Succession

by Michael, Livi

  Her nurse’s name was Elizabeth, but Margaret had always called her Betsy, to distinguish her from all the other Elizabeths in the household. And because it was all she could manage to say when she was very young. That or Bet-bet. In return, Betsy called her Little Peg, for there were almost as many Margarets in the household as Elizabeths. Her own mother was called Margaret, as was the queen.

  For as long as she could remember, Little Peg had slept between Betsy’s heavy breasts and rounded stomach. Before sleep, Betsy would let her play with the folds and creases of her face. Her tiny fingers pried into the dimples of her nurse’s cheeks and chin and even into her mouth, when she would pretend to bite. Betsy’s face was softly furred with downy lines and when she laughed she was like an infant, revealing crinkled gums. She had large eyes full of greenish lights and heavy eyebrows that seemed at odds with the wispy tendrils of her hair, the darkish strands on her upper lip.

  And she was full of stories, for her mother was a Cornishwoman, and it was a different world down there, she said, magical, disappearing at night. People told stories all night long to make the land come back each morning. And it was a different land each time, for nobody could tell the same story twice.

  If you cut your finger at the new moon you were bound for ever to the goblin king unless you turned round quickly three times and said your own name backwards. If you were using salt you had to throw some over your left shoulder, or the devil would appear.

  As she got older, Margaret would question her nurse or argue until Betsy would throw her arms up in mock horror, and call her Little Miss Plato, and tell her she was far too clever for her old nurse, now that she was being tutored by the Lady Alice.

  It was Betsy who had taken her on her first visit to the new household, where she had clung fiercely to her nurse or followed her around like a tiny planet orbiting her sun. It was Betsy who had lost her that fateful day when her guardian had shown her the world in all its strangeness and colour, and Betsy whose footsteps had come pounding along the corridor to find her. Coming on them finally, breathless and distracted, she had sunk into a curtsy so low that she could not get up again, and the duke himself had helped her to her feet.

  And it was Betsy who told her that she must play nicely with her new brother – ‘like a good little girl’ – and let him win.

  Once he was breeched this was easy for him, because he could run about in his new trousers and she could only stumble after him in her long skirts. She could not climb trees or ford streams anywhere near as well as he. Also she was several months younger than he was, and small for her age, all of which made him well disposed towards her. Once, he had carried her across the stones in the stream like St Christopher, though she did not much like being carried and had clung to his neck for all she was worth, convinced he would drop her by accident or on purpose. She had worked out quite quickly, however, that he was not supposed to treat her ‘with any discourtesy’, and so she always made sure that if she was about to do anything to enrage him, such as winning at hide and seek, they were within earshot of his mother or his nurse.

  And if he annoyed her by insisting on winning at indoor games he would sometimes find that his carved geese or horsemen, or his finest marbles, would mysteriously disappear. His nurse said that if he didn’t leave them scattered around they would not be lost, but she would question the servants; in all probability they had simply been put away.

  And so they had: in Margaret’s room, in her private box.

  On this particular Sunday it was very cold, and they had to play inside. So John took out his castle and his carved wooden knights and horses and they each had a mounted knight which they pushed down a ramp until they collided and the one that fell over lost. And since John pushed harder, Margaret’s knight always lost. And then they played Siege, and her knights waited in the castle to be captured.

  After that, since it wasn’t snowing, they were allowed outside briefly, well wrapped in furs. It was a still, brown day with strands of pale light in the sky. They made their way to the pond to see if there was any life beneath its frozen surface and crouched down. John said he could see a fish, but though he pointed with a stick she couldn’t see anything beneath the opaque patterns of ice. She wondered if the fish in its shadowy world was dreaming of the sky, or whether it thought that the surface of the pool was the sky, glinting above it in shards of light.

  ‘We will be married soon,’ John said suddenly. She looked up at him sharply but he was still studying the pond and his face was sober.

  ‘I’m not getting married,’ she said, and he cleared some withered stalks from the surface with his stick.

  ‘You are,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not.’

  He looked at her. ‘You have to. Girls have to.’

  She got up, shaking her skirts. ‘Who says so?’

  ‘My father. And my mother.’

  ‘I’m not getting married to you,’ she said. She hurried away from him then and only stopped when she heard a noise from behind. He was crying loudly, his mouth wide open. But she hesitated only for a moment, and then ran all the way to her nurse.

  ‘I’m not getting married,’ she panted.

  Betsy sat back in dismay.

  ‘Of course you are, my poppet,’ she said.

  Margaret was outraged. ‘But – he is my brother – you said so!’

  Betsy gathered her up on to her knee in the way she used to when Margaret was very small. ‘He is not your real brother, poppet – he is your brother in spirit. Which is the best thing that a husband can be. Don’t you want to be married to your very best friend?’

  Margaret started to protest that she didn’t want to be married at all, but Betsy swept this aside. Of course she wanted to be married. All good little girls got married, it was God’s blessing on them for being good. Because God knew how good she was, he wanted to bless the earth with more little girls and boys who would be as good as she was.

