Chapter Twenty
Autumn 1406: Conisbrough Castle
‘Holy Mother, in your divine mercy, come to my aid!’
My breath was short, my labours to push the child into the world were protracted and hard. How could I have forgotten such pain that gripped and tore and robbed me of my dignity so that I cried out in extremity? Dame Edith, my midwife, who coiled strings of coral beads round my neck, pressing draughts of fenugreek, spurge laurel, flax and fleawort on me, wiped my brow with a lavender-soaked cloth.
It was a season when all was amiss; when winds howled around the thick walls and six buttresses here at the great keep of Conisbrough, yet it was as warm as midsummer so that winter layers of wool and fur, already lifted from their coffers, were laid aside. Every day the clouds banked and loured, but it did not rain. And then it did, so that the roads were awash and the crops stood ruined in the fields while mould grew on the newly baked bread in the clammy dampness. Still the winds blew from the west, dislodging jackdaws’ nests into the chimneys so that the cook blasphemed when fires smoked and his junkets were coated in speckles of soot. The new brewing of ale became rancid in the barrels and was fed to the pigs. They said that there were strange stars to be seen in the heavens. The season was not at one with itself.
Neither was I, and Dame Edith was growing anxious.
‘God’s Blood, I remember nothing of this travail,’ I said, when I had breath to speak.
My flesh was racked, my body subsumed in agony through the dread hours of night, when all was threatening, into a new dawn. Still there was no blessed result and all was on fire. I gripped the wrist of the wise-woman, skilled in herbs and potions, who had been sent for when Dame Edith’s knowledge had failed. Mistress Margery, with a reputation for arcane skills, worked at my side with a tough dedication but without compassion.
‘Can you do nothing?’ I demanded.
‘I am doing all I can.’
‘It is not enough.’
‘It’s in God’s hands.’
She was anointing the mound of my belly with oil of violets, the pungent scent filling the room.
‘And you lack courtesy.’ My whole body felt to be under siege from hellish torment.
‘All women are equal when in childbed.’
‘All men are equal when they are absent,’ I said in bitter humour.
I did not want this child that merely put a mark on my solitude and my disgrace and my crass belief that Edmund would stand by his vows. This was the second time that I had given birth without the benefit of a husband’s grace, but at least Thomas had been dead. Edmund was merely wooing elsewhere.
As the pains tore at me with relentless fervour, all thought was obliterated, except one – would this be the end of my life, failing to give birth to a child I had not wanted? I snatched at any remedy.
‘Do you not have some saint’s girdle, to give me ease with a miracle?’
‘I do not. I have no truck with saints’ girdles.’
‘If we were at Westminster, we could borrow their sacred girdle, dropped by the Blessed Virgin from heaven. The monks swear by its efficacy.’
‘As any man would, to keep a woman quiet. What do they know? We are not at Westminster.’
‘Blessed Virgin, have mercy!’
‘But we can try this.’
I watched Mistress Margery tearing parchment into tiny pieces, dropping them into a cup of wine, stirring with her not over-clean finger.
‘Will you poison me?’
She presented the cup to my lips, lifting my head. ‘Drink.’
I did and all but choked on the draught, pushing it away.
‘Finish it. Here are the sacred words of the Holy Mother. The Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Magníficat anima mea Dominum. Et exultavit spiritus meus: in Deo salutari meo,’ she intoned. ‘If you drink them, they will imbue you with the Virgin’s strength.’
So, beyond arguing, I drank again. As the hours passed, I was conscious only of autocratic admonitions to pray to God, for assuredly his succour was needed. ‘Tell me,’ I croaked over the petitions of my women, barely recognising my voice. ‘Is there a danger?’
Mistress Margery was whispering in my ear. ‘It may be that the child will die.’
My instructions were issued without any thought from me as I clenched my fingers in the sleeve of her tunic. ‘Save the child.’
I knew not what she did, merely giving myself over to the kneading fingers, the anointing, the constant background of prayer. And then a rush of effort that drew all strength from me.
A cry. A weak whimper reminiscent of a kitten. Then silence. Followed by some murmuring from my women. The wise-woman leaned over the bed.
‘The child is alive. You too will live, I expect. Give thanks, my lady. It is a miracle, with or without the girdle.’
‘Is it a son?’
‘You have a daughter, my lady. Girls always fight harder for life, in my experience.’ I was honoured now with respect. ‘She is small but she is in no danger. We will care for her but you must rest.’
The detritus of birth was removed, my shift changed, the bloodied sheets tidied away, the foetid air sweetened by the sharp tang of rosemary.
‘Let me see her.’
Her face was still flushed from the energies of birth, her eyes tight shut as if to block out the world that had taken her so long to enter. Emotions in abeyance, except for relief that it was all over, I handed her back and fell into sleep. Until I struggled into wakefulness – how many hours later? – to the sound of my door opening and closing, and then a conversation, a voice I had not expected to hear.
‘Is the child strong?’
‘Yes, my lady,’ Dame Edith replied. Mistress Margery had taken herself back to her usual haunts.
‘And Lady Constance?’
‘She will be all the better for a good sleep. The days have taken their toll.’
‘Is she in any danger?’
‘No, my lady. There is no fever.’
