by Anne O'Brien
‘The Virgin will keep you safe.’ Although my hands trembled, I was careful not to touch him, only the cloth. ‘I seem to have spent all my life in saying farewell to you.’ I buffed it with my sleeve but the pewter would never shine.
‘I have always returned.’
But would he this time?
He bowed low, as if we were at court rather than in a stable with straw and oats underfoot, and then left me as I sank into a deep curtsy.
Yet he didn’t leave. Before I had regained my balance I was caught up in his arms, and at the familiarity of his touch, every emotion I remembered swept back to engulf me. An expression of despair at our parting it might be, but his mouth against mine was enough to set a light to all the old passions, and I gloried in it. It was as if the past years had never been.
‘Katherine,’ he murmured against my lips, against my hair as he held me, so briefly. ‘I’ll risk the conflagration…’
‘My beloved John,’ I responded, fingers tight in his sleeves as if I would hold him here in that stable in Lincoln for ever.
‘How can I leave you?’
Then I was released, the Duke’s retreating footsteps clipped and rapid as if he wished to put a distance between us, as perhaps he did in the reawakened desire that threatened to break his control. Whereas I waited, listening, my heart thundering in my ears, my blood hot beneath my skin until the final sound had died away, leaving me to hold onto the essence of his body hard against mine, his lips a brand on mine.
War was a chancy thing, and so was peace. It might be that if the Duke was victorious he would be King of Castile in more than name and a golden diadem. It might be that we would never see each other again. As King of Castile, accepted and crowned, he would never return to England, and with my gift I was helping him to achieve this. Or his own death on some foreign battlefield. Love demanded a huge sacrifice.
Yet I felt renewed, at one with him. I was alone, but not alone. I could not be with him, but our estrangement was healed, and I would hold him in my heart against all the horrors of foreign campaigns.
And as I returned to the darkened buildings of the Chancery, my heart leaped for joy that he had not had the power to leave without embracing me after all. I pressed my palm against my lips as if I could still feel the imprint of his. I too would willingly withstand the conflagration.
What had he not told me? What had I guessed?
That Constanza was carrying his child. For a moment I pressed my hand against my flat belly, remembering. I must be thankful for her, and I was. The days of my jealousy were long gone, for which I thanked God.
I did not want to do this.
I mixed the ink and mended my pen with a sharp knife, but because my hand shook it was not the best I could manage. Nevertheless, lacking another quill to hand, I forced myself to open the cover of my missal to the first page that had once been blank. Now it recorded moments in my life over the past year since the Duke had sailed from England.
I did not want to record this moment.
I dipped the pen and prepared to write, but the ink fell in an unseemly blot on the page, like a single dark tear. This was impossible. I could not write it.
I mopped up the ink, abandoned the pen, and let my eye travel down the milestones I had chosen to make note of. Moments of joy. Personal moments of delight. A record of the celebrations of those I knew and loved.
But I had written nothing like this present knowledge, which wrenched my heart from my breast and caused my blood to run like a sluggish stream under winter ice.
I forced myself to read, trying to recapture the joy.
I had written of the Duke’s departure to Corunna, but briefly, for it was not a time of rejoicing, even though I kept his words in my mind.
Remember this: where I am, there you will be also.
They comforted me when nothing else could.
Then began the list of marriages and of births, of the achievements of my own children as they grew and made their mark on the world. Of my dear Philippa of Lancaster’s marriage to King Joao of Portugal in the magnificence of Oporto Cathedral, to cement an alliance. I had rejoiced over the birth of a healthy son at last, Henry of Monmouth, to Henry of Derby and his beloved Mary. And then of my own recognition by King Richard as one of the prestigious Ladies of the Garter.
All to be savoured and enjoyed.
But I could not smile as I picked up the pen again.
