The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

  I glance around; even on the terrace of my own manor house I am afraid that someone will hear where she is, and betray her. ‘Gone to Jasper Tudor,’ I whisper. ‘And from there to France or Scotland, I should think.’

  Richard nods. ‘Come in,’ he says gently to me. ‘You must be weary. You weren’t near the battle, were you? You had no danger on the roads?’

  I lean against him and feel the familiar sense of relief that he is by my side. ‘I feel safe now, at any rate,’ I say.

  GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,

  WINTER 1460–61

  We live as we did when we were first married, as if we had no work to do but to keep the lands around Grafton, as if we were nothing but a squire and his wife. We don’t want the attention of the York lords as they make the country t

  heir own, impose massive fines on the lords they now call traitors, take posts and fees from the men they have defeated. There is a greed here, and a thirst for revenge, and all I want is for it to pass us by. We live quietly and hope to escape notice. We hear, in snatches of gossip from travellers who ask for a bed for the night, and occasional visitors, that the king is living quietly at Westminster Palace in the queen’s rooms while his conquering cousin, Richard, Duke of York, has taken up residence in the king’s own apartments. I think of my king in the rooms that I knew so well and I pray that he does not slide into sleep again to escape a waking world which is so hard on him.

  The duke forges an extraordinary agreement with the Privy Council and the parliament: he will be regent and Protector of the Realm until the death of the king and then he will become king himself. A peddler, who comes by with York ribbons of white and white roses of silk in his pack, says that the king has agreed to this and is going to take vows and become a monk.

  ‘He’s not in the Tower?’ I ask urgently. I have a horror of the king being sent to the Tower.

  ‘No, he is living freely as a fool at the court,’ he says. ‘And York will be the next king.’

  ‘The queen will never consent to it,’ I say incautiously.

  ‘She’s in Scotland, so they say,’ he replies, preading his goods before me. ‘Good riddance. Let her stay there, I say. D’you want some pepper? I have some pepper and a nutmeg so fresh that you could eat it whole.’

  ‘In Scotland?’

  ‘They say she is meeting with the Scottish queen and they are going to bring an army of harpies down on us,’ he says cheerfully. ‘An army of women – think of that as a horror! A nice little polished mirror here? Or look, some hairnets of gold thread. That’s real gold, that is.’

  We celebrate Christmas at Grafton. Elizabeth comes to stay with her husband, Sir John, and their two boys: Thomas is five years old now and Richard just two. All my children come home for the twelve days of the feast, and the house is alive with their singing and dancing and chasing each other up and down the wooden staircase. For the six youngest children, from Kather ine, who at two can only toddle after her bigger siblings, imploring them not to leave her behind, through Edward, Margaret, Lionel, Eleanor, and Martha, the oldest of the nursery at ten years, the return of their older brothers and sisters is like an explosion of noise and excitement. Richard and John are inseparable, young men of fourteen and fifteen years, Jacquetta and Mary are thoughtful young women, placed in the houses of neighbours in these difficult times. Anthony and Anne are the oldest of course. Anne should be married by now, but what can I do when the whole country is turned upside down and there is not even a court for her to join as a maid in waiting? And how am I to find Anthony the bride he should have when I cannot tell who will be wealthy and in the favour of the king next month – let alone ten years from now? There is a promise between him and the daughter of Lord Scales, but Lord Scales is dead and his family disgraced like us. And finally, and most puzzling for me, who should be planning matches for my children and looking around for the great houses where they should be placed to learn the skills they need: how can I know which will stay loyal to Lancaster, when the House of Lancaster is a king living in the queen’s rooms, an absent queen, and a boy of seven? And I cannot yet bring myself to consider an alliance with anyone who serves the traitorous House of York.

