Praise for
Anne O’Brien

‘O’Brien cleverly intertwines the personal and political in this enjoyable, gripping tale’

The Times

‘[A] fast-paced historical novel’

Good Housekeeping

‘Anne O’Brien has unearthed a gem of a subject’

Daily Telegraph

‘A gripping story of love, heartache and political intrigue’

Woman & Home

‘There are historical novels and then there are the works of Anne O’Brien – and this is another hit’

The Sun

‘The characters are larger than life…and the author a compulsive storyteller’

Sunday Express

‘This book has everything – royalty, scandal, fascinating historical politics’

Cosmopolitan

‘A gripping historical drama’

Bella

‘Historical fiction at its best’

Candis

ANNE O’BRIEN was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After gaining a BA Honours degree at Manchester University and a Master’s at Hull, she lived in the East Riding for many years as a teacher of history. After leaving teaching, Anne decided to turn to novel writing and give voice to the women in history who fascinated her the most. Today Anne lives in an eighteenth-century cottage in Herefordshire, an area full of inspiration for her work.

Visit Anne online at www.anneobrienbooks.com.

Find Anne on Facebook and follow her on Twitter: @anne_obrien

Also by
Anne O’Brien

VIRGIN WIDOW

DEVIL’S CONSORT

THE KING’S CONCUBINE

THE FORBIDDEN QUEEN

THE SCANDALOUS DUCHESS

THE KING’S SISTER

THE QUEEN’S CHOICE

THE SHADOW QUEEN

QUEEN OF THE NORTH

A Tapestry of Treason

Anne O’Brien

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Anne O’Brien 2019

Anne O’Brien asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 978-0-008-22548-3

Note to Readers

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With all my love, as always, to George, who immersed

himself in this tale of medieval politics and high drama.

A born Lancastrian, after reading of the

devious exploits of the House of York, he remains

a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the red rose.

Cast of Characters

The Royal Court in 1399

King Richard II.

Queen Isabelle de Valois, Richard’s second wife.

The House of York

Edmund of Langley, Duke of York.

Isabella, Princess of Castile, now deceased, mother of the three York children:

- Edward of Norwich, Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumale, later Duke of York.

- Constance of York, Lady Despenser, Countess of Gloucester.

- Richard (Dickon) of Conisbrough, later Earl of Cambridge.

The Despensers

Thomas, Lord Depsenser, Earl of Gloucester, husband of Constance, father of their 3 children:

- Richard.

- Elizabeth.

- Isabella.

Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, in silent sympathy with the York and Despenser conspirators.

House of Lancaster

King Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Joanna of Navarre, Duchess of Brittany, second wife of King Henry.

The six royal children:

- Henry (Hal), Prince of Wales.

- Thomas.

- John.

- Humphrey.

- Blanche.

- Philippa.

John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, half-brother to King Henry.

Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, half-brother to King Henry.

The Holland Family

John Holland, Earl of Huntington, Duke of Exeter.

Thomas Holland, 3rd Earl of Kent, John Holland’s nephew.

Joan, Duchess of York, second wife of Edmund of Langley, sister of Thomas and Edmund Holland.

Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, lover of Constance of York.

Madonna Lucia Visconti, an Italian lady with a large dowry, Countess of Kent, wife of Edmund Holland.

Alianore, daughter of Edmund Holland and Constance of York.

The Mortimers

Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, a child in captivity in Windsor Castle.

Roger Mortimer, his younger brother, also in Windsor Castle.

The Percys

Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, a man of authority, ambition and conflicting loyalties.

Sir Henry Percy (Hotpsur), Northumberland’s son and heir.

Those to be found in aristocratic households

Friar John Depyng: King Richard II’s soothsayer.

Ralph Ramsey, one of King Henry IV’s esquires, rewarded for his loyalty.

William Flaxman, another Court minion in receipt of the King’s generosity

Richard Milton, agent of Constance in the Windsor plot.

A locksmith who paid for his conspiracy with his life.

Richard Maudeleyn, a clerk, who played the role of Richard II.

William Maidstone, Constance’s chivalric champion.

Sir John Pelham, a staunch supporter and counsellor of King Henry IV.

And in Wales

Owain Glyn Dwr, stirring rebellion in the west and claiming the title of Prince of Wales.

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Cast of Characters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Acknowledgements

What inspired me to write about Constance of York, Lady Despenser?

And Afterwards…

Travels with Constance of York, Lady Despenser

Excerpt

About the Publisher

Chapter One

February 1399: Westminster Palace

‘Entertain us, sir.’

Since my invitation caused Friar John Depyng to step aside in a display of speed impressive for so corpulent a figure, I smiled a brief show of teeth to soften my command. ‘If it please you, sir. We desire to take a glimpse into the future.’

Friar John, not won over to any degree, dared to scowl. ‘Divination is not for entertainment, my lady.’

Unperturbed, my brother Edward, forcefully large, grasped his elbow and drew him along with us. ‘You would not wish to refuse us. It would displease the King if your being disobliging happened, by chance, to come to his ear.’

The quality of Edward’s smile lit fear in the cleric’s eyes.

At my behest, we were borrowing Friar John, one of King Richard’s favourite preachers who had the gift of soothsaying, to while away an otherwise tedious hour after supper. Weary as we were of the minstrels and disguisers, my two brothers and my husband were not averse to humouring me, for here was a man famed for his prophecy. Was he not held in high regard by our cousin King Richard? Why not allow him to paint for us the future? I had said. All was in hand for the campaign against the treacherous Irish, waiting only on the King’s final command for embarkation. Why not enjoy our victory before it was even won?

We took occupation of a chill room in the Palace of Westminster, a room that looked as if it had once stored armaments but was now empty, save for stools and a crude slab of a table more fitting for some usage in King Richard’s kitchens.

‘Tell us what you see of the future,’ I demanded as soon as the door was closed, lifting the purse at my girdle so that it chinked with coin.

Yet still Friar John looked askance at me and my companions: my brothers Edward and Dickon, and Thomas my husband.

‘I will not,’ Friar John said. He lowered his voice. ‘It is dangerous.’ He glanced at the closed door, through which there was no immediate escape.

‘You will. I am Constance Despenser, Countess of Gloucester. I know that you will not refuse me.’

‘I know full well who you are, my lady.’

I pushed him gently to a stool, with a little weight on each shoulder to make him sit, which he did with a sigh while I leaned to whisper in his ear, the veils, attached with jewelled clasps to my silk chaplet, fluttering seductively. ‘We will reward you, of course.’

‘He’s naught but a cheap fortune teller.’ Thomas drew up a stool with one foot and sank onto it. ‘A charlatan who would tell any tale for a purse of gold.’

I did not even grace Thomas with a glance; to mock our captive priest would not warm him to our purpose. ‘The King goes to Ireland,’ I said. ‘Tell us of his good fortune. And ours.’

‘But not if you see my death,’ Edward grinned. ‘If you do, I expect you to lie about it.’

I passed a coin to Friar John who, suitably intimidated, took from a concealment in his sleeve two golden dice, placing them on the uneven surface of the table.

‘I like not dice prophecy,’ Thomas growled.

But Friar John, now in his métier and with the prospect of further coin, was confident. ‘It is what I have used to give the King a view of the coming days, my lord.’ Picking up the dice, with an expert turn of the wrist he threw them. They fell, rolled and halted to show a six and a six.

‘Is that good?’ Dickon asked, leaning his weight on the table so that it rocked on the uneven floor, until I pushed him away. He was Richard of Conisbrough when formality ruled, which was not often in this company. He was my younger brother by at least ten years.

‘Too good to be true.’ Thomas was scowling. ‘I recall the King had a pair of loaded dice, a gift when he was a child, so he could never lose. Until his friends refused to gamble with him. They were gold too.’

Friar John shook his head in denial, but more in arrogance. ‘There is no sleight of hand here, my lord. This is the most advantageous throw of all. The number six stands for our lord the King himself. It indicates his strength. This shows us that England is a paradise of royal power.’

‘Excellent!’ Edward said, arms folded across this chest. ‘Throw again.’

Friar John threw again. Each one of the die fell to reveal a single mark.

‘Is this dangerous?’ I asked. ‘Does this single mark then deny the royal power?’

‘Not so, my lady. This means unity. There is no threat against our King.’

‘None of this has any meaning!’ Thomas slouched on his stool, his chin on his folded hands, his solid brows meeting above a masterful nose, marring what might have been handsome if heavy features. ‘I swear it’s all a mockery. Don’t pay him.’

‘Again,’ I said. ‘One more time.’

Another throw of the dice to show a three and a three. Friar John beamed. ‘Excellent: the Trinity. And three is half of six. So to add them – three and three – means that the King remains secure. The campaign in Ireland will bring nothing but good.’

He collected the dice into the palm of his hand and made as if to secrete them once more into his sleeve, relief flitting across his face.

‘Not yet.’ I covered his hand with mine, for here, to my mind, was the true purpose of this venture. ‘Now throw the dice for us. What will our future hold?’

With a shrug, he threw again. A two and a three. The three was the first to be revealed, then the two to fall alongside. From Friar John there was a long intake of breath.

‘What is it?’ Edward demanded. ‘Don’t stop now…’

‘When two overcomes three, all is lost.’ The friar let the words fall from his tongue in a turbulence, with no attempt to hide his dismay. ‘When two overcomes three, disaster looms. Two reveals disunity. Disunity threatens the King. It threatens peace. It is necessary to unite behind the King to prevent so critical an attack on the peace of the realm. Sometimes it is necessary…’

He swallowed, his words at last faltering.

‘Sometimes what?’ I saw Edward’s fingers tighten into talons on our friar’s shoulder.

Friar John looked up into his face. ‘Sometimes it means that the King is unable to hold the realm in peace, my lord. It means that the lords of the realm must unite to choose a new King. One more fit for the task.’

‘But we don’t need a new King,’ I said. ‘We are content with the one we have. We will unite behind King Richard to…’

Thomas pushed himself to his feet with a clatter as the stool fell over. ‘Is that it? Is that all you see? It makes no sense.’

Needing the answer, reluctant that Thomas should break up the meeting, I grasped his arm. ‘Does seeing it make it so, sir? Is this what will occur? Disunity?’

‘No, my lady. Not necessarily…’

‘So it is all nonsense. As I said.’ Thomas, freeing himself, was already halfway to the door. ‘Pay him what you think he’s worth and let’s get out of here. It’s cold enough to freeze my balls.’

His crudity did not move me. I had seen the anxiety in Friar John’s eye. But before I could question him further: ‘Do you see me in the fall of the dice, Master Friar?’ Dickon asked.

‘I see no faces, no names, sir. That is not the role of the dice.’

‘Then where will you see me?’

Friar John was unwilling to be drawn by a question from a mere youth, not yet grown into his full height or his wits. ‘I cannot say. I might see it in a cup of wine, but there is none here to be had.’

He looked hopeful, but indeed there was nothing of comfort in the room, except the heavily chased silver vessel that Thomas had brought with him.

‘Then you can take yourself off, Master Dissembler. You’ll get no more from us, neither coin nor wine.’ Thomas held the door open for him.

But Friar John was staring at his hands, laid flat against the wood, fingers spread. His eyes stared as if transfixed by some thought that had lodged in his mind.

‘What is it, man?’ Edward asked.

The tip of the soothsayer’s tongue passed over his lips, and his voice fell as if chanting a psalm at Vespers, except that this was no religious comfort.

‘When a raven shall build in a stone lion’s mouth

On the church top beside the grey forest,

Then shall a King of England be drove from his crown

And return no more.’

A little beat of silence fell amongst us. Until Dickon laughed. ‘Do we have to kill every church-nesting raven, then, to save King Richard’s crown?’

Friar John blinked, looked horrified. ‘Did I say that? It is treason.’

‘No, it is not,’ I assured, hoping to get more from him before he fled. ‘Just a verse that came into your head from some old ballad from the north.’ I pushed Thomas’s abandoned cup in his direction.

Friar John drank the contents in two gulps, wiping his mouth with his hand, and when we made no move to prevent him, he left in a portly swirl of black robes. He forgot to take the dice with him.

‘Well! What do we make of all that?’ I asked. A sharp sense of disquiet had pervaded the room, as if we had stirred up something noxious.

‘I have no belief in such things,’ Edward replied. ‘Do we not make our own destiny?’

I could not be so dispassionate. ‘Cousin Richard has opened the doors of power for us. It will not be to our advantage for that power to be threatened.’

The Friar’s uneasy prediction was not what I had wanted to hear. We had been given a warning, enough to get under the skin like a winter itch.

‘Do you want my prophecy, sister?’ Edward was irresponsibly confident. ‘Without any need for golden dice, I say all will be well. I say we will return from Ireland with music and rejoicing. To whom will Richard apportion land in Ireland once it has fallen to him? I doubt we will be overlooked.’

‘And our authority will be greater than ever,’ Thomas concurred. ‘Let’s get out of here and find some good company.’

Edward punched Dickon on the shoulder. ‘And if we see a raven nesting near a grey forest, we set Dickon here to kill it.’

We laughed. Our tame soothsayer was indeed a mountebank, yet a discomfort remained with me beneath the laughter. Friar John had been disturbed. It had been no deliberately false reading. And to what purpose would it have been, to prophesy unrest and upheaval? There had been terror in his flight.

I scooped up the dice that the magician had left behind, before Edward could take possession. Out of cursory interest, I threw them, without skill. A three and then, a moment later as the second die fell, a two. The three overcome by the two. A warning? But to whom? I had no power to read the future.

I kept in step with Edward and Dickon as we strolled back to the Court festivities where the practised voices of the minstrels could be heard in enthusiastic harmony.

‘Did you learn what it was that you wished to learn?’ Edward asked.

I avoided his speculative glance. ‘I do not know that I wished to learn anything.’

‘Oh, I think you did. It was not merely a frivolous entertainment, was it? It was all your idea.’

I smiled, offering nothing, uncomfortable at his reading of my intention. I had learned nothing for my peace of mind but I would keep my own counsel, Edward being too keen to use information, even that given privately, to further his own ends. Not that there was anything for me to admit. As a family we were at the supreme apex of our powers. I merely wished to know that it would stay that way. Now I was unsure.

‘Give me the dice,’ Edward said, holding out his hand.

‘I will not,’ I replied, ‘since you have no belief in their efficacy.’

I would keep them. I abandoned my brothers when Edward lingered to demonstrate for Dickon a particular attack and feint with an imaginary sword, their breathless shouts and thud of feet gradually fading behind me.

Thomas had not waited for me.

Since there was nothing new in this, it barely caught my attention.

Early June 1399: Westminster Palace

At last the campaign was under way; King Richard was leaving for Ireland where he would land in Waterford and impose English rule on the recalcitrant tribes. It was an auspicious day, and as if Richard had summoned God’s blessing, jewels and armour and horse-harness glittered and gleamed in the full brightness of a cloudless sun. An accommodating breeze lifted the banners of the magnates who accompanied him so that the appliquéd motifs and heraldic goldwork rippled and danced. As did my heart, rejoicing at this creation of majesty on the move, as I stood on the waterfront to bid them farewell and Godspeed. Richard’s previous invasion, four years earlier, had not ended on a sanguine note, the settlement collapsing as soon as the English King’s back was turned. This time Richard’s foray would bring lasting glory to England.

‘I should be going with them.’ Dickon’s mood was not joyful.

‘Next time I expect you will.’

‘I am of an age to be there.’

He was of an age, at almost fifteen years, even if he had not yet attained the height and breadth of shoulder that made his brother so impressive a figure on the tilting ground or in a Court procession. One day he would be so; one day he might even achieve some coordination of thought and action. But even though that day was still far off, Dickon should have been a squire, riding in his lord’s entourage. Comparisons on all sides did nothing but intensify his dissatisfaction with life. Brother Edward had been knighted by King Richard at the ridiculously young age of four years. Yet here was Dickon, without patronage, without recognition, a mere observer in the courtly crowd. What could I say to make him feel better about his lot in life? There were things no one talked of in our family.

‘Enjoy this grand moment of celebration,’ was all I could offer. ‘You’ll get the chance to go to war soon enough.’

I understood the grinding need in him to make a mark on the world, to make a name for himself, even as it baffled me that men were so keen to go into battle and risk their lives.

‘Talk to the King, Con. Ask him to take me as one of his household. Or even Edward.’

I shook my head. It was too late. No one had in mind a younger son with shadows surrounding his birth. Instead I pinioned Dickon to my side. There was much to be enjoyed in the image of royal power set out before us, the walls of Westminster Palace providing a stately if austere backdrop. This would be the campaign to coat King Richard’s glory in even more layers of gold. The horses, commandeered from the monastic houses of England, glowed with well-burnished flesh. A dozen great lords paraded their own wealth and consequence. And then came a large household of knights, of bishops and chaplains, even foreign visitors who accompanied the King with dreams of victory.

King Richard stood at the centre of this Court of his creating. Clad in eye-catching red, his most favoured colour, his bright hair curling beneath his brimmed hat, he drew every eye. The knowledge that he had made his will was thought to be no detriment to the success of this venture, nor that his holy relics and regalia were packed up to accompany him. Now he raised his hand in farewell, so that we might admire the ring that blazed red fire from a ruby that he had once granted to the Abbot and monks of Westminster, on condition that he could resume it when he left the country. Worth the vast sum of one thousand marks, the gem once more graced his hand as he mounted and took his place in the procession.

