Lady of the Rivers Read online

  The garrison and town of Calais are at war with themselves, and are no more welcoming to the newly nominated commander, the victorious young Earl of Warwick, than they were to the former constable, his ally, the Duke of York. I imagine, and I fear, that Richard is keeping the York allies out of the castle and holding the town for Lancaster. A forlorn hope, and a lonely posting. I imagine that he is keeping faith with Lancaster and thinks that to hold Calais for the silent king is the best service he can offer. But through the Christmas feast and the winter months, I cannot get any news of him, except to know that he is alive, and that the garrison has sent word that they will never admit the Earl of Warwick to the castle which is loyal to the man he killed: the dead Lord Somerset.

  It is not until spring that things start to improve. ‘The king is better,’ Margaret announces to me.

  I look at her doubtfully. ‘He speaks better than he did,’ I agree. ‘But he is not himself yet.’

  She grits her teeth. ‘Jacquetta – perhaps he will never be as he was. His wound has healed, he can speak clearly, he can walk without stumbling. He can pass as a king. From a distance he can look commanding. That has to be enough for me.’

  ‘For you to do what?’

  ‘For me to take him back to London, show him to the council, and take the power from the Duke of York once more.’

  ‘He is the shell of a king,’ I warn her. ‘A puppet king.’

  ‘Then it will be me who pulls the strings,’ she promises. ‘And not the Duke of York. While we are here and allow the protectorate to reign, the Duke of York takes all the posts, all the fees, all the taxes and all the favours. He will strip the country bare and we will end up with nothing. I have to put the king back on his throne and York back in his place. I have to save my son’s inheritance for when he can come of age and fight his own battles.’

  I hesitate, thinking of the king’s nervous tremor of the head, of the way he flinches at sudden noise. He will be unhappy in London, he will be frightened in Westminster. The lords will appeal to his judgement and demand that he rules. He cannot do it. ‘There will be continual quarrels in the council and shouting. He will break down, Margaret.’

  ‘I will order your husband home,’ she tempts me. ‘I will tell the king to pardon the garrison and allow the guard home. Richard can come home and see his grandson, and meet his son. He has not even seen your new baby.’

  ‘A bribe,’ I remark.

  ‘A brilliant bribe,’ she replies. ‘Because it’s irresistible, isn’t it? So do you agree? Shall we set the king to claim his throne again?’

  ‘Would you stop on this course if I disagree with you?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I am determined. Whether you are with me or not, Jacquetta, I will take command through my husband, I will save England for my son.’

  ‘Then bring Richard home and we will support you. I want him in my life again, in my sight, and in my bed.’

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,

  SPRING 1456

  Richard’s recall from Calais is one of the first acts of the restored king. We go in state t

  o Westminster and announce the king’s recovery to the council. It goes better than I had dared to hope. The king is gracious and the council openly relieved at his return; the king is now to govern with the advice of the Duke of York. The king pardons the garrison of Calais for refusing to admit both York and Warwick, and he signs a pardon especially for Richard, to forgive him for his part in the rebellion against the lord protector.

  ‘Your husband is a loyal servant to me and my house,’ he remarks to me, when he comes to the queen’s rooms before dinner. ‘I will not forget it, Lady Rivers.’

  ‘And may he come home?’ I ask. ‘He has been away such a long time, Your Grace.’

  ‘Soon,’ he promises me. ‘I have written to him and to Lord Welles that I myself appoint the Earl of Warwick as Captain of Calais and so they can take it as my command that they are to admit him. When they admit the earl, and he takes up his post, youd can come home.’ He sighs. ‘If only they would live together in loving kindness,’ he says. ‘If only they would be as birds in the trees, as little birds in the nest.’

  I curtsey. The king is drifting into one of his dreams. He has a vision of a kinder world, a better world, which nobody could deny. But it is no help for those of us who have to live in this one.

