The First Princess of Wales (23 page)

“And why are these old, foreign men anything to you, Joan? Did not your dear prince explain that at their glorious Crécy the French were vanquished? Is this not more of that glory? I begged my lord king for mercy for the women and children left in that miserable walled city and he hearkened to me. Why are these six lives so much to you then?”

Joan’s teary, violet eyes locked with the queen’s pale blue ones. Joan felt a battle enjoined there which was more than this issue of six old men’s lives. Philippa’s gaze wavered one moment in her plump face as if she remembered or realized something, but that face hardened again and Joan was suddenly afraid.

“Well, my Lady Joan, the king will not have them dispatched until they are shriven, so we have a few moments to speak further. Excuse us, my dear Isabella,” the queen said and a strange half-smile parted her lips. “I have private business with our dearest Joan for a moment.”

Isabella’s eyes popped as if she had swallowed something huge, but she knew well that flat, direct tone her mother used but seldom and she reluctantly did as she was bid. All her wild vows of blaming her parents for her desertion by that pompous Louis de Male she had already forgotten. She much preferred being in their majesties’ good graces even if her cousin Joan evidently did not see the wisdom in that.

Queen Philippa followed Joan a few steps beyond the farthest tent pole where they would be alone for a moment. The sun was stunningly bright and the sky arched porcelain-blue overhead outside the shelter of the silken awning where they stopped.

“Shall I fetch you a stool, Your Grace?” Joan began. She fully meant to plead again for the queen’s intervention in these looming executions, but there was something else in this from the way the queen was acting now. Saints, if she had to, she would even dare to bring up her own father’s cruel death though they had never spoken directly of that before.

“How badly do you wish for those lives, then, Jeannette?” The queen’s use of the pet name the prince called her startled her, for she had reverted to calling her Joan for many months now.

“Badly, Your Grace. You see, I just feel—”

“And I want something from you badly,
ma demoiselle,
and will have your vow on it. You see, I know of your—liaison—with the prince at night—the little beach place, I know not how many nights, so do not bother to equivocate or deny it.”

The tent pole behind the queen’s floating head scarves seemed to move; the distant castle walls of Calais seemed to jump closer, to quiver from their foundations.

“No, my dear, he did not tell me. He knows nothing of my knowledge of this, but that is not important, only that it must end now, completely, permanently,” she went on in a rush. “I want your word you will go along with my arrangements that you wed William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury next week, here at Calais. The prince will be riding circuit to protect our beachhead, and the secret ceremony will be held after he is gone.”

“Salisbury! But—what about Thomas Holland? You cannot ask this of me!”

“Keep your voice down, my dear. I do not ask, I demand. Our beloved heir is destined for a foreign dynastic marriage—a princess. Of course, you must realize that. And he had been so amenable on that point until you managed to—to quite unsettle his life. Oh, do not look so crestfallen, dear Joan. I do not blame you for the little seaside trysts or loving him, for who would not?”

“I—I do not love him. I truly do not love your son.”

Philippa looked surprised, then doubtful and annoyed. “I do not believe you, but then, it really makes no difference. Fine, for there will be a ready smile for Lord Salisbury when we tell him of his good fortune after the prince has gone. And I expect you to take to your room with fever or some such until he is gone. I will not have all this upsetting him or his father until there is nothing he can do. And now, you will give me your word and I shall seal your vow by kneeling before my husband king and pleading for your poor burghers’ lives. Salisbury is from a fine family and the marriage will suit you. I shall handle Thomas Holland and, eventually, my beloved son.”

“Aye, I see.” Joan felt as if she were sleepwalking through a nightmare, but the continual wailing of the defeated from behind the walls of Calais was all too real and she had to hurry to save the blue-eyed old man with the rope around his neck. At least there would be some pleasure in besting the prince, but just when she had fancied herself in control, the wheel of Fortune had spun to cast her downward in despair again.

“I shall have your vow on this and then you may go to your room until I send for you, Joan,” the queen repeated, her words piercing Joan’s thoughts until her eyes refocused on the pudgy, suddenly frightening face so close. She did not, could not love the prince despite how he took her to the heights of rapture, could she? When she bedded with him, he sailed her high above the sea. She could not ever imagine the fond, smiling Salisbury doing any such thing to her.

The queen’s hand pinched her shoulder. “Swear it, Joan. All time for otherwise, but this choice has gone.”

“I—aye, I swear it. Betrothals at court, mayhap marriages too—they are nothing.”

“Go now. I promise I shall plead for the old men. Go now.”