The forthcoming victory, as predicted by the golden dice, would shower us, the royal cousins, with even greater power. King Richard smiled on us, his hands open with generosity. And how important we were to the whole enterprise. My brother Edward, Duke of Aumale, fair and well-favoured, riding at the King’s side, noted by all as the King’s most beloved companion. Then came Thomas Despenser, my husband, Earl of Gloucester, in comparison dark and sallow-skinned, one of the inner circle of Richard’s friends and companions. Two of the Holland connection, John and Thomas Holland, the Dukes of Exeter and Surrey, joined to us through my father’s recent marriage to Joan Holland, rode in close company, forming a buttress around our King.

We had not always been so ostentatiously dominant. Until Richard’s reign we had wallowed in obscurity, thanks to my grandfather King Edward the Third. My father might be his fourth surviving son, thus rich in Plantagenet blood, but he had been much neglected in the handing out of titles and land and royal office. It was not until Richard became King that my father was created Duke of York. Until then he had been simply Earl of Cambridge, poorly endowed, without the estates and wealth appropriate to an earldom. He might have hoped for an endowment from marriage to an English heiress, but instead my grandfather saddled him with Isabella, who, foreign and disinherited, brought no dowry.

Nor was my father blameless, doing little to remedy his lack. With no noticeable ability in military ventures to bring home a fortune in ransoms, with no interest in the manoeuvrings of the Royal Court, my father did not shine on the political stage. He had no ambition, but we, his children, who would inherit these meagre offerings, were driven from the earliest age by naked desire to match our influence to our royal blood.

How superbly successful we had been. We were now power personified, for with the titles had come land and castles, vast estates and the wealth of gold coin from royal patronage, all these recent ennoblements bestowed by King Richard himself. To whom did the King turn when he needed advice? To Edward and Thomas. With whom did King Richard converse at royal masques when the child-Queen Isabelle grew weary? With me, the newly created Countess of Gloucester. We were the bedrock on which Richard’s power rested, the foundation and fortifications of England. We were pre-eminent, holding dominion within our new lands, and we would serve Richard well. It might not be for me to own political influence, a woman in a world where decisions were in the hands of men, but the promotion of my family was strong in my heart.

‘The King makes a brave show. Pray God the Irish are impressed.’

A laconic comment from the man at my side; stooped with years, his face seamed with unpleasant experience, my father and the King’s uncle, Edmund Duke of York. He was to be left behind in England to uphold firm government in Richard’s name as Keeper of the Realm. Another golden stitch in the tapestry of our value to the King.

I nodded, watching the pattern of the final leave-taking as Richard consigned his wife into the care of her ladies-in-waiting; Edward bid farewell to his wife Philippa with a gesture of the rich folds of his chaperon, intent primarily on catching the interest of the crowd with his smile and his handsome flamboyance. As for Thomas, he managed a brusque inclination of his head which might have been in my direction. Dickon had taken himself off to who knew where. My father, without a word, abandoned his young wife Joan at my side when summoned by the King to receive some final instruction. Joan, now alone, made no attempt to converse with me. Likewise, I had nothing to say to her.

All told, the day had been an exhibition of absence of familial affection. Fortunately, we were bound fast together by raw ambition.

Chapter Two

31st August 1399: Palace of Westminster

‘If you are going to keep me company, I could wish you would not fidget.’

Two months. Two short months during which all the glamour of King Richard’s departure had collapsed into disaster. I could make no pretence that my mood was anything but heavy, unease sharpening my tongue. Indeed it was not an unease; by now it was rampant fear. If Dickon expected tolerance from me he would see the day pass without even a gnat-bite of it. I was held in chains of a grave anxiety.

We were still suffering the sultriness of high summer, but the heat did not penetrate to where we stood, Dickon and I, carved emblems of royal power pressing down upon us from above, enfolding us from left and right, from every angle. Such symbols of royal authority, King Richard’s authority, should have soothed and reassured. I frowned and Dickon continued to twitch and shuffle, a mess of angular limbs.

‘How can I not fidget? How long have we been waiting? You don’t even know that he will be brought here.’

‘I do know. He will come.’

‘There are twenty-six of them,’ Dickon informed me inconsequentially, squinting at the angelic band of heavenly angels, carved at the end of each hammer-beam above our heads. He had been passing the time in mindless counting, but I was not prepared to engage in ineffectual conversation. It seemed to me that my family and I were balanced like angels on the head of a pin. All we had achieved was about to be thrown into chaos.

‘How much longer?’ Dickon groaned. ‘Will he be shackled?’

When his large feet continued to scuff against the Purbeck stone, his shoulders hunched in a perpetual slouch, I pinned him with a stare of displeasure as I dug my fingers into the fine weave of his sleeve. I cared not that it was detrimental to the raised pattern.

‘Whether he is shackled or not, you will award him all courtesy. He is your godfather as well as your King.’

‘And the only source of any wealth that will come to me. I will be all courtesy, as douce as a girl, because if I’m not I’ll be cut off without a silver groat.’ Dickon’s glance was sharper and more calculating than it had a right to be. ‘Except that he may no longer have any groats to lavish on me. Will he be a prisoner?’ Dragging his sleeve from my grasp, he moved so that he could see through the carved arch of the doorway where they would eventually make an entrance.

‘I do not yet know.’

But I could not see this charade, this exchange of power from King to Invader, ending in any other fashion.

A servant entered, one I had sent on a mission, now hot from riding. He approached at a jog.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘They are here, my lady, two miles outside the city.’ He bowed then wiped his face on his sleeve. ‘They’ll be closer now. The King is here with them.’

‘Who is in command?’

The servant shrugged. He was not one of mine or he would not have dared to shrug in my presence. ‘The Mayor and aldermen have met with them, my lady. It was their decision that the King should be brought here to Westminster. The King had no choice in the matter, I’d say.’

‘And the Duke of Lancaster?’

‘He rides at the head of his army, my lady.’

‘Is he in control? Does he have an air of authority?’ I was curious. What was the demeanour of my cousin Henry of Lancaster? Had he returned as supplicant or conqueror?

Richard had banished Henry from England, ostensibly for treason. Now Henry was returned on the death of his father, to reclaim both his title and his inheritance, choosing the opportune moment when Richard was in Ireland. I had to admire his perspicacity. Many would say that Richard had been far from wise in condemning Henry to banishment for life at the same time as he confiscated all the Lancaster wealth and lands for his own use. Our cousin Henry was unlikely to accept such wilful destruction of his true inheritance with a head bent in obedient acceptance. Cousin Henry would demand what was his by right. He had landed at Ravenspur to the north in the first week of July, collecting an army which included the puissant Percy Earl of Northumberland, and now he was here in London with King Richard firmly tucked into his gauntleted fist.

The messenger broke into my thoughts. ‘The Duke of Lancaster’s armour is very fine, my lady. Italian and worth a King’s ransom, so they say. He looks like a man who knows what he wants and intends to get it.’ His face split in a wily gap-toothed grin. ‘There’ll be much changing of allegiances, I reckon, now that the King is under Lancaster’s heel.’

Heel or fist, the result could be the same. Disliking his humour, I dismissed him without further coin than I had already given. King Richard’s crown was under threat, but we would wait until all was made clear. Dickon drifted away again.

‘Do you know what I think…?’ he called across the vast echoing space.

I was never to know. The repetitive beat of marching feet intruded, the clatter of horses’ hooves, and not least the rancorous shouts of the crowd. My sole concentration was focused on the great doors, now dragged back, stirring the air. In marched an armed guard; at the centre of their protection, or perhaps their containment, walked Richard. King Richard, heir of King Edward the Third, our cousin and God’s anointed King of England, all hedged about by bland-faced soldiery. In the face of such military might, Dickon and I retreated once again to the feet of a carved and unimpressed statue.

The guard came to a halt and so did the King.

I could not take my eyes from his face. Never had I seen him so unkingly, whether in demeanour or in apparel. Pale, dishevelled, his soft lips pressed hard together, Richard stared round him as if he had still to accept where he was and why he was here, hemmed in by soldiers not in his own livery. Then he was plucking at his tunic, a garment that he might have been wearing for the whole of the journey from Wales, so travel-worn and stained as it was. His boots were covered in dust, as were his hose to the knee. Eyes wild and uncomprehending, he was hollow-cheeked, implying that he had not eaten a good meal since he had fallen into Lancaster’s hands. This man was so much changed from the crimson-clad ruler who had left London a mere few weeks ago that all I could register in that moment was shock. His youthful beauty and vibrancy had been beaten out of him. Even his hair visible beneath the plain felt cap had lost its lustre. He wore no jewels. The ruby ring had gone from his hand. There was no sword at his side. Degradation, as rank water in a thunderstorm, dripped from him.

Richard’s vacant gaze fell on me, so that I stepped forward and, through a lifetime of duty and custom, curtsied. The King might have been robbed of all royal grace, but I, clad nobly in deep blue damask with gold stitching at cuff and hem, would uphold it for him. We owed him so much. Was he not my own cousin, my own Plantagenet blood? Unfortunately so was Henry of Lancaster. As I rose to my full height, I foresaw a complex future, troubled by bonds of conflicting family loyalties.

At a glance from me, Dickon bowed.

‘Constance?’ The King’s voice trembled.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Have you come to petition me?’ His tone was querulous.

‘No, my lord.’

I was distracted, for into the Hall had marched an escort in livery that was my own by birth, the same lions and French lilies as were carved onto Richard’s shields, and then came the Mayor and aldermen, self-important in their red robes despite having walked the distance from their first meeting with the King. It was the man at the head who was in command, a man who once had the height and bearing to be an imposing figure. Now his hair was grey, his face marked by years, his shoulders no longer braced beneath the armour plating. My father, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York.

‘My lord.’

I curtsied dutifully again. He nodded to me, ignoring Dickon, concentrating on dealing with the immediate problem.

‘Take the King to his chamber,’ he directed his serjeant-at-arms. ‘See to his comfort there, but post a permanent guard at door and window. We need no more attempts at escape as at Lichfield.’

I thought that Richard, standing silent and unresponsive in our midst, would not have the wit to escape. The Mayor nodding his approval, we watched as the King, with a light touch to his arm, was led unresisting, uncomplaining, away in the direction of the royal apartments.

My father approached, forehead thick with lines. ‘What are you doing here?’

Why would I not be here? What I found difficult to understand was why Richard’s Keeper of the Realm was acting in the role of captor, and thus I wasted no words in courteous greeting. Fear was too strong in me.

‘The King is a prisoner and suffers humiliation, sir,’ I observed. ‘Could you do nothing to stop it?’

‘It was not possible.’ My father, perhaps unaware of my peremptory demand, slapped his gloves against his thigh, raising a cloud of dust which made him cough, his gaze tracking to where Richard had just departed. ‘I am merely following orders.’ Then he added: ‘As will every one of us, if we have any sense.’

‘Whose orders? Are you not Keeper of the Realm?’

‘For the moment.’ He returned his gaze to me and it was uncompromisingly bleak. ‘Lancaster plans to ride to St Paul’s to pay homage at his father’s tomb. From there he will stay at the Bishop of London’s palace overnight, before returning here. All will be settled tomorrow. I advise you to keep your opinions to yourself meanwhile. What is loyalty in one breath becomes treason in the next.’ Which I decided was a surprisingly apposite warning from my father who was not known for his keenness of wit. I too looked to where the guard had disappeared, taking Richard with him. ‘Tomorrow I expect he will be moved to the Tower.’

‘And no good will come of that.’

He raised his brows in reply. ‘He is still King. That has not yet changed.’

Then he turned away to discourse with the importunate Mayor, before signalling to his entourage to depart.

‘Where is my brother Edward?’ I asked before he was out of earshot.

My father halted, looked back. ‘Aumale is with Lancaster, of course. Where else would he be?’ I detected more than a breath of cynicism.

‘Making himself indispensable, I expect,’ Dickon added sotto voce as the Duke of York was swallowed up into a crowd of loitering soldiery and aldermen. ‘And your most noble husband? Where will he be? You did not ask.’

I overlooked the sneer that Dickon had been practising of late. ‘I know where he’ll be. Following in our brother’s footsteps, so close that he treads on his heel. As he always does. They’ll both be waiting on the commands of the Duke of Lancaster. If Lancaster is in the ascendant, why would they throw in their lot with Richard?’

‘Why would they?’ The sneer did not dissipate. ‘I doubt you need to worry. Thomas will be polishing his armour to make the best impression in the ceremonial entry, at Lancaster’s side.’ But then his grin robbed his comment of too much malevolence. ‘And what will you do?’

I thought for a moment. Power seemed to hang as insecurely as a bees’ nest in a wind-tossed sapling. ‘Stay here at Westminster. I’ll be here when King Richard’s fate is decided, one way or another. You should do the same. It may be vitally important to us.’

Was all not still in the balance? If my father, brother and husband were cleaving to Lancaster’s cause until we were certain that Richard’s crown was lost, it might be good policy for me to show my loyalty to the man who was still the anointed King. If that was to be cunning within a cunning family, then cunning is what I would be. A York foot in both camps could prove to be advantageous. I made to follow my father towards the rabbit warren of apartments in the Palace of Westminster where the Duke of York’s family could always command accommodations. Dickon elected to accompany me.

Recalling the King’s sad humiliation amongst this regal display that he had created, I realised for the first time the enormity of what had happened. Halting at the end of the Great Hall, I took a moment to inspect the row of Kings, thirteen fine statues of Reigate stone set in carved niches, each one representing one of our past Kings from Edward the Confessor to Richard himself. Their crowns were gilded and their robes painted red and green, giving it the air of a reredos in some great church, an altarpiece to the glory of God. And before it all, there was set in place the new throne that Richard had had carved, complete with a gilded cushion. I considered whether he would ever again sit on that throne. There had been cries for his execution from some of the aldermen.

‘All will be decided on the morrow,’ I said aloud.

It seemed to me that the only hope for Richard was if some high-born family with military strength was willing to lead a resistance against Lancaster. Who better than our own? We could surely command support. But was it too late? How firm were Lancaster’s hands on the reins of power?

I walked, to halt before the finely executed statue of Richard himself.

‘Where is our loyalty?’ I asked Dickon who had come to hover beside me, not really expecting a reply.

‘Where do you think? You saw Richard. All was lost for him. I’ll stand with Edward and Thomas. I expect you will too.’

‘Are we so fickle?’

I must discover how far my family, and the Holland lords, had committed themselves to Henry of Lancaster, and how much Lancaster was prepared to forget our past allegiances. If he was unforgiving, our position at Court would be untenable, our humiliation as great as that of the King, which led my thoughts into a different path, an unpleasant one edged with thistles. If our future lay with Lancaster then we must bow and scrape. How I despised such a plan, even as I accepted that sometimes the despicable must be adopted for the future good and because, indeed, I was given little choice in the directing of my fate. I grimaced lightly. Much as in my choice of husband, where I had been given no choice at all and found him more than despicable.

I remembered Friar John, wondering where he was now. The warnings of his golden dice had proved to be more than accurate. We should have taken heed. But what could we have done?

‘If you’re going to upbraid your lord and husband for abandoning Richard, I might just come along,’ Dickon, still shadowing me, suggested in a spirit of devilry.

‘No, you won’t. I’ll see Thomas alone.’

It was early evening before the brisk tread, easily recognisable after so many years of sharing the same less than amicable space, announced the arrival of my husband. The latch on my chamber door was raised and he entered.

‘Thomas,’ I said, with a smile that could be interpreted, by the uninformed, as a welcome. ‘I expected you a good four hours ago.’

‘Constance, love of my life. They said you were here. I knew I would receive a wifely tribute to my survival.’

‘You receive the words due to you, my lord.’ The smile remained pinned to my lips. ‘They said that you had returned in Lancaster’s train.’

‘Are you going to take issue with that?’

‘Should I?’

My hours of solitude had given me no respite and my temper was warm. Thomas, only now discovering the time to visit me, had seen a need, despite the critical events afoot, to change his well-travelled garments for a figured silk-damask tunic and velvet cap. Insurrection might threaten the realm but Thomas must dress to proclaim his rank. As he closed the door behind him and leaned his compact figure against it, his chin was tilted in defiance.

I chose not to rise from my chair where I knew the light from the high window would enhance my beauty in this richly appointed room, the perfect setting, as carved gold enhanced the flawless jewel in the brooch at my breast. Moreover I had freed my hair from its confinement. The Earl of Gloucester was fortunate in his bride, both in her looks and in her royal connections. Unfortunately, Thomas would have wed me even if I were the most ill-favoured Plantagenet daughter in England.

‘A picture to welcome any man home from the wars.’

‘What have you been doing?’ I asked, continuing my cold appraisal.

‘I had matters to attend to,’ he said, walking slowly forward.

‘As I see.’ I made a languid gesture to the furred garment and the costly shoes before firing the obvious arrow. ‘To whom are we bowing the knee today? King Richard or the Duke of Lancaster?’

He was annoyed. He bent, elegantly, to raise my chin with one finger, scanning my features, as I returned the regard. Not an unattractive man with dark hair, flattened into seemly order beneath his cap, and eyes the colour of brown agates, I thought for the first time that it was unfortunate he roused no heat in my blood.

‘And good day to you too, Constance.’

‘Is it? It is not a good day for Richard.’

Thomas caught my gaze, held it. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘I have. He was under guard.’

‘So you don’t need to ask where our allegiance must be.’

I remembered Richard as I had seen him in the Great Hall. Bewildered at his change in circumstances, all his glory dimmed from his dirty shoes to his vacant expression. Yet here was Thomas, very much undimmed as he dropped his gilded gloves and chaperon onto my lap. In a little spirit of spite I allowed them to slide to the floor, ignoring Thomas’s silent snarl.