Some things I had not written because they were too painful. Of Constanza’s loss of her longed-for child; another daughter born dead in Corunna. Nor had I recorded those days of intense dread when an attempt had been made to poison both the Duke and Constanza. Philippa’s tragic miscarriage of an heir for Portugal too was absent. I did not need to write them. I would never forget.
Nor had I written of the failure in the war. The Duke would never win Castile by force of arms. His own ambitions and those of Constanza were at an end. All that could be salvaged, through wise negotiations with Castile, was a marriage alliance for Katalina, now fifteen years old, with King Juan of Castile’s son Enrique. Constanza would never rule in Castile, but her daughter would share the throne, which seemed to me to be the best outcome possible.
But this—this—I must record this, despite the heartbreak, because without it there would be no evidence of a well-lived life.
So I wrote, grief heavy on my hand.
In this month of August in the year 1387 the death of Philippa Chaucer, born Philippa de Roet. Died of dysentery in the service of Constanza, Duchess of Lancaster, Queen of Castile. The place of her burial is not known.
Having done it in my best hand, I laid the pen down with quiet precision.
Thus the end of my sharp-tongued, difficult, restless, loving sister.
I knew so little of her final days, and tried hard to remember her as I had known her, not as I imagined her, racked by pain. There was no body to return, no heart to inter in England, as I had marked the death of Hugh. Her earthly remains were gone from me. But she would live in my heart. And in her children.
I bowed my head.
It was not real.
I drew a line beneath my recording. I would write no more in this missal. What could compare with this loss for me?
Chapter Eighteen
It was three years since the Duke had kissed me farewell in Lincoln.
Could a heart remain the same, unaltered?
Mine shivered with anticipation.
There was no need for anxiety, I told myself. We were friends. Once lovers but now friends with a host of memories between us. I had been invited here to Hertford as a friend, summoned indeed, as he used to do in another life.
Lady Katherine de Swynford is requested to attend on Monseigneur de Guienne at Hertford for the celebration of the Birth of the Christ Child and the New Year. The Earl and Countess of Derby will be pleased to welcome her in my name.
I smiled thinly at the new title. A sign of Richard’s good graces, if they could be relied on, John was now Duke of Aquitaine, addressed as Monseigneur de Guienne. He would always be the Duke of Lancaster to me.
Duly received by Henry and Mary, during all the days before the celebrations began in earnest I waited for him, my senses alert at the arrival of every new guest, searching every new face that appeared at dinner in the Great Hall, chiding myself for foolishness. As if he would slip in quietly and without undue fuss to take his place on the dais. Unless he had changed greatly in three years, Monseigneur de Guienne would arrive with as much ceremony and fanfare as he had always done.
And then he was there in our midst, and I hung back until Mary, chivvying the rest of the family whether they liked it or not, found entirely spurious things to do elsewhere, as clumsy a ruse as ever I had experienced, but it left the Duke alone with me in the Great Hall. It also left me nervous. It did not suit me to be uncomfortable in my own actions and thoughts after years of ordering my life to my own liking.
I looked at him. He looked at me.
; I was right about the ostentatious impression. The Duke’s herald had announced his arrival and his tunic was a thigh-length creation in silk damask, furred and gold-stitched, enhanced by an embroidered sash that crossed his breast from left to right. It was a pure expression of wealth and power and authority, for prominent in the embroidery was the sleek white hart, emblem of King Richard himself.
But that was not important.
He was here, he was alive.
‘I am come home, Katherine,’ he said.
So simple a statement. So lightly announced, so uncomplicated after all those years when we had said nothing to each other. How portentous it was, but I was too wary these days to grasp it without due care.
‘And I am come to welcome you, my lord,’ I remarked dutifully. My hands were lightly clasped too. I tilted my head a little, recalling us using similar greetings in the heat of denial at Pontefract, when all was black and full of pain. But now winter sun shone through the windows and gilded us, although the warmth that flushed my face with colour had nothing to do with the elements.
The Duke was exhibiting nothing but unimpaired urbanity. He bowed with infinite grace.
