~Harry~

There was an air of tension as the court began to arrive at Fotheringhay in preparation for Christmas. The rumours of rebellion spread like wildfire and the uneasy glances that the courtiers cast at one another reminded Eleanor of the looks that had been seen daily during 1477 and 1478.

Hushed whispers flew from ear to ear, between the nobles, between the servants of the King and Queen's household, throughout the entire country until 'rebellion' was the only word on everyone's lips. Now soldiers were posted at every port in England, extra fortifications were added to London's gates to secure it while the Royals were away and to ensure the Princes and Elizabeth had no chance of escaping the Tower.

Another attack on the fortress while they were away from the capital was something the King and Queen could not risk. After all, what if the next attack succeeded? Then they would have to weather possibly two rebellions. The country could not take it.

Eleanor's heart still stung from the betrayal of Margaret and when alone she had found herself often shedding tears over her broken friendship and the broken trust that lay between she and her former Lady.

She blamed herself. Blamed herself for being so naive where Margaret was concerned. 'You didn't know!' Jane and Anais told her 'She tricked you like them traitor she is!' Richard reassured her when she cried in his arms 'it is not your fault!' But she still blamed herself.

'I should've known!' Her mind screamed 'she's a Lancastrian and always have been! You were the one that let her enter your heart and trust! You were the one who let her put the country in danger! You were the one who was blind!'

Two weeks after Margaret's banishment from court to her home, Eleanor's sadness had steadfastly turned to anger and fierce resentment and she found her fists curling around the soft crimson silk she was sewing to make a Christmas gown for little Adela.

She was sitting in front of the fire in the solar, the soft glow lighting her needle and thread and was surrounded by friends. Usually this atmosphere would have calmed her but now the silence that was broken only by the occasional rustle of material grated her nerves to shreds and allowed thoughts to swarm her mind. 

It's your fault
It's your fault
It's your fault

"Oh for God's sake!" She cried, flinging down her work and standing from her chair, making her ladies jump as they looked up from their work. Turning away, Eleanor strode to the nearest window and leant against the wall, pressing a hand to her forehead as she tried to calm herself. A moment later she felt Jane's hand on her shoulder and looked to the side to see the redhead standing next to her.

"It's not your fault" Jane said gently "and no one blames you for it"
"I think Richard might" Eleanor mumbled "he's always disapproved of my friendship with Margaret and now he has been proved right in his suspicions and dislike! It's a miracle he's not dancing a jig" Jane shook her head, her ringlets bobbing around her face.

"I know that the King does not like me" she replied quietly "but I have watched him through the years and I know him to not be spiteful" Eleanor sighed, nodding and wringing her hands together "at least definitely not towards you"

"I know I know....I'm sorry, it was wrong of me to speak of him as if he was. The last thing he's doing right now is dancing a jig....if anything I think he rather pities me which I hate. I'd rather have him gloating!"

The two spun around and the rest rose from their chairs as the door to the solar banged open and Richard's stormed in, his eyes filled with rage and hatred as he held up a letter.
"It is Buckingham!" He roared before scrunching the letter up his fist "Buckingham who is behind the rebellion of Margaret Stanley's! I've intercepted her letters!"

"What?" Eleanor cried as he strode across the room, throwing the parchment aside. She waved a hand "go" she ordered and her ladies were quick to obey, curtsying and almost running from the room "Harry? Our Harry?"

"The man with best cause to be true!" Richard thundered, banging his fists down on the nearest table "I've given him everything he's ever asked for! And never was a traitor better treated!" Eleanor shook her head. 'No' she thought, this couldn't be true!

Not Harry. Their friend Harry. Their ally Harry. Harry who played with the children. Harry who had stood by them since the day they met. Harry who loved galavanting around Middleham without a care in the world. Harry who was married to her sister whom he had had five children with!

It couldn't be true.

