The People's Queen (22 page)

Sullenly, reluctantly, the Princess grunts. To John's astonishment, she appears to have conceded that Peter is talking sense.

There is a silence. As he catches his breath, and ponders, John realises uncomfortably that he doesn't fully understand why Peter de la Mare would want to apply a higher standard of proof to the question of Alice Perrers' infamy than the Princess does. What does it matter what they say she's done? They all know the woman's a bad lot, and if the Princess wants her punished, then surely they should be working on ways to use what they have against her. There's more going on here than he has understood.

Cautiously, he raises his eyes sideways to snatch a furtive glance at the speaker and see if he can read extra layers of meaning on his brother's face. As he does so, Peter stops walking.

'It's been my ambition, for some time,' he says, looking very searchingly into every one of the faces now turning towards him like flowers to the light, 'to use the next Parliament to put real, serious charges against the court clique, and anyone who has been promoting and supporting them. Perrers is one of the people I'd like to investigate. I want to rid the country of their corruption for once and for all. Like you, madame' - he bows towards the Princess - 'I believe that this corruption may go higher, far higher, than Perrers and her cronies. I suspect that your royal brother-in-law has been...unwise, to say the least, in his choice of associates. He may indeed be trying to build secret associations of allies at court, and perhaps also in London, and in the country at large, for reasons of his own that we can only guess at. I agree that he needs to be reined in; and it's my view that if we succeed in framing serious charges against Mistress Perrers and her friends, the Duke will, at the very least, learn from his creatures' fate, and give up whatever his own private plan has been. But
our
plan will only work if we are absolutely clear as to what our purpose is. We must work to frame one clear set of charges. We must be able to prove them. We must be able to condemn Perrers and her friends through the application of the law - which, since we suspect them of acting against the law, should not be difficult. And we mustn't let anything turn us aside from that purpose.'

He pauses. He says, 'Do you agree?'

'Be simpler just to get her for witchcraft, wouldn't it?' barks Sir John, trying to assert himself at last. He's the one with the family title, after all; with the deep lines like gorges through his face to prove his experience in France and knowledge of life. He should be taking charge. He laughs, a whiskery, rustic, drunken, bullying sort of laugh. The kind of laugh he gives when he's trying to impress, or strike fear into people. It seldom works.

It doesn't now. Peter turns to him. 'Only if you can prove her a witch, brother,' he says calmly. 'In a way that everyone in the land would believe, in their hearts, to be true. And even if you could, that isn't the aim we want to achieve, is it? It's the corruption eating away at England that we want to root out, not Mistress Perrers herself. She's only a symptom of the disease. We want to get the cause.'

But John has already dropped his eyes. It's not Peter who's quelled him. It's the utterly malevolent stare his other brother, the Abbot, is bending his way.

'This is a problem of power. It's about the misuse of money and power,' Peter says, and the Princess nods. 'It goes higher than Perrers. It may, Heaven forfend, stretch right up to certain members of the royal family. Likewise, the solution needs to be clearly about power, and money, and corruption.

'What we need now is information about these people's financial dealings, not about their use of magical herbs,' he continues. 'We need information about the way they abuse power they shouldn't have.'

There's a silence, while the brothers look at each other. Sir John shrugs helplessly. 'I don't know anything about financial dealings,' he says, then tries, inanely for a nobleman's joke. 'I'm no bailiff.'

'I think', Peter says, 'that there are certain things I must find out for myself.'

The Princess nods again. 'I see you are the man for the job, Sir Peter,' she says. 'My lord Abbot, you've done well to think of introducing me to your brother.' There's respect in her voice. Even though she hasn't for a moment stopped thinking of, and worrying about, her husband, being moved off his stretcher inside, she almost smiles.

The Abbot nods, with apparent courtesy. But he isn't paying full attention. He's let his eyes slide sideways towards his brother John, who's looking foolishly left out, and knows it; he's scuffing his toes on the flagstones. John, if no one else, saw the fugitive look of satisfaction on the Abbot's face when the Princess humiliatingly ignored him. John is burning inside.

