Westminster Palace, Spring 1442
Westminster Palace, Spring
AT THE END of January, there is a terrible storm: thunder, lightning, and gales that tear down trees, even those shel-tered in the courtyards of Westminster Palace.
All night I can hear the howling of the wind around the chimneys and turrets and, sometimes, a sharp crack and clatter as a line of slates is ripped from the roof to rain down into the courtyard below.
The winds howl through the belfries, and bats stream out into the dark air as the bells strain against their ropes, and their eerie humming sounds through the storm.
At daybreak, the sky is still riven with tearing clouds, and people make their way through the wrecked streets, bent against the gale.
They are all saying that it is a witch’s wind and I have called up a storm so that I cannot be driven from London by road nor river.
But a new guard of men-at-arms in Stanley livery comes to my door, and the officer at their head stands in the doorway, without bowing. He says: ‘Are you ready?’
‘Nobody said I was going anywhere. We can’t go anywhere in this.’
He does not even argue; he just opens the door wider, and the woman who has served me in sullen silence hands me a cape.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask sharply.
He gestures to the stairs that spiral down to the courtyard door. The wind is rushing through the arrow slits.
‘I have done my penance, I am forgiven,’ I tell him.
‘This is your release,’ he replies and gestures that I must lead the way downstairs.
I hold the cloak around me and descend. I feel the wind in my face, swirling up from the open door below, buffeting through every arrow slit.
In the courtyard below, the horses are restless, a wintry gale swirling around the corners, picking up dead leaves and straw, blowing grit into my face.
I pull my hood over my head and feel the wind tug at my cloak.
‘I can’t ride in this weather,’ I say, as they bring a horse to the mounting block and push me upwards and into the saddle.
He pays no attention to me. This is what it is to be a common woman – I had forgotten. A common woman does not speak, and if she does, nobody listens.
Nobody listens to me at all as we ride first to Watford, where we stop for the night and I sleep in the little guest chamber at the poor rectory of St Albans Abbey.
I, a sworn member of the confraternity of the Priory, their honoured patron, cannot go on to the abbey and greater comfort.
Abbot Wheathampstead does not invite me. It is as if no one wants me.
IT IS TRUE : nobody wants me. I am shuttled, an unwanted guest, from Leeds Castle to Kenilworth to Chester, a house guest who overstays her welcome, a prisoner who cannot leave.
One year goes by and then another but no baby grows in my belly.
I think the devil will not quicken him while I am imprisoned.
He is the child of a fallen angel; he should not be born into humble surroundings.
There will be no manger in a stable for this dark god, he is born to be an earthly king.
I will birth him when I can lay him in a royal cradle.
I shall have to go on waiting for him; I may have to wait for years.