The Tudor Bride (51 page)

Dark clouds hung low overhead and the porch of St Stephen’s chapel was full of shadows as we shook the moisture off our outer clothes. With her hood pushed back, Margery could be clearly seen as the shrewd countrywoman she was; deep, intelligent eyes, cheeks laced with broken veins and skin weathered and lined. Although I knew her to be younger than Catherine, she looked ten years older. Not wishing Walter to hear our conversation, I drew her aside to sit on the stone bench along the wall. Prudently he kept us in view, though out of earshot, hovering in the doorway that led into the chapel.

I began cautiously. ‘I could not help noticing that you were speaking with the Duchess of Gloucester. I remember encountering you together in the herb garden at Windsor after the last king’s death. Are you still helping her with herbal cures?’

Margery’s expression grew wary. ‘Ye-es,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But I am well known to many court ladies who come to me for cures and potions. My home is not far from Westminster.’

‘Are you no longer a midwife?’

Her harsh laugh, more like a bark, startled me. ‘I am a little of everything, Mistress Vintner,’ she answered. ‘Midwife, herbalist, healer – some people call me a wise woman or even a sorceress, but they all come to me when in need. Some want to get a baby, others to get rid of one. Some want love potions, others beauty lotions, and some want their fortunes told. I can do it all.’ She leaned forward until her shadowed face was close to mine, eyes glittering. ‘What do you want, Mistress?’

Her breath was sour, but if she sought to frighten me she did not succeed. I remembered her as a girl and I knew that although she was trying to disguise it, at heart she was kind. I smiled benignly at her and shook my head. ‘Nothing like that, Mistress Jourdemayne. I want some information, if you will be so kind.’

That appeared to shock her. Even in the gloom I could see that her cheeks had paled under their sun-browned surface. ‘About what?’ she demanded sharply. ‘I never discuss my customers. Everything I do is confidential, otherwise no one would consult me.’

I held up my hands to placate her. ‘This does not concern your customers – at least not present ones. It is merely for my own interest. I want to know what became of the king’s caul? Do you know?’

She pretended not to understand me. ‘The king’s caul? I have no idea what you mean.’

I held her gaze, my expression, I hoped, firm. Despite the intervening years I had not forgotten the midwife’s warning that we should never mention the king’s birth ‘in the Veil’ or its mysterious disappearance afterwards. ‘I am sure you remember, Margery. Mistress Scorier slit the caul and the veil slipped away from the baby’s face. The king breathed and we all sighed with relief. It was a tense moment. I have since learned that such cauls are believed to hold magic powers and can be very valuable, so did you keep it or did Mistress Scorier?’

I could see fear flicker in her eyes just before she dropped her gaze and whispered. ‘I was the apprentice. It is the midwife’s responsibility to take the afterbirth and burn it.’

‘But did she?’ I persisted. ‘Or did it travel from Windsor to your village? It is called Eye, as I remember – well-named, I think, for a woman with the sight. A caul must be useful in some magic spells.’

Abruptly she stood up, having gathered her forces. ‘I told you, I do not know what you mean and I advise you not to ask any further questions on this subject, Mistress Vintner – of anyone.’

I rose to confront her. ‘Of the Duchess of Gloucester for instance?’

Her eyes flashed and she glanced about to check for listeners. ‘This has nothing to do with the Duchess of Gloucester, do you understand. Nothing!’

‘Are you sure? Does the caul have power to aid conception, perhaps? And does the duchess not long to give her lord an heir?’

With an angry hiss Margery Jourdemayne turned her back. ‘Shh! No – more – questions. Good morrow, Mistress!’ She flicked her hood over her head and strode towards the exit, flinging one parting shot over her shoulder. ‘Be careful. I warn you, be very careful!’ The church door slammed.

Walter wandered over from his watchful stance at the inner door. ‘She left rather suddenly,’ he remarked. ‘Is everything all right, Mette?’

‘I am not sure,’ I rubbed my nose thoughtfully. I had wondered if pieces of the caul might have been sold as fertility aids, but now I suspected there was more to it than that. ‘Walter, please run out and see which way she goes – towards the palace or away?’

