Succession

by Michael, Livi

  Margaret was startled by this, but she recovered, remembering John’s painfully hopeful face when they had stood together by the pond.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  Betsy’s alarming eyebrows flew up. ‘Well, if you don’t believe me,’ she said, ‘you must believe the king.’

  But Margaret was unconvinced. ‘I made my vows before God,’ she said.

  Her nurse said that the king was God’s representative on earth. He had the power to make or break marriages, to decide on ‘vows’.

  When Margaret remained stubborn, her nurse’s face took on a cunning look. There were ways to tell for certain, she said. They could peel all the skin off an apple and throw it over Margaret’s left shoulder, to see what letter it formed as it fell on the ground. Or she could look in a basin of water by the light of the full moon to see the reflection of her husband’s face. But it would be best to do this in a graveyard, where a fetch of him would appear.

  Margaret was a little shaken by this. ‘Will you come with me?’ she asked, but her nurse said no, the magic would only work if she went alone. Margaret shuddered, and Betsy said they would try the apple peel first.

  So they went into the kitchens where a great basket of apples stood by the door. She chose one that was less spotted than the others and held it out to her nurse, and they went into the yard away from the kitchen staff. Then carefully, so carefully, Betsy cut the skin from the pale flesh in a curling ribbon that almost, but not quite, broke. When she had finished Margaret realized she had been holding her breath, and Betsy laughed.

  ‘Now you must stand with your back to the sun,’ she said, ‘and throw it over your shoulder and say, “So fall the peel, true love reveal.”’

  And Margaret threw the peel and whirled round instantly, and they both peered at it.

  It was a ‘T’ for Tudor, Betsy said, though Margaret thought it looked more like a ‘J’. Disappointed as ever by the inconclusive nature of her nurse’s evidence, she still refused to wait in a graveyard at full moon, which was, in any case, more than a week away.

  Then Betsy told her there was a third way. If she prayed to St Nicholas on his own eve, he would bring her husband to her in a dream.

  Margaret would not commit herself to this. St Nicholas’s Eve was even further away than the full moon. But her nurse talked of no one but Edmund Tudor, who was the king’s own brother: how handsome he was, how brave. So on the eve of St Nicholas, Margaret lay awake praying after all. And she did have a dream.

  She dreamed that a bishop stood with a red mitre in his hand, holding out his other hand towards a knight. She could not see the knight’s face, but it must have been Edmund rather than John, who was not a knight. And by the time she told her nurse, it already seemed more like a vision than a dream.

  And so it was decided, as she thought. It did not occur to her that it had already been decided.

  Time passed quickly at Maxey, because Christmas was coming and there was plenty to do. Margaret was shy of her mother and hung back a little whenever she was present. She did not often come into the same room as Margaret, or address her directly, unless she was not sitting correctly, or her appearance was unkempt. She had a way of not looking at her when she said this, so that Margaret was forced to wonder how she could tell. Her eyes seemed to be supernaturally keen.

  ‘The hem of that dress needs sewing,’ she would say to Betsy, or, ‘Is that a smudge on my daughter’s face?’

  But her stepfather was kindly, and let her look through his eyeglass at the winter stars. Two of her mother’s older children from her first marriage came to stay, Oliver and Mary St John. Oliver was still happy to run and play in the gardens, and Mary was sweet-natured and taught her to sew; and Margaret’s little brother, John, from her mother’s third marriage, toddled after her everywhere, in much the same way as she had once toddled after Betsy. And soon it was possible to forget her small husband with his worried eyes.

  Then, shortly after Christmas, came the summons to court.

  Suddenly the whole household was in a fever of preparation, and her mother was everywhere, issuing instructions in her brittle voice. Margaret was to have a new set of furs, she said, and a new dress. Her hair would never do.

  Betsy said, surely they would not travel in the depths of winter? They would all catch their deaths of cold. But Margaret’s mother said that the summons was urgent and the stay would be prolonged. She herself was ordering a whole new wardrobe. And several jewels. They had been invited to the Ceremony of the Garter.

  Margaret had only the faintest idea of what this might mean. She had never been to London or seen a real tournament. She had only played with John de la Pole’s toy castle and wooden knights (some of which were still in her box). She imagined a scene that was something like Paradise, painted in brilliant colours like the chapel at Ewelme.

  ‘Will we see the queen?’ she asked, but Betsy would only say that it was madness to travel in February – the roads were flooded and they would all drown.

  There was rain, but not enough to drown them, and by the time they approached London fitful sunlight illuminated the walls. Already they could hear a muffled roar from the city, and they passed through the gates into what seemed like a wall of noise. Everywhere there was building: building up and tearing down, scaffolding, ladders and carts. And more carts unloading barrels, and more people than Margaret had ever seen, crying out their wares or shouting orders. Bells rang, hammers struck stone and pigs ran squealing from an alley. And the smells! Of beer and roast meat and rotted vegetables and gutted fish; and such filth in the streets that the carriage skidded more than once and the driver had to get out. Her nurse clamped her hands over her ears, and her mother held a cloth to her nose and told Margaret not to look, but Margaret could not stop looking. Wedges of pale, water-sharp sunlight alternated with blocks of deepest shade. Shop fronts were bleached pale but their sides and the alleys between were absolutely dark and mysterious. The light made everything sharper and more intense, and yet at the same time somehow transitory and unreal. People were briefly illuminated before disappearing into the darkness: the man with a red headscarf; the woman with a basket on her head; another woman pulling her child along; a dog running on three legs; a man sitting in a doorway, his face lifted, his mouth open for no reason that she would ever know.

