The People's Queen (38 page)

Making an effort to respond, Alice smiles, and does her stunned best to enter the make-believe. A little faintly, still, she agrees: 'Seasons to remember.' And Edward nods, with new vigour. He's pleased she's joining in with his plan.

She feels like a stray cat who's crept in off the street, only to find a warm place waiting by the fire, and a bowl of cream. It's not a return to the old days, exactly. She knows that all she's got is a short reprieve as royal nursemaid, in this palace-turned-hospital, for the brief remainder of Edward's life. At least that's what she's being offered right now. But she's seen the gleam in the Duke's eye. He's out for more, all right.

And so Alice can't help herself go further, in her thoughts at least. If she can use this time to dig herself back into favour with the Duke, help him neutralise his enemies and erase the disastrous events of the past months from history...then she will be at hand, too, to help him when the time comes for Edward...when the Duke could rise right to the top...

...bypass the little boy...

Unlike the Duke, Alice isn't afraid to think that thought.

In fact, that thought has always been part of Alice's wish to get close to the Duke. Alice believes that a close relationship with Duke John represents power in the most direct form available to her, because Alice has always believed that the Duke would, one day, find the temptation to seize the throne of England from his child nephew irresistible.

There's more waiting out there for him, surely, if he only has the wit and nerve to see it, and take it.

And now the glittering prospect that Alice has thought, these past months of reverse and disappointment, had moved out of her reach seems, again, temptingly, to be just about within grabbing range.

Could there be more for her too? Couldn't there be?

Couldn't she, after all, become Duke John's adviser...couldn't she walk back into power, following his star?

TWENTY-NINE

Edward doesn't die.

The violent colour and swelling ebb, day by day, from his impostume. His mind clears. After ten days, Alice thinks he might be well enough to travel to Havering, their private palace, where she hopes the quiet of the woods and the dreaminess of the sky will help him come fully back to himself.

On each of those ten days, she dines with the Duke, in a parlour, away from the eyes of the household. And, every day, she becomes a little more certain that she has a future, even after Edward.

The Duke confers with Alice, every day, and listens carefully to her advice. The Duke, who has no one else to consult at the moment, since La Swynford is away at Kettlethorpe with another bun in the oven, and he can't reveal his secret hopes to most people, is eating out of her hand.

Her advice is harsh. Alice has found the iron in her soul in the lonely weeks of this rain-sodden summer. She doesn't mind revealing that. She feels her vengeful mood matches that of her dining companion. 'Shouldn't de la Mare be arrested?' she says, narrow-eyed; and straightaway the order goes out for the knight of Herefordshire, sometime Forespeaker of the Good Parliament of 1376, to be flung into a dungeon in the Duke's castle at Nottingham, with no prospect of a trial. 'Shouldn't you send my lord of March away?' she suggests as the knowledge of her new power stirs and thickens in her. Duke John immediately orders his trouble-making cousin to Calais to be governor of the garrison there. When the Earl refuses, fearing for his life in the claustrophobic confines of the castle in the marshes of northern France, the Duke has him stripped of his post as Marshal of England. He gives that honour to March's enemy, Henry, Lord Percy.

'Good,' Alice says, and the Duke glows.

They look at each other through narrowed eyes, planning the next move: the tame Parliament, staffed by John's placemen, whose speaker will be John's own steward, which will cancel the previous Parliament's decisions and grant the King a tax for war.

They're egging each other on to be harder, and harsher, every day.

Alice finds it intoxicating, seeing her enemies fall without having to lift a finger. She only has to breathe a wish for revenge, and it comes true.

She understands that the Duke is shy of discussing the ultimate motive for clearing his opponents out of power. She respects that. She doesn't mention it either. Softly softly, she thinks; we'll prepare the ground now, and then later...

When he does get around to making his move, Alice thinks triumphantly, he'll know I've been with him all the way; and how he'll thank me.

John of Gaunt enjoys those weeks of narrow eyes and hard, quick, violent moves. The conversations with Madame Perrers - in which every time a hated name comes up, a terrible solution to the problem of that enemy's existence is quickly broached, he doesn't know quite by whom, and, before he quite realises what's happened, that person is no longer a threat - have restored to him his sense of himself as a man of action. He's lost that frozen immobility that came on him during the Parliament. He's forgotten the feeling he doesn't want to call fear.

It's only after Alice and the King and a slow, slow baggage train have set off for Havering that John returns to the Council, and the Savoy, and his senses.

Perhaps it's the fact that his father's crisis has passed. Madame Perrers' return seems to have saved the old man. He's relieved that the King isn't going to die just yet. He dreads his father's passing, always has, and now more than ever. He dreads the writhing worm in his own gut when he thinks of it; the sense of fateful decisions waiting to be made, ones that he may always regret.

