The King's Sister

I made suitable noises of appreciation. The minstrels sang of love requited, which was patently ridiculous, but I enjoyed the words and the music. My lord ate through another platter that had caught his eye, of frytourys lumbard stuffed with plums, and then drew patterns in the fair cloth with his knife until his mother caught his eye and frowned at him.

The toasts were made, and our health was drunk once more.

Then came the dancing.

The disparity in our heights made even the simplest steps more complicated as we, the newly wedded couple, led the formal procession that wound around the dancing chamber.

Think of him as your brother. Imagine it is Henry. You’ve suffered his prancing attempts often enough.

So I did, relieved that my lord did not caper and skip as Henry was often tempted to do out of wanton mischief. We made, I decided, as seemly a performance as could be expected when the groom had to count the number of steps he took before he bowed and retraced the movement, counting again.

Holy Virgin!

No one laughed aloud. They would not dare, but I could not fail to see the smiles. It might be a political marriage made in the chambers of power, but I could detect pity and condescension as amused eyes slid from mine. I kept my own smile firmly in place as if it were the most enjoyable experience in the world. I had too much pride to bear loss of dignity well, but I had strength of will to hold it at bay.

Returning to our seats, the processing done, the musicians drawing breath and wiping their foreheads, I became aware of the boy’s fierce regard.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Will you enjoy being wed to me, Elizabeth?’ he asked, surprising me, his eyes as bright as a hunting spaniel on the scent, and not at all shy.

‘I have no idea,’ I replied honestly, immediately regretful as his face fell. ‘I suppose I will. Will you enjoy being wed to me?’

‘Yes.’ He beamed with open-hearted pleasure. ‘I have decided. I will like it above all things.’ My brows must have risen. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

I shook my head, unable to see why a young boy was so vehement in his admiration for our married status when it would mean nothing to him for years to come.

‘I will enjoy living here,’ he announced.

Which surprised me even more.

‘Do you not go home with your mother? Or grandmother?’

‘No. I am to live here. At Kenilworth.’ His eyes glowed with fervour, his cheeks flushed from the cup of wine with which he had been allowed to toast me in good form. ‘I am to learn to be a knight. I am to join Henry in my studies. I will keep my horse here and I can have as many hounds as I wish. I will learn to kill with my sword. And I will go hunting. I would like a raptor of my own, as well as the parrot …’

As I smiled at his enthusiasms—for who could resist? —I had to acknowledge this new fact, that I would see him every day. Rather than live apart until he grew into adulthood to become my husband in more than name, we would have to play husband and wife in all matters of day-to-day living. I had understood that I could dispense with his company until at least he had the presence of a man. Living in the same household, we would rub shoulders daily. I wondered if his enthusiasms for all things with fur or feathers would pall on me.

‘… and then I will have a whole stable full of horses,’ he continued to inform me. ‘As Earl of Pembroke it is my right. Do you know that I have been Earl since before I was three years old? I wish to take part in a tournament. Do you suppose they will let me?’

‘I think you will have to wait a few years.’

‘Well, I quite see that I must. I will be very busy, I expect. You won’t mind if I don’t come and see you every day, will you?’

‘I think I can withstand the disappointment.’

‘I will find time if you wish, of course. And will you call me Jonty, as my nurse does?’

He chattered on. How self-absorbed he was. It could be worse. He could have been loud and boorish, which he was not. But I was not sure that I liked the idea of having him under my feet like a pet dog.

‘If I cannot yet fight in a tournament, will they let me have one of the brache puppies?’

I looked across the table to Dame Katherine for succour, but knew I could do that no longer. I was a married woman and must make my own decisions, even though my husband could not.

The feast and music reaching its apogee, with a flourish and a fanfare the Earl of Pembroke and I were led from the room with minstrels going before in procession, the guests following behind.

‘Now where are we going?’ the boy asked, his hand clutching mine. ‘Can I go and see the brache bitch and puppies now?’

‘No. We must go first to one of the bedchambers.’

His brow furrowed. ‘It’s too early to go to bed.’

‘But today is special. We are to be blessed.’

And I prayed it would be soon over.

