The King’s Sister

Chapter Eleven

A black year. A year of farewells and disagreements. How right I had been in my suspicions that Richard would act against my brother, for on a cold grey December day I stood on the shore at Dover and watched Henry step aboard the ship that would take him into exile.

All Richard’s doing.

Fabricating a treasonable plot, magnificent in its complexity, Richard had waved the regal sceptre to banish Henry from England for ten years, Mowbray for life. Thus the final two Lords Appellant paid for their disloyalty to the Crown. In a fit of false generosity Henry’s ten years were transmuted to six but it was little comfort.

I held Henry close in a storm of anger and grief which we both hid behind rigid shoulders and stern expressions. Here was no time for emotion. Our father might be racked with pain and remorse but his example was superb. The family of Lancaster would hold their heads high and wait for better times.

John did not accompany me to my bitter leave-taking.

And then, in March of the following year, I was standing in St Paul’s Cathedral to watch my father’s body laid to rest beside his beloved Blanche, the mother who was a fleeting memory to me. I was too numb to weep, too heart-broken to accept that he was gone from us. How could we continue to exist without the presence of that fine spirit in our midst?

Covertly I watched Richard as the choir filled the church with a glorious vocal celebration of my father’s life. What was in his mind? I had no idea. Here to mourn his most royal uncle who had raised him and supported him as a child king, Richard’s expression was perfectly governed into doleful lines. John stood beside him.

No Henry, of course. Henry dare not return, on pain of imprisonment and execution at the hands of his dear cousin. Philippa was far from me in Portugal.

I was devastated and alone.

And when it was over, Richard processing out with John at his side, there was Duchess Katherine. Silent and dry-eyed, she had weathered the ceremony well, I thought, until I was close enough to see the grief that flattened all her features. It was as if her former beauty were masked by a grey veil. The depth of sadness in her eyes struck hard at my heart. Here, with this woman who had been as much a mother to me as anyone, was where I would give comfort and receive it. Might we not weep together?

‘I am so very sorry. If I find it hard to accept he is no longer here with us, you must find it impossible.’

The cathedral had emptied. Approaching, my heels clicking on the tiles, sending up their own echo, I took the Duchess’s hand but it lay cold and lax in mine, nor was there any welcome in her face. It came to me as a dash of cold water against warm skin. Whatever closeness had been between us in the past had somehow dissipated, when I had not been aware. Yet her reply was dispassionate.

‘He suffered at the end, you know,’ she said. ‘In body and in spirit.’

‘But you were there to comfort him.’

‘Yes, I was. I did.’ And then: ‘You did not make it easy for him, Elizabeth.’

Grief, I had anticipated. The bitterness of pain. But not what was undoubtedly an accusation,

‘The banishment of Henry destroyed him,’ she continued. ‘But your marriage to Exeter hurt him, too.’

It thrust me on the defensive. ‘He agreed to my marriage.’

‘Because you gave him no choice.’ How judgemental her stare. ‘It was never a marriage he would have conceived for you, but on the eve of the voyage to Castile, and with a shame of a child conceived out of wedlock, what could he do? He never believed that this marriage would bring you happiness. And neither did I.’

‘He was wrong. You were wrong! John has given immeasurable happiness.’ I tried to reassure her, to reassure myself, when all around us was suspicion and enmity. How could she be so blind to the deep love that united John with me, and would hold fast whatever the future held in store?

‘And can you say that you are happy now? With all the acrimony between Richard and Henry, and Exeter his brother’s most fervent supporter?’

She called him Exeter. How damning she was.

‘Where do your sympathies lie in the ruinous dissention, Elizabeth?’

I could not answer, simply standing there, the cold rising through the thin soles of my shoes, but no colder than the hand around my heart.

‘Perhaps it was my fault, too,’ the Duchess continued, her tone reflecting the chill around us. ‘I had hoped I had given you a keener sense of morality.’

I kept my regard level and unambiguous. ‘Keener than your own?’ How cruel I was in my personal hurt.

‘Yes. Of course. I don’t make excuses for myself. Or for the Duke. We did not live by the dictates of morality. But you, as a royal daughter, should have known better.’

Every certainty in my life seemed to have been cut away from beneath my feet, but pride in my Plantagenet blood held me firm. I was answerable to no one. Certainly not to Duchess Katherine.

‘So I should have foresworn love and remained wed to Jonty.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you have done that?’

‘That is an irrelevance. You had a duty to your family, Elizabeth. You had a burden of conscience.’

