The King’s Sister

Chapter Five

Was there ever a man who kept his word? I did not think so.

I was settled at Hertford in stifling luxury, far from the glamour of Westminster and the questionable allure of John Holland’s personality, and decidedly unhappy. Men, I decided, were the source of much heartache for women.

At court, John Holland had become a necessity for my happiness. Now that I had rejected him and his campaign for self-aggrandisement, there was no place for him in my existence. This was my life, Countess of Pembroke, waiting for her lord to reach maturity, while Jonty, running wild with the other lads of our household whenever the Master of Arms took his eye off him, showed little sign of arriving there.

I hoped the Duke was satisfied with the sacrifice I had made in the name of family alliances, for I was buried in impossible boredom and exasperation. Moreover I felt that I had been dispatched here in disgrace, although my father had been more circumspect in his wording. Still it rankled.

John Holland had promised that he would never allow me to forget him. The silence from that quarter was shrieking in my head.

The Duke, as a placatory gesture, had offered to take me with him to Calais. I was not invited.

Jonty had promised me a pair of new gloves. I was still waiting, and would wait for ever. When he went north to Kenilworth, my husband sent a scribbled apology for his omission and information that he had a new hound. Not that I lacked such items or the wherewithal to purchase a pair with the finest leatherwork around the gauntlet, exactly like the one in John Holland’s possession.

Why would he not return it?

How repetitious my life became in those months after my return. Early rising for Mass. Some reading, stitching, conversation with Constanza. Perhaps a little hunting or hawking, or walking in the gardens as the weather grew milder. The day-to-day affairs of Hertford ran as smooth as the length of silk of the altar cloth I was stitching. Our steward would have politely deflected any interest I might show. And rightly. I would have been dabbling for dabbling’s sake. I had no interest in domestic affairs.

‘Are you quite well?’ Constanza asked, when I must have sighed inordinately over the gold thread that tangled itself into knots in my careless fingers. I cared not whether the panel was ever complete.

‘I am in perfect health.’

I resisted casting it onto the floor. I must not sigh or draw attention to my restlessness.

‘You are very self-absorbed. Which is unlike you.’

‘I find the days heavy,’ I said, as much as I was prepared to admit. ‘The time hangs as if it were still.’

‘Prayer would help.’

Prayer would not help. ‘The fine weather will improve my mood.’

‘Perhaps you feel for your brother’s grief,’ Constanza suggested, her own eyes moist.

‘Yes.’ And I bowed my head so that she could not see how deeply I grieved for him. And for Mary. The much desired child, a son, born at Rochford Hall, had lived no longer than four days. I had not seen Henry, and could only imagine his distress, but I mourned for him, recalling our quarrel at Westminster, which might be healed but still hovered over me. The sad loss and Mary’s devastation, even though I had no experience of such grief, merely added to the weight of those days.

‘I would still recommend prayer. We will pray together after supper.’

I sighed.

How lacking in excitement, in flavour, my life had become, like a winter repast, stripped of spice and herbs. Like a constant diet of salt fish and pottage. Even our visitors were dull, with nothing to say for themselves.

And still John Holland haunted me.

And what was he doing? John Holland was far too busy to have any thought of me, honing his diplomatic skills in embassies with the Duke in Calais. He was in good favour with my father. Obviously my support for his cause was an irrelevance.

As his presence was to me.

I set another row of stitches with consummate concentration before abandoning it, informing Constanza that she would find me in my own chamber. I did not know what to do with my thoughts or my restless feet and fingers, but at least I could pace there without drawing attention.

‘Don’t forget to meet for prayers, Elizabeth.’

‘Nothing would please me more, madam.’

And then it began, with a Lancaster courier bringing letters and news to Constanza, as they frequently did, passing over a little package with what could only be described as a sly grimace and well-practised guile, as if he often delivered packages which should not be delivered. I received it with equal sleight of hand, hiding it in my oversleeve. And when I unwrapped it, it was to find a silver pin in the shape of a heart, quite plain without gems, but snapped in two. Wrapped around the damaged silver was a twist of parchment and a note in a hand I did not know.

A trifle, broken asunder, as my heart is damaged.

It gave me much food for thought, wagering an emerald pin on the author of that sentiment. It was not Jonty, for whom poetic chivalry was still buried deep beneath the urgent training of hawks and hounds.

Who would single me out for a gift worthy of a chivalric troubadour?

Ha!

And with the passage of days and weeks the gifts continued, all under cover, all small enough to be hidden away from prying eyes in my elm coffer. In some weeks not one courier set foot in Hertford without some item accompanying him, cleverly wrapped in leather or a screw of paper, and the note that accompanied each was brief, enigmatic and unsigned. There was no clue here to the author of the gifts. But for me, there was no riddle to solve.

A pilgrim’s token from the shrine at Walsingham, the cheap pewter dull with the damp of travel.

May the face of the Blessed Virgin smile on you, when you do not allow me the privilege.

A mirror case carved in ivory showing a lady crowning her chosen knight with a garland.

I cannot see my true love, but you can see the face that stops my heart.

A pair of candle trimmers. Very practical!

As you douse your candle, imagine my arms enfolding you in the dark of your bed.

A feathered mask, its edges frayed with age, reminiscent of some past Twelfth Night masque.

Would you hide your true emotions from me?

A ribboned lover’s knot, nothing more than a fairing.

What value my love for you, Lady of Lancaster?

A pair of finches in a wicker cage, which arrived in the full light of day, singing cheerfully.

They will sing my petition for your true regard, whereas I cannot sing at all.