  The king’s pain at his unexpected wound, his shock at the brutality of battle and the cruelty of death in the streets of St Albans seems to have gone very deep. He says that he is well now, we have given thanks in a special Mass, and everyone has seen him walk without stumbling, talk to petitioners, and sit on his throne; but neither the queen nor I can feel confident that he won’t drift away again. He especially dislikes noise or disagreement, and the court, the parliament and the king’s council is riven with faction; there are daily quarrels between the followers of the York lords and our people. Any trouble, any discord, any unhappiness, and his gaze drifts away, he looks out of the window and he falls silent, slipping away in a daydream. The queen has learned never to disagree with him, and the little prince is whisked from the room whenever he raises his voice or runs about. The whole court tiptoes about its business so as not to disturb the king, and so far we have managed to keep him in at least the appearance of kingship.

  The queen has learned to control her temper, and it has been very sweet to see her discipline herself so that she never startles or alarms her husband. Margaret has a quick temper and a powerful desire to rule, and to see her bite her tongue and hear her lower her voice so as not to confront the king with the usurpation of his powers is to see a young woman growing into wisdom. She is kind to him in a way that I thought she could never be. She sees him as a wounded animal, and when his eyes grow vague or he looks about him, trying to remember a word or a name, she puts her hand gently on his and prompts him, as sweetly as a daughter with a father in his dotage. It is a sorry end for the marriage that started in such hopes, and the king’s hidden weakness is her hidden grief. She is a woman sobered by loss: she has lost the man she loved, she has lost her husband; but she does not complain of her life to anyone but me.

  To me, her temper is not muted, and often she blazes out when we are alone. ‘He does whatever the Duke of York tells him,’ she spits. ‘He is his puppet, his dog.’

  ‘He is obliged to govern with the agreement of the duke, and with the earls of Salisbury and Warwick,’ I say. ‘He has to answer the objection that the Privy Council made against him: that he was only for Lancaster. Now there is a parliament which is influenced by all the great men, York as well as Lancaster. In England, this is how they like it, Your Grace. They like to share power. They like many advisors.’

  ‘And what about what I like?’ she demands. ‘And what about the Duke of Somerset who lies dead, thanks to them? The dearest, truest . . . ’ She breaks off and turns away so that I cannot see the grief in her face. ‘And what about the interest of the prince, my son? Who will serve me and the prince? Who will satisfy our likes – never mind those of the council?’

  I say nothing. There is no arguing with her when she rages against the Duke of York. ‘I won’t stand for it,’ she says. ‘I am taking the prince and going to Tutbury Castle for the summer, and then on to Kenilworth. I won’t stay in London, I won’t be imprisoned in Windsor again.’

  ‘Nobody is going to imprison you . . . ’

  ‘You can go and see your children,’ she rules. ‘And then you can meet me. I won’t stay in London to be ordered about by the duke and insulted by the citizens. I know what they say about me. They think I am a virago married to a fool. I won’t be so abused. I shall go and I shall take the court with me, far from London and far from the duke, and he can give what orders he likes; but I won’t have to see them. And the people of London can see how they like their city when there is no court here, and no council and no parliament. I will see them go bankrupt, they will be sorry when I take the court away and give our presence and our wea
lth to the people of the Midlands.’

  ‘What about the king?’ I ask carefully. ‘You can’t just leave him in London on his own. It is to throw him into the keeping of the Duke of York.’

  ‘He will join me when I order it,’ she says. ‘No-one will dare to tell me that my husband shall not be with me, when I command it. The duke will not dare to keep us apart, and I am damned if he will have me locked up in Windsor again.’

  GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,

  SUMMER 1456

  I wait for Richard to come home to us at Grafton, enjoying my summer with our children. Elizabeth is at Gro

  by with her new baby and her sister Anne is visiting her. I have placed Anthony with Lord Scales, serving as his squire, learning the ways of a noble house, and Lord Scales as it happens has a daughter, an only daughter, his heiress, Elizabeth. My Mary is thirteen now, and I must look around for a husband for her; she and her sister Jacquetta are staying with the Duchess of Buckingham, learning the ways of that house. My boy John is at home; he and Richard are set to their studies with a new tutor, Martha will join them in the schoolroom this year. Eleanor and Lionel are still in the nursery, with their two-year-old sister Margaret, and their little brother Edward.

