by Anne O'Brien
Which I could well imagine.
‘So you will take an army.’
‘Yes. Easy enough but we will need to travel through Navarre.’ He was already halfway to the door of our chamber, handing the pile of documents to yet another waiting page. ‘King Charles of Navarre, crafty monarch that he is, won’t allow me to march through his lands without maximum payment for his consent. I can pay it, but I’ll not trust him. The King of Navarre is as slippery as an eel, but if my brother John can make haste with troops from England we should make a good account of ourselves. I would not be averse to having Navarre and Castile as allies against France.’
So he was already knee-deep in warm preparations. I could see the old vigour beginning to bubble beneath his skin as if a fire had been lit beneath a pot of soup that had long lain still and cold.
‘I can see a way to make this to my and England’s advantage. In return for my army, I can demand from Pedro the surrender to me of towns along the Castilian north coast. He won’t like it but he’ll do it if it keeps his crown out of the clutches of his brother. It will give my father something to crow about as well so the gold he finally agreed to dole out will have some recompense.’
‘You are enjoying this, aren’t you?’
‘No. It’s a nuisance. And will be a drain on my expenses.’ Then he grinned. ‘But is marching into battle more appealing than sitting at a negotiating table? By God it is!’
I was resigned.
And so the plans were made with no help from me to become an ally of the King of Castile in war against his chancy brother Enrique in alliance with France, with only the slightest interruption, which Ned made a show of accepting with good grace when he stood outside my bedchamber and held his second child.
‘Another fine son. He will be called Richard.’
So it was reported to me by a proud nursemaid who returned the child to me with no gift to mark the occasion. Ned had no time for gifts. It was Twelfth Night, a time of great joy and rejoicing. On that day three Kings honoured us and the child with a visit to Bordeaux where we had returned for the birth. There were festivities in the streets when the Kings of Majorca, Armenia and Castile stood godfather to Richard.
Yet despite my pleasure in my son and the honour shown to him by these august visitors, it was, for me, a time of some trepidation. Ned left Bordeaux on a Sunday of biting winds before the middle of January when I was still in seemly seclusion. Despite my safe delivery and the strength of the new child, I was uneasy. Past memories would not let me be. I remembered Thomas leaving me to go to war. So had Will. And now Ned was gone to his campaign. My life was following the same pattern.
I dropped the cloth I was stitching onto my lap with a sigh of impatience at my own weakness, my lack of faith. Why was I thrown into this anxiety? There was no need. Neither Thomas nor Will had died in battle. Ned had conducted himself with glory through the campaigns of Crécy and Poitiers as well as innumerable sieges. There was no reason why I should fear that Ned should come to grief. The worst that had happened in my past experience was that Thomas had lost an eye, which had been no great loss to him, allowing him to make the most of it in rakish fashion for the next dozen years.
I must wait and hope for news. I had no hope of letters. Ned would send couriers if he remembered. I must rest on my knowledge of his strength and skill in battle.
God be with you. That was the message I had sent him on his departure.
Assuredly He will, as He will keep you, the reply.
So why was I beset by nerves?
‘What is it, my lady?’
Instantly one of my women was there to fulfil any desire I might have.
‘Merely a melancholy when I have no good reason to have one.’
I ordered her to pick up the lute and sing something cheerful. I had had enough of portents. I did not believe in portents. I would not believe.
But when I lay on my bed the prophesy was reborn, it loomed in all its horror before me. Not the one that put descendents of Lancaster on the throne, Merlin’s magical offerings, gossiped over by Sir Bartholomew for the entertainment of young women who knew no better. I had long since consigned that mischief-making, as it deserved, to the cesspit, but this one was far more particular, far more immediate, that it troubled my sleep.
Rising from my bed I went softly to the nursery chambers, to look down at the infant who snuffled in his sleep as I lit a candle, motioning to the watchful nursemaid that there was nothing amiss. A corona of fair hair that gleamed in my suddenly fanciful imagination like a true crown of gold. If that was so, if this babe became King after my cousin, then Ned would be dead, and also the child who was his namesake. I moved to stare down into the second crib. Our first born. Strong and healthy. He kicked at his coverings, awoken by the light.