Which was true enough. John Holland might have no voice but he was not without low cunning. Had he also lost his wits to send me so winsome an offering, but something so obvious and impossible to accept discreetly?

‘Who are the birds from?’ Philippa asked when I had hung them in my chamber and they began to trill in the sunshine. Philippa had returned to Hertford for which I was inexpressibly grateful.

‘Jonty,’ I replied. ‘In recompense for forgetting the gloves.’

Whether my sister believed me or not I had no idea, but I found myself waiting, day after day, for the next offering, disappointed when none materialised, setting up a dialogue that part infuriated me, part intrigued.

He will grow tired of it.

He will not. He is trying to wear down my resistance to him.

He will grow weary if you do not reply.

But I will not reply. To reply will put me in his power. To show any interest whatsoever will tell him that he is in my thoughts.

Some of them are charmingly subtle.

And some are particularly crude!

Some are romantic.

Wait until he sends me a dose of agrimony to move the bowels …

What does he intend, with a wooing of such charming foolishnesses?

I knew exactly what he intended. He had great practice in seduction. Did Isabella not have a coffer full of such offerings?

Do you care what Isabella has?

No. And I wish he would stop!

But he did not, and the gifts, trivial as they were, warmed my heart’s blood. But I was not seduced. I would not be. My feet could never walk in unison with those of John Holland.

And then. A single glove, which I recognised full well. My own. Was he returning it to signal he no longer had a care to keep it? Perhaps he would at last allow me to forget him, for my mind and my senses to live at ease.

My heart leapt, dismay a chill coating in my belly. I did not want that. I tore at the wrapping, dropping it to the floor. ‘It’s just the glove I lost.’ Philippa was keeping a closer eye on my gifts. I busied myself discovering its mate in my coffer to hide any heat in my cheeks

‘No need for Jonty to buy you new ones then!’ she remarked dryly. ‘You seem to be in receipt of many packages.’

I crunched the message in the palm of my hand, smoothing it out as soon as I could, and exhaled with relief.

To restore the lost glove to its partner. They were not made to exist apart. As you were not made to live apart from me …

Slowly I pulled on the reunited pair, smoothing the soft leather over my fingers. No, they were not made to exist apart. This was right that they should be together. But was I prepared to acknowledge my own need? He was not allowing me to forget him. It exercised all my will to struggle to banish him from my memory. I was burning with loss and longing. And would have continued to do so until another torn piece of parchment, finely folded, made its way to me. As I opened it, suitably intrigued at the blank sheet with no message, a smattering of coarse dust fell to the floor. I knelt. Not dust but tiny pieces of dried leaves. Rescuing some of them, I placed them in my palm and sniffed. The aroma was very faint.

‘What’s this?’ I asked Philippa, holding out my hand.

She too sniffed. ‘An herb. Is it rue?’

It could be. So what was this? A pinch of rue and no words of love or seduction. I knew its uses, but not its meaning. As it crossed my mind to wonder which of his female acquaintances had supplied him with this, I headed to the kitchens for a discussion with Constanza’s cook, to ask the question: ‘If a woman receives a gift of rue, what should she understand by it?’

John Holland intrigued me, fascinated me, repelled me. I despised the artifice he employed to woo my senses, for rue implied regret. It implied grief and farewell.

He had given up on me at last.

Or had he? Was this merely another ploy to whet my appetite, enticing me with sentimental humours, only to cast me adrift with a clever pinch of crushed leaves that I had dusted from my hands to the floor?

I cared not.

Oh, but I wished … But then, I did not know what it was that I truly wished for. All I heard was the echo of John’s voice in my mind, in my ear, whispering inducements with all the subtlety of the snake in the Garden of Eden. It was dangerous, but I enjoyed the danger. What woman would not?

One of Philippa’s women fetched me, with a warning that set my heart racing. My sister was unwell. When I came into her bedchamber, it was to find her weeping without restraint, her ladies fluttering round her.

‘Philippa!’

I was across the space from door to bed in an instant, taking her in my arms.

‘Don’t mind me.’ Her reply was muffled against my shoulder. ‘It’s nothing.’

My sister did not weep for nothing. My sister rarely wept. I cast about in my mind for a reason that would reduce her to such misery.

‘Is it Henry?’

‘No.’

‘Mary, then …’ Had she not recovered from the tragic birth of their little son?

‘No. They’re happy enough. They’ve agreed to wait before Mary invites him to her bed again.’

And Philippa wept even harder.

‘Tell me.’ Waving her women away, I shook her gently. ‘I’ll hang the finches in your room if you don’t.’ Their shrill singing wearied after a while.

‘What will become of me?’

‘I can’t imagine. Are we talking about the next hour or the next three years?’

She did not smile, but at least she told me.

‘I am twenty-two years old. Where is the marriage plan for me? What if there never is?’

‘But there will be.’

‘Don’t tell me there is a foreign prince just waiting for me to land in his lap. Sometimes I have a terrible conviction that I will end my days in a convent.’

I smoothed her hair, wiped her cheeks. Philippa was softer than I, gentler, far kinder. What a waste it would be if she did not have her own family to love and cherish.

‘It will happen. You know that the Duke will …’

‘I have no one—and you are so ungrateful,’ she interrupted on a wail of misery. ‘You have a husband. You have a man who flirts with you disgracefully. And you don’t want either of them …’ She covered her mouth with her hands looking at me in utter dismay, eyes blind with tears. ‘I never meant to say that.’

