Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘So we’ll take ours and join him.’

  The Earl’s smile, which spread over his countenance to remind his audience that once he had been a handsome man, was as thin as spring ice.

  ‘And if he is sufficiently grateful for our support, who’s to say what we’ll gain from it?’

  ‘Timing, sir, is everything.’ Harry returned the smile. ‘If we are the first to show our support, he’ll be liberal in gratitude.’

  Father and son clasped right hands.

  Throughout all this I allowed the exchange to continue over my head. There was a difference here from the usual discussion of military intervention in local squabbles. Here was a sudden underlying tension, hot and sere, in this household that was famous for its tensions one way or another. And I knew nothing about it. I might guess, but this planning had been conducted at some point in the past weeks without my being aware, presumably even before Harry went on his circuit of the March. Both father by law and husband had been as tight as Tyne mussels, which for them was unusual, when any prospect of military manoeuvring was heralded by horn from the battlements for all to hear. Nor had I received any information in my usual round of family communications. I found it unsettling to be so ignorant. A tight knot of anxiety surprised me as it grew in my belly.

  Why I should be so disturbed, I was unable to determine. I had no gift of second sight, and was well used to being left to watch the Earl and Harry disappear in a glint of armour and armed men with the Percy lion displayed on every breast. But there was something here to wake what I could only think of as fear. Yet what should I fear? My son and daughter were safe in the nursery chambers in the western range of rooms. My husband was alive and luminous with health. The King, my cousin, was campaigning in Ireland but was in no danger that I was aware of.

  But something…

  I made my voice heard.

  ‘Which one of you will consider furnishing me with an explanation of what you are planning? Since I am the only one of the three of us to be unhappily in ignorance.’

  The Earl’s pale eyes came to rest on my face.

  ‘It’s men’s work, Elizabeth. Nothing to concern you. Go back to your stitching.’

  Men’s work? A curl of temper bloomed in my throat, hot words jostling for freedom, but I knew better than to voice them when it would only bring a further denial of a woman’s place in this household. Instead I closed my lips and plotted. There were ways of discovering what I wished to know; Harry would not dare to treat me with such casual disdain. Yet I was reluctant to give way so easily in this admittedly insignificant battle of wills, and indeed I thought that the Earl would be disappointed if I retired from the battlefield so easily.

  I fixed my husband with a straight stare. ‘Are you going to tell me to ply my needle too?’

  But Harry was too caught up in unseen possibilities to take much heed of the fire in my eye. ‘Do we inform him we are coming?’ Harry was considering aloud. ‘Or do we wait to see what transpires? Perhaps we do not commit ourselves too early, although it goes against the grain with me to resort to subterfuge.’

  Subterfuge was a dangerous word. ‘Commit yourselves to what?’ I demanded.

  ‘Thomas would advise discretion, of course,’ the Earl said.

  ‘Thomas would advise loyalty to the crown at all costs,’ I said, snatching at this nugget of information.

  Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, my father by law’s impeccably diplomatic brother. The third in this Percy triumvirate of power. He was at present making use of his skills with King Richard in his military campaign in Ireland. No man was firmer in his fealty to King Richard than the Earl of Worcester.

  ‘Thomas is not here,’ my husband replied. ‘So we’ll ignore his advice.’

  Upon which the Earl grunted a laugh. ‘This is the plan. We go armed to meet our invader, but with a smiling visage and a sheathed sword. We’ll not be turned away. Then we watch and wait and see what sport plays out.’

  I disliked being ignored. ‘And who is it that will be glad to see a Percy force at his gate?’ I asked. I sharpened the timbre of my voice a little to make my point. ‘Should I not know before you ride out from here if you will return on horseback or on a bier?’

  Which produced a response from the Earl. ‘You are impertinent, madam.’

  ‘If it is the latter, sir,’ I continued, with even more impertinence, ‘I would wish to make provision for your interment.’

  A little shiver blew over my skin as if someone had opened the window, an unpleasant sensation that was instantly dispelled by the Earl’s request, coldly trenchant, of his son.