‘Have you seen York?’ Thomas asked.

‘Yes. My father was keeping guard on the man who may or may not still be King. He says he’s following Lancaster’s orders. I understand my father did not even engage with Lancaster, despite the strength of the army at his command.’ I made no attempt to hide my disgust. ‘Surely Lancaster could have been stopped when he first landed in England,’ I suggested.

‘I expect that he could, but he wasn’t, and now he’s strong enough to order up and pay the piper and we all dance.’

‘And you are garbed for dancing, my love. Lancaster cannot fail to be impressed.’

I stood and ran my hand down the length of his embroidered sleeve, but when Thomas moved away, I deliberately softened my mood, knowing from long experience that I would get nothing from him unless I appeared compliant.

‘All we can do, then, is wait,’ I offered.

‘Wait for what? For Lancaster to decide that I and the rest of your family are as culpable as King Richard for robbing him of his inheritance? Is there wine in here?’ he demanded.

I fetched the cups and a flagon from the cupboard and poured as he flung himself into the chair I had just vacated.

I chose my words carefully.

‘I know so little, Thomas, and my father was too busy with the Mayor. Put my megrims down to spending too long alone with no certain knowledge.’

Not quite true but he would enjoy informing me of his own experience.

Thomas took the cup of wine, raising a little toast at last with a show of grace. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, for what it’s worth, but it’s not pretty. York headed to Gloucester, we thought to join up with Richard when he returned from Ireland, and together they would deal with Lancaster.’

Thomas scowled.

‘But that didn’t happen,’ I prompted.

‘It didn’t happen. York went to Berkeley Castle where he just sat on his arse. When Lancaster advanced west against Richard, when your father could have stood in his way, York did nothing other than meet him in the church outside the walls of Berkeley Castle.’

‘And what was the outcome?’ I took a low stool at his feet and sipped.

The damask rippled in a shrug. ‘York agreed to let Lancaster proceed against Richard. And by doing that he sealed Richard’s fate.’

I watched him, absorbing the underlying anger which in effect matched my own. Beneath the brutal self-seeking that governed his every action was a man of some ability, acting as one of Richard’s trusted lieutenants in Ireland. At Court he had been one of Richard’s close coterie of friends. Now his past loyalties had put him in danger; his whole future could be in doubt unless he was clever enough to extricate himself from the coming conflict of Lancaster against Richard. From Lancaster’s inevitable victory.

My future would be in doubt too.

‘So you are saying that all we can do is wait.’ I was becoming as repetitive as a well-trained popinjay.

‘But we will use the waiting well, and make plans.’ Thomas leaned forward. ‘Are you going to welcome me home?’ His hand closed around my wrist to pull me to my knees, close enough to plant a kiss on my lips, a possessive gesture rather than an affectionate one. ‘I could have died in Ireland. Did it cross your devious Yorkist mind that today you might be a widow?’

I was well used to retaliation. ‘Yes, it did. But you obviously survived to return to my welcoming arms.’

‘Would it have been a blessing if I had fallen into an Irish bog?’

I considered his polished presence. ‘There are no signs of battle on you. Did you actually fight?’

‘Do you brand me a coward?’

I did not flinch from his regard. No, I would never so condemn him. Lacking courage he was not. Thomas had been given command of the rearguard of Richard’s army. And not only was he capable with sword and lance, but he had proved to be equally skilled in negotiation. He had been sent to bring the King of Leinster to terms. It had not been his fault that he had failed, so I understood.

‘Would I openly brand the father of my children as coward?’ I replied in all fairness. ‘Don’t judge me. I don’t wish your death, Thomas. It would not suit me to be a widow, nor our children to be left fatherless.’

‘Your dower would keep you, as a widow, in silk under-tunics.’

‘So it would. My dower has kept you in well-bred horseflesh,’ I responded in similar style for the value of my father’s gift to my husband had been a prime attraction from the moment our marriage contract was signed. I was a woman of affluence and worth a marriage, with estates and castles in Glamorgan as well as scattered throughout England. I knew my value, as did Thomas.

Yet he was clearly feeling aggrieved. ‘If I were dead on a battlefield, you could wed again, a knight of your own choice.’

‘My father might have something to say about that. And better the devil you know…’ I smiled at his grimace, twisted my wrist from his grip and sat back on my heels. ‘Tell me: what have you been doing since the Irish campaign came to so abrupt an end? I presume you fought with your usual panache?’

‘Of course.’ Preening came second nature to him. ‘I returned with Richard – although what your brother Aumale was thinking in dripping poisonous advice into Richard’s ear… Doubtless he’ll have some good reason. He always does. And I’ll wager it smacks of some outrageous scheming.’

My ears pricked up at my brother’s involvement in something nefarious.

‘What did Edward do?’

Thomas was not inclined to be informative; his smile was feral. ‘Oh, he’ll tell you himself, full of self-vindication which no one will believe. As for what I did – Richard sent me to rally the men from my estates in Glamorgan. They refused.’

The crease in his handsome brow suggested some unfortunate clash of will, which he had lost.

‘How hard did you try?’ I asked, giving no quarter since he had been unwise enough to suggest that I might wish him dead.

‘Hard enough to know there was no moving them.’

Which did not surprise me. Thomas had no interest in estate management and made no effort to win the goodwill of his people through fair husbandry. I considered the jewels on his hands, the gilded leather of his soft boots. All he did was rake money from the rents for his pleasure. He took with one hand, then took again with the other. His tenants despised him, and if I were in their worn shoes, I would have refused to march north for him. What was the point in abandoning the harvest, with possible death on a battlefield as the only incentive, for a lord who had no thought for their well-being?

Thomas must have seen the derision in my gaze before I could hide it.

‘Oh, I tried, whatever your opinion of me might be. I know as well as you where our interests lie and a small force of our tenants rallying to Richard might have made a difference. But then Richard abandoned his army at Carmarthen and fled north, so it would have made no difference at all.’

‘And you fled with him.’

‘Yes. I did.’

I frowned, taking the empty cup from him, handing him mine which was almost untouched. ‘And so?’ I enquired.

Thomas’s voice was as flat as a boned herring. ‘I left Glamorgan to return to fight for Richard but I was taken into custody with him at Conwy. God rot those cold and draughty Welsh castles! There were eight of us. Richard asked for guarantees of our safety from the Earl of Northumberland, who has thrown in his lot and his Percy troops with Lancaster, which to my mind makes Lancaster invincible.’

‘So your life was never in danger.’ I did not wait for a reply. ‘You changed sides. You abandoned Richard and gave your allegiance to Henry of Lancaster.’

At that moment I disliked him more than I had ever done in my life. He had been my husband since I was four years of age. I did not like him then; I liked him far less now.

‘I did. I’ll not lie to you.’ His eyes narrowed in some bitter memory. ‘The cause was lost by the time Richard was taken from Conwy to Flint under restraint. The Holland Dukes of Exeter and Surrey had tried to negotiate with Henry, but they had already relinquished their freedom. What value would there be for me – for us – in my remaining at Richard’s side to join your Holland cousins under lock and key? If I had, I’d be locked in the Tower with Richard now. Is that what you would have me do?’

I shook my head. In truth that would not have been to our advantage. Nor to Richard’s. If there was any hope of his rescue, he needed his friends with freedom to conspire, not comrades sharing his incarceration. Moreover I understood the ambition that drove Thomas. To stand with Richard at the eleventh hour, without an army, without friends, faced with the overwhelming power of the Percy retainers, would have been politically inept and personally destructive. But I suspected that there was little compassion in Thomas’s planning for Richard. Thomas would do whatever would best suit his vision of Despenser aggrandisement.

‘What do you suggest that we do now?’ I asked with the sweetness of autumn honey. ‘You know that I dislike sitting on my hands when all is to fight for.’

For the first time in our exchange of hostilities Thomas laughed, although the edge was plain enough. ‘Thank God He never put a sword into your hand and sent you out onto a battlefield!’ But the laughter died. ‘I don’t think we have any choice in the matter. The momentum is against us. Lancaster is proving to be a driving force with an iron will to batter all into submission.’

‘But what we don’t know, of course, is whether Lancaster will accept your change of heart.’

‘No, we do not. And I dislike the possibilities if he decides that we are too much of a threat to his plans, whatever they might be. He executed the rebels who stood against him at Bristol fast enough. So we must keep our heads below the parapet.’

‘As long as we have heads to protect.’

His glance was sharp. ‘What we have to ask ourselves is – what is Lancaster’s intention towards Richard? Does he want him alive or dead?’

I saw the cold judgement in his face, heard it in his voice. Would he actually care, as long as his own neck was safe? Ambition aside, I hoped that I cared.

‘Do you actually like Richard?’ I asked, without thinking.

‘Like him?’

‘You have lived in his palaces, eaten the food provided by him, worn the clothes and jewels he has given as gifts, enjoyed the patronage and the title of Duke of Gloucester. You have enjoyed Richard’s recognition of your family and its reinstatement after the Despenser treasons of the past. You have been grateful to him. But do you like him?’

‘Does it matter? I swore my oath of loyalty to him.’

‘That is not at all the same thing.’

He considered, prepared to answer my question after all. ‘Like is too innocuous a word. Yes, I am grateful. Without this upheaval I would have remained loyal to him. But I don’t trust him, if that’s what you mean.’ And I thought that for once I could accept Thomas’s honesty, for there was no one here for him to impress except myself. ‘He is fickle. He can turn against his friends as quickly as he can turn against his enemies. Any man foolish enough to make an enemy of Richard might risk the kiss of an axe against his neck.’

We all knew it well. When Richard was still young and untried as a monarch, giving power and patronage to unsuitable favourites, a group of magnates had taken issue with him. His favourite, de Vere, was beaten on the battlefield and hounded into exile. Richard was forced against his will to promise to take advice from those who knew better. Thus the Lords Appellant had become a force to be reckoned with.

But Richard would not accept this curb rein on him for ever. Three years ago now, he had taken his revenge on those five Lords. His uncle Thomas of Woodstock had been smothered in his bed in Calais. The Earl of Arundel had been executed on Tower Hill, the Earl of Warwick imprisoned. The Earl of Nottingham had been banished for life. And Cousin Henry, then Earl of Hereford, the youngest of the Appellants, had been banished for a treason he had probably not committed. We all recognised that Richard had a vengeful spirit.

‘He carries grudges. He is self-absorbed in his own powers. No, I do not like him. I do not trust him.’ Thomas finished off the cup of wine. ‘Now we have to see what happens with the disposition of the crown, since it has been snatched from Richard’s fair head. We will act accordingly. I will not willingly give up what I have achieved.’

He tightened his hand into my hair, curling his wrist into its thickness, and bestowed another kiss, harder, surer.

‘The question is, my lovely, ambitious Constance. Do you stand with me or against me?’

My loyalties to my family were strong, yet I would stand or fall with my married Despenser fate. Indeed, were they not so completely intertwined, as Thomas’s hand in my hair, that there was no need to make a choice? York, Holland and Despenser would fight as one to keep their pre-eminence, whoever was King, be it Richard or Henry.

‘With you, Thomas. Are you not my devoted husband?’

His kiss deepened. His hands tightened on my shoulders.

‘Then show me.’

‘Do I not always?’

‘No. Of course you do not.’ His hands slid to encircle my wrists and he pressed his mouth against the soft skin there, where my pulse beat, slow and unaroused. ‘I missed you.’

‘Which I do not believe.’

‘If only for your sharp tongue.’ His eyes softened, warning me of his change of mood. ‘But not only that.’ He lifted the ivory-backed mirror from the coffer at my side. ‘What do you see?’ He held it before my face. ‘What do you see, my lovely Constance?’

‘What should I see?’ I asked, determined not to respond to his cold-blooded wooing.

‘I’ll tell you.’ The curve of his lips became sardonic, his chin tilted, as he surveyed me. ‘I see a profusion of hair as fair as that of any angel painted in a missal, a face which is a perfection of shape and fine bones. Eyes lustrous enough to entrap any heedless man. A straight nose, lips indented at this moment with displeasure, an unhandsome crease between elegant brows.’ Thomas stroked the brows with the tip of one finger. ‘Is that sufficient to express my heart-felt admiration?’

‘How unexpectedly chivalrous,’ I observed as the crease became deeper and thus even less handsome.

‘Smile, Constance.’

Obedient to his command, I smiled, knowing that my face would be lit as if with an inner light, even though it was a mockery.

‘If your unholy mother gave you nothing beyond a love of duplicity, at least you inherited the handsomeness of your Castilian forbears. Why should I not miss you? A lovely woman at his side is a gift of value to a man of ambition.’

The mirror was cast aside regardless of its fragility. His chaperon and gloves were abandoned where I had left them on the floor, the damask garment shrugged off to join them, while I was efficiently dutiful if not enthusiastic as he led me into the inner chamber where the great bed with its Despenser hangings, all sumptuous gold fretwork on a red field, dominated the space. I knew the words to say, the caresses to give. I knew what duty meant within a loveless marriage. We had a son and a daughter, healthy evidence of my wifely attention. I gave him ease and obedience. If he wanted ecstasy he could employ one of the Court whores and pay her well in coin and compliments. He paid me in neither and awoke no desire in me. Nor did I expect it. I would live out my life with no experience of love, be it the soft caring gestures within a family or the blazing passion of lust. Life, I accepted, would be far more equable without. My mother had felt the hot breath of such a lust, with raw repercussions when she took a lover. I would never follow in her scandalous footprints. Political aspiration for my family would serve me well enough.

Thomas fell asleep at my side with no more than a grunt of exhaustion while I lay awake and considered the dangers in which we found ourselves. For what was treason? Treason depended on whose brow bore the crown. At the moment it seemed that the crown of England lay in the gutter.

And then as I fell into sleep, I wondered what was the advice that Edward, in Ireland, had given Richard which had awakened Thomas’s suspicions. I sighed a little. Whatever it was that Edward had set his hand to must wait.

From where had my enmity to my husband stemmed? It had always been there. I had never found anything to like in Thomas, Lord Despenser, as he had been titled since the day I had wed him at the age of four years. There were some elements of that event that clung to my mind, to make a lasting impression on the woman I was to become. I was told what to say during the ceremony and spoke the words, although I did not understand the questions asked of me by the priest. The boy of six years at my side, gloomy-faced, without a glance in my direction, said the same. We were word perfect, and there was much indulgent laughter when our hands were joined and the boy was instructed to kiss my cheek, which he did, a peck worthy of a cock pheasant.

I was his wife, I was given to understand. I looked at him with some interest, for he was a handsome boy. He looked at me, fleetingly, as if he would rather I had been the gift of a new hawk or hound. I don’t think that he looked at me again, except when I asked him:

‘Where is your father? Is he not here?’

‘My father is dead,’ he said.

‘I am sorry.’

‘I don’t need your sorrow.’ His lips twisted. ‘I don’t like you. I am here because my mother commands that I must wed you.’

The only words we exchanged on that auspicious occasion. I would never forget his utter lack of interest in me, not that I would ever allow him, then when I was a child, or in later years when it mattered more to me, to see how much his indifference had wounded both my pride and my desire to be liked by this boy to whom I was tied by oaths and religious ceremony. Nor could I forget the overheard heat of ill temper between my father and mother as we sat at the culmination of the feast.

‘Could we not have done better than this?’ my mother asked under cover of a ceremonial blast of a trumpet as King Richard arrived late, but still to grace us with his presence.

‘The lad is a ward of the King. How much better do you want?’ My father was trenchant.

‘Despenser! His family is mired in past scandals. There are still treason judgements against his ancestors for corruption and misplaced ambitions. Are we not worth a more advantageous alliance?’

My mother’s voice was still heavily accented from her Castilian birth, but her words were clear to those who eavesdropped, as I did while I washed my hands in a silver bowl.

‘Your mother was a whore,’ my father said. ‘Before your father made her respectable and married her. How much scandal do you lay claim to, Isabella?’

It meant little beyond the shock of his use of that word in polite company.

‘But a royal whore, and to your advantage. You only wed me because of my royal Castilian blood.’

There was no love lost between them.

‘I wed you, Isabella, because my father the King insisted on it and for no other reason,’ was the brusque reply. ‘Both Castilian heiresses married to two of his sons. As my wife, no one can use you to make a claim against your sister Constanza, who as the elder has the claim to the Castilian throne. If anyone will be King of Castile it will be my brother John of Lancaster who had the privilege of wedding her. I will not challenge him.’

This was not new to me, that my uncle John of Lancaster hoped to lay hands on the Kingdom of Castile for himself in his wife Constanza’s name, although then, in my childhood, it was beyond my true understanding. My mother and her sister were the heiresses of King Pedro of Castile, recently stabbed to death by his half-brother Enrique of Trastámara. Through their blood ran the claim to the kingdom even if their mother Maria de Padilla had been Pedro’s mistress, her secret marriage to Pedro repudiated in favour of a more well-connected legitimate bride. Thus the legitimacy of the two girls was open to dispute, but my mother was a woman of some importance, particularly in her own mind.

‘You have water in your veins,’ she announced to anyone who wished to hear. ‘I would have liked you better if you had refused me.’

They detested each other.

My mother caught me, now patting my fingers dry on a length of fair linen, at the same time watching and listening.

‘Go and sit with your husband.’

Thomas was engaged in fighting imaginary battles or tilting at famous opponents, in company with some of my cousins. He had not turned his head in my direction for the whole of that interminable feast.

‘He has no interest in me, madam,’ I said.