I grew still under the bitter lash. Was it not true? I was wrapped about in my own desires, with no thought for Philippa’s lack. How hard she must find it, with both Henry and I wed, and there was nothing I could say to remedy her grief. Except that I could be more understanding, less heedless of everything that did not touch my own life. I promised myself that I would try. But for now …

‘I’ll let you have John Holland,’ I said.

‘I don’t want him,’ she sniffed. ‘He’s a born troublemaker.’

‘Then you can share Jonty.’ Philippa sniffed again, but her tears were ending. ‘A new audience for his enthusiasms is just what he wants. If you talk to him about anything that yaps or cheeps he will love you more than he loves me.’

At last she smiled, but it had put my faults into stark relief. I was too self-absorbed. I always had been. Maturity demanded that I make amends. In the following days, I devoted myself to her entertainment, until Philippa smiled and played her lute again without descending into lachrymose melodies, and I did not mention Jonty or John Holland even once.

The news of the cataclysm, the whole unbelievable order of events, kept company with us, dominating our thoughts, throughout every mile of that endless journey from Hertford. In the heat of the summer of 1384 Philippa and I were riding for Richard’s court at Sheen on the Thames, as if a storm wind harried our heels. Not Constanza—it would take a major tremor of the earth to move Constanza from Hertford—but Philippa and I discovered a need to be where events were unfolding.

Or at least I did, and persuaded my sister who was not averse to accompanying me, even if we were silent for most of the journey, the potential horror of what might have occurred cramming our thoughts without mercy. Philippa had the angel of death riding beside her to expel her anxiety over her unmarried state.

It had all begun at Salisbury where Richard, summoning a meeting of parliament, was staying at a house belonging to Robert de Vere. Was Richard ever so uncontrolled, so lacking in good common sense? Richard’s political acumen barely matched that of a tadpole. After an early Mass, a Carmelite friar had found his way to whisper in the ear of our puissant King that our father, the Duke of Lancaster, was knee deep in a plot against Richard’s life. The Duke, the friar said with monastic certainty, had the death of Richard in mind. On what evidence? The friar did not know, but he had been told. No, he could not recall who had told him …

What would I have done in the circumstances? The question beat at my mind in time with my mare’s hooves.

Thrown the accusation out, along with the mischief-making friar.

What did Richard do?

I hissed a breath as my mare, under pressure, stumbled.

Richard flew into a fury, ordering that the Duke be put to death for so foul a treason.

‘Why would Richard do so ill-considered a thing?’ I demanded of Philippa. ‘To execute our father without trial. To even believe it in the first place.’

‘Because he is afraid.’ All Philippa’s anxiety over her virginal state had vanished under her disgust. ‘Richard is afraid of any man with royal blood who wields power more adeptly than he can.’

‘Surely he cannot believe the Duke’s guilt. I would not.’

‘Richard does not have your confidence, Elizabeth. Or your loyalty to family.’

No, he did not. Fortunately the more reasoning of the lords around him persuaded our King of the unwisdom of so precipitate a reaction. So the Duke was safe, that much we knew, but in the brooding atmosphere at court, who knew what might transpire? We needed to be there to see for ourselves. Nothing would have kept me at Hertford.

Yet for me there was another gnawing anxiety, far more urgent now that the Duke was safe.

What was John Holland’s role in this? I was unsure, and I disliked what I had heard. The friar, taken into custody for his lies, had been seized by men who proceeded to apply unmentionable torture to extract information over the origins of the plot, until the friar died a horrific death. Which might, as I was forced to admit, have passed my attention except for the name of one of the royal household involved. The hands of John Holland, the same hands that chose and sent me gifts and fairings, were now coated in blood in this unpleasant episode.

Why was the friar dead? To close his mouth forever, stopping any incriminating evidence against those who paid him to perjure the Duke, the court gossips opined. For who was to blame? The men who had done him to death, perhaps?

I needed to see John Holland. This man who touched my heart in some manner, had by this unsavoury incident shattered my confidence in my own judgement.

Before we left Hertford, I handed a bound coffer to one of our escort to strap to his saddle.

‘Come on, Elizabeth! Do we need the extra burden?’

‘Yes,’ I replied to Philippa who was hovering.

‘What is that?’

‘Don’t ask.’

When I handed the little wicker cage containing two singing finches to one of my women, Philippa made no attempt to disguise her impatience.

‘Do you really need to take those? You can buy them two a penny in the street in London.’

‘They travel with me,’ I said.

‘If you want to be rid of them, why not just open the cage door?’ My sister had the uncomfortable ability to read my mind.

‘That would rob me of a chance to drive my opinion home,’ I replied.

‘I’ll remind you of that when the birds drive you demented by their tweeting.’

But I was already mounted, my mind already in London. What would I say to him when I met him again? Was ever a woman thrown into disarray by the actions of a man who should have meant nothing to her?

You love him, don’t you?

I was not entirely certain that I knew what love was. And how could I love a man who might be embroiled in foul murder?

‘What do you think?’ Philippa asked as we approached the gateway to the royal palace at Sheen, and were forced by untoward circumstances to draw rein.

I looked aghast at what we saw. As did my sister.

‘I think there’s a storm about to break on our heads,’ I replied. ‘I don’t like it. And I don’t understand why our own Sergeant at Arms looks as if he would turn us away.’

There were guards at the gate, forbidding us entry, and the guards were in Lancaster colours. I recognised the Sergeant at Arms; I could even name him. I could not imagine what was afoot. All the personal anxieties, the difficulties of choices when violent death had taken a role, were swept aside by the sight of the Lancaster retinue equipped for war.

‘Has something happened we don’t know of?’ I asked.

Philippa merely shook her head.

