The Lady of the Rivers

  His smile is bitter. ‘Both you and I will have to learn to serve a new master,’ he says. ‘Alas for us.’

  I am silent, and then I say, ‘I will go to the hall for dinner if you think everyone would like it?’

  ‘They would,’ he says. ‘Can you walk in on your own?’

  I nod. My ladies arrange themselves behind me and Richard walks before me to the double doors of the great hall. The noisy chatter behind the doors is quieter than usual: this is a house of mourning. The guards throw the doors open and I go in. At once, all the talk stops, and there is a sudden hush, then there is a rumble and a clatter as every man rises to his feet, pushing back benches and stools, and every man pulls off his hat and stands bareheaded as I go by, the hundreds and hundreds of them, showing respect to me as the duke’s young widow, showing their love to him who has gone, and their sorrow at their loss and mine. I walk through them and I hear them whispering ‘God bless you, my lady’ in a low mutter as I go by, all the way to the dais at the top of the hall, and I stand behind the high table, alone.

  ‘I thank you for your kind wishes,’ I say to them, my voice ringing like a flute in the big-raftered hall. ‘My lord duke is dead and we all feel the loss of him. You will all be paid your wages for another month and I will recommend you to the new regent of France as good and trustworthy servants. God bless my lord the duke, and God save the king.’

  ‘God bless my lord the duke, and God save the king!’

  ‘That was well done,’ Woodville says to me as we walk back to my private rooms. ‘Especially the wages. And you will be able to pay them. My lord was a good master, there is enough in the treasury to pay the wages and even some pensions for the older men. You yourself will be a very wealthy woman.’

  I pause in a little window bay and look out over the darkened town. An oval three-quarter moon is rising, warm yellow in colour in the deep indigo sky. I should be planting herbs that need a waxing moon at Penshurst; but then I realise that I will never see Penshurst again. ‘And what will happen to you?’ I ask.

  He shrugs. ‘I will go back to Calais and then, when the new captain is appointed, I will go home to England. I will find a master that I can respect, offer him my service. Perhaps I will come back to France in an expedition, or if the king does make peace with the Armagnacs, then perhaps I will serve the king at the English court. Perhaps I will go to the Holy Land and become a crusader.’

  ‘But I won’t see you,’ I say, as the thought suddenly strikes me. ‘You won’t be in my household. I don’t even know where I will live, and you could go anywhere. We won’t be together any more.’ I look at him as the thought comes home to me. ‘We won’t see each other any more.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘This will be where we part. Perhaps we will never see each other again.’

  I gasp. The thought that I will never see him again is so momentous that I cannot grasp it. I give a shaky laugh. ‘It doesn’t seem possible. I see you every day, I am so accustomed . . . You are always here, I have walked with you, or ridden with you, or been with you, every day for – what – more than two years? – ever since my wedding day. I am used to you . . . ’ I break off for fear of sounding weak. ‘What I am really thinking is: who will look after Merry? Who will keep her safe?’

  ‘Your new husband?’ he suggests.

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine you not being here. And Merry . . . ’

  ‘What about Merry?’

  ‘She doesn’t like strange men,’ I say foolishly. ‘She only likes you.’

  ‘My lady . . . ’

  I fall silent at the intensity of his tone. ‘Yes?’

  He takes my hand and tucks it under his elbow and walks me down the gallery. To any of my ladies, seated at the far end by the fire, it looks as if we are walking together, planning the next few days, as we have always walked together, as we have always talked together, constant companions: the duchess and her faithful knight. But this time he keeps his hand on mine and his fingers are burning as if he has a fever. This time his head is turned so close to me that if I looked up at him our lips would brush. I walk with my head averted. I must not look up at him so that our lips brush.

  ‘I cannot know what the future will bring us,’ he says in a rapid undertone. ‘I cannot know where you will be given in marriage, nor what life might hold for me. But I can’t let you go without telling you – without telling you at least once – that I love you.’

