The Queen's Choice. Anne O'Brien
have a son, Richard,’ he replied with obvious pride. ‘And a newborn child, I expect, when I have returned. My wife Elizabeth was near her time.’
‘You must have been sorry to leave her.’
‘It was necessary, my lady.’
‘I think you have been a soldier, sir.’
‘I have been so, in my youth. I have served in France.’
At last, at last, the servant closed the door and we were alone.
‘So, Lord Thomas.’ I raised my cup in a little toast, that he returned. ‘Now that we are private and supremely discreet, tell me what it is that your King will not commit to a written document.’
I saw him take a breath as if he were marshalling a text that he had committed to memory. He stood. Then he began, fluently, confidently.
‘This is what I am to tell you, my lady. These are the words of my King. He would exchange opinions with you, my lady, on affairs of the utmost privacy. What cannot be read, cannot be discovered by others beyond this room. I am to tell you, my lady, that my King puts every confidence in my discretion. You are, he suggests, to treat my ears like the ears of King Henry himself.’
‘Indeed, Lord Thomas.’
I admitted to being taken aback. This surely was no formal alliance between our two countries. Not that it would ever be possible as things stood, without considerable negotiation to hammer out the piracy menace in our respective ports. But was such a level of secrecy really necessary? I thought not. I frowned a little.
‘I confess to some surprise. This is not, then, an exchange of views to engender an alliance of mutual satisfaction between England and Brittany,’ I said.
‘But yes, my lady, it most certainly is.’ I suspected a gleam in the stern eye of Lord Thomas. ‘My King has one particular alliance in mind.’
I waited.
‘My King asks that you will consider the benefits of a marriage alliance.’
It should not have been a surprise. Henry had sons and daughters of marriageable age. As did I. He might consider looking across the sea to find a valuable connection for his heir. Who better than a child of Brittany, bringing with her the blood of France and Navarre. But I could not understand why such a proposition could not be addressed formally through a royal herald complete with trumpet blast, marriage documents and seals.
‘Between our children?’ I remarked. ‘It would not be impossible, with careful negotiation to please the Breton merchants…’
‘You misunderstand, my lady. The marriage would be between yourself and my King. Now that you are free to consider remarriage. After the sad death of Duke John.’
Placing my cup gently on the table at my side, I refused to allow my fingers to clasp hard into the damask of my skirts, even though my heart tripped like the tuck of a military drum. Through years of long practice I knew that my composure remained unaltered to any interested eye. No one would guess at the inner turmoil. I resisted the urge to recover the cup and take a long, slow mouthful of wine.
‘Indeed?’ I observed with exemplary restraint.
‘Indeed, my lady.’ Lord Thomas was unperturbed by what could well be interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm. ‘My King recalls your meetings with him in the past, the pleasure you took in each other’s company. He is of the opinion that you would not be averse to such a suggestion. And now that you are widowed, and the initial period of mourning over, he sends a formal request. My King has dispatched me to offer you his hand in marriage.’
Marriage. Marriage to the man I could not forget. The word hung in the air, with a weight all its own.
And how politely worded. I wondered if Henry had been so polite. When driven by ambition or injustice, as I knew, he could be as trenchant as a swordsman fighting to the death. Would desire for marriage so move him? I could imagine him issuing his orders to Lord Thomas; I want the Duchess for my wife. Tell her that she must wed me. I will arrange time and place. Leave her in no doubt of my sentiments. No circling round with flowery phrases or troubadour sentiments of honeyed nothings. Yet I smiled, enjoying my image of Henry striding through his antechambers, as sleek and powerful as the golden-crowned antelope on his heraldic achievements as he issued his orders, at the same time as I appreciated Lord Thomas’s diplomatic rendering. And seeing it, Lord Thomas, visibly relaxing, returned it.
‘I can see that the offer is not an unpleasant one, my lady.’
‘No, Lord Thomas. It is not.’ But that was my heart speaking, and my mind was fast taking control, rearranging thoughts and impressions. The results were not good.
‘Do I tell my King that you will consider his offer?’
The smile was gone.
‘These are heavy matters, sir.’ Abruptly I stood to walk to the window to look out over the river and meadows of my country by marriage, seeing it greening on hedge and tree, keeping my face turned from him so that he would not read my disappointment:‘Why did your King not come himself, with so important a consideration?’
There was no hesitation. ‘My King is beleaguered, my lady.’
‘So strongly beleaguered that he must embark on a proxy wooing?’
I turned to look at my proxy suitor, the light falling fully on his dignified figure, his eyes dark with some difficult level of understanding. I did not like what I thought might be pity in them. I did not appreciate pity.
‘There has been insurrection, my lady. And with the recent unfortunate death of the late King Richard while incarcerated in Pontefract Castle, it is no time for my King to be absent from his realm, even for so crucial a visit as this.’ And when I might have interrupted,‘I speak personally now, as I read the situation in England, my lady. It is the priority of my King to settle the realm into peace and firm rule. Yet still he thinks of you with such affection and respect that he would woo you, even from afar.’
It was a better reply than many. I directed my thoughts determinedly away from how King Richard might have died. It would merely cloud an already murky issue. So I nodded briskly. ‘I will consider it carefully, Lord Thomas.’
‘As must every woman in the land, my lady.’
I stared at him, unsure of his meaning, disturbed by the glint of what might have been humour in his face.
‘My lady wife–Elizabeth–must always consider deeply every action she takes,’ he explained. ‘I meant no disrespect. This is an important decision for you to make. For you and for Brittany. I know that you will be aware of the difficulties such a marriage must face. As is my King.’
It unnerved me that he had read me so well.
‘I think the difficulties, as you word it, Lord Thomas, might be insurmountable. We will speak again.’
*
How accurate his assessment. Once I came to terms with the fact that Henry had not come himself, no doubt with good enough reason, the difficulties began to multiply, much like the quantity of books in John’s library.
Marriage. A second marriage. To King Henry the fourth of that name of England. Was there any reason why I should not? There was every reason in the world. They tumbled over me, to lie in a discouraging heap of impossibilities at my feet as soon as I was alone to consider. Surely Henry must be aware of how unfeasible it would be, for himself and for me.
Seated at my table where I read and signed documents every morning, I took a pen and wrote a reply to Henry, full of nothing but family and affection and prayers for his safety, as he had written to me. As blandly unexciting as a Lenten meal of salt fish and dried beans, expressing nothing of the terrible mix of longing and dismay that his offer had awoken. When there had been no possibility of such a union between us, I had tucked the notion away, as if with John’s old legal texts, to be forgotten and gather dust. Now it was dragged into the open, shaken out, where