The King's Mistress (68 page)

“His fellow Flemings in the city looked to him for leadership,” said Robert. “He felt responsible for them.”

“We all live with our own guilt,” said Wykeham. “We played a game of chance, profiting from the war in France. It does not matter that it has always been so; we knew we were taking a risk.”

I shook my head. “I cannot accept this was in any way just.”

Wykeham halfheartedly patted my hand. “Pray God we learn from it. We have a choice how we live.”

After Wykeham departed, slumped in the saddle, his spirit depleted, as was mine, Robert led me to my bedchamber and sat with me as I wept for my loyal and loving friend, and feared for the others in London. He assured me that Geoffrey and my family would be safe.

“They have nothing to single them out to the crowd. But I will go to London to seek news.”

I clung to him, forbidding him to leave me and ride into danger. I could not bear it if I lost Robert.

W
HEN THE
king’s troops had put down the rebellion and London was quiet, Robert and I left the children in Winchester and rode to the city to see to our families and friends. My siblings and their families were blessedly unscathed, although Mary’s in-laws’ home had been damaged. Geoffrey was subdued, leading us round the city to view the destruction. It was as if a mighty fist had come down on the Savoy and then swept its rubble into the Thames. Even a week later, debris floated in the water. Bloodstained pillars and posts were visible in the streets where Flemings and other foreigners, including Lombards, had lived.

Geoffrey joined Robert and me at the requiem Mass for Richard Lyons.

The morning after the service, as I woke from a troubled sleep, Gwen greeted me with the unpleasant news that William was in the hall. I had heard nothing of him since returning to the city.

He was dressed more elegantly than he had been of late and wore a badge indicating he was in the king’s household.

“What is this, William?”

“I wished to show you that I am still appreciated. That I have not come to ruin over our failed marriage.”

“I am glad, though I never thought you would come to ruin on my account. You have lived apart from me most of your life, with every appearance of success.” I hated the coldness of my own voice, but I felt nothing for William and would not pretend otherwise. I did invite him to share some wine and tell me his news.

He continued to find favor with King Richard, receiving modest gifts from the king, much as I had when first in Queen Philippa’s household—some property, rents, a few wardships.

I thought perhaps he might now consider revising the provision of a trust for his nephew in his will, so that my former properties might go to my children, particularly my daughters.

“I do not ask this for me, but for them. You have a sufficient estate of your own to leave your nephew.”

He laughed. “Always scheming! You get a pinched look when you scheme, Alice. It does not become you. Had you given me a son and heir, John Wyndsor would have been forgotten.”

“You should have told Lancaster to command me to conceive a son, William. But I do not recall that being a part of the arrangement explained to me at Westminster.”

He was still laughing as he departed. I did not see him again for more than a year.

L
IFE HAD
settled into a comfortable pattern. Joan and Jane attended school in the city in autumn and winter, making friends with the children of my childhood friends and many others. My daughters had a way about them that endeared them to their peers. Bella did as well, having recently been encouraged to assist the infirmarian because of her ability to calm those in distress. I felt my old guilt about leaving my children so often in the care of others begin to melt away. Except for John. Except for my son.

Memories of my notoriety seemed to fade from the London community. Any criticism of my family now concerned my absent husband’s bad behavior. Gwen and I were free to stroll through the markets, taking up the life we had lived before our days at court.

During the long winter nights Robert and I made most delicious, affectionate, passionate love, and in between bared our souls to each other. We disproved my old belief that no person ever shared their entire being with another—though I understood that it was only through experience and pain that we had arrived at such a miracle.

In spring we retired to Fair Meadow and Gaynes. It was bliss to have Robert by my side. But ever I worried about John. I heard vague rumors that the expedition in Portugal was disappointing.

When he returned the following summer, John was quiet and withdrawn. Though delighted to have their big brother home, Joan and Jane tiptoed in his presence. At twelve and ten they were mature enough to discern his need for privacy and reflection.