  I snatch a breath at the words. ‘Woodville . . . ’

  ‘I can offer you nothing, I am next to nothing, and you are the greatest lady in France. But I wanted you to know, I love you and I want you, and I have done since the day I first saw you.’

  ‘I should . . . ’

  ‘I have to tell you, you have to know: I have loved you honourably as a knight should do his lady, and I have loved you passionately as a man might a woman; and now, before I leave you, I want to tell you that I love you, I love you . . . ’ He breaks off and looks at me desperately. ‘I had to tell you,’ he repeats. I feel as if I am becoming as golden and as warm as alchemy could make me. I can feel myself smiling, glowing at these words. At once I know that he is telling the truth, that he is in love with me, and at once I recognise the truth: that I am in love with him. And he has told me, he has said the words, I have captured his heart, he loves me, he loves me, dear God, he loves me. And God knows – though Richard does not – that I love him.

  Without another word we turn into a little room at the end of the gallery and he closes the door behind us and takes me in his arms in one swift irresistible movement. I raise my head to him and he kisses me. My hands stroke from his cropped handsome head to his broad shoulders and I hold him to me, closer and still closer. I feel the muscle of his shoulders under his jerkin, the prickle of his short hair at the back of his neck.

  ‘I want you,’ he says in my ear. ‘Not as a duchess, and not as a scryer. I want you just as a woman, as my woman.’

  He drops his head and kisses my shoulder where the neck of the gown leaves my shoulder bare for his touch. He kisses my collar bone, my neck, up to my jaw line. I bury my face in his hair, in the crook of his neck, and he gives a little groan of desire, and thrusts his fingers in my headdress, pulling the gold net off so that my hair comes tumbling down and he rubs his face in it.

  ‘I want you as a woman, an ordinary woman,’ he repeats breathlessly, pulling at the laces of my gown. ‘I don’t want the Sight, I don’t want your ancestry. I don’t know anything about alchemy or the mysteries or the water goddess. I am a man of the earth, of ordinary things, an Englishman. I don’t want mysteries, I just want you, as an ordinary woman. I have to have you.’

  ‘You would bring me down to earth,’ I say slowly, raising my head.

  He hesitates, looks down into my face. ‘Not to diminish you,’ he says. ‘Never that. I want you to be whatever you are. But this is who I am. I don’t know about the other world and I don’t care about it. I don’t care about saints or spirits or goddesses or the Stone. All I want is to lie with you, Jacquetta’ – we both register this, his first ever use of my name – ‘Jacquetta, I just desire you, as if you were an ordinary woman and I an ordinary man.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I can feel a sudden pulse of desire. ‘Yes. I don’t care about anything else.’

  His mouth is on mine again, his hands are pulling at the neck of my gown, unfastening my belt. ‘Lock the door,’ I say as he shrugs out of his jerkin, and draws me towards him. The moment when he enters me I feel a searing pain which melts into a pleasure that I have never felt before, and so I don’t care about the pain. But I do know, even as we move towards ecstasy, that it is a woman’s pain and that I have become a woman of earth and fire, and I am no longer a girl of water and air.

  ‘We have to prevent a child,’ Wodville says to me. We have had a week of secret meetings and we are dizzy with desire and delight in each other. My lord’s funeral has come and gone and I am waiting to hear from my mo
ther as to what she will command me to do. We are beginning, only slowly, to see beyond the blindness of desire, and to wonder what the future will hold for us.

  ‘I take herbs,’ I say. ‘After that first night I took some herbs. There will be no child. I have made sure of it.’

  ‘I wish you could foresee what will become of us,’ he says. ‘For I really cannot let you go.’

  ‘Hush,’ I caution him. My women are nearby, sewing and talking among themselves, but they are accustomed to Richard Woodville coming to my rooms every day. There has been much to plan and arrange and Richard has always been in constant attendance.

  ‘It’s true,’ he says, his voice lower. ‘It is true, Jacquetta. I cannot let you go.’

