The King's Mistress (57 page)

The accusations against Richard Lyons worried me for both our sakes. It was true that he had benefited from Edward’s financial difficulties, but it had been his cleverness in investing that had first attracted the king’s notice and inspired him to use Richard as an unofficial member of his council. It was Richard who had taught not only me but all the courtiers now accused how to buy Edward’s letters of debt for a low fee and then bargain with the holders of the loans for a lower payment. The debtors had grown less sanguine about their settlements over time. Peter de la Mare was giving voice to their grievances. Even worse, Richard was a foreigner, a Fleming, of low birth, and a bastard; it angered Londoners in particular that such a man was so trusted by the king that he had been made warden of the royal mint and held high civil office in their city.

Richard and I had been raised up higher than our backgrounds
would commonly allow, intruders in a class to which we did not belong, fraudulently enjoying the king’s favor. I remembered the angry and disbelieving looks as I’d progressed through Cheapside in cloth of gold. God’s blood, what had Edward been thinking? The commons hated both Richard and me.

I learned much of which I had previously been unaware, and knew that it would be impossible now to convince anyone I had not been part of the more outrageous profiteering, for I was not without blame. I had accepted Edward’s largesse and used it to buy what I’d thought would bring me security.

My brother John risked a visit to Gaynes. We sat on the window seat in my bedchamber while we talked.

“The commons have found fault with Richard Stury’s stature at court. They condemn him for the wardships, lands, offices, and marriages with which the king has rewarded him, though they do not suggest what might be done to remedy the matter.”

“Even Stury?” I wondered aloud. “There are few the king trusts more than him. He has proved his loyalty and worth for fifteen years or more.”

The commons judged Edward’s benevolence and gratitude for service as weakness on his part. They had apparently forgotten that all property in the kingdom is in the king’s gift, that all rulers use such gifts to reward loyalty—or so Edward had told me. I saw now that I had condemned myself in others’ eyes by accepting presents given in love.

I drew out a casket of my most treasured gifts from Edward, primarily pearls, including the comb set with lapis that he had tucked into my hair so many years before, but also the ruby ring and brooch he had given me the night I told him I carried our first child.

“Would you take this and keep it for me, John? These are most precious to me.” I would not give him all; if they came for my jewels, they would find only the costliest ones and search no further.

It was uncanny how like Father my brother looked at that moment, the crease between his eyes, the set of his jaw. But his shoulders did not cave in as Father’s had in a crisis. John lifted the small casket. “I am glad to be of service to you, Alice. You have only to ask.”

By late May orders had been given for the seizure of Richard Lyons’s goods and those of other merchants implicated. Richard had reportedly offered a gift to the prince in exchange for his protection, but
had been refused. Prince Edward had also reprimanded Stury for softening his daily accounts to the king of the parliamentary proceedings. I was certain that Stury had meant only to protect the king, but the prince was in too much discomfort and his temper too short for him to hold his tongue long enough to consider how parliament would interpret his anger. All walls had ears, it seemed. We must watch our every word.

Everything happened so quickly, I felt unable to catch my breath. It was as if the poison that had collected for years in people’s hearts and minds burst out all at once. It seemed as if I had just heard of the confiscation of Richard’s goods when I received the terrible news that Prince Edward was grievously ill. His physicians believed he would die within days. The prince had summoned me, intending me to swear once more that I would shield his father when he suffered his spells from the eyes of those who would ridicule him and call for his abdication. My brother advised me to stay away, but I meant to go. John did not, could not, understand my role at court.

While I was arranging for a barge I learned that John Neville was no long steward of the king’s household. Even a member of a powerful family could fall, it seemed. Robert and Gwen urged me to change my mind about going to Westminster. The fear in their faces mirrored my own. But I still held out the hope that my heeding the prince’s summons would inspire him to continue to support me.

“But if he is dying?” Robert asked. “How then can he help you?”

I had never heard such fear in his voice. My own hands were clammy with dread.