TWELVE

The woods outside Eltham are as dead as world's end. Not a bird, not a rabbit, just the clip of hooves on hardened mud, the rustle of old dead leaves and the creak of harness.

Alice watches the plumes of horse-breath rise, white on white.

She will be glad to be away.

The court's Christmas at Eltham was to have been a joy: three hundred people, with Alice as their female figurehead, in the Queen's jewels. She organised it meticulously: the hunts, the feasts, the fireworks, the minstrels, the troupes of actors, the private moments with Edward, the lavish New Year's gifts. Alice's pleasure at the prospect stemmed largely from the certainty that there would be no need to kow-tow, no need to hide away pretending some other, nobler, lady was in charge. Princess Joan would be safely locked up at Riseberg, nursing her husband. The Duke's Castilian Duchess, Constanza, would spend the holiday locked up at Hertford with her little girl and her Castilian ladies. But the Duke himself, invited on the King's behalf by Alice, months ago, had bowed and declared, graciously, that it would be his great pleasure to be with his father. He'd added, in a laughing, arch, undertone, 'And, of course, with Madame Perrers.' Alice liked that. From the beginning, Alice has thought of the Duke's near-single status as an advantage in making him her patron: his relations with his Duchess are so remote that there's never been the least risk of a hostile, suspicious wife whispering negative things about Alice in his ear.

So, for all the months she was planning Christmas, she was looking forward to having the two most important men in the land, dancing attendance on her alone for two weeks clear, grateful for the elegant festival she'd organised for them.

She doesn't even like to remember that hope now. False, all of it, dust and ashes in her mouth. For, shortly before the retinues began arriving at Eltham Palace, the Duke's steward asked for a private audience and then, squirming and staring at his feet, asked whether she'd thought to invite Madame Swynford. At her politely bewildered headshake - of course she hadn't invited either of the de Roet sisters, for surely they had plans of their own, and in any case wasn't Madame Swynford planning to be with her charges at Hertford, or away in the country with her own children? - the man only squirmed harder, and went pinker. In strangulated tones, he finally brought out the words he'd been told to say: 'My lord of Lancaster...my lord the King of Castile...asks that Madame Swynford be included.' Alice could see, from the way he was behaving, that the steward, too, had at some point been stung by that swaying, supercilious creature, with her gentle voice and the polite contempt in her eyes. When she stared, then, recovering herself and saying gently, enquiringly, 'I
see...
?' the steward refused to be drawn into confidences. Still, Alice couldn't help but feel uneasy.

Not that, at first, there seemed any real cause for that unease. The holiday started as well as she'd ever dreamed it might.

The Duke arrived first, and alone (alone, that is, ducal style - with only a retinue of thirty or forty at his heels). And he was in good health, with roses in his cheeks and a spring in his step, and in good humour, and pleased to see her. His eyes lit up as she came out on to the steps to greet him. He said, 'Ah, Madame Perrers, my dear friend.' He bowed. He kissed her hand.

As soon as he'd seen his rooms and washed the travel dirt off him, she whisked him off to stroll with her in the snowy garden. Her idea was to make little spaces in every day when they could be alone together, and talk freely. In case he proved reluctant this first time, or weary from the road, she told him, in a voice so quiet that he had to draw closer to catch her words, that she needed to talk to him about his father. She was shaking her head sadly to prepare him for what would follow. He came without question. Even before she'd said anything more, he looked concerned. She rushed on with her speech as they stepped out along the scraped paths, between bushes bowed with cloudy white. She did what she could to make my lord comfortable and happy, she said, but the Duke would find him...she paused, and searched for a delicate word...failing.

The Duke looked stricken at that, as a man of strong family loyalty, not to mention respect for a King who'd been so great, easily might. Slowly, he shook his head, and Alice could see him being overwhelmed by memories of Edward in his glory. Alice warmed to the Duke's obviously genuine sorrow, shared it even, while at the same time a hidden part of her thrilled, secretly, that she and this other man had such a natural starting-point for their murmured, intimate conversation.

'It's hard for me to believe he's getting old, Madame Perrers,' the Duke said wistfully. 'When he's always been so...' He paused. He looked helpless. He spread his hands. He's a sincere man, the Duke, open and generous in his emotions, but not one for elegant phrases.