  Margaret looked at her, appalled, but her nurse said she would be a fine lady, like Lady Alice, and have her own household. She would be a duchess and her husband a duke. Didn’t she want to be a duchess?

  At the mention of Lady Alice she tried to wriggle off her nurse’s knee. ‘I will ask her,’ she said, but her nurse clasped her more tightly and said she mustn’t, she was not to bother Lady Alice when she was so busy making arrangements. It was going to be the best wedding in the world, she said: the Faerie Queen herself had said so.

  Betsy told her that the Lady Alice had spent a week or more on her knees praying to Our Lady in Heaven to know who would be the perfect wife for her son. And at the end of that week the Queen of the Faeries had come to her in a dream. Her hair was as wild as bracken and her eyes were like the night sky. She had taken a garland of daisies from her hair and given them to Lady Alice. And in each daisy, instead of droplets of dew, there had been a shining pearl.

  Pearls and daisies were the symbols of her name, Margaret.

  Betsy’s voice had grown hushed and her eyes luminous, but Margaret’s forehead contracted into a frown. ‘Why would Our Lady send the Faerie Queen?’ she asked.

  Betsy said that God’s mother could choose her own messengers if anyone could. And, anyway, if she didn’t believe her old Betsy, she could believe the dress that was being made for her. It was being embroidered with seed pearls in the shape of daisies. Betsy herself had seen it. ‘You will look like a little angel from heaven,’ she said, her eyes misting over.

  Margaret finally wriggled free. ‘I’m going to ask Lady Alice,’ she said, and set off at a run so that her old nurse couldn’t follow.

  Lady Alice was not in the schoolroom where she taught Margaret, and she was not in the little chapel, listening to her choir of poor boys. Nor was she in the hospital where she cared for paupers, or for her own servants who had fallen ill. In the end Margaret had to ask one of the servants, who said she was in her private room, and reluctantly agreed to disturb her. And Lady Alice said she could be shown in.
<
br />   She stood facing the window, with her back to Margaret, but as soon as the servant left she turned, then stood entirely still, with her face partially obscured by the light that was shining from behind.

  ‘Well,’ she said softly. ‘What is it?’

  But Margaret was suddenly overcome by the sense that she had done a monstrous thing, demanding to see the duchess in her room. She looked down at the floor and mumbled something to the effect that she had heard, Betsy had said, that she was to be married.

  ‘Do you not wish to be married?’ Lady Alice said.

  When Margaret did not answer she came towards her, then unexpectedly crouched down on a little stool so that her face was more or less level with Margaret’s own.

  ‘You are so young,’ she said. Margaret looked at her in growing dismay. It was not possible that Lady Alice had been crying.

  There was no one Margaret admired so much as Lady Alice; she loved nothing better than to be taught by her, while John was learning to ride, and wear armour, and manage a sword. Lady Alice would read poems to her in French and make her repeat them. Even when she didn’t understand the words she understood that Lady Alice loved reading them aloud and Margaret loved being read to; they were bound together by this love. Lady Alice praised her constantly for doing well in her studies and had insisted that she should be called Margaret, not Little Peg. When she grew up, Margaret wanted to be just like Lady Alice: elegant and learned, healing the afflicted by the soothing power of her presence. But it was not possible to love the Lady Alice in the same way as she did her nurse; there was always something inaccessible about her – she was as remote and serene as the moon.

  But now she had been crying, and Margaret was shocked into silence.

  Lady Alice touched her face and moved a strand of her hair, which had escaped from its cap.

  ‘I was not much older than you when I was first married,’ she said, and there was a catch in her voice. She tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears again. Then she rested her hands on Margaret’s bony shoulders. ‘You are like a little bird,’ she said, and she went on to say that she had her whole life in front of her, but life was often difficult, and marriage – marriage was difficult also.

  Margaret was hardly listening, transfixed by the Lady Alice’s unnatural smile, which did not reach her eyes.

  ‘I would have liked a little daughter,’ she said, nodding. ‘I would like you to be a daughter to me. I would like you to marry my son.’

  All the protests died away on Margaret’s lips. There was no question in her mind that she would be a daughter to Lady Alice if that was what Lady Alice wanted.

  Lady Alice said a few more words: that she hoped Margaret would be a companion for her son, that they would be companions for one another, throughout all life’s difficulties. Together they would face any adversity that life had to offer, and they would never be alone.

  ‘That is the great beauty of marrying young,’ she said. Then, unexpectedly, she let her head fall on to Margaret’s thin shoulders.

  Margaret did not know what to do or say. She wondered if she should hold her tightly, as Betsy held her, or pat her shoulder. But Lady Alice rose swiftly, dabbing at her eyes, and went to the door where the servant was waiting outside. And Margaret understood that the interview was over.

  Outside, the light seemed suddenly dazzling, though it was quite a dull day. John was waiting for her, scuffing one heel on the frozen earth. He looked up as she approached, and she looked at him as though she didn’t recognize him.

  ‘I told you we were going to be married,’ he said. When she didn’t answer he said, ‘And you will love me for ever. Wives do.’