“Robert, I must try. For Joan and Jane.” Bella’s dowry was safe at Barking. “For His Grace.”

“You do not need him. Any of them. I will take care of you and your daughters, Alice, I promise you.”

I took that promise into my heart, but could not yet clearly hear and accept it. I felt tied to Edward and his family despite a sense of impending betrayal.

I arrived under cover of darkness on the eve of Trinity Sunday, the feast that Prince Edward held most dear. I was shown to the king’s chamber and was greatly grieved to find him looking so lost. I held him in my arms throughout the night and sang his favorite songs as he wept for his son. I knew then that Robert had been right, death was in the palace.

The prince died the following day, past remembering that he had summoned me. I felt cold and numb. But when Edward returned from the death chamber of his heir, looking near death himself, pale and hollow cheeked, I knew that God had meant for me to be there, caring for him.

“My heir now is but a child, Alice. Young Richard stood there, so slight, his eyes too large for his sweet face. The barons will devour him.”

“My love, my love, you have many happy years ahead of you before young Richard takes your place.”

Edward grasped his velvet hat and slid it down the side of his head, then let it drop to the floor, as if the effort of lifting it off and placing it on the table before him was far too much for him. His white hair now hung straggly and thin, the bald spot more visible than usual with his scalp red from the exertion of his walk.

“Let me undress you and cool you with cloths dipped in scented water.”

He sighed and lifted his arms from his sides to allow me to remove his robes.

As I washed his body and then rubbed it with soothing oils, Edward muttered about parliament and how they had robbed him of Neville. His body felt different, diminished, as if some of his spirit had departed with his son’s death. I tried to guide his thoughts to plans for a summer interlude at King’s Langley or Havering. But he kept drifting back to parliament’s outrageous, insulting behavior. Later he grew agitated once more about the danger of having so young an heir.

“I thank God that no one knew of my half brother—a Mortimer on the throne? Never!”

“My love, you have sufficient legitimate sons. No one would have thought to place your bastard brother on the throne.” Indeed, from what I had managed to learn, few had ever known of the child. “You must never speak of him. Never. Lest you slip and mention him when others could be listening.” They might think him mad.

“Do you doubt me, Alice?” Edward, suddenly lucid, glared at me.

“Never, my love.” I knew my role. I must focus on his state of mind, not let him see that I knew he was frail and frightened.

P
RINCESS JOAN
took some refreshment with us in Edward’s chambers that evening, mostly wine. Newly widowed, she looked almost
as pathetic as her father-in-law; my heart ached for her. She had been so in love, had shared such dreams with the prince. She would have been Queen of England.

“It is a curse to outlive two beloved husbands,” she sighed into her mazer, then tilted her head back and emptied it. A servant stepped forward to fill it once more.

“You will be sick from so much wine on this warm night,” I cautioned.

“I shall find no comfort this night, Alice, with or without the drink. It is no matter.” She shook her head, the jewels in her crespinette glittering in the candlelight. Her golden hair was dull with streaks of white. This small sign of neglect told me she’d known her husband’s death was near, to have neglected the regimen of lotions and sunlight that kept her hair golden. Suddenly she planted her elbow on the table and shook a finger at me, peering at me rather unsteadily. “You, my friend, should not be here. They plan to banish you from His Grace’s presence.”

Edward grabbed my hand. “No! I am the king. My beloved stays with me.”

Joan shook her head. “They intend to sweep all your council into the Thames, Your Grace, though they would prefer to take them down the Thames to the sea and sink them with stones. Alice is too clever for a woman. They do not like the thought of a cunning, beautiful woman whispering in your ear.”

The following morning, Edward ordered Richard Stury to escort me back to Gaynes.

“I shall come to Havering as soon as I may,” Edward promised me. “Stay there no matter what you hear, my love. They shall not deprive me of your comfort in my grief.”

His timing flawless, Lancaster met me on the steps as Richard Stury escorted me to the barge. I shivered, wondering what his purpose had been in intercepting me. I did see on his handsome face, so like the king’s, the marks of grief.

