Chapter Nine

February 1387, Oporto, Portugal.

I sat in my chamber in the royal palace—Philippa’s palace now—my thoughts with the Duke and John, my body at ease, happiness sitting as lightly on my shoulders as my loose silk gown, for I was not receiving guests. It had been an eventful month.

My father and John were away at war. Any attempt to enforce Constanza’s claims on the kingdom of Castile through diplomatic means had been rejected by the present King so in retaliation our army, in alliance with that of King João of Portugal, had invaded the Castilian possession of Galicia to increase the pressure on King John of Castile. The campaign had gone well and Galicia had been taken. This much we knew. Would not Castile come to terms, conceding Constanza her inheritance? Thus the campaign would come to perfect fruition and John and I could return to England.

My mind was as much at ease as my body.

Not that I resented my surroundings. All was comfort, a gentle breeze stirring the air around me as one of the royal servants picked out a tune on a lute. I now recognised the songs and could hum the melody. I was not homesick.

I lifted the baby from its cradle to my lap, where it slept on, still exhausted by its rapid entry into the world. I smiled, stroking the tiny hands, the perfect nails.

‘You are the cause of a lot of trouble,’ I informed the child, who yawned. ‘What will your father say when he sees you?’

The baby was unimpressed.

‘Let me tell you a few things you should know. Were you aware that you are part of a most pre-eminent family? Your aunt Philippa is now Queen of Portugal. You almost put in an ill-advised appearance in the middle of the wedding ceremony.’ I laughed softly at the memory of my hasty departure from the proceedings. ‘She is married to King João to make a strong alliance against Castile. What a Queen she will make. She will have every virtue and the people of Portugal will adore her and sing her praises. She will never be the cause of scandal. Not like your mother.’ I stroked the wisps of hair that escaped the baby’s cap, dark tendrils, not fair like mine. ‘Philippa is intent on loving her husband, even though she had never met him until they were within weeks of the altar, and she has discovered that he has a mistress. I could not be so sanguine, but then your aunt was always more tolerant than I.’

The baby slept, untroubled by the heat, or my essential information for the newest member of our family.

‘And then there is your grandfather. The best man I know. The bravest. The most honourable despite his keeping a mistress. They are estranged, but not as much as they once were. You will meet Dame Katherine when we return to England. She will love you as I love you. But your grandfather—he is proud and ambitious for power, and one day he will be King of Castile. He will lavish gifts and affection on you, as he indulged me. His blood and spirit will be in you too. It is a great inheritance.’

For a moment I let my thoughts wander to the problems facing our forces, but what use in that? Nothing I could do would affect the outcome.

‘Your grandmother you will never know. Blanche the fair. Blanche the beautiful and good. I barely recall her. Your grandmother by law is sharp and impatient and Castilian. She will have no time for you, but we must not be too harsh. She lost the child she was carrying within a month of our landing. She’ll not bear another. All her hopes now rest with her daughter Katalina when she desired a son so badly. We have to be compassionate. She spends much time at prayer.’

‘Your father.’ And I smiled again. The baby’s hair was as dark as John’s. ‘What do I tell you about him? Where is he now? Somewhere in Galicia I expect, but you must understand that as Constable of the Army his time is not his own and he cannot dance attendance on us.’ I leaned to whisper in the baby’s ear. ‘I should warn you. He will care for you and nurture you, but he will always put his own interest first.’ I mused aloud again to the backdrop of the sultry lute. ‘Your father loves me, but he managed to be far away when you were born. Perhaps you look a little like him. If you are half as good a knight as he is, you will carry all the prizes at the tournament and turn women’s heads. He turned mine. As well as rescuing me from certain death. I wish he were here now, so that …’

A hand brushed my shoulder, lightly.

‘So that he could tell you about your mother.’

The voice and touch made me jump, but then all my senses settled into a steady hum of pleasure as battle-hardened knuckles brushed against my throat, yet I looked up, deciding to hide my delight, to punish him a little for neglecting me. Oh, how good it was to see him again. If I needed proof that my decision to risk marriage and this strange exile with John, it was in the sheer joy and relief that squeezed my heart.