The bed was huge, its hangings intimidating in blue and silver, once again festive with Lancaster and Pembroke emblazoning. With no pretence that we would be man and wife in anything but name, the boy and I were helped to sit against the pillows, side by side with a vast expanse of embroidered coverlet between us and no disrobing. Not an inch of extra flesh was revealed as our chaplain approached, bearing his bowl of holy water, and proceeded to sprinkle it over us and the bed.

‘We ask God’s blessing on these two young people who represent the great families of England, Lancaster and Pembroke. We pray that they may grow in grace until they are of an age to be truly united in God’s name.’

There was much more to the same effect until our garments and the bed were all sufficiently doused.

‘Monseigneur …’ The chaplain looked to my father for guidance. ‘It is often considered necessary for the bridegroom to touch the bride’s leg with his foot. Flesh against flesh, my lord. As a mark of what will be fulfilled by my lord the Earl when he reaches maturity.’

I imagined the scene. The boy being divested of his hose, my skirts being lifted to my knees to accommodate the ceremony. My fingers interwove and locked as I prayed that it need not be. And perhaps the Duke read the rigidity in my limbs.

‘I think it will not be necessary. John and Elizabeth are here together. There is no evidence that they seek to escape each other’s company.’

The guests who had crowded in to witness our enjoyment of our married state smiled and murmured. Everyone seemed to do nothing but smile.

‘What do we do now?’ the Earl asked.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ my father replied. ‘That will all be for the future.’

I did not know whether to laugh or weep.

We stepped down from the bed, on opposite sides. My husband was taken off to his accommodations by his mother, the dowager countess now, who saluted my cheeks and welcomed me as her daughter by law. I returned to my chamber, where Philippa awaited me with my women to help me disrobe.

Instead, Philippa waved the servants away and we stood and looked at each other.

‘Do you know what my husband will be doing as soon as he has removed his wedding finery?’ I asked.

She shook her head.

‘He will be down in the mews because he wants a hawk of his own, or in the stables because he wants one of the brache’s litter. He tells me that he will enjoy living at Kenilworth—did you know he was to stay here? —because he can wield a sword against Henry and take part in a tournament.’

Philippa smiled.

So did I, the muscles of my face aching.

‘He—Jonty—says that he doesn’t mind if he does not see me every day. He will be quite busy with his own affairs to turn him into the perfect knight.’

I began to laugh. So did Philippa, but without the hysterical edge that coloured mine.

‘He says he will make an effort to come and see me, if I find that I miss him.’

We fell into each other’s arms, some tears mixed in, but a release at last in the shared laughter.

‘If it were you,’ I asked at last, ‘what would you do?’

‘Treat him just like Henry, I suppose’.

Which was all good sense. Pure Philippa. And indeed what I had decided for myself.

‘You mean pretend he isn’t there when he is a nuisance, comfort him when he has fallen from his horse and slap his hands when he steals my sweetmeats.’

But Henry liked books and reading, he liked the poetry and songs of our minstrels, as did I. Jonty seemed to have nothing in his head but warfare and hunting.

‘Something like that.’ Philippa did not see my despair. ‘You can’t treat him like a husband.’

‘No. Obedience and honour.’ I wrinkled my nose.

‘You can’t ignore him, Elizabeth. He’ll be living here under your nose.’

‘How true.’ My laughter had faded at last. ‘Philippa—I wish you a better wedding night.’

She wrapped her arms around me for a moment, then began to remove the layers of silk and miniver until I stood once more in my shift, the jewels removed from my hair, standing as unadorned as might any young woman on any uneventful day of her life.

We did not talk any more of my marriage. What was there to say?

I gave my husband a magnificently illuminated book telling the magical tales of King Arthur and his knights, as well as a parrot of his own as wedding gifts. To my dismay, the book was pushed aside while Jonty pounced on the parrot with noisy delight. He called it Gilbert rather than Elizabeth, after his governor who had taught him his letters. I was not sorry.

‘Does your husband not keep you company this morning, Elizabeth?’

Some would say it was a perfectly ordinary question to a new wife. If the husband in question were not eight years old. So some would say that perhaps there was amusement in the smooth tones.