Or perhaps it's the letter that's waiting at the Savoy, from Katherine, which reminds him of the blissful look in her eyes, and the gentleness of the face above her swelling belly, and her peaceable thought on the night they parted as she put his hands on the kicking inside herself. The letter says: 'If this is a boy, we'll call him Richard. And if it's a girl, we'll call her Joan.'

He reads it and understands. Katherine wants him to make his peace with his brother the Prince's family. By offering to name her child after one or other of them, she's suggesting a way.

The relief that comes from that sudden understanding spreads right through his body. John knows - has known for all these weeks, really - that what he's been doing, as he orders arrests and Parliaments, as he strides around, tightvoiced, hard-muscled, allowing Madame Perrers' admiration to push him further, every day, than he might otherwise go, is quietly preparing for the day when, after his father's death, he might try...

He can hardly bear to think it.

...might try to seize power.

Once the thought's out, once he's had a moment or two to examine it and comprehend how much it's influenced his every move, all autumn, the relief spreads.

It's simply not in him to do that, he realises. He's not that man. It would never have been possible.

However young Richard is, however untested, however unsuited to kingship in time of war, he's still Edward's son: the true heir; God's anointed. And he, John, is a man of honour. A man of action, true; but only virtuous, knightly action. A man of duty. And he knows his duty; always has, deep down. Just as it's his duty to try and win back his wife's kingdom in Castile, and it's his duty to try and deal with the French, it's his paramount duty to protect Richard throughout his minority, to guide and protect his nephew, if he's called to, with his last drop of blood.

John sinks on to a bench. He hasn't felt this happy for a long time.

Vengeance is all very well, he tells himself. But he's had his fill of it now. He's got his enemies: he need go no further. He's not a thief. He's not out to be king. He's not cut out for treachery.

At Council the next morning, the Duke of Lancaster takes the opportunity to name a date in November for the formal investiture of Richard as Prince of Wales. In December, at Westminster, there will be a great feast at Westminster Hall, at which Edward will have Richard on his right hand, and every peer in the land, led by John himself, can kneel and swear allegiance.

How else could he look Katherine in the eye again?

In the peace of Havering, Alice hears the news of Prince Richard's forthcoming investiture late, but with equanimity.

She doesn't read it as a sign that the Duke has pulled back from dreaming of the absolute power she wants for him. She has no tingling awareness that, with this change of heart, the edge might also have gone off his desire to consult with her.

She just thinks, with the hard-eyed expression she's getting used to keeping on her face: Well, he's cleverer than I realised to be doing this. Playing along, calming every suspicion, softly softly. Who'll ever think (until the time comes)...?

Alice is content with what she's got, for now. She's enjoying getting used to feeling safe again. She's been given back the title to her properties. Her rents from the ten estates she has kept on are coming in again. In the quiet hours when Edward's asleep, she's written to her team of land agents; she's even brought two of them, Robert Broun and John Vyncent, back to full-time work for her, coordinating the restoration of order to her possessions. To the fury of the new royal chamberlain, Roger Beauchamp, she's also persuaded the King to pardon Richard Lyons and let him out of jail. Otherwise she's kept a low profile, but she's at Westminster, at Christmas, and Katherine Swynford, big now with the third child, isn't. The Duke is as courteous to her as he was at Eltham, back in October, though, she notices, they no longer discuss politics, except in generalities, and all he says about Richard's investiture is a polite comment that it went well. But that doesn't worry her; they've prepared the ground already, she tells herself. What else is there to say about all that, for now? Meanwhile, she's proud that he doesn't stop telling her how grateful he is that she's looked after the King so well.

In the new year, when Richard, and Duke John's eldest son Henry of Bolingbroke, and the ten-year-old heirs to various earldoms are knighted, her son is brought up to London to join the noble throng. She doesn't insist on this, any more than the Duke, if he knows or notices, complains. It's not that she doesn't want her son knighted (of course she does) she just isn't sure she wants the court (Edward) to see how her children really are. Nor does she want her son, or any of the children, to learn how close she came to the edge, and what a fragile straw she's climbed back out on. She needs them to think of her as successful; as too successful to have time to spend at Gaines. Still, Edward remembers his promise without being prompted, so how can she refuse?

Alice entrusts the task of bringing her child to court to Robert Broun and John Vyncent. She doesn't need to explain the task to them. She just asks them to visit a manor in Essex and escort a young gentleman from there to her home in London. She can't do anything to avoid them finding out John's her son if they're minded to; or, probably, that Gaines is her manor. But if she doesn't tell them that herself, it's deniable. And they're not men for unnecessary questions.