‘Has she seen the babe?’
‘Yes,’ I said, disliking the discussion going on around me as if I were not present, either in body or in mind. ‘She has.’ Bringing the conversation to an end. As I turned my head, there, coming into my line of sight, was Joan. After our vituperative parting I had resigned myself to a rift, yet in my heart I knew that she was the only one who would come.
‘You are late for the event itself,’ I said, signalling for more pillows, shocked at how indolent I felt. ‘Good to see one Holland face, at least.’
‘You are fortunate that I am here at all.’
I struggled to sit up and took the cup that she presented as she sat on the edge of my bed, wiping with a square of linen at the perspiration beading her upper lip in the heat of the room.
‘You could even thank me.’
No, she had not entirely forgiven me.
‘So why are you here?’
‘I am on my way to join William in Silsby.’
Conisbrough was not too far out of her way, but far enough. ‘Thank you. I am grateful.’ Suddenly, acknowledging a need for this small offering of human kindness, however much it might baffle me, I felt the bite of tears, before blinking them away.
‘Bring the child,’ Joan ordered, offering me the opportunity to regain some equilibrium.
‘She looks like any other child.’ I wiped my eyes on the sheet.
‘I am come to admire my niece.’
‘And report back to your brother?’
‘Yes. If you will not tell him, then I will. He should know, and one day his child might need her father’s recognition. I suppose that Edmund has not come here because you intimated that he would not be made welcome.’
Joan would have no sense of the tenor of our parting.
‘He has not come because our paths have separated.’
Joan nodded. ‘I think it is excellent news. Edmund must be circumspect in his dealings with you. Madonna Lucia will be a more willing bride if she does not know of the past.’ The wet nurse entered, my daughter clasped to her bosom. ‘Give her to me.’
I watched as Joan took the child into her arms, as if she had a lifetime of experience.
‘I think that you would love her more than I ever will.’
Joan had failed to quicken; her expression as she smoothed the babe’s cheek was one of great tenderness.
‘Then let me take her. I’ll tell William that I have had a miracle birth and that he has a daughter.’ She smiled at me with a well of sadness. ‘I fear that I will never have a child of my own, and here you are with a daughter that is more of a burden than a blessing.’ She transferred her smile to the child. ‘Have you chosen a name?’
‘No.’
‘She has the look of my family.’
‘Did you not believe me? That the child is Edmund’s? I am no whore.’
Lightly chiding, she clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘I believe you.’
‘Well, I won’t call her Joan. Not even for your grandmother.’
Joan placed the child in my arms. ‘She needs a name. She needs to be baptised, although she looks healthy enough.’
‘It will be tomorrow, here in the chapel, where I was baptised.’
I looked at my daughter without the stress of birth on her features. I could see no resemblance to the Hollands except for the dark curls of hair, visible beneath her little coif.
‘Well? What will it be?’ Joan nudged me. ‘Philippa, after the old Queen? Joanna, after the new one?’
My daughter opened and closed a hand into a fist, catching the edge of my shift. Perfect fingernails, and there was a strength, but she was so vulnerable. I would not let her suffer for my sins. She was in effect a legally born daughter and I must speak for her. The realisation came as a throb against my heart, that with Edmund’s abandonment, this child had a true demand on me. Gone were the days when I could afford to be driven by selfish desires. Here was my duty, my obligation. In that sardonic moment I accepted that perhaps here was the road to my redemption. I looked up, tempted to tell Joan of my marital status, but the babe’s breath caught and she began to cry. The moment was gone, a fleeting temptation, fast abandoned.
‘Hush.’
When I stroked my fingers over the little cap she instantly quieted, which brought a chime of recognition of my past children, as well as an amazement within me. I smiled. For some reason she had touched my heart.
‘Do you realise how close you came to dying?’ I asked. ‘How close you came to killing your mother?’ She snuffled and, in the manner of all young creatures, fell suddenly into sleep. ‘I will do all in my power to ensure that your life is an easier one.’ I kissed her brow, knowing the name I would choose. Not a Plantagenet name but a Holland one. ‘Alianore. You will be Alianore.’
Joan placed a hand on my arm. Her sister, Alianore, the mother of the two ill-fated Mortimer boys, had not long departed this life.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as suddenly tearful as I had been. ‘I would not have suggested it.’
‘When is the marriage to take place?’ I asked as if it were of no consequence.
Joan made no pretence at misunderstanding. ‘At some time in the New Year. After the celebrations and before the onset of Lent. Will you tell him of this child?’
I must, of course, in my new spirit of responsibility. And yet… ‘No. And you must not. Now that you have set your mind at rest that I am alive, I’ll not keep you. Go to William.’
Her regard was a condemnation. ‘You have lost him, Constance. Set your mind to it.’
Could I accept that I had lost him, irretrievably and for ever? I thought that I had, after our severing of all ties at Westminster, but he said that he had loved me. Were we beyond healing? I had borne him a daughter, a legitimate daughter. It was not in my nature to retreat before the enemy, and before God Edmund was not my enemy.
‘I will never set my mind to it.’
‘Then I pray that the Holy Mother will give you peace, for I see no hope of it.’
