Lady of the Rivers Read online

  ‘I am sure it will be easily done and peacefully concluded,’ he says vaguely. ‘My cousin, the Duke of York, cannot be allowed to defy my authority, my authority, you know. I have told the Yorkist lords that they are to disband their armies. They can keep two hundred men each. Two hundred should be enough, shouldn’t it?’ He looks at the Duke of Somerset. ‘Two hundred is fair, isn’t it?’

  ‘More than fair,’ replies Edmund, who has about five hundred men in livery, and another thousand tenants that he can call up at a moment’s notice.

  ‘So I shall bid you farewell, and see you at Windsor when this work is done,’ the king says. He smiles at Beaufort and the Duke of Buckingham. ‘My good kinsmen will take care of me, I know. You can be sure that they will be at my side.’

  We go down to the great doorway to wave as they ride by. The king’s standard goes in front, then the royal guard, and the king comes next. He is wearing riding clothes for the journey, he looks thin and pale compared to the two most favoured dukes on either side of him. As they go by, the Duke of Somerset pulls off his hat to Margaret, and holds it to his heart. Hidden by her veil, she puts her fingers to her lips. The lesser noblemen, then the gentry, then the men at arms follow. There mut be about two thousand men riding out with the king and they rumble past us, the great war horses with their mighty hooves, the smaller horses carrying goods and gear, and then the booted tramp of the foot soldiers who march in disciplined ranks, and the stragglers who follow.

  The queen is restless at the Palace of Placentia, though the household is confident and busy, waiting for news of the king’s success with his hand-picked council. The gardens that run down to the river are beautiful with the white and pale pink of dancing cherry blossom, and when we walk to the river in a wind the petals whirl about us like snow and make the little prince laugh, and he chases after them, his nursemaid bowed over him as he wobbles on his fat little legs. In the fields at the riverside the late daffodils are still bobbing their butter-yellow heads and the hedges of the meadows are burnished white with flowers, the blackthorn thickly blooming on black spikes, the hawthorn a budding green of promise. At the riverside the willows rustle their boughs together and lean over the clear water, green water below reflecting the green leaves above.

  In the chapel we are still saying prayers for the health of the king and giving thanks for his recovery. But nothing cheers the queen. She cannot forget that she was imprisoned by the lords of her own country, forced to wait on a sleeping husband, fearful that she would never be free again. She cannot forgive Richard, Duke of York, for the humiliation. She cannot be happy when the only man who stood by her in those hard months, enduring captivity as she did, has marched away again, to meet their enemy. She does not doubt that he will be victorious; but she cannot be happy without him.

  Margaret shudders as she comes into her apartments, though there is a good fire in the grate, bright tapestries on the walls, and the last rays of the sun are warming the pretty rooms. ‘I wish they had not gone,’ she says. ‘I wish they had summoned the Duke of York to London to answer us there.’

  I don’t remind her that York is a great favourite in London; the guilds and the merchants trust his calm common sense, and flourished when he established peace and good order in the city and country. While the duke was lord protector the tradesmen could send their goods out along the safe roads, and taxes were reduced with the profligate royal household under his control. ‘They’ll be back soon,’ I say. ‘Perhaps York will plead for forgiveness as he did before, and they will all come back soon.’

  Her uneasiness affects everyone. We dine in the queen’s rooms, not in the great hall, where the men at arms and the men of the household grumble that there is no cheer, even though the king has recovered. They say that the court is not how it should be. It is too silent, it is like an enchanted castle under a spell of quietness. The queen ignores the criticism. She summons musicians to play only to her, in her rooms, and the younger ladies dance but they only go through the paces without the handsome young men of the king’s retinue to watch them. Finally, she commands one of the ladies in waiting to read to us from a romance, and we sit and sew and listen to a story about a queen who longed for a child in midwinter, and gave birth to a baby who was made entirely of snow. When the child grew to manhood, her husband took him on crusade, and he melted away into the hot sand, poor boy; and then they had no son, not even one made of ice.

