The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

  ‘All,’ he says. ‘And John Talbot himself, God bless his soul.’

  The tears spill over from her eyes and pour down her cheeks, and Edmund Beaufort drops his head and kisses them away, kisses her like a lover trying to comfort his mistress.

  ‘No!’ I cry again, utterly horrified. I come to the bed and put my hand on his arm, pulling him away from her; but they are blind and deaf to me, clinging together, her arms around his neck, he is half lying on her, as he covers her face with kisses and whispers promises that he cannot keep, and at that moment, at that terrible, terrible moment, the door behind us opens and Henry, King of England, comes into the room and sees the two of them, wrapped in each other’s arms: his pregnant wife and his dearest friend.

  For a long moment he takes in the scene. Slowly, the duke lifts his head and, gritting his jaw, gently releases Margaret, laying her back on the bed, pressing her shoulders to make her stay on the pillows, lifting her feet and straightening her gown around her ankles. Slowly, he turns to face her husband. He makes a little gesture with his hands to Henry, but he says nothing. There is nothing he can say. The king looks from his wife, raised on one elbow, white as a ghost on her bed, to the duke standing beside her, and then he looks at me. He looks puzzled, like a hurt child.

  I reach out to him, as if he were one of my own children, cruelly struck. ‘Don’t look,’ I say foolishly. ‘Don’t see.’

  He puts his head on one side, like a whipped dog, as if he is trying to hear me.

  ‘Don’t look,’ I repeat. ‘Don’t see.’

  Strangely, he steps towards me and lowers his pale face to me. Without knowing what I am doing, I lift my hands to him and he takes one and then the other and cups my palms over his eyes, as if to blindfold himself. For a moment we are all quite frozen: my hands over his eyes, the duke waiting to speak, Margaret leaning back on her pillows, her hand over her curving belly. Then the king presses my hands hard against his closed eyelids and repeats my words: ‘Don’t look. Don’t see.’

  Then he turns away. Without another word, he turns his back on all three of us, and walks from the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  He does not come to dinner that night. The queen’s dinner is served in her privy rooms; a dozen ladies and I sit down to eat with her and send half the courses back untouched. Edmund, Duke of Somerset, takes the head of the table in the great hall and tells the hushed diners that he has bad news for them: we have lost the last of our lands in France, except for the pale, town and garrison of Calais, and that John Talbot the Earl of Shrewsbury has died riding out for a forlorn cause that his gallantry and courage would not allow him to refuse. The town of Castillon begged him to come and relieve the French siege, and John Talbot could not turn a deaf ear when his countrymen asked for help. He held to his vow that he would not put on armour against the French king who had released him on that condition. So he rode out without armour, at the head of our troops, into battle without a weapon or a shield. It was an act of the most perfect chivalry and folly. An act worthy of the great man that he was. An archer felled his horse and an axeman hacked him to death as he was pinned down underneath it. Our hopes of holding our lands in France are over, we have lost Gascony for the second, and almost certainly the last, time. Everything that was won by this king’s father has been lost by his son, and we have been humiliated by France that once was our vassal.

  The duke bows his head to the silent great hall. ‘We will pray for the soul of John Talbot and his noble son, Lord Lisle,’ he says. ‘He was a most gentle and perfect knight. And we will pray for the king, for England, and St George.’

  Nobody cheers. Nobody repeats the prayer. Men say ‘Amen, Amen’ quietly and pull out their benches and sit down and eat their dinner in silence.

  The king goes to bed very early, the gentlemen of his chamber tell me, when I go to enquire. They say he seemed very tiree did not speak to them. He did not say one word. I tell the queen and she bites her lip and looks at me, white-faced. ‘What d’you think?’ she asks. She seems as frightened as a little maid.

  I shake my head. I don’t know what to think.

  ‘What should I do?’

  I don’t know what she should do.