'Glorious...' Alice prompted, finding him a word and agreeing with him all at once. Gratefully, he nodded.

She took her cue. It wouldn't do to mention Edward's success in France - such a painful subject for the King's son - but she could dwell a little on other glories.

'Do you remember his fiftieth birthday?' she reminisced, as if they could share the memory. She didn't remember it, as it happened; the jubilee, with its feasting, the special Parliament, and the law making English the language of the law, was before Alice's time. But John wasn't a man for detail. She didn't think he'd notice.

He sighed nostalgically. Alice could see he was proud to remember himself and his brothers, back on that day, being called into Parliament to have the great new titles Edward was creating conferred on them. The new dukedom of Clarence for Lionel, still alive back then; little Edward made Earl of Cambridge; and, of course, John himself elevated from Earl to Duke of Lancaster. A solemn oath, a pass of the sword: Edward's reflected glory.

'And the years when there were jousts every month...' the Duke added in the hushed, respectful voice of a hero-worshipping boy: '...which he always won...?'

'And his hunting...' Alice breathed, spinning out the magic thread of narrative a little further for him. Long after Edward stopped being able to win a joust, he went on enjoying his hunting. It's only recently that the King's spending on dogs and his dozens of birds of prey - gerfalcons, goshawks, tiercels, lannerets, you name it - has dipped below PS600 a year, as much as the average baron's annual income from rents. He always did look magnificent with a bird on his arm.

Duke John sighed. After a silence, he began to smile. Tenderly, though. He went on: 'And the food...'

Alice grinned back. Edward didn't believe servants should eat more than two dishes a day - modesty in everything, he liked to say; don't want them eating me out of house and home. But when it came to his own requirements, well, that was a different matter. Piles of food were required to fuel the jousting, hunting monarch: entire hillocks of beef, and pigeon, and carp. Edward liked eight dishes set before him at every meal, five before the lords eating with him, three before his gentlemen, and two before his grooms. It was a miracle he'd never got fat.

'That's changed now,' she said, bringing them back down to earth. 'He pecks at his food...he's been losing weight.'

The Duke shook his head. But he'd got the tempo of the conversation now. 'It's a comfort to know he has you at his side, at least,' he went warmly on, turning his face sideways to meet her eyes, giving her such an affectionate look that she gave his arm a grateful squeeze with the freezing hand she'd slipped through it. 'I'm very aware of your devotion to him. I know I can be sure that you'll always give him the best possible care.'

Modestly, Alice looked down. Freezing hands or no, there was warmth going right through her at this.

'You must let me know what I can do to help...But...So much going on...There's Bruges coming up; I'll have to leave right after Christmas, as you know...unless you think...' The Duke paused again, unwilling to voice the next difficult thought. '...that the talks should be delayed?'

Alice could see he meant, but couldn't bear to say, 'Unless you think the old man's about to die any day?'

She didn't think he'd want to be overseas when
that
happened.

Reassuringly, she shook her head. 'No, no,' she said, finding herself imitating the Duke's awkward style of speech, 'he's changeable, quite well some days, and, well, wandering, on others, but he's not...not yet...Well, you'll see for yourself.' She squeezed his arm again. 'He's happy you're off to Bruges,' she added stoutly. 'He'll know everything will be done properly with you in charge. He trusts you, absolutely.'

She glanced up at him again, sideways. Brightly, she went on: 'You're taking Master Wyclif with you, I hear.'

She was thinking: It never does any harm to remind people you've come up with an idea to help them, after all.

She caught him glancing sideways at her. They both smiled. 'A good man,' the Duke said warmly. 'And a wise one. I'm grateful to you for suggesting that.'

Make yourself indispensible, Alice told herself. Make yourself needed.

Alice could already almost see a future in which a slightly older version of herself (quietly, maybe; without titles and pretensions, almost certainly; but with all her present influence and wealth maintained intact) whispered into the ear of a slightly silvered version of this man, to whom she'd long become indispensible as an adviser...a future in which her ideas, as if by magic, then became reality. A future in which she was not cut off from power by Edward's death, whenever it came, but brought still closer to it.

