The King's Mistress (6 page)

Mary clapped her hands with glee. I gently slid her off my lap and rose, brushing my skirt. I felt strangely mature, having taken on the role of mediator. How quickly I was shedding my childhood. I had no time to panic, for Father nodded to me and we hurried out, a servant following with my belongings.

As we crossed the square I asked if I might stop in the church to say a prayer to the Blessed Virgin.

Father sighed with impatience. “I have customers to see today, Alice. We cannot linger. Perhaps my parents will accompany you to church later.” He reached for my hand.

I moved beyond his reach and stopped, forcing him to turn back to see what had happened.

“You are eager to rid yourself of me,” I said. I had intended to hold my tongue, but his refusal to pause at the church was too much. “I won Janyn, as you wished, and now I am punished. Why?”

He glanced around to see who might overhear. Apparently he saw no one significant, because he did not chide me or say he could not answer that. “I pray you, daughter, believe me that I do this to afford you more ease so that you might enjoy preparing for your wedding. I wish you nothing but joy, my child.”

“This was not Mother’s wish?”

Father lifted his open hands, palms up, and slumped a little, his expression a mixture of great weariness and sorrow. “You have asked why she is so angry. She is angry with life, Alice, not you. She needs your prayers.”

I was young, I was in pain, I was frightened, and his answer sounded like dissimulation, not honesty. But I did not challenge him.

“Come,” I said, “my grandparents await me.” I resumed walking, and Father fell in beside me. I could almost taste his defeat, and loathed him for it. I was raw with emotions I only vaguely understood.

Grandfather greeted us, and then sent me out to the garden to find Grandmother while he spoke to Father.

I found Dame Agnes, as she liked me to call her, kneeling in the kitchen garden separating seedlings. She enjoyed seeing to her own garden. “Hands that know the earth in all its moods know God’s wisdom,” she liked to say, though she always wore costly gloves to protect her hands, and a coarse gown that she shed for her more elegant everyday attire before she crossed the threshold again, a wattle hut tucked behind a hedge reserved for the purpose.

“Talk to me while I finish my task,” she said. “It will not take long. Then we shall begin to make our plans. But just talk about little things for now.”

I told her about my mare.

She sat back on her heels, clapping the dirt off her gloves and nodding with a satisfied look on her broad face.

“I told your father that Janyn Perrers would know how to treat you, and I am pleased to hear I was right. You should have been riding long ago. Astride. It strengthens the legs and that will help you birth your babies without all the fuss your mother made about it.”

Horses and childbirth? Perhaps I was more ignorant than I had realized. I had seen animals birthing, and I knew the babies came out between the hind legs, so I understood how there might be a connection. But strength?

“Women sit in birthing chairs, don’t they? Why need my legs be strong?”

Dame Agnes frowned at me for a moment, and then began to gather her gardening tools as she said, “To carry the weight of the child, Alice. Now come, I would greet my son before he hurries away.”

Later that evening, when Grandmother came to see if I was comfortable in the pretty little solar room she’d had prepared for me, I was feeling wretched. My grandparents had made it clear I was welcome and loved, but still I missed Mary, Will, John, and Nan, even Father. This pretty room was unfamiliar, the pillows smelled of other people, not me. That I had several pillows to choose from, covered in soft, pretty linen, was something for which I knew that I should be
grateful, and I was. But despite how comfortable the bed was I felt far away from everything I knew.

“Might you stay awhile and talk, Dame Agnes?” I asked.

“On the morrow, child. You need your rest, and so do I. Tomorrow we shall look at cloth and decorations for your new gowns. Perhaps leather for shoes as well.”

“My friend Geoffrey Chaucer is home for a little while. Might he visit me here?”

“Of course, my love. Send him a message on the morrow. Invite him to sup with us one day soon if you like.”

“Thank you, Dame Agnes.”

She smiled and kissed me on the forehead, tucking the covers up to my chin. “Sleep well, my beauty.”

“May God bless you and keep you,” I whispered. I could not risk speaking more loudly because I was close to tears and it was clear that she did not wish to be forced to linger at my bedside.