  In the morning, the queen is heavy-eyed from a sleepless night. Again she sends me to the king’s rooms to ask how is His Grace, this morning. Again the groom of the bedchamber tells me that the king is weary, this morning he is sleeping late. When they told him that it was time for Lauds he just nodded and went back to sleep. They are surprised because he never misses chapel. They tried to wake him again for Prime but he did not stir. I go back and tell the queen that he has slept through the morning and is still asleep.

  She nods and says she will take breakfast in her rooms. In the great hall the Duke of Somerset breaks his fast with the court. Nobody speaks very much, we are all waiting for more news from France. We are all dreading more news from France.

  The king sleeps on till midday.

  ‘Is he ill?’ I ask the groom of the wardrobe. ‘He never sleeps like this usually, does he?’

  ‘He was shocked,’ the groom says. ‘I know that. He came into his rooms as white as a dove and lay down on the bed without a word to anyone.’

  ‘He said nothing?’ I am ashamed of myself for this question.

  ‘Nothing. He said not one word.’

  ‘Send for me as soon as he wakes,’ I say. ‘The queen is concerned about him.’

  The man nods and I go back to the queen’s rooms, and tell her that the king lay down to sleep and said nothing to anyone.

  ‘He said nothing?’ she repeats, as I did.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He must have seen,’ she says.

  ‘He saw,’ I say grimly.

  ‘Jacquetta, what do you think he will do?’

  I shake my head. I don’t know.

  All day he sleeps. Every hour I go to the door of the king’s rooms and ask if he has woken. Every hour the groom of the chamber comes out, his face more and more worried, and shakes his head: ‘Still sleeping.’ Then, when the sun is setting and they are lighting the candles for dinner, the queen sends for Edmund Beaufort.

  ‘I’ll see him in my presence chamber,’ she says. ‘So that everyone can see we are not meeting in secret. But you stand before us so we can talk privately.’

  He comes in looking grave and handsome and kneels before her till she tells him that he can sit. I stand absent-mindedly between them and the rest of the ladies and his entourage, so that nobody can hear their quiet-voiced conversation above the ripple of the harp.

  They exchange three urgent sentences and then she rises to her feet and the court rises too and she grits her teeth and leads the way into dinner, like the queen she is, to the great hall, where the men greet her in silence and the king’s chair is empty.

  After dinner she calls me to her side.

  ‘They can’t wake him,’ she says tightly. ‘The grooms tried to wake him for dinner but he would not stir. The duke has sent for the physicians to see if he is sick.’

  I nod.

  ‘We’ll sit in my rooms,’ she decides, and leads the way from the hall. As we go out there is a whisper like a breeze, men saying one to another that the king is mortally weary.

  We wait for them to report in the queen’s presence chamber, half the court gathered around, waiting to hear what is wrong with the king. The door opens and the physicians come in and the queen beckons them to enter her private rooms, with the duke, and me, and half a dozen others.

  ‘The king seems to be in good health, but he is sleeping,’ one of the doctors, John Arundel, says.

  ‘Can you wake him up?’

  ‘We judged it best to let him sleep,’ Dr Faceby replies, bowing. ‘It might be best to let him sleep and wake when he is ready. Grief and a shock will sometimes be healed with a sleep, a long sleep.’

  ‘A shock?’ the duke asks sharply. ‘What shock has the king had? What did he say?’

  ‘The
news from France,’ the doctor stumbles. ‘I believe the messenger blurted it out.’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I say. ‘The queen fainted and I took her into her rooms.’

  Margaret nips her lip. ‘Does he speak?’

  ‘Not a word, not a word, since last night.’

  She nods as if it is of no matter to her whether he speaks or not, she is only concerned for his health. ‘Very well. Do you think he will wake in the morning?’

  ‘Oh, almost certainly,’ Dr Faceby answers. ‘Often someone will sleep deeply after distressing news. It is the body’s way to heal itself.’

  ‘And wake remembering nothing?’ she asks. The duke looks down at the floor as if indifferent.

  ‘You may have to tell him of the loss of Gascony all over again, when he wakes,’ the doctor agrees.

  She turns to the duke. ‘My lord, please give the king’s grooms the order that they should wake him, as usual, in the morning, and prepare his rooms and his clothes as usual.’

