The Scandalous Duchess

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Listen to it, Katherine. See what you have done. This is what you have created. A monster. A whore.’ Philippa did not spare me. ‘An unspeakable concubine. A foreign woman who lured the Duke into shameless fornication and adultery. A prostitute who seduced the Duke from his lawful wedlock.’

  At first I was disbelieving. Of course the Lancaster household knew of the duality of my position, but never had I heard such a string of vicious epithets and I knew it would not be from Constanza’s lips. To remain silent and circumspect would shield us all from widespread disgrace. Of course there would be talk outside the Lancaster walls, but from where had this diatribe been born?

  ‘Where has this come from?’ I asked. ‘Surely no one would believe such nonsense.’

  ‘They would when it’s from the mouth and pen of Walsingham!’

  The name sent a shiver down my spine. Thomas Walsingham again, bitter priest and vile writer of letters. He had been silent since the mending of relations between the Duke and Parliament a year ago at the start of the new reign.

  ‘Walsingham? But why would he turn his wrath on me?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Philippa’s venom continued to pour out, her mouth ugly with her anger. ‘As I understand it, it was your stupid, stupid ride through the streets of Leicester. And don’t tell me you didn’t do it. I’m quite certain you did.’

  ‘Leicester?’ What on earth had I done in Leicester to warrant such ignominy?

  ‘Yes, Leicester. Where you rode with the Duke!’

  ‘Of course I rode with him. But I don’t see that it makes me a whore.’ It was hard to make my tongue form the denunciation.

  ‘How could you have been so careless, Kate?’

  ‘Were we? We have always been careful not to draw attention—’

  ‘And I suppose his taking your reins and leading you back to the castle was the height of discretion. Is that what happened?’

  And I saw it now in my mind’s eye. My mannerless mare. The Duke’s solution to an immediate problem. And I saw the intimacy of such an action between a man and a woman.

  ‘Is it?’ Philippa repeated.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’

  ‘Katherine, you fool.’

  ‘I did not think. The Duke did not think.’

  ‘And look where that has got you. You knew it would happen one day if you could not keep your lust in check.’

  ‘It was hardly lust to let the Duke curb a difficult horse.’

  ‘It was the height of stupidity to show the world that there is a deplorable intimacy between you.’

  ‘No! I don’t accept that! Let me think.’ I stood, pulling away from her now, to stand before my prie-dieu, but I could not kneel. This was no time for prayer. This was time for some cold hard facts and I allowed my mind to return to that day of such happiness in Leicester, when I had thought I had sensed an air of disapproval, and rejected it as my own imagination, looking for shadows where there were none. I had allowed the Duke to seduce me with the bittersweet emotions of parting. I had refused to see.

  But there had been shadows after all. Oh, I had not been mistaken, for I had sensed the atmosphere in that little group with conspicuous accuracy, as well as the disfavour in the eyes of the steward. But how had it grown from that minor shimmer of disapproval in the streets of Leicester to a thundering diatribe under the pen of the Duke’s greatest enemy? Becoming too complacent in our love, we had forgotten the need for discretion and thus we had fallen into his hands. Our ride through the streets had offered him the opportunity for a vicious onslaught. But here was the surprise that caught at my throat…

  ‘But why would he cover my name with such filth?’ I asked, looking over my shoulder to where Philippa still sat, folding and refolding the damp linen.

  ‘Because he is a hater of women as daughters of Eve. And what a weapon you put into his hand, the pair of you. Besides, it does not matter why he does it. The damage is done.’

  We had become reckless in our love. Bold even. Careless of how the world would see us. Intense dismay washed over me, to destroy all my assurance and complacency. I could never be complacent again. I had become notorious.

  ‘Walsingham says you are a witch.’ Philippa was not done with me yet.

  My eyes snapped to hers.

  Witchcraft? Here was a deluge of dangerous invective falling down on my head. What damage could Walsingham make in my life?

  ‘I am no witch.’

