Anthony stands beside me as the king rides away, his hand raised in a salute, a false smile on his face. “Not going with him?” he asks sarcastically. “Not going to London to buy new clothes? Not going to be presented at court? Not attending the thanksgiving Mass as queen?”

“He has to tell Lord Warwick,” I say. “He has to explain.”

“It will be Lord Warwick who will explain to him,” my brother says bluntly. “He will tell him that no King of England can afford to marry a commoner, no King of England would marry a woman who is not a proven virgin. No King of England would marry an Englishwoman of no family and no fortune. And your precious king will explain that it was a wedding witnessed by no lord nor court official, that his new wife has not even told her family, that she wears her ring in her pocket; and they will both agree it can be ignored as if it had never happened. As he has done before, so he will do again, as long as there are foolish women in the kingdom-and that is to say forever.”

I turn to him and at the pain on my face he stops taunting me. “Ah, Elizabeth, don’t look like that.”

“I don’t care if he doesn’t acknowledge me, you fool,” I flare out. “It’s not a question of wanting to be queen; it’s not even a question of wanting honorable love anymore. I am mad for him, I am madly in love with him. I would go to him if I had to walk barefoot. Tell me I am one of many. I don’t care! I don’t care for my name or for my pride anymore. As long as I can have him once more, that’s all I want, just to love him; all I want to be certain of is that I will see him again, that he loves me.”

Anthony folds me in his arms and pats my back. “Of course he loves you,” he says. “What man could not? And if he does not, then he is a fool.”

“I love him,” I say miserably. “I would love him if he were a nobody.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he says gently. “You are your mother’s child through and through; you don’t have the blood of a goddess in you for nothing. You were born to be queen and maybe everything will come out well. Maybe he loves you and will stand by you.”

I tilt my head back to scan his face. “But you don’t believe it.”

“No,” he says honestly. “To tell you the truth, I think you have seen the last of him.”

SEPTEMBER 1464

He sends me a letter. He addresses me as Lady Elizabeth Grey and inside he writes “my love” he does not say “wife,” so he gives me nothing that can prove our marriage if he should deny it. He writes that he is busy but will send for me shortly. The court is at Reading, he will speak to Lord Warwick soon. The council is meeting, there is so much to do. The lost king, Henry, has still not been captured; he is out somewhere in the hills of Northumberland; but the queen has fled to her homeland of France demanding help, so an alliance with France is more important than ever before, to cut her out of the French councils, and make sure she cannot have allies. He does not remark that a French marriage would do this for him. He says he loves me, he burns up for me. Lover’s words, lover’s promises: nothing binding.

The same messenger brings a summons for my father to attend the court at Reading. It is a standard letter, every nobleman in the country will have had the same. My brothers Anthony, John, Richard, Edward, and Lionel are to go with him. “Write and tell me everything about it,” my mother commands my father as we watch them mount up. They make a little army themselves, my mother’s fine brood of sons.

“He will be calling us to announce his wedding to the French princess,” my father grumbles, bending over to tighten his girth under the saddle flap. “And much good an alliance with the French will do us. Much good it has ever done us before. Still, it will have to be done if Margaret of Anjou is to be silenced. And a French bride would welcome you at her court, a kinswoman.”

My mother does not even blink at the prospect of Edward’s French bride. “Write and tell me at once,” she says. “And God go with you, my husband, and keep you safe.”

He leans down from the saddle to kiss her hand and then turns his horse’s head down the road to the south. My brothers twirl their whips, raise their hats, bellow a farewell. My sisters wave, my sister-in-law Elizabeth curtseys to Anthony, who raises his hand to her, my mother, and to me. His face is grim.

But it is Anthony who writes to me two days later, and it is his manservant who rides like a madman to bring me his letter.