Dazedly, her mind racing faster than her feet, Joan hurried back to the one-floored wooden warren of rooms which had been her home near the prince these last four months. The mazelike edifice looked squat and ugly now. The sand dune where he had come to take her away on his horse last week seemed barren and cold.

The words of a song marched sullenly through her brain as she went along the hollow-sounding corridor to her chamber: “‘Go heart, hurt with adversity . . . And let my lover thy wounds see. Farewell my joy, and welcome pain, ’Til I see my love again.’”

She sat listlessly on the edge of her narrow bed and stared at her lute with its gay silk ribbons resting in the dim corner. Damn the blackguard! She did not love him; she could not, but he had crept too far into her life. That lute he had given her, and how narrow this bed was after the vast one they had shared. How his massive frame had filled that little doorway there when he had come to seek her the second time. She heard his low voice in the screaming silence of her memory even now and felt his crystal blue eyes and the touch of his hands and mouth—

She threw herself across the bed gasping in silent sobs. Her shoulders heaved, her legs trembled. And in the midst of opulence and victory and a first step toward the revenge she had long sought, she felt only desolate, beaten, and utterly bereft.

CHAPTER TEN

T
he English autumn gilded the hunt park and woods of Windsor in russet and copper and bronze. The tang of crisp air and the excitement of tournament day blended to bring the vast labyrinth of castle and town alive with expectation. The royal family and their court had returned from France four weeks ago. The reception in London had been heartfelt but not grand, for the prisoners and loot had been dribbling home sporadically since the conquest of Crécy over a year ago. Today was the closest thing the court would see to a single, splendid celebration for the French victories: a full day of tournaments, parades, and feasts.

The hour was but six of the clock and dawn had barely crested above the gray towers and battlemented walls when Joan of Kent rose from her narrow bed in her bare feet to stare out through the casement window she thrust wide. Marta had just bustled out for warm water, but Joan could not even wait toasty in bed for that. Today, she and Princess Isabella had planned a blatant move to shock them all. It would be, Joan thought and her chin lifted defiantly, a statement to anyone who tried to rule and control her and Isabella’s lives—especially the queen. It was a statement that young women could be keepers of their own fortunes no matter what orders were royally handed down. Isabella’s betrothal to Louis de Male had proved an expensive, devastating fiasco and her own crazy, sudden marriage to William, Earl of Salisbury was mere farce and sham, though the queen had never yet deigned to explain why.

She heard Marta’s sprightly tread in the hall and the door creaked open. “My lassie ne’er learns, I see,” the distinctive, heavily accented Scottish voice began a familiar and somehow comforting harangue. “Bare feet on these chill floors in October an’ ye standin’ about in one a those silly nothin’ shifts ye spent good money on in Flanders. Get a robe on then, for old Marta’ll not be nursin’ ye through th’ chills come winter tide.”

“Now Marta, I never catch chills or agues. I am healthy as a horse and you know it. You did not by chance see my Lord Salisbury lurking down the hall as the other morn, did you?”

Marta began to pull a comb through her mistress’ long, tangled tresses even as Joan bent over to wash her face and hands in the warm water scented with rosemary and laurel. “Not sin’ th’ queen must ha’ set him back on his heel an’ made him promise he would not claim marital rights until Lord Holland be arrivin’ from Lancashire an’ agrees his betrothal be forfeit.” Marta clucked her tongue sharply as she always had to show disapproval, “’Tis th’ strangest spider’s web of a marriage I ha’ ever heard, an’ ta think it be th’ queen’s own makin’. Now why, for the love a St. Andrew, would th’ queen betroth my bonny lass to one lord, then marry her ta a second but never let the marriage night take place? A veritable spider’s web this whole court be, an’ I ha’ like ta tell them so!”

Joan vigorously rubbed her face with the linen towel Marta offered amidst further tongue clucking. “Saints, Marta, are you asking me to explain it? Aye, it is a puzzle, but I care not anyway. It is fine with me not to bed with William and not have him think he owns me somehow and order me about. This way I keep legally to myself except at meals and do as I will. I do not love either William or Thomas Holland, so I hope this bizarre arrangement never ends and the Princess Isabella and I can do whatever we wish eternally.”

“Stuff an’ nonsense,” Marta snorted as her skillful, wizened hands began to deftly braid Joan’s massive tumble of golden hair. “Who does my lass love then?” the old woman prodded after studying Joan’s furrowed brow for a moment.

“Why, no one, of course, nor do I plan to.”

