Succession (20 page)

It was over. She was a wife now, fully, and a child no longer.

She looked at Edmund, who was falling asleep, strands of light brown hair across his face.

It had really happened. He was her husband. She touched his hair, moving it from his face, his beautiful face, and a feeling overcame her then, a feeling she had never known before, welling from her stomach: a deep, shining joy.

She loved him, she loved him absolutely: the planes and shadows of his face, the ridges of his sternum, the slope of his hip, the fine hair on his chest, the pale stalk between his legs in its nest of hair.

She spent more time with him now, walking with him in the gardens, sharing his rooms. He was more inclined to talk to her, and to listen to what she had to say. Subtly, but distinctly, her status within the household had changed.

Betsy had taken to calling her ‘My lady’
.
Even the servants seemed to know.

And Margaret was proud; she had never been so proud, of her altered status, her tall, handsome husband. She wanted to be with him all the time.

But in early May he was called away again, to subdue the Welsh rebel, Gruffydd ap Nicholas, who had encroached on lands belonging to the Marcher lords. He had taken control of several castles: Conway, Cardigan, Kidwelly, Aberystwyth, the great and almost impregnable fortress of Carreg Cennen, and then the northern fortress of Carmarthen. So Edmund had to go to Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire where Gruffydd’s two sons, Thomas and Owain, were stirring up the people to rebellion.

‘But when will you come back?’ she said, before she could stop herself, and then she had to watch his face closing again, becoming cold and still.

She watched him leaving her, his colours bright in the May sunshine, and wept like a child in Betsy’s arms. At the last moment he turned and lifted a hand towards her, and she could feel rather than see his flashing smile. And together they watched him leave, the dust rising from the horses’ hooves, the company of men at first solid and then, in the heat shimmer, insubstantial and unreal.

Soon she heard that he was ‘greatly at war’ with Gruffydd ap Nicholas, and might not be back for some time. Margaret and her nurse returned to Lamphey.

Later that month, around the time of her thirteenth birthday, she noticed that her breasts were finally beginning to bud and swell. The trees were bowed with thick white blossom and from a distance they looked like giant sheep. Fat bumblebees probed into flowers and each morning the sky was pristine. When Edmund returned she would finally have breasts, like ripe plums.

They were tender, especially at night, but she rejoiced in this tenderness, prodding them surreptitiously throughout the day. They didn’t seem to be growing very fast, but they were increasingly painful.

On the morning of her birthday, she asked her nurse, ‘Do – female parts – hurt before they grow?’

She indicated with her hands, and Betsy looked at her.

‘Sometimes they do,’ she said. Then she said, ‘Sometimes they hurt before your monthly courses.’

She had never started her monthly courses. So her nurse explained that the womb was like a holy chalice that weeps if disappointed of the seed. And at the expression on Margaret’s face, she said, ‘It means you are becoming a woman, my sweet.’

Margaret said nothing to this, but hugged the information privately to herself. She was becoming a woman. She would be a woman when Edmund returned.

There was no bleeding, and she was grateful for this. But over the next few days she wondered, did breasts make you feel sick as well, when they started to grow? Because she could no longer stand the thought of food in the morning, Betsy sighed and clucked over her as she sent her breakfast back.

Then one morning she was actually sick, into her chamber pot, and her nurse hurried to empty it.

‘Why are they so much trouble, growing?’ she fretted aloud.

Her nurse said nothing, but when she was sick again the next morning, Betsy wiped her face, then clasped it between her hands.

‘Oh, my precious,’ she said, with a catch in her voice. ‘Praise be to God. Bless you, my angel, my sweetest child,’ and she hugged her hard.

‘What?’ said Margaret, squirming uncomfortably, and already feeling sick again. ‘What is it?’

And that was how she learned she was with child.

‘You must eat,’ Betsy said to her, over and again. For Margaret was fasting once more. Her lips had taken on a bluish tinge, and the flesh of them was dry and cracked.

‘You think he will want to kiss them when he comes back?’ Betsy said. But this time her rejection of food had less to do with prayer than with the fierce nausea that gripped her during the early weeks of pregnancy.

