And yet here might be the one voice to persuade Richard to show mercy.

‘What brings you here, madam?’ A belligerence but a wary one, as if Richard might still heed his mother’s words. I prayed that he would. There was only one possible reason for Joan to be here at this crucial hour. ‘Can I guess? You have wasted your time.’ Richard, who usually spoke to his mother with tenderness, was brutally intolerant.

‘You might well guess.’ The flesh of her once beautiful face was drawn with effort and a quality of grief I had never experienced from this redoubtable woman. How she must have suffered on her journey here, in mind and in spirit. ‘I am here to see you, my son.’

‘To see your King.’ Richard’s chiding was remorseless.

‘As you say. You must excuse the frailty of my flesh, that I cannot perform the obeisance you clearly hope for. I must assure you that you have my regard and my loyalty as my lord and King. As you have my love as my son.’

Her flesh might be weak but her voice was as strong and assured as it had ever been. Princess Joan raised her chin with a direct stare.

‘There’s no need to say more. I know why you are here. And I won’t do it.’

‘Then I ask pardon for importuning you.’ The Princess glanced at us, her eyes keen even as her body trembled, betraying her. ‘I see I am not the first, if I read this right.’ Then she fixed Richard once more with the flat regard of a woman who had survived more scandals than anyone I knew. ‘It is not fitting, Richard, that one brother should seek the life of another.’

‘He has committed bloody murder,’ Richard roared.

Joan raised one hand. ‘He has killed. I know not his justification. Or even if he had any. Have mercy, Richard.’

‘I will have no mercy.’

‘Help me!’

The command, addressed to her woman, was harsh, as with greatest difficulty and a groan of anguish, the Princess fell to her knees. And before my father could move, I was at her side, kneeling with her—some would say driven by my own selfish desires, but how could I not be moved by compassion for this courageous, suffering woman?

‘I beg of you, sire,’ I pleaded as I had never pleaded with Richard before. ‘Have pity on this lady whose health cannot withstand the loss of one son at the hand of the other.’

The Princess grasped my arm hard, but there we knelt. What an image we made, two nobly-born but impotent women, like the sea washing up against the impregnable rock of Richard’s intransigence.

‘Go back to Wallingford, madam,’ Richard said in cold judgement. ‘And you, Countess of Pembroke, should return to your husband. What is it to you how I deal with those who commit crimes in my realm and disturb my peace?’ Richard’s eyes were as killingly bleak as those of his favourite raptor. ‘You do no good here. Neither of you. I will not be swayed by the whining of women over matters beyond their comprehension.’

Joan held on to me, pulling her spine erect. ‘I will not go, my son, until I have your answer.’

‘Then here it is, since your understanding seems to be lacking. John Holland, whom I will no longer call brother, will face the demands of the English law. Coward that he is, he lurks in some northern sanctuary. If he dares to show his face before me, he’ll suffer the blow of the axe to his arrogant neck.’ He addressed Joan’s woman. ‘Arrange for this lady’s return to her home. She has made her petition and I have answered it.’

With a silken swish of the folds of his houppelande, Richard swept past us, leaving the Duke and me to raise and shepherd a tearful princess to her waiting litter. The fact that she wept was more shocking than all the rest.

‘I doubt she’s fit to travel,’ my father observed as the Princess insisted, all traces of tears dashed away, but her hands shaking as she drew the covers over her legs. ‘I think today we have seen Richard sign her death warrant. He has broken her heart.’

I thought he might have broken mine too.

‘Did we achieve anything?’ I asked, even as I knew we had not, but all I could do was cling to a last hope. ‘Will he at least consider compassion as his anger fades?’

‘No. Not in his present mood.’ The Duke pressed his lips to my forehead. ‘Go with her, Elizabeth, and do what you can. She has an affection for you and she is a broken woman.’

I went to Wallingford Castle, unable to soothe the distraught lady whose breathing worsened and whose pallor frightened me. She would neither eat nor drink. When we arrived at her refuge the shadows beneath her eyes were as livid as bruises.

‘Speak for him, Elizabeth. Speak for John. I know you have a softness for him.’

I did not deny it. How could I? My heart was as heavy as Joan’s with the certainty of failure.

Richard has broken her heart, my father had observed. But so had John Holland. How could I argue against that? Were they not both to blame, one for vile murder, the other blind intolerance? It was as if all the life had been sucked out of the very stones of the castle at Wallingford, and out of Joan too as she sank into a torpor. The fear of one son being responsible for the death of another was too much for her strained heart to bear. Refusing all food and drink, the once valiant lady seemed to be sliding slowly but inexorably into the arms of death, and I was helpless to prevent it.

‘You must live. You must live to petition for your son,’ I urged, trying to help her sip from a cup of wine.

‘I have petitioned,’ the Princess whispered, pushing the wine aside. ‘Richard will not hear me.’

‘He will. He will regret what he has done to you. How he has reduced you to this. Let me send for him.’

‘There was no regret in his eyes.’

She turned her face from me, and death came swiftly then as if she had willed herself out of this world that promised so much pain. The Princess abandoned the struggle without another word being spoken, other than to me and her confessor. The words the Princess whispered to me held the weight of a confession, indeed of a binding oath, and put a burden of conscience on my soul. Meanwhile Wallingford stood stock-still in shock at this long and eventful life coming to so puny an end. Had we not expected a shower of stars in the heavens or the raging torrents of a storm? Princess Joan slipped, unrecorded by any of her own family, into death.

