The White Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

color of mourning, but I must not, for one moment, look as if I am grievingfor my royal lover and the true king of England. Dark red is the color of martyrdom, but also sometimes, contradictorily, worn by whores to make their complexions appear flawlessly white. Neither association is one we want to inspire in the stern mind of the strict Lady Margaret. She must not think that marriage to her son is a torment for me, she must forget that everyone said that I was Richard’s lover. Dark yellow would be all right—but who looks good in yellow? I don’t like purple and anyway it is too imperial a color for a humbled girl whose only hope is to marry the king. Dark green it has to be and since it is the Tudor color, this can do nothing but good.
    “But I don’t have a dark green gown!” I exclaim. “There isn’t time to get one.”
    “We had one made for Cecily,” my mother replies. “You’ll wear that.”
    “And what am I supposed to wear?” Cecily protests mutinously. “Am I to come in an old gown? Or will I not appear at all? Is Elizabeth going to be the only one who meets her? Are the rest of us to be in hiding? D’you want me to go to bed for the day?”
    “Certainly, there’s no need for you to be here,” my mother says briskly. “But Lady Margaret is your godmother, so you will wear your blue and Elizabeth can wear your green, and you will make an effort—an exceptional effort—to be pleasant to your sister during the visit. Nobody likes a bad-tempered girl, and I have no use for one.”
    Cecily is furious at this, but she goes to the chest of clothes in silence and takes out her new green gown, shakes it out, and hands it to me.
    “Put it on and come to my rooms,” my mother says. “We’ll have to let down the hem.”

    Dressed in the gown, now hemmed and trimmed with a new thin ribbon of cloth of gold, I wait in the presence chamber ofmy mother’s rooms for the arrival of Lady Margaret. She comes by royal barge, now always laid on for her convenience, with the drummer beating to keep the time, and her standards fluttering brightly at prow and stern. I hear the crunching footsteps of her companions on the gravel of the garden paths, then beneath the window, and then the clatter of the metal heels of their boots on the stones of the courtyard. They throw open the double doors and she comes through the lobby and into the room.
    My mother, my sisters, and I rise from our seats and curtsey to her as equals. The height of this curtsey has been difficult to decide. We offer a middling one and Lady Margaret ducks in a shallow bob. Though my mother is now known as mere Lady Grey, she was crowned Queen of England and this woman was her lady-in-waiting. Now, although Lady Margaret sails in the royal barge, her son has not yet been crowned king. Though she calls herself My Lady the King’s Mother, he has not yet had the crown of England placed on his head. He just grabbed the circlet that Richard wore on his helmet and has to wait for his coronation.
    I close my eyes quickly at the thought of the gold crown on the helmet, and Richard’s smiling brown eyes looking at me through the visor.
    “I would speak with Mistress Elizabeth alone,” Lady Margaret says to my mother, not troubling with any word of greeting.
    “Her Grace the Princess Elizabeth of York can take you to my privy chamber,” my mother says smoothly.
    I lead the way. I can feel my back under her scrutiny as I walk and at once I become conscious of myself. I fear that I am swinging my hips, or tossing my head. I open the door and go into my mother’s private room and turn to face Lady Margaret, as she seats herself without invitation in the great chair.
    “You may sit,” she says, and I take a chair opposite to her and wait. My throat is dry. I swallow and hope that she does not notice.
    She looks me up and down as if I am applying for a post in her household and then slowly she smiles. “You are lucky in yourlooks,” she says. “Your