She gave me another hug. “May He bless you and keep you as well, dear Alice.” As she straightened, she glanced around the little room. “Just think how much grander your bedchamber will be when you are wed. Janyn Perrers will make a fine husband.” With a contented sigh she slipped out.

I flailed around for a while, finding it difficult to get comfortable. It was not that I was cold, I had all the covers I could want, but I felt exposed, unguarded. For such a long time I’d slept with Nan, and then Nan and Mary. Now I was all alone in a bed that was hardly smaller than the one the three of us had shared. It occurred to me to clasp a pillow. It helped, and I slept.

I woke to the sound of Grandmother singing a hymn to the Virgin in the next room. Her beautiful voice cheered me, and the pain and loneliness of the past day receded.

Only now did I think about what she had planned for today
—we shall look at cloth and some jewels for your new gowns
. It had not sunk in that I might have new gowns. My own gowns. While I lay there pondering this delightful prospect, a maidservant scratched on the tapestry that covered the doorway.

“I’ve brought you some warm cider and a small loaf of bread to break your fast, Mistress Alice,” she called out.

I welcomed her in. “But you need not have carried it up here,” I said. I had never been served food in bed unless I was quite ill.

She set the cup and loaf beside me, on a little stool, and then glanced around the room. “I am Gwen, Mistress Alice. I’m to serve you. Have you all you need?”

“I have no comb,” I said. I’d realized it last night; I had never needed my own.

Her sweet face lit up. “I shall bring it when I come to dress you in a little while.” With a bob, she withdrew.

I pulled the stool over to the little window and opened the shutters. The sun streamed in, and as I ate I watched a bird hop about on the neighbor’s roof. I was happy, just simply happy.

In a while Gwen returned with a comb, the frame of oak, the teeth of bone. It was plain, but the teeth were remarkably even and complete.

“Shall I comb your hair for you, Mistress Alice?”

Even if she had not sounded eager to do so I would have said yes, for I have always loved having my hair combed. She was gentle and thorough, complimenting me on its curl and thickness.

“And such pretty colors—gold, red, and brown. It changes as you move.”

I asked her how long she had worked for my grandmother.

“I do not work for Dame Agnes, Mistress Alice. I work for Master Janyn Perrers. I have been here only a few days, to help prepare this room for you and to begin the needlework on your smocks.”

It had not occurred to me that she might be from outside the household. “How long have you worked for Master Janyn?”

“It will be two years this Michaelmas, mistress. I was a kitchen maid and he told me I could be a lady’s maid if I kept myself clean and tidy, and if I learned to do fine needlework and paid heed to the way fine folk dress and how they like to be served.”

I had turned to look up at her and caught an expression of such gratitude on her sweet though plain face that I quickly averted my eyes before she noticed I had intruded on her emotion. It had been a fine thing for Janyn to do, I thought.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen, mistress.”

Older than me, yet she was small and had no figure to speak of.

“How would you compare this household to that of Master Janyn?” I asked, eager to hear more of him.

“It is quiet here, and the mistress is so kind and patient,” she said.

“She is, I know. Tell me more. Master Janyn keeps a noisy household?”

“Busy. We are always rushing to prepare food and chambers and space in the hall. He has many guests, merchants and sometimes even finer folk. And, of course, there is only Dame Gertrude who oversees us all.”

She had finished combing my hair and now bent over my coffer of clothes, sorting through the shifts and gowns. Shaking out my azure gown, she asked, “Will you wear this today?”

I was not certain whether I should wear my only presentable gown for shopping. But Grandmother was not there to advise me. “Yes, I will wear this.” I could change if Dame Agnes disapproved. “Now, who are these finer folk?” I asked, not wanting to drop the promising thread of our conversation. She looked uncertain, but I could not tell whether it was about my clothes or the wisdom of answering me. “I’m soon to be mistress in his home,” I said.

She turned to me with a broad smile. “I know, and I’m to be your lady’s maid, if you will have me.”

“Will I be entertaining nobles?”

Her smile was quickly replaced by a worried frown. “I was told never to gossip about those who came to the house.”

“Is it gossip to tell me? Is that not why you were sent here now to be my maid, to tell me of the household? I’m choosing fabrics and decorations for my clothes today—I should know how grandly I will need to dress.” I almost took it back, I sounded so like my mother, assuming that Gwen was simpler than I was and using that to manipulate her.

