by Anne O'Brien
The words rolling off the man’s tongue with such relish fell into my mind with all the clarity of a herald’s summons to arms. By what right did this parliament make this demand? Of course Henry would refuse. He must refuse.
‘I will consider it,’ Henry said, voice flat, without expression. A voice of compromise that chilled my blood for I knew full well the target here. My household. My servants and ladies in waiting. The petition might wish to rid England of French and Lombards and Italians, of whom there were many amongst the mercantile interests in London, but its primary aim was to rid the Court of the Bretons and Navarrese. My own servants. This parliament would dictate the composition of my own household. And Henry had not refused it.
From compassion, my emotions leapt to bright anger. This visit of mine, dangerous as it might be, had proved more than an education. It had opened my eyes to the true relationship between Henry and his subjects, whispering in my ear as the members stood in a rustle of cloth and a shuffle of leather.
They might well wish to be rid of you too.
Bishop Henry came to collect me when the Hall was emptied, the session at an end.
‘Let’s move fast. Was it worth it?’
‘It was a despair of enlightenment.’
‘So now you know. But don’t tell Henry of this little escapade. His temper is slow and infrequent, but it can be brutal when roused. I’ve no wish to bear the brunt of it.’
‘I think it will be on my head, not yours.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘But he will never know. How could I tell him that I had witnessed his ignominy?’
‘You could not.’
I felt scoured of emotions, but now I understood to some degree the power battle in which he was engaged. I also understood the unwillingness of Henry’s friends to reveal the extent of his political weakness to me. And clearly I played some part in it, for the hatred of Bretons was far stronger than I had ever appreciated. The powers assaulting Henry from all sides would well threaten the security of his throne, but more damaging than that to my mind, and far more crippling, this had been a very personal attack on his pride, his royal dignity. His honour, which so strongly coloured the man he had grown to be. How could the proud Lancaster heir ever support such overwhelming disgrace?
He deserved my complete allegiance in the face of so much hostility. He deserved my participation in every facet of government.
*
Use a hatchet, Bishop Henry had advised, so here I was, not to cajole but to demand.
‘If your Royal Council does not trust me, Henry, give me something to do. Give me some authority. Allow me some power of my own. If you show that you trust me, it will show your hide-bound subjects that they can trust me too.’
Putting aside my cloak, allowing him a little time to recoup, I discovered Henry gone to ground in a distant chamber, where he studied me thoughtfully. It was a spare room of cold stone, perfect for a conversation between wary antagonists; a room without luxury or decoration, unlike Henry. Still impressive in blue and ermine but the coronet discarded, his hair giving the impression of a windblown disorder from restless fingers, he was seated at a wide table, surrounded by documents, the greyhound somnolent and curled at his feet. Perhaps my timing was not as sensitive as it might have been given the morning’s parliamentary débâcle, but I could see no hope of improvement. Why wait another day, a week? Better to tackle this abyss between us, that was growing deeper and wider by the hour. Henry’s stare was unnerving, but I would not be unnerved.
‘If you do not wish to put the delicate matters of finance into my hands,’ I continued, unable to resist a barb of my own,‘then give me the negotiations for Philippa’s marriage with the royal house of Denmark. That should fit suitably into the role of a mere woman.’
A breath of silence. Then:
‘So you want to help?’ Henry’s tone was as discouraging as his speculative regard. ‘Forget the wedding. Get the God-forsaken Bretons to enter into a peace treaty with us. Or at least a truce. That should do it.’
He brought his fist down on the parchment spread out before him. A diagram of the structure of a new cannon, lethally menacing in its bold lines. A fitting subject, I thought, to blast the parliamentary opposition out of existence. I could understand Henry’s ire, even if it was directed at me. I was after all the nearest object to attack.
‘You wish me to open negotiations with my son,’ I said. ‘I can do that.’
Which offer he waved aside, the parchment rolling up, hiding the diagram. Henry, I saw, had been drawing it himself. I had not known of his interest in cannon.