I swept the argument aside with an abrupt, angry gesture. ‘I love John. He wanted me and I wanted him. You of all people should understand that.’

‘Yes I do. Who better? But where do you stand now, Elizabeth? With Henry banished and Exeter preening in glory of his new pre-eminence, where do you stand now? Beware, Elizabeth. Don’t be blinded by the sun of Exeter’s rising. Don’t you see? Richard may never allow your brother to return.’

Had I not already considered this? I was not so naïve as to believe in my cousin’s goodwill, but nor was I willing to admit any fault.

‘He must allow it,’ I responded, anger reined in until once again I was as cold as she. ‘Richard has promised.’

‘And promises are empty air in Richard’s mouth. If he banishes Henry for good, will you still remain ecstatically hand-clasped to Exeter? You should never have wed him. You were always wilful and irresponsible, and I failed to change you.’

‘I don’t regret it. What right have you to put this burden of guilt on my shoulders?’

‘I have every right. Because it is true. Your father grieved for you in his final days of pain, but you thought of no one but yourself. Was that not always the case?’

‘No …’ My grip on the slippery reins was becoming harder to maintain.

‘I think it was. Now you will have to live with the consequences.’

‘John will not abandon me. He loves me still.’

‘I’ll pray that it is so. My faith in Exeter’s constancy is not as strong as yours. I have more faith in his driving ambition. And you can’t argue against that, Elizabeth, however hard you try.’

On which caustic note she turned and walked away, the rift between us growing with every step across the heraldic animals that pranced across the patterned tiles of the cathedral floor. I would not tell her that I was carrying another child.

Alone, I was forced to acknowledge the truth in some of her accusations. I had always considered my own needs first. Had I indeed brought pain to my father? Perhaps I had, but the Duke had been the first to acknowledge John’s value as soldier and leader of men. I would not regret those long ago events that I had fought so hard to set in motion. Anger built again. The Duchess had driven a sword between us, making me doubt myself. I could not forgive her, when grief for father and brother commanded every sense. So be it. I no longer needed Duchess Katherine in my life. I was strong enough to beat my own path and I would do it.

Yet my heart felt the sting of a physical wound as I left the empty church, where John was waiting for me.

‘What did the Duchess have to say?’ He took my arm.

‘Nothing. We shared our grief.’

I did not think that he believed me as he led me to where our horses waited. His hand was warm and firm on my arm and his smile understanding as he helped me to mount. Whatever the clash of family and temper I would not let our love falter. I knew it was worth fighting for. One day all would be smoothed over and this new child, created in our reunion in the aftermath of Arundel’s bloody end, would be born into a period of golden tranquillity.

In my heart I did not think I truly believed that either.

Somewhere in the distant reaches of the Pultney house, growing closer by the second, was a blistering rant of raised voices, the loudest that of Master Shelley, our steward. Unable to ignore it, John flung himself across the antechamber where we were removing our outer garments into the hands of our servants, to open the door.

‘Now what? Do we have insurrection in our house?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ There was Master Shelley on the threshold, one hand gripping the arm of one of the FitzAlan boys, hard. Behind them walked his brother. ‘Of a particularly invidious nature too, my lord. I’ve brought the culprit here for justice.’

Hat and gloves still in hand, John frowned at the boy. We had absorbed them into our household with our own children, the pages and squires, but indeed the young men were old enough, and resentful enough, to be put under the training of a Sergeant at Arms. It was John’s intention to do so but had had little time to consider their future. Perhaps we had been tardy.

‘Which one are you?’

The lad scowled back, his habitual expression. ‘As if you care.’

While Master Shelley dealt him a cuff to his shoulder, I saw John take a breath, placing his hat and gloves gently on the chest, and knew he would strive to be patient with a boy whose temper had undergone no mellowing. Understandably, perhaps. John had been granted much of the Arundel inheritance, while these two young men were landless and penniless, dependent on our charity until Richard said otherwise.

‘Mind your manners, FitzAlan. You know better than that,’ John advised evenly.

‘As if you care, my lord.’ The curl of his lip was striking and crude.

‘I might care if I knew what this is about.’

It was the younger of the two boys, as I knew. The more surly, the less amenable to what they undoubtedly saw as imprisonment.

‘It is Thomas,’ I said.

‘So what has Thomas done?’ John asked.