Why did I not tell her that we had exchanged vows? Why would I not inform Edmund that he had a daughter? Because I could not bear to see condemnation in Joan’s face, or dismay in Edmund’s. I was not yet strong enough.
Joan, in her wisdom and to my annoyance, was not yet finished with me, delivering a parting shot as she opened the door. ‘You should be thankful.’
‘Thankful? What maggot in your brain persuades you that I should be thankful that I am put aside for a Milanese woman with more gold than wit?’
Joan’s soft mouth was a line of disapproval. ‘I don’t defend my brother. Nor do I know what was between the two of you. But this I will say. He has done you the great service of allowing you to understand what love between a man and a woman can be. You should be everlastingly grateful to know how it feels to be moved by desire, by passion. It is not vouchsafed to all women. I would not reject such knowledge out of hand.’
The attack brought me up short. I should have read in it a mirror of her own unawakened capacity for carnal love but I replied without pause, without kindliness.
‘I would reject it. My weakness has shamed me.’
‘Then I will pray for your immortal soul,’ she said with bitter derision. ‘It seems that prayer is all I can do for you.’
‘I do not need your prayers.’
The door closed on Joan’s silence, broken only by the whisper of Alianore’s sleeping breath as she lay in my arms.
On the twenty-fourth day of January in the year of 1407 the most public marriage of Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent, with Madonna Lucia Visconti, aunt of the present youthful Duke of Milan, compared notably with his most private one with me. An ostentatiously royal event, it was held in the short cold days, after the New Year festivities and before the Lenten restrictions on performing the sacrament of marriage came into play. It would be an occasion to lift the combined heart of the Court, although mine was enclosed in perpetual ice. The bride glowed with satisfaction at her ultimate victory, at the age of thirty-four years, in capturing a husband who had lived for a mere twenty-three. King Henry clung voraciously to his health and encouraged the match.
Wrapped in furs and velvet hoods, but not swaddled as to hide the wealth of gold chains and heavy jewels that gave off a cold, frost-like glitter, the Court made its fractious way across the Thames from Westminster, complaining at the need to re-form at the much-decorated church door of the Augustinian Priory of St Mary Overie on the south bank.
I was there, my mood uncertain.
‘It might be better if you were not,’ Edward advised.
‘Better for whom?’ I was keeping my eye on the water that, puddled on the boards of our craft, was seeping into the soft leather of my shoes. ‘These shoes are ruined.’
‘Then you should have worn wooden pattens.’
Edward had taken it upon himself to accompany me and, feeling the need of some familial support, I had done little to persuade him against it.
‘Better for all concerned,’ he continued, picking up the conversation, as he stepped up beside me, counting the remaining coins in his palm after paying the boatman. ‘I swear that rogue has fleeced me. But as I was about to say – watch your tongue, Constance.’
I walked on ahead of him, surveying the gathering ranks. ‘I know how to make a good impression at a royal occasion.’
‘I recall you issuing a challenge to mortal combat when you were not best pleased with me.’
Slowing my steps, I tucked my hand into his arm. ‘Today I am best pleased with everyone.’
‘Even Edmund?’
I caught the speculative look. What did he know of my past with Edmund except for an unfortunate liaison which gave me a child? Nothing at all. He would never even guess at the terrible mistake I had made.
‘Constance… if there is anything I can do…?’
‘About what? I am delighted with the prospect of this marriage. I will smile serenely and wish everyone well, particularly Edmund and Lucia.’
He pulled me to a halt, as if he must get some thought off his chest before we went further.
‘Did you expect him to wed you?’
I met his gaze steadfastly enough. ‘Why would I expect any such thing? We merely enjoyed a chivalric interlude.’
‘I know he was your lover.’ And when I stiffened: ‘Perhaps you hoped that he would forsake the Milanese woman…’
My hand tightening on his stopped him. ‘No. This is the marriage that the King wants. Edmund too. I had no hope. What could I bring to the marriage bed of an ambitious man?’
Delicately, there was no mention between us of the child. Edward knew of her existence but nothing more. He had never asked me the name of Alianore’s father, but he had guessed.
So we joined the august throng at the church door with its intricate carvings and elegant arch. My appearance too was elegant, sleek and groomed, but Edward’s question had stirred my thoughts to less than elegance. Today Madonna Lucia would become Countess of Kent, while I, however hard I might fight against it, was engulfed in a wave of raw fury, as hard-edged as the Visconti gems that encircled the bride’s throat.
As the bride and groom arrived, as well muffled as the rest of us, one thought still teased at my mind. I was the one person here present who could put a stop to this union. I could speak out, declare my own interest. I had no proof without witnesses standing beside me to account for the deed, but I could swear on my royal name that Edmund and I had exchanged vows as his grandparents had done. He had wed me, and in good faith I had allowed it.
The voices from the crowd, rich with anticipation, clamoured in my ears but could not drown out the thought in my head.
Would I even consider demanding to be heard?
To do this would humiliate Edmund, and his bride, destroying this sacred event through a mean, self-serving act of revenge. I would tear what remained of my own honour to strips, to be consumed as rank meat was devoured by winged predators. My love for him was now transformed to spite, though he was my husband by legal right.
‘What would you do if I challenged your new Italian betrothal?’ I had asked.
