Lady of the Rivers Read online

  Elizabeth, who knew well enough how to run a household, who knew how to prepare herbs for the still room, indeed knows how they should be grown and when harvested, who knows the properties of a hundred plants and how to call the venom out of them – she is my daughter, after all – had the good sense and the good manners never to correct the lady of the house; but simply learned how it was done at Groby. Of course, she already knew how linen should be folded, or cream skimmed, she knew how a county lady should command her maids, actually she knows far more than Lady Grey will ever dream: for she has learned from me how a royal court is run and how things were done in the courts of France and of Luxembourg. But she accepted the orders of the woman who would be her mother-in-law as a polite young woman should, and gave every appearance of a girl eager to learn the right way that things should be done: the Groby way. In short, as she picked and dried the herbs for the Groby still room, prepared the oils, polished the silver and watched the cutting of the strewing rushes, my daughter enchanted the hard-hearted lady of Groby, just as she enchanted the son of the house.

  It is a good match for her. I had it in mind for years. She has my name and her father’s position in our county; but next to no dowry. Service to this king has not brought us a fortune. It seems to be profitable only for those lords who take their fees and do nothing. Those courtiers who do nothing but sympathise with the king and conspire with his wife can take a great profit, as we see from the rich lands that were given to William de la Pole and the extraordinary wealth that Edmund Beaufort now enjoys. But my husband took sixty lancers and nearly six hundred archers with him to Calais, all trained under his command, all wearing our livery, and all paid by us. The treasury has promised to reimburse us, but they might as well date the tally sticks the day of judgement; for the dead will rise from their graves before we can take the sticks into the treasury and get a full repayment. We have a new name and a beautiful house, we have influence and a reputation, we are trusted by both the king and the queen; but money – no, we never have any money.

  With this marriage my Elizabeth will become Lady Grey of Groby, mistress of a good part of Leicestershire, owner of Groby Hall and the other great properties in the Grey family, kinswoman to all the Greys. It is a good family, with good prospects for her, and they are solidly for the king and fiercely opposed to Richard, Duke of York, so we will never find her on the wrong side if the dispute between the Duke of York and his rival, the Duke of Somerset, grows worse.

  Elizabeth is to go to her wedding from our house with her father and me, and all the children except the two babies. But Richard is not yet home.

  ‘Where is Father?’ she asks me the day before we are due to leave. ‘You said he would be here yesterday.’

  ‘He will come,’ I say steadily.

  ‘What if he has been delayed? What if he could not get a ship? What if the seas were too rough to sail? I cannot be married without him to give me away. What if he does not get here?’

  I put my hand on my wedding ring, as if to touch his fingers that placed it there. ‘He will be here,’ I say. ‘Elizabeth, in all the years that I have loved him, he has never failed me. He will be here.’

  She frets all the day and I send her to bed that night with a tisane of valerian, and when I peep into her room she is fast asleep in her bed, her hair plaited under her nightcap, seeming as young as her sister Anne, who shares the bed with her. Then I hear the noise of horses in the stable yard and look from her window, and there is the Rivers sta>

  He holds me so tightly that I can hardly breathe, and then he turns my face up to his and kisses me.

  ‘I daresay I stink,’ is the first thing he says when he gets his breath. ‘You must forgive me. The tide was against us and so I have ridden hard to get here tonight. You knew I would not fail you, didn’t you?’

  I smile up at his handsome well-worn well-loved face: the man I have adored for so many years. ‘I knew you would not fail me.’

  The Greys have a small chapel at their house, opposite the great hall, where the young couple exchange the vows which are solemnly witnessed by both sets of parents and the brothers and sisters. Our family fills up the chapel. I can see Lady Grey look at the ranks of my children and think that her son is marrying fertile stock. After the wedding we walk through the cloister to the hall, and there is a feast and singing and dancing, and then we prepare them for bed.

