Westminster Palace, Summer 1436
Westminster Palace, Summer
HUMPHREY TAKES AN army of ten thousand men to defend Calais, and all of England waits for news of his victory.
Just as he promised, he is as victorious as his brother was and rides deep into Burgundy territory, destroying crops and stealing goods.
He sails home in August, landing in Dover and marching to a hero’s welcome in London.
I choose to greet him formally, at the great gate of Westminster Palace, standing before the enormous reinforced wooden gates so that everyone can see him enter the palace, with as much honour as a king – and see me as finely dressed and beautiful as a queen.
The streets are packed with cheering Londoners; the men marching behind him, rich with plunder, shout their commander’s name.
He rides to the foot of the great stone steps, jumps down from his warhorse, runs up to me, and kisses me full on the lips.
The women throw flowers at my feet, and the men throw their hats in the air.
I think if my husband declared himself king at this moment, nobody would deny us.
The pale boy king, shrinking from the noise of the streets, is not even in the palace where we perform this theatre of the lord’s return.
The crowned king is at his prayers in Westminster Abbey, the uncrowned king faces his people and salutes them with his battle sword like a Caesar.
Of course, we cannot seize the throne like upstarts. But, looking around at the cheering crowd, I think nobody can deny that England would be a safer, better place if it were ruled by a man who can lead an army, rather than by a child who cannot even make his mother obey the law.
The people will not let us go. The streets echo with applause; the jackdaws stream from the chimneys and the bats from the belfries, where the ringing bells add their full peals to the noise.
Again and again, my husband and I acknowledge the cheers and turn to go, and again and again, they call us back.
They shout: ‘God save the duke!’ and I know that half the crowd wishes they were shouting: ‘God save the king!’ for us.
We stand, smiling, drowned in praise as if we were emperors, and then we give one final wave and walk together, hand in hand, into the royal palace as if it were our own.
The servants and the vassals and the petitioners bow as low as for a king and queen as we walk through the courtyards to the great hall. I glance to the side to the Dog Gate, and there is the white cap of Margery Jourdemayne, bobbing down in a curtsey and then rising up as she beckons to me.
My husband makes a speech; I hold my hands to my heart as if I am overwhelmed with joy. I leave him, taking the congratulations of our household, and I go to find Margery in her little workroom.
‘Did you see how he was greeted?’ I demand.
She nods. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. You must be proud.’
I smile. ‘I am – but that goes without saying,’ and she laughs.
‘I waved at you because I’ve got news,’ she tells me. ‘I’ve been called to care for a lady – we needn’t say her name – but you asked me to tell you if she was ever with child again.’
I feel a strange twist in my belly, as if from bad food. Even though I’ve just had a mob cheer me as if I am queen, nothing cures me of this poisonous envy. ‘Don’t tell me that whore is with child again?’
Margery nods. ‘She’s asked me to attend the birth.’
‘At her house?’ I ask. ‘Will you go to Hatfield?’
‘No, she’s going into confinement at Bermondsey Abbey. I’ll attend her there next week.’
The nausea is passing from me, and instead, I feel a little burn of excitement.
This is her fourth child from my lover – surely it must be taking a toll?
Why would she go to Bermondsey Abbey unless she is fearful and wants to be near the physicians of London and near to her son the king?
Could I be so lucky that she has fallen sick or – even better – that the baby is malformed or has died in her womb?
I feel as if I am taking up the reins of a team of horses pulling a cannon into place, readying for a great moment. ‘It’s time,’ I say softly. ‘At last, it is my time. I’m going to tell my husband the duke of her shame.’
‘Why now – when you’ve kept their secret for so long?’
‘There’ll never be a better moment to throw everything in the air,’ I say.
‘My husband is king in all but name and his victorious army would do anything for him.You heard them out there – they’re still under his orders and in the heart of London.
She’s lost all her defenders: Duke John is dead; her mother is dead; her brother is our enemy; her son is helpless.
If I work fast and my lord obeys me, then Owen Tudor can be arrested and hanged on a criminal scaffold before she comes out of her confinement with his last bastard in her arms and finds herself a whore without a patron. ’
I feel a fierce power course through me. I have waited and waited for this moment when my enemies are at their weakest. And it is now. The time has come for me to ruin her and kill him.