  I don’t have to wait long for my husband’s return. First I get a message that Richard has been released from his duty at Calais, and then – hard on the heels of the messenger – I see the dust on the road from Grafton coming up the drive to the house and I pick up Edward out of the cradle and hold him to me, shading my eyes with my hand and looking down the road. I plan that Richard shall ride up and see me here, my newest baby in my arms, our house behind me, our lands safe around us, and he will know that I have kept faith with him, raised his children, guarded his lands, as he has kept faith with me.

  I can see, I think I can see, the colours of his standard, and then I am certain it is his flag, and then I know for sure that the man on the big horse at the head of the company is him, and I forget all about how I want him to see me, thrust Edward into the arms of his wet nurse, pick up my skirts and start to run down the terrace of the house, down the steps to the road. And I hear Richard shout, ‘Holloa! My duchess! My little duchess!’ and see him pull his horse to a standstill and fling himself down, and in a moment I am in his arms and he is kissing me so hard that I have to push him away, and then I pull him close again to hold him to me, my face to his warm neck, his kisses on my hair, as if we were sweethearts that have been parted for lifetime.

  ‘Beloved,’ he says to me, breathless himself. ‘It has been forever. I was afraid you would forget all about me.’

  ‘I have missed you so,’ I whisper.

  My tears are wet on my cheeks and he kisses them, murmuring, ‘I missed you too. Dear God, there were times when I thought I would never get home.’

  ‘And you are released? You don’t have to go back again?’

  ‘I am released. Warwick will put in his own men, I hope to God I never see the town again. It was a misery, Jacquetta. It was like being in a cage for all that long time. The countryside outside is unsafe, the Duke of Burgundy raids and the King of France threatens, we were constantly alert for an invasion from England and the York lords, and the town was on the brink of bankruptcy. The men were mutinous, and nobody could blame them, and worst of all I was never sure what I should do for the best. I could not tell what was happening in England. And then, I could get no news of you. I didn’t even know if you were safely up from childbirth . . . ’

  ‘I kept writing,’ I say. ‘I kept writing but I guessed you didn’t get the letters. And sometimes I couldn’t find anyone to take a message. But I sent you fruits and a barrel of salted pork?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I never got a thing. And I was desperate for a kind word from you. And you had to manage all alone – and with a new baby!’

  ‘This is Edward,’ I say proudly and beckon to the wet nurse to come up and hand our son to his father. Edward opens his dark blue eyes and regards his father gravely.

  ‘He is thriving?’

  ‘Oh yes, and all the others too.’

  Richard looks around at his other children, tumbling out of the front door, the boys pulling off their caps, the girls running towards him, and he goes down on his knees to them, spreading his arms wide so they can all run at him and hug him. ‘Thank God I am home,’ he says with tears in his eyes. ‘Thank God for bringing me, safe, to this my home, and my wife and my children.’

  That night in bed, I find I am shy, fearing that he will see a difference in me – another year gone by, and another birth to broaden my hips and thicken my waist – but he is gentle and tender with me, loving as if he was still my squire and I was the young duchess. ‘Like playing a lute,’ he says with a roll of laughter under the whisper. ‘You always remember the way, when it is in your hand again. The mind can play tricks; but the body remembers.’

  ‘And is there many a good tune played on an old fiddle?’ I demand with pretend offence.

  ‘If you find a perfect match then you keep it,’ he says gently. ‘And I knew when I first saw you that you were the woman I would want for all my life.’ Then he gathers me into his warm shoulder and falls asleep, holding me tightly.

