The Tudor Bride (53 page)

‘There is a path between this field and the next,’ said the gate-mender, interpreting my nods. ‘It takes you up to the woods. You will have to find her though. She wanders hither and yonder up there.’

‘Does she make many cures?’ I asked on impulse.

He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘That is like asking if the king wears a crown. Ladies like you come to her from far and wide.’

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘If I knew that they would kill me. No, lady, I do not know them, just as I do not know you. Some of them wear more jewels than you though.’ His chuckle increased to a guffaw and he turned back to his task, the sound of his hammer indicating that, as far as he was concerned, the interview was over.

As we set our horses’ heads for the woods, I pondered his words, fascinated by the tolerance he obviously felt towards Margery and her ‘cures’. I wondered if his attitude was typical of the local people and whether they were all as tight-lipped about her customers. If they were, it meant she had won their respect – no easy task when the Church preached hellfire and damnation against anything resembling sorcery. Perhaps they did not see Margery’s activities as sinister in that way.

Like all woods close to habitation, the undergrowth had been well cleared for use as fuel and it was possible to ride easily between the trees but I kept a sharp eye for low branches and foxholes. I did not want a cracked skull and I did not want Genevieve to break a leg, either injury being almost certainly fatal to its recipient. My Genevieve was getting old now, but she still carried me stoutly and proudly. At least under the trees the rain was less penetrating and after a short search we found Margery Jourdemayne sitting on a log under a sheltering oak at the edge of a clearing, inspecting the contents of her basket.

‘I heard you as soon as you entered the wood,’ she called across the open space. ‘You would not make very good assailants.’ She had not looked up but continued to sort the results of her foraging.

‘That is because we mean you no harm, Mistress Jourdemayne,’ I replied, kicking my horse closer to her mossy seat.

This made her glance at us and by her frown she did not like what she saw. ‘Oh, it is you again. Did you heed my warning, Mistress Vintner? Were you careful? Well, you must have been or you would not be here.’ She put down her basket but otherwise did not move. ‘Did anyone see you come?’

‘Only an old man mending a gate.’

She made a deprecatory gesture. ‘Old Matt. He is my husband’s man. He will not tell anyone.’

I got down off Genevieve and handed the reins to my companion who remained in the saddle. ‘Would you mind taking the horses off somewhere, Walter?’ I requested apologetically. ‘I would like to speak with Mistress Jourdemayne alone.’

Walter obliged and the hem of my skirt soon became soaked as I trudged across the damp grass, grateful to be wearing long leather riding bottins. The log was big enough for two and I sat down. ‘Why do I need to be careful, Mistress Jourdemayne?’ I asked. ‘Me in particular?’

She turned her penetrating brown eyes to mine. ‘There are dark forces building against you,’ she said. ‘I have the sight.’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘That kind of jargon will not work on me. I am not a naïve young girl who wants her fortune read.’

‘What do you want then, Mistress?’

‘I want to help you escape the clutches of Eleanor Cobham, who calls herself the Duchess of Gloucester.’

It was Margery Jourdemayne’s turn to laugh. ‘Who says I am in her clutches? She is my customer, not I hers.’

‘That is not how I read it.’

‘Indeed? And how is that?’

‘She was your customer at first and you were flattered that she made you her friend but then the situation turned, did it not? First she sought love potions to snare Humphrey of Gloucester and then she asked you to help her become pregnant by him.’

Margery shrugged, but her eyes shifted about uncertainly. ‘There is nothing unusual in that. Many women ask me for help on that count. She was desperate – said it must be her fault because the duke already had two bastard children.’

‘Only two? You surprise me.’ I said it sarcastically but actually she did surprise me. I had never heard of any Gloucester by-blows. ‘He is lecherous enough to have fathered a dozen or more. Eleanor was desperate you say – but how desperate? Is it perhaps she who has begun to harness those dark forces you mentioned? I believe it was her you warned me against. Does she force you to conjure dark spirits? She knows that you have been bound over not to practice sorcery. One word from her to the council and you would be facing the flames.’

Margery’s face had gone the colour of the fungi in her basket, a pallid grey. ‘How do you know this?’

‘My husband is a lawyer with access to the council rolls. It is all down there in black and white. We could have reported you to the council at any time in the last six months, but we have not because I do not believe you practice the black arts. You use your skills to do good and many people have to thank you for your cures and potions. Not one of them would speak against you.’

