London—February 9th, 1372
Despite the cold, it seemed all of London had turned out to gawk at the Queen and to see the Duke of Lancaster, or ‘My Lord of Spain’ as he now preferred, stand before them for the first time as King of Castile.
Sir Gilbert Wolford stood beside the man as he prepared to welcome his new wife, the titular Queen of Castile, to his grand palace on the Thames. A sense of unease threatened the triumph of the day. This was a celebration, yes, but of a battle far from won.
The English Parliament had accepted Lancaster, the son of England’s King, as the rightful Lord of Castile. Many Castilians, including the current King, disagreed.
But some day, Gil would return to the Iberian plains at Lancaster’s side. This time, he would not stop until they stood, triumphant, in the Palace of Alcázar. The token he had carried since their first attempt weighed heavily in his pocket—his promise to himself.
Gil spared a glance for the ladies gathered to greet the Queen. Lady Valerie, Scargill’s widow, stood among them. She had just come to court and they had not met, but she had been pointed out to him from afar, easy to find in her widow’s wimple, covered as completely as a nun.
He had a last duty to perform for her dead husband.
One he would rather avoid.
In Castile, Gil had been known by the enemy as El Lobo, The Wolf, because he would kill to protect his men. But no man could save them all. Not in war. He had not been able to save Scargill and now the man’s widow must bear the price.
The procession stopped before the palace. The event had been arranged as if the Queen were newly come, as if she and her husband had never met. In truth, they had married on the Continent months before so as to lose no time in creating an heir.
A son.
Gil resisted regret. At thirty, he had no wife, no son and no prospect of either. Nor would he until he could leave this island and his family’s past well and truly behind. El Lobo was a byname more flattering than the ones they called his family here in England.
The Queen’s litter was carried up the stairs, lurching from side to side until it reached the landing where the Duke stood. Then it was lowered and Constanza, the Queen, stepped out to approach her husband.
Accustomed to the heat of the Spanish plains, neither the Queen nor her retinue had arrived with cloaks to fight the British cold. Wearing borrowed mantles, unmatched and ill fitting, they looked every bit the court in exile.
Yet the Queen without a kingdom did not act humbled. Her husband John of Gaunt might be Duke of Lancaster and son of the English King, but he could call himself King of Castile only because she was his wife. It was her father, her blood that carried the right to rule.
Now, within sight of her husband, she nodded to an attendant who removed the cloak.
Behind him, the women of the household gasped.
The Queen’s red-velvet gown, bright as blood, drew every eye. She stepped towards her husband, slowly, with only slight deference. A mere inclination of the head. Barely a bend to the knee. Proud, young. At seventeen, little more than half her husband’s age.
Comely enough, Gil supposed. But no woman would ever replace the man’s dead Duchess. With her, he had found not only a dynastic partner, he had found love of the kind the troubadours celebrated. Could a man expect that twice?
Gil did not expect it at all.
And yet, in his dreams, he imagined standing in the peaceful gardens of Alcázar with a woman who gazed at him, eyes full of love...
Only a dream. Now was not the time for a wife, who, like the Lady Valerie, might too soon become a widow. Before he took a bride, he would be a new man in a new place, miles and years away from his tainted past.
He brought his mind back to the present day and passed to the Duke the velvet sack which held the wedding gift to Constanza. With two hands and proper ceremony, Lancaster presented his offering, but instead of taking it, she left him with arms outstretched, not reaching for it.
A slight so obvious that, instead of murmurs, the air carried only shocked silence.
Gil hoped she had hesitated for fear her fingers were too cold to hold it safely.
Finally, she nodded to the man next to her. With one hand, he grasped the bottom of the bag while, with the other, he pushed it aside to reveal a gold cup, carved like a rose, covered with a lid featuring a dove in flight.
It was one of the most beautiful creations of a man’s hand that Gil had ever seen.
But the lady did not smile to see it. Instead, she waved it away to be cared for by one of her attendants.
Gil gritted his teeth, frowning. The woman should be more grateful. If the Duke had not come to her rescue, she and her sister would still be homeless, orphaned exiles in France. Only with her husband’s help did she have any hope of regaining the life and title she had been born to.
The Queen motioned to one of her counsellors, a heavy-set Castilian priest with a wide forehead, who stepped forward and began to speak.
‘La Reina asks me to say she is happy to greet her husband, Monseigneur d’Espagne.’
Halting English, Gil thought, but better than that of the Queen, who, he understood, spoke little but Castilian.
‘Tell Her Grace,’ John said, looking at Constanza, ‘that I welcome her to London.’
Another whispered conference. The woman’s lips thinned and she spoke sharply to the priest.
He cleared his throat and faced his ‘King’ again.
‘La Reina says that she hopes her stay here is brief. She expects you to return to her homeland and restore her throne before the year is out. Until she goes home to Castile, she asks that I give you all assistance to administer the state and plan for battle.’
Now, it was the smile of the Duke, ‘My Lord of Spain’, that turned thin and hard.
Gil’s expression mirrored his lord’s. Yes, Lancaster was King because he had married the Queen, but he was the King. And the King, not some Castilian priest, would be the one to select his military advisers. Gil expected to be among them.
‘Thank the Queen