The Queen's Choice. Anne O'Brien

ended, as the royal families moved towards the dais. The crowds milled. The musicians and minstrels puffed and blew with enthusiastic disharmony. Platters of food and vessels of wine were produced. I sighed a little.

      ‘Do you wish to go? I can arrange for you to retire.’

      John’s hand was again solicitously on my arm, for I was carrying another child. No one would notice—there was no need yet for my sempstresses to loosen the stitching of my bodice—but John had a protective care for me and I covered his hand with mine.

      ‘Certainly not.’

      John, wisely, did not waste his breath in argument. ‘Then if you are feeling robust, my love, come and meet a family for whom I have the greatest affection.’

      John set about forcing a path, the bejewelled crowd parting before his impressive figure like the Red Sea before Moses. We were heading, I realised, towards the English contingent that had accompanied their King, now standing in an elegant little group to one side of the dais. Superbly dressed, superbly self-aware as they viewed the proceedings, they were here to honour the event and be gracious. I did not know them.

      ‘John of Lancaster. The King’s uncle.’ My husband, coming to my rescue, shepherded me between two gesticulating parties, Burgundian by their accent. ‘An interesting family and a powerful one. They make good friends and bad enemies. They’re not without a little pride and their blood is more royal than most.’ He looked back at me over his shoulder with a speculative gleam. ‘Much like you. I think you will like them.’

      Which allowed me in the few seconds left to me to claw through my knowledge of this illustrious grouping. For this was an important family: a family of the highest rank, a family worthy of my own status. Duke John of Lancaster, royal uncle to the King of England. His new wife Katherine, a woman of some scandals before marriage made her respectable. And with them a cluster of young men and women of their family and household, wearing conspicuous livery collars that bore the emblem of the white hart, the showiness of the enamelled gold at odds with the understated costliness of their robes. Clearly a gift from King Richard on this momentous day that they were unable to refuse.

      Lancaster’s face lit with pleasure when his eye fell on my husband, and rather than a formal handclasp, they embraced, two men who wielded power with utmost confidence in their right to do so, two men of an age although it seemed to me that my husband was carrying his years more easily than Lancaster. There was no reticence in the welcome.

      ‘I hoped I would see you,’ Lancaster said after some male shoulder-smacking.

      ‘My wife would not allow me to stay away,’ John replied, drawing me forward.

      The introductions were made and I was drawn into the Lancaster circle, to talk with Duchess Katherine while Lancaster and my husband relived their youth, their boyhood rivalry and their military exploits when fighting together in France.

      ‘I first recall your husband at Court when King Edward made him a Knight of the Garter,’ the Duchess said. ‘He enjoyed every minute of the pomp and pageantry.’

      ‘Now, why am I not surprised?’

      I turned my head to watch him with a certain pride, admiring his present flamboyance in managing the folds of a Court houppelande that swept the floor with hem and dagged sleeve. Many, who did not know us, would think him to be my father. There were twenty-eight years between us, all well lived by John through war and diplomacy.

      ‘We are being summoned,’ the Duchess remarked as Richard raised an imperious hand. ‘We are to formally meet the bride.’ And as the Lancaster family regrouped and approached the dais with suitable obeisance, I was left with John to watch the little ceremony develop.

      ‘They were the strongest friends I ever had in England,’he said,‘when I was sorely in need of friends. I wonder where Lancaster’s son is…?’ As he turned his head, a man garbed in blue and white emerged from the crowd. ‘Ah. There you are. I thought you’d made a bolt for it,’ John observed with friendly cynicism.

      ‘You’re not far short of it. The temptation is strong. But, as you see, I am royally imprinted for the occasion, making me noticeable in any crowd.’

      The voice was light-timbred, pleasant on the ear, with a hint of humour beneath an impatience as he slapped his palm onto the arresting white hart on his breast. Then as he clasped hands with John, the man’s gaze rested on me. ‘And this must be your incomparable Duchess, of whom I have heard much but whom I have yet to meet. I am honoured.’

      A tall man with a swordsman’s shoulders and the mark of his father in his dark hair, uncovered now, kissed with autumn in the bright sunshine. His eyes were dark, direct and agate-bright.

      I began to smile my appreciation of his flattery as I felt the weight of that gaze. I felt the authority of his soldierly presence. I felt a sense of him deep within me, a sense that continued to reverberate like the solemn tone of the passing bell in the Cathedral at Nantes. Unaccountably, for I was not inexperienced in the demands of polite conversation, I was at a loss for a response.

      ‘This is Joanna,’ John was saying whilst I grasped at good manners. ‘Who rules my household with a rod of iron but a velvet glove and sleeve. Don’t be fooled for one minute by this frivolity.’ He lifted the gold-stitched fullness of one of my over-sleeves in wry acknowledgement. ‘And this, my love, is Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. Lancaster’s heir.’

      I extended my hand as if this introduction was nothing more than a commonplace between members of one highbred family and another, as I ignored the fact that my heart had given a little leap, as if it had recognised the imminence of something long yearned for. This was so far beyond my experience that I resented it. No man, however puissant his family, had the right to disturb me beyond my habitual poise.

      ‘My lord Henry,’ I murmured.

      ‘Lady Joanna.’

      His fingers, heavy with rings, were light around mine, the salute against my cheek such as might be exchanged between a man and woman meeting for the first time, but that formal embrace stiffened the planes of my face, seizing my pulses to set them alive. And as I sought for some comment suitable to the occasion, John’s attention was claimed by my uncle of Burgundy, leaving me to take up the reins of prudent conversation.

      I inhaled steadily, confidence restored. I had been conversing through the courts of Europe since before I had reached my twentieth year. Any strange imaginings were a product of the heat of the day, the weight of the fur at hem and neck and insufficient sleep in the closet that was called a chamber. I smiled with regal grace as the Earl restored my hand to me.

      ‘My husband was pleased to meet with your father again,’ I said.

      But instead of responding in kind, he asked abruptly,‘Are you enjoying this?’ He gestured with his arm to the royal party, as if it were a question that needed to be asked.

      ‘Yes. Certainly I am.’ It could be tedious with much posturing, certainly overlong, but what was there not to like?

      ‘I can’t imagine why.’ The Earl’s reply could have been presumed sour.

      ‘Because I have enough relatives here to fill, and indeed overflow, one of these vulgarly glittering pavilions,’ I said. ‘I enjoy gossip.’

      ‘You’ll not be disappointed then. There’s plenty to gossip about.’ A frown was directed towards his royal cousin who was still addressing King Charles with expansive animation. ‘They say it has cost our illustrious King not far short of two hundred thousand pounds to stage this spectacle.’

      I could not understand why the cost should trouble him. Given the quality of his raiment, a Court houppelande brilliant with spangles, sweeping down to his soft boots, and the size of the jewels in his rings, the House of Lancaster was not without wealth.

      ‘Is the bride not worth the expenditure?’ I asked.

      ‘Is any bride worth it?’ Earl Henry responded smartly. ‘The English Exchequer will barely stand the cost. Besides, it’s