Ghent, July 1485
"Madam? Pardon the interruption, but there is urgent word from Sluys."
Margaret knew better than to ignore her chamberlain when he spoke in that tone. Breaking off the tune she was strumming on the psaltery, she swung round and took the sealed missive he handed her.
Breaking the seal, she read it, hand to her head to keep an errant blonde curl out of her eyes as she did so.
Her keen blue-grey eyes scanned the flourishing lines. Her chamberlain watched her, keen to know what was so urgent the messenger had half killed his horse to get the letter here. The man was not disappointed. Shrewd politician though she might be, Margaret couldn't restrain a gasp.
"Your Grace?"
Margaret ignored the question, snatching up her writing desk and carrying to the well-lit window seat without a word. She sharpened a quill with a few well-practised strokes and began to write furiously, issuing orders as she did so.
"My brother's Queen has landed, Pieter, and she's almost seven months gone with child. See to it that she's taken to Damme if she can travel, but if not, find her some lying-in chambers in the town. I'll not risk my sister's health anymore than I have to."
She scattered the parchment with sand, sealed it with her personal seal of a crowned rose and held it out, "That ought to meet her expenses for the next few weeks, at least. Send it to Sluys with the fastest horse you can muster. Then give the orders to pack up my household. I'll want to be at Anne's side just as soon as ever I can, understand?"
For a moment, Pieter's eyebrows flickered upward. His mistress seemed to have forgotten that she was a Dowager Duchess of Burgundy now, not a Princess of England. But then, he thought back to the brief months in 1470 and 1471 when Her Grace's brothers Edward and Richard had sought sanctuary in Burgundy after Edward had lost his throne to the vehement Lancastrians. It had been clear even then that the Duchess adored her brothers, would proffer her neck even for the axe if she'd thought it might benefit their cause. No wonder she wanted to be at her sister by marriage's side for her confinement.
Controlling his features expertly, he nodded, "Of course, Your Grace. I'll see it done at once."
Bowing, he backed from the room and left Margaret to her whirling thoughts.
Margaret remained where she was for a few moments, staring absently out at the river that rolled beneath her window.
Unconsciously, her hand went to her heart, to the small enamelled rose she wore pinned to every kirtle. Richard might not have said as much in his recent letter, but she was astute enough to know that Richard's insistence on sending Anne to shelter with her did not bode well for his impending fight to keep the English throne.
"Oh Dickon," she breathed, "Fight, my brother. Fight. If you fight your battle in England, I vow I shall help Anne fight hers here in Burgundy, and God willing, one day we shall meet again victorious."
She inhaled slowly, held her breath for a moment or two and then released it, forcing her shoulders down. Only when she was once more the picture of composure her mother had taught her to be did she rise and go to the door, calling for her handmaidens.
Damme, August 1485
Anne was as white as snow. Looking down at the younger woman who had her hand in a vice-like grip as she strained and screamed, Margaret sensed the thought pass through her head. A moment later, she corrected herself. Anne was whiter than snow. At least snow had some sparkle to it when it was fresh-fallen. Anne had none. All she had was pain. Pain and a mother's instinct.
In stark contrast to the woman who writhed upon it, the birthing bed was drenched in blood. Linens that had once been snow-white were now as red as the poppies that grew on the poulders every summer. For a moment, Margaret feared that her fragile sister by marriage was about to bleed out in front of her, with nothing to show for her hours of travail.
But then, amidst the pain and the blood and the fear, there came a cry. A high, insistent cry that went on and on, gaining in strength with every passing second.
The midwife looked up from the end of the bed, her brow creased in worry but her jaw split in a wide grin.
"Het is een jongen! Een goede jongen!" she beamed.
Margaret had never learnt much Dutch or Flemish – she hadn't needed either at her husband's French-speaking Court, but she knew enough to know what the motherly woman was telling them.
"A boy! Anne, you have a boy! You have Richard's boy!"
Margaret bent over the bed, gripping the younger woman's hand tight in an effort to hold her attention.
"Did you hear me, Anne? You have Richard's boy. You have his Prince of Wales!"
"Richard," Anne's voice was hoarse and laboured, little more than a thread of sound Margaret had to strain to hear, "Richard. He shall have his father's name. Richard."
Margaret nodded, "Of course, sister. How could he have any other name? His father will be so proud when he meets him. So proud."
She leaned down to kiss Anne's sweat-stained brow, but before she could, Anne jerked upright, issuing another wordless scream of agony.
Margaret's head snapped up and she looked to the midwife in shock.
To the other woman's credit, she had snapped into action at the very first sound Anne had made. Thrusting the still-crying Richard into a hovering maid's hands, and barking guttural instructions too fast for Margaret to follow, she bent once more between Anne's legs.
Minutes passed that dragged like days, but fortunately, Anne's third child was far more eager to enter the world than her second. The bells had barely struck the quarter-hour when the midwife looked up, beaming once more.
"Een mooie meisje. Een zusje voor de jonge Prins."
„A girl. Anne, a girl!" Margaret gripped her sister-in-law by the arm, alarmed at the fatigue written in every line of the younger woman's body. She knew the other woman had just been in labour for the better part of a day, but even so. Mary hadn't looked this exhausted when she gave birth to Phillip or Margaret. She knelt by the bed for a moment, wondering whether to try and shake Anne out of the stupor she seemed to be sliding into.
Before she could make the decision, however, the midwife was coming round the bed and reaching out a hand to pull her to her feet. Margaret went to protest – how dare this low woman touch her, a Dowager Duchess of Burgundy and a Princess of York besides – but the woman forestalled anything she might have said by placing her now swaddled niece in her arms.
Margaret looked down into the baby's face and let go of a breath she didn't even realise she'd been holding.
"Margaret."
"The whisper was deathly quiet, but Margaret heard it at once. She whirled around.
Anne was propping herself up on an elbow, struggling for breath. Her eyes were fixed on the baby in Margaret's arms.
"Margaret. She shall be Margaret, for her aunt and godmother. For the woman who has kept us all safe these past weeks, as her father asked."
"I am honoured, Anne," Margaret felt tears pricking at her eyes. There was something so final in Anne's voice. Something so unanswerable.
"Margaret. Griet. Our little white pearl."
She murmured the endearments into the tiny ear, keeping half an eye on Anne all the time. Her sister-in-law never responded, however. She slumped back into the blood-stained sheets with a heavy exhalation.
"My Lady! Take the children and leave us be! We must look to the mother now!"
The French was broken, the accent execrable, but Margaret didn't need to be told twice. Any fool could see that Anne was in a bad way, and Margaret was hardly that. Pausing only to sweep her new-born nephew up into her free arm, she swept from the room.
The physicians passed her as she left. So great was their need for urgency that they barely heeded protocol enough to give her room.
Margaret glanced back after them to see that the Queen's eyes had closed, as she slipped out of consciousness. In an instant, the realisation crashed over her that she might very well never see her sister-in-law alive again.
"If only we'd had word of Richard," she thought. "If he'd only written or sent word, Anne might have fought harder. God knows she wanted nothing more than to do her duty as his Queen. If only we'd had word."