The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  Woodville stands in the archway of the great gate to bid us farewell. He comes beside me and, without thinking, checks the tightness of the girth on my horse, as he always does. ‘How shall I manage without you?’ I ask.

  His face is grim. ‘I shall think of you,’ he says. His voice is low and he does not meet my eyes. ‘God knows, I shall think of you every day.’

  He turns from me and goes to my lord duke. They clasp hands and then my lord leans down from his horse and hugs his squire. ‘God bless, lad, hold this for me and come when I send for you.’

  ‘Always,’ Woodville says briefly, and then my lord raises his hand and we clatter out over the drawbridge and I realise I don’t know when I will see him again, and that I have not said goodbye, nor thanked him for his care of me, nor told him – nor told him . . . I shake my head. There is nothing that the Duchess of Bedford should tell her husband’s squire, and there is no reason for me to have tears blurring my sight of the flat road in the flat lands ahead.

  This time we ride in the centre of the guard. The countryside is lawless and no-one knows whether a French troop might be riding through, destroying everything they find. We ride at a steady canter, my lord grim-faced, exhausted by the journey, bracing himself for trouble.

  It is miserable in the city. We try to keep Christmas in the Hôtel de Bourbon but the cooks are in despair of getting good meat and vegetables. Every day messengers come in from the English lands in France reporting uprisings in distant villages where the people have sworn that they will not endure the rule of the English for another moment. It is little comfort that we hear also that the Armagnac king is also troubled with rebellions. In truth the whole land of France is sick of war and soldiers and is crying a plague on both our houses.

  In the new year my lord duke tells me shortly that we are leaving Paris, and I know him well enough now not to question his plans when he looks so angry and so weary at the same time.

  ‘Can you tell me if our luck will turn?’ he asks sourly. ‘Just that?’

  I shake my head. In truth, I think he has bad luck at his heels and sorrow at hs shoulder.

  ‘You look like a widow,’ he says sharply. ‘Smile, Jacquetta.’

  I smile at him and I don’t say that sometimes I feel like a widow, too.

  GISORS, FRANCE, FEBRUARY 1435

  My lord sends for Woodville to escort us from Paris to Rouen. He tells me nothing, but I fear that he thinks that the city of Paris would not hold if we were to come under attack, and that we can only be safe in Rouen. He hopes to get there and negotiate for peace with the French court from the heartland of the English-held lands. Woodville comes with extra guards, his face grave, musters the guard in the stable yard, commands the order for greater safety, and helps my lord into the saddle for the first day of riding.

  It is a cold damp ride and we break the journey at the well-fortified castle of Gisors, when I wake in the night hearing a terribly rasping noise. It is my husband, flailing in bed as if someone has him by the throat, choking and gasping for breath. I jump up and light a candle from the fire, he is tearing at his nightgown, he cannot breathe. I fling open the bedroom door and call for my maid and send her running for Woodville and for my lord’s groom of the stool.

  In moments my room is filled with men, and they have lifted my husband up in bed, and flung open the window to give him air. His physician comes with one of the tinctures from the alchemists, and my lord sips, catches his breath, and sips again.

  ‘I am well, I am well,’ he croaks, waving his hand at the household who are in the room, or gathered at the door. ‘Go, go, all of you, to your beds, there is nothing wrong.’ I see the doctor glance at Woodville as if they two know this is a reassuring lie, but Woodville ushers everyone from the room, telling only one man to wait at the door in case of need. Finally the doctor, my lord, Woodville and I are alone.

  ‘I shall send for the physician from Paris,’ Woodville says to my husband. ‘Fear not, I will send for him now.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says heavily. ‘There is a weight in my chest, a weight like lead. I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Do you think you could sleep?’

  ‘If you raised me up in the bed; but I can’t lie flat. I’m tired, Richard, I am as tired as a beaten dog.’

  ‘I will sleep outside your door,’ Woodville says. ‘The duchess can call me if you wake.’

  ‘She had better go to another room,’ my husband says. ‘This is no place for her.’

