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While Richard flung away from me to hammer his fist on the stonework of the window surround, I considered an answer to his question. What gave a man, a subject, the right to keep a King imprisoned? In this case the power of the sword. The support of the great magnates of the realm. Henry had the power to do as he pleased.
‘Why are you here?’ Richard was facing me again, eyes wild with displeasure. ‘Are you here to argue Cousin Henry’s cause? Do you like him more than you like me?’
It was the accusation of a child. ‘No, I am not. I am here to give you company. Are you well treated? You have food, I see.’ The muscles in his face twitched under the strain, but he had been well accommodated in the King’s Great Chamber in St Thomas’s Tower. No sparsely furnished dungeon here, but a room with every comfort. The walls, smoothly plastered, were painted with leaves and flowers, candle-sconces aplenty offered light in the darkest corners, and, on a carved and polished coffer, books had been left to help him pass the interminable hours. They were still unopened.
‘Will you take a cup of wine, my lord?’ I asked.
But he waved it away. ‘I will not. I will not be won over by food and fine cloth.’ He tugged at the furred collar. ‘I demand my freedom.’ His eyes narrowed on my face as he beckoned imperiously: ‘Come and talk with me.’
He sank onto a stool and pointed at one beside him. I sat in obedience.
‘I am afraid,’ he said.
‘There is no need. Our cousin will treat you fairly.’
‘Is it fair to take what is not his, what is mine and beyond his taking?’ He leaned close to speak in almost a whisper. ‘He will make me abdicate,’ Richard fretted. ‘How can I? How can a King abandon his sacred anointing at his coronation, in the sight of God and his subjects? I cannot renounce it.’
As he suddenly gripped my hand, crushing my fingers, I felt the weight of sadness that bore him down.
‘They will say that I must give my power into hands stronger than mine, Constance.’ He looked at me, a world of suspicion in his gaze. ‘Your royal father, my uncle of York, is my designated heir. Not Henry of Lancaster. Will your father take the throne from me? Is that why you are here? To plead his cause so I will hand it over, weak as a kitten? Your family always had ambition above its position.’
So we had become the accused also. How easy it was to slide into the pool of Richard’s enmity.
‘I am not here to persuade you to give up your crown, Richard. My father does not seek the crown.’
But Richard was on his feet again, driven by unknown terrors, his fingers tugging his hair into disarray before covering his face.
‘I trust no one. My people do not love me, I am told. They cry out for my blood, my head. I must believe it. I heard them.’ And then, voice still muffled: ‘What do I do if I am not King?’
I allowed myself to reply cautiously to his irrationality. ‘What do you wish to do?’
He thought about it, hands falling away so that his reply came clearly. ‘If I were not King? I would live in a place of my choosing. With friends and servants and enough resources to maintain myself in an honourable state.’
Rising, I gathered his hands, more gently than he had gripped mine. ‘You must not give up hope, Richard.’
His answering smile was wan. ‘Will you have your family speak for me? We were always friends. Aumale and Gloucester, Exeter and Surrey. And my uncle of York.’ He had forgotten that they had done nothing to prevent his falling into Lancaster’s hands.
The minutes were passing. ‘Do you need anything? I cannot stay long.’
‘Better you here than the guard who watches my every step.’ The anger had gone, replaced by desolation. ‘Will you give my dear wife Isabelle this from me?’ He made to take a ring from his hand, as if he expected to see the great ruby gleaming in the sunlight, only to find his hands naked of jewels. ‘Where is my ring? They have taken it from me.’ It was almost a sob. ‘I can do nothing. They have taken all my treasure. And Mathes.’
I knew that they had confiscated all of Richard’s wealth, all the forty thousand pounds of it hidden away in Holt Castle so that he was stripped down to a man of absolute poverty. Again there were tears in his eyes, which coated my compassion with irritation, not for the first time. It was important now for me to give counsel.