  This miserable story makes me ridiculously sentimental and I feel disposed to sit and weep and brood over my boys at Grafton, wis that I will never see again, and my oldest, Anthony, thirteen this year, who must soon have his own armour and go and serve as a squire to his father or another great man. He has grown up in no time, and I wish he were a baby again and I could carry him on my hip. It makes me long to be with Richard again, we have never been so long apart in our lives before. When the Duke of York is thrown down by the king, then Edmund Beaufort will take up his command in Calais and order Richard home, and our lives can get back to normal once more.

  Margaret summons me to her bedroom and I go to sit with her as they lift the tight headdress which fits like a cap, low over her ears, uncoil the plaits and brush out her hair. ‘When do you think they will come home?’ she asks.

  ‘Within the week?’ I guess. ‘If all goes well.’

  ‘Why should it not all go well?’

  I shake my head. I don’t know why she should not be happy and excited, as she was when this plan was first explained to her by the Duke of Somerset. I don’t know why the palace, which is always such a pretty home for the court, should seem so cold and lonely tonight. I don’t know why the girl should have picked a story about a son and heir who melts away before he can inherit.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. I shiver. ‘I expect it will all be well.’

  ‘I am going to bed,’ she says crossly. ‘And in the morning we can go hunting and be merry. You are poor company, Jacquetta. Go to bed yourself.’

  I don’t go to bed as she bids me, though I know I am poor company. I go to my window and I swing open the wooden shutter and I look down over the water meadows in the moonlight and the long silver curve of the river, and I wonder why I feel so very low in my spirits on a warm May night in England, the prettiest month of the year, when my husband is coming home to me after grave danger, and the King of England is riding out in his power and his enemy is to be brought down.

  Then, the next day, in the late afternoon, we get news, terrible news, unbelievable news. Nothing is clear to us, as we order messengers to be brought before the queen, as we demand that men scrambling away from some sort of battle are captured and brought to the royal chambers to say what they saw, as we send men speeding out towards St Albans on the road going north, where it seems that the Duke of York, far from riding peaceably to his ordeal, and waiting patiently to be arraigned as a traitor, instead mustered an army and came to plead with the king that his enemies be set aside and that the king be a good lord for all England and not just for Lancaster.

  One man tells us that there was some sort of riot in the narrow streets, but that he could not see who had the advantage as he was wounded and was left where he fell. Nobody helped him, a thing most discouraging for a common soldier, he said, one eye on the queen. ‘Makes you wonder whether your lord cares for you at all,’ he grumbles. ‘It’s not good lordship to leave a man down.’

  Another man, riding back to us with news, says that it is a war: the king raised his standard, and the Duke of York attacked, and the Duke of York was cut down. The queen is out of her chair, her hand to her heart at this report; but later in the evening, the messenger that we sent to London comes back and says that from what he can gather in the steets, the greatest fighting was between the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Warwick’s men, and that the Earl of Warwick’s men fought through the gardens and over the little walls, climbed over hen-houses and waded through pigsties to get to the heart of the town, avoiding the barricades and coming from a dire
ction that no-one could have predicted, surprising the Duke of Somerset’s men, and throwing them into confusion.

  Margaret strides about her room, furious with waiting, mad with impatience. Her ladies shrink back against the walls and say nothing. I stop the nursemaid in the doorway with the little prince. There will be no playtime for him this afternoon. We have to know what is happening; but we cannot discover what is happening. The queen sends out more messengers to London and three men are commanded to ride on to St Albans with a private note from her to the Duke of Somerset, and then all we can do is wait. Wait and pray for the king.

  Finally, as it grows dark and the servants come in with the lights and go quietly round lighting sconces and branches of candles, the guards swing open the doors and announce, ‘King’s messenger.’

  The queen rises to her feet, I go to stand beside her. She is trembling slightly, but the face she shows to the world is calm and determined.

