Chapter 2

Spring 1464

Edward was bored by his petitioners, as usual. Richard thought, as he refilled the king's goblet, that would he would apply himself more to the task at hand if he ever wore the crown.

Well, the next petitioner hardly required much careful thought. Gray had fought for them, and their enemies had taken his lands.

"Your Highness would do well to grant her suit. It were dishonor to deny it her," Richard said as he handed Edward a summary of the facts.

Edward barely glanced at it before dismissing her. "Well, widow we will consider thy suit, and come some other time to know our mind." Richard let the surprise come through on his face. Edward must have been truly burning for his duties to finish for the day, if he couldn't bring himself to grant such a simple request.

"Your Majesty, I cannot brook delay," the widow said, and pulled back her veil to show a fine complexion and coppery hair.

"I see the lady have a thing to grant before the king will grant her humble suit," Richard said, and George chuckled. Perhaps she was unaware of the effect a beautiful face could have on Edward, but Richard doubted it. She appeared unfazed when Edward dismissed him, George and all the other courtiers.

A pity – he would have liked to have seen how she transformed herself from an inconsequential widow into a queen so quickly.

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Kate had heard of Elizabeth Woodville, but only as a name mentioned in passing: a cousin of her mother's who had made a slightly better match, and then lost her husband and her lands. She knew nothing of what had recently happened at the palace of Westminster.

Her uncle would have told her, if he had known, but no news had come to their manor in weeks. Plague was spreading in the countryside, and her uncle had forbidden anyone from coming and going from the house. The servants went outside only to bring in food, and she and her uncle went nowhere.

"Only for a few moments, uncle, to pick some flowers?" she said in her sweetest voice, when she thought he might be sufficiently distracted by his account-books to simply wave her out the door.

He set down the book with a sigh. "For the hundredth time, child, there is plague outside." Kate stood at the window and looked out in dejection. She didn't see any plague. "I'm not keeping thee here out of cruelty. If thou wert sick, it would be the death of me. Come here, let me tell thee a story."

Even though he wouldn't give her what she wanted, Kate knew her uncle was not cruel. So she felt a pang of conscience when she disobeyed him, but just a pang. She wouldn't be sick or hurt, and her uncle would never know she had left. She had climbed down the tree under her window so many times before, with such ease.

She wasn't really doing anything naughty, Kate reassured herself as she ran under the full moon. Just getting some air. Hadn't Uncle Thomas believed in getting air, before the plague? She was sure he had.

She knew she should turn back when she reached the end of the garden, but she couldn't bear to just yet. She would run to the pastures, she decided. Just that far, and then back to bed, like a good girl.

She stopped short when she saw the lady. Kate had to stop herself from screaming – this must be one of the ghosts who ate bad children who weren't in their beds. But the lady didn't see her. She was standing at the edge of their pond, and by some trick of the moon, she seemed to shimmer like the water. Kate crept a little closer, in spite of herself, ready to duck down if the lady turned to reveal a mouth red with children's blood. Not that Kate believed in ghost stories anymore, of course. At nine, she was too far grown for such things.

The lady walked into the water, her pale dress spreading around her. Kate waited for her to stop, but she kept walking toward the center. The lady looked tall, but Kate knew it was far too deep.

"Stop," she called out. "Stop! Thou shalt drown!"

The lady gave no sign she heard. Perhaps she was deaf? Kate couldn't let her drown. She ran into the water, splashing. The lady finally noticed that and turned. "Stop! Thou shalt-" Kate started, before she stepped wrong and plunged beneath the water.

She was only under for a terrifying instant before the lady pulled her up. "Heavens, child, what art thou doing?" she asked.

Kate spat up the foul-tasting water. "Too deep," she finally managed.

"Thou should not go rushing after strangers," the lady said. "Now, where is thy home?"

The lady had a tight grip on Kate's arm as they walked toward the manor house. Kate tried to explain about the tree, but the lady said she would go to the door and take her punishment for doing such a foolish thing. Kate hung her head. Her uncle would be ashamed of her.

The lady hammered on the door, with strength that didn't seem ladylike, until one of the servants came. "No one enters," a voice from behind the door said.

"Tell thy master I have fished his niece from a pond, and see if he changes his mind," the lady answered.

A few minutes later, Uncle Thomas was at the door, wrapped in his dressing gown. "Thou foolish child," he scolded, but wrapped her against his chest all the same. After a long moment, he released her and pointed up the stairs. "To thy bed. Thou shall get nothing but porridge for breakfast, thou naughty girl. Without butter."

"Yes, uncle," Kate said, and scampered upstairs.

If she had been a few years older, Kate would have lingered on the staircase to learn what her uncle would say to this stranger. She would have learned that she was called Joanna, and she was not a fine lady, but one of the villagers. She would have heard her uncle's gasp when Joanna described losing her family to the plague, and then her home when the villagers took her stubborn health as a sure sign of witchcraft. And she would have understood why Joanna had not been frightened by the idea of drowning.

As it was, she would know none of this for years to come. She would accept her uncle's admonition to hush when she wanted to know why the stranger had spent a month in a locked room, opened only to give her food, before being released to the servants' quarters. And when it became clear that her uncle liked Joanna better than any of the other servants, she wouldn't ask any questions. After all, Joanna was lovely and clever, even if she didn't know anything about ponds.