Read A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck for Free Online Page B

cementing his claim and marrying me.
    As the door closes, Cecily darts in behind me and resumes her attack while I throw myself onto the bed and kick off my shoes.
    “You’ve only met him a few times.” She bounces onto the mattress beside me. “How can you possibly know he will keep his promise?”
    I don’t know, of course, but I cannot allow my insecurity to show. As if Father is before me I can hear him telling me, ‘Never let them know what you are thinking, Bess. Smile, laugh and keep your own council.’ So, remembering his words, I hide behind serenity.
    “I just know.”
    “Oh, you are so smug sometimes, Bess. You know nothing about him … only gossip. And what about those other things we heard, you know, the bad things about him being cowardly on the battlefield, pissing his hose and all?”
    I roll over onto my belly and laugh at her. “You are lucky his spies can’t hear you. Oh Cecily, those are just tales, told by our uncle’s supporters. You won’t hear a good word for a Tudor from the lips of a man of York.”
    She sighs again, pouts as she pulls off her cap and frees her red-blonde hair. “Who am I going to marry, Bess? Now that Henry has had my betrothal to Ralph Scrope dissolved, who will I end up with?”
    When Uncle Richard arranged her marriage to Scrope in the year before Bosworth, Cecily was most unhappy, declaring he was too lowly, too poor, and too mean for a princess of York. Poor Cecily has always found it hard to accept our fluctuating status.
    “I thought you didn’t like Ralph?”
    “No, well I didn’t but at least I was betrothed then and given due respect. Now I am in limbo, and nothing is being planned and it won’t be until the king has you out of the way.”
    Out of the way? She makes me sound like a load of dung tipped from its cart into the path of the king.
    “Henry will organise it in his own time.”
    “How can you be so patient?” She sits up and punches the pillow, her face red, her eyes bulging with irritation. She looks like our father.
    It must be an hour since noon and Mother is due to arrive. Seeing I am to be allowed little peace, I slide from the bed and smooth my hair, poking pieces back beneath my cap and straightening my sleeves while she watches.
    “Don’t you have a woman to do that for you?”
    “I can’t be bothered, and it is no trouble. Come, let me comb your hair, Mother will scold you when she sees those knots.”
    Cecily meekly crosses the room and sits at my feet. Her bursts of temper mean nothing. I have known her long enough to ignore them, and even her unkindest words no longer have the power to bite that they once did.
    Our faces are washed and schooled to obedience by the time Mother and the king’s mother arrive. We sink to our knees in a great puff of skirts and wait for their signal to rise.
    Mother has lately been restored to her former position of Dowager Queen and although Henry did not pass all her holdings back, she now has over thirty manors at her disposal again. When Mother opens her mouth to speak, Lady Margaret cuts across her as if to assert her position above her. I flinch inwardly, irked at her ill-manners, but I let nothing show. She is mother of the king and as such is not to be crossed. Why, I wonder, is it always the most irritating women who manage to manoeuvre themselves into positions of power?
    “Elizabeth, my dear,” she says, holding out her hand for me to kiss. “What a pretty gown. We must soon begin looking out some suitable fabric for your wedding.”
    Cecily nudges me and I grab at the chance to reopen talks of my marriage.
    “Will the wedding be soon, my lady? The king has been crowned for almost two months, yet still he has not set a date.”
    She blinks, her expression unchanging, but I sense I have displeased her. “The king will speak to you when he is ready, Elizabeth; you must be patient.”
    “Oh, we are all patient.” Mother reaches out and takes a cup from the tray one of my women is