‘With Burgundy breathing down the young Duke’s neck? What hope of a successful outcome, when Burgundy is hand in glove with France? I suppose it is impertinent of me to expect it of you.’ He frowned as a thought returned to him. ‘You could of course stop sending the Duke rents.’
Well, I had dug my own grave there, had I not? I was in no frame of mind for confession. Even though Henry promptly took my silence for guilt.
‘There’s nothing you can do, Joanna. Deal with your own household. That will be enough.’
It was damning. Bishop Henry’s hatchet was failing, but I was in no mood for the whore’s talents. Neither was Henry. Promptly, I lost all patience.
‘So it’s not only your ministers who do not trust me, Henry. It appears to be a complaint that is contagious, like a virulent rash. You do not trust me either, do you?’
His brows had levelled, flattened, much in the manner of those of Bishop Henry. ‘I trust no one in the present climate.’
How neatly he had slid round the edge of my accusation. ‘You have not answered my question.’
‘Because I don’t know the answer to it.’ He spread out the diagram again, anchoring it wide with his fists. ‘I trusted the Percys. They stood for me when I returned to England. They raised their retinues to fight for me. I thought they would be the backbone of peace and stability for me in England, holding the north and west in my name until my sons were older. I gave them my trust, and what did they do? Rise in rebellion against me because my gratitude did not support their ambitions. I misjudged the extent of their ambition.’
‘But the Percy insurrection is destroyed,’ I said.
‘Northumberland lives still. And now it seems that I have misjudged my own family. Even my own blood is potentially aligned against me.’
‘Your family?’ Now that had caught my attention.
His expression was not encouraging. ‘So now I trust no one. In future I alone will deal with the threats to my kingdom.’
‘But you cannot do it alone.’
‘I must. Let me read this to you. And before I begin I should perhaps explain that I am intended as the infamous moldewarp, the mole.’ His lips twisted in disgust on the word, sliding a document towards him with one finger as if to touch it was anathema. ‘A creature that creeps on its belly in the dark. Am I a mole? I am a son of kings, of Lancaster, God help me!’
He began to read, hard and fluent, now prowling as he read, as if stillness were impossible.
‘A Dragon shall rise up in the North—the Earl of Northumberland himself—which shall be fierce and shall declare war against the Mole and shall give him battle. This Dragon shall gather into his company a Wolf that shall come out of the West—my present adversary Owain Glyn Dwr—that shall also begin warfare against the Mole, and thus shall the Dragon and the Wolf bind their tails together…’
‘Henry!’ I stopped the flow, astonished at the tenor of what he was reading. ‘What is this?’
‘A prediction. A prediction of my downfall at the hands of my enemies. An open invitation to insurrection.’
‘From whom?’
‘Does it matter? It was written down at the beginning of my grandfather’s reign, so I am told. The Prophesy of the Six Kings. The sixth king after King John will be the last. I am the sixth king. I have been reminded of it by some malign hand. Let me continue, my dear wife…
‘Then shall come a Lion out of
Ireland…’
‘And who is this lion?’
‘Edmund Mortimer, son of my cousin Philippa. Royally born. Plantagenet born. He was taken prisoner by Glyn Dwr two years ago, then promptly compounded the problem by marrying Glyn Dwr’s daughter, by God! Now he has ambitions of his own, as I always suspected. Did I not say that my own family was digging hard at the foundations of my power?’ Henry returned to his furious reading. ‘So Mortimer shall fall in company with them, and then shall England tremble.’ He took a breath. So did I at the fire in Henry’s eyes, turned on me. ‘The despicable Mole shall flee for dread, and the Dragon, the Lion and the Wolf shall drive him away. The land shall be partitioned in three parts; to the Wolf, to the Dragon and to the Lion, and so it shall be for evermore. What quaint terminology. But clear for any man with wits to understand.’ He refolded the sheet. ‘There you have it. And you talk to me of trust. My kingdom to be partitioned by three of my subjects—and one of them my own blood—while I am to be dispatched. In the face of this, what trust is possible?’