But Gwen’s face cleared and she leaned close to whisper, “Twice the king’s mother, the old queen dined in the hall.”

“The queen mother? Isabella of France?”

Gwen nodded, her eyes huge. “Beautiful, she was, no matter how old she may be.”

“How did she come to dine with Master Janyn?”

“And his parents,” said Gwen. “They all seemed old friends.”

My stomach fluttered. I had never been in the presence of royalty. Nor many nobles, for that matter. To be the mistress of a house that entertained Isabella of France, the king’s mother—was this the source of Mother’s anger? Was she jealous of the life I would have as Janyn’s wife?

“Was the queen mother gentle and kind?”

Gwen giggled. “Oh no, mistress. I would not say so. But she was
once queen and her father was king of France, so she need not please anyone but herself.”

“Does Master Janyn have other great folk as guests?”

“None so grand as she, Mistress Alice.”

I grew quiet as she finished dressing me. She took care to arrange my hair just as Nan had, catching it away from my face and letting it flow down my back. I felt a twinge of sadness, thinking of Nan, wondering what she, Mary, and Will were doing.

I soon learned that I had been right to worry about coaxing information from Gwen.

I found Grandmother in her chamber surrounded by such a generous assortment of cloth it would have seemed more appropriate in Father’s undercroft. Her own gown that morning, a pale, patterned wool with pearls swirled on the bodice and long fitted sleeves, seemed very fine to wear on a day given to planning her granddaughter’s wardrobe. Yet I had seldom seen her in anything as plain as my everyday gowns.

She noticed me looking at her and the surrounding finery and made a face, crinkling her nose and pursing her lips. “Sinful, I know,” she said. “I collect pieces that I like and save them until I find a use for them. I quiet my conscience with the thought of all this being given to the poor of the parish when I die.”

“We shall have elegant beggars on the streets,” I said.

With a little yelp of surprise Grandmother dissolved into laughter, and I could not help but join her. We both laughed so hard we wiped tears from our eyes. It was a happy beginning.

After we had looked at several pretty cloths that she thought suitable for everyday gowns, she showed me a most elegant brocade in a pale red.

“Perhaps it is too elegant for a merchant’s wife,” she said. “I have not found an occasion on which I thought this appropriate for myself, to be sure.”

I loved the pattern and the color, and that it was soft and smooth, yet had substance. Dame Agnes held it up to me and commented on the way the color brought out my sanguine complexion.

“The clothes cut down from your mother’s were pretty, but your complexion is so different from Margery’s that the colors suitable for her are not bold enough for you. This suits you.”

I smiled and curtsied.

“Fit for a queen,” she murmured.

“Or for one dining with the king’s mother?” I suggested.

She looked amused. “I did not know you were such a dreamer, Alice. The Lady Isabella? Now when would you dine with her?”

“Gwen said—” I bit my lip. “Might something so fine be suitable for my marriage feast?”

But Grandmother was not so easily distracted. “What else has Gwen said about Janyn’s household?”

“She was not gossiping, Dame Agnes. In faith, she said she was not to speak of the master’s guests. But I insisted that she tell me about the household so that I might know how to prepare for my role as its mistress.”

Dame Agnes sighed as she nodded. “It is true you must know what will be expected of you, Alice. But a maidservant must be discreet. You must be able to trust her not to speak out of place of anything that happens in your home. Janyn would not be pleased to hear that she had mentioned a guest about whom he has chosen to be secretive.”

“You did not know that the queen mother had been his guest?”

My grandmother shook her head, and I saw in her eyes an enigmatic expression, of concern bordering on fear.

“Have you met the queen mother?” I asked, hoping to glean more of her feelings.

“No. But when I was not long married I was with my father when he spoke to our lady Queen Philippa. She is a blessing to this realm, a graceful, kind lady loved by all who meet her.” Her expression had sharpened. There was a glint in my grandmother’s eyes and an edge to her voice, even as she smiled and said such sweet things of the queen. My puzzlement must have shown, because Grandmother shook her head. “Such things were never said of the former queen. You do know of her disgrace? That she made war against her husband, the holy, anointed king?”