All was not right with Richard, that much we knew. For the past months his court had exuded the noxious stench of a festering sore, the atmosphere tense, strained with rifts within and without. Dangers had rumbled, from a Scottish invasion of Northumberland, to Richard’s unpopular policy of negotiating a peace with France. As for the cost of Richard’s household and entertainments, parliamentary voices were raised in dismay, and aimed at the royal favourites of Burley, de la Pole and de Vere. Over it all had hung the uncompromising heat with no rain to assuage heated tempers. Drought had threatened. Famine and death.

But this was quite different, enough to touch my nape with fear. Lancaster guards on the gates of Sheen?

At least they recognised us, the Sergeant at Arms offering a smart salute.

‘What’s going on, Master Selby?’

‘Some trouble, my lady.’ A laconic enough reply but his face was set in grim lines.

‘Is the Duke here?’ Philippa asked.

‘He is, mistress.’ He helped me to dismount. ‘If you go in, you’ll hear his voice. He’s not best pleased—and who can blame him, I’d say.’

‘Is Sir John Holland here?’ I asked.

‘He is. And doubtless deciding which way to hop.’ And when I looked puzzled, he added: ‘Which side of the fire will scorch him least, if you take my meaning.’

Which made not much sense, until we stepped into the Great Hall which was awash with uncontrolled emotion. It all but blistered us so that we halted in the doorway.

‘Your father would call down shame on your head if he saw the counsellors you choose to give ear to.’ The Duke, in the centre of the chamber, raised his voice well above normal pitch as he addressed Richard.

‘I am King. I choose my own counsellors.’ Supreme on his dais was the King, his pointed nose quivering with fury, fists clenched.

The heated heart of a conflagration the like of which I had never seen. And there were Richard’s courtiers, including John Holland, awaiting the outcome.

‘And bad counsellors at that.’ The Duke was in no mood to retreat. He might not name de Vere, but there was no doubting the sleek object of the Duke’s disgust.

‘I do not have to answer to you, Uncle. By what right do you take me to task?’

‘As for shame …’ My father continued, jaw rigid with a pure reflection of the royal fury. ‘How shameful is it for a King to stoop to murder one of his own family? His own blood. You would have me done to death?’

Was this some monstrous joke? Some ill thought out masque?

It was beyond belief, but my heart began to throb with a heavy beat as I allowed myself to observe the faces of those present. There was no laughter. Nor was there shock. No one questioned the accusation, despite Richard’s face becoming perfectly white. The Duke was fearless in his attack, but I could see the lines of a breastplate beneath his robe. He had come here in fear of his life. John Holland, eyes alert, lips close set, standing a little apart from both, kept his gaze close-trained on his brother. What he was thinking I could not imagine. If he saw my entrance, he gave no reaction. Nor would he, for all was balanced on a dagger edge and any dalliance would be far from his mind. This was a catastrophic expression of power with the outcome undecided, and with a crucial decision for John Holland to make. Lancaster or King? How mask-like his face, a face I had come to know with its range of vivid expression. John Holland’s decision today might deny any need for me to be here, effectively ending any future communication between us.

This was politics in the raw and my stomach lurched.

‘Why would you see a need for revenge on me, sire?’ the Duke demanded. ‘I am your man. I have always been your man.’

‘You humiliate me by your lectures, sir.’

‘So you would plot my murder with the likes of de Vere?’

The gathering was still, motionless in anticipation, de Vere as frozen in time as the carved doorpost on my left. John Holland took one step forward.

‘Sire …’

But Richard commanded his brother’s silence with a crude gesture. ‘How dare you so accuse me?’ Richard said to the Duke.

‘Because it is the truth. I will no longer attend you at court. I fear for my life at your hands. Should a man have to wear armour in the presence of his nephew? By God, he should not.’

And on that, the Duke bowed and stalked out, brushing past Philippa and me without any sign of recognition. The expression on his face smote at my heart.

‘You will not walk away from me!’ Richard’s words exploded, high-pitched, his hand clenched on the sword at his side, and he would have leapt from the dais if John Holland had not stepped forward.

‘No, sire.’ His hand closed on Richard’s sleeve. ‘Would you strike your uncle?’

‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Richard!’ I saw it, the tightening hand of a brother on the King’s sword-arm as Sir John strove to draw the poison from the deadly situation. I took note as Sir John’s hand moved to close round the King’s wrist. And Richard paused. ‘You need to consider, sire.’

‘Why would I need to consider?’ Still Richard’s features were livid. ‘I am King here and I demand honour, even from my uncle.’

‘Lancaster does indeed honour you. Has he not always been the most loyal of your subjects?’

He might release the sword, but Richard wrenched his arm away and stormed from the room. With a shrug and a glance at his brother Thomas, John Holland followed the King.

Thus the audience stuttered into an uneasy end.

Oh, I admired the stance John Holland had taken, his calming words, his attempt to deflect Richard’s wrath. Here was a man who was more than a skilled courtier, all outward glamour with sword and tongue. Here was a depth of understanding that surprised me, a skill to diffuse a potentially unpleasant situation, and a concern for my father that touched my senses.

But in pursuing Richard, to whose side had John Holland, as Master Selby had so aptly put it, ultimately hopped?

I sat on the edge of my bed, hands clasped tightly in my lap, and thought through the mass of uncontrolled passion and dark threats I had just witnessed. So much anger. So much potential violence. And then, because it was not in my nature to sit, I prowled round the room. A royal plot to murder my father? How could I believe that? Yet there had been no hiss of disbelief, no intake of breath. Richard had denied so heinous a crime, but he would hardly admit to it in public.

