The Shadow Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  He was as sceptical as I. And yet I could not so easily sweep aside the fear that hedged me about. Who dare be brave enough to cast aside the power of divination? I would not in my heart, however much I might decry it with cynical words.

  I had no mind to broach the warnings of Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, calling on the authority of Merlin that the Crown would pass to the House of Lancaster. One day I might, but today there was too much emotion to allow me to take the risk of angering him. Yes, it might be an advantage to have him settled as King of Castile rather than a lurking power in England. Accepting him as a friend did not blind me to the breadth of his ambitions.

  John took my arm to lead me back down to the sun-filled inner courtyard. ‘We will take care of him. We will bring him back to health.’ He smiled with dry appreciation, a man who had enjoyed the happiest of marriages before losing his beloved Blanche only a year ago. ‘I think that you have come to love my brother at last.’

  ‘I think I have come to love someone more than myself.’

  ‘Don’t berate yourself Joan. We come from a prideful family.’

  ‘I know. And now we have to destroy Ned’s pride if we are to force him to accept our help!’

  We would care for him if Ned would let us. But, in his inimitable style, he would not.

  ‘I’m not dead yet.’

  ‘No you are not. But you may be if you do not preserve your strength. You are not yet strong enough to lead an army onto a battlefield,’ I said. I had stopped being placatory even though my heart was wrung within me. ‘Drink this!’

  Amaranthus, commonly known as Prince’s Feather, which seemed entirely appropriate. Dried and powdered, drunk in wine, it would, with God’s grace, heal and ameliorate the debilitating effects of the bloody flux. Not asking what the contents might be, Ned swallowed it, handing me the cup with a glower as if I had attempted a poisoned draft.

  ‘Do I stay here in my bed and let this damned bishop deny the oath he made?’

  At his side, occupying the one comfortable chair, John sat unmoving, fingers tented against his lips. I remained silent beside the bed, assessing the strength of the man in it. Of course Ned could never turn a blind eye to this development, nor had we been able to keep the news from him. The French army had infiltrated the region of Limoges; consequently its bishop, with preservation of his ecclesiastical skin in mind, had defected to the enemy. Ned was justifiably furious.

  ‘I made this bishop godfather to my eldest son. Is that not a signal honour? Do I accept his treachery? I will impose my will on this principality if I die in the attempt.’

  I dare not look at John as I prayed to God that he would not.

  On the following morning I entered his chamber to discover that Ned, against all good advice and with John in reluctant but solicitous attendance, had risen from his sick bed and was in process of donning his armour. Perhaps I was not entirely surprised, but that did not prevent the fear that lodged in my throat.

  ‘You will not.’ I was astonishingly calm.

  ‘I must.’ His head was turned away as he and John, acting as squire as he must have done on some many felicitous occasions, buckled another piece of armour in place.

  ‘Could you not stop him?’ I was perhaps less calm when addressing John.

  ‘No.’

  I walked out. I could not stay to watch the determination with which they both prepared to leave once more for war. What did I expect? It was the same pride that was in my own blood. They were Plantagenet princes and no bishop could be allowed to break his oath of loyalty.

  But I was there when Ned took his place at the head of his and John’s troops.

  ‘Keep safe,’ I said.

  ‘I will. Keep my sons safe.’

  ‘You know that I will.’

  He leaned to touch his hand to mine. There was no apology in his gaze, which was firmer, more confident, than it had been of late.

  ‘God shower you with His blessing and bring you victory.’

  So he made his first journey out of Bordeaux for two years, clad bravely, rallied to his former strength, as he rode one of his war horses.

  ‘I will yet ride into battle.’

  But I knew the litter travelled with them.

  Pray God that John would bolster Ned’s body and spirits and curtail his ambition that would drain his strength before the end of the campaign. Pray God that Ned would come home to me. I could not bear to lose him.

  ***

  I had been warned.

