‘My lord the King requests that you attend him in the audience chamber.’

Since the official avoided my eye, anxiety destroyed my hard won calm. For Henry to make this an official meeting—and I could imagine his advisers flanking him as he delivered the news—I could only imagine what it would be. The official did not appreciate my hesitation.

‘My lord the King is hard pressed and would see you now, my lady.’

I would not be hurried. ‘Tell the King I will attend on him shortly.’

‘But my lord the King is …’

‘Tell the King I will present myself in his audience chamber as soon as I am fit to be received into his presence.’

‘It is momentous news, my lady.’

‘It may be momentous, but five minutes more will make no difference.’

I needed time. To dress carefully, to plait and cover my hair. To compose my features. To order my senses. I would not fall and weep at Henry’s feet, whatever the provocation. Nor would I show him any signs of neglect from my days of prayer and sleepless nights. I would attend this summons with all the pride of a daughter of Lancaster. It was, I decided as I chose a jewelled caul, all I had left. And if John was alive so that I could bargain with Henry for his life, I would do it from a position of well-groomed dignity.

You know what he has to tell you.

I could imagine Henry’s sense of accomplishment as I placed a Lancaster livery collar on my shoulders, even if his victory was at the behest of the tides and an alien coast.

John is dead.

And thus I went about my preparations with an iron-like will, governing every sense, every emotion, my face as smooth and bland as new whey.

John was assuredly dead, his body brought ashore by the wind and tides, and Henry would be in celebratory mood. I was sunk in the blackest of desolation, but no one would read it in my face.

Henry was not smiling. Perhaps it was out of some residue of compassion for me, but I could no longer think along those lines. Acknowledging that we had drawn too far apart for compassion, I curtsied deeply, noting the counsellors that stood with him, those who had made the politic choice and abandoned Richard to his fate. I knew them all, but this was between me and my brother.

‘You wished to see me, my lord.’

My announcement was as bleak as a winter morn, but no bleaker than his.

‘I have news of Huntingdon.’

I waited for the blow to strike.

‘He was driven ashore. Onto the Essex coast.’

‘And he is dead,’ I said, my lips stiff so that forming the words was difficult. ‘Is his body found?’

‘Oh, yes, Elizabeth. He is found. Huntingdon is very much alive and well.’

My heart leapt with such force, the relief so great that I could barely contain it. All I could do was offer a silent thanks to the compassionate Virgin. Until reality struck with the sinister truth contained in the news. I looked up at Henry, where he stood above me on the dais, all my fears coalescing into one solid mass beneath my heart.

‘So he is in your hands.’

‘Yes.’

‘He is your prisoner.’

‘Yes.’

I looked at Henry’s face, trying to recall the rounded smiling, mischievous features of Henry as a boy. Leaner, older, stamped with authority, this man was King of England and I must never forget. I must learn my new role in this relationship. He was King and I was subject and supplicant. More than that, my husband was a foresworn traitor and in his power to dispatch to the executioner.

‘You know what I must do, Elizabeth.’

Oh, I did. I did.

‘You will put him on trial. For treason.’

‘Yes. He risked all in a foolish gamble and lost. The full force of the law will be used against him.’

I simply stood, absorbing what this would mean, obliterating from my mind the horror of it if Henry insisted on the full penalty for a traitor, to hang, draw and quarter. Execution would be a more compassionate alternative.

‘I’m sorry.’ He did not sound sorry. ‘I know how this will affect you.’

Did he? Had he any idea how important this man was to me, in spite of everything I knew about him? I ran my tongue over dry lips. I had said that I would not weep or plead. Yet I begged.

‘Can you find it in you to have mercy?’

‘He would have had me and my sons hacked to death on my tournament field.’

‘He was afraid for the life of his brother.’

‘Or was he afraid for his own safety? I treated him with justice. I punished him with a light hand. And this is how he—and those like him—repay me.’

‘He took the oath of allegiance to Richard.’

‘He took the same oath to me as well. And it meant nothing to him.’ The sardonic savagery was a wound in my side.

‘He would return to your side if you wooed him.’ What an empty gesture that was, and yet I would say the words. ‘I beg of you, my lord.’

