Queen of the North: sumptuous and evocative historical fiction from the Sunday Times bestselling author. Anne O'Brien

      We rode through the array of tents on the banks of the River Don where it wound round the small town of Doncaster. The temporary encampment stretched around us as far as the eye could see, groups of emblazoned retainers sitting at their ease, their weapons stacked to hand, their horses being groomed and readied for action when the call was given.

      ‘I thought the Earl said he had returned with only a smattering of followers.’ I was both impressed and disturbed by what I saw.

      ‘So he did. Our cousin of Lancaster has been energetic,’ Harry replied softly in my ear.

      However small the group that had accompanied him, returning from his exile, Lancaster’s followers now numbered into the hundreds. The heraldic achievements of noble families I knew well were adorning pennons, jackets and tents on all sides; the flower of the Yorkshire magnates and gentry, keen to be seen in support of their returned lord. Lancaster was not without friends it seemed.

      Lancaster was waiting for us outside his tent, hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun. It was to me that he looked. Whereas he might have addressed the Earls first, it was to me that he strode, catching my mount’s bridle and offering a hand to help me dismount. It pleased me. Blood mattered after all.

      ‘Elizabeth.’ Effortlessly he lifted me and placed me on my feet. ‘I did not expect to see you here.’ There was a smile in his eyes although his mouth remained stern enough, as if unused to smiling of late. ‘Did you have to fight to achieve it?’

      ‘Certainly not. I have come to greet you on your return, as any cousin should.’

      ‘It’s good to see family who are not breathing fire and destruction in my direction.’

      Which raised a smile from both of us. I knew his reference. Richard had left the power to repel Henry’s invasion in the incapable hands of Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York, his ineffectual uncle.

      ‘And where is our uncle of York?’ I asked.

      He was not a figure to instil fear into any man.

      ‘Still in London I hope, sending out orders to garrison the northern castles against me.’ Lancaster was drawing me out of the throng of horses and busy pages. ‘Or even, if luck is on my side, heading west rather than north. At least he is not here.’ He nodded over to where the distant walls of Conisbrough could be seen, a castle much loved by York. ‘I expect he is changing his mind as oft as he changes his hose. He never could make up his mind, even to take cover in a thunderstorm. But I don’t expect to be staying long in the north,’ he added with grim decision as I was enveloped into an embrace, my cheeks kissed.

      Set aside as he addressed himself to greeting the Percys and Nevilles, I was left to accept a cup of wine from an attendant page and watch the proceedings, and particularly to take stock of Henry of Lancaster as he embraced Harry, renewing an old friendship. Our future might hang with the success or failure of this man who was exchanging some military reminiscence with Harry, which reduced both of them to laughter. There was a closeness here that I had not expected, but perhaps I should have. Shared experiences on the tournament field created strong bonds between men of valour.

      A new thought crept from nowhere into my mind.

      Your happiness might hang in the balance too.

      I resented its intrusion. By what reasoning was my peace of mind threatened? Harry and I were at one. Nothing would destroy that.

      I turned my attention back to my cousin, the new Duke of Lancaster since stepping into his father’s shoes. He had been in exile for a year but seemed to have changed very little unless it was to be seen in the fine web of lines that marked his brow. He had had much to trouble him but he was still a well-set, agile figure, a man who excelled on the jousting field as well as in battle, a man to take the eye from his close-cropped hair to his capable hands with their fine array of jewels despite the overwhelmingly military climate of his camp. And there was the Lancaster arrogance in the tilt of his chin, the direct stare. It was a tilt that I recognised, for Harry possessed it in full measure.

      Harry came to stand beside me now that the preliminaries were over, leaving the field of hand-clasping to the two Earls.

      ‘What is he saying?’

      ‘Nothing in public. We are to meet privately later.’

      So here was the new Duke, come home to claim what was rightfully his. The problem was, for everyone concerned, what did he have in mind? What exactly did he see as rightfully his – the Lancaster inheritance, or was there more? That was why we were here. It was an uncomfortable number of troops just to take back an inheritance, even if it was the vast tracts of the Lancaster lands. Henry was indeed a man of honour, of piety, but even so…

      ‘What would you do,’ I asked the man at my side, ‘if the whole of your inheritance was snatched from you by Richard?’

      ‘I would raise an army and snatch it back.’

      There was no hesitation in him.

      ‘And would you retreat to your lands, once you had forced Richard into compliance?’

      ‘It would depend on whether I trusted Richard to live by his promises to return the land to me and to my heirs.’

      ‘And would you trust him?’

      Harry’s eyes, fixed on Lancaster who was deep in conversation with Westmorland, were surprisingly distant and formal.

      ‘That would remain to be seen, my love.’

      ‘So will you be willing to trust Henry of Lancaster to keep any promises he might make?’

      Harry’s eyes swung to mine, now bright with those memories that this meeting had resurrected. ‘I fought with him and against him in the tournaments at St Inglevert eight years ago. They were good times. He is a worthy opponent and a bold ally to have at your back with a mighty sword-arm. He has saved me from a sore skull more than once, as I have saved him, and he has a hard head for celebrating when the ale is strong. He proved to be a good friend. I have no reason not to trust him. Do you?’

      I wrinkled my nose, strangely uncertain. ‘I don’t know.’

      Harry tucked my hand into the crook of his arm. ‘Then let us go and see what the man himself has to say.’

      At Henry’s invitation, although Westmorland made his excuses to absent himself and seek out old friends, we withdrew into his pavilion where stools were brought while Henry sat on the edge of his campaigning bed. It made me remember that all this would not be new to him after a lifetime of journeying, crusading and competing in the tournaments of Europe. It was as comfortably furnished with hangings and cushions as any lady’s bower, unless you spied the open coffer containing extraneous pieces of armour, a pair of well-worn gauntlets, a battered cuirass. Against the canvas wall was propped a sword and a helm, both shining with