The King's Mistress (64 page)

“In summer the oaks surrounding it must give pleasant shade,” I remarked. “And is that a pond farther down?”

“A fish pond, well stocked when I am in residence.”

We had exchanged few words all day, swept along on the falsely cheerful chatter of our “sponsors,” as William referred to the duke and the princess. In a peculiar gesture, my father and his wife—whom I had not previously met, being such a danger to her soul when I was Edward’s mistress—were invited to the ceremony. Knowing nothing of my feelings about the union, Father wished me all happiness. When
his wife would have added her simpering congratulations he drew her away, no doubt apprehensive of my response.

“You said little to your mother,” William remarked.

“My mother is long dead.”

My stomach clenched at the prospect of years of this empty civility.

His household greeted me warmly. The hall was modest and simply furnished, tidy and inviting, especially the fire in the center fragrant with apple wood. I complimented William on the fine meal set before us and attempted to converse about safe topics, for the moment we had arrived at the house he had begun to quaff brandywine. By the end of the meal, which he hardly touched, he had consumed copious amounts and seemed hungry for an argument.

He began a litany of slights—my sending him away from Gaynes, my refusal to permit him to stay at Tibenham many summers past, my leaving his letters unanswered, and my insulting him in front of Lancaster and Joan. When he reached the end of his litany he began again. I said little. Neither Janyn nor Edward had ever behaved so, and I was unsure what would make him even angrier.

“I am here now, William,” I reminded him when we finally withdrew to our bedchamber. I sat down beside him on the bed. “Might we not be courteous to one another?”

He grunted. “That would suit you, would it? Coax me into forgetting all your insults and pretend we have just met?”

“What are we to do? How do you propose we live?”

He lurched to his feet and stumbled toward the door. When he was almost there he turned. About to lose his balance, he flung up a hand and caught hold of a rafter to steady himself, took a deep breath, and blinked, as if trying to clear his mind and vision. “How can you not know that from the moment I first saw you, I vowed you would be my wife?”

So I had not been wrong in believing that long ago. I rose and approached him, reaching out to steady him. “Come, William, come to bed.” I wanted any spies in the household to report that we had slept together.

He slipped one hand behind my head and pulled me close, kissing me on the mouth. I managed to disentangle myself sufficiently to lead him to the bed as he pawed at me, undressing him while being partially undressed myself. But I had no sooner eased him under a pile of
blankets and coverlets than the drink overwhelmed him. He went limp and proceeded to snore.

When I was certain that he was deeply asleep I called Gwen in to help me prepare for bed. I lay awake, imagining how I must behave in the next few days and weeks to win William’s trust, wondering if that was possible. I prayed we might come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

I woke to find him kissing me, and as he sensed me stirring he gently entered me. His breath smelled of anise and his skin of some exotic perfume—he had washed and prepared himself for me. Though he was considerate in his lovemaking, I did not respond. Afterward we lay side by side, eyes averted from each other, as if wondering whether we dared communicate further.

He turned back toward me and lifted my shift to gaze on my body. “Well, my silent Alice, be assured you shall be so awakened as often as I can manage. I cannot think how I would wake beside this body and not be aroused.” His smile was lazy and sensual as he eased himself on top of me once more.

I did not pretend to do more than endure, and he did not seem to care. I prayed that he would soon tire of my unresponsiveness.

Later in the morning, after we broke our fast in front of the fragrant fire in the hall, William and I talked. It was clear that I was not the only one who had spent some time considering how to make the best of our marriage. He vowed that if I accepted his apology for our arranged match and gave him a chance to prove himself a loving husband, he would work through the courts to clear my name, revoke my exile, and reclaim the property I had purchased in my own name.

I agreed in principle. Silently I vowed to secure what I could of the properties I had purchased in partnerships by working once again with my old friends and business partners. I had not forgotten Robert’s warning about William having demanded information about my properties, nor Joan’s about keeping some property secret.