And then the aftermath, which fell to my hand. Servants whispered in corners as Joan’s women packed her garments into coffers, uncertain of their future as the whole household was put into a state of mourning and I ordered the black robes last worn for old King Edward to be brushed and aired. Musty and creased they might be, but we would show appropriate solemnity.

Her chaplain, William de Fulburn, looked to me for direction.

‘You must inform her sons.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ The priest looked uncertain. ‘And arrangements for my lady’s burial?’

‘I can’t advise.’ I rubbed my hands over my face. How wearing it was to bring to order a grief-stricken household where the women were wont to dissolve into tearful reminiscences whenever a bright memory struck home. ‘What did she wish?’

‘The Princess did not say. I must inform the King.’

Sorrow gave way to anger. ‘Tell the King that grief killed her! That his cruelty brought her to death’s door and beyond!’ He looked askance, and I sighed. ‘No, of course you cannot.’

He swallowed painfully. ‘I’ll send a courier to the Earl of Kent. Where is Sir John?’

‘In sanctuary in Beverley Minster, when I last heard. He will be a sensible man if he stays there.’ I smiled briefly without humour. ‘Do what you can.’

We washed and clothed the Princess, placing her body on a bier before the altar in the chapel, as befitted the King’s Mother, covered with a cloth bearing the arms of her husband the Prince of Wales, and awaited instructions. I would return to court. I could do no more here. Meanwhile, before I left, I would keep vigil. Princess Joan had shown me kindness and I knew the Duke would want me to take command in a house that had no mistress. We would honour her as the King her son had not honoured her at the end. And if my thoughts were more closely entwined with her son in sanctuary, a foresworn murderer, I did not think that Joan would find me in any way lacking.

‘Where is he? Why is he not here to mourn the woman he helped to drive to her death?’ I prayed aloud, kneeling beside her earthly remains, my voice echoing strangely in this space that contained only me and the dead.

Yet how could he be? Sanctuary or flight was the only hope for him.

‘But I am here.’

Hands loosely at his side, the culprit stepped into my line of sight and bowed, whether to me or to his late mother I was unsure.

‘And what is the Countess of Pembroke doing here?’ The voice was smoothly scathing, the eyes, now that the man stepped full into the candlelight, hard and lightless. ‘You were the last woman I expected to see at Wallingford. And, if I’m honest, the last woman I could have wished to see.’

It was like an open-handed slap, taking me by surprise, so that I had no time to marshal my reaction to him. All I could do was stare, shocked by the overt belligerence, impressed against my will by his appearance. He might have travelled far but the leather and damask of his clothing was immaculate, his hair combed into ordered waves, as if he had prepared for this meeting.

I was not prepared. Outrage made me brusque. ‘Far more to the point, Sir John, what are you doing here? For you, being caught out of sanctuary, could be certain death.’

‘I am aware.’

‘Then why …?’ No longer kneeling, I waved away the chaplain who had appeared in the doorway behind him. ‘Not a word of this to anyone!’

And as the cleric retreated, my displeasure, so close to the surface in those days, flared without control, spilling over into raw anger at John Holland, at what he had done in shedding innocent blood. Very few had a good word to offer on his behalf and here he was, rejecting sanctuary, with death or banishment hanging over him. Was he a fool? How could he be so careless of his safety, of the burden he had placed on Princess Joan? In that moment I could find no sympathy in my heart for him.

He was responsible for the pain in this house. How could I trust him ever again? In that moment I wished I our paths had never crossed.

‘You should not be here,’ I stated flatly.

‘How could I not come? I heard the Princess was … unwell.’ I saw understanding darken his eyes to lakes of basalt. ‘I see that I am too late. What are you doing here at Wallingford?’

‘I escorted your mother from London when she was beyond consolation. Did your sources tell you that? She had travelled to court even though her health was failing. Did they tell you that she fell on her knees before Richard to beg for your sorry life? Without effect, I might add, other than to cast her into utter despair when Richard mocked her and dispatched her without mercy.’

‘Then I must thank you for being with her.’

‘Thank my father. He thought she should not be alone in her extremity.’

But of course, it would be unfair to blame him for that. He had not known. It was the only sin from which I could give him absolution.

‘When?’ The timbre of his voice had lost all its liveliness.

‘The Princess died yesterday morning at the hour of Prime.’

‘So I could not have got here in time.’

‘Did you try?’ I had no patience, not while the wrath raged white-hot within me. ‘Your garments are more suitable for a banquet than a mourning feast.’

His tunic was magnificently crimson, the cuffs and edges dagged in blue and gold.

He did not reply, but walked around me to the draped figure, the lions of England disguising the bulk of Joan’s figure, and there I remained when, continuing, John walked to the head of the bier, to look down into her face that was uncovered, the silk cloth that would finally hide her features still lying folded on her breast. Her once fine features could be detected beneath the gross flesh, like the familiar outlines of a finely constructed garden beneath a fall of snow.

Sir John bowed, one hand on his breast, then leaned to kiss her cheek.

‘She was a courageous woman. She knew what she wanted in her life and, once she was of age, refused to let any man stand in her way.’ He smiled briefly, the grief he might be feeling, if any, well hidden. ‘I have never met any woman as unwilling to be guided, if the advice did not marry with her wishes. Unless it is yourself, Countess.’ How formal he was, as if I were no more than an acquaintance. ‘She was wilful and headstrong. But she had an enormous capacity for affection,’ he continued. ‘Her family meant much to her and she would fight for any cause that would bring them advantage.’ He paused, touching her cheek with gentle fingers. ‘She did not deserve the cruel scandals of her youth.’