Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, Summer 1430
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, Summer
MY LORD RULES the privy council as a king.
Most of the cardinal’s supporters have gone with him to France, like truffle pigs to snuffle up the greatest glory and the greatest profits in the little king’s French lands.
There is nobody to stand against my husband, and he awards himself great fees and proposes a tour all around the kingdom to enforce the king’s justice and impose law on warring villages, on quarrelsome noblemen.
Our route is planned with the advice of Canon Southwell, who looks to the skies and the paths of the planets for the best way to demonstrate our power.
Our journey, as grand as a royal progress, takes us first to Hertfordshire, and while my husband is sitting in justice, hearing criminal cases, I take a small guard and ride – uninvited – to visit the queen in her spiritual retreat at the bishop’s palace.
I wear a riding costume of green and brown, as if I am going hunting, and I will pretend I was just passing and thought I would break into her solitude and surprise her.
I mean only to laugh at her self-imposed mortification and go away again. I hope to catch her, perhaps, on her knees or fasting in a horsehair shirt.
We clatter into the stable-yard of the bishop’s palace, and I get down from my horse and walk swiftly through the front doors, open to the warm summer air.
A startled manservant runs to me. ‘Her Grace is in the garden,’ he says. ‘Is she expecting you, my lady?’
‘That’s all right. Show me the way,’ I say and wave him on and follow so briskly on his heels that he cannot get ahead of me to announce me.
I hope to find her in doleful prayer, but when we burst out of the house, into the pretty herb garden and orchard, I see her lazing on rich velvet cushions on a camomile bank.
The crushed leaves scent the air. Her feet are on a stool .
. . and her head is laid in Owen ap Maredudd’s lap.
I freeze on the spot, and she turns her head slowly, looks towards me, and is quite still for a moment, as if she is dazzled by the golden summer sunlight and cannot see me.
Then she leaps to her feet, a hand to her heart, like a slut caught with her skirt above her waist. She stands before me trembling; Owen puts an arm around her shoulders as she sways in a faint.
I think she will go down, white-faced, and only I have the presence of mind to say to the manservant: ‘Thank you. Fetch some wine and biscuits.’
When I turn back to her, I see that she did not jump up for fear that the manservant should see her.
She was not trying to hide their loose living from the servants.
All her household knows her shame already; they are hiding her.
That is why he tried to get ahead of me to warn her.
Probably all the royal servants know that she is Owen’s whore.
I feel a fierce pulse of joy as strong as lust: she has publicly ruined herself, and she has ruined him.
I do not curtsey – am I going to curtsey to Owen ap Maredudd’s slut?
Her eyes widen at the absence of any respect.
I stalk across the coloured gravel towards her; my riding boots scrunching on the stones sound like the marching feet of an arresting guard.
A blackbird in the orchard stops singing and makes a warning call.
I don’t even look at Owen. I have my eyes fixed on her beautiful face, which is white as sour milk.
She sways, and I halt, hoping she will crumple at my feet; but Owen says a word in her ear and seats her on the camomile bed again and scoops up her feet to rest on the stool and puts a lavender napkin to her forehead.
And this is the moment when I fully understand the scale of my triumph.
When she stood before me, I saw only her white face and her pale, loose-fitting gown.
As he lifts her feet, the gown drapes over the roundness of her big belly, and I see.
She is with child, big with child, grossly swollen: ap Maredudd’s bastard.
A little Welsh bastard on the dowager queen of England.
This is the end of her life. This is the end of her as a dowager queen.
This is ruin beyond ruin: the end of her son’s loving childhood.
She will never be able to see him again.
This is the end of her as my rival for the love of the people and the respect of the lords.
They will lock her up in some convent somewhere, and no one will even speak of her.
That alone would be a joy. This is the end of her as Queen of England, and I will never see her or hear of her again.