By the time they went back inside, so the Duke, now forewarned, could pay his respects to his father, Alice was so full of confidence that Christmastide would make her and Duke John firm friends that she'd almost forgotten about Katherine Swynford.

But, only an hour later, La Swynford appeared.

When she walked unannounced into the great hall, Duke John - who'd been standing by his father near the fireplace, looking at the old man with anxious affection as he described his journey, clearly wondering just how strange, or sick, the King was likely to be in the next few days - flicked himself round on his heels, saw the newcomer, and let his face soften into an expression of obvious devotion that Alice found embarrassing in a hard-faced man in his thirties. 'Excuse me,' he said, nodding to Alice and his father without looking at either of them, and he made off across the hall towards Katherine.

Alice raised pointedly astonished eyebrows at Edward. She was hoping, at least, to share a moment of mockery with him at the incongruity of it. Duke John, in love with a nursery companion - someone he'd seen when she was a snotty-nosed little girl with tangly hair and dirty face. But Edward was clearly enjoying his son's display of emotion, and, to Alice's worsening disappointment, applauding his choice. He raised puckish eyebrows back, but all he said was, 'Good, excellent,' and then: 'Pretty girl, Katherine.'

There was no respite after that. There were no more quiet walks in the gardens with the Duke, no sense of almost-family deepening. Katherine Swynford stayed to the bitter end, till 2 January. She didn't go out to the big public parties, but she attended every private family event, hanging on John of Gaunt's arm like a limpet. She didn't go out of her way to make Alice feel uncomfortable, either, by being rude, or critical, or mocking. It just happened that, in her presence, Alice was all fingers and thumbs, spilling things or letting them slip or stumbling over them, feeling badly turned out and lumpish, unable to think of charming things to say to keep the conversation turning. Nor was it because Katherine Swynford was unimpressed by Alice's arrangements that she ate next to nothing, she assured everyone. 'An indisposition,' she said faintly, waving away an offer of food in her rooms, 'it's nothing.' When, after the handing-out of family gifts and before she left, she passed out and had to be revived with vinegar, Edward eagerly pressed the sour rag to her nose and said, with blind affection, 'There, you see, my dear, you should have been eating more!'

That was the moment the Duke picked to walk back in, in his cloak, ready to take Alice out for the long-awaited walk in the bare garden that she'd asked for so often. ('I'd like to know your impressions of my lord's state of mind,' she'd murmured persuasively, 'now you've had a chance to talk with him.') One look at the scene sent the Duke, again, running towards Katherine Swynford with concern all over his face. Alice could see at once that there was no blindness about
him. He
knew why she'd fainted, all right. With blackness in her heart, Alice turned towards the window, to look at the white on white of outside.

When the Duke left, alone again but for his retinue, she stood on the steps with them all listening and formally wished him success at Bruges. He, in turn, thanked her formally for welcoming him at Christmas. He didn't seem to be aware that she'd hoped for much more, or that she might be disappointed. He even smiled quite affectionately at her, then stepped forward, and, speaking quietly so they couldn't all hear, said, 'My father seems...' and paused, searching for a word. He looked relieved.

'A little better?' she supplied, carefully filleting the impatience she felt out of her voice.

He nodded. 'Please,' he went on, 'send word, as soon as...if anything...changes.'

That was positive, at least. It just wasn't nearly positive enough.

She let them all leave, even Edward, before setting off herself. She said there were a lot of things at Eltham for her to sort out. She said she'd need a few days in London.

One of the things she did, before leaving, was to seek out Duke John's steward for a private chat and, part-bullyingly, part-cajolingly, part-pretending to know more than she did, extracted the information from him that Madame Swynford, that goddess of beauty and deceit and fertility, was not just bringing up her own four Swynford children in Lincolnshire but had also quietly gone off and given birth, early the previous year, to an earlier son by the Duke of Lancaster. John, the baby was called; John Beaufort. 'Ah, yes,' she said, when the steward finally spat out the name. She managed a mischievous, knowing smile. It felt as though it was cracking her face. 'That's it. Of course. John. I'd half remembered Edward.'