Hertford Castle, Summer 1428
Hertford Castle, Summer
I RIDE BESIDE the duke as an equal, through the green rolling hills and little towns of Hertfordshire, towards the castle where the baby king holds his court, his new governor Richard Beauchamp supervising him and his noble playmates.
We ride alongside the River Lea. The washerwomen knee-deep in the water stop their work to wave and curtsey; the fishwives pull up their nets; the swallows swoop low over the river, dipping down to make little ringed reflections as they drink.
Duke Humphrey is in good health and spirits.
Margery Jourdemayne’s slippery elm liquor has soothed the cramps in his belly.
He has learned the trick of turning his handsome face away from anything disagreeable, and as soon as he was far from the queen, he forgot her vitriolic words and his grovelling humiliation.
His recovery will be complete when he meets her again at Hertford Castle and she greets him with courtesy and he greets her with distant politeness.
It will be as if she never rejected him as a false husband and an unwanted lover; and he will blame her words on the notorious volatility of women, and despise her.
The women’s petition that demanded that Jacqueline return to England as his wife will fall from his memory as well.
The petition has been received by parliament, put on a high dusty shelf, and forgotten.
Once Humphrey has made my marriage to Owen and I have left his service to live with my new husband, there will be nothing to remind Humphrey that he was married to Jacqueline, that he deserted her, destroyed my reputation, and proposed marriage to the queen.
It will be as if Jacqueline never came to England, was never an inspiration to the women of England and the truest friend the queen will ever have.
All the dramas will seem like a joust, where one crisis follows another but none really matter.
The months in the Hollands will be a story that nobody tells, as if Jacqueline’s courageous fight for her rights happened years ago and far away.
As I watch the duke unravel his past away like a silk ribbon, it makes me feel as if I too can start again: once again the girl newly come to court from Sterborough Castle, hoping to catch a wealthy nobleman, confident of my beauty, certain of my success.
Most of the Baynard household travel with us: the duke’s chaplain, Canon Southwell, and his advisor and friend, Roger Bolingbroke.
Dr Bolingbroke has mapped Humphrey’s horoscope against the vital organs of his body, medicina astrologica, and says the planet of Saturn, which rules the spleen, is in the ascendant.
The terrible gripping pains are caused by the frustration of his authority: his dead brother left him the post of regent, but he is only allowed to be protector; his living brother Duke John enjoys the role of regent in France and then gave away yet more of Humphrey’s power to parliament before he left England.
Even the powerless queen refused him when he thought he might become the king’s stepfather.
Canon Southwell and Dr Bolingbroke, both Oxford men, steeped in the new learning, move easily from analysing the duke’s physical strength and the planetary influences on his body, to his worldly power, and they advise that if he can regain his health, he will regain all his other powers, his reputation as the good duke will be restored, and he will be – as he was born to be – the greatest nobleman in England.
‘I was born into a fully royal family, with a great destiny,’ he agrees.
‘You will never be at peace until you are satisfied with your place in the world,’ Dr Bolingbroke confirms as we ride across the common land towards the town of Hertford.
‘Your scholarship qualifies you for the greatest office. What king has studied more than you? You have the greatest private library in England.’
‘Should the world be run by scholars rather than men of war?’ I ask, peeping up at Dr Bolingbroke as he rides beside me.
‘If we want learning and peace,’ he replies. ‘Unless power itself turns a man violent? And there are many examples of that.’
The stone castle stands on a little hill inside the walled town; the River Lea surrounds it with a complete circular moat.
The little king’s royal standard flies over the tower, his mother’s standard beside it, the Warwick flag beside them.
The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up as a welcome to us.
The duke orders a blast on the trumpets that sends the swifts bursting from the towers like a cloud and the jackdaws chattering to each other as we go in.
We ride through the cobbled streets of the little town to cheers and people throwing flowers under the horses’ hooves.
A few women stare rudely at me – so I know that the gossip has come this far – but I pay them no attention.
Tomorrow, the duke will announce my betrothal, and when I am Mistress ap Maredudd and later Lady ap Maredudd, nobody will dare to say anything against me.