For several days we both made great efforts in courtesy, but it was plain that it would require constant vigilance and restraint on my part. William managed to forgo too much drink the first few evenings in his home, and I tolerated his sexual demands. It was strange to me, to be sickened by a man’s touch. When we talked we chose safe topics such as the household, his other properties, what items he intended to take to Gaynes. But on the fourth day he drank too much at the midday meal, and by evening was alternately vicious about my passive demeanor and
morosely silent. By the time we made our way to the barge at Westminster staithe, we were eyeing each other warily. I dreaded the homecoming ahead.

Though Princess Joan and the Duke of Lancaster were granting me safe passage home, there were inevitably those in their retinues and that of the young king who might seek praise and advancement by capturing me. After all, I had been exiled, which would not usually entitle me to a life spent in England, much less the use of a royal barge. William and I had been warned to dress simply and remain well covered.

As I watched the familiar riverscape slip past, I was overcome by memories of ferrying to and from my homes and Edward’s palaces. My body remembered my excitement, my heart my expectations. Then the royal bargemen and guards had treated me with respect; now all eyes were curious, and most cold. I tried to avoid the memory of a more recent journey home with Robert, when I had thought myself a free woman.

I hated the fact that I’d been unable to prepare him and my family for this latest development, and that Joan and Jane, and possibly my son, knew nothing of my marriage to William. My youngest children had been happy to have me living in the same house with them, without a man insisting on my undivided attention most of the day and all of the night. I anticipated tears when they realized that William would be sharing my bedchamber and my life. I tried to reassure myself that at least he was not a stranger to them. They had met him before, and he had been, though distant, never mean to them. He would do well to remain so, for my children would always be first in my heart.

But Robert … my beloved, true husband. My letter to him had been clumsy for I’d found it most painful to write. The look on his face when he met the barge was one of betrayal and shattered hope. But he quickly gained control of himself and welcomed William. I, however, felt as if I might be sick and dared not meet his eyes.

Joan and Jane were confused, but William greeted them with such hilariously exaggerated courtesy that for days he had but to bow to them to reduce them both to giggles. For that I was grateful. I had not expected such sensitivity. Mary Percy ignored him, but that was her wont. I had recently agreed to her having her own lady’s maid, and the two of them gossiped and simpered in a corner of the hall as they bent over their embroidery and other stitching most of the day. I counted it a godsend that she was thus occupied.

Gwen was very quiet. We had been through so many changes together, but this one seemed the most difficult for her to accept. As she tidied my bedchamber the first night at Gaynes, I asked for her thoughts, for she seemed sad.

“I cannot bear to see you so unhappy when—” She pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment, her expression embarrassed. “Forgive me, Dame Alice. I forget my place.”

“You are one of my oldest and dearest companions, Gwen. You are welcome to speak freely whenever we are alone.”

“In Master Robert you have found a husband you love and respect and enjoy being with. I fear what will happen now. How long can you play the role of Sir William’s wife? How will Master Robert bear it? How will you?”

“I do not know what will become of us, Gwen. Each time I believe I am free, I am shackled anew.”

She sighed and latched the chest she had filled, pressing her hands to her lower back as she rose. She would age someday, and I would lose her—if I did not go first. I could not imagine my life without her.

“Perhaps Sir William will surprise you,” she said, without conviction.

Nor could I imagine it. On his best behavior, William drank moderately the first evening at Gaynes. We began it in pleasant conversation, and ended it in a rough coupling. But the following morning I woke to find him gone. The servants said that he had ridden out early.

I sought out Robert in the fields. His sun-bleached hair, the way his skin wrinkled about his eyes when he squinted against the light, the way he held himself … it was all familiar and dear to me. But his greeting was too formal. I talked over it, told him all that had transpired at Westminster. We walked along the hedgerow he had been inspecting while I talked, then paused in an old shed, sitting side by side on a wobbly bench.

“They have no right,” he said, staring at the mud floor.

I put my hand over his. “It is I who have no rights, Robert. It seems I never had. My father arranged my marriage with Janyn, and Janyn bound me to the queen’s household.”

“If you might choose …?”

He had turned to look me in the eyes. As he did so my side of the bench gave way. He caught me in his arms, lifting us both to our feet.

