My love for him knew no bounds. I had built a bridge and he had crossed it. Or we had crossed it together. I lived for the days when he would come to Kenilworth.



Chapter Eight

June 1386, Kenilworth Castle

‘I cannot take every shift, gown and pair of shoes I possess. What do they wear in Portugal, anyway?’

Philippa stood in the centre of her chamber, rather crossly, surrounded by travelling coffers and drifts of costly material and her busy women.

‘Why worry? Set your own fashion.’ I sat on her bed, not helping. Then on a thought: ‘You could give me that blue damask. I’ve always coveted it.’

‘And you’ve enough gowns of your own to clothe Richard’s spendthrift court from head to foot.’ She smiled but her eyes were wide and I thought I saw trepidation there, even though she had dreamed of marriage for so long. This would be the fulfilment of her dream, the end of all her fears that she would never have a husband and children of her own. But a marriage far from home and those she held dear would have its own heartbreak.

I would not speak of my own sense of loss.

‘Do I take my lute?’ she fretted, her fingers dragging unmusically over the strings. She hugged it to her breast.

‘Your new husband will give you a dozen. You will be Queen of Portugal, commanding all you desire.’

‘And, oh I shall miss you.’ The sudden gleam of tears in her eyes shocked me, but I forced myself to laugh as if I had not noticed. The last thing we needed was for us both to become lachrymose.

‘When you decide that you are missing me, just recall all the times I annoyed you and you wished me wed to a man in Cathay,’ I said instead.

‘True. I remember now.’ She wiped the tears away with her fingertips, then touching my shoulder in acknowledgement of what I had done before rolling a jewelled bodice in a length of linen.

It was a time of melancholy for both of us with the prospect of much parting and some tears. This was a loss I had experienced before and anticipated the long months with a mix of fear and heartache. Plantagenet men went to war. Had not my grandmother, Queen Philippa, experienced the same when King Edward had led his knights and archers to Crécy, the great victory that was still talked of, even by those who had no memory of it. When Richard’s father, the Prince, had taken the mantle of leadership and raised his standard at Poitiers, Princess Joan had been with him in Aquitaine, but her anguish would not have been any the less. Would our father fight a battle as dangerous as these that lived on in the memory of our knights? Minor skirmishes were just as lethal. And the ambushes. And dysentery. The cold of winter, the arid heat of summer in these southern climes.

I could not think of it.

For my father was intent on war, leading the expedition to Castile that was now imminent. Travelling with him was Constanza who hoped never to return to England but to win the crown from her cousin who had usurped her rightful claim. And if my father was successful, would he ever return, or would he remain to rule Castile as king?

It was possible. It was entirely possible for an ambitious and able man who saw no future for his ambitions at Richard’s unpredictable side. That I could accept. But with my father, as Constable of the Army, went Sir John Holland.

We had met, in bed and mostly out, when Sir John found it necessary to discuss affairs of soldiery and equipment with the Duke. Far easier for us to achieve heated moments at Kenilworth in the middle of war preparations than in gossip-ridden Windsor.

And now, even though it had always been hovering on my horizon, my heart lurched, that he too would be leaving me. I could imagine his swagger as he landed in Corunna, the search for wealth and reputation and fame that would drive him to brave deeds and perhaps foolish ones. Sometimes a dark mood settled on me. Would he discover some black-haired Castilian lady who would not refuse him every time he offered marriage, as I did? I could not imagine John following a life of noble chastity. He might think of me between breaking his fast and leading a sortie against the enemy, or between kissing some pretty girl’s lips and disrobing her.

I realised I was scowling, and stopped. Would he miss me at all? He said he would, but with the distance of time and vast swatches of land and sea between us, how could I know? How ephemeral our love with no anchor, no firm footing—mere snatched moments because that is all we could allow.

‘Wed me.’ His final exhortation, his mouth powerfully possessive against mine in a snatched embrace within the old keep, before he had left Kenilworth at the Duke’s behest with a troop of soldiery, bound for Plymouth.

‘You know I cannot.’

‘I know you can. Will you allow yourself to be tied to this boy when it is a man who has your heart? Repudiate this false marriage to Pembroke.’

‘It is not false, merely a marriage in waiting.’

‘You are a grown woman. You can wait no longer. I would make you as prestigious a husband as young Pembroke. When Richard decides to forgive me utterly, he will reward me and restore my lands to me.’ All his old confidence, and more, had been restored with the prospect of action. ‘I am a man on the cusp of power and influence. Lancaster will not cavil at me as son-in-law.’

‘He would at having to break an alliance made in good faith. My father has strong principles.’

‘Not so strong that he has been able to live with a mistress in the eye of his wife for the past fifteen years! It is no marriage for you, Elizabeth. You cannot wait. Desire burns in you.’

‘I may not have to wait,’ I admitted, allowing a little fear to shimmer to the surface.

It had come to me that my father might give Jonty permission to claim his marital rights before he sailed. It had crossed Jonty’s mind too. I saw him watching me. He was no longer the young lad I had wed but a squire who sneaked kisses from the serving girls in the buttery.

‘I won’t have you in any man’s bed but mine. Certainly not that of a barely-grown boy with no knowledge but of clumsy fumbling.’

I could do nothing to assuage John’s irritation.

‘And you won’t take a Castilian paramour on your travels, I suppose.’

‘I might have to if you don’t put me out of my misery. There must be some girl of birth and fortune, waiting for me in Portugal. What would you say if I brought a Portuguese princess home with me?’

‘I would put poison in her soup.’