The Scandalous Duchess (49 page)

John was standing, facing Richard, with no hint of the inner turmoil that shook me in the severity of his expression. His control was superb, marvellous in its courtesy, for all the past goodwill between uncle and nephew, all the care
John had lavished on Richard, had been obliterated in that one pronouncement. John faced it with majestic simplicity.

‘My lord, I advise you to reconsider.'

‘What's that, Uncle? Advice in a matter of treachery? Would you have me be more lenient, for crimes against my person?'

‘I would ask you to show the mercy appropriate to a great king. There has been no charge against my son or my lord of Norfolk. Nor has proof of guilt been shown. It would be an injustice to pass so harsh a judgement.'

‘I know who I can trust, sir.' Richard was as unpleasantly smooth as a baked custard too long in the eating.

‘Ten years, or a lifetime, is a questionable sentence for a matter unproven.' John continued to press his argument. ‘It would be ill-advised for the King to show disrespect for the law.'

Richard leaned to clasp John's shoulder and I saw the gleam in his eye.

‘Is death leaning on your shoulder, Uncle?' A little smile, disgracefully mimicking compassion. ‘I forget that age creeps up on you, as on us all. So be it. I am of a mind to be lenient, for your sake. Are you not blood of my blood? I will reduce the terms of your son's banishment.'

‘My thanks, Sire—'

‘To six years.' Richard all but crowed. ‘Any further requests of my generosity, my lord uncle?'

John bowed gravely, despite his ashen face. ‘I can only express my gratitude for your compassion, Sire.'

I knew his fear, for was it not my own? Six years was as much a life-sentence as ten for John. He might never see his son again. I bore it in my own heart as Richard handed
Isabella down from the dais, and as complacent satisfaction cloaked him, I could have stuck his smiling face.

‘He has destroyed me,' said John, with no inflexion at all, as we walked from the field.

I could not deny it. I feared that that was exactly what Richard had done. Wretchedness kept step with me, a close companion.

After his parting with Henry at Waltham, conducted with stark self-command on both sides, a spectacularly awe-inspiring lack of emotion when the future for John and his son loomed so ominously, John shut himself away in his room at Leicester. Even from me. I wept for him, as I had refused to weep at Henry's banishment and leave-taking, and then hovered outside his door with growing fury. It remained barred to me as if he could not tolerate my company. One of John's squires, nameless to me in my emotional turmoil, made his apologies with a set face.

The parting had been raw. It was not to be spoken of, the silent anguish that hung in the air as John embraced his son, the lingering fear in the lines on his face, in the words that were not spoken. This might, as we all feared, be the final meeting between them.

‘Go to Paris,' John advised. ‘Travel is easy if Richard summons you back.'

Richard's malevolence loomed like a black raven, wings spread over us all. We knew he would never rescind Henry's banishment.

‘He would not let me help him,' I raged in Agnes's initially sympathetic ear. ‘I would have petitioned Richard. It may have done no good but…'

For in a final wilful, gleeful gesture, Henry of Monmouth, John's grandson, still young and vulnerable at ten years, had been summoned to live in Richard's household as hostage for his father Henry of Derby's good behaviour in exile. The chains about the House of Lancaster were being tightened to a stranglehold with every day that passed.

‘Petitioning King Richard was more like to cause harm,' Agnes admonished. The years might strip colour from her hair and bend her back, her fingers might be less nimble, but Agnes's mind retained an uncomfortable needle-sharpness. ‘The Duke saw it. Why did you not?'

‘Saw what?' I rubbed hard at my temples, which ached.

‘Would you trust the King?' Agnes asked. ‘If Richard grew weary of the petitioning, might he not forget the debt he owed to the Duke and reimpose the full ten years? Or even longer? Best to take what's given, I'd say. You could have done so much damage, Katherine.'

I had not seen it in that light. All I had thought to do was to ease John's pain. I sank onto a stool, closing my eyes, acknowledging that in matters of high policy, and in knowledge of the King, John was more astute than I. Without doubt, Richard had his eye on the Lancaster land and wealth.

‘I was wrong.'

‘Not for the first time. And probably not the last.'

Her bracing words brought me back to my senses.

‘But now he won't see me or talk to me.'

‘Any clever woman can find a way round that. Come with me.'

I spent a profitable and enlightening hour in the stillroom with Agnes whose swollen fingers could still concoct
a powerful remedy. Then, cup in hand, I walked to John's chamber and lifted a hand to rap smartly on the door, which belied the contrition in my heart. I had an apology to offer.

The door opened before I made contact.

‘It is my wish to speak with—' I was already stepping forward, intent on forcing an entry.

It was no apologetic squire or uncomfortable body servant, but John who stood on the threshold, groomed and impressively clad in a damask houppelande despite the excessive pallor. It made me conscious of my own dishevelled state after an hour of pounding and stirring.

‘Katherine. Did you want me?' The grief of Henry's leave-taking was absent and his smile was all welcome.

‘I always want you. I was about to enter with or without leave,' I admitted.

‘I have an apology to make,' he said gently.

‘Yes. So have I.'

