The King’s Sister (24 page)

‘We will go home,’ I agreed, already mentally distancing myself from the silk-clad languid luxury of this Portuguese palace.

And that is exactly what we did, after a lachrymose farewell with Philippa, a more stringent one with my father, and with safe conduct to travel through Castile to Gascony where we took ship. And home.

‘What will await us?’ I asked, my hand tucked in John’s arm as the coast of England came into view, a thin grey line on the horizon.

‘Promotion for me,’ John announced. ‘Richard will award my loyalty with land and a title. He’ll make me work hard for it, of course.’ Anticipation had grown stronger in him with each mile we covered towards England.

And perhaps he was right. Any guilt I felt in what some would have said was a rat abandoning the sinking ship, any regrets at leaving Philippa, were swept away when we set foot on English shores, a bare twelve month since we had left. The Castilian problem would be settled without my presence. Now we had our own family to think of. Richard would welcome us, John would work hard to establish us,
and all would be well. Our future unrolled before me, a time of royal approval when Sir John Holland would become one of the foremost men of the land.

There was nothing to ruffle the waters of my serenity.

September 1397: Windsor Castle. Ten years later.

‘N
ow what do you suppose he is planning?’

‘Probably something not to our liking.’

John’s
sotto voce
query was accompanied by an increasingly frequent saturnine expression, his tolerance for his young brother fraying around the edges. Standing in a crowd as we were, I hushed him discreetly. Since the unfriendly affair at Radcot Bridge, ten years ago now, there were changes in our King. It was like waiting for a thunderstorm to break out of a summer sky, without warning.

John bowed as Richard’s eye fell on him. I curtsied as the royal observation passed to me. A wave of obeisance followed the King’s scrutiny. Richard had acquired heightened notions of his royal superiority.

‘He has something in mind,’ John continued, bending his
head as if to survey the more restrained toes of his shoes as Richard’s attention moved on.

‘I know he has, but who will be the victim?’

‘The Lords Appellant?’ John had returned to watching his brother, with cat-like narrowing of his eyes.

It would have to be. Richard detested the group of Lords Appellant, a small but powerful group, with a vicious fury. I sought out Henry’s solid figure in the crowd, since he was one of the five, but my brother appeared insouciant, calmly unaware of any undercurrents. Or, as I presumed, giving a good pretence. We were all tiptoeing round our King, and rightly.

It had been a time of some anxiety, marking the years since John and I had returned from Castile, when Richard’s infatuation with the charms of Robert de Vere had reached its dangerous height. I remembered De Vere as little more than a youth, charming Richard, flattering him in the courtyard when my father had given me one of my first lessons in the importance of political allegiance. Richard had been well and truly snared, and de Vere, grown into even more charming and ambitious maturity, had been intent on consolidating his power with weasel words in Richard’s ear. And Richard, listening avidly, against all advice, had showered his favourite courtier with land and wealth, unable or unwilling to see the consequences. For as de Vere’s hold over Richard grew, it stirred resentment amongst the lords and magnates who expected the honours for themselves. Including my brother Henry who joined forces with our uncle of Gloucester, as well as the FitzAlan Earl of Arundel, Mowbray of Nottingham and the Beachamp Earl
of Warwick. Five influential men, a puissant alliance against the King, the Lords Appellant made their demands to rid England of the King’s evil counsellors.

Would Richard listen? Would he distance himself from de Vere, now preening as Duke of Ireland, and allow the counsels of his great magnates in the form of a commission instead? He would not.

The result had been a battle, in the year before we had returned from Castile, where the Lords Appellant had defeated de Vere at Radcot Bridge, driving him into exile and forcing Richard into a bared-teeth compliance. So my brother and his associates had emerged triumphant with their curb on the young King’s powers, but Richard had never forgiven them. Richard might smile and ask advice but he was biding his time. I hoped that his new child bride would take his mind from his woes, but my knowledge of Richard warned that our King would not be compliant for ever.

Yet in spite of the ripples on this political pond, this was a time of good humour and unity. Perhaps my suspicions were unfounded after all.