‘Well, Lady de Swynford? What do you see?’
I flushed even more brightly. I had been very obvious. ‘Forgive me…’
‘Look your fill.’ He raised his hands, palms upwards, in invitation.
So I did as invited.
The Duke had aged. At first my heart tripped a little in its normal beat, for the three years had taken their toll. Pared down, I decided. That was it. Pared down to the fine essentials by grief and strain and a good dose of poison. Lines I did not recall marked his face, between his brows, scoring the flesh between nose and mouth. They had never been so deeply engraved as they were now, and having lost flesh, his nose was blade thin. And for a moment the austere expression, coupled with all the old glamour and the magnificence of his clothing, particularly the glossy fur and those resplendent sleeves, distanced him from me. He was as superb as the peacock in full plumage, scarred with age and battle, but still triumphantly majestic. I could imagine him no other way.
Yet still I looked.
He was not wearing a pinchbeck pilgrim’s badge. Of course he would not.
‘Do I horrify you?’
He had lapsed into a familiar stance with hands clasped around his belt, chin raised, and it came to me that his energy was as great as ever. There was a hint of grey in his dark hair but it still sprang from his brow with all its old virility. His hands still had all their old grace and beauty. He was as confident as I had ever known him.
He was, I acknowledged, still the most handsome man I had ever seen. I was not too old to admire a beautiful man whom I had once known better than I had known myself. But that was many years ago. Eight years we had been adrift, unknowing of each other in any intimate manner. Such passion that we had enjoyed must surely have died. It could not be resurrected, nor would it be good for either of us if it were.
I frowned at the thought.
Which he took note of. ‘I see that I make a grievous impression,’ he remarked. ‘I must apologise.’
He bowed again with impeccable gravity and a tightening of his lips. He had changed very little in one respect at least: his arrogance was as vital as ever. I shook my head, delighted that I had given him cause to reflect. But I did not smile: all was too uncertain here.
‘You misread my expression, my lord.’ And I added with some mischief. ‘And do you look at me too?’
‘I do, my lady.’
What would he see in me? Childbearing had, I feared, taken its toll on my hips, but I could wear the soft folds and high neck of the houppelande with fashionable elegance. My hair was not untouched by the passage of time, but I was vain enough to take pride in it when well covered with a crispinette and jewelled fillet. I was no longer young, but I did not yet abjure my looking glass. Nor was I a dowdy peahen. The rich cloth of green and blue, sumptuous with stitched flowers at neck and sleeve, would defy anyone to label me widow. Yet who knew how many young Castilian women, dark haired and dark eyed with flawless skin, had taken the eye of the Duke?
‘You are still beautiful,’ he said. ‘Even when you frown.’
I had been frowning again.
‘If I pour you a cup of wine,’ he offered, ‘and lead you to sit beside me on that cushioned seat by the fire, will that perhaps enable you to smile at me at last? You have been staring at me since I first entered this room as if I had committed even more misdeeds than those that separate us. I would make amends.’
‘I don’t need wine,’ I said. ‘Nor do I need to sit. But I will judge your misdeeds, if that is what you wish. Have you accepted the loss of Castile?’ I found myself asking, as I might in the past.
And wished I hadn’t, for his expression acquired the blandness of controlled disinterest, and his reply was bleak.
‘I had no choice. It was the best solution, to disengage from an impossible situation.’ He hesitated as if he might say more and then he deftly turned the conversation. Or not deftly at all. It was brusque and deliberate. ‘You look well. As dignified as I ever recall.’
Here in his brusqueness but still clear to my eye at least was a draining sense of disappointment. All those wasted years, wasted lives, ending in failure. Yet I followed his lead, since he would not speak of it.
‘My thanks, my lord. I am in good health.’ I could adopt dignity very well after all these years of maintaining it in the face of public denigration.
‘Are the children well?’
‘Yes. When it comes to rude health, the Beauforts are touched with magic.’