  ‘That’s as may be. He says you are a promiscuous adulterer, not fit to be the governess of the Lancastrian princesses. Flaunting yourself, humiliating the beautiful and loyal Duchess who should be secure in her marriage…’

  Anger began to burn, replacing fear.

  ‘He says that you are blatantly unashamed. And what’s worse, you are of low birth. Can he find anything worse to say than that? I’ll tell you if you think not. He says that—’

  ‘Be silent!’

  Philippa subsided a little before my anger. ‘I thought you would wish to know.’

  ‘When you have finished lashing at me. Tell me what he says of the Duke.’

  My guilt could not be measured. All my thoughts had been centred on what Walsingham had said about me, but what calumnies had he levelled at the Duke? If he saw me to be a worthy target, what fuel did our behaviour provide for Walsingham to use against the Duke of Lancaster? I shivered as Philippa delivered them in the same flat tone that she had used against me.

  ‘He has deserted his military duties in France for the sake of a sinful union. Any failure in England’s campaigns will be placed at his door. And at yours.’

  ‘That is not true.’

  So I was to blame for that too.

  ‘He had made himself abominable in the sight of God. He is a fornicator and adulterer. A pursuer of luxury and lechery. He is not fit to have authority in England. He is not fit to have the ear of the young king.’

  It was worse, far worse than I could possibly have imagined.

  ‘He says the Duchess was with you at Leicester. That she was riding with you when you publically slighted and humiliated her.’

  ‘Which is not true. By the Virgin! Would the Duke have paid court to me with his wife riding at his side?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘I no longer know what is and is not beyond you.’

  I ignored her taunt as well as I could. ‘Is there anything else I should know?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘What is the Duchess saying?’

  ‘Do you really want me to tell you? It is loud and in Castilian for the most part.’

  ‘Has she seen the Duke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then there is a lot you are not telling me.’

  ‘I don’t think I need to.’ Philippa tilted her head. ‘I thought to see more reaction from you.’

  ‘What would you wish me to do?’ I was cold, imagining the confrontation between the Duke and Duchess: Constanza’s fury, John’s pride when under attack. But there my imagination came up against the usual formidable barrier. Would he defend me? Or would he ask forgiveness for Constanza’s mortification when the adultery of her husband was picked over by the vultures in the English Parliament? Would he allow me to carry the burden of guilt?

  ‘What is it that you wish me to do, to vent my spleen?’ I repeated, as I picked up a precious glass vessel, one of the many gifts from the Duke, from the coffer beside my bed. ‘Destroy something of value?’ I held it as if I might allow it to drop and destroy itself. Then replaced it as carefully as I had held it. I would not allow Walsingham or my sister to drive me to wanton destruction or despair. I would put my trust in the Duke’s love for me. And thus I harnessed every ounce of willpower to answer calmly.

  ‘Do I weep and moan my sins? Cast myself on my knees before the priest? I will do none of that, Philippa. I think I have been waiting for this moment since the day that the Duke told me that he desired me above all things. One day, if I became his mistress, I must be discovered and hel
d up for shame. I just did not think it would be quite yet. How easy it is to turn a blind eye to how the world will view our union, when happiness beckons. I just did not think that it would be quite so vicious. But no—I will not weep.’

  I could not weep as fury flooded through me that the cruellest accusations were directed at me. The woman. The daughter of Eve, guilty of seduction as she had been since the beginning of time. The one guilty of enticing the powerful man to her bed so that he would abandon the invading army, leaving it without leadership to fend for itself against hostile forces. It was my fault.

  And now the price of that supposed seduction might be demanded from me. How high could that price be? Would the Duke be able to keep Parliament’s teeth from my throat?

  Not if he is fighting for his own political life.

  Fear gripped hard. But I would not bow weakly before it.

  ‘Well, you have delivered your good news,’ I announced with brittle humour. ‘Do you wish to remain here for the night, or is sharing the bed and board with a sinner such as I am become too much for your conscience to withstand?’ And then I remembered. ‘But you have come to stay, haven’t you?’

