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I have snipped your wingspan,
My precious captive swan.
Here, all clipped of kickstand,
Your spirit won’t last long.
– “Margaret in Captivity” by The Decemberists
Let other queens rend their garments. Let other women emulate the sages of the Old Testament, groveling in the desert, hands and knees in the dirt, robes fouled with God’s holy muck. Let other immaculate hands grind away at ashes. For the first time in all her life, Margaret is as still as water. Not calm, exactly. But there’s a quietness in her heart that wasn’t there before. She thinks it’s called grief.
In the ruins of her camp, she sits like patience on a monument. Her hands are folded in her lap, and it’s only if you come close that you can see they’re really balled up into fists, that her knuckles are white. The gleaming cuirass she wore over her gown of velvet and silk now lies hollow in a corner of the war tent. The sword she dashed against a blameless oak to avoid plunging it into the messenger’s chest has been hidden away, for its mistress’s eyes cannot bear to look upon it. And the Lancastrian banner – now tattered and torn almost beyond recognition, if not for the stubborn outline of the red rose – has been folded up for the last time.
She has already sent word to King Edward. I am at your commandment. Now it’s only a matter of time until the false king comes to take her away to God knows where.
*
And he does come. Himself. The last time she’s seen him so up close was – she can’t remember. Certainly in a different world, when more fathers and sons were still alive. When fewer daughters and mothers had had their dreams broken. When all the war games were still mostly just that: games.
King Edward bestows one of his shining smiles on her, orders his men to use her well, to offer her no violence. Traitor or not, he says, a queen’s a queen. And he smiles again. The worst part is, Margaret thinks, is that his smiles are always sincere.
But the thing about being branded a traitor is that it casts a shadow over your entire being – a shadow so dark no sunlight can pierce it, no divine justice can dissolve it, no prayers can drive it away. This is doubly true if you are a woman, Margaret knows. If she were a man, she’d be executed in the middle of a battlefield with the green grass beneath her and the sun shining upon her, and that would be that. Her descendants – if she’d left any – would, in time, lift themselves from the dirt and find absolution in a reign or two. But she isn’t a man, and so must bear treason’s iniquity for as long as she lives.
Never mind the fact that she was only defending her throne. What other woman would not do the same? Would Queen Elizabeth (still young, still only just beginning to gray, full of scorpions and flowers in equal measure) have cowered in a corner if her husband and children were imperiled? Margaret doubts it.
But Margaret doesn’t dwell on any of these thoughts as she’s driven through London in a cart past a jeering, thunderous crowd. Her golden hair is loose about her shoulders and her hands are tied – but only loosely, only to symbolize that she was once a threat. She thinks of Eleanor Cobham, of her trembling hands holding a taper, of her black hair and white penitent’s gown streaming like tears. She thinks of Rome, of how many captive barbarian queens were paraded through its gleaming city squares.
But this is England, not Rome. Margaret will not – will never – bow to the mocking crowd’s desire to see her bare her teeth. They all want to see the tiger lash out inside her cage, to get that little thrill of fright tempered with the knowledge that they’re quite safe, that the tiger can’t get them now, not any more.
She sits upright, staring straight ahead, betraying no emotion.
*
A troubled ride across calm waters. The afternoon sun gilding the Thames, polishing the helmet of the guard escorting Margaret, turning her blonde hair white as an old enchantress’s. Then: the Tower. Winding staircases, the stone echoing hollowly. The creak of a door and the clinking of iron keys.
Before the key can turn in the latch, Margaret says, “Can’t I see him?”
She’s met with a hard, uncomprehending stare. The guard is a young man hardly out of boyhood, probably no older than sixteen, and his eyes are a vivid blue.
She knows her request will not be granted. But she asks anyway. What does she have to lose now?
“The king my husband,” Margaret says, meeting the guard’s gaze steadily. “I know he’s here. A moment is all I ask.”
