The King’s Sister

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘I know there is no bending you,’ he said. ‘But let me speak to you.’ And at last, anger draining away, I saw grief and regret in the flat planes of his beloved face. ‘This is the last time we might see each other. If the fates smile on me, and bring me safe to a foreign shore, will you come to me? Or will spending the rest of your life with me be more than you can bear? If I have indeed destroyed your love for me, then I must accept that we will never meet again.’

  Against my will, the beat of my heart quickened. Still at this eleventh hour, he was offering me a choice.

  ‘You never make life easy for me, do you?’ I said

  ‘No. We never thought it would be.’

  ‘Would you want me with you?’

  ‘Yes. You are the heart of my heart. That will never change.’

  I loved him so much. In spite of everything, I loved him. I suspected I always would. But would I willingly go with him into exile? Would I leave my children and follow John into an uncertain existence in France? An exile that might never be rescinded? The alternative, the terrible alternative, was never to see him again.

  Could I refuse him—and myself—that final vestige of hope of living together?

  Reality rushed through my mind to cool my heated thoughts and show me what it would mean. He would never again be there at my awakening, or in the final hour of my day. Never would we ride together through pasture and woods, a hawk on his fist, the hawk no fiercer than he. Never would I see the golden lions of his banner in a tournament heralding his incomparable dexterity of hand and eye. Never again would I know the brush of his fingers against my wrist to set my blood pounding into desire. Never would he shower me with opinion, inviting my response as if I were an equal, not a woman to be kept in the background.

  John smiled a little at my silent presence as if he could read my thoughts. And I was stabbed with love and desire that heated me all over again. Remaining apart from him was no alternative at all. My decision was made, chasm or no chasm.

  ‘If you can get word to me, I will come to you,’ I said.

  ‘It will mean being an exile.’

  ‘Then I will live in exile with you.’

  In spite of everything, I could not let him go.

  ‘You don’t have to decide now. Wait until I can send for you.’ His lips twisted into a smile that was barely a smile. ‘Will you allow me to kiss you in farewell?’

  I stepped across the abyss and there I was, enfolded in his arms as I had been so often in the past.

  ‘It was wrong and the outcome is dire, but I would do it again tomorrow,’ he said.

  Honesty was what I expected from him. That appalling honesty.

  ‘I know. I can’t condone it or excuse it, but I do understand. Keep safe, my dearest love.’ I would not weep again. He did not need my tears. ‘You must go.’

  I offered my lips and he took them, his hands cradling my face with so much love and understanding that for a moment I could believe that the hot breath of treachery was a fantasy, but when he released me, it was to confront a cruel parting, the need to be gone stark in John’s face.

  ‘I will love you for ever,’ he promised, brushing a wayward curl of hair from my temple in a final gesture.

  ‘As I will love you.’

  ‘I will never forget you as you are at this moment.’ His fingers rested against my cheek, my lips, my brows, as if he must retain the image of them for a time of drought.

  ‘Nor I you.’

  ‘God keep you, my dear love.’

  ‘And you. I will keep you in my thoughts.’

  Such a simple confirmation of what we had been to each other, before he left me there, striding off through the environs of Westminster towards the Thames. I could have gone with him to the waterside, but better that I leave him without any further chains around his neck. What would I have done, stood on the riverside and waved to him in farewell?

  Before he left, I give him a purse of coin. All I had.

  ‘Go! Be safe!’ Guilt colouring my words so that he must surely understand, but with a courtly little bow he left me.

  Holy Virgin, keep him safe. Holy Virgin, give me the strength to withstand our parting.

  ‘Who?’ the guard barked, holding up a lantern.

  ‘Elizabeth of Lancaster,’ my page replied soft-voiced but still arrogant on my behalf. ‘Allow her to enter.’

  There was no hesitation.

  So I returned to the Tower, no longer surprised how a few coins and being sister to the King could open doors. My face, my status, were well-known. In present circumstances, uncertain of its reception, I took care not to breathe the name of Huntingdon.

  Once more within, my page dismissed, I leaned back against my door and allowed the full horror to wash over me, my love for John battered by my knowledge of what he had done. What he could envisage as just revenge for what many saw as remarkable leniency. What was the loss of a title weighed against the death of the male house of Lancaster?

  But could I condone Henry’s killing of Richard? Any childhood affection for Richard had long faded but he was still of my blood, and Henry’s too.

  But he will not.

  I thought he would. I kept out of Henry’s path, not difficult since he was still occupied with the final bloody consequences of the Revolt of the Earls.

  Keeping close in my rooms I prayed that the Blessed Virgin would bring John to sanctuary. That he would make landfall somewhere in France, and that one day I might be united with him. For in spite of all, my love for him had bonds of steel. Yet even as I offered up prayer after prayer, outside my windows storms raged, dashing my hopes that he would reach safety. More like his ship would founder and he would be dashed to death on the rocks or dragged down beneath the indifferent waves.

  I would never hear from him again and I would never know his fate.

  My knees were sore as my fingers clicked over the beads of my rosary, repeating petition after petition, not least for peace within my own soul that I knew I did not deserve, until at last, in hopeless despair, I sank back to my heels.