‘John! What a surprise to see you here. Was I expecting you?’

He signalled for the lute-player to depart. ‘And a surprise for me too!’

He stooped to press a salute against my cheek, before taking the child from my arms, holding him with easy competence as he proceeded to catalogue my less endearing characteristics.

‘Your mother is headstrong and obstinate, like an unbroken filly. She can be scheming and devious to get her own way. She has the pride of all her family, some would say the vanity too.’

‘John …!’ I remonstrated, at last.

John shook his head. ‘She has more courage than any woman I know,’ he continued. ‘She has wisdom and integrity, and such a keen loyalty, you would not believe it. It shines like a shooting star in the heavens. She is the only woman I have ever loved, the other half of my soul.’ Then added, lifting his gaze to mine so that I could read all the love shining there: ‘You will forgive my lapse into poetic verbiage—unlike me, I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’

‘But you are here now.’ How I loved him. And in the long moment that his smiling eyes held mine, the bond, unbreakable, unequivocal, was refashioned between us. A little weary, still wearing travel-worn clothing—which made my heart leap a little for he must have come straight to me—he brought into the solar the aroma of horse and dust and sweat, yet he looked well. The strains of campaigning had not touched him. Nor had it blunted his wit.

‘What do I call it? Is it a son?’ he asked as the baby whimpered in its sleep.

‘Yes. Can’t you tell?’

‘Not without unclothing him. He is very small.’

‘He is only two weeks old.’

‘How soon before he can hold a sword?’

‘Not for at least another month.’

He placed our son back in the cradle and set it rocking gently with his foot, while his eyes fixed on mine with a raptor’s fierceness.

‘I thank God for your safe delivery. You were much in my mind.’

Which made me fall in love with him all over again.

‘And what do we call our son?’ I asked to divert attention from my flushed cheeks. ‘Will it be John?’

‘Too many Johns in this family. Richard. We will call him Richard. The King will like that. A final step in my reconciliation.’

‘The future Sir Richard Holland.’

‘I’ve set my sights far higher than that. I must impress Richard into ennobling me in gratitude for my services. Would you enjoy being a Duchess?’

Lifting me from my chair, he drew me into his arms, regardless of the unfortunate transfer of detritus from weeks of campaigning from him to me, to seal his homecoming with an embrace that reminded me of all the passion which had led to the arrival of this splendid Holland heir.

‘Do you think I care?’ I asked, when I could, for John was not content until he bore me off to my chamber where a tub of hot water led to much laughter and splashing.

‘I’m sure you don’t. You will always be Lancaster’s daughter. But I do.’

Which confirmed everything I had said to my son about his father. But I loved him. Even when the heat and the insects wearied me beyond bearing I would be nowhere other than with him. The grime of campaigning suitably obliterated, we celebrated John’s homecoming with languid kisses, followed by less than languid embraces as we rediscovered old wounds and abrasions, and many new ones. Which reminded me of the perils of warfare, and I gave thanks for John’s return.

The lines on my father’s brow deepened like furrows in a ploughed field with the passing of every week. Constanza, sharp and sleepless, devoted herself to prayer. Philippa wore her new robes with anxiety. John ate little and slept less.

My father’s campaign to Castile, as many had predicted, proved disastrous for his and Constanza’s long cherished ambitions. Philippa might be satisfactorily wed to the King of Portugal, giving us a strong ally, but any diplomatic attempts to enforce Consanza’s claim to Castile died a terrible death, despite the initial success against Galicia. In a show of force our army invaded Leon, a kingdom owned by King John of Castile, only for despair to set in as our troops suffered. It was a time imprinted for ever on my memory, with its horrors of starvation, dysentery and heat that beat us into the ground. Our troops deserted, yet the Duke’s determination committed us to further warfare.

Until John stalked into my chamber to announce in a tone that did not brook opposition or even discussion: ‘That’s an end to it. We are going home.’

It shocked me, took me by surprise. It could not be. ‘No!’ The first clash of our married existence.

‘I say that we will.’

‘We cannot leave. You have a duty here.’ Would we really abandon the campaign? Abandon my father and the whole enterprise? Could the Constable of the army bow out of the whole enterprise with impunity?

