Lady of the Rivers Read online

  ‘And was disgraced! She slept with the keeper of her wardrobe and never came back to court. Her own son changed the law of the land to prevent a royal widow ever doing such a thing again! That law applies to you!’

  ‘She survived,’ I say steadily. ‘And she has two handsome boys, half-brothers to the king. Richard, I cannot live without you. I cannot marry another man. We were driven by desire to become lovers, and now we are driven on to marry.’

  ‘I don’t want to be your ruin,’ he says. ‘God forgive me, though I desire you, I won’t desire that. I despised Owen Tudor for conceiving a child on the queen he should have served, a man who ruined a woman he should have laid down his life to protect – and now I have been as selfish as him! I should leave right now. I should go on crusade. I should be hanged for treason.’

  I take a long pause and then I raise my eyes and give him a look as limpid as a forest pool. ‘Oh, have I been mistaken in you? Have I been long mistaken? Do you not love me? Don’t you want to marry me? Shall you cast me aside?’

  He drops to his knees. ‘Before God, I love you and cherish you more than anything in the world. Of course I want to marry you. I love you heart and soul.’

  ‘Then I acceptes to you say gleefully. ‘I shall be happy to be your wife.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I should be honoured to marry you, my love, you are far, far above my deserts – but I so fear for you.’ The thought strikes him. ‘And for our child!’ Gently he puts his hand on my belly. ‘My God, a child. I shall have to keep the two of you safe. I shall have two to care for now.’

  ‘I shall be Jacquetta Woodville,’ I say dreamily, turning the name over. ‘Jacquetta Woodville. And she will be Elizabeth Woodville.’

  ‘Elizabeth? You are sure it is a girl?’

  ‘I am sure. She will be Elizabeth, the first of many children.’

  ‘If they don’t behead me for treason.’

  ‘They won’t behead you. I shall speak to the king, and I shall speak to Queen Catherine, his mother, if I have to. And we will be happy.’

  When he leaves me that night, he is still torn between delight that we are to marry, and remorse that he has led me into trouble. I sit up at my window, my hand on my belly, and I look at the moon. Tonight there is a new moon, in the first quarter, a good moon for new beginnings, new hopes, and for the start of a new life. On a whim, I take out the cards that my great-aunt gave me, and I spread them out face down before me. My hand hovers over one card and then another, before I choose one. It is my favourite card of all: the Queen of Cups, the queen of water and of love, Melusina’s own card, a card of insight and tenderness. A girl whose card this is will be a queen herself, a beloved queen.

  ‘I shall marry your father,’ I say to the little spark of life inside me. ‘And I shall bring you into the world. I know you will be beautiful for your father is the most handsome man in England, but I wonder what you will do with your life, and how far you will go when it all becomes clear to you – when you too see the man that you love, and know the life that you want.’

  GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,

  AUTUMN 1436

  We wait till the court is on its slow way back to London, staying overnight at Northampton. Early one morning, before my ladies are stirring, I slip out of my rooms and meet Richard at the stables. He has Merry saddled and bridled, and his own war horse ready to go, and we ride down the little road to his home village of Grafton. A priest lives here alone, in his retreat, and there is a little chapel near to the manor house. Richard’s father is waiting there, his face stern and anxious, and he has brought three witnesses. Richard goes to find the priest as his father steps forwards.

  ‘I hope you know what you are doing, Your Grace,’ he says bluntly, as he helps me down from my horse.

  ‘I am marrying the finest man I have ever known.’

  ‘It will cost you dear,’ he warns.

  ‘It would be worse to lose him.’

  He nods as if he is not so sure, but he offers me hisarm and he walks me into the chapel. At the eastern end there is a little stone altar, a cross and a candle burning. Before it stands the priest in the brown gown of the Franciscan order, and beside him, Richard, turning and smiling shyly at me as if we were before a crowd of hundreds and wearing cloth of gold.

  I walk to the altar and just as I start to respond to the priest’s gentle prompting of our vows the sun comes out, and shines through the circular stained-glass window above the altar. For a moment, I forget what I am to say. There is a veil of colours at our feet on the stone floor of the chapel and I think dizzily that I am here now, marrying the man that I love, and that one day I will stand here when my daughter marries the man of her choice, rainbows beneath her feet, and a crown before her. The sudden vision makes me hesitate, and Richard looks at me. ‘If you have any doubts, a moment’s doubt, we need not marry,’ he says quickly. ‘I will think of something, I will make you safe, my love.’

  I smile up at him, the tears in my eyes making a rainbow around him too. ‘I have no doubts.’ I turn to the priest. ‘Go on.’

  He leads us through our vows and then declares us man and wife. Richard’s father kisses my cheeks and gives his son a powerful hug. Richard turns and pays the three clerks he has hired as witnesses, and tells them that if he calls on them they must remember the day and the time and that we were truly married in the sight of God, and he puts his family ring on my finger, and gives me a purse of gold before them all, to prove that I am his wife, that he trusts me with his honour and his fortune.

  ‘What now?’ his father asks grimly as we come out of the chapel into the sunshine.

  ‘Back to court,’ Richard says. ‘And when the moment serves us, we will have to tell the king.’

  ‘He will forgive you,’ his father predicts. ‘He is a young man quick to forgive anything. It is his advisors that will cause your difficulties. They will call you a mountebank, my son. They will say you are pretending to a lady too far above you.’

  Richard shrugs. ‘They can say what they like as long as they leave her with her fortune and her reputation,’ he says.

  His father shakes his head as if he is not sure of that either, and then helps me onto my horse. ‘Send for me if you need me,’ he says gruffly. ‘I am yours to command, Your Grace, and your honour is in my keeping too.’

  ‘You can call me Jacquetta,’ I say.

  He pauses. ‘I was your late husband’s chamberlain,’ he says. ‘It is not right that I should call you by your given name.’

  ‘You were his chamberlain, and I was his duchess, but now, God bless him, he has gone from us and the world is different, and I am your daughter-in-law,’ I say. ‘And at first they will say that Richard has leapt up, but then they will see that we are going to rise together.’

  ‘How high?’ he asks drily. ‘The higher you rise, the greater the fall.’

  ‘I don’t know how high we will rise,’ I say stoutly. ‘And I have no fear of falling.’

  He looks at me. ‘You are ambitious to rise?’

  ‘We are all on fortune’s wheel,’ I say. ‘Without a doubt we will rise. We may fall. But still I have no fear of it.’

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,

  AUTUMN 1436

  The baby is not yet showing through the graceful sweep of my gowns, though I know that she is growing. My breasts are bigger and tender to the touch, and more than anything else I have a sense of being in company, everywhere I go, even when I am asleep. I decide to take the news of the baby and the marriage to the king’s council before the anniversary of my husband’s death, before anyone proposes another marriage for me, and so forces me to defy them. I try to choose a good time, but the council is torn between Cardinal Beaufort and his ally the Earl of Suffolk William de la Pole, and their great rival Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and his court. There is never a time when they are not fretting about safety in the country, and empty chests in the treasury. There is never a moment when they can agree what should be done. I wait fo