The King's Mistress (41 page)

E
DWARD APPLAUDED
my story of how I learned the true nature of a pearl. We were sitting in a pretty meadow, our horses tethered nearby, and he had just given me a most exquisite comb for my hair, bone overlaid with mother-of-pearl and several disks of lapis arrayed along it, as if it had been splashed by drops of a beautiful blue liquid. He had asked me to remove my headdress and, after showing the comb to me and watching me with pleasure as I ran my fingers over the pearl and lapis, had tucked it in my hair. It was such an intimate, tender gesture after my suffering so much fear that he had abandoned me, I felt my heart might burst.

We had been together at the hunting lodge for several days, and on each day he had given me pearls or items decorated with them. I had not lost my wits, I was well aware I was being bought, yet it was Edward’s way and came from his heart. I chose to be grateful for such loving generosity. I understood that his leaving me at Eltham had been a foretaste of how our life would be. Of the dance.

“You are the pearl in my life, Alice, my comfort, my solace, a creature of beauty and light.”

I fell into his arms, holding him as tight as I might. I had asked if we might talk at once of Dom Francisco’s revelations regarding the
great secret Janyn’s family had protected. I did not wish to waste our precious days together cautiously circling the issue. Edward was blessedly willing to oblige me. It had been a difficult conversation, but I had prayed over it, and felt God’s guidance in my impulse to be honest with Edward, to reveal to him the pain and confusion in my heart. He expressed remorse for all that I had lost for the sake of protecting his kingship but assured me that hiding the child had been the only solution, both for himself and the boy. A child of such lineage would never have been safe unless hidden as a peasant or in a closed community such as an abbey—a foreign abbey.

“Even so, your mother might have given up any contact with her child and spared my family the dangerous journeys,” I said.

He nodded. “That was her choice. In all such things my mother thought of herself first, and only very much later, when she could no longer avoid it, acknowledged that others had been affected. She never asked forgiveness or expressed remorse.”

“What was done then cannot be undone. For Bella and I to flourish, I must seek the light, not fester in darkness.” The relief in Edward’s eyes, the subtle relaxing of his body, was my reward for absolving him. I had entertained him then with a description of my happy reunion with my daughter, and expressed my joy in the prospect of being with her, my sister, and my grandparents at Fair Meadow in summer.

He listened quietly, contentedly, and then talked to me of his own children, his plans for his three eldest sons, giving them pieces of his kingdom to keep them busy and content.

“Though I fear my Philippa means to leave this life soon, I have no such intention. Edward is distracted by Joan at the moment, but will soon grow impatient for my crown. He is for the Aquitaine. Lionel to Ireland goes.” He believed they would find their new responsibilities challenging. John would soon be invested as Duke of Lancaster; he would be an important power in the North. “I shall then have more time to rest. I should like time to be quiet, to be with you, to talk of small, everyday things.”

I, too, wished for more time with Edward. Away from court, alone with him, and no longer afraid of betraying Philippa, I had fallen deeply in love. As I opened my heart to him, he responded by confiding in me and becoming more curious about my dreams, my preferences. Our bond deepened and strengthened.

We spent most of our time in the bedchamber he had ordered the
servants to decorate for me. It was filled with silk-covered cushions in jeweled colors, the bed hung with indigo curtains embroidered with silver thread, the ceiling painted like the night sky, with a gorgeous silvery moon, and the walls hung with tapestries depicting the goddess Diana hunting with a bow. We spent many happy hours in that room, making love, talking, playing chess, spinning out dreams of our life together.

When we were not in my chamber, we were riding out in the countryside. On one particularly warm evening, I sighed as we returned to the lodge. “It seems a pity to go within.” While I bathed away the dust of the long ride, Edward ordered a tent erected on the lawns. What a wonder it was for me, who had grown up in the city, to sleep outside that night and wake to the birdsong and the dewy morning chill. I did not want that interlude with him to end.

But of course it did. One morning I woke to the sounds of the household preparing to move. Edward had already told me that he would not intrude on my time with my family at Fair Meadow. I looked round my beautiful chamber—already every item evoked a happy memory.

