Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  Which announcement sent all my thoughts awry. This was no lightweight hop from one side to another. Edmund was attaching himself to the Welsh Prince’s gleaming meteor. Here was no casual alliance but one sealed in blood and legal entanglements of marriage. And Edmund knew it.

  ‘I suppose I should congratulate you in finding a wife,’ I managed to say. ‘She is not the one I would have chosen for you. Nor would our father. I mean no disrespect, my lord Glyn Dwr, but you must see that it is so. Edmund could be putting his head into a noose with this strategy.’

  ‘Alongside mine, if King Henry gets his hands on us.’ Glyn Dwr remained impressively unmoved. ‘Will you support us, or will you turn evidence against us, my lady?’

  Harry’s hand, clamped hard on my arm, stopped me. His voice was low, without any intensity, as if he were asking for another cup of wine.

  ‘Why am I here?’

  A question to which we still had no answer. Nothing had yet been directly asked of him, although an intelligent man could surmise with much accuracy. He directed it at Glyn Dwr, not my brother. That was where the power lay.

  Glyn Dwr pushed away his cup, flexing his hands as if at last the moment, for him, had come when he would spread bare his hopes and dreams before us.

  ‘We thought you might consider joining us, with your retainers, to destroy the Lancaster King.’

  Harry’s voice was harsh. ‘Why would I? What would be the advantage to me? We are Kings of the North. To put it crudely, what would I get from abandoning Lancaster for Mortimer? What’s in it for me, to throw in my lot with a foresworn Mortimer and a Welsh rebel, saving your grace? I might be at odds with the King for any number of reasons, but that does not mean that I will sign my name away to treason. Better to renegotiate with the King than wager my life on a chancy uprising in the hills of the west.’

  I expected Glyn Dwr to react in anger; instead he leaned back and began to speak with all the cool formality of the trained lawyer that he was. ‘You are, by your own presence here, in severe conflict with Lancaster. I’ll not give him the honour of the title King, for it should never have been offered to him. But it was, and now we must put it right. Lancaster will never be satisfied until his hold on this country is complete. Is he not chipping away at your power even now, encroaching around the edges? I know he sees Westmorland as a worthy rival to you.’

  When Harry made no reply, Glyn Dwr continued, an energy beginning to infuse his voice. ‘Join with us.’ He extended his hand, open, face up as if offering a gift of great worth. ‘Together we will be invincible. You from the north, Mortimer and I from the west. Edmund of March will be King. We will hold the country together in a tight fist until he comes of age. Right will be on our side, and until he is old enough we will give him good counsel through his aunt and uncle.’ Glyn Dwr acknowledged me with a bow of his head. ‘He will reign in peace, for who will there be to fight against him? All true English and Welshmen will know that he has the blood royal. And I, as Prince of this principality, will swear my allegiance to him. You, my lord Percy, will continue to hold the northern Marches in the name of the King as you have always done.’

  Harry was standing, looking down at his host. Precipitately I rose with him, thinking from his stance that he would decline and announce our departure.

  ‘Richard is assuredly dead,’ Glyn Dwr said, ‘whatever the rumours that he is alive and well in Scotland. He is dead and buried. The crown belongs to the Mortimer boy. Join with us and make it happen. Let us drink to our success and a new King, a new royal power.’

  But Harry did not pick up the cup; he cocked his chin.

  ‘I will give some thought to your offer, my lord. Meanwhile I will accept your hospitality for the night.’ Neither condemning nor accepting.

  ‘Will you not give me your thoughts, Sir Henry, before you leave this place?’

  ‘I will. There will be no doubts between us when I go.’

  But then the calm in the chamber shattered, as if Glyn Dwr had been suffused with light and passion, with the heat from the fire and the magical portents of old prophesies.

  ‘Join with us, Sir Henry. The dragon from the north and the wolf from the west, as told by the old prophesy of the mighty Merlin. Together with the Mortimer lion we will shatter this kingdom that has trampled on justice and honour. We will overthrow the moldewarp, the mole. Make this alliance with us, Sir Henry, and we will see a Mortimer on the throne before the year is out.’