‘If you chose to do that, I would deny there was any understanding between us,’ he had replied.
My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth as I focused on the woman who was enjoying being at the centre of this ceremonial, resplendent in a high-waisted over-gown of Italian silk, the sleeves of her under-gown buttoned tightly to her fine wrists, the epitome of Italian fashion. Her braided hair was enclosed in a sable hat embellished with a gold feather that curled to caress her tinted cheek, proving that she was not beyond artifice. Merged discreetly into the noble crowd, I watched as she lifted her face to speak with Edmund, her skin catching the light, her eyes bright with happiness. She was not in her prime, but the prospect of marriage at last had placed a gloss on her, a sheen of beauty that masked any imperfections in the lines of experience and age, of some discontentment. Once she had been put forward as a bride for Henry himself when he was travelling in Europe. She had given her heart to him, so it was said. Now the times were different and she was of an age to see value in any marriage to a young and handsome man of good birth.
As for Edmund, he had flattered his bride in his choice of garment, as Italianate as hers, the sleeves of his tunic long enough to sweep the floor with their dagged edges. The soft kid boots reached to his knee. Hatless, his dark hair gleamed in the fitful sun.
I could look no longer. I found Edward standing next to me once more, taking my hand and pulling my arm through his. I thought it was not in companionship, despite my earlier rejection of any plan to cause a stir.
‘I don’t trust you.’ He answered the frown I turned upon him. ‘Whatever you are planning, don’t do it.’
‘Why not?’
I was ashamed at the anguish that shook me, the overwhelming desire to reclaim what was legally mine.
‘And rock the royal barge so that we all fall in the Thames and drown? Our past sins have been forgiven, Constance, but not forgotten. Let us keep it that way.’
My brother turned to stare at me. ‘If you ever loved him, if you love him still. If you have any thought for his future good, you will remain silent. See what this marriage will do for him. It will be the making of him. Anything you do will surely break him.’
How the truth hurt.
‘But what of me?’
‘What of you? We are a selfish brood, my clever sister. We always have been. But sometimes you need to put your emotions and ambitions aside.’
‘As you have done?’ I retaliated. ‘Have you ever put your ambitions aside for any man or woman?’
‘No. Nor will I. But you are better than I will ever be.’
His arm tightened on mine, anchoring me to his side as if I were weak and needed support rather than a measure of his determination to restrict my actions. His hand gripped mine. But I would not allow it, even as my heart yearned for some comfort. I must stand alone.
‘Release me.’
‘You have no claim on him, Constance. Only an affair of some sentiment that must be rejected.’
I turned my head to look at my brother, as he had turned to look at me. ‘You have no idea what my claim on him might be.’
And I saw horror bloom in Edward’s eyes as he read what had, in that moment, been unspoken between us.
‘Don’t tell me that you have wed him, in some appallingly clandestine arrangement.’
I raised my chin. ‘I will tell you no such thing.’
‘Promise me you will do nothing.’ His voice had become urgent.
‘The days of your demanding promises from me are long gone.’
Edward freed me but still stood close, as I turned my attention on Edmund, awash in his heraldic achievements on breast and sleeve. If he knew I was one of those come to stand and shiver through the ceremony, he made no response to it; the congregation here-present to witness this sham marriage did not even merit a glance from the Earl of Kent. Glossy and shining, he drew all eyes when the King took Madonna Lucia’s hand and placed it in Edmund’s. The royal blessing was thus given.
While through it all I held my lips tight-closed.
The priest was beginning to speak: Henry Beaufort, puissant Bishop of Winchester, brought to preside over this royal occasion in all his episcopal gold and purple. I felt my muscles tense as he began the office of marriage, his words carried away by a stiff little breeze as the ribbons on his mitre fluttered. Edmund and Lucia replied. Henry nodded with approval. They would soon be wed.
Henry beckoned to a page who approached, bearing something that glinted gold on a cushion, which he presented, on his bended knee, to the bride who touched the gift and smiled her thanks.
‘What is it?’ I asked Edward, who from his height had a clearer view than I.
‘Two gold dishes,’ he whispered. ‘Worth a small army on campaign. From a King who professes poverty at every turn.’
This was a gift indeed, making it a matter for no debate that here was a marriage much desired by the King and that Edmund was a much-favoured courtier. If I had seen it writ large when they had discussed the merits of hounds, I was forced to acknowledge it even more keenly now in this gift of royal gold. He had been drawn into the sacred inner circle, accepted and absorbed, awarded wealth and patronage, a Court entrée. If I claimed my rights as a lawful wife, all would be undermined, cast into scandal and unpleasantness.
‘Do you understand now?’ Edward asked.
Speak or remain silent. My final opportunity before the priest made the sign of the cross and declared them duly wed.
Edmund turned his head to look at his bride and he smiled. It was a smile that I remembered so well, full of admiration. And as the sun slid momentarily from behind a cloud, the Visconti jewels gleamed on her breast, in her hair, on her fingers; a King’s ransom to fill Edmund’s coffers.
With all my will I forced my tongue to remain still. I forced my feet to remain unmoving when it was in my mind to push to the front and intercede with an unbelieving Henry Beaufort. I forced myself to allow the vows to continue. Until, with a ripple of shimmering movement from the congregation, they were complete.