  My sister had arrived with her servants and a wagon full of her belongings.

  ‘Yes.’ There were tears on her face again.

  ‘Why? Is it just the Duchess who has cast you out? Or is it…?’

  And then she was weeping again. ‘Geoffrey and I have decided to live apart.’

  I went to her and, with a sigh, took her in my arms, two stricken women.

  ‘We barely lived together through the whole of our marriage. I don’t suppose I will notice…’

  But she was hurt. I rocked her in my arms, murmuring words of comfort, while all the time in my heart was no comfort at all, and to my shame, my concerns were not with my sister’s predicament. The true span of the price Walsingham demanded might colossal. What might he ask from the Duke as reparation for our sin? Or, in the face of this unexpected attack, how much might the Duke be prepared to pay to silence the vicious priest?

  For here was the thought that preyed on my mind as I held Philippa close. Would I be the price demanded for the Duke’s reinstatement in the eyes of England? Would I, the vile daughter of Eve, be the one singled out as the sacrificial lamb? I had of late been so secure in our love, so mindless of dangers from without. Nor did I question the strength of the Duke’s commitment to me even now, but in truth Walsingham was a powerful enemy, with a voice loud enough to swing opinion in England.

  What of my own turbulent conscience, since Walsingham had called me harlot the length and breadth of the country? That night, with Philippa fallen into fitful sleep, I lifted my mirror, recalling how, under the attack of Constanza’s damsels, I had scrutinised the face of the newly branded whore, questioning what I saw there, despairing that I would see the marks of shame on my soul. Dismay had been a heavy cloak, that I had failed to see my ruin as the Duke’s beloved.

  I had not seen the half of it then, cushioned as I was by the Duke’s care. But who in England would not now regard me with utter contempt?

  I placed my mirror face down. On the ivory cover a lady crowned her lover with a chaplet in stiff perpetuity. I could not contemplate my reflection, to see this object of sin, as fear returned, more lively than ever with cruel claws. I had always known that, one day, I would be separated from my lover. Had I not known it from the very beginning when I had given him a faded rose and my respectability? The cloud was always there, hanging over us like an ever-present sword of Damocles to divide and destroy.

  Was this to be the moment, when the Duke must choose between me and England’s glory? My mind was filled with trepidation, knowing that the choice was his to make; I would be unable to sway him. With his duty to England, as the puissant counsellor of the new untried King Richard at the forefront of his mind, I must not even try.

  ‘I have come.’

  It was all he said. It was enough.

  ‘I knew you would,’ I replied.

  He stood in the refurbished splendour of my Great Hall, clad in wool and leather for travel but, as I would always expect, still with the gleam of jewels beneath the film of dust on hat and tunic. The flamboyance of his acknowledgement was as gracious as if Philippa and I were two high-born foreign dignitaries, rather than two unhappy women garbed plainly for domestic work.

  ‘You are right welcome, John,’ I said, as I had on so many previous occasions. My voice felt compromised to my ear, a little rough with all the underlying anxieties that had cavorted incessantly through my days.

  With one glance at the Duke’s expression, a brisk curtsy and a warning glance in my direction—as if to say: ‘and don’t do anything to worsen to what is already an appalling situation’—Philippa made herself scarce.

  And there we stood, contemplating the destruction of the life we had made together. How many times had we stood like this, some chasm of guilt or duty or conscience separating us? How often had we stepped over that chasm to be together? But perhaps this one was too deep for our courage; too critical with the swarming mass of Walsingham’s diabolical accusations.

  I waited for the Duke to speak.

  And while I did, I refused to relive the sleepless night-hours when I had been all but wrenched apart by the fear that he might, for the sake of his reputation and his marriage, for the sake of his authority in England, even for the sake of England’s success in the foreign field, renounce me, putting me quietly aside as a thing of danger. Once I had lived in dread that Constanza would be the one to call on his honour. Walsingham, I acknowledged, was a far more dangerous foe.