‘You must listen to me, Richard.’ And when he nodded, seeking any consolation, still holding fast to my hands: ‘You must be strong. Do not give in to Lancaster. Offer to negotiate with him, but do not agree to relinquish your crown without promises for your safety and your future.’
‘Will he listen?’
I thought not, but I must give this man hope. ‘You have friends. Friends who will not desert you. I am your friend.’
‘What can you do? I am deserted. I think he will have my head. Henry was always my rival.’
‘He will not.’ How difficult it was to implant into this man a backbone that would carry him through the next days and weeks. ‘Listen to me, Richard. Be strong. Tell Lancaster that you will discuss terms. He is a fair man. He does not desire your blood.’
‘If I offer to reinstate his land and inheritance, will he allow me to go free?’
‘Yes, that might do it.’
Oh, Richard. Lancaster wanted far more than his inheritance. By taking up arms against the King, Henry had proved that he desired more than the reinstatement of his title of Duke of Lancaster and the Lancaster acres. I could see no glory for Richard, but he should be allowed to keep his dignity.
‘Don’t forget. The family of York will not abandon you. Do not sign any document that robs you of your royal authority. You must not abdicate unless Lancaster listens to your conditions.’
‘But what are my conditions?’
I tried not to sigh.
‘Your freedom is the main one. Demand that you be set free.’ Then I delivered the most vital piece of advice, for all of us. ‘Demand a guarantee of a pardon for all your counsellors, so that Lancaster cannot punish them for any perceived fault in your reign. You must think of the men who supported you, advised you. They must not be threatened by Lancaster. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, yes, I can do that.’
‘Promise me that you won’t forget. Otherwise Henry will have his revenge on all of us.’
‘I promise. You will not suffer for your friendship to your King.’
He was smiling at me, although a watery affair as I saluted him on his cheeks and walked to knock on the door to summon the guard to release me. I had done all I could, for Richard and for my family’s uncertain future, but Richard’s utter weakness appalled me.
‘How can I live, if I am not King?’
His final despairing words as I left him standing at the window, looking out on the realm that was indeed no longer his, remained with me as I returned to the barge, the oarsmen who would need to flex their muscles against the drag of the Thames, aiding their wait with leather jugs of ale. My family and the Hollands owed so much to Richard, our present Dukedoms of Aumale and Surrey and Exeter a precious gift after our support in his campaign to punish the Lords Appellant. We could not abandon the giver of such costly patronage. We had been the jewels in Richard’s crown, but it was clear to me that Henry might prise those jewels out and replace them with new. And then where would we be? I had no confidence in Richard’s promise to win Henry’s compliance, that we would be free from any revenge if Henry decided to take it.
Thomas said we should wait.
It seemed to me too dangerous to wait.
‘You’ve company, mistress.’ The captain broke into my thoughts, nodding towards the gilded prow where a familiar figure sprawled on the cushions, regaling the rowers with some tale that had them laughing.
‘How did you get here?’ I asked as I stepped aboard and the oarsmen took their positions.
Dickon pointed at a wherry that was heading towards the opposite bank. He came to sit beside me.
‘What does the King say?’
I shrugged. ‘He’s concerned about his ruby ring and his hound.’ I caught the slide of my brother’s eye. ‘What is it?’
‘A man might wonder whether you came here for Richard’s sake or for ours.’
How true. I had not been completely altruistic, but I would not deny my loyalty to Richard. Equally I would not reveal to my brother the content of my advice to him. ‘A man should keep his inquisitive nose out of my affairs,’ I said, and turned my face towards Westminster, where all was to play for.
A little time after dawn on the following day I met with my family in my father’s private chamber at Westminster, summoned by him with unaccustomed stringency. Even the timing was unusual. My father, ageing rapidly week by week, rarely broke his fast before the day was well advanced. There were six of us all told. It had, I decided, although I would never have been allowed to attend such a meeting, the semblance of a council of war. The room might be familiar with its solid stonework and hunting tapestries, but the atmosphere was as sharp as that first sip of newly brewed ale.