  Elizabeth and I are alone in the bedroom that is going to be hers. It is a beautiful room, looking north over the pleasure grounds, towards the meadows and the river. I am feeling tenderhearted, this is my girl, the first child of mine to marry and leave her home. ‘What do you foresee for me, Lady Mother?’ she asks.

  This is a question I have been dreading. ‘You know I don’t foresee any more,’ I say. ‘That was something in my girlhood. They don’t like such things in England and I have put it aside. If it comes to me or to you it is without our bidding. Your father does not like it.’

  She gives a little giggle. ‘Oh, Lady Mother!’ she says reproachfully. ‘That you should stoop so low, and on my wedding day.’

  I cannot help but smile. ‘Stoop so low as to what?’

  ‘As to lie,’ she whispers. ‘And to me! On my wedding day! I understand now that you foresaw that John would love me, and I him. I picked the apple blossom and I gave him the apple, just as you said. But long before that, the moment I first saw him, I knew exactly what you intended when you sent me here. I was standing before his mother when she was at her table in the rents room, and he came in the door behind her – I had not even known he was at home – and the moment I saw him, I knew why you had sent me to Groby and what you thought would happen.’

  ‘And were you glad? Was I right to send you?’

  Her joy shines out of her bright grey eyes. ‘Very glad. I thought, if he were to like me, I should be the happiest girl in England.’

  ‘That was not foreseeing, that was nothing more than knowing that you are beautiful and lovable. I could have sent you to any handsome young man’s household and he would have fallen in love with you. There was no magic in that but a girl and a boy in springtime.’

  She is glowing. ‘I am glad. I wasn’t sure. I am so glad that he is in love but not enchanted. But surely you have looked to see my future? Did you put the charms in the river? What did you draw from the waters? Did you look for us in the cards? What will my future be?’

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  ‘I didn’t read the cards.’ I lie to her, my little daughter, I lie barefaced like a hard-hearted old witch, denying the truth on her wedding night, and I lie to her with my face completely serene. I am going to tell her a lie that is utterly convincing. I will not have my foresight overshadowing her present happiness. I will deny my gift, deny what it has shown me. ‘You are mistaken, my dear, I didn’t read the cards and I didn’t look in a mirror. I didn’t put any charms in the river because I didn’t have to. I can predict your happiness without any craft. Just as I knew he would love you. I can tell you that I know you will be happy, and I think there will be children, and the first one quite soon.’

  ‘Girl or boy?’

  ‘You will be able to tell that yourself,’ I smile. ‘Now you have your own wedding ring.’

  ‘And I will be Lady Grey of Groby,’ she says with quiet satisfaction.

  I feel a shiver, like a cold hand on the nape of my neck. I know that she will never inherit here. ‘Yes,’ I say, defying my better knowledge. ‘You will be Lady Grey of Groby and the mother of many fine children.’ This is what she must hear as she goes into her wedding bed on her wedding night. ‘God bless you, my darling, and give you joy.’

  The girls tap on the door and come into the room in a flurry, with rose petals for the bed and the jug of wedding ale and a bowl of scented water for her to wash with and her linen gown, and I help her get ready, and when the men come in, boisterous and drunk, she is lying in her bed like a chaste little angel. My husband and Lord Grey help John in beside her and he blushe
s furiously, like a boy, though he is twenty-one; and I smile as if I am wholly happy; and I wonder what it is that stops my heart in fear for the two of them.

  In two days we go back to our own house at Grafton, and I never tell Elizabeth, or anyone, that I did indeed read the cards for her, the very day that Lady Grey wrote to me to ask what dowry Elizabeth might bring to the marriage. I sat at the table looking out over the water meadow and the dairy, certain of her happiness, and took the cards in my hand. I turned over three, chosen at random, and all three were blank.

  The card-maker had put three spare cards in the pack when he first painted the pictures, three cards just like the others with brightly coloured backs but nothing on the front, spares for use in another game. And it was the three cards with nothing to say which came to my hand when I went to foresee Elizabeth’s future with John Grey. I had hoped to see prosperity and children, grandchildren and a rise in the world, but the cards were empty of anything. There was no future that I could see, for Elizabeth and John Grey: no future for them at all.

  PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH,

  LONDON, CHRISTMAS 1452

  Richard and I attend the court at Greenwich for Christmas and find the festivities and the hunts and the music and the dancing all under the command of Edmund Beaufort, who is such a centre of the happiness of the court that he is almost a king himself. He makes much of Richard, recommending him to the king as the man certain to hold Calais for us, and often takes him aside to discuss how an English expeition might force its way out of the Calais lands into Normandy once more. Richard follows his usual rule of fealty and loyalty to his commander, and I say nothing about the way that the queen’s eyes follow them when they talk together. But I know I have to speak to her again.

  I am forced to speak to her, driven to it, by a sense of duty. I almost smile to feel so bound; for I know this is the influence of my first husband, John, Duke of Bedford. He never avoided a difficult duty in his life and I feel as if he has laid on me the obligation to serve England’s queen even if it means challenging her behaviour and calling her to account.

  I choose a moment when we are preparing for a masque of Edmund Beaufort’s planning. He has ordered that the queen should have a gown of white, fastened high at the waist with a plaited gold cord, and that her hair should be loose. She is supposed to represent a goddess; but she looks like a bride. He has designed new sleeves for the white gown, cut so short and so wide that you can see her arms almost to the elbow. ‘You will have to wear another set of sleeves,’ I say frankly. ‘These are quite indecent.’

  She strokes the inside of her arm. ‘It feels so lovely,’ she says. ‘My skin feels like silk. It feels so wonderful to be this . . . ’

  ‘Naked,’ I finish for her; and without another word I find another pair of sleeves in her chest of clothes and start to lace them on. She lets me exchange the sleeves, without a word of complaint, and then sits before her mirror. I wave away her maid and take the hairbrush to stroke out the tangles from the long red-gold ringlets that fall almost to her waist. ‘The noble duke Edmund Beaufort pays you much attention,’ I say. ‘It is noticeable, Your Grace.’

  She gleams with pleasure. ‘Ah, you said before, Jacquetta. This is an old song. But he looks at me as a good courtier, a chevalier.’

  ‘He looks like a man in love,’ I say bluntly, expecting to shock her. But I am horrified to see the colour flame in her cheeks. ‘Oh, does he?’ she asks. ‘Does he really?’

  ‘Your Grace – what is happening? You know you should not be speaking of real love. A little poetry, a little flirtation is one thing. But you cannot think of him with desire.’

  ‘When he speaks to me, I come alive.’ She addresses my reflected image in the mirror, and I see her face gleaming and silvery through the looking glass. It is as if we are in another world, the world of the scrying mirror, and such things can be said. ‘With the king it is as if I am caring for a child. I have to tell him that he is in the right, that he should ride out like a man, that he should rule like a king. I have to praise him for his wisdom and coax him when he is upset. I am more a mother to him than a lover. But Edmund –’ She gives a little shuddering breath, lowers her eyes and then looks up at the mirror and shrugs, as if there is nothing she can do.

  ‘You must stop seeing him,’ I say hastily. ‘Or only see him when others are present. You must keep your distance.’

  She takes the brush from my hand. ‘Don’t you like him?’ she asks. ‘He says he likes and admires you. He says he is your friend. And he trusts Richard above all others. He praises him to the king.’

  ‘Nobody could help but like him,’ I say. ‘He is handsome, charming and one of the greatest men in England. But that doesn’t mean that the queen should feel anything for him but cousinly affection.’

  ‘You’re too late to tell me,’ she says, her voice silky and warm. ‘It is too late for me. It’s not cousinly affection. It is far beyond that. Jacquetta, for the first time in my life I feel as if I am alive. For the first time in my life I feel as if I am a woman. I feel beautiful. I feel desired. I cannot resist this.’

  ‘I told you before,’ I remind her. ‘I warned you.’