  ‘I can pray no more.’

  All I could do was wait. Knowing my children to be safe at Windsor, I determined to stay in London until I knew, for better or worse. I kept to my chambers, the only thought in my heart being that to hear no news was not all bad. The storm winds had abated, bringing a strange calm. John might even now be secure and at liberty in some French port.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three days after I had said my farewell to John, there was a fist driven against my door and a royal official was admitted.

  ‘My lord the King requests that you attend him in the audience chamber.’

  Since the official avoided my eye, anxiety destroyed my hard won calm. For Henry to make this an official meeting—and I could imagine his advisers flanking him as he delivered the news—I could only imagine what it would be. The official did not appreciate my hesitation.

  ‘My lord the King is hard pressed and would see you now, my lady.’

  I would not be hurried. ‘Tell the King I will attend on him shortly.’

  ‘But my lord the King is …’

  ‘Tell the King I will present myself in his audience chamber as soon as I am fit to be received into his presence.’

  ‘It is momentous news, my lady.’

  ‘It may be momentous, but five minutes more will make no difference.’

  I needed time. To dress carefully, to plait and cover my hair. To compose my features. To order my senses. I would not fall and weep at Henry’s feet, whatever the provocation. Nor would I show him any signs of neglect from my days of prayer and sleepless nights. I would attend this summons with all the pride of a daughter of Lancaster. It was, I decided as I chose a jewelled caul, all I had left. And if John was alive so that I could bargain with Henry for his life, I would do it from a position of well-groomed dignity.

  You know what he has to tell you.

  I could imagine Henry’s sense of accomplishment as I
placed a Lancaster livery collar on my shoulders, even if his victory was at the behest of the tides and an alien coast.

  John is dead.

  And thus I went about my preparations with an iron-like will, governing every sense, every emotion, my face as smooth and bland as new whey.

  John was assuredly dead, his body brought ashore by the wind and tides, and Henry would be in celebratory mood. I was sunk in the blackest of desolation, but no one would read it in my face.

  Henry was not smiling. Perhaps it was out of some residue of compassion for me, but I could no longer think along those lines. Acknowledging that we had drawn too far apart for compassion, I curtsied deeply, noting the counsellors that stood with him, those who had made the politic choice and abandoned Richard to his fate. I knew them all, but this was between me and my brother.

  ‘You wished to see me, my lord.’

  My announcement was as bleak as a winter morn, but no bleaker than his.

  ‘I have news of Huntingdon.’

  I waited for the blow to strike.

  ‘He was driven ashore. Onto the Essex coast.’

  ‘And he is dead,’ I said, my lips stiff so that forming the words was difficult. ‘Is his body found?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Elizabeth. He is found. Huntingdon is very much alive and well.’

  My heart leapt with such force, the relief so great that I could barely contain it. All I could do was offer a silent thanks to the compassionate Virgin. Until reality struck with the sinister truth contained in the news. I looked up at Henry, where he stood above me on the dais, all my fears coalescing into one solid mass beneath my heart.

  ‘So he is in your hands.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is your prisoner.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at Henry’s face, trying to recall the rounded smiling, mischievous features of Henry as a boy. Leaner, older, stamped with authority, this man was King of England and I must never forget. I must learn my new role in this relationship. He was King and I was subject and supplicant. More than that, my husband was a foresworn traitor and in his power to dispatch to the executioner.

  ‘You know what I must do, Elizabeth.’

  Oh, I did. I did.

  ‘You will put him on trial. For treason.’

  ‘Yes. He risked all in a foolish gamble and lost. The full force of the law will be used against him.’

  I simply stood, absorbing what this would mean, obliterating from my mind the horror of it if Henry insisted on the full penalty for a traitor, to hang, draw and quarter. Execution would be a more compassionate alternative.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He did not sound sorry. ‘I know how this will affect you.’

  Did he? Had he any idea how important this man was to me, in spite of everything I knew about him? I ran my tongue over dry lips. I had said that I would not weep or plead. Yet I begged.

  ‘Can you find it in you to have mercy?’

  ‘He would have had me and my sons hacked to death on my tournament field.’

  ‘He was afraid for the life of his brother.’

  ‘Or was he afraid for his own safety? I treated him with justice. I punished him with a light hand. And this is how he—and those like him—repay me.’

  ‘He took the oath of allegiance to Richard.’

  ‘He took the same oath to me as well. And it meant nothing to him.’ The sardonic savagery was a wound in my side.

  ‘He would return to your side if you wooed him.’ What an empty gesture that was, and yet I would say the words. ‘I beg of you, my lord.’

  ‘I will not. Nor can you expect it. Here we have an oath-breaker of magnificent proportions. I will never trust him again. There is no value in this discussion, Elizabeth.’

  Still I would not let go, even though I knew in my heart that there was no hope. Never had I seen my brother so recalcitrant, yet I fell back to childhood usage.

  ‘If you have any affection for me, Hal, show mercy.’

  ‘It is out of my hands.’

