by Anne O'Brien
I returned to the room where I had left Lancaster and his wife; I knocked softly to give them warning. There was no need. They sat apart, he staring into his wine cup as if it might provide the answer to some question, Joanna with a book on her lap but her attention not on the gilded and painted pages. The expression on her face as I entered, one of fear or perhaps a deep-seated anxiety, awakened an unexpected concern within me, but then she turned to me and smiled, stretching out her hand.
Slowly I walked forward although I was unable to return her greeting. Much of an age, it might once have been possible for a friendship to develop between us, an understanding based on shared interests. There was no friendship in my heart.
‘Is it decided between you?’ Lancaster asked.
‘There has been no decision.’ And when he rose to his feet, irritation paramount: ‘Lord Thomas has allowed me time to consider.’
He put down his cup with a heavy hand so that the jewelled decoration flashed in the candlelight and the contents swirled dangerously to spatter onto the coffer lid.
‘It was not to be a matter for your choice or your consideration!’
‘Lord Thomas has been very courteous.’
Impatience etched deep lines across his brow. ‘I don’t have time for Camoys’s strange courtesies. I have a campaign to pursue. I want it settled, and if you won’t settle it, I will. We have an altar and a priest. It would take no time at all. And I’m not in the mood to wait.’
I curtsied deeply. ‘I will consider your wishes, my lord.’
‘You will marry Camoys!’
‘Allow me until tomorrow, if it please you.’
When my cousin turned away, shoulders braced, face hidden, Joanna, also standing, would have touched his arm yet was shaken off.
‘Very well. Until tomorrow, Elizabeth. But I will not change my mind.’
When I left on that uncompromising note, I was surprised that Joanna chose to accompany me.
‘It will not be too difficult,’ she advised, her expression wiped clean of the fear I had earlier seen there.
‘You think I will agree.’ My reply was as bleak as my heart.
‘Why not? I see the advantages to which you seem blind.’
‘If you mean that marriage to Lord Thomas is better than embracing the life of a nun, then I cannot disagree. I know that you made a similar choice, in taking a second husband. But you were not threatened with a convent. And I think you loved the man you chose. It is not the same.’
‘No, it was not the same, but the choice was still not an easy one.’ We were pacing together through one darkened antechamber and then another. ‘Faced with disapproval from the French court, I had to leave my sons behind in Brittany. I have had to win some acceptance from a hostile people who tend to despise all things Breton and resent even the dower that Henry gave to me. I have too much pride to do that easily or lightly, but I have done it and I would argue that marriage offers a woman so many possibilities that are closed to her as a spinster or a widow. Or a nun.’ Her eyes were suddenly bright with laughter. ‘You will not even consider walling yourself up as an anchorite. The advantages of marriage will be as familiar to you as they are to me.’
I walked in silence.
‘I cannot think of a better man,’ she pursued. ‘Lord Thomas has been a friend for many years. He will be neither judgemental nor cold to your situation.’
‘I would be a burden to him. He does not want me. He does it because your husband asks it of him.’
Joanna’s grip on my arm drew me to a halt. ‘Consider the virtues of marriage, Elizabeth. Living under duress at Windsor, even in comfort, or enclosing yourself in never-ending prayer and reparation, would be no life for an intelligent woman. If nothing else, that should persuade you. Lord Thomas owns a number of attractive manors.’
‘I will not be persuaded against my will.’
She would have walked on, except that I now stopped her. I had seen the lines between her brows, the dark imprints of sleeplessness. And I had remembered Lancaster, his less than fluid movements, his rejection of her. For the first time I ventured a personal question, once again wishing that our relationship were closer.
‘Joanna. Is Henry ill?’
She looked back at me, her brows rising as if she disliked the intrusion. ‘No.’
‘Or is it that he won’t tell you? He is not the only one with too much pride.’
She grimaced a little. ‘And you are not the only one in this palace with problems to solve.’
