The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  This sudden reference to Edmund Beaufort, and from the king himself, is shockingly painful to her, and I see her suddenly go pale and look away. She takes a moment and when she turns back to us she has herself utterly under control. I see that she has grown in determination and courage this summer, she is forging herself into a powerful woman. She has always been strong-willed; but now she has a sick husband and a rebellious country, and she is turning herself into a woman who can protect her husband and dominate her country.

  ‘No, not at all. Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, was never a traitor and anyway, now he is dead,’ she says very quietly and steadily. ‘He was killed at the battle of St Albans by the Duke of York’s ally, the wicked Earl of Warwick. He died a hero, fighting for us. We will never forgive them for his death. D’you remember we said that? We said that we would never forgive him.’

  ‘Oh no . . . er . . . Margaret.’ He shakes his head. ‘We must forgive our enemies. We forgive our enemies as we hope to be forgiven. Is he French?’

  She glances at me and I know my horror is plain on my face. She pats his hand gently and rises up from her throne and falls into my arms, as easily as if she were my little sister, weeping for some hurt. We turn together to the window, leaving Richard to approach the throne and speak quietly to the king. My arm is around her waist as she leans against me; together we look, unseeing, over the beautiful sunny gardens inside the thick castle walls, laid out below us like a piece of embroidery in a frame. ‘I have to command everything now,’ she says quietly. ‘Edmund is dead, and the king is lost to himself. I am so alone, Jacquetta, I am like a widow with no friends.’

  ‘The council?’ I ask. I am guessing that they would put York back in as lord protector if they knew how frail the king truly is.

  ‘I appoint the council,’ she says. ‘They do as I say.’

  ‘But they will talk . . . ’

  ‘What they say in London doesn’t matter to us e, at Kenilworth.’

  ‘But when you have to call a parliament?’

  ‘I will summon them to Coventry where they love me and honour the king. We won’t go back to London. And I will only summon the men who honour me. No-one who follows York.’

  I look at her, quite appalled. ‘You will have to go to London, Your Grace. Summer is all very well; but you cannot move the court and the parliament from the city forever. And you cannot exclude the men of York from government.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I hate the people there and they hate me. London is diseased and rebellious. They take the side of parliament and York against me. They call me a foreign queen. I shall rule them from a distance. I am Queen of London but they shall never see me, nor have a penny of my money, nor a glimpse of my patronage nor a word of my blessing. Kent, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, London – they are all my enemies. They are all traitors, and I will never forgive them.’

  ‘But the king . . . ’

  ‘He will get better,’ she says determinedly. ‘This is a bad day for him. Today is a bad day. Just today. Some days he is quite well. And I will find a way of curing him, I have doctors working on new cures all the time, I have licensed alchemists to distil waters for him.’

  ‘The king doesn’t like alchemy, or anything like that.’

  ‘We have to find a cure. I am issuing licences to alchemists to pursue their studies. I have to consult them. It is allowed now.’

  ‘And what do they say?’ I ask her. ‘The alchemists?’

  ‘They say that he has to be weak as the kingdom is weak; but that they will see him reborn, he will be as new again, and the kingdom will be as new again. They say he will go through fire and be made as pure as a white rose.’

  ‘A white rose?’ I am shocked.

  She shakes her head. ‘They don’t mean York. They mean as pure as a white moon, as pure as white water, driven snow, it doesn’t matter.’

  I bow my head, but I think it probably does matter. I glance back at Richard. He is kneeling beside the throne and the king is leaning forwards to speak earnestly to him. Richard is nodding, gentle as when he is talking to one of our little boys. I see the king, his head shaking, stammering over a sentence, and I see my husband take his hand and say the words slowly, carefully, as a kind man will speak slowly to an idiot.

  ‘Oh, Margaret, oh my Margaret, I am so sorry for you,’ I blurt out.

  Her grey-blue eyes are filled with tears. ‘I am all alone now,’ she says. ‘I have never been so alone in all my life before. But I will not be turned on the wheel of fortune, I will not fall down. I will rule this country, and make the king well, and see my son inherit.’

  Richard thought that she could not rule the country from the Midlands; but summer comes and goes, the swallows swirl every evening around the roofs of Kenilworth, and every evening there are fewer and fewer as they are flying south, slipping away from us, and still the queen refuses to go am ato London. She rules by command, there is no pretence of discussion. She simply orders a royal council who are picked to do her bidding and never argue with her. She does not call a parliament of the commons who would have demanded to see the king in his capital city. Londoners are quick to complain that the foreigners who steal their trade and overcharge decent Englishmen are the result of a foreign queen who hates London and will not defend honest merchants. Then a French fleet raids the coast and goes further than any has dared to go before. They enter right into the port of Sandwich, and loot the town, tearing the place apart, taking away everything of value and firing the marketplace. Everyone blames the queen.

  ‘Are they really saying that I ordered them to come?’ she exclaims to Richard. ‘Are they mad? Why would I order the French to attack Sandwich?’

  ‘The attack was led by a friend of yours, Pierre de Brézé,’ my husband points out drily. ‘And he had maps of the shoals and the river bed: English maps. People ask how did he get them if not from you? They are saying that you helped him because you may need him to help you. And you swore that you would see Kent punished for their support of Warwick. You know, de Brézé played a merry jest on us. He brought balls and racquets and played a game of tennis in the town square. It was an insult. The people of Sandwich think that you set him on to insult them. That this is French humour. We don’t find it funny.’

  She narrows her eyes at him. ‘I hope you are not turning Yorkist,’ she says quietly. ‘I should be sorry to think that you turned against me, and it would break Jacquetta’s heart. I should be sorry to see you executed. You have avoided death a hundred times, Richard Woodville. I should be sorry to be the one who ordered it.’

  Richard faces her, without flinching. ‘You asked me why people blame you. I am telling you, Your Grace. It does not mean that I think such things, except I am puzzled by de Brézé holding the charts. I am only making a fair report. And I will tell you more: if you do not control the pirates and the French ships in the narrow seas then the Earl of Warwick will sail out of Calais and do it for you, and everyone will hail him as a hero. You do not damage his reputation by letting pirates rule the narrow seas, by letting de Brézé raid Sandwich: you damage your own. The southern towns have to be protected. The king has to be seen to respond to this challenge. You have to make the narrow seas safe for English ships. Even if you don’t like Kent it is the beach-head of your kingdom, you have to defend it.’

  She nods, her anger dissipated at once. ‘Yes, I see. I do see, Richard. I just hadn’t thought of the south coast. Would you draw up a plan for me? How we should protect the south coast?’

  He bows, steady as always. ‘It would be my honour, Your Grace.’

  ROCHESTER CASTLE, KENT,

  NOVEMBER 1457

  ‘Well, I for one don’t think much of your plan,’ I say to him sarcastically. We are in an old damp castle on the wide wet estuary

  of the Medway in November: one of the greyest coldest darkest months of the English year. The castle was built by the Normans for defence, not for comfort; and it is so cold and so miserable here that I have co