  ‘You may come in and tell me your message,’ she says.

  He strides in and drops to his knee, his hat in his hand. ‘From His Grace the king,’ he says, and shows in his clasped fist a ring. Margaret nods to me and I go forwards and take it.

  ‘What is your message?’

  ‘His Grace the king wishes you well, and sends his blessing to the prince.’

  Margaret nods.

  ‘He says he is in good company with his fair kinsman the Duke of York this night, and will come in the company of His Grace to London tomorrow.’

  Margaret’s long-held breath comes out as a little hiss.

  ‘The king bids you be of good cheer and says that God will arrange all things and all things will be well.’

  ‘And what of the battle?’

  The messenger looks up at her. ‘He sent no message about the battle.’

  She bites her lower lip. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He asks you and the court to give thanks for his escape from danger this very day.’

  ‘We will do so,’ Margaret says. I am so proud of her restraint and dignity that I put my hand gently on her back, in a hidden caress. She turns her head and whispers, ‘Get hold of him as he leaves and find out what in the name of God is happening,’ and then she turns to her ladies and says, ‘I will go straight away and give thanks for the safety of the king, and the court will come with me.’

  She leads the way out of the rooms to the chapel and the court has no choice but to follow her. The messenger starts to fall into line at the back; but I touch his sleeve, take his arm, back him into a convenient corner as if he were a skittish horse, and forestall anyone else getting hold of him.

  ‘What happened?’ I demand tersely. ‘The queen wants to know.’

  ‘I delivered the message as I was told,’ he says.

  ‘Not the message, fool. What happened during the day? What did you see?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I saw only a little fighting, it was in and out of the streets and the yards and the ale-houses. More like a brawl than a battle.’

  ‘You saw the king?’

  He glances around, as if he fears that people might overhear his words. ‘He was struck in the neck by an arrow,’ he says.

  I gasp.

  The messenger nods, his eyes as round with shock as my own. ‘I know.’

  ‘How ever was he within range?’ I demand furiously.

  ‘Because the Earl of Warwick brought his archers through the streets, up the gardens and in and out of the alleys. He didn’t come up the main street like everyone expected. Nobody was ready for him to advance like that. I don’t think anyone has ever led an attack like that before.’

  I put my hand to my heart and know with a pulse of pure joy that Richard was stationed in Calais and not in the king’s guard when Warwick’s men came like murderers in and out of the little alleys. ‘Where was the royal guard?’ I demand. ‘Why did they not shield him?’

  ‘Cut down around him, most ran off,’ he says succinctly. ‘Saw the way it was going. After the duke died . . . ’

  ‘The duke?’

  ‘Cut down as he came out of a tavern.’

  ‘Which duke?’ I insist. I can feel my knees are shaking. ‘Which duke died as he came out of the tavern?’

  ‘Somerset,’ he says.

  I grit my teeth and straighten up, fighting a wave of sickness. ‘The Duke of Somerset is dead?’

  ‘Aye, and the Duke of Buckingham surrendered.’

  I shake my head to clear it. ‘The Duke of Somerset is dead? You are sure? You are certain sure?’

  ‘Saw him go down myself, outside a tavern. He had been hiding in it, he wouldn’t surrender. He broke out with his men, thought he would fight himself out; but they cut him down on the threshold.’

  ‘Who? Who cut him down?’

  ‘The Earl of Warwick,’ he says shortly.

  I nod, recognising a death-feud. ‘And where is the king now?’

  ‘Held by the Duke of York. They will rest tonight and pick up the wounded, they are looting St Albans, of course, the town will be all but destroyed. And then tomorrow they will all come to London.’

  ‘The king is fit to travel?’ I am so afraid for him, this is his first battle and it sounds like a massacre.

  ‘He is going in state,’ the messenger says mirthlessly. ‘With his good friend the Duke of York on one side, the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Neville, on the other, and the earl son, the young Earl of Warwick, hero of the battle, leading the way holding the king’s sword.’

