The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

  ‘But this never happened to you,’ she suggests.

  ‘In my first marriage,’ I say quietly, ‘I knew that my husband would not have a child. But I had to let myself know that I was different from him. I longed for a baby, and I wanted to be loved.’

  ‘Did you wish for it?’ she asks. ‘Did you make a spell to make him change?’

  ‘I didn’t try to change him, but I had to know the sorrow of what was missing in my life. I had to find the courage to know that I had made the mistake of marrying a man who would not love me for myself, and who would not give me a child, and once I knew that, truly knew that I was an unloved maid – though a married woman – then I could wish that someone loved me.’

  ‘And you wished for Father.’

  I smile at her. ‘And for you.’

  She blushes in pleasure. ‘Is this magic?’

  ‘In a way. Magic is the act of making a wish come about. Like praying, like plotting, like herbs, like exerting your will on the world, making something happen.’

  ‘Will you teach me?’ she asks.

  I look at her consideringly. She is a daughter of our house and perhaps the most beautiful girl we have ever had. She has the inheritance of Melusina and the gift of Sight. One of my children must inherit the cards my great-aunt gave me and the bracelet of charms – I think I always knew that it would be Elizabeth, the child born of desire, of the herbs, and my wish. And as my great-aunt Jehanne said: it should be the oldest girl.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘These are not the times, and these are forbidden skills; but I will teach you, Elizabeth.’

  Over the next few weeks I show her the bracelet of charms and the cards and I teach her about herbs that she will not find in Lady Elizabeth Grey’s still room. I take all the older children out on one frosty day and teach them how to find water in underground springs by holding a peeled wand in their hands and feeling it turn in their palms. They laugh with delight as we find a spring in the water meadow, and a dirty old drain from the stable yard.

  I show Elizabeth how to open a page of her Bible and then think and pray over the text that comes to her. I give her a frwater pearl on a little cord and teach her how to watch it swing in answer to a question. And more importantly than anything else I start to teach her how to clear her mind, how to know her desires, how to judge herself; putting aside favour and indulgence. ‘The alchemists always say you have to be pure. You are the first ingredient,’ I tell her. ‘You have to be clean.’

  When the time comes for her to go back to Groby Hall she tells me that the young man of the house, John Grey, is a most handsome young man, kind and beautifully mannered, and that she wishes he would see her for herself, and not just as a girl being educated by his mother, one of three or four young women that Lady Grey has in her keeping.

  ‘He does,’ I assure her. ‘He sees you already. You just have to be patient.’

  ‘I like him so much,’ she confesses, her eyes down and her cheeks warm. ‘And when he speaks to me I say nothing of any sense. I speak like a fool. He must think me a fool.’

  ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘Shall I use a love potion on him? Dare I?’

  ‘Wait for spring,’ I advise her. ‘And pick some flowers from an apple tree in his orchard. Choose the prettiest tree . . . ’

  She nods.

  ‘Put the petals in your pocket. And when the tree fruits, take one apple and give him half to eat with honey, and keep the other.’

  ‘Will that make him love me?’

  I smile. ‘He will love you. And the petals and honeyed apple will give you something to do while you wait.’

  She giggles. ‘You’re not much of a spell-maker, Lady Mother.’

  ‘When a beautiful young woman wants to enchant a man she doesn’t need much of a spell,’ I assure her. ‘A girl like you needs to do nothing much more than stand under an oak tree and wait for him to ride by. But do you remember about wishing?’

  ‘Pure in heart,’ she says.

  Together we go out to the stable yard. The guard to take her back to Groby is mounted and ready. ‘One last thing,’ I say and take her hand before she climbs on the mounting block. She turns to listen. ‘Don’t curse,’ I say to her. ‘No ill-wishing.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t. Not even Mary Sears. Not even when she smiles at him and curls her hair around her finger, and is so quick to sit beside him.’