“My lord duke, I grieve with you on the loss of your dear brother the prince,” I said.

“It is a terrible blow to all the family and the realm.”

“May God grant him peace,” I murmured.

We both bowed.

“Are you traveling as well?” I asked.

“No. I came to warn you that you may hear reports I have expressed what would seem censure of you. It might be necessary for me to seem to agree with the commons, in order to calm them. If anyone questions you, do not fear the truth. Do not attempt to hide anything. Lies and evasions will only complicate the matter. I promise you that you shall not be touched, and that any separation from my father will be brief. I know that he needs you now more than ever.”

His cold eyes offered me no comfort, none of the reassurance that his words would seem to imply.

“Your Grace.” I bowed to him and continued down the steps, accepting Stury’s hand to steady me. His grip was strong and reassuring. I was surprised to look into his eyes and find understanding there.

As we moved downriver Lancaster’s words haunted me
—any separation from my father will be brief
. Was I then to be thrown to the lions and rescued just in time? My future, it seemed, was now in the hands of the duke, a man I did not trust. Cold comfort, indeed.

Once back at Gaynes, I discovered my daughters distraught over the abrupt departure of their brother. Percy had sent an escort to retrieve John in the uncertain climate. I did not blame him. Indeed, I feared staying at Gaynes. My accusers might think it too near Havering, making it easy for me to slip over to Edward under cover of darkness.

S
OON AFTER
Richard Lyons’s goods were confiscated, he himself was arrested and sent to the Tower, as were others. Surely I was next.

I did not know what to do. Lancaster’s proposal might be my best recourse, to bow my head in shame before the public, and trust he would uphold his side of the bargain and see to me and the girls on Edward’s death. Robert would have me, but though I wanted nothing so much as that, I feared he could not protect me, that I would bring him down with me.

Nor did I have the heart to leave Edward now, so soon after he’d lost his once-glorious heir. Besides, if I did, I feared that in one of his fits of Plantagenet temper he would take our children from me. Definitely John, possibly even Joan and Jane. Though he might not acknowledge them as his daughters, he did love them.

The commons would come after me, for Lancaster said he could not afford to stand by me. I knew why he would betray me: the mighty Duke of Lancaster and would-be King of Castile was cowed by the
commons and their disapproval of his love for his mistress, Katherine de Roët Swynford. They cursed him for the good health they would rather he’d bequeathed to his well-loved brother Prince Edward, now dead.

Not long after the death of his father, the young Prince Richard was presented to parliament. They requested he immediately be given the principality of Wales, which had been his father’s. The king agreed, and then retired to Eltham. I understood why he did not keep his promise to come to me, but I grieved.

The parliament dragged on to the tenth of July, on which day representatives took barges to Eltham to take their leave of the king. Stury, still adamantly devoted to Edward, came by barge to Gaynes to bring me word of the accusations made against me. Edward had sent him, wanting me to know and be prepared.
Do not let them see you weak
.

Stury had aged since spring, his grim visage worn by the events of the past months. I received him in the small parlor from which Robert and I conducted business, a sparsely furnished room—table, several chairs, a brazier, a cupboard for the accounts—but with a south-facing window that allowed the gift of daylight.

“Dame Alice, I find no joy in bringing you these tidings.”

“First tell me, how fares His Grace?”

Stury dropped his gaze to his long-fingered hands and shook his head. “I fear for him. His Grace needs you beside him.”

I caught my breath and took out my paternoster beads, something to hold on to. “Tell me my fate, Master Stury.”

I was accused of using my unnatural influence over the king to protect my friends and household, and to interfere in the courts in the interests of my retainers.

“But I merely attended His Grace at the courts, and I have no retainers.” I had never even considered maintaining household guards. “I must protest.”

“You are neither summoned nor permitted in any way to speak in your defense. Truth is not what they seek, Dame Alice, but someone to blame for all the ills of the realm.”