Lady of the Rivers Read online

  We go in quietly, almost as if we are approaching some wounded animal that might take fright. The king is rising to his feet, a doctor on either side to help him support himself. He is unsteady, but he lifts his head when he sees the queen and he says, uncertainly, ‘Ah.’ I can almost see him seeking her name in the confusion in his mind. ‘Margaret,’ he says at last. ‘Margaret of Anjou.’

  I find there are tears in my eyes and I am holding back sobs at the wreck of this man who was born to be King of England and who I first knew when he was a boy as handsome as little Edward March, the York son. Now this hollowed-out man takes one tottering step, and the queen makes a deep curtsey to him. She does not reach out to touch him, she does not go into his arms. It is like the young woman and the Fisher King in the legend: she lives with him but they never touch. ‘Your Grace, I am glad to see you well again,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Have I been ill?’

  One deeply secret glance passes between her and me.

  ‘You fell asleep, into a deep sleep, and no-one could wake you.’

  ‘Really?’ He passes his hand over his head, and he sees for the first time the scar from a burning poultice on his arm. ‘Gracious me. Did I bump myself? How long was I asleep?’

  She hesitates.

  ‘A long time,’ I say. ‘And though you were asleep for a long time, the country is safe.’

  ‘That greagood,’ he says. ‘Heigh ho.’ He nods at the men who are holding him up. ‘Help me to the window.’

  He shuffles like an old man to the window and looks out at the water meadows and the river that still flows through the frosty white banks, just as it always did. He narrows his eyes against the glare. ‘It’s very bright,’ he complains. He turns and goes back to his chair. ‘I’m very tired.’

  ‘Don’t!’ An involuntary cry escapes from the queen.

  They ease him back into his chair, and I see him observe the straps on the arms and on the seat. I see him consider them, owlishly blinking, and then he looks around the stark bareness of the room. He looks at the table of physic. He looks at me. ‘How long was it, Jacquetta?’

  I press my lips together to hold back an outburst. ‘It was a long time. But we are so pleased you are better now. If you sleep now, you will wake up again, won’t you, Your Grace? You will try to wake up again?’

  I really fear he is going back to sleep. His head is nodding and his eyes are closing.

  ‘I am so tired,’ he says like a little child, and in a moment he is asleep again.

  We sit up through the night in case he wakes again; but he does not. In the morning the queen is pale and strained with anxiety. The doctors go in to him at seven in the morning and gently touch his shoulder, whisper in his ear that it is morning, and to their amazement he opens his eyes and sits up in his bed, and orders that the shutters be opened.

  He lasts till dinnertime, just after midday, and then sleeps again, but he wakes for his supper and asks for the queen, and when she enters the privy chamber he orders a chair to be set for her, and asks her how she does.

  I am standing behind her chair as she answers him that she is well, and then she asks, gently, if he remembers that she was with child when he fell asleep.

  His surprise is unfeigned. ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘I remember nothing. With child, did you say? Gracious, no.’

  She nods. ‘Indeed, yes. We were very happy about it.’ She shows him the jewel he had made for her, she had it in its case, ready to remind him. ‘You gave me this to celebrate the news.’

  ‘Did I?’ He is quite delighted with it. He takes it in his hand and looks at it. ‘Very good workmanship. I must have been pleased.’

  She swallows. ‘You were. We were. The whole country was pleased.’

  We are waiting for him to ask after the baby; but clearly, he is not going to ask after the baby. His head nods as if he is drowsy. He gives a tiny little snore. Margaret glances at me.

  ‘Do you not want to know about the child?’ I prompt. ‘You see the jewel that you gave the queen when she told you she was with child? That was nearly two years ago. The baby has been born.’

  He blinks, and turns to me. His look is quite without understanding. ‘What child?’

  I go to the door and take Edward from his waiting nurse. Luckily, he is sleepy and quiet. would not have dared to bring him lustily bawling into this hushed chamber. ‘This is the queen’s baby,’ I say. ‘Your baby. The Prince of Wales, God bless him.’