  Even so, I halted beside the open door, reluctant to move further into the chamber. It was difficult to see, to make out forms and shadows apart from the glimmer of the linen on the little bed, the windows being shuttered to bring some semblance of cool and dignity to this room of pain and tragedy. All was quiet, the servants dispatched despite their reluctance; Richard, not understanding, sent elsewhere in the palace for safety.

  I had sat in this chamber, watchful, only an hour ago. I had no premonition when I left for the briefest time to deal with some demand in the household that I should have ignored.

  I had no thought of what would happen in this chamber in my absence. How could it come so soon? How could it come at all? All my worries were centred on the city where Ned and John waged war and I knew not what the outcome would be. But while the two royal brothers besieged Limoges, took the treacherous bishop prisoner and razed the town to the ground, I had no sense of the loss that would strike at me. At Ned too.

  Slowly I walked forward, suddenly feeling every year of my age, dragged down by the weight of it. And yet I had lived long and adventurously with much complacency in my endeavours. The child would never do that. This child, in spite of all our care, was dead.

  How is it that a boy, so full of noise and energy one moment, can lie in his bed and pass from this life, robbed of all colour and movement within a handful of hours? It was assuredly not plague, nor some bite of a noxious creature. Now I was standing next to the bed. His hair gleaming, newly combed, his clothing set to rights after the heated pain of those few hours, he looked as if he was merely sleeping, and would wake to run and shout until the rooms of the palace echoed with his games.

  Our son, our hope, Ned’s pride. A precocious son, now at five years able to ride a horse, able to carry a little sword with some haughty mien. Ned was already planning a suit of armour for him. Ned had been seven when such a suit had been made for him. I remembered it. I remembered Ned’s fierce delight in it. So would our son be trained in his father’s famous shoes.

  How would Ned respond to this death? I could not imagine it. Desolation and pain filled me so that I felt the need to howl my grief.

  Keep my sons safe he had said. And I had failed him, and them.

  However ill Ned might have been, he always had time to speak with his sons, to laugh with them, to allow them to lift his sword, to wear his great helm in which they became lost, their voices echoing so that they laughed with joy. And now this child was dead, a fever that had swept through his body, draining it so fast that I had barely taken him into my arms before his spirit had gone.

  My thoughts flittered away, to my surprise, back to England, to my own loss many years ago now and an infant burial in Winchester. I had had a son called Edmund who had died at such a young age, even younger, just as this one. But Edmund had ailed and finally been struck with a contagion of the lungs so that he gasped and choked. The grief was my own; Thomas had barely known him, merely mourning him as a father would mourn any son. But Ned loved this boy who should have inherited his titles and his authority in the order of things.

  I loved him too. My beloved Edward.

  I had not been able to keep him safe.

  I touched his hand with my finger, where his flesh was already cooling.

  I could not weep. My heart was a stone, a fist of ice. I could not accept this loss, yet I must mourn as the rest of my household would mourn. I had failed Ned. I had lost my son.

  Ned had returned. When he had returned from Castile I
had been there to meet him on the steps of the cathedral, our son’s hand in mine, heady with elation. Now I waited for him in the chapel where our son’s body lay. I knew our steward would send him here and so I waited in the shadows, not knowing what to say when I sensed that he had walked in to accompany me in my hopeless vigil. I could not even turn my head to look at him, afraid of the grief I would see in his face. Afraid of what he would see in mine.

  There was a long silence behind me. Then:

  ‘I had to come home.’

  The timbre of his voice made me look up and back over my shoulder. Then I turned completely at what I saw.

  ‘When did he die?’ Ned asked, walking slowly towards the little bier.

  ‘Two days ago, before the sun rose. A fever touched him during the night. We tried but could not cure it.’

  ‘I wish with all my heart that I had been here.’

  ‘You could do nothing. We could do nothing. Ned!’ Now I was on my feet to grasp his arm as he came to a halt at my side. ‘How long have you been like this?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘The same?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Worse?’

  He grimaced. ‘Yes. I had to come home,’ he repeated.