  They all look at me as if I am a child who should be spared any distress. ‘I shall stay with you,’ I say. ‘And in the morning I will get some lemon and parsley, and make you a drink that will restore your breath.’

  My lord looks at me. ‘You are my greatest treasure,’ he says again. ‘But go to your lady’s room for this night. I don’t want to wake you again.’

  I wrap my night cloak around me and put some slippers on my fet. ‘Call me if my lord is taken ill again,’ I say to Woodville.

  He bows. ‘I will, my lady. And I will sleep on the pallet bed on the floor beside him, so I can watch over his sleep.’

  I move to the door but my lord delays me with his hand raised. ‘Stand there,’ he says.

  I stand as he bids me, before the open window, and the frosty air comes into the room. ‘Put out the lights,’ my lord says. The men snuff the candles and the moonlight shines a clear white light into the room, falling on my head and shoulders and illuminating the white of my nightgown. I see Woodville steal a glance at me, a longing glance, and then he quickly looks away.

  ‘Melusina and the moon,’ my lord says quietly.

  ‘Jacquetta,’ I remind him. ‘I am Jacquetta.’

  He closes his eyes, he is asleep.

  Two days later he is a little better. They bring him news of the Calais garrison and he opens the letter and reads it in silence while we are seated at breakfast in the great hall. He looks around for Woodville.

  ‘Trouble at Calais,’ he says. ‘You had better get back there, lick the men into order, then come back to me.’

  ‘Are they under attack?’ Sir Richard asks coolly, as if he were not being ordered to ride into unknown dangers.

  ‘Their wages haven’t been paid again,’ my lord says. ‘I’ll give you a draft on my own treasury. Try to satisfy them. I will write to England for funds.’

  Woodville does not look at me at all. ‘Will you be able to continue on to Rouen?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ll manage,’ my lord says.

  ‘I will help him,’ I say. It is as if I have not spoken. Neither man pays me any attention.

  ‘Go then,’ my lord says shortly.

  Woodville grips my lord’s hand as if he would hold him, and then turns to me for the briefest of moments. I notice once more how very blue his eyes are, and then he has bowed and gone away. He hardly said goodbye.

  We go on by gentle stages to Rouen. My lord is not well enough to ride, he travels in a litter and his big war horse is led beside it. It goes uneasily, unhappy with an empty saddle, its head drooping as if it fears the loss of its master. My lord lies in the grand litter that he commissioned for me, drawn by white mules, but he can get no rest in the jolting of the long journey. It is like watching a great plough horse coming wearily to the end of a field, at the end of a long day. My lord is drained of energy and, looking at him, I can almost feel his deathly fatigue in my own young bones.

  ROUEN, FRANCE, SEPTEMBER 1435

  All through the long summer at Rouen my lord summons his lawyernd the councillors who have served him, and helped him to rule France for the thirteen hard years of his regency. Each day the envoys come and go from the peace conference that they are holding at Arras, each day my lord has them come to him and tell him of the progress they have made. He offers the young King of England in marriage to a French princess to resolve the conflict over the crown of France, he offers to leave the whole of the south of France under the rule of the Armagnacs; he cannot yield more. But they demand that the English
leave all of France, deny our right to the throne – as if we have not spent nearly a hundred years fighting for it! Each day my lord suggests new concessions, or a new way of writing the treaty, and each day his messengers take the high road to Arras as he watches the sunset through the windows of the castle at Rouen. Then one evening I see the messenger gallop from our stable yard and take the road to Calais. My lord has sent for Richard Woodville, and then he sends for me.

  His lawyer brings his will to him, and he commands that they make alterations. His entailed property will go to his male heir, his nephew, the young King of England. He smiles ruefully. ‘I don’t doubt he needs it badly,’ he says. ‘There is not a penny left in the royal treasury. And I don’t doubt he will waste it. He will give it away too readily, he is a generous boy. But it is his by rights, and his council will advise him. God help him between the advice of my brother and my uncle.’ To me he leaves my dower share: a third of his fortune.

