The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

  I have to go back into the room past the dead man to get my cape, which was spread over the bed for warmth. I don’t look at him, and we leave him there, unshriven, dead in his own blood with his throat cut.

  ‘Jacquetta!’ she says.

  ‘Margaret.’ We hold each other, arms wrapped around each other, cheeks warm one to the other. I feel the energy of her joy and optimism coursing through her slight body. I smell the perfume in her hair and her fur collar tickles my chin.

  ‘I have had such adventures! You will never believe the journeys I have made. Are you safe?’

  I can feel myself still trembling with shock from the violence in the bedroom. ‘Richard had to kill one of your men,’ I say. ‘He came in my bedroom window.’

  She shakes her head disapprovingly, as at a minor foible. ‘Oh! They are hopeless! Good for nothing but killing people. But you must see our prince,’ she says. ‘He is a young man born to be king. He has been so brave. We had to ride to Wales and then take ship to Scotland. We were robbed and wrecked! You’ll never believe it.’

  ‘Margaret, the people are terrified of your army.’

  ‘Yes, I know. They are tremendous. You will see, we have such plans!’

  She is radiant, she is a woman in her power, free at last to take her power. ‘I have the lords of Somerset, Exeter and Northumberland,’ she says. ‘The north of England is ours. We will march south and when Warwick comes out to defend London we will crush him.’

  ‘He will be able to raise London against you,’ I warn her. ‘And the country is terrified of your army, not welcoming at all.’

  She laughs aloud. ‘I have raised the Scots and the north against him,’ she says. ‘They will be too afraid even to lift a weapon. I am coming like a wolf into England, Jacquetta, with an army of wolves. I am at the very height of the wheel of fortune, this is an unbeatable army because nobody will dare to take the field against them. People run from us before we even arrive, I have become a bad queen to my people, a scourge in the land, and they will be sorry that they ever raised a sword or a pitchfork against me.’

  We ride south with the queen’s army, the royal party at the head of the marching men, the pillaging, looting and terror going on behind us in a broad swathe that we know about, but ignore. Some of the men ride off from the main column to forage for food, breaking into barns, raiding shops and isolated little farms, demanding a levy from villages; but others are madmen, men from the north like Vikings going berserk, killing for the sake of it, stealing from churches, raping women. We bring terror to England, we are like a plague on our own people. Richard and some of the lords are deeply shamed and do what they can to impose some order on the army, controlling their own levies, demanding that the Scots fall in and march. But some of the other lords, the queen herself, and even her little boy, seem to revel in punishing the country that rejected them. Margaret is like a woman released from the bonds of honour, she is free to be anything she likes for the first time in her life, she is free of her husband, she is free of the constraints of the court, she is free of the careful manners of a French princess, she is free, at last, to be wicked.

  On the second day of our march, the four of us riding at the head of the army see a lone horseman, standing by the roadsideof iting for us to come up. Richard nods to Anthony and John. ‘Go and see who that is,’ he says. ‘Take care. I don’t want to find that he’s a scout and Warwick is the other side of the hill.’

  My two boys canter slowly towards the man, holding the reins in their left hands, their right hands held down, outspread, to show they are holding no weapon. The man trots towards them, making the same gesture. They halt to speak briefly then all three turn and ride towards us.

  The stranger is filthy from the mud of the road and his horse’s coat is matted with sweat. He is unarmed, he has a scabbard at his side but he has lost his sword.

  ‘A messenger,’ Anthony says with a nod to the queen who has pulled up her horse and is waiting. ‘Bad news, I am afraid, Your Grace.’

  She waits, impassively, as a queen should wait for bad news.

  ‘Edward of March has come out of Wales like a sun in winter,’ the man says. ‘I was there. Jasper Tudor sent me to tell you to beware the sun in splendour.’

  ‘He never did,’ my husband interrupts. ‘Jasper Tudor never sent such a message in his life. Tell us what you were ordered to say, fool, and don’t embroider.’

