The Lady of the Rivers

by Gregory, Philippa

‘The pardons,’ he says, through his clenched teeth. ‘Those damned pardons. Those hundreds of pardons.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jack Cade took his pardon in the name of John Mortimer. The name he used in battle.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So they chased after him, despite his pardon, and they have captured him, despite his pardon. He showed them his pardon, signed by the king, blessed by the bishop, written fair in the name of John Mortimer. But they are going to hang him in the name of Jack Cade.’

  I pause, struggling to understand. ‘The king gave him a pardon, he can’t be hanged. He just has to show his pardon, they cannot hang him.’

  ‘The king’s pardon is in one name, which they know him by. They will hang him under another.’

  I hesitate. ‘Richard, he should never have been pardoned in the first place.’

  ‘No. But here we show everyone that his very cause was just. He said that there was no rule of law, but that the lords and the king do as they please. Here we prove it is so. We make a peace on the battlefield while he is in arms, while he is strong and we are weak; when he is near to victory and we are trapped in the Tower. We give him a pardon, that is our word of honour, but we break it as soon as he is a fugitive. The king’s name is on the pardon, the king gave his word. Turns out that means nothing. The pardon is worth no more than the paper, the king’s own signature nothing more than ink. There is no agreement, there is no justice, we betray our own cause, we are forsworn.’

  ‘Richard, he is still our king. Right or wrong, he is still the king.’

  ‘I know, and that is why I say that we will come back to court and serve him again. He is our king, we are his people. He gave us our name and our fortune. We will come back to court in the autumn. But I swear to you, Jacquetta, I just can’t stomach it this summer.’

  GRAFTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE,

  SUMMER 1450

  We arrive at our home at the height of the year with the harvest coming in, and the calves weaned from the cows. In the loft the apples are laid in rows, strict as soldiers, and one of the tasks for Lewis, now twelve, is to go up every day with a basket and bring down eight apples for the children to eat after their dinners. I am feeling weary with this baby and as the evenings are cool and quiet I am happy to sit by the fire in my small chamber and listen while Richard’s cousin Louise, who serves as governess to the older ones and nurse to the babies, hears them read from the family Bible. Anthony at eight has a passion for books and will come to me to look at the pictures in the volumes of Latin and old French that I inherited from my husband, and puzzle out the words in the difficult script. I know that this autumn he and his brothers and sisters can no longer be taught by the priest but I must find a scholar to come and teach them. Lewis especially must learn to read and write in Latin and Greek if he is to attend the king’s college.

  The baby comes in the middle of August and we fetch down the family crib, polish it up, launder the little sheets and I go into my confinement. She is born easily, she comes early without great trouble, and I call her Martha. Within a few weeks Richard has taken her into the small chapel where we were married and she is christened, and soon I am churched and up and about again.

  It is her, the new baby, that I think of when I start up out of bed one night, as alert as if I had heard someone suddenly call my name. ‘What is it?’ I demand into the darkness.

  Richard, groggy from sleep, sits up in the bed. ‘Beloved?’

  ‘Someone called my name! There is something wrong!’

  ‘Did you have a bad dream?’

  ‘I thought . . . ’ Our lovely old house is silent in the darkness; a beam creaks as the old timbers settle. Richard gets out of bed and lights a taper at the dying fire and then lights a candle so that he can see me. ‘Jacquetta, you are as white as a ghost.’

  ‘I thought someone woke me.’

  ‘I’ll take a look around,’ he decides, and pulls on his boots and drags his sword out from under the bed.

  ‘I’ll go to the nursery,’ I say.

  He lights me a candle and the two of us go out together into the dark gallery above the hall. And then I hear it. The strong sweet singing of Melusina, so high and so pure that you would think it was the sound of the stars moving in their spheres. I put my hand on Richard’s arm. ‘Do you hear that?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Music,’ I say. I don’t want to say her name. ‘I thought I heard music.’ It is so clear and so powerful that I cannot believe he cannot hear it, like silver church bells, like the truest choir.

  ‘Who would be playing music at this time of night?’ he starts to ask, but already I have turned to run down the corridor to the nursery. I stop at the door and make myself open it quietly. Martha, the new baby, is asleep in her crib, the nursemaid in the truckle bed nearest ls, like fire. I put my hand on the child’s rosy cheek. She is warm but not in fever. Her breath comes slowly and steadily, like a little bird breathing in a safe nest. In the high-sided bed beside her sleeps Diccon, humped up with his face buried into the down mattress. Gently I lift him and turn him on his back so I can see the curve of his sleeping eyelids, and his rosebud mouth. He stirs a little at my touch but he does not wake.