Unfortunately, before John had recovered sufficiently to confide in me, William appeared. I silently cursed him for returning after more than a year to ruin this time with my son, but I could not turn him away. He was legally my husband, and it was his right to bide in the house. His presence sent my mind and heart into shadowy places filled with hateful imaginings and robbed me of my anchor in Robert. Worst of all, I feared his influence on John.

On William’s first morning in my home I was awakened by his shouts down in the hall. I hurriedly dressed and went to the top of the
steps to listen and assess what to do. I was accustomed to mitigating the effects of his ill temper on the household.

“You ungrateful wretch!” William was shouting. “I arranged your post and you disgrace me like this? I placed you in the service of the Duke of Lancaster and you rebel against his brother? You have ruined me, you graceless, arrogant bastard!”

I hurried down to them. Considering the hour, I felt anxious to discover my son sharing a tankard of ale with William, both looking as if they had been drinking through the night.

I pounded my fist on the table to prevent another round of cursing.

“I remind you, William, that you are speaking to the son of the former king, Lancaster’s half brother. You might have fooled him at fourteen into thinking he needed you to approach the duke, but he knows better now. In his veins flows royal blood.”

John reached out to grab the tankard from William, but I intercepted, removing the temptation.

“What a sorry sight you both are, and so early in the morning. Get back to your rooms before Joan and Jane see you so.”

For a week John retreated into silence, taking long walks or lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling. William disappeared. I sought out Geoffrey to learn the truth of the matter.

“It seems John is in disfavor with Lancaster. He led a near mutiny in Portugal, against Edmund of Langley, his commander,” said Geoffrey. “Word is just beginning to circulate on the streets now that the men have come home.”

“A mutiny? How did I not hear of this? Surely at court—”

“There you are seen as the mother of the mutineer—not a person in whom to confide.”

“I might have interceded.” I was frightened for John, knowing all too well what a formidable enemy Lancaster could be.

Geoffrey put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “I shall investigate the matter fully and come to you.”

On the day my friend sent me word that he had the information, I requested that John be present for the report.

“You have made it plain since your return that you do not wish to explain your situation to me, and so I shall hear it from Geoffrey. But you must hear it also, learn what people are saying of you. You must know where you stand, John. The longer you hide, the harder everything will be.”

By some alchemy William appeared at the door at almost the same moment as Geoffrey.

We sat, an unhappy foursome, in my parlor, away from the servants’ ears and the curiosity of John’s young sisters.

Dressed in dark, quietly elegant clothing, his hair and beard freshly trimmed, Geoffrey served a stark contrast to William’s fiercely bright garb but disheveled self and to John’s diminished flesh in clothes sagging now because too large for him.

Geoffrey began addressing me, describing the situation about which I had heard so little. How Edmund of Langley’s troops had grown restive over his indifferent leadership and their lack of pay for almost a year. His knights accused him of keeping the money for himself and the King of Portugal of betraying them. Among themselves, the knights proposed bonding together into a brotherhood under the flag of St. George, and becoming such nuisances that Langley would have to heed their grievances.

“John was chosen to be their leader, no doubt because he was half brother to Langley.” Geoffrey nodded at my son.

John sighed, never lifting his gaze from the floor. And how could he resist such an “honor,” I thought, when his purpose had been to win back the honor of which Mary Percy’s insulting petition had robbed him.

The knights had set off under their flag, with the battle cry “For Southery, the valiant bastard!” to make war on the King of Portugal. Oh, my son! I could not look at him while Geoffrey spoke of this. They were saved by the intervention of more experienced English knights who convinced them of the folly of battling the king thus. Instead, they urged John to present their grievances to his half brother.

“John countered Langley’s claim that the war was not his but the King of Portugal’s with the proposal that, if it were so, the knights would simply take their wages by overrunning the country, each man taking what he might. Langley reminded John of the consequences of mutiny, and the dishonor he would thus bring on his cousin the King of England.”