She leaned and whispered, lips thin: ‘You will do well to make him have an interest in you, child.’

‘Why, madam?’

‘Don’t question everything, Constance.’ She was always impatient. ‘You’ll learn soon enough. Just do it.’

But how to achieve the impossible? Thomas Despenser regarded me as a possession to stamp respectability on his name.

‘What does mired in scandal mean?’ I asked my brother Edward, for with two more years than I, he would surely know.

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing good, I’d say.’

So I asked my nurse.

‘Nothing you will ever be accused of, Constance. You will be the perfect daughter. The most acclaimed wife. Look how pretty you are. And how pretty your young husband is.’

‘Will I see him again?’

‘When you are a young woman grown.’

‘When will that be?’

‘When you have reached your fourteenth year.’

It seemed an age away. ‘I don’t think he will miss me.’

‘No, I don’t think he will.’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘No. You are royal, my child. And he is not.’

‘Will he like me?’

‘It matters not whether he does or does not.’

It was an unsettling day after which I returned to my life of prayer and learning and skills appropriate to a daughter of Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, fourth son of the old King Edward the Third and soon to become Duke of York. My parents returned to their own interests which, with deliberate intent, did not often bring them into each other’s company, nor into that of their children. We had no memory of maternal love during our childhood years. If we had, it might be that we would have become a less rancorous brood.

As for Thomas Despenser, Lord Despenser, I had wanted more than the hostility that sparked between my father and mother, whether he was worthy of me or not. It was not to be. I might have loved him. I might have experienced at least an affection for him, but Thomas admired my dowry and my Plantagenet blood far more than he admired me, and for the most part ignored me except for the need to produce an heir. In the end, it did not matter. We were man and wife and, as many another ill-matched pair, we would live out our days together.

Chapter Three

Early September 1399: Tower of London

‘Where is Mathes?’ King Richard demanded as soon as I set foot within the confines of his room. ‘What have you done with Mathes?’

‘Who?’ For a moment I was nonplussed. Of all the opening commands or pleas I might have expected from Richard, this was not one of them.

‘Mathes. My greyhound. I wish him to be here with me. Where is he?’

‘I don’t know, my lord.’

It seemed to me that there was far more serious content for this discussion between us than the whereabouts of Richard’s favourite greyhound.

‘Bring him to me. I command it.’

But how could I?

I had awoken that morning, Thomas long gone on his own affairs, with one clear thought leaping fully fledged into my mind. I must go to Richard. Waiting for Henry of Lancaster to show us the length and breadth of his ultimate goal toward Richard and the kingdom was all very well, but I could not rest. The one memory I could not shake free from my mind was that of Richard standing in the Great Hall, alone, isolated, even though he was surrounded by my father’s retainers. It had touched my heart with a deep compassion of which I had thought myself incapable. I could not abandon my cousin.

Richard commanded our duty and our loyalty. He was our King, anointed with holy oil, crowned and invested with the sacred regalia of kingship. Casting off such a loyalty was not a simple matter. Nor, for me, was it only a matter of loyalty to my King. Thomas would not understand, but Richard was my cousin. I had known him from birth, enjoyed his hospitality and his patronage, but also his kindness, which had not been merely an extension of his power. Were we not close by blood?

I recalled him drawing me into the intimate circle around his first much-loved wife Anne. I had clear memory of his dancing with me when my steps were still unsure. A collector of fine jewels, he had given me the heraldic brooch of a white hart, bound with gold and rubies, that I pinned to my bodice every morning.

With no need to inform anyone of my movements, for the Countess of Gloucester was beyond criticism, I arranged to travel by river from Westminster to the Tower in my father’s barge. Enjoying the luxury of the scarlet-cushioned seats with their gold-embroidered lions, I made good time for the tide had just turned, the strengthening current aiding the oarsmen. Once there, entering by the Watergate, I acknowledged, as I often did, that the bulk of the Conqueror’s White Tower would intimidate any visitor, its shadow causing me to shiver despite the warmth of the autumn sun reflecting from the stonework.

There was an immediate obstacle to my plan, all six feet of him standing in my path before I had barely stepped beyond the wharf. Will Plimpton, knight, my father’s Captain of the Guard. He had known me since I was a child and still had the habit of addressing me as he had when I held no status other than my father’s daughter.

‘If you have come to see the King, then you can’t. He’s kept under strict confinement, Mistress Constance.’

He had read my intent well enough.

‘I am not here to manage his flight to safety, Will. I am here as a friend and a cousin, to give comfort.’

‘There’s an unconscionable number of cousins in this affair. And be that as it may, mistress, he is allowed no visitors unless sanctioned by the Duke of Lancaster himself. Those are my orders.’

He was an old ally of mine. ‘Do you not serve my father?’ I asked with terrible innocence, smoothing my knuckles over the Yorkist livery that covered his chest with fleurs-de-lys and Plantagenet lions.

‘Not when Lancaster is occupying the royal apartments.’

I changed direction. ‘I am a mere woman, Will. I am no threat. I will not stay long and none need know that you have given your permission. Certainly not my father or Lancaster. I promise I will not speak of it. Besides, my father does not object to my being here, so why should my cousin of Lancaster? Indeed, I believe my father discussed my visit with Lancaster on his arrival in London.’

My father had done no such thing; he had no idea of what I was about, and would have forbidden it out of hand if he had been aware, but what was not known could not be grieved over.

The serjeant grunted, patting my arm with appreciation, his eye gleaming at my attempt at subterfuge. ‘I don’t like it, my lady. And I know your ability to twist the truth to your liking.’

Which made me smile. ‘You will be rewarded in heaven for your compassion to the man who is still your King.’ My own words struck home, a sharp little pain against my heart. ‘We must not forget that. The crown still belongs to him. How can it be removed, except by God?’ At that moment I meant every word I said.

‘As you say. Come then, Mistress Constance. But don’t blame me…’

There was a guard outside the door. When the captain opened it with a key at his belt, I saw that a guard also stood within the room, beside the window, as if my royal cousin would consider an escape by that means, unlikely as it might seem. Richard was not given to feats of strength or endurance or climbing through windows.

‘May we be alone?’ I asked. ‘I would speak of family affairs to my cousin.’

On a gruff sigh, the captain beckoned the man to wait outside the door.

‘Not too long, mistress.’

And there was Richard standing in the middle of the room. Yesterday he had been bewildered. Today he all but crackled with anger.

He had been allowed to change his garments, so that he looked more like the man I knew in a deep red full-length tunic embellished with fur and gold stitching at neck and cuff. His hair cleansed and curling against his neck, shining in a ray of sun that had crept in through one of the high windows, Richard was restored to some element of kingliness, except for the shocking hollowness of his cheeks. On the coffer behind him was a platter of bread and meat and a dish of fruits, all untouched. The flagon of wine was still covered with a white cloth. I thought again that this was not the first meal that he had refused.

‘I want my dear companion, my greyhound. Where is Mathes?’

‘I don’t know.’

Richard’s lips set in a line of bitter self-pity. ‘He went to fawn over Lancaster. Even my dog loves Lancaster more than he loves me. Will you return him to me? I would like him here.’ But before I could speak again, Richard’s temper flared across the room. ‘Where is my authority? Why are my orders not carried out?’ And then, as he focused on me perhaps for the first time: ‘Constance. Are you come to release me?’

‘Of course I am not. How would I have that power?’ I replied to my cousin rather than my King. ‘There is a lock on the door, and you may have noticed that I do not have the key.’

Richard scowled. ‘They have no right to keep me here. By what right do my subjects keep me in confinement in my own realm?’

While Richard flung away from me to hammer his fist on the stonework of the window surround, I considered an answer to his question. What gave a man, a subject, the right to keep a King imprisoned? In this case the power of the sword. The support of the great magnates of the realm. Henry had the power to do as he pleased.

‘Why are you here?’ Richard was facing me again, eyes wild with displeasure. ‘Are you here to argue Cousin Henry’s cause? Do you like him more than you like me?’

It was the accusation of a child. ‘No, I am not. I am here to give you company. Are you well treated? You have food, I see.’ The muscles in his face twitched under the strain, but he had been well accommodated in the King’s Great Chamber in St Thomas’s Tower. No sparsely furnished dungeon here, but a room with every comfort. The walls, smoothly plastered, were painted with leaves and flowers, candle-sconces aplenty offered light in the darkest corners, and, on a carved and polished coffer, books had been left to help him pass the interminable hours. They were still unopened.

‘Will you take a cup of wine, my lord?’ I asked.

But he waved it away. ‘I will not. I will not be won over by food and fine cloth.’ He tugged at the furred collar. ‘I demand my freedom.’ His eyes narrowed on my face as he beckoned imperiously: ‘Come and talk with me.’

He sank onto a stool and pointed at one beside him. I sat in obedience.

‘I am afraid,’ he said.

‘There is no need. Our cousin will treat you fairly.’

‘Is it fair to take what is not his, what is mine and beyond his taking?’ He leaned close to speak in almost a whisper. ‘He will make me abdicate,’ Richard fretted. ‘How can I? How can a King abandon his sacred anointing at his coronation, in the sight of God and his subjects? I cannot renounce it.’

As he suddenly gripped my hand, crushing my fingers, I felt the weight of sadness that bore him down.

‘They will say that I must give my power into hands stronger than mine, Constance.’ He looked at me, a world of suspicion in his gaze. ‘Your royal father, my uncle of York, is my designated heir. Not Henry of Lancaster. Will your father take the throne from me? Is that why you are here? To plead his cause so I will hand it over, weak as a kitten? Your family always had ambition above its position.’

So we had become the accused also. How easy it was to slide into the pool of Richard’s enmity.

‘I am not here to persuade you to give up your crown, Richard. My father does not seek the crown.’

But Richard was on his feet again, driven by unknown terrors, his fingers tugging his hair into disarray before covering his face.

‘I trust no one. My people do not love me, I am told. They cry out for my blood, my head. I must believe it. I heard them.’ And then, voice still muffled: ‘What do I do if I am not King?’

I allowed myself to reply cautiously to his irrationality. ‘What do you wish to do?’

He thought about it, hands falling away so that his reply came clearly. ‘If I were not King? I would live in a place of my choosing. With friends and servants and enough resources to maintain myself in an honourable state.’

Rising, I gathered his hands, more gently than he had gripped mine. ‘You must not give up hope, Richard.’

His answering smile was wan. ‘Will you have your family speak for me? We were always friends. Aumale and Gloucester, Exeter and Surrey. And my uncle of York.’ He had forgotten that they had done nothing to prevent his falling into Lancaster’s hands.

The minutes were passing. ‘Do you need anything? I cannot stay long.’

‘Better you here than the guard who watches my every step.’ The anger had gone, replaced by desolation. ‘Will you give my dear wife Isabelle this from me?’ He made to take a ring from his hand, as if he expected to see the great ruby gleaming in the sunlight, only to find his hands naked of jewels. ‘Where is my ring? They have taken it from me.’ It was almost a sob. ‘I can do nothing. They have taken all my treasure. And Mathes.’

I knew that they had confiscated all of Richard’s wealth, all the forty thousand pounds of it hidden away in Holt Castle so that he was stripped down to a man of absolute poverty. Again there were tears in his eyes, which coated my compassion with irritation, not for the first time. It was important now for me to give counsel.

‘You must listen to me, Richard.’ And when he nodded, seeking any consolation, still holding fast to my hands: ‘You must be strong. Do not give in to Lancaster. Offer to negotiate with him, but do not agree to relinquish your crown without promises for your safety and your future.’

‘Will he listen?’

I thought not, but I must give this man hope. ‘You have friends. Friends who will not desert you. I am your friend.’

‘What can you do? I am deserted. I think he will have my head. Henry was always my rival.’

‘He will not.’ How difficult it was to implant into this man a backbone that would carry him through the next days and weeks. ‘Listen to me, Richard. Be strong. Tell Lancaster that you will discuss terms. He is a fair man. He does not desire your blood.’

‘If I offer to reinstate his land and inheritance, will he allow me to go free?’

‘Yes, that might do it.’

Oh, Richard. Lancaster wanted far more than his inheritance. By taking up arms against the King, Henry had proved that he desired more than the reinstatement of his title of Duke of Lancaster and the Lancaster acres. I could see no glory for Richard, but he should be allowed to keep his dignity.

‘Don’t forget. The family of York will not abandon you. Do not sign any document that robs you of your royal authority. You must not abdicate unless Lancaster listens to your conditions.’

‘But what are my conditions?’

I tried not to sigh.

‘Your freedom is the main one. Demand that you be set free.’ Then I delivered the most vital piece of advice, for all of us. ‘Demand a guarantee of a pardon for all your counsellors, so that Lancaster cannot punish them for any perceived fault in your reign. You must think of the men who supported you, advised you. They must not be threatened by Lancaster. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, yes, I can do that.’

‘Promise me that you won’t forget. Otherwise Henry will have his revenge on all of us.’

‘I promise. You will not suffer for your friendship to your King.’

He was smiling at me, although a watery affair as I saluted him on his cheeks and walked to knock on the door to summon the guard to release me. I had done all I could, for Richard and for my family’s uncertain future, but Richard’s utter weakness appalled me.

‘How can I live, if I am not King?’

His final despairing words as I left him standing at the window, looking out on the realm that was indeed no longer his, remained with me as I returned to the barge, the oarsmen who would need to flex their muscles against the drag of the Thames, aiding their wait with leather jugs of ale. My family and the Hollands owed so much to Richard, our present Dukedoms of Aumale and Surrey and Exeter a precious gift after our support in his campaign to punish the Lords Appellant. We could not abandon the giver of such costly patronage. We had been the jewels in Richard’s crown, but it was clear to me that Henry might prise those jewels out and replace them with new. And then where would we be? I had no confidence in Richard’s promise to win Henry’s compliance, that we would be free from any revenge if Henry decided to take it.

Thomas said we should wait.

It seemed to me too dangerous to wait.

‘You’ve company, mistress.’ The captain broke into my thoughts, nodding towards the gilded prow where a familiar figure sprawled on the cushions, regaling the rowers with some tale that had them laughing.

‘How did you get here?’ I asked as I stepped aboard and the oarsmen took their positions.

Dickon pointed at a wherry that was heading towards the opposite bank. He came to sit beside me.

‘What does the King say?’

I shrugged. ‘He’s concerned about his ruby ring and his hound.’ I caught the slide of my brother’s eye. ‘What is it?’

‘A man might wonder whether you came here for Richard’s sake or for ours.’

How true. I had not been completely altruistic, but I would not deny my loyalty to Richard. Equally I would not reveal to my brother the content of my advice to him. ‘A man should keep his inquisitive nose out of my affairs,’ I said, and turned my face towards Westminster, where all was to play for.

A little time after dawn on the following day I met with my family in my father’s private chamber at Westminster, summoned by him with unaccustomed stringency. Even the timing was unusual. My father, ageing rapidly week by week, rarely broke his fast before the day was well advanced. There were six of us all told. It had, I decided, although I would never have been allowed to attend such a meeting, the semblance of a council of war. The room might be familiar with its solid stonework and hunting tapestries, but the atmosphere was as sharp as that first sip of newly brewed ale.

‘You are late,’ my father observed as I entered.

I curtsied, watching my tongue. I suspected that this would be a long and acrimonious exchange of views.

Here we were, my father lowering himself awkwardly to a cushioned chair. His lips were pressed hard against the pain that these days never left him. The stiffness in his back was now permanent, exacerbated by any attempt to ride or walk far. It made his temper chancy. Joan gave him a cup of ale and took a stool at his side.

And then my brothers. First in importance as my father’s heir, my brother Edward, indolently stretched on a window seat, a hawk on his fist, a smoothly brindled greyhound at his feet. Dickon lounged against the ribbed stonework near the door as if to escape at the first opportunity, fidgeting with a knife he had taken from his belt. Thomas, my husband, seated on the only cushioned stool, glowered with some silent discontent.

And I? Why was I tolerated in this convening of male minds? Because in this household we talked politics and power. We always had, from dawn to dusk, assessing friend and enemy, alliances and allegiances. Such were the subjects of most importance to us. I stood behind my husband, my hand lightly resting on his shoulder, seemly as any wife. Joan was present because everyone had forgotten about her. She had a gift for drawing no one’s eye. My mother, the Castilian princess who had caught everyone’s eye, had been dead for seven years. My father’s second wife, Joan Holland, was young at nineteen years to my father’s fifty-eight. I watched them together as she stood to stuff another goose-feather cushion behind him, remarking not for the first time that the famous beauty of her grandmother, Joan of Kent, had left only the faintest imprint on her. She was a sparrow here, amidst a flock of goldfinches, yet however unmemorable her brown hair and pale, plain features might be, my father smiled his thanks. He treated her like a daughter, with far more affection than he had ever shown to me. Sometimes I found it difficult to tolerate Joan’s presence, much less her meek subservience.

Thus the house of York, the noble family of the fourth son of King Edward the Third. Some would say a family to be reckoned with given our rank and royal blood; others would deem us a family to be wary of, a family driven to snatch at wealth and power. Beneath the unity of our name seethed rank ambition and sour suspicion, in no manner alleviated since the day that our gifts had caught the wayward eye of King Richard, when our present and our future had gleamed with gold. Now that golden gleam hung in abeyance. After my meeting with Richard, I would not wager a silver penny on any golden future.

Nor, it seemed, could my husband.

