Lady of the Rivers Read online

  The men here in the dock are the very ones who complained of having troops quartered on them for a year, the very ones who said that we should go to Gascony and reclaim it, who raged against the waste and the shame of the army on the quayside of Plymouth. They saw, as none of this court will ever see, the spendthrift folly of creating an army and then leaving it with nothing to do. Now they will die for saying that. They said nothing more than Richard and I said to each other when the sailors wore out their patience and the soldiers ate up all the stores. But these men said it aloud when spies were listening and now they will die, for the king’s forgiving nature spins on its axis and suddenly turns to reveal its dark side and is sour.

  ‘It is sorry work,’ Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, remarks to me, as he sees me walk slowly back from chapel to the queen’s rooms at Exeter. ‘But you must not let yourself be saddened by the sins of the country people, my lady.’

  I glance at him, he seems genuinely concerned. ‘I saw the cost to them of the expedition that never sailed,’ I say briefly. ‘It was my husband who quartered the soldiers on them. We knew at the time that it was hard. And this is another price that they have to pay.’

  He takes my hand and tucks it into his arm. ‘And there was a heavy cost to you,’ he says sympathetically. ‘It was hard on you, I know, and on your husband, Lord Rivers. There is no better commander in England, and no safer man to hold Calais. There was no doubt in my mind he did everything he could to keep the army ready.’

  ‘He did,’ I say. ‘And he will do everything in Calais, but if the king sends no wages to pay the troops then the garrison will turn against us. Just as Kent turned against us, just as Devon is turning against us now.’

  He nods. ‘I am trying, my lady,’ he says, as if he is answerable to me. ‘You can tell your husband that he is never far from my thoughts. I am Constable of Calais, I never forget my duty to your husband and the garrison. There is no money in the treasury and the court eats gold, every time we move it is a small fortune, and the king, God bless him, will have all the money for the colleges he is building to the glory of God, and for his friends who strive for their own glory. But I am trying, I will satisfy the king and I will not see your husband and his comrade Lord Welles left short of funds in Calais.’

  ‘I am glad of it,’ I reply quietly. ‘I thank you for him.’

  ‘And now we are sending an expedition to Bordeaux, as we promised,’ he says brightly.

  ‘Bordeaux?’ I say blankly. ‘Bordeaux again?’

  He nods. ‘We have to support the English in France,’ he says. ‘They are overrun by the French but they swear they will defy them and open the gates of Bordeaux to us if we can only get an army out to them. We can recapture the lands we lost. I am going to send John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury. You will remember him well, of course.’

  John Talbot was one of my first husband’s most loyal and trusted commanders, famous for lightning raids and his utter bloody determination to win. But he is old now, and after he was captured and released by the French he made a sacred promise never again to arm against the French king. ‘Surely he is too old to go to war,’ I say. ‘He must be sixty if he is a day.’

  ‘Sixty-five,’ the duke smiles. ‘And as ready and brave as he ever was.’

  ‘But he was paroled by the French. He promised not to fight again. How can we send him? He is a man of such honour – surely he won’t go?’

  ‘His presence alone will put the heart in them,’ he predicts. ‘He will ride at the head. He will not carry his sword but he will ride before them. It’s a glorious thing he does, and I will see him supported with a good army. I am doing my best, Lady Rivers. I am doing my very best.’ He raises his arm so that he can kiss my fingers, resting in the crook of his elbow, a graceful unusual gesture. ‘It is my pleasure to serve you, Lady Rivers. I would have you think of me as your friend.’

  I hesitate. He is a charming man, a handsome man, and there is something about his intimate whisper that would make any woman’s heart beat a little faster. I cannot help but return his smile. ‘I do,’ I say.

  We go west, through surly countryside where the people cannot earn enough to pay their taxes and who see the coming of our spendthrift court as an added burden, and we hear that Eleanor Cobham, who was once the Duchess of Gloucester, has died in her prison at Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. She died in silence of heartbreak and loneliness; they would not let her take her own life quickly and cleanly by a plunge from the battlements or a dagger in the veins of her wrist. They would not allow her to live any life at all; but they would not allow her death either. Now they are saying that her spirit haunts the castle in the shape of a big black dog that runs up and down the stairs as if looking for a way out.

  I tell the queen that Eleanor Cobham is dead but I do not say that I think Eleanor was a woman like Margaret herself, a woman like me: one who expects to take a great place in the world, who can see the world and wants to make it bend to her will, who cannot walk easily in the small steps of a demure woman, nor bow her head to the authority of men. I do not say that I saw the black dog when I first met the duchess and smelled its fetid breath beneath her perfume. I am sorry for the duchess and the black dog that followed her, and I give a little shudder when I think that they took her into imprisonment for studying as I have studied, for seeking the knowledge that I have learned, and for being a woman in her power: just like me.

  This summer progress is not a merry tour to celebrate a king joyously passing through his kingdom in the best days of the year; it is a sour visitation into each town when the citizens and the clergy turn out to welcome the king and then find he has come to hold a court in their guildhall, and summon their friends to answer charges. A man can be accused of treason for a word spoken out of turn, an ale-house brawl is defined as rebellion. When accused and in the dock, he is invited to name others and a spiral of spite, gossip and then charges follows. We go into the very heartlands of Richard, Duke of York, the wild beautiful country on the way to Wales, and put his tenants, his liegemen and his vassals on trial. The queen is triumphant at this gauntlet that they are throwing down before the Duke of York. Edmund, Duke of Somerset, is gleeful that though York accused him of treason, the court is now on his very doorstep, arraigning the tenants of York for the exact same crime.

  ‘He will be beside himself!’ he declares to the queen, and they laugh together like children who rattle sticks against the cage of a travelling bear to make him growl. ‘I have found an old peasant who claims that he heard the duke declare that Cade was only saying what most men think. That’s treason. I have an ale-house keeper who says that Edward March, his son and heir, thinks the king is simple. I shall call him into court and the king shall hear what the duke’s own boy dares to say against him.’

  ‘I shall forbid the king from staying at York’s home, Ludlow Castle,’ the queen says. ‘I shall refuse to go there. I shall snub Duchess Cecily. And you must support me.’

  Edmund Beaufort nods. ‘We can stay with the Carmelite Friars,’ he says. ‘The king always likes staying in a monastery.’

  She laughs, throwing back her head so that the lace from her high headdress brushes his cheek. Her face is flushed, her eyes are bright. ‘He does love a monastery,’ she agrees.

  ‘I do hope they have good singers,’ he says. ‘I so love plain-song. I could listen to it all day.’

  She gives a little scream of laughter and slaps his arm. ‘Enough, enough!’

  I wait till he has left, though I think he would have stayed longer if someone had not come from the king’s rooms and said that the king was asking for him. He leaves then, kissing her hand, lingering over it. ‘I shall see you at dinner,’ he whispers – though of course he will see us all at dinner – and then he leaves, throwing a smiling wink at me as if we are special friends.

  I take a seat beside her and I glance around to see none of her other ladies are in earshot. We are staying at Caldwell Castle, Kidderminster, and the best rooms