The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

  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.

  ‘No, not at all. Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, was never a traitor and anyway, now he is dead,’ she says very quietly and steadily. ‘He was killed at the battle of St Albans by the Duke of York’s ally, the wicked Earl of Warwick. He died a hero, fighting for us. We will never forgive them for his death. D’you remember we said that? We said that we would never forgive him.’

  ‘Oh no . . . er . . . Margaret.’ He shakes his head. ‘We must forgive our enemies. We forgive our enemies as we hope to be forgiven. Is he French?’

  She glances at me and I know my horror is plain on my face. She pats his hand gently and rises up from her throne and falls into my arms, as easily as if she were my little sister, weeping for some hurt. We turn together to the window, leaving Richard to approach the throne and speak quietly to the king. My arm is around her waist as she leans against me; together we look, unseeing, over the beautiful sunny gardens inside the thick castle walls, laid out below us like a piece of embroidery in a frame. ‘I have to command everything now,’ she says quietly. ‘Edmund is dead, and the king is lost to himself. I am so alone, Jacquetta, I am like a widow with no friends.’

  ‘The council?’ I ask. I am guessing that they would put York back in as lord protector if they knew how frail the king truly is.

  ‘I appoint the council,’ she says. ‘They do as I say.’

  ‘But they will talk . . . ’

  ‘What they say in London doesn’t matter to us e, at Kenilworth.’

  ‘But when you have to call a parliament?’

  ‘I will summon them to Coventry where they love me and honour the king. We won’t go back to London. And I will only summon the men who honour me. No-one who follows York.’

  I look at her, quite appalled. ‘You will have to go to London, Your Grace. Summer is all very well; but you cannot move the court and the parliament from the city forever. And you cannot exclude the men of York from government.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I hate the people there and they hate me. London is diseased and rebellious. They take the side of parliament and York against me. They call me a foreign queen. I shall rule them from a distance. I am Queen of London but they shall never see me, nor have a penny of my money, nor a glimpse of my patronage nor a word of my blessing. Kent, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, London – they are all my enemies. They are all traitors, and I will never forgive them.’

  ‘But the king . . . ’

  ‘He will get better,’ she says determinedly. ‘This is a bad day for him. Today is a bad day. Just today. Some days he is quite well. And I will find a way of curing him, I have doctors working on new cures all the time, I have licensed alchemists to distil waters for him.’

  ‘The king doesn’t like alchemy, or anything like that.’

  ‘We have to find a cure. I am issuing licences to alchemists to pursue their studies. I have to consult them. It is allowed now.’

  ‘And what do they say?’ I ask her. ‘The alchemists?’

  ‘They say that he has to be weak as the kingdom is weak; but that they will see him reborn, he will be as new again, and the kingdom will be as new again. They say he will go through fire and be made as pure as a white rose.’

  ‘A white rose?’ I am shocked.

  She shakes her head. ‘They don’t mean York. They mean as pure as a white moon, as pure as white water, driven snow, it doesn’t matter.’

  I bow my head, but I think it probably does matter. I glance back at Richard. He is kneeling beside the throne and the king is leaning forwards to speak earnestly to him. Richard is nodding, gentle as when he is talking to one of our little boys. I see the king, his head shaking, stammering over a sentence, and I see my husband take his hand and say the words slowly, carefully, as a kind man will speak slowly to an idiot.

  ‘Oh, Margaret, oh my Margaret, I am so sorry for you,’ I blurt out.

  Her grey-blue eyes are filled with tears. ‘I am all alone now,’ she says. ‘I have never been so alone in all my life before. But I will not be turned on the wheel of fortune, I will not fall down. I will rule this country, and make the king well, and see my son inherit.’