She woke each morning with a tremulous consciousness:
what if she should fail, what if she should fail?
Women did fail their babies, she knew. Her own mother, after hearing of the death of her father, had miscarried a son.

‘It will be safe soon,’ her nurse said. But Margaret did not know if she would ever feel safe again. She would never forgive herself if something she did made her lose this baby. Already in her mind it was a boy, and looked like Edmund.

When Edmund returned, she would say to him, ‘I hope you will be back this winter – I would not like you to miss the birth of your son.’

Between fits of nausea she tried to eat, for the baby, but often the mere thought of food made her feel ill. Betsy resorted to her old bullying tactics. She instructed all the servants to watch the Lady Margaret, because her own eyes were failing, and she understood that she was being cheated over the question of food. She sat with her at every meal and refused to leave until Margaret had been persuaded to eat a little watered-down pottage. And Margaret accepted this mainly because she was too weak to remain kneeling for long when she prayed, then too weak to rise again once she had knelt. And if she could not pray, then Edmund might never return.

The weeks passed and Edmund did not return. The weather grew hot and the land lay baking under a weight of sun. The grass was the same colour as the corn and the blue hills shimmered in the distance. Margaret stayed in much of the time, reading Boccaccio or embroidering, taking a little wine and bread, or praying.

Sometimes she had the sensation of light streaming upwards from the palms of her hands, or even her forehead, and wondered, dizzily, if she would fly up to heaven. But automatically she resisted this: she was not ready – her place was here, with Edmund.

Yet after such moments she always felt an uncanny peace; an inner certainty that Edmund would be returned to her, and all would be well.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

Jasper knelt before her, hot and dusty from travelling.

But it wasn’t supposed to be Jasper, it should have been Edmund.

Someone had spotted the Tudor colours approaching from the distance, and a great cry had been set up: ‘He is coming, he is coming!’

Margaret had been sitting by the pool in the orchard. She barely had time to hurry to the gateway before she heard him riding up the path.

Her hand flew to her hair; she could remember nothing she had meant to say.

And then he rounded the bend, and it was not Edmund at all, it was Jasper.

She saw him dismount, hand his horse over to one man and give instructions to another. All this without looking her way. He took off his helmet and his hair was plastered to his head with sweat. He looked grim, exhausted. Then he fell into some consultation with his captain at arms.

There was no sign of Edmund.

She stood for a moment, her cheeks alternately burning then pale. Then abruptly she turned and went into the house, walking swiftly past the line of servants who had assembled to greet their master.

He could say whatever he had to say to her inside.

She waited for him there, with her nurse and her steward, two lady attendants and two grooms. And Jasper finally appeared with two or three of his own men, and he walked towards her, then dropped clumsily on to one knee.

Her stomach shifted and something fluttered in her throat. He had never done that before.

Then he told her that Edmund had been taken prisoner at Carmarthen Castle. Not by the Welsh, but by William Herbert, who was an ally of the Duke of York.

She replied quickly, automatically, that she didn’t believe him.

He had been looking not at her, but at a mosaic pattern of tiles on the floor. Now he glanced up at her swiftly. She had spoken in a low voice, and he chose not to hear her. He went on telling her what had happened.

At the end of July, Edmund had won a great victory, wresting Carmarthen Castle from Gruffydd ap Nicholas and his two sons. Messages were sent to the king. But it was York who was Constable of Carmarthen Castle, and he was less pleased about this boost to the king’s authority, this victory in the king’s name. On 10 August, some 2,000 men from Herefordshire and the neighbouring Welsh lordships had set out for west Wales by order of the duke. They were under the command of Sir William Herbert, the duke’s chief retainer. They went straight to Carmarthen and seized the castle. They had taken Edmund’s garrison by surprise – no one had expected to fight the English rather than the Welsh. And they had imprisoned Edmund in the castle itself.