‘They are both well, my lady.’
The nursemaid had caught some element of my concern.
Of course they were for they were innocent and unaware; I was the one to be troubled. I went back to my own bed, where the words came back to me, as if they had lain in ambush until I was alone and vulnerable, yet it was not a prediction that I could ever share with Ned. Sir Richard Pontchardon, one of Ned’s knights, was no purveyor of Merlin’s myths, but had a sound reputation as an astrologer. His reading of the signs was dire, all because my little son had been born on the sixth day of January, the Epiphany, commemorating the coming of the Magi to visit the Christ Child. And on that day the three Kings of Armenia, Majorca and Castile had come to visit Richard. A portent of biblical proportions. But why had it disturbed me so?
‘It is a grave prophesy,’ Sir Richard intoned. ‘The Magi came to visit the Christ Child who would be King of all the world.’ His gaze on mine was unwavering. ‘So three Kings visit this child at his birth. It bears heavily on my mind that this child will rule next as King of England.
‘I refute it.’ My voice sounded hollow to my ears.
‘You cannot refute it, Lady. It is written. My reading of the stars confirms it.’
It was stated with a conviction from which nothing would sway him, so it more than disturbed me. The prediction that Richard, this tiny child who had barely drawn breath, would be the next King of England after his grandfather.
I would continue to deny it, of course, rejecting it as mindless nonsense, for were they not an unlikely Magi, since two of our kingly visitors, those of Majorca and Castile, were in exile and so had no power to speak of, indeed might never wear their crowns again. Yet, if it were so, if Sir Richard’s prediction proved true, I would lose Ned to an untimely death. I would also lose my first-born royal son.
The enormity of it exerted a painful hold on what must be my heart. Was this love? This sense of impending loss, so strong that I thought I could not bear it.
I turned my mind from it, fearful of the vulnerability that came with admitting to love and prophesies. Instead I would concentrate on what I could do, to kneel before the Blessed Virgin and pray that there would be no battles. That Ned would return.
But what was a war without conflict?
I would watch over my son Edward. But how could I guard against the chance ailments that fate cast in the way of the very young?
There was no peace in me. Moreover Ned would enjoy the campaigning. He would enjoy his brother’s company. For a little while his thoughts would be turned away from me, but I would keep mine with him as I picked up fragments of news, of gossip. Intense cold, snow and frost hemming in the Pyrenees, it had not prevented Ned from reaching Pamplona, capital of Navarre. Skirmishes abounded and with them inevitable casualties, but there had been no major conflicts. Nothing to drop me into a well of despair.
And then nothing. No news either good or bad.
My anxieties over distant conflict trebled, for Ned had been joined by his brother of Lancaster and my eldest son Thomas, now a soldier in Lancaster’s retinue. John was still at court in England, under the guardianship of John de la Haye, appointed by Ned, but Tom at seventeen years was
old enough and capable enough to wield a sword in battle.
There was no reason for me to be cast into despair, I told myself. I would hear if there had been a major battle.
In Bordeaux my two little sons thrived.
How long before I heard? Or saw a return of the courageous knights, full of tales of triumph and victory? I set myself to the lot of all women, to pray and keep the faith. To have an ear to any undercurrent of insurrection at court. There was nothing. I should be at ease but my mind was fixed on what was happening in the south.
It was the second week into the spring warmth of April. A letter. My thanks to the Blessed Virgin who had heard enough petitions from me to finally answer a prayer. I saw the inscription on the cover as I snatched it without apology from the courier’s hand. Ned’s hand, which was unusual in itself. This I had not expected.
I ripped it apart. Then abandoned pride, because I knew he would not write about his own state.
‘Is my lord safe?’ I asked.
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘And my son, the Earl of Kent?’
