‘Is Sir John Holland here?’ I asked.

‘He is. And doubtless deciding which way to hop.’ And when I looked puzzled, he added: ‘Which side of the fire will scorch him least, if you take my meaning.’

Which made not much sense, until we stepped into the Great Hall which was awash with uncontrolled emotion. It all but blistered us so that we halted in the doorway.

‘Your father would call down shame on your head if he saw the counsellors you choose to give ear to.’ The Duke, in the centre of the chamber, raised his voice well above normal pitch as he addressed Richard.

‘I am King. I choose my own counsellors.’ Supreme on his dais was the King, his pointed nose quivering with fury, fists clenched.

The heated heart of a conflagration the like of which I had never seen. And there were Richard’s courtiers, including John Holland, awaiting the outcome.

‘And bad counsellors at that.’ The Duke was in no mood to retreat. He might not name de Vere, but there was no doubting the sleek object of the Duke’s disgust.

‘I do not have to answer to you, Uncle. By what right do you take me to task?’

‘As for shame …’ My father continued, jaw rigid with a pure reflection of the royal fury. ‘How shameful is it for a King to stoop to murder one of his own family? His own blood. You would have me done to death?’

Was this some monstrous joke? Some ill thought out masque?

It was beyond belief, but my heart began to throb with a heavy beat as I allowed myself to observe the faces of those present. There was no laughter. Nor was there shock. No one questioned the accusation, despite Richard’s face becoming perfectly white. The Duke was fearless in his attack, but I could see the lines of a breastplate beneath his robe. He had come here in fear of his life. John Holland, eyes alert, lips close set, standing a little apart from both, kept his gaze close-trained on his brother. What he was thinking I could not imagine. If he saw my entrance, he gave no reaction. Nor would he, for all was balanced on a dagger edge and any dalliance would be far from his mind. This was a catastrophic expression of power with the outcome undecided, and with a crucial decision for John Holland to make. Lancaster or King? How mask-like his face, a face I had come to know with its range of vivid expression. John Holland’s decision today might deny any need for me to be here, effectively ending any future communication between us.

This was politics in the raw and my stomach lurched.

‘Why would you see a need for revenge on me, sire?’ the Duke demanded. ‘I am your man. I have always been your man.’

‘You humiliate me by your lectures, sir.’

‘So you would plot my murder with the likes of de Vere?’

The gathering was still, motionless in anticipation, de Vere as frozen in time as the carved doorpost on my left. John Holland took one step forward.

‘Sire …’

But Richard commanded his brother’s silence with a crude gesture. ‘How dare you so accuse me?’ Richard said to the Duke.

‘Because it is the truth. I will no longer attend you at court. I fear for my life at your hands. Should a man have to wear armour in the presence of his nephew? By God, he should not.’

And on that, the Duke bowed and stalked out, brushing past Philippa and me without any sign of recognition. The expression on his face smote at my heart.

‘You will not walk away from me!’ Richard’s words exploded, high-pitched, his hand clenched on the sword at his side, and he would have leapt from the dais if John Holland had not stepped forward.

‘No, sire.’ His hand closed on Richard’s sleeve. ‘Would you strike your uncle?’

‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Richard!’ I saw it, the tightening hand of a brother on the King’s sword-arm as Sir John strove to draw the poison from the deadly situation. I took note as Sir John’s hand moved to close round the King’s wrist. And Richard paused. ‘You need to consider, sire.’

‘Why would I need to consider?’ Still Richard’s features were livid. ‘I am King here and I demand honour, even from my uncle.’

‘Lancaster does indeed honour you. Has he not always been the most loyal of your subjects?’

He might release the sword, but Richard wrenched his arm away and stormed from the room. With a shrug and a glance at his brother Thomas, John Holland followed the King.

Thus the audience stuttered into an uneasy end.

Oh, I admired the stance John Holland had taken, his calming words, his attempt to deflect Richard’s wrath. Here was a man who was more than a skilled courtier, all outward glamour with sword and tongue. Here was a depth of understanding that surprised me, a skill to diffuse a potentially unpleasant situation, and a concern for my father that touched my senses.

But in pursuing Richard, to whose side had John Holland, as Master Selby had so aptly put it, ultimately hopped?