As Gwen saw to the packing, Edward took me out into the garden, where he presented me with a signet ring. The intaglio was an amethyst with the Virgin and child cut into it, symbolizing me and my daughter, and in the surrounding gold were the initials
A
and
E
intertwined.

He put it on my finger and kissed my hand. His eyes held mine as he said, “Within is a charm to keep you safe. Write to me if you have need. All my people will know that a letter with this seal comes straight to me.” His seal, a crown twined with woodbine and our initials, would be for his messages to me.

“I should write if I am in trouble?” I asked. “Not simply to remind you of me?”

“My love, I need no reminding. I think of you with every breath.” He kissed my hands. “Write only if you have need of me or require counsel. I am determined that we shall not feed the gossips. I trust you to know when you need to write. And I shall reply as quickly as I may.”

The ring, the arrangements, all this felt more substantial, more secure, than what had gone before. I was content, yet careful, still taking the precaution of Joan’s preventive drink, for I did not intend to jeopardize my position in the queen’s household.

• • •

M
Y GRANDPARENTS
, Dame Agnes and Master Edmund, had arranged for household servants and ensured that my home was readied for occupancy. Fair Meadow. As we approached the manor, memories of Janyn filled my mind. I had expected my former joy would haunt me on my return. But when it overwhelmed me as I rode through a village that had always served as my landmark for being almost home, I discovered that I was not as well prepared as I had hoped. My grief was an ache deep within despite my love for Edward and my renewed joy in life.

That ache would always be there; it was part of me. My heart could hold both joy and grief.

The air was sweet and sighed across the peaceful fields of Fair Meadow. As I dismounted in the house yard, Bella rushed out of the door and I crouched down just in time to catch her in my open arms. Already she smelled of sun and earth, herbs and flowers and horses. I was strengthened in my resolve to win her away from Queen Joan’s emotionally barren household. Here she could be a proper child. She would know love, and she would love. We would be a full and happy household—my grandparents, Mary, Nan, Bella, and me.

Hands that know the earth in all its moods know God’s wisdom
. Grandmother’s wisdom was healing to me now. With my beloved Bella and Mary, I planted flowers, especially roses that Grandfather had brought from Dame Tommasa’s courtyard. When the house had been vacant after Master Martin’s death, my grandfather had slipped into the courtyard and taken clippings from various shrubs.

“I saved them for your homecoming, Alice.” Grandfather stood over them with an air of uncertainty. He had led me away from the dinner table to show me. They were arranged in little pots along the windowsill of my bedchamber.

I was moved beyond words. Putting my arms around him, I kissed him on the cheek, then rested my head on his shoulder. “It is the best gift, Grandfather.”

Bella slept with Nan in the same room as Gwen and me, and we were seldom apart. She had been timid after her first exuberant greeting. Hanging back, wary, uncertain of her place. On our first night together I woke in the darkness and found my child sitting up, biting her nails and breathing in frightened little gasps. I did not ask why, but simply gathered her in my arms and softly sang to her. Slowly her little body relaxed and soon she slept in my embrace. In the morning I
said nothing of it. I asked if she would like to help me plant the roses. Working side by side in the gardens nurtured my daughter and me as much as it did the flowers and herbs we so happily tended.

It warmed my heart to see my sister Mary grown so beautiful and strong. She sometimes spoke of Father, remarried now and busy with an infant and a wife who was too pious to accept an invitation to visit his harlot daughter. Mary tried to soften all that she said of him, but it proved difficult.

“Let him be,” I finally told her. “I have fond memories of him from before my betrothal.”

Grandmother held herself slightly aloof from me. I sensed it the moment I embraced her. But she behaved with affection, and we worked in the garden side by side as well as measuring Bella for some new gowns. Together we chose pretty silks and wools for her out of chests of cloth that had been sent by Richard Lyons, merchandise he had saved from the Perrers household and my old home with Janyn.