  There were cages of live birds in the marketplace; three women laughing next to a basket of struggling doves. Geese waddled between the stalls, and all these things seemed permanently imprinted on Margaret’s senses, yet fleeting, because she would never see the city in quite this way again. It was as if someone had upended the glass of time and exposed everything in it momentarily to the light. Yet even as they passed through the city the light faded to a soft, yellowish-grey. And then they reached the lodgings where they were to stay that night.

  Her nurse said that she would never sleep, and then fell asleep promptly, snoring raucously all night, so that only Margaret lay awake, listening to the sounds of the river: boats bumping into harbour, barrels unloading. The next morning her mother said she looked very pale and pinched her cheeks, for they were going to meet the queen that day. They were going to travel by barge to the palace.

  Even the stench of the river was exciting. White birds dipped and flashed and great boats left a deep ‘v’ in their wake. And the castle looked exactly like her picture of Camelot, in her book about King Arthur; it had turrets and flying banners. Liveried men met them as they left the barge and conducted them through a great hall. They were to see the queen right away.

  They passed swiftly along a corridor, Margaret trotting after her mother to keep up. A squire announced them, and her mother instructed her not to look at the queen, and Margaret did not know what she meant. But she kept her eyes lowered as she entered the room and sank into the deepest curtsy she could manage, almost disappearing into the skirts of her new dress. And the queen spoke to her in English, which surprised Margaret, who all morning had been practising
her French.

  ‘Welcome, little cousin.’

  She wore dark blue, which was all Margaret could see without looking up; a dark blue mourning robe for her mother who had recently died. (Betsy had told her this and warned her to be very solemn.) As Margaret rose from her curtsy, her heart beating like a panicking bird in case she stumbled or did anything else wrong, she could see that the gown was trimmed with white fur.

  ‘Your name is Margaret, is it not?’ asked the queen, but still she did not dare to look up.

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ she ventured in English, aware of her mother’s watchful eyes.

  ‘It is a good name,’ said the queen, and at last Margaret raised her eyes.

  She was surprised to find that the queen was quite short; no taller than her own mother, who was not tall. She had always thought that a queen would be very tall, like Lady Alice. Also, she had been told that the queen was ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’.

  Wings of hair were swept up on either side of her face; Margaret could see there was a lot of it – it was very full and thick. Her upper lip was full and her eyes were sorrowful and dark; two smudges in the dull cream of her face.

  ‘We are so sorry for your majesty’s loss,’ her mother said, and the queen said that such a loss, when it came, was terrible indeed.

  ‘You are so lucky to have one another,’ she said to both of them. Margaret could not think what to say to this, but her mother said something appropriate in reply.

  Then the queen spoke directly to her once more, and Margaret almost curtsied again before remembering that she didn’t need to.

  ‘I understand that you will be marrying our brother,’ she said.

  Margaret looked to her mother for help.

  ‘It has pleased his most gracious majesty to release my daughter from her previous agreement,’ she said.

  ‘So we shall be closer family than ever,’ the queen said, and her upper lip quivered for a moment. ‘That is the important thing,’ she said, and Margaret’s mother agreed with her heartily. Then the queen said that unfortunately she might not meet her future husband as he had gone with the king to Reading. But the contract would be drawn up for them while they were in London.

  ‘I hope you are not too disappointed, to see only me,’ she said.

  Margaret did not know whether she was disappointed or not, but her mother laughed excessively and said it was the greatest honour for both of them. Then the queen said to Margaret, ‘I have something for you.’

  Again Margaret glanced at her mother, but received only a prodding look in reply. So she followed the queen to a table and the queen picked up a small casket that was inlaid with pearl.

  ‘For your name, and mine,’ the queen said. She took a small book from it, wrapped in silk. It was a book of hours.

  ‘Keep it with you always,’ she said. ‘And when you write in it, think of me.’

  Margaret was a little disappointed, for the casket had looked as though it might contain jewels. But her mother said that it was a priceless gift, and she would treasure it always. And she glared meaningfully at Margaret, who remembered, just in time, to thank the queen.

  Then they were free to go, and her mother said that she had not thought Margaret would be so tongue-tied after all her lessons with Lady Alice.

  ‘But at least you did not say anything foolish,’ she conceded as they returned to the barge.

  Betsy, of course, wanted to hear all about it, and she exclaimed many times over the little book. ‘You must write in it every day,’ she said. ‘There will be so much to see and do.’