‘This misbegotten creature. Caught pissing in the soup pot. I just prevented your cook from cleaving his head with the axe he happened to have in his hand.’ Master Shelley, seething with righteous anger, dragged the lad forward. ‘Not cowed by the lash of the cook’s tongue, he swore he’d do it every day until you died of poison. And if that didn’t work, he’d piss over the hog on the spit. And over your cook as well if he tried to stop him.’

I caught a reluctant gleam in the steward’s eye. But there was none in John’s as he addressed himself to Richard, the older boy who had taken a step forward.

‘Well?’

The boy’s eyes were as defiant as his brother’s. ‘I am to blame, not my brother, my lord.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘I swear that I am.’

‘As heir to your father, would you swear on his innocence, which you claim so often and with such vehemence, that you were the one to defile my kitchens?’

Face flushed, the disinherited Earl’s eyes fell.

‘As I thought. You cannot take an oath on your father’s good name, can you?’

Richard FitzAlan shook his head.

‘Then let your brother take his punishment. At seventeen years he is of an age to do so.’

‘I’ll not be punished by you,’ Thomas muttered. ‘You have no right …’

On which note of defiance John raised his hand and dealt Thomas a flat handed blow that dropped him to his knees, while I, unwilling to interfere, moved swiftly to grip John’s arm. Not that it was necessary. John’s temper might be explosive on occasion but his blow had held more flamboyance than weight, and I knew that he had some compassion for the disinherited and orphaned FitzAlans. Their mother had been dead for more than a decade. I walked across to lift the boy to his feet, but he pushed me away.

‘I’ll be beholden to no one in this house,’ he hurled his challenge from his knees. ‘Not until the day of my death.’

‘You are not beholden,’ I tried. Surely reason would have more effect than a beating. ‘You are only here until the King sees fit to restore your father’s lands and titles to you.’

But John’s patience was at an end. ‘Would you dare to dishonour my wife? With behaviour more suited to a beggar in a gutter? Even he would know better than to contaminate good food. Get up. You are not hurt. You will make your apologies.’

‘I will not.’

John hauled Thomas to his feet. ‘Whatever gripe you have with me, this is the Lady Elizabeth’s home and you will treat it and her with the courtesy I presume you were raised to understand.’

I saw the fire in the boy’s eye. So did John.

‘Do I strike you again for unpardonable ill-manners? Your father, a courageous man and a man of chivalry, would be ashamed of you.’

A blow that got home. Thomas paled and dipped his head.

‘I will apologise if I must. I beg pardon, madam.’

‘And you will not repeat your crime?’ I asked.

‘No, my lady. But I’ll not …’

‘That’s enough, before you spoil it,’ John intervened. ‘Now get out, before I regret letting you off so lightly. But first …’

John sat on the chest and pulled off his bemired boots, holding them out to the boy. ‘You can contemplate your many sins while you restore these boots to a state I would see fit to wear. By then I’ll have thought of something else to take your mind from pissing in my food. And be under no misapprehension. If you are caught doing it again, I’ll thrash you with my own hand.’

‘You have no right to treat me in this manner.’

‘I treat you no differently from my pages and squires, whose manners are far better than yours. I show them respect when they deserve it, which you do not. Get out of my sight.’

‘I’ll use hemlock next time!’ And Thomas FitzAlan stalked out with a clumsy attempt at dignity that was heartbreaking. In spite of his crude manners under severe provocation, it wrung my heart to imagine my own children in a similar position if Richard, in some fit of uncontrolled pique, decided to take issue with John and take our own heir as hostage.

Richard FitzAlan bowed awkwardly. ‘He cannot forgive. I don’t think he ever will.’

‘And what of you?’

He shook his head.

‘There are many things we cannot forgive but must live with,’ John lectured mildly. ‘It will be best if you teach your brother some sense of diplomacy along with the courtesy. You should instill in him a sense of rightness. Under my jurisdiction I will give you the education and training due to your noble blood. But such crass discourtesy I will not tolerate.’

‘Yes, my lord. No, my lord’

John watched him leave the chamber, then laughed harshly, swinging round to face me, still impressive in spite of his lack of boots. ‘I’m sorry to bring this into our house at a time like this. Perhaps I was too harsh with the boy.’

I wrinkled my nose at the revenge Thomas had seen fit to employ. ‘You were fair. But they’ll never forgive us.’

‘It will be better for all concerned if I send them down to the castle at Reigate and leave them in my Captain’s care. They can loose arrows at the butts as if it were my black heart. I should have done it before. They need physical duress to take their mind of their woes.’

