wine,’ she says.

‘What?’

She nods. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to drink it. I will never touch it again as long as I live. I won’t have it in my house. They will clear the cellar of it today.’

I am horrified. ‘Why would he do such a thing?’

She laughs, a bitter dry sound that peals like a carillon of misery in the stone-walled room. ‘It is his last gesture: to make Edward treat him, to make Edward pay for his drink. To make a mockery of the king’s justice, to drink deep of the queen’s favourite wine. He shows it is her doing, this is her poison for him, as it was her poison that killed Isabel. He makes a mockery of the trial, he makes a mockery of his death sentence. He makes a mockery of his death.’

I turn to the window and look out. ‘My sister’s children will be orphans,’ I say. ‘Edward, and Margaret.’

‘Orphans and paupers,’ Duchess Cecily says acutely, drying her cunning old face.

I look back at her. ‘What?’

‘Their father will die for treason. A traitor’s lands are taken from him. Who do you think gets their lands?’

‘The king,’ I say dully. ‘The king. Which is to say the queen – and her endless family – of course.’

We are a house in deep mourning but we cannot wear blue. George, the handsome irrepressible duke, is dead. He died as he requested, drowned in a barrel of the queen’s favourite wine. It was his last bitter brilliant gesture of defiance to the woman who ruined his house. She herself never drank the wine again, as if she feared that she would taste sputum from his gasping lungs in the sweetness. I wish that I could see George in purgatory and tell him that he achieved that at least. He spoiled the queen’s appetite for wine. Would to God that he could have drowned her too.