I sat on the edge of my bed, hands clasped tightly in my lap, and thought through the mass of uncontrolled passion and dark threats I had just witnessed. So much anger. So much potential violence. And then, because it was not in my nature to sit, I prowled round the room. A royal plot to murder my father? How could I believe that? Yet there had been no hiss of disbelief, no intake of breath. Richard had denied so heinous a crime, but he would hardly admit to it in public.

And where was John Holland now?

He had followed Richard. If he had given his loyalty to his brother, what need for me to be here? Suddenly the death of the Carmelite friar was shadowed into insignificance, the events of the past hour stirring my thoughts into a new pattern, but one equally disquieting. The choice I had come to Sheen to make might not be mine to make after all. Richard’s perfidy might have driven a sword into the very heart of his family, creating new alliances, dividing irrevocably friend from foe.

If I was of a cynical mind, this was a ploy in the game John Holland had instigated, bringing me back to court, where his influence could once more hold sway. But this was no game. This was a royal challenge for power, Richard throwing down his gage. The whole affair stank of blood and betrayal.

‘Stop it!’ Philippa said at last after another track across the room.

‘I can’t.’

‘Is this the man you have a …’ she struggled for words—’… an affection for? For shame. Do you not see what sort of man he is?’

Affection? It was no light affection. I wanted him. I formed the words in my head. Then out loud. ‘I want him.’

‘Then that is the sin of lust!’

I pondered. No—I did not think it was. There was something deeper in the way this man encroached on my thoughts as well as my emotions. But my sister was right, I was in need of some answers.

‘If you want my advice,’ she chivvied, ‘go and return all those silly trinkets to him and make an end to it.’

I stopped mid prowl, my gaze finding hers.

‘Go and see him,’ she urged. ‘Whatever it is between you, end it. Tell him not to send any more. No good will come of it, and you’re a fool if you persist in a flirtation that will end in nothing but shame and scandal—for you if not for him.’

Of course she had noticed the gifts and deduced the giver, adding two and two to make enough white doves to fill a dovecote. How could I have thought that she would not? Philippa, leaving me in no doubt of her opinion, was rarely so acrimonious in her choice of words.

‘I doubt he is in the mood to send more gifts.’ I worried at the border of my flowing oversleeves, teasing the delicate stitching without mercy.

‘No one is. It seems to me that no man at court is in a mood to do anything other than drive a dagger between the shoulder blades of his nearest opponent.’

‘I doubt he is in the mood to see me,’ I continued, realising how trivial my own concerns were in comparison. And yet this was a matter of my own flesh and blood. And, for me, of the heart. ‘I don’t even know if he has turned his back on Lancaster and is even now bolstering cousin Richard in his plots to have us all murdered in our beds.’

‘You won’t know until you talk to him. Do you think he was involved in the plot against the Duke?’

‘How can I possibly know? My heart says no, but it seemed to be that every man in that room looked guilty of something!’ It took me the length of a breath to decide. ‘I’ll go.’

‘What will you do?’ she asked as my hand raised the latch.

I paused, looked back. ‘I don’t know yet.’

Nor did I. All I knew was that I must hear from his own mouth that he was innocent.

‘Just don’t forget that you are a married woman, Elizabeth. And he is a man who is not averse to taking advantage of you.’

‘How can I forget?’

While Philippa took her sharp eyes and even sharper tongue off to find the Queen, to discover the present situation between Anne and her husband, I organised one of my waiting women for appearance’s sake and, carrying my birdcage, marched the chilly journey to where the King’s brothers were housed in the rambling palace. I met no one, heard nothing but the occasional cheep from under the cover. I stopped outside the door, which opened as I raised my hand to knock, and Thomas Holland strode out, coming to a halt.

‘Elizabeth.’

‘Thomas.’

Neither was pleased to see the other.

‘Not a propitious time for one of your family to be here,’ he said, mildly given the circumstances, with the King fuelled with blood-lust. He eyed the birdcage. ‘At least Henry’s had the sense to make himself scarce.’

‘Is your brother in?’ I asked, ignoring the warning.

‘Yes. I’d come back later if I were you. Or not at all. We’ve enough to worry about without you adding to the mix.’

I stood my ground. There was too much I needed to know, to say.