  I think I will keep all the children at home with us at Grafton till the spring, perhaps longer. There can be no positions for us at the new royal household which will be the York court – since there are now York placemen and lords and members of parliament I assume that soon there will be York courtiers and ladies in waiting. Cecily Neville, the Duchess of York, riding high on fortune’s wheel, is sleeping in the king’s apartments under a canopy of cloth of gold like a queen herself; she must think that every day is Christmas. Clearly, we can never attend a York court: I doubt that any of us will ever forgive or forget the humiliation in the great hall at Calais Castle. Perhaps we will learn to be exiles in our own lands. Perhaps I shall now, at the age of forty-five, with my last child learning to talk, live in a country that is like that of my childhood: with one king in the north of the kingdom and one in the south, and everyone forced to choose which they think is the true one, and everyone knowing their enemy, and everyone waiting for revenge.

  I really despair of organising the future of our family in such a world, at such a time, and instead I take comfort in the future of our lands. I start to plan to enlarge our orchard and go to a farm near Northampton where I can buy some whips of trees. Richard tells me that the seas are safe for shipping and he will get better prices for the wool from his sheep this year in the market at Calais. The roads are safe to and fromLondon, the Duke of York is restoring the powers of the sheriffs and commanding them to see that justice is done in every county. Slowly, the counties are starting to rid themselves of bandits and thieves on the highway. We never admit it, not even to each other; but these are great improvements. We start to think, never saying it out loud, that perhaps we can live like this, as country land owners in a country at peace. Perhaps we can grow an orchard, farm our sheep, watch our children come to adulthood without the fear of treachery and war. Perhaps Richard Duke of York has thrown us down from the court, but given us peace in the country.

  Then, at the end of January, I see three riders come splashing down the lane, their horses’ hooves cracking the ice in the puddles. I see them from the nursery window where I am watching Katherine as she sleeps, and I know at once that they are bringing us bad news, and that these cold winter months of stillness are over. It was not a peace at all, it was just the usual winter break in a war that goes on and on forever. A war that will go on and on forever until everyone is dead. For a brief moment I even think that I will close the shutters on the windows and sit in the nursery and pretend that I am not here. I will not have to respond to a call that I don’t hear. But it is only a moment. I know that if I am summoned I have to go. I have served Lancaster for all my life, I cannot fail now.

  I bend over the little crib and kiss Katherine on her warm smooth baby forehead and then I leave the nursery and close the door quietly behind me. I walk slowly down the stairs, looking over the wooden banister as down below Richard throws a cape around his shoulders and picks up his sword, and goes out to see the visitors. I wait inside the great hall, listening.

  ‘Sir Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers?’ says the first man.

  ‘Who wants him?’

  The man lowers his voice. ‘The Queen of England. Do you answer to her? Are you faithful still?’

  ‘Aye,’ Richard says shortly.

  ‘I have this for you,’ the man says and proffers a letter.

  Through the crack in the doorway I see Richard take it. ‘Go round the back to the stables,’ he says. ‘They’ll see you have food and ale. It’s a cold day. Go into the hall and warm yourselves. This is a loyal house; but there is no need to tell anyone where you come from.’

  The men salute in thanks, and Richard comes into the entrance hall, breaking the seal.

  ‘“Greetings, well-beloved . . .”’ he starts to read, and then breaks off. ‘It’s
a standard letter, she has probably sent out hundreds. It’s a summons.’

  ‘To arms?’ I can taste my own fear.

  ‘Me and Anthony. We’re to go to York, she’s mustering there.’

  ‘Will you go?’ Almost, I want to ask him to refuse.

  ‘I have to. This may be the last chance for her.’ He is reading down the letter and he gives a long low whistle. ‘Good God! Her men have taken Richard Duke of York and killed him.’ He looks up at me, clenches the letter in his fist. ‘My God! Who would have thought it? The protector dead! She has won!’

  ‘How?’ I cannotbelieve this sudden leap to victory. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘She just writes he rode out from his castle, that must be Sandal – why would he ever do that? You could hold that place for a month! And that they cut him down. Good God, I can’t believe it. Jacquetta, this is the end of the York campaign. This is the end of the Yorks. Richard of York dead! And his son alongside him.’

