The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  She flings up her head at the implied rebuke. ‘If the king favours one man over his closest kin, his true friends and best advisors, there is always going to be trouble,’ she says hotly.

  I raise my hand. ‘Forgive me,’ I say. ‘I did not mean to suggest that your tenants are exceptionally unruly, or your father’s family, the Nevilles, make exceptionally irritable neighbours in the north of England. I meant only that the king has worked hard to see that his rule runs through all England. When the duke your husband comes to council I am sure he will be able to reassure his peers that there is no hint of rebellion anywhere on his lands, and that his kinsmen, your family, can learn to live in peace with the Percys in the north.’

  She folds her lips on an angry reply. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘We all want only to serve and support the king. And the north cannot be divided.’

  I smile at her boy. ‘And what do you hope to do when you are grown, Edward?’ I ask. ‘Will you be a great general like your father? Or is it the Church for you?’

  He ducks his head. ‘One day I shall be head of the House of York,’ he says shyly to his shoes. ‘It is my duty to be ready to serve my house and my country however I am needed, when my time comes.’

  We have an impressive christening for the royal baby. The queen herself orders a cloth-of-gold train for his gown that is brought from France, and costs more than the gown of his godmother, Anne the Duchess of Buckingham. The other godparents are the Archbishop of Canterbury and Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset.

  ‘Is that wise?’ I ask her quietly as she tells her confessor the names of the godparents she has chosen. She is on her knees before the little altar in her privy chamber, I am kneeling beside her, the priest behind the screen. Nobody can hear my urgent murmur.

  She does not turn her head from her clasped hands. ‘I would have no-one else,’ she whispers. ‘The duke shall care for him and protect him as if he was his own.’

  I shake my head in silence but I can see what she has done. She has surrounded her boy with the court party: people she trusts, people that Somerset has appointed, and Somerset’s kin. If the king were to never speak again she would have put a small army around her boy who should protect him.

  Anne the Duchess of Buckingham carries the precious child to the font in Westminster chapel. Cecily Neville glares at me from among the ladies as if I am responsible for yet another snub to her husband, Richard, Duke of York, who should have been a godfather. Nobody remarks on the king’s absence, for a christening is the business of the godparents, and of course the queen is still in her confinement. But the secret cannot be kept forever, and the king surely cannot be ill forever? Surely he must get better soon?

  At the christening feast Edmund Beaufort takes me to one side. ‘Tell the queen that I will call the great council, including the Duke of York, and take the baby prince to visit the king at Windsor.’

  I hesitate. ‘But, Your Grace, what if he does not wake at the sight of his child?’

  ‘Then I will insist that they acknowledge the baby without the king’s recognition.’

  ‘Could you do that without them seeing him?’ I say. ‘They all know that he is ill but if they see him all but lifeless . . . ’

  He makes a little grimace. ‘I can’t. Tell the queen I have tried but the council insists that the child is presented to the king. Anything else would look too odd, they would think he is dead and we are concealing it. We have been blessed with a longer time than I dreamed possible. But it has come to an end now. They have to see the king, and the child has to be presented to him. There is nothing we can do to avoid this any longer.’ He hesitates. ‘There is one thing I had better tell you, and you had better forewarn the queen: they are saying that the child is not the true-born son of the king.’

  I stiffen, alert to danger. ‘They are?’

  He nods. ‘I am doing what I can to quash the rumours. These allegations are treason, of course, and I will see anyone who gossips ends up on the gallows. But with the king hidden away from court, people are bound to talk.’

  ‘Do they name another man?’ I ask him.

  He looks at me, his dark eyes quite without guile. ‘I don’t know,’ he says; though he does know. ‘I don’t think it matters,’ he says; though it does matter. ‘And anyway, there is no evidence.’ This at least is true. Please God there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. ‘But the Duke of York has stirred up the council and so the baby has to be seen and at least held by the king.’

  A council of twelve lords comes to the palace to take the baby upriver to be presented to his father, Somerset at their head. I am to go with them, along with the baby’s nurses and rockers. Anne the Duchess of Buckingham, his godmother, will come too. It is a cold autumn day but the barge is well curtained and the baby is swaddled on his board and then wrapped in furs. The nurse holds him in her lap at the back of the boat, the baby’s rockers seated near her, the wet nurse close by. Two barges follow us: the Duke of Somerset and his friends in one, the Duke of York and his allies in another. It is a fleet of undeclared enmity. I stand in the bow of the boat looking at the water, listening to the soothing swish of the river against the barge and the dip and pull of the oars in the current.

  We sent ahead to say that the lords would visit the king but I am shocked when we land at Windsor and go through the quiet castle to the upper ward. When the king and court leave one castle for another then the servants take the chance to clean and shut down the state rooms. When we sent the king to Windsor without the court, they did not open all the bedrooms, nor the kitchens that cook for hundreds, the state rooms, the echoing stables. Instead the king’s tiny entourage is camped in his own private rooms and the rest of the castle is empty, quite desolate. The king’s beautiful presence chamber, which is usually the heart of the court, has a shabby neglected air; the servants have not cleaned the hearth and the flickering flames show that they have only just lit the fire. It feels cold and deserted. There are no tapestries on the walls and some of the shutters are closed so the room is shadowy and cool. There are old rushes on the floor, musty and dry; and half-burned rushlights in the sconces. I crook my finger to the groom of the household to call him to my side. ‘Why was the fire not lit earlier? Where are the king’s tapestries? This room is a disgrace.’

  He ducks his head. ‘Forgive me, Your Grace. But I have so few servants here. They are all at Westminster with the queen and the Duke of Somerset. And the king never comes out here anyway. Would you want me to light the fire for the physicians and their servants? Nobody else visits and our orders are to admit no-one who does not come from the duke.’

  ‘I would want you to light the fire so the king’s rooms are bright and clean and cheerful,’ I tell him. ‘And if you haven’t enough servants to keep the rooms clean then you should have told us. His Grace should be better served than this. This is the King of England, he should be served in state.’

  He bows at the reproof, but I doubt that he agrees with me. If the king can see nothing, what is the point of tapestries on the walls? If no-one comes then why sweep the state rooms? If there are no visitors then why light a fire in the presence chamber? The Duke of Somerset beckons me to join him at the double doors of the privy chamber. There is only one man on duty. ‘No need to announce us,’ the duke says. The guard opens the door for us and we slip in.

  The room is transformed. Usually it is a pretty chamber with two bay windows overlooking the water meadows and the river, the windows on the other side overlooking the upper ward where there is always the sound of people coming and going, horses clip-clopping on the cobbles, sometimes music. The rooms are always busy with the courtiers and the advisors to the king. Usually, there are tapestries on the walls and tables laid with little objects of gold and silver, little painted boxes and curios. Today the room is empty, horribly bare but for a great table laid with the tools of the physicians’ trade: bowls for cupping, lances, a big jar of wriggling leeches, some bandages, some ointments, a box of herbs, a reco