  ‘Where have you sent him?’ There again, a little leap of hope. If his new guardian was open to persuasion … could I at least beg that he be allowed to escape again, and this time arrive safe at some European strand? Surely that was the best outcome for everyone.

  ‘I have placed him,’ Henry said as if weighing every word, his eyes on mine so that I could not miss the implication, ‘in the custody of the Countess of Hereford at Pleshey.’

  And at that, in spite of all my good intentions, I wept. In the presence of Henry and the counsellors and the royal officials. I wept. Nor did I cover my face, but let the tears roll uselessly down to mark the damask of my bodice and spike the fur.

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Why would I not? The Countess of Hereford and the FitzAlans deserve some satisfaction.’

  It struck against my heart, crushing every final grain of hope, and I turned on my heel. Without permission I left the royal presence. In that moment I never wished to see my brother again.

  The Countess of Hereford had John in her power. If John was in the clutches of Countess Joan of Hereford, then all was surely lost to me, and to John. I returned to my rooms to begin preparations for a journey full of the worst foreboding.

  And yet once I would have travelled to Pleshey with such joy, for Countess Joan was a blood relative, a confirmed supporter of Lancaster, even showing herself to be a good friend to Duchess Katherine before she was made respectable, offering her a loving sanctuary for the birth of her daughter Joan, out of the Countess’s deep affection for my father. A devoted mother to Mary de Bohun, Henry’s ill-fated wife, Countess Joan had proved a warm and comfortable presence in my own childhood. Pleshey Castle figured vividly in my memories, a place for exciting New Year gift givings and Twelfth Night revels. Countess Joan could never be accused of giving less than whole-hearted support to the family of Lancaster.

  But Countess Joan was a FitzAlan by birth, and there was the thing. Countess Joan was sister to Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, who had been the first to be called to account as the most outspoken of the Lords Appellant, the most critical of Richard’s mistakes. Countess Joan was aunt to the two FitzAlan sons whom we had housed with so much ill-will on their part. The FitzAlans had been transformed from strongest allies into most bitter enemies.

  How could I blame them? Richard had made a bloody example of Richard FitzAlan, his head struck from his body on Tower Hill. Now my blood ran cold as I dredged up the details of those terrible days. When the Lords Appellant had been taken prisoner, it was John who was standing at Richard’s side. When the Arundel estates were forfeit to the crown, it was John who received them at the grateful hand of his royal brother. Who had been given the magnificent fortress of Arundel Castle? It was John.

  As John rose in power and prestige at their expense, the FitzAlans fell, the young dispossessed Earl even losing his life while in our keeping.

  And would that John’s pre-eminence at their expense was his only crime in the eyes of the FitzAlans. My mind hopped from sin to even worse sin. For a vengeful Countess there would be far more to weigh against John’s life. Countess Joan’s elder daughter Eleanor had been wed to the royal Duke of Gloucester who had his life crushed out of him in Calais. When Gloucester had been arrested at Pleshey, who had ridden at Richard’s side? John might not have been involved in the deed in Calais, but he was complicit in Richard’s planning to rid himself of those who had attacked his royal dignity. Who was more often than not seen in the ascendant in those years of Richard’s power, recipient of Richard’s patronage, and at the expense of all others? It was John.

  I rode out from the Tower with violent death and John’s complicity in the FitzAlan downfall as close companions. Would the Countess ever find it in her heart to have mercy? I did not think so. John’s involvement, however slight, in Gloucester’s death would have been made worse in her eyes by the death of his and Eleanor’s little son Humphrey a matter of months ago, followed by Eleanor’
s rapid demise from a broken heart.

  I could imagine the gleam in Countess Joan’s eye with John Holland under her dominion, hers the choice over him, of life or death. I could imagine her response if I begged for mercy.

  ‘Do you realise what your damnable mis-begotten husband has done to my family?’

  And yet I would go to Pleshey and beg. I would call on her as one woman to another, as one woman torn by grief and despair to another. I would do all in my power, as my father’s daughter. And as the daughter of her great friend John of Lancaster, would she turn me from her door? Surely she would discover some vestige of compassion in her heart.

  I would not abandon all hope before I had even tried.

  I went to Pleshey.

  I walked into Countess Joan’s beautifully appointed parlour, all so familiar, announced by her steward as if I were the welcome guest I had been in the past. I had had the whole journey to decide what I would say, and still I did not know. John’s actions seemed in the light of the Countess’s sufferings indefensible. And yet I trod carefully. I did not yet know how she would receive me. If it was with past affections it might make all the difference. All hung on the spin of a coin so I curtsied as expected towards one of my father’s generation and family, a lady of influence as broad as her hips and brow.

  ‘I am grateful that you would receive me, my lady.’

  ‘I was expecting you,’ she said, turning from where she had been, at the window, clearly watching my arrival. Her face was wiped clean of all expression, but at least I was not faced with rampant hatred.

  I stood before her impressive bulk, hands folded neatly, gaze level in polite respect when my mind was in furious turmoil. ‘I had to come.’

  ‘To plead a lost cause.’

  ‘To ask you to at least listen to me, my lady.’

  ‘And why would I do that?’

  ‘Because of past loyalties and deep friendship I believe you would give me a hearing.’