The King's Mistress (44 page)

“I had kept it for the right moment, and this is unquestionably that moment.”

I wept as he pinned the brooch to my gown and slipped the ring on my finger.

“They are so beautiful, Edward. Heart and woodbine.”

“Yes—the blood of both of us will nurture this child, Alice. We are now bound as father and mother. Is that not the greatest of miracles?”

“Then you are glad of the child quickening in me?” I asked, searching his face. I saw only joy there, and love.

“Glad? I rejoice, Alice. Our love has been blessed. God has granted us grace. I am young again. Potent. How could I be anything but glad? I have felt of late your hesitation before lovemaking. I am relieved to know the cause.”

So I had worried him. Perhaps that explained his behavior toward Richard Lyons.

We made slow, beautiful love that evening. Later, when I woke to find him stroking my belly and watching me, I sat up, wanting to talk. First he insisted on wrapping me in furs and showing me the snow without, falling softly on the woodland.

“Do you not love the silence of snow in the country?” he said. “Our child will spend all his or her childhood in the countryside. The city is no place for children.”

I loved him so much at that moment I thought my heart might burst.

“I did not see the countryside until I was betrothed.”

I turned to him and we were soon back in bed making love.

It was morning before I could finally ask him the question uppermost in my mind. “What of Her Grace? When she knows, and how can she not know, she will hardly wish me to remain in her household.”

Edward surprised me by smiling and shaking his head. He was wrapped in a mantle of miniver, his flowing white hair and beard wild, his piercing blue eyes pale in his weather-roughened face. He looked as I imagined warlords of old, never happier than when riding to the hunt—or to war. He often spoke of past battles with a catch in his throat and fire in his eyes. He’d gained weight in the past year, an embarrassment to his pride—his favorite girdle had been lengthened by his tailor months earlier, a necessity that still chafed—but he was still a handsome and imposing figure. When he smiled and shook his head at
me, I felt very young and not entirely comfortable about his bare foot exploring between my thighs as we sat in bed together.

“You are an innocent in matters of our kind, Alice. Do you think that Philippa was not prepared for this?”

“But I cannot think that any wife would wish to see another woman carrying her husband’s child.”

“That much is true. Until you are churched, it is best that you stay away from court.”

Now that I was there, he wished for me to stay awhile. With the heavy snowfall making riding treacherous, Edward’s physician Master Adam forbade me to ride. But my love ordered some garden paths cleared so that we might walk out together in the fresh air.

Another of the king’s physicians, John Glaston, appeared at my chamber door on the morning of the day Edward was to entertain some courtiers and merchants at an elegant feast. He was a pleasant man, kind and reassuring. He glanced round the chamber, moving closer to the brazier apparently to see that it was sufficiently stoked. He considered the window, then turned to me. “I am at your service, Dame Alice.” He gave me a courteous bow. “His Grace has told me how it fares with you, and has asked that I attend to any discomfort that requires a healer until a midwife is summoned.”

“His Grace is most kind. I am quite well. But I shall not hesitate to send for you if I have need of your services.”

“Be assured that you are free to withdraw from today’s festivities at any time, and that your wine shall be sufficiently watered, your food not too highly seasoned. I shall see to it myself.”

“I am most grateful,” I murmured.

He bowed again and departed with quiet dignity, his dark gown whispering softly in the draft from the open door.

I was moved by Edward’s thoughtful arrangements, though I faced the event with dread. Remembering my beloved’s indiscretion regarding our liaison I could not but suppose he had shared the news of my being with child as well.

Indeed, Simon Langham, Bishop of Ely and Edward’s new Lord Chancellor, was so attentive at the high table that I was certain he already knew of my condition. Fortunately, since his ascent to the post he had proved a good friend to me. He was a delightful man, a brilliant scholar, and at previous leisurely dinners in Edward’s chambers we had found a bond in our love of poetry, music, and hawking. My fear
that he would now be offended by my presence proved unfounded. It seemed his affection for Edward outweighed all else. He remained as courteous and kind as he had been from the start.

Also in attendance was a couple I knew only slightly, Sir Anthony de Lucy and his wife, who were also oddly attentive.

I half expected Edward to say something indiscreet, but to my great relief he did not. I had gradually learned to enjoy these small gatherings, watching Edward at ease among friends. But that evening, despite everyone’s courtesy, I was painfully aware that I had no right by birth, marriage, or official position to be there among them. I withdrew as soon as I might with grace.

Hours later, already abed, I was awakened by a summons to the king’s chamber. A servant took my hand to steady me as we stepped between sleeping men in the antechamber. Even the guards seemed subdued.

Edward apologized for waking me. He himself was already in a simple robe and barefoot, a sign that he had prepared for bed before deciding to send for me. He wrapped me in furs and drew me over to the fire, where he proffered me a jeweled mazer of spiced wine.

He settled in a cushioned chair so close to mine that our knees touched. Leaning toward me, his eyes loving and yet searching, he said, “Now tell me, what was amiss that you withdrew so early? Were you feeling unwell?”

Despite the furs I was shivering. “I am with child, my love, your child, yet I am not your wife. I feared their censure and your unease.”

“Alice, my love, you must not be ashamed.” He gave a great sigh and pulled me onto his lap. “You are precious to me. Both of you,” he whispered into my hair.

I held his great lion-head in my hands and kissed him on the mouth. “You are precious to us.”

He put his hands over mine. “You are cold.” He reached for the furs and draped them round my shoulders again. “Perhaps Dom Hanneye will attend you as your confessor when you are in retreat for your lying in. Would you like that?”

