The King’s Sister (40 page)

We heard that he had deliberately starved himself, refusing all food and water and taking to his bed, willing himself to death since, having lost his crown, he had nothing to live for. I did not know if I believed this. It did not sound like the Richard I recalled, even at his most wayward, and said as much to Henry.

‘Why not?’ Henry was unimpressed. ‘He was refusing to eat when I took him prisoner at Flint Castle. He said he feared he would be poisoned. Whatever the cause, he’s dead and, if I’m honest, his absence is a weight off my mind.’ He
returned my stare. ‘There was never any love lost between us. Don’t worry.’ His voice was harsh. ‘I will see that he is buried with honour. If I could ensure Holland’s burial with some dignity, I can do the same for Richard.’

I was not convinced.

‘Do you feel no remorse?’ I persisted as I stood beside Henry in St Paul’s Cathedral where Richard’s body, brought from Pontefract, at last lay in state. My royal cousin’s face was white and thin in death, at odds with the thickly embroidered pall that Henry had caused to be placed on the coffin. The white harts with their gilded collars brought back memories of happier times but now merely appeared doleful.

‘Remorse? For a self-inflicted death?’

And that was the end of it, apart from paying chantry priests to say a thousand masses for the repose of Richard’s soul and the removal of his body to King’s Langley. I knew it was not a subject for discussion. If Richard had died from foul means, my brother was distancing himself from all responsibility. It was not a new idea to me, nor the fact that Henry had grown beyond me, the weight of his new authority constructing a bulwark between us.

I did what I could. I offered prayers for Richard’s soul, and in the end I wept a little, but whether for Richard or for Henry I could not say.

‘You were right, John,’ I murmured against my clasped hands as I knelt alone in Henry’s chapel at Eltham. ‘I can’t condone the death you plotted for Henry and his sons, but you saw the future well enough. Richard’s death was inevitable. You could not have saved him.’

Silence walled me in. There was no sense of John to comfort me.

‘Forgive me, John. Forgive me for everything.’

If I hoped to feel a sense of peace, it did not come to me.

June 1400, York

‘I
suppose that I am summoned here for the sole purpose of your keeping an eye on me.’ I might have donned my public face of gracious enjoyment, but my voice had the edge of an executioner’s axe.

‘Yes. Why else?’

Henry, hair ruffled by a flirting breeze, was exhibiting a whole tapestry of irritation, although not necessarily with me, except that I was the nearest target for his ill temper. And I could see his justification. Who better to be recipient of Henry’s mounting fury? Here I sat, a widowed sister with questionable loyalties, recently released from an ill-matched union with a traitor.

‘Do you expect me to behave in some outrageous manner? Perhaps to wed the first comely man I see, regardless of his allegiances?’ I asked with a winsome and entirely false smile.

‘You might just. If only to spite me. You’ve done it before, after all.’

The deep friendship that had once flourished was harder to re-establish than we had imagined. A member of Henry’s household, chiefly at Eltham, since January, I suffered from growing boredom and permanent grief. Henry, sound of judgement, solid of stature at thirty-three years, was beset with problems and short of patience. Perhaps it was time for me to show a little magnanimity.

‘I am here to support you,’ I said.

‘And so magnificently clad.’

‘Are we not here to make an impression?’

Smoothing the sun-warmed miniver that lined my oversleeves, I yawned, raising my hand to shield my eyes from the sun at what was only the beginning of a very long afternoon, and fidgeted with the little ivory hand-fan that Henry had given me in the days when I was in his favour, brought back from his journey to the East. My women, equally restless, chatted and pointed, encouraging me to participate in their air of festivity. At least it would start soon. The herald had donned his pleated tabard, sweat mantling his brow at the weight of it in this heat, and was hefting his trumpet, merely waiting for the royal command to blast the combatants into action. I remembered the days when I could barely sit still, so great was my excitement. I remembered the days when …

I closed my eyes, except that I could see the scene painted on my inner lids. I had seen it so often before. I had seen it when it mattered that the knight of my choice rode to victory. When John, my beloved John, ruled supreme in the
lists and I, clothed in bright silks and garlanded with flowers and jewels, could award the wreath of glory to the man who owned my heart.

It did not matter now. Nothing mattered.

The trailing skirts of my houppelande might be opulent, the embroidered blue and gold vibrant in the clear light, my hair plaited into a caul under a light veil as fashion dictated, but my spirit remained in the blackest of mourning, as if my thoughts were enclosed in a deep well. The six months since John’s murder—for that is how I would always see it—had done nothing to lift the cloud that shrouded every thought. I was here at York, only under sufferance because my brother demanded it. Henry was doing a lot of demanding of late, but I thought that he was not without compassion for me.