  ‘Ill-wishing is a curse on the woman who does it, as well as the one who receives it. When you put such words out in the world they can overshoot – like an arrow – that’s what my great-aunt Jehanne told me. A curse can go beyond your target and harm another. A wise woman curses very sparingly. I would hope that you never curse at all.’ Even as I speak I feel the shadow of the future on her. ‘I pray that you never have cause to curse,’ I say.

  She kneels for my blessing. I put my hand on the pretty velvet bonnet and her warm fair head. ‘Bless you, my daughter, and may you remain pure in heart and get your desires.’

  She peeps up at me, her grey eyes bright. ‘I think I will!’

  ‘I think you will,’ I say.

  LONDON, SPRING 1452

  With my husband servin

  g as Captain in Calais, I return to court in the cold weather of January and find everyone talking about the treason of Richard, Duke of York, who is said to be preparing a complete rebellion against the king his cousin because of his hatred of the Duke of Somerset.

  The queen is determined that the threat shall be faced and defeated. ‘If he is against the Duke of Somerset, he is against me,’ she says. ‘I have no better or more trustworthy friend. And this Richard of York wants him tried for treason! I know who the traitor is! But he shows his hand at last and confesses that he is against the king.’

  ‘He asks only for the great lords to intercede for him with the king,’ I remark calmly. ‘He wants them to put his case to the king. And in the meantime, he swears his loyalty.’

  She throws the manifesto that York has sent around the main towns of the kingdom on the table before me. ‘Who do you think this means? York says that the king is surrounded by enemies, adversaries and evil-willers. He is attacking the king’s advisors. That’s you, he means, and your husband, as well as Somerset and me.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Jacquetta, he accuses me of being William de la Pole’s lover; do you think he would blink at calling you a witch?’

  I feel the room grow very still and cold. I put my hand to my belly as if to shield the new life within. The ladies in waiting in earshot look up at me, their eyes wide, but say nothing.

  ‘He has no cause for such an accusation,’ I say quietly, though I can hear my heart hammering. ‘You yourself know that I would never play with such toys. I don’t use herbs except for my family’s health, I don’t even consult with wise women. I read nothing but permitted books, I speak to no-one . . . ’

  ‘He has no cause to say anything,’ she declares. ‘What cause does he have to speak against Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset? Against me? But remember that he is my enemy and your enemy too. And that if he can destroy you he will do so, just to hurt me.’

  She takes her seat at the fireside, and I read the manifesto more carefully. The Duke of York demands that Edmund Beaufort be charged with treason and arrested. He warns against bad advisors who have gathered around the queen, foreign-born advisors, ill-wishers. In truth, he says nothing against me by name. But I cannot rid myself of the familiar pulse of fear.

  The king is inspired to warlike behaviour by the threat to his friend Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset. Nothing else would waken him but a threat to his beloved cousin. Suddenly he is active, courageous, determined. He declares his absolute faith in Edmund Beaufort and his other advisors. He declares that Richard, Duke of York, is a rebel, and he demands forces to be mustered from all the towns, counties and shires. The king’s army pours in from allaround the kingdom. Nobody wants to support the Duke of York, only the men of his affinity, and t
hose who share his hatred of Edmund Beaufort for their own reasons go to his standard and start to create an army.

  Henry calls for his armour once more, again has his war horse saddled up. The lads in the yard tease his standard bearer that he will have another nice ride out for a day, and assure him that they will keep his dinner warm for him, for he will be back before sunset; but the lords of council and the commanders of the army are not laughing.

  The queen and the ladies of her court go down to the frosty jousting green at Westminster to see the parade of the lords ride by on their way out to do battle with the Duke of York.

  ‘I wish your husband were here to support him,’ she says to me as the king mounts his great grey war horse, his standard before him and his crown on his helmet. He looks much younger than his thirty years, his eyes bright and eager; his smile, as he waves to Margaret, is excited.

  ‘God save him,’ I say, thinking of the battle-hardened forty-year-old Duke of York mustering his own men.

