I love him. I love him despite his temper, his ambitions, his ill-fated choices. I love him because of them, because that is John Holland who wooed me and won me and would not let me go.

Don’t tell me that he would have brought my brother to his death. I know it. Don’t tell me that he was not worthy of my love. He was, he was! And I know why he made that fatal choice. John’s betrayal of his own brother was an ignoble affair that he must put right. I cannot forgive him for his plot of vicious murder, but I can understand. Does he not hold a mirror up to my own soul? I have discovered that we are all capable of betrayal. Its consequences lie within me, every hour, every day. My love for John remains as strong as the day I placed my future in his hands and told him I carried his child.

Death is in the cold dank ground, in the bare trees, frozen into motionless acceptance in these January days. I cannot envisage spring and new life.

I am in cold despair.

I think of Henry, when he was my brother Hal and dear to me. The images of childhood race through my atrophied mind. Henry with a book in his hand, Henry with his armour covered with gilding, with a hawk on his fist, with a new sword, riding at the tournaments with verve and dash. Henry protecting me at the Tower when the rebels broke in. Henry anxious for my happiness. My brother whose affection had been part of my life, unquestionable.

I am estranged from Henry. I have nothing to say to him.

I cannot weep. My heart is a solid stone in my chest. My blood is sluggish. Every step, every movement is an effort.

I have no feelings, nothing. I have been robbed of all my joy, for my love is dead.

‘You didn’t ought to be doing that, mistress.’

‘I know it.’

Casting aside the mattock with a hiss of frustration at my clumsy handling of it, I resorted instead to a pair of shears.

‘Some would say as you shouldn’t be cutting that rosemary at this time of year, mistress,’ the gardener persisted.

‘And they’d be right about that too. Damn them.’

The edges were blunt, and I was inexpert—when had I ever tackled such physical work in my whole life? —but I continued to wield the shears, to the sad detriment of the shrub, while I was invaded by black despair and even blacker fury. I could barely breathe for the constriction in my throat.

What a fool I was. What an unutterable fool.

‘Maybe I’ll do it for you, mistress.’

I looked up at the man who tended the gardens and saw my presence in the herbery as an intrusion. And a destructive one at that.

‘No you won’t. I am not incapable. Go away. And take the children inside with you. It’s too cold for them out here.’

I saw them watching their mother, wary of this woman they barely recognised in her woollen skirts and furious application of garden tools. They were all there in a little huddle, except for baby Edward. I could not blame them for keeping their distance.

Attacking a plant of rue—by the Virgin! there would be no rue in my garden! —I reduced it to a few hopeless twigs.

‘You need help, mistress.’

‘I don’t.’

Had I not promised? I had promised and I would do it.

He retreated when I picked up my mattock again, only to lurk behind a bush to keep an eye on the mistress who appeared to have taken leave of her senses.

Taken leave of them? I felt as if every sense I had was hammered into a coffin.

No! Not that!

The denial howled in my head.

Earlier in the day, numbed by shock, I had shut myself away in my chamber, until I realised the futility of that. I could ride out, hunt. I could ride and ride until I was exhausted and my mind blurred with it so that I could sleep and forget. But I would imagine that he was with me, riding beside me as he had done so often. I would hear the hooves of his horse, see the wind lifting his hair, hear his laughter at some comment passed between us. How could I ever ride for pleasure again? I needed an occupation to drain my energies rather than that of my mare. An occupation John would never have undertaken.

When had I ever turned my hand to physical work other than the setting of stitches? Playing the lute. Singing. Dancing. That is what I was made for. But today I needed some back-breaking work that would demand my concentration and my strength.

Yet, the inertia of grief laying its hand on me, I would still have remained shut away in my private chamber, until Alice ran in, a roughly constructed birdcage clutched in her eight-year-old hand. She danced on the spot, holding the occupants high for me to see.

‘Look what the chapman has brought. He says they are for me, if we give him a silver coin.’

I stared in horror, seeing myself, in different circumstances, holding a gilded cage of singing finches.

‘Take them out!’ I shrieked, before I could stop myself.

‘But Mother …’ Alice’s eyes gleamed with quick tears.

