by Anne O'Brien
‘But I am not honourable.’ Confession was difficult but must be made. ‘I would never betray you in body, but my mind knows only disobedience. I cannot govern it.’
‘Nor do you have to.’ John stood, walking round the table to stand before me. ‘Our marriage was one of political alignment. We both knew that. It was not one of love.’
‘But it should have been one of loyalty. I hope I have been a good wife to you.’
He took my hands in his, his thumbs stroking over my wrists where the blood beat, heavy with guilt. And loss.
‘I can think of none better. Three times I took a new wife to bed, making the best alliances I could for Brittany. Mary Plantagenet. Joan Holland. Both English, they were good wives. But you have been the best. Do we not talk? Do we not share interests and laugh together? Do you not share my duties in this land which is not yours by birth? No man could ask for a better woman at his side in affairs of business. You have given me the gift of your intellect and the finest brood of children any man could ask for.’ Leaning, he placed a kiss between my brows. ‘I’ll not upbraid you for discovering an attraction for another man. I am nearing my sixtieth year and can never give you the passion that Henry of Lancaster could give you. You are still so young…’
He touched my lips with one finger when I would have remonstrated.
‘No. Listen. I give you permission to think of Henry without guilt. It was never my intention to replace the tyranny of a deranged father with that of an old and importunate husband.’
I would not be silenced. His nobility was a marvel that tore at my heart. So much emotion, all in one afternoon.
‘Ah, John. That is not how I see you. You are no tyrant. Nor will I ever leave you. My duty lies here with you and our children. More than duty. My affection is bound up in all we have here together. Can you question my loyalty?’
‘No, never. And I accept your word. I think you are my friend as well as my wife. You always have been, since that first day when as a young girl you took your vows.’
‘And so I shall remain. I have said my farewells. Henry will go to England, he will become King if fortune smiles on him, and perhaps my cousin Mary will be offered to him once he is respectable again with a crown on his head.’
‘Perhaps so.’
And John folded me into his arms, his hand gently on my head so that my face was pressed against his shoulder. Tears were heavy in my chest, for Henry’s danger, for John’s nobility, for my guilt, but I would not weep for another man in John’s arms. That would indeed be a betrayal. How generous. How caring. I had not thought that John loved me, but then, there were so many degrees of love. My gratitude for his understanding was overwhelming but I would not thank him again for it. It would be a denial of his own grace and compassion in making the sacrifice.
It would be another layer of betrayal, if I accepted the right to think of Henry.
Thus, all decided however hard it might be, I would continue to be the best wife that I could. I would banish Henry. And if I could not, then he must exist on the very edges of my thoughts. That was what I promised with my forehead pressed tight against the sumptuous weave of John’s tunic, his arms a haven around me. I would put Henry in his proper place. I was Duchess of Brittany. I would dedicate my life to that.
John was the first to move, raising his head, looking towards the window.
‘That sounded like tears. Perhaps we should intervene…’
‘I think so. Our daughter still has not the patience worthy of the future Countess of Alençon.’
‘She will learn. She will learn well from her mother.’
We went down to the riverside in accord. No one would ever guess that my thoughts struggled to fly elsewhere, rather than remain here in this sun-washed garden where my daughters clamoured for attention and my husband dropped a kiss on my cheek as he placed Blanche on my lap. I hugged her close, as I held tight to the marvellous gift that John had just given to me, the freedom to admit, at last, freely and without restraint, my love for Henry of Lancaster.
*
‘He has done it! He has actually done it, by God!’ ‘Who has done what?’ I barely looked up from yet another damaged lute-string. Marguerite had been practising, ineptly.
John patted me on the head as if I were Marguerite, an endearing habit. ‘Henry, of course. Our Duke of Lancaster has achieved the impossible, and, in retrospect, I’m not sure what I think about it. And the fact that I actually encouraged him. Write to him!’
Thus John’s announcement in the autumn of that year.
And so I wrote.
To my honoured lord and cousin, Henry, King of England, I write from myself and my lord the Duke to express our pleasure at your achievements. We heard the news with relief and know that you will uphold justice in your new realm. We hope that you continue in good health and that your children do likewise. We will continue to pray for you, that the Holy Ghost will keep you safe in His keeping.
Henry had regained his inheritance, but more than that. Henry had taken the Crown of England for his own. With Richard leading a campaign to Ireland and Henry landing on the coast far to the north east, supporters had come to the exiled Duke of Lancaster, men of power, men of influence. Friendless no longer Henry had taken Richard captive and now, crowned and anointed, it was Henry who occupied the throne of England. I imagined the whole consort of European rulers shivering in their respective shoes at the success of such an enterprise. The rightful King of England was overthrown, another sat in his place. A dangerous precedent indeed. No wonder John’s thoughts were ambivalent.
I wrote again, precise and formal as required:
We would ask that you keep us informed of your good fortune. It is in the mind of my lord to remind you of a promise to consider a trading agreement to calm the increasingly acrimonious situation between our fishermen.
I did not think I had ever written so unfeeling or so valueless a letter.
We assure you of our future goodwill.