‘You are late,’ my father observed as I entered.
I curtsied, watching my tongue. I suspected that this would be a long and acrimonious exchange of views.
Here we were, my father lowering himself awkwardly to a cushioned chair. His lips were pressed hard against the pain that these days never left him. The stiffness in his back was now permanent, exacerbated by any attempt to ride or walk far. It made his temper chancy. Joan gave him a cup of ale and took a stool at his side.
And then my brothers. First in importance as my father’s heir, my brother Edward, indolently stretched on a window seat, a hawk on his fist, a smoothly brindled greyhound at his feet. Dickon lounged against the ribbed stonework near the door as if to escape at the first opportunity, fidgeting with a knife he had taken from his belt. Thomas, my husband, seated on the only cushioned stool, glowered with some silent discontent.
And I? Why was I tolerated in this convening of male minds? Because in this household we talked politics and power. We always had, from dawn to dusk, assessing friend and enemy, alliances and allegiances. Such were the subjects of most importance to us. I stood behind my husband, my hand lightly resting on his shoulder, seemly as any wife. Joan was present because everyone had forgotten about her. She had a gift for drawing no one’s eye. My mother, the Castilian princess who had caught everyone’s eye, had been dead for seven years. My father’s second wife, Joan Holland, was young at nineteen years to my father’s fifty-eight. I watched them together as she stood to stuff another goose-feather cushion behind him, remarking not for the first time that the famous beauty of her grandmother, Joan of Kent, had left only the faintest imprint on her. She was a sparrow here, amidst a flock of goldfinches, yet however unmemorable her brown hair and pale, plain features might be, my father smiled his thanks. He treated her like a daughter, with far more affection than he had ever shown to me. Sometimes I found it difficult to tolerate Joan’s presence, much less her meek subservience.
Thus the house of York, the noble family of the fourth son of King Edward the Third. Some would say a family to be reckoned with given our rank and royal blood; others would deem us a family to be wary of, a family driven to snatch at wealth and power. Beneath the unity of our name seethed rank ambition and sour suspicion, in no manner alleviated since the day that our gifts had caught the wayward eye of King Richard, when our present and our future had gleamed with gold. Now that golden gleam hung in abeyance. After my meeting with Richard, I would not wager a silver penny on any golden future.
Nor, it seemed, could my husband.
‘Why could you not keep Richard safe and at liberty?’ Thomas demanded, unconsciously echoing my own thoughts, voicing the concern that had clearly eaten away at him since Lancaster had taken his royal prize. ‘Was it beyond your powers?’ He turned his eye on my father. ‘You were Keeper of the Kingdom with an army at your command. Surely it was not beyond the wit of man to defeat a traitor who landed in the north with only a handful of misguided supporters? It wasn’t that you did not know Lancaster was coming.’
Thomas stood, shaking off my hand, as if he could bear to sit no longer.
My father replied promptly. ‘I knew he was coming, but I did not know where he would land. How can we gauge the tides and the winds? By the time we met, it was my judgement that Lancaster’s following was too powerful to be stopped.’ His gaze narrowed against the attack, his response blisteringly formal. ‘You had your own role in our failure, Despenser. A man who could not get his own tenants to arm and march to the succour of their King is in no position to denigrate others. You are not innocent in this debacle.’
The room, from carved roof beams to painted tiles, churned with rancour. I could do nothing to halt the accusation and counter-accusation, and indeed knew better than to try. Joan withdrew circumspectly to the far end of the chamber, as far from the imminent conflagration as possible, signalling her distance by picking up a length of girdle that she proceeded to stitch.
‘At least I stayed with him to the end.’ Refusing to be silenced, Thomas’s eye swept on to land on Edward. ‘Unlike some of us here. And it wasn’t me who advised Richard to remain in Ireland, when we all knew Lancaster was already in England. Why in God’s name did you do that?’