My cousin had allowed me the night in which to deploy my thoughts and come to a decision over my future. In which to consider the advantages of his plan. And the disadvantages. And so, sitting in comfort in a damask robe before a fire, hair combed on my breast, a cup of wine to hand, that is what I did.
I considered the weight on Lancaster’s shoulders, and Joanna’s obvious anxiety, for I had not believed her brisk denial. The King was afflicted by some physical malaise.
I considered my Mortimer nephews returned to their life at Windsor after that briefest flirtation with freedom. And Lancaster’s ambitions for them.
I considered what Northumberland might be doing, taking refuge in Scotland. Or no, by now, so court gossip informed me, he was seeking sanctuary with Glyn Dwr in Wales where the Welsh prince was trying to hold his insurrection together, still looking to France for an alliance and military support.
I considered my son, far removed from my influence; my daughter safe in the Clifford household.
I considered what life would hold for me, wed or unwed.
I considered the cause Harry and I had supported. The rights and wrongs of inheritance. The Lancaster crown that we had promoted. The Mortimer rights that had been denied.
I considered the state of my conscience and my soul. I considered the grief that had held me in thrall.
On the following morning, before Mass, I asked to see Lord Thomas de Camoys.
The same chamber but this time I was awaiting him. Dawn having broken, there were no candles, leaving the light in the room more kindly to its occupants. I had to admit to having taken some care with my appearance.
‘My lady.’
‘My lord.’
He bowed. I curtsied. He waited. I spoke.
‘I have come to my decision.’
‘I trust there has been no compulsion placed on you.’
‘No compulsion?’ I closed the book I had been holding with soft control. ‘My cousin of Lancaster has made his wishes known without the mincing of any words. He needs to be on campaign and I am a problem that must be dealt with before he leaves. He threatened, as I understood it, to drag me to the altar in his private chapel here at Eltham.’
‘But, as I made clear to you yesterday, I have no need of a wife who must be dragged. I have given you your freedom to accept or reject.’
‘For which I am grateful. I am here because I owe you the courtesy that you showed to me.’
As before he took my hand, removing the book which he placed aside on a coffer, but not without a gruff laugh, as he led me to the settle against the wall, taking one end, a little distance away.
‘What has amused you, my lord?’
‘Your reading matter seems less than appropriate, my lady.’
I cast a glance at the book where he had placed it, recognising the gilded binding. I had not even considered what it might be, merely picking it up from those left for my entertainment in my bedchamber. I had merely wanted to give my hands something to do, for assuredly my mind would not be seduced by reading. No, the Roman de la Rose was not appropriate, with its delightful poetry of chivalry and courtly love.
‘I was not reading it,’ I said, conscious of the heat in my cheeks. ‘It was an arbitrary choice.’
‘I understand, my lady, even though the tale of the Lover and his Quest – against the admonishments of Reason and the obstacles set by Jealousy and Resistance – to pluck the fair Rose in the Enchanted Garden would be a commendable choice.’ And I t
hought that he did understand, which made me flush even more. So Lord Thomas was erudite too. ‘So what is it you wish?’
‘It is this. If you are willing, and I am not too distasteful to you, Lord Thomas, I will wed you.’
He paused for a moment before replying, then said: ‘I am gratified that you will give yourself into my keeping.’
‘So do you accept this bad bargain?’
His smile lit his face, deepening the lines of experience. ‘I think it will be a better bargain than I had anticipated. It will mean that neither of us has to explain our wilful disobedience to my lord the King.’
I found that I was smiling in return.
But then my suitor became solemn.
‘There are conditions. Yesterday I made light of them, but they are serious considerations. I have no wish to be put in the position of having to intercept treasonous correspondence from your brother, or from Constance Despenser. I have no wish to have any involvement with the ambitions of Northumberland or the Welsh prince Glyn Dwr. I know where your heart will always remain. I can tolerate your divided loyalties, as long as I know that you will be true to the vows that you make to me.’
I felt my cheeks burn with colour, but I replied in kind.
