He opened it. A promise of five hundred marks. A loan to help to fund the expedition to Castile.

‘It is given with Thomas Swynford’s agreement.’

He studied the gift for so long that I thought he would refuse. When he refolded the page his voice was raw: ‘I will repay you. It is more than generous.’

‘I know you will.’

And I knew that he understood the depth of my gift.

The silence stretched out between us.

‘I must collect Robert and Thomas and go,’ he said at last.

For the first time a frisson of fear crept into the spaces in my breast and, longing submerging good sense, I said what I had promised myself that I would never ask because it would compromise us both.

‘Will you kiss me in farewell?’

The jewels gleamed flatly. ‘No.’

I took a breath at the starkness of his reply for I had not expected such a denial. And perhaps I flinched for he spoke again, quickly.

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I will not kiss you. For if I did I fear I would never let you go.’ His lips curved. ‘I recall saying something similar once long ago. I was right then, I am right now. It would be wrong of me to turn a flame into a conflagration beyond control. Neither of us would enjoy that, I think.’

His eyes rested on mine. I returned his gaze, in despair and in gratitude. I might never see him again, but I had been thoughtlessly weak, and he had rescued me.

‘I knew you would understand,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Farewell, my love. I think God will forgive me seeking you out this final time.’

‘I think He will. I will think of you.’

‘And I of you.’ Someone had lit a lantern outside in the Close. In its wayward light he looked stricken. ‘Remember this: where I am, there you will be also.’ I saw his sigh rather than heard it, as I felt the weight of his gaze. ‘You will never know how very hard it was for me to send you away. I don’t think I ever did anything so difficult in the whole of my life.’

With a sudden rush of tears in my throat I could not reply to so tormented an admission, understanding that he would not wish it. Some memories of the past were far too painful. Stepping quickly, before he could make a retreat, I reached out to pin the pinchbeck Virgin to his tunic. The little pilgrim’s badge given to me so long ago by Mistress Saxby with all her worldly wisdom on the road to Kettlethorpe. Worth so little but now it carried all my hopes.

‘The Virgin will keep you safe.’ Although my hands trembled, I was careful not to touch him, only the cloth. ‘I seem to have spent all my life in saying farewell to you.’ I buffed it with my sleeve but the pewter would never shine.

‘I have always returned.’

But would he this time?

He bowed low, as if we were at court rather than in a stable with straw and oats underfoot, and then left me as I sank into a deep curtsy.

Yet he didn’t leave. Before I had regained my balance I was caught up in his arms, and at the familiarity of his touch, every emotion I remembered swept back to engulf me. An expression of despair at our parting it might be, but his mouth against mine was enough to set a light to all the old passions, and I gloried in it. It was as if the past years had never been.

‘Katherine,’ he murmured against my lips, against my hair as he held me, so briefly. ‘I’ll risk the conflagration…’

‘My beloved John,’ I responded, fingers tight in his sleeves as if I would hold him here in that stable in Lincoln for ever.

‘How can I leave you?’

Then I was released, the Duke’s retreating footsteps clipped and rapid as if he wished to put a distance between us, as perhaps he did in the reawakened desire that threatened to break his control. Whereas I waited, listening, my heart thundering in my ears, my blood hot beneath my skin until the final sound had died away, leaving me to hold onto the essence of his body hard against mine, his lips a brand on mine.

War was a chancy thing, and so was peace. It might be that if the Duke was victorious he would be King of Castile in more than name and a golden diadem. It might be that we would never see each other again. As King of Castile, accepted and crowned, he would never return to England, and with my gift I was helping him to achieve this. Or his own death on some foreign battlefield. Love demanded a huge sacrifice.

Yet I felt renewed, at one with him. I was alone, but not alone. I could not be with him, but our estrangement was healed, and I would hold him in my heart against all the horrors of foreign campaigns.

And as I returned to the darkened buildings of the Chancery, my heart leaped for joy that he had not had the power to leave without embracing me after all. I pressed my palm against my lips as if I could still feel the imprint of his. I too would willingly withstand the conflagration.

What had he not told me? What had I guessed?

That Constanza was carrying his child. For a moment I pressed my hand against my flat belly, remembering. I must be thankful for her, and I was. The days of my jealousy were long gone, for which I thanked God.

I did not want to do this.

I mixed the ink and mended my pen with a sharp knife, but because my hand shook it was not the best I could manage. Nevertheless, lacking another quill to hand, I forced myself to open the cover of my missal to the first page that had once been blank. Now it recorded moments in my life over the past year since the Duke had sailed from England.

I did not want to record this moment.

I dipped the pen and prepared to write, but the ink fell in an unseemly blot on the page, like a single dark tear. This was impossible. I could not write it.

I mopped up the ink, abandoned the pen, and let my eye travel down the milestones I had chosen to make note of. Moments of joy. Personal moments of delight. A record of the celebrations of those I knew and loved.

But I had written nothing like this present knowledge, which wrenched my heart from my breast and caused my blood to run like a sluggish stream under winter ice.

I forced myself to read, trying to recapture the joy.

I had written of the Duke’s departure to Corunna, but briefly, for it was not a time of rejoicing, even though I kept his words in my mind.

Remember this: where I am, there you will be also.

They comforted me when nothing else could.

Then began the list of marriages and of births, of the achievements of my own children as they grew and made their mark on the world. Of my dear Philippa of Lancaster’s marriage to King Joao of Portugal in the magnificence of Oporto Cathedral, to cement an alliance. I had rejoiced over the birth of a healthy son at last, Henry of Monmouth, to Henry of Derby and his beloved Mary. And then of my own recognition by King Richard as one of the prestigious Ladies of the Garter.

All to be savoured and enjoyed.

But I could not smile as I picked up the pen again.

Some things I had not written because they were too painful. Of Constanza’s loss of her longed-for child; another daughter born dead in Corunna. Nor had I recorded those days of intense dread when an attempt had been made to poison both the Duke and Constanza. Philippa’s tragic miscarriage of an heir for Portugal too was absent. I did not need to write them. I would never forget.

Nor had I written of the failure in the war. The Duke would never win Castile by force of arms. His own ambitions and those of Constanza were at an end. All that could be salvaged, through wise negotiations with Castile, was a marriage alliance for Katalina, now fifteen years old, with King Juan of Castile’s son Enrique. Constanza would never rule in Castile, but her daughter would share the throne, which seemed to me to be the best outcome possible.

But this—this—I must record this, despite the heartbreak, because without it there would be no evidence of a well-lived life.

So I wrote, grief heavy on my hand.

In this month of August in the year 1387 the death of Philippa Chaucer, born Philippa de Roet. Died of dysentery in the service of Constanza, Duchess of Lancaster, Queen of Castile. The place of her burial is not known.

Having done it in my best hand, I laid the pen down with quiet precision.

Thus the end of my sharp-tongued, difficult, restless, loving sister.

I knew so little of her final days, and tried hard to remember her as I had known her, not as I imagined her, racked by pain. There was no body to return, no heart to inter in England, as I had marked the death of Hugh. Her earthly remains were gone from me. But she would live in my heart. And in her children.

I bowed my head.

It was not real.

I drew a line beneath my recording. I would write no more in this missal. What could compare with this loss for me?




Chapter Eighteen

Could a heart remain the same, unaltered?