I knew better. Isabella, Duchess of York, sister to Constanza, my father’s Castilian wife, owned an abrasive spirit beneath her outward elegance, as well as an unexpectedly lascivious temperament. Constanza’s ambition for restoration of the crown of Castile to her handsome head had been transmuted into a need for self-gratification in her younger sibling, who had come to England with her and promptly married my uncle of York. I was fascinated by the manner in which Isabella pleased herself and no one else, but I did not like her, nor did I think she liked me. Her expression might be blandly interested, but her eye was avid for detail as she made herself comfortable beside me in the solar as if with a cosy chat in mind.

‘Learning to read and write I expect,’ I replied lightly. ‘His governor does not allow him to neglect these skills, even though his mind is in the tilt-yard.’

She nodded equably. ‘How old will you be, dear Elizabeth, when he becomes a man at last?’

‘Twenty-four years, at the last count.’

‘Another seven years?’ Isabella mused. ‘How will you exist without a man between your sheets?’

Her presumption nettled me. Everyone might be aware of the situation, but did not talk about it. ‘We are not all driven to excess, my lady.’

I observed her striking features, wondering how she would reply. Isabella had, by reputation, taken more than one lover since her arrival in England and her marriage to my royal uncle of York, but she remained coolly unperturbed, apart from the sting in reply.

‘Of course not. I will offer up a novena for your patience.’

Because I did not wish to continue this conversation, I stood, curtsied, answering with a studied elegance that Dame Katherine would have praised. ‘I am honoured, my lady, for your interest in my peace of mind.’

‘To live as a nun is not to everyone’s taste,’ she continued, standing to walk with me. ‘Nor is it entirely necessary. I thought you had more spirit, my dear.’

I would not be discomfited. ‘Yes, I have spirit. I also have virtue as befits my rank, my lady.’

Isabella showed her sharp little teeth in a smile of great charm. ‘Tell me if virtue—excellent in itself—becomes too wearisome for you, won’t you, dear Elizabeth.’

I angled my head, wondering how much she would confess of her own life. I had heard the rumours in astonishing detail from the women in our solar.

‘I have so many excellent remedies against terminal boredom,’ she added, touching my hand lightly with beautifully be-ringed fingers. ‘You would enjoy them.’

‘I will consider it, my lady.’

My nails dug into my palms as she walked away, leaving the solar to practice her skills on any man but her husband. How infuriating that her observations held so much truth. Waiting until I was twenty-four years to experience marital bliss gnawed at my sacred vows, for my youthful blood rioted and my desires were aflame. Would I dare what Dame Katherine had done, taking a lover to fill the cold bed of her widowhood? Or Duchess Isabella, so blatant, a scarlet woman beneath her fine gowns?

No, I decided, I would not, as the Duchess’s laughter filled the antechamber where she had found someone to entertain her. I had too much pride for that. I would not put myself into Duchess Isabella’s way of life. I would tolerate the boredom if I must and I would go to my marriage bed a virgin. Solemnised in the sight of God and every aristocratic family in the land, my marriage was sacrosanct. Sprinkled with holy water in our marital bed, even if we had exchanged nothing but a chaste kiss, Jonty and I were indivisible. To step along the thorny path of immorality was too painful, as my family well knew. Neither the life that Dame Katherine had chosen, nor the louche flirtations of Duchess Isabelle outside the marriage bed was a choice for me.

Yet I could dream. What woman would not dream? And so I did, allowing my thoughts to stray pleasurably to another man, one who was the epitome of my chivalric dreams. A courtier, superbly well connected, with a handsome face and aristocratic birth, our paths had crossed on a multitude of occasions at Windsor and Westminster. A man with a smile that could light up a room. A man whose skill with sword and lance and polished wit outshone every other knight. This was the man I could desire in marriage, and my heart throbbed a little at the thought of what might have been.

Until harsh reality sank its teeth into my flesh. For this object of my admiration was also a man of grim reputation and high temper. My father would never have desired an alliance with such an adventurer whose irresponsible behaviour was thoroughly condemned.