And where was John Holland now?

He had followed Richard. If he had given his loyalty to his brother, what need for me to be here? Suddenly the death of the Carmelite friar was shadowed into insignificance, the events of the past hour stirring my thoughts into a new pattern, but one equally disquieting. The choice I had come to Sheen to make might not be mine to make after all. Richard’s perfidy might have driven a sword into the very heart of his family, creating new alliances, dividing irrevocably friend from foe.

If I was of a cynical mind, this was a ploy in the game John Holland had instigated, bringing me back to court, where his influence could once more hold sway. But this was no game. This was a royal challenge for power, Richard throwing down his gage. The whole affair stank of blood and betrayal.

‘Stop it!’ Philippa said at last after another track across the room.

‘I can’t.’

‘Is this the man you have a …’ she struggled for words—’… an affection for? For shame. Do you not see what sort of man he is?’

Affection? It was no light affection. I wanted him. I formed the words in my head. Then out loud. ‘I want him.’

‘Then that is the sin of lust!’

I pondered. No—I did not think it was. There was something deeper in the way this man encroached on my thoughts as well as my emotions. But my sister was right, I was in need of some answers.

‘If you want my advice,’ she chivvied, ‘go and return all those silly trinkets to him and make an end to it.’

I stopped mid prowl, my gaze finding hers.

‘Go and see him,’ she urged. ‘Whatever it is between you, end it. Tell him not to send any more. No good will come of it, and you’re a fool if you persist in a flirtation that will end in nothing but shame and scandal—for you if not for him.’

Of course she had noticed the gifts and deduced the giver, adding two and two to make enough white doves to fill a dovecote. How could I have thought that she would not? Philippa, leaving me in no doubt of her opinion, was rarely so acrimonious in her choice of words.

‘I doubt he is in the mood to send more gifts.’ I worried at the border of my flowing oversleeves, teasing the delicate stitching without mercy.

‘No one is. It seems to me that no man at court is in a mood to do anything other than drive a dagger between the shoulder blades of his nearest opponent.’

‘I doubt he is in the mood to see me,’ I continued, realising how trivial my own concerns were in comparison. And yet this was a matter of my own flesh and blood. And, for me, of the heart. ‘I don’t even know if he has turned his back on Lancaster and is even now bolstering cousin Richard in his plots to have us all murdered in our beds.’

‘You won’t know until you talk to him. Do you think he was involved in the plot against the Duke?’

‘How can I possibly know? My heart says no, but it seemed to be that every man in that room looked guilty of something!’ It took me the length of a breath to decide. ‘I’ll go.’

‘What will you do?’ she asked as my hand raised the latch.

I paused, looked back. ‘I don’t know yet.’

Nor did I. All I knew was that I must hear from his own mouth that he was innocent.

‘Just don’t forget that you are a married woman, Elizabeth. And he is a man who is not averse to taking advantage of you.’

‘How can I forget?’

While Philippa took her sharp eyes and even sharper tongue off to find the Queen, to discover the present situation between Anne and her husband, I organised one of my waiting women for appearance’s sake and, carrying my birdcage, marched the chilly journey to where the King’s brothers were housed in the rambling palace. I met no one, heard nothing but the occasional cheep from under the cover. I stopped outside the door, which opened as I raised my hand to knock, and Thomas Holland strode out, coming to a halt.

‘Elizabeth.’

‘Thomas.’

Neither was pleased to see the other.

‘Not a propitious time for one of your family to be here,’ he said, mildly given the circumstances, with the King fuelled with blood-lust. He eyed the birdcage. ‘At least Henry’s had the sense to make himself scarce.’

‘Is your brother in?’ I asked, ignoring the warning.

‘Yes. I’d come back later if I were you. Or not at all. We’ve enough to worry about without you adding to the mix.’

I stood my ground. There was too much I needed to know, to say.

When Thomas shrugged and marched off, I knocked and, giving no time for the occupant to refuse or procrastinate, entered into a chamber that was stark and tidy, everything in its place. It was the chamber of a soldier used to campaigning, rather than the flamboyance of one of Richard’s courtiers, but I had no time to dissect my quarry’s taste in decoration. John Holland was standing by the window, a cup of ale in his hand. Hearing the latch, he spun round.

‘What in God’s name do you want now?’ Fury was vivid in every line of his face. So strong was it that I had to resist taking a step back. Nor did it dissipate when he recognised me. ‘Go away, Elizabeth.’

I would not. Instead I smiled at my waiting woman as if there were nothing amiss. ‘Leave those. You may wait outside for me.’

A curtsy and the travelling chest was placed on a coffer, next to which I added the cage of singing finches, who instantly fell silent. The sneer on John’s face made me flinch.

‘Don’t tell me. You’re returning them all.’ He strode to the far side of the chamber as if he would put distance between himself and my female stupidity. ‘In God’s name, girl! I’ve no time for trifles.’

‘Is that what they are?’ The answer to my question was vitally important.

‘Of what importance is a handful of silly, worthless fairings compared with Richard’s stupidity and betrayal of Lancaster on one side, and the Duke’s intemperance on the other?’

‘None, of course.’ So that was all they were to him. ‘You followed Richard. Have you sworn your support to him? Have you abandoned service to Lancaster?’

‘I have not. I delivered my brother into the hands of the Queen and wished her well of him. I don’t hold out much hope. Only the Princess has the power to offset de Vere’s present influence over Richard. Do you know what my brother’s done? Only given the town and castle of Queen-borough to de Vere as a symbol of his affection. A royal possession, handed over like a piece of marchpane. And then Richard explodes with fury when Lancaster and others take him to task for poor government. But I don’t expect you to see what’s going on under your nose, any more than those damned birds.’

