The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  He shrugs. ‘Tere was a plan to ambush the duke only a few years ago as they came back to Paris and he and the Duchess Anne had to take to the forest tracks and ride round the enemy camp. And I hear that the roads in England are now as unsafe as those in France. There are robbers and highwaymen on every English road, and near the coast there are pirates who land and take captives and sell them into slavery.’

  We start off at a walk. I seat myself more firmly in the saddle and Merry’s ears go forwards. ‘Why does the King of England not guard his coasts?’

  ‘He’s still a child and the country is ruled by his other uncle, Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester. My lord and the Duke of Gloucester are the royal uncles, each regents of France and England, until the king takes his power.’

  ‘When will he do that?’

  ‘He should have done it by now, really,’ Woodville says. ‘He is twelve years old; a boy still, but old enough to rule with good advisors. And he has been crowned at Notre Dame in Paris, and in England, and he has a parliament and a council which have promised to obey him. But he is guided by his uncle the Duke of Gloucester, and all of his friends; and then his mind is changed by his other kinsman, Cardinal Beaufort, a very powerful and persuasive man. Between the two of them he is blown about one way to another, and he never sees our lord the Duke of Bedford, who can do no more than write to him and try to keep him to one path. They say that he does the bidding of the person who spoke to him last.

  ‘But anyway, even if he were older, or firmer, there would be no money to pay for defences from the sea, and the English lords don’t make the rule of law run through their lands as they should. Now we shall trot.’

  He waits for me to squeeze my legs on Merry and she goes forwards into a trot with me sitting heavily, like a fat cavalry knight, deep in the saddle.

  ‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘Now go forwards to canter.’

  ‘You said trot!’

  ‘You’re doing so well,’ he says with a grin. I urge Merry on and she goes into her quick-paced canter. I am a little afraid without the stirrups to use as balance but he is right, I can sit in the saddle and grip with my legs as we go cantering down the tow path until he gives the hand-signal to slow, then pull up.

  ‘Why do I have to learn this?’ I ask breathlessly as he dismounts again to restore my stirrups.

  ‘In case you lose your stirrups, or one breaks, or if we have to ride away some time, when we can get hold of horses but no saddles. It’s good to be prepared for anything. Tomorrow we will practise riding bareback. I shall make you into a horsewoman. Already you could be trusted on a long ride.’

  He swings back into his own saddle and we turn the horses’ heads for home.

  ‘And why don’t the English lords make the rule of law run through the country?’ I ask, returning to our conversation. ‘In France there are two rules of law, two kings. But at least the lords are obedient to the king who rules in their part.’

  ‘In England, they each make their own little lordship,’ he says. ‘They use the troubled times as a screen to serve themselves, to gain their own land, to make war on ht= neighbours. When the young king does decide to take his power, he will find he has to challenge the very people who should be his friends and advisors. He will need my lord duke at his side then.’

  ‘Will we have to go to England and live there? Will I have to live in England?’ I ask anxiously.

  ‘It is home,’ he says simply. ‘And even at its worst, one acre of England is worth ten square miles of France.’

  I look at him blankly. ‘All you Englishmen are the same,’ I tell him. ‘You all think that you are divinely blessed by God for no better reason than you had the longbow at Agincourt.’

  He laughs. ‘We are,’ he says. ‘We think rightly. We are divinely blessed. And perhaps when we go to England there will be time for me to show you my home. And perhaps you will agree with me.’

  I have a little thrill of pleasure, as if something wonderful were going to happen to me. ‘Where is your home?’ I ask.

  ‘Grafton, Northamptonshire,’ he says, and I can hear the love in his voice. ‘Probably the most beautiful countryside, in what is the best country in all the world.’

