Виктория Холт - Passage to Pontefract

‘What means this?’ she demanded.

One of the stewards stepped to the foot of the stairs.

‘My lady, two of the serving-men have been stricken. They are in the castle … now. We do not know what we should do.’

‘Stricken,’ she echoed. ‘The … plague?’

‘’Tis so, my lady.’

‘Have any of you been near them?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

She stood looking down on them and as she did so she saw one of the women creep into a corner and lie there.

‘A red cross must be put at the castle gates,’ she said. ‘No one must go out. No one must come in. We must wait awhile.’

There was a deep silence in the hall. Then it was broken by the sound of someone sobbing in another part of the castle.

The plague had come to Bolingbroke.

* * *

Death was in the castle.

Blanche thought: ‘Thank God the children are not here.’

Three days had passed and she knew that several were already dead.

‘We must pray,’ she had said; and they had prayed; but they all remembered that when the plague entered a dwelling be it cottage or castle there was little hope of survival for its inhabitants.

On the fourth day Blanche discovered the fatal swelling under her arms. In the space of a few hours the loathsome spots began to appear.

Oh God, she thought. This is the end then.

She lay on her bed and when one of her women came in she called to her ‘Go away. You must not enter this room.’

The girl understood at once and shrank away in horror.

Blanche lay back on her bed. She was fast losing consciousness. She thought she saw the phantom hare close to her bed. He appeared, did he not, when death had come to Bolingbroke.

He has come for me, she thought. Oh John, I am leaving this life and you are not beside me to say farewell. Where are you, dearest husband? What of my children? My girls … my baby Henry. Dear children, you will have no mother now …

This was not the way in which a great lady should die … her husband far away, her servants afraid to come to her bedside. But this was the plague, that cruel scourge which took its victims where it would. Cottage or castle, it cared nothing for that. But it was merciful in one way. Its victims did not suffer long.

The news was carried through the castle.

The Lady Blanche is dead.

When the Black Prince returned to Bordeaux after his victory at Nájara his wife Joan was greatly disturbed by his appearance.

She knew that that long stay in the heat of Valladolid had affected many of his followers and there had been deaths from dysentery; but the Prince had always been a strong man, one who was able to take the rigours of battle as they came and throw off any ill effects they might leave. She remembered the recent death of Lionel in Italy and this did nothing to ease her anxiety.

‘Now you are home I shall look after you,’ she announced. ‘There shall be no more going off to battle until you are well.’

The Prince smiled at her fondly. Joan had never behaved in a royal manner. She was a woman who would go her own way. It was a relief to know that she was there and that he could comfortably allow her to tell him what must be done until he was ready to go off again.

He should retire to his bed, said Joan. No, she would hear no protests. She knew the very posset to cure him. At least they must be thankful that this wretched matter was at an end. It had been a folly from the start to finish.

His servants smiled to see the great Black Prince ordered by his wife but they knew his nature. If he had made up his mind at that moment to leave the castle and take up arms no one – not even the masterful Joan – would have been able to stop him.

‘You should have been a commander in my armies, Jeanette,’ he told her fondly.

‘My lord, I am the commander in our castle.’

That made him smile.

‘I am happy to be home with you and the children,’ he told her.

‘Then you must prove your words by not going off again to fight senseless battles for ungrateful people.’

‘A waste, Jeanette … a waste of blood and money …’

‘And squandering of health. But enough of that. I’ll soon have you well again.’

She kept him to his bed and none might see him without her permission. The Prince was happy to lie back comfortably and allow her to rule him. The comfort of his bed, the assurance of her devotion, these were what he needed.

A ruler must have his failures, and what seemed the greatest triumph could in time be seen to have been an empty victory. So with Nájara.

Joan was right. If she had her way, there would be no battles. She would say: ‘You are the King’s eldest son. One day England will be yours and our little Edward will follow you. Be content with that. In any case it is one man’s work to govern England.’

His mother had felt the same, only she did not say it as forcefully as Joan did. He was sure that John’s wife Blanche would have agreed with them. It was a woman’s outlook.

There were times like this when he wondered whether they were right. How far had they advanced with the war in France? How much nearer to the French crown was his father than when the whole matter had started?

No farther after years of struggle, bloodshed and squandering of treasure! And if this ambition had never come to his father, if he had never decided that he had a claim to the crown of France …

This was no way for a soldier to think, particularly one who was reckoned to be the greatest soldier in Christendom. Jeanette’s influence, he thought wryly.

And there she was standing by his bed with yet another of her potions.

‘I believe you are a witch,’ he said. ‘You want to keep me to my bed so that I can never leave you.’

Joan laughed. She had the gayest laughter he had ever heard.

‘You put ideas into my head, my Prince. Ever since the day I forced you to marry me I have been wondering how I could keep you at my side.’

‘Jeanette,’ he said softly. ‘Oh Jeanette, did you have to use much force?’

‘You know full well,’ she retorted. ‘We could have been married years ago but for you.’

‘You were dallying with Salisbury and Holland then.’

‘Only in the hope of arousing some jealousy in your sluggish breast.’

‘Was that indeed the truth?’

‘You know it. You were for me and I for you but I could not ask you, could I? Some foolish law says that it is the man who must ask for the hand of the lady not she for his. It is a law that should be changed. When you are King, my love, that must be your first consideration.’

‘I doubt my parliament would be much impressed with my rule. Moreover there are women who decide to take matters into their own hands no matter what the custom.’

‘Some have that wit and boldness.’

‘Like my own Jeanette.’

‘You were cruel to attempt to persuade me to take that man de Brocas.’

‘I never meant you to.’

‘In your cowardly way you forced me to tell you I would marry no one but the greatest knight in the world and there was no doubt who that was, was there? My lord, I know your courage is great on the battlefield but you were a coward in very truth when it came to the lists of love.’

‘My Jeanette, I never thought you would look my way.’

‘As my eyes were fixed in your direction for many years that is a poor excuse. But no matter, thanks to your resourceful wife the matter was solved, though belatedly, and now you have at last – through none of your own effort – been brought to where you belong … and that, my lord, is in my care.’

‘God bless you, Jeanette,’ he said. ‘Often I thank Him for you.’

‘And I thank Him for you,’ she replied more soberly. She went on briskly, ‘The task of the moment is to have you well again and I warn you, my Prince, that you are not leaving this roof until you are.’

‘I would I could stay with you every day of my life.’

‘Untrue,’ she said. ‘You are a soldier … the greatest in the world they tell me. You long to lead your men into battle. It is in your blood. But not when you are sick. That is when I take command.’

‘As you say, my general. Tell me what has been happening here in Bordeaux?’

‘Pedro’s girls are still here.’

‘Constanza and Isabella. What will become of them?’

‘Constanza has become a rather ambitious girl for as you know, since the death of her sister Beatrice she has become the elder and the heiress to the throne. Now do not look excited! I have made up my mind that whatever grows out of this, Constanza is going to fight her own battles. Now, a happier subject and one which is really our concern. Your sons are clamouring to see you. “Where is our father?” they constantly ask. When I tell them that you are resting after the battle they cannot believe that you would need to rest. I am going to bring them to see you. Lie still and they shall come to your chamber.’

‘Jeanette.’ He caught her hand. ‘I like it not that they should see me thus.’

‘They will not know how ill you are. I have promised them they shall come. I will bring them myself.’

In a few moments she had returned, a boy on either side of her.

Edward the elder was about six years old, Richard three years younger.

Edward tore his hand from his mother’s and ran to his father, climbing on to the bed and embracing him.

‘My son, my son …’ The Prince looked at the eager little face glowing with health and high spirits. ‘Would you throttle me then?’