‘My lord the Duke of Lancaster has requested that the Duchess come to join him, as he travels south from Edinburgh. It is her wish to stay here at Pontefract until my lord comes to greet her.’

So it was all true. This simply added an even heavier layer of confirmation. The Duke had summoned Constanza to meet with him. I sought her features, expressionless in the distant shadows, but I imagined her lips tight-closed in determination, her eyes bright with the courage it would have taken for her to make this journey. The Duke had asked her to come north, and in her eagerness to be with him she had agreed, riding the length of England, on horseback, risking any dangers. When the Duke had requested her company to travel to the Low Countries it had taken nothing less than a ducal command to dislodge her from the comforts of the palaces and castles she knew. Now her husband had held out his hand to offer her reconciliation, and she had leaped to accept it.

Desolation dragged down on me, mingling with the misery, and out of its coupling, an even deeper emotion leaped into life, and one of which I was not proud. Dry-eyed and furiously cold, I continued to watch, aware of the Constable standing at my side, Philippa silent and watchful at my shoulder. There was a decision to be made here. A lamentable conversation, spiked with fury, played out in my head.

Do I order the gate to be opened for her? Can I bear to spend hours, let alone days, in Constanza’s company?

She was constrained to spend days in yours, when you were the favoured one!

But I cannot. I don’t have her fortitude. Not when the foundation of my life has been ripped from beneath my feet.

She has the right to demand admittance.

Do I not have the right to refuse her?

No, you don’t.

But I have the right not to be present at her reunion with the Duke.

Then go back to Kettlethorpe so you won’t have to bear witness…

And then the thought, the despicable thought, slid into my mind that I would indeed refuse her. I would turn her away. Too far distant as we were from each other for our eyes to meet, yet the air between us was stretched, tense and haunted. Was she aware that I was there, on the gatehouse parapet, deciding on her future? Motionless, she sat upright in her saddle, without doubt weary to the bone but determined not to show it.

Philippa stirred beside me, a hand to my arm. ‘We have to let her in.’

‘Yes. I suppose we do,’ I said tightly.

The Constable looked at me. He knew that too. But as our eyes met, I sensed a curious level of understanding pass between us, as if he absorbed the depths of all my selfish concerns in denying the Duke’s wife the right to come under the same roof as I. Constanza had won. The Duke had chosen her over me, his wife over his mistress. I did not think I could tolerate it, watching her take precedence over me in all the trivial matters of day-to-day living. I had withstood it well enough in past years, because I had been sure in the Duke’s love. But no longer. No longer. He might not love Constanza but he had surely proved in these desperate days that he did not love me either.

How could I possibly be present at their reunion, knowing that she was his choice?

Oh, John! What have you done to me?

For a long moment the Constable waited for my response. Then, receiving no instruction, he leaned over the parapet and informed those who waited below: ‘Lady de Swynford is in residence here.’

My breath leached out between my clenched teeth. What had he indeed read in my face? I felt Philippa clutch at my arm. Below me it was possible that Constanza stiffened on her mount, for it sidled restlessly as if her hands had clenched on the reins.

‘I don’t care if the Devil himself ’s in residence,’ the caustic reply came back from Constanza’s captain. ‘There’s room for any number of households here. What’s stopping you opening the gates, man? We need admittance.’

I felt the Constable’s glance again before he replied. ‘It might be better if you take the Duchess on to Knaresborough.’

‘Do you dare to refuse entry to the Duchess?’

The Constable answered without hesitation. Perhaps only I noticed his knuckles, clenched as white as mine against the stone coping.

‘I do refuse you. My lord placed Lady de Swynford here for her safety. The castle is in my charge. The Lady Philippa is also here. In the circumstances it is not fitting that the Duchess reside under the same roof. It is better if you go on.’

The refusal swirled in my head. A specious argument, there was no logic to it, only perhaps a desire to protect me from humiliation. From Constanza’s biting tongue. The Constable’s support was a strange comfort when all around me was black with despair.

Below a laconic conversation occurred between Constanza and her Captain, resulting in: ‘The Duchess is afraid to ride on. Notwithstanding the circumstances, she begs that you will give us accommodations for the night.’

Philippa’s fingers tightened even more.

‘I will not,’ our Constable rejoined with astonishing calm. ‘Make haste to Knaresborough before the light fails totally.’

‘Lady Swynford.’ It was Constanza, her voice thin but perfectly audible. ‘Lady de Swynford. I beg of you.’

So she had known I was there all the time. I stepped back, as if to hide from her would make my refusal more acceptable, even as I knew that nothing could. It was a deplorable act, lacking in Christian charity, yet although guilt might aim a punch at my heart, I could not do it. It was the Constable who settled it for me.

‘The decision has to be mine, my lady. Go on to Knaresborough. You will be safe enough. We have had no disturbances hereabouts.’

Without another word Constanza and her retinue, banners and pennons refurled, turned and rode off towards Knaresborough.

And I?

Could I really allow this? I found that I had taken that step forward again to the parapet. If I raised my hand now, speaking out before one more moment passed, I could halt this debacle. I could call to Constanza, claiming a misunderstanding. I could send a scout riding fast after them to bring them back. If I gave the order the gates would open and she would ride in, the Duchess of Lancaster, in authority in her husband’s name. I would curtsy before her and stand aside. My conscience would be clear.

I lifted my hand.