I signed it Joanna of Brittany, with a flourish, and used John’s seal. Then I sat back, imagining what I would have added to the end if I were free to do so.
I have agonised over your safety, and can now rejoice with you in the restoration of all you had hoped for, and more. I am well and my good wishes towards you as fervent as they ever were. There is no place for me in your life, but I hold you close in my heart today and every day.
But I did not express one word of that, rather gave the document into the hands of our chamberlain for it to be dispatched to the English Court by courier. It would be a good thing all round if Henry did not reply. My moment of passion, joyous as it had been, was at an end. Henry’s destiny was assured.
Chapter 4
November 1399: Château of Nantes, Brittany
‘Do you suppose we’ll be ready some time before our Christmas festivities begin?’
It was an excellent day for hunting, bright and cool with fitful sun and a breeze to shiver the reeds by the river, but John was unusually impatient. We were taking out the hawks, a brace of brache hounds and our eldest children.
We had not heard from the new English King. How would he have time to write personal letters when his days were dominated by settling England into good government after surviving the throes of insurrection? With Richard imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, Henry would be faced with a delicate handling of affairs. Writing to Brittany would be the last thing on his mind. Deliberately I had thrust him into the shadows of my life at the same time as I continued to include him and his family in my prayers. I would be happy for him, reunited with his sons and daughters, the injustices of the past laid to rest, but I refused to let any further memories encroach. There was no place for memories in my life.
‘Are we perhaps ready at last?’ John surveyed the party.
And in that moment, in the splash of sunlight across his face, I thought he looked weary. He had not slept well, that I knew, nor, unusually, had much enthusiasm for breaking his fast.
John had been from home until the previous day, travelling to the far outreaches of his jurisdiction, renewing friendships over wine and hunting, sitting in judgement where necessary, while I had held audience with diplomats and merchants here at Nantes, discussing new tolls and minting rights, employing new minstrels to enhance John’s dignity when he entertained visiting magnates. Essential but minor matters compared with John’s constant burden. I knew that it was no easy task for him to preserve his hold on this volatile duchy whose past history had swooped acrimoniously between the territorial claims of both England and France. How hard he had worked to keep the Breton lords firmly behind him, not least in creating his new chivalric Order of the Ermine to enhance loyalty to his dynasty. With four thriving sons, of which John was inordinately proud, our dynasty was under no threat.
‘Hunting can wait until you are more rested,’ I suggested, concerned by the imprint of strain around his eyes, the unexpected shadows.
‘And what would our offspring say if I called it all off now?’
‘They would be polite, as they have been raised.’
‘Their disappointment would be palpable. Not to mention tears from Marguerite.’ Who had a tendency to play on her father’s soft heart. ‘We go. Don’t worry, Joanna. I am too tough an old bird to be brought low by a se’enight of touchy vassals demanding my time. Just too many hard roads, too many fast meals between one meeting and the next and too much inferior wine. It rots the gut faster than being on campaign. Now—let’s show the children how to fly a hawk.’ He already had one, hooded and leashed, on his fist. But as we rode out I saw him hand it back to his huntsman and rub the heel of his hand against his breastbone.
‘John…’
‘Don’t fuss, woman. Keep an eye on Arthur.’
He kicked his mount into a smart canter, not waiting to see if we followed to cross the water meadows towards the river. At fifty-nine years he was as hale as the young huntsman who kept pace with him, as energetic as the children who could all ride well. We pulled up in good form amongst the sedges where there was a quantity of duck and heron to give us sport.
‘Look.’ Marguerite pointed at the geese that dabbled in the shallows further along the river.
John pushed his horse on again. Then stopped, pulling clumsily on the reins. He coughed harshly. In an instant I was beside him.
‘John…’
He waved me aside, gripping his reins more firmly as if he would canter on, then dropped them, grinding a fist hard against the centre of his chest.
‘We don’t need to do this.’ I dug my fingers into his sleeve, trying to recover his reins at the same time, touched by a sudden dread. I had never before seen John drop his reins.
‘I need a moment. Just a moment…’ And then a harsh rattling breath in his chest, and I felt his weight press against my grip. I tightened it but I knew I could not hold him.
‘I need help…’ I raised my voice.
The servants were beside me in an instant, but help did not come fast enough and indeed I could not hold him. John toppled from saddle to ground with a groan. I followed, abandoning both horses, sinking to the chill grass to take his head and shoulders across my lap. His face was ashen, lips pulled back in a rictus.
‘Wine…’ His throat could barely form the word, but I found a wine container thrust into my hand by our falconer and I held it to his lips. He could not drink. It splashed from his mouth onto his tunic, onto the grass.
‘John! Listen to me.’ I strove for calm. ‘We will get you home where you can rest.’
He could not speak, his breathing becoming more laboured. And then, with a cry of sheer agony, I felt the muscles in his body stiffen against the pain.
‘What can we do?’ I looked up, in momentary panic, at the huntsman who had come to kneel at my side. ‘He cannot ride. You must return to the castle and fetch a wagon…’
His hand closed over my shoulder.
