Виктория Холт - Epitaph for Three Women

They both knew that it was not for this that Eleanor had come. But naturally the Duchess did not want even her intimate friends and attendants to know the real reason. They were enough in her confidence to know that she visited the Witch of Eye, for Eleanor could not very easily have come alone. However that was as far as they should be in the secret.

Eleanor said: ‘Margery, what happened at Windsor?’

‘I was arrested you know with Friar Ashewell and the clerk John Virley and we were all charged with sorcery.’

‘And you were released.’

Margery smiled slyly. ‘’Twas a surprise to all in Eye I can tell you when I came back. They were all set for Smithfield to see me in smoke.’

‘Don’t talk so, Margery.’

‘Oh my lady, ’twas truth. But I had good friends … and to my amaze as well as others, I was set free.’

‘And came straight back and continued to sell your love potions.’

‘There’s no harm in them. They be good … as you yourself have reason to know. It was like being tickled with ten thousand feathers when I heard you’d married the Duke. I said, “Ah, reckon she owes something of that to old Margery.” Though mind you you’re one of them ladies as a man finds hard to escape from once she makes up her mind she wants him. ’Tis good to see you so riz in the world.’

Old Margery had a respectful manner of speaking which nevertheless contained a reminder of Eleanor’s spectacular ascent in the world. The old woman was telling her she remembered young Eleanor Cobham coming to her for a love potion or some aid to beauty, when she was no more than a woman of small consequence and thought herself so lucky to get the task of lady-in-waiting to Jacqueline who was then the Duchess of Gloucester.

Margery remembered well the elation of the lady when she became the Duke’s mistress and how they had put their heads together and tried to work out a way of making her his wife.

Fate had favoured them with the wars in Holland and foreign parts but when the moment came, with Margery’s help, Eleanor was ready – and Margery hoped the proud Duchess would not forget it.

‘And the Duke is as loving as he ever was?’ asked Margery wondering why Eleanor had now come back to her. After all it needed a little courage – not that Eleanor had ever been short of that – for Margery had been accused of sorcery once and had escaped by the skin of her teeth. There was no saying that she would not be taken again – in fact it was very likely. It would not look well for a high and mighty lady like the Duchess of Gloucester to have had traffic with her. So the inference was that Eleanor must want something rather badly to have come in person to the Witch of Eye.

‘Yes,’ answered Eleanor, ‘as loving as ever and I know how to keep him so.’

Margery nodded slowly. ‘Then …’ she began.

Eleanor burst in: ‘We have no child. It seems strange, Margery … that all this time …’

Margery nodded. ‘It is sometimes so … Nature be a very odd critter.’

‘I want you to make me fertile. I want a child.’

Margery nodded sagely. ‘It is not easy,’ she said.

‘Not easy! I thought you could do these things.’

‘I can be of help. But lady, there’s others in it. There’s nature and there’s the man.’

‘What do you mean, the man?’

‘The Duke’s first Duchess had no children.’

‘He was hardly ever with her. She didn’t appeal to him. I can assure you it is different with us. Besides there have been children of his – outside marriage.’

‘I can use my art … and if it be possible you will get your child … But you must remember … there be other elements in this … elements such as my kind can have no hold on.’

‘You said you could help me to marriage.’

‘Aye … and so I did. I gave you special unguents and lotions as few men can resist. But you was no night crow. You was a beautiful little singing bird. ’Twas part you, part me. There was only the two of us in it.’

‘There was Humphrey.’

‘And he could have stood out against it. But he was already half way there, now wasn’t he?’

‘Well, are you telling me I need not have come?’

‘Indeed no, my lady, we can do all we can … and it’ll be a help.’

She took a piece of wax from a cupboard and putting it in a pan held it over the fire. When it was melted she took it off and left it to cool for a few minutes. Then skilfully she formed it into the shape of a child.