  ‘Would you like to take your wife in hand?’

  ‘I would like to see him try,’ I said.

  ‘My wife does not need taking in hand.’ But Harry did wind his fingers with mine to draw me towards the doorway where, the door still ajar as the Earl had left it, he pushed me gently out through the arch.

  ‘Are you telling me to leave my own solar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Harry…!’

  ‘Not now. I will come to you.’

  ‘If you are to meet your doom, I deserve to know. I shall become a wealthy widow.’

  ‘I did not know you were so mercenary.’ He drew his knuckles down my cheek.

  ‘But yes. I have to be prepared for an uncertain future. A Mortimer widow retains a third of her husband’s possessions as her dower. I will be much sought after.’

  He replied with a grin. ‘You will be a Percy widow, not a Mortimer one, with barely a rag for your back, and so unsought. I’ll try hard to save you from such an eventuality. Now go.’

  I nodded my acquiescence, looking beyond him to where I caught the regard of the Earl. Something was afoot, something that was stirring the Earl’s aspirations, probably the opportunity to enforce his hold on another swathe of territory. Then the Earl’s eye slid from mine. Here, I acknowledged, was a deeper concern than the acquisition of more land, of more Percy prestige. And I still did not know who had made landfall at Ravenspur.

  I would soon discover all. Would not Harry tell me? Without doubt he would. My skills at extracting news from a sometimes taciturn man had been honed to perfection. I would make him tell me by one means or another.

  Who was I, Elizabeth Mortimer?

  It was Harry’s pleasure, when he was in a chancy mood, to say that I was the product of a long line of marcher brigands and the self-seeking, arrogant, wily Plantagenets who would snap up anyone’s property, granted a fair wind. How, given that, would I be an easy wife to live with? Which was on the whole true. My father was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, one of the great marcher lords of the west with much land and many castles to his name. My mother was Philippa, daughter and only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of King Edward the Third. Thus I was a desirable bride when the Earl of Northumberland had caught me in his marriage net for his eldest son. After all, was I not second cousin to the King himself, Richard the Second? The Earl had doubtless seen the value of my Plantagenet connections, as well as my Mortimer blood, from the very beginning.

  For although my own family might own ambitions to extend their power, the Percy lords of the north were no less grasping. The Earl liked to appear as a rough and ready marcher lord who did not mince his words, one who was more ready to wield a sword than engage in well-bred niceties to hammer out an alliance or put an end to a dispute. What an astonishingly false image that was, for the Percys were as royally connected as I. The Earl’s father, another Henry Percy, had wed Mary, descended through the Dukes of Lancaster from King Henry the Third and his wife Alianore, which gave my father by law more than a taint of royal blood.

  The Earl had been educated to know appropriate demeanour in the royal household of King Edward the Third and that of the King’s uncle Henry, Duke of Lancaster, with the result that the Earl, despite his occasional mummer’s antics, was a man who could adopt a courtly costume, chivalric manners and diplomatic speech worthy of any European ambassador
. The Earl could apply a knife to his meat at a royal banquet with more sophistication than most. Woe betide any man who thought him nothing but a rude and ill-bred lout, even though it was on occasion easy to do so. This man who had dominated my solar with no apology was rarely questioned or thwarted; the years might be silvering his hair and beard but they had still to drain either his resources or his arrogance.

  Nor was Harry, with whom I could claim a distant cousinship as well as a more intimate relationship, no more than a border brigand in dusty garb or well-worn armour, driven to exchange blows with any man who would entertain him. Harry was…

  I considered it as he closed the solar door softly at my back.

  Well, Harry was Harry, a man of some talent and much attraction.

  I did not need Harry to inform me of the identity of the man who had landed in England. It took no time at all for me to deduce whose arrival had caused such a stir: there was only one deduction possible. Who else would make landing at Ravenspur, and in doing so fill the Earl’s eyes with bright speculation? It was Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Hereford, and it had been a return much anticipated in some quarters and feared in others. His father, John of Gaunt, the old Duke of Lancaster, my grandfather’s brother, had been dead since February. Henry would surely return to reclaim his inheritance.

