The baby whimpered, hungry again. Duchess Jacquetta picked the prince up from his cradle and rocked him, but it was not enough. Even one of her fingers to suck made no difference. “There, there, little man; soon, soon.” Wails turned into a healthy bellow.
“Mother?” The voice from the bed was sharp. “It’s no good, I cannot sleep; the poppy they gave me did not work. Give him to me. At least one of us will be happy.”
The baby was swaddled tightly, arms bound to his sides. Just like a little silkworm, thought his grandmother tenderly as she took the boy who should have been born the prince of Wales over to her daughter. Elizabeth Wydeville struggled to sit up and uncovered one breast, swollen and proud now that the milk was well established. Taking the baby in the crook of her right arm, she tapped him on the cheek so that he turned his head toward her. Smelling the milk, he fastened his tiny open mouth around the nipple. The wailing stopped as, urgently, the infant sucked and snuffled and sucked again, so fast that he choked. An indignant roar filled the small room.
“No, Edward, not so impatient. Really. Just like your father, sometimes…” Elizabeth looked up and caught her mother’s amused glance. The glimmer of a smile curved the queen’s mouth, the first of many weeks. She rocked her son, settling him with the ease of an experienced mother. “Here, yes, like that… slower, no gulping.” She relaxed as the baby’s suckling found a rhythm and he closed his eyes, concentrating.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get you a nurse, child.”
The queen shook her head. “I’m not. I haven’t done this before. It’s… different. I’m glad I’m giving this child suck.”
The duchess was curious. “But your breasts, daughter. Are you not concerned your son will wither them?”
A hard expression marred the queen’s lovely face. “I don’t care. Let him suck them to dry husks. He’ll suck my rage into him. He’ll suck my desire for justice into his bones. It will make him stronger. Besides, what does it matter if my breasts turn to empty bags? I’ll never see the king again if Louis has his way, and then beauty won’t matter to me ever again.”
Jacquetta smiled. “Perhaps you will change your mind, in time. Besides, I think there’s a way to go before Louis gets what he wants. I’ve heard some interesting news.”
Her daughter’s eyes sharpened on hers. “What?”
“Charles of Burgundy is wavering. He doesn’t know what to do, which side to back. In that fact, there is opportunity.”
Elizabeth Wydeville snorted with derision, disturbing her son. As he yelled, she swapped him to the other breast, and he subsided into earnest silence as he fed once more.
“Who says this?” she demanded.
“I’ve had a communication—a message from Sir Mathew Cuttifer. He says he has a reliable source in Brugge. A friend of the duchess.”
The queen’s face darkened. “Why should we trust what he might say? He, and his house, have never been our friends. That woman, Anne de Bohun, was his servant. She tried to steal Edward from me.”
Patiently, Jacquetta shook her head. “Tried, and failed. Ah, daughter, daughter, this is all in the past. Do not distress yourself. The king has not seen Anne de Bohun since his sister’s wedding. She has disappeared from our lives for good. But information is useful, whatever its source.”
The baby sighed deeply at his mother’s breast and his small red mouth softly detached from the nipple. He slept, his little face flushed rose-pink from the effort of sucking. Automatically Elizabeth rocked her son back and forth, back and forth.
“And so?” Her tone was sullen.
“Don’t you see? If Charles is uncertain what to do about Edward and England, then he may be influenced. Influenced to our cause; influenced to help the king. But first, we must deal with Louis.”
“How can we do such a thing?”
There was little light in Abbot Milling’s cell, even though it faced east. Elizabeth Wydeville squinted and leaned forward to inspect the thing her mother was holding toward her; something Jacquetta had fetched from the pocket-bag slung from her girdle. “What is that?”
Jacquetta held the object up in the light from the one small, high window.
“A toy for the baby?”
The duchess shook her head and spoke softly. “Look closer, my daughter. This is no toy.”
Gently placing the sleeping child on the counterpane of the bed, the queen held out her hand to inspect the object. It was a doll-sized man, mounted on a little wooden horse caparisoned in blue cloth. Painted in gilt on the cloth were miniature fleurs-de-lis. The doll had a tiny gold circlet around its head.
“Who is this, Mother?” She might ask the question, but Elizabeth Wydeville knew the answer.
Jacquetta looked around. The door was closed and they were alone. She leaned toward her daughter and whispered one word. “Louis.” The queen gazed fearfully at her mother. Jacquetta had something else in her fingers now: two tiny silver daggers, blades as sharp as thorns.
“Hold out your hand, my daughter.”
The baby whimpered in his sleep and twitched, frowning. Both women turned to look at him.
“We have no choice, my daughter. For your son’s sake. He will be king one day, but only if we help him now.”
Elizabeth looked down at her infant and nodded. Slowly, she extended her hand and took one of the wicked little knives from her mother’s fingers.
“Together. We must do this together. Now.”
There was an instinctive rhythm to what happened next. One breath, two, and on the third, the deposed queen of England plunged the little knife deep into the straw breast of the doll; at the same instant, her mother stabbed hers into the effigy’s groin. There was a sound like breath escaping. Perhaps it was the wind.
The baby woke, screaming, as is the way of a fractious child when his mother is tense. But try as they might to comfort him, mother and grandmother both, the distraught baby did not close his eyes for the whole of that day, nor the night that succeeded it until Thomas Milling, the abbot of Saint Peter’s Cathedral Church, touched his brow with holy water.
Then he slept.