Lady of the Rivers Read online

  The armies break off from engagement, retreating to their own lines. From the banks of the river, even in the water, the wounded men stir and call for help.

  ‘Why don’t they attack?’ Margaret demands, her teeth bared, her hands gripped tight together. ‘Why don’t they attack again?’

  ‘They’re regrouping,’ I say. ‘God spare them, they are regrouping to charge again.’

  As we watch, the horsemen who are left of the Lancaster force charge once more, down the hill at a brave pace; but still they have to get through the stream. This time, knowing the danger, they force the horses into the water and then in a great bound, up the steep banks, spurring them on to the York lines, and battle is joined. They are followed by the men who are fighting on foot, I know that my son and my husband will be among them. I cannot see them, but I can see the movement of the Lancaster forces as they come forwards like a wave, struggle through the stream, and break on the rock of the York line which holds, and fights, and they slug at each other, until we can see our line fall back, and the men on the wings start to slip away.

  ‘What are they doing?’ the queen demands incredulously. ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘We are losing,’ I say. I hear the words in my own voice but I cannot believe it, not for a moment. I cannot believe that I am here, high as an eagle, remote as a soaring gull, watching my husband’s defeat, perhaps watching my son’s death. ‘We are losing. Our men are running away, it is a rout. We thought we were unbeatable; but we are losing.’

  It is getting darker, we can see less and less. Suddenly, I realise that we are in terrible danger, and we have put ourselves here by our own folly. When the battle is lost and the York soldiers chase the Lancaster lords to their deaths, hunting them down through the lanes, they will come to this village and they will scale this tower and they will find the greatest prize of the battle: the queen. Our cause will be lost forever if they can take the queen and win control of the prince and the king. Our cause will be lost and I will have lost it, letting her persuade me to come to this church and climb up to watch a life-or-death battle as if it was a pretty day of jousting.

  ‘We have to go,’ I say suddenly.

  She does not move, staring into the greyness of the twilight. ‘I think we’re winning,’ she says. ‘I think that was another charge and we broke through their line.’

  ‘We’re not winning, and we didn’t break through, we are running away and they are chasing us,’ I say harshly. ‘Margaret, come on.’

  She turns to me, surprised by my use of her name, and I grab her by the hand and pull her towards the stone stairs. ‘What d’you think they’ll do with you if they catch you?’ I demand. ‘They’ll hold you in the Tower forever. Or worse, they’ll break your neck and say you fell from your horse. Come on!’

  Suddenly she realises her danger, and she races down the stone steps of the tower, her feet pattering on the stone treads. ‘I’ll go alone,’ she says tersely. ‘I’ll go back to Eccleshall. You must stop them coming after me.’

  She is ahead of me as we run to the forge where the blacksmith is just about to put the shoes on her horse.

  ‘Put them on backwards,’ she snaps.

  ‘Eh?’ he says.

  She gives him a silver coin from her pocket. ‘Backwards,’ she says. ‘Put them on backwards. Hurry. A couple of nails to each shoe.’ To me she says, ‘If they want to follow me they will have no tracks. They will see only the horses coming here, they won’t realise I was going away.’

  I realise I am staring at her, the queen of my vision, who had her horseshoes on backwards. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I’m going,’ she says. ‘Back to Eccleshall to fetch the prince and the king and to raise the main army to chase the Earl of Salisbury all the way to Ludlow if we have to.’

  ‘And what am I to do?’

  She looks at the blacksmith. ‘Hurry. Hurry.’

  ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘Will you stay here? And if they come through, you are to tell them that I was going to meet my army at Nottingham.’

  ‘You’re leaving me here?’

  ‘They won’t hurt you, Jacquetta. They like you. Everyone likes you.’

  ‘They are an army hot from the battlefield, they have probably just killed my son-in-law, my husband and my son.’

  ‘Yes, but they won’t hurt you. They won’t make war on women. But I have to get away, and get the prince and the king safe. You will save me if you tell them I have gone to Nottingham.’

  I hesitate for a moment. ‘I am afraid.’

  She holds out her hand to me and she makes the gesture that I taught her myself. The pointing-finger gesture that draws the circle in the air, which shows the wheel of fortune. ‘I am afraid too,’ she says.

  ‘Go on then.’ I release her.

  The smith hammers in the t nail, the horse walks a little awkwardly but he is sound enough. The smith drops to his hands and knees in the dirt and Margaret steps on his back to get into the saddle. She raises her hand to me. ‘À tout à l’ heure,’ she says as if she is just going out for a little ride for pleasure, and then she digs her heels in her horse’s sides and she goes flying off. I look down at the ground; the marks in the soft earth clearly show a horse coming into the forge, but there is no sign of one leaving.

  Slowly, I walk to where the track goes through the little village of Mucklestone, and wait for the first York lords to ride in.

  It grows dark. In the distance at Blore Heath I hear a cannon shot, and then another, slowly through the night. I wonder that they can see anything to fire upon. Groups of men come by, some of them supporting their wounded companions, some of them with their heads down, running as if from fear itself. I shrink back inside the forge and they don’t see me as they go by. They don’t even stop to ask for drink or food, all the windows and doors in the village are barred to all soldiers – whatever badge they wear. When I see a Lancaster badge I step out into the lane. ‘Lord Rivers? Sir Anthony Woodville? Sir John Grey?’ I ask.

  The man shakes his head. ‘Were they on horses? They’ll be dead, missus.’

  I make myself stand, though my knees are weak beneath me. I lean against the door of the forge and wonder what I should do, alone at a battlefield, and if Richard is dead out there, and my son, and my son-in-law. I wonder if I should go out to the heath and look for Richard’s body. I cannot believe I would not know of his death. I would surely sense it, when I was so close to the battle that I could even see the churning of the stream where he might have drowned?

  ‘Here,’ the blacksmith says kindly, coming out of his little cottage to put a dirty mug in my hand. ‘What are you going to do, lady?’

  I shake my head. There is no pursuing force to misdirect, the York men are not coming through this way, just the broken remnants of our army. I fear that my husband is dead but I don’t know where to look for him. I am weak with fear and with a sense of my own lack of heroism. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. I feel utterly lost. The last time I was lost and alone was in the forest when I was a girl in France, and Richard came for me then. I cannot believe that Richard will not come for me now.

  ‘Better come in with us,’ the blacksmith says. ‘Can’t stay out here all night. And you can’t go to the battlefield, my lady, there are thieves working the place, and they’d stab you as soon as look at you. You’d better come in with us.’

  I shrug, I don’t know what I should do. There is no point standing in the street if no-one is going to come past me to ask where the queen has gone. I have done my duty by hurrying her away, I don’t need to stand out till dawn. I duck my head under the narrow doorway of the cottage and step into the small dark earth-floored room and the stench of five people sleeping, cooking, eating and pissing in the same space.

  They are kind to me. What they have, they share. They have a corner of black bread made with rye; they have never tasted white bread. They have a thin gruel made with vegetables and a rind of cheese. They have small ale to drink whi