Виктория Холт - Epitaph for Three Women

But Henry young as he was knew that his uncle would continue to hate the Cardinal and try to harm him; and the Cardinal would always be Humphrey’s enemy.

* * *

As the Court was at Westminster for the session of the Parliament, it was easy for Eleanor to go on a little errand which had long been in her mind. Divesting herself of her jewels and her fine velvet robe, she put on the clothes of a merchant’s wife and with one of her attendants likewise clad she slipped out into the streets and the pair mingled with the crowd.

They made their way in silence to an inn in one of the narrow streets. The innkeeper came out, his eyes lighting up at the sight of Eleanor, and he was about to bow obsequiously when a look from her restrained him.

‘The horses?’ she said.

‘Ready and waiting …’ he answered promptly.

She nodded and with her attendant went out with the innkeeper to the innyard where two horses were already saddled. The innkeeper helped Eleanor to mount and did the same for her attendant. Then the two women rode together out of the yard.

It was not very far to the Manor of Eye-next-Westminster and having reached the little hamlet they went to an inn to leave their horses. They were received there with the same respect.

Although these precautions irritated Eleanor at the same time she was elated by them. An intriguer by nature she enjoyed the thrill of mystery. She wanted no one to know of her visits to Margery – not even Humphrey. Eleanor had great faith in Margery, and she had suffered a certain shock not so long ago when Margery had been sent to Windsor, suspected of sorcery.

Trust Margery to extricate herself from that, but even she could hardly hope to do so again if another charge was brought against her and it would not be advisable for the Duchess of Gloucester to be connected with her.

They came to the house; it was small, in a row of such houses, but there was something exciting about it because it was the home of Margery Jourdemayne, the Witch of Eye.

Eleanor rapped imperiously on the door. It was opened cautiously and there was Margery herself, her eyes bright with welcome.

‘Come in, my lady. It warms the cockles of my heart to see you again.’

‘Ah Margery, let me look at you. The same as ever. You don’t seem to have suffered much from your ordeal.’

‘That’s nigh on three years back, my lady. And right glad I am to see you … and to learn by hearsay that our little tricks worked. My lady Duchess now … no less. A very great lady … one of the finest in the land, they tell me. But what do we here? Come in, my lady … and you too, my lady. There’s always a welcome for you at old Margery’s fireside.’

They were in a small room very sparsely furnished with a table, two chairs and a few stools. This was where Margery received her clients and it was scarcely different from other rooms in houses of its kind.

‘Pray be seated,’ she said and offered a chair to the Duchess. Margery herself sat on the other. The Duchess’s attendant was given a stool.

‘And what did you wish from me, my lady?’

‘I believe you have a good complexion milk, Margery. You supplied it to me in the past. I miss it.’

‘I know the one, my lady, my own special brew. ’Tis made from … Ah, but I must not give away my secrets. ’Tis more than the herbs that goes into it. It’s the wisdom and blessings of wise women culled over the years and passed down to their own.’

‘It softened my skin and made it like velvet,’ said the Duchess. ‘Margery, take me to your workroom a while. I would select my own pot.’

‘Assuredly, my lady.’

A covert understanding had passed between Margery and Eleanor. It meant they were to be alone.

The attendant rose and Margery said: ‘Nay, my dear. You will stay here.’

It was an order. Eleanor turned to her attendant and shrugged her shoulders as though to say: We must humour the old woman, and then she followed Margery through a door which was firmly shut behind them.

‘You know the way, my lady,’ she said with a little laugh.

Eleanor nodded and Margery led the way down a flight of steps. With a key which hung about her waist Margery opened a door. They were in a kind of cellar with a barred window high in the wall through which a faint light came. From the beams hung herbs of many kinds all in the process of drying. There was a fire burning and on this stood a cauldron from which steam rose and the air was filled with the pungent smell of whatever was simmering. Eleanor recognised the appliances on a long bench which could be used for cutting, slicing, pounding and such like operations for she had seen it on previous visits.

‘My lady’s complexion milk. I have but to decant it,’ said Margery. ‘I made this for you before I went to Windsor. That’s three years ago but it is of such fine stuff that it will last forever.’

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?