  I knew the prophecy, of course. The Prophecy of the Six Kings. We all knew of it, by repute the mystical imaginings of the magician Merlin when King Arthur asked him to foresee the ultimate fate of his kingdom. Merlin had warned that the dragon, the wolf and the lion would combine to sweep aside the King that was the mole. The sixth King. The King that would be King Henry. I did not think to hear it as a foundation for a campaign, and it troubled me. This was making a magical prophecy into a political tool, Glyn Dwr being quick to harness it to his use in his discussions with Harry.

  ‘There are strange stars in the heavens that presage our good fortune,’ Glyn Dwr said as if he saw my lack of conviction in Merlin’s prediction.

  ‘As I will avow,’ Harry agreed.

  Iolo Goch, silent and watchful throughout, spoke for the first time with all the weight of a man of knowledge of such affairs.

  ‘A blazing star has been observed, my lords, my lady, every night from February. It is a thing of wonder and without doubt it presages an event of great power. There was a star in the east to announce the birth of Christ, was there not? There was another star to announce the coming of King Arthur. It is my reading of events that this new comet heralds the rising of Owain Glyn Dwr, Prince of Wales. How can we fail, with such magnificence in the heavens?’

  ‘So you see,’ Glyn Dwr added. ‘We have a cause and we have a great star to stand witness to our success. Even at my birth these major events were foreseen, with stars and comets and the earth itself shaking.’

  ‘As my own birth was announced with blood,’ Edmund added.

  ‘Join with us, Harry Percy.’

  Again Glyn Dwr held out his hand, as if to make an agreement, but Harry made no move to take it.

  ‘I will consider your offer, my lord. I will give my answer in the morn.’

  As we left the room, Harry holding the curtain so that I might pass through the door, we were followed by the soft voice of Iolo Goch breaking into song.

  See ye that blazing star,

  Ye bards, the omen fair

  Of conquest and of fame,

  And swell the rushing mountain air

  With songs of Glyn Dwr’s name.

  The melancholy tune followed us all the way up the stairs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We retired to our well-appointed chamber, the bed enticing with its soft covers and curtains stitched with golden dragons, but we were not there to sleep despite the weariness of the long journey culminating in the uneasy tensions of the meal and Edmund’s change in allegiance. Glyn Dwr might be urbane but what we had discussed would disturb the whole order of things. His final incandescence had illuminated the chamber with his visions of the future.

  ‘Which daughter is he going to marry?’ Harry asked inconsequentially.

  I sat on the bed.

  ‘I don’t know. If it’s the eldest, she’s the fairest of the four.’

  ‘Then I can see why he is so enamoured. They are all comely.’

  ‘Enough to throw down a wager to King Henry?’ It nipped at me with rat’s teeth, even though I was stirred by the possibilities that had been placed before us. ‘To cancel his indenture to the King through a marriage to the enemy? Many would say it’s a dangerous ploy for a man of sense.’

  ‘We could argue that your brother was never a man of sense. He should never have lost the battle of Bryn Glas.’

  Accepting that Harry’s measuring standard was invariably what happened on a battlefield, I sat more comfortably and thought, unwinding my hair from its caul, drawi
ng my comb through its length; actions that might appear to be languorous but my mind was not. A Mortimer crown was suddenly not such a distant vision after all. An exhilaration crowded into my throat as a whirl of possibilities presented themselves, if we should march in step with Owain Glyn Dwr. It would of course be Harry’s decision, when and how he wished to make it, and I would not destroy our new-found harmony by pre-empting his train of thought. Even so, with the fall of my hair masking my eagerness, I allowed the future to emerge speculatively bright in my mind.

  Until Harry came and sat before me, taking the ivory ornament and applying it himself so that my imagination set at rest for a little time, I sighed with pleasure, struck as ever by his gentleness when I had not expected it.

  ‘She is not as fair as you. Whichever one it is.’