  Edward stirs in his sleep, his sturdy little leg kicks out. He is a toddler, handsome and strong, so unlike a newborn baby, that my confidence wavers even as I carry him towards the king. He is so heavy in my arms, a healthy child of fifteen months. It seems nonsensical to be presenting him to his father like a newborn. The king looks at him with as much detachment as if I am bringing a fat little lamb into the royal rooms.

  ‘I had no idea of it!’ he says. ‘And is it a girl or a boy?’

  The queen rises up and takes Edward from me, and proffers the sleeping child to the king. He shrinks away. ‘No, no. I don’t want to hold it. Just tell me. Is this a girl or a boy?’

  ‘A boy,’ the queen says, her voice quavering with disappointment at his response. ‘A boy, thank God. An heir to your throne, the son we prayed for.’

  He inspects the rosy face. ‘A child of the Holy Spirit,’ he says wonderingly.

  ‘No, your own true-born son,’ the queen corrects him sharply. I look and see that the doctors and their servants and two or three ladies in waiting will have heard this damning pronouncement from the king. ‘He is the prince, Your Grace. A son and heir for you, and a prince for England. The Prince of Wales; we christened him Edmund.’

  ‘Edward,’ I snap. ‘Edward.’

  She recovers herself. ‘Edward. He is Prince Edward of Lancaster.’

  The king smiles radiantly. ‘Oh, a boy! That’s a bit of luck.’

  ‘You have a boy,’ I say. ‘A son and heir. Your son and heir, God bless him.’

  ‘Amen,’ he says. I take the little boy from the queen and she sinks down again into her chair. The boy stirs and I hold him against my shoulder and rock gently. He smells of soap and warm skin.

  ‘And is he baptised?’ the king asks conversationally.

  I can see Margaret grit her teeth with irritation at this slow questioning of those terrible days. ‘Yes,’ she says pleasantly enough. ‘Yes, he is baptised, of course.’

  ‘And who are the godparents? Did I choose them?’

  ‘No, you were asleep. We – I – chose Archbishop Kemp, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Anne, Duchess of Buckingham.’

  ‘Just who I would have chosen,’ the king declares, smiling. ‘My particular friends. Anne who?’

  ‘Buckingham,’ the queen enunciates carefully. ‘The Duchess of Buckingham. But I am grieved to tell you that the archbishop is dead.’

  The king throws up his hands in wonder. ‘No! Why, how long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Eighteen months, Your Grace,’ I say quietly. ‘A year and a half. It has been a long time, we were all of us very afraid for your health. It is very good to see you well again.’

  He looks at me with his childlike trusting gaze. ‘It is a long time, but I remember nothing of the sleep. Not even my dreams.’

  ‘Do you remember falling asleep?’ I ask him quietly, hating myself.

  ‘Not at all!’ he chuckles. ‘Only last night. I can only remember falling asleep last night. I hope when I sleep tonight that I wake up again in the morning.’

  ‘Amen,’ I say. The queen has her face in her hands.

  ‘I don’t want to sleep another year away!’ he jokes.

  Margaret shudders, and then straightens up and folds her hands in her lap. Her face is like stone.

  ‘It must have been very inconvenient for you all,’ he says benevolently, looking round the privy chamber. He does not seem to understand that he has been abandoned by his court, that the only people here are his doctors and nurses and us, his fellow
prisoners. ‘I shall try not to do it again.’

  ‘We will leave you now,’ I say quietly. ‘This has been a great day for us all.’

  ‘I am very tired,’ he says confidingly. ‘But I do hope to wake tomorrow.’

  ‘Amen,’ I say again.

  He beams like a child. ‘It will be as God wills, we are all of us in His hands.’

  THE PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH,

  LONDON, SPRING 1455

  With the king awake, it is not to be how God

  wills; but how the queen wills. She sends a message at once to the council of lords, so explosive in tone and so dangerous in temper that they release the Duke of Somerset at once from the Tower, laying on him the embargo that he may not go within twenty miles of the king, nor engage in any form of political life. The duke, setting his London house in order and speedily arming his retinue, sends at once to his friends and allies and tells them that no-one will keep him from the king and that the Duke of York will be the first to realise that he has seized power.