It was an ill-timed comment on my part that at last revealed what Grandmother strove to conceal. Several of Janyn’s former trading associates had appeared on our doorstep, saying that they were passing by and wished to pay their respects. On each occasion the talk eventually came round to their having heard of my “favor” in the royal household, and the fact that they hoped I might now support their petitions or recommend their wares and services to the royal purveyors. I endeavored to be gracious in my assurances that I had no such influence in the household, but that in the unlikely event that someone should ask for a recommendation, I would of course put forward my late husband’s partners and guild members.

“They all know!” I cried one evening. “I’ve been such a fool to think my relationship with the king was known only at court. Who will ever believe that I was sent there, that I did not seek the king’s favor?”

“What else did you expect when you took up your adulterous liaison with him, and you a lady of the queen’s household?” Dame Agnes asked. Her tone was carefully lacking in condemnation but her words stung. She did not look at me.

I thanked God only Nan, Mary, and Grandmother were present. I shook with emotion—she had voiced my shame. I replied as calmly as I could manage, “I am sorry you disapprove of me. For my part, I had hoped that you would understand how little choice I had in this. I beg
you, never speak of my relationship with the king to Bella or even allow her to overhear such talk.”

I told myself that she would not judge me so harshly had she known the whole story of my need for the royal couple’s protection. Nor did she know of the queen’s complicity. But I wondered if that would have mattered to her. As she had judged the dowager queen, so she judged me.

“You cannot protect Bella from the gossip,” she said, her eyes cold.

“Are you warning me that I cannot trust you?” I demanded.

We both stared at each other aghast, witnessing the pent-up pain between us. I saw in her eyes the horror I felt in my heart.

Mary stepped between us. “Stop this! We are together again at last, something we have all prayed for. Do not ruin it with angry words. You love each other. Alice had no choice in any of this. I beg you, both of you, remember your love for each other.” She had caught the right hand of each of us and now brought them together.

Dame Agnes’s mouth trembled. She was close to tears as she said, “Oh, Alice, I have been so frightened. You cannot imagine. With Janyn’s disappearance, then Dame Tommasa’s … The rumors of Master Martin’s murder …”

So Geoffrey had not been the only one to hear of that, how healthy Master Martin had been shortly before his sudden mortal illness. I let go of her hand and put my arms round her. “I know, I know.”

“Do you love him? Is he good to you?”

“Yes. I do love the king, and he is very good to me. I did not realize you had been forced to hear of this in public, to feel shame for our family, Dame Agnes. I am sorry.”

We sank down on our knees and prayed for our family. Mary joined us there. We came to a kind of peace.

I used my signet to write to Edward, asking if Bella might now live with Dame Agnes or some other suitable merchant family in London. He wrote back giving me permission to allow her to remain with my grandmother until we might discuss it further in person.

Bella, Mary, Nan, and my grandparents rejoiced when I told them that, for the time being, Bella would abide with her family. It made my return to court easier for them, though not so much for me, for I would have her by my side. But the queen had summoned me, and I must obey. It was not only with Edward that I was set spinning in the dance.

• • •

L
IFE BACK
at court settled into a routine. I remained in daily attendance to the queen before and during feasts and celebrations, primarily assisting her with dressing. When she had little need for me, I was free to spend restorative weeks with my family or enchanted weeks with Edward wherever he was abiding. Queen Philippa seldom ventured from Windsor, for travel had become far too painful for her. Edward bided at Windsor only for state occasions, celebrations, and feast days.

When in November Edward celebrated his fiftieth birthday, I witnessed, as one of his queen’s serving women, the investing of Lionel as Duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt as Duke of Lancaster, and Edmund as Earl of Cambridge. From the vantage point of Queen Philippa’s entourage, I heard the barons and their ladies whispering among themselves about the king’s intention to prepare his sons to rule after him. Much was made of the wisdom of Prince Edward’s yoking the Aquitaine with England in his future rule—he would be moving his household, including Princess Joan, to France in late spring. The honors of the brothers so displayed during the birthday festivities inspired in the people joyous hope in a glorious, strong future for the kingdom. Only I did not like to think of that future.