But him? Owen ap Maredudd? My God, they will hang him for treason. He will die for this stupidity, for this mad, oafish lust. My husband will pass the sentence on him, and my friend Archbishop Chichele will hear his confession, and we will all attend his execution.
Not one of us says a single word. He gives her a silver mug of small ale from the table to drink. When he puts it down, he takes her hand and stands beside her, as if to face their judge together.
I laugh. My laugh is like the ripple of the blackbird song, though the bird is silent, as if limed to the branches.
I think I will never stop laughing. I look at the two of them, and their faces set me off again.
‘I see why you didn’t want visitors!’ I exclaim.
‘I see that you have been meditating very deeply.You must have been on your knees all summer, but – alas – your head was down, but your arse was raised up for tupping. I see you have lost your mind like your father and run mad with lust. I see you’ve got a Welsh bastard in your dishonoured belly.
I’m not surprised you can’t stand to face me. ’
The colour blazes in her cheeks, as if I have slapped them; but she says nothing.
I can see Owen squeeze her hand. He says, very quietly: ‘You have misunderstood, Your Grace.’
The door bangs behind me, and the fool servant comes into the herb garden with a jug of wine in one hand and three glasses clutched by their stems in the other.
‘No tray?’ I ask silkily.
He hesitates, he does not know what to do. He puts them down on a table beside the stool and pours wine. He looks to see if the queen has orders for him, and she makes a little hopeless gesture with her hand, and he bows and withdraws.
I sip my wine. It is like nectar. I am drunk with delight, like a dizzy honeybee.
I take a stone seat in the arbour, opposite the two of them.
The sunshine on my bare golden head is warm; the wine is sweet and strong.
I smile. I feel that I am like my husband the duke when he rules for a tongue slitting or branding the cheek of some poor fool begging for kindness.
These two are at my mercy; and I have no mercy at all.
‘How have I misunderstood?’ I say invitingly. ‘You may speak, ap Maredudd. Do tell me. How have I misunderstood?’
‘Her Grace has done me the honour to become my wife,’ Owen says quietly. ‘We are married. This child is no bastard.’
I consider this for a moment, breathing in the scent of camomile.
‘Oh! Did you ask the privy council for permission for this marriage? Did you apply to my husband, the regent? Did he change the law to allow you to marry? Did he give permission?’ I wait, knowing the answers, looking from one blank face to another.
‘No? So, whatever you went through, it was no legal marriage. You are not married. You are a rapist, and she is a whore.’ I smile at her. ‘Alas,’ I say pleasantly.
And then I turn to him. ‘How ever did you fool her?’ I speak to her: ‘What did he make you do? Handfast and jump over a besom?’
‘I know very well your husband would never have allowed my marriage!’ the queen flares.
‘Without permission from the privy council, whatever you have sworn, it is no marriage,’ I rule.
‘You are hopelessly dishonoured, and you, ap Maredudd, will lose what little you have and be tried for treason. You, Madam, will be imprisoned and your bastard taken away and given to the monks in the hopes they can beat the sin out of him.’
‘No,’ the queen says, but her voice is a little thread.
‘No,’ Owen says, more firmly. ‘The Bishop of London witnessed our vows; it was a true wedding in church and a true marriage before God. Your lord is welcome to my lands. His law says that they are forfeit. But I will not be tried for treason, and the dowager queen will not be imprisoned, and her child will not be taken from her. The king will pardon this marriage when he returns. We are only waiting for his return to announce it.’
‘He won’t be back for months!’ I say scornfully. ‘What are you going to do till then?’
‘We’re going to live here,’ Owen replies steadily. ‘Why should we not? Think, Eleanor – we’re doing no harm to you.You are first lady while the queen lives retired. You can sit on her throne. Even when the king comes back, we won’t come to court. This is a golden opportunity for you.’
I look at her incredulously. ‘You were Princess of France and Queen of England, and you’d rather sit on a camomile bank than on a throne? What are you going to do, day after day in this wasteland?’