‘Constanza and I mourned the death of Mistress Chaucer. As you must have done.’
‘Yes.’ I did not know what else to say about this loss that still gnawed on my heart.
‘I thought I would lose my daughter Philippa.’
‘It was tragic,’ I agreed. ‘And the loss of the child.’
‘She is recovered now.’
Was this why he had asked me to Hertford, to exchange family histories? Our conversation had become formally courteous, as flavourless as a junket, as we steered around intimate matters. Would he talk to me of Constanza, who had, on her return to England, shut herself away in her own household, as chaste as a nun?
He did not. So, with a similar bland smile, I would continue in the same vein.
‘I hear you brought home great wealth.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that the King smiles on you.’ I indicated the chain around his neck. Although the familiar Lancastrian livery collar I had known all my life, it had the addition of King Richard’s white hart to match the embroidered figures. ‘A lord of the Council, in fact.’
‘Indeed.’ He looked taken aback at my diversion into the political, but did not demur. ‘Your interest in politics is as keen as ever I see. Today the King smiles on me. He rode out two miles from Reading to show the warmth of his welcome home, and took my collar of Lancaster to wear around his own neck.’ The Duke’s expression was wry as his hand rested on the royal symbol. ‘Richard proclaims his love for me. Thus I was duty bound to follow suit and wear the white hart.’
This was better. Not personal, but with a cutting edge that I recognised.
‘So what does Richard want from you?’
‘He needs me to mend the bridges between himself and his other uncles, of course.’
‘Can it be done?’
‘It remains to be seen. We will work on it, to try to bring reconciliation.’
And that was as much as he would say. I sought for another less contentious path to go down. Unfortunately my mind was a blank.
‘Now what shall we discuss, Lady de Swynford?’ There was a glint in his eye.
Snatching at an innocuous subject: ‘Henry and Mary are content,’ I said.
‘They are as smitten as two ring doves. She is carrying another child.’
‘I know.’
There! What was left? Not
hing, except appertaining to the two of us, which was apparently forbidden since we had commented on each other’s ageing grandeur. Had he not kissed me on our last meeting, as if passion was not dead between us? Entirely frustrated, I raised my brows in polite but stricken query.
The Duke gestured towards a pair of stools set in a window embrasure and, because it would give me breathing space, I sat. Once he would have taken my hand and escorted me there but now he led the way, gesturing to a distant servant for refreshment. Receiving it, I took a sip of wine that I did not want.
I turned a level glance on him. I would dance to this staid tune no longer.
‘You invited me here, John. Was there a purpose in it?’
‘Yes. I never do anything without purpose.’
Which was true enough. Was he laughing at me? But there was no laughter in his face. Frustration at last got the better of my good intentions.
‘Have we anything else to talk about? Your horses? The health of your hawks and hounds? I could fill in half an hour on the new building at Kettlethorpe if it pleases you.’
I half rose, but his hand on my arm stilled me. A fleeting moment only, but it touched my heart, and I wanted more, except that every vestige of common sense told me that I could not have it.
‘I have lost the knack of reading your mind, Katherine.’
‘I have been unable to read yours for years.’ My reply was sharper than I intended. ‘Perhaps it is more comfortable for you without knowing what I think.’
There was no change in his expression. ‘I expect it is. When your thoughts are ill-disposed towards me.’
‘But I am not ill-disposed.’
‘Then what are you, Katherine?’
His eyes held mine. All my possible answers raced through my mind like clouds scudding before a storm-wind.
I am afraid. All you have to do is touch my arm and I am tumbled back into the past when my whole life was governed by my love for you. You are not my friend. You are embedded in my mind, my heart, my soul. You never will be my friend, and I am afraid of new rejections. I am afraid of renewed pain. I don’t know what is expected of me. To be close to you is sometimes too much to bear. I cannot see my future in your orbit, even though I am flooded with desire.