‘They’ll not like it,’ I observed dryly. ‘Reigate was one of the Arundel properties.’

‘I can’t change that.’ John shrugged. ‘Where were we?’

‘Looking at the impossibility of treading an equable path between your brother and mine. We can’t reach Richard any more, can we? It is as if there is a web built around him, and he sits within it, a monstrous spider spinning some malicious undertaking.’

‘He’ll not attack you. Richard retains an element of chivalry towards women.’

‘I don’t fear him.’ I recalled Duchess Katherine’s warning which had lain like a stone on my heart. Should I tell him of my fears? I was weary of keeping them to myself. ‘If I am afraid, it is that our love cannot keep faith under such strains. How often do we seem to be on different sides?’

His glance was sharp, but he did not hesitate, reaching out to me to draw me close into a firm embrace. ‘It will remain steadfast. Do we not love each other, as we always have? Don’t let Richard stand between us.’ He kissed me and soothed me. ‘Henry will return and all will be well.’

‘And you will remain as Richard’s man?’

‘Yes. Is it not for the best?’

Perhaps it was. Was it just ambition, or was it his own fidelity to those of his blood? Duchess Katherine was in no doubt that ambition ruled John’s every move. I was not so sure. I could not think of distancing myself from my brother, so was it wrong of me to hope that John could abandon his? Perhaps it was. Perhaps I had been short-sighted to expect him to step away. All I could do was pray for Henry’s return and Richard’s acceptance of him as the new Duke of Lancaster. Which would heal all our wounds.

‘Don’t let this destroy us,’ John murmured against my temple as he kissed me into acceptance. ‘We always knew there might be difficulties.’

‘But not like this.’

‘You have trusted me in the past. Trust me now. Where is the strong-minded woman I wooed and wed? Where is the woman who made her way through war-torn Castile with enemies on every side?’

Where indeed? Sometimes I felt that she was a different woman in a different life, but there was only one answer I could make.

‘I will keep faith.’

‘My brave love. We will not let the world set us apart.’

In the privacy of our own chamber he removed my satin chaplet, then my robe. And all that was beneath.

Duchess Katherine was wrong. I was happy. And when John discovered, as he must, that I was breeding again, we celebrated anew.

18th March 1399, Windsor Castle

Another nagging premonition touched my thoughts. A flutter of storm-crow wings, where there should have been none. There Richard was, seated on his throne in the audience chamber, gloriously clad, golden circlet agleam. We, the esteemed members of his court, had been summoned for a pronouncement of importance.

Richard glowered. Despite the studied glamour of his accoutrements, the banners, the loyal subjects bowing the knee before him, Richard’s mind was not in good frame.

As I rose from my deep curtsy, the deepest possible for only such was acceptable without a reprimand from our King, I looked across at John who stood a step behind Richard’s right shoulder, and raised my brows. John managed a wry twist of his mouth, the faintest shake of his head. He had no more idea than I what this was about.

Richard surveyed us, eyes travelling smoothly over every face, observing and noting, until he deigned to speak.

‘It is my wish, as your Anointed King, that you, my loyal subjects, will in future address me as Majesty.’ His voice, gentle, light-timbred, stroked over us. ‘I deem it most fitting.’

Such majestic arrogance. I recalled addressing him as Wily Dickon in our youth when he schemed and cheated to win at games. Even on one occasion as Daft Dickon when he sulked and whined—for which I was duly chastised by Dame Katherine, as she was then. But so it must be, sour taste on my tongue or no.

‘Your Majesty,’ we murmured. And once again made the required obeisance.

‘It is my wish that my closest friends,’ he smiled as his gaze travelled over our august ranks once more, ‘be addressed as Magnificence.’

My glance slid to John who preserved a stern expression, giving nothing away. His Grace, the Magnificent Duke of Exeter indeed.

‘My very best of all friends,’ Richard was continuing, ‘the most noble Edward, now Duke of Aumale, my own dear cousin, shall henceforth be addressed by all here-present as my brother.’

I sighed surreptitiously. Had Richard summoned us all here simply to learn the new nomenclature of his royal court? I hoped that Cousin Edward was honoured by his adoption as royal brother. Of course he was. How he preened. How self-satisfied the smile that had more in common with a smirk. He reminded me more of his lady mother, the lascivious Isabella, now departed from our midst to heavenly realms, than he had ever done.