He was back in seconds. ‘She went back to the palace and she was in a great hurry. What did you say to her?’

‘It is not so much what I said, as how she took it,’ I replied enigmatically. ‘I think I have rattled a cage.’

That evening, as we sat beside the hall fire after our meal, I described the meeting to Geoffrey. Usually I took the opportunity of mending my husband’s chemises and the household linen as we talked over the day’s events, but on this occasion my mind was otherwise occupied.

‘I must admit I had not expected her to be so agitated by my enquiries,’ I added, when I had concluded my tale. ‘I am beginning to suspect Margery Jourdemayne of dabbling too deeply in spells and I have a bad feeling about Eleanor of Gloucester’s use of her services. The caul has a direct connection to Catherine as well as the king and Eleanor has no love for her.’

Geoffrey stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Margery Jourdemayne,’ he murmured. ‘For some reason that name rings a bell. I can check tomorrow, but I think there was a case before the council of regency a few years ago concerning charges of witchcraft and a plot against the king. It was a serious case and some of those found guilty were hanged, but some were given prison sentences and I think Mistress Jourdemayne may have been one of them.’

‘A plot against the king,’ I echoed, my stomach lurching unpleasantly. ‘What kind of plot?’

‘Something about foretelling the king’s death, as far as I remember. One of the men accused was an astrologer and one woman – Mistress Jourdemayne if it was her – was charged with something called “image magic”. That is when a wax figure is made of a person, either to do them harm or to read their future.’ Geoffrey frowned deeply and scratched his head. ‘But I may not remember it right. I will take a look at the Council Rolls tomorrow if I can.’

‘Well I hope you can,
mon amour
, because if it was indeed Mistress Jourdemayne, I do not like the way my thoughts are turning. Why would she have suddenly decided to return to the palace after speaking to me, when prior to that she had clearly completed her business there and was heading home – unless it was to warn someone that I was asking awkward questions about the king’s caul?’ I leaned forward to engage his full attention and continued earnestly, ‘Tell me exactly what this “image magic” involves. Does this wax figure need to contain something from the person it is supposed to represent? Some hair, for instance, or some nail parings? Or a piece of the person’s birth sac – the caul?’ I gave this last example added significance by lowering my voice and more or less whispering it.

Geoffrey stared at me, his mouth half open. ‘Exactly what are you implying, Mette?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘No, I do not want to voice my suspicions until you can confirm the identity of the woman accused of plotting against the king. Until then let us talk of something else. What fraud or felony did you defend in court today?’

The following morning I walked down to Mildy’s riverside house and spent a few delightful hours talking of births and babies and holding little two-month-old Gilbert in my arms. Our conversation would have bored any man to death, but it kept two mothers chattering away busily, swapping cures and theories on everything from the merits and demerits of swaddling to the significance of cradle cap. The house Hugh Vintner had bought for Mildy overlooked the Vintry Quay where barges laden with the huge barrels called tuns manoeuvred in and out of the docks, and were loaded and unloaded at what seemed to me an extraordinary rate. From every window in the house there was a view of masts and cranes and heavy tuns swinging alarmingly at the end of ropes and our constant companions were the shouts of dockers and the heady smell of wine. On the dock itself carts lined up at the warehouse doors to carry away loads of the smaller casks and hogsheads into which the contents of the giant tuns had been transferred.

When I arrived home Geoffrey was waiting for me and he wore an expression I did not like. ‘We must talk now, Mette,’ he said. ‘I have had Jem light the fire in my library.’

I shed my pattens and fur-lined mantle and made my way to the private chamber at the back of the hall where Geoffrey kept his precious collection of books. They were stored flat on strong, purpose-built shelves; law books, almanacs and some treasured volumes of poetry and scholarship, bound in cloth-covered wooden board and clasped with pewter or silver – about two dozen in all. When I was at Hadham I knew that his books were his chosen companions when he was not working. There was an impressive lock on the library door, to which he held the only key and he used it now to lock us in.

