The King’s Sister

by Anne O'Brien

‘Just let him keep his temper and his ambitions in check,’ the Duke warned, ‘and then we might all survive.’

  ‘Don’t you trust Richard?’

  Diplomatic to the last, the Duke chose not to answer that, but his opinion was clear enough. ‘If you smile on him and Huntingdon provides a steady hand at the helm …’

  For my father’s years of power as royal counsellor were long gone. And so I smiled as rewards and royal patronage were heaped upon us, and John began to build Dartington Hall in Devon as a home fit for his new elevation.

  Thus we basked in the sunshine of Richard’s regard.

  The music died away and Richard, leading the little Queen forward, called us to attention.

  ‘It is my wish to reward those who love me and mine.’

  I watched him as he handed Isabella forward, his face clear and unlined, eyes soft and full of gentle affection. There was no cat-like malice in Richard today. This marriage could be the making of him, with this young life to protect and nurture. We curtsied, bowed, a silence falling over us.

  ‘Who is the best dancer amongst us?’ He looked round the expectant faces. ‘Which lady has the grace and elegance of my own white hind? What do you say, Uncle of Lancaster?’ He looked at my father whose expression was a masterpiece of diplomacy.

  ‘Who can say, sire. It would be cruel to choose from so many fair exponents.’

  ‘But choose we must. And I know who will tell me the truth.’ He leaned and whispered in Isabella’s ear.

  Isabella, all of seven years old, shook her head, eyes wide with apprehension.

  Richard whispered again. Isabella whispered back. The crowd laughed indulgently.

  ‘My wife has chosen, and I will agree.’ He held out his hand, an open-handed gesture of pure friendship. ‘We award our prize to the Countess of Huntingdon.’

  I laughed, a little startled, disconcerted. The supreme agility of youth was no longer on my side, so what had my royal cousin in mind? I glanced at John who was still playing the great magnate, his face a superb example of brotherly appreciation. That mask, when he chose to use it, was still difficult to penetrate.

  ‘Come, Cousin.’ Richard beamed. ‘We await you.’

  I stepped forward, as Richard drew a ring from his own finger and pushed it onto my thumb where it gathered the light from the candles and cast it out in flashes of azure light.

  I curtsied. ‘I am honoured, sire.’

  ‘So am I, to have you at my court, my dearest cousin.’

  The dancing continued around us.

  What could possibly prevent Richard’s reign from being one of the most glorious, with John as brother and counsellor? The Duke had said ours would never be an advantageous marriage, that it would be ill-conceived to ally myself with Holland. How wrong he had been. It had been like opening an oyster and discovering within it a pearl beyond price.

  And yet …

  ‘I think Richard is in a dangerous mood,’ I said bluntly when Richard allowed me to retreat. ‘When Richard smiles like that I always fear for our good fortune.’

  ‘How can we be threatened?’ John asked, taking my hand to take cognisance of my reward, a blue sapphire set in a heavy gold ring—far too valuable for such a prize. He seemed to have cast off his earlier doubts, and who could blame him in the face of such royal approbation? ‘Am I not the most loyal of subjects?’

  But I was not convinced. Perhaps the Duke’s warning had sown seeds.

  ‘You are, of course. But I swear I am not the best dancer.’

  ‘Isabella chose you.’

  ‘No. She didn’t choose me. It was Richard. He has ulterior motives. The problem is, what are they?’

  ‘He has indeed. Shall I tell you?’ John teased.

  I dug him in the ribs. ‘Another marriage to plan for our infant children?’

  ‘Would you object? A daughter promised to the Earl of Oxford’s heir. Richard is mending fences on all sides.’

  ‘You don’t trust him either,’ I said.

  ‘No. But I think he wants to please me. Are we not basking in the gilded light of his regal gaze?’ I heard the cynicism. John was as watchful as I, even though he shrugged. ‘He is my brother and will not harm me. He has promised me an even greater prize. Richard will grant me the office of Chamberlain for life.’

  It was a superlative end to the celebration.

