Lady of the Rivers Read online

A woman whispers something behind her hand about how a girl like me might persuade a man as old as he with one hand tied behind her back. Someone says, ‘Better with both hands tied, ’and a couple of them laugh. I have no idea what they mean.

  ‘He will love you,’ my mother promises. ‘He is quite mad for you.’

  I don’t reply. I just look at the young woman in the mirror. The thought of John, Duke of Bedford, running mad for me is not encouraging at all.

  The wedding service lasts about an hour. It is all in Latin so half of the vows are incomprehensible to me, anyway. It is not a private plighting of promises, but more a great announcement as the hall of the bishop’s palace fills with strangers come to look at me and celebrate my good fortune. When the vows are done and we walk through the crowd, I am escorted by my new husband, my fingertips resting on his sleeve, there is a roar of approbation and everywhere I look I see smiling avid faces.

  We sit at the top table, facing the room. There is a bawl of trumpets from the gallery and the first of dozens of plates of food is marched into the room at shoulder height. The servers come to us at the high table first, and put a little from every dish on each golden plate, then the duke points them here and there down the hall, so that his favourites may share our dishes. For everyone else, the great bowls of meat come in and the great platters of white bread. It is a huge feast, my uncle Louis has spared no expense to please his patron and to celebrate my rise to the royalty of Eland.

  They bring in wine in great golden jugs and they pour glass after glass at the high table. The honoured guests, those who sit above the great golden bowl of salt, have as much wine as they can drink, as fast as they can drink it. In the hall the men have tankard after tankard of ale, the best ale: wedding ale specially brewed for today, specially sweetened and spicy.

  There is a challenger, who rides his horse right into the hall, and throws down his gauntlet in my name. His horse curves its heavy muscled neck and eyes the tables and the great circular fireplace in the centre of the hall. I have to get up from my place and come round on the raised dais of the high table to give him a golden cup, and then he goes all round the hall at a powerful trot, his rider sitting heavily in the embossed saddle, before cantering out of the double doors. It seems quite ridiculous to me, to ride a horse into dinner, especially such a heavy horse and such a weighty knight. I look up and I meet the gaze of the young squire who is dangerously near to laughter, as I am. Quickly, we both look away from each other’s dancing eyes before I betray myself and giggle.

  There are twenty courses of meats, and then ten of fish, then everything is taken away and Rhenish wine is served with a voider course of potted fruit, sugared plums and sweetmeats. When everyone has tasted all of these they bring in the final course of marchpane, pastries, sugared fruits and gingerbread decorated with real gold leaf. In comes the Fool who juggles and cracks bawdy jokes about youth and age, male and female, and the heat of the wedding bed, which is the fire to forge a new life. He is followed by dancers and players who perform a masque celebrating the power of England and the beauty of Luxembourg with a beautiful woman, almost naked but for her long green tail of silk, who symbolises Melusina. The best of them all is a costumed lion, the emblem of both our countries, who cavorts and dances with strength and grace, and finally comes, panting a little, to the high table and bows his great head to me. His mane is a mass of golden curls smelling of sacking, his face a mask of painted paper, with a smiling honest look. I have a gold chain to put around his neck and as I stretch towards him and he bows his head to me I recognise the gleam of blue eyes through the mask and know that my hands are on the shoulders of the handsome squire, and that I am standing close enough to embrace him as I put my chain around his neck.

  My mother nods to me that we can leave, and the women and the musicians all rise up and dance in a line round the length of the hall and then make an archway with their hands held high and I walk through it, with all the girls wishing me luck and the women calling blessings down on me. I am preceded by my dancing little sisters who scatter rose petals and little golden keys on the floor where I walk. Everyone escorts me up the great flight of stairs to the best chambers and they all seem disposed to crowd into the bedroom with me; but my father stops them at the door, and I go in with just my mother and the ladies of her court.

  First they unpin my high headdress and lift it carefully away, and then unpin my hair. My scalp aches as the tightly plaited hair tumbles down and I rub my face. They untie the laces of my gown at my shoulders to take off the sleeves, then they untie the fastenings at the back and drop it to the floor and I carefully step out of it. They take it away to shake it and powder it and store it carefully for the next important event when I will wear it as the Duchess of Bedford, and the red lions on the hem will symbolise the house that once was mine. They untie the laces of my under-gown and strip me naked, then, while I shiver, they throw my nightgown over my head, and pt a wrap around my shoulders. They seat me on a stool and bring a bowl of hot scented water and I soak my cold feet and lean back as one of them brushes my hair while the others pull at the embroidered hem of the gown, tidy the fall of the wrap, and put the room to rights. Finally they pat my feet dry, plait my hair, tie a nightcap on my head, and then they throw open the door.

  My uncle Louis comes in, dressed in his bishop’s cope and mitre, swinging a censer, and he proceeds all round the room, blessing every corner, and wishing me happiness, wealth, and above all fertility, in this great match between England and the county of Luxembourg. ‘Amen,’ I say, ‘amen,’ but it seems that he will never stop and then, from the hall below, comes a great rumble of male voices and laughter and the blare of trumpets and the banging of drums and they are bringing my bridegroom, the old duke, to my room.

  They carry him shoulder high, shouting ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ and they set him on his feet just outside my door so that he can walk in and they can all tumble in behind him. Hundreds are left in the rooms outside, craning to see, and shouting for others to move up. The Fool capers in, his bladder in his hand, poking at the bed and declaring that it need be soft for the duke will make a heavy landing. There is a roar of laughter at this, which spreads out of the room to the chambers beyond and even down to the hall as the jest is repeated. Then the Fool commands the girls to build up the fire to keep the bed warm, and top up the wedding ale for the duke may get a thirst on, and then he may need to get up in the night. ‘Up in the night!’ he says again, and everyone laughs.

  The trumpets blast a summons, deafening in the bedroom, and my father says, ‘Well, we will leave them! God bless and goodnight.’ My mother kisses me on the forehead, and all her ladies and half of the guests kiss me too. Then my mother leads me to the bed and helps me climb into it. I sit there, propped on pillows like a hand-carved poppet. On the other side, the duke is throwing off his dressing gown and his squire pulls back the sheets and helps his lord into bed. The squire keeps his eyes down and does not look at me, and I am still, like a stiff little doll, one hand holding the neck of my nightgown tightly under my chin.

  We sit bolt upright, side by side, while everyone laughs and cheers and wishes us well, and then my father and my uncle guide and half push the revellers from the room and they close the door on us and we can still hear them, singing their way down the stairs back to the hall and shouting for more drink to toast the health of the happy couple and wet the head of the baby who will be made, God willing, this very night.

  ‘Are you well, Jacquetta?’ the duke asks me as the room grows slowly quiet and the candles burn more steadily, now that the doors are closed.

  ‘I am well, my lord,’ I say. My heart is beating so loudly that I think he must hear it. More than anything else I am painfully aware that I have no idea what I should do, or what he may ask of me.

  ‘You can go to sleep,’ he says heavily. ‘For I am dead drunk. I hope you will be happy, Jacquetta. I will be a kind husband to you. But go to sleep now, for I am drunk as a bishop.’