I had waived my own rights as a wife in my public acceptance of a new alliance.
‘And now we will go and celebrate and pretend that we are all joyous.’ Edward’s touch on my hand was kindly, gentle even, bringing me back to the present. And when he took hold of my arm again I did not resist but followed the newly wed couple to the Bishop of Winchester’s Palace where the doors were flung back and all were made welcome to the great feast and festivity, to the music and minstrels and rich dishes with Edmund and Lucia seated in marital splendour on the dais. Edward took it upon himself to have me sit beside him.
‘You are being remarkably solicitous.’
My self-possession was restored despite the hollow space beneath my bodice. My voice sounded surprisingly emotionless.
‘You deserve it. You were very brave.’
I did not feel brave, but there was no anguish now, merely a strange calm that had taken possession of me, for all had been decided, my future made clear. Nothing could be done to alter what had been witnessed between Man and God, with the support of all concerned. The priestly vows had taken precedence over my own claim. I could do nothing to invalidate it, when the bridegroom was in full collusion, and to what purpose? All it would do was create a storm that would sweep us all away. I had made my sacrifice.
Our cups were filled, we were invited to raise a toast, King Henry wishing them a long and happy life, and a fruitful one. I raised my cup with the rest of the throng.
And for the first time throughout all that long, tragic morning, Edmund’s eyes sought and held mine. He had known throughout that mockery of a marriage service that I was there. Without doubt he had feared what I would do. Now here was such a moment of connection, to bring attention to neither of us.
And I knew what it was that he wished to say as he raised his goblet and drank.
Thank you.
That was the meaning of his bright stare.
Thank you. You have given me my freedom to become the leader of men I can be. You had the power to destroy me. You chose to smooth the path to my future.
It almost brought me to my knees. We had had a commitment but one that must surely be ended by the simple expedient of my remaining silent for the rest of my days. In that one meeting of minds I had no doubt of his love for me. I could not hold him back and shackle him to me. Thus I raised my goblet and drank to their mutual happiness. It was done. Lucia was toasted as Countess of Kent.
‘I will drink to your future happiness too, Constance.’ Edward’s smile was a twisted affair.
‘There is no happiness.’
All my life I had plotted and conspired. I had sought attention and recognition. I had striven for power for my family whatever the cost. I had not turned aside from bloodshed and murder. If I had been a man I would have been accused of gluttonous ambition. All was at an end. That incredible gift of love had been stripped away as callously as I had plotted the death of my cousin Henry. There was no happiness. This was to be my penance.
There was still one matter that must be broached.
Between the minstrels’ offering and the start of the dancing, I sought out Joan, who was of course present to see her brother happily wed. Her expression was as warily speculative as Edward’s had been throughout the whole proceedings.
‘So you are speaking to me today.’
‘Yes. I want you to do something for me.’
‘And what is that? I won’t do it if it harms my brother.’
‘Of course it will not harm him.’ I said what I knew I must say. ‘I acknowledge that I was at fault. I was not gracious when you visited me at Conisbrough.’
‘Is that an apology?’
‘You know it is.’
She kept me waiting.
‘Do I have to kneel in penitence?’
‘It would be good for your soul.’
‘Consider it done.’
‘Then I forgive you.’ She kissed my cheek. ‘What is it you wish me to do?’
‘Tell Edmund. When you can find him alone, tell him he has a daughter.’
‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’
I was not sure why I would not. Perhaps because I was not in command of my emotions as much as I could wish. Or because I did not wish to see the denial of her in his eyes.
‘I cannot. Will you do it?’
‘You know I will.’
January 1407: Westminster Palace
The door to my chamber in the old palace being left ajar, Edmund Holland entered with the softest of knocks. Perfectly composed, surrounded by all the familiar furnishings, redolent of lavender and rosemary that just failed to disguise the hint of damp and mould, I remained seated as he entered.
His appearance closed a hand around my heart and I lost my breath. There it was, the old reaction, not dead at all but merely in abeyance until I was taken by surprise. Now it stole out to cause a constriction in my throat, perhaps as St George must have swallowed when he had spied the dragon on his horizon. It was a discomfort to which I must grow accustomed. This would be a final meeting between us with any vestige of intimacy, any future ones being held at a courtly distance. Edmund was here for one purpose only, as my message delivered by Joan had had only one end in mind.
I did not smile, merely sat and watched him approach. Cruel perhaps, but guilt was not in me. I might have seized my new burden of conscientious duty but it was beyond me to accept repudiation by a lover with a meek heart.
Edmund bowed and removed the soft felt hat, jewel-pinned and feather-trimmed, another detail that I must learn to forget. He too was unsmiling. He did not speak as I absorbed his appearance, his garments, the familiar features, this morning imprinted with arrogance. He had not enjoyed the news imparted to him by Joan, but I was in control again, determined not to be seduced by the appeal that had once ensnared me.
‘I am honoured that Joan’s message persuaded you to visit me.’
My voice was clear, as emotionless as cold winter sunshine.
‘Yes, it did. And here I am. You do not have a high opinion of my sense of honour if you thought I would have ignored such news.’
‘Once I had the highest opinion of your honour.’