  Richard thought that she could not rule the country from the Midlands; but summer comes and goes, the swallows swirl every evening around the roofs of Kenilworth, and every evening there are fewer and fewer as they are flying south, slipping away from us, and still the queen refuses to go am ato London. She rules by command, there is no pretence of discussion. She simply orders a royal council who are picked to do her bidding and never argue with her. She does not call a parliament of the commons who would have demanded to see the king in his capital city. Londoners are quick to complain that the foreigners who steal their trade and overcharge decent Englishmen are the result of a foreign queen who hates London and will not defend honest merchants. Then a French fleet raids the coast and goes further than any has dared to go before. They enter right into the port of Sandwich, and loot the town, tearing the place apart, taking away everything of value and firing the marketplace. Everyone blames the queen.

  ‘Are they really saying that I ordered them to come?’ she exclaims to Richard. ‘Are they mad? Why would I order the French to attack Sandwich?’

  ‘The attack was led by a friend of yours, Pierre de Brézé,’ my husband points out drily. ‘And he had maps of the shoals and the river bed: English maps. People ask how did he get them if not from you? They are saying that you helped him because you may need him to help you. And you swore that you would see Kent punished for their support of Warwick. You know, de Brézé played a merry jest on us. He brought balls and racquets and played a game of tennis in the town square. It was an insult. The people of Sandwich think that you set him on to insult them. That this is French humour. We don’t find it funny.’

  She narrows her eyes at him. ‘I hope you are not turning Yorkist,’ she says quietly. ‘I should be sorry to think that you turned against me, and it would break Jacquetta’s heart. I should be sorry to see you executed. You have avoided death a hundred times, Richard Woodville. I should be sorry to be the one who ordered it.’

  Richard faces her, without flinching. ‘You asked me why people blame you. I am telling you, Your Grace. It does not mean that I think such things, except I am puzzled by de Brézé holding the charts. I am only making a fair report. And I will tell you more: if you do not control the pirates and the French ships in the narrow seas then the Earl of Warwick will sail out of Calais and do it for you, and everyone will hail him as a hero. You do not damage his reputation by letting pirates rule the narrow seas, by letting de Brézé raid Sandwich: you damage your own. The southern towns have to be protected. The king has to be seen to respond to this challenge. You have to make the narrow seas safe for English ships. Even if you don’t like Kent it is the beach-head of your kingdom, you have to defend it.’

  She nods, her anger dissipated at once. ‘Yes, I see. I do see, Richard. I just hadn’t thought of the south coast. Would you draw up a plan for me? How we should protect the south coast?’

  He bows, steady as always. ‘It would be my honour, Your Grace.’

  ROCHESTER CASTLE, KENT,

  NOVEMBER 1457

  ‘Well, I for one don’t think much of your plan,’ I say to him sarcastically. We are in an old damp castle on the wide wet estuary

  of the Medway in November: one of the greyest coldest darkest months of the English year. The castle was built by the Normans for defence, not for comfort; and it is so cold and so miserable here that I have co
mmanded the children to stay at home at Grafton rather than join us. Richard’s piecemeal map of the southern coast of England is spread before us on his work table, the towns that he knows are vulnerable ringed in red, as he considers how to fortify and defend them with no armaments, and no men. ‘I would have hoped that your plan would have had you posted to garrison the Tower and we could have been in London for Christmas,’ I say. ‘For sure, that would have suited me better.’

  He smiles, he is too absorbed to reply properly. ‘I know. I am sorry for it, beloved.’

  I look a little closer at his work. He does not even have a complete map of the coastline, no-one has ever drawn such a thing. This is pieced together from his own knowledge and from the reports of sailors and pilots. Even fishermen have sent him little sketches of their own bay, their own dock, the reefs and shoals outside their harbour. ‘Is the queen sending you enough weapons?’

  He shakes his head. ‘She has a huge grant from parliament to raise archers and buy cannon, to use against the French; but there is nothing issued to me. And how can I fortify the towns with no men to serve and no cannon to fire?’

  ‘How can you?’ I ask.