  The trumpets blow, the drummers sound the pace of the march, the cavalry go out first, their standards bright in the icy sunlight, their armour glinting, their horseshoes thunderous on the cobbles, and then after them come the archers and after them the pikemen. This is only a small part of the royal army; tens of thousands of men are waiting for the king’s orders at Blackheath. His councillors have mustered a mighty army for him. From there he will march north to confront the rebel duke.

  The march does not happen. Richard, Duke of York, comes into the royal tent and kneels before his king, praying earnestly that the king dismiss the favoured Duke of Somerset and citing old injuries: the loss of the lands in France, the shameful surrender of Rouen, and finally the likely destruction of the garrison of Calais by his selfish seizing of command, which is certain to fail.

  He can do no more, he can say no more.

  ‘We don’t care,’ Margaret says to me, as I brush her hair before bed that evening. ‘We don’t care what he thinks of Edmund Beaufort, we don’t care what he says about Calais, or about me, or about you. He knew he was defeated when we raised an army three times the size of his. He knew he would have to withdraw everything he said. He knew he would have to beg our pardon. He is a broken man. His rebellion is ended. We have broken him.’

  I say nothing. The duke does indeed kneel to the king in public and swear never to assemble his men again. The country sees that the king is beloved and the duke is not. The country sees that Edmund Beaufort is unassailable and the Duke of York is defeated.

  ‘I don’t doubt the duke is outwardly penitent; but I doubt that the duke’s complaints are over,’ Richard writes to me from Calais.

  The royal couple at any rate are united in their joy. Margaret treats her young husband as if he had returned victorious from a mighty war. ‘He rode out,’ she justifies herself to me. ‘And if there had been fighting I believe he would have led it. He was at the head of his army and he didn’t run for Kenilworth.’

  The king takes to riding out every day in his beautifully engraved armour, as if to be ready for anything. Edmund Beaufort comes back from Calais and ridwoueside him, his dark handsome face turned attentively to the king, agreeing with everything he says. The court moves to Windsor, and in an excess of happiness the king offers a pardon to everybody, for anything.

  ‘Why does he not arrest them all and behead them?’ Margaret demands. ‘Why pardon?’

  It seems to be his way. After he has issued pardons to all the rebels his new enthusiasm for warfare spills over into a proposal for an expedition – to go to Calais and use the garrison as a base to reconquer the English lands in France. For the king this would be to step in the footsteps of his more heroic father, for Edmund Beaufort it would be to redeem his reputation. I expected the queen to be thrilled at the thought of Beaufort and the king on campaign but I find her in her room picking over some embroidery, her head down. When she sees me she shifts up in her seat and beckons me beside her. ‘I cannot bear for him to take such a risk,’ she says to me quietly. ‘I cannot bear to think of him in battle.’

  I am surprised, and pleased at her emotion. ‘Are you so tender to His Grace the king?’ I ask hopefully. ‘I know I cannot bear it when Richard goes to war.’

  She turns her pretty head from me as if I have said something too foolish to answer. ‘No. Not him. Edmund, Edmund Beaufort. What would become of us if he were to be hurt?’

  I take a breath. ‘These are the fortunes of war,’ I say. ‘Your Grace should perhaps hold a special intercessory Mass for the safety of the king.’

  She brightens at the thought of it. ‘Yes. We could do that. It would be terrible if anything were to happen to him. He would leave no heir but Richard, Duke of York, and I would rather die myself than see York inherit the throne after all he has said and done. And if I were to be widowed I would never be married again, as everyone will think I am barren.’ She looks askance at my broadening body. ‘You don’t know what it is like,’ she says. ‘To wait and to hope and to pray but never, never to have a sign of a child coming.’

  ‘There is still no sign?’ I ask. I had hoped that she might be with child, that the king militant might have been more of a husband than before.

  She shakes her head. ‘No. None. And if the king goes to war he will face my uncle the King of France on the battlefield. If Henry withdraws or retreats, then everyone will laugh at us.’

  ‘He will have good commanders in the field,’ I say. ‘Once he gets to Calais Richard will put a strong standard bearer beside him, to keep him safe.’