  ‘Then you will have to hold me,’ I reply, smiling down at my work.

  ‘The king will command that you go to England,’ he says. ‘I can’t just kidnap you.’

  I steal a quick glance at his frowning face. ‘Really, you should just kidnap me,’ I prompt.

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ he swears.

  That night I take the bracelet that my great-aunt gave me, the charm bracelet for foretelling the future. I take a charm shaped like a little ring, a wedding ring, and I take a charm shaped like a ship to represent my voyage to England, and I take a charm in the shape of the castle of St Pol, in case I am summoned back home. I think that I will tie each of them to a thread, put them in the deepest water of the River Seine, and see which thread comes to my hand after the moon has changed. I am about to start tying the threads on the little charms when I stop and laugh at myself. I am not going to do this. There is no need for me to do this.

  I am a woman of earth now; not a girl of water. I am not a maid, I am a lover. I am not interested in foreseeing; I will make my own future, not predict it. I don’t need a charm to tell me what I hope will happen. I throw the gold charm, which is like a wedding ring, up in the air and I catch it before it falls. This is my choice. I don’t need magic to reveal my desire. The enchantment is already done, I am in love, I am sworn to a man of earth, I am not going to give this man up. All I have to do is consider how we can stay together.

  I put the bracelet aside and draw a piece of paper to me and start to write to the King of England.

  From the Dowager Duchess of Bedford to His Grace the King of England and France:

  Your Grace and dear nephew, I greet you well. As you know, my late lord has left me dower lands and funds in England and with your permission I will come home and set my affairs in order. My lord’s master of horse, Sir Richard Woodville, will accompany me and my household. I await your royal permission.

  I put the charm bracelet awy in the purse and return it to my jewel case. I don’t need a spell to foresee the future; I am going to make it happen.

  ENGLAND, SUMMER 1436

  The English court is at its summer pursuit of hunting, travelling and flirtation. The young King of England starts and ends his day in prayer but rides out like a carefree boy for the rest of his day. Richard and I attend the young king as companions and friends, we hunt, dance, play at the summer sports, and join with the court. Nobody knows that every night Richard comes secretly to my room and the best part of the day, the only part of the day when we are alone together, begins.

  My dower lands are transferred into my name, the bulk of my lord’s great fortune has been paid to his nephew the king. Our house in Paris is gone, lost to the Armagnac king whose star has risen since the death of my lord. My lord’s beloved house of Penshurst has gone to his brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester; and Eleanor Cobham, the lady in waiting who betrayed the trust of her mistress, now walks down the beautiful allées and admires the roses in the garden as if she were worthy. She will cut the herbs that I planted, she will hang them to dry in my still room, she will take my place in the hall. I resent the loss of nothing from my married life but this.

  The two of them, the handsome duke and his beautiful wife, are burning up with pride, and this is their summer of glory. Now that my husband is dead the two of them are next in line to the throne, and every time the young king coughs at dinner, or mounts a horse that looks too strong for him, I see the duchess’s head come up, like a hound hearing the horn. Their desire for the throne locks them in conflict with their uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, and the whole court mourns the loss of my husband who was the only man who could hold these rivals together. The young king is advised by the duke in the morning and by the cardinal in the afternoon, and by evening has no idea what he thinks about anything.

  I am lulled like a fool by my happiness. I observe Eleanor Cobham but I bear her no malice. I include her in the dazed pity I feel for everyone who is not me, who is not loved by Richard Woodville. She does not sleep next to a man she loves, she does not know his touch as the early summer dawn turns the windows to pearl, she does not know the whisper in the cool morning, ‘Oh, stay. Stay. Just once more.’ I think nobody in the whole world knows what it is to be in love, to be so beloved. The summer days go by in a haze of desire. But the summer must come to an end. When September comes I will have been widowed for a year and the king’s advisors will be considering a new marriage for me. They will want to employ me to bind a difficult English lord more closely to the throne, they will want to put my dower lands into the pocket of a favourite. Perhaps they will find a foreign prince who would take me as a wife to enforce an alliance. They will put me where it suits them and unless we awake and rise up from our enchantment then I predict that I will be married off by Christmas.