  ‘I shall have to train the townsmen,’ he says. ‘And these are all towns on the coast, so at least I have ships’ captains and sailors if I can persuade them to enlist. I shall have to get them trained up into some kind of defence.’

  ‘So what is she doing with the money?’ I ask.

  Now I have his full attention, he looks up at me, his face grave. ‘She is not protecting us against France, she is arming her men in London,’ he says. ‘I think she plans to charge the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Salisbury and the Duke of York with treason, and bring them to London to stand trial.’

  I gasp. ‘They will never come?’

  ‘She is certainly preparing for them to come. If they come at all, they will bring their own forces and their own retinue and she will need her thirteen hundred archers,’ my husband says grimly. ‘I think she is preparing for war with them.’

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,

  WINTER–SPRING 1458

  We are summoned, along with the rest of the lords, in the cold days after Christmas, to a London more dark and suspicious than ever b

  efore, to find that far from accusation and punishment, the king has overruled the queen and plans a reconciliation. He has risen up, fired by a vision. He is suddenly well again and strong and burning with an idea to resolve the conflict between the two great houses by demanding that the York lords shall pay for their cruelties at St Albans by being fined, building a chantry for the honoured dead, and then swearing to end the blood feud with the heirs of their enemies. The queen is calling for the Earl of Warwick to be impeached for treason; but the king wants him forgiven as a repentant sinner. The whole of London is like a keg of dynamite with a dozen boys striking sparks around it, and the king quietly saying the Pater Noster, uplifted by his new idea. The vengeful heirs of Somerset and Northumberland go everywhere with their sws at the ready and the promise of a feud which will last for ten generations; the York lords are impenitent – the Earl of Warwick’s men richly turned out in their liveries, Warwick a by-word for generosity and gifts to Londoners, boasting that already they hold Calais and the narrow seas and who dare gainsay them? And the Lord Mayor has armed every good man in London and commanded him to patrol to keep the peace, which just introduces another army for everyone to fear.

  The queen summons me in the twilight of a winter afternoon. ‘I want you to come out with me,’ she says. ‘There is a man I want you to meet.’

  Together we don our capes, pull up our hoods to shield our faces. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I want you to come with me to an alchemist.’

  I freeze, like a deer scenting danger. ‘Your Grace, Eleanor Cobham consulted alchemists, and Eleanor Cobham was imprisoned for eleven years and died in Peel Castle.’

  She looks at me blankly. ‘And so?’

  ‘One of the fixed plans of my life is not to end as Eleanor Cobham.’

  I wait. For a moment her heart lifts, her face smiles, she dissolves into laughter. ‘Ah Jacquetta, are you telling me you are not some mad ugly bad old witch?’

  ‘Your Grace, every woman is a mad ugly bad old witch, somewhere in her heart. The task of my life is to conceal this. The task of every woman is to deny this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The world does not allow women like Eleanor, women like me, to thrive. The world cannot tolerate women who think and feel. Women like me. When we weaken, or when we get old, the world falls on us with the weight of a waterfall. We cannot bring our gifts to the world. The world we live in will not tolerate things that cannot be understood, things that cannot be easily explained. In this world, a wise woman hides her gifts. Eleanor Cobham was an enquiring woman. She met with others who sought the truth. She educated herself and she sought masters with whom to study. She paid a terrible price for this. She was an ambitious woman. She paid the price for this too.’ I wait to see if she has understood; but her round pretty face is puzzled. ‘Your Grace, you will put me in danger if you ask me to use my gifts.’

  She faces me, she knows what she is doing. ‘Jacquetta, I have to ask you to do this, even if it is dangerous for you.’

  ‘It is a great demand, Your Grace.’

  ‘Your husband, the Duke of Bedford, asked for nothing less. He married you so that you would serve England in this way.’

  ‘I had to obey him: he was my husband. And he could protect me.’

  ‘He was right to ask you to use your gifts to save England. And now I ask it too, and I will protect you.’