Relief at seeing him restored to his old authority was a balm to my soul, as I followed him back into his chamber, which was as fastidiously neat and thoroughly organised as it ever was. The bed curtains hung in good order, the disposition of the coffer, the chair, the prie-dieu, the open book of what looked like poetry, offered no evidence of the personal anguish of a powerful man that those four walls had witnessed. But it was written on his face for all time.

‘I forgive you, whatever it is,' I said. ‘Drink this.' I proffered the cup.

‘A penance?'

‘You might say that. It's hot and biting,' I warned.

He drank off the tincture in warm wine, shuddering with a grimace. ‘Should I ask what it will do for me?'

‘It's oil of black mustard. It strengthens the heart.'

‘By God, it needs strengthening.' His smile warmed my own heart.

‘And wards off poison,' I added for good measure.

We sat together in a sunny window embrasure. I made reparation in a kiss for my wilful behaviour at the tournament. He expressed his regret that he had closed his door against me.

‘You were right,' I said. ‘Richard is a predator and we have no redress.' Then, when he was silent: ‘Are we at one?' I asked.

His fingers laced with mine. ‘What can divide us?' And then as an afterthought: ‘Richard must never be allowed to stand between us.'

‘He will not. But don't shut me out again.'

‘I will not. I have need of you as never before.'

I recognised it for what it was: the final rejection of Plantagenet arrogance, the ultimate acceptance of my position in his life. After all the years, some turbulent, some exquisitely happy, John knew that he needed me, and would allow me into his mind as he never truly had before. He would not hide the pattern of his thoughts, his desires or his fears from me again, and I would bear them. The naïve, youthful Katherine de Swynford could never have envisaged how powerful that first attraction to the old allure could become. John's glamour still stirred me, but the depth of our love had the power to shake me. Now I stood beside him and faced the world, bearing silent witness to his cares. I would nurture and succour him, adding no burden of my own. I would be a beacon for him against a dark sky. My love would be a strength and a salvation.

And John would love me and instinctively know my joys and woes. It was all I asked.

Silently, I rejoiced for this measure of closeness we had achieved, even as I grieved his great loss and the shortening of our days together.

Chapter Twenty-Two

October 1398: Leicester Castle

‘W
hat are you doing?'

What I had seen when I stepped into the Great Hall and manoeuvred around the haphazard piles of baggage and equipment appropriate for a long journey had chilled my blood. There in the middle of it all was one of the great travelling beds.

No! He could not!

I had turned on my heel to run him to ground in the steward's room, where I became coated with ice from head to foot that for a moment robbed me of what would have been hot words. How weary he looked, his eyelids dark and fine drawn. His skin almost translucent, his nose as fine as a blade. But there was nothing amiss with his spirit or his temper.

‘I am, as you see, organising a journey.' There was the old undercurrent of impatience that I recognised.

‘Is it imminent?'

He sighed. ‘Not so imminent that I cannot give you a moment of my time.'

He gestured for the steward to leave us. The steward beat a fast retreat, sped on his way by the expression on my face.

‘And is this a good idea?' At least I tempered my tone.

‘Probably not.'

The slant of light delineated the increasingly sharp line of his cheekbones, yet it was not caused by the unseasonal cold, the days of cloud and rain. To my mind the culprit was Richard. His banishing of Henry had drained the blood from John's heart but although grief and loss held him prisoner, still our marriage held. Our love was as strong as it had ever been. As we had vowed, not even Richard could shake that.

Musing lightly as I poured a cup of wine from the engraved silver vessel at his left hand, I held to the belief that John would rally as he had before, if Richard allowed him to rest. John had found a need to retire to Lilleshall Abbey with me, at the end of the Shrewsbury Parliament in September, but had not his spirits been restored there? Had not prayer and a period of calm dispersed the fever that shook his limbs and bathed his face with perspiration, however cool the day?

But was he indeed restored? Cold reality on some days forced its way into my thoughts, making me acknowledge the inevitable. This was one of those days.

‘Why are you doing this?' I asked, pushing the cup towards him, attempting to preserve an outward calm when fear of what was clearly a major expedition gripped me,
and all I wished to do was shriek at him that he must not go. He was in no fit state to go on any journey. I suspected Richard's hand again.

‘Because I am to go to Scotland, in October, at the request of the King.'

I knew it had been mooted. A diplomatic mission to which John was most suited. If anyone could talk the Scots into an alliance, it was he. And perhaps Richard saw an opportunity not to be missed to remove his uncle from the centre of government. It was in both our minds, but the King's will was the King's will.

I said no more, letting John return to his lists. We knew it would never come to fruition. The mighty Duke of Lancaster no longer had the energy to pursue such a venture. The following week the piles of baggage were removed and unpacked, the bed restored to storage. I ordered it and John, in a state of extreme lassitude, was unable to stand against me. Some days it took all his strength to raise his knife to his meat, a cup to his lips.

‘God's Blood! It's a poor way to celebrate the Coming of the Christ Child!' he announced as the days of the celebration drew near and his listlessness, aggravated by poor appetite, failed to respond to the tincture of sorrel I pressed on him.

‘We will still celebrate. We do not have to dance,' I said.