  ‘Will you support Richard against the Lords Appellant, if he asks it of you?’ I asked as we made our weary way to our own accommodations. Richard’s court demanded an unconscionable degree of standing around. What it was that put the thought into my head I had no idea, but I could not let it rest.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  I understood his reply. As Richard’s Chamberlain he could do no less, but it would assuredly cause difficulties. It would bring him into immediate conflict with my uncle of Gloucester, and with Henry. And, inevitability, there would be an uncomfortable distancing from my father, creating more infinitesimal fault-lines in the family loyalties.

  It threatened to gnaw at my contentment as the consequences of Radcot Bridge hung over us like a bad odour.

  I would not think about it. There would be ways out of the conflict. There were always ways out of political dilemmas and we would find them. John would find them.

  When there came a knock on the door of my parlour, one of the great chambers in Pultney House that I had designated as my own, I motioned to one of my women to open it to discover Master Shelley, our steward, accompanied by two figures, not yet reaching full adulthood, muffled in cloaks. One of the boys, the eldest by his height, stepped forward. The other boy, square and sturdy, merely scowled.

  I rose to my feet, intrigued by these unexpected visitors, relieved to have something to distract me, for pleased though I was to have made my home at Pultney House in London, I was suffering pangs of loneliness. I had become used to John’s comings and goings but sometimes I missed him when Richard’s demands came first, as they must, and as they did increasingly often. Richard could never bear to be anything but first, and John had been gone for some weeks, quite where I did not know.

  ‘We have guests?’ I asked, brows rising. They were marked by signs of long and arduous travel, but there was about them an air of hauteur rather than of weariness. ‘Is Lord John here?’

  ‘My lord is here,’ the steward replied. ‘He says that we have additions to our household.’

  So who were they? I walked forward. There was no sign of deference from the two youths as I beckoned them into the room, looking them over. They came reluctantly. What had we here? The cold light of fury in the eyes of the younger boy was unmistakeable, for all his youth. I found it faintly amusing that he should glare at me in so hostile a manner.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked since they offered no explanation. The two boys were close to adulthood, unknown to me, yet the cast of their features and their light colouring suggested a family that I knew. Clearly gently born, their garments of good quality, they should have been raised to know when courtesy was due.

  ‘You are old enough to show deference,’ I remarked, when none was forthcoming.

  It was the elder boy who spoke. ‘I am FitzAlan. This is my brother.’

  ‘Then welcome.’ The FitzAlans were family of course, through blood and marriage, and these youths must be the sons of the Earl of Arundel. But why was their presence so acrimonious?

  ‘I am Richard FitzAlan,’ the youth stated again, voice icily clipped, at odds with his eyes ablaze with some fervour. ‘I am Earl of Arundel—except that on my father’s despicable death I have been disinherited. I have no wish to be here in the home of a murderer. I will show no deference. And you cannot make me,’ he ended, youth and emotion overcoming dignity.

  Everything within me stilled, as if at some presentiment of danger.

  Arundel? Dead? Here was information new to me. I knew the Earl of Arundel of course, head of one of the most powerful and well-connected families in the land. I knew Joan FitzAlan, his sister, e
ven better. She was Countess of Hereford through her marriage with a Bohun husband, and mother of Henry’s dear lamented Mary. Through her descent from King Henry the Third which gave her Plantagenet blood, she had always been close to my father. The FitzAlans were a family to be reckoned with, if not of my own quality, yet here was this boy with such bitter accusations that made no sense.

  ‘You should beware of loose talk, Richard FitzAlan,’ I replied. And there was John, entering on their heels, his cool hauteur matching the boy’s.

  ‘I know what I saw,’ Richard FitzAlan glowered at John, ‘and our father is dead.’

  ‘Dead as befitted a traitor,’ he remarked.

  ‘Murdered at your hand and that of the King.’

  I saw how John tried to temper his reply. ‘Shown mercy at the hand of the King.’

  ‘Is execution mercy?’

  ‘It’s far preferable to the punishment doled out to most traitors,’ John said with ineffable patience, eyes full of understanding. ‘If it were not for the King’s mercy, you would have watched your father hanged, drawn and quartered in public display.’