‘I do see.’ The finches were singing endlessly again in incongruous backdrop to the emotion in the room. My heart might have sunk to the soles of my feet under his crude animadversion on my frivolity, but indeed it leapt a little. ‘Do I understand that you have not withdrawn your allegiance from the Duke?’

He did not hear me, anger roiling through him so that the air all but shimmered. ‘The Duke had every justification in his attack, even if more forthright than usual—which is never good policy with Richard who is congenitally incapable of accepting criticism. De Vere and Mowbray are a bad influence and Richard hasn’t the sense of an earwig to see it. So here’s the King digging a hole at his feet, into which he’ll assuredly fall if he allows his passions to rule his wits. What is he thinking? Antagonising Lancaster. Plotting bloody murder. Has he no sense? God keep us from idiot kings. And there’s nothing we can do about it.’

Put so brutally, I realised anew the conflict that threatened to rend my kindred apart. Meanwhile, John drained the cup, looking as if he might toss it against the wall, but placed it carefully on the hearth at his feet. His temper might be up, but he still had it in hand as he took a breath and looked at me. Perhaps the fire in his eye had died a little. He sighed as if he realised the futility of trying to reason with Richard. Or indeed with me.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘I came to see you.’

‘I thought you had rejected me as an ambitious upstart, intent on furthering my career at the expense of the Lancaster connection. Using you as a pawn in my own particularly nasty game, I think you said.’

‘That was before your gifts.’ I ran my finger along the bars of the cage, making the little birds chirrup even louder. ‘I came here to ask you if what I had heard was true. That you had been party to the torture and murder of the friar. Is it true?’

‘Yes. Does it trouble you?’

He was brutally frank. ‘I’m not sure. And my next question; are you a man of crooked loyalties?’

He grimaced. ‘Crooked loyalties?’ Then suddenly he smiled, a curve of his mouth that, unpleasantly, was almost a leer as he leaned his shoulder and elbow against the window surround, blatantly disrespectful of my presence. No, he was not in the best of moods. ‘So you don’t like the thought of a lover with blood on his hands.’

‘You are not my lover. But if you were—what woman would?’

‘Have sense! How can it disturb you to any degree, after what we have seen today, when it’s clear that Richard has no thought for your father’s safety? Of course I was involved. What do you do with a priest who claims to have evidence of so vile a plot at Lancaster’s hands that you know it cannot be true? You discover the source of the slander.’

‘I understand that.’

‘If you are asking if it was my hand that took his life, it was not. If I was cognisant of what went on and gave sanction, yes. It’s not important. Not after today’s episode.’

‘What if there were more evidence?’

‘There was no more.’ The quality of his voice was chilling in its lack of tolerance. ‘Or do you think we closed his mouth for good to stop him pointing an incriminating finger? And if you think that, where would that finger point, Madam Elizabeth? Would it perhaps point at me? Do you suspect me of plotting to rid England of Lancaster’s influence?’

The fury was truly alight again.

‘That’s not what I thought.’

But it had stepped into my mind. It was not impossible. For the guilty to destroy the one witness who claimed knowledge of the evidence, evidence that would drench them all in treason. How many at court would willingly destroy the Duke? But would John Holland put his hand to such a betrayal? It was exactly the dilemma that had kept me vicious company since the rumours began.

‘Would you think that of me?’ he demanded.

‘No.’

‘Thank God for that.’ The leer hardened into cynical, but in an instant he swooped, crossing the room to seize my hands in his before I could stop him. ‘I did it propter amorem ducis, Elizabeth, for love of the Duke. Just as I tried to remonstrate with Richard today. Since Richard is become unreliable and uncontrolled, the Duke needs friends at court. I am honoured to be called one of them. Does that set your mind at rest? Is the lesson in politics over?’

‘I needed to know that you were still a friend of the Duke, not his enemy.’

He released me as if my hands burned, and I realised that, by questioning his loyalties, I had hurt him. How much hurt was there in the palace of Sheen on this day. He prowled the room, much like a wolf before the hounds that would bring it down. Striding to where the chest and birdcage sat, he placed one on the floor and held the other out to me, then delved into the coffer beneath. From it he took a silver collar that glittered in the light as he held it up.

‘Do you recognise this?’

Yes.’ Of course I did. I had probably seen one such every day of my life.

He cast it over his own head so that it lay flat on his shoulders, the joined ‘S’ shapes neatly fitting together with serpentine splendour. A Lancaster livery collar, a symbol of loyalty and maintenance, much prized by those in service to the Duke.

‘This is mine, given to me by your father in recognition of my support in times of war and peace. As well as in gratitude for preserving the life of his son and daughter when the rebels would have shed their blood. I wear it with honour. I will continue to wear it with honour towards you and your family until the day of my death.’

It could not have been stated more succinctly, even though his voice was rough-edged as he came to stand before me.

‘Does that satisfy you?’

‘Yes.’

Lightly I ran my fingers over the gleaming links, but, still in the grip of emotion, he pulled away to stride to the empty hearth.

‘So. To return to your presence here. Are you returning those?’ he asked over his shoulder as he retrieved his cup and refilled it, then emptying it in one long swallow, wiping his mouth with his hand. ‘If so, you’ve done it, so go away and leave me in peace.’

And this time he tossed the empty cup on the hearth where it shattered, shards of the glazed pottery spread wide. It could all end here, all the tantalising dreams demolished. Is that what I wanted? Would that not be the best outcome after all?