"He wouldn't!" She cried, shaking her head again. "He couldn't!" Not Harry. Smiling, laughing, joking Harry. Harry who treated her children like his own little brothers and sisters. He wouldn't put them in danger. He wouldn't put she and Richard in danger. He wouldn't betray them.

"He has!" Richard yelled "he has raised an army against me and is now attempting to march to Wales to join with Henry Tudor who is mustering to sail from Brittany"

"Harry is false to us? Lady Margaret is too! Elizabeth we expected but all of them? Together?" She sunk into a chair, shaking her head over and over again while Richard slowly sat down, his anger draining from him and leaving a harsh, stinging betrayal in its wake.

"Now I must postpone my Parliament" he murmured "just when I had called for it and prepared!" He put his head in his hands, working his fingers through his hair as he tried to think and tried to make sense of Harry's actions "I just want to show England what a King I can be!"

Eleanor looked up at that, her heart suddenly aching for her husband. He was trying. He really was trying to be a good King. And he would be, he would prove himself. She knew he would.

"And you will" she said quietly, standing and going to where her husband was leaning against the table leg, tears in his eyes "you will show England that you can be the greatest King this land have ever known" glancing up, he held out his arms to her and she went to him, sitting down and leaning into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him.

"And now I must prepare for war" he said. "War with our own friend, Leena! It seems we can't even trust the ones who have stood by us for years now!"
"I will come with you" Eleanor returned "I will come with you to war" Richard shook his head, slowly pulling out of her arms as she looked at him with a small frown on her lips "why not?" She asked.

"You are with child" he said, moving to his feet and walking to the window, Eleanor following him, looking down at her swelled belly "war is a harsh business, my love"
"I came with you to Tewksbury" she protested "I even wore armour and rode onto the battlefield! I killed a man that day!"

"You were not pregnant with our child then" he pointed out, fiddling with the hilt of his sword while he stared out of the window "days of riding, marching, blood and little rest would not be good for our baby or for you" he looked at her as she came to stand at his side, smiling a little as he placed one arm around her waist and a hand on her belly, hoping to feel their child kick. "but I love you for wanting to be by my side and I do have something for you to do while I'm away"

"What?" She asked and his smiled widened a little.
"Rule the country" he said "I'm going to make you regent while I go to fight the traitor" if he had not been so cast down and hurt by betrayal at that moment he would have laughed at the shocked expression that swept over his wife's face "you will be King in my place"

"Really?" She breathed, eyes searching his face. "you want me to rule in your stead?"
"I do. You have a will, wit and courage to match any man or King. You can do it and you shall triumph on the throne as I shall triumph on the battlefield"

"And Harry?" Eleanor asked and Richard sighed heavily, the smile falling from his face "what will you do with him once you win"
"I'm going to kill him" he said sternly, expression darkening with hatred fuelled by betrayal "he will die a traitors death. Of that I will make sure"

꧁꧂

London, October 1483, Westminster....

It felt strange to Eleanor, sitting on the King's throne, as she did that night, dressed only in her nightgown and shawl, a pair of silk slippers on her feet. She was curled up on the gigantic oak chair, her knees drawn up to her chest (as well as she could with her growing belly) and her back pressed into one of the corners.

Richard had been away from her for nearly two weeks now and she had not had a good nights sleep since he had left her side. War was all that plagued her mind, worry for her husband and even worry for Harry. Despite knowing of his betrayal and his rebellion, his moves to join Henry Tudor there was still a part of her that cared for him though she damned herself for it.

A part of her wanted to believe that he hadn't betrayed them, that he didn't know what he was doing and that he didn't mean any harm to them. She had watched him grow from a boy into a man, knew him as well as her own brothers or even her own sons! She knew him inside out and didn't believe him capable of rebellion, of turning against them in the a snap.

Hearing the soft pitter patter of slippered feet, she looked up only to see Bess walking towards her, in her nightgown too, and clutching her little wolfhound carving to her chest. Her red curls hung loose down her back and in the dark, if it were not for her blue eyes, Eleanor could almost believe it was not her daughter but a younger version of herself approaching the dais.

