Royal Mistress (37 page)

“Hush,
lieveling,
” Sophie soothed. “It was God’s vill. He needed Bella for some reason, but you are brave, Jane. You fought your way out of a life you hated, and look at you. You live like a lady and you are generous beyond vords with your new fortune. Aye, Bella was a good mother, but you are good, too. All of London knows Jane Shore; only a few know of Isabel Allen.”

Jane stood and paced the new wooden floor that her money had provided. “Aye,” she scoffed. “They know me for a harlot!”

Sophie jumped up and shook Jane. “Some,
ja,
but most know you for your good heart. The doctor you sent to tend the butcher’s children with the pox; the mercer you saved from prison; the beggar you gave a cloak to. Londoners know these tales, Jane. And you will never be alone as long as Jehan and I are alive.” She smiled. “Did I tell you that Janneke vants to be a king’s mistress, just like you? She adores you.”

That made Jane smile, too, and she kissed her friend’s rosy cheek. “My thanks, Sophie. I feel a little better. Now, where is Janneke? I have brought her something for her beautiful hair.” She drew a length of velvet ribbon from the pouch at her waist. “She must be attracting attention by now.”

Sophie dimpled. “There is a cordwainer’s son who manages to pass by the house no matter what direction he is supposed to go. He is a nice boy, but Jehan has been talking to a fellow
flamand
about his oldest boy for Janneke.”

“Oh, Sophie, take warning from me. If Janneke and this boy love each other, do not force her on the
flamand.
”

This was spoken with such heartrending sincerity that Sophie frowned. “Vat is it you are not telling me,
lieveling
? Are you not happy now?”

Jane hesitated but then blurted out the secret she had wanted to tell Bella. “I am still in love with Tom Grey, and I will not be happy until we are together. There, I said it!”

Sophie clicked her tongue. “It is my opinion you set too much importance on love, Jane. Men are not vat brings happiness to a woman.” She tousled Pieter’s blond curls, and he turned big blue eyes to his mother. “This is the love that is important, and I pray daily that you vill be blessed soon.”

Jane embraced her friend, and after an hour of pleasant conversation, took her leave. On the way home she found herself noticing every little boy and girl playing in their gardens or on the street. She would be thirty years old in a few months and had not yet conceived. How she still yearned for a child of her own.

W
ill had been forgiven and was once again Edward’s trusty and well-beloved councilor. In fact the two men were celebrating Easter at Windsor in each other’s company and had taken Jane with them, leaving the queen and her daughters to be transported by boat to Greenwich for the holiest of feast days.

“Elizabeth has always preferred her Placentia Palace, but I am happiest at Windsor,” Edward had told Jane when they climbed aboard the royal barge, its pennants and standard lifting limply in an almost windless day. “The air is more bracing, and the hunting better.”

It took them two days to be conveyed between the banks bursting with early flowers: yellow primroses, pink butterbur, tiny white daisies in among the dandelions, and the purple faces of violets. Edward’s jester was silent for once but for his soft strumming on a mandora that seemed to echo the plangent rippling of the water from the oars. Jane thought she had never been happier as she nestled in the crook of Edward’s broad arm and listened to him discuss politics with Will opposite them.

Windsor welcomed its lord home with a hunt and a Good Friday feast featuring many dishes to tempt Edward, who hated fish. How glad he was, he said later, to have Lent finally over. A haunch of venison dominated his plate following the Easter mass. Later, he invited Jane and Will to inspect the new additions to St. George’s Chapel.

“So you wish to spend eternity with me here, my friend,
instead of lying in your own new chapel at Ashby with your wife,” Edward asked as the trio stopped at the shrine of John Schorn at the southeast corner of St. George’s, each lighting a candle to the renowned healer. “Do you think I will need counseling in heaven?”

Will laughed. “Katherine has already commissioned her tomb at Ashby, and I was not to be a part of it, it seems. She may rest in peace there without my grousing at her forever,” he said. He turned to face Edward. “In all seriousness, sire, ’twould be a supreme honor to lie near you. We have experienced so much together, I cannot imagine enjoying all heaven has to offer without you.”

“Have you forgiven me for sending you to the Tower, Will?” Edward was quizzical. “Someone had to pay for Arras. Surely you knew your life was not in danger.”

Will swallowed. Should he pretend he knew all along, or should he tell the truth, that he had spent a week of sleepless nights wondering when his butt of malmsey might appear? “I hoped you still needed me, my lord. I had to be patient. It was just a matter of time.” He brought the subject back to the tomb. “Have you forgiven me enough to grant my wish, Ned?”

It was Edward’s turn to laugh. “Thy will be done, my lord,” he promised.

The burnished oak of the newly completed quire next drew their attention, and Jane exclaimed over the amusing misericords tucked under the seats and admired William Berkeley’s exquisite woodcarving in the paneled stalls above, upon which the knights of the garter crests and shields were fixed. Several large earthenware pots drew Jane’s attention, and Edward explained they would be placed under the floor of each stall to improve the acoustics.

When they reached the northeast corner, Edward paused and pointed at a winding stair to a chantry above them. “This is where my tomb will be one day, Will. Does that suit you?”

Jane suddenly felt cold, and she linked her arms through theirs. “My dear lords, let us go back out into the sunshine. All this talk
of death and tombs is distressing.” She almost dragged them back to the door.

Will whispered to the surprised Edward that Jane must still be grieving her sister’s death, and Edward looked appropriately chastised.