  The youth paled. ‘He was no traitor.’

  ‘He took up arms against the King at Radcot Bridge.

  That is treason enough. Now go with Master Shelley who will show you to your rooms. He will give you food and a place to sleep. We will speak tomorrow.’

  ‘God damn you for your part in our father’s death.’ A vicious parting shot from the younger of the two as our steward ushered them out.

  When they had gone, John and I stood and looked at each other, the curse hanging heavily between us.

  ‘You could have warned me,’ I said. ‘Do I ask what all that was about?’ Although I could guess some of it for myself.

  ‘I couldn’t warn you because I didn’t know Richard’s intentions to foist the brats on me. Richard has become a master of disguise.’ John’s features relaxed from recrimination into a wry smile. ‘How long is it since I last saw you?’

  ‘Too long.’

  Stepping together in one mind, his arms were firm, his kiss a promise for later, before he stretched his long limbs into a chair by the fire with a sigh of utter weariness.

  ‘What is all that about?’ The FitzAlan news had stirred a dormant fear in me.

  ‘Later …’

  I sent for wine and food, rid the room of the women, and waited with impatience until he had slaked hunger and thirst.

  ‘You have travelled far.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t want to see a horse or a saddle for the next se’enight.’ I smiled as I went to sit at his feet and link my fingers with his when he beckoned. It was good to have him home. ‘There’s nothing to concern you.’ He leaned to press his lips against a furrow that must still have been evident on my brow. Then said, as if he could not keep silent: ‘Richard has begun his campaign against the Lords Appellant. We always knew he would.’

  Of course it concerned me. For here was the retribution, that we had feared and that had come at last to assuage Richard’s desire for revenge. Was Richard strong enough to emerge from this with his authority and his crown intact? He might well, but I feared for my father and brother. As one of the Lords Appellant, Henry would be fortunate indeed to escape, and here was news of the death of Arundel. My belly quivered with nerves. Meanwhile John was intent on ridding me of my fears, which did nothing but stoke them.

  ‘You should be ecstatic, my dear love. You are now a Duchess and may wear a ducal coronet.’

  ‘You are standing so high with your puissant brother.’

  ‘I am indeed. I am now made Duke of Exeter for my services.’ But the worry was there, underpinning the sense of fulfilled ambition. The line between his brows, probably matching mine, was thin and deep. Would he tell me the truth, the whole of it?

  ‘Then tell me about the FitzAlan offspring who it seems are to live with us. And who despise the very air we breathe.’

  ‘We have custody of them until Richard is satisfied with their loyalty to him. Which could be longer than he thinks. At the moment they’re ripe for murder.’ John sighed, absent-mindedly chafing my hands between his, frowning at some distant scene that still filled his mind.

  ‘I gather that the Earl is dead.’

  ‘Executed. Because Richard decided to strike at those who humiliated him.’

  So I was right to be concerned. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I thought it better not. You are too close for comfort to some of them.’

  I took a breath. Henry must be safe, or he would have told me. And yet fear leapt into life. ‘My brother?’

  ‘No. Henry is spared so far. But it has been a bloody affair.’

  And so he told me. I sat, a cup of wine forgotten in my hand.

  ‘We always knew it would only be a matter of time, didn’t we? Richard has had his revenge against three of the Lords Appellant at least. I was with him at Windsor when he made his plan, then went with him to Pleshey where he arrested your uncle of Gloucester. He also took Arundel and Warwick. Gloucester is sent to Calais to await trial. Warwick is under lock and key in the Tower. But he made an example of Arundel. Richard has had him executed on Tower Hill for treason.’

  It was a bleak recital of retaliation. Richard FitzAlan, who had carried the royal crown at Richard’s coronation, dead as a traitor.

  ‘What about Henry? And Mowbray?’

  ‘Still at large and unthreatened. For now.’

  Blessed Virgin! Henry was safe, but not, I feared, for long. ‘Is this good policy?’ I asked. ‘To execute a man so close in blood ties?’