The guard’s eyes dart away from hers, his frown deepening. He looks around – a meaningless precaution, as there’s no one here in this part of the Tower, not even a porter. Margaret wasn’t even allowed to bring a servant with her. Then, rather unexpectedly, he sighs. “Very well. But be brief. And don’t try anything – I’ll be keeping watch.”
Suppressing her disbelief, Margaret silently inclines her head in gratitude.
As she’s marched down another corridor, Margaret thinks about kindness. Is it kindness to give a disgraced queen mere moments to say farewell to the husband she’s known for decades? Is it kindness if, once the allotted time is up, both prisoners will be plunged back into solitude, into the silence of cold stone walls, and – eventually – into oblivion? Is it kindness to acknowledge someone else’s basic humanity for the most fleeting of moments, only to return to carrying out one’s duties as normal? In truth, she doesn’t know. Such situations aren’t unfamiliar to her – only in the past, she was always on the other side of them, never had to stop and think about it. How many times did she bask in the warm glow of queenly charity upon granting some wretch’s petition? How many times did she wait until the sword was just about to fall to pardon a traitor, even as all his men lay bleeding out in the dust of the battlefield? How many times did she scowl and rage whenever Henry shook his head and refused to understand what it meant to be at war?
Far too many.
*
“Margaret… is it really you?”
It’s the first time she’s heard Henry’s voice in years. The last time they spoke, they were embracing and exchanging a few hurried words before scattering in the face of the Yorkist advance. Margaret remembers how each of them had tried reassure the other that all would be well. Henry put on a falsely cheerful smile, glanced up to the heavens like he always did, said something vague about God; Margaret, for her part, went on about courage and justice and all those other things that, even then, she was having trouble believing in. He kissed her hand, she patted his shoulder with what she hoped was reassuring firmness, and they parted ways – Margaret with Prince Edward in tow, Henry with nothing but his own prayers.
How ironic that the last time they spoke, it had also been a goodbye.
The entrance of Henry’s ascetically furnished cell is locked and barred; the young blue-eyed guard stands inside, just in front of the door, his halberd at the ready and his gaze pointedly avoiding the prisoners. Her wish granted against all probability, Margaret realizes she doesn’t know what to say.
"Henry…”
For the first time in her life, Margaret struggles to make her voice rise above a whisper.
Her husband stands before her (oh God, just then she notices how much older he seems, how worn and frayed around the edges, how tired his eyes are despite the warmth of his smile) and clasps his hands together. There’s that familiar nervous gesture that she used to see as a sign of his unmanly weakness, as a justification for her tiger-like ferocity. And then he embraces her: Margaret’s eyes sting in spite of themselves and she holds Henry close, closer than she’s ever held him, holds him like he’s her only reason for living.
Henry buries his face in her hair and whispers something she can’t hear. It might be a prayer of thanks to the Blessed Virgin – or perhaps to St Jude, patron saint of lost causes. God knows how often Margaret herself has prayed to him in recent times.
Henry pulls away from the embrace. Margaret sees that his eyes are shining. She wipes her own with the back of her hand, but she knows it’s useless.
“Are you in here too, love?” he says.
“No, no, mon cher,” she says softly. “Don’t worry. I’ve been ransomed. I’m going back to France, to my father.”
When she was queen and he was king, Margaret could never countenance Henry’s tendency to ignore the world’s harsh truths. How could a king, after all, afford to look the other way when there was treason in his midst? But he isn’t a king any longer. And it’s cruelty, not kindness, she thinks, to tell the truth to a prisoner.
“Truly?”
“Yes, truly.” Please, God, just let him believe it. “The ship leaves tomorrow.”
“The Lord be thanked!” sighs Henry, casting his eyes upward to the stone ceiling. When he looks back at Margaret, tears are rolling down his face – but he’s smiling in earnest, and for a moment the chamber seems to shine with a soft glow.