  The music grows louder, stronger.

  I turn to the next bed. John, the five-year-old, is sprawled out in sleep as if he is too hot, the covers kicked sideways, and at once I fear that he is ill but when I touch his forehead he is cool. Jacquetta, next to him, sleeps quietly, like the neat little six-year-old girl that she is, Mary in bed beside her stirs at the light from my candle but still sleeps. Their eleven-year-old sister Anne is in a truckle bed beside them, fast asleep.

  Anthony, eight years old, in the bigger bed, sits up. ‘What is it, Mama?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ I say. ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘I heard singing,’ he says.

  ‘There is no singing,’ I say firmly. ‘Lie down and close your eyes.’

  ‘Lewis is really hot,’ he remarks, but does as he is told.

  I go quickly to their bed. The two boys sleep together and as Anthony turns on his side I see that Lewis, my darling son, is flushed and burning up. It is his fever that has made their shared bed so hot. As I see him, and hear the insistent ringing music, I know that it is Lewis, my darling twelve-year-old son, who is dying.

  The door behind me opens and Richard my husband says quietly, ‘It’s all secure in the house. Are the children well?’

  ‘Lewis,’ is all I can say. I bend to the bed and I lift him. He is limp in my arms, it is like lifting a dead body. Richard takes him from me, and leads the way to our bedroom.

  ‘What is it?’ he asks, laying the boy on our bed. ‘What is wrong with him? He was well during the day.’

  ‘A fever, I don’t know,’ I say helplessly. ‘Watch him while I get something for him.’

  ‘I’ll sponge him,’ he suggests. ‘He’s burning up. I’ll try to cool him down.’

  I nod and go quickly to my still room. I have a jar of dried yarrow leaves and a bunch of the white blossom hangs from one of the beams. I set a pot on to boil and make a tea from the blossom and then steep the leaves in a bowl of the boiled water. I am fumbling in my haste and all the time the music is ringing in my head, as if to tell me that there is no time, that this is the song of mourning, that all this brewing of tea that smells of summer harvests is too late for Lewis, all I need for him is rosemary.

  I take the drink in a cup and the soaking leaves in the jar and run back up to the bedroom. On the way I tap on the door of my lady in waiting and call, ‘Anne, get up, Lewis is sick,’ and hear her scramble inside.

  Then I go into our bedroom.

  Richard has stirred the fire and lit more candles but he has drawn the bed curtains so Lewis’s face is shaded from the light. Lewis has turned a1emI can see the rapid breaths as his thin little chest rises and falls. I put the mug and the jar on the table and go to the bedside.

  ‘Lewis?’ I whisper.

&nb
sp; His eyelids flutter open at the sound of my voice.

  ‘I want to go in the water,’ he says, quite clearly.

  ‘No, stay with me.’ I hardly know what I am saying. I raise him so his head is against my shoulder and Richard presses the mug of yarrow tea into my hand. ‘Take a little sip,’ I say gently. ‘Come along. Take a little sip.’

  He turns his head away. ‘I want to go in the water,’ he repeats.

  Richard looks desperately at me. ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘It is a vision from the fever,’ I say. ‘It means nothing.’ I am afraid of what it means.

  Lewis smiles, and his eyelids flicker open, and he sees his father. He smiles at him. ‘I shall swim, Father,’ he says firmly. ‘I shall swim,’ and he turns his head and takes a little breath like someone preparing to dive in deep cool waters, and I feel his body quiver as if with joy, and then go still and quiet, and I realise that my son has gone from me.

  ‘Open the window,’ I say to Richard.

  Without a word he turns and opens the window as if to let the little soul out and up to heaven. Then he comes back and puts the sign of the cross on Lewis’s forehead. He is still warm, he is slowly cooling, I think the sweet waters of his dream are washing him down.

  Anne taps on the door, opens it, and sees me lay Lewis gently down on the bed.

  ‘He’s gone,’ I say to her. ‘Lewis has gone from us.’

  Hardly knowing what I am doing I step towards Richard and he puts his arm around me and holds me close to him. ‘God bless him,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Amen,’ I say. ‘Oh Richard, I could do nothing. I could do nothing!’