  As if to celebrate their return to the centre of England, the queen and the king open the palace at Greenwich and summon the lords. The Duke of York obeys the summons and resigns his position as Protector of the Realm, and finds his other title, that of Constable of Calais, is to be lost too. It is given back once more to Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, out of jail and gloriously returned to greatness.

  He walks into the queen’s rooms in the palace as handsome and richly dressed as if he had been to the court of Burgundy for new clothes, not waiting for his trial for treason in the Tower. The wheel of fortune has thrown him high again, and there is no greater man at the court. All the ladies flutter as he comes into the room, nobody can take their eyes off him. He kneels in the centre of the room to Margaret, who flies across the room, her hands outstretched, the moment she sees him. He bows his dark head and takes both of her hands to his lips, inhaling the perfume on her fingers. The maid in waiting beside me lets out a little envious sigh. Margaret stands completely still, quivering at his touch, then she very quietly says, ‘Please rise, my lord, we are glad to see you at liberty again.’

  He gets to his feet in one graceful movement, and offers her his arm. ‘Shall we walk?’ he suggests, and the two of them lead the way into the great gallery. I follow with a lady in waiting, and I nod to the rest of them to stay where they are. Carefully, I dawdle behind, so that my companion cannot overhear their whispered speech.

  He bows and leaves her at the end of the gallery and Margaret turns to me, her face alight. ‘He is going to advise the king that the Duke of York need not be admitted to the council,’ she says delightedly. ‘We are only going to have those of the House of Lancaster around us. Anything that York gained while he was protector will be taken away from him, and his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and that overgrown cub, Richard Neville the Earl of Warwick, will not be invited either. Edmund says that he will turn the king against our enemies, and that they will be banned from all positions of power.’ She laughs. ‘Edmund says that they will be sorry for the day that they put him in the Tower and confined me to Windsor. He says they will go on their knees to me. He says the king hardly knows where he is, or what he is doing, and that between us, the two of us can command him. And we will throw down our enemies, perhaps into jail, perhaps to the gallows.’

  I put out my hand to her. ‘Your Grace . . . ’ But she is too delighted with the thought of revenge to hear a word of caution.

  ‘Edmund says that we have everything to play for now. We have the king returned to health and willing to do whatever we say, we have a son and heir that nobody can deny, and we can teach York a lesson that he will never forget. Edmund says that if we can prove York was planning to usurp the throne then he is a dead man.’

  Now I do interrupt. ‘Your Grace, surely this is going to send the Duke of York into outright rebellion? He is bound to defend himself against such charges. He will demand that the council renew the charges against the Duke of Somerset and then it will be the two of you and yours, against him and his.’

  ‘No!’ she replies. ‘For the king himself has declared before the lords that Somerset is a true friend and loyal kinsman and nobody will dare say anything against him. We are going to hold a council at Westminster, and York is not to be invited, and then we are going to hold a hearing against him in Leicester where he will be accused in his absence. And the Midlands are loyal to us, though London is sometimes uncertain. This is the end of the duke in his pride; and the beginning of my revenge on him.’

  I shake my head; there is nothing I can say to make her see that the Duke of York is too powerful to force into enmity.

  ‘You, of all people, should be pleased!’ she exclaims. ‘Edmund promises me that he will bring your husband, Richard, home.’

  Everyone has their price. Richard is mine. At once I forget to urge caution. I grasp her hands. ‘He will?’

  ‘He promised me. The king is going to give Edmund the keys to Calais, in front of everyone. Richard will be commended as a loyal commander and come home to you, York will be arrested, the kingdom will be ruled rightly by Edmund Beaufort and me, and we will all be happy again.’

  I am happy, I am in his arms, my face crushed against his padded jacket, his arms around me as tight as a bear, so that I cannot breathe. When I look up into his beloved weary face he kisses me so hard that I close my eyes and think myself a besotted girl again. I catch a breath and he kisses me some more. Dockyard workers and sailors shout encouragement and bawdy comments, but Richard does not even hear them. Beneath my cloak his hands stray from my waist and clutch at my hips.

