I sat for a long time in that room, sumptuously appointed as for the living, my hand hard on the lute strings to silence any vibration. So my lord, my love, was still and silent. But whereas I could make the lute speak softly again, or sing out in fervent joy, as the mood took me, my love would never more speak to me. The majestic polyphony of our lives together was dead.

I too was lost and alone and silent.

The depth of my anguish could not be expressed.




Epilogue

The February day is short; already the night encroaches so that the pillars and arches fade from my sight. In my widow’s weeds I am barely a shadow amongst so many others.

I work my way through the beads of my rosary—the first gift he ever gave me when I was still determinedly withstanding his impossible glamour—lips moving soundlessly, offering up prayers for John’s soul, for my own strength to withstand the coming ordeal. My mind is quite clear but my heart is as uncompromisingly bleak as a Lenten fast. As coldly unresponsive as his, even though mine still beats, and his is still for ever. I cannot contemplate my life as it must now be.

I sit back on my heels, lips still but a little pursed, my stare decidedly judgemental.

‘Behold me in full widow’s weeds again,’ I say. ‘You don’t like them, but you leave me with no choice in the matter, unless you wish me to become an object of gossip again.’ I force myself to imagine life without him after all. ‘I will have to keep a cage of singing birds for company. Do you recall how Margaret loved them? I remember you throwing a cover over them to shut them up. Now there will be no one to complain.’

His magnificence outshines me, even now, making me a shabby crow in contrast to a showy peacock. He had always loved me, as his Duchess, to wear jewel-colours. Emerald and sapphire blue, blood-red crimson or rich vermilion, all overlaid with cloth-of-gold.

‘You might have condemned me to this for the rest of my days, but look.’ I turn back the heavy folds of black cloth, to reveal a shift of red silk, the hem worked with gold thread in the golden wheels of St Katherine. ‘I will not forgo my heraldic magnificence. I know you will approve.’

Pleating the black silk to my knees so that the red and gold continues to blaze in defiance, I reach up and smooth my fingers over the intricate stitching on John’s tunic. As I outline one of the fleur-de-lis in silver on blue, stroking the svelte back of a golden Plantagenet leopard, there is complaint in my voice.

‘I see you’ve demanded to be buried beside Blanche in St Paul’s.’ My voice echoes strangely amongst the dislocated arches that I can no longer see. Briefly I glance over my shoulder to ensure I have no priestly audience. But then, why should a wife not converse with her husband? ‘Why could you not be buried in Lincoln, so that I might join you when my time comes?’

A petty complaint, but understandable, I think. I sigh, and reach out my fingertips again to touch the gleamingly embroidered silks. It is so cold, the heavy fabric as slick as ice.

‘I never doubt your love for me, John, even if you leave me your two second best brooches, deeming the King more worthy of your best one. Although you did give me the gold chalice that Richard gave you. A shame that it has more ostentation than beauty.’

For a moment I lean my forehead against the edge of the bier, then despite the cold and the dust, and because my knees complain at my long cold kneeling, I sink down onto the floor beside him, disposing my skirts to my comfort, and draw towards me the little cypress casket he has left me. He has given me so much, his superb generosity slapping at my senses. As well as the gold chalices and brooches, there are ermine mantles, a circlet and collar that he loved to wear. I am a wealthy widow. I can afford to sit on the floor in the dust in black silk and spend my time with idle hands.

‘I will never have to beg for my next meal,’ I say. ‘I will never have to kneel before some noble lord to petition for his charity, as I did to you. I was terrified that you would refuse me a place in your household and send me back to Kettlethorpe empty-handed.’ My face lights momentarily with the memory. ‘And then I ran away after all, so that you had to summon me back.’