Anne O'Brien - A Tapestry of Treason

‘Nothing,’ I admitted.

So it was decided.

‘Not one of you has talked of my position in all this.’ Dickon, who had been silent and motionless throughout all the previous exchanges, so that we had all but forgotten his presence, now lurched to his feet. ‘What will be my future? You don’t speak of it. I have nothing and we all know why.’

‘We will continue not to speak of it.’ The Duke of York was emphatic in his denial.

‘I will speak of it.’ Voice breaking on a croak, it was rare for Dickon to be so openly dissenting in the Duke’s company. ‘It is only thanks to my mother that I have anything at all to my name.’

Which was true enough. It had been left to our mother, in her will, to persuade King Richard to grant Dickon an annuity of five hundred marks. With great foresight she left all her jewels to Richard, to aid her cause, and thus Dickon received a royal annuity but nothing more. Our father had settled neither land nor title on him. He was merely Richard of Conisbrough, to denote where he was born.

‘I have not even been knighted, which is my right,’ Dickon growled. ‘Am I not worthy of a title of my own as a son of York? Without Richard’s acknowledgement I am destined to penury. What happens to me now?’

‘You had nothing much to lose in the first place, little brother.’ Bitterness was beginning to drip through Edward’s earlier facade. ‘Do you think I have enjoyed this change of fortune? By God, I have not. All I had achieved, all I had worked for at Richard’s Court, flattering him, winning him round to see me as the most loyal friend he had ever had. And now with Lancaster’s victory, even though the crown is not yet his, most of those gains are already lost to me.’

Edward flung out his arms in pure performance.

‘Do you think that I enjoy the consequences of this usurpation? I am no longer Constable of England. That position was stripped from me at Flint. Now I am called upon to surrender the Constableship of the Tower of London. I doubt it will be my last loss unless I can match Lancaster guile for guile.’ Irritation was a river in spate to sweep away any good humour. ‘And you, Dickon, complain about a paltry sum of an annuity that might dry up. I am still Admiral of England, Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Warden of the West March.’ He ticked the offices off on his supremely capable fingers. ‘All in the gift of King Richard. How long will Lancaster allow them to remain with me? I am Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumale. Much of the Arundel lands came to me after Arundel’s execution two years ago. Will Lancaster allow me to keep them? I would have been heir to the English throne, after my father. I can say farewell to that! And you think you have all to lose? You don’t know the half of it.’

Dickon, face mottled with pent-up rage, was not to be diverted. ‘But you are our father’s heir. Even if you lose all the titles Richard gave you, one day you will be Duke of York. You will never remain in obscurity, while I will be invisible until the day of my death.’

Hearing the disenchantment, seeing the rank fury glitter in Edward’s eyes, watching my father struggle to rise to his feet to take issue, I grasped Dickon’s arm and drew him, still protesting, from the room, pulling him into a deserted window embrasure in the antechamber, where I constrained him to face me, my hands on his shoulders.

‘Listen to me, Dickon.’ At least here was a role I could play.

‘Why should I? You cannot help me.’

I shook him, fingers hard in his young flesh. ‘No, I can’t, but still you will listen.’

‘And will you give me fair advice?’ His lips curled in very adult mockery.

‘All is not lost for you, Dickon.’ I stared down the challenge in his eye. ‘ You did not raise arms against Lancaster. You had no influential involvement in Richard’s Court. Your position is more secure than for any one of us.’

Dickon’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not raise arms either.’

‘I, my foolish brother, will stand or fall with my husband’s decision. If Thomas is punished, then so will I be.’

A thought that might just keep me from sleep, if I allowed it.

‘I may not be called to account, but I have no call on Lancaster’s patronage or his good will,’ he snapped. ‘As Thomas said, he has four sons to provide for.’

Here was the old problem, yet I put my arm around his shoulders as I guided him from the embrasure and through the connecting antechamber, all but dragging him when he resisted.

‘I’ll never allow you to become destitute.’

‘My brother wouldn’t care.’

I felt the line of a frown develop between my brows. Did it never strike Dickon that, unless Edward produced an heir, which appeared more and more unlikely as the years passed and Philippa aged, that he, the younger brother, would inherit the Dukedom of York? Dickon’s future was not as black as he frequently painted it.

‘Your brother suffers from intense disappointment,’ was all I said, adding in an attempt to lighten the burden on my brother’s brow: ‘Edward will have to abandon his plans to build a new house outside Temple Bar, paid for with coin from Lancaster’s inheritance. A house of some ostentation, for I have seen the plans. It will hit him hard.’ I hugged Dickon closer, even when he resisted. ‘I will not leave you to beg in the gutter.’

‘Unless you are begging in the gutter at my side.’ Sometimes he was percipient beyond his years. ‘Most likely we will all become so.’

What none of us had mentioned was the looming danger from our past, a threat to us that could not be buried in obsequious language and actions. The attack on the Lords Appellant, two years ago, when Thomas and Edward had received their new enhanced titles in reward for their participation in the bloody events, was sure to raise its head when parliament met again. We were all involved to one extent or another. We might try to be pragmatic; Lancaster, who had suffered exile in that clash of power, might have no intention of allowing us to be so. It was an anxiety that rumbled constantly, a sign of a brewing storm.

‘We will try to be optimistic,’ I advised laconically, since there was no good reason to encourage Dickon’s dissatisfaction. ‘We are Lancaster’s noble cousins. We will make the new kingdom our own and come out covered with glory. He will realise that he cannot do without us.’

‘And God help us if he rejects us.’

‘God help us indeed.’

And God help Richard, I thought, for we could not.

‘It’s like juggling with a set of priceless goblets,’ snarled Thomas, never amenable to direct orders, after he had been sent by Lancaster as part of a deputation to visit Richard in the Tower. He was dragging on a high-necked, calf-length garment, soft as a glove, fixing a jewel in his cap.

‘Then I advise you to learn to juggle. And fast.’

What could we do in the forthcoming days when Henry of Lancaster took control? We could play the most prominent role, whether it be a heavy decision or a light festivity, as if our loyalty to Lancaster was not, and never had been, in question.

All through those weeks of September, weeks that were tension-ridden and full of latent anxiety, we had learned to step to a different rhythm, a more complicated dance tune played at his behest by the personal minstrels of Henry, Duke of Lancaster. It was not difficult. We were masters of concealment, adapting to political necessity like a goshawk flirting with wind patterns. We accepted the change with slick acumen, even Dickon keeping his complaints to himself. So that our commitment could never be questioned, we were evident at every step of the way. Even if I in person was not. There was no public role for me except as a silent and smiling witness, but I could dance as well if not better than any one of them. I had danced with Richard; I would dance with Henry. Nor would I always be that silent witness, for it was not in my nature to allow such crucial events to flow past me, unacknowledged.