‘Why could you not keep Richard safe and at liberty?’ Thomas demanded, unconsciously echoing my own thoughts, voicing the concern that had clearly eaten away at him since Lancaster had taken his royal prize. ‘Was it beyond your powers?’ He turned his eye on my father. ‘You were Keeper of the Kingdom with an army at your command. Surely it was not beyond the wit of man to defeat a traitor who landed in the north with only a handful of misguided supporters? It wasn’t that you did not know Lancaster was coming.’

Thomas stood, shaking off my hand, as if he could bear to sit no longer.

My father replied promptly. ‘I knew he was coming, but I did not know where he would land. How can we gauge the tides and the winds? By the time we met, it was my judgement that Lancaster’s following was too powerful to be stopped.’ His gaze narrowed against the attack, his response blisteringly formal. ‘You had your own role in our failure, Despenser. A man who could not get his own tenants to arm and march to the succour of their King is in no position to denigrate others. You are not innocent in this debacle.’

The room, from carved roof beams to painted tiles, churned with rancour. I could do nothing to halt the accusation and counter-accusation, and indeed knew better than to try. Joan withdrew circumspectly to the far end of the chamber, as far from the imminent conflagration as possible, signalling her distance by picking up a length of girdle that she proceeded to stitch.

‘At least I stayed with him to the end.’ Refusing to be silenced, Thomas’s eye swept on to land on Edward. ‘Unlike some of us here. And it wasn’t me who advised Richard to remain in Ireland, when we all knew Lancaster was already in England. Why in God’s name did you do that?’

Edward merely smiled, eyes as hooded as the hawk’s whose neck he scratched, causing it to bob its head in pleasure. ‘No one wanted all-out war, and one we would have lost.’

My father was reining hard on his temper. ‘Sit down, Thomas. You knew the situation as well as I. Lancaster was stronger. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were riding with him and more than half the northern magnates, not to mention the Cheshire archers. If we had taken it to a battlefield we would have been beaten out of sight and Richard would be in a worse position than he is now.’

Thomas sat, hands planted on his knees, but was no more amenable to reason. ‘Is that possible? He’s a prisoner under Lancaster’s brutal justice. If you had met with Lancaster near Ravenspur, before he joined up with Northumberland, you could have swept him back out to sea. But no, you marched west and—’

I replaced my hand on Thomas’s shoulder and pressed down hard. No point in inflicting wounds here that could never be healed. The past could not be changed, even though every accusation he made against my father was undoubtedly true.

My father continued to explain his lack of effective action. ‘I marched west to meet up with Richard’s army and present a united front. That was the plan.’

Thomas had no intention of being silenced, since by now we were all aware of the flush of guilt along my father’s cheekbones. ‘Which didn’t happen.’ Thomas twitched free of my hand once more, a rough gesture. ‘By the time Richard landed on the Welsh coast,’ – once more he glared at Edward – ‘you were comfortably holed up in Berkeley Castle. You had an army of three thousand men. Surely you could have made a good resistance.’

My father’s face was still flushed, but his reply held the quality of ice.

‘I made a truce with Lancaster at Berkeley because I believed that his claim for justice had much weight. He is my brother’s much-loved son, and as such he should be answered. Besides, my army was breaking up. My best troops were those of John Beaufort. When Beaufort made his peace with his half-brother of Lancaster, he took his troops with him. I would not have expected otherwise.’

Thomas continued to accuse, ignoring the increased pressure of my hand as his tone became increasingly insolent. ‘God’s Blood! So you had sympathy with Lancaster’s cause?’

‘I did,’ my father acknowledged. ‘Richard treated him shamefully.’

‘I don’t deny it, but Richard was our road to power.’ Thomas’s reply lacked pity for either Richard or Henry of Lancaster. ‘Now the goose that laid the golden eggs for all of us is shut up in the Tower, impotent and likely to stay there. I don’t expect Lancaster to be liberal in casting largesse in our direction. We were all too close to Richard for Lancaster to trust us.’

Edward had been as silent as I throughout Thomas’s torrent of invective, but I needed an explanation for the insinuation that he could not ignore if he was guiltless.

‘Why did you advise Richard to delay his return from Ireland?’ I dropped the question into a pause in the hostilities. ‘It smacks of rank stupidity, but when were you ever so careless of battle tactics? You could be accused of collusion with Lancaster.’

Edward, totally unmoved by any of the arrows fired in his direction, stood to place the hawk on the stand against the wall. The hound followed him, sticking close to his heels when he returned to take up a stance in the centre of the group. On my left Dickon slid to sit on the floor, arms around his knees, forehead resting there as if he might sleep through sheer boredom.

‘I am neither stupid nor careless,’ said Edward. ‘It all depends whose poisonous tongue you prefer to believe, dear sister.’

I remembered Richard’s utter weakness. Was Edward truly to blame?

‘Lance the venom, Edward,’ I responded. ‘We’ll all be interested in your explanation.’

‘By God, we will.’ Thomas leaped once more to take up the attack. ‘All was ready in Ireland. We knew Lancaster had returned. The ships were loaded, even down to the horses being on board with all the trouble that takes. And then what? Then you whispered in Richard’s ear and all was unloaded again. We sat and waited in Waterford for another two weeks – two weeks! – by which time Lancaster was well and truly embedded in the country. Whether you were traitor or just incompetent, it was ill-managed, Aumale.’

My father grunted his displeasure, but Edward merely returned to his seat, stretching himself out again in unruffled good humour.

‘There is no mystery. It was neither incompetence nor treachery, but supremely managed. Since we were short of shipping to embark as a major force, I considered it impossible to transport the whole army home again. Where was the incompetence in that? What was possible was an advance guard to land in Wales and head north to take Chester for the King. That is what was arranged, so no treachery there. The fact that Salisbury, who took the command, failed to fulfil his orders, and most of his force either joined Lancaster, or simply went home, was no fault of mine.’

‘But why did we not fight for Richard? Why did we go over to Lancaster so fast?’ Thomas refused to retreat, his voice sharpening in petulance, his hands closing into fists against his thighs.

Edward shrugged. ‘The Welsh gentry said they believed that Richard was dead, so it would be good sense for them to join Lancaster. Your troops in Gloucester would not heed the call to arms.’

Thomas, rigid with fury, returned Edward’s regard. ‘I’ve never seen any man change sides as fast as you. It was a miracle of deceit. When I had last seen you in Ireland you had been a King’s man. When our paths crossed again at Flint Castle you were part of the delegation dispatched by Lancaster to discuss Richard’s future.’ The sneer hung in the room like a plague miasma. ‘The Lancaster livery was most becoming on you.’

‘It surprises me that you would wish to remind us of what happened at Flint.’ Edward accepted the contempt and returned it in full measure. ‘When you, Despenser, said not one word to the King. You kept as great a distance from him as you could, other than standing in the bailey. You threw Richard to the Lancaster wolves just as effectively as I.’

Thomas shifted uneasily. Edward continued with perfect poise.

‘Had we not all seen which way the royal banners were flying in the wind by then? When Bristol fell to Lancaster, he made it more than clear what would happen to those who stood by Richard. Scrope, Bussy and Green, royal counsellors all, lost their heads fast enough. I had no intention of my head joining theirs on some distant gateway. My new livery was a light cost to pay to escape beheading. But at least I stayed with Richard until there was no more hope. You couldn’t get out from under his shadow fast enough.’

‘Enough!’ My father raised his hand, but Thomas’s ire was in full flow.

‘You have all the perfect explanations, like honey on your tongue.’ Thomas showed his teeth in the leer of a wolf before attack. ‘We can’t wait to hear. How did you explain to Lancaster, when you knelt before him with promises of fealty, that you had been given a large part of his Lancaster inheritance, which Richard had confiscated and portioned out to those he loved best? Have you actually told him? He might not be so keen to have you as an ally if he knows you’ve been living richly off his land.’

‘Of course I’ve told him. I said that I would happily restore all his inheritance to him. I said that I had drawn no money from it.’

Edward’s response was fast and smooth, without decoration, punctuated by a yawn as if it were all of no importance. I could not resist the accusation – if only to ruffle his magnificent feathers.

‘Only because you did not have the time to get your hands on it,’ I said.

‘Whereas you, dear sister, would have made all speed to spend a good portion of it, would you not? All that wealth at your fingertips? How could you have resisted?’

He was not ruffled at all. I waved away the presumption of my extravagance as I looked at my father. Someone must make an attempt to untangle all these threads that were being woven into a tapestry of mutual hatred. ‘Why are we here, sir? We have heard much discussion of loyalty and treachery, but what is our position now?’

‘We are here, as must be obvious to you all, to decide what we will do next.’

‘Do we have a choice?’ Edward asked but needing no answer since he supplied it himself. ‘We do what we must. We become unimpeachable supporters of the new order of things.’

A silence filled the room, broken only by the hound scratching for fleas. Joan remained at her chosen distance, silently stitching as if none of this was her concern, stabbing the linen with her needle. A grey kitten had joined her from some previously hidden refuge to entangle her embroidery silks. Her trivial occupations continued to irritate me beyond measure.

‘You say that we give our allegiance to our cousin Henry,’ I said.

‘Yes. Is it not obvious?’

‘Will he accept it?’ I was unsure. ‘He might consider our loyalty suspect.’

‘It will all hang in the balance. But I fear Richard’s days are numbered.’ My father’s face set in doleful lines. ‘There have already been cries for his execution.’

‘Lancaster will not scatter patronage in our direction with the same easy hand,’ Thomas repeated. ‘With four sons and two daughters of his own, and a drain on his finances if the kingdom is uneasy, his purse will be empty soon enough. I doubt he’ll look to us for friendship or counsel. He’s more likely to banish us to our estates, as soon as he gets his lands back from you, Aumale.’

‘I think you are wrong. He needs all the friends he can get.’ Edward stirred himself so that the hound took its chin off his foot and sat up. His advice was the epitome of fair reason. ‘I for one see nothing to be gained by opposing him and much to be lost. And yes, I will willingly restore the Lancaster estates to him. And you, Despenser, will be a fool if you do not meet him at least halfway. Richard can give us nothing, but Henry can and must be persuaded that we have his best interests at heart. Who will be closer to him than us? No one. We are his blood and his family. You, my lord,’ – he bowed his head to my father – ‘are the only royal uncle he has left, the only connection with his royal forebears. He might, if encouraged, see you in the role of his own father. Of course he will not turn us away. He needs to win us to his side, and we must be willing to be won.’

During this masterful speech, I became aware of the dog, its eyes fixed in canine adoration on Edward’s face.

‘I recognise that animal,’ I said.

‘So you should. It’s Richard’s.’ Edward laughed. ‘Or was Richard’s. Mathes.’ He snapped his fingers and the hound subsided once more against his feet. ‘It transferred its allegiance to Lancaster. Clever animal, I’d say.’

I remembered Richard, his pining for this creature that had been quick to betray him. Were we not following in its footprints?

‘Will Lancaster take the crown?’ I asked Edward, already knowing the answer.

‘Of course. I would, in his shoes.’

‘I don’t like the thought of leaving Richard to Lancaster’s tender mercy,’ Thomas stated.

‘What would you do?’ For the first time Edward’s patience seemed worn. ‘Launch an attack, snatch him up out of the Tower, and get him to France?’

‘I could think of worse.’

‘What do we have with which to launch such an attack? No one would be willing to commit to such a hopeless scheme, and your retainers won’t do it.’

Thomas flushed. ‘Better to try than to turn traitor!’

Without further comment, Thomas marched from the room, the door thudding behind him. I watched him leave. Wifely duty might suggest that I accompany him but I was not inclined, choosing to stay with my family by blood despite some antagonism, much hostility and all fair planning for the future now in pieces.

‘Is it impossible to rescue Richard?’ I asked, again with that sense of guilt that we had abandoned him in his hour of need.

‘From the Tower? Under guard?’ replied Edward. ‘You know better than that.’

‘He misses the hound.’

Immediately I had spoken I realised that it would drop me into a morass of explanation that I could well do without. Not for the first time I wished that I had been born another Yorkist son, my participation accepted, weight given to my words, at the centre of events rather than on the edge of it all like Joan, unless I fought to make my voice heard.

‘And how would you know that?’ Edward asked.

I could have lied but I was not in the habit of dissimulation. Instead I raised my chin in a challenge. ‘I have been to see him. I felt sorry for him.’

‘Sorry you may be, but stay out of this, Constance.’ My father’s response was unequivocal. ‘It is no business of yours. If you wish to be useful, go and talk some sense into your husband.’

‘How do you know that I do not agree with him? We seem to have abandoned Richard as fast as that hawk would relinquish a mouse for better prey. At least Thomas sees that we owe him some fidelity.’

‘You are a daughter of York. We are masters of the art of pragmatism.’ Edward stood again, clicking his fingers for the hound to join him, which it did. He had a gift for winning the affection of both animals and men. ‘Let us prepare to smile and bend the knee on all occasions.’ His eyes touched on mine, held them in severe discourse. ‘For what other can we do, in the circumstances?’

‘Nothing,’ I admitted.

So it was decided.

‘Not one of you has talked of my position in all this.’ Dickon, who had been silent and motionless throughout all the previous exchanges, so that we had all but forgotten his presence, now lurched to his feet. ‘What will be my future? You don’t speak of it. I have nothing and we all know why.’

‘We will continue not to speak of it.’ The Duke of York was emphatic in his denial.

‘I will speak of it.’ Voice breaking on a croak, it was rare for Dickon to be so openly dissenting in the Duke’s company. ‘It is only thanks to my mother that I have anything at all to my name.’

Which was true enough. It had been left to our mother, in her will, to persuade King Richard to grant Dickon an annuity of five hundred marks. With great foresight she left all her jewels to Richard, to aid her cause, and thus Dickon received a royal annuity but nothing more. Our father had settled neither land nor title on him. He was merely Richard of Conisbrough, to denote where he was born.

‘I have not even been knighted, which is my right,’ Dickon growled. ‘Am I not worthy of a title of my own as a son of York? Without Richard’s acknowledgement I am destined to penury. What happens to me now?’

‘You had nothing much to lose in the first place, little brother.’ Bitterness was beginning to drip through Edward’s earlier facade. ‘Do you think I have enjoyed this change of fortune? By God, I have not. All I had achieved, all I had worked for at Richard’s Court, flattering him, winning him round to see me as the most loyal friend he had ever had. And now with Lancaster’s victory, even though the crown is not yet his, most of those gains are already lost to me.’

Edward flung out his arms in pure performance.

‘Do you think that I enjoy the consequences of this usurpation? I am no longer Constable of England. That position was stripped from me at Flint. Now I am called upon to surrender the Constableship of the Tower of London. I doubt it will be my last loss unless I can match Lancaster guile for guile.’ Irritation was a river in spate to sweep away any good humour. ‘And you, Dickon, complain about a paltry sum of an annuity that might dry up. I am still Admiral of England, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Warden of the West March.’ He ticked the offices off on his supremely capable fingers. ‘All in the gift of King Richard. How long will Lancaster allow them to remain with me? I am Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumale. Much of the Arundel lands came to me after Arundel’s execution two years ago. Will Lancaster allow me to keep them? I would have been heir to the English throne, after my father. I can say farewell to that! And you think you have all to lose? You don’t know the half of it.’

Dickon, face mottled with pent-up rage, was not to be diverted. ‘But you are our father’s heir. Even if you lose all the titles Richard gave you, one day you will be Duke of York. You will never remain in obscurity, while I will be invisible until the day of my death.’

Hearing the disenchantment, seeing the rank fury glitter in Edward’s eyes, watching my father struggle to rise to his feet to take issue, I grasped Dickon’s arm and drew him, still protesting, from the room, pulling him into a deserted window embrasure in the antechamber, where I constrained him to face me, my hands on his shoulders.

‘Listen to me, Dickon.’ At least here was a role I could play.

‘Why should I? You cannot help me.’

I shook him, fingers hard in his young flesh. ‘No, I can’t, but still you will listen.’

‘And will you give me fair advice?’ His lips curled in very adult mockery.

‘All is not lost for you, Dickon.’ I stared down the challenge in his eye. ‘You did not raise arms against Lancaster. You had no influential involvement in Richard’s Court. Your position is more secure than for any one of us.’

Dickon’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not raise arms either.’

‘I, my foolish brother, will stand or fall with my husband’s decision. If Thomas is punished, then so will I be.’

A thought that might just keep me from sleep, if I allowed it.

‘I may not be called to account, but I have no call on Lancaster’s patronage or his good will,’ he snapped. ‘As Thomas said, he has four sons to provide for.’

Here was the old problem, yet I put my arm around his shoulders as I guided him from the embrasure and through the connecting antechamber, all but dragging him when he resisted.

‘I’ll never allow you to become destitute.’

‘My brother wouldn’t care.’

I felt the line of a frown develop between my brows. Did it never strike Dickon that, unless Edward produced an heir, which appeared more and more unlikely as the years passed and Philippa aged, that he, the younger brother, would inherit the Dukedom of York? Dickon’s future was not as black as he frequently painted it.

‘Your brother suffers from intense disappointment,’ was all I said, adding in an attempt to lighten the burden on my brother’s brow: ‘Edward will have to abandon his plans to build a new house outside Temple Bar, paid for with coin from Lancaster’s inheritance. A house of some ostentation, for I have seen the plans. It will hit him hard.’ I hugged Dickon closer, even when he resisted. ‘I will not leave you to beg in the gutter.’

‘Unless you are begging in the gutter at my side.’ Sometimes he was percipient beyond his years. ‘Most likely we will all become so.’