‘He too is well, my lady. And my lord of Lancaster.’ The courier, frequently in Ned’s employ, smiled with some compassion. ‘Your son, my lady, was knighted by the Prince at Vitoria for his valour shown with the army.’
Fear drained from me at last, pride in Tom, relief for Ned, leaving me light-headed in the glitter from the courier’s armour. My worries had been for nothing. Sir Richard’s reading of the stars and the purpose of the three monarchs had been flawed.
I settled to read, yet was soon dismayed by the lack of content. It was news of a battle, on the third day of April when I had had no thoughts of such distant clashes. That was the day that we had taken the children down to the port where ships had begun to arrive, tempted out on the trade routes by the calmer seas. While we had enjoyed the busy scene, the snap of sails, the curious catches of the fishermen, a great battle against Enrique of Trastamara had been fought at Nájera. I did not even know where it was.
How much falsehood is there in the thought that a wife would know when her husband was in danger? I had not even known that Thomas was dead until the courier arrived. If Ned had died, would I have had a sense of so great a disaster?
We have engaged the Bastard of Spain, Ned had scrawled, and defeated him.
The hand was hurried, as if his brother John had suggested that it would be a kindly thought to tell me of the outcome, and Ned had reluctantly concurred between removing his armour and visiting his weary troops who would be his first concern. My eye ran down the single page. A list of those French commanders in the enemy army that lay dead on the field. Two thousand noble prisoners taken. Nothing of a personal comment. I had to presume that Tom and John of Lancaster were indeed unharmed.
I have sent one of Enrique’s horses to London to my father as a symbol of our mighty victory.
Well, I supposed that was good. A time indeed for rejoicing. A true soldier’s letter.
You will want to know that… .
I wanted to know that he was well. Unharmed. In good health and spirits.
You will want to know, dearest companion, that we, our brother of Lancaster, your son Thomas Holland, and all the noble men of our army are in good heart, thank God, except only Sir John Ferrers… .
Lancaster was safe. My son was safe. Nothing about the future except that they were marching on Burgos.
I stood and walked towards where the courier waited by the door.
‘Does my lord return?’
‘He goes to gain payment for the use of his army from King Pedro, my lady. The sum must be negotiated.’
‘Which should not take long.’
Why should it? Ned had fulfilled his part of this alliance. Pedro would be quick to dip his grateful hand into his purse, but I did not like the sceptical slide of the courier’s eye, the lack of a reply.
And so I put in hand a celebration to mark the Prince of Aquitaine’s triumphant return. It would not go unnoticed by the Gascon lords who should know the calibre of the man who ruled them. But what was the most important and the most touching for me? The beginning of that letter from Ned.
My dearest and truest sweetheart and beloved companion…
What wife could ask for a better commendation?
I did not think that he had ever spoken the words. How strange that he should write them when writing was not his metier.
If I were of a romantic nature I would have kept it in my bodice, close to my heart. Instead I folded the note and placed it in the coffer that contained the rest of the documents which were vital to my peace of mind and from which I would never be parted.
The battle of Nájera was in April. It was September before the victorious Prince of Aquitaine returned to where I stood on the steps of the great cathedral in Bordeaux, my eldest son’s hand in mine, waiting for him. The heat was still oppressive but we would remain there until the vanguard of the army arrived. I had timed it well. Small Edward did not have the patience to wait long, but I had talked to him and given him a pair of his father’s best gloves to hold which he did with self-importance. For me it was vital that the child should be here to greet his father.
Distantly I became aware of the noise, the clamour of an approaching army displacing the familiar noise of the crowd and the city around us.
‘Here they are,’ I said. ‘Here is your father.’
Small Edward hopped, red tunic with golden lions gleaming as Plantagenet lions ought to gleam, fair hair curling in the humidity from beneath his little hat.
Then here was triumphant victory in our midst. The blast of trumpets, war-torn, sun-bleached banners unfurled and lifting on the still air, the weary march of feet, both men and horses. The overpowering stench of sweat and horse and unwashed bodies that in no manner quenched the cheering to bring the army home to joyous acclaim. And, leading all, Ned, mounted in battle array. How long had they spent in putting together this impression of military power and magnificence? The gleam of the morning sun on armour and horseflesh, on banners and helms, was surely a symbol of God’s blessing on our venture.