‘Much has changed between us.’
There was a touch of temper about him as well as arrogance. Even in the short time since his marriage, it seemed that he had grown into his new authority. The title sat lightly on his shoulders like a velvet cloak cut and sewn to his order, no longer merely an impressive houppelande borrowed from his brother, one that he had yet to adapt for his own use. He was Earl of Kent in his own right and his own power with an heiress for a wife. I did not offer him my hand, nor did he presume that I would. Nor did I invite him to sit.
‘You can hardly be surprised at my questioning your veracity,’ I said. ‘You rejected me for an Italian fortune. I expect you will receive the dower eventually,’ I commiserated with deceptive kindness.
I knew of the careless talk circulating like wildfire through the antechambers of this vast palace, that there was no Italian fortune in the lady’s coffers. Madonna Lucia would not be the first bride whose family broke the betrothal promises as soon as the union was complete and she could not be sent home with a quick annulment in her hand.
Edmund’s response was short enough. ‘There will be no problem with the dower. Perhaps we should attend to the purpose of this meeting. We have a daughter. I have a duty to her.’
‘Indeed.’ We might have been discussing the sale of a horse where I held the upper hand. And yet I needed Edmund’s compliance; my daughter needed it. ‘If you choose to take that duty on your shoulders, of course. Your most recent wife will assuredly disapprove.’
Edmund ignored the prick of my verbal dagger. ‘Why should she? Illegitimate offspring are not uncommon. The King has a bastard and the Queen has not banished the boy from the Court or her household. They say she has a fondness for him.’ There was a deep furrow between his brows. ‘I have no intention of broadcasting the birth of this child. Nor I think will you. But why do we argue? You have called her Alianore.’
‘Yes. Do you wish to see her?’
‘Yes.’
Still I did not move. I had not even offered him a cup of wine. Instead I asked the questions that were at the crux of this meeting. It irritated me that I was a little breathless, but I doubted he would notice.
‘Will you recognise her openly?’ I asked lightly. ‘She is your legitimate daughter, if our vows at Kenilworth were honest ones. I was certainly under the impression that they were.’ I smiled at him with false insouciance.
Edmund replied with severity.
‘To all intents and purposes the child is not my legitimate daughter, since our vows have been superseded.’
‘Is that a legal argument?’ Now I moved, walking past him to open the inner door for him to enter the room beyond before me. He was so close that his garments brushed mine, but I did not touch him, rather stepped back. ‘His Holiness the Pope rejected such a legal premise in the case of your grandmother.’
‘Too late for that, Constance.’ The furrow on his forehead deepened in annoyance. ‘You attended my marriage at St Mary Overie and raised no objection. You drank to the felicity of the bride. You know that to broadcast our exchange of vows now will be of no weight unless you wish to drag us through the papal courts as my grandfather and grandmother did. I don’t advise it. It will do neither of us any good. And here’s the difference. Whereas my grandparents fought together to win the papal judgement, I will not. I’ll not support you if you make a mockery of my marriage to Lucia. I’ll repudiate you, publicly if I must.’
And because it hurt, an unexpectedly blinding flash of pain, my dignity slid a little, letting savagery reign.
‘You have made a whore of me, Edmund.’
‘You made it of yourself, long before we ever exchanged vows. Did we not both flout convention and sin, in a storm of lust?’ Anger flared in him to match mine. ‘I do not think either of us harboured regret for what passed between us, but it is necessary to reassess the future. To accept brutal reality.’
Brutal indeed. By the Blessed Virgin, it hurt. Perhaps because it was true.
‘Of course.’ I walked across a sunny anteroom with no more conversation, dignity once again captured and pinned tight, as I would pin a veil to withstand the snap of wind on a battlement walk. I opened another door into the small chamber where Alianore was now accommodated, the tapestries leaping with rabbits and small dogs and exotic birds. No huntsmen and red-toothed hounds here. Our daughter lay in her crib while a nursemaid, who had been gently rocking her, rose to her feet and curtsied. When she had left the room I lifted Alianore into my arms and introduced her with a terrible flippancy.
‘This, my lord, is Alianore, your four-month-old daughter. Alianore, this is your father, the Earl of Kent, even though you have never seen him and will rarely see him in the future. Indeed, he might not recognise you in public, so this is a momentous event for you. You must remember it.’ Alianore crooned and sneezed before burying her face against my throat, her fingers clutching at my veil. ‘Do you think that she is impressed?’
Although there was an element of colour on his cheeks, he did not rise to my baiting. Instead he studied the child, but did not offer to take her from me. He had no experience of young children. I returned, deliberately, to the crucial question.
‘Will you, in law, recognise her as your daughter?’ I asked.
‘I will acknowledge her in my will. I will make provision for her.’
‘And until then?’ As if I were mildly interested, when truly the idea appalled me. What man ever made a will until he lay on his deathbed? What I desired was a formal recognition now. Nothing about Alianore’s future as a Holland daughter must be left to chance.
‘I won’t deny her, if that’s what you mean.’ Which could be a clever ploy of promising nothing at all. ‘I have brought her a gift. My squire will have given it into the safekeeping of one of your women.’
‘Is it so large?’ I enquired.