My heart warmed to Edward’s loving care. “I should like that very much. But what is this about retreat? I thought to be in London.”

He shook his head. “No, Alice. I’ve told Simon Langham to look for an appropriate country house in which you shall retire away from
court and any who might wish you harm or hope to gain my favor by seeking yours. You need your rest.”

“Wish me harm?” I had feared the queen’s reaction, but no other’s.

“Do not worry. You are under my protection. Come.” He led me back to the seat and settled himself opposite me once more. He took my hands. “You carry the child of the king, Alice. A bastard, yes, but a royal one.”

“I had not thought …”

Edward’s face crinkled in an affectionate smile. “I will let no harm come to you, my love. Neither of you.”

I felt small, ignorant, and frightened. I had underestimated the significance of bearing the king’s child. Suddenly I feared for it. Isabella had gone to great lengths to guard her bastard. People had died protecting the mere knowledge of his existence. I remembered how vulnerable I had felt when great with Bella, my clumsiness, my sudden exhaustion. I was glad that Simon Langham was preparing a sanctuary for me—for us. “Might my grandmother be with me for the birth?”

“Whoever you wish—within reason, of course. When Simon has found the house—somewhere in the fens, we thought, near Ely, where as bishop he has influence—then we shall know how large a party you might accommodate. Be at ease, my love. You are my treasure. I shall take good care of you. You shall be well guarded.”

In the end, we spent the night together. But though he warmed my body, my heart was chilled by my new understanding. To bear the child of a king was no small, private matter.

• 1365 •

B
ELLA, NAN
, Dom Hanneye, and Gwen were with me in Southery from the beginning, and Mary would join us in September, in time for my lying in. Dame Agnes had wished to come but Grandfather had suffered a fall earlier in the year and injured his back so severely he might not walk again; clearly her place was with him. She had suggested that Bella remain with her to attend school, but I so treasured, indeed hoarded, my time with my daughter that I arranged for Dom Hanneye to tutor her while we were in the fens.

Nan seemed invigorated by the responsibility of taking Dame Agnes’s place in overseeing the household when I was unwell. As I was now twenty-two, by my reckoning Nan was sixty, yet she rose with the dawn every morning to make certain that the servants stoked the fires and that the cook had something warm and nourishing to coax my appetite and Bella’s. Gwen had not come to know her well until our time at Southery, and now she observed Nan’s shrewd handling of the servants with admiration.

“Nothing is too small for her attention, and the servants have learned that. They are so well behaved, I would swear they are not the same staff as when we arrived.”

The house had a solar above the hall, but as it was accessed by a steep and narrow set of ladderlike steps too challenging in my condition, I hired a local carpenter to screen off a part of the hall for Gwen and me. He proved gifted and enthusiastic, creating an intricately carved set of screens depicting the seasons and wildfowl of the fens in a band across the tops. Our makeshift chamber still left ample space for activities and meals in the hall. Bella and Nan slept in one part of the solar and Dom Hanneye in the other, with my steward, Robert Broun, when he was at the manor.

Robert had become a welcome constant in my life, both steward and friend, proving himself trustworthy over and over again. He carried himself with quiet ease and confidence, spoke with authority on shepherding resources, and loved the countryside. He was wonderful with Bella, often inviting her to accompany him on his rides about the estates. His smile lit up a handsome face—blond, blue eyed, fair.

He spent most of his time on my other properties, seeing to projects, supervising servants, returning once a month to report to me. Dom Hanneye and Richard Lyons also grew to respect his opinions
and often invited him to accompany them to properties on which we were considering transactions. I wanted to ensure that Bella and the child I carried would want for nothing. I would not simply depend on Edward to see to our child’s future, remembering Princess Joan’s warning that I would rue the day if I did so. I took her advice to heart, for I understood that she had thought long on the vagaries of love.

T
HE MANOR
house stood on a low hill in the fens, rising just slightly above the water meadows, vast stretches of whispering reeds and grasses. The flatness felt strangely threatening to me. I felt too exposed and did not trust the earth when it would so suddenly give way to marsh. The light had a disquieting, shimmering quality, and water fowl dominated the sky with their wide-winged flight and lonely calls.

But Bella was fascinated by the unfamiliar landscape and drew me out until I grew accustomed to it. She was a constant joy to me, and expressed delight in the long stretch of uninterrupted time together. In observing her with her tutor—Dom Hanneye was proving quite able—and others, I grew to know my child better than I had since she was an infant, and cherished this chance of a new beginning. As to her reaction to the news of my carrying the king’s child, she seemed to see nothing wrong in it. That both pleased and worried me. But Dom Hanneye assured me that she was a devout and moral child, simply confident that her mother was a good woman.

Was I a good woman? Dom Hanneye said that God knew I held myself as betrothed to the king, and therefore our union was blessed. God understood that what separated us was man-made and therefore not His law. I knew that my confessor was grasping at slippery arguments to reassure me and keep me from despair. As Edward’s wife was yet alive, his argument did not hold. And I feared Queen Philippa’s reaction to the news of my condition. Edward had assured me he would time his revelation for a moment when she was most likely to receive it with equanimity.

But on the long summer days with little to do I worried. I had come to love the queen, to look forward to the long hours we spent discussing fabrics, jewels, ribbons, leathers, buttons, veils, feathers. I missed her, how we would giggle like girls and dare each other to new heights of extravagance, gasping at our own daring, and when she was being fitted how we would make a great show of tilting our heads together to appraise the sempsters’ results. I had been most fortunate in
my mistress. The queen was a wise and pious woman, worthy of all the love her people held for her.