  I gasp as if his death is a loss to me. ‘Not young Edward! Not Edward of March!’

  ‘No, his other son, Edmund. Edward of March is in Wales somewhere, but he can do nothing now his father is dead. They are finished. The Yorks are defeated.’ He turns the letter over. ‘Oh, look, she’s written a note at the end of the letter. She says, “Dear Sir Richard, come at once, the tide is turning for me. We have crowned Richard of York with a paper crown and set his head on a spike at the Micklegate. Soon we will put Warwick’s face up beside him, and everything will be as it should be again.”’ He puts the letter into my hand. ‘This changes everything. Would you believe it? Our queen has won, our king is restored.’

  ‘Richard of York is dead?’ I read the letter for myself.

  ‘Now she can beat Warwick,’ he says. ‘Without the alliance with York he’s a dead man. He’s lost the regent and lord protector, it’s all over for them. They have no-one who can pretend to be heir to the throne. Nobody would ever have Warwick as lord protector, he has no claim to the throne at all. The king is the only man who can be king, once more. The House of York is finished, we have only the House of Lancaster. They have made a mistake which has cost them everything.’ He gives a whistle and takes the letter back. ‘Talk about fortune’s wheel: they are thrown down to nothing.’

  I go to his side and look over his shoulder at the queen’s familiar scrawl on the clerk’s letter. In one corner she has written, Jacquetta, come to me at once.

  ‘When do we leave?’ I ask. I am ashamed at my own reluctance to hear this call to arms.

  ‘We’ll have to go now,’ he says.

  We take the great north road to York, certain that the queen’s army will be marching down to London, and we will meet them on the way. At every stop during the cold days, at every night in inns or abbeys, or the great houses, people are talking about the queen’s army as if it were an invading force of foreigners, as if it were a source of terror. They say that she has soldiers from Scotland and that they march barefoot over stones, their chests naked even in the worst of weather. They are afraid of nothing and they eat their meat raw, they will run down the cattle in the fields and gouge flesh from their flanks with their bare hands. She has no money to pay them and she has promised them that they can have anything they can carry if they will take her to London and rip out the heart of the Earl of Warwick.

  They say that she has given the country to the King of France in return for his support. He will sail his fleet up the Thames and lay waste to London, he will claim every port on the south coast. She has already signed over Calais to him, she has sold Berwick and Carlisle to the Scots queen. Newcastle will be the new line of the frontier, the north is lost to us forever and Cecily Neville, the Yorkchingow, will be a Scots peasant.

  There is no point trying to argue with this mixture of terror and truth. The queen, a woman in armour, leading her own army, with a son conceived by a sleeping husband, a woman who uses alchemy and possibly the dark arts, a French princess in alliance with our enemies, has become an object of utter horror to the people of her country. With the Scots behind her, she has become a winter queen, one who comes out of the darkness of the north like a wolf.

  We stop for two nights at Groby Hall to see Elizabeth and meet with her husband, Sir John Grey, who has mustered his men and will march north with us. Elizabeth is strained and unhappy.

  ‘I can’t bear waiting for news,’ she says. ‘Send to me as soon as you can. I can’t bear the waiting. I wish you didn’t have to go out again.’

  ‘I wish it too,’ I say softly to her. ‘I’ve never ridden out with such a heavy heart. I am tired of war.’

  ‘Can’t you refuse to go?’

  I shake my head. ‘She is my queen, and she is my friend. If I did not go for duty I would go for love of her. But what about you, Elizabeth? Do you want to go and stay with the children at Grafton while we are away?’

  She makes a little grimace. ‘My place is here,’ she says. ‘And Lady Grey would not like me to be away. I am just so fearful for John.’

  I put my hand on her restless fingers. ‘You have to be calm. I know it is difficult, but you have to be calm and hope for the best. Your father has been out to battle a dozen times and each time it is as bad as the first – but each time he has come home to me.’