‘It is my wish to award a prize,’ Richard was announcing, ‘as a token of my esteem and appreciation for those who have graced my festivities.’

Richard beamed at the assembled masses in the great dancing chamber at Windsor, all resplendent in silks and satins and feathers as was he. It was a celebratory feast, held by Richard to mark the ending of the session of parliament, and I had danced until my feet were sore. In those festive days and nights I sang to the lute and dulcimer and
rode to the hunt, my heart tender, so great was my joy. Utter contentment, such as I had never believed would be mine, swaddled my emotions, as a mother would wrap her newborn child, for John was at my side and his satisfaction rubbed against me so that I acquired its glitter, as a silver bowl acquires a sheen from the polishing cloth.

There was no shortage of partners with whom to hunt or dance, or willing knights to lead me into one of the formal processions. Not that I needed any. Did I not have John whose love remained the brightest star in my heaven, and always would be? And my children. I smiled when I read Philippa’s letters, bemoaning my lack of maternal doting. That was a thing of the past. I loved them dearly, this growing Holland family of ours, for as well as John’s adored heir, born in the heat of Portugal and now an energetic ten-year-old with an energy for the tournament that reminded me of a young Henry, we had three daughters, and a baby son of two years.

‘Who would have known that you would prove to be so fertile?’ John had remarked as he held his newest son, another John.

‘I’d rather we didn’t prove it again,’ I said, knowing there was no guarantee. Our love was as tight-knit as the day we had stood before my father and John had bargained for my hand.

What a superb family we were that autumn.

Richard, bedecked and bejewelled, recovered from the death of his beloved Anne three years previously, now had a child bride Isabella de Valois on whom to lavish glittering rings, and with her the glory of a new alliance with France
to his name, which he much desired despite the dark mutterings at court.

Catching my breath from my exertions, I looked round the room, noting the scattered members of my family.

My father the Duke, returned from Castile, failing in his bid to snatch the crown for Constanza, who was dead and not greatly missed, for her final years had been sequestered. Free from matrimonial toils, my father had the previous year wed his life-long love at last. The scandal had raged through the court, but they were happy in their newfound respectability. And there she was, Duchess Katherine, utterly serene, until you saw the caustic gleam in her eye. She did not trust Richard either.

And there, proud and eye-catchingly groomed—when was he ever not? —Henry too was with us, still unwed after the death of Mary in the same year that Richard lost his own wife, but with four fine sons and two daughters, they added to the noisy celebrations at Richard’s court.

And there was another face familiar to me as my own. My cousin Edward, heir to the York inheritance, now Earl of Rutland and Duke of Aumale and grown into his Castilian inheritance of good looks from his mother Isabella. How confident he was, and ingratiating, slipping neatly into the place in Richard’s life left by the absent and now dead de Vere. Too neatly, some would say. Seeing me watch him, Edward grinned and raised a hand, before turning back to whisper in Richard’s ear.

It was a golden time. A family united and reconciled. Truly a time for celebration.

And I? What of proud Elizabeth of Lancaster? Although
a wife and matron, I felt as young as I had been when I had first succumbed to the persistence of John Holland. My steps were as light and lithe as those of any virgin looking for her first love. The great ruby, given to me by my father on the occasion of my first marriage as a mark of his approval, flashed on my finger. That marriage was long gone and Jonty of Pembroke dead these nine years after a terrible accident at the Christmas junketings at Woodstock. I mourned the loss of his young life, but intermittently. My vision was centred on the present and the future. How could it not be?

John was my love, my future and past. Gone were the days when we were showered with disapproval for his preemptive taking me to his bed before the exchange of marriage vows. Earning his reparation in Castile, he was now frequently to be found at his brother’s side, royal patronage his for the asking. When John led me into the dancing, his steps betrayed a confident swagger, for was he not created Earl of Huntingdon and I his Countess? He had been awarded Richard’s recognition with this fine title, with lands and castles in Cornwall and a great house at Pultney in London where we could entertain in sumptuous luxury.