  ‘Thank you, even though untrue.’ I had long accepted my limitations, but Harry seemed not to mind my dark hair and grey eyes, nor my straight nose and determined chin, although they were not the stuff of chivalric song. ‘I thought you might be seduced by soft Welsh voices.’

  ‘I prefer your harsher tones. I know where I stand when you are displeased. Even your hair has a will of its own.’ The remnants of the pleating had caused it to curl around his wrist as he combed.

  I laughed a little, leaving him the silent space to broach the crucial subject. Which he eventually did, sooner than late.

  ‘Well, my wife? Here’s a critical proposal for us to contemplate.’

  ‘Tell me what you are thinking.’

  He stopped applying the comb, holding it loosely in his two hands that seemed far too powerful to wield so fragile an object.

  ‘We have been rebels before.’

  ‘We thought it was justice,’ I said, playing the hand of the devil.

  ‘What we have done once, we can do again.’

  ‘If we consider it just to do so.’

  ‘Yes. If we consider it just.’

  ‘Even if it is treason.’

  ‘It was treason last time.’ Harry slapped his palm down on the body of the fire-breathing dragon that rampaged over the bedcover, stitched painstakingly by some past Welsh lady. The fall of his hair hid his expression from me. ‘We did not question the rightness of it. Or not overmuch. I think we crowned the wrong King in that year, seduced by Lancaster’s show of piety at Doncaster. Those damned relics that blinded us all.’

  ‘And we were blinded by your father’s determination.’

  ‘That too. But I cannot put all the blame at his door. It is at mine too. You know that I have always agreed that it should be Mortimer. But…’ He grimaced down at his hands that were now empty, but scarred and abraded, as if lacking a sword.

  ‘But it was easier to support Henry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now, it is not.’

  ‘Now it is not.’

  ‘Why is it not? What has made this sudden difference?’

  I needed to know, to be sure in my heart that Harry truly wished to step from loyal subject to rank rebel once more. Far more dangerously now, for Henry of Lancaster was the military leader that Richard would never have been. If we stood against Henry, it would be a true battle, steeped in blood to determine the victor.

  And I knew that I wanted it. Despite all the dangers and the threat of failure. Despite the looming possibility of death for Harry, of disgrace for me and for our children if we travelled this treacherous road, I wanted him to take that step to champion the Earl of March. Perhaps it was something in this place, this room, in Glyn Dwr’s domain that gave dissent such a glamorous power. How could we fail? What would we not risk to remedy a great wrong? Right and justice were indubitably fighting on our side and would bring us victory. I could not anticipate death. I could not foresee disgrace. And if indeed it swept us up in its craw, then we would accept. We were free to make that choice. Once again fervour began to beat in my blood, in my mind.

  ‘You know all the reasons,’ Harry said. He began to pace, ranging the width of the room, then the length, as I knew he would. The honesty surprised me. ‘We have always had expectations. Percy ambitions are pursued with sword and banner. The Percy lion will overcome all obstacles. We removed Richard because he had begun to undermine our authority in the north, did we not? But Lancaster proved no better. Yes, he awarded us grants, titles, wardenship of the March, control of castles, but with them came greater responsibilities when the Welsh and Scots reacted against Henry’s rule. We should have seen it and did not, blinded by the largesse. Yes, we had power, but we were left with expensive border wars that made demands on our purse strings, with no recompense from the King. We ended up paying for the defence of a realm whose King could not meet its costs. Do we accept it? Or do we resist? Do we take steps to secure our power under a Mortimer monarch?’

  He wanted an answer.

  ‘I say we put a Mortimer on the throne. But it is not my agreement that is needed in this house.’

  ‘There is no goodwill left between us, you see,’ Harry continued as if I had not spoken. ‘Lancaster blamed me for negligence over the fall of Conwy, of my refusal to take our Welsh host prisoner rather than talk tactics. He had no respect for my right to ransom Douglas myself. What does a subject do when his King has no respect for him? When that subject was the one to place him on the throne in the first place?’

  He returned to sit before me, taking my wrists.