Nervously, she goes to spend the night before the ceremony at her London house, where little John's to sleep. When she walks into the courtyard - she's come by river - he's there, just getting off his pony, in his battered country clothes, staring round. There are other people in the courtyard, too, but it's only him she sees: his shock of black hair, his rough russet wool, his nervous bowed shoulders. Bitten nails. He's taller than she remembers; thinner, too. She's embarrassed for him, so rustic, so untutored, so vulnerable. Thank God she's had suitable clothes made, at least. The servants are staring. She rushes him inside without touching him. She has food waiting in a parlour. She doesn't want them gawping in the hall. 'Well, John,' she says, trying to hide the hammering of her heart, talking in the strict-but-fair manner of a visiting aunt, 'how've you been keeping?' but he only gazes back at her, dumbstruck, and he hardly does any better at mumbling answers when she rushes on, 'Nothing to worry about tomorrow. We'll go to town together. You'll wait with the other boys until you're called. Then a little ceremony. I'll have to stay. But Master Broun will take you back. Understand?'

He nods. He has big eyes. He was never scared of talking when she went to Gaines, she thinks; she's sure she remembers him telling her about snares he'd set and rabbits he'd skinned and toy soldiers Wat had made him. But now the cat's got his tongue. She hopes that isn't because he's heard how near she came to oblivion; they're not going to talk about that, even if it is. 'Hungry?' she asks, feeling a fool rushing about and talking at him so fast, wishing he'd say something, anything, back. He gives her a cautious look from under his long lashes. 'Come on, then, eat up,' she urges, pushing a platter of bread and cheese at him. 'And I'll show you the tunic and hose you're to wear. And crackowes. Have you worn crackowes?' Saucer-eyed, he shakes his head. They're great big things, she worries: they take practice. Some courtiers wear the curled-up pointy shoes with fronts as long as twenty-four inches, held to their calves by ribbons, or chains, though the ones she's ordered for John are a more manageable twelve inches. She's thinking too of the little wooden platforms into which courtiers slip their elegant shoes: pattens. Three or four inches high. What if he falls off them in front of the King? If only he'd speak, it would reassure her. She'd give anything for him to speak.

The child finally does when he's got a first mouthful of food down his dry throat, and coughed, and taken a tickly draught of small ale. Plucking up courage, looking around at the expensive hanging on the wall, he jerks a finger out towards the courtyard and says, in his anxious little country voice, 'You got a lot of servants up 'ere, mam. Right grand, this 'ouse.'

She can't help it. Sharply, she says, 'Don't call me that!' He cringes back into himself. She wishes she hadn't. It's not as though he's going to show her up at court by chattering away calling her 'mam', is it? But it's too late to recall her words.

Biting his lip and looking scared, he practises mincing about in the crackowes. He tries on the tunic. She tells him to kneel when he sees the King and not to say anything except 'Yes, my lord king'. (In French, too. 'Oui, monseigneur le roi.' Go on, say it: not like that, like this.) Or to the other boys, who are all earls and princes. 'Just keep quiet,' she says. She takes him to the room he's to sleep in. He lifts his cheek obediently for her kiss. 'You be good now,' she says. 'And don't be scared.' She knows it's her own nerves, as much as his, she's trying to calm.

For a moment, their eyes meet and his shyness goes. He grins up at her. 'Me, scared?' he says, with urchin bravado, and she hears old Alison's voice, and her own. 'Never.'

For a moment, she sees herself in him, and him in her, and with that sense of closeness comes...Is it pride? she wonders, a feeling she doesn't know the name of, a sense of swelling inside. For a moment, she almost hugs him. But she stops herself. No point spoiling the child; muddying the waters. This is tricky enough as it is. Hastily, she says, 'Sleep well then,' and pulls the door to.

She can't help taking another look back, though. He thinks she's gone. He's already forgotten her. He's putting his candle up close to the bedcurtains, and feeling the embroidered stuff with a knowing, appreciative finger and thumb.

Alice sighs. She remembers that gesture. He probably knows someone who'd give him a good price for it, down Brentwood way.

He does fine the next day. She leaves him, all dressed up, looking bravely insouciant, in the antechamber with the other children. They ignore him. They're busy with each other. She nods brightly at him while Edward puts the sword on his shoulder and whispers in his ear. She sees those big blue eyes, which stay fixed on her, widen; sees his lips mouth, 'Yes, my lord.' Afterwards, she leads him straight out to Robert Broun and John Vyncent. He's quiet. John Vyncent has a cloak for him. Broun has the horses. She pats the boy, awkwardly. 'Hurry now,' she says. 'You'll make Barking by nightfall, no trouble.' It's only afterwards, when Edward's saying, 'A lovely child,' and 'Just like you,' and 'Sad he couldn't stay for the dinner,' and 'How did he enjoy being called "Sir John" afterwards?' that she realises, with a pang, that she doesn't even know. She wishes she'd asked now. But she's also relieved he's gone. Best keep a low profile.