  I fall asleep in his arms like a mermaid diving into dark water but in the night something wakes me. At first I think it may be one of the children, so I struggle awake and slide from under the covers to sit on the side of the bed to listen. But there is no sound in our quiet house, just the creak of a floorboard and the sigh of wind through an open window. The house is at peace, the master is safely home at last. I go into the chamber outside our bedroom and open the window and swing wide the wooden shutter. The summer sky is dark, dark blue, as dark as a silk ribbon, and the moon is on the wax, like a round silver seal, low on the horizon, sinking down. But in the sky, towards the east, is a great light – low over the earth, a blaze of light, shaped like a sabre, pointing to the heart of England, pointing to the Midlands, where I know Margaret is arming her castle and preparing her attack on the Yorks. I gaze up at the comet, yellow in colour, not white and pale like the moon, but golden, a gilt sabre pointed at the heart of my country. There is no doubt in my mind that it foretells war and fighting and that Richard will be in the forefront as ever, and that now I have new men to worry about as well: Elizabeth’s husband, John, and Anthony, my own son, and all the other sons who will be raised in a country at war. For a moment I even think of the young son of the Duke of York that I saw with his mother that day at Westminster: young Edward, a handsome boy; no doubt his father will take him to war and his life will be at risk too. The sabre hangs in the sky above us all, like a sword waiting to fall. I look at it for a long time, and think that this star should be called the widow-maker; and then I close the shutter and go back to my bed to sleep.

  KENILWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE,

  SUMMER 1457

  Richard and I join the court at the very heart of Margaret’s lands, in the castle she loves best

  in England: Kenilworth. As my guard and I ride up, I see to my horror that she has prepared it for a siege, just as the night sky foretold. The guns are mounted and looking over the newly repaired walls. The drawbridge is down for now, bridging the moat, but the chains are oiled and taut, ready to raise it in a moment. The portcullis is glinting at the top of the arch, ready to fall at the moment the command is given, and the number and the smartness of the household show that she has manned a castle here, not staffed a home.

  ‘She is ready for a war,’ my husband says grimly. ‘Does she think Richard of York would dare to attack the king?’

  We come into her presence as soon as we have washed off the dust from the road and find her sitting with the king. I can see at once that he is worse again; his hands are trembling slightly and he is shaking his head, as if denying his thoughts, as if wanting to look away. He shivers a little, like a frightened leveret that only wants to lie down in the springing corn and be ignored. I cannot look at him without wanting
to hold him still.

  Margaret looks up as I come in and beams her happiness to see me. She declares, ‘See, my lord, we have many friends: here is Jacquetta, Lady Rivers, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford. You remember what a good friend she is to us? You remember her first husband who was your uncle John, Duke of Bedford? And here is her second husband, the good Lord Rivers who held Calais for us, when the bad Duke of York wanted to take it away.’

  He looks at me but there is no recognition in his face, just the blank gaze of a lost boy. He seems younger than ever, all his knowledge of the world has been forgotten, his ired. ence shines out of him. I hear Richard behind me make a small muffled exclamation. He is shocked at the sight of his king. I had warned him several times; but he had not realised that the king had become a prince, a boy, a babe.

  ‘Your Grace,’ I say, curtseying to him.

  ‘Jacquetta will tell you that the Duke of York is our enemy, and we must prepare to fight him,’ the queen says. ‘Jacquetta will tell you that I have everything prepared, we are certain to win. Jacquetta will tell you that when I say the word our troubles are over and he is destroyed. He has to be destroyed, he is our enemy.’

  ‘Oh, is he French?’ the king asks in his little-boy voice.

  ‘Dear God,’ Richard mutters quietly.

  I see her bite her lip to curb her irritation. ‘No,’ she says. ‘He is a traitor.’

  This satisfies the king for only a moment. ‘What is his name?’

  ‘The Duke of York, Richard. Richard, Duke of York.’

  ‘Because I am sure someone told me that it was the Duke of Somerset who was a traitor, and he is in the Tower.’

  This sudden reference to Edmund Beaufort, and from the king himself, is shockingly painful to her, and I see her suddenly go pale and look away. She takes a moment and when she turns back to us she has herself utterly under control. I see that she has grown in determination and courage this summer, she is forging herself into a powerful woman. She has always been strong-willed; but now she has a sick husband and a rebellious country, and she is turning herself into a woman who can protect her husband and dominate her country.