Queen of the North: sumptuous and evocative historical fiction from the Sunday Times bestselling author. Anne O'Brien

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      ‘No, but I’ll give it anyway. I know that for you Richard’s death will further open up the whole question of who should rule. You cannot even pretend that Richard might, by some miracle, be restored. Don’t allow your Mortimer ambitions to take control. It could be dangerous. It could be catastrophic.’

      ‘My Mortimer ambitions are already alive and well,’ I responded.

      ‘That is what I am afraid of.’

      Alone, I worried at it, as I would worry over a length of knotted embroidery thread until all was smooth, fearing all the time that nothing would ever be smooth again. I felt sorrow over Richard’s fate. More than sorrow. He was of my own blood, my own heritage, my mother’s cousin, although my own life had never run along a close path with his. Did I regret his death? Yes, but I would never revere Richard. He had been as savage as any man in his anger, as Philippa had discovered with Arundel’s brutal death.

      But grief at the death of my royal cousin was not my overriding emotion.

      A grim acceptance was all I could manage, as I determined to light candles for Richard’s soul; his death had turned for England, and for me, a whole new page that was yet unwritten. Who would do the writing there, and what would be recorded? With Richard dead, and thus no hope of his restoration, the Earl of March should without question take the crown. My dedication to my nephew’s cause, already whipped into life when Lancaster had the crown placed on his own head, had with Richard’s death become embedded in rock, as solid as one of Alnwick’s great towers, a formidable bulwark against any siege. If Harry thought to win me round, he would discover that I was equally impregnable.

      As Harry disappeared into the distant barbican, all I could envisage in the coming weeks was hot dispute. Troubled at the potential for clash and division, I turned towards my family and took myself to discover Bess where I could hear her with Dame Hawisia in the herbarium. Dame Hawisia, skilled with cures and potions, was a Percy through and through, of some ancient lineage, and now of advanced age. Already ensconced here at Alnwick when I had arrived as a child, her loyalties were to Harry and Harry alone, which I had long accepted. A law unto herself, she ruled the nursery with a rod of iron and a cunning tongue.

      My daughter was being instructed in the properties of the herbs most frequently in use to augment dishes and soothe all manner of ills. I thought it too cold to dwell long, when the herbs were in winter starkness, but, well wrapped in hood and cloak against the cold, Bess was laughing; Hawisia was scolding, wielding a knife against a tough rosemary stem. It warmed my heart when Bess ran to me, dragging me into her lesson, a sprig of pungent juniper in her hand, its berries dark with immeasurable power for those who could make use of them.

      ‘Dame Hawisia says to drink these berries in red wine will stop poison from killing us,’ she announced. ‘But we must pound them first.’

      She made me smile, banishing for a little while my melancholy. ‘I doubt we’ll have much need of that. Not much poison around here.’

      ‘It will also stop the flux,’ she informed me with solemn relish. ‘Tom in the stable had the flux last week, until Dame Hawisia dosed him. He swore at her.’

      ‘Then we must pray for Tom’s soul. Tincture of juniper is a good remedy to know.’ I enjoyed her enthusiasm. ‘Dame Hawisia will show you how to make it.’

      Bess ran off to pester Dame Hawisia. She would make a good wife for a great magnate at some distant date in the future. Seeing no insecurity here, my heart settled a little and for a time Richard’s death was set aside, allowing me to step into more tranquil pathways. But not for long.

      So Richard was dead and the Percy lords flourished in reflected Lancaster glory, even as we slid with much rain and high winds from old year into new. To my utter disgust, my Mortimer nephew’s claim to the throne remained merely a simmering pot pushed to the back of the hearth, ignored by all. But not quite all. I should have expected one source of interest in our household.

      ‘Mother.’ Hal was standing at my side on the raised dais in the great hall, fresh from the practice field, wanting information.