‘Not now, my lady.’
‘But we must. He cannot lie here…’
‘Not now.’
And, at last hearing the words he would not speak, I looked down at John’s face where I saw the inexorable shadows gathered there, the grey pall of death. I knew it as I smoothed my hand over his forehead, down his cheek. I knew that death stalked him, here in his own meadows, as well as I knew that I would still be alive on the morrow.
‘Joanna…’ he whispered on a long exhalation.
‘I’m here. I’m here with you.’
And that was the end. No more, no less, his eyes empty and sightless, every muscle in his face still after that final breath. How could a man leave this life so fast, with so little tremor in the movement of the world around us? I could not accept what my mind told me. How could it be that this man, who had laughed with his children, who had ridden across his own land with such energy not moments ago, was no more than the lifeless clay to which we would all one day return? Yet here was the truth. The heart beneath my hand no longer beat.
John was dead. My dear John, with all his care and compassion, was dead. Of all my knowledge of tinctures and potions and salves, of the powerful value of herbs and plants, nothing would restore life to John’s inert body. His bright sprit was gone.
I looked up at the faces around, all looking down at us with various qualities of curiosity or horror. Our servants who saw the truth. My children who still could not grasp the magnitude of what had happened. I found myself staring at my eldest son, at John’s heir, who, at ten years old, was observing his father with some species of shock that had drained his young face of all its colour.
He was now Duke of Brittany, with all the nobility and authority dependent on that great inheritance. So young, so inexperienced, so lacking in knowledge of the world. He would never prove to his father that he could read and write. He would never win the promised goshawk. I saw the instinctive swallow in his thin neck. Perhaps it was being driven home for him at last as I stood and began to issue detailed instructions, dispatching two servants to fetch a carriage, for I was determined: John would not travel on that final journey home across the saddle of his horse. He would return home to his castle with grace.
So under my guidance John was lifted onto the bed of a wagon made seemly with a woollen coverlet, while I brushed the rime from his sleeves, combed my fingers through his hair and replaced his hat so that the jewels glimmered bravely. I closed his eyes with a gentle hand. Finally I ordered the placing of a cloth embroidered with even squares of gold and blue across his body; he would return with all the gravity of his heraldic symbols on his breast.
Remounting to follow in sad procession, seeing the residue of terror still imprinted on every line of my eldest son’s face: ‘Wait.’
And I took the hawk from the falconer onto my own wrist and held it out to John, my son.
‘The goshawk is yours now. You will carry him home. Your father would want it. He would have given him to you.’
My son gulped but the tears dried and raising his arm he carried the hawk with great pride. It was well done.
Thus began the saddest journey of my life as I rode beside my husband’s body. Such were my regrets: no final words to recall, no deathbed speech, no struggle to defeat the hand of death. No opportunity for me to tell him of my regard. It had come so fast and without warning. He had lived for fifty-nine years, many of them difficult ones when he could not call his inheritance his own, then left this life as fast as a soft breath when falling asleep, just when his hold on Brittany was stronger than it had ever been and he should have been able to anticipate years of good government.
‘It was his heart, my lady. I have seen such before. It can strike when least expected. He was a great man. It was a blessing that you were there with him.’ Father Clement who had been advised and had ridden out with the wagon, pulled his mount to ride alongside. ‘He loved you greatly, my lady.’
‘Thank you. I know it.’
&nbs
p; What more to say? I had lost the one person I considered to be my friend, who had given my life stability. Not a lover, although we had shared a bed with pleasure and obvious results, but a friend in whom I could trust. John had been courteous and affectionate. He had respect for me, the third of his wives. Never burdening me with the heady concept of love, he had treated me with a warmth and closeness that I could never have imagined. He had acknowledged my inexplicable feelings for Henry, without castigating me for disloyalty.
Could any husband deal with his wife with such sensitivity as John had dealt with me?
We had been wed for thirteen years and now it was over. I should have expected it perhaps, for he was no longer a young man, but I had not. His energies had not once waned, nor had his mind grown lax. I had, foolishly, thought my comfortable life would last for ever. Who would I talk with now, about the ambitions of the Duke of Orleans or the consequences of King Charles’s fragile mind?
We made a sorry party as we rode through the arched gateway into the courtyard where news had gone out and the servants and household were gathering. Many wept openly. I did not. It behoved me to take command and set in motion the needs of the day. Accepting that it was my role to be strong where others were weak, my thoughts were crammed with detail that must be addressed until I forced them into ordered ranks. All attention was focused on me. I must thrust aside all distractions and concentrate on what must happen now.
My son was Duke of Brittany. But who would rule in his stead, until he was of an age to take on the mantle? Had John made provision? Surely there was a will that would make all clear. Maybe John had chosen the Duke of Burgundy, an obvious choice for many, a man of wide experience and reputation, yet I felt my lips tighten in distaste. I would not like his interference in Breton affairs and in the life of my son. Nor, I thought, would John. As for myself, I could not envisage my future, my role, in this state that had become mine through marriage, but no longer. Now it was under the authority of my son, however incongruous it seemed.
