The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  I can see her lips moving, she is still looking at the upheld cross, I see that she is saying ‘Jesus, Jesus’, over and over, and for a moment I think that perhaps there will be a miracle, a storm to drown the fire, a lightning raid from the Armagnac forces. But there is nothing. Just the swirling thick smoke, and her white face, and her lips moving.

  The fire is slow to catch, the crowd jeer the soldiers for laying a poor bonfire, my toes are cramped in my best shoes. The great bell starts to ring, slowly and solemnly, and though I can hardly see Joan through the thickening cloud of smoke, I recognise the turn of her head under the great paper mitre as she listens and I wonder if she is hearing her angels through the tolling of the bell, and what they are saying to her now.

  The wood shifts a little and the flames start to lick. The inside of the pile is drier – they built it weeks ago for her – and now with a crackle and a blaze it is starting to brighten. Tlight makes the ramshackle buildings of the square jump and loom, the smoke swirls more quickly, the brightness of the fire throws a flickering glow on Joan and I see her look up, clearly I see her form the word ‘Jesus’, and then like a child going to sleep her head droops and she is quiet.

  Childishly, I think for a moment perhaps she has gone to sleep, perhaps this is the miracle sent by God, then there is a sudden blaze as the long white robe catches fire and a tongue of flame flickers up her back and the paper mitre starts to brown and curl. She is still, silent as a little stone angel, and the pyre shifts and the bright sparks fly up.

  I grit my teeth, and I find my aunt’s hand clutching mine. ‘Don’t faint,’ she hisses. ‘You have to stand up.’ We stand hand-clasped, our faces quite blank, as if this were not a nightmare that tells me, as clearly as if it were written in letters of fire, what ending a girl may expect if she defies the rules of men and thinks she can make her own destiny. I am here not only to witness what happens to a heretic. I am here to witness what happens to a woman who thinks she knows more than men.

  I look through the haze of the fire to our window in the castle, and I see the maid, Elizabeth, looking down. She sees me look up at her and our eyes meet, blank with horror. Slowly, she stretches out her hand and makes the sign that Joan showed us that day by the moat in the hot sunshine. Elizabeth draws a circle in the air with her forefinger, the sign for the wheel of fortune, which can throw a woman so high in the world that she can command a king, or pull her down to this: a dishonoured agonising death.

  CASTLE OF ST POL, ARTOIS, SPRING 1433

  After a few more months with my uncle John, and then a year-long visit to our Brienne kinsfolk, my mother regards me as sufficiently polished to return home while they plan my marriage, and so I am living at our castle in St Pol when we hear the news that Anne Duchess of Bedford has died and the duke is lost without her. Then a letter comes from my uncle Louis, the duke’s chancellor.

  ‘Jacquetta, this concerns you.’ My mother summons me to her rooms where I find her seated, my father standing behind her chair. They both look at me sternly and I make a rapid review of my day’s doings. I have not completed the many tasks that I am supposed to do, and I skipped attendance at church this morning, my room is untidy and I am behind with my sewing, but surely my father would not come to my mother’s apartment to reprimand me for this?

  ‘Yes, Lady Mother?’

  My mother hesitates, glances up at my father and then presses on. ‘Of course your father and I have been considering a husband for you and we have been looking at who might be suitable – we hoped that . . . but it does not matter, for you are lucky, we have had a most advantageous offer. In short, your uncle Louis has suggested you as a wife for the Duke of Bedford.’

  I am so surprised that I say nothing.

  ‘A great honour,’ my father says shortly. ‘A great position for you. You will be an English duchess, the first lady after the king’s mother in England, the first lady bar none in France. You should go down on your knees and thank God for this oportunity.’

  ‘What?’

  My mother nods, confirming this. They both stare at me, expecting a response.

  ‘But his wife has only just died,’ I say weakly.

  ‘Yes indeed, your uncle Louis has done very well for you, to get your name put forwards this early.’

  ‘I would have thought he would have wanted to wait a little while.’

  ‘Didn’t the duke see you at Rouen?’ my mother asks. ‘And then again in Paris?’

  ‘Yes, but he was married,’ I say foolishly. ‘He saw me . . . ’ I remember that dark predatory look, when I was little more than a girl, and my stepping behind my aunt to hide from it. I remember the shadowy hall and the man who whispered in my ear and then went out to order the burning of the Maid. ‘And the duchess was there. I knew her too. We saw her far more than we saw him.’

  My father shrugs. ‘At any rate, he liked the look of you and your uncle has put your name in his ear and you are to be his wife.’

  ‘He’s very old,’ I say quietly, directing this at my mother.

  ‘Not very. A little over forty,’ she says.

  ‘And I thought you told me he was ill,’ I say to my father.

  ‘All the better for you,’ my mother says. Clearly she means that an elderly husband may be less demanding than a young one, and if he dies then I shall be a dowager duchess at seventeen, which would be the only thing better than being a duchess at seventeen.

  ‘I had not looked for such an honour,’ I say feebly to them both. ‘May I be excused? I fear I am not worthy.’

  ‘We are of the greatest family in Christendom,’ my father says grandly. ‘Kin to the Holy Roman Emperor. How would you not be worthy?’

  ‘You cannot be excused,’ my mother says. ‘Indeed, you would be a fool to be anything but delighted. Any girl in France and England would give her right hand for such a match.’ She pauses and clears her throat. ‘He is the greatest man in France and England after the King of England. And if the king were to die . . . ’

  ‘Which God forbid,’ my father says hastily.

  ‘God forbid indeed; but if the king were to die then the duke would be heir to the throne of England and you would be Queen of England. What d’you think of that?’

  ‘I had not thought of marriage to such a man as the duke.’

  ‘Think now then,’ my father says briskly. ‘For he is coming here in April, to marry you.’

  My uncle Louis, who is Bishop of Therouanne as well as the duke’s chancellor, is both host and priest at this wedding of his own making. He entertains us in his episcopal palace and John Duke of Bedford rides in with his guard in the English livery of red and white, as I stand at the doorway of the palace in a gown of palest yellow with a veil of tissue of gold fting from my high headdress.

  His page runs forwards to hold his horse’s head, and another kneels on the ground alongside and then drops to his hands and knees to form a human mounting block. The duke climbs down heavily, from the stirrup onto the man’s back, and then steps down to the ground. Nobody remarks on this. The duke is such a great man that his pages take it as an honour for him to stand on them. His squire takes his helmet and his metalled gauntlets, and steps aside.

  ‘My lord.’ My uncle the bishop greets his master with obvious affection and then bows to kiss his hand. The duke claps him on the back and then turns to my father, and my mother. Only when the courtesies with them are complete does he turn to me, and he steps forwards, takes both of my hands, pulls me towards him, and kisses me on the mouth.

  His chin is rough with stubble, his breath tainted; it is like being licked by a hound. His face seems very big as it comes down towards me, and very big as he moves away. He does not pause to look at me, or to smile, just that one aggressive kiss, then he turns to my uncle and says, ‘Do you have no wine?’ and they laugh for it is a private joke, based on their years of friendship, and my uncle leads the way inside and my mother and father follow them, and I am left for a moment, looking after the older people, with