  Richard is well aware of this danger, but he cannot think how we can prevent it. Richard says that he will go to the king and his council and tell them that he loves me and wants to marry me; but he cannot bring himself to do it, the disgrace would fall on me and I would be no longer a duchess but a commoner’s wife, no longer the first lady in the kingdom but a woman of earth indeed. At best, thefortune that my husband left me would be confiscated, and we would be left with nothing. At the worst they could arrest Richard for assaulting one of the royal family, send me to a convent and then marry me off to a man commanded to control me, warning him that his wife is a whore and had better be taught submission.

  As each dreamy warm summer day goes by, we know that we are closer to the moment when we will have to part, or face the danger of confessing. Richard torments himself with his fear that he will be the ruin of me; I am only afraid that he will leave me in a fit of self-sacrifice. He says I will be ruined if he declares his love, and he will be destroyed if he does not.

  The wise woman, Margery Jourdemayne, visits the court, selling love potions, and telling fortunes, scrying and divining for lost things. Half of what she does is nonsense, but I have faith in her skills as a herbalist. I summon her to my rooms and she comes discreetly late, one evening, a hood drawn over her head, a scarf over her mouth. ‘And what does the beautiful duchess want?’ she asks me.

  I can’t help but giggle at the emphasis. ‘What d’you call the other duchess?’ I ask.

  ‘I call her the royal duchess,’ she says. ‘And so I please you both. She prefers the thought of the crown to anything. All I can do for her is put her closer to the throne; but what can I do for you?’

  I shake my head. I don’t want to speculate about the succession, it is treason even to suggest that the young king is not strong and healthy; and he is both. ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ I say. ‘I want a herbal drink to make a baby.’

  She slides a sideways look at me. ‘You want a baby though you have no husband?’

  ‘It’s not for me,’ I lie quickly. ‘It’s for a friend.’

  ‘And is the friend the same age and build as you?’ she asks impertinently. ‘I have to know, for the herbs.’

  ‘You can make it as if you were making it for me, and give me the recipe.’

  She nods. ‘It will be ready tomorrow. You – your friend – should drink it every evening.’

  I nod. ‘Thank you. That will be all.’

  She hesitates
at the doorway. ‘Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger,’ she remarks, almost at random. ‘And you, of all people, might foresee this.’

  I smile at her warning, and then on impulse I put out my hand to her and make the gesture, the circle drawn in the air with the forefinger: fortune’s wheel. She understands, she smiles in reply and goes.

  I wait a month, two months, then quietly, at midnight, at the end of summer, Richard lets himself into my room and I slip into his arms.

  ‘I have news for you,’ I say. I pour him a glass of the best wine from Gascony. There is a bubble of laughter inside me at the words. I could laugh aloud at my sudden sense of daring, at my joy, at the intensity of my happiness.

  ‘Good news?’ he asks.

  ‘Good news,’ I say. ‘My love, I have to tell you; but now I come to it, I hardly know how to tell you – I am with child.’

  The glass falls from his hands and cracks on the stone floor. He does not even turn his head to see the damage, he is deaf to the noise and oblivious to the cost. ‘What?’

  ‘I am with child,’ I say steadily. ‘A good month into my time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Actually, I think she will be a girl,’ I say. ‘I think she will be born early next summer.’

  ‘What?’ he says again.

  The giggle in my heart threatens to burst out, his appalled expression does not frighten me. ‘Beloved,’ I say patiently. ‘Be happy. I am carrying your child. Nothing in the world could make me more happy than I am tonight. This is the start of everything for me. I am a woman of earth at last, and I am fertile ground, and a seed is growing inside me.’

  He drops his head into his hands. ‘I have been your ruin,’ he says. ‘God forgive me. I will never forgive myself. I love you more than anything in the world and I have been the road to your ruin.’