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll go and see the other children,’ Anne says into the silence. ‘And then I’ll get Mrs Westbury to come and wash the body.’

  ‘I’ll wash him,’ I say at once. ‘And I’ll dress him. I don’t want anyone else to touch him. I’ll put him . . . ’ I find that I can’t say the word ‘coffin’.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Richard says quietly. ‘And we’ll bury him in the churchyard and know that he has just gone ahead of us, Jacquetta, and that one day we will swim in the water too, and find him on the other side.’

  We bury my son in the churchyard near to his grandfather and Richard orders a grand stone monument with room for our names too. The rest of the children do not take the fever; even the new baby, Martha, is well and strong. I watch them, filled with a terror, for a week after we bury Lewis, but none of them so much as sneezes.

  I think that I will dream of Lewis but I sleep deeplyevery night and dream of nothing at all. Until one night, a month after his death, I dream of a river, a deep cool river studded with yellow water lilies, flowing over a bed of gold and bronze stones, and golden kingcups growing on the green reedy banks; and I see my boy Lewis on the far side of the river, pulling on his linen shirt and his breeches, and he is smiling at me and waving to show that he is going to run on ahead, just a little way ahead. And in my dream, though I want to hold him back, I wave at him and call to him that I will see him later, that I will see him soon, that I will see him in the morning.

  Our retreat to Grafton lasts only for a little while. In September the king’s messenger rides down the green lanes and up to our front gates. The wide wooden doors swing open and he comes across the courtyard, the royal standard before him, a guard of six riding with him. I am walking back from chapel in the morning, and I pause as I see the gate admit him and I wait, my back to the door of our house, with a sense of danger coming our way. Behind my back I cross my fingers, as if a childish sign can prevent trouble.

  ‘A message for Baron Rivers,’ he says, dismounting and bowing.

  ‘I am the Dowager Duchess, Lady Rivers,’ I say, holding out my hand. ‘You can give it to me.’

  He hesitates. ‘My husband is hunting,’ I continue. ‘He will be back tomorrow. In his absence I rule here. You had better give the message to me.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Your Grace,’ he says and hands it over. The royal seal is shiny and hard. I break it, and look up to nod to him.

  ‘You will find ale and bread and meat for you and your men in the hall,’ I tell him. ‘And someone will show you where to wash. I will read this and send a reply when you have eaten and rested.’

  He bows again and the guards give their horses to the stable boys and go into the house. I wait and then walk slowly to a stone bench let into the wall at the side of the garden and sit in the warm sunshine to read the letter.

  It is a letter of appointment, another great honour for us. It is an acknowledgement of Richard’s service in the late troubles, it shows that the lords of the Privy Council were watching to see who was quick of mind and brave of heart and ready to serve them – even if the king and queen had run away to Kenilworth and saw nothing. It says that Richard is appointed as Seneschal of Gascony, the rich land around Bordeaux that the English have held for three hundred years and hope to hold forever. Once again, Richard and I are to be an occupying force in France. Reading through the lines I guess that the king, shocked by the loss of English lands in Normandy by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, is inspired to fortify the lands in Gascony with a more experienced commander. This appointment is an honour, it will bring with it the danger and difficulty of strengthening the forces around Bordeaux, holding the lands against French incursions, keeping the people loyal to England, and reversing their sense that they are all but abandoned by a homeland which cannot rule itself, let alone maintain lands overseas.

  I look up from the letter. It is grief which makes me feel that nothing matters. I know this is a great honour, to rule Gascony is a great command. The Rivers are rising, even if one of us is missing. And there is no point in letting my heart ache for the one who is missing.

  I look at the letter again. In the margin, like a monk illustrating a manuscript, the king has written in his own clerkish hand.

  Dear Rivers,

  Oblige me by going at once to Plymouth and mustering and organising a force to take to Gascony and a fleet to carry them. You should set sail on 21 September, no later.

  Below this the queen has written to me: ‘Jacquetta – Lucky you! Going back to France!’

  ‘Lucky’ is not how I feel. I look around the yard, at the warm red-brick walls capped with white coping stones that lean against the old chapel, the apple tree bowing low with the weight of the last of the fat fruit, ready for picking, the barn which abuts the granary, filled with hay, and our house set plumb in the middle of it all, warm in the sunshine, peaceful this morning, my children at their lessons. I think that the king is setting my husband a task which will likely be impossible, and that once again I have to go to a new country, a new city, and hope to survive among people who begrudge our very presence.