  And if the Duke asked me to free him, so that he might restore his good name and his place at the young king’s side, what would I say? Could I step back and let him go? Would I have the strength to do that?

  I trembled at it.

  As I stepped towards him, the Duke raised his hands a little, palms turned out, his gesture as disciplined as his face. His cheekbones were sharp, the skin pulled taut, as if he had ridden far and fast. The familiar lines that I knew so well, that I had frequently traced in the aftermath of passion, were engraved more deeply than usual.

  The words, yet unsaid, hung in the air between us with the smoke from the fire.

  ‘Are you going to invite me somewhere more comfortable than this hall? Have you a room where, just at this moment, I don’t have to face your scowling sister?’ He spoke with something that might once have passed for a brush of humour, but not today.

  What was he thinking? No matter how carefully I searched his face, his eyes that were dark agates, I could not tell. I never could unless he wished me to know. He would not talk about the effect Walsingham’s attack had had on him. That was not why he was here. But what then did he have to say to me, which had brought him this great distance to Kettlethorpe when his whole concentration had been engaged by the invasion? I was full of fear as I opened the door into the inner chamber.

  One inside, I faced him and said, ‘My sister says the sky has fallen on our heads.’

  ‘So it would seem,’ he replied with a lift of a shoulder.

  Here was tension. I asked: ‘What did we do that was so very bad?’

  ‘We drew attention to ourselves.’

  ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘It was my fault, not yours.’

  ‘That’s not what Walsingham says.’ How the words had hurt, and did so again as I repeated them. ‘He says I am a seductive whore.’

  The Duke’s mouth tightened. ‘I should have been aware. I took your bridle and led you through the streets of Leicester, under the eye of every merchant, tradesman and gutter urchin.’ His hands had clenched into fists, but his voice was without inflexion. ‘For those who would make trouble for me—and for you—it was translated as a symbol of our disgrace, that I have control over you. That I have possession of your body. It was no better than shouting it from the rooftops. It might be one thing for me to take you to bed privately at The Savoy or Ken
ilworth or Leicester Castle, but to show ownership of you in public could not be tolerated.’ He took a deep breath, as if he had not breathed deep for some time. ‘We forgot to be discreet, Katherine. We forgot.’

  I could see all the damage we had done, so heedlessly, on that bright morning when I had daydreamed and he had prompted a flirtation over a barrel of oysters and an iron pan.

  ‘I had been warned,’ the Duke said. ‘I should have taken heed.’

  ‘Warned?’ I was startled, and not a little angry. ‘So I had already been singled out as a blight on your life.’

  He did not reply. It did not need saying. His priest, his advisers, even Sir Thomas Hungerford in his role of steward of all the southern Lancaster estates would have warned him against me. How many jibes and slights could there be to wound me?

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’

  ‘It was not important.’

  Taking cognisance of his shuttered expression I knew he would say no more.

  ‘Can Walsingham harm you?’ I asked.

  ‘There is nothing new in his firing arrows at me,’ he replied, again avoiding my question.

  ‘It seems to me that he has more and heavier ammunition now.’

  ‘Perhaps. I will look to my defences.’ All the pride of a Plantagenet prince rested on his brow like a glittering coronet. ‘But I am not here to talk about Walsingham.’

  It was my turn to take a breath. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Why do you think, Katherine?’

  And I read the sudden blaze of fire in his eye, the physical desire in his face. No, he was not here to talk about calumnies and reputations. He was here to see me, to show me that Walsingham could not sunder what existed between us. Whatever the future held, whether we lived together or apart, our love would remain inviolate.

  In my bedchamber, where Philippa was not scowling, there was no place for a complex exchange of words, for soul-searching, for regrets. Here was no place for what the future would hold for us. I would not think that our parting on the following day might be our last, if the Duke decided to repair the damage to his own standing.