What none of us had mentioned was the looming danger from our past, a threat to us that could not be buried in obsequious language and actions. The attack on the Lords Appellant, two years ago, when Thomas and Edward had received their new enhanced titles in reward for their participation in the bloody events, was sure to raise its head when parliament met again. We were all involved to one extent or another. We might try to be pragmatic; Lancaster, who had suffered exile in that clash of power, might have no intention of allowing us to be so. It was an anxiety that rumbled constantly, a sign of a brewing storm.

‘We will try to be optimistic,’ I advised laconically, since there was no good reason to encourage Dickon’s dissatisfaction. ‘We are Lancaster’s noble cousins. We will make the new kingdom our own and come out covered with glory. He will realise that he cannot do without us.’

‘And God help us if he rejects us.’

‘God help us indeed.’

And God help Richard, I thought, for we could not.

Chapter Four

‘It’s like juggling with a set of priceless goblets,’ snarled Thomas, never amenable to direct orders, after he had been sent by Lancaster as part of a deputation to visit Richard in the Tower. He was dragging on a high-necked, calf-length garment, soft as a glove, fixing a jewel in his cap.

‘Then I advise you to learn to juggle. And fast.’

What could we do in the forthcoming days when Henry of Lancaster took control? We could play the most prominent role, whether it be a heavy decision or a light festivity, as if our loyalty to Lancaster was not, and never had been, in question.

All through those weeks of September, weeks that were tension-ridden and full of latent anxiety, we had learned to step to a different rhythm, a more complicated dance tune played at his behest by the personal minstrels of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. It was not difficult. We were masters of concealment, adapting to political necessity like a goshawk flirting with wind patterns. We accepted the change with slick acumen, even Dickon keeping his complaints to himself. So that our commitment could never be questioned, we were evident at every step of the way. Even if I in person was not. There was no public role for me except as a silent and smiling witness, but I could dance as well if not better than any one of them. I had danced with Richard; I would dance with Henry. Nor would I always be that silent witness, for it was not in my nature to allow such crucial events to flow past me, unacknowledged.

And so I did dance, when Henry occupied chambers in the Palace of Westminster, summoning the magnates who had accompanied him to London to join with him there in an informal evening of wine and music, of dancing and celebration to mark his return to don the mantle of his hereditary dukedom. If I was uneasy at being invited, I masked it with flamboyance in my execution of the stately promenades. After all, there was no need to exchange any dangerous conversations; no need to even voice the perilous words ‘crown’ and ‘throne’. I would play my unusual role of peacemaker with all the subtlety that my mother had never learned at the English Court.

Henry smiled. ‘You are as comely as ever, Constance.’

‘I am honoured to meet with your approval.’

His gaze was flattering. Wear the yellow damask, Thomas had ordered. It’s guaranteed to win Henry’s approval. But in perverse fashion, and since I disliked the ochre hue and the quality of the pale vair, I had chosen instead a new gown of Burgundian cut with trailing hem and high waist. The deep-patterned azure-blue silk and sable furs at cuff and neck was far more becoming to my fair colouring. It was not difficult to ignore Thomas’s displeasure.

‘You don’t need my approval,’ Henry said. ‘You, of all women in this room, know your own worth.’

More flattery. ‘We are pleased to welcome you back, Henry.’

‘It is good to see so much welcoming. I have need of good friends.’

Henry exhibited every quality lacking in the imprisoned Richard. Assurance blended with authority. Any observer might be drawn into the mummers’ play that Henry would be the better man to wear the crown. Moreover I sensed no hostility in him. Confidence fell gently over me, a silk veil. Until, that is, when, the slow steps of the measure bringing us together, Henry observed with gentle insouciance:

‘I am told, Constance, that you visited Richard.’

I inhaled slowly. ‘I did.’

‘Against my orders.’

‘What harm could I do?’

We parted, reunited. My heart began to beat as if the dance were an energetic one. Henry’s sword-calloused fingers were firm and rough around mine, destroying all semblance of urbanity.

‘I trust that you will not make a habit of it, cousin.’

I smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Habits can be hard to break, Henry.’

The music died away. He bowed. I sank into a curtsey. When I stood, he was looking at me, his expression uncommonly stern.

‘My advice: break this one, for your own good.’

To visit Richard or to obey orders? It was a warning and I would be a fool not to heed it.

All we had to do, when not dancing, Edward had advised, was keep our shields raised, our daggers honed and our swords sharp. There were enough enemies around us to take the opportunity to blacken our name and defile our reputation in the eyes of the one man who now dictated the order of events.

But Thomas, unconvinced, continued to expand on the unfortunate resemblance of our present status to the frailty of precious vessels. ‘One mistake, one fumble, one twitch, and they all crash to the floor and shatter into pieces.’ He considered the prospect. Then changed the image. ‘Our security is as fragile as a pheasant chick in the jaws of a fox. Its neck can be snapped before we can blink.’

‘Then we must ensure that we bear no similarity to either priceless vessels or chicks,’ I said. ‘We will be the sure and certain underpinning to this new power that Henry’s building. We will be as watchful as raptors.’

It began with much negotiation with Richard in the Tower, to encourage him to resign his crown to his cousin to make the transition easy and legal. My family of York, Aumale and Gloucester were part of that august gathering who presented themselves before him in a spirit of solemn persuasion.

And Richard?

Richard signed away his birthright for a mess of political pottage, becoming once more Richard of Bordeaux. My advice to him to sign nothing, to agree to nothing, had fallen on deaf ears. What choice did he have, when it was as clear as dawn that the majority of magnates and clerics stood solidly behind Lancaster? So we must stand behind him too. If Lancaster became the new King, how blunderingly inept it would have been if the family of York had resisted. It would have been to cut our own throats.

If there was any regret, any fear for the future at Lancaster’s hands, we hid it behind a screen of fluent knee-bending and hand-kissing.

Thus the Duke of York and his heir and his son by law were part and parcel of the procession through the streets of London on the thirtieth day of September when Lancaster took his place in the Great Hall at Westminster. Richard’s Great Hall, but what good repining? Richard’s empty throne was draped in cloth of gold, ready for its new occupant who was led in by the two Archbishops and Sir Thomas Erpingham bearing a new sword of state, the jewelled Lancaster Sword that Henry had carried at Ravenspur on his landing. Behind him marched the two Holland Dukes of Exeter and Surrey as well as my brother Aumale. Thomas played his role as one of the seven commissioners appointed to witness the pronouncement of Richard’s deposition. When Lancaster was ultimately proclaimed King of England by the lords and clerics in the Hall, it was our father of York who committed us to the new regime by leading Lancaster to the throne to take his seat.

Thus we were shackled and bolted to the new King for all time. Thus we disavowed Richard. Thus we were all brought neatly into the Lancaster fold, a little flock of important but impotent sheep, chivvied by the sheepdog named Ambition.

‘Can we all breathe easily again?’ I asked in a hiatus between signing documents and celebrating the auspicious events.

‘We have cut our cloth to suit the occasion.’ The Duke of York might regret the outcome but he had embraced his nephew with admirable fervour when Lancaster had acknowledged him, as we had hoped, as a father figure.

‘And a fine cloth it is, too,’ I remarked, and indeed nothing could have heralded our pre-eminence at the coronation more than the cost of our garments. Clad in silk damask and satin and sumptuous fur, provided for us by the new King as befitted our Plantagenet rank, we gathered in a little smoothly expensive knot as the feast was drawing to a close, to raise our cups of fine wine in private recognition of what we had achieved. At the beginning of August we had been the most loyal of subjects to King Richard the Second. By this day, a mere two months later, we had made the transition to supporters of Lancaster. The connections of the past could be forgotten, masked in the well-seasoned dishes and outward show of this royal feast. The future of Richard, still in the Tower with the prospect of a trial hanging over him if our new King gave his consent, must not be considered as we gorged on roast cygnet, venison and a multitude of game birds, the subtleties, fantastic creations sculpted from hard sugar, stuffed and enhanced with preserved fruit, their carved crowns and eagles sending out the pertinent message to all who dipped their spoons. King Henry the Fourth demanded our fealty and obedience and we gave it with much flamboyance.

Why had we ever doubted our ability to step unchallenged from one loyalty to the next? We allowed a collective sigh of silent relief.

‘I did think that at the eleventh hour he might order the arrest of the lot of us,’ Thomas remarked. ‘Even when I knelt to take the oath, I could feel the kiss of an axe against my neck, but it seems that we are still in possession of our titles, and our heads.’

I could not be so sanguine, but masked the persistent fear. ‘Edward says that Henry needs us, and thus our future is secure.’

‘Edward says whatever suits him best. He’s as slippery as an eel resisting being dropped into a pot of boiling water.’

‘Are we not all carved from the same wood? Self-interested to the last?’

Thomas emptied his chased and enamelled goblet with some satisfaction. ‘Of course. We’ll all perjure ourselves if necessary.’

Our thoughts, which it seemed were for once in unison, were interrupted by a great crash of wood against stone, as the doors of the feasting chamber were flung back and a knight in full gleaming armour, on horseback, rode in. Around us many voices were raised, but no one seemed too perturbed. There was some laughter, some groans. Thomas sighed as the knight lifted his visor to announce his name: Sir Thomas Dymoke. His voice, raw as a jackdaw’s croak, bounced from the stonework.

‘I am here by right of inheritance through my lady mother. I am the King’s Champion. I challenge to a duel any man who doubts King Henry’s right to the throne.’

Spurring his horse to a brisk walk he made a circuit around the hall, brushing against the tapestries to release clouds of dust. The preparations for this festivity had been hasty. One circuit and then another. And another, by this time raising some ribaldry.

‘Is there no one here who will challenge the right of our King to wear the crown? If there is any such, then I will fight him, sword against sword.’

‘For God’s sake, someone challenge him and put us out of our misery.’ Thomas had no patience, while Edward, who had been dispensing wine to the new King from a silver flagon, strolled over to replenish our cups with what remained in the vessel.

‘A more pompous idiot I have yet to meet,’ Edward observed.

‘So will you not answer his challenge?’ I needled gently.

‘Not I. I am firmly in the royal good books. And I will make sure that I stay there.’

The greyhound, no longer following obediently at Edward’s heel, was restored, hale and hearty, to the company of King Henry. It lay beside him, its head on the royal foot as once it had rested on Edward’s, and probably before that on Richard’s, reminding me that all dogs could be fickle creatures.

Edward followed the direction of my gaze. ‘And there’s the truth of it,’ he nodded in a moment of whimsy. ‘Henry the greyhound putting to flight the white hart of Richard.’

‘I dislike omens. And I’ve more care for my dignity,’ Thomas said, ‘so don’t look at me. Public challenges only bring ridicule to all concerned, whoever wins.’

My father grunted his disapproval but acceptance of such levity. It was tradition.

‘I’ll do it.’ Dickon spoke out, his face aglow. ‘I’ll throw down my hood.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ I said, suddenly made alive to the inadvisability of drawing attention to our ambiguous position at this dangerously new Court.

‘But I will.’

And he did, his fur-trimmed hood flung to the floor in formal challenge as Dymoke rode past. Before anyone could see and comment, I stooped, picked it up and pushed it into his hand.

‘Be silent!’

‘Why should I?’

‘Such ill-considered chivalry could be noticed. And lower your voice! You are a fool, Dickon.’

‘At least I am loyal.’

‘Then you will perforce learn a new loyalty. As we all have done this day.’

It was Henry who brought the display to an end.

‘I shall personally relieve you of this onerous duty, Master Champion, since no one seems to be prepared to pick up your challenge.’

I wondered if he had seen Dickon’s defiant gesture. Cousin Henry was sharp-eyed. He would need to be if he was to carry this reign to success. I allowed my regard to sweep across the assembled throng. How many here were as ambivalent in their loyalty as we were? As the dregs of the feast settled down around us, the Champion retiring with much unkind laughter, Dickon subsiding, we exchanged a grim smile and raised a toast. To the future. To a new beginning. To inscribing the House of York with gold.

‘He has called for parliament to resume tomorrow,’ my father reminded us, as if we needed the reminder. It was the poisonous fly in the ointment, the occasion when all past enmities just might be stirred into life. Seeing the fine line between his brows, I asked:

‘Do we fear it?’

‘No. I expect it will be a discussion by the Commons of what to do with Richard, and by the Lords how we might curtail the powers of the new King by restricting his finance.’ The line disappeared. ‘Nothing for us to fear there.’

I said what was hovering over all of us. ‘I am thinking that the affair of the Counter-Appellants might not be quite dead and buried. There are those in the Lords who will see an opportunity for revenge for what was done two years ago in Richard’s name.’

Edward grimaced; clearly it had not been too far from his mind. ‘Then it would be good policy, Constance, if you could offer up a prayer that we are all too busy with Richard’s fate that no one thinks of it.’

It could indeed be dangerous. ‘I will. In absentia,’ I added. ‘It is my intention to leave you to your parliamentary deliberations. There is no more for me to do here.’

I allowed my eye to continue to travel over the gathering. The faces, the heraldic symbols, all familiar to me. The rich aroma of meat and spices, the songs of expert minstrels. The inbred wealth and traditions and ceremony. Here was my future. Nothing had changed, except for the wearer of the crown. It was a belief that I must hold to, even though my deepest apprehensions could not be dispelled. We did not yet know what changes King Henry might set in train, nor would we until those changes were in place. Whatever they might be, even if they undermined the very foundations of my family, we were powerless to prevent the excavations.

Meanwhile there would be no event to demand my involvement at Court, when this first meeting of parliament would take precedence over all things. I knew what I must do with my time.

‘Do you go to Elmley?’ Thomas asked as the feast drew to a close and we made our way to our own accommodations. His interest in my whereabouts was mild at best; he would readily find female company, in bed and out. I was resigned to it, almost relieved that his demands on me were light. He already had his heir. ‘If you do, take a look over the rent rolls and send me what you can. My purse is to let.’

‘So soon?’

I knew he had drawn heavily on his estates to equip his expedition to Ireland, and not merely to pay for men and horseflesh, which had been costly enough. Intent on gallant display he had purchased new spurs, rich cloth to fit out his entire entourage and two new gold and appliquéd standards to exhibit the Despenser presence on any battlefield. His annual income of something near two thousand pounds had been stretched.

‘What is it to you?’

‘It matters nothing to me, except that your extravagance could beggar us all.’

‘I don’t have to answer to my wife.’

‘Of course you do not.’ I smiled winningly, which did not enchant him to any degree. ‘All you have to do is enjoy the proceeds of my dower lands.’ And then before he could retaliate on this well-worn theme: ‘You don’t wish to accompany me? You might become reacquainted with your son and daughter. They see little enough of you.’

He shook his head. Thomas would take his seat in the Lords, and the thought intruded as he left me at my door. ‘Do you fear that Richard’s decision over the old Despenser arraignment will be reversed by Henry?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘No. What would be the value for Lancaster in doing that?’ But I thought there was a vestige of fear buried in his mind.

‘Only revenge,’ I mused. ‘Be watchful.’

‘When am I not?’

He made no effort to embrace me in a fond farewell, and I did not encourage him. Already he was striding away towards who knew what liaison. Then he stopped and spun on his heel.

‘You could take Dickon with you. Keep him out of mischief.’

‘I doubt he would come. And before you order him to do so, I would rather not travel with a sullen youth with an axe to grind. You keep an eye on him here.’

There was nothing to be concerned about other than Richard’s fate. I would offer up prayers for King Henry’s compassion. Yet why had I found a need to warn Thomas? Who was it that had helped Richard in his scheming to have his revenge against the Lords Appellant? We had. We had been the Counter-Appellants. We had aided, abetted and benefitted beyond all imagination, hoarding titles and lands from those who had fallen under Richard’s displeasure. We had reaped the harvest grown from the blood of others. A bitter harvest it might prove to be too, planted in tainted soil. There were indeed many at Court who would seize this opportunity to wreak their revenge on a family perceived to be greedy and self-seeking.

On the following morning I began my journey west to Elmley Castle, if for no other reason than to see my children. Richard, called for the late King, was almost three years old, Elizabeth still an infant. Not that they were neglected: cosseted in their own household of nurses and waiting women, employed to rock the cradle and encourage my growing son in his games and lessons, they lacked for nothing. Soon it would be time to appoint a tutor for my son so that the future Earl of Gloucester would be literate in words and figures as well as confident in the use of arms. Soon it would be necessary to discover a future husband for Elizabeth. Daughters were valuable. Alliances were of vital importance to every noble family.

I rode west with a light heart. In some ways it would be a relief to leave the high tensions of Westminster. I must rely on the good sense of my father, brother and husband as well as Joan’s Holland relatives, when parliament opened. It was not easy to do so. My father leaned towards choosing the easy path if he sensed that he was under threat. Edward was as tricky as a cat. Even I as his sister knew that it was best not to place complete trust in a man who beneath his polished exterior had only one interest at heart. Edward would fight for himself.

He had never explained why he had counselled Richard to remain over-long in Ireland, nor would I expend the energy in asking him, even though it smacked of treachery.

As for Thomas, who knew? At the moment he was resentful of the new King. Could he overcome that for the ultimate good of our family? I was sure that he could, particularly if Henry proved kindly disposed over the whole question of past Despenser treasons. Thomas’s ancestors had been driven by more sly ambition than Thomas would ever lay claim to, resulting in their horrific executions. With an old judgement of forfeiture still hanging over them, Richard had been generous enough to remove it, thus giving Thomas the satisfaction of an ancestry wiped clean and smooth as a newly baked egg blancmange. If Henry was inclined to uphold Richard’s reversal, the Despenser name thus reinstated, then Thomas would be effectively won over to the Lancaster cause. I could see no real reason why Henry would not, even though I had warned Thomas to beware of the royal dagger between his shoulder blades.