  I shake my head. I have a very real sense that there will come a time when she will not be there and I will face a court like Joan of Arc, like Eleanor Cobham, a court of men, and there will be documents written against me and evidence produced against me and witnesses who will swear against me, and no-one will protect me.

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘Because I think the king is under a spell, and has been for years. The Duke of York, or Duchess Cecily, or the French king or somebody – how should I know who? – but someone has put him under a spell that makes him like a sleeping baby, or makes him like a trusting child. I have to make sure he never slips away from us again. Only alchemy or magic can protect him.’

  ‘He is awake now.’

  ‘He’s like a wakeful child now. He has a dream of harmony and peace and then he will fall asleep again, smiling at his lovely dream.’

  I pause. I know she is right. The king has slipped through to another world and we need him in this one. ‘I will come with you. But if I think your alchemist is a charlatan, I will have no truck with him.’

  ‘That’s the very reason I want you to come,’ she says. ‘To see what you think of him. But come now.’

  We go on foot, through the darkened streets of Westminster, hand in hand. We have no ladies in waiting, not even a guard. For one moment only, I close my eyes in horror at what Richard my husband would say if he knew that I was taking such a risk and with the queen herself. But she knows where she is going. Sure-footed on the muck of the streets, imperious to the crossing-sweepers, with a little lad going ahead of us with a flaming torch, she guides us down the narrow lanes, and turns into an alley. At the end of it is a great door set in the wall.

  I take the iron ring set beside it, and pull. A great carillon answers us, and the sound of dogs barking somewhere at the back. The porter opens the grille. ‘Who calls?’ he asks.

  Margaret steps up. ‘Tell your master that she of Anjou has come,’ she says.

  At once the door swings open. She beckons to me, and we go inside. We step into a forest, not a garden. It is like a plantation of fir trees inside the tall walls, in the very heart of London, a secret woodland like a London garden under an enchantment to grow wild. I glance at Margaret and she smiles at me as if she knows how this place will strike me: as a hidden world within the real one; perhaps it is eve
n the doorway to another world inside this.

  We walk down a twisting path which takes us through the green shadow of towering trees and then to a small house, overburdened with dark trees around it, sweet-scented boughs leaning on every roof, chimneys poking through foliage and singeing the needles of the pine trees. I sniff the air, there is the smell of a forge, thin smoke from hot coals, and the familiar, never-forgotten scent of sulphur. ‘He lives here,’ I say.

  She nods. ‘You will see him. You can judge for yourself.’

  We wait, beside a stone bench before the house, and then a little door swings open and the alchemist comes out, a dark cloak around him, wiping his hands on his sleeves. He bows to the queen and directs a piercing look at me.

  ‘You are of the House of Melusina?’ he asks me.

  ‘I am Lady Rivers now,’ I say.

  ‘I have long wanted to meet you. I knew Master Forte, who worked for your husband the duke. He told me that you had the gift of scrying.’

  ‘I never saw anything that made much sense to me,’ I say.

  p height="0" width="1em">He nods. ‘Will you scry for me?’ I hesitate. ‘What if I see something which is against the law?’

  He looks at the queen.

  ‘I say it is allowed,’ she rules. ‘Anything.’

  His smile is gentle. ‘Only you and I will see the looking glass, and I will keep it secret. It shall be as a confessional. I am an ordained priest; I am Father Jefferies. No-one will know what you see, but you and I. I will tell Her Grace only the interpretation.’

  ‘Is it to find the spell which will heal the king? It is to do good for him?’

  ‘That is my intention. I am already preparing some waters for him, I think that your presence at the moment of distilling will make the difference. He is well now, he can stay awake now, but I think he has some deep wound inside. He has never grown away from his mother, he has never truly become a man. He needs to transform. He needs that change from a child to a man, it is an alchemy of the person.’ He looks at me. ‘You have lived at his court, you have known him for many years. Do you think this?’