I paused, watching her, waiting for her to realise that I was her friend. When she said nothing, I risked another question.

‘So what is Eleanor using you for, Margery? And, more importantly, what is she using the king’s caul for?’

She seemed to shrivel into herself. All her strength and bravado vanished and she looked at me like a cornered hind. Her voice became small and hesitant. ‘That is the thing. I do not know. At first her need was straightforward. She wanted a potion that would make her fertile. When that did not work, she demanded something more potent. I told her about image magic and I made her a wax doll. I explained how she could use it in various ways as a fertility symbol, employing certain items as catalysts for the spell. One of them was waste-matter from a birth. That was when she revealed that she knew King Henry had been born in the caul. She was there at the birth with the Duchess of Hainault and I do not know if she saw it or if she heard one of us talking about it, but she knew that the caul had magical powers and she wanted to use them, I thought for the fertility cure. I did not have the caul but I said I would get it for her if she paid well. I bought it off Bet Scorier and I sold it to the duchess.’

This much I had more or less guessed and I smiled at her encouragingly. ‘I hope you made a healthy profit on the transaction,’ I said.

The side of Margery’s mouth tilted slightly. ‘A few crowns. Bet was happy and so was I – at the time.’

‘And now? What has changed?’

My question hung in the air and it was many seconds before she answered it.

‘The duchess has now asked me to make a larger wax doll and bring it to Greenwich. She wants me to take part in a ceremony there with others who she says are “of a like mind”.’ There was panic in Margery Jourdemayne’s eyes when she looked at me then. ‘What does that mean – “of a like mind”? Are they going to hold a Black Sabbath? Is she desperate enough to summon Beelzebub?’ A shudder ran through her. ‘I do not like it and I do not want to be part of such a ritual.’

I was equally appalled, unable to believe that Eleanor might have sunk to such depths. Surely she did not believe it was worth sacrificing her soul to the devil merely in order to conceive a child?

Then my thoughts took a sudden and more sinister turn. ‘Tell me, when did the duchess make her request?’

Margery’s brow creased in concentration. ‘It was not long ago; two, maybe three weeks.’

I counted back in my head. John of Bedford had died on the fourteenth of September. Eleanor must surely have heard about his death when she asked Margery for the new doll – after she knew that Humphrey of Gloucester was now heir to the throne. Was it just a child she wanted – or was it also a crown?

I stood up and brushed bark and moss from my skirt. ‘Well, there is no longer any point in my pursuing the king’s caul,’ I said. ‘Not if Eleanor of Gloucester has it. Why do you not send someone else to Greenwich with the doll, Mistress Jourdemayne? If you do not take it yourself, you cannot become involved in any sinister ritual.’

Margery rose to face me, shaking her head. ‘No, I must take it myself because I need to remain friends with my lady Eleanor. Otherwise she will become my enemy and that would be fatal.’

I inclined my head and sighed. ‘I understand your dilemma and you have my sympathy. I am glad we have had this conversation. Please let me know if I can ever be of help to you. I live in the city, at the House of the Vines in Tun Lane, down near the Vintry. Will you remember that?’

A smile briefly lit her weather-worn face. ‘I will remember. But it is not wise to befriend a wise woman, Madame. I am afraid that if I was ever to need your help, it would not be wise to give it to me. But thank you for the offer. I will remember that too.’

When, later that day, I described this encounter to Geoffrey, it brought a worried frown to his brow.

‘She is right, Mette,’ he said. ‘Anyone known to be a friend of hers risks the taint of witchcraft, however innocent they may be. That is the price she pays for the way she makes a living.’

‘Then why does she do it? Why does her husband allow her to continue doing it?’

He laughed then. ‘Whatever the law may say about husbands having rule over their wives, you may have noticed that often this is not the case.’

I bridled. ‘Whoever can you mean, Geoffrey?’

‘Well, I’ll name no names. But has it occurred to you that Mistress Jourdemayne’s line of work probably pays quite handsomely? Perhaps her husband likes the money it brings in. He certainly seems to have been able to raise the twenty pound surety that was paid for her freedom after that previous misdemeanour and that is no mean sum for a yeoman cattle-trader.’

‘I take your point, but how would he feel if his wife went to the stake for being involved in real sorcery, however unwillingly?’