So much for Edward and Thomas, but then there was Dickon.

As I and my escort left the sprawl of London behind, I wondered what Dickon was doing, left at a loose end as new loyalties were stamped out. Perhaps my father would find him a place in King Henry’s household, where he could impress with his soldiery skills, if he had any to impress with, and earn the patronage he so desperately desired. Dickon needed a sponsor with some authority to foster his talents and keep him in line.

The morning was cool and crisp, providing good travelling weather, with many on the road, mostly merchants who were drawn by a new Court with its need for food and cloth. I wondered if Henry would have the money to satisfy them. Meanwhile I would enjoy a brief respite from devious doings in the tranquillity of Elmley Castle, one of the Beauchamp properties of the Earl of Warwick that had fallen into our hands when the Lords Appellant were swept away. It was a pleasant place, set like a jewel in its deer park.

The sun was only just beginning to move past its noonday height when the rattle of hooves of a single, fast-moving horse beat upon my ear. Without my intervention, we drew to a halt, my escort with hands to their swords, the recent potential violence in the country still making all travellers wary. My rank was obvious from my Despenser device of silver, red and gold, on tabard and pennon. I signalled to move on. A rider alone could be no threat to us, and indeed my escort visibly relaxed as the rider closed the distance.

‘It’s Master Dickon.’ My serjeant-at-arms allowed the grip on his sword to ease.

‘Dickon…’ I rode forward, a little trip of concern as he hauled his mount to a halt beside me. It was sweating, and so was he. He grabbed hold of my bridle and pulled me a distance away from the soldiers, his strength surprising me, as did the severity of his eye and the lines that deepened the corners of his mouth. He was short of breath.

‘You must come back with me.’

His voice broke on the hard consonants. His hair was wild, his garments dust-plastered. All his youthful flippancy had been stripped away, replaced by a raw anxiety.

‘Henry’s new parliament is out for blood,’ he said. ‘Our blood.’

So short a statement, so savagely delivered. It was enough. Without a word I turned my mare, indicating that my escort should follow. Suddenly it was no longer merely a matter of our losing land and title, of patronage and office with this change of monarch. Now it could be that our lives were truly in danger if parliament was pursuing revenge.

We had been far too complacent, expecting that the threats were over with the placing of the crown on Lancaster’s head.

I kicked my weary horse on, urgency a vital spur. Of what value was my return? What could I do? Not a thing, but I knew that I must be there because, before all else, we must present an image of unity and loyalty, so that Henry could never question our demeanour in the coming days of unrest. What I did not know, what none of us knew, was whether our new King would allow his parliament to have its vengeance. Henry had been vocal about the empty state of his coffers. What price would parliament demand for granting him future finance and a peaceful existence?

Furthermore, Cousin Henry might see this as an excellent opportunity to kill two plump partridges with one arrow. To remove his relatives whose loyalty was suspect at the same time as he made a favourable showing with parliament and obtained the promise of a hefty coffer of gold.

Surely he would not.

But how many enemies did we have?

It was late, well into the evening, when I arrived in the York apartments in Westminster Palace, my father struggling from his chair, until held firmly back by Joan. She welcomed me with a rise of her mouse-brown brows, before withdrawing to sit with her back to a tapestry depicting a conspicuously bloody hunting scene, all bared teeth, rent flesh and gore, as if she had nothing more to say or do in the affair that was developing elsewhere in this vast palace. Yet what a complication of family connection there was for Joan through her marriage to my father. The executed Earl of Arundel, most influential of the five Lords Appellant, was her uncle; the Duke of Surrey, hand in glove with my brother and husband in bringing Arundel to his death at King Richard’s behest, was Joan’s eldest brother. The equally complicit Duke of Exeter was also her uncle. Noting her retreat, I felt nothing but mild contempt for her complacency. How could I admire a woman who was so inexplicably unperturbed by the events around her that touched her family so closely? I would not be complacent. I might adopt a serene mask but every sense was tuned to the latent threat to my family.

‘Dickon says we are in trouble.’ I had sent Dickon to procure spiced wine. I thought we would need a strengthening draught before this night was out. Judging from the deep seams between nose and mouth and his white-knuckled clasp around the arm of the chair, it was one of my father’s bad days.

‘So it seems. And I can barely move from this room.’

His hands closed again on the arms, the tendons stark beneath the mottled skin.

‘Have they accused Edward of Thomas of Woodstock’s death?’ I asked, seeing here the real threat.

‘Yes. So I believe.’

‘Is he arrested?’

‘I think not. I hope I would have been told if my heir was at this moment under lock and key.’

‘And Thomas?’

My father shrugged, a grimace of pain tightening his features. ‘I know not.’

‘What about Surrey and Exeter?’

‘I fear for them all.’

‘So it will be a witch-hunt to clear us all out.’ There was only one man who might have prevented it. ‘You did not think to be there, sir.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘My lord, your father, has been unwell.’ Joan had risen and interceded in his defence, quiet but firm. ‘The pain has kept him abed until an hour ago. He has only risen at the prospect of your return.’ Her quick glance toward me was a surprise in the challenge that it held, daring me to say more. ‘As you can see, he has had much to trouble his mind.’

‘I am aware. So have we all.’

Accepting the challenge with a nod, for indeed my father looked drawn as if with a winter chill, I approached to touch his arm, the nearest we got to affection, as Dickon returned with a servant and a flagon and cups. I waved Dickon away. He went reluctantly, and I wondered if he might listen at the door.

‘It is that worm Bagot who is stirring the pot, so I am told.’ My father gripped my hand, which was signal enough of his anxiety. Sir William Bagot, one of Richard’s close associates, perhaps the closest other than Edward, had fled smartly back to Ireland when Richard had fallen into the hands of the Earl of Northumberland, rightly fearing for his life. It had not been a successful flight, for he had been taken prisoner and brought back to London in chains. I imagined him scattering accusations with the ready hand of a hen-wife feeding her chicks in an effort to deflect the blame of evil counsellor from himself.

‘A pity he could not have escaped more successfully,’ I said. ‘Or someone could have applied a knife to his throat when he was first captured. It would have saved us a deal of time and worry.’

‘Sometimes your vindictiveness concerns me, Constance,’ my father said. ‘It must be the Castilian blood in your veins.’

‘They were quick to deal with traitors in Castile.’

‘If we in England were to copy them with summary executions, my son might already be dead. Your Castilian grandfather King Peter was stabbed to death by his half-brother who coveted his throne. Do we wish to emulate such an example?’

Which effectively silenced me.

And then all we could do was wait. The time passed. My father sipped morosely from some potion supplied by Joan, who picked up her endless stitching. I turned the pages of a book of poetry without focus, conscious of my dusty dishevelment that for once meant little against the approaching storm. If Dickon was listening he would learn nothing.

‘What are you thinking?’ Joan asked eventually, quietly. She had moved to sit at my side as my father’s eyelids closed and he fell into a light sleep.

‘I am wondering what we should do if they are already all locked in the Tower with Richard,’ I replied with brutal honesty.

She looked horrified. ‘Surely not. Surely the King would not be so precipitate…’

Footsteps, more than one set, approaching. It could be a deputation of royal soldiers to arrest all of us. Edward and Thomas might already be in chains along with Bagot. The tension in the room became the twanging of an ill-stringed lute. I stood, closing the book, facing the door. My father sat up.

‘Surely the King would not stain his new kingdom with blood so soon,’ Joan whispered. ‘Would it not be bad policy to give in to parliament at its first meeting?’

So Joan was better informed than I had expected. All I could do was concentrate on the latch, which was lifted without a formal knock.

The door opened to admit Edward, followed hotfoot by Thomas, who closed it and leaned against it. I might have felt relief, but stark fear walked into that room with them, touching my nape with ice. Thomas’s face was without expression, while Edward was as pale as if his blood had been drained in a fatal wound.

‘Thank God! Thank God!’ My father, awake with the noisy intrusion, managed to stand, taking Edward’s arms in as firm a clasp as he could. ‘Thank God you are returned.’

‘Too soon to thank the Almighty, sir.’

Seeing the pain in his face, Edward led my father back to his chair while Thomas regarded me with complete lack of warmth.

‘I thought you were gone to Elmley Castle.’

I swallowed hard against the creeping terror. ‘I have returned. I understand that we are under attack.’

Edward came to my rescue. ‘Let her be, man.’

It was then, as Edward took a cup of wine from Joan, that I saw it was not fear that held him, but a heat of fury that was banked around him. I could smell it, rank with incipient danger. Gone was the smiling insouciance, the habitual self-confidence of a man who saw his future painted in clear lines. Now Edward had had the solid rock as heir of York mined from under his feet.

‘Under attack?’ He picked up my comment and embellished it. ‘Before God! It’s more than an attack. I am on trial for my life.’ He gulped the wine, eyes fierce with the humiliations of the day. ‘Don’t be under any illusion. I’ll be fortunate to come out of this with my head still attached to my body.’

He tossed the now-empty cup in his hand, catching it neatly, and for a moment I thought that he might hurl it against the recessed fireplace, but before the unwavering gaze of his father he steadied himself and handed it to me.

‘Will you tell us?’ I asked. Best to know the worst of it.

‘Oh, I’ll tell you. As soon as the Speaker asked for all evil counsellors to be arrested, I knew it.’ His lips thinned into one line. ‘I could see it written on the faces of those lords who had not been as fortunate as I under Richard’s hand. The desire for revenge could be tasted, like sour ale lodged in my gullet. It was Bagot’s doing,’ he confirmed, ‘trying to save his own skin by smearing the blame elsewhere. It seems, in Bagot’s weasel words, that I was the principal evil counsellor at Richard’s Court. I am accused of two treasonable acts. Two! I am an accessory to the murder of our uncle Thomas of Woodstock, and as if that were not enough I have expressed a desire that King Henry should also be murdered.’ He snatched back the cup and refilled it in two fluent actions, replacing the flagon with a force that almost buckled the metal foot. ‘I am accused of sending two yeomen to Calais to do the mortal deed against Woodstock. To smother him in his bed. Could Bagot destroy my name any further? I’ve never heard him so voluble in his own defence, while I am the one to carry all blame for Woodstock’s death.’

It was indeed damning. The cold hand around my throat tightened its grip.

‘But you were involved in Woodstock’s death,’ I ventured, seeing the true danger here.

‘Of course I was,’ Edward snarled. ‘As were we all.’ He gestured towards Thomas who still leaned, silent as a grave, against the door. ‘It was Richard’s wish that the deed be done, to punish his uncle for curtailing his power. Who was brave enough to withstand Richard’s wishes? He was volatile and becoming more so, like a bed of rushes swaying in a high wind. To refuse a royal order was to sign my own death warrant.’

‘He would not have had you executed,’ I suggested.

‘He would have had me stripped of all he had given me! I’d not risk it. We all knew what was in our best interests.’ He swung round. ‘Did we not, Thomas? You, if I recall, were as culpable as I.’

Thomas straightened and strolled forward, nudged at last into voice. ‘Yes, we knew what we must do. But I had no hand in Woodstock’s murder. I was not there when the pillow was held to his face. I’ll not accept any blame for Woodstock’s death…’

There they were, facing each other like two sharp-spurred cocks, goaded in a fighting pit. I might not trust my brother overmuch, but here was Thomas sliding out from under a political murder in which they had both been complicit. Thomas Despenser would sell his soul to the Devil to keep the power he had.

‘You will not tear each other apart. Our enemies will do that willingly enough,’ the Duke intervened. ‘What was the outcome? You are clearly not imprisoned.’

‘No. Not yet.’ Edward continued his furious complaint. ‘I said I would prove Bagot false through personal combat. I threw my hood at his feet and challenged him to a duel. I’d force him to eat his words. But what did King Henry do? Calm as you like, he ordered me to pick up my hood and return to my seat. So the accusation still stands, Bagot is free to continue his poisonous complaint against me and throughout the whole, the King’s face was as much a stone mask as the statues around us. I’ll not have confidence in his mercy.’

‘You are his cousin. He’ll not have you executed.’ What an empty promise that was, yet I attempted to pour cooling water on this explosion of vitriol. We needed Edward to be cool and calm, capable of careful planning, not alight with a fire of self-righteousness. ‘Tomorrow all will be well.’

‘Tomorrow all will be far from well,’ Edward growled. ‘You were not there. You did not read the magnates’ delight, gleaming in their eyes, in the opportunity to be rid of me. Once I might have thought them friends. There are no friends where power is concerned.’

‘I see you are not concerned with my safety,’ Thomas added with terrible petulance.

I had neglected him, when usually I was careful in my response to him, a man who was easily stirred to selfish anger. Now was not the time for him to sink into sullen recrimination.

‘Be at peace, my lord. Indeed, I recognise your danger.’

I went to him to refill his cup, to soothe with a formal kiss of greeting to his cheek, which he accepted with ill grace.

‘I think you do not. Bagot wasn’t satisfied in attacking Aumale. He went on to accuse the rest of us involved in the removal of the Lords Appellant. We are all incriminated as evil counsellors.’ I became aware of Joan stiffening at my father’s side. This was the news she had not wanted. ‘Bagot named Surrey and Exeter too, as well as Salisbury.’

Thomas was not finished. ‘He also named me.’ He glanced at Edward, prepared now to concede a point. ‘I was not directly involved in Woodstock’s death, but I was one of the Counter-Appellants and reaped the rewards. The Earldom of Gloucester as well as Arundel and Beauchamp estates and castles. It will not be easily forgiven by those who thought Arundel died a martyr’s death. I foresee no pardon for Surrey or Exeter. Or for me. As for the rest of you,’ – his gaze swept us all – ‘the King might decide to rid himself of the whole hornets’ nest of potential traitors.’

‘I thought—’ I began.

‘If you think we had persuaded him that we could be of value to him as supporters of the new reign, then you are wrong. We were all wrong.’

It is exactly what I had thought. But here was violent death lurking on our threshold. Joan looked as if the dread angel sat on her shoulder. My father was stricken to silence, a hand, shaking, covering his eyes.

‘What do we do?’ Joan asked helplessly.

It was as if no one cared to answer her. Perhaps they thought her question fatuous, as I did.

‘This is what we do,’ I said, for there was only one choice to make. What could we possibly do to pre-empt the next step by the King? ‘We do nothing. We keep our temper. We preserve a good humour. We challenge no one. We answer all accusations, or not, as required. We admit nothing. We discuss it with no one. We do not allow temper to cloud our judgement.’

I had their eyes and their ears. I did not hold back. In this black void of fear they would listen to me.

‘We do not beg for mercy from the King until we need it, if we need it. And we wait. Nothing to be gained by doing anything else. We will conduct ourselves as if we were innocent. Any accusation against us must be proven. Will the King listen to Bagot before his own blood?’

‘He might not.’ Edward’s fury had subsided somewhat into a mere rumble of falling rocks. ‘But the Lords would gladly do so.’

‘Then we trust that the King sees sense and dismisses the Lords. He cannot afford to lose you, Edward.’ I glanced at my husband. ‘He can’t afford to lose any of us. Meanwhile, we’ll add nothing more to the danger we are already in.’ Then to my father: ‘Have you been threatened to any degree, my lord?’

He shook his head.

‘Surely Henry dare not,’ Edward said, equanimity restored at last as some degree of clear thought came into play. ‘Our father played kingmaker at Berkeley, by negotiating rather than directing his army to fight. Without that, Henry’s struggle against Richard would have been twice as difficult. He owes our father an incalculable debt of gratitude.’

‘Then let us hope that he realises it,’ I agreed. ‘And that to reward the Duke of York for past services, he must pardon the Duke of York’s family.’

But Edward was frowning down into the empty cup. ‘Bagot said that John Hall should be questioned,’ he admitted.

‘And who is John Hall?’

Edward’s eyes met mine, and there was deep concern still alive and well.

‘John Hall was one of the valets involved in the death of Thomas of Woodstock in Calais. Bagot says he should be questioned because he knows who was involved. Who sent the order and who carried it out. Hall is in prison in Newgate. I expect he’ll be in the Lords’ clutches by tomorrow morning.’

‘Will he incriminate you?’ I asked, knowing the answer before I asked the question.

‘Yes. This could all be much worse than we think.’

It had to be Thomas who pointed out the obvious: ‘Worse?’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘How can it be worse? I can see death writ large for all of us.’

Chapter Five

Doom kept us all company through the hours of night and into the morning, when Joan and I converged on what had become the women’s chamber, our embattled menfolk already on their way to attend the meeting of parliament. This was no day for any one of them to be absent, not even my father, still in pain but determined. Only a ministration to his limbs of the roots and leaves of hound’s tongue and marjoram, steeped in warm oil, to dull the pain, together with the strong arm of his body servant, got him through the door; his discomfort could not be disguised but he would stand beside his family. The Dukes of Surrey and Exeter joined them to put on a brave face. The fate of all would hang together.

Which left the womenfolk, as ever, to await the outcome while the royal greyhound fretted outside the door. For some reason beyond my guessing, it had returned to Edward’s care, which seemed absurd when the King had rejoiced at its change of loyalty. I refused to allow it entry. It was enough to tolerate the sickly sweetness of the marjoram which hung in the air, strangely at odds with the stench of alarm.