In silence she hopped up the steps and sat on the Queen's throne, opposite her Mother, bringing her knees up to her chest just as she had done.

"We need to stop Uncle Harry" Bess said quietly and Eleanor tilted her head "we need to stop him joining forces with the Tudor"
"How do you know about this?" She asked and Bess shrugged.

"I know I'm a child" she said "but that doesn't make me deaf, mama" Eleanor couldn't help but grin a little at that and her daughter grinned back, their smile identical "Ive been doing a lot of reading recently and it seems that your family is descended from a water goddess....Melusina?"

Her mother arched an eyebrow.
"Are you here to accuse your own Mother of being a witch?" She asked playfully though Bess' face immediately filled with alarm and she quickly shook her head.

"No!" She cried "I was just thinking that if magic does run in your veins then couldn't we use it to stop Uncle Harry and save England?" Eleanor was stuck with how plausible her daughter's plan actually sounded. She knew she had magic. She knew how to use it. She had promised herself she would never go near witchcraft again but now.... well now her entire family was in danger. Surely a little spell would do more good than harm?

"The magic that I have runs in your veins too" she said slowly, resisting the urge to smile as a look of wonder crossed Bess' face and she stuck out her hands in front of her, staring at them, awestruck "do you remember the time you had a dream that your falcon passed and you woke ice cold?" The eleven year old nodded. It had been the strangest night of her life, despite it being summer she had woken up with skin as cold as ice and, true to her dream, her beloved falcon had died just a week later "that, mon petit, was a seeing. A foretelling of the future, if you will"

"I have magic?" Bess gasped and Eleanor nodded. "Do my sisters have it too?"
"Some of my sisters did. Others did not. Elizabeth and Isabella possessed the magic of Melusina and I think little Cat does too, though she was so young when married our Mother could never make sure! You certainly possess it, I don't think Matilda does as the signs are usually displayed by now, though I may be proved wrong. Isabella has had quite a few seeings but she does not know that they are seeings as I have not told her and Cis has said she heard the water singing to her the day your brother William died....so she carries gifts too"

"And Eleanor? And Adela?" Bess pressed, now mesmerised by the new world her Mother had put at her fingertips.
"It's too early to say" Eleanor admitted "but I will keep watch on them" smoothing her shawl over her shoulders she stood from her throne and held a hand out to her daughter, smiling when Bess took it.

Together they made their way to the Queen's chambers, the one place where Eleanor knew they would not be interrupted, and walked to a window on the far side of the room. Undoing the latch, she pushed it open and placed Bess in front of her, putting her hands on her shoulders.

"Look out into the night, my darling" she said softly and Bess nodded, tilting her head up a little to gaze at the stars "Buckingham and Tudor are supposed to be meeting in Wales, to cross the river"

"Then we must do something" the girl said and her Mother nodded.
"What do you wish?"
"I wish that it would rain"
Eleanor nodded again and took a breath, hoping that the magic inside her would awaken after so many years of lying dormant.

"Let it rain" she whispered, eyes trained on the stars, as her daughter's were "Buckingham's army will wait in Wales for Henry Tudor but he will not come. Lady Margaret will know her son cannot sail from Brittany in this, not if it's this bad over the channel."
"And it will be" Bess said firmly "let it rain"

Together they closed their eyes, smiles crossing their lips when less that a minute later the sound of rainfall filled their ears, pitter pattering against the window panes and roof tiles. Bess gasped, hardly daring to believe that their words had worked.

"Mama...." she whispered, her voice trailing away as she opened her eyes and she felt Eleanor's hands gently squeeze her shoulders.

"You must not worry about your Father" she said softly, moving to close the window again, moving the latch "he will be home soon and we'll be safe again....now, go to bed, mon petit" Bess nodded, still in shock as she walked away in silence, her fist curled around her wolfhound "oh, and Bess?" She turned to see her Mother smiling at her, a little of the worry that had resided in her beautiful face gone "tell no one what we have done"