‘I’ll not have them here.’

Taking my daughter by the hand I strode unseeing through the beautiful rooms of the house that John had built, through the kitchens and out into the enclosed courtyard beyond. Once there I knelt beside Alice, taking the cage from her and opening its door, lifting it high to encourage the pair of birds to fly free, which they did. Wiping away my child’s tears with the edge of my sleeve, I gave the only explanation I could.

‘They did not deserve to be shut in a cage. They will be happy to be free.’

Alice sniffed, not understanding, and in a sense neither did I. All I knew was that I would never again have a pair of singing birds. Nothing to remind me of my treacherous husband’s glorious wooing of me. Or my own treachery.

Alice and I continued to kneel in the puddle-ridden courtyard, watching them go.

My household must have thought that I had run mad.

From there, face frozen, I had taken myself into the herbery on this dire January day, simply because I could think of nothing else. My only knowledge of herbs was the use of them to perfume my coffers or produce a healing draught.

What did I know about working in the earth, about cutting and shaping? I had donned garments more suited to physical work, but to what avail? My fingers wept with blisters and my hems were ruined with mud but my anger remained as bitter as the rue I had just eviscerated. My mind lowered as dark as the clouds gathering to presage snow as I recalled John sending me a package of rue.

I rested momentarily on my knees, oblivious to the destruction of my skirts. I thought Henry would pardon him. I thought that in spite of John’s inexcusable treason, Henry would use his royal prerogative to grant John a pardon. For my sake. For the love he had for me. And because of the love I had for John. Could not Henry lure John back into the Lancastrian fold with soft words and generosity? My brother would not rob me of the man who meant more to me than my life. His compassion would be overwhelming and he would forgive.

I had held fast to that when my heart was heaviest. Or had I? Had I not always feared the inevitable? Retrieving the shears, running my thumb along the blades, I scowled at the line of blood that appeared. Had I truly believed that Henry would be magnanimous? Gradually learning that generosity was rarely the answer when political power was in the balance, I had come to know the penalty paid by those who played with fire. I knew full well the price to be paid in the interest of alliances and loyalties and political manoeuvrings. I had been a political bride to a child because the alliance was too valuable to be snatched up by someone else.

And Henry. Henry had been banished for his flirtation with the Lords Appellant. Still very young, only on the edge of the fatal alliance against the King, Henry had been banished and had had to fight for his inheritance. Richard had had no compassion for him or for my father. And so Henry, now shouldering the authority of Kingship, had cut down those who had dared to rise against him. Many would say he had every right to bring down the power of the law on the heads of those who plotted insurrection.

Even after that final meeting with John, wretched in despair, I had clung to a futile hope, speeding a letter to Henry, a final last minute appeal, when I had fled from Pleshey.

To my well-beloved brother Henry,

You can never accuse me of disloyalty. I do not question your right to rule or your power to defend your life and that of your sons. I will always remain your loyal subject.

But if you have any love for me, have mercy on John Holland. Save him from the vengeance of the FitzAlans.

Your loving sister …

My cheeks were wet. Not tears, my denial continued. Merely the icy rain that had begun to fall. In desultory fashion I hacked at a clump of decaying foliage that I did not recognise, but which the rising scents told me was sage.

I stood, oblivious to the gathering wind, for the first time in my life admitting my loneliness and the need for a confidante. When had I ever needed the consolation of a woman’s advice. But now, when I was estranged from everyone, Princess Joan was dead, Katherine was hostile and retired into widowhood in Lincoln, Philippa in regal splendour in Portugal.

Yet not entirely true. Philippa had written to me, but I had added it, unread, to the little pile of unopened letters from her, unable to tolerate her lectures or her pity even if they were doused with love.

Never had I felt so isolated, so alone, so wretched. I had no practice at being alone.

‘Well, you had better practise hard now,’ I berated myself. ‘For who else is there to listen to you?’

Because the reality of my situation had struck as hard as the winter ground under my feet. I could not talk to Henry. Men driven by ambition rarely listened to their womenfolk and Henry, having usurped the crown, had enemies enough to deal with, without having to listen to the demands of his sister. And what could I now demand?