I saw the royal colours of John of Lancaster: there was the silver lion of my own son Tom, who in his maturity bore such a resemblance to his father it was as if Thomas again rode from battle. To my discomfort – and my astonishment – tears stung my eyes and with them a realisation. I had never wept for Thomas. I had never honoured him with such palpable grief, but on that morning my heart was full of a sense of his loss, and his son’s glory. For a time I allowed those tears to fall unchecked, as a mark of respect to the Thomas I had lost and the one that was returning to me, then I wiped the tears away.
Ned drew rein. I waited. Today it was my place to wait. Here was the Prince returned to his own, to be acclaimed by all, the predictions of Sir Richard Pontchardon smashed into pieces. Ned was safe and returned to take up his power once more. The voice of the crowd surrounded us, enveloped us, but for that one prolonged moment it was as if we were alone together as our gaze caught and held firm. Even the child’s hand in mine was an ephemeral thing. This Prince sitting negligently on his proud bay was the centre of my world, that he had never been before. It seemed to me that it was a mirror image of that day at Castle Donington when I had been blinded by his brilliance. Yet far more than a reflection. Today I was not only blinded but chained by it.
Ned saluted with a smile, then a bow of his head, in recognition that our meeting must become a public thing.
Dismounted he climbed the steps to my side, removing his helm to hand to his squire. He lifted Edward high. Then he kissed my cheeks that were once again wet with tears I could not control; I, who never wept in public. The words I had inadvertently spoken to the women of my household flooded back. I, who never spoke without cause.
I repeated them back to Ned as we stood together because I knew it to be true.
‘I love a knight, whose prowess knows no peer.’
His reply was all I could have asked for.
‘As I love a princess whose beauty is incomparable. Come, my wife.’
Turning, my heart thudding, every inch of my skin sensitive to the soft air, we walked into the shadowy depths of the cathedral, where we knelt to give thanks for the victory and for God’s safekeeping.
And then, I would have let him walk ahead of me to receive the adulation of the populace. He would not allow it.
‘Walk with me, my most beloved companion.’
Ned took my hand in his and, without any thought of what might appear seemly between Prince and Princess of Aquitaine, we walked together into the Bishop’s palace where all was made ready to receive him.
My heart was full, too full to express what had taken root deep within me. It was unexpected. It was devastating. It was a tolling bell, heralding a new vista in my life.
Was it a triumph? Was the Castilian campaign to aid King Pedro and the great battle at Nájera the victory that Ned had recorded for me? As the light filtered through the high windows in the Bishop’s hall it touched on Ned’s face, undermining for me the miraculous joy of his return. There were lines of strain there, imprints that I had not seen before, the firm compression of his mouth undoubtedly grim. Nor, almost as soon as we passed beneath the carved archway, away from immediate public gaze, did he hide his disillusion.
‘We are bankrupt.’
So bald a statement of failure. His hand tightened around mine, for he still led me with gracious acclaim.
‘I had to dismiss my mercenaries because I could no longer afford to keep them.’ Ned grimaced through a mouthful of wine, the cup presented by a bowing page, as the banquet was prepared around us. ‘A great victory on the battlefield, I swear it, but at what cost?’
He would say no more, the disgrace of his inability to preserve his battle-force sitting sneering on his shoulder like a malevolent imp. And that was not all that troubled him beneath the gilded armour as his attention was requested by Constable Sir John Chandos. I could see the anger that lived within every movement, every reply, even as he considered the comfort of his own men who had returned with him. Hovering for a moment beside him, then unable to wait to learn more, I embraced Tom, who slid like an eel from my grasp with an apologetic grin, before I sought out my brother by marriage who had even more of a name for plain speaking than my husband. By this time a painful anxiety was lodged beneath my chest.