I turned to John. “I can imagine how proud you must have felt to be so trusted by your fellows, my son. I am not condemning you. I wish to know only what was in your mind. Hear your account of this.”

At last he looked me in the eye. “I had come to my senses even before Langley reminded me of my duty … of the honor I owed you
and the king. It was the heat, the thirst, the tedium, that had robbed me of my good sense. I made a fool of myself.”

“No, not a fool. You are but seventeen,” I said.

“The king is two years my junior and would never behave so.”

“John is courageous!” William cried, applauding him, apparently forgetting he’d earlier called John a disgrace. “Langley then sent knights to treat with King Ferdinand, and the men received their wages.”

“And Ferdinand then made a treaty with Castile, rendering the entire expedition pointless,” Geoffrey said. “And now the king has assigned a commission to arrest the mutineers. Nineteen have been named.”

My heart ached at the pain in my son’s expression. He bowed his head.

“I know,” he said. “His Grace addressed me with much anger, but as I am family chose to believe that the others had put me forward to treat with my half brother against my will. King Richard made me out to be but a child, easily led.”

“I hardly believe he could think that,” said Geoffrey. “Froissart says that when Langley gathered the men together to pay them, you said, ‘Now see if this mutiny has not served its purpose! He who is feared fares well.’”

I was dismayed to hear that the Fleming had included this incident in his chronicle. It would haunt John for life now.

“And still I am pardoned while my brothers-in-arms are punished,” he said.

Geoffrey met my gaze and shrugged.

“He proved himself a bit of his mother, a bit of his father, eh?” said William. “Greedy for his money, brave as a fighting cock.”

“Be still, William, you embarrass yourself,” I said, rising. “John, we shall discuss this more anon. Come out to see the tenements and shops I have built, Geoffrey.”

Better to leave William alone to drink himself into a stupor or disappear to a tavern where the women were more pleasing to him. I prayed he would soon depart. I yearned to have Robert beside me again.

But John did not recover from his shame. How I wished his father were still alive. Edward would have known how to turn this around, would have known how to save his son, and John would have listened. He needed his father. He had been deprived of him too young. Now I
could find no way to reach him. Nor could his sisters, nor Robert, nor Geoffrey. He eventually took up drinking, and I shuddered to think what else, with William.

I tried to focus on Joan and Jane, on Robert, but a sense of dread that I had failed my beloved son so weakened me that I fell sick with fever. I was so afraid for John. Bella came and cared for me for half the autumn. And in that time my son used the excuse of my illness to take up residence with William.

He returned at Christmas, William in tow.

“We are a family, Mother.”

John looked older than his seventeen years—his complexion poor, his eyes glassy, as if feverish. I went from being nursed to nursing, coaxing him to eat, to ride out into the fresh air.

That winter William obtained the keeping of the castle and town of Cherbourg in Normandy. He was to have all ransoms and gains of war by land and sea, and the king would provide his shipping, food, weapons, and an annual fee of £4,000. It was a more lucrative honor than William had expected.

“Will you go to Cherbourg?” I asked when he announced his boon at the dinner table.

“In time. But to begin I shall send a deputy.” He turned to smile at my son.

The expression on John’s face, of delight and pride tempered with a hint of guilt, bespoke an agreement long kept secret from me.

My heart stopped. “Why John?”

“It will be a fine opportunity for him.”

“If it is such a fine opportunity, why send a deputy? Are you not man enough to go yourself?”

“I want to go, Mother,” said John. “I am grateful for the chance to prove myself to King Richard.”

“Why not send your beloved nephew and heir, William?” I asked. “Why waste your benefices on my son?”

William smirked.

“Why do you risk my only son?” I demanded.

John came to sit beside me. Putting an arm round me, he said, “You will see, Mother. You will be proud of me.”

“I
am
proud of you, John.”