I returned the smile, for it would be foolish not to do so, but any inclination towards pleasure had vanished as the implications of what was happening here struck home. If Richard was adopting Edward as his brother, what did this presage about the future? Richard had no son, but nor he had a brother. Who might therefore step into the royal shoes if Richard failed to find a fertile wife in Queen Isabella as she grew to maturity? Edward as next King of England?

If Edward of Aumale was to be raised up, what was in store for Henry? There was no place in the succession for Edward, his father being a younger son of King Edward the Third. While Henry lived, Edward should not even have appeared on Richard’s horizon as his heir. So what was it that Richard had in mind for my brother?

That, as I realised with a sinking heart, was why we were here.

‘It is my wish to reward my friends. Just as I will call down my wrath on those who prove to be my enemies.’ Richard showed his teeth in just the sort of crafty smile I had recalled. ‘It saddens me to say, but in light of the treason committed against my sacred person by the house of Lancaster …’

My throat tightened,

‘… I have deemed that the inheritance of that house be confiscated. I reward my friends well. The Lancaster inheritance is mine to make those rewards of value.’

By now every sense in my body was frozen in disbelief. This was Henry’s birthright. Made forfeit to the Crown. Richard had no right …

‘I had placed a limit on the banishment of our cousin Henry of Derby from this land. Ten years, which I foolishly allowed myself to be persuaded, out of pity for my dear uncle of Lancaster now deceased, to a mere six, for his plotting against my person. Now I revoke that decision. Henry of Derby is banished from England for the rest of his life.’

Silence fell, heavy as a crack of doom. And with it a shiver that could be tasted.

This was extreme.

This was unwarranted.

I dared not look at John. Had he known of this? But then I did. His expression was guarded, his eyes deliberately not meeting mine.

Yet was I entirely unaware? There had been rumours. I had wiped them from my mind, refusing to believe that Richard would take so unprincipled an action.

Richard’s smile grew to encompass us all, as if not one of us would sense the implied threat to any man who fell from the King’s high regard. ‘It is my wish to bring glory to England. I am about to embark on an invasion of Ireland to bring the rebellious Irish Lords to book. What glory it will bring us as we grind them under England’s heel.’

He raised his hands as if to welcome our acclamation.

‘I have invited two young men to become part of my household, as if they were my own children, during these auspicious days,’ and he beckoned to one of his attendants, who promptly ushered in those chosen for the honour.

Well, they were certainly of Richard’s blood and mine, but my recognition of them brought no joy. The eldest was all but a man at sixteen years: Humphrey, son and heir of the late murdered Duke of Gloucester. And the second? My throat dried as I saw what Richard was doing. It was Henry’s son, Henry of Monmouth. Twelve years old.

‘We welcome them …’

Hostages.

As clear as the rubies in the collar around Richard’s neck.

‘It would be unwise for anyone of a discontented nature—not that I envisage such—to consider sending any letters abroad. All letters sent to Europe must first be approved by my Privy Council,’ he was continuing gently.

Shock held me. Here was Richard at his most malicious.

Where did John’s loyalties now lie in all this? How could he possibly condone his brother’s actions in such injustice, such an overt piece of mischief against Henry who had committed no crime other than to be one of the Lords Appellant who protected the good of England and the removal of a royal favourite? How could John possibly see any rightness in this? The House of Lancaster, the royal blood of Henry the Third and Edward the Third, was being dismantled under our very eyes.

I was filled with dread, but refused to let it drain all my spirits. This was Richard, my cousin, albeit King. All I knew was that I must try to encourage his better nature, calling on old fealties, old friendships. If John would not support me then I must do it alone. Richard could not dismiss me out of hand. Was not our blood too close for that? Lancaster pride having no role in this, I must become a petitioner at the King’s feet.

If John would not fight for Henry’s inheritance, then I would. Surely Richard would listen and respond to ties of blood.

When the court emerged from its formality to mingle, sip wine and gossip in corners over the ill-luck, wicked vengeance or justified punishment against the exiled Duke of Lancaster, I, with purposeful steps, presented myself in Richard’s path.

‘Sire …’

Was this truculent man the same one who had awarded me the sapphire ring with unctuous grace? Now his face was set in sour disapproval, and I recalled his dictates. I should have been more careful.

‘Your Majesty.’ I curtsied low, head bent, praying that I was making up lost ground.

‘My lady Exeter.’