  Corrected, the man straightens in his saddle. ‘Tudor told me to say this: that his army is defeated and that he is in hiding. We met the York force and we lost. Sir William Herbert led the Yorks against us; Edward of March was at his side. They broke the Welsh line and rode right through us, Jasper sent me to you to warn you. He was on his way to join you when Edward blocked our path.’

  The queen nods. ‘Will Jasper Tudor come on to join us?’

  ‘Half his army is dead. The Yorks are everywhere. I doubt he’ll get through. He might be dead now.’

  She takes a breath but says nothing.

  ‘There was a vision,’ the man offers, one eye on Richard.

  ‘Who else saw it?’ he demands irritably. ‘Anyone? Or just you? Or you just think you did?’

  ‘Everyone saw it. That’s why we lost. Everyone saw it.’

  ‘No matter,’ my husband says.

  ‘What was it?’ the queen asks.

  My husband sighs and rolls his eyes.

  ‘In the sky, over Edward Earl of March, when he raised his standard, the morning sun came up, and then there were three suns. Three suns in the sky above him, the middle one shining down on him. It was like a miracle. We didn’t know what it meant; but we could see he was blessed. We didn’t know why.’

  ‘Three suns,’ the queen repeats. She turns to me. ‘What does it mean?’

  I turn away as if she might see, reflected in my eyes, the three suns I saw, dazzling on the water of the Thames. These are three suns I know, these three suns I have seen. But I did not know then what they meant, and I still don’t know now.

  ‘Some said it was the blessed Trinity honouring Edward March. But why would Father, Son and Holy Ghost bless a rebe Some said it was him and his two living brothers, born to rise high.’

  The queen looks at me. I shake my head and stay silent. I was hoping that I would see the season when the king would recover when I went out in that cold dawn and looked at the shine on the waters of the river. I was looking for the rising of my king but instead I saw three suns rising out of the mist and burning brightly.

  ‘What does it mean?’ The man asks the question in my direction, as if he expects me to know.

  ‘Nothing,’ my husband says stoutly. ‘It means that there was a bright dawn and you were all dazzled by fear.’ He turns back to the man. ‘I don’t want to know about visions, I want to know about a day’s march. If Edward brings his troop due west and marches as quick as he can, when d’you think they will get to London?’

  The man thinks, he is so weary he cannot calculate the days. ‘A week? Three, four days?’ he asks. ‘He’s fast. He’s the fastest commander in battle I have ever seen. Could he be here tomorrow?’

  That night my husband disappears from our camp, and comes back late, as the queen is about to retire. ‘Your Grace, I ask permission to bring a friend to join us.’

  She rises. ‘Ah, Richard, you are a good man in my service. You brought me a great commander in Sir Andrew Trollope who won Ludford for us without raising his sword. Who do you have now?’

  ‘I have to have your oath that you will forgive him for former error,’ he says.

  ‘I forgive him,’ she says easily.

  ‘He is pardoned?’ Richard confirms.

  ‘He has a royal pardon. You have my word.’

  ‘Then, may I present Sir Henry Lovelace, who is proud to come to serve you,’ he says.

  She extends her hand and Richard’s friend steps forwards, bows and kisses it. ‘You have not always been my friend, Sir Henry,’ she observes coolly.

 
‘I didn’t know then that York would try to take the crown,’ he says. ‘I joined him only to see the council well run. And now York is dead. I have joined you late: before your last battle and your final victory, I know. But I am proud to join you now.’

  She smiles on him, she can still invoke that irresistible charm. ‘I am glad to have you in my service,’ she says. ‘And you will be well rewarded.’

  ‘Sir Henry says that Warwick is dug in around St Albans,’ my husband tells her. ‘We must defeat him before Edward March can come up and reinforce him.’

  ‘We’re not afraid of a boy of nineteen, are we? Andrew Trollope will command my army, with you, Lord Rivers. And we will attack at once, as you suggest.’

  ‘We’ll draw up a plan,’ Richard says. ‘And Sir Henry will go back to Warwick and serve alongside him until we join in battle. We’ll march tonight, in darkness. With good luck we will come upon them when they think we are still a day away.’

  The queen smiles on him. ‘I’ll get ready,’ she says.