His eyes gleamed. ‘I can still dance with you in my mind, my dear love.'

‘Then that is what we will do.'

I would not let it become a house of mourning. Not yet.

These were the days of respite when we sat together, sharing a cup of wine. Memories were allowed to return,
but only the good ones we might enjoy together. This was not the time to stray into the far reaches of bitterness and recrimination, and indeed there were no such memories to catch us out. Time and suffering had brought us closer, even when the limit of our intimacy might be hands enclasped, lips soft and gentle in chaste salute. The days of our physical coupling were long gone but my body accepted it. Had I not had many years to practice abstinence? It stood me in good stead. Instead, as John held me in his arms I relished the closeness of spirit.

‘Shall I tell Henry?' I asked.

Proof, at last, of the depth of my despair. It was the first time that either of us had spoken of the absence of John's heir, or alluded to his own creeping death. Now we could turn our thoughts from it no longer.

But: ‘It will do no good. Why worry him for no reason?' John replied. ‘Read to me.' With his free hand he pushed the open Book of Hours across the bed towards me. ‘Read to me from the psalm…'

It was Psalm 38, not one that came easily to my mind. I began.

‘“O lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thy anger. Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin…”'

I stopped, aghast.

‘John…no!'

‘Go on. I have to face my death. I know why I am suffering. My physician says it is God's judgement for my breaking of holy law. I need God's forgiveness.'

So I read on, hating it, but it was what he wanted.

‘“I am feeble and sore broken. My heart panteth, my strength faileth me. As for the light of my eyes, it is also gone from me…”'

I could read no more. For the first time in his presence in these weeks I could not prevent tears gathering, falling. As I closed the book and laid it down beside me, we exchanged a long look, which spoke of everything we could not say.

‘Not so,' he said at last, his smile a blessing. ‘The light of my eyes is not gone from me. You are the light of my eyes. You are the bright sun in my firmament. You are with me always.'

‘And I will be until the end,' I acknowledged.

We sat quietly together. Our minds were in tune. And so I abandoned the physical despair of the psalmist and sang instead of love and hope and an assurance for our future together:

All would be well, I assured myself. Henry would return from exile. John's body would mend and become as strong as his mind. I would not release him. I would not give him
leave to go from me. This was what I had wanted all my life, the right to be with him. I refused to accept our parting.

I held tight to his hand. I would not give him up. I would not.

His mind was as astute as ever, his will as firm. How could death claim him?

On the second day of the new month of February I entered John's room, knowing that his physician and body servant had left, only to discover that there was a clerk with him, and John was dictating, steadily, while the clerk wrote.

John acknowledged me with a glance, but did not stop his instructions. When he raised his hand to summon me closer, I saw that he could barely lift it. I stood beside him until he was finished, my eyes fixed on his face throughout, absorbing every nuance.

‘What's all this?' I asked at last, for as I sank to the edge of his bed I realised that I was sharing it with an array of uncomfortable bullion. I shuffled, after sitting awkwardly on a girdle set with cabochon rubies, and made to clear it away.

‘No. Leave it for a moment. It will be packed it into a coffer. I have bequeathed it all to Richard.'

I looked at the treasure, startled into a laugh when I saw the gold cup I had given to John at the New Year gift-giving. Next to it a great jewel set as a pin to hold a cloak. A gold dish, engraved with the garter motif, its cover flamboyant with a dove, its wings spread wide.

‘My cup?' I could still smile. ‘You've only had it a month!'

‘But it's the best I have.'

‘To persuade Richard to be lenient.'

‘Yes.'

‘Can he be persuaded?'

It was a beautiful cup. I begrudged it holding pride of place in Richard's treasury, but I would not deny John's right to give it.

‘The gold means nothing to me,' he murmured. ‘How strange that once I saw its value and collected such items with joy. Now, dearest Katherine, you are my treasure. A pearl beyond price.' He took my hand and raised it to his lips as he used to do in the days of love's glory. ‘To you, I give you the gift I can give to no one else. I give you the most precious thing I have. Myself, firm in faith and love, steady in desire, never changeable. No matter how close death comes with silent feet.'

I sat with him, not speaking. I had no words to say.

I was warned. Had I not known it? Had I not seen death stalking us, no matter how often I would deny it? My careful dosing with black mustard or wild valerian could be efficacious, but it could not prolong life beyond its allotted span. The dying of the year had pre-empted the final days of a great prince.

Now his strength was fading fast. We both knew it. We did not speak of it but let the events unfold as they would.

My lord, my lover, slipped into death, at the end as gently as into sleep, while I sat at his side and watched his beloved face. He had asked me in his final breaths to play the lute for him. His soul departed as the plangent chords filled the spaces in the room. Without struggle. Without pain in the end. It was as if his flesh recognised the appointed hour and allowed his soul to depart without contest.

I sat for a long time in that room, sumptuously appointed
as for the living, my hand hard on the lute strings to silence any vibration. So my lord, my love, was still and silent. But whereas I could make the lute speak softly again, or sing out in fervent joy, as the mood took me, my love would never more speak to me. The majestic polyphony of our lives together was dead.

I too was lost and alone and silent.

The depth of my anguish could not be expressed.