The King's Mistress (34 page)

“Well, what else?” I asked.

Gwen wrinkled her nose. “Some of the fur is too long dead.”

This simple comment inspired laughter.

Later, when we hastened down to the queen’s hall, certain that I had been missed, we discovered Richard Stury pacing near Countess Joan, who was playing dice with my friend Elizabeth. The countess was residing in the castle in the last few days before her wedding.

“Mistress Alice, you are to sup with His Grace the King this evening,” said Stury. “I shall come to your chamber to escort you an hour earlier. Before the other guests arrive, he would speak with you about your recent ordeal in Oxford.” He bowed to me and withdrew.

My heart had leaped at the invitation. To sup with the king. To be so near him! I composed myself as I joined my friends.

Joan raised her eyebrows, a gleam in her eyes. “It seems you are deriving good fortune from bad. A meal in the king’s chamber! I’m
delighted for you. I wonder who else will be there?” She kicked the fur-trimmed hem of her gown as she turned toward me.

I wondered as well.

Elizabeth studied me hard, her expression finally easing into a smile. “It is good to see you looking cheerful. Much better than I had expected, in fact. I trow you are sleeping more soundly without Jane and Agnes snoring in your ears.”

I was not at all surprised that the news of my new accommodations had been quickly passed around the queen’s household. “I am.” I took a seat beside her.

“You must take this opportunity to ask His Grace to return William to court,” Elizabeth said.

“A lover?” asked Joan. She did so delight in anything to do with mating.

“No, not a lover, but a good friend,” I said.

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose and gave a little laugh as she shook her head, signaling that I was not being honest. It seemed to me a betrayal of my confidence. I had not seen this side of her before and was hurt and disappointed. I had thought her a friend, but a friend would not have spoken of William when I had not.

“Do you speak of William Wyndsor?” asked Joan.

“Yes, she does,” said Elizabeth. I tried to nudge her foot beneath the table, wanting to silence her, but she prattled on. “And he has declared his intention to wed her!”

I was taken aback by that. I had known he’d asked her of my availability, but not that he had spoken thus. And I had certainly not confided in Elizabeth about his vowing to wed me.

Now Joan was very interested, leaning forward to whisper, “Did you speak of your intention to wed him, Alice?”

I shook my head. “No. We are not betrothed, I assure you.”

“Alas that it is Wyndsor.” A sympathetic frown creased her pretty forehead. “For the king has need of him in Ireland, ensuring that Lionel succeeds in convincing the Irish to behave themselves. Wyndsor is part of the company sailing over to prepare the way for the earl and his household.” Joan watched me closely as she spoke. “Are you certain you did not respond in kind? You might be legally betrothed.”

“I did not.”

“Of course you might wed him and remain in Her Grace’s household as long as you were not with child,” said Joan.

I assured her that I had not considered wedding Sir William. She watched me with a curious expression.

“Have you dined with His Grace before?” Elizabeth asked in the long pause that followed.

I shook my head.

“But you’ve often gone hawking with him alone, have you not?” Elizabeth’s look, her tone were challenging.

“In the past, but not for a long while.” I excused myself and took my leave.

As I passed Joan, she touched my arm and said, softly, for my ears only, “I am your friend. Come to me if you are confused.”

I left the hall in a whirl of emotions. Once outside I could not think where I might find ease. I had thought Elizabeth my friend, my only one in the queen’s household. But now it seemed she favored me only for what gossip she might glean from me, and I was sorely disappointed. I should have seen the shape of her discourse before this, the searching questions, how she shared just enough to engage me. On a happier note, I was grateful for Countess Joan’s kindness. The news of William’s departure for Ireland relieved me, too. Indeed, it was his good fortune that we were separated, for since my abduction in Oxford I had become keenly aware of the danger I might bring to anyone attached to me. It had been good of Countess Joan to tell me about him, and very kind of her to offer friendship, even if I could not imagine why she encouraged me to seek her out if I were confused. How could she be my friend, a woman about to wed the future king? Within days she would be
Princess
Joan. Once again I would be alone.