  And, in fact, there was a great deal to see and do, though she did not see the queen again until the Ceremony of the Garter at Windsor, where she led the procession to St George’s Chapel with the king. The king did not look very splendid, but the queen was transformed, in robes of crimson with glittering, exultant eyes. For it had just been announced that she was at last expecting a child. And the Earl of Shrewsbury’s victories continued in Gascony, and so the ceremonies were celebrated with great splendour, with many fanfares of trumpets. The blue robes of the Garter knights and the scarlet mantles of the poor knights stood out against the green field, and all of them were contained in a soft glove of light. For a short time at least it was the gayest court on earth.

  27

  A Sudden and Thoughtless Fright

  After Easter the king sent a thousand men to Gascony and they besieged the town of Fronsac and seized control of it, but in August John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his son Lord de Lisle were killed at Castillon, and in September the town of Bordeaux was again lost.

  Jean de Waurin

  Around the first day of August the king declined into a great sickness at his house of Clarendon, which lasted for a long time …

  John Benet’s Chronicle

  A disease and disorder of such a sort overcame the king that he lost his wits and memory for a time, and nearly all his body was so uncoordinated and out of control that he could neither walk, nor hold his head upright, nor easily move from where he sat …

  Whethamsted’s Register

  When he held his hands up to bless the feast as usual, it suddenly seemed to him that blood was streaming from his palms. He shifted his feet and knew that blood was streaming from them also. When he opened his mouth to speak, no words came. And the lines on his palms seemed to have turned into the rivers of France, which were streaming blood.

  As though from a great distance he could hear the queen say, ‘My lord the king is not well,’ and several people got up. He wondered, as they helped him to his room, why they made no attempt to staunch the flow of blood that streamed from his side now as well. But they took no notice of it as they made him lie in his bed, and covered him with sheets that he would surely stain.

  And they left him there, to sleep, they said, though he thought that he would bleed to death. He tried to tell them this, but he was suddenly tired, so tired that he couldn’t lift his head. He heard the doors swing shut behind them, and some more doors after that, and then it seemed that all the doors were swinging shut against him, in the corridors of his mind.

  It is necessary for lethargics that people talk loudly in their presence. Tie their extremities lightly and rub their palms and soles hard … let their feet be put in salt water up to the middle of their shins and pull their hair and nose … open the vein of their head or nose or forehead and draw blood from the nose with the bristles of a boar … and let a feather be put down his throat to cause vomiting …

  Rosa Anglica

  28

  Alone

  They tried to persuade her to leave; she was distressing herself, they said, and the baby. But she was convinced that only she could penetrate the wall of her husband’s silence, that something she could say or do would reach him, that he would give some sign or in some way acknowledge the bond between them.

  But I do love you, he had said. I have always loved only you.

  So she continued to kneel before him, holding his hands and chafing them.

  ‘Henri,’ she murmured, ‘come back to me.’

  ‘It is Marguerite,’ she told him. ‘Your Marguerite.’

  Because in private they were always Henri and Marguerite. La petite, he called her. His daisy-flower.

  She would not give up, not while there was any chance at all that she might provoke him out of his torpor. She gathered up his hands and kissed them; before all of his attendants she kissed his face and his poor, shaved head. She pressed his hand to her stomach so that he could feel their baby moving in his own turbulent little world. But when she released his hand, it fell lifeless and dangling to his knee.

  She clasped his face, searching it for even a flicker of recognition, but there was nothing.

  It was his eyes that frightened her, that terrible emptiness. In them she could see the depth of his absence; the vast distance between them. It was as though she had been removed from his eyes. Or as though he were lost in some unending labyrinth and th
ere was no thread connecting them – nothing that would lead her to him at all.

  It made her palms sweat, her heart race and pound.

  They made him sit up, but he sagged forward, as though he might fall.

  Once, in fact, he had fallen, and was only prevented from toppling on to her by the quick movement of his physician, who had raised him up with some difficulty and, with the assistance of his steward, had made him walk backwards and forwards across the room.

  She could not bear the sight of his feet dragging across the floor; their yellow, crinkled soles.

  Then, of course, they had insisted on returning to his regime: the cuppings and bleedings, the pinching and burning and slapping, and all the other indignities to which he was hourly subjected.

  She had raged at them, his attendants, while they ministered to him.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ she had shouted. ‘Can you not see that he needs to be alone? It is you – it is people like you – who are doing this to him!’

  Because in her mind they were becoming confused with his enemies and persecutors: the French, the House of York, all the rebels and dissenters in the land.

  She realized that she must have seemed like a madwoman, spit flying from her mouth. The king’s physician, a small man with a drooping eye, had turned towards her and addressed her firmly.

  ‘This is not helping, my lady,’ he had said. ‘You are not helping either his majesty or yourself. I must insist that you get some rest, or you will damage the baby.’

  And so she had allowed herself to be led away, and made to lie down, for the baby.

  But the next day she insisted on feeding Henry herself.

  She sat next to him on the bed and prised the thin soup between his lips, scooping it up as it dribbled out again.

  ‘Like this, your majesty,’ his servant said, tilting her husband’s head backwards as she spooned the gruel in, so that it slipped down his throat and she could see the muscles of his throat contract.

  When she could coax no more in, she set the bowl aside and knelt before him again.