‘No, but needs careful handling. An enamelled and gilded hanap.’
‘Thank you. Truly imaginative. Is it perhaps Italian?’
‘Yes.’
I smiled again at his sudden discomfort. Obviously a costly item that had come into his possession with Lucia. ‘My family is awash with hanaps. My uncle John of Lancaster gave them at every opportunity. But I will not gainsay it. I will ensure that Alianore knows that her father gave her a newly acquired enamelled and gilded cup to commemorate her birth.’
To do him justice, he worked hard to avoid the barbs.
‘She looks healthy.’
‘Would I not care for her? She is all I have as a memento of our most agreeable liaison.’
‘Constance…’ His brows snapped together.
Enough of my annoyance. It was unworthy of me. Had he not made the effort to come here and make his daughter’s acquaintance? He would not deny her. Accepting that it was all I could ask, I replaced Alianore in her crib and walked from the room, gesturing that he should follow me as the nursemaid returned, turning to look at him in that still sun-filled anteroom, the beams making a chessboard of the floor but unable to thaw what was within me. We were two combatants, on opposing sides.
‘I think we said all that might be said the last time that we were here together at Westminster in St Stephen’s Chapel.’
‘When you did not tell me that you were carrying my child.’
‘No, I did not. How remiss of me.’
‘I loved you.’
That I had not expected. ‘And you do not now love me?’
‘I doubt I will ever be free of you.’
Nor would I be free of him. Love had overpowered me. Love had made a fool of me. Love had enticed with all its glamour, before it allowed me to fall from a great height.
‘You make me sound like some uncomfortable affliction,’ I suggested.
‘Never that.’
I shook my head, drowning in regret. Although I had sworn I would not, I asked him anyway: ‘What will you do now?’
‘I will promote my career as Admiral where it seems I have a talent. I will serve Henry well – and his son after him.’
‘You will make your fortune extorting huge ransoms from captive French commanders at the same time as you build a dynasty of lawful children.’
‘Is that not what every man seeks? I will restore the Holland family to the King’s right hand, where we should be. We should never have become involved in insurrection. I will make amends through good service and wise counsel.’
He sounded imperious, older than his years. How easy it was to fall into old patterns of converse. It would be so simple for the past to be swept away, allowing us to talk as if there were no rift between us, but I walked towards the door, opening it so that he must leave. Even then he surprised me as he donned his hat and gloves.
‘What will you do, Constance?’
It was a question that I had pushed aside. All very well for Edmund to plan strategies to win high renown as Admiral, to make a name as counsellor to the King and his son. I would never be entirely forgiven or trusted. There was no role for me, either as a self-confessed traitor or as a woman.
‘I am superfluous,’ I announced.
His brows rose. ‘Where is your ambition? I cannot believe that it is dead.’
‘Indisputably it is. Dead in a flight from Windsor to the Welsh March. Dead in my brother’s betrayal. Dead in all those endless months I spent in Kenilworth. Dead in your marriage to Lucia Visconti. I expect I could find more nails in the coffin of my hopes if I looked closely, but I have accepted my faults and the price I have been forced to pay. I can afford no ambition. I have a fatherless daughter to raise.’
I tried to say it without bitterness. It seemed that I succeeded, for Edmund laughed in disbelief.
‘Do you take the veil?’
‘I do not.’ My reply took no thought.
‘Will you then sit here at Westminster and plot revenge?’
I stilled for a moment to think of this. There was no chime within my heart for vengeance, no heat, and even if the best dish of revenge was served cold, I was not moved to cook it.
‘On whom would I be avenged and for what purpose? My brother Edward is impregnable. I cannot blame the King for my own choices, I have accepted that. You are beyond my reach and I’ll not disrupt your marriage.’ I hesitated, then said: ‘I’ll not take the veil, but I’ll not wed again.’
It surprised me. I had made it: that first true statement of intent since Alianore had been born. Until now I had been swept along by the mill race of events, even when I had presented myself at Edmund’s marriage in a spate of fury. It had not been of my own volition but of necessity, because to absent myself would have been a cowardice. Here I felt that I had taken up the direction of my life once more, with some vision of the future, some desire for the course in which my life might run. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
‘So you will stay here.’ Edmund dared to address me with compassion. ‘Or will you wall yourself up alone in one of your dower properties?’
My reply was short. ‘I doubt I’ll be allowed to. Henry still talks of sending me to my Welsh estates, to preserve a strong front against the Welsh rebels. That will be my role, for the good of England. I will become a fervent champion of the King. York in support of Lancaster.’
‘I doubt your ambitions are as dead as you tell me. They are as alive and well as are my own. I expect you’ll soon be plotting the most advantageous marriages for your children.’
Another arresting moment which almost made me smile. Beneath the handsome exterior there was a hard cynicism that would carry Edmund Holland far in the politics of the Court. Trust no one. Keep one’s thoughts close. Seize every opportunity. He would make a name for himself and perhaps for the glory of England. He would have been a worthy mate for me, except that he had proved to be as self-serving and duplicitous as my brother.
I might have damned him for it, but I knew in my heart that I was no better.
‘I will be a spider in Lancaster’s web, spinning heartily for his advancement,’ I replied.
‘It’s a good image, but I don’t necessarily believe you.’