Sister, This is your triumph, and I am glad to my heart for you. There has been an earthshaking quarrel between the king and Lord Warwick, for my lord brought a marriage contract to the king for him to marry Princess Bona of Savoy, as everyone was expecting. The king, with the contract before him and the pen in his hand, raised his head and told his lordship that he could not marry the Princess for-actually-he was already married.You could have heard a feather fall; you could hear the angels gasp. I swear I heard Lord Warwick’s very heart pound as he asked the king to repeat what he had said. The king was white as a girl but he faced Lord Warwick (which I would not want to do myself) and told him that all his plans and all his promises were as nothing. His lordship took the king by the arm as if he were a boy and hustled him from the room into a privy chamber, leaving the rest of us boiling with gossip and amazement like neeps seething in a stew. I took the chance to pin our father into the corner and tell him that I thought the king might announce his marriage to you, so as to prevent us looking as great fools as Lord W-but even in that moment I confess to you that I feared that the king might be admitting marriage to another lady. There has been another lady mentioned of noble birth, better than ours, actually, and she has his son. Forgive me, Sister, but you don’t know how bad his reputation has been. So Father and I were like hares in March, jumping at nothing, while the privy chamber door stayed shut and the king was locked away with the man who made him and who-God knows-might just as quickly unmake him again. Of course Lionel wanted to know what we were whispering about, and John too. Thank God, Edward and Richard had gone out, so there were only two extra to tell; but they couldn’t believe it any more than Father, and I had much to do to keep the three of them quiet. You can imagine what it was like. An hour must have passed but no one could bear to leave the council chamber until they had the end of this story. Sister, they were pissing in the fireplaces rather than leave the great hall-and then the door opened and the king came out looking shaken and Lord Warwick came out looking grim and the king put on his happiest smile and said, “Well, my lords, I thank you for your patience. I am happy and proud to tell you that I am married to Lady Elizabeth Grey,” and he nodded towards my father and I swear he shot me a look which begged me to keep Father quiet, so I got hold of the old man’s shoulder and leaned hard to keep him anchored to the ground. Edward got the other side of him as ballast, and Lionel crossed himself like he was an archbishop already. Father and I bowed proudly and simpered about ourselves, as if we had known all along and only failed to mention that we were now brother and father-in-law to the King of England from sheer delicacy. John and Richard stumbled in at this most inconvenient moment and we had to mutter to them that the world was turned upside down and they did better than you can imagine. They managed to close their mouths and stood beside Father and me, and people took our dumbstruck faces for quiet pride. We were a quartet of idiots trying to look suave. You cannot imagine the bluster and the shouting and the complaints and the trouble which followed. Nobody in my hearing dared to suggest that the king had stooped too low, but I know that behind me and on either side there were men who think so, and will go on thinking so. Still, the king kept his fair head high and brazened it out, and Father and I went and stood on either side of him, and all my brothers stood behind us, and no one can deny that we are a handsome family, or at the very least tall, and the thing is done, nobody can now deny it. You can tell Mother that her great gamble has paid a thousandfold: you will be Queen of England and we will be England’s ruling family, even if no one in England wants us. Father kept his mouth shut till we were clear of the court but I swear his eyes were rolling in his head like Idiot Jim at Stony Stratford, till we got to our lodgings and I could tell him what had been done and how it had been done-at least as far as I knew-and now he is aggrieved that nobody told him, since he would have managed it so well and been so discreet-but given that he is father-in-law to the King of England I think he will forgive you and Mother for keeping your women’s toils to your- selves. Your brothers went out and got drunk on credit, as anyone would do. Lionel swears he will be pope. Your new husband is clearly stunned by the row that has broken on his head, and he will find it hard to reconcile with his former master Lord Warwick, who is dining apart tonight and could make a dangerous enemy. We are to dine with the king and his interests are ours. The world has changed for us Riverses, and we are become so great that I confidently expect us to flow up hills. We are now passionate Yorkists and you can expect Father to plant white roses in his hedgerows and wear a bloom in his hat. You can tell Mother that whatever magic she deployed to bring this about has the stunned admiration of her husband and sons. If the magic was nothing more than your beauty, we admire that too. You are now summoned to be presented at court, here at Reading. The king’s order will be sent tomorrow. Sister, be warned by me and please come dressed modestly and with only a small escort. It will not avert envy but we should try not to make matters worse than they already are. We have made enemies of every family in the kingdom. Families that we do not even know will be cursing our luck and wishing us to fall. Ambitious fathers with pretty daughters will never forgive you. We will have to be on our guard for the rest of our lives. You have put us into great opportunity but also great risk, my sister. I am brother-in-law to the King of England, but I must say tonight my greatest hope is to die in my bed, at peace with the world, as an old man. Your brother,