Margery looks strangely at me. ‘I’ve never seen such a foul expression on such a pretty face,’ she says wonderingly.
‘Then you’ve not looked,’ I say without shame. ‘I’ve hated her and I’ve hated him for eight long years. And all that time, my hatred has grown stronger and sweeter like fine wine. I have waited for this moment. I want her dead. I want him dead. And at last, I have the power to destroy them both.’
MY HUSBAND IS changing his clothes for the victory feast. He is wearing cloth of gold, and I will wear cloth of silver.
We will both wear crowns: not the royal crown of England and France that we deserve – but princes’ crowns.
I will wear my hair down; it lies thick and golden over my shoulders, smooth and shining, almost to my waist: we will wear ermine collars at our necks.
When I see us, side by side in the long, silvered looking-glass, I think that we look like a god and goddess.
I put my hand on his arm as we admire our images.
‘I have something to tell you – I discovered it while you were away.’ I tell my first lie with an open face and wide grey eyes.
I watch myself in the mirror and think I would trust beauty like this – and I know what a stony heart beats slowly inside.
‘What is it?’ He smiles, not taking his eyes from his own image. ‘Nothing bad on such a good day?’
‘Not bad for us. Another step upwards, I think, if we are careful and clever.’
‘There’s no woman in the world more careful and clever,’ he boasts. ‘What’s the news?’
‘Your sister-in-law, your royal sister-in-law, the dowager queen, has slipped into the most terrible shame,’ I tell him.
I watch the confident smile drain from his face as it darkens. ‘What?’
‘I hardly know how to tell you. She has taken a lover, her manservant Owen that used to be called ap Maredudd – now calls himself Tudor. The groom of her wardrobe. I suppose she got him denizenship as payment for his serving her like a bull serves a heifer in the open field.’
He is terribly shocked. He stammers his disbelief. ‘L-living in the bishop’s palace!’ he exclaims. ‘Saying she had withdrawn from the world? Eleanor, this can’t be true – she can’t have done such a thing!’
I nod. ‘She has. She has. They’re trying to claim they’re married; they’re trying to pretend they’ve been married for years – but in that case, they’ve broken the law, the law you put in place to protect her. And there have been births: three Welsh bastards. And now another on the way.’
‘How d’you know this?’ he demands. ‘How have I never heard of it?’
‘They kept so quiet; they hid like rats, like snakes in Eden,’ I tell him. ‘I only know because our loyal servant Mistress Jourdemayne is summoned to attend her in her ungodly childbirth. It’ll be her fourth. Ugh – I hardly know how to say the words.’
‘My God, this will kill the little king! The shame will send him out of his wits.’
I hesitate. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, very true.’ I glance at him, wondering how far I can drive him on with greed and ambition. ‘You know, we could let it drive him mad,’ I say very softly.
His dark eyes suddenly brighten. ‘You mean make a scandal, rather than hide it?’
‘It’s not our shame,’ I say. ‘Why should we save them – when they’ve been so very false to us? When she insulted you? If the world knew that the king’s mother was a whore and the king a simpleton, would they not love you even more? You would be regent for life.’
‘He’s not a simpleton,’ he demurs. ‘He’s not incapable.’
‘Not yet,’ I interrupt. ‘But he’s not yet had his mother named as a whore.’
‘D’you think it’d send him over the edge?’ he asks. ‘He really has no idea – she’s not prepared him at all?’
‘Oh, she’ll have told him all sorts of love stories.
She’ll have pretended that they are married.
That alone would make him ill at ease – he will have had to lie to his confessor.
He will be anguished by that. We can make it clear that there was no marriage, that she is a whore and he is a criminal.
If they claim there was a marriage, it was against the law, and he is a criminal seducer and she a whore.
If we can get Owen Tudor executed – before she comes out of confinement, before the king knows of it – I think the shock’d be too much for him.
The shame and grief? I think he’d go quite mad.
’ I pause. ‘And then we’d take the throne,’ I say softly. ‘Not regent but king.’
‘Usurp?’ he whispers in horror.
‘No! God forbid! Inherit, as he is unfit.’