‘Do you believe it? This prophesy?’
‘Whether I do or not, the dice seem to be stacked against me,’ he said with a breath of a laugh that had no humour in it at all. ‘Tell me what you see, Joanna, here in England. What is it that fills my days?’
He expected an answer, so I gave it. ‘Northumberland and Glyn Dwr.’
‘Exactly! All I need is cousin Edmund Mortimer added to the fray. And since he is as close to Glyn Dwr as it is possible to be, their tripartite union against me as soon as Northumberland is free from restraint is not a step I would argue against with any conviction. This prophecy is a conflagration waiting to devour the kingdom. So as I said—whom do I trust?’
‘You trust me.’
He regarded me. What was he thinking behind that magnificently impenetrable stare? It made me tremble.
‘I do not distrust you.’
‘I swear that you have more regard for that animal that shadows your heels.’
‘Don’t bend my words, Joanna. I have enough on my platter without your insecurities.’ The hound, Math, sat up, disturbed by our raised voices, so that Henry stopped momentarily in his perambulations to smooth a hand over her ears before flinging himself back in his chair, turning once more to the harbinger of death beneath his hand.
I was summarily dismissed.
Hatchet abandoned, I stalked from the room, leaving him to his deliberations, but not before I had acquired the prophetic warning, reading it at my leisure when the door to his chamber was closed against me. As I took in the cunning depiction of Wolf, Dragon and Lion, it made me understand how hard-pressed Henry must think himself to be. I had not realised how much he feared for his kingdom. Now it was becoming clearer, illuminating his most deep-seated fears. Whatever the level of truth in this prophesy, it posed a terrifying threat with its magical foresight.
Returned to my chambers, I consigned the document to the flames, watched it curl and fall into ash. Would that it were as easy to destroy the damage it could cause, for events were conspiring to ensure that Henry trusted me as little as he did the Lion, the Dragon and the Wolf.
How would he see me?
The Snake from across the Sea, I supposed. The Serpent, the ultimate symbol of treachery and mistrust since its advent with the apple in the Garden of Eden.
How it hurt. A knife in the flesh. An arrow in the heart of my marriage; all I had dreamed and hoped for in those days of my wooing was ephemeral, disappearing like mist under a noon sun as reality laid its hand on me.
Be patient, I urged, despite the pain. Henry will solve the problems of Glyn Dwr and parliament. Of Northumberland and Edmund Mortimer. The Dragon, the Wolf and the Lion will be destroyed as Henry emerges triumphant to disprove this meddlesome foreseeing. And when he does, one day there must surely be room for negotiation between England and Brittany to restore peace. One day we will have time to sit and talk again and share that love that brought us together. And that I knew, more clearly than all the rest. The love that had brought me from Brittany to this marriage must not be allowed to become nothing more than a shimmering illusion under the weight of politics and distrust. I was no Serpent.
I trust no one.
What a disturbing admission to hear from his lips.
Even though I understood Henry’s bleak scepticism, I could see no way forward for us. Unless I apologised to Henry. Or he apologised to me. But for what would we apologise? It seemed that fate had stacked the scales against us, as the prophesy had stacked the dice against Henry.
*
I was singing, dolefully, suffering a delayed sense of guilt.
‘Go heart, hurt with adversity,
And let my lord thy wounds see!’
The door to my private chamber was pushed open, causing me to look up from where my fingers plucked at my lute strings with a melancholy that echoed my heart. When I saw that it was Henry standing just within the door, holding an object in the crook of his arm, I smacked my hand down to still the tune. I would not wish him to know that I was labouring under any form of regret. I wished I had been playing a spritely Burgundian dance.
But Henry knew the song well, and with a neat switch of words, after closing the door against the ever-inquisitive Math, he completed the couplet.
‘And tell her this, as I tell thee,
Farewell my joy, and welcome pain, until I see my lady again.’
He did not need the lute. He could hold a tune perfectly, which irritated me even more. His ear for music far outstripped mine.