  We wait. The royal army with the Scots forces goes almost silently down the lane in the darkness. The Scots are barefoot, they have no horses, they can disappear into the night with no sound. They like coming unexpectedly out of the darkness to kill. Richard is at the head, our son Anthony commanding a troop, and John is leading the cavalry. The queen and I doze in our chairs, either side of a banked-in fire in the hall of the Dominican friary at Dunstable, dressed in riding clothes, ready to get to our horses and ride forwards or away, depending on the luck of the battle. She keeps the prince beside her, though he is restless, playing with his badge of the swan. He says he wants to ride with the men, he may only be seven years but he is old enough to kill his enemies. She laughs at him but never checks him.

  ST ALBANS, SPRING 1461

  We have to wait all day. As darkness falls, one of the queen’s household comes riding back to us and says that the town is taken, St Albans is ours, and the terrible shame of our earlier defeat there is wiped out. The prince drops his livery badge and runs for his swo

  rd and the queen gives the order to her household that we can proceed. As we ride south, filled with excitement at our triumph, the guards around us, their swords drawn, we can hear the noise of battle, the erratic firing of guns with damp powder. It starts to snow, cold wet flakes which melt on our shoulders and heads. Occasionally we see men, running from the battle, coming up the road towards us, but when they catch sight of our troop, swords out at the ready, they vault over a gate and get into a field, or melt through the hedge and disappear. We can’t tell if they are Warwick’s men or our own.

  We halt outside the town and the queen orders two scouts to go forwards. They are jubilant when they return.

  ‘Warwick grouped his men on Nomansland Common, and was firing on our men. But then Sir Henry Lovelace led his men out of Warwick’s army leaving a gap in his line, and our cavalry charged straight at it.’

  The queen makes a fist of her hand and holds it to her throat. ‘And?’

  ‘We broke the line!’ the man shouts.

  ‘Huzzah!’ the prince calls. ‘Huzzah!’

  ‘We broke Warwick?’

  ‘He’s sounded the retreat, he’s off like a scalded cat. His men are running away or surrendering. We’ve won, Your Grace. We’ve won!’

  The queen is laughing and crying at once, the prince is beside himself. He draws his little sword and whirls it round his head.

  ‘And the king?’ she says. ‘My husband the king?’

  ‘Lord Warwick brought him to the battle; but left him and all the baggage as he fled. He’s here, Your Grace.’

  She looks suddenly stunned. They have been apart for seven months, and she has been on the road, in hiding, or marching, for every day of their separation, living cat brigand, living like a thief; while he has been in the queen’s rooms in Westminster Palace or praying in a monastery, weak as a girl. Of course she is afraid that he has lost his wits again. Of course she fears that she will be a stranger to him. ‘Take me to him.’ She glances back at me. ‘Come with me, Jacquetta. Ride with me.’

  As we ride along the road the wounded and defeated soldiers clear out of our way, heads down, their hands outspread, fearing a blow. As we get closer to the town we see the dead lying in the fields. In the High Street Warwick’s crack archers are fallen among their bows, their heads cleaved open by battle axes, their bellies ripped with swords. The queen rides through it all, blind to the misery of it, and the prince rides beside her, beaming at our victory, his little sword held up before him.

  They have made a camp for the queen away from the horrors of the town. The royal standard is flying over her tent, a brazier is burning inside, there are carpets down against the mud. We go into the big tent that serves as her presence chamber, a little tent behind will be her bedroom. She seats herself on her chair, I stand beside her, the prince between the two of us. For the first time in days she looks uncertain. She glances at me. ‘I don’t know how he will be,’ is all she says. She puts her hand on the prince’s shoulder. ‘Take him out if his father is unwell,’ she says quietly to me. ‘I don’t want him to see . . . ’

  The flap of the door opens and they bring the king inside. He is warmly dressed in a long gown and riding boots and a thick cape around his shoulders, the hood pulled up over his head. Behind him, standing in the doorway, I recognise Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriell, men who served with my first husband in France, loyal men, good men, who joined the cause of York in the early days, and stayed with the king throughout the battle to keep him safe.

  ‘Oh,’ the king says vaguely, taking in the queen and his son. ‘Ah . . . Margaret.’