  ‘Richard was beside him before, when all he had to face was Jack Cade and a rabble,’ she says. ‘A half-pay captain and a band of working men with pitchforks. You didn’t see the king then, Jacquetta, he was terrified. He was frightened like a girl. I’ve never seen him ride as fast as when we left London.’ She puts her hand over her mouth as if to stop disloyal words. ‘If he runs from the French king I will be shamed to the ground,’ she says very quietly. ‘Everyone will know. All my family will know.’

  ‘He will have his friends beside him,’ I say. ‘Men who are accustomed to warfare. My husband, and Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset.’

  ‘Edmund has sworn to save Calaisce at my be says. ‘And he is absolutely a man of his word. He swore to me, he went down on his knees and swore to me that nobody would blame me for the loss of Calais, that he would keep it for England and for me. He said it would be his gift to me, like the little fairings he used to give me. He said he would have a golden key made and I can wear it in my hair. They will sail in April.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘The king has told the Calais garrison to send all their ships to ferry him across the narrow seas. He is taking a great army and a thousand sailors to sail his ships. He is going in April without fail, he says.’

  I hesitate. ‘You know, once he gets the fleet assembled, he must go,’ I say carefully. ‘It is very hard to keep a force together, waiting.’

  The queen has no idea that I am talking of a year of our lives that Richard and I wasted on the quayside at Plymouth, waiting for her husband to do what he had promised. She has no idea of what that cost us.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Edmund Beaufort will get the ships without fail, and then the king will go. Edmund will keep him safe, I know it.’

  I see that Edmund Beaufort has completely filled the place of William de la Pole in the affections of the young couple. The king has always needed a man to command him, he is afraid without someone at his side. And the queen is lonely. It is as simple as that.

  ‘My lord Beaufort will take the king to Calais; thank God that we can rely on him.’

  THE WEST OF ENGLAND, SUMMER 1452

  He does not

  go. Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, commands my husband to muster a fleet in Calais and sail with it across the narrow seas to escort the king to France to start his campaign. Richard in Calais recruits the fleet and waits for the order to send the ships to bring the English arm
y to Calais; but spring comes and goes and the order never comes.

  I enter my confinement in Grafton, glad to know that Richard is not campaigning this year, and, as it happens, I am right about the baby, I am always right about my babies. I hold my wedding ring on a thread over my curved belly and when it swings clockwise it is a boy and if it is a girl, it circles counter-clockwise. This is hedge-magic, superstition and nonsense that the midwives believe, that the physicians deny. I smile and call it nonsense; but it has never been wrong. I call the new little mite Eleanor and put her in the wooden cradle that has now rocked nine of Richard’s children, and write to tell him that he has a little girl, that she has his dark curling hair and blue eyes, and that he is to take leave from Calais, come home, and see his new daughter.

  He does not come. The garrison is under pressure from the Duke of Burgundy, whose forces are mustered nearby; they fear he may set a siege. Although Richard is just across the narrow seas and Calais is only a day’s sail away, it feels as if we have been parted for a long time, and that he is far away.

  In the nursery one night, while the wet nurse is having her dinner in the hall below, I sit with my new baby and look at her sleeping in the cradle and I take my great-aunt’s cards from the hanging pocket ag rt, and shuffle them, cut them, and take the one card and put it on the little embroidered blanket in the baby’s crib. I want to know when I will see Richard again, I want to know what the future holds for me.

  It is the Fool, a peasant man with a stick over his shoulder, a gaping bag at the end of it, without a fortune now but with hopes. In his other hand he carries a stick to help him stride out on the road ahead. A dog pulls at his breeches, his lowly nature which draws him back from his destiny; but he goes onwards. He keeps trying. It is a card that tells the reader to set off in hope, that great things can be achieved, that one should walk out filled with courage, even if one is a fool to hope. But what catches my eye is the white rose he wears in his cap. I sit for a long time, the card in my hand, wondering what it means to be an adventurer with a white rose in your cap.