The White Queen -The White Queen

Westminster Palace, London, England, Winter 1471-1472

I am watching my husband and his brothers swordplay. Edmond is on Edwards shoulders and Richard is on George's. I do not approve of this. It is dangerous enough that they choose to act like complete buffoons. Now they are doing it with swords.

"Summer, a time for mindless pleasure," Jacquetta observes. 

"Precious little is mindless where George is concerned," I tell her. "If it was up to me he would have nothing at all to do with any of my children."

"Is George going to harm them?" Jacquetta asks.

"I don't know!" I tell her as she poured me a glass of wine and I take it.

"Well if you are so uncomfortable with it why don't you tell Edward about it?" She questions.

"Because I feel as though the closer Edward gets to George and the rest of his brother get to George the farther Edward becomes from me," I tell her.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He has been distant ever since he got back from battle," I say to her truthfully. "I do not know what to do about it."

"Not entirely distant I think."

I look at her astounded. "How do you know?" I ask, my hands going to my belly where another new life is being made.

She giggles, "Your husband is as fertile as a bull." I laughed as she continues, "Whenever he returns from victory a child is never far behind." 

I smile. "I'm a little more than three months along. I haven't told him yet."

"And tell him!" She insists. "Leave your cares with me and take your happy news to your husband."

"Thank you! Thank Jacquetta!" I tell her as I give her a quick hug and she kisses my cheeks.

After she has kissed both of my cheeks I look back at her. She is paler and thinner than usual and I tell her, "I think I have quite exhausted you."

"You could never!" She tell me. "Now go! Go!"

I make my way to my husband's apartments. For the first time in a while I am completely excited. We have not had a baby since Edmund in December of last year and this baby will be born in the middle of May. It will be a springtime baby and our first baby of peace. 

When I open the door so my husband's apartments I'm greeted with a site no woman ever wants to see. A woman was on top of my husband kissing him. Both of them were naked and rolling around in the sheets. I stare at them for a moment, unable to process what I am seeing.

It is the young lady with my husband who notices me first. "Your Grace!"

I can hear her roll off the top of my husband and Edward shout, "Eliza!" But I am already out the door. I do not want to see him tonight. I'm sure that I do not want to see him ever.

"Jane Shore, her name is all around the court," Elizabeth tells me later out in the garden.

"Well what does that afford her?" Jackie asks.

"Well that's what I'm trying to find out!" I say.

"Have you tried asking Edward?" Jacquetta asks.

"What should I say?" I ask her incredulously.

"There is nothing to say," Anthony tells me. "Your husband is a king. Kings appetites, it's his nature as you've always known."

I put my head down in shame and Lewis, seeing what his intellectual of a brother has done tells me, "Whoring is merely a sport as hunting or jousting is to Edward. She means nothing."