  In spite of his own weakness, he stooped and gathered his son’s body into his arms.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said. What empty words. How trite and meaningless. The walls of the chapel seemed to weep around us in their grief.

  ‘Where is Richard?’

  ‘He is well. He is with his nurses. The fever did not touch him.’

  Releasing his son, neatening the coverlet that displayed the Plantagenet symbols of power and majesty, he faced me across the wilderness of the little body.

  ‘Do you know?’ he said as if beginning a conversation about music or some tale he has heard from a minstrel, ‘I cannot even ride into battle. When I led the attack at Limoges, I was carried in a litter.’

  I had guessed, but gave no intimation of my past fears. There were too many present ones to unman him and destroy me.

  ‘The degradation smites at my soul, Joan.’

  Not Jeanette today. His love was compromised by loss and suffering and the ultimate degradation of being unable to fulfil his destiny as a prince and a knight. I stretched out my hand to touch his cheek that seemed so wasted and pale despite the hot sun that had been beating down on him through the past months.

  ‘Your soul is strong enough to recover.’

  ‘How can I have faith when God takes away my son?’

  I lowered my hand so that he could interlock his fingers with mine. ‘What do you want to do now?’ I asked softly.

  I knew in my heart what he should do but I would not pre-empt his decision. Not today. For a long moment he looked towards the altar with cross and candles and the image of the suffering Christ. No more suffering than Ned’s present agony. Then he looked back at me, eyes wide and fathomless, yet I could see that he had come to a hard-won decision.

  ‘Go home. I have to go back to England. I am no use in battle here. My mother is dead, my father’s hold on England wanes. Perhaps on English shores I will regain my strength. And then, maybe, one day, we will return.’

  Our clasp tightened, as I admitted to a relief that weakened me.

  ‘Then we will go.’

  Perhaps his health would be restored. He would recover from this monstrous debilitation and stand proudly beside his father in King Edward’s final years with Richard as his heir. Perhaps matters were not as desperate as I had thought. I was not too old to carry another royal son. Yes, to return to England was the decision that Ned had needed to make.

  ‘We must stay for the boy’s burial,’ Ned said. ‘We are not yet free to go.’

  But now I took matters in hand. I did not even wait to hear him ask what I might think or want. It was, it seemed to me in that chapel, a necessity for his health, both body and soul, that we leave Aquitaine with all its pain and failure. I would make plans.

  ‘No,’ I said, drawing him with me to the door where John was now waiting for us, head bent in utter respect. ‘We will not wait. You need to go home soon. Your council will take control here…’

  ‘I cannot leave Edward unburied.’

  ‘Your health is of paramount importance. John will undertake the burial. He will do it well, here in the cathedral.’

  John nodded. I swallowed. It seemed a sad abandonment, but I knew what must be done. As testimony to his weakness, Ned did not argue. Evidence enough of the state of his body and the uncertainty of his mind.

  Returning briefly I kissed my son, as if to reassure him that he was not forgotten, then led Ned from the holy place.

  ‘We will go home. You will be stronger in England and your father needs you.’

  He looked at me. ‘Yes, we will go home.’

  The winds were set fair as we left Bordeaux, leaving the burial of our little son in the care of John of Lancaster. The victory at Limoges which should have been a shining star in Ned’s firmament was a bitter farewell, Ned defeated by his own physical weakness. He could no longer rule. He no longer had the strength.

  What would await us in England? I did not know, and I was afraid.

  Suddenly we could not return to England fast enough. While Ned rested, with freedom to be myself without anyone to watch or make comment, I wept for Philippa, whose death still seemed impossible to grasp. How would it be to return to court where Philippa’s benevolent presence and overarching love was absent? I wept for her as I should have wept for my mother, but never did. I wept for young Edward and for Ned; a whole lifetime of unshed tears catching up with me.

  Enough! I could weep no more.

