The King's Mistress (28 page)

“Walk with me and tell me what you think my Philippa would be saying.”

Though his familiar behavior confused me so that I feared I might dissolve into giggles, the kindness I had seen in his eyes put me at ease. My good memory served me well, and I was able to repeat the queen’s priorities, shake my head when the ground oozed beneath our feet, and nod when we were at a higher elevation and the marshy island swept away from us like a sea of green and brown. But all the time my mind was feverishly arguing against the flutter of hope that he had lit within me, that I might not lose myself entirely at court, that I might prove to be of some worth, and that even without Janyn I might find joy in life.

Suddenly the king stopped. We had outpaced the others and were quite alone with the seagulls and the wind.

“What is this frown, Mistress Alice? I will see your smile before the day is out.”

“Your Grace,” I said, bowing to him, which was awkward on the rocks. “I was thinking what else Her Grace might wish me to point out.” I would have sworn that I had been smiling. I kept my eyes downcast.

“Perhaps.” Gloved and beringed fingers reached out and lifted my chin. “Sweet Alice, you have much to grieve, I know. But you have all your life yet to live, and I wish to provide you with the opportunity to live it fully, with grace and joy, free from worry. I owe you this, for it was my mother’s work that deprived you of husband and mother-in-law. I promise you that as soon as I am certain your connection with that business is forgotten I shall have your daughter brought nearer to court so that you might be with her often.”

“My lord!” I could say no more, for emotion choked me.

He tilted his head, studying me. “You are a most beautiful young woman, Mistress Alice. You will find joy with another man.”

I was grateful to be interrupted by the approach of the others, spared the need to respond, for I could not find my voice. He thought me beautiful and had promised Bella would be near me.

“Your Grace,” I managed to say, as the others caught up with us and whisked us back to the house in which the king and his knights were lodged, where we sat down to a modest meal.

I found it easier to stay in my bed that night, listening to the other women whisper and snore. In the morning Gwen woke me while most of them were yet abed.

“The king summons you for some hawking!” Her eyes were bright with excitement at such an invitation.

I slid out from beneath the covers with happy anticipation.

Outside, the air was chill with the morning mist that swirled in strange colors, lit by the dawn.

“It will be warm today,” Gwen said.

“Later, but not now,” I said, disappointed. A hawk would not fly in this. But out of the mist came the king and a servant on horses, leading one other. They carried no hawks.

We rode out onto the beach, then sat our horses, as close together as possible, gazing out on the swirling mist.

“Yesterday I said that I understand your grief, your pain,” said the king. “I want to tell you a tale of a young man, younger than you, who discovered that the happy dream of his childhood was just that, a
dream.” He told me of the moment when he understood that his parents, the king and queen of England, were at war with each other. His mother, my old acquaintance the dowager Queen Isabella, had sailed to France, her home, where her brother was king. She was furious with the way her husband favored the brutal, conniving, greedy baron Hugh Despenser over her. She tricked her husband into sending his son, the Edward who now told me this tale, as his representative at her brother’s wedding, for she knew that the king himself did not intend to attend for fear that his barons might rise in revolt against him while he was absent from his kingdom. And then she kept her son in France despite increasingly angry letters from her husband, demanding the return of the prince. “And so I was forced to choose between them,” Edward said to me now.

“How cruel of them.” I thoughtlessly reached out to touch his arm in sympathy and then quickly pulled back, embarrassed by my presumption in almost touching the king so. “And did you choose?” I asked a little breathlessly.

“I told myself that I was not choosing, that I was refusing to choose. But in my heart I knew that I had chosen my mother. I had chosen treason. I had chosen the path that led to my father’s violent death, the sacrilegious murder of a divinely anointed king. And I knew that I had done so because I feared my mother, who had the support of her brother the French king, more than I feared my father, and that I hated Hugh Despenser more than I hated Roger Mortimer, my mother’s lover.”

“Those were dark times.”

“They were.”

“Dame Tommasa, my husband’s mother, told me that your mother endured much, and that she had suffered.”

“She did. And in her pain, took a terrible revenge. She never found joy again. Indeed, I could not imagine that I would ever do so, either. But I did. I have found joy and purpose.” He reached for my hand. “And so shall you, Mistress Alice, I am certain of it.” He smiled. “I insist upon it!”

“I am grateful for your kindness, Your Grace,” I said, aware of the warmth coming through his glove. “But I confess that I do not trust to hope for another chance at the joy I had with my husband, our little family. I cannot think that God blesses anyone with such joy a second time.”

“My mother cruelly used your husband’s family. You have suffered for that. But I pray that you find joy again.”

“May God bless you, Your Grace.” We sat quietly for a moment, our hands joined in the space between our mounts. “I pray that you do not take this question ill, Your Grace, but it would help me if I knew. Who was it that my husband’s family protected for Lady Isabella, the Queen Mother?”

He looked away from me, and I guessed that he did not wish me to see his true feelings about my question. I began to understand he was not skilled at hiding his feelings. “Not now. But I shall tell you someday, I promise. When we are sure of one another.” He moved in the saddle. “Come. Let us ride a little.”

The fog had begun to thin and the sea stretched out before us, glimmering in the sun, shimmering as the tide rocked it.

The king’s falconer rode up to escort us inland, where the fog had lifted and we might hunt. He had the falcons there. We hawked, and afterward the ladies and knights joined us for a long, wine-soaked feast, and then the company walked about the old, tattered castle and talked of how beautiful it would be very soon.