‘He is as riddled with ambition as an old cheese with maggots!’ my father had censured, when the object of my admiration had paraded in peacock silks at my cousin Richard’s coronation.

So my knight errant was consigned to moments of wistful imaginings, as he should be, for a Pembroke connection was my father’s wish, and as part of the great plan to consolidate the House of Lancaster, I accepted it. This was my destiny. All I must do was exercise patience, living out the next handful of years until Jonty caught up with me in maturity and experience. He might even, in the spirit of the troubadours, offer a poem to the beauty of my hair.

‘Could I clasp whom I adore

On the forest’s leafy floor,’

Sang Hubert, the lovelorn minstrel who knelt at my feet, seducing me with images of more than courtly love.

‘How I’d kiss her—Oh and more!

Dulcis amor!’

Turning my face away, wishing misty-eyed Hubert would take his songs and his sentiments and shut himself in the stables out of my hearing, I shivered. And not for Jonty’s embrace on a forest floor. My tempestuous virginal dreams did not involve Jonty.

I tried. I really tried in those first days when the festivities continued and the new Earl and Countess of Pembroke were under scrutiny. Taking Dame Katherine’s advice to heart, I tried, like a good wife, to seduce Jonty into liking me more than he liked the parrot. I hunted with him. I rode out with a hawk on my fist, a pastime I enjoyed for its own merit. I played games, trying not to beat him too often at Fox and Geese. But he was just a boy and would rather spend his boisterous time and energy with Henry or the other lads of high blood who came to learn their knightly skills under my father’s aegis.

‘What do you expect?’ Philippa observed as, lingering on the steps leading up to the new range of family apartments, we watched him escape his mother’s clutches and race across the courtyard towards the bellows and clashes of yet another bout of practice warfare.

‘I expect nothing more or less. He is a boy.’ I grimaced a little. ‘It is his mother and grandmother who expect me to dance attendance on him more than I see fit. I can feel their eyes on me. Is it not enough that we sit together at dinner? That we kneel together to hear Mass? If I have to discuss the respective merits of birds of prey one more time, I’ll …’

My words dried as Jonty came to a halt under the archway, spun on his heel and seeing us as the only audience, waved furiously in our direction, both arms above his head.

‘My lady,’ he shouted in a piercing treble.

‘My lord,’ I replied at a lesser volume.

Jonty bowed. I curtsied. He bowed again, and I saw the compact, graceful young man he would one day become. Then:

‘Did you see me, Elizabeth? Did you see?’ His excitement echoed from the stonework.

I descended and walked towards him, reluctant to continue the conversation at shouting pitch, which he was quite likely to do, scowling at Philippa to stop her laughing. What had he been doing today that I had not seen? In the tilt-yard probably. Practising archery or swordplay? I made a guess, based on his sweat-streaked face and scuffed clothing. His hair resembled nothing so much as a rat’s nest.

‘Indeed I did see you.’ Now I was within speaking distance. ‘You rode at the quintain as if you were born in the saddle.’

‘The Master at Arms says I’ll be a knight in about twenty years.’

He did not see the irony of it yet.

‘But that seems a very long time to wait …’

Or perhaps he did.

‘Will you come and watch me, Elizabeth? If I try every day it may not take me twenty years.’

I did and applauded his valiant efforts. Henry, who had come to stand at my side, swiftly vanished in the direction of the mews when Jonty dismounted at last and bore down on us. Even Henry grew weary of Jonty’s exuberance.

‘I’d run for it if I were you. His tongue is like a bell-clapper.’

It was indeed like owning a pet dog, I decided. I could not dislike him. He was lively and cheerful with the ability to chatter endlessly when the mood took him. His manners were impeccable with an inbred courtesy that I could not fault.

But he was no husband.

Being Countess of Pembroke palled when I had no knight to squire me or write verses to my beauty. Jonty was brave and bold but quickly proved to have no interest in poetry and possessed the singing voice of a corncrake. Although he counted his steps less obviously when we danced, it was obvious that he would rather be in the saddle.