  ‘It will make any man who thinks of opposing Richard think twice.’

  ‘And you are rewarded for your part in it.’

  ‘I have been granted the honour of Arundel and Arundel Castle. And custody of the young FitzAlans, whom you will charm so that they will come to your hand like chicks to a bowl of grain.’

  I could try. But I suddenly felt it was as if all the critical links that held our family together were unravelling under my eye, like an ill-stitched girdle. Where would it end? And where would I stand in the approaching upheavals?

  ‘It worries me,’ I said. ‘It sets you at odds with my father and Henry.’

  I am afraid it will set you at odds with me …

  The thought stepped softly into my awareness, chilling me to the bone.

  ‘I’m too busy carrying out Richard’s orders to be at odds with anyone.’ He leaned forwards, hands gripping my wrists as if he would force me to see the future as he did. ‘All will be well if your father and brother allow Richard to wield authority as he sees it. I doubt he will attack Henry. He was not one of the main protagonists. He was very young at Radcot Bridge.’

  ‘But if Richard continues to be driven by revenge, until every one of those who forced him to give up de Vere is punished …’

  ‘It’s all ifs, Elizabeth. Who’s to know? We’ll try and keep his thoughts and actions in moderation.’

  ‘I wish Anne had not died. Isabella is too young to exert any influence on Richard. And,’ I looked up into his face, ‘I don’t like this outcome. I don’t like it at all. The FitzAlan boys are so angry.’

  ‘As I would be in their shoes,’ John admitted ruefully. ‘We will do what we can to keep my brother on an even keel, and meanwhile try to prevent the FitzAlan youngsters from murdering us in our beds.’

  Which brought another thought leaping into my mind.

  ‘If we had been in England, would you have joined the Lords Appellant against Richard?’

  John’s reply was immediate, with no hesitation at all. ‘I would have had more sense.’

  I said nothing more, for what was there to say in the face of such distancing from the stance that the Lords Appellant—and my own brother—had taken? Little ripples of anxiety doubled and tripled to rob me of my delight in his return until:

  ‘I’ve had enough of the FitzAlans, and of Richa
rd.’ His fingers around my wrists softened into a caress as he kissed his way along my fingertips. ‘Come and welcome me back in true wifely style. I’ve been thinking patiently of our reunion for the past hour, and my patience has just expired.’

  As an invitation it could not be refused, and so our reunion leapt from heat to heat as John lit the flames. Absence had its advantages.

  ‘How long since we were together?’ he demanded.

  He found a need to reacquaint himself with every inch of my skin until I glowed like a storm-lantern on a dark night.

  But as I lay sleepless beside him I was forced to acknowledge that all the ease of the days when I won the prize for dancing was gone. How trivial it had all been. Now this undercurrent of danger lived with us, when it was impossible to predict Richard’s next move, his hand hopping this way and that on the chessboard. Had John always been aware?

  I asked him.

  ‘Yes. Richard is unstable. But he is my brother and for that, he deserves my loyalty.’

  And that was what worried me.

  ‘I am furious with him. At this moment I despise him! How did Richard turn out to be so viciously mean-spirited?’

  At this moment, sweet as dripping honey, Richard was dancing with Queen Isabella.

  How often did I say those words, or similar, as we continued to meet at court with all the pretence of an affectionate, united family? On this occasion it was my brother who bore the brunt of my low-voiced accusations. John had heard enough of them.

  ‘You’re safe enough,’ Henry advised lightly, bowing as Richard’s gaze touched on us, I spreading my skirts in graceful deference. ‘I’m the one who has to watch his back.’

  ‘Before God, Hal. Don’t provoke him.’

  Richard’s interest had passed on.

  ‘I? I’ll not provoke. And what need?’ As ever Henry faced the world with a stark realism, inherited from our father. Nearing his third decade, honourable and clear-headed, he had emerged from Mary’s death with an inner strength, a pride in his children. A pride in Lancaster, his future inheritance, only second to the Duke’s. ‘If Richard decides to strike, he’ll do it and answer to no one. Our uncle of Gloucester discovered that to his cost.’