  We have one more attempt at scrying at the mirror before it is packed up to travel with us as we start on our journey to England. My lord is anxious for me to predict if it is safe for him to leave France. The Armagnac pretender has no money and no army and is badly advised by his court of favourites, but still my lord John is afraid that if he goes to England there will be no-one who can hold France against this man who claims he is king. I completely fail in my wifely duty to advise him, I see nothing. They sit me on a chair and I stare into the bright reflected candlelight until I am dizzy and – far from fainting – am in danger of falling asleep. For two hours my lord stands behind me and shakes my shoulder when he sees my head nod, until the alchemist says quietly, ‘I don’t think it is coming to her today, my lord,’ and the duke turns and stalks out of the room without a word to me.

  The alchemist helps me from the chair and Woodville blows out the candles and opens the shutters to let the smell of smoke out of the room. The small sickle of a new moon looks in on me and I dip a curtsey and turn over the coins in my little pocket and make a wish. The alchemist exchanges a look with Woodville as if they have spent all the evening with a peasant girl who curtseys to a new moon and wishes for a lover, but has no learning and has no vision and is a waste of everyone’s time.

  ‘Never mind,’ Woodville says cheerfully, offering me his arm. ‘We leave for England in the morning and they won’t ask you to do this for another month.’

  ‘Are they bringing the mirror with us?’ I ask apprehensively.

  ‘The mirror and some of the books; but the vessels and the oven and the forge stay here of course, they will continue with their work while we are away.’

  ‘And do they discover anything?’

  He nods. ‘Oh yes, my lord has refined silver and gold to a purer level than any man has ever done before. He is working on new metals, new combinations for greater strength or greater suppleness. And of course, if he could mke the stone itself . . . ’

  ‘The stone?’

  ‘They call it the philosopher’s stone, that turns metal to gold, water to the elixir vitae, that gives the owner eternal life.’

  ‘Is there such a thing?’ I ask.

  He shrugs. ‘There have been many reports of it, it is well-known in the old manuscripts that he has had translated here. Throughout Christendom and in the East there will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of men working on it right now. But my lord duke is in the vanguard. If he could find it, if you could help him to find it, we could bring peace to France and to England.’

  The noise of the castle packing up and readying for a great journey wakes me at dawn and I go to the chapel to hear Matins as the sun is rising. The priest finishes the service and starts to pack up the sacred pictures and the crucifix and the monstrance. We are taking almost everything with us.

  In my own rooms my ladies in waiting are folding my gowns into great travelling chests and calling the pages to cord them up, and the grooms of the household to seal them. The jewel boxes they will carry themselves, my furs will be guarded by the grooms of the household. Nobody knows how long we will stay in England. Woodville becomes very cautious when I ask him. Clearly, my husband is not being adequately supported by his nephew the king, nor financed as he should be by the English parliament that has to raise taxes for the war in France. The purpose of the trip is to make them see that English coins buy French support; and they must pay. But nobody knows how long it will take to make the English understand that they cannot have an army for free.

  I am quite at a loss in all the bustle. I have put my books that the Demoiselle left to me for safe-keeping with my husband’s library, and they will be guarded by the scholars while we are away. I have put her beautiful cards with my jewels for safety. Her gold bracelet with the charms I ca
rry in a purse slung around my neck. I don’t want anyone else touching them. I have dressed for the journey and eaten my breakfast, served in my rooms, by maids in a hurry. I wait about, I don’t know what to do to be helpful, and I am too important for anyone to give me a task. The head of my ladies in waiting commands everything in my rooms so I just have to wait for everything to be ready for us to leave, and in the meantime there is nothing for me to do but watch the servants and the ladies running from one task to another.

  By midday we are ready to leave, though the grooms of the hall, the stable and the armoury are all still packing things up. My lord takes my hand and leads me down the stairs and through the great hall where the servants are lined up to bow and wish us God speed on our journey. Then we go out into the stable yard, where I blink at the cavalcade preparing to depart. It is like a small town on the move. There is the armed guard: we are travelling with hundreds of soldiers, some in armour but most in livery, and they are waiting beside their horses, taking a last drink of ale, flirting with the maids. There are nearly fifty wooden wagons waiting in order, the ones carrying the valuables at the head of the line, with a guard at the front and back, the boxes chained to the sides of the wagon, sealed with the great Bedford seal. The grooms of the household will ride with these and each has responsibility for his own load. We are taking all our clothes, jewels, and personal goods. We are taking all our household linen, cutlery, glassware,nives, spoons, salt-cellars, spice pots. The household furniture is being shipped too, my lord’s groom of the bedchamber has ordered the careful dismantling of my lord’s great bed with its covers, curtains and tester, and the grooms of my chambers are bringing my bed, my tables, my beautiful Turkey carpets, and there are two whole wagons just for shipping the household tapestries.