‘There,’ she said. ‘There is our baby. We will cherish him. We will tell him not to be so shy.’ She held up the figure and breathed on it. ‘I breathe life into you, little child. Awake. You are wanted in this world. There, Duchess.’ She held the figure out to Eleanor. ‘Hold him tenderly. Kiss him. I will keep him here for nine months and whisper to him every day. At the end of that time if you have not conceived I will give him to you and you shall keep him and cherish him and assure him that he will be very welcome if he would but come.’

‘Thank you, Margery,’ said Eleanor, and she put a purse on the table.

Margery’s eyes glinted as she looked at it. Wise witches managed to snare the noble in their nets. It was from them that the money came and help often in difficulties. A woman could just about live on the charms and love philtres she sold to humble folk but for the real prizes go to the gentry; and glory be, they were just as ready to consult the witch as the humbler folk.

‘I’ll give you the skin lotion, my lady, and a little something to slip in the Duke’s wine … just to keep him merry and loving.’

Eleanor nodded, took the bottles, slipped them into the pocket of her gown and went to rejoin her attendant in the room above.

QUEEN KATHERINE awoke every morning to a sense of excitement. She would stretch out her hand to make sure that Owen was still beside her. He laughed at the habit. His hand would curl about hers and they would both remember to be grateful for what life had given them.

‘Still here, little Queen?’ he would say.

‘I shall never be so accustomed to being happy that I forget it could pass.’

‘Why should it?’ asked Owen.

‘Because … Oh, but you do not need me to say. You know that we live here … in secret …’

‘Secret … when at any moment your servants will come in and see us here together?’

‘Our servants … Owen.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you are the Queen. I am your squire.’

‘You are my husband.’

Owen was silent. Would they recognise him as such? Would they say that a marriage conducted in a garret was no true marriage for a Queen?

No. They would not care. They did not want to think of Katherine. Men like Bedford and Gloucester were so concerned with their own ambitions that they would not think the Queen a danger to them and therefore what would it matter to them that she had taken a Welsh squire for a husband. Let her beget children … they would call them bastards if they wished.

Bastards! Little Edmund, baby Jasper. Oh no, they were born in as holy a wedlock as the King himself.

He turned to Katherine and kissed her gently.

‘Let us be happy,’ he said. ‘We have had much to be thankful for and shall continue to enjoy it.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let us do that. It is what I want.’

Then she talked of the cleverness of Edmund. He was already babbling away … nonsense mostly but there were words here and there. And baby Jasper was going to be as bright.

She loved her babies and all she wanted was to be allowed to live in obscurity with her family. Surely that was not asking too much?

So they talked of domestic matters and a servant came in to bring them wine with salted fish and bread which they would eat before rising.

Katherine was merry. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. Owen was beside her. When they had eaten and dressed they would go to the nursery and see the children. It was a lovely way of starting the morning.

But the next day she would awaken with the uneasiness upon her.

It was due to her strange childhood, Owen told her. Then she had not known from one day to the next what would happen to her. Awakening at Hadham was quite different from awakening in the Hôtel de St Pol. There she was governed by the madness of her poor father and the harsh rule of her rapacious mother. Here in Hadham she was the Queen, though living in obscurity; and she had her children to care for and a devoted husband to protect her.

‘You are right, dear husband,’ she said. ‘Each day I thank God for you. Do you remember our first meeting …’

Then she was happy again, recalling how they had tentatively approached each other, knowing in their hearts what joy they had brought one to the other, until that day when dancing he fell into her lap …

‘Let us thank God for what He has given us,’ she said.

‘And show our trust in Him by accepting that it will last all our lives,’ added Owen.

‘Amen,’ she murmured.

It was only to be expected that Henry should visit his mother, even though he had been taken out of her care. Messages arrived at Hadham to announce the fact that the King was on his way.

This threw the household into a panic, not because of the King himself but all who would come with him. It was hardly to be expected that Henry would travel without a considerable entourage. After all he was not the boy Katherine had handed over to Warwick. He was growing up. He had been crowned King not only of England but of France.

As a mother Katherine longed to see her son, but as the wife of Owen Tudor she was afraid of what his visit might mean.