“Ye canna’ fool yer Marta, lambie. Sin’ ye ha’ been at court, especially sin’ ye’r back from France, ye ha’ changed.”

“Of course, I have changed. Ouch, Marta, do not yank it back like that! Everyone thinks I am half daft for letting you bully me about and maybe they are right! No, it is just I have learned not to trust men and feel immensely better for it—not that I ever did trust any of them in the first place except usually my brothers and my old lute teacher, Roger Wakeley, before he left. But—well, saints, since Mother told me what she did before she died and I saw my dear friend the princess deserted nearly at the high altar, I—just want to be more independent, that is all.”

“Ye always did want to be that, lass. Ye know, I spoke wi’ Morcar th’ other day an’ sin’ Crécy, he ha’ cast a new horoscope for th’ Prince a Wales th’ people be callin’ the Black Prince now sin’ he wore sable armor in that field a glory what made his name.”

“He told me the sobriquet came from the fact he was all filthy mud at the end of the battle, but say on. I care naught for the prince’s future, except that all English must care for our next king.”

“Are ye really believin’ ye can fool Marta, lambie? Now, never mind flyin’ off in some contrary rage like a wee lass, only Morcar say he be castin’ yer horoscope next. He did it once for yer lady mother afore ye left Liddell, but he says he took it further. He spoke to me a some a it.”

“And I suppose I am to seek him out and beg to know it? I am still not sure I forgive any of you who knew why Mother kept to her room all those years for not telling me, so why should I trust this all now—even you or Morcar? Besides, the princess and I have vowed to make of our own fortunes what we will, queen, kings, husbands, notwithstanding! I am going to spend the day with the princess now, so pray do not worry about me.”

To Marta’s obvious dismay that she had not dressed, Joan whirled her warm camlet robe about her and ran barefooted down the hall to the princess’s vast chamber. It would never do to tell Marta of their daring plans for the tournament today; her scolding after she heard would be enough without listening to it before the deed was done too. The tall guard, Jaris, who often winked at her, opened the door as she approached and she hurried in.

Isabella sat in an ermine and jade velvet robe at her cosmetics table while two maids hovered over her hair. The familiar scent of the princess’ favorite essence of gillyflowers hung heavy in the room already half-filled with giggling, primping
demoiselles
.

“Dearest Jeannette!” Isabella gushed and half-rose to encircle Joan’s arms with a lightning quick hug. “I almost feared you had slept in but then with no
real
husband yet to bother you at night, I could not see why.”

It annoyed Joan that several of the closest ladies giggled at that, but what did she care? The whole court, it seemed, knew of her strange, unconsummated marriage with William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, if not all the details. Indeed, Thomas Holland had been sent for by the queen posthaste and could be arriving any day now.

“No real husband, Your Grace, thank the blessed saints, though I believe he hopes and pines eternally.” Everyone tittered again, and Joan smiled broadly herself. At least if everyone was amused, she would pretend to be also. “And I did as you bid, dear princess, and have not put one bit of cosmetics to my face so that we all might look alike for our marvelous parade today. I hope no one has given out the slightest hint of it.”

“If anyone did, I shall have her strung up by her hair or—or made to marry someone the queen bids,” Isabella concluded with a grand flourish. All the maids giggled again, but Joan noted well the brittle voice and the sharp glint to Isabella’s blue eyes. It took Joan aback a moment as she let the princess push her into her vacant place at the cosmetics table. “Hurry with her now, my maids, so we can all be dressed and down to our waiting horses before anyone discovers us and tries to interfere.”

Joan darted quick glances in the gilded mirror as the talented Yvette and Annette, the princess’ two favorite maids for cosmetics, worked over her. Since the return to London and Windsor from France, she had lost some weight despite the round of repetitive banquets and the myriad dishes of delicacies always available about the princess’s rooms. Her cheekbones looked more prominent and tiny shadows hovered beneath her eyes to hint she had not slept well. What was that song he had taunted her with at Isabella’s betrothal banquet? Oh, aye—

“Alas, my love hath gone away

And now no meat nor drink, I say,

Shall ever please me more until

He loves me of his own free will.”

Saints! Why did she think of him at all and ever at the strangest times? In the silence of her narrow bed at night, of course, with Marta’s heavy breathing across the room, but also just walking or right in the middle of something her husband, who was not really a husband, said—and then he wondered why she was not listening! Oh, damn, damn this whole crazy Plantagenet court with all their intricate rules and customs, proprieties and strategems. Today, she and Isabella and the others would show them what they thought of it all!

“Lady Joan, please do not frown so or this pomade will go on uneven. Please,
madame
!”