  But it would not be an easy return.

  When Richard had waged a vicious campaign against those who had had the temerity to shackle his power earlier in his reign, he had connived at the death of some, while banishing his cousin Henry Bolingbroke from English shores for six years as a foresworn traitor. On Lancaster’s death Richard had seen the opportunity to be permanently rid of an enemy. The terms of the banishment had been changed to lifelong exile, and the whole of the Lancaster inheritance had fallen into Richard’s hands for the use of the crown. Cousin Henry had been effectively exiled and disinherited.

  And now he was back. I pursed my lips as I considered the repercussions.

  All would depend on cousin Henry’s demeanour when he met with the hostile King. The problem of the inheritance and exile could be solved if Richard was prepared to be gracious and forgiving. Or a raging fire could be lit to ravage the country. The thought disturbed me, but not unmercifully. Family disputes had a habit of being settled, if not equably, at least to the satisfaction of both sides, when there was really no alternative but to come to a settlement. Would not the alternative in this case be war?

  Harry found me without difficulty, where we always met to enjoy moments of privacy, even in this great castle with its vast array of infrequently used rooms. There would be no eavesdroppers here in the chamber in the Lion Tower, far from the Earl’s private space in the great chamber, with its excellent view of the castle environs and the River Coquet that encircled us in its gentle flow. Yet still Harry took care to hover, head bent, to listen at the door after he closed it, before turning to me, drawing his palms down his cheeks, wincing as they came in contact with the abrasion. In the intervening time, someone had tipped a ewer of water over his head, probably at his own bequest, so that his hair was damply clinging to his neck.

  Our reunion, redolent of restored intimacy that had been destroyed in my solar, could not yet be resurrected. I regretted it, but there was an issue which must be addressed.

  ‘I’ll not apologise for the Earl.’ Harry was invariably honest.

  ‘There’s no need. He does not rank women highly.’

  ‘Apart from my mother, whose name remains engraved in gold in his memory.’

  ‘I will say nothing against her. She must have been a saint.’

  Margaret Neville, older than the Earl at the time of their marriage and already a widow. He had not attained his earldom when he had wed Margaret and had valued a well-connected bride. She had carried five children and had been much mourned on her death when I was little more than a babe in arms. I suspected that Margaret held more importance for the Earl than the Blessed Virgin.

  ‘Never a saint, but a woman of steel-like will.’ Harry smiled briefly.

  ‘I’m sorry that I never knew her. But that’s not important.’

  ‘No.’ He studied me from under his emphatic brows, so like his father’s. ‘You know what it is. I think we’ve all been anticipating this day for the last six months.’

  ‘Of course I know,’ I admitted. ‘It is Bolingbroke.’

  ‘Yes. Or Lancaster as we must now remember to address him since the title came to him by legitimate right on Gaunt’s death, however much the King might dislike it.’

  ‘And he has not brought an army with him?’ I mused as I recalled the Earl’s derisory comment.

  ‘No.’

  Harry was watching me. After all, Henry Bolingbroke, the Lancaster heir, being first cousin of my mother, was also claimed in as close a cousinship with me as was King Richard. It might be that family loyalties were about to become uncommonly stretched. Broken even. Glancing up, I knew exactly the content of Harry’s gaze, heavy on mine, the question openly being asked. Where would my own loyalties lie if a breaking did occur? I was too close to both to be objective in my cousinly appraisal. I knew them both. I held an affection for and a family duty to both. Glory of kingship would keep me loyal to Richard, the demands of justice would win my compassion for Henry. I hoped that I would never have to choose between one and the other. It could make for an agonising choosing.

  And if a choice had to be made, where would the Percys stand?

  I did not enjoy the breath of concern that stirred my thoughts.

