by Anne O'Brien
‘No. Some of his minions though. I expect he has vengeance in mind for the boots. Does he blame me for his brother’s death?’
‘Yes. And yes, the boots remain a black memory. I suppose in his eyes it was a brutal punishment to make him clean them as often as you did.’
‘He needed discipline. Better than beating him.’
‘I think he might not agree. A beating would not wound his dignity. He has an amazing capacity for dignity for a youth not yet reached his twentieth year.’ How could I talk of such trivia, when these might be the final words we exchanged? But I did. ‘Thomas looked down his nose at me as if I were a cockroach.’
‘I have some compassion for him. Who would not? His father did not deserve execution.’
I took a breath, astonished at a depth of magnanimity that was beyond my encompassing. ‘I will never condone what he has done to you,’ I said, and raised his ruined hand to my cheek, pressing a kiss into his palm. ‘There. And I said I would not weep.’
‘Nor will you. Tell me about the others. Those who joined with me to see justice done. No one will tell me …’
I could not lie and so I told him of the outcome that had swept them all away. ‘Thomas Despenser is dead. Your squire is hanged. Your nephew Thomas died at Cirencester, together with the Earl of Salisbury. Their heads were sent to Henry in a basket …’
Why was I telling him this?
‘What about Aumale? Or Rutland as I should call him? Is he dead, too?’
‘No.’ I frowned, remembering. ‘He was with Henry when I last saw him. I’m almost certain …’
And yes, I was sure of it. He was there in the group of counsellors when Henry had informed me of John’s incarceration at Pleshey.
‘Was he now?’ I saw the familiar surge of anger in John’s eyes, but it was short-lived. There was no time for anger now. ‘A strange change of heart on Henry’s part for his ingratiating cousin,’ John admitted. ‘I doubt he’ll use it for me.’
‘Ah, John! I can’t talk of this.’
‘I have brought you nothing but misery.’
‘And such happiness.’ I kissed his cheeks, his closed eyes, his lips, the lightest of caresses. ‘Such amazing happiness.’ I felt the forbidden tears on my cheeks after all and made no attempt to wipe them away.
‘I wish with all my heart this had not come between us. I know you say I was intransigent. Perhaps I was. Forgive me, Elizabeth.’ He laced his fingers of his good hand with mine, as best he could, lifting them both to wipe away the moisture. ‘It has caused so deep a rift between us. But I think that perhaps we are, at last, at one.’
‘Yes.’
‘You must never think that I love you any less than in those halcyon days when I wooed you.’
‘My love for you, even when I hated you for what you were doing,’ I admitted, ‘is indestructible.’ How long ago it was since we had last exchanged such words of devotion, and I regretted it. ‘Forgive me for not understanding. For letting Henry force a path between us.’
A fist hammered at the door. ‘Five minutes to make an end.’
I flinched, driven again to honesty. ‘I can do nothing, John. I have failed you.’
‘But you can do so much.’ With the minimum of movement, he placed one arm around my shoulders, drawing me to rest against him, one hand clumsily pinioning mine against his chest as his voice dropped into an urgency that no amount of anguish could destroy. ‘Listen. Listen to me. You can stand for me beyond death. When I am dead, my land will be forfeit, my titles, my inheritance. You must fight for them, Elizabeth. Fight for what is mine, for our children. They deserve recognition, good marriages, preferment at court. Their blood could not be better, from royalty on both sides. Don’t let their father’s misjudgement drag them down so that they live in penury and shadows for the rest of their lives. Richard should be Duke of Exeter. The girls should make good marriages. Promise me. Rail at Henry until he concedes at least this. The axe that severs my head from my body must not be allowed to hack away at the future of our family. Our children are Henry’s own family through your blood. You must stand for all of us.’
Once again any response was frozen on my tongue. I had not expected such cold acceptance. But why had I not? John would not pretend, not with me.
‘I will fight,’ I promised, at last.