Go. Go back to Hertford.

There was not one of my family that would advise me otherwise.

‘I was going to return the gifts,’ I stated carefully, still holding the infuriating birds. ‘I thought it was a complication I did not need in my life. But I need to know.’

‘What do you need to know, apart from whether I murdered the hapless friar?’

‘If you meant what you wrote with the worthless trifles.’

‘Yes. Why else would I write them?’

‘Were they worthless?’ Abandoning the finches, walking forward to stand in front of him again, I looked up into his face. Our eyes were not quite on a level. I had forgotten how tall he was, how effortlessly he could dominate a room, a conversation. But I did not want flippancy. I wanted honesty.

‘Were they worthless to you?’ John Holland looked at me, questioning me, the careless violence now in check, the anger gradually draining, so that I could see the tension in his body relax, the tempestuous passions gone at last. ‘What do you want from me, Elizabeth?

‘I am not entirely sure. But I thought I should put you right on one matter.’ He tilted his chin as I drew from my sleeve a bunch of rue that I tucked into the links of the livery chain. ‘You were wrong to send me rue with no inscription. Rue is not only an expression of regret and goodbye. It is powerful protection.’ I had used my time well amongst the ancient works in my father’s library at Hertford. ‘It claims a healing power against all manner of poison and the evil eye. I think you might need it, as matters stand at court.’

He laughed softly.

‘So you came to put me right, Madam Elizabeth.’

‘I thought I should.’

I was trembling at what I had done, at what I was hoping for.

‘You might not know your own mind, but I know what I want.’ His voice had become as gentle as the soft paw of a kitten. How silver-tongued he could be when he chose. ‘There is no ending, no regret between us. There is only what we choose to make of the future.’

‘I think I am afraid,’ I admitted.

‘What need? Our future is ours for the making.’ My hands were back in his, held firmly. ‘Get an annulment and let us join hands. Enough of wooing. Let me show you our future unwinding before us.’

Drawing me forward he bent his head and touched his lips to mine, a momentary brush of mouth against mouth, when I had expected something of an onslaught.

‘I have discovered a desire in me, a desire far too strong for my own good, I expect,’ he said. ‘I would sweep you up, but must remind myself of your inexperience.’

Never had I expected him to offer such a declaration. ‘Do you desire me?’ I asked, startled into so clumsy a question.

He kissed me again, lingeringly this time, invitingly, and I allowed it with warmth spreading down to my feet, until he raised his head, and waited.

‘You have to reply in kind,’ he advised when I remained mute, conscious only of the jolt of pure desire. ‘Have the troubadours taught you nothing?’

I struggled to explain, helplessly. ‘I think that I have … that I have a desire for you too.’

Which made him laugh. ‘Well, that will not move the earth as a declaration. Another kiss perhaps.’ Which he applied with some fervour. And another until all thoughts were driven from my head. Then: ‘What made you change your mind?’

‘I didn’t. I haven’t.’ How foolish such a denial when my lips were warm, my blood a drum-beat in my ears. ‘Even at the last moment, as I stood outside your door, I came to say it must stop.’

‘How you compromise the truth, Countess! I don’t believe you. Why not just kept the fairings without any commitment, or send your serving woman to deliver them and leave them outside my door?’

His smile was like a blessing, the return of his seductive tone a joy to me.

‘I always tell the truth.’ I smiled.

‘Then you are unlike any other woman I know.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you. The finches are a nuisance. I had to return them.’

‘You could have given them to Constanza rather than bring them all the way to Sheen.’ He kissed me again, tempting me to kiss him back, which I did. My education in the arts of love was being extended by the minute.

‘What made you change your mind, my wanton love?’ he asked, placing me a little distance away from him.

So in the end I told him as much as I was prepared to say, only a portion of the truth, but all I would admit to him.

‘It was the glove. You returned it, to restore the pair, two halves of a whole.’ It seemed to me a reasonable argument that he might accept.

‘Is that what we are?’ The tilt of his head was encouraging.

‘So I think. I might be certain if you kissed me again.’

I did not tell him the full truth of it, as he was pleased to humour me with a succession of kisses. I would not. As I knew full well, there was the threat of too much pain in this relationship, for both of us, and yet I was drawn into it beyond all the teachings of my young years. All my good intentions had been cast aside.

What was it that I had seen that day at Sheen that had shaken my determination to reject John Holland’s gifts and his professed desire to know me more intimately? Standing in the doorway of Richard’s audience chamber, I had become aware of such bitterness, such strife that would destroy the unity of those I loved. Henry deliberately absent. Constanza lonely, succoured only by prayer and futile ambition at Hertford. Richard and the Duke at lethal odds. Philippa unhappy in her unwedded state. Dame Katherine rejected and isolated in Lincoln. And I in the grip of a loveless and hopeless marriage.

Was happiness to be discovered anywhere, for any of us? What an untrustworthy emotion it was. And how ephemeral in its power. In the face of such a vast well of despair, how could I not decide to seize the chance of happiness with a man I believed had more than an affection for me? A man who might just touch my soul?

And so my father’s warnings were swept aside along with my brother’s disapproval, my new political awareness tucked away in a coffer like an unwanted gift of a bodice that did not become me. Yes, it was wrong. Yes, it would bring down a maelstrom of horrified accusations upon us if we were anything less than discreet. And yes, there were clear bounds to this relationship beyond which I would not yet go. But the delight when John Holland kissed me erased all sense of duty and honour and loyalty. All I had been raised to believe to be acceptable for a daughter of the Duke of Lancaster was scattered like blossoms in a high gale, and all for the sake of John Holland. As our families strained under increasing acrimony, we would acknowledge our attraction to each other.