‘It is one of the few times when I wish for a squint, to spy upon what parliament might be doing.’ I pressed my cheek against the almost opaque glass, to peer through the window in the direction of the Great Hall, considering the value of the narrow aperture in a church to allow the host in the side chapel to be elevated at the same moment as the miracle occurred at the high altar. I wanted to know what was being said, what challenges were being issued and by whom. Ignorance was a cruel word and most pertinent. Infuriatingly it was my lot, and that of every woman, never to know of pertinent events within parliament until informed at some later date, if at all. ‘I fear this day will prove interminable.’ I paused, considering the worst scenario, in spite of my brave words on the previous night. ‘And of course, they may not return.’

‘Better not to know,’ Joan observed, her head bent over her stitches. She had recovered her composure since hearing that her brother and uncle too would face the Lords’ vengeance, but that probably her husband would not. A treasonous husband could mean any number of difficulties for his wife, however innocent she might be, not least confiscation of all the family estates, including her dower. Joan was unlikely to suffer. I would not be so fortunate. The promise of hours of uncertainty scratched at my temper.

‘Better not to know? Until they are condemned to death?’

Her head snapped up. ‘I cannot believe that of Henry. He owes my lord the Duke a debt of honour.’

‘I am not so hopeful. I would like to know that my family is to be sent to join Richard in the Tower before it actually happens.’

‘But you can do nothing to prevent it. As I can do nothing to safeguard my brother and uncle.’

I could not answer that, for it was true. I paced. Joan continued to sit and stitch at some linen garment, until I could bear the silence no longer. I watched her needle flash in and out of the fine material. I resented her stillness, her acceptance. Did she not care? Finally I stopped in front of her. The linen was particularly fine.

‘Are you breeding?’

‘No.’ She did not even look up. ‘This is an altar cloth. Not that it is any of your affair if I was carrying a child. And what’s more, I despise stitching. I would that I were a man and could wield a sword rather than a needle.’

Which confounded me. She and my father had been married for seven years now but I had made no attempt to become acquainted with her, nor even questioned why my father should choose to marry a girl so much younger than himself. It was nothing more than an alliance between two powerful and interrelated families, the Hollands and Plantagenets. Could he not have done better if he had wanted a wife for companionship in his last years? I had thought her insipid, self-effacing. Whereas I was incapable of remaining aloof from the events that would impinge so keenly on our future, my stepmother was weakly accepting of her lot in life. I studied her still-bent head. Where was all the fire and duplicity of her Holland family, her notorious grandmother? It had dissipated into insignificance in this young woman. Recognising the complete lack of affinity between us, I had no desire to know her better than I did at that moment.

And yet this barbed response with its new insight into Joan’s mind grasped at my attention. Perhaps I had been wrong. Here was a young woman who felt as constrained as I.

‘I was merely enquiring after your health,’ I said curiously. ‘Do you resent my doing so?’

‘No, you were not merely enquiring.’ Now she did look up and her gaze was a forthright stare. ‘Yes, I do resent it, and no, it is not your affair, Constance. You were delving into my relationship with your father.’

Which I suppose I had been, my query born out of impatience rather than compassion, which made me deserving of the rebuke. No, she was not lacking in confidence, and I had been wrong. But then a granddaughter of Joan of Kent would be unlikely to be a wilting flower, choked by the pre-eminence of those around her. The Fair Maid of Kent by both character and reputation had never been intimidated. I was ten years old when she died and recalled a woman with a sharp tongue and little patience for royal children who got under her feet.

Perhaps my stepmother, ridiculous as it might seem to have such who was younger than I, deserved my attention. I studied her profile as once again she turned back to her work. Not the beauty of Princess Joan, nor her flamboyant choice of style and colour, but she had inherited her caustic tongue when she allowed it free rein. It was regretful that Joan still favoured a sideless surcoat in dull autumnal hues rather than a houppelande, and her silk chaplet with a short veil was plain to a fault, but it might be worth my while to make better acquaintance of her, given that we were destined to spend considerable time together in the circumstances.

‘Do you remember your grandmother?’ I asked.

‘Barely. I was little more than six years when she died, and she had lived most of her final years as a recluse at Wallingford.’

‘She was a remarkable woman. I remember her visits to Court at New Year.’ I continued to regard her. ‘Have you been satisfied in your marriage, Joan? Until this upheaval?’ Some conversation was better than none.

‘Life could be worse.’

‘Your grandmother wed where she chose.’

‘And I did not.’ She was quick to pick up my implication. Once again she fixed me with a stare that was a challenge. ‘I would never have chosen a man almost forty years older than I as my husband.’

Here was plain speaking. I could not imagine why I had been used to refer to her, in my thoughts at least, as ‘poor Joan’. I paused in my perambulations. ‘Was your heart given elsewhere?’ I was surprised to find that she had my compassion if it was so. I had no experience of such. My heart was quite untouched, either within marriage or without.

‘No.’

‘Does my father hold an affection for you?’

‘Yes, he does. I am grateful.’

Again there was the warning, in the flash of an eye, that I should not intrude too far. I considered, reluctantly liking her spirit.

‘I imagine he has more thought for you than for Isabella.’

‘He detested Isabella. So it would not be difficult.’

‘Has he told you that?’ Now this did surprise me. They must be closer than I had imagined for my father to bare his soul.

‘Yes. He disliked her face, her character and her morals. He only wed her because he was instructed to do so by your grandfather.’

So they did converse. Which is more than Thomas and I did.

‘Did he tell you that too?’

‘Yes. If he hadn’t wed her, Isabella would have been prey for any man who had an eye to the kingdom of Castile. Better if both daughters of King Pedro, Constanza and Isabella, were safely shackled with English princes. John of Gaunt had little affection for Constanza, but at least she did not act the whore, whereas he was not averse to flaunting his Swynford mistress with appalling immorality before the whole Court. Isabella had no thought at all for her reputation, only for her personal satisfaction.’

She paused, colouring faintly. ‘Forgive me. I should not have said any of that about the lady who was your mother, or about your uncle. There may have been extenuating circumstances, I suppose. I might have done the same as Isabella if I had been trapped in such a marriage.’

‘Whereas you can see widowhood at least hovering on your horizon.’

‘Yes.’ Her gaze was again formidably forthright. ‘I’ll not lie to you. Being Duchess of York is all very well, but I’d exchange it for my freedom. Or the hope of a child.’

Which made me laugh. I had not expected to find a confidante so plain-speaking, or so close to my own heart. I decided to repay honesty with honesty.

‘I am as aware of my mother’s reputation as you appear to be, and I had little affection for her other than that demanded by duty. As little as she had for me.’ My thoughts deflected from the present chaos. ‘I know my father spent as little time with her as he could. Enough to get himself an heir. And myself.’

‘But not your younger brother.’

I felt my brows rise. ‘So he told you that as well.’

‘Of course. He makes no claim that Dickon is his.’

‘And, since you are so well informed, I presume you know who rumour says is Dickon’s father?’

‘Yes.’ She appeared quite unmoved. ‘My uncle has a reputation.’

Indeed he had. It was whispered in kitchens and royal bedchambers that my mother Isabella had enjoyed a lengthy and fiery liaison with John Holland, Duke of Exeter, the result of which had been Dickon. My father’s lack of interest in the child merely added fuel to the flames. So Dickon was born a York son, but raised under sufferance. I frowned. My younger brother was the only one of my family who roused my compassion.

‘Sometimes I think it would be better for Dickon if my father was more compassionate of his circumstances. It is not his fault and it does no good to treat him as a bastard. There is a bitterness in Dickon that worries me.’ I took a cushioned stool beside Joan, thinking of my own children. ‘Is there no hope for you, for a child? Do you and the Duke never share a bed?’

‘Again it is not your concern. But no.’ At last her hands fell unheeding to her lap, crushing her despised needlework as her cheeks flushed stronger with bright colour. ‘His pain is too great, and his hope is in Edward. He regrets that Edward has no children of his own to carry on the line.’

‘Nor is there any likelihood,’ I observed.

Edward had married Philippa de Mohun, a lady a good decade older than he who had already been twice wed, twice widowed. She bore her first two husbands no children, nor was there more success with Edward. Where the fault lay would be impossible to say. Perhaps Edward should have chosen more wisely. He was said to have married for love but I saw no evidence of it in their calm demeanour and frequent partings.

‘She may yet be fortunate.’ Joan was condemning of my cold judgement.

All I could do was give the lightest of shrugs. ‘Your one consolation is that my father is almost into his sixtieth year and in ill health. You will be a young widow. And a desirable one.’ It sounded callous, even to my own ears, but it was true, and no more callous than Joan’s own opinion of the whole affair. ‘His brothers have not proved to be particularly long-lived.’

‘Particularly when murdered.’ She flinched her apology at the reference to my uncle of Woodstock’s unfortunate demise. ‘I will probably wed again at the dictates of my family. You know what it is like.’ Her bitterness, I realised, matched that of Dickon.

‘I’m not sure that my situation matches yours.’

‘It does not take great intellect to know that you and Thomas barely tolerate each other. Is that not so? Does he have any affection for you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have an affection for him?’

I considered replying that it was no concern of hers, as she had warned me. Instead: ‘No.’

‘You were married young.’

‘We were children. Another political marriage.’ Why not admit it? ‘Yes. I know what it is like to be wed for an alliance. I know what it is like to find no union of spirits in a marriage. We tolerate each other. We are also able to live apart. He has his heir.’

‘But would wish for another.’

‘What man does not?’

‘I think you suffer more than I. Your father never neglects me.’

‘Then you are fortunate.’ I kept my tone without inflexion. ‘It is perfectly possible to live without love. Those of our status do not expect it.’

‘Do you have no regrets?’

How persistent she was. ‘How do you regret something of which you have no experience? Life is far more comfortable without. I do not have to consider the state of Thomas’s emotions, as he does not have to consider mine. He never has, he never will. It is as good as any foreign alliance based on pragmatism between two parties who have nothing in common, and they work well enough.’

‘It sounds a cold existence.’

‘Cold, yes. He gives me the status I desire.’

Why was I indulging in confession to Joan Holland? It was not my intent to engage her pity. Still frowning, I stood and began to pace again, turning the conversation into a different yet no-less-painful path. ‘I need to know what is happening.’

‘Why don’t you go and find out? I am not dependent on your company for my contentment.’

Which was uncommonly sharp as she returned to stabbing her needle into the cloth. I responded in kind, since she had forced me to face my isolation, to acknowledge my ignorance of affectionate emotion. I had not enjoyed the experience.

‘How fortunate for you,’ I replied. ‘I doubt anyone is dependent on my company.’

‘I did not mean…’

‘Yes, you did. Here we are, two bitter and powerless women trapped in marriages we did not want. No matter.’ I turned my back on her, looking down again from the window. ‘I cannot go. I would be too obvious.’

‘Then send a servant to discover and report any developments.’

‘I’ll not open the coffers of our family affairs for servants to riffle through.’

‘They will know anyway. They know everything. They know that I am still a virgin. I expect they inspect the sheets regularly and inform the whole household.’

I looked back across the room with just a breath of pity. ‘I am sorry.’ Then turned away from the sudden sadness in her face. Her advice had given me an idea. I might not go. A servant was unacceptable, but…

‘I could send Dickon to be my messenger.’

‘An excellent idea.’

It was suddenly comfortable to be standing on less personal ground. ‘But Dickon, as ever when needed, is invisible. It is below my dignity to stand at the door and shout for him. Nor is he always amenable to orders when he sees no personal advantage.’

‘If you smiled at him, and offered a bribe…’

‘A bribe?’

‘What would he like most, that you could give him?’

‘I have no idea, other than an estate, a title and a chest of gold. As well as a mission to fight someone, somewhere in Europe. There are ten years between us. Our thoughts do not keep company.’

‘Does that mean that you have no knowledge of him? I suppose my family is closer than most. I always knew what my younger brother Edmund was thinking although, of necessity, we have now grown apart.’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘What I would say is that Dickon is a young man of interest. He might be useful to you one day.’ She paused. ‘I will ask him for you, if you wish it. I do not find him unamenable. He makes me laugh, when I don’t have much to laugh about.’

A day of revelations.

‘I think I have misjudged you. I thought you were a mouse.’

‘I think you have. A rat, more like, but I hide my teeth and choose not to engage in battles which I will never win.’ She regarded me with some speculation. ‘But then I think you often do misjudge those around you. I suppose it is easy for a woman with royal blood to consider herself superior. Even though my own blood is as royal as yours through my grandmother.’

Joan left the room to send a message to bring Dickon to us, leaving me discomfited. She was right, I admitted, even though I might not like the picture she painted. And why had I not been aware of Joan’s keen intelligence and wit? Because I had never made a true effort to know her beyond a superficial acquaintance. That was my fault, too. But now was not the time to consider any blemishes in my character.

Within a handful of minutes Joan returned with Dickon; he was dragging his feet, but at least he had been open to persuasion.

‘Constance.’ He looked wary. ‘What do you want? I was busy.’

It did not bode well. ‘Busy doing what?’

‘Whatever will allow me to keep out of the royal eye. Today might not be the day to advertise my connection with the families of York, Holland and Despenser.’

Succinct and accurate, he had had an ear to some closed doors.

‘We have a favour to ask,’ Joan said with an encouraging smile before I could hack at his lack of loyalty.

‘What’s that?’

Joan glanced at me.

‘I need an ear to the ground,’ I said. ‘An ear that is less obvious than mine. Go down to the Great Hall…’

‘They’ll hardly let me in!’

‘As I am aware, but you can merge with the hangers-on and question those who have knowledge. I want to know what’s happening. I want to know if John Hall has been questioned and if any of our family is in danger. If there is a threat to our lives or our freedom. I want to know if any one of our enemies dares to push for single combat. I want to know before Edward and Thomas are put under restraint.’

He opened his mouth, I presumed to refuse, but Joan stepped in, gripping his arm with both small hands.

‘My brother is in danger too, Dickon. Ask about the Duke of Surrey. And my uncle the Duke of Exeter. Will you do that for me?’

He looked unapologetically hostile as only a thwarted youth could. Then shrugged. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘I would also like for you to discover the King’s mood, as far as you can,’ I said.

Dickon grinned. ‘You mean will he throw us to the snarling dogs? I’ll do what I can, though I don’t see why we can’t just wait for the outcome.’ He caught the sharpness of my glance. ‘But I agree it might be best to know sooner rather than later. Are we planning a flight to the Welsh Marches if King Henry proves hostile?’ He paused, then grinned again. ‘I may need coin for bribes.’

At last Dickon’s eyes shone with the light of conspiracy.

‘I have none to hand,’ I said.

‘Then I won’t do it.’

But Joan discovered some in the purse at her belt and handed them over in a little clinking stream into his palm.

‘Thank you, Dickon,’ I said. ‘I will be very grateful.’

‘I’ll remind you of that.’ And when the greyhound, which had followed him into the room, showed a willingness to accompany him, he pushed it back. ‘Keep it: it might be the only bargaining tool that we have. The greyhound in exchange for Edward’s life.’

Which might have seemed horribly prescient.

‘Let us hope,’ I said as Dickon’s footsteps faded into the distance, ‘that it’s all like one of Henry’s subtleties at the end of the feast. All decorative wizardry and no substance, that collapses at the first breath of wind.’

Joan came to stand beside me at the window.

‘Nor should we forget that Richard is still under constraint. And his future so uncertain.’

No. We must not forget. It was easy to do so in this maelstrom of personal attack. While we awaited Dickon’s return I had visions of flight to one of our distant estates if Henry showed any leaning towards the ultimate punishment. Joan and I could make our escape, perhaps to the staunch walls of Conisbrough, before the royal guards reached us. Or, as Dickon had so flippantly suggested, to my estates in Glamorgan. How extreme this all sounded, fleeing for our lives. Meanwhile Joan returned to her sewing. Her wrists were thin and fragile, but she wielded her needle with energy, despite her professed hatred of it. The greyhound settled down at her feet since, for once, Joan was not accompanied by one of her grey cats. I remained at the window, watching the busy ravens, waiting for some sort of sign of good or ill fortune. Until Joan looked up at me, addressing me with an unsettling question.

‘Does your brother of Aumale ever consider his own closeness to the throne? Richard recognised the Duke of York as his heir, which would make Aumale next in line after his father. An excellent reason for Henry to rid himself of your brother.’

‘My thanks, Joan. You have just stoked my anxieties threefold. So it will matter not whether John Hall gives evidence against Edward. Henry will sign his death warrant.’ I bared my teeth against the awful prospect. ‘As long as he does not sign mine. You know that I’ll fight to the death to save us all from ignominy.’

When Joan at last abandoned her altar cloth, folding it, then placing her hands neatly on top, she tilted her chin and smiled at me, a sharp-toothed little smile.

‘I think I would not like you as my friend, Constance. But I would like you even less as my enemy.’

I bristled, on the defensive. ‘It is fortunate then that you are unlikely to have me as either.’

‘Who’s to say, in the future, you might even need me as a confidante?’

‘Why would I?’

‘You have no female friends, I think.’

No, I had not. A little silence fell between us, broken only by the hound twitching in its dreams and a soft fall of ash in the fireplace. I had never had female friends, nor had I felt the lack of them. Why would I need to bare my breast to another woman who would gossip and prove less than trustworthy? Better to keep my own counsel.

‘I have no need of them.’ I eyed her, resenting what could only be criticism. ‘Nor do I see you surrounded by a flock of admiring Court women.’

‘Ah, but I have sisters.’

Her smile was infuriatingly complacent, and I would have responded with even more astringency. But I did not.

‘Listen,’ she said.

I realised that every one of my senses had been held in tension. Throughout all our conversational meanderings I had been straining for the first intimation of Dickon’s return.

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