Chapters (58)
That Woodville gains greatly from this marriage is plain to see, but what he offers Jacquetta surely isn’t something she had to marry him to get. Cecily lifts her head, shakes away the thought of that. ‘So you’re making a home at Grafton?’
‘Yes,’ Jacquetta nods, shining. ‘Your neighbours, Cecily. Not two days’ ride. Imagine.’
Cecily imagines.
‘We’ll be there often enough, I think,’ says the golden boy. ‘I hope, lady, you’ll come visit us. When your noble lord returns, perhaps?’
‘May that be soon.’ She watches Woodville lay a broad square hand on Jacquetta’s shoulder and squeeze. His wife looks up at him, wide-eyed, bewitched. Cecily takes a drink to hide her smile. Indeed, it is laughable. But she can’t help but admire his boldness; to aim so high and win home. She recovers herself. ‘And all is well now, with the King?’
‘Oh, yes. We are good friends.’ Jacquetta takes her hand. ‘We’re in debt to you for that.’
‘There’s no debt,’ Cecily assures her.
Not quite the truth. Enamoured of new love, Jacquetta had quite forgotten that she held her dower rights by grace of the King and needed his permission to take a fresh husband. Henry, when he found his uncle had been so soon supplanted in her heart and bed, had threatened to take them back, which, Cecily imagines, must have caused the golden Woodville some sleepless nights.
Knowing few others in England, Jacquetta applied to her for help. Cecily had surprised herself by giving it. She wrote to the King, reminding him that Jacquetta had nursed his uncle tenderly in his final illness, though she’d no idea if she had. Henry, mollified, accepted her suggestion of an affordable fine.
‘You were kind to her,’ Richard wrote when she told him of it.
‘Wasn’t I? I’m not sure why.’
‘Perhaps it pleases you more to see her the wife of a knight than a duke?’
‘I think that must be it. Still, he is very handsome. Which is well. It must console her for his being so little else.’
Richard’s letters are rarely so light-hearted. Mostly they ask for money, which Cecily, resignedly, sends. The King keeps him short of funds.
‘He thinks his prayers salary enough for soldiers,’ Cecily complains.
So they pay their army from their own purse. They both know they’re outspending the King to make sure more of France isn’t lost on Richard’s watch. But they can’t do it for ever. A year they’ve signed for, but a year has come and gone.
And still, Richard writes. And still, Cecily sends, until another summer gives up the coin of its brightness, until the wind-torn colours of autumn fly from Fotheringhay’s river valley, and the first frosts come shivering in to gild its trees in counterfeit silver.