Edward merely smiled, eyes as hooded as the hawk’s whose neck he scratched, causing it to bob its head in pleasure. ‘No one wanted all-out war, and one we would have lost.’
My father was reining hard on his temper. ‘Sit down, Thomas. You knew the situation as well as I. Lancaster was stronger. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were riding with him and more than half the northern magnates, not to mention the Cheshire archers. If we had taken it to a battlefield we would have been beaten out of sight and Richard would be in a worse position than he is now.’
Thomas sat, hands planted on his knees, but was no more amenable to reason. ‘Is that possible? He’s a prisoner under Lancaster’s brutal justice. If you had met with Lancaster near Ravenspur, before he joined up with Northumberland, you could have swept him back out to sea. But no, you marched west and—’
I replaced my hand on Thomas’s shoulder and pressed down hard. No point in inflicting wounds here that could never be healed. The past could not be changed, even though every accusation he made against my father was undoubtedly true.
My father continued to explain his lack of effective action. ‘I marched west to meet up with Richard’s army and present a united front. That was the plan.’
Thomas had no intention of being silenced, since by now we were all aware of the flush of guilt along my father’s cheekbones. ‘Which didn’t happen.’ Thomas twitched free of my hand once more, a rough gesture. ‘By the time Richard landed on the Welsh coast,’ – once more he glared at Edward – ‘you were comfortably holed up in Berkeley Castle. You had an army of three thousand men. Surely you could have made a good resistance.’
My father’s face was still flushed, but his reply held the quality of ice.
‘I made a truce with Lancaster at Berkeley because I believed that his claim for justice had much weight. He is my brother’s much-loved son, and as such he should be answered. Besides, my army was breaking up. My best troops were those of John Beaufort. When Beaufort made his peace with his half-brother of Lancaster, he took his troops with him. I would not have expected otherwise.’
Thomas continued to accuse, ignoring the increased pressure of my hand as his tone became increasingly insolent. ‘God’s Blood! So you had sympathy with Lancaster’s cause?’
‘I did,’ my father acknowledged. ‘Richard treated him shamefully.’
‘I don’t deny it, but Richard was our road to power.’ Thomas’s reply lacked pity for either Richard or Henry of Lancaster. ‘Now the goose that laid the golden eggs for all of us is shut up in the Tower, impotent and likely to stay there. I don’t expect Lancaster to be liberal in casting largesse in our direction. We were all too close to Richard for Lancaster to trust us.’
Edward had been as silent as I throughout Thomas’s torrent of invective, but I needed an explanation for the insinuation that he could not ignore if he was guiltless.
‘Why did you advise Richard to delay his return from Ireland?’ I dropped the question into a pause in the hostilities. ‘It smacks of rank stupidity, but when were you ever so careless of battle tactics? You could be accused of collusion with Lancaster.’
Edward, totally unmoved by any of the arrows fired in his direction, stood to place the hawk on the stand against the wall. The hound followed him, sticking close to his heels when he returned to take up a stance in the centre of the group. On my left Dickon slid to sit on the floor, arms around his knees, forehead resting there as if he might sleep through sheer boredom.
‘I am neither stupid nor careless,’ said Edward. ‘It all depends whose poisonous tongue you prefer to believe, dear sister.’
I remembered Richard’s utter weakness. Was Edward truly to blame?
‘Lance the venom, Edward,’ I responded. ‘We’ll all be interested in your explanation.’
‘By God, we will.’ Thomas leaped once more to take up the attack. ‘All was ready in Ireland. We knew Lancaster had returned. The ships were loaded, even down to the horses being on board with all the trouble that takes. And then what? Then you whispered in Richard’s ear and all was unloaded again. We sat and waited in Waterford for another two weeks – two weeks! – by which time Lancaster was well and truly embedded in the country. Whether you were traitor or just incompetent, it was ill-managed, Aumale.’
