The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  in and out of the chambers; but she goes. Really, she can do nothing but go. The Duke of York, whose own wife Cecily once came to the queen to eat humble pie and request a place on the council for him, rises high on the wheel of fortune. The council believes he is the only man who can restore order to the kingdom, who can prevent the dozens of small battles breaking out at every county quarrel, thinks that he is the only man who can save Calais, trusts that he will take the kingdom and hold it until our king, our sleeping king, comes back to us. It is as if they think the country is cursed and the Duke of York is the only man who can unsheathe his sword and stand in the doorway against an invisible enemy, and hold the post until the king awakes.

  The queen – who had thought to be king herself – is cut down to wife, is pushed aside to be a mother. She goes as she is bidden, and they pay her the expenses of her household, reduce the numbers of horses in the stable, and ban her from returning to London without invitation. They treat her as if she is an ordinary woman, a woman of no importance, they reduce her to the care of her husband and the guardian of her son.

  Edmund Beaufort is still in the Tower; he cannot help her. Indeed, she cannot defend him, her protection means nothing, who can doubt that he will be tried and beheaded? Those lords who have loved her as a queen dare not imagine her as a regent. Though their own wives may run their lands when they are away, their own wives are given no title and draw no feThey don’t like to think of women in power, women as leaders. The ability of women is not acknowledged; indeed, it is concealed. Wise women pretend that all they are doing is running a household when they command a great estate; they write for their husband’s advice while he is away and they hand back the keys on his return. The queen’s mistake is to claim the power and the title. The lords cannot bear the thought of a woman’s rule, they cannot bear to even think that a woman can rule. It is as if they want to put her back into the confinement chamber. It is as if the king her husband, by falling asleep, has set her free, free to command the kingdom; and that the duty of all the other great men is to return her to him. If they could put her to sleep like him, I think they would.

  The queen is confined to Windsor. Richard is trapped in Calais. I live as her lady in waiting, as an estranged wife; but in truth we all wait. Every day Margaret goes to see the king and every day he neither sees her nor hears her. She commands the doctors to be gentle with him, but sometimes her own temper snaps and she goes in and rails at him, cursing into his deaf ears.

  I live with the queen and I long for Richard and I am aware all the time of the rise of trouble on the streets of London, the danger on the country roads, the rumours that the north is up against the Duke of York, or up for their own ambitions – who knows with these wild lands on the border? The queen is plotting, I am sure of it. She asks me one day if I write to Richard, and I tell her that I write often, and send my letters with the wool merchants taking the fleeces to Calais. She asks if the ships come back empty, if they were to carry men how many could be landed, if they could sail laden up the river to the Tower.

  ‘You are thinking that they could come from Calais and rescue the Duke of Somerset from the Tower,’ I say flatly. ‘That would be to ask my husband to lead an invasion against the regent and protector of England.’

  ‘But in defence of the king,’ she says. ‘How could anyone call that treason?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say miserably. ‘I don’t know what treason is any more.’

  The plan comes to nothing for we get news of an uprising in Calais. The soldiers have not been paid and they lock up their officers in the barracks and raid the town and seize the trade goods, and sell them and keep the money for their wages. There are reports of looting and rioting. The queen finds me, in the stable yard of Windsor Castle, ordering my horse to be saddled and a guard to come with me to London. ‘I have to know what is happening,’ I say to her. ‘He could be in terrible danger, I have to know.’

  ‘He won’t be in danger,’ she assures me. ‘His men love him. They may have locked him in his quarters so that they can raid the wool stores but they won’t hurt him. You know how beloved he is. Both he and Lord Welles. The men will release him when they have stolen their wages and drunk the town dry.’

  They bring my horse to me and I climb up on the mounting block and into the saddle, awkward with my big belly. ‘I am sorry, Your Grace, but I need to know that for myself. I’ll come back to you as soon as I know he is safe.’

  She raises a hand to me. ‘Yes, come back without fail,’ she says. ‘It is a lonely, lonely place here. I wish I could sleep the days away like my husband. I wish I could close my eyes and sleep forever, too.’

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  I hardly know where to go in London to get news. My house has been closed down, there is no-one there but a few guards for safety, the parliament is not sitting, the Duke of York is no friend of mine. In the end I go to the wife of Lord Welles who is commanding in Calais with Richard. My manservant announces me and I walk into her solar chamber.

  ‘I can guess why you have come,’ she says, rising and kissing me formally on the cheek. ‘How is Her Grace the queen?’

  ‘She is well in her health, thank God.’

  ‘And the king?’

  ‘God bless him, he is no better.’

  She nods and sits down and gestures me to take a stool near hers. Her two daughters come forwards with a glass of wine and biscuits, and then step back, as well-behaved girls should do, so that the adults can talk in private.

  ‘Charming girls,’ I remark.

  She nods. She knows I have sons who will have to marry well.

  ‘The oldest one is betrothed,’ she says delicately.

  I smile. ‘I hope she will be happy. I have come to you for news of my husband. I have heard nothing. Have you any news of Calais?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head. ‘I am sorry. There is no news to be had. The last ship to get out of the port said that there was an uprising, the soldiers insisting on their pay. They had captured the wool store and were selling the goods for their own profit. They were holding the ships in the harbour. Since then the merchants will not send their cargoes to Calais for fear that their own stocks are captured. So I don’t know anything, and I can’t get any news.’

  ‘Did they say what your husband, or mine, was doing?’ I ask. I have a great feeling of dread that Richard would not sit idly by while his men took the law into their own hands.

  ‘I know they are both alive,’ she says. ‘Or at any rate they were three weeks ago. I know your husband cautioned the men and said that what they were doing was common theft, and they threw him into a cell.’ She sees the terror on my face and puts her hand on mine. ‘Really, they did not hurt him but locked him up. You will have to be brave, my dear.’

  I swallow down the tears. ‘It has been so long since we have been at home together,’ I say. ‘And he has had one hard service after another.’

  ‘We are all lost under the rule of a sleeping king,’ she says gently. ‘The tenants on my lands say that nothing will grow, nothing will ever grow in a kingdom where the king himself lies like a fallow field. Will you go back to court?’

  I give a little sigh. ‘I have to,’ I say simply. ‘The queen commands it, and the king says nothing.’

  In August I go to Grafton to see my children, and I try to explain to the older ones, Anne, Anthony, and Mary, that the king is well, but sleeping, that the queen has done nothing wrong but is confined with him, that their father’s commander Edmeaufort, Duke of Somerset, is in the Tower, accused but not on trial, and that their father – and it is at this point that I have to grit my teeth and try to appear calm – their father is commanding the castle of Calais but is imprisoned by his own soldiers, the Captain of Calais is now Richard, Duke of York, and sooner or later their father will have to answer to him.

  ‘Surely, the Duke of York will hold Calais, just as the Duke of Somerset would have done?’ Anthony suggests. ‘Father won’t like a new comm