Two chairs had been placed by the fire and as soon as I sat down he passed me a sheet of paper covered in writing in his own neat hand. ‘This is a copy I made of the judgement. I found the account of the council hearing; it was in 1430 and the accused was Margery Jourdemayne. You will see she was sentenced to imprisonment at the king’s pleasure – or in this case the regency council’s. She could have been sentenced to burn but instead she spent only a year and a half incarcerated at Windsor Castle. It seems a light sentence. She was either lucky or well connected.’

I ran my eyes over the carefully copied tract looking for the words ‘plotting the king’s death’, but I could find nothing. ‘I do not see any charge tantamount to treason here,’ I said. ‘What was her offence?’

Geoffrey shook his head. ‘It is not specified, but in the same roll there is the account of a trial of seven women accused of plotting the king’s death by witchcraft and they were sent to the Fleet prison. Their names are not given, but it seems likely that she was implicated with them in some way. I do not know why she was sent to Windsor, which is certainly preferable to the Fleet. The important fact is that when she was released her husband paid a surety of twenty pounds that she would abstain from all sorcery in the future. If she is still performing spells and magic for the likes of the Duchess of Gloucester, your questions would have put the fear of God into her. If she were to be charged with sorcery a second time she would be unlikely to escape the flames.’

I shook my head in bewilderment. ‘I am not surprised that Margery is involved in magic cures for she clearly has acquired skills that are much in demand, but I would be amazed if she was plotting against the king. After all she was one of the people who helped him into the world.’

Geoffrey considered my argument. ‘But Eleanor Cobham, our duchess of Gloucester, may have discovered more sinister uses for Mistress Jourdayne’s skills. Her star is rising at court and she is now regularly to be seen in the company of the king. If she believes that magic is helping her to achieve her goals then she will not want nosy members of Queen Catherine’s household asking impertinent questions. I fear that you may have stirred a hornet’s nest, sweetheart.’ Geoffrey leaned over and took back the paper. ‘I will keep this safe,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘If you are found with it you could also be suspected of being involved in sorcery.

‘What do you think I should do?’ I asked my husband.

‘I think you should go back to Hadham and lie low. If there is sorcery afoot, you certainly do not want to be implicated and nor do you want Eleanor to turn the Gloucester lantern beam onto you and thus discover the Tudor family. Loath though I am to see you go, I think you should leave tomorrow.’

S
ix months later, Alys, Cat and I were taking advantage of some early October sunshine to gather herbs for simples in the riverside garden at Hadham. On a spread blanket, little Margaret was contentedly burbling nonsense to her wooden doll as she rocked the miniature cradle which Owen had fashioned as a present for her third birthday. The three boys, now six and five respectively, were loudly playing a game of sheriffs and outlaws on the island with Jasper as the undaunted sheriff upon whom blunt arrows and cat-calls were raining down from the two older boys hiding in the bushes.

The clang of the bell from the watch-tower silenced the boys and in seconds they had broken cover and were racing over the bridge to go and see who was approaching the gatehouse. Alys and I and the girls followed more sedately, gathering up the baskets, toys and blanket and letting Margaret toddle industriously along, holding my hand, as we made our way to the sally gate in the curtain wall. By the time we had crossed the bailey and entered the courtyard, the visitor had dismounted. By the bollard badge on his livery I knew him to be the Earl of Suffolk’s herald, presumably with a message for Catherine.

She had not emerged from the house, but Owen had arrived from somewhere and now introduced himself and offered to take the visitor in to see her. I told the children to stay with Alys, handed over my basket and followed Owen and the herald inside. In Catherine’s chamber Agnes was helping her to change into a formal gown and I took a veil from a chest to fix over her hair.

‘Where are the children, Mette?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I trust Suffolk has not told his herald about them!’

‘They are all with Alys, Mademoiselle. He will have seen them, but he will not know whose they are.’ I began pinning the veil in place.

‘I wonder what news he brings,’ she fretted. ‘It must be something important for Suffolk to send his king of arms. I do not have a good feeling about this.’

By the time we three reached the hall, Owen had acquired refreshments and a servant was pouring wine into cups. Both men bowed low as Catherine entered and walked to her canopied chair, which always stood opposite the fireplace against just such an occasion. Owen stood back as the herald bent his knee before her. Appearances were being scrupulously preserved.