  I thought it would be a thorny path for both me and Ned when we set foot once again on English soil. Ned must face his failure. I must take hold of my reputation. How difficult either would be I had no idea, but I turned my face to England with courage and a strong resolve as I held tightly to Richard’s hand. This was the proof of my value. This child who would reign after his grandfather and father.

  April 1371: England

  All would be well when we set foot once more in England.

  Were those not the puissant words of the gifted anchoress, Julian of Norwich, who, enclosed in her solitary cell, saw truth in the world? I was to read her Revelations in later years, as I damned her for her interpretation of God’s love for mankind.

  All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

  Oh, but she was wrong. I would not sing her praises. How unutterably misjudged her endless optimism. Only the most gullible, the most blind, the most grief-stricken, would believe that it could be so, yet I clasped the hope to my heart, even when I knew that my life with Ned would never be well again. Ned was fractious, lacking tolerance for his own weakness as well as for anyone in his vicinity.

  I must be protective. I must be tolerant of his fears. I had learned much in those final days in Aquitaine. I had learned even more since love had settled its presence on me, like a raptor’s claws into its prey. Love was a delight but also a great burden.

  The lines of the troubadour’s song revolved again and again in my mind.

  Love is soft and love is sweet, and speaks in accents fair;

  Love is mighty agony, and love is mighty care;

  Love is utmost ecstasy and love is keen to dare;

  Love is wretched misery. To live with, it’s despair.

  Too late, too late, I had learned what mature love could be. I had learned its power to destroy and harm all peace of mind. I had learned the true glory of it. All the agony and the ecstasy that was almost beyond the strength of the human soul to bear when the one person in whom that love was centred was brought low, to the level of base earth. What could I do to preserve Ned in the face of his suffering?

  Nothing. I could do nothing but encourage and show my love in every point on the scale of his battle to live and take on the role for which he had been born.


  ‘I need to regain my strength,’ Ned declared. ‘I’ll not be carried into my father’s presence on a litter.’

  ‘Then we will wait until you are strong enough,’ I said.

  We had sailed for England in a cold January, a fair crossing that caused him no discomfort, but we found a need to settle at Plympton Priory for more weeks than either of us had foreseen, for Ned to be strong enough to continue the journey. It clawed at his patience but it was April before we arrived in London, welcomed by mayor, citizens and a band of minstrels, and not least the gift of a complete dining service of gold plate. That is to say that it was promised but not yet complete. Ned, now able to ride a horse into the city while I was able to smile with more sincerity than I might otherwise have done, accepted it with a fine grace that vanished as soon as we were out of their hearing.

  ‘A pity they could not have sent the gold plate out to me in Aquitaine. I could have sold it in bits to pay my troops.’

  It did not bode well for the coming reunion, but I was encouraged that his health had become a manageable thing. Perhaps returning to England would indeed restore him. With the reuniting in my vision, I did what I could.

  ‘You must make peace with your father. Don’t forget that he is an old man and will be lost without your mother. Whatever has been between the two of you, he will rejoice at your return.’

  ‘We’ll soon find out.’

  ‘And you will clothe yourself as the Prince of Aquitaine,’ I said.

  As John had done in Bordeaux, so did I act as Ned’s squire, lacing the fashionably short cote-hardie, smoothing the nap of the rich cloth, helping him to pull on soft boots, exhibiting no compassion, which he would have detested.

  ‘Do stand still,’ I suggested, ‘unless you wish to appear before the King as if you had been dragged to Westminster through the gutters.’

  ‘I will if you could manage to hurry up!’

  When all was complete, Ned looked suitably princely.

  So Ned met with his father.

  It was eight years since they had been in each other’s presence, and many of them acrimonious ones. The King had not been reticent in his criticism of Ned’s administration in Aquitaine. Even more contentious, he had countermanded the hearth tax that had caused such ill feeling, to Ned’s fury. But the devotion of father and son still shone as bright as the promised gold plate as they stood together in the audience chamber at the Savoy Palace, John of Lancaster’s London home, where we were staying temporarily.