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They still whispered about Margery Jourdemayne sometimes.
She had been the Witch of Eye Next Westminster, a beldame of ill-repute that those who did not trust prayer turned to for advice; barren women who longed for sons begged for her help, mothers with sick children longed for her cures and wives who longed to make their husbands kings. Instead of journeying to Canterbury, Walsingham, or Rome and saying their prayers, they ventured into her shadowed hovel and sold their souls.
Eleanor Cobham had been such a woman. Some forty years ago, she had used astrologers to divine the future of her husband's childless nephew, the king of England, and bought spells and enchantments from the Witch of Eye Next Westminster to help her conceive. For her treasonous trouble, Eleanor had been forced to divorce her husband and had been locked away for the rest of her life, in a cold, damp castle where no one could contact her.
Witches, George thought. That is what happens to witches.
"What are you thinking of, my love?"
George blinked, then turned to look at his wife's face - pale and peaky in the candlelight - and found himself wondering. Isabel had always been quiet but strong, steel hidden beneath silk. Even when she had been a young girl, she had been tough, though her expression was always one of quiet serenity. Therefore, now that she looked almost skeletal in her shift, shadows under her eyes, it was almost difficult to believe that this ghost is her... his Isabel.
George took Isabel's hand in his, which felt clammy. He hated that it felt clammy; it was usually a little cold, so the warmth indicated a fever.
"You."
Isabel smiled, although it was a strain for her to do so. Soon after the babe's birth, George's wife had fallen quite ill. The midwives had suggested it was childbed fever, but George was not so certain. Soon after the birth of their new baby son - Richard - Isabel had insisted on travelling to Warwick, and George had accompanied her. To his untrained eyes, she had seemed hale and healthy, especially when the soft winter light caressed her pale skin and made her shine. She was not translucent, but whole. Isabel had survived much worse before; indeed, he remembered her screams onboard the ship docked outside Calais as their first child entered the world, dead before she had taken a breath.
"You are brooding," Isabel said gently, another hand coming to his face to trace the knotted lines of his brow. "What worries you?"
You.
George and Isabel had always been intended for one another, ever since she was the coltish adolescent daughter of the second most powerful man in the country and he the brother of a king. While it had not been love at first sight, there had been something in the doe-eyed look she had given him on that first night in Calais that had intrigued him.
"Have you been kissed before?"
Isabel had been scandalised. "Of course not, my lord."
"Then where would you imagine you would like to be kissed?"
She had flushed so prettily as he shucked her chemise off her shoulder. "My... my... lips. Where else would you kiss me?"
"Oh, plenty of places, Isabel," he had smiled. "Let me show you where."
Although she had been shy at first, Isabel had been brave, and the strange mix of terror and courage had entranced him even then. After a few nights together, George had no longer recognised the charms of other women, and since had only been able to find comfort in her kiss, in her head resting on his shoulder, in being in between her legs. Some would perhaps whisper that the power his wife had over him was witchcraft, but George himself was not so foolish. He knew it was holy.
As he gazed at the ghost who is half his wife, George just about recognises the bravery in Isabel, and tries to cling hold of it. "Nothing worries me, dearheart," he said, even as his voice caught in his throat. "You may be sick now, but you will get better... I promise."
She squeezed his hand weakly. "I will try, my love, I will."
She would, he knew.
George sat by her bed as her ladies brought Isabel some food - some hot broth and watered wine - and only contented to stand aside when one of her ladies began to feed her. Ankarette Twynyho was an old widow who does not say much, and her most distinguishing feature was her long silver hair, which occasionally escaped from under her hood. She also had a wart on her nose which Isabel often described as small, but every time George looked at her it was all he could see.
In his imagination, Margery Jourdemayne had Ankarette Twynyho's face.
"You should eat the broth, my lady," said Mistress Twynyho, her mouth drawn into a stern line. "You need to keep your strength up. The physician has been called, but until then you need food."
Isabel sighed, even as Mistress Twynyho began scooping up the broth onto a spoon. George's wife pulled a face. "This broth is all I have eaten for days and days, and still I weaken."
"None of us know the ways of God," replied Mistress Twynyho forcefully, before crossing herself with her free hand, "so all you can do until the physician arrives is eat, my lady."
Something in Mistress Twynyho's voice seemed to subdue Isabel, even though the former was nothing more than an elderly widow and the latter one of the most powerful women in England... apart from that witch who sat beside his brother Edward on the royal throne. Queen Elizabeth had too many sisters, too many children, and too many friends. She had a tinkling laugh that some found charming and big dark eyes that many more found beguiling.
George did not. A sorceress' charms held no appeal for him.
He knew the story of how she supposedly netted his brother Edward. A chance meeting in a forest path; a knife, a threat, or a kiss; and a secret marriage. If there were any modern day witches, one of them was certainly Elizabeth Woodville, tying his brother in magical knots rather than romantic ones.
At least my Isabel never bewitched me, thought George. At least she is true.
So he sits with her into the waning hours, wiping her brow and holding her hand. They reminisced about old times; their early kisses, how he had coaxed her into trusting him with the smooth press of his body against hers, their children. They focussed on Margaret, Edward, and Richard, because discussing those they have lost was too hard.
"Will you marry again, George?" asked Isabel. "After I am gone?"
He bites the skin on the inside of his lip in an effort not to cry out. "You are not going anywhere, Isabel, my love. As long as you eat your broth and wait for the physician."
As Mistress Twynyho had left the room, George took to feeding Isabel himself, and tried to ignore the dark brown colour of the broth that looked strangely unappealing. When Isabel began to complain she was cold, George climbed into bed beside her and wrapped himself around her. She shivered against him mightily, her lips pressed against his neck.
Isabel went as quickly as a candle consumed by burning.
"Look after our children," she ordered him, her voice little more than a quiet croak against his throat. "She will come for them in time... when they are a threat to her precious babes... just like she did my father... as she will come for Anne and Richard too... You must protect them... you must..."
"I will, Isabel," he promised, kissing her flushed forehead. "I will."
As Isabel laid in his arms, George could not help but think of all the times that being with her had been the only point of happiness in his sad, dark life; when he was a child and had been exiled to Burgundy, he had dreamed of seeing Isabel again, and during their time hiding in Calais she was the only good thing in the whole world. Her lips had given him meaning, her eyes filled with the only affection he ever received.
And now she was fading. Fast.
"Isabel..."
"Isabel..."
"Isabel?"
She stared at him with glassy eyes, gone.
Isabel, he thought, as his tears wash her pale face. Isabel, my love...
When the sun rose and George returned to the world, still cradling Isabel in his arms, one of the maids entered the room and curtseyed deeply. George barely looked at her.
"What do you want?"
"M'lord, what do you need me to do?"
George shrugged irritably. "I do not know. Ask Mistress Twynyho."
"She's not here."
George blinked, not quite comprehending what the girl has said to him.
"What?"
"Mistress Twynyho and Master Thursby left in the early hours. She said that she was returning to Somerset... to her husband's home. She told me not to tell you, but I do not know what to do, and I..."
George looked down at Isabel's face, pale and skeletal in the early morning light. Only hours ago she had seemed healthy, a sunny smile on her face. How had she declined so quickly? How had she died? It could not be possible that his Isabel was dead, not when she was so very full of life.
Witches, he thought.
Ankarette Twynyho had Margery Jourdemayne's face.