The King's Daughter
by Sandra Worth

List Price: $15.00
Pages: 401
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780425221440
Publisher: Penguin Group

March blew in on an icy wind that lifted swirls of snow in the courtyard. Despite the cold, the North Walk was lined with clerics sitting on benches by tables and bookcases, and along the West Walk, others were washing. The sound of splashing water and the voice of the Master of Novices instructing his charges filled the cloisters as usual, yet something felt different. I felt it in my bones. I climbed to the window, and what I saw then made me gasp. From far down in the cloisters, King Richard, accompanied by a lone companion, was striding toward us.

Heads turned as he passed the long row of rush-strewn chambers with doors cracked open for air. At the East Walk which led to the chapter house, he parted company with the noble. The last time King Richard had come to sanctuary was to remove Dickon from my mother’s custody. Even then he had sent as his emissaries Lord Howard and Archbishop Bourchier. He was close now ---

“What is it, Elizabeth?” my mother demanded from the table where she sat stitching a hem, her needle moving swiftly in her half-mittened hands. Her fingers paused their busy stitches, and she looked up.

Outside, the captain of his guards snapped to attention. He turned to unlock the door. I looked back at Mother. Everyone was staring at me. I could barely find the words. “The king is coming!” I cried hoarsely, clambering down. “The king is coming!”

We heard the hushed murmur of low voices outside our door, then the clinking of the key in the lock. The door was thrown open.

Richard III stood before us.

He looked most royal in a richly embroidered silver and black doublet of velvet and cloth of gold that he wore beneath a gray mantle edged with sable. There was a velvet cap on his dark head, set with a jeweled boar of diamonds and rubies.

King Richard’s gaze touched on us in the far corner where I cowered with my four sisters. Here was the monster that had killed my brothers! Had he come to seize us? Would he slay us? What manner would be our death? Bridget was too young to die --- only four, and Kate not much older. I held them tight to me, for they were frozen in terror.

I stared at him as he stood at the threshold, and thought that he flushed. But not with anger; it seemed more like shame. He waited until the door had closed behind him before he spoke. “Dame Grey, I wish to set matters right between us,” he said. “Indeed? So you intend to take your life?” She hissed the words with the venom of a snake, and I stared at her. Was she brave, or a fool, to bait the boar? I saw King Richard’s hand clench into a fist at his side.

“You do me an injustice,” said the king, with dignity.

“You --- ” my mother cried, snarling the word, taking a step forward. “You dare to speak to me of injustice? You who set aside my marriage to Edward, who imprisoned me here and took the throne from my son!”

“Lady, you knew of my royal brother’s bigamy long before the rest of us. You even murdered my brother George to protect your secret. As to your so-called imprisonment --- guilt drove you into sanctuary. You disregarded King Edward’s will and tried to seize power. That is treason by any definition, and well you know it.”

“Are we to be blamed for protecting ourselves?” Mother demanded.

“By pointing a false finger first? That, madame, is how you have always justified your crimes against others. It was the same with Sir Thomas Malory, and Sir Thomas Cooke, whom you persecuted with false charges, and with Warwick, and with his brother, Montagu --- and many others I never knew who paid for your ambition and greed and perished in the battles of your creation. You, Dame Grey, have much to answer for before God!”

“And you who dare judge me --- ’tis by your hand my sons are dead! May God punish you in eternity, you foul babe-killer!”

“Dame Grey, you condemn yourself with your words. For unlike you, who sent your executioner, the Butcher of England, to murder the Earl of Desmond and his two little boys --- I have not stained my hands with infants’ blood. As you’ll soon learn from the lips of your son, Richard of York.” Mother’s mouth fell open. So, I realized, had mine.

Was this true?

Had my mother murdered babes?

Was Dickon alive? Even my sisters stared at King Richard with their mouths agape. “Dickon?” she murmured feebly, shuffling toward King Richard on unsteady legs. She searched his face. “My Dickon lives?”

I saw King Richard retreat as my mother moved forward, as if she were the monster, and he her intended victim. I felt utter confusion and disbelief. At that moment the door was thrust open and a grimy stonemason entered, carrying a pail and tools, his boy helper at his side. The door slammed shut behind them and my mother swayed where she stood. “Dickon!” she cried, stumbling toward him, her arms open wide. “Dickon!”

“Mother, mother!” cried Dickon, running into them.

My mother fell to her knees. Her body racked by sobs, she clasped my brother to her breast and held him tightly to her, kissing his cheeks, wetting his soft face with her tears of joy. In the corner of the room, I dropped my hold of my sisters’ hands, and they let go of mine, and we all came forward to gaze on Dickon in frozen, dumbfounded silence.