  She said nothing, but went to stand beside him. He looked at her uncertainly. ‘Will you marry me then?’ he asked, and she nodded. And hesitantly, awkwardly, he took her hand.

  Soon she was standing with him in the little chapel, wearing the white silk dress with seed pearls in the shape of daisies, while the little choir of poor boys sang. Their voices floated upwards to the ceiling which had been painted blue in imitation of the infinite sky. Then the priest told Margaret and John that marriage was a sacred sacrament, and they were joined together in an eternal bond.

  Eternal was one of those words, like infinite, that was hard to imagine. But she promised to marry John and to stay with him for ever, and to love him, as wives do.

  17

  Lady Alice Receives News of Her Husband

  And on the Sabbath day at about the tenth hour they beheaded him in a small boat and left his body with the head on the sea shore near Dover. And the body lay unburied for a month.

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  Lo! What availed him now all his deliverance of Normandy? And here you may learn how he was rewarded for the death of the Duke of Gloucester.

  Brut Chronicle

  After the messenger told her what had happened she said nothing for several moments. Then she said, ‘When?’

  The messenger, a sharp-eyed man in rough clothing who had given his name simply as Watkin, pulled the corners of his mouth down. Then he advanced the opinion that it was probably three weeks ago now.

  ‘Three weeks?’

  The man shrugged. He said that they had not discovered the body for a day or so, and at first they hadn’t known who it was. It had been stripped of its outer clothing and the head was … somewhat battered about. Once they had identified it as the duke they had sent a messenger straight away, but he had been attacked by robbers. He had been found not six miles away, so badly beaten it was unlikely that he would ever walk again. After that no one had wanted to make the journey, until Watkin had said that he was travelling north in any case.

  She turned away from him then. She would not be sick.

  ‘The roads are bad, ma’am – very bad. It has taken me the best part of a week to get here.’

  She knew he was hinting at payment. But he had not told her enough yet; or nothing she could comprehend. Her husband had been killed on a beach.

  ‘Where is my husband’s body?’

  Watkin said that he was sure they would have moved the body by now. Into the church, most likely.

  ‘He must not be buried there,’ she said.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘You will take back my instructions to the monks.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  She turned back to him.

  ‘I am travelling north,’ he said sturdily. ‘To Coventry. I am six days late already. I will not risk my life again on those roads.’

  She stared at him. ‘What roads?’ And he began a long, rambling tale, about the soldiers coming back from Normandy in such great misery and poverty that all they could do was to rob poor people on the roads or in their own homes. No one was safe, he said. And the people of the countryside had grown unquiet.

  She hardly heard him. Her husband’s body, with its severed head, had lain rotting on a beach. If she closed her eyes briefly she could see his face. William, she said, and he smiled at her.

  ‘So even if I did go back,’ the man was saying, ‘there’s no telling how long it’d take. And no saying I’d get there, either.’

  She looked at him. He seemed like a man who could take care of himself. But she wasn’t going to argue. All she said was, ‘It doesn’t matter. I will send my own men to bring the bod– the duke back here.’

  Watkin pulled his mouth again. Then he said that they should be well armed, and that if it were him, he would not travel in anything bearing the duke’s insignia.

  She stared at him. ‘You may go,’ she said.

  He bowed his head. ‘My lady –’

  ‘You may eat in the kitchens,’ she said, and he bowed his head once more and left.

  Lady Alice made her way to a chair and sat on it. She wondered if she was trembling, but she was not trembling. Then she wondered again whether she would be sick, but she was not sick. She stared ahead without seeing anything. For the first time in her life, it seemed, she did not know what t
o do. When she closed her eyes she could see her husband’s face again, still smiling.

  ‘Tell me what to do,’ she said. She did not say it aloud but her lips moved as though she were praying. Her husband merely pointed out that she had always told him what to do. Then, superimposed over the image of his smiling face, came the image of his severed head, somewhat battered about.

  She opened her eyes again quickly. There were many things to do; many arrangements to make. The whole household had to be in mourning. She would send men for her husband’s body. And she would have to prepare for the funeral.

  Still she did not move, but sat in her chair trying to comprehend this thing that had come to her; what it might mean. Her husband of nearly twenty years was gone, his body left on a beach in Dover. And there was her son.

  At the thought of her son a low moan escaped her and she let her face fall briefly into her hands. Then she stood up, because there was so much to do.

  The next morning her steward set off for Kent in an entirely plain carriage bearing no insignia, with a small company of armed men. But within three days he returned. The roads were impassable, he said. They had tried more than one way of getting through but had been turned back by great numbers of armed men. There was an insurrection in Kent.

  [In June 1450] the commons of Kent arose with great power and came to Blackheath where they remained for seven days, surrounded by stakes and ditches.

  London Chronicle

  Fifty thousand men of Kent rose in rebellion choosing as their captain a most impudent and clever man calling himself John Mortimer.

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  The said captain and the Kentishmen came unto Blackheath, and there kept the field a month or more, pillaging all the country about …