‘It would help if you at least looked interested, Elizabeth.’

‘I will look interested when you will agree to restore my son’s lands and titles.’

Henry grunted in exasperation. ‘When will you tire of asking for the impossible?’

‘Never!’ Nor would I. It would be my life’s work. My fingers tightened on the fragile handle, so that I handed it to one of my women. It would be regretful if I broke it. There was of course a limit to Henry’s compassion. Clad in regal splendour for the occasion with velvet and ermine, Henry, determined to put on a good show in spirit and ceremonial, angled an unmistakable warning in my direction, his eyes fierce. ‘It would be a blessing for us all if you appeared to be enjoying the celebration of what will be a notable coup against the Scots.’

Enjoy this display of arms, arranged purely to keep the knightly contingent of Henry’s army content through swordplay and brutal force? It was in my mind that I would never find enjoyment in my life ever again, until the day of my miserable death.

‘Well, I am not.’

‘I recall the days when you loved the drama of it all.’

Uncomfortably, his thought mirrored mine. I recalled the days when John rode with such style, when his smile, as he received the prize could creep in and steal my heart. I remembered when the golden lions on his banners drew admiration from all. Now the banners no longer flew and I did not want to be here. I shivered as a chill breeze from the north whispered over my skin.

Much as the chill overtures from the Scots had cast a blight on Henry’s ambitions.

We were in York, complete with a vast army and all the necessary accoutrements for an invasion, to persuade the Scots to make a lasting peace. Faced with a hostile France on one side, on the other a palpable unease in England after the Revolt of the Earls, Henry determined to secure his northern border. The Scots were tardy in approaching the negotiating table, but Henry hoped his military presence in York would speed the feet of the negotiators.

‘I do not see that my interest or otherwise will make any difference to the outcome of these negotiations,’ I said.

‘That’s because you’re thinking with your emotions, rather than your head. Before God, Elizabeth, you have lived long enough at court to know the value of a smile and an open hand to win favour.’

I shrugged with less than elegance. ‘The decision of the Scots will not be influenced by my sitting at your side, but I will do it,’ I snapped. ‘I will smile on your knights, Henry. I will pray for the success of your venture. But don’t expect any depth of enthusiasm. I don’t want to be here.’

‘So where do you want to be?’

It was a question I could not answer. I did not know.

Henry gestured and the herald blew the summons. The knights began to muster.

‘Smile, Elizabeth.’

Still I did not, fixing my gaze on the armour, glinting hotly, but as I sensed Henry frowning at me, I turned to meet a distinctly speculative stare.

‘What?’ I said. The speculation seemed to be very particular

‘Nothing.’

‘I think you’ve some plan in mind that I will not like.’

‘I have no plans but to keep my army commanders from either attacking each other or going home out of sheer boredom.’ Henry took my hand in his and drew me close, to plant a brotherly kiss on my cheek, murmuring in my ear in a deliberate distraction from the political to the personal:

‘When did you not enjoy the prowess of a young knight in battle?’

‘I am too old to admire young knights in battle—or old ones, for that matter.’

‘You are never too old. Unless you would wish yourself into an early grave.’ His fingers tightened around mine. ‘Think of the future, Elizabeth, not of the past. The time for mourning is over. Holland has been dead for six months. There has been too much death.’

Did I not know it?

‘I know your hurt. Take what pleasure you can from the day. It is important to me that the day goes well. Will you help me?’

And my heart went out to him, recognising the request he would have made from Mary if she had lived. Except that he would not have needed to ask. Mary, soft-hearted Mary, would have known his needs and responded with a loving heart. He was missing her as much as I was suffering from my own loss. It was six years since her death, and for a moment I saw that he too wished it could have been his loving Mary who was seated at his side, dispensing her goodwill on all.

‘You should wed again,’ I said, before I thought. Henry might not like me treading in his personal affairs. I knew him much less well than I once had. Being King had given him a gloss of power, of battle-hardened authority, that built a barrier between him and his subjects, but he did not seem to mind and his smile became the same grin I now saw on his son Thomas’s face.

‘I know I should. And who’s to say I won’t? So should you.’

‘Never. I will not wed again.’

And his face softened. ‘Now that would be a great loss for some worthy knight. But since we are both bereft, we will work together to make this country strong and secure. Won’t we?’

