Lady of the Rivers Read online

  We go in quietly, almost as if we are approaching some wounded animal that might take fright. The king is rising to his feet, a doctor on either side to help him support himself. He is unsteady, but he lifts his head when he sees the queen and he says, uncertainly, ‘Ah.’ I can almost see him seeking her name in the confusion in his mind. ‘Margaret,’ he says at last. ‘Margaret of Anjou.’

  I find there are tears in my eyes and I am holding back sobs at the wreck of this man who was born to be King of England and who I first knew when he was a boy as handsome as little Edward March, the York son. Now this hollowed-out man takes one tottering step, and the queen makes a deep curtsey to him. She does not reach out to touch him, she does not go into his arms. It is like the young woman and the Fisher King in the legend: she lives with him but they never touch. ‘Your Grace, I am glad to see you well again,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Have I been ill?’

  One deeply secret glance passes between her and me.

  ‘You fell asleep, into a deep sleep, and no-one could wake you.’

  ‘Really?’ He passes his hand over his head, and he sees for the first time the scar from a burning poultice on his arm. ‘Gracious me. Did I bump myself? How long was I asleep?’

  She hesitates.

  ‘A long time,’ I say. ‘And though you were asleep for a long time, the country is safe.’

  ‘That greagood,’ he says. ‘Heigh ho.’ He nods at the men who are holding him up. ‘Help me to the window.’

  He shuffles like an old man to the window and looks out at the water meadows and the river that still flows through the frosty white banks, just as it always did. He narrows his eyes against the glare. ‘It’s very bright,’ he complains. He turns and goes back to his chair. ‘I’m very tired.’

  ‘Don’t!’ An involuntary cry escapes from the queen.

  They ease him back into his chair, and I see him observe the straps on the arms and on the seat. I see him consider them, owlishly blinking, and then he looks around the stark bareness of the room. He looks at the table of physic. He looks at me. ‘How long was it, Jacquetta?’

  I press my lips together to hold back an outburst. ‘It was a long time. But we are so pleased you are better now. If you sleep now, you will wake up again, won’t you, Your Grace? You will try to wake up again?’

  I really fear he is going back to sleep. His head is nodding and his eyes are closing.

  ‘I am so tired,’ he says like a little child, and in a moment he is asleep again.

  We sit up through the night in case he wakes again; but he does not. In the morning the queen is pale and strained with anxiety. The doctors go in to him at seven in the morning and gently touch his shoulder, whisper in his ear that it is morning, and to their amazement he opens his eyes and sits up in his bed, and orders that the shutters be opened.

  He lasts till dinnertime, just after midday, and then sleeps again, but he wakes for his supper and asks for the queen, and when she enters the privy chamber he orders a chair to be set for her, and asks her how she does.

  I am standing behind her chair as she answers him that she is well, and then she asks, gently, if he remembers that she was with child when he fell asleep.

  His surprise is unfeigned. ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘I remember nothing. With child, did you say? Gracious, no.’

  She nods. ‘Indeed, yes. We were very happy about it.’ She shows him the jewel he had made for her, she had it in its case, ready to remind him. ‘You gave me this to celebrate the news.’

  ‘Did I?’ He is quite delighted with it. He takes it in his hand and looks at it. ‘Very good workmanship. I must have been pleased.’

  She swallows. ‘You were. We were. The whole country was pleased.’

  We are waiting for him to ask after the baby; but clearly, he is not going to ask after the baby. His head nods as if he is drowsy. He gives a tiny little snore. Margaret glances at me.

  ‘Do you not want to know about the child?’ I prompt. ‘You see the jewel that you gave the queen when she told you she was with child? That was nearly two years ago. The baby has been born.’

  He blinks, and turns to me. His look is quite without understanding. ‘What child?’

  I go to the door and take Edward from his waiting nurse. Luckily, he is sleepy and quiet. would not have dared to bring him lustily bawling into this hushed chamber. ‘This is the queen’s baby,’ I say. ‘Your baby. The Prince of Wales, God bless him.’

  Edward stirs in his sleep, his sturdy little leg kicks out. He is a toddler, handsome and strong, so unlike a newborn baby, that my confidence wavers even as I carry him towards the king. He is so heavy in my arms, a healthy child of fifteen months. It seems nonsensical to be presenting him to his father like a newborn. The king looks at him with as much detachment as if I am bringing a fat little lamb into the royal rooms.

  ‘I had no idea of it!’ he says. ‘And is it a girl or a boy?’

  The queen rises up and takes Edward from me, and proffers the sleeping child to the king. He shrinks away. ‘No, no. I don’t want to hold it. Just tell me. Is this a girl or a boy?’

  ‘A boy,’ the queen says, her voice quavering with disappointment at his response. ‘A boy, thank God. An heir to your throne, the son we prayed for.’

  He inspects the rosy face. ‘A child of the Holy Spirit,’ he says wonderingly.

  ‘No, your own true-born son,’ the queen corrects him sharply. I look and see that the doctors and their servants and two or three ladies in waiting will have heard this damning pronouncement from the king. ‘He is the prince, Your Grace. A son and heir for you, and a prince for England. The Prince of Wales; we christened him Edmund.’

  ‘Edward,’ I snap. ‘Edward.’

  She recovers herself. ‘Edward. He is Prince Edward of Lancaster.’

  The king smiles radiantly. ‘Oh, a boy! That’s a bit of luck.’

  ‘You have a boy,’ I say. ‘A son and heir. Your son and heir, God bless him.’

  ‘Amen,’ he says. I take the little boy from the queen and she sinks down again into her chair. The boy stirs and I hold him against my shoulder and rock gently. He smells of soap and warm skin.

  ‘And is he baptised?’ the king asks conversationally.

  I can see Margaret grit her teeth with irritation at this slow questioning of those terrible days. ‘Yes,’ she says pleasantly enough. ‘Yes, he is baptised, of course.’

  ‘And who are the godparents? Did I choose them?’

  ‘No, you were asleep. We – I – chose Archbishop Kemp, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Anne, Duchess of Buckingham.’

  ‘Just who I would have chosen,’ the king declares, smiling. ‘My particular friends. Anne who?’

  ‘Buckingham,’ the queen enunciates carefully. ‘The Duchess of Buckingham. But I am grieved to tell you that the archbishop is dead.’

  The king throws up his hands in wonder. ‘No! Why, how long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Eighteen months, Your Grace,’ I say quietly. ‘A year and a half. It has been a long time, we were all of us very afraid for your health. It is very good to see you well again.’

  He looks at me with his childlike trusting gaze. ‘It is a long time, but I remember nothing of the sleep. Not even my dreams.’

  ‘Do you remember falling asleep?’ I ask him quietly, hating myself.

  ‘Not at all!’ he chuckles. ‘Only last night. I can only remember falling asleep last night. I hope when I sleep tonight that I wake up again in the morning.’

  ‘Amen,’ I say. The queen has her face in her hands.

  ‘I don’t want to sleep another year away!’ he jokes.

  Margaret shudders, and then straightens up and folds her hands in her lap. Her face is like stone.

  ‘It must have been very inconvenient for you all,’ he says benevolently, looking round the privy chamber. He does not seem to understand that he has been abandoned by his court, that the only people here are his doctors and nurses and us, his fellow