I was not persuaded. Was this cold ambition or rampant realism? Could nothing be resurrected from our present failure?

Apparently not. ‘It’s over, Elizabeth.’ He prowled from one end of my chamber to the other, the violence of his passing wafting the delicate bed hangings into a shiver of silk embroidery. ‘We do nothing but waste men and money. It is indefensible to continue in what everyone must see as a lost cause.’

‘But the Duke …’

John cast himself into a chair, then abandoned it to walk with increasing restlessness as he explained.

‘The Duke is blind to reality. Ask your sister’s royal husband. He sees the truth of it. He’s reluctant to promise more troops to a campaign that can never be won. My only hope is to put myself back in Richard’s eye and hope for a short memory and family loyalty to bring me back into his good books.’ His stare when he halted in front of me was inimical, in case I continued to oppose him. ‘Otherwise I will remain a poor, landless knight, selling his skills around Europe, barely able keep his wife in silk and his son in good horses as he grows.’

So both ambition and realism, it seemed. I added my own immediate problem to his shoulders for good measure.

‘It could be worse than that, John. I am breeding again.’

Emotion warred in his face as he gripped my hands tightly to drag me to sit beside him on the bed. ‘Even more reason to go.’ And when he still saw doubt in my face. ‘I know your reasons for staying. Your family will not travel back with us, but there is nothing here for me, and my increasing family. There is everything for us in England. That is where we belong. That is where we can make our mark and set down roots for our children.’

I could see his reasoning, impeccable as ever. Self-serving as ever, many would say. Yet, releasing my hands from his, I went to the intricately traceried window from where I could look out over the parched hills, the pale sky. There was a choice to be made, but was it so momentous as I had first thought? I would leave Philippa to rule Portugal beside her husband, but that I had always known and accepted. If the campaign failed, the Duke would make a settlement to preserve his dignity and he too would return. So I imagined would Constanza if she was denied her birthright. Henry was in England with his wife Mary and a newborn son I had never seen. Then there was Richard, who might have grown into a stable maturity under the influence of capable and loving Anne. I could renew my connection with Dame Katherine in Lincoln, who would be charmed by my son and the forthcoming child. All the family I knew and loved to welcome me home. Everyone I knew at Kenilworth, my favourite home. What was to keep me here?

Nothing. Nothing but the inevitability of failure. There was no difficult choice for me to make when family beckoned so strongly. Besides, John wanted to go home. He would never agree to leave me here and return alone, so why trouble myself over a decision that was already made in my mind and in reality?

I returned to stand before him.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Never more sure. I’ve already spoken with the Duke.’

‘And he agrees?’

‘Reluctantly, but yes.’

So all was arranged, with or without my blessing. But I could find no strong argument to offset the planning.

‘We will go home,’ I agreed, already mentally distancing myself from the silk-clad languid luxury of this Portuguese palace.

And that is exactly what we did, after a lachrymose farewell with Philippa, a more stringent one with my father, and with safe conduct to travel through Castile to Gascony where we took ship. And home.

‘What will await us?’ I asked, my hand tucked in John’s arm as the coast of England came into view, a thin grey line on the horizon.

‘Promotion for me,’ John announced. ‘Richard will award my loyalty with land and a title. He’ll make me work hard for it, of course.’ Anticipation had grown stronger in him with each mile we covered towards England.

And perhaps he was right. Any guilt I felt in what some would have said was a rat abandoning the sinking ship, any regrets at leaving Philippa, were swept away when we set foot on English shores, a bare twelve month since we had left. The Castilian problem would be settled without my presence. Now we had our own family to think of. Richard would welcome us, John would work hard to establish us, and all would be well. Our future unrolled before me, a time of royal approval when Sir John Holland would become one of the foremost men of the land.

There was nothing to ruffle the waters of my serenity.



Chapter Ten

September 1397: Windsor Castle. Ten years later.

‘Now what do you suppose he is planning?’

‘Probably something not to our liking.’

John’s sotto voce query was accompanied by an increasingly frequent saturnine expression, his tolerance for his young brother fraying around the edges. Standing in a crowd as we were, I hushed him discreetly. Since the unfriendly affair at Radcot Bridge, ten years ago now, there were changes in our King. It was like waiting for a thunderstorm to break out of a summer sky, without warning.

John bowed as Richard’s eye fell on him. I curtsied as the royal observation passed to me. A wave of obeisance followed the King’s scrutiny. Richard had acquired heightened notions of his royal superiority.

‘He has something in mind,’ John continued, bending his head as if to survey the more restrained toes of his shoes as Richard’s attention moved on.

‘I know he has, but who will be the victim?’

‘The Lords Appellant?’ John had returned to watching his brother, with cat-like narrowing of his eyes.

It would have to be. Richard detested the group of Lords Appellant, a small but powerful group, with a vicious fury. I sought out Henry’s solid figure in the crowd, since he was one of the five, but my brother appeared insouciant, calmly unaware of any undercurrents. Or, as I presumed, giving a good pretence. We were all tiptoeing round our King, and rightly.

It had been a time of some anxiety, marking the years since John and I had returned from Castile, when Richard’s infatuation with the charms of Robert de Vere had reached its dangerous height. I remembered De Vere as little more than a youth, charming Richard, flattering him in the courtyard when my father had given me one of my first lessons in the importance of political allegiance. Richard had been well and truly snared, and de Vere, grown into even more charming and ambitious maturity, had been intent on consolidating his power with weasel words in Richard’s ear. And Richard, listening avidly, against all advice, had showered his favourite courtier with land and wealth, unable or unwilling to see the consequences. For as de Vere’s hold over Richard grew, it stirred resentment amongst the lords and magnates who expected the honours for themselves. Including my brother Henry who joined forces with our uncle of Gloucester, as well as the FitzAlan Earl of Arundel, Mowbray of Nottingham and the Beachamp Earl of Warwick. Five influential men, a puissant alliance against the King, the Lords Appellant made their demands to rid England of the King’s evil counsellors.