  He bows. ‘Of course, Your Grace.’

  The physicians take their leave. One of them will sit in the king’s bedroom to watch over his sleep. The duke’s entourage and the queen’s ladies leave behind the doctors. The couple take one stolen moment when the duke is at her side, and everyone is leaving, and no-one observing them.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he whispers. ‘We’ll say nothing. Nothing. Trust me. It will be all right.’

  Mutely she nods, and he bows and goes out of the room.

  The next day they go to wake the king but he does not wake. One of the grooms of the bedchamber comes to the door and tells me that they had to lift the king to the close stool, clean him and change his nightgown which he had soiled. If one of them holds him on the close stool he will pass water, and they can wash his face and hands. They can sit him in a chair though his head lolls and if one of them holds his face up, the other can pour a little warm ale down his throat. He cannot stand, he cannot hear them, he does not respond to a touch. He shows no hunger and he would lie in his filth.

  ‘This isn’t sleep,’ the groom says bluntly. ‘The doctors are fooling themselves. Nobody sleeps like this.’

  ‘D’you think he is dying?’ I ask.

  The man shakes his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life before. It’s like he’s enchanted. Like he’s cursed.’

  ‘Don’t say such a thing,’ I reply at once. ‘Never say such a thing. He’s just sleeping.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ he repeats. ‘Sleeping, as the doctors say.’

  I walk slowly back to the queen’s rooms, wishing that Richard were with me, wishing that I was at home in Grafton. I have a terrible fear that I have done something very wrong. I am filled with fear, superstitious fear as if I have done something terrible. I wonder if it was my command to the king to see nothing that has blinded him. I wonder if he is the victim of my accidental power. My great-aunt Jehanne cautioned me to always be careful what I wished for, to consider very carefully the words of blessings or of curses. And now I have told the King of England, ‘Don’t look! Don’t see!’ and he has closed his eyes and neither looks nor sees.

  I shake my head, trying to dispel my own fears. Surely I must have said words like this a dozen times and nothing has happened? Why would I have the powers to blind the King of England now? Perhaps he is just very tired? Perhaps he is, as the doctors think, shocked by the news from France? Perhaps he is like one of my mother’s aunts who froze up and lay still, lay quite like the king, neither speaking nor moving until she died years later. Perhaps I am frightening myself to think that it was my command that has made him blind.

  In her rooms the queen is lying in her bed. I am so afraid of what I may have done that I recoil on the threshold of her darkened room, and whisper, ‘Margaret.’ She raises her hand, she can move, she is not enchanted. One of her younger ladies is at her side, while the rest of them are in the room outside, whispering about the danger to the baby, and the shock to the queen, and the likelihood of everything going terribly wrong, as women always do when one is near to childbirth.

  ‘Enough,’ I say irritably, as I close the door on the queen’s chamber so she cannot hear these fearful predictions. ‘If you can’t say anything cheerful then don’t speak at all. And you, Bessie, I don’t want to hear another word about your mother’s travails in childbed. I have been brought to bed eleven times, raised ten, and never endured one quarter of the pains you report. Indeed no woman could have borne what you describe. The queen may well be as lucky as me.’

  I stamp past them to the queen’s rooms and send away my little maid with one wave of my hand. She goes in silence and for a moment I think the queen is asleep; but she turns her head and looks at me, her eyes dark and hollowed with fatigue and fear.

  ‘Has the king woken this morning?’ Her lips are chapped where she has been biting them, she looks haggard with worry.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Not yet. But they have washed him and he has taken a little breakfast.’

  ‘He is sitting up?’

  ‘No,’ I say uncomfortably. ‘They had to serve him.’

  ‘Serve him?’

  ‘Feed him.’

  She is silent. ‘It’s a blessing in a way,’ she says. ‘It means he says nothing rashly, in temper, at first thought. It gives us time to consider. I keep thinking that it is a blessing in a way. It gives us time to . . . prepare.’

  ‘In a way,’ I agree.

  ‘What do the doctors say?’

  ‘They say they think he will wake, perhaps tomorrow.’