The castle has its own defensive wall inside the town, and the castle gates stand open for us to ride into the central courtyard.
We dismount; our horses are led away for stabling, and we climb the wooden steps to the castle door.
The queen comes out to meet us with her son – seven years old this year – holding her hand as if he were still a toddler, and I see Richard Beauchamp, the king’s new governor, take the boy from his mother and thrust him forward, so he greets us like a king and not like a baby hiding behind his mother’s skirts.
I have to hide a smile: Beauchamp will have a hard task to make a king out of this hand-reared boy.
‘Uncle, I greet you well,’ the reedy little voice says, and Duke Humphrey kneels to his nephew and then opens his arms to him.
I curtsey, and the queen smiles at the duke and gives him her hand as if she had never named him a rapist to his face, and then the king leads the way into the castle.
Suddenly, from the shadows at the side of the gate, illuminated from above by the murder holes, Owen ap Maredudd appears as from nowhere, bows to the duke, and smiles at me.
‘You are reliable,’ he says without another word of greeting, as if we need none.
‘I am?’
‘Reliably more beautiful every time I see you.’
‘I told Margery Jourdemayne that I needed no love potion with you.’
‘You don’t,’ he says fervently. ‘My God, you don’t.’
‘Shall I come to your room before dinner?’ I ask, confident that his desire matches mine.
‘I have to sit with the queen while her son is at his prayers. He’s very devout. But after dinner . . .?’
I give him my hand, and he bows his fox-brown head to kiss it. ‘After dinner,’ I promise.
IT IS A merry evening; the food is excellent, and although I am seated below the salt tonight, tomorrow I will be betrothed to the master of the queen’s household and, next week, his wife.
After dinner, there is dancing; the little king still loves to dance, and he remembers me as his favourite partner, second only to his mother.
‘You are as beautiful as she is,’ he tells me solemnly.
I curtsey to him. ‘No,Your Grace,’ I say with affected modesty. ‘I yield the place.Your mother is, and always will be, the most beautiful woman of your court.’
‘Well said!’ Richard Beauchamp says, giving me the look that I know only too well: a speculative look that means: Would you? But now his raised eyebrow and the hardness of his gaze tells me that he is thinking: Do you? Because they all say that you do?
I show him a blank smiling face that replies: I don’t know what you mean.
But for the first time ever, my look of uncomprehending innocence does not serve as a defence.
He laughs shortly, as if he thinks I am a clever bawd, and I wonder if this is how it is going to be?
Are men going to look at me as if I am a whore for the rest of my life?
I must announce my marriage tomorrow; I cannot stand this disrespect.
Once I am married, I will have the protection of ap Maredudd’s name and my new husband will be honour-bound to defend me.
The royal schoolmates dance and make their bows, and after we have curtseyed to the little king, they go off to bed in a line like obedient choir boys.
They are guided by the king’s new tutor, John Somerset – another man of the new learning, who worked for Duke John as his astrologer and alchemist, friend to Dr Bolingbroke.
These men have their own network – as tightly bound as spies.
They all studied at Oxford University together; they all correspond over their discoveries; they are all placed in great courts and universities in England and throughout the world.
They all need a wealthy patron to pay for their rare books and manuscripts, to build their forges and buy their metals, liquors, and herbs.
They order their ingredients from Margery Jourdemayne and use her gift of Sight.
They belong to a strange half-unseen brotherhood, following their own rules, studying their own arcane science.
The queen leaves with her son for his bedtime prayers. Owen follows her, but the court no longer keeps nursery hours. Richard Beauchamp and Duke Humphrey take a glass of wine, and the rest of us dance again.
I keep an eye on the doorway, and when I see Owen return to the presence chamber and stand by a side door, I nod slightly, never losing my way in the dance. When the music stops, I curtsey to my partner, step back, away from the dancers, unnoticed, then I slip out of the little door.
He is waiting for me; the second I am through the door, I am in his arms.
‘I’ve missed you,’ I say, my lips against his ear as he bends over me. ‘I have wanted you.’
‘Lord, I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘I thought you halfway to Hainault three times this year already, married to some rich lord and never coming home.’