‘I will not. Nor can you expect it. Here we have an oath-breaker of magnificent proportions. I will never trust him again. There is no value in this discussion, Elizabeth.’

Still I would not let go, even though I knew in my heart that there was no hope. Never had I seen my brother so recalcitrant, yet I fell back to childhood usage.

‘If you have any affection for me, Hal, show mercy.’

‘It is out of my hands.’

‘Where have you sent him?’ There again, a little leap of hope. If his new guardian was open to persuasion … could I at least beg that he be allowed to escape again, and this time arrive safe at some European strand? Surely that was the best outcome for everyone.

‘I have placed him,’ Henry said as if weighing every word, his eyes on mine so that I could not miss the implication, ‘in the custody of the Countess of Hereford at Pleshey.’

And at that, in spite of all my good intentions, I wept. In the presence of Henry and the counsellors and the royal officials. I wept. Nor did I cover my face, but let the tears roll uselessly down to mark the damask of my bodice and spike the fur.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Why would I not? The Countess of Hereford and the FitzAlans deserve some satisfaction.’

It struck against my heart, crushing every final grain of hope, and I turned on my heel. Without permission I left the royal presence. In that moment I never wished to see my brother again.

The Countess of Hereford had John in her power. If John was in the clutches of Countess Joan of Hereford, then all was surely lost to me, and to John. I returned to my rooms to begin preparations for a journey full of the worst foreboding.

And yet once I would have travelled to Pleshey with such joy, for Countess Joan was a blood relative, a confirmed supporter of Lancaster, even showing herself to be a good friend to Duchess Katherine before she was made respectable, offering her a loving sanctuary for the birth of her daughter Joan, out of the Countess’s deep affection for my father. A devoted mother to Mary de Bohun, Henry’s ill-fated wife, Countess Joan had proved a warm and comfortable presence in my own childhood. Pleshey Castle figured vividly in my memories, a place for exciting New Year gift givings and Twelfth Night revels. Countess Joan could never be accused of giving less than whole-hearted support to the family of Lancaster.

But Countess Joan was a FitzAlan by birth, and there was the thing. Countess Joan was sister to Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, who had been the first to be called to account as the most outspoken of the Lords Appellant, the most critical of Richard’s mistakes. Countess Joan was aunt to the two FitzAlan sons whom we had housed with so much ill-will on their part. The FitzAlans had been transformed from strongest allies into most bitter enemies.

How could I blame them? Richard had made a bloody example of Richard FitzAlan, his head struck from his body on Tower Hill. Now my blood ran cold as I dredged up the details of those terrible days. When the Lords Appellant had been taken prisoner, it was John who was standing at Richard’s side. When the Arundel estates were forfeit to the crown, it was John who received them at the grateful hand of his royal brother. Who had been given the magnificent fortress of Arundel Castle? It was John.

As John rose in power and prestige at their expense, the FitzAlans fell, the young dispossessed Earl even losing his life while in our keeping.

And would that John’s pre-eminence at their expense was his only crime in the eyes of the FitzAlans. My mind hopped from sin to even worse sin. For a vengeful Countess there would be far more to weigh against John’s life. Countess Joan’s elder daughter Eleanor had been wed to the royal Duke of Gloucester who had his life crushed out of him in Calais. When Gloucester had been arrested at Pleshey, who had ridden at Richard’s side? John might not have been involved in the deed in Calais, but he was complicit in Richard’s planning to rid himself of those who had attacked his royal dignity. Who was more often than not seen in the ascendant in those years of Richard’s power, recipient of Richard’s patronage, and at the expense of all others? It was John.

I rode out from the Tower with violent death and John’s complicity in the FitzAlan downfall as close companions. Would the Countess ever find it in her heart to have mercy? I did not think so. John’s involvement, however slight, in Gloucester’s death would have been made worse in her eyes by the death of his and Eleanor’s little son Humphrey a matter of months ago, followed by Eleanor’s rapid demise from a broken heart.

I could imagine the gleam in Countess Joan’s eye with John Holland under her dominion, hers the choice over him, of life or death. I could imagine her response if I begged for mercy.

‘Do you realise what your damnable mis-begotten husband has done to my family?’