“Dame Alice?” Gwen stood behind me, holding a light mantle. “Would you walk in the gardens?”

“I wish Geoffrey were here. Or my sister Mary.” I held out my hand. “Walk with me, Gwen. Be my friend.”

We walked and walked while I related the conversation.

“I am sorry that Elizabeth has proved false,” said Gwen. “But how kind of the countess.”

“I want to think it kind, but do not dare to count on her. She is soon to be a princess, Gwen. Why should she befriend me?”

“Is it not possible that some at court are sincere?”

All too soon it was time to dress for the evening. I chose my
prettiest gown, a red fitted bodice and sleeves with a swirling pattern and a skirt the color of dark berries. The buttons on the bodice and sleeves were silver. Gwen dressed my hair in soft loops round my ears, gathered in a silver crespinette and held by a silver fillet.

At the door to the king’s parlor, Stury held out his arm to stop Gwen.

“You will wait with me out here,” he said. “I shall send for some food and wine, and a brazier to warm you.”

Gwen fussed a moment longer with my dress. “Perhaps I should not have accompanied you. Perhaps it is not appropriate.”

I squeezed her hand, and then nodded to the page that I was ready to be announced.

Splendid in a short green jacket embroidered in silver thread in a plantagenet pattern, the king strode across the room to me and embraced me, kissing me on the forehead.

As ever, his ready intimacy flustered me. Surely he must perceive how I felt about him, how he affected me.

“My sweet Alice. God be praised.” He held me at arm’s length. “I heard that it was a terrible ordeal. But you look well. More than well. You are quite beautiful this evening.”

“Your Grace, I am honored to be invited to sup with you.” I did not dare look into his eyes but stared instead at his long-toed shoes.

He put his hands on my shoulders—no gloves this time—and I felt the heat of them, and of his gaze.

“You shall not be harmed again, Alice. I swear to you. My mother’s curse on your life ends now.”

He pulled me closer, and bent his head to kiss my forehead again, then, lifting my chin, kissed me on the mouth. Gently. Oh, so gently. But his hands slid behind my shoulder blades and caressed me in a way that was anything but chaste.

“My lord,” I whispered when he released me. I still had not dared look up at his face. My head was spinning with desire, fear, sadness. “Your Grace, what are you about?” It sounded too harsh. How dare I question the king? “If it please Your Grace, I am confused.”

“Look at me, Alice.” His voice was gentle. “Look at me.”

At last I did raise my eyes to his and saw great tenderness there, and something else, a yearning. His gaze held me, and I knew great danger. I felt how easily I might lose my self and my soul, how willingly I might succumb to his desire.

“You know what I am about. What we are about. It began with the hawking. We are kindred souls, Alice.”

We were, we were—but I felt myself shaking my head. “You are my king.” If he had been any other man, I would not be so frightened, would not mind how his touch aroused me.

“But in my private hours I am a man like any other. You shall come to see that.”

“Your Grace,” I murmured, too confused and frightened to say more. I did not want to be one of his quickly discarded mistresses. He said we were kindred souls, but for how long? Until he discovered a woman who shared some of his other interests—music, perhaps, a singer with a voice matched perfectly to his? And then what would happen to me? Surely Queen Philippa knew of his liaisons. What would happen to Bella if I fell from grace?

Yet I could not help but thrill to what he was suggesting.

“When we are alone, I would have you call me Edward.”

I merely nodded, not trusting my voice. If he were not king …

He drew me to him once more and kissed me on both cheeks. His hands on my shoulders were gentle but proprietary, his eyes dark with desire. “Alice, do not fear me.” Finally he kissed my hands, then stepped away. “Now, before the others arrive, you must tell me all that you recall of that night.”

How easily he moved into normal conversation. My mind and heart could not shift so swiftly and gracefully. Stupidly I stared at his boots and worked to calm my thoughts.

“They will soon arrive, Alice.” He forced his voice to stay calm, but I sensed his impatience.

“I recall very little.” I told him then all I remembered. “My maidservant was awake during the attack and might tell you much more. She awaits me in the antechamber, with Master Stury.”