Geoffrey shrugged and he raised a sly eyebrow. ‘Not all husbands are as honourable as yours, Mistress Vintner. He would probably take another wife within half a year.’

‘Whereas you would wait all of eighteen months I suppose?’ I retorted.

‘Oh, I think a twelvemonth would be quite enough.’ He dodged the cushion I threw at him and assumed a more serious demeanour. ‘On the subject of marriage, you know that Eleanor’s has yet to be licensed by the council and unless it is she would not be recognised as his queen should Humphrey ever take the throne, whether by fair means or foul.’

‘No, I did not know that. But I imagine Eleanor thinks that now Humphrey is heir to the throne he will be able to force the licence through the council, especially if she becomes pregnant.’

‘Until such a time though, would it be worth selling her soul to the devil as you suggest she might?’

I felt my heavy heart lighten a little. ‘Probably not,’ I conceded. ‘And there is little to be done about it anyway, so let us turn our attention to the Abbess of Barking. Please tell me that you have found nothing sinister about her.’

I
n his capacity as Catherine’s treasurer, Geoffrey had requested a meeting with Bishop Fitzhugh of London, on the pretext of discussing Catherine’s continued residence at Hadham and paying another year’s dues for use of the manor hall, produce and bondsmen. In the course of this meeting the subject of Barking Abbey was raised as a possible place of religious retreat for Catherine in the future and the bishop spoke with great enthusiasm about Abbess de la Pole and her firm but compassionate rule over the community of nuns and tertiaries and the various royal wards and hostages who were sent there for safe-keeping.

‘To be honest, Mette,’ Geoffrey told me, ‘it sounds like the abbess has a demanding job which she performs with notable skill and sensitivity. The Tudor boys would not be alone there because the abbey houses and educates several heirs who are too young to administer their estates and whom the crown has not placed in ward with other noble families. The bishop says they even employ a Master at Arms to provide military training for these young nobles. The abbess understands the importance of preparing them for their future roles, as well as bringing them up in the fear of God. If Queen Catherine should need to go there herself, as a tertiary she would have her own apartment and would follow the rule of St Benedict.’

‘I do not suppose she will ever go back there now, but Catherine was made a tertiary of the abbey of Poissy,’ I informed him. ‘She was sent there as a punishment by her mother for daring to contest the way the government of France was being handled by Duke Jean the Fearless of Burgundy.’

‘Is that so?’ Geoffrey cocked his eyebrow in surprise. ‘She has a record of rocking the boat then, your Queen Catherine?’

‘I will tell her you said that.’

He raised his hand in a placatory gesture. ‘Please do not. I am sure she had every reason to criticise Burgundy,’ he said. ‘Jean the Fearless was a man on the make, particularly where the French exchequer was concerned.’

‘A monster on the make, I would say.’ I had never told Geoffrey anything of what Catherine had suffered at the hands of the present Duke of Burgundy’s father. In fact I had never told anyone, and I do not believe Catherine had either, not even Owen. Those sufferings were in another time and another country; our lives were very different now. ‘Barking Abbey sounds very like Poissy and its abbess sounds very like Catherine’s sister Marie, who is in charge there.’

‘So on that basis you think we can recommend it to her? Given that it will only be a refuge should the need arise.’

‘Well, it will be a refuge for Edmund and Jasper, and possibly for Catherine herself. Nothing was said about little girls being accepted as wards there.’

‘A girl does not have the same political significance as her brothers,’ said Geoffrey. ‘The queen may hope to keep Margaret with her.’

I silently prayed that this may come to pass, but in the long term I could see many hazards threatening such a happy outcome.

On his saint’s day, November the twentieth, Catherine took Edmund to the church in order to light a candle to the martyred Anglo-Saxon king. Although its patron was St Andrew, Hadham’s beautiful church contained a small chapel dedicated to St Edmund and often visited by pilgrims travelling to his shrine only fifty miles further north. The chapel boasted a relic which fascinated the boy – one of the arrows which had pierced the saint’s flesh when he had been martyred by the Viking heathens who had invaded East Anglia five hundred years before. It was kept in a carved and gilded glass-topped box and exhibited on the saint’s holy day, always an attraction to the villagers who saw St Edmund as a stalwart defender of England’s shores. I had accompanied Catherine and her son on this minor pilgrimage and taken William with me, as he seldom liked to be separated from his friend.