  The kitchen servants have loaded their essentials onto a line of wagons; we are bringing food as well as hens, ducks, geese, sheep and a couple of cows that will walk behind the wagons to give us fresh milk every day. The hawks from the mews are loaded on their own specially made carriage, where they can perch, blinded by their hoods; and the leather curtains are already tied down to shelter them, so they are not frightened by the noise of the road. My lord’s deerhounds will run alongside the procession, his foxhounds whipped in at the rear. The master of horse has all the work-horses harnessed to the wagons, and all the spare riding horses are bridled and in the care of a groom who rides one horse and leads one on either side. And this is only half the procession. The wagons, carrying the essential goods to make us comfortable tonight when we stop at Senlis, have already gone; they left at dawn. And amid all this noise and chaos Richard Woodville comes smiling up the stairs, bows to my lord and to me and says, as if hell were not boiling over in the yard, ‘I think we are ready, my lord, and what they have forgotten, they can always send on.’

  ‘My horse?’ the duke asks. Woodville snaps his fingers and a waiting groom brings my lord’s great war horse forwards.

  ‘And my lady is going in her litter?’

  ‘Her Grace said she wanted to ride.’

  My lord duke turns to me. ‘It is a long way, Jacquetta, we will go north out of Paris and sleep tonight at Senlis. You will be in the saddle for the whole day.’

  ‘I can do that,’ I say, and I glance at Woodville.

  ‘She’s a strong horse, you chose well,’ he says to my husband. ‘And the duchess is a good rider, she will be able to keep up. It would probably be more pleasant for her than jolting around in her litter, though I will have it follow behind us, so if she gets tired she can change.’

  ‘Very well then,’ the duke agrees. He smiles at me. ‘I shall enjoy your company. What d’you call your mare?’

  ‘I call her Merry,’ I say.

  ‘God send that we are all merry,’ he says, stepping on the mounting block to haul himself into the saddle. Woodville takes me by the waist and lifts me up into my saddle, and then stands back while my lady in waiting bustles forwards and pulls the long skirts of my gown so they fall down either side, hiding my leather riding boots.

  ‘All right?’ Woodville asks me quietly, standing close to the horse as he checks the tightness of the girth.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be just behind you, if you want anything. If you get tired, or need to stop, just raise your hand. I’ll be watching. We will ride for a couple of hours and then stop to eat.’

  My husband stands up in his stirrups. He bellows ‘À Bedford!’ and the whole stable yard shouts back ‘ve; Bedford!’. They swing the great gates open and my lord leads the way, out through the crowded streets of Paris, where people stare as we go by and cry out for alms or favours, and then through the great north gate, and out into the country towards the narrow seas and England, the unknown shore that I am supposed to call home.

  My lord duke and I ride at the head of the procession so we are not troubled with dust, and once we are away from Paris my husband judges that we are safe enough to go before the armed guard so it is just him and me, Woodville and my lady in waiting riding out in the sunshine as if for pleasure. The road winds ahead of us, well travelled by English merchants and soldiers going through the English lands from the English capital of Paris to the English castle of Calais. We stop to dine at the edge of the forest of Chantilly where they have set up pretty tents and have cooked a haunch of venison. I am glad to rest for an hour in the shade of a tree; but I am happy to go on when Woodville orders the guard into the saddle again. When my husband asks me if I would like to complete the journey sitting in my litter drawn by the mules, I tell him no. The afternoon is sunny and warm, and when we enter the green shade of the forest of Chantilly we put our horses into a canter and my mare pulls a little and is eager to gallop. My husband laughs and says, ‘Don’t let her run off with you, Jacquetta.’