“Summon her.”

Gwen seemed far more composed than I felt as she described the attack and counterattack. Edward asked some questions, which she answered. When he was satisfied he thanked her for her account and for her loyalty to me, and then gave her leave to depart.

I’d dared to look at him more closely than before. I saw the way he’d given Gwen his complete attention. I also noticed fine lines round his eyes and deeper ones beneath his beard radiating from the edge of either nostril to the corners of his mouth. Signs of age. The queen had
recently spoken of his being nearly fifty. He might be my father, yet he was nothing like. So alive, so exciting.

“Master Stury told me little. Who were those men, Your G—”

He shook his head, mouthing his name.

“Edward,” I said, though it almost caught in my throat. I feared I might have crossed a boundary I was not yet ready to leave behind. I feared my own desire for his touch.

He smiled at my use of his name, but then grew serious. “As was your late husband’s practice, I would tell you as little as necessary. To protect you.” He tilted his head and regarded me with a look that seemed to say he expected me to be satisfied with such an answer.

Despite my fear, I trusted him. I never doubted his sincerity. But if we were indeed friends, well, then he should know me in all my stubbornness. “As I argued with Janyn and with the Lady Isabella, those who would harm my family have no reason to believe I know nothing. They will come after me again to find out what they want to know. As they did in Oxford.”

Edward bowed his head, his hands clasped behind him. I held my breath, waiting for the revelation that would explain my torment of the past years. I feared it would be something far too trivial to have cost so many lives, feared it would be so significant that I would be forced to endure a lifetime of pain.

“In good time, Alice.”

I opened my mouth to protest. He put a finger to my lips.

“I will tell you this. Your husband’s family was beset on either side, by those who watched that they honored their pact of secrecy, and by those who would coerce them to break that pact. Members of my family and powerful barons are on both sides, as well as wealthy merchants who hope to make powerful alliances. But now that they all know without a doubt you are under my protection, they will desist.”

“Is that why my attackers had to die?”

It was a suffocating sensation, having those remarkable blue eyes fixed on me with such intensity. When he suddenly broke the spell and shook his head, I gasped for breath.

“Surely you would not expect me to allow them to go free? What punishment would you have preferred? That they die slowly in a dungeon, deprived of food and water, of sunlight and the sacraments? Was death then too easy?”

“No!” I made the sign of the cross, banishing the horrors he had
described. “But I would have preferred to talk to them first, to question them about my husband and his parents.”

“That is not your part to play, Alice.”

His air of finality infuriated me. “What of my daughter? What if someone were to take her to force my hand? How am I to live with such a fear, Edward?”

“You have nothing to fear, sweet Alice. My sister fully understands the danger to your daughter.” He drew me to him. “I told you, they shall not harm you or your daughter. Those who dared harm you died in the attempt; the survivor was executed. That should serve to warn those who would try such a thing again.”

This time I did not respond, but merely endured his embrace. I did not understand how I could both thrill to his nearness and chafe under his control. When he released me, I asked if I might withdraw to my chamber.

“No, Alice.” He did not say this in anger, but his expression was serious and his tone firm. “I want my household and those I count as friends to know you better.”

But what of his queen? To introduce me to his household … I was to have no privacy, no choice. Once so presented, I would be forever branded.

Yet, in truth, I was already believed to have taken the king as my lover, ever since Sheppey; had already been tried and found guilty.

I concentrated on breathing through my panic. I told myself that this was what my heart had truly desired, that I might find a way to gratitude and even joy in it.

P
RINCE EDWARD
and his bride, Princess Joan, shone in green-and-white robes heavy with precious gems and pearls at their wedding feast, and all their households wore the same colors, including Joan’s sons and daughters by Thomas Holland. The couple exuded happiness as they danced at the feast. It was a bittersweet day for me, evoking memories of my own joyous wedding, yet I was happy for Joan. And very happy for myself, for Edward had fulfilled his promise that Bella would attend in his sister Joan’s company. I had not seen my daughter for months.