It would be Henry next. I knew it. Richard would discover, or create, the perfect opportunity to express his loathing of my brother. But how far would he go? Richard was still smiling on the Duke and his new Duchess Katherine. Would he dare attack the Lancaster heir?

‘Can we do nothing?’ I demanded of John after another interminable day of Richard’s demands that we show him the reverence due to Almighty God.

‘No.’ He remained uncompromising. ‘Not until we know what Richard intends.’

‘So you admit he is plotting something.’

‘Yes. You know him as well as I do, Elizabeth. Look at the gleam of mastery in his face. Richard might keep his own counsel, but having dealt with Gloucester he won’t rest now.’

‘I think you could try and deflect him.’

‘And ruin my own position to no purpose?’

‘Is that all you can say? Is that all you can think of?’

‘You were pleased enough to enjoy my position at court. To be Duchess of Exeter.’

Heat was building between us again, my anger no longer a mere flicker of intent. It seemed I had a temper as strong as John’s when those I loved came under attack. It flared.

‘But that was before Richard took a hatchet to his family. That was before I see only blood and …’ I stopped, before I could say words that would not easily be undone. I felt like an apprentice juggler with a handful of eggs. ‘The Duke is unwell,’ I said instead. ‘He could not bear it if Richard had Henry murdered in the same manner as my uncle, smothered in his bed in Calais by some nameless assassin. I think it would be the end of him.’

The Duke’s recurring ill-health was becoming a concern for us all, a wearing away of the once great strength. He might deny it but the years were taking their toll.

There was no sympathy in John’s response. It was as if I faced a solid barbican that prevented me approaching any of his finer feelings. ‘I cannot turn Richard’s mind, Elizabeth. Once it is made up … It took Radcot Bridge to get him to give up de Vere. And he’s never forgiven those who forced his hand. He’ll follow his own desires with or without me. All I can hope to do is temper his response to what he sees as justifiable use of royal power.’

How coldly realistic he was.

‘I know. I know. I know your hands are tied. But how often did my father stand for you? How often did he plead your cause? How often did I? If you had any—’

He rounded on me.

‘Don’t say it. Don’t go down that path, Elizabeth.’

If you had any love for me, you would at least try …

Nor would I ask: did you have a hand in my uncle Gloucester’s death?

But I did, because I was in no mood to placate.

‘No.’

One word in brutal denial. Family loyalties were dividing us, tearing us apart. We parted in a spirit of disharmony. For the first time in all the years that I could recall, when leaving to attend on Richard, John did not kiss me in farewell.



Chapter Eleven

A black year. A year of farewells and disagreements. How right I had been in my suspicions that Richard would act against my brother, for on a cold grey December day I stood on the shore at Dover and watched Henry step aboard the ship that would take him into exile.

All Richard’s doing.

Fabricating a treasonable plot, magnificent in its complexity, Richard had waved the regal sceptre to banish Henry from England for ten years, Mowbray for life. Thus the final two Lords Appellant paid for their disloyalty to the Crown. In a fit of false generosity Henry’s ten years were transmuted to six but it was little comfort.

I held Henry close in a storm of anger and grief which we both hid behind rigid shoulders and stern expressions. Here was no time for emotion. Our father might be racked with pain and remorse but his example was superb. The family of Lancaster would hold their heads high and wait for better times.

John did not accompany me to my bitter leave-taking.

And then, in March of the following year, I was standing in St Paul’s Cathedral to watch my father’s body laid to rest beside his beloved Blanche, the mother who was a fleeting memory to me. I was too numb to weep, too heart-broken to accept that he was gone from us. How could we continue to exist without the presence of that fine spirit in our midst?

Covertly I watched Richard as the choir filled the church with a glorious vocal celebration of my father’s life. What was in his mind? I had no idea. Here to mourn his most royal uncle who had raised him and supported him as a child king, Richard’s expression was perfectly governed into doleful lines. John stood beside him.

No Henry, of course. Henry dare not return, on pain of imprisonment and execution at the hands of his dear cousin. Philippa was far from me in Portugal.

I was devastated and alone.

And when it was over, Richard processing out with John at his side, there was Duchess Katherine. Silent and dry-eyed, she had weathered the ceremony well, I thought, until I was close enough to see the grief that flattened all her features. It was as if her former beauty were masked by a grey veil. The depth of sadness in her eyes struck hard at my heart. Here, with this woman who had been as much a mother to me as anyone, was where I would give comfort and receive it. Might we not weep together?

‘I am so very sorry. If I find it hard to accept he is no longer here with us, you must find it impossible.’

The cathedral had emptied. Approaching, my heels clicking on the tiles, sending up their own echo, I took the Duchess’s hand but it lay cold and lax in mine, nor was there any welcome in her face. It came to me as a dash of cold water against warm skin. Whatever closeness had been between us in the past had somehow dissipated, when I had not been aware. Yet her reply was dispassionate.

‘He suffered at the end, you know,’ she said. ‘In body and in spirit.’

‘But you were there to comfort him.’

‘Yes, I was. I did.’ And then: ‘You did not make it easy for him, Elizabeth.’

Grief, I had anticipated. The bitterness of pain. But not what was undoubtedly an accusation,

‘The banishment of Henry destroyed him,’ she continued. ‘But your marriage to Exeter hurt him, too.’

It thrust me on the defensive. ‘He agreed to my marriage.’

‘Because you gave him no choice.’ How judgemental her stare. ‘It was never a marriage he would have conceived for you, but on the eve of the voyage to Castile, and with a shame of a child conceived out of wedlock, what could he do? He never believed that this marriage would bring you happiness. And neither did I.’