How foresighted John had proved to be in bringing us home from Portugal. There was nothing there for him, or in the disastrous war against Castile, but here he had been welcomed by Richard and forgiven his past sins. Not without self-interest of course: in the terrible aftermath of Radcot Bridge Richard needed family around him. He had needed support against the Lords Appellant. Wooing John to his side could only be to his advantage.

John smiled and bowed and flattered, making himself
indispensible as a good counsellor should. And thus I was once more a Countess. As for the authority to go with it: Richard had created him Chamberlain of England, an office stripped from Robert de Vere. So it seemed that our star was in the ascendant with Richard’s determination to build a level of personal support that could not easily be displaced. John would be central to that support. Who could not admire the chain of sapphires with its white hart livery badge, the King’s personal gift, that shone on John’s breast, a mirror image of the chain worn by the King himself?

‘You look happy, my love,’ John observed as our steps brought us close in the dance.

‘I am happier than you could ever imagine,’ I said. ‘And I will show you later, when we are alone …’

My father, worryingly aged since his return from Castile and his reluctant acceptance that the marriage of his daughter Katalina to the Castilian heir was the nearest he would ever get to his dream of this southern kingdom, was pleased to scowl on my new happiness.

‘He worries me,’ he announced, watching my husband move from group to group, listening, advising, nodding sagely.

‘Have you withdrawn your regard from John?’ I asked, not too concerned. ‘Once you were quick to see his merits.’

‘But I was never blind to his deficiencies. Look at him. All he sees is power. He’ll make enemies.’

‘He’ll make friends as well. Did you not live with friends and enemies both?’ My certainty that John would survive all vicissitudes could not be shaken. ‘Were you not able to hold the balance between them and enjoy the benefits?’

The Duke’s frown deepened. ‘Beware, Elizabeth. He’s casting all his eggs into Richard’s basket. If you have any influence, make him see that sometimes moderation is the better policy.’

There was no moderation. I knew what Richard was doing, and why should we not be part of my cousin’s empire-building? Strengthening his own support against those who would oppose him, as my father had done, as any family that valued its future supremacy would do. Our own children played their own role at Richard’s behest, one of our young daughters already betrothed to the Mowbray heir of Nottingham. I saw no harm in it. We were the premier family in the land below the King. Why not make strong alliances with our daughters?

I kissed my father’s cheek.

‘You should be proud of your daughter and son-in-law.’

‘I suppose I should,’ he acknowledged but without much enthusiasm.

And when John rode in the lists with such éclat that showed no hint of fading, my father could do nothing but applaud and acknowledge the astonishing spectrum of his skills. As I did. Was he not at the height of his prodigious powers?

‘Just let him keep his temper and his ambitions in check,’ the Duke warned, ‘and then we might all survive.’

‘Don’t you trust Richard?’

Diplomatic to the last, the Duke chose not to answer that, but his opinion was clear enough. ‘If you smile on him and Huntingdon provides a steady hand at the helm …’

For my father’s years of power as royal counsellor were
long gone. And so I smiled as rewards and royal patronage were heaped upon us, and John began to build Dartington Hall in Devon as a home fit for his new elevation.

Thus we basked in the sunshine of Richard’s regard.

The music died away and Richard, leading the little Queen forward, called us to attention.

‘It is my wish to reward those who love me and mine.’

I watched him as he handed Isabella forward, his face clear and unlined, eyes soft and full of gentle affection. There was no cat-like malice in Richard today. This marriage could be the making of him, with this young life to protect and nurture. We curtsied, bowed, a silence falling over us.

‘Who is the best dancer amongst us?’ He looked round the expectant faces. ‘Which lady has the grace and elegance of my own white hind? What do you say, Uncle of Lancaster?’ He looked at my father whose expression was a masterpiece of diplomacy.

‘Who can say, sire. It would be cruel to choose from so many fair exponents.’

‘But choose we must. And I know who will tell me the truth.’ He leaned and whispered in Isabella’s ear.

Isabella, all of seven years old, shook her head, eyes wide with apprehension.

Richard whispered again. Isabella whispered back. The crowd laughed indulgently.

‘My wife has chosen, and I will agree.’ He held out his hand, an open-handed gesture of pure friendship. ‘We award our prize to the Countess of Huntingdon.’