At six, Lancaster Herald blew a long plaintive blast of farewell. Katherine, standing on the stairs, bade them all Godspeed - to little Henry of Bolingbroke, who, of course, returned to London with his father, to Geoffrey on his bony grey gelding, to the Lords Neville and de la Pole on their brass-harnessed destriers; to Lord Latimer, whose long vulpine nose was red from the chill morning wind as he stood beside his lady's litter. And to John Wyclif, the austere priest, who alone of this company had held himself apart from the merrymaking. Not discourteously, but as one whose thoughts were elsewhere, and whose interest lay only in moments of earnest converse with the Duke.
They had all mounted before the Duke turned to Katherine, who waited with bowed head, holding out to him the gold stirrup cup.
"God keep you, my love," he said very low, taking the cup and drinking deep of the honied mead. "It'll not be long this time, I swear it by the Blessed Virgin," he added in answer to the tears in her eyes. "You know I ache for you when we're apart."
She turned away and said, "Do you stop now at Hertford?" This question had been gnawing at her heart, and she had not dared voice it.
"Nay, my Katrine," he said gently, "I go straight to London to be ready for Parliament, you know that. You may be sure the Queen Costanza's no more eager for my company than I for hers."
She did not know whether he lied to her, out of kindness, but her heart jumped at the cold way he spoke of his Duchess, and she looked at him in gratitude, yet lifting her chin proudly, for she would not be a dog fawning after a bone for all the watching meinie to see.
He kissed her quick and hard on the mouth, then, mounting Palamon, cantered through the arch.
On the twenty-ninth of April, shortly before the hour of Tierce, as the Abbey bells were ringing, the King opened Parliament in the Painted Chamber at Westminster Palace. Then he seated himself on his canopied throne, while his sons disposed themselves according to rank on a lower level of the dais. But the Prince of Wales lay on a couch, half concealed by his standard-bearer and a kneeling body squire. The Prince was a shocking sight. His belly was swollen with the dropsy as his mother's had been, his skin like clay and scabrous with running sores. Only his sunken eyes at times shone with their old fierce vitality, as he turned them towards the King, or to his brother of Lancaster, or out past the bishops and lords to the crowd of tense murmuring commoners at the far end of the long hall.
King Edward held himself erect at first and gazed at his Parliament with something of the calm dignity of his earlier years; but gradually he drooped and shrank into his purple robes of state. His palsied fingers slipped off the sceptre, and his face grew wrinkled and mournful like a tired old hound's. Except when he glanced towards the newel staircase in the corner behind the dais and saw the painted arras quiver. Then he brightened, and tittered behind his hand, knowing that Alice was hidden there on the turn of the stair.
The Duke of Lancaster sat on a throne too, one emblazoned with the castle and lion, for was he not - however far from his kingdom - the rightful ruler of Castile and Leon? Next sat Edmund of Langley, his flaxen head nodding with amiable vagueness to friends here and there amongst the lords, while he cleaned his fingernails with a little gold knife.
On the King's left his youngest son, Thomas of Woodstock, dark and squat as his Flemish ancestors, scowled at the wall where there was painted a blood-dripping scene from the Wars of the Maccabees. Thomas was not yet of age and never consulted by his father or brothers. He resented this but bided his time in wenching and gaming, and quarrelling with his wealthy young wife, Eleanor de Bohun.
The morning was indeed dull. It opened with the expected speech by Knyvett, the chancellor, who droned on for three hours while exhorting the Houses to be diligent in granting the kingdom a new subsidy; money urgently needed, said the chancellor, for the peace of the realm, defence against possible invasion and resumption of the war in France, also - here he glanced at the Duke - in Castile.
As Parliament was invariably called for like reason, the speech held no surprises and those on the royal dais and the lords on their cushioned benches muffled yawns.
The Commons were ominously quiet. At the conclusion they asked permission to retire to the Abbey chapter house for consultation. The King, who had been drowsing, sat up and quavered happily, "So it's all settled. I knew there'd be no trouble. The people love me and do my bidding." He rose and glanced towards the arras. He wanted his dinner, which would be served him in a privy chamber with Alice, and he wandered towards the stair. His two elder sons looked at each other, John in response to a gesture walked over to his brother's couch.
"Let him go," whispered the Prince. "He'll not be needed now." He fell back on the cushions, gasping. His squire mopped his temples with spirits of wine and after a moment the
Prince spoke again. "Nor am I needed. Christ's blood, that I should come to this - useless, stinking mass of corruption! John, I must trust you. I know your loyalty - whatever they say. Conciliate them - listen to them. Hold this kingdom together for my son!" Tears suddenly spurted down his cheeks and a convulsion shook his body.
John knelt by the couch. His own eyes were moist, while he silently kissed his brother's swollen hand.
Very soon the Commons began to show its mettle. A delegate requested that certain of the lords and bishops might join with them in conference in the chapter house. The Duke agreed graciously and waited with sharp interest to hear their choice, nor was surprised that amongst the twelve men named were two of his bitterest enemies, his nephew-in-law, the Earl of March, and Bishop Courtenay of London.
The earl, still at twenty-five pimply and undersized, had never forgiven the slight Lancaster had put upon him after the Duchess Blanche's death, when he had been kept cooling his heels in the Savoy. Each year his jealousy had grown and was now reinforced by fear. March's two-year-old son, Roger Mortimer, was heir presumptive to the English crown, after Richard. Unless the dastardly Lancaster should plot to force the Salic law on England and grab the crown himself. For Roger's claim came through his mother. This fear added fresh fuel to March's loathing; and the earl, upon hearing his name called, looked up at the Duke with a sly triumphant sneer, which Lancaster received with a shrug. March was a poor weedy runt whose spite was worth no more return than bored contempt.
Courtenay was more formidable. As Bishop of London he was the most powerful prelate in the country after Canterbury, and the Duke's well-known views on Episcopal wealth and his association with Wyclif had long ago incurred Courtenay's hatred.
The Commons' choice of these two lords to bolster up their coming attack against the crown gave some measure of the difficulties ahead, but was not startling. The choice and the acceptance of Lord Henry Percy of Northumberland, however, was dismaying.
The lords remaining in the Painted Chamber settled back in an uneasy rustle of silks and velvets and let loose a buzz of consternation. Michael de la Pole detached himself from his fellows and coming up to the Duke said with the familiarity of long friendship, "By God's blood, Your Grace, what's got into Percy? The blackguard's gone over to the enemy! Yet a month ago he swore passionate love to you and the King!"
The Duke laughed sharply. "He has no enduring passion except for himself and his wild Border ruffians. He's swollen with pride and no doubt March has been puffing it with the hot air of promises."
He sighed, and de la Pole looking at him with sympathy said, "There's a vicious battle ahead, and I don't envy you the generalship."
In the ensuing days, the Commons' line of attack became abundantly clear. The first mine was sprung with the election of Peter de la Mare as their Speaker. De la Mare was the Earl of March's steward. He was also a blunt fearless young man who wasted little time in presenting reply to the chancellor's demand for a subsidy. What, he asked, had become of all the money already granted?