The Lady of the Rivers (57 page)

‘Nobody is going to imprison you . . . ’

‘You can go and see your children,’ she rules. ‘And then you can meet me. I won’t stay in London to be ordered about by the duke and insulted by the citizens. I know what they say about me. They think I am a virago married to a fool. I won’t be so abused. I shall go and I shall take the court with me, far from London and far from the duke, and he can give what orders he likes; but I won’t have to see them. And the people of London can see how they like their city when there is no court here, and no council and no parliament. I will see them go bankrupt, they will be sorry when I take the court away and give our presence and our wealth to the people of the Midlands.’

‘What about the king?’ I ask carefully. ‘You can’t just leave him in London on his own. It is to throw him into the keeping of the Duke of York.’

‘He will join me when I order it,’ she says. ‘No-one will dare to tell me that my husband shall not be with me, when I command it. The duke will not dare to keep us apart, and I am damned if he will have me locked up in Windsor again.’

GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
SUMMER 1456

I wait for Richard to come home to us at Grafton, enjoying my summer with our children. Elizabeth is at Groby with her new baby and her sister Anne is visiting her. I have placed Anthony with Lord Scales, serving as his squire, learning the ways of a noble house, and Lord Scales as it happens has a daughter, an only daughter, his heiress, Elizabeth. My Mary is thirteen now, and I must look around for a husband for her; she and her sister Jacquetta are staying with the Duchess of Buckingham, learning the ways of that house. My boy John is at home; he and Richard are set to their studies with a new tutor, Martha will join them in the schoolroom this year. Eleanor and Lionel are still in the nursery, with their two-year-old sister Margaret, and their little brother Edward.

I don’t have to wait long for my husband’s return. First I get a message that Richard has been released from his duty at Calais, and then – hard on the heels of the messenger – I see the dust on the road from Grafton coming up the drive to the house and I pick up Edward out of the cradle and hold him to me, shading my eyes with my hand and looking down the road. I plan that Richard shall ride up and see me here, my newest baby in my arms, our house behind me, our lands safe around us, and he will know that I have kept faith with him, raised his children, guarded his lands, as he has kept faith with me.

I can see, I think I can see, the colours of his standard, and then I am certain it is his flag, and then I know for sure that the man on the big horse at the head of the company is him, and I forget all about how I want him to see me, thrust Edward into the arms of his wet nurse, pick up my skirts and start to run down the terrace of the house, down the steps to the road. And I hear Richard shout, ‘Holloa! My duchess! My little duchess!’ and see him pull his horse to a standstill and fling himself down, and in a moment I am in his arms and he is kissing me so hard that I have to push him away, and then I pull him close again to hold him to me, my face to his warm neck, his kisses on my hair, as if we were sweethearts that have been parted for lifetime.

‘Beloved,’ he says to me, breathless himself. ‘It has been forever. I was afraid you would forget all about me.’

‘I have missed you so,’ I whisper.

My tears are wet on my cheeks and he kisses them, murmuring, ‘I missed you too. Dear God, there were times when I thought I would never get home.’

‘And you are released? You don’t have to go back again?’

‘I am released. Warwick will put in his own men, I hope to God I never see the town again. It was a misery, Jacquetta. It was like being in a cage for all that long time. The countryside outside is unsafe, the Duke of Burgundy raids and the King of France threatens, we were constantly alert for an invasion from England and the York lords, and the town was on the brink of bankruptcy. The men were mutinous, and nobody could blame them, and worst of all I was never sure what I should do for the best. I could not tell what was happening in England. And then, I could get no news of you. I didn’t even know if you were safely up from childbirth . . . ’

‘I kept writing,’ I say. ‘I kept writing but I guessed you didn’t get the letters. And sometimes I couldn’t find anyone to take a message. But I sent you fruits and a barrel of salted pork?’

He shakes his head. ‘I never got a thing. And I was desperate for a kind word from you. And you had to manage all alone – and with a new baby!’

‘This is Edward,’ I say proudly and beckon to the wet nurse to come up and hand our son to his father. Edward opens his dark blue eyes and regards his father gravely.

‘He is thriving?’

‘Oh yes, and all the others too.’

Richard looks around at his other children, tumbling out of the front door, the boys pulling off their caps, the girls running towards him, and he goes down on his knees to them, spreading his arms wide so they can all run at him and hug him. ‘Thank God I am home,’ he says with tears in his eyes. ‘Thank God for bringing me, safe, to this my home, and my wife and my children.’