“I
have
chosen you, Robert. Surely you can see that in my eyes?
Surely I made that plain during our nights together, and in pledging my troth?”

We kissed long and tenderly, pressing ourselves against each other.

“God may yet set this right,” he whispered.

“I do not dare to hope, but I pray William will quickly tire of the pretense and leave us in peace.”

“Until then, I shall watch over you, Alice.”

I did not like those words,
until then
. “Robert, we shall be together when he is away. Surely we need not deny our love?”

He shook his head. “I cannot share you with him, Alice.”

I felt panic rising. “Robert, do not punish me! I am doing this for us. Protecting you, protecting my children—” I broke off, hearing Janyn telling me he had arranged my summons to court for my safety, for Bella’s. “What have I done, Robert?”

He took my hands and stared at them, kissed each in turn, then looked up at me. His love for me was writ on his face, and also his pain. But he managed a crooked smile. “You have done what had to be done. I could not love you as I do and believe for a moment that you would be able to bear a separation from your children.”

“No, I could not.” I took a deep breath. “What will you do now?”

“I will stay away from you as much as possible, travel to our distant properties, oversee them.” He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, gently, tenderly, then backed away. “This is how it must be, for now. I cannot stay, Alice. I would do him violence.”

We parted there. Later that day he rode off to a distant manor.

Gradually, after much prayer and thought, I calmed myself and strove continually to be grateful for all that I had, to push away the yearning for what I had not.

In the next few weeks we entertained a stream of guests—Richard Lyons, Dom Hanneye, Geoffrey, Pippa, and their son Thomas, my brother John and his family. I had urged William to allow us some quiet in which to adjust, but he wished all to congratulate us. He wanted to know my family and friends. As I observed him with our guests, I realized how little we knew of each other.

On the first morning of Richard’s visit I proposed we should all go hawking. It was a mild February day, and Joan and Jane had asked if we might. My daughters were utterly entranced by the hawks and all the ritual surrounding hunting with birds.

“A tedious pastime.” William was slumped on a bench near the fire circle in the hall, staring into it as if conjuring spirits. He did not even look up to pronounce his opinion. With a wave of his hand, he added, “Be gone if you will. I shall find other occupation.”

Even Mary Percy showed more interest, though her participation began with much simpering about how the various birds should be assigned, according to the status of the hawker, with insulting references to Geoffrey, Richard, and myself being unworthy of our falcons.

“Your poor son,” Richard whispered in my ear, “he will be wanting a gentle, sweet-natured mistress within days of setting up household with that shrew.”

The guest in whom William took most interest was Pippa Chaucer, hungrily eyeing the rounds of her breasts accentuated by the cut of her gown. At first she shamelessly flirted with him, to Geoffrey’s discomfort, but she cooled on him one evening when he asked too many questions about her sister Katherine, some of them crude. His thin veneer of courtesy was easily dissolved by brandywine.

“Being Lancaster’s man, I should think you see far more of my sister than I do,” she said curtly, and moved away to talk to Richard.

William chose that moment to launch a volley of insults my way. As he had referred to Katherine as Lancaster’s concubine, he called me the king’s. I’d “not had the wit to find a real husband after Janyn’s death, but fell into the aged king’s bed with no thought to the future.”

I’d encountered drunks before, but none with the power so to sting me, to twist the knives that plainly protruded from my still-grieving heart.

I glanced at Geoffrey’s face, livid with anger, and shook my head.

“My friend, do not engage him in argument. He is beyond reason when in his cups.”

T
HE FISSURE
between William and me yawned wider as our guests departed. He was not accustomed to life in a country manor. He had no patience for accounts, less interest in plans. He belittled me for gardening—“peasants’ work”—and I berated him for his increasing nastiness toward the children, not only Joan and Jane but my nieces and nephews, too. I thanked God that I had taken precautions not to become pregnant. Mary spoke of finding somewhere else to lodge, and I eventually agreed that she was better off in my home in London. Of
course, then William, too, wished to remove to my home in London, to “see to business.”