The king would, of course, do everything in his power to secure Edmund’s release. Jasper planned to go to the king, who was still at Coventry. York was no longer the chief power in the land now that the king had resumed his role – he would have to obey his king. Jasper was sure this was all some kind of misunderstanding that could be sorted out. But, in the meantime, Edmund was still held prisoner, and Jasper had broken his journey to Pembroke Castle, because he had thought that the Lady Margaret would want to know.

There was a silence in which Jasper continued to gaze at the floor.

Margaret said, more distinctly than before, ‘I don’t believe you.’

Jasper’s face changed, and a stir passed around the room. She could hear the way she sounded – childish, rude – but she couldn’t help it. She averted her gaze from the look he gave her, which was like Edmund’s at its most stern.

‘Edmund would never let himself be taken,’ she said.

She should have said,
My Lord of Richmond.

‘My lady,’ Jasper said in even tones, ‘he was taken by surprise. He thought that Herbert’s forces had come to relieve him, to reward him, even, for his victory. He rode out to greet them. And suddenly, with no warning, he was surrounded and pulled from his horse. But he was taken alive – Sir Roger swears he was still alive. There were several witnesses –’

‘No! It isn’t possible!’ she cried. She was blatantly rude now, and shrill. Her nurse remonstrated with her.

It was impossible – brave, laughing Edmund, taken prisoner at Carmarthen Castle, by that notorious earl, William Herbert – what was it they said about him?
A cruel man and prepared for any crime.

But she mustn’t think about that, she must try to focus on what Jasper was saying. For he was speaking again, he had spoken, and was looking at her in grave reproof; then, when she failed to respond, he looked at her nurse with a mixture of impatience and uncertainty.

Margaret had always hated Jasper, his long, crooked nose, his sweating face.

‘Why are you here?’ she said suddenly, and Betsy said, ‘My lady has not been well.’

‘Why are you here if he has been taken?’ she demanded.

Jasper looked stricken. He stood up abruptly and swept the dust from his knees. He was angry, more angry than she had ever seen him, but so was she. She felt an unprecedented rage.

‘You should not be here,’ she said, and someone gasped.

‘My lady is overwrought,’ said her nurse. ‘It is the heat.’

‘I am not overwrought,’ she said, and her voice rose. ‘I don’t believe he would be taken – he would rather die! And if he has been taken you should not be here – you should be trying to rescue him! Why are you not trying to save him?’

There was a clamour of voices and it seemed that everyone was speaking at once, explaining, remonstrating, apologizing. Only Jasper did not speak. He looked down at her with glittering eyes. And she too said nothing; there was nothing left to say. Her throat felt wounded, she could speak no more. Abruptly, she rose, without ceremony, and turned her back on Jasper and left the room, her nurse running after her in dismay.

‘Oh, my lady, what have you done?’

She had violated all the codes of conduct, all the rules of hospitality and homage due to a kinsman and an earl. But all she could think about was Edmund, trapped in a stinking cell when he loved to ride
and to be free. How he had looked when he set off that May morning, the sun glinting on his armour. How he had turned and waved at her, unusually, and she had felt rather than seen him smiling.

Betsy clucked and fussed over her, loosening her gown at the throat, dabbing at her face with a damp napkin. She would have to beg the Lord Jasper’s forgiveness, she said.

‘I will not,’ said Margaret.

The next moment she was clasped to Betsy’s ample chest while her nurse broke into weeping, all the time trying to reassure her.

‘At least he is only taken, not killed,’ she sobbed. They would not dare to kill Edmund, who was brother to the king. As soon as the king heard, they would have to release him. And Jasper had sent messengers to the king and was going to him himself, to plead Edmund’s cause.

Still clasping Margaret, she sank on to the window seat, out of breath from her outburst, and from the stairs.

Margaret turned suddenly, pressing her face into Betsy’s bosom. She sobbed three or four times, harsh, dry sobs. Then she pulled back, pushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

‘We need to take care of this little one now,’ her nurse said, laying a hand over her barely swollen stomach.

She hadn’t even told Edmund about the baby.

And Margaret rose and stood, distracted, in the middle of the room.
Edmund
, she thought. How had she not known, not been able to sense what was happening? He had not written to her, but he was not good at writing.