  ‘A procession?’

  ‘A triumphant procession, for some of them.’

  ‘The House of York has the king, they are carrying his sword before them, and they are coming to London?’

  ‘He is going to show himself wearing the crown so that everyone knows he is well, and in his right mind at the moment. In St Paul’s. And the Duke of York is going to set the crown on his head.’

  ‘A crown-wearing?’ It is hard not to shiver. It is one of the sacred moments of a reign, when a king shows himself to his people in his coronation crown again. It is done to tell the world that the king has returned to them, that he is in his power. But this is going to be different. This will show the world that he has lost his power. He is going to show the world that the Duke of York holds the crown but lets him wear it. ‘He is going to allow the duke to crown him?’

  ‘And we are all to know that their differences have been resolved.’

  I glance towards the door. I know that Margaret will be waiting for me, and I will have to tell her that the Duke of Somerset is dead, and her husband in the hands of her enemy.

  ‘Nobody can think that this is a lasting peace,’ I say quietly. ‘Nobody can think that the differences are resolved. It is the start of bloodshed, not the end of it.’

  ‘They had better think it, for it is going to be treason even to talk about the battle,’ he says grimly. ‘They say we must forget about it. As I came away, they passed a law that we were all to say nothing. It is to be as if it never was. What d’you think of that, eh? They passed a law to say we must be silent.’

  ‘They expect people to behave as if it didn’t happen!’ I exclaim.

  His smile is grim. ‘Why not? It wasn’t a very big battle, my lady. It wasn’t very glorious. The greatest duke hid in a tavern and came out to his death. It was all over in half an hour, and the king never even drew his sword. They found him hiding in a tanner’s shop amid the flayed hides and they chased his army through the pigsties and gardens. It isn’t one that any of us are going to be proud to remember. Nobody will be telling this at the fireside ten years from now. No-one will tell his grandson about it. All of us who were there will be glad to forget it. It’s not as if we were a happy few, a band of brothers.’

  I wait in Margaret’s rooms as she leads the court back from their thanksgiving for the king’s safekeeping. When she sees my grave face, she announces that she is tired and will sit with me alone. When the door closes behind the last of the ladies in waiting, I start to take the pins ou
t of her hair.

  She grips my hand. ‘Don’t, Jacquetta. I can’t bear to be touched. Just tell me. It’s bad, isn’t it?’

  I know that in her place I would rather know the worst thing first. ‘Margaret, it breaks my heart to tell you – His Grace the Duke of Somerset is dead.’

  For a moment she does not hear me. ‘His Grace?’

  ‘The Duke ofSomerset.’

  ‘Did you say dead?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Do you mean Edmund?’

  ‘Edmund Beaufort, yes.’

  Slowly, her grey-blue eyes fill with tears, her mouth trembles, and she puts her hands to her temples as if her head is ringing with pain. ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘You’re sure? The man was sure? Battles can be so confusing, it could be a false report?’

  ‘It might be. But he was very sure.’

  ‘How could it be?’

  I shrug. I am not going to tell her the details now. ‘Hand-to-hand fighting, in the streets . . . ’

  ‘And the king sent me a message ordering me to lead a service of thanksgiving? Is he completely insane now? He wants a service of thanksgiving when Edmund is dead? Does he care for nothing? Nothing?’

  There is a silence, then she gives a shuddering sigh as she realises the extent of her loss.

  ‘The king perhaps did not send the message for thanksgiving,’ I say. ‘It will have been ordered by the Duke of York.’

  ‘What do I care for that? Jacquetta – how shall I ever manage without him?’

  I take her hands to prevent her from pulling at her hair. ‘Margaret, you will have to bear it. You will have to be brave.’

  She shakes her head, a low moan starting in her throat. ‘Jacquetta, how shall I manage without him? How shall I live without him?’

  I put my arms around her and she rocks with me, the low cry of pain going on and on. ‘How shall I live without him? How am I going to survive here without him?’