Lady of the Rivers Read online

  ‘To Westminster Palace,’ I say. I want to be with the court, behind the walls of the palace, guarded by the royal guard. London no longer feels safe for me. I have become like the queen – a woman uneasy in the heart of her own home.

  We round a corner and suddenly we are swirled into a mob of people, dancing laughing cheering people, a great joyous May Day crowd. Someone gets hold of my bridle, and I clench my hand on my whip, but the face that turns up towards me is beaming. ‘Easy!’ I say quickly to the guard at my side who is spurring forwards, his hand on his sword.

  ‘God be praised, we have our champion!’ the woman says, sharing her happiness with me. ‘He is coming, God bless him! He is coming, and he wil petition for our rights and the good times will come again!’

  ‘Hurrah!’ shout half a dozen people in earshot, and I smile as if I know what is happening.

  ‘Good woman,’ I say. ‘I have to get through, let me go, I have to meet my husband. Let me go.’

  Someone laughs. ‘You’ll get nowhere till he has come! The streets are packed with people like pilchards in a barrel. There is no going through nor going round.’

  ‘But won’t you come and see him? He is coming over the bridge.’

  ‘Oh, come,’ somebody else says. ‘You will never see the like of this again, this is the greatest thing to ever happen in our lifetime, in any lifetime.’

  I look around for my two men but they cannot keep their place at my side. They are separated from me by a dozen merrymakers, we are totally outnumbered. I wave to one. ‘Go your ways,’ I call. ‘I am safe enough. You know where we will meet.’ Clearly, there is no point trying to resist this crowd and our safest way is to join with them. One of my men jumps from his horse and pushes his way through to come alongside me.

  ‘Steady on!’ someone says. ‘No shoving. Whose livery are you wearing?’

  ‘Leave me,’ I whisper. ‘Meet me later. You know where. Don’t upset them.’

  It is the safest way, but I see him struggle to obey the order.

  ‘High and mighty!’ someone complains. ‘The sort that should be brought down.’

  ‘Are you a king’s man?’ someone demands. ‘Think you should have everything and care nothing for the poor man?’

  At last, he takes his cue. ‘Not I!’ he says cheerfully. ‘I am with you all!’

  I nod at him, and the movement of the crowd takes him from me, almost at once. I let my horse walk with them. Familiarly, a woman rests her hand on my horse’s neck. ‘So where are we going?’ I ask her.

  ‘To the bridge, to see him come across the bridge!’ she says exultantly. ‘I see you are a lady but you will not be ashamed of the company he keeps. He has gentry and squires with him, knights and lords. He is a man for all the people, of all degree.’

  ‘And what will he do for us when he comes?’

  ‘You don’t know? Where have you been?’

  Smiling, I shake my head. ‘I have been in the country, all this is a surprise to me.’

  ‘Then you have come back to the City at the very hour of its joy. He will speak for us at last. He will tell the king that we cannot bear the taxation, that the fat lords will ruin us all. He will order the king to ignore the French slut, his wife, and take good advice from the good duke.’

  ‘The good duke?’ I query. ‘Who do you call the good duke now?’

  ‘Richard Duke of York, of course. He will tell the king to lie with his worthless wife and get us a son and heir, to take our lands in France back again, to send away the wcked men who steal the wealth of the country and do nothing but make their own fortunes and fight among themselves. He will make this king as great as the king before and we will be happy again.’

  ‘Can one man do all this?’ I ask.

  ‘He has raised an army and defeated the king’s men already,’ she says delightedly. ‘They chased after him to Sevenoaks and he struck them down. This is our champion. He has defeated the royal army and now he takes the City.’

  I can feel a pain hammering in my head. ‘He destroyed the king’s army?’

  ‘Led them on, turned on them and struck them down,’ she says. ‘Half of them ran away, half of them joined him. He is our hero!’

  ‘And what of the lords who led the men?’

  ‘Dead! All dead!’

  Richard, I think to myself in silence. Surely the two of us did not come so far, and risk so much, for Richard to be ambushed by a hedge-sparrow commander at the head of patchwork rebels, and killed outside Sevenoaks? Surely I would know if he were injured or dead? Surely I would have heard Melusina sing or felt the very spheres dance sorrowfully one with another, to mourn him? Surely the man that I have loved for all my adult life, loved with a passion that I did not even know was possible, could not, cannot be dead in a Kentish ditch, and I not know?

  ‘Are you ill, mistress?’ she asks. ‘You’ve gone white as my washing.’

  ‘Who commanded the royal army?’ I ask; though I know it was him. Who else would they send but Richard? Who has more experience, who is more reliable? Who is more loyal and honourable than my husband? Who would they choose if not my beloved?

  ‘Ah, now that I don’t know,’ she says cheerfully. ‘All I know is that he is dead now, for sure. Are you taken ill?’

  ‘No, no,’ I say. My lips are numb. All I can say is the one word. ‘No. No.’

  We crowd together through the narrow streets. I cannot get away now; even if I could get the horse out of the crowd I don’t think I could ride. I am limp with fear, quite unable to take up the reins, even if the crowd would let me. And then, at last, we are at Bridgegate and the crowd thickens and pushes. My horse becomes anxious at being so crowded, her ears flicker and she shifts from one leg to another; but we are hemmed in so fast that she cannot move and I cannot dismount. I can see the Lord Mayor of the City as he leaps up on a milestone, balancing with a hand on the broad shoulder of one of the City’s guard, and shouts to the crowd, ‘I take it it is your will that Captain Mortimer and his men enter the City?’

  ‘Yea!’ comes the roar. ‘Open the gates!’

  I can see that one of the aldermen is arguing, and the Lord Mayor gestures that he shall be roughly taken away. The guards throw open the gate and we look out through the gateway beyond the drawbridge. On the south side, there is a small army waiting, standards furled. As I watch, they see the gate flung open, they hear the encouraging bellow of the crowd, see the red of the mayor’s robe, and they unfurl their banners, fall into ranks and march briskly along the road. People are throwing flowers from the upper storeys of the buildings, waving flag bannerseering: this is the procession of a hero. The drawbridge is dropped before them and the clang as it goes down is like the clash of cymbals for a conqueror. The captain at the head of the men turns and, using a great sword, slices through the ropes of the bridge, so that it cannot ever be raised against him. Everyone around me is shouting a welcome, the women are blowing kisses and screaming. The captain marches before his army, his helmet under his arm, his golden spurs sparkling at his boots, a beautiful cape of deep blue velvet rippling from his shoulders, his armour shining. Before him comes his squire, holding a great sword before him, as if he is leading a king, entering into his kingdom.

  I cannot tell if it is Richard’s sword, I don’t know if this man is wearing my husband’s hard-won spurs. I close my eyes and feel the coldness of the sweat under my hat. Could he be dead without my knowing it? When I get to the palace will the queen herself comfort me, another widow at court, like Alice de la Pole?

  The Lord Mayor steps forwards, the keys to the City on a scarlet cushion, and bows his head to the conqueror, and hands him the keys. From all around, crowds of men are spilling out of the City gate to fall in with the soldiers behind the captain and they are greeted by his army with slaps on the back and settled into rough ranks that march past us, waving at the girls and grinning at the cheers, like an army of liberation, come at last.

  The crowd follows him. I swear if he marches on W