The White Queen -The White Queen

Westminster Palace, London, England, Summer 1470

I am running behind my husband, my hand on my belly as I am now in my fifth month. Servants are hurrying by us along with soldiers, carrying supplies and everything an army might need. "You can't go. You swore to me you would be here for the birth of our baby. It will be another boy, another son. You must be with me."

He turns to me, his face is grave. "Sweetheart, our sons will have no kingdom to inherit if I don't go. Warwick's brother-in-law, Henry Fitzhugh, has raise Northumberland. There's no doubt in my mind that this is what they have been preparing. I have to go. I have to go fast. I have to deal with one and then march again and deal with another. I don't dare even stop for the pleasure of arguing with you."

"And Warwick has sailed; you are sure?" I ask again.

"If he has not already he will do so within the next month, "Edward tells me. "We believe he will be in the north soon. It may only be a matter of days. He plans to distract me in the north wall Margaret of Anjou attempts to take London and free her husband from the tower. I'll have to defeat Warwick before I can come down and take care of her once and for all or risk you and the children's safety."

My face pales. "My children? You think she would come after my children?"

He turns to me, a determined look on his face, "I will not let her. I have ordered Richard and his army to meet up with mine outside of London. And if the reports are reliable and Margaret of Anjou land in the south I must be ready to meet her; I must act quickly."

"Heard by who? Who are these reports coming from?"

"George," he says shortly. "He has written to me again with his plan. He tells me that he will land with Warwick but once the battle commences he will abandon him and fight by my side."

I nod cautiously. "And you believe him?"

He sighs. "I don't know, but God I want to! He's still my brother Eliza."

"I understand," I tell him as I mentally curse my brother-in-law's name.

"Elizabeth, Jackie, and their children will be coming back here soon," he tells me. My cousins had left with their husbands a few weeks back to raise small armies on their own land just in case of this very same situation. "You must go with the children to the tower. Prepare for the baby there."

I am hesitant. He must see the hesitation in my face because he tells me once again, "you must go to the tower Eliza. Wait for me there. I will come back to you."

"When?" I ask.

"When we have won."

I nod as he walks away.

It is not only Elizabeth and Jackie who come to me but Margaret and Lulu as well. Their husbands have gone off to join the army. My dear friend Isabel is with Jacquetta and Elizabeth de Scales at Grafton, preparing an army for their husbands to take as they are already with my husband in the north. Jasper is off in Wales raising men for my husband while Nora is off with her husband in the vast Stafford lands doing the exact same thing in the name of the young Duke of Buckingham. 

I am nervous for this outcome. I have never thought both Lancaster and Warwick at the same time. The thought of these two ginormous powers crashing down on us is daunting for everyone. End it does not help that no one is in the best of moods.

Jackie and Edmund had a fight before he left and she is snappy. Ria and Claire, who have stayed with me these past couple months at court are missing their husbands even when their children are sent to them. Alice Neville is sick to her stomach with a thought that her father is allying himself with the very same person that killed her grandfather. She cannot bear to look at anyone as she slouches away in a corner. Lulu is so concerned for her husband that she is no longer her funny self anymore and sequesters herself away with her young son George (1469).