I could not reject his overtures. He was my brother and he needed me. The bloody deeds of the past were not all of his doing.

‘Yes, Henry. We will.’

And at last, as a good sister should, I set myself to look as if I were enjoying the clash of weapons, the straining bodies, the magnificent horseflesh. But I did not like the idea of a worthy knight in my bed. I did not like the idea of any knight at all.

The tournament began. In a concerted will to defeat the boredom of a long wait while diplomacy took its endless time of discussion and counter-discussion, the knights and their entourages set to with an enthusiasm. Hanging about was not good for discipline, nor was an uncertain outcome. This feat of arms would drain excess energies, allow the English knights the satisfaction of victory or the humiliation of defeat, and give the combatants something to talk about in their ale cups rather than the stalemate of the Scottish negotiations. I had to admit to Henry’s good policy.

Retrieving my little fan, plying it briskly, I relaxed into laughter and comment as England’s finest soldiery demonstrated its prowess. This was not the ostentation of my grandfather’s tournaments when he, the old King, had fought with his knights, masquerading in velvet and feathers. This was a makeshift event, Henry on the brink of war and short of money. But it had an air of colour and festivity and as such was to be enjoyed.

The storm cloud lifted infinitesimally from around my heart.

With casual interest I began to note who had come to
show their skills, picking out a helm that I recognised, a heraldic emblem fluttering bravely, a particular jousting horse. The lions and
fleur de lys
of the Beauforts, the azure lion of the Percy family that Henry was carefully cultivating. The royal red and gold and blue of Henry’s two eldest sons, Henry and Lionel. One day my sons would shine at such a contest. Provocatively, since I no longer had claim on it, I had left my children surrounded by their own household of chaplain, governors and nurses at Dartington …

And my breath caught. There. Another lion, rampant and gilded, gleaming in the bright sunshine.

I should have expected it, but strangely I had not. Now I found my breathing shallow, my heart thudding hard beneath the soft folds of hot velvet as I worked to preserve an expression of disinterest. I had managed, without difficulty, to avoid this creature, but there he was before me, all glamour in his father’s gilded armour, proudly astride a bay stallion, larger than life. Thomas FitzAlan, now Earl of Arundel and restored to the FitzAlan inheritance with all its potential for power as an accepted associate of the King.

‘You cannot avoid him for ever, Elizabeth.’

Henry had seen the direction of my hostility.

‘Not when you show such favour to him.’

No, I could not avoid him, but neither could I prevent a leap of pure joy when, the contest underway, the new Earl was efficiently dislodged from his saddle and, in one to one combat, beaten to his knees by a well-aimed sword in the hand of some nameless knight. I had no compassion for his lack of years at nineteen. I would have had his
head hacked from his body. When he was helped limping from the field, I watched him go, hatred masked by a bland face.

‘How can you not despise him?’ I asked.

‘I cannot afford to despise him. I cannot afford to despise anyone. The FitzAlans have lineage and breeding. They are too potentially powerful to have them estranged from my court.’

I looked across to where the knight who had bested FitzAlan was catching his breath before launching again into the fray. I did not know him, nor did I recognise his banner. A lion rampant, ducally crowned, with a border
bezantee,
dramatic in black and red with a golden star on its shoulder. Silently wishing him well, my eye moved on, then returned as he took his sword from his squire and strode back to pit himself against one of the Percy faction. Unlike FitzAlan, his armour was plain and well-worn, no gilding here, the dents catching the sun to refract into glints of light as he remounted.

And again my breathing was compromised but in quite a different manner.

There it was, the same skill, the same grace that had characterised John Holland; a fluid deportment, a perfect coordination between hand and eye that brought him victory against any knight who opposed him. Agile, fleet-footed, there was no one to compare with this unknown knight. It could be John, restored to all his old inimitable prowess.

I took a deep breath. This was beyond foolishness, to be so moved by an ability to thrust and parry, to disarm,
before clasping hands with the beaten foe in recognition of the fallen man’s courage. It was not John. It would never be John again.

My fan had fallen still in my lap.

I berated myself again, my cheeks flushing in the heat as I realised that I had been regarding the knight with the rampant lion for the last handful of minutes, and at last my breathing began to settle and common sense dealt a healthy blow to my demeanour. This faceless man did not attract me. There was no obvious similarity between him and John, neither in stature nor in manner of fighting. This man was taller, slighter, fighting with an elegant composure, far different from John’s magnificent aggression. Even though he wielded the great sword with impressive talent, this knight could not wound my heart as John had done.