My time alone with the king had been noticed. In the evening the ladies with whom I shared a bed allowed me some more room than they had on other nights and refrained from sending me off on errands. But they were no more friendly. I guided my thoughts back to those moments I’d shared with the king on the beach.

I shall tell you someday, I promise. When we are sure of one another
. And he would bring my Bella nearer to court. The king had promised me. It was a beginning, something to cling to, and I hugged those promises to my heart as I fell asleep.

• Summer 1361 •

I
VOWED TO
heed the king’s kind advice and find contentment in my life. More easily vowed than carried out, but I was determined to try. To shelter my child from harm I must retain the protection and affection of the royal couple.

T
HE PESTILENCE
undermined King Edward’s efforts to reassure his people. Law courts were closed, reopened, closed. By midsummer we were sequestered at Sheen, though the officers of the household were considering the wisdom of fleeing even farther into the countryside. Lionel, Earl of Ulster, had lingered at Sheen after his sister Mary’s wedding, and with him of course his household, so I enjoyed Geoffrey’s company at many meals. It could be a mixed pleasure, for he was honoring his promise to be my eyes and ears among the courtiers, and from him I learned that I was rumored to be sharing the king’s bed. I was not surprised to hear it—since Sheppey the other women had treated me with icy caution—though the fact that I shared a bed with at least one other woman every evening, in a room assigned to six of us, should have proven it false. Perhaps because I was the only one of the six who slept in that chamber every night, I was the only one who knew I was the sole celibate among them. But though I was not surprised, I
was
frightened by the rumor. I could not think what would happen were the king to learn of it, or even worse the queen, my mistress. Would they remember that I had no power to silence the gossips? Would they believe I had said nothing to provoke such talk?

I prayed for guidance as to how I might clear my name, having no one at court to whom I might turn for advice. Hoping that perhaps enough time had passed since the death of the dowager queen that I might be permitted to see my grandmother, one morning I broached the subject.

But the queen pursed her lips and shook her head at me as if I were a frustrating child, willfully stupid. “Even if I thought that you might slip away to see one of your Salisbury kin without endangering them, I would not allow you to risk going into the hot, pestilence-ridden city. No, I do not give you leave. We have sworn to protect you, and we will.” She fanned herself with a vigor that heated rather than cooled her. In the humid warmth of high summer she shed layers and replaced them with dry ones numerous times each day and well into the evening. The laundresses grumbled.

I had few companions to distract me. There were two young sisters living in the household, the orphaned daughters of a lesser knight who had been the queen’s countryman, with whom I enjoyed spending time, although they were only girls. They had a more easy grace than the other children being fostered by the queen. At all times there were ten or so youth in the household, some to be companions to the royal children, others orphans who had touched the queen’s heart. The two girls from Hainault were Katherine and Philippa de Roët, charming and curious and hungry for learning, bittersweet reminders of my dear sister Mary.

My other occasional companion was Elizabeth, one of the queen’s ladies, who treated me kindly. We would walk in the gardens, where she would talk of her lost marital joy. Her husband, a knight, had suffered a head wound in battle that had rendered him so helpless he was now cared for in an abbey in the west country. While she wandered through her memories, describing her courtship, her wedding, her hope for many children, I visited my own.

“You are a most excellent listener, Alice,” she would often exclaim, “but I should invite you to speak of your lost dreams.”

I would shrug and tell her I preferred to listen to her. She would shake her head, ask a few cursory questions, and then resume her own narrative.

A married sister who lived in the countryside near Canterbury wrote long letters I enjoyed hearing.

“But her life is so dull,” Elizabeth would protest.

“It is the life I miss. I love hearing of crops, livestock, and household crises. Life at court has no relation to my old, ordinary life.”

It was from those letters that I began to appreciate how fortunate I was to be in the safety of the queen’s household. Because the law courts had been closed as a precaution while the pestilence moved through the land—all public gatherings deemed dangerous—many suddenly widowed women had no recourse if their liege lord arranged a marriage for them to his own advantage or decided that their property was best protected by his taking it over and seizing the income.

“Oh, Alice, you must have a care,” Elizabeth exclaimed in the midst of one sad account.

“That does not seem to be the king’s intent for me,” I assured her. “No one has prevented Richard Lyons from protecting my London home on my behalf.” For that I was deeply grateful. I felt ashamed when I remembered my pettiness about how unattractive Richard was, for he had proved to be a good and loyal friend. Though as the summer progressed and pestilence spread in the city he stayed away, in June he had made a habit of bringing me bouquets of flowers from my London garden. I felt that I had grievously misjudged him.

“What of your country manor?” Elizabeth asked, interrupting my contrition. “Fair Meadow, is it?”

“The king has seen no reason to take it from me. One of his stewards holds it in trust for me, until such time as I might be able to care for it once more. I feel God watching over me, providing me with those two homes.”

“You are most singularly favored by our mistress and His Grace,” she said with a sidelong glance that unsettled me.

W
ILLIAM WYNDSOR
had returned to court, paying more attention to me than he had in spring, even inviting me hawking in a party that included Geoffrey and Elizabeth, who both teased me afterward about William’s inability to keep his eyes on his hawk rather than on me. It was silly and pleasant. William was dark like Janyn, but with fair skin and hazel eyes. He reawakened my passionate nature with his intense gaze and was a wonderful dance partner despite the way he rendered me breathless and too weak in the knees to dance the next set.