So, as it must be, when his family returned to their far-flung castles, I left Jonty to his own devices and returned to the pattern of my old life. A wife but not a wife. Countess of Pembroke, yet no different from Elizabeth of Lancaster, except that my carefree adolescence had been stripped away in that exchange of vows and sprinkling of holy water. I was part of the grand order of alliance and dynastic marriage.

But when I received an invitation to spend time at Richard’s court, I lost no time in ordering my coffers to be packed. While waiting for her husband to become a man, the Countess of Pembroke would shine in her new setting.

Chapter Two

January 1382, Westminster

In these days after the Great Rising had been laid to rest, there was a glitter about the King. Richard: no longer the child who wailed when Henry teased him, or when we, as children, refused to allow him the respect he considered his due. He had been a boy easy to tease. Now there was a bright, hard brilliance that I did not recall, almost febrile. The days when he was no more than a terrified youth before he rode off to face to the rebels and quell the revolt at Mile End were long gone, even though it was a mere matter of months. I curtsied low before him and his new wife.

Anne. A foreign princess, come all the way from Bohemia, with an extreme taste in Bohemian headdresses. This was the most extravagant yet, its wired extremities almost wider than her hips, its veiling reminiscent of bed-curtains.

‘My Lady of Pembroke,’ Richard, seated on a throne draped in gold cloth, purred in greeting.

‘Sire.’ I rose from my obeisance, our eyes fortunately on a level since Richard had had the forethought to have the thrones placed on a low dais. He would not have approved of my superior height, for I had my father’s inches. Richard, to his chagrin, was not quite full-grown at fifteen years in spite of his autocratic air.

‘Allow me to make you known to my new wife, Queen Anne.’ He turned to the lady at his side. ‘This is my cousin Elizabeth of Lancaster, Countess of Pembroke.’ His eyes glinted with heady delight in the candlelight. ‘She and her family are dear to me.’

So formal from a boy I had known since his infancy, a boy I recalled clinging to my skirts, demanding that I allow him to fly my new merlin when it was quite clear that she was still in heavy moult, but I followed the desired ceremony as was his wish. Richard was recently seduced by ceremonial and grandeur. All because he had been given the Crown of England at so young an age, Henry frequently observed, interlarded with colourful epithets. Being the King of England when he was barely breeched had given him a damned superior attitude that he had yet to earn. Henry was more interested in tournaments than ceremony and tended to sneer when Richard wasn’t looking—and sometimes even when he was, but it was no longer wise to do so now. Richard was beginning to flex his regal muscles.

So I curtsied again, head bent as was seemly, to Queen Anne.

‘My lady. I am honoured,’ I murmured.

Queen Anne smiled with a knowing acceptance of this piece of foolery. A year older than Richard, she looked to be little more than a child, a tiny scrap of humanity, but with a sharp eye and a tendency to laugh at the ridiculous. She also had a will of iron beneath her formal robes. There was nothing of a child in Queen Anne despite her lack of presence. Which pleased me.

‘We are most pleased to welcome you, Madam Elizabeth,’ she said graciously, indicating with a curl of her fingers that I should rise.

Richard stepped down at last, to salute me formally on each cheek. ‘I know that you will be a good friend to my wife, Cousin.’

‘I will be honoured, Sire.’ I tried successfully not to laugh. How remarkably pompous he sounded for a lad whom I had rescued from the carp pond at Kenilworth where Henry had pushed him.

‘And be pleased to give her advice until she becomes familiar with English ways,’ he added.

And as I caught Queen Anne’s eye, we laughed. The whole introduction had been unnecessary. Richard, with a flash of eye between us, froze.

‘We already know each other very well, Richard,’ the Queen explained gently, as she came to stand with him, a hand on his arm.

‘We have already discussed fashion, horseflesh and men and what to wear for the tournament tomorrow,’ I added, and took a risk, but a small one. ‘And when did you last address me as my lady or even cousin?’

Richard thought about this, I could see the workings of his mind behind his stare, tension hard in his spare shoulders. Encased in cloth of gold and enough ermine to coat fourscore of the little creatures, he looked like one of our grandfather’s knights got up in frivolous costume for a Twelfth Night mummers’ performance. Pride held him rigid, until he took a step back onto the dais, so I must look up into his face.