  A shiver goes through her as she sees, we all see, that he is not well again. He can barely remember her name, he smiles distantly at the prince, who kneels to his father for his blessing. Henry puts an absent-minded hand on the young boy’s head. ‘Ah . . . ’ he says. This time he cannot find the name in his muddled mind at all. ‘Ah . . . yes.’

  The prince rises. He looks up at his father.

  ‘This is Sir Thomas, and Lord Bonville,’ the king says to his wife. ‘They have been very good . . . very good.’

  ‘How?’ she spits.

  ‘They kept me amused,’ he says, smiling. ‘While it was all going on, you know. While the noise was going on. We played marbles. I won. I liked playing when the noise was going on.’

  The queen looks past him at Lord Bonville. He goes down on one knee. ‘Your Grace, he is very weak,’ he says quietly. ‘Sometimes he doesn’t know himself. We stayed with him to stop him wandering off and getting hurt. He gets lost if he’s not watched. And then he gets distressed.’

  She leaps to her feet. ‘How dare you? This is the King of England,’ she says. ‘He is perfectly well.’

  Bonville is silenced by the look on her face but Sir Thomas Kyriell hardly hears her, he is watching the king. He steps forwards to steady Henry who is swaying and looks as if he might fall. He guides the king into the queen’s vacated chair. ‘No, I am afraid he is not well,’ he says gently, helping Henry to sit. ‘He can’t tell a hawk from a handsaw, Your Grace. He is far from us all, God bless him.’

  The queen whirls around to her son in a white-faced fury. ‘These lords have held your father the king prisoner,’ she says flatly. ‘What death would you have them die?’

  ‘Death?’ Bonville looks up, shocked.

  Sir Thomas, still holding the king’s hand in a comforting grip, says, ‘Your Grace! We have kept him safe. We were promised safe conduct. He gave us his own word!’

  ‘What death would you have these rebels die?’ she repeats, staring at her son. ‘These men, who kept your father prisoner, and now dare tell me that he is ill?’

  The little boy puts his hand on the hilt of his sword as if he would like to kill them himself. ‘If they were common men I would put them on the gallows,’ he says in his little-boy piping voice, each word beautifully spoken as his tutor has taught him. ‘But since t
hey are lords and peers of the realm, I say they should be beheaded.’

  The queen nods at her guards. ‘Do as the prince says.’

  ‘Your Grace!’ Sir Thomas does not raise his voice so as not to frighten the king who is clinging to his hand.

  ‘Don’t go, Sir Thomas,’ the king says. ‘Don’t leave me here with . . . ’ He glances at the queen but he cannot find her name again in his addled brain. ‘We can play again,’ he says as if to tempt his friend to stay with him. ‘You like to play.’

  ‘Your Grace.’ Sir Thomas holds his hand and gently closes his other one over it in a warm clasp. ‘I need you to tell Her Grace the queen that I have cared for you. You said that we should stay with you and we would be safe. You gave us your word! Do you remember? Don’t let the queen behead us.’

  The king looks confused. ‘I did?’ he asks. ‘Oh yes, I did. I promised them they would be safe. Er – Margaret, you won’t hurt these men, will you?’

  She has a face of ice. ‘Not at all,’ she says to him. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’ And to the guard she says, ‘Take them out.’

  I whisper urgently. ‘Margaret – they have his word.’

  ‘Three fools together,’ she hisses. To the guards she nods again. ‘Take them out.’

  We have lodgings in the dorter house of the abbey of St Albans, overlooking the frozen orchard. The fighting was in the streets around the abbey and many of the wounded are coming in to the chapter house and the barns, where the nuns are caring for them, and the monks carrying them out for burial when they die. I have managed to get a tub for Richard and he is washing himself with jugs of water. He has taken a wound to his sword arm and I have sponged it with thyme water from home, and bandaged it tightly. Anthony, thank God, is unhurt.

  ‘Where’s John?’ I ask. ‘Is he with the cavalry?’

  Richard has his back to me as he gets out of the tub, dripping water all over the floor. I cannot see his face. ‘No.’