‘I can tolerate your watchful eye, Lord Thomas, as long as I don’t have a servant or an armed guard dogging my every footstep and lurking outside the door of my chamber. And if my chamber has a key to a lock, I wish to be in possession of it.’
‘Of course, my lady. And I will buy you an enamelled chatelaine from which to hang it.’
We understood each other.
‘Then I will be your wife.’
He took my hand and kissed my fingers. The bargain was made.
What choice did I have? Life under surveillance at the Lancaster court, powerless and ineffectual, my every action prescribed by Lancaster’s servants, held no appeal for me. Here was marriage to a man who would give me a soft servitude with a promised degree of independence. In different circumstances I might have taken Thomas de Camoys as a friend.
Lancaster would be pleased.
I wondered what my brother and the Earl of Northumberland would say.
I had made a bargain with Lancaster. I would wed Lord Thomas if I could see my nephews again. I had not seen either of them since I had defied Harry and ridden south in fear of their safety. It seemed so long ago now.
‘Let me see them and I will wed as you wish and without argument.’
‘Which will be a miracle in itself. I have not had them murdered,’ Lancaster had said, a wry twist to his lips, echoed in his voice.
‘Will you arrange an escort to Windsor?’
‘No need. Since you have agreed to become his wife, Lord Thomas will escort you. They are close to his own lands.’
Which rang a bell of alarm. Where had they been sent after the abortive plot? To some distant fortress where they would be forgotten? I remembered Richard being dispatched to Pontefract, never to be seen alive again.
‘Where are they?’ I demanded.
‘Pevensey Castle.’
‘Pevensey!’ A castle far distant on the coast, its formidable walls and supreme defensive position looking over towards France.
Lancaster’s smile was grim. ‘Sir John Pelham, one of my most trusted counsellors, has been appointed as their governor. He will take good care of them, while you will be made most welcome.’
Would I? All the latent humour surprisingly awoken in me in Lord Thomas’s company was flattened into nothingness.
‘I am grateful,’ I said. And then, before I could even frame the words in my mind, there they were, forcing themselves between my teeth.
‘Will you ever allow my son to return to England?’
His reply was severe. ‘Would you expect me to?’
In that moment it meant more to me than all the world.
‘I beg of you, my lord…’
‘It will all depend on Percy’s willingness to come to terms with me.’
‘But he will not. He will fear to set foot in England again.’
How bleak the future looked. Lancaster’s pronouncement even bleaker, since he had robbed the Earl of his title. The Earldom of Northumberland was an empty vessel.
‘He has made his peace once, he can do so again. I would regret losing a man of such skill in handling the northern March. But you have to accept my reasoning. Percy has become a danger to me. I have shown him mercy, when perhaps I should not. I gave him his life when many would have had his head for his insolence. Why would I reinstate the earldom for his grandson?’ He must have seen the fear before I could hide it. ‘If Percy returns to make restitution he will have to give me just cause to believe him. If he can do that, then I will consider allowing your son to return.’
‘And inherit the Earldom?’
‘At this moment, with the erstwhile holder of the Earldom plotting in France, inviting a French invasion to come to the aid of Glyn Dwr, I will not—’
‘I had not known…’ I interrupted.
‘But it is true. His treason is twofold if he will make France a willing ally. Do you realise how dangerous the situation is, Elizabeth? I will not even consider the return of your son until matters between me and Henry Percy are settled.’
Before I left Eltham I was dragged back into the past, whether I wished it or no. I had not expected it, and for a moment, surrounded as we were by members of the household as we made our way to attend Mass, I was lost for words.
‘Constance.’
I had not even realised that she was staying here. My last knowledge of her was that she was in semi-captivity at Lancaster’s will in Kenilworth to keep her out of political mischief.
‘Elizabeth. Now this I had not expected. So you too are to be kept under our King’s suspicious eye.’
‘You look in good health,’ I replied, seeking for an innocuous conversation.
