The Lady of the Rivers (36 page)

‘You know the stories of our family,’ I say.

She gives a gurgle of laughter. ‘It is me who tells the story of Melusina every night to the little ones,’ she reminds me. ‘They love it, and I love it.’

‘You know that some of the women of our family have inherited gifts from Melusina. Gifts of the Sight.’

She nods.

‘My great-aunt Jehanne taught me some ways to use the gift, and then my lord the Duke of Bedford had me work with his alchemists, and sent a woman to teach me about herbs.’

‘What did you do with alchemists?’ Like any child she is fascinated by forbidden magic. The skill with herbs is too ordinary for her, she has learned it in my still room. She wants to know about dark arts.

‘I read the books with them, sometimes I stirred a mixture or poured it out to cool.’ I am remembering the forge in the inner courtyard and the great room like a vast kitchen in the wing of the house where they heated and cooled the liquor and stones. ‘And my lord had a great mirror where he wanted me to scry – to see the future. He wanted to see the future of the English lands in France.’ I make a little gesture. ‘I am glad now that I could not see clearly. It would have broken his heart, I think. I thought I failed him at the time but now I think I served him best by not seeing.’

‘But you could see?’

‘Sometimes,’ I say. ‘And sometimes, like with the cards or with the charms, you get a glimpse of what might be. And sometimes you show yourself only your own desires. And sometimes – though very rarely – you can put your heart in your own desires and bring them about. Take the dream and make it come into being.’

‘By magic?’ she breathes. She is quite entranced at the thought of it.

‘I don’t know,’ I tell her honestly. ‘When I knew that your father was in love with me and I was in love with him, I wanted him to marry me and make me his wife and bring me to England but I knew that he would not dare. He thought I was too far above him and he would not be my ruin.’

‘Did you make a spell?’

I smile, thinking back to the night when I brought out the charms but realised that I needed nothing but my own determination. ‘A spell and a prayer and knowing your desire are all the same thing,’ I say. ‘When you lose something precious and you go to the chapel and you kneel before the little glass window of St Anthony and you pray to him to find the thing you need, what are you doing but reminding yourself that you have lost something and you want it back? What are you doing but showing yourself that you want it? And what is that but calling it back to you? And so often, when I pray, I remember then where I left it, and go back to find it. Is that an answer to prayer or is it magic? Or is it simply letting myself know what I want and seeking it? The prayer is just the same as a spell, which is just the same as knowing your desire that calls the thing back to your mind, and so back to your hand. Isn’t it?’

‘A spell would bring it back to you, you wouldn’t just find it!’

‘I believe that a desire and a prayer and a spell are all the same thing,’ I say. ‘When you pray you know that you want something, that’s always the first step. To let yourself know that you want something, that you yearn for it. Sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do. Because you have to have courage to know what you desire. You have to have courage to acknowledge that you are unhappy without it. And sometimes you have to find courage to know that it was your folly or your wrongdoing which lost it; before you make a spell to bring it back, you have to change yourself. That’s one of the deepest transformations that can be.’

‘How?’

‘Say one day, when you are married, you want a baby, a child?’

She nods.

‘First you have to know the emptiness of your womb, of your arms, of your heart. That can hurt. You have to have the courage to look at yourself and know the loss that you feel. Then you have to change your life to make a space for the child who will not come. You have to open your heart, you have to make a safe place for the baby. And then you have to sit with your longing and your desire and that can be the most painful. You have to sit with your longing and know that you may not get what you want; you have to encounter the danger of longing for something without the expectation of getting your desire.’

‘But this never happened to you,’ she suggests.

‘In my first marriage,’ I say quietly, ‘I knew that my husband would not have a child. But I had to let myself know that I was different from him. I longed for a baby, and I wanted to be loved.’

‘Did you wish for it?’ she asks. ‘Did you make a spell to make him change?’

‘I didn’t try to change him, but I had to know the sorrow of what was missing in my life. I had to find the courage to know that I had made the mistake of marrying a man who would not love me for myself, and who would not give me a child, and once I knew that, truly knew that I was an unloved maid – though a married woman – then I could wish that someone loved me.’

‘And you wished for Father.’

I smile at her. ‘And for you.’

She blushes in pleasure. ‘Is this magic?’

‘In a way. Magic is the act of making a wish come about. Like praying, like plotting, like herbs, like exerting your will on the world, making something happen.’

‘Will you teach me?’ she asks.

I look at her consideringly. She is a daughter of our house and perhaps the most beautiful girl we have ever had. She has the inheritance of Melusina and the gift of Sight. One of my children must inherit the cards my great-aunt gave me and the bracelet of charms – I think I always knew that it would be Elizabeth, the child born of desire, of the herbs, and my wish. And as my great-aunt Jehanne said: it should be the oldest girl.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘These are not the times, and these are forbidden skills; but I will teach you, Elizabeth.’

Over the next few weeks I show her the bracelet of charms and the cards and I teach her about herbs that she will not find in Lady Elizabeth Grey’s still room. I take all the older children out on one frosty day and teach them how to find water in underground springs by holding a peeled wand in their hands and feeling it turn in their palms. They laugh with delight as we find a spring in the water meadow, and a dirty old drain from the stable yard.