  ‘And then he will be himself again? And remember everything?’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t believe that they really know.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She sits on the side of the bed, her hand cupped on her belly, and rises to her feet to look out of the window. Below her are the beautiful gardens running down to the river where a punt bobs invitingly at a landing stage, and a heron stands still and quiet in the water. She sighs.

  ‘Do you have any pain?’ I ask anxiously.

  ‘No, no, I can just feel the baby moving.’

  ‘It is most important that you remain calm.’

  She laughs shortly. ‘We have lost Gascony, next the French are certain to attack Calais, the king has gone to sleep and cannot be wakened, and . . . ’ She breaks off. Neither of us has mentioned the duke taking her into his arms as an accustomed lover, kissing her face, promising to keep her safe. ‘And you tell me to remain calm.’

  ‘I do,’ I say stoutly. ‘For all this is nothing to losing the child. You have to eat and you have to sleep, Margaret. This is your duty to the child. You might be carrying a boy, it might be a prince for England. When all this has been forgotten we will remember that you kept the prince safe.’

  She pauses, she nods. ‘Yes. Jacquetta, you are right. See? I will sit. I will be calm. You can bring me some bread and some meat and some ale. I will be calm. And fetch the duke.’

  ‘You cannot see him alone,’ I specify.

  ‘No. I know that. But I have to see him. Until the king wakes, he and I will have to decide everything together. He is my only advisor and help.’

  I find the duke in his rooms, gazing blankly out of the window. He whirls around when his men hammer on the door and as they throw it open I see the whiteness of his face and the fear in his eyes.

  ‘Jacquetta,’ he says, and then corrects himself. ‘Your Grace.’

  I wait till they have closed the door behind me. ‘The queen commands your presence,’ I say shortly.

  He takes up his cape and his hat. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Anxious.’

  He offers me his arm and childishly I pretend not to see the gesture but precede him to the door. He follows me out and we walk down the sunny gallery towards the royal rooms. Outside the leaded windows I can see swallows swooping low over the water meadows, and hear the birds singing.

  He strides faster to come alongside me. ‘
You blame me,’ he says shortly.

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You blame me but, Jacquetta, I assure you, the first move was . . . ’

  ‘I don’t know anything, and if I know nothing then I cannot be questioned, and I cannot confess,’ I say, cutting him off. ‘All I want to do is to see Her Grace at peace and strong enough to carry her child to full term and bring him into the world. All I pray is that His Grace the king wakes up with a calm mind and we can tell him the sad news from Gascony. And I hope, of course, all the time, ceaselessly, that my husband is safe in Calais. Other than these thoughts, I don’t venture, Your Grace.’

  He nods his head and we walk in silence.

  In the queen’s rooms I see that the three ladies in waiting are sitting in the window-seats pretending to sew while craning their necks to eavesdrop. They rise up and curtsey and make a bustle as the duke and I enter and I tell them to sit again, and I nod to a couple of musicians to play. This covers the whispers between the queen and the duke. She allows him to sit on a stool at her side and she beckons me to join them.

  ‘His Grace says that if the king does not waken within a few days we cannot stay here.’

  I look at him.

  ‘People will start to wonder and then there will be gossip. We can say that the king is weary and he can ride in a litter back to London.’

  ‘We can draw the curtains of the litter,’ I agree. ‘But what then?’

  ‘The queen has to go into her confinement at Westminster Palace. That’s been planned for months, it can’t be changed. I suggest the king stays quietly in his rooms.’

  ‘People will talk.’

  ‘We can say he is praying for her health. We can say he is keeping monastic hours.’

  I nod. It is possible that the king’s illness can be kept from everyone but a small court circle.

  ‘What about meeting with the lords? What about the king’s council?’ I ask.

  ‘I can handle them,’ the duke says. ‘I will take decisions in the name of the king.’

  I look sharply at him and then I lower my eyes so he cannot see my shock. This is to make himself all but King of England. The queen will be in confinement, the king asleep, Edmund Beaufort will step up from being Constable of England to King of England.