Madame,
a married lady now, Joan mused, but she did not feel married. The smiling, indulgent William of Salisbury touched her heart not a whit, and luckily so far, a few kisses and sighs had kept him somewhat mollified. Thank the Blessed Virgin, the prince with his accusing stares and nasty temper had been off at his lands in Berkhamstead since they had all been back home. At the tournament today, he, of course, would be much in evidence, but she had no intention of even speaking with him. St. George, she hoped this plan of theirs would make him fall in a tangled mass of precious black armor right in the dust at her feet!

She watched her reflection intently as Yvette and Annette bustled at their task. She scarcely ever wore any cosmetics but eye or lip color but today all Isabella’s
demoiselles
would look alike as they dared to ride out in a parade of their own dressed and mounted like men. Let everyone gasp and whisper and wonder if the mockery meant the affront that indeed it did.

Over the rosewater pomade, they rouged her flawless skin a glowing pink above the high cheekbones. Her eyelids they painted a gentle violet to highlight her lavender eyes, and they smoothed her lips with a rosy-hued translucence which smelled and tasted faintly of cinnamon. They dusted glittering ambergris essence in her braided, wheat-colored tresses and powdered over her alabaster-and-roses complexion with a brush dipped in cochineal powder. They stared and squinted a moment, tipping their shapely heads together to confer, and then Yvette touched a slight hint of umber hue to her arched eyebrows.

“Ah, perfect,” Yvette breathed and clasped her hands to admire her work. “Your long lashes are so sooty dark already, Lady Joan. Ah, perfect, no matter how you attire yourself like a man today, they will know you are a woman with that face and fullness of breasts, eh?”

“All right, all right, cease fussing over her and finish up with Clareene and Mary. Here, Jeannette. These tight hose, quilted jerkin and this tunic should do for you. By the rood, we have to be out of here and hidden in the stables or we shall surely be seen after the men complete their first tourney. Someone will try to stop us sure as rain! It has to be perfectly timed so we will be out onto the joust field in our own parade in the break between the two jousts. Oh, I feel ludicrous in these wretched, silly things, but will it not be a marvelous jest?”

They all laughed at each other and themselves as they poured their ripe female forms into the men’s garments the princess had managed to borrow from her younger brother, John of Ghent’s vast wardrobe without his knowledge. The tunics she insisted she and Joan don were both azure and gold, quartered, and sported the English leopards and French lilies Joan had so often seen the prince and king wear.

Joan, clad already in the tight blue hose which clung like wet silk to her legs and derrière and a dark blue boy’s quilted jerkin tied closed in over her breasts, hesitated. “Your Grace, should we really wear these tunics? I mean, of course, you can, but I—”

“Nonsense. You are of royal Plantagenet lineage also, and besides, we do not have enough of the plain-colored ones to go around.”

“But what about protocol? Should I not wear something with the Salisbury arms now, or maybe just carry a banner of my own house of Kent?”

Isabella stamped her foot and her blue eyes flashed in a hint of Plantagenet temper. “Jeannette, how can you preach pious protocol when we dare all this? Besides, this can hardly be great fun if you turn so difficult. We will be onto the field, around, and out to everyone’s delight and amusement before anyone can stop us. Now hurry! All we need is my little sister Joanna running to tell the queen or John finding his wardrobe thoroughly ransacked—or the Prince of Wales catching us all in the hall!”

At that thought, Joan pulled the tunic over her head. If one was flaunting court etiquette, it should be done with a flourish! She chose a pair of dark blue velvet slippers from a heap on the floor and surveyed herself nervously in the mirror. She looked hardly a man: in this slender boy’s garb her legs and derrière looked far too shapely and the tightly clenched belt for the swords they would attach after they mounted accentuated both her slender waist and rounded breasts and hips. Once they were safely out to the stables, they would all bind up their braids under silk turbans. Her face looked older, strangely not her own at all painted and powdered like this. And when the court saw them all astride huge destriers with swords held aloft in challenge—

“All right now, everyone down the back servants’ stairs three at a time and keep covered with the cloaks. No one is to budge from the stable block until Jeannette and I arrive. All right, go on now and keep the cloaks closed, by the rood!”

Isabella’s eyes glittered with an almost hysterical excitement that began to worry Joan. A little warning voice jabbered away at her confidence as if her conscience or maybe what she knew Marta would say were chanted in her brain. But when the fourteen maidens were not stopped on their circuitous route to their reconnoitering spot and the horses were all prepared, she began to relax. Indeed, this would be easy and highly amusing, too!