  ‘My lord . . . ’ I stammer.

  ‘It is yours, you have been my wife, you have served me as a good wife, you deserve no less. Everything will be yours, while you carry my name.’

  ‘I did not expect . . . ’

  ‘No, nor I. Truly, I did not expect to be making my will so soon. But it is your right and my wish that you should have your share. But more than this, I will leave you my books, Jacquetta, my beautiful books. They will be yours now.’

  These are treasures indeed. I kneel at his bedside, and put my cheek to his cold hand. ‘Thank you. You know I will study them and keep them safe.’

  He nods. ‘In the books, Jacquetta, in one of them, somewhere is the answer that all men seek. The recipe for eternal life, for the pure water, for the gold that comes from soot, from dark matter. Perhaps you will read and find it when I am long gone.’

  There are tears in my eyes. ‘Don’t say it, my lord.’

  ‘Go away now, child, I need to sign this and then sleep.’

  I curtsey and slip from the room, and leave him with the lawyers.

  He does not allow me to come to him till the afternoon of the next day and even in that short time I see that he has lost a little more ground. His dark eyes are duller, the great beak of his nose seems bigger in his thinner face; I can see he is failing.

  He sits in his great chair, a chair as big as a throne, facing the window so that he can see the road to Arras, where the peace talks are still bickering on. The evening sunlight shines in the window making everything glow. I think this may be his last evening; that he may be setting with the sun.

  ‘This is where I first saw you this very castle, d’you remember?’ he asks, watching the sun go down into clouds of gold, and a pale ghost of a moon rise in the sky. ‘We were in this castle, in the entry-hall of this very castle, for the trial of the Maid?’

  ‘I remember.’ I remember only too well, but I have never reproached him with the death of Joan, though I do reproach myself for not speaking out for her.

  ‘Odd that I should be here to burn one Maid, and then find another,’ he says. ‘I burned her as a witch, but I wanted you for your skills. Odd, that. I wanted you the moment I saw you. Not as a wife, for I was married to Anne then. I wanted you as a treasure. I believed you had the Sight, I knew you were descended from Melusina, I thought you might bring the Stone to me.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘I am sorry I was not more skilled . . . ’

  ‘Oh . . . ’ He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘It was not to be. Perhaps if we had more time . . . but you did see a crown, didn’t you? And a battle? And a queen with horseshoes on backwards? The victory of my house, and the inheritance of my nephew and his line going on forever?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say to reassure him, though none of this was ever clear to me. ‘I saw your nephew on the throne, and I am sure that he will hold France. It won’t be him who loses Calais.’

  ‘You are sure of that?’

  At least I can promise him this. ‘I am sure it won’t be him who loses Calais.’

  He nods, and sits in silence for a moment. Then he says very quietly, ‘Jacquetta, would you take off your gown?’

  I am so surprised that I flinch a little and step back. ‘My gown?’

  ‘Yes, and your linen, everything.’

  I feel myself glow with embarrassment. ‘You want to see me naked?’

  He nods.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean in this daylight?’

  ‘In the sunset, yes.’

  I have no choice. ‘If you command it, my lord.’ I rise up from my chair and I untie the lacing on my top gown and let it drop to my feet. I step out of it, and shyly put it to one side. I take off my ornate headdress and shake the plaits out of my hair. My hair falls over my face as a sort of veil to shield me, and then I slip off my linen petticoats and the fine under-petticoat of silk, and I stand before him, naked.

  ‘Raise your hands,’ he commands. His voice is calm, he is looking at me without desire but with a sort of thoughtful pleasure. I realise that I have seen him look at pictures, at tapestries, at statues like this. I am, at this moment, what I have always been to him: an object of beauty. He has never loved me as a woman.

  Obediently, I raise my hands over my head, like a swimmer about to dive into deep water. The tears in my eyes are now running down my cheeks at the thought that I have been his wife and his bedfellow, his companion and his duchess, and even now, though he is near to death, still he does not love me. He has never lovedme. He never will love me. He gestures that I should turn a little to one side so the last rays of golden sunlight shall fall on my bare skin, turning my flanks and belly and breasts to gold too.