Once away from the tombs, Jane’s natural gaiety returned, and looking from one man to the other, she said, “My lords, I want to take you across the river to Eton and show you
my
project. Did our sovereign tell you I persuaded him to spare some money to finish the school?”

Edward looked across at Will over Jane’s turbaned head and winked. “Mistress Shore thinks more of reading and writing than of saying her prayers. If heaven will not have her, at least she will be among the erudite in purgatory, do you not agree?”

A priest hurrying up the steps to the entrance was shocked to hear loud laughter from within the chapel’s sacred space.

T
he voyage back to Westminster was aided by the downstream current, and as the barge was approaching the palace quay, cheers erupted from the shore. As Edward waved back to his loyal subjects, all of a sudden the figures went out of focus and he could not move his face.

Sitting in front of him, Jane noticed his unnatural, frozen stare and anxiously enquired: “Your grace, is anything wrong?”

She was about to repeat the question when Edward suddenly clutched his chest and began to shake violently, slipping into the bottom of the boat. Jane jumped up and cried out to Will for help. She threw off Edward’s hat and set about loosening his high-necked shirt. Will climbed clumsily through the oarsmen from the front of the barge, where he had been talking with the master, and saw with mounting panic that the king was in the midst of a seizure.

“Hurry!” he cried back to the master of oars. “The king is unwell.”

Jane was almost thrown off her feet when the barge bumped
the wooden wharf with unaccustomed speed. John Norrys and two other squires leaped from the deck and corralled three burly boatmen to help lift the king’s now-inert body from the vessel.

“My lord, can you hear me?” Jane asked in Edward’s ear. “Squeeze my hand if you can.”

It was not much, but she felt the pressure on her fingers and told Will, “He is alive, praise be to God.”

The hulking figure of the king was hoisted onto the shoulders of half a dozen men who had run to help, and they staggered with their load toward the watergate entry of the palace. By now, people were hanging from windows to see what had happened, and once inside Will barked orders to ready the king’s bed and to send for the physicians. Within a very few minutes, organized chaos reigned in the corridors of Westminster as gentlemen ushers ran to do Will’s bidding, others closed the windows and shutters to keep out the cold air and possible evil spirits, and a messenger was sent to speed the queen’s return.

No one looked askance as Jane supervised Edward’s unrobing and, once he was between the sheets, sat by his bed massaging his hand. It seemed to her that an eternity had passed since she first noticed his paralysis, but in fact no more than thirty minutes had gone by. She was aware of others in the room, and she supposed Lord Stanley, as king’s steward, was hovering with Will, but she concentrated all her attention on Edward, murmuring tender words and begging him to wake.

“I can hear you, Jane.” Edward’s rasped words sent Jane to her knees, praising God. “Why am I here?”

Will came to the other side of the bed, his face showing a mix of relief and worry. “Sire, you were unwell for a short time, but, thanks be to God, I see you are yourself again.”

Edward tried to lift himself off the pillow but fell back when the dizziness would not pass. He looked first at Jane and then at Will, and although he heard them clearly, they appeared as
through an old horn window, and he blinked several times to try and clear his vision.

Doctor de Serigo scurried into the room, bloodletting tools clutched to his chest, and tut-tutted his way to displace Will, giving Jane a venomous stare. This was the queen’s physician, and he was well aware of who this interloper was. He had arrived ahead of the queen’s party and was the first physician the usher had stumbled upon. De Serigo was not surprised God had struck down the immoral king, who thought nothing of humiliating the doctor’s good mistress with this harlot.

“
Deve andare!
You go, you understand,” he ordered Jane, making shooing signs with his hands. “The queen she come soon.”

“She stays!” Edward’s voice came loud although slightly slurred, but his intent had been clear. “Now get on with your work, signor.”

The swarthy doctor scowled but did as he was told, swiftly lancing a vein in Edward’s tree of an arm. Edward turned his face away and tried to focus on Jane. In truth, the fuzziness was disconcerting, but other than a headache and tiredness, he was feeling better. He wished the pain in his ulcerous foot would diminish, but he was used to that now. Only the doctor and one groom of the chamber had seen his blackened toes recently, as he had insisted on removing his hose only after the rest of his gentlemen had left the room. The doctor had diagnosed gout, and Edward was embarrassed to be afflicted so young.

When the doctor had finished fleeming, and a goodly amount of royal blood had been caught, he gave Edward an infusion laced with mandrake to induce sleep. Edward then asked that the bed curtains be drawn so he could be alone with Jane.

“My dear Edward,” she said, allowing herself to speak to him as a man, a man she had feared lost. “ ’Tis a miracle you have recovered so quickly. We all feared for your life.” Her heart sang as he smiled and stroked her hand. “I would have never forgiven you if I had not been able to tell you once more that I love you, or how happy you have made me these past eight years.”

Edward was moved to tears, which did not help his vision, and he said sleepily, “Then I am pleased I cheated death so I could hear your words, dearest Galatea.” He paused, his breathing slowing with the emetic. “It pains me that had God chosen to take me today I would have left you destitute. But here . . .” He took off his favorite sapphire ring, the stone as large as a robin’s egg and as brilliant as a jay’s wing, and pressed it into her hand. “Keep this until you have need of what it will fetch, Jane.” His humor restored, he smiled. “But if you do aught to displease me, then I shall ask for its return. So do not sell it yet,” he teased. “You are a good woman, Jane Shore, and I want you to have this.”