I show Elizabeth how to open a page of her Bible and then think and pray over the text that comes to her. I give her a frwater pearl on a little cord and teach her how to watch it swing in answer to a question. And more importantly than anything else I start to teach her how to clear her mind, how to know her desires, how to judge herself; putting aside favour and indulgence. ‘The alchemists always say you have to be pure. You are the first ingredient,’ I tell her. ‘You have to be clean.’

When the time comes for her to go back to Groby Hall she tells me that the young man of the house, John Grey, is a most handsome young man, kind and beautifully mannered, and that she wishes he would see her for herself, and not just as a girl being educated by his mother, one of three or four young women that Lady Grey has in her keeping.

‘He does,’ I assure her. ‘He sees you already. You just have to be patient.’

‘I like him so much,’ she confesses, her eyes down and her cheeks warm. ‘And when he speaks to me I say nothing of any sense. I speak like a fool. He must think me a fool.’

‘He doesn’t.’

‘Shall I use a love potion on him? Dare I?’

‘Wait for spring,’ I advise her. ‘And pick some flowers from an apple tree in his orchard. Choose the prettiest tree . . . ’

She nods.

‘Put the petals in your pocket. And when the tree fruits, take one apple and give him half to eat with honey, and keep the other.’

‘Will that make him love me?’

I smile. ‘He will love you. And the petals and honeyed apple will give you something to do while you wait.’

She giggles. ‘You’re not much of a spell-maker, Lady Mother.’

‘When a beautiful young woman wants to enchant a man she doesn’t need much of a spell,’ I assure her. ‘A girl like you needs to do nothing much more than stand under an oak tree and wait for him to ride by. But do you remember about wishing?’

‘Pure in heart,’ she says.

Together we go out to the stable yard. The guard to take her back to Groby is mounted and ready. ‘One last thing,’ I say and take her hand before she climbs on the mounting block. She turns to listen. ‘Don’t curse,’ I say to her. ‘No ill-wishing.’

She shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t. Not even Mary Sears. Not even when she smiles at him and curls her hair around her finger, and is so quick to sit beside him.’

‘Ill-wishing is a curse on the woman who does it, as well as the one who receives it. When you put such words out in the world they can overshoot – like an arrow – that’s what my great-aunt Jehanne told me. A curse can go beyond your target and harm another. A wise woman curses very sparingly. I would hope that you never curse at all.’ Even as I speak I feel the shadow of the future on her. ‘I pray that you never have cause to curse,’ I say.

She kneels for my blessing. I put my hand on the pretty velvet bonnet and her warm fair head. ‘Bless you, my daughter, and may you remain pure in heart and get your desires.’

She peeps up at me, her grey eyes bright. ‘I think I will!’

‘I think you will,’ I say.

LONDON, SPRING 1452

With my husband serving as Captain in Calais, I return to court in the cold weather of January and find everyone talking about the treason of Richard, Duke of York, who is said to be preparing a complete rebellion against the king his cousin because of his hatred of the Duke of Somerset.

The queen is determined that the threat shall be faced and defeated. ‘If he is against the Duke of Somerset, he is against me,’ she says. ‘I have no better or more trustworthy friend. And this Richard of York wants him tried for treason! I know who the traitor is! But he shows his hand at last and confesses that he is against the king.’

‘He asks only for the great lords to intercede for him with the king,’ I remark calmly. ‘He wants them to put his case to the king. And in the meantime, he swears his loyalty.’

She throws the manifesto that York has sent around the main towns of the kingdom on the table before me. ‘Who do you think this means? York says that the king is surrounded by enemies, adversaries and evil-willers. He is attacking the king’s advisors. That’s you, he means, and your husband, as well as Somerset and me.’

‘Me?’

‘Jacquetta, he accuses me of being William de la Pole’s lover; do you think he would blink at calling you a witch?’

I feel the room grow very still and cold. I put my hand to my belly as if to shield the new life within. The ladies in waiting in earshot look up at me, their eyes wide, but say nothing.

‘He has no cause for such an accusation,’ I say quietly, though I can hear my heart hammering. ‘You yourself know that I would never play with such toys. I don’t use herbs except for my family’s health, I don’t even consult with wise women. I read nothing but permitted books, I speak to no-one . . . ’

‘He has no cause to say anything,’ she declares. ‘What cause does he have to speak against Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset? Against me? But remember that he is my enemy and your enemy too. And that if he can destroy you he will do so, just to hurt me.’

She takes her seat at the fireside, and I read the manifesto more carefully. The Duke of York demands that Edmund Beaufort be charged with treason and arrested. He warns against bad advisors who have gathered around the queen, foreign-born advisors, ill-wishers. In truth, he says nothing against me by name. But I cannot rid myself of the familiar pulse of fear.

The king is inspired to warlike behaviour by the threat to his friend Edmund Beaufort the Duke of Somerset. Nothing else would waken him but a threat to his beloved cousin. Suddenly he is active, courageous, determined. He declares his absolute faith in Edmund Beaufort and his other advisors. He declares that Richard, Duke of York, is a rebel, and he demands forces to be mustered from all the towns, counties and shires. The king’s army pours in from allaround the kingdom. Nobody wants to support the Duke of York, only the men of his affinity, and those who share his hatred of Edmund Beaufort for their own reasons go to his standard and start to create an army.