‘Go to Dartington. Hold possession of it as long as you can. Henry will not turn you out. Take the children there. They will be safe.’
‘Yes. I will do it.’
‘It’s a beautiful place. I had hoped that we would be there together. Make it a good home. Plant the gardens.’
‘I hate gardens.’
‘But you will do it because I wish it.’
‘I will do it.’
All the things we wanted to say that we could not say. All hidden beneath this futile exchange about the existence of paths and plants at Dartington. My soul raged within me. ‘Before God, John …’
‘No!’ His hand closed more firmly around mine. ‘Promise me.’
And I was driven to make that promise, my hand flat against his heart.
‘Yes. I promise. I will make Dartington the home you would have wanted and I will ensure that Richard becomes Duke of Exeter.’
‘And you, my love, my light. You should marry again.’
Lifting my head from his shoulder so that I could look at him, every sense was stilled into stiff rebellion. ‘I will not.’
‘It is not in you to remain alone. You must be a sensible woman.’
‘I will never love again.’
‘You do not need love for a good marriage. Besides, who knows what the future will hold for you. You must wed again. You will make some man a good wife.’ The minutes of time were fast flowing away. ‘And now you must go.’ Gently but with such firmness, he pushed me away, and I allowed it.
‘I’ll speak with the Countess again. Even with Thomas FitzAlan.’ I hesitated. ‘And whatever the outcome, I will stay to the end.’
‘No!’ He took my shoulders and shook me, despite the pain to him. ‘Look at me.’ And he shook me until I did, holding the anguish in my eyes with his. ‘You will not stay. If you never obeyed me in anything else, you will obey me in this. Do you hear me? I don’t want you here when I am led to the block.’
I clung to his wrists. ‘I can’t go …’
‘I don’t want you to be here.’
I stared at him, understanding.
‘I don’t want you to see me. I want you to remember me as I was when I rode in the tournaments and won your heart. That is the picture I want you to paint for our children. Elizabeth, the best thing I ever did was woo you. Now go before your presence unmans me.’ He pulled me to my feet and kissed me. Hard and sure. ‘My heart and soul. My dear wife.’
He all but dragged me to the door and brought his fist down hard on wooden panels in one final blow with a groan of agony.
‘Tell my sons that I did what I thought I must. What I thought was right. I would do it again tomorrow. Now go!’
I could not do it. Not yet.
‘There is something I must tell you first …’ The words had flown from my lips before I could stop them. Knowing, accepting at last that we would never meet again on this side of the grave, the need for confession was a heavy hand on my heart.
‘No!’
The power in his denial startled me, but I was not deterred, despite the fear of what I might see in his face. ‘I must. On my soul, I can’t let this remain unspoken between us because …’
‘No, my dear one.’ The force had gone, overlaid with an intense fatigue that I could not combat. ‘There is nothing that you need tell me that I do not already know. All that matters is that we loved and that we still love. Sometimes life puts too great a burden on us. Now go. Go to Dartington, my very dear one.’
A final kiss of mouth against mouth.
‘You were always, and always will be, the best woman I know.’
And as the door opened, he pushed me throu
gh, and closed it himself.
I stood outside the door, palms and forehead resting against the unforgiving wood.
I left Pleshey with no farewells. It would need a miracle to save him, and I did not think I had any recourse to any. All I could do was be obedient and do as John asked. To tell his sons of his glorious reasoning for so foul a crime of treason, and keep possession of Dartington.
Determination carried me back to Westminster.
Only when I was back in my rooms did a tidal wave of guilt thrust me to my knees.
1400, Dartington
John is dead.
How does a woman know that the man she loves is dead, that he has taken his last breath? I know it, even though there has been no courier from Henry, no message of vengeful satisfaction from Pleshey. Still I know it in my heart, which continues to beat with the same steady rhythm. How can that be, when the one man it beats for no longer inhabits this earth? I will never see him again. He will never walk across the room to gather me into his arms when he returns from some king’s business. He will never ask me what I have been doing that might have set the cat amongst the pigeons.
