St Albans Priory, Winter 1423
St Albans Priory, Winter
MY LADY AND her husband are honoured as they deserve at Christmas at St Albans Priory, where the scholarly abbot is a personal friend of the duke.
The two men spend the days of Christmas in the priory library, where the books are too rare and precious to be released.
The knowledge they contain is so powerful the manuscripts cannot be let out in the world; they are chained to the shelves with great metal rings through their thick leather bindings.
Only the permitted scholars can take them, on their long clanking chains, to nearby tables, to unlock the leather covers and open the page to study their dangerous secrets.
‘What’s in the books?’ I ask my lady.
‘The science of the stars and alchemy,’ she tells me. ‘These are real mysteries. If a man could command the knowledge of the ancients and the natural power of the world, we would not need to invade a country; we would have such weapons that no one could stand against us.’
‘Like what?’
‘Cannon that can throw fire as well as stones, gunpowder so strong that no walls could withstand it. Duke John has a forge in Paris, where he is making more and more powerful metals, refining metal so pure that it becomes gold.’
‘Are these not fairy tales and legends?’
‘They’re all based on some truth. Who knows what we might do if we understood the properties of everything in the world and of the worlds beyond?’
‘Does His Grace follow these studies?’ I ask, looking around at the scholars bending over the desks, in the musty smell of old parchment and centuries of dust.
‘Every scholar studies as an alchemist; it’s the science of everything.’
I think of Margery Jourdemayne and the hooded men who come to her for ingredients and for her ability to See the unknown. ‘It’s not forbidden? It’s not against the law?’
‘There’s no law against studying anything.
Astrology is used by everyone who can afford to have a horoscope drawn up.
How else can we know the best time to launch a venture?
My lord is studying with Abbot Wheathampstead to discover when we should assemble our army, when we should march.
Horoscopes are allowed; all of the philosophies are allowed or can be practised under licence.
Only the darkest art – necromancy – is forbidden, both by church and civil law. ’
‘And what’s necromancy?’ I ask warily, conscious of a whole world that I know nothing about.
‘Summoning spirits to foretell the future, commanding the fallen angels to make changes in the world, and raising the dead to speak to the living,’ she says solemnly.
I am appalled. ‘I thought these were stories for dark nights. I didn’t think anyone actually did such things?’
‘More than you would think,’ she replies. ‘This is at the very limit of human knowledge; of course scholars want to cross the boundary.’
WHILE WE ARE staying at St Albans, we ride to Kings Langley Palace on hard frosty roads to visit the duke’s stepmother, Dowager Queen Joan.
The dowager queen is newly freed from years of imprisonment, but I cannot discover why she was locked up.
I expected to find her still outraged at her stepson, the late king, even angry at his deathbed release, but she says not one word against him.
She acts as if she has always lived in peaceful retirement at Kings Langley Palace and was never a prisoner at Pevensey and Leeds castles.
I am longing for Jacqueline to ask Queen Joan why she was released and why she was imprisoned in the first place, but my lady is too grand to question her stepmother-in-law and the old queen too cautious to volunteer anything.
The two noble ladies have nothing to say to each other after the courtesies, and we leave for London earlier than planned.
The old queen comes out to the broad steps to see us off, wrapped in a fur cape against the wintry cold.
‘Please name Friar Randolph to my stepson Duke Humphrey,’ she orders my lady.
‘He’ll know what I mean. Remind him of his promise.
He owes a debt to Friar Randolph, and it must be paid. ’
My lady nods and swings into the saddle; she raises her hand in a salute, holding her big horse steady as he curvets on the snowy grass, wanting to canter.
I follow her through the gatehouse. ‘What was that about a friar?’
‘Queen Joan’s old confessor, Friar Randolph. He was arrested with her but left in the Tower when she was released. She asked me to tell Duke Humphrey to get him out.’
‘Will he?’
‘Why not? He says Friar Randolph is a good man and very skilled. If he were free, he’d have him cast a horoscope to see the best time for us to go to Hainault.’
‘Was the friar drawing horoscopes for old Queen Joan?’ I ask curiously. ‘Didn’t she say that the duke owed him a debt? Was he studying for the duke? I thought you said that was allowed? Did he do something more than drawing a horoscope?’ I glance at her curiously. ‘Worse? Was it ill-wishing?’
My lady shrugs. ‘He can’t have been very good at foretelling the future if he didn’t warn Joan that they were going to be arrested!
’ She laughs, as if her joy is spilling over and she cannot be bothered with the old queen’s disgrace.
‘I don’t need a Friar Randolph or any horoscope to tell me the best time to go to Hainault – it’s as soon as I have my army and the ships! ’