She looks around at the boughs of the apple trees, heavy with fruit, and the herb garden blossoming behind the trimmed hedges of lavender, the vegetable and fruit gardens and, beyond them, the fields, the greenwoods, and the forests.
‘It’s not a wasteland to me,’ she says quietly.
She throws a quick upward glance to Owen, and I see his hand close on hers.
‘I shall have my child and raise him as my own son. He will not ever be taken from me. I shall make a home here and not be a princess in a foreign country, suspected of enmity. I won’t live with a court of ladies who envy and hate me.
I won’t live with women who despise me—’
‘I didn’t despise you!’ I interrupt.
Her blue eyes outstare my grey ones. ‘Yes, you do,’ she says shortly.
‘I can tell my husband all of this tonight; he will arrest Owen and hang him, and you’ll go into a nunnery and die there before the king gets home.’ I am threatening her; but my eyes are on Owen.
‘Yes, but why would you?’ she asks. ‘Won’t that make your husband wonder? Won’t he ask you why you hate me so much? Won’t he wonder if it is Owen that you hate? Won’t he wonder why?’
I take a breath. So, she knows that I was Owen’s lover. In his stupidity, he may have told her I love him still.
‘Better for you to say nothing,’ she recommends.
‘Better for you and your lord that we stay here quietly,’ Owen points out, his voice gentle.
‘The duke has enough enemies without adding us and those who love the queen. Surely, he dare not risk upsetting the newly crowned King of England by arresting his mother, a princess of France. I promise you: we’ll take no sides; we’ll play no part in your games of power, as long as you don’t hurt the king.
You’ll hear nothing from us. You’re free to do whatever it is you and the duke hope for – we just want to live here. ’
‘You want to be nobodies?’ I ask incredulously.
‘Yes,’ he says simply.
I am so furious with him, with them both, that I get to my feet and walk back towards the house, through the garden, my gown brushing against the herbs and releasing their scents as I stride past them.
I hear quick footsteps on the gravel behind me.
At once, I know that it is Owen running after me; he can’t let me go. It is Owen, coming for me.
He hesitates when I turn, and then he comes towards me.
My heart is hammering as I wait for him to speak, but I know that I am starting to smile.
He has run after me; he cannot bear to let me go.
He has dropped her hand; he has left her on her camomile bank and run after me.
Now that he has seen me again, now that he has seen the two of us side by side, he realises that he wants me.
At last, he knows that he wants me. Whatever it costs us both, we should be together. We were born to be together.
‘I am sorry, deeply sorry that I injured you,’ he says breathlessly.
If he touches my hand or comes an inch closer, I will be in his arms.
‘Whatever you decide to do – whether you tell your lord or stay silent – I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. My desire was no lie. I did not play you for a fool; I would not have done so. Eleanor, it was a sort of love.’
‘But you chose her then?’ I say invitingly, knowing he will tell me that he chooses me now.
‘I loved you truly but lightly. I am sorry; I thought I was nothing more than a light love for you.’
‘You could leave her now,’ I say flatly. ‘We could both go from here to Wales.’
‘I could not. I am married – in all honour . . .’
‘She can’t insist on the marriage if it was secret. There was no permission from the privy council. You can deny it . . .’
He makes the smallest gesture to silence me. ‘She is the love of my life,’ he says, as if he is glad of it, not as if it is the most terrible mistake, his doom and my heartbreak. ‘She always has been. There has never been anyone but her, for me.’
There is a complete silence. The blackbird has come back and is burbling a meaningless ripple of song.
Tears rise in my throat like bile and burn my eyes.
I turn from him, and I walk away, back to the stables, and I shout hoarsely and my master of horse brings out my palfrey and helps me into the saddle, and does not dare ask me why I am blinded with tears and why we are riding back again at a gallop, faster than we came, too fast for safety, as if I care which road we take, as if I have anywhere to go.