How long will I be able to recall his smile? He could barely smile at me in that room so redolent of pain and violence at Pleshey. I know I must hold on to my memory of the deep-set corners of his mouth, the gleam of self-awareness in the dark of his eye. I must remember the fall of his hair, the fluid, almost insolent manner of his stride. I must remember for all the years of my life that are left to me.
I love him. I love him despite his temper, his ambitions, his ill-fated choices. I love him because of them, because that is John Holland who wooed me and won me and would not let me go.
Don’t tell me that he would have brought my brother to his death. I know it. Don’t tell me that he was not worthy of my love. He was, he was! And I know why he made that fatal choice. John’s betrayal of his own brother was an ignoble affair that he must put right. I cannot forgive him for his plot of vicious murder, but I can understand. Does he not hold a mirror up to my own soul? I have discovered that we are all capable of betrayal. Its consequences lie within me, every hour, every day. My love for John remains as strong as the day I placed my future in his hands and told him I carried his child.
Death is in the cold dank ground, in the bare trees, frozen into motionless acceptance in these January days. I cannot envisage spring and new life.
I am in cold despair.
I think of Henry, when he was my brother Hal and dear to me. The images of childhood race through my atrophied mind. Henry with a book in his hand, Henry with his armour covered with gilding, with a hawk on his fist, with a new sword, riding at the tournaments with verve and dash. Henry protecting me at the Tower when the rebels broke in. Henry anxious for my happiness. My brother whose affection had been part of my life, unquestionable.
I am estranged from Henry. I have nothing to say to him.
I cannot weep. My heart is a solid stone in my chest. My blood is sluggish. Every step, every movement is an effort.
I have no feelings, nothing. I have been robbed of all my joy, for my love is dead.
‘You didn’t ought to be doing that, mistress.’
‘I know it.’
Casting aside the mattock with a hiss of frustration at my clumsy handling of it, I resorted instead to a pair of shears.
‘Some would say as you shouldn’t be cutting that rosemary at this time of year, mistress,’ the gardener persisted.
‘And they’d be right about that too. Damn them.’
The edges were blunt, and I was inexpert—when had I ever tackled such physical work in my whole life? —but I continued to wield the shears, to the sad detriment of the shrub, while I was invaded by black despair and even blacker fury. I could barely breathe for the constriction in my throat.
What a fool I was. What an unutterable fool.
‘Maybe I’ll do it for you, mistress.’
I looked up at the man who tended the gardens and saw my presence in the herbery as an intrusion. And a destructive one at that.
‘No you won’t. I am not incapable. Go away. And take the children inside with you. It’s too cold for them out here.’
I saw them watching their mother, wary of this woman they barely recognised in her woollen skirts and furious application of garden tools. They were all there in a little huddle, except for baby Edward. I could not blame them for keeping their distance.
Attacking a plant of rue—by the Virgin! there would be no rue in my garden! —I reduced it to a few hopeless twigs.
‘You need help, mistress.’
‘I don’t.’
Had I not promised? I had promised and I would do it.
He retreated when I picked up my mattock again, only to lurk behind a bush to keep an eye on the mistress who appeared to have taken leave of her senses.
Taken leave of them? I felt as if every sense I had was hammered into a coffin.
No! Not that!
The denial howled in my head.
Earlier in the day, numbed by shock, I had shut myself away in my chamber, until I realised the futility of that. I could ride out, hunt. I could ride and ride until I was exhausted and my mind blurred with it so that I could sleep and forget. But I would imagine that he was with me, riding beside me as he had done so often. I would hear the hooves of his horse, see the wind lifting his hair, hear his laughter at some comment passed between us. How could I ever ride for pleasure again? I needed an occupation to drain my energies rather than that of my mare. An occupation John would never have undertaken.