My father grunted his displeasure, but Edward merely returned to his seat, stretching himself out again in unruffled good humour.
‘There is no mystery. It was neither incompetence nor treachery, but supremely managed. Since we were short of shipping to embark as a major force, I considered it impossible to transport the whole army home again. Where was the incompetence in that? What was possible was an advance guard to land in Wales and head north to take Chester for the King. That is what was arranged, so no treachery there. The fact that Salisbury, who took the command, failed to fulfil his orders, and most of his force either joined Lancaster, or simply went home, was no fault of mine.’
‘But why did we not fight for Richard? Why did we go over to Lancaster so fast?’ Thomas refused to retreat, his voice sharpening in petulance, his hands closing into fists against his thighs.
Edward shrugged. ‘The Welsh gentry said they believed that Richard was dead, so it would be good sense for them to join Lancaster. Your troops in Gloucester would not heed the call to arms.’
Thomas, rigid with fury, returned Edward’s regard. ‘I’ve never seen any man change sides as fast as you. It was a miracle of deceit. When I had last seen you in Ireland you had been a King’s man. When our paths crossed again at Flint Castle you were part of the delegation dispatched by Lancaster to discuss Richard’s future.’ The sneer hung in the room like a plague miasma. ‘The Lancaster livery was most becoming on you.’
‘It surprises me that you would wish to remind us of what happened at Flint.’ Edward accepted the contempt and returned it in full measure. ‘When you, Despenser, said not one word to the King. You kept as great a distance from him as you could, other than standing in the bailey. You threw Richard to the Lancaster wolves just as effectively as I.’
Thomas shifted uneasily. Edward continued with perfect poise.
‘Had we not all seen which way the royal banners were flying in the wind by then? When Bristol fell to Lancaster, he made it more than clear what would happen to those who stood by Richard. Scrope, Bussy and Green, royal counsellors all, lost their heads fast enough. I had no intention of my head joining theirs on some distant gateway. My new livery was a light cost to pay to escape beheading. But at least I stayed with Richard until there was no more hope. You couldn’t get out from under his shadow fast enough.’
‘Enough!’ My father raised his hand, but Thomas’s ire was in full flow.
‘You have all the perfect explanations, like honey on your tongue.’ Thomas showed his teeth in the leer of a wolf before attack. ‘We can’t wait to hear. How did you explain to Lancaster, when you knelt before him with promises of fealty, that you had been given a large part of his Lancaster inheritance, which Richard had confiscated and portioned out to those he loved best? Have you actually told him? He might not be so keen to have you as an ally if he knows you’ve been living richly off his land.’
‘Of course I’ve told him. I said that I would happily restore all his inheritance to him. I said that I had drawn no money from it.’
Edward’s response was fast and smooth, without decoration, punctuated by a yawn as if it were all of no importance. I could not resist the accusation – if only to ruffle his magnificent feathers.
‘Only because you did not have the time to get your hands on it,’ I said.
‘Whereas you, dear sister, would have made all speed to spend a good portion of it, would you not? All that wealth at your fingertips? How could you have resisted?’
He was not ruffled at all. I waved away the presumption of my extravagance as I looked at my father. Someone must make an attempt to untangle all these threads that were being woven into a tapestry of mutual hatred. ‘Why are we here, sir? We have heard much discussion of loyalty and treachery, but what is our position now?’
‘We are here, as must be obvious to you all, to decide what we will do next.’
‘Do we have a choice?’ Edward asked but needing no answer since he supplied it himself. ‘We do what we must. We become unimpeachable supporters of the new order of things.’
A silence filled the room, broken only by the hound scratching for fleas. Joan remained at her chosen distance, silently stitching as if none of this was her concern, stabbing the linen with her needle. A grey kitten had joined her from some previously hidden refuge to entangle her embroidery silks. Her trivial occupations continued to irritate me beyond measure.
‘You say that we give our allegiance to our cousin Henry,’ I said.
‘Yes. Is it not obvious?’