I let it fall. I said nothing, made no attempt to recall them to safety.

‘Katherine…!’ Philippa’s whisper was harsh, her hand on my arm a grip of steel. She had long ago abandoned calling me formally. At twenty-one she had acquired the maturity of years, and of judgement which at this moment was unsparing. ‘This is wrong. You can’t let it happen. If harm comes to her the blame will be yours to shoulder.’

I shook her off, already riven as I was with that guilt, walking the length of the battlements to watch the vanishing cavalcade, identification once more hidden. Today I had rejected compassion, good manners, duty. Obedience to those who employed me. Had I not in effect, disobeyed the Duke also? Would he not have expected me to offer shelter and safety to his wife?

I was horrified at what I had done. But I could not admit her. I could not.

‘We should not have done that.’ Philippa, relentless, had followed me. It did not help at all that she had acknowledged the joint decision.

‘It is better so, in the circumstances,’ I replied flatly. ‘It is not far to Knaresborough.’

‘But if any harm comes to her—’

The echo of my own words. How devastating they were, stitching in bright colours what I had done.

‘Then I will take the blame,’ I said. ‘You had no part in it. I will answer to the Duke.’

And to God.

Refusing her company I went to the chapel where I prayed to the Virgin, for her intercession, for forgiveness, my thoughts all the time flitting away from my prayers to scenes invisible to me. My self-justification was like the constant and ineffectual pecking of a bird.

Constanza would be safe. She would be reunited with the Duke. The country held her in its heart, in the highest of esteem. Constanza would not be seized and done to death as a detested foreigner. No one would wish harm to her. I was the evil one. If anyone dared attack her she had only to reveal her name, and she would be revered, whereas I was the one who would be torn to pieces. She would place her hand once more in that of the Duke and, his reputation salvaged, all would be put right. For her. For him, in the eyes of England.

I was the one who would be punished.

What a formidable, vengeful mistress England was.

I tore my thoughts away, back to the chapel with its candles and the reminiscence of incense. Even the kindly face of the Virgin was closed against me, stern and unsmiling, as I undoubtedly deserved. It seemed that her downcast eyes deliberately turned away from me. I pressed my clasped hands against my lips, begging for her compassion. Shame was a heavy cloak.

I felt a movement at my side where Philippa was sinking to her knees.

‘I will pray with you,’ she said. ‘The Virgin will listen.’

‘I think she will not,’ I replied.

‘But she will. She will not condemn you for a broken heart. For loving too much.’

Oh, Philippa! Tears welled in my eyes but this was no time for tears. ‘I was wrong.’

‘You had your reasons.’

‘Not such that God would forgive. I was vindictive beyond measure.’

Philippa did not reply but bent her head to her task, her fingers moving over the beads of her rosary. I made to follow her example, then realised as I saw the beads of coral and gold that it was the rosary that the Duke had given me. I closed my fist over the beads. I could not use it. It would make me more of a hypocrite than I already was.

Philippa eventually raised her head, making the sign of the cross.

‘It must be true, then,’ she said, addressing the altar. ‘What my father has done.’

‘Yes, it must.’

I saw a long dark road stretching ahead of me, leading me to I knew not what. For the first time in my life I felt frightened and vulnerable. I felt beyond hope.

From the chapel I refused Philippa’s companionship and climbed to the battlements once more, despite the darkness, to look north. How often had I done this? Once I would have sensed him. The direction of his thoughts. Sometimes a brush of his emotions. His love.

Tonight there was nothing.

It was as if I faced a stone revetment or a wall of shields. A fortified bastion, I decided fancifully, although I was in no mood to be fanciful.

The Duke had shut me out.

I lifted my hands in silent plea, in despair, then allowed them to fall as a patter of approaching footsteps grew louder. I knew who they belonged to before he raced up the steps.

‘John.’ I took his hand in mine, letting my hand rest on his head. ‘You should be in bed.’

‘I escaped from Agnes.’

‘I expect you did.’

And then, predictably, Henry. I lifted him into my arms so that he could see over the wall.

‘Where is my father?’ asked John.

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Will he come soon?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does he know we are here?’

‘Yes he does.’ I lowered Henry to his feet. ‘And now we will go down, or you two will face Agnes’s wrath.’

They ran in front of me, surprisingly agile on the turn of the stair. I could imagine them both excelling at military skills as they grew older.

Life would have to go on, for my sake and theirs. I did not know how I could.

What should I do now? Frightened and vulnerable, I never expected to experience such draining emotions, but the sturdy confidence that had built within me over the years now drained away, no matter how often I told myself that I was not without resources. I had Kettlethorpe and Coleby in my son Thomas’s name, my annuities, my connections in Lincoln. Margaret and Thomas were provided for. My Beaufort children would never lack. I knew the Duke well enough that whatever might stand between the two of us, his sense of honour was far too strong for him to neglect these children of his blood.

Had I no strength of character to withstand this terrible blow?

Go back to Kettlethorpe.

But I couldn’t. I could not yet cut the cord. Caught up in a maelstrom, I remained at Pontefract, wrought with indecision. Until the decision was made for me.

I was in pointed communication with the cook who was overseeing the messy task of dismemberment of a carcass with an eye to making brawn with the brain and offal. I would have retreated long before this, except that his complaints about the quality of the meat and the lack of it were legion, and so it was there that I received a letter. The courier had been directed to the kitchens.