‘We cannot stay.’ His face was set in even grimmer lines that were harshly delineated through loss of weight in the last weeks. ‘I came here to restore my reputation. I never will. The war is doomed and the Duke’s star is in the descendent. Every blind beggar at the church door can see that.’

I was not persuaded. Was this cold ambition or rampant realism? Could nothing be resurrected from our present failure?

Apparently not. ‘It’s over, Elizabeth.’ He prowled from one end of my chamber to the other, the violence of his passing wafting the delicate bed hangings into a shiver of silk embroidery. ‘We do nothing but waste men and money. It is indefensible to continue in what everyone must see as a lost cause.’

‘But the Duke …’

John cast himself into a chair, then abandoned it to walk with increasing restlessness as he explained.

‘The Duke is blind to reality. Ask your sister’s royal husband. He sees the truth of it. He’s reluctant to promise more troops to a campaign that can never be won. My only hope is to put myself back in Richard’s eye and hope for a short memory and family loyalty to bring me back into his good books.’ His stare when he halted in front of me was inimical, in case I continued to oppose him. ‘Otherwise I will remain a poor, landless knight, selling his skills around Europe, barely able keep his wife in silk and his son in good horses as he grows.’

So both ambition and realism, it seemed. I added my own immediate problem to his shoulders for good measure.

‘It could be worse than that, John. I am breeding again.’

Emotion warred in his face as he gripped my hands tightly to drag me to sit beside him on the bed. ‘Even more reason to go.’ And when he still saw doubt in my face. ‘I know your reasons for staying. Your family will not travel back with us, but there is nothing here for me, and my increasing family. There is everything for us in England. That is where we belong. That is where we can make our mark and set down roots for our children.’

I could see his reasoning, impeccable as ever. Self-serving as ever, many would say. Yet, releasing my hands from his, I went to the intricately traceried window from where I could look out over the parched hills, the pale sky. There was a choice to be made, but was it so momentous as I had first thought? I would leave Philippa to rule Portugal beside her husband, but that I had always known and accepted. If the campaign failed, the Duke would make a settlement to preserve his dignity and he too would return. So I imagined would Constanza if she was denied her birthright. Henry was in England with his wife Mary and a newborn son I had never seen. Then there was Richard, who might have grown into a stable maturity under the influence of capable and loving Anne. I could renew my connection with Dame Katherine in Lincoln, who would be charmed by my son and the forthcoming child. All the family I knew and loved to welcome me home. Everyone I knew at Kenilworth, my favourite home. What was to keep me here?

Nothing. Nothing but the inevitability of failure. There was no difficult choice for me to make when family beckoned so strongly. Besides, John wanted to go home. He would never agree to leave me here and return alone, so why trouble myself over a decision that was already made in my mind and in reality?

I returned to stand before him.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Never more sure. I’ve already spoken with the Duke.’

‘And he agrees?’

‘Reluctantly, but yes.’

So all was arranged, with or without my blessing. But I could find no strong argument to offset the planning.

‘We will go home,’ I agreed, already mentally distancing myself from the silk-clad languid luxury of this Portuguese palace.

And that is exactly what we did, after a lachrymose farewell with Philippa, a more stringent one with my father, and with safe conduct to travel through Castile to Gascony where we took ship. And home.

‘What will await us?’ I asked, my hand tucked in John’s arm as the coast of England came into view, a thin grey line on the horizon.

‘Promotion for me,’ John announced. ‘Richard will award my loyalty with land and a title. He’ll make me work hard for it, of course.’ Anticipation had grown stronger in him with each mile we covered towards England.

And perhaps he was right. Any guilt I felt in what some would have said was a rat abandoning the sinking ship, any regrets at leaving Philippa, were swept away when we set foot on English shores, a bare twelve month since we had left. The Castilian problem would be settled without my presence. Now we had our own family to think of. Richard would welcome us, John would work hard to establish us, and all would be well. Our future unrolled before me, a time of royal approval when Sir John Holland would become one of the foremost men of the land.

There was nothing to ruffle the waters of my serenity.

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