The bleak formality was a warning slap. So was the abrupt gesture for me to rise. I had misjudged his earlier smiling mien, but I could not draw back. Not with Henry’s future in England hanging in the balance. Ignoring the lurking presence of Edward of Aumale whose self-satisfaction nauseated me, I began:

‘I have come to make a petition, Your Majesty. On your mercy.’

Richard’s reply was bleakly hopeless under the smooth delivery. ‘I know what you will say to me, and I will spare you the need.’

‘But Majesty …’

‘The Lancaster lands are forfeit. The penalty for plotting against my person.’

‘My brother is not guilty of so foul a deed …’

‘In my eyes the guilt is unquestionable.’

‘Richard, I beg you …’

And he took a step back as if my use of his name had within it a contamination.

‘It would be better if you didn’t, madam. And then I might forget that you are the sister of a traitor and would-be murderer.’

Richard presented his back to me. The ties of blood held no power for Richard.

And as I turned away, stepping round Aumale who murmured some meaningless words in sympathy, it was to see John watching. When I raised my shoulders in a little shrug, his face remained void of expression. For the first time since I had known him I felt a lack of compassion. Rather a disapproval. He kept his distance from me for the rest of the afternoon. Was this to be the pattern of our life?

‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

We had returned to the Pultney house in less than amicable mood.

‘So I realise now,’ I said. ‘But I could not stand there and smile and drink Richard’s wine as if nothing were amiss. I didn’t notice you pleading Henry’s cause.’

‘Because I know it would be a waste of my breath.’

‘I will write to Henry,’ I declared.

‘He will know already,’ John observed.

‘And what will he think, isolated in some rented room in Paris? Seeing his inheritance swept away, Richard gloating at the wealth that has fallen into his hands? Wealth to be given away, awarded as Richard sees fit?’

I stood in the middle of the entrance hall, not knowing what to do.

‘He’ll think that he’s safer in Paris—if that’s where he is—than attempting to return. If he’s any sense.’

I could not accept that. All I could hear was Richard’s condemnation and John’s lack of interest.

‘Richard hates him,’ I argued. ‘Richard has always loathed him. They are so different. Sometimes it is as if he envies Henry. They clashed as boys when Henry was the more confident, clever with bow and sword where Richard was not.’

‘I don’t know that.’ John shrugged again, leaving me adrift with my worries. ‘But he’ll not let him return.’

Which made me decide. Opening one of the doors off this antechamber, I entered the Master Shelley’s neatly-ordered domain where I found in a coffer means to write a letter.

‘I will write,’ I announced.

John had followed me to lean against the door jamb, but now he stepped close and took the quill from me. ‘Don’t. Don’t encourage him to come back.’

‘I want him to.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘To claim back his inheritance. What else?’ I discovered my hands were clenched into fists. ‘Do you forbid me? I wouldn’t, if I were you. I am past good reason after the last few hours of Richard’s vindictiveness.’

‘It would be a declaration of war. You must not do it.’

‘John—’ Suddenly I had to know. ‘Did you know what Richard would do today?’

We stared at each other, despair a winter cloak, deadening all other senses.

‘Did you?’ I repeated.

‘Yes. I knew.’

‘Why did you not tell me, warn me?’

He made no reply, simply casting down the quill, now mangled into pieces, whereas I simply covered my face with my hands.

‘John. What will become of us?’ My plea was muffled but clear enough.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is our love strong enough to stand fast?’ No reply. So I asked what lay like a knife against my heart. ‘If you had foreseen this rift between Richard and Henry, would you have wed me?’

How I dreaded the answer, that John would rather have stepped away from this conflict of loyalties. But he pulled me into his arms, to kiss me, though I could taste more than a hint of desperation in his lips.

‘I would do it again. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ he said, voice rough.

‘As I would wed you.’

But tomorrow might become desperate. There was a gulf growing between us. Once I had constructed a bridge that we had crossed together. I feared that this chasm might prove to be unbridgeable.

I took no heed of John’s advice. Dictate, rather. How could I remain silent and inert, leaving all to chance? Husband or brother? Brother or husband? It was an agonising decision but I wrote and paid a courier to slip out of England to Paris, where it was delivered.

A brief and emotionless missive:

John says—and John is much in the King’s confidence—that it would be unwise for you to return, that Richard will not receive you with anything but ill will and it would not be to your advantage. That to return would end in your imprisonment and perhaps worse. Richard is not beyond wishing the death of our Lancastrian line.

Your eldest son Henry is safe but lodged in the royal household for your good behaviour.