They sit down together – still well within sight of the guard, of course – on the wide stone sill of the barred window. The setting sun streams in, warming the sides of their faces as they sit turned toward each other. Margaret closes her eyes and it’s almost as if it’s twenty years ago and they’re young again, it’s twenty years ago and the birds are singing in the castle garden, it’s twenty years ago and none of this has happened yet.
Of course she knows it wasn’t truly anything like that. But the past looks murkier, rosier, dreamier from behind the bars of the Tower.
“And Ned?” Henry says suddenly.
Margaret’s silence fills the room like incense fills a church, like darkness fills a hermit’s cell, like dirt fills a grave.
“He’s –”
“Alive?”
Margaret tries to reply, but the words die in her throat.
She can’t lie. Not about this.
And suddenly she feels her feet hit the hard floor, and her vision blurs, and she’s on the other side of the room, the dark shadowed side where the evening light won’t reach but the truth still hounds her, pursues her, claws at her closed eyes. Henry’s by her side, trying to comfort her, but she pushes him away. She pushes him away like she always used to do, bares her fangs at him like a wounded tiger. And all the while it’s as if she’s observing herself from without – there she goes, setting fire to the world, not caring whose hands she burns in the process. With surreal clarity she notices a mouse scurry along the wall and disappear into a crevice.
Henry’s saying her name over and over, and she wonders if he ever heard her calling his name when he was in his abyss.
“Don’t touch me!” she snarls.
He backs away from her, hands held up cautiously. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, Margaret, I didn’t mean –”
“He’s dead.” She says it as if plunging a knife into her own chest. “Our son is dead and I couldn’t save him.” The words come like blows, like arrows, her voice rising to a shout. “It’s because of me. Don’t you understand, Henry? It’s my fault.”
“Please don’t say such things, my love,” Henry says. “Please. You mustn’t. You mustn’t.”
His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, but full of hurt and sorrow and that damned resignation to fate that Margaret could never understand. He takes her hand in his, his dark eyes wide and pleading. Something about the gesture – so frank and unaffected, so simple and earnest – drains Margaret of all her strength. No longer able to hide her grief behind false anger, she unclenches her fists and bows her head and lets a sob rip through her chest. And when Henry draws her in to hold her close, she doesn’t push him away this time.
*
How strange, Margaret thinks. The first time she saw Henry, he had not been in the guise of a king. And now, at her last meeting with him, the last time she’ll ever see him, he is again in a different habit.
Their first meeting, decades ago, happened without her even knowing it. Henry – at the time an awkward youth of three-and-twenty, almost as fresh-faced as she was then at fifteen – had disguised himself as a page. In his particolored suit of livery, he kneeled before her and handed her a note of greeting from the king, her new husband; she took it with hardly a glance. Upon learning of the trick, she swore she would’ve seen through it if only she’d looked more closely. After all, she’d seen Henry’s face on coins before then. And didn’t kings have an unmistakable divinity encircling them, shining through any disguise?
To think she ever could’ve been so naïve, so trusting of appearances.
And now: their last meeting. No disguises here. No way to hide the wretchedness of defeat and captivity. No way to make the moment of farewell last longer.
Not even God can do that.
Later, reposing in her own chamber in the Tower, Margaret returns once again to the unnatural stillness that first descended on her after Tewkesbury. She thinks of Henry, kneeling in his cell and praying, separated from her by walls of unfeeling stone. She thinks of all the things she said to him mere minutes ago, and of the words she left spoken. She thinks of how, in spite of everything, neither Henry nor Ned ever lost faith in her.
Just as Icarus never doubted his wings.
Night has fallen. The blue-eyed guard lit a candle for Margaret before he left, locking the heavy door behind him. Its flickering light makes shadows dance upon the crooked walls and ceiling.
For a moment Margaret thinks she hears the sound of harsh footsteps hurrying down the corridor. They go past the door of her cell, heading in the direction she just came from.
Then all is silent again.