Leeds Castle, Kent, Autumn 1441
Leeds Castle, Kent, Autumn
THEY ARE TAKING their time to summon me to the inquiry at Westminster, and this tells me that they have no evidence against me, whatever Bolingbroke, in his shame and despair, has confessed, whatever Home and Southwell have invented to save their own skins.
Perhaps my husband is secretly working for me, and our enemies have lost confidence in their case against me.
I have been here nearly three months; surely if they had anything against me they would have summonsed me?
They will release me, and when I am back in my power, I will be relentless.
The young king will fade and die, drift into dreamless sleep as I rock him.
His horoscope showed that he will die this autumn.
The Vindicta Troie has been spoken; it cannot be unsaid.
The gold spike was pushed through the wax poppet’s spine; the king was cursed to death: he will die.
Confined to the castle park, and with nothing to do but ride out and walk in the gardens, I see the colours of the changing leaves as if for the first time.
I watch them blush rose or dry golden and fall as the shape of the branches emerges against the pale sky.
When I walk in the woods to the south of the castle, my boots crunch on a carpet of nuts.
They rain down from the trees like hail when the winds are high.
I pick up chestnuts in their hedgehog-spine cases and marvel at the shine and the deep colour of the nuts, round as damp pebbles in my hands.
I come home like a girl, with my pockets filled with treasure, and at night, before I go to bed, I roast them in the ashes of my bedroom fire and pull them out with the poker and toss them from hand to hand till they are cool enough to peel the blackened skin and eat the smoky flesh.
My father rides over from Sterborough, but I refuse to admit him to my presence chamber.
I cannot bear to see his worried face, or hear him whisper: ‘I know you’d never do anything wrong, Eleanor?
You haven’t, have you, Eleanor?’ If he had exerted himself to support me, or done anything – anything!
– but bury himself in the country, he could serve me now.
I watch from the window as he rides back to the home that was never good enough for me. I was born for a palace, and I will be back in my great palace by Christmas. My father can come and see me when I am back in my rightful place, and he can admit that he was wrong to doubt me, even for a moment.
The trees lose their leaves to the wintry winds, and I have the fires lit in every room and the candles brought in at four in the afternoon.
They cost me nothing – the bill for my keep is carried by the privy council – and I order all my rooms to be bright with wax lights and warm with big fires.
My courses are dry, but I have no sense of a cold baby in my belly.
I wish I could send for Margery, but I do not ask after her.
If she is cleared, she will let me know; if she is guilty, I will forget her.
I am encouraged by a visit from Adam Moleyns, clerk of the king’s council, who comes with a set of questions about Roger Bolingbroke and his studies.
He does not even say the words ‘treason’ or ‘heresy’, and I turn my face away to hide my smile; clearly, they have no proof and have given up on these wild accusations.
He says as he leaves that the king’s new horoscope shows that he is in good health and will live to a ripe old age.
I cross myself and say that I am happy to hear it.
I imagine Bolingbroke’s horoscope, drawn so beautifully by Southwell and Home in Margery’s blue and gold ink, folded into a box of evidence and forgotten.
The new horoscope, commissioned by the king from John Somerset, his famously loyal tutor, will replace ours.
When he dies – as he will – we must remember to act surprised.
I wonder if, actually, my husband is cleverer than I think him, and he has been playing for time.
Our horoscope will be forgotten when the king dies this autumn; my husband will inherit the crown and release me without a stain on my name.
Margery can advise on my long pregnancy, and our friend Roger Bolingbroke can be nursed back to health and continue his studies.
Once I am queen with a growing baby in my belly, I will have all the power to settle old scores.
FINALLY, IN OCTOBER, I am summonsed. They have brought my barge to meet me at Gravesend.
My standard is not flying at the stern, and there is no guard of honour in my livery; but it is my own barge with my crest painted on the side, and I sink into the wool cushions of the day bed in my cabin with a sense of homecoming.
I know that everything is going to be well.
The captain of the guard will not tell me where I am going, and I expect to moor at Baynard’s Castle, but they row past the water stairs to Westminster Palace.
I hope I am going to my rooms, the queen’s rooms, to be restored to my place.
But without a word of explanation, I am escorted directly to the great door before the chapel.
They give me no time to prepare; I have no time even to change my clothes.
They think they will take me by surprise; but I have been preparing for this moment for months.
I have thought how I shall stand and what answer I shall give to every question I can imagine. I am not afraid of them.
I had hoped that the king would die in the first cold days of this autumn and I would wear mourning white at his funeral and not black at my trial; but now it has happened, I am ready, still far cleverer than my inquisitors.
They have been conferring and muddling themselves, torturing the accused to confess till they cannot tell innocents from the guilty, frightening themselves with imaginary demons, widening the net and accusing others, protesting their own innocence in a panic.
But I have been single-minded in my preparation.
I have no illusions: I know they are my enemies, and if they can get me before a court, then they have won the first round.
I can hear the quiet murmur of many determined men as I walk into St Stephen’s Chapel. I am completely unafraid.