The Lady of the Rivers (28 page)

‘Is it the children?’ My first thought is always for them, and my hand goes to my belly where another life is growing.

‘No, thank God. It is my lord’s legacy, the lands of Normandy.’

I don’t really have to ask him, I guesst once. ‘Have they been lost?’

He grimaces. ‘All but. Edmund Beaufort has offered the French almost all of Normandy including Rouen, in return for his safety in Caen.’

‘Rouen,’ I say quietly. My first husband John, Duke of Bedford’s grave is there. I have property there.

‘This is a bitter blow,’ Richard says. ‘And all of us who fought to keep the English lands in France, nearly a hundred years of long warfare, and so many lives lost – good comrades and brothers –’ He breaks off. ‘Well, we will find it hard to forgive the loss.’

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON,
SPRING 1450

Richard was right. Nobody can forgive the loss. The parliament turns on William de la Pole, and his new titles and his new honours cannot save him from the rage of the English as the men who had farmed and the soldiers who had fought in Normandy come home defeated and homeless, and complain bitterly, bitterly, at every market cross and crossroads, that they have been betrayed by their commanders who should have stood by them, as they had stood to arms for more than a hundred years.

In the streets the London traders call out to me as I ride by, ‘What would Lord John have thought of it, eh? What would your lord have said?’ and I can do nothing more but shake my head. I feel with them – what did we fight for, what did we die for, if the lands we won are to be handed back as part of a treaty, as part of a marriage, on the whim of a king who never fought for them as we fought for them?

They blame it all on William de la Pole, since it is treason to speak against the king. And they call him to parliament and accuse him of treason, extortion, and murder. They say that he has been planning to seize the throne and set up his little son John and his ward Margaret Beaufort as king and queen, claiming the throne in her right.

‘What is going to happen?’ I ask the queen, who is striding back and forth in her rooms, the long train of her gown swishing like the tail of an angry cat.

‘I will not allow him to face the charges. He will not be demeaned by such charges. His Grace the king has saved him. He has ruled that he, the king, shall be judge and jury of his friend William.’

I hesitate. After all this is not my country, but I really don’t think the king can just step in like this. ‘Your Grace, I think he cannot. A nobleman has to be tried by his peers. The House of Lords will have to examine him. The king may not intervene.’

‘I say that no good friend of mine will be questioned in public like that. It is an insult to him, it is an insult to me. I have demanded that we protect our friends and the king agrees with me. William will not go before parliament. He is coming to my rooms tonight, in secret.’

‘Your Grace, this is not the English way. You should not meet any man alone, and certainly not in secret.’

‘You will be there,’ she says. ‘So they can say nothing vile about our meeting. Though, God knows, they say enough vile things already. But we have to meet in secret. The has become mad with jealousy, and now they are calling for his death. I cannot rule this kingdom without William de la Pole. I have to see him and decide what we should do.’

‘The king . . . ’

‘The king cannot rule without him. The king cannot choose a course and hold to it on his own. You know what the king is like. I have to have William de la Pole at the side of the king; he cannot be steady without William to hold him to a course. We have to have William at our side. We have to have his advice.’

At midnight, the queen orders me to let William de la Pole in through the little door that connects the two royal apartments. The duke strides through, ducking his head under the stone lintel, and then, to my amazement, the king comes in quietly behind him, like his pageboy. ‘Your Grace,’ I whisper and sink down.

He does not even see me, he is shaking with distress. ‘I am forced! I am abused!’ he says at once to Margaret. ‘They dare to insult me. They want to rule me! William – tell her!’

She looks at once to de la Pole as if only he can explain. ‘The lords are refusing to accept that the king can examine me alone, as you wanted,’ he explains. ‘They are demanding that I am tried by my peers for treason. They deny the king’s right to judge on his own. I am accused of betraying our interests in France. Of course, I have only ever done what you commanded. And the peace treaty demanded the return of Maine and Anjou. This is an attack on you, Your Grace, on you, and on me, and on the king’s authority.’

‘You will never stand trial,’ she promises him. ‘I swear it. They shall withdraw.’

‘Your Grace . . . ’ I whisper, taking hold of her sleeve,‘you cannot promise this.’

‘I have found him innocent of all charges,’ the king says. ‘But still they are calling for him to be tried and executed. They have to obey me! They must be made to listen to me!’

‘If they want you, they will have to come and get you!’ she swears passionately to William de la Pole. ‘They will have to get past me if they want to get you. They will have to take you from my chambers, if they dare!’

I slide my hand into hers and give her a little tug. But the king looks at her with admiration, he is fired up by her anger. ‘We will defy them! I will be king. I will rule how I choose: with you as my wife and William as my advisor. Does anyone dare say I cannot do this? Am I king or not?’

Of the three of them, only the newly minted duke does not bluster. ‘Yes, but we can’t resist them,’ he says quietly. ‘What if they come for me? What if the lords turn out their forces? Despite all you have said? You have allowed every lord in London to keep his own small army. Every enemy of mine can command hundreds of men. What if their armies come for me?’

‘Could you go to France?’ I ask him very softly. ‘To Flanders? You have friends there. Till it all blows over?’

The king looks up, suddenly flushed. ‘Yes, yes, go now!’ he commands. ‘While they are planning their next move. Go now. They will come for you and find the bird flown! I will give you gold.’