  ‘Our power is on the wane, or will be within the coming years. What will be left for our son to inherit? Ralph Neville is the new beneficiary. My role as Justiciar of Wales has been given to Prince Henry with no recompense for me. Do you know what our grateful King plans? To set up a commission to oversee the release of all the prisoners from Homildon Hill because we, the Percy lords, could not be trusted to act honestly in our dealings with them. And the illustrious head of the commission will be Ralph Neville. I would wager my best horse on it. Nor is he the only one to have ambitions along the March.’ He paused. ‘I see the Percy lion laid low. Do I sit at ease in Alnwick and allow it to happen? It is not in my nature. Better to ride and face the enemy and demand retribution.’

  ‘Or change the King.’

  ‘Or change the King.’ He raised our joined hands to his forehead, his hair falling over my wrists.

  ‘And then there is…’ Harry shook his head, releasing me. ‘Nothing. Do we not have sufficient reason? Henry of Lancaster is not the next in line. Edmund Earl of March has that claim. And when he’s King I’ll make damned sure that he does not interfere with battlefield matters and ransom rights!’

  ‘I think the Douglas ransom rankles most for you.’

  ‘By God it does!’

  He was on his feet again, hunting for ale or wine, discovering a chased silver flagon in a cupboard beside the fireplace. Talk had made him thirsty.

  ‘So we become rebels.’ I nudged a little.

  ‘We become restorers of justice. Mortimer justice.’

  It seemed to be settled. The air shimmered a little in the heat from the fire. My heart shimmered within me too.

  ‘Will the Earl agree?’ I asked, refusing the offered cup.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Harry shrugged one shoulder in a habitual gesture of rejection. ‘I expect he can be persuaded if Neville is breathing over the boundaries of his lands.’

  Abandoning the cup, Harry pulled me to my feet.

  ‘Let us do it,’ he said, as much fire in his eye as there had been in Glyn Dwr’s.

  ‘It will be a long path. A dangerous one.’

  ‘We will follow it together and make the Earl of March the King of England, in his mother’s illustrious Plantagenet name.’

  We clasped hands as if we were combatants making a pact for the future, united in our visions at last. But we had never been combatants, merely lovers pushed in different directions. We would no longer be divided.

  ‘Have you a true conviction?’ I asked.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Then you know that I will stand with you whatever the ou
tcome.’

  ‘I know it.’ The lines in his face softened. ‘It is a heavy mood for such a remarkable chamber. I feel we are being crushed with magnificence.’

  ‘And Welsh songs of death and glory from the pen of Iolo Goch.’ Suddenly overcome by the return of our unity in mind and heart, and a need to be even closer, I stroked the tips of my fingers down his cheek. ‘Lord Owain has a fine voice. Do you suppose that he sings to Margaret in their chamber?’

  ‘It is just the sort of romantic thing he would do. Until she tells him to shut up and go to sleep. I’ve never met a man who could talk as he does.’

  ‘You prefer a man of few words. Like yourself. Unless temper strikes.’ I kissed his mouth. ‘You never sing to me.’

  ‘You would not want me to.’

  ‘No, but I would like the sentiment.’

  Sitting once more on the bed in this softer mood, Harry pulled me into the crook of his arm. ‘I remember no songs.’

  ‘Which is untrue. Am I to leave here, comparing you unfavourably with a Welsh Prince? Or even with Edmund? Sing to me “A Song in His Lady’s Absence”. It is a sentiment I understand well enough.’

  ‘Well, I’ll speak it, if you will imagine the notes. I am in a mood to be sentimental. Too much Welsh music and Welsh ale. And too much politics.’

  So in a complete reversal of mood, one of the traits I loved about him, Hotspur began some of my favourite verses, his voice soft, his chin resting on my head, my cheek against the measured thud of his heart in his chest. There was nothing wrong with his memory. In his voice a sadness, a melancholy, as if he knew what it was to be parted from the lady he loved. As indeed he did, as I knew what it was to be parted from him.

  Now would I fain some mirthes make