  ‘A girl of flame,’ he says quietly. ‘A golden maid. I am glad to have seen such a thing before I died.’

  I stand obediently still, though I can feel sobs shaking my slight body. At this moment of his death he sees me as an object transmuted into gold; he does not see me, he does not love me, he does not even want me for myself. His eyes go over every inch of me, thoughtfully, dreamily; but he does not notice my tears, and when I get dressed again, I wipe them away in silence.

  ‘I’ll rest now,’ he says. ‘I am glad to have seen such a thing. Tell them to get me into bed, and I will sleep.’

  His servants come in, they make him comfortable in his bed, and then I kiss his forehead and leave him for the night. As it happens, that is the last time I see him, for he dies in his sleep that night, and so that was the last he saw of me: not a loving wife but a statue gilded by the setting sun.

  They call me at about seven in the morning and I go to his room and see him, almost as I left him. He seems peacefully asleep, only the slow low tolling of the single bell in the tower of Rouen cathedral tells the household and the city that the great Lord John is dead. Then the women come to wash and lay out his body, and the master of the household starts to make the plans for his lying-in at the cathedral, the joiner orders wood and starts to make his coffin, and only Richard Woodville thinks to draw me aside, stunned and silent as I am, from all the bustle and work, and takes me back to my own rooms.

  He orders breakfast for me, and hands me over to the ladies of my chamber, telling them to see that I eat, and then rest. The sempstress and the tailors will come at once to measure us up for our mourning clothes, the shoemaker will come to make black slippers for me. The glovemaker will produce dozens of pairs of black gloves for me to distribute to my household. They will order black cloth to swathe the way to the cathedral, and black capes for the one hundred poor men who will be hired to follow the coffin. My lord will be buried in Rouen cathedral and there will be a procession of lords and a great service to bid him farewell, and everything must be done exactly as he would have wished it, with dignity, in the English style.

  I spend the day writing to everyone to announce the death of my husband. I write to my mother to tell her that I am a widow like her: my lord has died. I write to the King of England, to the Duke of Burgundy, to the Ho
ly Roman Emperor, to the other kings, to Yolande of Aragon. The rest of the time I pray; I attend every service of the day in our private chapel, and in the meantime the monks at the Rouen cathedral will watch and pray all the hours of the day and night over my husband’s body, which is guarded with four knights at every point of the compass: a vigil which will only end with his funeral.

  I wait in case God has some guidance for me, I wait on my knees in case I can come to some understanding that my husband has been called to his reward, that at last he has come to lands that he does not have to defend. But I hear and see nothing. Not even Melusina whispers a lament for him. I wonder if I have lost my Sight and that the brief glimpses I had in the mirror were the last views of another world that I will not see again.

  In the evening, about the hour of sunset, Richard Woodville comes to my rooms and asks me will I dine in the great hall of the castle among the men and women of our household, or will I be served alone, in my rooms?

  I hesitate.

  ‘If you feel you can come to the hall it would cheer them to see you,’ he says. ‘There are many in deep grief for my lord, and they would like to see you among them, and of course your household will have to be broken up, and they would like to see you before they have to leave.’

  ‘The household broken up?’ I ask foolishly.

  He nods. ‘Of course, my lady. A new regent for France will be appointed by the English court, and you will be sent to the court at England, for them to arrange a new marriage for you.’

  I look at him quite aghast. ‘I cannot think of marrying again.’

  I am not likely to find another husband who asks me for nothing more than that he can see me naked. Another husband is likely to be far more demanding, another husband will force himself on me, and another husband is almost certain to be wealthy and powerful and old. But the next old man will not let me study, he will not let me alone, he is certain to want a son and heir from me. He will buy me like a heifer to be put to the bull. I can squeal like a heifer in the meadow but he will mount me. ‘Truly, I cannot bear to be married again!’