I dismissed my women who were sitting in various attitudes, stitching or merely engaged in some desultory exchange. Their eyes had sharpened at Henry appearance, but this would not be a conversation where either of us would want an audience. I watched him, unable to sense what he might say, a failing which was becoming a habit. I waited until the last of my curious women had crossed the threshold and Henry closed the door softly behind them.
‘So you have abandoned your construction of a death-dealing weapon,’ I said. ‘Your aim against those who displease you, if you were to fire it yourself, would be excellent. I can only trust that I am never in your sights.’
No apology from me here. I was unbending. Unsmiling. And yet I raised my hand in some sort of greeting because I knew what good manners were. ‘You are welcome here.’
Henry’s expression was as reserved as mine, his eyes unwavering. ‘I was not sure that I would be. Forgive me. You deserve better than you got from me.’ He did not move from his stance by the door. ‘It is not your fault.’
‘That I am Breton by association? No. It is not. I hope that you will remember that.’
‘And I hope that you will remember that I am not always my own master.’
My heart shivered with the memory of that disastrous confrontation with his subjects in parliament. I could not tell him that I had seen his humiliation, even though I longed to ask why he had allowed it.
‘So I understand,’ I said.
Neither of us moved. There was no path to reconciliation here. Well, for the sake of my own conscience, I would make it easy for him. Or at least not as difficult.
‘Will you come and sit with me? Or is this a mere passing visit between the formulating of policies beyond my knowledge with your ministers? If so I accept your apology.’
He approached to stand, looking down at me from his impressive height, a frown in his eyes, the box, for that is what it was, still awkwardly cradled in a hand that was far more used to wielding a sword.
‘Are you regretting coming to England, Joanna?’
If it was a plain-speaking that shocked me, I gave no sign, and gave back measure for measure. ‘Sometimes, yes.’
‘I’m sorry for that.’
‘I try to be adaptable. I know the pressures on the ruler of the realm. I don’t expect you to dance attendance on me.’
‘We won’t always be so beset with confrontations.’
Still disconcertingly grave, he too
k my hand and raised it quite formally to his lips, as he used to do when I was still a wife and he a widower without an inheritance. ‘I remember why I wooed you. And why you came to England. We have had barely more than a year together. Do we accept that our love is of a lesser importance than affairs of government?’
‘Yes,’ I said. And when his brows rose:‘You said you enjoyed my honesty, so I will tell you. I feel I am treading on perilous ground, that if I step off the narrow path, I will sink without trace in a quagmire that will destroy the foundations of what I thought we had. We have had so little time to build on those foundations. No time at all, in fact. How many hours in a day, in a week, do we spend in each other’s company? To talk, to exchange ideas. Even to laugh together. I accept that men and women of our status must put duty first. I have lived with that all my life. It was instilled in me since the day of my birth. But, by the Virgin, I sometimes feel that I made a bad bargain. Sometimes I wish…’
I stopped, disturbed by what I had just admitted.
Henry was equally stunned. Then:‘Don’t stop now.’
‘Then this is truth, Henry. I gave up everything for you. Home, children, my authority as Duchess of Brittany. I have received little in return. I am used to having power at my fingertips, but here I have none.’ I raised a hand to halt his predictable intervention. ‘I don’t expect to rule, of course I do not! But I am not allowed to employ the skills that I have, not even to your benefit. I feel that I am under scrutiny from your English lords from the moment I emerge for Mass to the time I remove my veil at night, and I don’t measure up to the image of what they would like their Queen to be. Probably genteelly silent and prettily self-effacing, sitting within her women, utilising her hands and mind to nothing more innocuous or strenuous than stitchery and lute-skills. I am worth more than that. As for us—you and me, Henry—we meet so infrequently that we have to renew our acquaintance every time we do. I am living in a state of betwixt and between, unsure of my role, certainly unsure of my acceptance. So yes, sometimes I regret coming here. There is a chasm growing ever wider between us.’