  Again, she lifts her beautiful shoulders. ‘Ah, Jacquetta. You know as well as I do what it is to be in love. Would you have stopped if someone had warned you?’

  I don’t answer her. ‘You will have to send him away from court,’ I say flatly. ‘You will have to avoid him, perhaps for months. This is a disaster.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘The king would never allow him to go. He won’t let him out of his sight. And I would just die if I did not see him, Jacquetta. You don’t know. He is my only companion, he is my chevalier, he is my champion: the queen’s champion.’

  ‘This is not Camelot,’ I warn her grimly. ‘These are not the times of the troubadours. People will think badly of you if they see you so much as smile at him, they will accuse him of being your favourite, or worse. What you are saying here is enough to have you put aside and sent to a nunnery. And if anyone heard you say it: it would be the end of him. Already he is hated and envied for being the favourite of the king. If one word gets out to the people that you favour him, they will say the most terrible things. You are the queen, your reputation is like Venetian glass: precious and fragile and rare. You have to take care. You are not a private lady, you cannot have private feelings.’

  ‘I will take care,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I swear I will take care.’ It is as if she is bartering for the right to be with him, and that she would offer anything for that right. ‘If I take care, if I don’t smile on him or ride too close to him, or dance with him too often, I can still see him. Can’t I? Everyone will think he is with us all the time at the king’s command, nobody need know that he makes me so happy, that it makes my life worth living, just to be with him.’

  I know I should tell her that she should never be alone with him at all, but her face is too imploring. She is lonely, and she is young, and it is miserable to be a young woman in a great court when nobody really cares for you. I know that. I know what it is like to have a husband who hardly sees you, but that there is one young man who can’t take his eyes from you. I know what it is like to burn up in a cold bed.

  ‘Just take care,’ I say, though I know I should tell her to send him away. ‘You will have to be careful all the time, every day of your life. And you cannot see him alone. You must never be alone with him. This cannot go beyond the chevalier and his honourable love for his lady. It cannot go beyond your secret joy. It has to stop here.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I have to talk with him,’ she says. ‘I have to be with him.’

  ‘You cannot. There can be no future for the two of you but shame and disgrace.’

  She leaves her mirror and moves to the great bed with the rich golden hangings. She pats it invitingly and slowly I come towards her. ‘Will you draw a card for him?’ she asks. ‘Then we would know the answers. Then we would know what future
there might be.’

  I shake my head. ‘You know that the king doesn’t like the cards,’ I say. ‘It is forbidden.’

  ‘Just one card. Just once. So that we might know what is to come. So that I will take care?’

  I hesitate, and in a moment she is at the bedroom door and calling for a pack of playing cards. One of the ladies offers to bring them through but the queen takes them at the bedroom door and hands them to me. ‘Go on!’ she says.

  Slowly, I take the cards and shuffle them. Of course, we play cards all the time at court; but the feeling of them in my hand as I seek only one, seek to divine the future, is quite different. I hand them to her.

  ‘Shuffle them. Then cut the cards,’ I say very quietly. ‘And cut them again.’

  Her face is entranced. ‘We will foretell his future?’

  I shake my head. ‘We cannot foretell his future, he would have to ask for the card, he would have to choose. We can’t do it without him. But we can tell how his life will touch yours. We can see which card shows his feeling for you, and yours for him.’

  She nods. ‘I want to know that,’ she whispers longingly. ‘Do you think he loves me, Jacquetta? You have seen him with me. Do you think he loves me?’

  ‘Spread the cards,’ I say.

  She makes a fan of the cards, their bright faces downwards.

  ‘Now choose.’

  Slowly, one finger moving across the painted backs, she muses on her choice, and then she points. ‘This one.’

  I turn it over. It is the Falling Tower. The tower of a castle, struck perhaps by lightning, a jagged streak of light flaming into the roof of the tower, the walls going one way, the roof the other. Two little figures fall from the tower to the grass below.