  She catches my hand. ‘What do you see?’ she asks me very quietly. ‘What do you see for John? It is him I fear for, much more even than Anthony or Father.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t foretell,’ I say. ‘I feel as if I am waiting for a sign, as if we all are. Who would have thought that we brought Margaret of Anjou, that pretty girl, to England for this?’

  ON THE MARCH, SPRING 1461

  We ride as a small troop, my son-in-law John, Richard, Anthony and me at the head of our tenants and household men. We can go no faster than their marching pace and the road is flooded in some parts and as we get further and further north it starts to snow. I think o

  f the signs that my lord John Duke of Bedford asked me to see; I remember a vision of a battle in snow, that ended in blood, and I wonder if we are riding towards it.

  Finally, on the third day, the scout that Richard has sent ahead comes cantering back and says that all the country people have bolted their doors and shutters because they believe that the queen’s army is a day’s march away. Richard calls a halt and we go to a manor farm to ask for a bed for the night and a barn where our men can sleep. The place is deserted, they have locked the door and abandoned the house. They would rather take to the hills than welcome the true Queen of England. We break in, and forage for food, light the fire, and order the men to stay in the barn and the yard and to steal nothing. But everything valuable has been taken away and hidden already. Whoever lived here feared the queen as a thief in the night. They left nothing for the queen and her army, they would certainly never fight for her. She has become an enemy to her own people.

  At dawn the next day, we understand why. There is a great hammering on the front door and as I get out of bed there is a wild face glowering at the window, and in a moment the little pane of glass is smashed and a man is in the room, another coming through the window behind him, a knife in his teeth. I scream ‘Richard!’ and snatch up my knife and face them. ‘I am the Duchess of Bedford, friend to the queen,’ I shout.

  The man says something in reply, I cannot understand a word of it. ‘I am of the House of Lancaster!’ I say again. I try in French: ‘Je suis la duchesse de Bedford.’

  ‘Get ready to stand aside,’ Richard says quietly behind me. ‘Jump to your right when I say . . . Now.’

  I fling myself to the right as he lunges forwards and the man folds over Richard’s sword with a terrible gurgle. Blood gushes from his mouth, he staggers, hands out towards me, as he falls to the floor, groaning terribly. Richard puts his booted foot on the man’s belly and pulls out his sword; there is a flood of scarlet blood and the man screams in pain. His comrade disappears out through the window as Richard bends down with his dagger and quick
ly cuts the man’s throat as he would slaughter a pig.

  There is a silence.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Richard asks, wiping his sword and dagger on the curtains of the bed.

  I feel the vomit rising in my throat. I gag, and I put my hand over my mouth and run to the door.

  ‘Do it there,’ Richard says, pointing to the fireplace. ‘I don’t know if the house is safe.’

  I retch into the fireplace, the smell of my vomit mingling with the smell of hot blood, and Richard pats my back. ‘I’ve got to see what’s happening outside. Lock yourself in here, and bolt the shutters. I’ll send a man to guard the door.’

  He is gone before I can protest. I go to the window to swing the shutter closed. Outside in the winter darkness I can see a couple of torches around the barn but I cannot tell if they are our men or the Scots. I bolt the shutters. The room is pitch black now but I can smell the dead man’s blood oozing slowly from his wounds, and I feel for the bed and step around him. I am so afraid that he will reach out from hell and grasp my ankle that I can hardly get to the door and then I bolt it as Richard ordered, and, horribly, the fresh corpse and I are locked in together.

  There is shouting outside and the sudden terrifying blast of a trumpet, and then I hear Richard outside the door. ‘You can come out now, the queen is arriving, and they have the men back in ranks. Those were her scouts, apparently. They were on our side.’

  My hands are shaking as I unbolt the door and throw it open. Richard has a torch and in its flickering light his face is grim. ‘Get your cape and your gloves,’ he says. ‘We’re falling in.’