I think you must make your own decision. John and I are at odds over this, but I cannot bear that you should be stripped of what is rightfully yours.

I thought, long and hard.

My advice would be to come home and claim your inheritance.

This was, as John had made plain, to encourage a declaration of war. I knew it, and yet what choice did Henry have if he was not to live a landless pensioner, without status or hope for his family, begging for handouts round the courts of Europe who would be merciful in memory of our father? Selling his skills in the tournament for the entertainment of the foreign aristocracy? That must not be.

And then all I could do was await a reply, thinking that he might, for the sake of his sons, err on the side of caution and remain silent. But in truth I knew my brother well enough to anticipate his next move.

There was a reply, pushed into my palm on a scrap of parchment.

I will return.

I did not tell John what I had done. For the first time there were secrets between us, dangerous secrets, as I grew heavier with my impending child. Consequently the disturbing news from Reigate barely registered on our troubled horizon. Richard FitzAlan was dead, the young disinherited Earl of Arundel wrenched from life by some nameless disease. He would never be reunited with his father’s inheritance.

And Thomas?

With rabid opportunism, Thomas had escaped the somewhat lax surveillance and was, so our steward wrote—and good riddance to him—bound for Europe to join his uncle, the FitzAlan Archbishop of Canterbury, deposed by Richard and now in exile.

‘One more weight off my mind!’ remarked John. ‘Although I regret the lad’s death. I expect it will be laid at my door, but I can’t worry about that now. I’m going to Ireland.’ He grimaced.

‘Now?’

‘Now. Richard wants it. Perhaps not the best of times, but he has visions of ruling a great Empire. I hope he lives to see the day …’

John’s sardonic observation made me think beyond the death of intimate communication that seemed to have engulfed us. Did he know? Did he know that Henry would return? Of course he did. He would not be the political animal I knew him to be if he did not. But nothing passed between us. John kissed me farewell, bade me take the weight off my feet, and went to Ireland.

I barely thought about the FitzAlans, my own disparate family filling my mind from daybreak to nightfall.

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ John’s eyes were fierce with his final instruction.

‘No,’ I said. Layers of lies, building up, while beneath my composed and affectionate farewell, I was aware of the turbulent anger that raged in my belly. Anger against Richard and his fickle intransigence, against John and his damned loyalties. Even against Henry who had failed to persuade Richard to see his own value as cousin and counsellor. When I wed John Holland I had thought my feet settled in a path that would bring me a life befitting my rank and talents. A presence at court in my own right, I and my family would be strong, ruling England well in a formidable alliance as my grandfather King Edward would have wished. As my father worked for.

But all my contentment, all my certainties were destroyed. As John rode out to accompany Richard to Ireland, I smiled bitterly at my youthful innocence when I had thought that all things could be managed by an intelligent woman, when I had manoeuvred to achieve the marriage I desired. How ignorant I had been. In the end female ingenuity and cunning could achieve nothing against the thrust of power and ambition and pragmatism, against fear of whose hands held the reins of power in the kingdom. I was helpless, forced to bow before a greater authority than my own.

All my happiness had been stripped away. Some days I thought I would never find the means to reclaim it.

There came for me a time of anxiety and waiting. I prayed. In better days Duchess Katherine would have been proud of my persistence, but the silence—she in Lincoln, I in London—continued between us. Her heart would be with Henry. As was Philippa’s, whose letter-writing was prodigious. All I could do was pray.

But for whom did I pray?

For John, whose safety in Ireland was a constant stone in my shoe. For Henry who had done exactly as he had promised. Landing in England in Yorkshire at Ravenspur in the heat of July, he was marching steadily south, collecting men who had no good to say of Richard. Even for Richard, that he would see sense and come to terms, smoothing over the old rifts so that we might be comfortable again.

Impossible, of course. I rejoiced for Henry. I yearned for John. I prayed for this child that grew in my belly, that it would be born into a kingdom that knew peace, not warfare, for I could not see the future with any hope. I despaired for Richard, yet kept him too in my prayers.

And then rumours flew thick and fast, painting such vivid scenes, all through the long months of August and into September while I remained at Pultney. Henry fell to his knees to kiss the ground of England as the Lancaster retainers rallied in vast numbers to his call. Henry claimed no ill intent against Richard, but only to reclaim what was rightfully his, the inheritance of Lancaster. Richard returned from Ireland to Pembroke in a hurry, only to take refuge at Conway after a show of disgraceful cowardice.