‘My jewels!’ the quecommands me. ‘Fetch them for him.’

I go as she orders, and pick out a few of her smallest pieces, marguerites made of pearls, some inferior emeralds. I put them in a purse and when I come back to the shadowy room the queen is weeping in the duke’s arms and he has the king’s own cloak around his shoulders and is slipping a fat purse into his pocket. Begrudgingly, I give him the queen’s pearls and he takes them without a word of thanks.

‘I will write to you,’ he says to them both. ‘I will not be far, just Flanders. And I will come home as soon as my name is cleared. We will not be parted for long.’

‘We will visit you,’ she promises. ‘This is not goodbye. And we will send for you, and write. You shall send messages with your advice. And you will come home soon.’

He kisses her hand and pulls his hood over his head. He bows to the king and nods to me and slides through the little door and is gone. We hear his footsteps going quietly down the stair, and then the muffled closing of the outer door as the king’s chief advisor goes out into the night like a thief.

The king and queen are cock-a-hoop like children who have defied a stern governor. They do not go to bed at all that night, but stay up by the fireside in her rooms whispering and giggling, celebrating their victory over the parliament of their own country, praising themselves for defending a man named as a traitor. At dawn the king goes to Mass and orders the priest to say a prayer of thankfulness for danger passed. While he is on his knees, praising the mercy of Jesus and exulting in his own cleverness, the City of London wakes to the astounding news that the man it blamed for the loss of France and the arrival of a penniless French princess, for rewarding himself from the royal treasury, for the destruction of the peace of England, has been released by the king and is sailing away, merrily away, for a brief exile, gold in his pocket, the queen’s jewels in his hat, and will return as soon as he can be certain that his head is safe on his shoulders.

The queen cannot hide her delight, nor her contempt for those who say that she is utterly misguided. She will heed no warning, neither from my husband nor the other men who serve the king, who say the people are whispering that the king has forgotten his loyalty to his own lords and commons, that a friend of a traitor is a traitor himself – and what can be done with a treacherous king? She remains stubbornly delighted, thrilled with their defiance of parliament, and nothing I can say warns her to take care, not to blazon her triumph in the face of people who were, after all, only calling for good government of a country which is flung about like a toy of spoiled children.

I think that nothing will dampen their joyous high spirits. The news comes that William de la Pole has had to flee from the mob out of London, that he is hiding for as long as he dares at his own house in the country, and then finally that he has set sail. All over the country there are uprisings against men who are blamed for giving the king bad advice, who are blamed for associating with William de la Pole. Then, a few days later, one of the queen’s maids in waiting comes running to find me and says I must go at once! at once! to the queen who is gravely ill. I do not even stop to find Richard, I run to the royal apartments, bustling past the guards on the door, shooing pages out of my way, and find the rooms in an uproar, and the queen nowhere to be seen.

‘Where is she?’ I demand, and someone points to the bedroom door.

‘She swore we could not go in.’

‘Why?’ I ask. They shake their heads.

‘Is she alone?’

‘The Duchess of Suffolk, William de la Pole’s wife, is in with her.’

At that name, my heart sinks. What has he done now? Slowly, I go to the door, tap on the panel, and then try the handle. It opens, and I step inside.

At once I remember what a young woman she is, just twenty years old. She looks very small in the big royal bed, lying hunched up as if wounded in the belly, her back to the room, her face to the wall. Alice de la Pole is seated on a stool by the fire, her face buried in her hands.

‘
C
’
est moi,
’
I whisper. ‘It’s me. What’s wrong?’

The little queen shakes her head. Her headdress has fallen off, her hair is tumbled all around her, her shoulders are shaking with silent sobs. ‘He’s dead,’ is all she says, as if her world has ended. ‘Dead. What will I do?’

I stagger and put my hand out to steady myself. ‘My God, the king?’

Violently, she bangs her head into her pillow. ‘No! No!’

‘Your father?’

‘William. William . . . my God, William.’

I look at Alice, his widow. ‘I am sorry for your loss, my lady.’

She nods.

‘But how?

Margaret raises herself on her elbow and looks over her shoulder at me. Her hair is a mass of gold, her eyes red. ‘Murdered,’ she spits.

At once, I glance at the door behind me, as if a killer might come in for us. ‘By whom, Your Grace?’

‘I don’t know. That wicked Duke of York? Other lords? Anyone who is cowardly and vile and wants to pull us down and destroy us. Anyone who denies our right to govern as we wish, with the help of whoever we choose. Anyone who sails in secret and attacks an innocent man.’

‘They caught him at sea?’

‘They took him on board their ship and beheaded him on the deck,’ she says, her voice nearly muffled by sobs. ‘God damn them to hell for cowards. They left his body on the beach at Dover. Jacquetta!’ Blindly, she reaches out to me and clings to me as she wails. ‘They put his head on a pole. They left his head like a traitor’s head. How shall I bear this? How shall Alice bear this?’

I hardly dare to glance over to William de la Pole’s widow, who sits in silence while William de la Pole’s queen is breaking her heart over him.

‘Do we know who?’ I repeat. My first fear is, if someone dares to attack the king’s favourite advisor, who will they come for next? The queen? Me?