  ‘What will Henry Bolingbroke do?’ I asked, rejecting Harry’s unspoken query, seeing his grimace as he acknowledged that I would, for a little while, keep my own counsel. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that he has chosen the perfect moment to break the terms of his banishment, when Richard is away in Ireland and so in no position to take action against him.’

  ‘No coincidence at all.’

  Harry was now perched sideways on a window ledge, ruminating, digging his fingers into his scalp as if it would aid clarification.

  ‘Blessed Virgin, Harry! Are you going to tell me anything about Percy plotting?’

  ‘How can I tell you what I don’t know? I know what you will say,’ he replied shortly. ‘If we don’t know what he wants, is it wise to ride to Lancaster’s side? It all depends what his intentions are. And we won’t know until he tells us. And we won’t know that until we meet up with him.’

  ‘Whatever he tells you, is it wise to pin your banner to his? After all, Richard sent my cousin Henry into exile for life.’

  And so he had, all because of the rebellious affair of the Lords Appellant when Richard’s infatuation with the charms of Robert de Vere had reached its apex, Richard endowing his favourite courtier with patronage, unable or unwilling to see the consequences. Resentment was stirred amongst five great magnates, my cousin Henry, the youngest of them, joining forces with Gloucester, Arundel, Nottingham and Warwick.

  Harry was now staring out of the window. Where his attention was, I could not guess.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ I asked.

  ‘I always listen to you, my purveyor of excellent advice.’

  I would not respond to his innocent smile as he turned once more to face me, arms folded across his chest in a deceptive attitude of concentration.

  ‘Would that Richard had listened to excellent advice in his choice of friends,’ I added.

  But he had not. The five Lords Appellant were driven to challenge royal power, resulting in a battle at Radcot Bridge, where they defeated the ill-starred de Vere, driving him into exile and forcing Richard into a bared-teeth compliance. The lords had emerged triumphant with their curb on the young King’s powers, but Richard had never forgiven them. As soon as he considered himself powerful enough, he set his sights on these lords, with devastating results. Gloucester was murdered in his bed in Calais; Arundel, my sister’s husband, executed; Warwick imprisoned; while Nottingham and my cousin Henry were banished from England. A notab
le coup over which Richard had preened. He would assuredly resist any attempt to overset it.

  ‘If my cousin Henry returns without royal sanction,’ I observed, holding Harry’s regard, ‘then that precious life of his will be forfeit. Richard already has you on his list of those with dubious loyalties after your recent outburst. When he returns from Ireland he will not let you go unpunished. He can be vicious when roused. His revenge on the Lords Appellant, as my poor sister is all too aware, was grim. Her husband’s death on Tower Hill was bloody and unnecessary. So if you are in collusion with Lancaster…’

  ‘If we are in collusion as traitors, then we are all under the shadow of the axe. We already are, for our sins.’

  ‘It was your own fault, Harry.’

  ‘It needed to be said. Richard has been too quick to trample on Percy authority. What’s more, I’d say it again tomorrow.’

  ‘And probably just as badly.’

  Harry had found the need to express, in vivid and crude terms, his disapproval of King Richard’s flexing of royal muscles in the north, to the King’s displeasure. Meanwhile Harry’s expression had closed, leaving me in no doubt that he would not discuss the clash of opinion with King Richard that had left a lurking shadow over our family, so I abandoned it for a meatier subject that would draw Harry back to the matter in hand.

  ‘What do you think Lancaster will do?’

  ‘I think he will say that he has returned to take back the Lancaster inheritance and his title.’

  I took note of the careful wording. ‘I’d be surprised if that’s all, whatever he says.’ I knew my cousin Henry better than that. He would never tolerate injustice. If he was the victim of such injustice, cousin Henry would be driven into action to right the wrong. Stepping behind him, I dug my fingers into Harry’s shoulder, making him flinch as I discovered a knot of taut muscle. Peeling back the cloth I discovered a newly scabbed-over cut. It had been a deep one. Another scar to add to the collection.