Westminster Palace, Winter 1430
Westminster Palace, Winter
MONTHS PASS BEFORE Humphrey completes his vainglorious tour of justice, and we can return to Westminster Palace.
I am desperate to see Margery Jourdemayne.
I have to talk to someone about the terrible shame of the queen, and – more than anything else – how shall I take my revenge on Owen?
I will see him on his knees before me, I will see him dead at my feet.
I will not let Margery speak any mild words: that they cannot be blamed, that a queen so young and so lonely was bound to turn to a man who gave his life to care for her, that Owen always warned me that it was not a serious love, not a marrying love, that he never played me false but always warned me it must be a love freely given and taken.
I won’t hear it. I can’t bear to hear it.
I don’t want to hear his name ever again except by the executioner before he brings the axe down on his bared neck.
I wear a dark robe with a hood over my head, and I pull it forward to hide my face. I wear no jewels nor furs nor anything to draw the eye. I slip through the palace from the queen’s rooms, which are now my rooms, to the door at Dog Court. It is closed.
There is a warrant on the door and a bouquet of red seals and ribbons tying the door shut.
I don’t hesitate; I don’t recoil. I don’t glance around to see if anyone is spying.
I barely turn my head to the closed door.
I walk steadily past, no faster, no slower, quietly as if I am on my way to None.
I walk past my friend’s door to the royal chapel to create the appearance of being on the way to somewhere else.
I take my place at the front of the church and listen to the priests intone the service; I cross myself and wait to the very end before I leave.
I walk back past her door at Dog Court without a glance either way.
In the evening, my new clerk John Home recites Grace and a blessing over dinner and sits near me at the high table. My lord, on my other side, is talking to Roger Bolingbroke about an order of books from Italy. He can hear nothing but his own excited monologue.
‘I see that Margery Jourdemayne’s door is locked?’ I ask John Home.
‘Yes, indeed – she has been arrested.’ I can hardly hear him over the cheerful clatter of the court at dinner in the great hall.
‘Many women accused of witchcraft have been arrested and taken to Fleet Prison. I am afraid our friend Mistress Jourdemayne has been caught up in the mêlée; she’s in the cells at Windsor Castle. ’
‘Why would anyone suspect her? What’s the accusation?’
He spreads his white hands. ‘God forgive the simple people. They are afraid of a witch in France, and now they see witches everywhere.’
‘I wouldn’t want her to be unjustly accused,’ I say carefully.
‘If she’s charged with witchcraft, it is a matter for the Church, not the civil authorities,’ he says.
‘She will have a compassionate hearing in a Church court. Only if she were to be accused of treason would she go to a court of law, where she might be harshly questioned and ill-treated. The Church is always merciful.’
‘I would not want her to be ill-treated at all, by anyone,’ I say more carefully.
He looks at me as if to ask: am I commissioning him to make sure she is released? Is he to interfere in the king’s justice?
One of my ladies-in-waiting holds an ewer with lavender water for me to wash my hands, and another holds an embroidered linen towel for me to dry my fingers.
‘But there is nothing I can do,’ I say.