  I try to encourage myself by thinking that Gascony will be beautiful in autumn, that perhaps I will be able to see my brothers and sisters, that winter in Bordeaux will be crisp and bright and clear and that spring will be glorious. But I know that the people of the country will be surly and resentful, the French a constant threat, and we will wait for money from England to pay the soldiers, and end up paying out of our own pocket, while at home there will be endless accusations of failure and even treason. I will have to leave my children behind in England. I don’t want to go, and I don’t want Richard to go either.

  I wait for a long time until the royal messenger comes out into the yard, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, sees me, sketches a bow, and waits. ‘You can tell His Grace that my husband and I will leave for Plymouth at once,’ I say. ‘Tell him that we are honoured to serve.’

  He smiles ruefully, as if he knows that the service of this king may be an honour but is only a sinecure for the very few favourites who can get away with doing nothing or even fail outright, like Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who is now Constable of all England, as a reward for running to Kenilworth when there was dangerous work to do in Kent. ‘God save the king,’ he says, and goes off to
the stable to find his horses.

  ‘Amen,’ I respond, thinking that perhaps we should pray that the king is saved from himself.

  PLYMOUTH, AUTUMN 1450–1451

  O

  ne whole year we live between Grafton, London and Plymouth. One long year while we struggle with the burghers of Plymouth, trying to persuade them to house and equip an invasion fleet. One whole year while my husband assembles a fleet from the privately owned ships of merchants, traders, and the few great lords who keep their own vessels. By mid-winter, months after we were supposed to sail, he has more than eighty boats tied up at the quaysides of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Kingsbridge, and more than three thousand men d. I ded in inns and rooms, cottages and farms, all round Devon and Cornwall: waiting.

  That’s all we do; from autumn, through winter to spring, we wait. First we wait for the men who have been promised by their lords to march to Plymouth, ready to embark. Richard rides out to meet them and bring them in, finds them quarters, finds them food, promises them wages. Then we wait for the ships that have been requisitioned to come in; Richard rides all around the West Country, buying up little sailing ships in their home ports, demanding that the greater merchants make their contribution. Then we wait for the stores to arrive; Richard rides to Somerset, even into Dorset, to get grain, then we wait for the lords who will sail with the invasion to finish the merry days of Christmas and come to Plymouth, then we wait for the king’s command that we should finally set sail, then we wait for the spring northerlies to die down, and always, always, always, we wait for the ship which will bring the money from London so that we can pay the harbourside merchants, the ship owners, the sailors, the men themselves. Always we wait: and the money never comes when it should.

  Sometimes it comes late, and Richard and I have to send to Grafton and our friends at court to lend us money so that we can at least feed the army before they march out into the farms around the port, and steal to feed themselves. Sometimes it comes; but in such small amounts that we can only pay the outstanding debts and offer the men just a quarter of their pay. Sometimes it comes as tally sticks that we take to the king’s custom houses and they say, regretfully, ‘Yes, it’s good, my lord; I grant your right to be paid. But I have no money to pay you with. Come again next month.’ Sometimes it is promised and never comes at all. I watch Richard, riding to the little towns of Devon, trying to appease the local landlords who are furious at having this hungry horde quartered upon them. I watch him pursue roving bands of the men who were supposed to be his army and are becoming brigands. I watch Richard begging the ship-masters to keep their vessels ready to sail in case the order for the invasion comes tomorrow, the next day, or the day after. And I watch Richard when the news comes from France that the French king has advanced on Bergerac and Bazas and taken them. In spring we hear his forces are advancing on English lands on either side of the Gironde, he sets siege to Fronsac on the Dordogne, and the townspeople wait behind its great walls, swearing they will not give up, certain that our army is coming to relieve them. Our army is on the quayside, where the ships are bobbing, when we hear that Fronsac has surrendered. The English settlers are appealing for help, they vow that they will fight, that they will resist, that they are Englishmen and count themselves as Englishmen born and bred, they stake their lives on their faith in us, they swear that their countrymen will come to their aid. I watch Richard trying to hold his army together, trying to hold his fleet together, sending message after message to London, pleading with the court to send him the order to sail. Nothing comes.