But I thought that she did not; rather a little tired, lines of strain on her fair features, although she was clothed with her usual flamboyance in heavy folds of an embroidered houppelande. The fur at neck and hem was particularly fine. So were the jewels in the net that encased her hair. Treachery had not, in the end, beggared Constance.
We turned to match our steps towards the chapel.
‘Are you here to sue for mercy?’ she asked, mistress as ever of bright malice.
‘Yes. I was summoned. I am only here at Lancaster’s command.’
‘I too needed to make petition for what is rightfully mine. He took all my lands and goods from me. I have managed to persuade him to restore some of them, but he has kept my Welsh lands out of my reach.’ She laughed softly. ‘But I’ll not give up.’
‘I don’t suppose you will.’
‘He will reinstate them eventually, just to rid himself of my importuning.’ She looked across at me. ‘What is your penalty to be?’
‘Marriage.’
‘Who is the fortunate man?’
‘Lord Thomas de Camoys.’ I really did not wish to speak of it.
‘It could be worse.’
‘So Lancaster does not have an eye to a husband for you?’
‘It would not be fitting.’
And Constance allowed, quite deliberately, the folds of the gown to fall, to outline the telltale swell of her body beneath them. There was no mistaking her condition, nor her lack of shame as her stare dared me to make comment.
‘No, it would not be fitting,’ I remarked, conscious of an unlikely compassion, for however complacent she might seem, this would be a humiliation for so proud a woman. ‘Edmund Holland?’ I thought it would be no other.
‘Yes. My dear Edmund. My inestimable lover.’ No, she was not complacent. There was ill-concealed fury in her clipped tones. ‘He would have wed me, you know. He had been granted permission to marry whomsoever he pleased within the King’s remit. But then there was the plot and my fall from grace. I was no longer acceptable as a bride.’ She shrugged, the fur silkily rippling on her shoulders. ‘H
e is also in need of money, and I have none to entice him where my body obviously cannot.’
‘Surely he has not rejected you and the child altogether.’ The compassion grew in me for Constance who saw herself abandoned.
‘No. He enquires after my health, much as you have just done. But he looks elsewhere for a spotless wife, rather than a notorious woman to warm his sheets. He is in negotiation with the family of Lucia Visconti. I expect he’ll get her too. The Milanese woman is very rich. I suppose I must make the most of his attentions while I can.’ For the first time in all the years I had known her, the slough of bitterness was a shock. ‘At least Alianore is no longer with us to express her righteous disgust of my situation.’
‘No.’ On balance, I wished that she were.
Constance’s sideways glance was pure challenge. ‘I am grateful that you at least have not showered me with obnoxious pity. I don’t deserve it, I assure you. This child will be well loved.’
And I realised that, for all her sins, Constance must have loved Edmund Holland. Perhaps she still did.
‘The problem is,’ she was continuing, lifting her skirts against her bosom to disguise her condition once more, ‘if I get my Welsh lands back, the King might just order me to stay on them, to deter the rebels with a strong presence. I would rather stay at court.’ At the door to the chapel she halted, her regard on the distant altar where the candles were lit to illuminate the crucifix in a soft glow. ‘It was a good plan. I’m sorry we could not achieve it.’
For herself, or for the Earl of March? There was no reading her calm inscrutability, all bitterness and anger hidden. Moved by her plight against my will, I embraced her.
‘So am I sorry,’ I said.
As we knelt to pray, two widows together, I made petition for her, and for the unborn child who would be brought into this chancy world under such a cloud. I prayed for all of us. I hoped that I would not have to face Dunbar, another ghost from my past, before I left Eltham for good.
Chapter Twenty-One
I visited my nephews in Pevensey.
‘Edmund.’ I could even smile at what I saw.
He bowed with a well-tutored elegance, reminiscent of other, older Mortimers. This was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, my nephew, all but a man now at fifteen years. Beside him stood his brother Roger, a smaller version. They were obvious Mortimers, both of them, dark-haired, grey-eyed, features firming as they grew, so that memories of my brother Roger flooded back. There was even a touch of brother Edmund’s flamboyance.