And then the news I had hoped for, news of John, sent by Richard to negotiate with Henry, as skilful intermediary between King and invading traitor. A hopeless case, however persuasive John might be to reunite the two royal cousins, for Henry was intransigent and Richard, reluctant but helpless without strength of arms, forced into surrender. As for John, he was kept under surveillance in Henry’s following as Henry marched to London with Richard as his prisoner.

England had fallen into Henry’s hands, as neat as an egg into a cup. Henry was home and, with the King under his hand, the Lancaster inheritance was his for the taking. I shared a cup of wine with our steward, toasting my brother’s success, and I was glad, but there was no lasting joy in my heart as the uncertain future rolled out before me.

Victory for Henry, and I should rejoice for him. But at what personal cost? Those closest to me in the world, my family, those I loved, had been shattered into separate pieces, like a costly Venetian glass dropped by a careless kitchen maid. Richard would find it impossible to accept Henry’s power over him, nor would Henry be tolerant. Here were two ill-matched cousins who would never come to terms. Whereas John … how could John’s pride survive being chained to Henry’s side? Where were his loyalties now?

There was only one thought of comfort. There had been no bloodshed. They were all alive to work out some compromise. If I had been a naïve woman I would have believed this, but I knew that a Venetian glass, once smashed, could never be reassembled.

I longed for John’s return and yet I feared it, for what would we say to each other? All I could do was wait, my increasingly ponderous body swathed in light silks until the day when Henry entered London in a superb display of triumph. Of course he would. Would my brother, raised from his cradle to know his worth as the Lancaster heir, do any other? And I rejoiced with him, for this was a malicious wrong being put right.

How could my mind be so appreciative of Henry’s success, at the same time as utter desolation constructed a wall around my heart? I woke, my first thoughts to rejoice that all the vile events of the past were over and justice would be done. Richard would repent, Henry would take back his title and estates, and John would clasp the hands of both in friendship. And then I trembled, for I was alone in my bed and John’s future lay hidden like a foul toad in the murk at the bottom of a pool. Justice for Henry could be destruction for both Richard and John. Would triumph for my brother destroy John’s love for me? I could see no way through the tangle of my conflicting emotions.

‘Come with me,’ I would have said to John if he had been beside me, after I had kissed him into wakefulness. Would those days ever return? ‘Come and throw yourself on my brother’s mercy. He will understand. He knows the demand of family and will be magnanimous. Did he not welcome you with courtesy when you negotiated on Richard’s behalf? Did he not listen with grave consideration, as if your opinions mattered to him? Richard’s days as King are numbered and my brother in the ascendant. Come and greet Henry, at my side, for he will assuredly receive me with love. And you too. Am I not his well-beloved sister?’

That is what I would have said, but I did not know where John was.

Racked with helplessness, all I knew, all that I could cling to when I imagined the very worst of outcomes, was that John was no political fool. There was no unworldliness in his planning, rather a streak of pragmatism as wide as the seas between us and France, and he would be quick as the next man to detect when his chosen stance had no sure footing. If I could detect a lost cause, then so could John. To remain with Richard was certain disaster. How could John expect my brother to accept soft words from Richard when it was patently clear that those words meant nothing, merely sliding from his tongue as necessity demanded? No promise was binding to Richard, and my brother, with an army bellowing ‘God bless Henry of Lancaster’ at every opportunity, was under no necessity to negotiate.

Pray God John made the right decision. In the gloom of disillusion I considered John’s future if he were to remain adamantly in alliance with Richard. Loss of land, loss of titles. Loss of power. Would it mean exile, as Henry had been exiled? And his heir? What of our son, Richard? Another boy to live out his life as a hostage for his father’s behaviour.

A desperate existence for a man of pride and passion.

That would be my future too, as wife to an attainted traitor.

And what if the end was death by the axe, the ultimate penalty for those on the losing side? I could not think of that. And yet I must.

For me, now, all was to play for. It was for me to tread a difficult path, perhaps an impossible one, to do all in my power to reunite the two sides of my family, for which outcome I would fight with every breath in my body. Richard’s days as King were undeniably numbered, but perhaps it was still possible to bring John and Henry together in some form of mutual agreement that would salve the pride of both.

If not, how could I live, torn between them?

If I had to make a choice …

No. It would not come to that. Never to that. I could not even contemplate such an agonising decision.

Meanwhile I had an appointment to keep.