The Lady of the Rivers (43 page)

She gives a little sigh. ‘All right. And don’t you think about it.’

I wave my hand like a veil over my face. ‘I won’t think. I have not a thought in my head.’

She laughs. ‘I know you can’t stop yourself thinking, I know that. And I know you have the Sight sometimes. But don’t look for this baby, promise me you will not look for him? And think of him as a wild flower which grows and is a thing of beauty; but nobody knows how it was planted nor how it came to be there.’

‘He’s the son of Marguerite the Daisy,’ I say. ‘He can be the flower that we rejoice to see in springtime, whose coming means spring.’

‘Yes,’ she says.‘A wild flower that comes from who knows where?’

GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,
SUMMER 1453

I keep my word to the queen and don’t puzzle over this long-delayed conception, and she keeps her word to me and speaks to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and he sends my husband home to me, as I go into confinement at Grafton. I have a boy and we call him Lionel. My daughter Elizabeth, a married lady, comes and attends me in my confinement, very serious and very helpful, and I find her hanging over the cradle and cooing to the baby.

‘You will have your own soon,’ I promise her.

‘I hope so. He is so perfect, he is so beautiful.’

‘He is,’ I say with quiet pride. ‘Another son for the House of Rivers.’

As soon as I am strong enough to return to court I get a message from the queen asking me to join them on progress. Richard has to return to the garrison of Calais and it is painfully hard for us to part again.

‘Let me come to Calais,’ I beg him. ‘I can’t bear to be without you.’

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Next month. You can come and bring all the younger children; I can’t bear to be without you and them either.’

He kisses my mouth, he kisses both of my hands, and then he mounts his horse and rides away.

CLARENDON PALACE, WILTSHIRE,
SUMMER 1453

The court itself is merry, travelling around the western counties and seeking out traitors and rabble-rousers. The Duke of Somerset has chosen the route and says that gradually the people are coming to learn that they cannot speak evil of the king, that there is no future in their demands and – more important than anything else – that Richard, Duke of York, will never be a power in the kingdom and so allying with him, or calling on his name, is a waste of time.

Edmund Beaufort is especially attentive to the king this summer, urging him on to be more and more severe in his judgements and rigorous in his sentencing. He strengthens his mind by applauding his decisions, and encourages him to speak out. The duke accompanies the king to chapel and brings him to the queen’s rooms before dinner where the three of them sit and talk, and the duke makes them laugh with his account of the day, sometimes mocking the ignorant people who have been before him.

The queen cannot ride in her condition, and Edmund Beaufort has trained a beautiful set of matched mules to carry her litter. He himself rides beside her, keeping his great horse reined back to the slow speed of the mules, watching her for any sign of fatigue. He consults me almost every day to make sure that I am happy with the queen’s health, with her diet, with her exercise. Every day I assure him that she is well, that her belly is growing as it should, that I am certain that the baby is strong.

Almost every day he brings her a little gift, a posy of flowers, a poem, a little lad to dance for her, a kitten. The king and queen and the duke travel around the green lanes of Dorset in absolute accord, and whenever the queen steps down from her litter or turns to go up a stair, the duke’s hand is out to support her, his arm to hold her steady.

I had seen him before as a charmer, a seducer, a rogue; but now I see something better in him, a man of great tenderness. He treats her as if he would spare her any fatigue, as if he has dedicated his life to her happiness. He serves the king as a most loyal friend and he serves her as a knight of chivalry. More than this, I don’t want to see; I won’t let myself see.

In August we reach Wiltshire, and stay at the old royal palace at Clarendon, in the lush water meadows near Salisbury. I love this chalk meadowland and the broad watery valleys. The runs after the deer go on for hours through the woodland of the valley floors and then we burst out onto the high downland and gallop across the even cropped grass. When we halt to eat we can see half of England spread before us. The palace is set among flowering meads, flooded into lakes for half the year, but a network of clean streams and pools and rivers in this high summer. The duke takes the queen fishing and swears that they will catch a salmon for her dinner, but they spend most of the day with her resting in the shade while he casts a line and gives her the rod to hold, and then casts the line again as the dragon-flies dance over the kingcups and the swallows fly low over the water, skimming their little beaks into their own darting reflections.

We come home late in the evening as the clouds in the sky are like peach and lemon ribbons, swirled above the horizon. ‘It will be another beautiful day tomorrow,’ the duke predicts.

‘And the next day?’ she asks him.

‘Why not? Why should you not have a beautiful day every day of your life?’

She laughs. ‘You would spoil me.’

‘I would,’ he says sweetly. ‘I would like you to have a beautiful day every day.’

She takes his arm to help her up the stone steps to the great front door of the hunting lodge. ‘Where is the king?’ he asks one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber.

‘In the chapel, Your Grace,’ the man replies. ‘With his confessor.’