  I laugh too as his big horse lengthens its great pace to draw neck and neck with Merry, and we go a little faster, and then suddenly, there is a crashing noise and a tree plunges down, all its branches breaking together like a scream, over the road in front of us, and Merry rears in terror and I hear my husband bellow like a trumpet, ‘À Bedford! ’Ware ambush!’ but I am clinging to the mane and nearly out of the saddle, slipping backwards, as Merry plunges to the side, terrified by the noise, and bolts, madly bolts. I haul myself into the saddle, cling to her neck, and bend low as she dashes among the trees, flinging herself to right and left, fleeing where her own frightened senses prompt her. I cannot steer her, I have dropped the reins, I certainly cannot stop her, I can barely cling on, until finally she slows to a trot, and then a walk, and then blows out and stops.

  Shakily, I slip from the saddle and collapse to the ground. My jacket has been torn by low-hanging branches, my bonnet knocked from my head and is flapping on its cord, my hair is falling down, tangled with twigs. I give a little sob of fear and shock, and Merry turns to one side and nibbles at a shrub, pulling at it nervously, her ears flicking in all directions.

  I take hold of her reins so she cannot dash away again, and I look around me. The forest is cool and dark, absolutely silent but for birdsong from high in the upper branches, and the buzz of insects. There is no noise of marching men, creaking wagons; nothing. I cannot even tell where I have come from, nor how far I am from the road. Merry’s headlong flight seemed to last for a lifetime, but even if they were close at hand I would not know in which direction. Certainly, she didn’t go straight, we twisted and turned through the trees and there is no path for me to retrace.

  ‘Goddamn,’ I say quietly to myself like an Englishman. ‘Merry, we are completely lost.’

  I know that Woodville will ride out to find me, and perhaps he can follow Merry’s little hoof prints. But if the falling tree was an ambush then perhaps he and my husband are fighting for their lives, and nobody yet has had time t think about me. Even worse, if the fight is going against them, then perhaps they will be captured or killed and there will be no-one to search for me at all, and then I am in danger indeed: alone and lost in a hostile co
untry. Either way, I had better save myself if I can.

  I know that we were travelling north to Calais, and I can remember enough of the great plan in my husband’s library to know that if I can get myself onto the north road again there will be many villages, churches, and religious houses where I can find hospitality and help. It is a road well travelled and I am certain to meet a party of English people and my title will command their assistance. But only if I can find the road. I look on the ground around us to see if I can trace Merry’s hoof prints and follow them back the way we came, and there is one hoof print in the mud, and then another, a little gap where the leaves cover the ground, but beyond it, the trail picks up again. I take the reins over her head and hold them in my right hand, and say in a voice I try to make sound confident, ‘Well, silly girl, we have to find our way home now,’ and I walk back the way we came with her following behind me, her head bent, as if she is sorry for the trouble she has caused.

  We walk for what seems like hours. The tracks give out after a little while, for the floor of the forest is so thick with leaves and twigs that there are no prints to follow. I guess at the way, and we go steadily, but I am more and more afraid that we are wandering lost, perhaps even going round in circles like enchanted knights in a fairy-tale forest. Thinking this, I am hardly surprised when I hear the sound of water and turn towards it and we come to a little stream and a pool. It is almost a fountain, so round and banked with green moss. I have a moment when I think perhaps Melusina will rise from the magical pool to help me, her daughter; but nothing happens so I tie Merry to a tree and wash my face and drink the water, and then I bring her to the stream and she drops her white head and sucks up the water quietly, and drinks deep.

  The trees have made a little glade around the stream and a beam of sunlight comes through the thick canopy of leaves. Still holding Merry’s reins, I sit down in the sunshine to rest for a few minutes. In a moment, I think, I will get up and we will put the sun on our left and walk steadily; that will take us north and must take us, surely, to the Paris road where they will, surely, be looking for me. I am so tired, and the sun is so warm, that I lean back against a tree trunk, and close my eyes. In minutes I am fast asleep.