  ‘Stop right there,’ I whisper.

  ‘Where can we go?’ he asks, as if we were young again.

  You would think we were youths again.

  ‘Come to the palace,’ I say. ‘Come on. Are your things packed?’

  ‘Damn my things,’ he says cheerfully.

  We walk handfast from the dockyard at Greenwich towards the palace, creep in by the back stairs like a lad and a slut from the stables, bolt my door and stay bolted in all day and all night.

  At midnight I send for some food and we eat wrapped in sheets beside the warm fire.

  ‘When shall we go to Grafton?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I want to see my children, and my new daughter. Then I shall come straight back, and I shall have to take ship, Jacquetta.’

  ‘Ship?’ I ask.

  He grimaces. ‘I have to take Beaufort’s orders myself,’ he says. ‘The fort has been torn apart from the inside out. I cannot leave them without a captain. I shall stay until the duke replaces me, and then I shall come straight home to you.’

  ‘I thought you were home now!’ I cry out.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I would fear for the garrison if I did not go back. Truly, my love, these have been terrible days.’

  ‘And then will you come home?’

  ‘The queen has promised, the duke has promised, and I promise it,’ he says. He leans forwards and pulls a lock of my hair. ‘It is hard to serve a country such as ours, Jacquetta. But the king is well now and taking his power, our house is in the ascendancy again.’

  I put my hand over his. ‘My love, I wish it were so, but it is not as easy as this. When you see the court tomorrow, you will see.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he says, puts his jug of ale aside and takes me back to bed.

  We snatch a few days together, long enough for Richard to understand that the queen and the duke plan to turn the tables entirely, and accuse Richard of York of treason and throw him and his allies down. We ride to Grafton in thoughtful silence, Richard greets his children, admires the new baby, and tells them he has to return to Calais to keep order at the garrison but that he will come home again.

  ‘Do you think that they will persuade the Duke of York to beg pardon?’ I ask him as he is saddling his horse in the stable yard. ‘And if he confesses and obeys the king will you be able to come straight home?’


  ‘He did so before,’ my husband says steadily. ‘And the king – sick or well – is still the king. The queen and the duke believe that they have to attack Richard of York to defend themselves, and if they defeat him then they will be proved right. I have to keep Calais for England and for my own honour, and then I will come home. I love you, my wife. I will be home soon.’

  At first the plan goes beautifully. Richard returns to Calais, pays the soldiers, and tells the garrison the king is in his power again, advised by the Duke of Somerset, and the House of Lancaster is in the ascendancy. The Privy Council turn against the man they called on as their saviour and agree to meet without the Duke of York. They choose the safe haven of Leicester for this meeting, the heartlands of the queen’s influence, her favourite county, and the traditional base for the House of Lancaster. Their choosing Leicester makes them feel safe; but it tells me, and anyone else who cares to consider, that they are afraid of what the citizens will think in London, of what they will say in the villages of Sussex, of what they will do in Jack Cade’s home of Kent.

  It is hard to get everyone to act: the lords and the gentry have to be summoned, the plan has to be explained, so that everyone understands the Duke of York is to be ill paid for loyal service to the country, his achievements traduced, and he and his allies are to be excluded from the council and the country turned against them.

  The king is so slow to leave for Leicester that he comes to bid farewell to the queen, Edmund Beaufort on his right, Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, on his left, on the very day that he had said he would arrive in Leicester. His nobility behind him are dressed for the road, some wearing light armour, most of them dressed as if riding out for pleasure. I look from one familiar face to another. There is not a man here who is not either kin to the House of Lancaster, or paid by the House of Lancaster. This is no longer the court of England, drawing on the support of many families, of many houses, this is the court of the House of Lancaster, and anyone who is not part of it is an outsider. And anyone who is an outsider is an enemy. The king bows low to Margaret and she formally wishes him a safe journey and prosperous return.