‘I’ll come to your rooms then,’ Edmund Beaufort says to the queen. ‘Shall I sit with you before dinner?’

‘Yes, come,’ she says.

The ladies arrange themselves on stools and the window-seats, the queen and the duke sit in a window embrasure, talking quietly together, their heads close, and then there is a knock and the doors are thrown open for a messenger from France, who comes hastily in, dirty from the road, and with his face grave. Nobody could doubt for a moment that he brings bad news.

The duke leaps swiftly to his feet. ‘Not now,’ he says sharply. ‘Where is the king?’

‘He has given orders not to be disturbed,’ the man says. ‘But my orders are to come at all speed and give my message at once. So I’ve come to you. It’s Lord Talbot, God bless him, and Bordeaux.’ height="0">

The duke grabs the man by the arm and marches him out of the door, without a word to the queen. She is already on her feet; I go to her side. ‘Be calm, Your Grace,’ I say quickly. ‘You must be calm for the baby.’

‘What’s the news?’ she asks. ‘What’s the news from France? Edmund!’

‘A moment,’ he throws over his shoulder, turning his back on her as if she were an ordinary woman. ‘Wait a moment.’

There is a little gasp of shock from her ladies at how he speaks to her, but I put my arm around her waist and say, ‘Come and lie down, Your Grace. The duke will bring you the news when he has it. Come now.’

‘No,’ she says, pulling away from me. ‘I must know. Edmund! Tell me!’

For a moment he is in rapid conversation with the messenger; but when he turns he looks as if someone has struck him in the heart. ‘It’s John Talbot,’ he says quietly.

I feel the queen stagger as her knees go weak and she drops down in a faint. ‘Help me,’ I say quickly to one of the ladies in waiting, but it is the duke who brushes past us all and picks the queen up into his arms and carries her through her private rooms into her very bedroom, and lays her on the bed.

‘Fetch the physicians,’ I snap at one of the ladies and run in after them. He has half laid her on the bed, he is kneeling on the royal bed, his arms are around her, he is bending over her, holding her like a lover, whispering in her ear. ‘Margaret,’ he says urgently. ‘Margaret!’

‘No!’ I say. ‘Your Grace, Lord Edmund, let her go. I’ll take care of her, leave her.’

She holds him by his jacket, her two hands grasping him tightly. ‘Tell me it all,’ she whispers desperately to him. ‘Tell me the worst, quickly.’

I slam the bedroom door and put my back to it, before anyone can see that he has his hands either side of her face, that she is holding his wrists, that they are scanning each other’s eyes.

‘My love, I can hardly bear to tell you. Lord Talbot is dead and his son too. We have lost Castillon that he was defending, we have lost Bordeaux again, we have lost everything.’

She quivers. ‘Dear God, the English will never forgive me. We have lost all of Gascony?’

‘All,’ he says. ‘And John Talbot himself, God bless his soul.’

The tears spill over from her eyes and pour down her cheeks, and Edmund Beaufort drops his head and kisses them away, kisses her like a lover trying to comfort his mistress.

‘No!’ I cry again, utterly horrified. I come to the bed and put my hand on his arm, pulling him away from her; but they are blind and deaf to me, clinging together, her arms around his neck, he is half lying on her, as he covers her face with kisses and whispers promises that he cannot keep, and at that moment, at that terrible, terrible moment, the door behind us opens and Henry, King of England, comes into the room and sees the two of them, wrapped in each other’s arms: his pregnant wife and his dearest friend.

For a long moment he takes in the scene. Slowly, the duke lifts his head and, gritting his jaw, gently releases Margaret, laying her back on the bed, pressing her shoulders to make her stay on the pillows, lifting her feet and straightening her gown around her ankles. Slowly, he turns to face her husband. He makes a little gesture with his hands to Henry, but he says nothing. There is nothing he can say. The king looks from his wife, raised on one elbow, white as a ghost on her bed, to the duke standing beside her, and then he looks at me. He looks puzzled, like a hurt child.

I reach out to him, as if he were one of my own children, cruelly struck. ‘Don’t look,’ I say foolishly. ‘Don’t see.’

He puts his head on one side, like a whipped dog, as if he is trying to hear me.

‘Don’t look,’ I repeat. ‘Don’t see.’

Strangely, he steps towards me and lowers his pale face to me. Without knowing what I am doing, I lift my hands to him and he takes one and then the other and cups my palms over his eyes, as if to blindfold himself. For a moment we are all quite frozen: my hands over his eyes, the duke waiting to speak, Margaret leaning back on her pillows, her hand over her curving belly. Then the king presses my hands hard against his closed eyelids and repeats my words: ‘Don’t look. Don’t see.’

Then he turns away. Without another word, he turns his back on all three of us, and walks from the room, quietly closing the door behind him.