That night in bed, I find I am shy, fearing that he will see a difference in me – another year gone by, and another birth to broaden my hips and thicken my waist – but he is gentle and tender with me, loving as if he was still my squire and I was the young duchess. ‘Like playing a lute,’ he says with a roll of laughter under the whisper. ‘You always remember the way, when it is in your hand again. The mind can play tricks; but the body remembers.’

‘And is there many a good tune played on an old fiddle?’ I demand with pretend offence.

‘If you find a perfect match then you keep it,’ he says gently. ‘And I knew when I first saw you that you were the woman I would want for all my life.’ Then he gathers me into his warm shoulder and falls asleep, holding me tightly.

I fall asleep in his arms like a mermaid diving into dark water but in the night something wakes me. At first I think it may be one of the children, so I struggle awake and slide from under the covers to sit on the side of the bed to listen. But there is no sound in our quiet house, just the creak of a floorboard and the sigh of wind through an open window. The house is at peace, the master is safely home at last. I go into the chamber outside our bedroom and open the window and swing wide the wooden shutter. The summer sky is dark, dark blue, as dark as a silk ribbon, and the moon is on the wax, like a round silver seal, low on the horizon, sinking down. But in the sky, towards the east, is a great light – low over the earth, a blaze of light, shaped like a sabre, pointing to the heart of England, pointing to the Midlands, where I know Margaret is arming her castle and preparing her attack on the Yorks. I gaze up at the comet, yellow in colour, not white and pale like the moon, but golden, a gilt sabre pointed at the heart of my country. There is no doubt in my mind that it foretells war and fighting and that Richard will be in the forefront as ever, and that now I have new men to worry about as well: Elizabeth’s husband, John, and Anthony, my own son, and all the other sons who will be raised in a country at war. For a moment I even think of the young son of the Duke of York that I saw with his mother that day at Westminster: young Edward, a handsome boy; no doubt his father will take him to war and his life will be at risk too. The sabre hangs in the sky above us all, like a sword waiting to fall. I look at it for a long time, and think that this star should be called the widow-maker; and then I close the shutter and go back to my bed to sleep.

KENILWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE,
SUMMER 1457

Richard and I join the court at the very heart of Margaret’s lands, in the castle she loves best in England: Kenilworth. As my guard and I ride up, I see to my horror that she has prepared it for a siege, just as the night sky foretold. The guns are mounted and looking over the newly repaired walls. The drawbridge is down for now, bridging the moat, but the chains are oiled and taut, ready to raise it in a moment. The portcullis is glinting at the top of the arch, ready to fall at the moment the command is given, and the number and the smartness of the household show that she has manned a castle here, not staffed a home.

‘She is ready for a war,’ my husband says grimly. ‘Does she think Richard of York would dare to attack the king?’

We come into her presence as soon as we have washed off the dust from the road and find her sitting with the king. I can see at once that he is worse again; his hands are trembling slightly and he is shaking his head, as if denying his thoughts, as if wanting to look away. He shivers a little, like a frightened leveret that only wants to lie down in the springing corn and be ignored. I cannot look at him without wanting to hold him still.

Margaret looks up as I come in and beams her happiness to see me. She declares, ‘See, my lord, we have many friends: here is Jacquetta, Lady Rivers, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford. You remember what a good friend she is to us? You remember her first husband who was your uncle John, Duke of Bedford? And here is her second husband, the good Lord Rivers who held Calais for us, when the bad Duke of York wanted to take it away.’

He looks at me but there is no recognition in his face, just the blank gaze of a lost boy. He seems younger than ever, all his knowledge of the world has been forgotten, his it lence shines out of him. I hear Richard behind me make a small muffled exclamation. He is shocked at the sight of his king. I had warned him several times; but he had not realised that the king had become a prince, a boy, a babe.

‘Your Grace,’ I say, curtseying to him.

‘Jacquetta will tell you that the Duke of York is our enemy, and we must prepare to fight him,’ the queen says. ‘Jacquetta will tell you that I have everything prepared, we are certain to win. Jacquetta will tell you that when I say the word our troubles are over and he is destroyed. He has to be destroyed, he is our enemy.’

‘Oh, is he French?’ the king asks in his little-boy voice.

‘Dear God,’ Richard mutters quietly.