When had I ever turned my hand to physical work other than the setting of stitches? Playing the lute. Singing. Dancing. That is what I was made for. But today I needed some back-breaking work that would demand my concentration and my strength.
Yet, the inertia of grief laying its hand on me, I would still have remained shut away in my private chamber, until Alice ran in, a roughly constructed birdcage clutched in her eight-year-old hand. She danced on the spot, holding the occupants high for me to see.
‘Look what the chapman has brought. He says they are for me, if we give him a silver coin.’
I stared in horror, seeing myself, in different circumstances, holding a gilded cage of singing finches.
‘Take them out!’ I shrieked, before I could stop myself.
‘But Mother …’ Alice’s eyes gleamed with quick tears.
‘I’ll not have them here.’
Taking my daughter by the hand I strode unseeing through the beautiful rooms of the house that John had built, through the kitchens and out into the enclosed courtyard beyond. Once there I knelt beside Alice, taking the cage from her and opening its door, lifting it high to encourage the pair of birds to fly free, which they did. Wiping away my child’s tears with the edge of my sleeve, I gave the only explanation I could.
‘They did not deserve to be shut in a cage. They will be happy to be free.’
Alice sniffed, not understanding, and in a sense neither did I. All I knew was that I would never again have a pair of singing birds. Nothing to remind me of my treacherous husband’s glorious wooing of me. Or my own treachery.
Alice and I continued to kneel in the puddle-ridden courtyard, watching them go.
My household must have thought that I had run mad.
From there, face frozen, I had taken myself into the herbery on this dire January day, simply because I could think of nothing else. My only knowledge of herbs was the use of them to perfume my coffers or produce a healing draught.
What did I know about working in the earth, about cutting and shaping? I had donned garments more suited to physical work, but to what avail? My fingers wept with blisters and my hems were ruined with mud but my anger remained as bitter as the rue I had just eviscerated. My mind lowered as dark as the clouds gathering to presage snow as I recalled John sending me a package of rue.
I rested momentarily on my knees, oblivious to the destruction of my skirts. I thought Hen
ry would pardon him. I thought that in spite of John’s inexcusable treason, Henry would use his royal prerogative to grant John a pardon. For my sake. For the love he had for me. And because of the love I had for John. Could not Henry lure John back into the Lancastrian fold with soft words and generosity? My brother would not rob me of the man who meant more to me than my life. His compassion would be overwhelming and he would forgive.
I had held fast to that when my heart was heaviest. Or had I? Had I not always feared the inevitable? Retrieving the shears, running my thumb along the blades, I scowled at the line of blood that appeared. Had I truly believed that Henry would be magnanimous? Gradually learning that generosity was rarely the answer when political power was in the balance, I had come to know the penalty paid by those who played with fire. I knew full well the price to be paid in the interest of alliances and loyalties and political manoeuvrings. I had been a political bride to a child because the alliance was too valuable to be snatched up by someone else.
And Henry. Henry had been banished for his flirtation with the Lords Appellant. Still very young, only on the edge of the fatal alliance against the King, Henry had been banished and had had to fight for his inheritance. Richard had had no compassion for him or for my father. And so Henry, now shouldering the authority of Kingship, had cut down those who had dared to rise against him. Many would say he had every right to bring down the power of the law on the heads of those who plotted insurrection.
Even after that final meeting with John, wretched in despair, I had clung to a futile hope, speeding a letter to Henry, a final last minute appeal, when I had fled from Pleshey.
To my well-beloved brother Henry,
You can never accuse me of disloyalty. I do not question your right to rule or your power to defend your life and that of your sons. I will always remain your loyal subject.
But if you have any love for me, have mercy on John Holland. Save him from the vengeance of the FitzAlans.
Your loving sister …
My cheeks were wet. Not tears, my denial continued. Merely the icy rain that had begun to fall. In desultory fashion I hacked at a clump of decaying foliage that I did not recognise, but which the rising scents told me was sage.