‘What you believe, Edmund, is no longer of any account.’
My reply perforce created between us the sharp tension of an irrevocable ending, one that could be tasted, even though Edmund Holland was chivalric enough to kiss my hands, my cheeks and then my lips. They were cold kisses.
‘Farewell, Constanza. I did love you. I wish that we had met in more felicitous circumstances.’
‘Perhaps it was the tragedy of it all that brought us together.’
‘Perhaps it was.’ He halted momentarily, as if against his better judgement, before pushing the door wide and stepping beyond.
‘Edmund.’ I followed him, hating that I must beg. ‘Promise me that you will not allow her to live unrecognised.’
‘I promise.’
I had done all I could.
He ran lightly down the stair and for the briefest moment I stood there, listening to the fading of his footsteps. Some of the wounds were healed but not all: I might accept the reality of it, but the abrasions of a squandered love were still sore within my breast. I had lost him. He was not mine, and in my damaged emotions I made my final farewells. Here was the man who had had, in his possession, the key to open up my heart, my life, as if he were releasing the lid of a coffer to display a glittering array of gems. Now the box was tight locked again, and I would encourage no one to unlock it. I did not think the contents would ever see the light of day again.
And I realised: he had kissed me, albeit chastely, in farewell but not once had he touched Alianore to mark her as his own. It was as if the intimacy between us, fated lovers as we had proved to be, had at last been sliced through, Alexander hacking apart the Gordian Knot of my malingering emotions. Strangely it was a relief.
My mind began to work again. Here now was my immediate ambition, for I was not born to be idle. You will spend your days plotting the marriages of your children, Edmund had intimated. And so I would. Returned to my chamber I mixed ink, discovered an unused piece of parchment and a pen, and began to write lists of possibilities, scoring through those where I saw no value.
It did not have the immediacy of riding through the night from Windsor with John Beaufort hard on my heels; it did not make my blood throb with excitement and fear, but it would be a worthy future for my mind to espouse. I would tie my children to the most advantageous families in the land.
My son Richard, Lord Despenser, was nearing eleven years and ripe for the making of an alliance. Which families were pre-eminent at the Court, and would continue their supremacy into the next reign? The Beauforts were as close to the King as any; my cousins now legitimised. I noted names and drew lines, calling on my wide knowledge of cousins and their offspring of a suitable age and lineage. I would paper over the treacherous cracks in the Despenser family’s history, perhaps with Eleanor Neville, daughter of my cousin Joan Beaufort and her husband Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, a mighty power in the north since the recent decline of the Percys. And as Joan Beaufort was sister to the King, her daughter might be perfect as a Despenser bride.
Then Isabella. She was only six years old but older than I when wed in name to Thomas. The Beauchamp Earls of Worcester were a family to approach. I doubted they would reject an alliance with a young bride with royal blood in her veins.
I steeled myself against the old grief of Elizabeth’s death as I closed my eyes, seeing the tapestry of connections that I was stitching. Had I not, for much of my adult life, been at the centre of a tapestry of treason, drenched in blood and death? I had stitched with my own hands and intellect to undermine and destroy. In my mind’s eye I could see each interlocking stitch, the interplay of colour and vibrancy. There would be no redemption, no forgiveness for me in its creation, even though it had never come to pass. But now, all traces of that old tapestry consigned to the past, I would create a new masterpiece of benign loyalty.
Dickon must be my priority.
I wrote down a name, an obvious choice for my young brother. I had been thwarted over the Mortimer disaster, punished for my involvement. Here was a possibility that would stir the mud at the bottom of the pond for any number of the major fish swimming there.
The two Mortimer boys, now spending their young years in the fortress at Pevensey, had a sister, Anne, an unwed sister, the perfect age for a bride. If Dickon were to wed Anne Mortimer – now there was an alliance made in heaven. If the Mortimer claim to the throne ever came to anything, Dickon would stand in their midst by blood and marriage. A marriage made in hell, some might say; a marriage of possibilities, I would reply, enjoying a return of the old delight in intrigue.
I put down my pen, but then on impulse I pulled forward a clean sheet and began to write while the mood of conciliation and even conscience had me in its grip.
To my lord Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent,
I regret the tenor of our parting. I was neither fair nor generous. I need to remedy that, for you gave me a gift of great worth that I have only recently come to accept, which is the knowledge of love. I did not know what it was to desire the presence of a particular man, nor had I ever been moved by emotions, to both give and receive pleasure. My heart did not know how to respond in its beat at the sound of a well-loved voice. Now I know all of these things, however painful they might be in your absence.
I will never love again, but at least I will not go to my grave in ignorance of the selfless glory that it can bring. You have my assurance that the fire of love might settle to a mere flame as the years pass, but I doubt it will ever be extinguished.
I remain, as ever,
Constance, Lady Despenser
Joan would be proud of me. Not the poetic flowering of a troubadour I acknowledged as, gently, I put down the pen, folded the sheet and wrote Edmund’s name upon it, sealing it with wax, pressing the indentation of my own seal. I had learned the joy of love. The value of it. But it was also dangerous. I would live without it and conspire for the future.
In a sad little reflection I accepted that no one would ever again call me Constanza.