The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  ‘They caught him at sea?’

  ‘They took him on board their ship and beheaded him on the deck,’ she says, her voice nearly muffled by sobs. ‘God damn them to hell for cowards. They left his body on the beach at Dover. Jacquetta!’ Blindly, she reaches out to me and clings to me as she wails. ‘They put his head on a pole. They left his head like a traitor’s head. How shall I bear this? How shall Alice bear this?’

  I hardly dare to glance over to William de la Pole’s widow, who sits in silence while William de la Pole’s queen is breaking her heart over him.

  ‘Do we know who?’ I repeat. My first fear is, if someone dares to attack the king’s favourite advisor, who will they come for next? The queen? Me?

  She is crying so hard she cannot speak, her slender body is shaking in my arms. ‘I must go to the king,’ she says finally, pulling herself up and wiping her eyes. ‘This will have broken his heart. How will we manage without him? Who will advise us?’

  Dumbly, I shake my head. I don’t know how they will manage without William de la Pole, nor what sort of world is opening before us when a noble lord in his own ship can be kidnapped and beheaded with a rusty sword on a rocking boat and his head left on a pike on the beach.

  GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,

  SUMMER 1450

  As the warmer months come the king and queen agree to travel north. They give out that they want to be away from London during the hot weather when plague often comes to the city, they say that they want to see the good people of Leicester. But those of us who live in the palace know that the guards have been doubled at the gates, and that they are employing tasters for their food. They are afraid of the people of London, they are afraid of the men of Kent, they are afraid that whoever murdered William de la Pole blames them for the loss of France, for the continual stream of defeated soldiers and settlers who come every day into every English port. There is no money to pay the London suppliers, the queen mistrusts the people of the city. The court is going to Leicester; in truth it is running away to hide in Leicester.

  Richard and I are granted leave to go and see our children at Grafton, as the court goes north, and we ride quickly out of London, which has become a surly city of secretive people whispering on street corners. There is a rumour that the king and queen will take a great revenge on the county of Kent. They blame the very seashore where William de la Pole’s dishonoured body was dumped. Lord Say of Knole and his heavy-handed son-in-law who is Sheriff of Kent say that together they will hunt down the guilty men and execute them and every one of their family; they say they will empty Kent of people, they will make it a wasteland.

  Once we are out of the city, away from city walls, Richard and I ride side by side, holding hands like young lovers, while our small armed guard falls back and rides behind us. The roads are clear and dry, the grass verges dotted with flowers, the birds singing in the greening hedgerows, ducklings on the village ponds and roses in blossom.

  ‘What if we never went back to court?’ I ask him. ‘What if we were just to be the squire of Grafton and his lady?’

  ‘And our nursery of children?’ he smiles.

  ‘Many, many children,’ I say. ‘I am not satisfied with eight, and one on the way, I am hoping for a round dozen.’

  He smiles at me. ‘I should still be summoned,’ he says. ‘Even if I were the smallest quietest squire of Grafton, with the largest family in England, I should still be mustered and sent to war.’

  ‘But you would come home again.’ I pursue the thought. ‘And we could make a living from our fields and farms.’

  He smiles. ‘Not much of a living, my lady. Not the sort of living you want. And your children would marry tenant farmers and their children would run wild. Do you want a dirty-faced little peasant for a grandchild?’

  I make a face at him. He knows how much I prizeur books and our musical instruments, and how determined I am that all my children shall read and write in three languages, and master all the courtly skills.

  ‘My children have to take their place in the world.’

  ‘You are ambitious,’ he says.

  ‘I am not! I was the first lady in France. I have been as high as any woman could dream. And I gave it up for love.’

  ‘You’re ambitious for your family and for your children. And you’re ambitious for me – you like me being a baron.’

  ‘Oh well, a baron,’ I say, laughing. ‘Anyone would want their husband to be a baron. I don’t count that as being ambitious. That is just . . . understandable.’

  ‘And I understand it,’ he says agreeably. ‘But would you really want to live always in the country and not go back to court?’

  I think for a moment of the nervous king and the young queen. ‘We couldn’t leave them, could we?’ I ask wistfully.

  He shakes his head. ‘It is our duty to serve the House of Lancaster, and – something else – I don’t know how they would manage without us. I don’t think we could just walk away and leave them. What would they do?’

  We stay at Grafton for a week. It is the best time of the year, the orchards are rose-pink with the bobbing blossoms, and the cows are calving. The lambs are with their mothers in the higher meadows, running and frisking with their tails like woolly ribbons dancing behind them. The hay in the meadows is growing tall and starting to ripple in the wind and the crops are green and rich, ankle-deep. My older children, Elizabeth, Lewis, Anne and Anthony, have been staying with our cousins, to learn their manners and how to behave in a great household, but they come home to be with us for the summer. The four little ones, Mary, Jacquetta, John, and Richard, are beside themselves with excitement at having their big sisters and brothers home. Mary, the seven-year-old, is the leader of the little battalion, the others her sworn liegemen.

  I am weary with this new pregnancy and in the warm afternoons I take the four-year-old, little Diccon, in my arms for his afternoon nap and we lie down together, drowsy in the warmth of the day. When he is asleep and it is very quiet, I sometimes take the painted cards and turn them over, one after another, and look at them. I don’t shuffle them or deal them out, I don’t attempt to read them. I just look at the familiar pictures and wonder what life will bring me, and these my beloved children.

  In the day Richard listens to the unending complaints of the people around us: the moving of a fence line, of cattle being allowed to stray and spoiling a crop. As lord of the manor it is his job to ensure that the rule of law and justice runs throughout our lands, whether or not our neighbours take bribes and order jurors what sentence they should bring in. Richard visits the local gentry to remind them of their duty to turn out for him in case of need, and tries to reassure them that the king is a strong lord, that the court is trustworthy, that the treasury is secure and that we will keep the remaining lands in France.

  I work in my still room, Elizabeth my earnest apprentice, steeping herbs in oil, checking the cut and dried herbs, poundrs down into powder and conserving them in jars. I do this by the order of the stars and I consult my lord’s books for how it should be done. Now and then I find a book I had overlooked which talks of making the aqua vitae, the water of life itself, or of burning off impurities by the touch of distilled waters; but I remember Eleanor Cobham behind the cold walls of Peel Castle, and I take the book from Elizabeth and put it on a high shelf. I never grow or dry any but the herbs that would be known to a good cook. Knowledge is just another thing to conceal, these days.

  I am hoping that we will stay at home for another month; I am tired by this pregnancy and daring to hope that I might spend the whole summer in the country, that the king and queen will prolong their travels and leave us in peace. We have been riding out to visit some neighbours and come home in the sunset to see a royal messenger waiting by the water pump. He gets to his feet when he sees us and hands Richard a letter sealed with the royal crest.

  Richard tears it open and scans it. ‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘This is urgent. I shall have to muster a troop as I ride.’