And here was the true reason for my present embrace within the confines of John Holland’s arms. The Duke would be appalled if he knew the exact moment when this change of heart had been born. He would condemn me utterly, but there he himself stood at the very centre of my decision, for I had seen the pain on my father’s face as he had walked from that audience chamber. A proud man, a clever man, a man who wielded authority with all the confidence of his royal blood, never had I seen the Duke wear his years with such anguish as when his life’s work to guide Richard seemed to be over with such a brutal exchange of accusation and counter accusation. I had seen how alone and isolated he was in that Great Hall at Sheen, ripped apart from his royal duty on one side, and from the woman he loved on the other.

How important was Dame Katherine to my father?

She was the reason he lived and breathed, and how ardently he mourned her loss. It was written in the grooves that marked his brow and indented his lips. And now, searching John Holland’s saturnine expression, I let my thoughts settle, fitting together into a plain pattern. How important was this enchantment that called to my heart? If I was fortunate to discover it I must not let it go. I would never find it with Jonty. But it seemed that I had found it, even in the few hours we had spent together, with John Holland.

Oh, I was not blind. John Holland had a temper that could gallop like a frenzied horse, coupled with an ungovernable restlessness more powerful than mine. He was a law unto none but his own ambitions. He could use words to flatter or destroy. Could I love a man such as this? Could I ever, with a whole heart, trust him?

But there was also, I believed, an unquestionable streak of loyalty in him. In receipt of my father’s annuity, he had stood for him against his own brother. How hard must that have been? Here was a man of some tenacity of mind, a man I could admire.

Then again—did I want a man to woo me who had blood on his hands, by his own admission?

‘One thing …’ I said, closing my fingers around his wrist as he finally led me to the door.

‘Another question?’

There had to be, a final laying to rest of the events of that day, but I hoped I could read John Holland accurately enough to anticipate his reply. If I could not, then all my decision making was in vain ‘Was there any evidence at all that the friar’s tale was true? That my father was involved in a plot against Richard? Was the friar’s death worth the doing?’

‘None.’ His eyes were without shadow, without deceit. ‘There was none at all. It was a plot against the Duke by his enemies. Your father is without blame.’ A final kiss, still beautifully controlled but with the promise of more. ‘Now go, before we compromise your sparkling reputation further.’

He filled my youthful heart with joy. It was as if a candle had been lit to illuminate every vista as I walked back to my own rooms, my waiting woman carrying the coffer and the finches, to hang them once again in the window, their twittering a symbol of my choice.

‘I see we are still saddled with those creatures,’ Philippa observed. ‘Does that mean that your meeting with Sir John was to your liking rather than mine?’

‘Perhaps.’

I would tell no one. Not yet. Not while it was still so new and bright and yet so dangerous.

‘I will pray that the Blessed Virgin protect you.’

But from what I was entirely uncertain.

I fell into pensive mood. Why this man? Why was John Holland, of all the courtiers I knew, able to demand my attention? Even to lure me into impropriety?

Was it his unquestionably handsome features? I did not think so. There were many pretty creatures at Richard’s court who stirred no emotion within me unless it was envy of the gleam of their hair or the length of their eyelashes.

Perhaps, then, it was his presence, the impact of his will, even when unspoken. But I had been used to that all my life. No one could compare with my father for making an entrance, and Henry bode fair to match him. Why should I be drawn to John Holland’s bold demeanour?

His skills in the jousting were incomparable. The lithe, muscular strength, the practised agility, the flamboyant display of pure talent all made other women sigh too, but that was no reason for me to abandon all I knew of behaviour suitable for a Plantagenet daughter. Why not just sit and admire? No need to endanger my reputation for kisses with a tournament champion who had a host of women willing to humour him.

A reputation for wild intransigence, was, of course, always attractive in a handsome man, but was that enough?

John Holland was beautiful, intemperate and self-aware. He was clever and headstrong and mercurial and …

And it came to me, so that I laughed a little. He was very like me. Was I not the same wilful creature? Was this, then, a simple matter of like attracting like?

I gave up on my tortuous thoughts. Whatever the cause, when John Holland entered a room I was aware of no one else.

Meanwhile, in the environs of the court, it was like walking on icy pathways, a fatal slide and slip possible at any moment to cast us all into a welter of blood and treason. But, in the usual manner of courtly circumspection, when the alternative was too dangerous to contemplate, relations were patched and mended when we left Sheen to take up residence within the stark walls of Westminster Palace. The chill formality of the rooms might match the general mood, but Princess Joan, descending in a glory of green silk, heaved herself from her litter and took her royal son to task, not mincing her words. Of necessity the Duke swallowed his pride to meet the King in a sour spirit of reconciliation.

No one believed it would last beyond the length of the Princess’s sojourn with the aggrieved parties, even though hands were briefly clasped between uncle and nephew and smiles forced.

‘Like new cloth stitched to an old gambeson, that will rip apart the first time you raise your arm to draw a sword,’ John Holland grimaced. ‘Which Richard is more than capable of doing, by God.’

In blind rage, Richard had drawn cold steel against the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Never again would I close my eyes to what was happening to the disparate strands of our family. Yet, anxious as I was, I snatched at happiness and clung with a bold tenacity. Why would I not? I had learnt the frailty of life, the chancy basis of power, when faced with the King’s intolerance. I had no influence to bear on the rift between King and Duke, all I could do was watch and worry, and I did.

My education in the art of giving and receiving kisses was thorough. And highly enjoyable.