The King's Sister. Anne O'Brien

      It was indeed like owning a pet dog, I decided. I could not dislike him. He was lively and cheerful with the ability to chatter endlessly when the mood took him. His manners were impeccable with an inbred courtesy that I could not fault.

      But he was no husband.

      Being Countess of Pembroke palled when I had no knight to squire me or write verses to my beauty. Jonty was brave and bold but quickly proved to have no interest in poetry and possessed the singing voice of a corncrake. Although he counted his steps less obviously when we danced, it was obvious that he would rather be in the saddle.

      So, as it must be, when his family returned to their far-flung castles, I left Jonty to his own devices and returned to the pattern of my old life. A wife but not a wife. Countess of Pembroke, yet no different from Elizabeth of Lancaster, except that my carefree adolescence had been stripped away in that exchange of vows and sprinkling of holy water. I was part of the grand order of alliance and dynastic marriage.

      But when I received an invitation to spend time at Richard’s court, I lost no time in ordering my coffers to be packed. While waiting for her husband to become a man, the Countess of Pembroke would shine in her new setting.

      Chapter Two

       January 1382, Westminster

      In these days after the Great Rising had been laid to rest, there was a glitter about the King. Richard: no longer the child who wailed when Henry teased him, or when we, as children, refused to allow him the respect he considered his due. He had been a boy easy to tease. Now there was a bright, hard brilliance that I did not recall, almost febrile. The days when he was no more than a terrified youth before he rode off to face to the rebels and quell the revolt at Mile End were long gone, even though it was a mere matter of months. I curtsied low before him and his new wife.

      Anne. A foreign princess, come all the way from Bohemia, with an extreme taste in Bohemian headdresses. This was the most extravagant yet, its wired extremities almost wider than her hips, its veiling reminiscent of bed-curtains.

      ‘My Lady of Pembroke,’ Richard, seated on a throne draped in gold cloth, purred in greeting.

      ‘Sire.’ I rose from my obeisance, our eyes fortunately on a level since Richard had had the forethought to have the thrones placed on a low dais. He would not have approved of my superior height, for I had my father’s inches. Richard, to his chagrin, was not quite full-grown at fifteen years in spite of his autocratic air.

      ‘Allow me to make you known to my new wife, Queen Anne.’ He turned to the lady at his side. ‘This is my cousin Elizabeth of Lancaster, Countess of Pembroke.’ His eyes glinted with heady delight in the candlelight. ‘She and her family are dear to me.’

      So formal from a boy I had known since his infancy, a boy I recalled clinging to my skirts, demanding that I allow him to fly my new merlin when it was quite clear that she was still in heavy moult, but I followed the desired ceremony as was his wish. Richard was recently seduced by ceremonial and grandeur. All because he had been given the Crown of England at so young an age, Henry frequently observed, interlarded with colourful epithets. Being the King of England when he was barely breeched had given him a damned superior attitude that he had yet to earn. Henry was more interested in tournaments than ceremony and tended to sneer when Richard wasn’t looking—and sometimes even when he was, but it was no longer wise to do so now. Richard was beginning to flex his regal muscles.

      So I curtsied again, head bent as was seemly, to Queen Anne.

      ‘My lady. I am honoured,’ I murmured.

      Queen Anne smiled with a knowing acceptance of this piece of foolery. A year older than Richard, she looked to be little more than a child, a tiny scrap of humanity, but with a sharp eye and a tendency to laugh at the ridiculous. She also had a will of iron beneath her formal robes. There was nothing of a child in Queen Anne despite her lack of presence. Which pleased me.

      ‘We are most pleased to welcome you, Madam Elizabeth,’ she said graciously, indicating with a curl of her fingers that I should rise.

      Richard stepped down at last, to salute me formally on each cheek. ‘I know that you will be a good friend to my wife, Cousin.’

      ‘I will be honoured, Sire.’ I tried successfully not to laugh. How remarkably pompous he sounded for a lad whom I had rescued from the carp pond at Kenilworth where Henry had pushed him.

      ‘And be pleased to give her advice until she becomes familiar with English ways,’ he added.

      And as I caught Queen Anne’s eye, we laughed. The whole introduction had been unnecessary. Richard, with a flash of eye between us, froze.

      ‘We already know each other very well, Richard,’ the Queen explained gently, as she came to stand with him, a hand on his arm.

      ‘We have already discussed fashion, horseflesh and men and what to wear for the tournament tomorrow,’ I added, and took a risk, but a small one. ‘And when did you last address me as my lady or even cousin?’

      Richard thought about this, I could see the workings of his mind behind his stare, tension hard in his spare shoulders. Encased in cloth of gold and enough ermine to coat fourscore of the little creatures, he looked like one of our grandfather’s knights got up in frivolous costume for a Twelfth Night mummers’ performance. Pride held him rigid, until he took a step back onto the dais, so I must look up into his face.

      ‘Elizabeth will be my friend,’ Queen Anne murmured. ‘As she is yours.’

      ‘Of course she will. Do we not order it?’

      ‘Richard! You cannot treat her like a diplomat from Cathay. You have known her all your life! She will be my friend and to me she will be Elizabeth, even if you continue to address her as Countess. And how foolish that will sound. Now greet her properly, my dear husband.’

      And when Anne stepped up to kiss Richard’s cheek, and laughed openly at him, so did he smile and all the tension was broken.

      ‘Welcome, Elizabeth,’ he said gruffly.

      ‘I am so happy for you, Richard.’

      And we were restored to a close-knit family group.

      The days after the fright of the attack on the Tower had not been easy for any of us, but now all was smoothed over. A new year and new beginnings with this foreign bride. Leaving my husband to continue his growing up at Kenilworth, I had come with Henry to Richard’s marriage celebrations. How it pleased me, this new delight in outward appearances, in feasts and dancing and ceremonial. And as close family to the King, Henry and I had been given the honour to receive the new Queen into London in the cold of days of January. My father, too, was restored to grace, escorting her from Dover to London. The dire lash of Walsingham’s tongue against the Duke who had brought all the evils of defeat and rebellion tumbling down onto England’s head had been obliterated by Richard’s acceptance of the family closest to him.

      Not that I was without complaint. It was not in my nature to be content. How could I be so, for here we were, celebrating a potentially happy marriage, which I did not have, a marriage in more than name and promises for the next decade. Despite the remarkable headdress she was wearing, surely hot and cumbersome, Richard was beaming at the new Queen as if he were already in love with her, while Anne, undoubtedly pretty, knew how to manage Richard’s strange humours.

      Jonty continued to be more enamoured of his horse, his tiercel, his new hauberk since he was growing like a spring shoot, and even a pair of shoes with riskily extreme toes that caused him some loss of dignity, than he was of me.

      ‘We will talk after supper,’ the Queen said, a gleam in her eye. ‘Come to my room, Elizabeth, and see what I will wear tomorrow, when I am Queen of the Lists.’ She tugged on Richard’s arm. ‘I think it would be an excellent idea if you choose Elizabeth to