The King's Mistress (66 page)

“I have met him often in the company of the Duke of Lancaster.”

I waited for more of an explanation, but William rose from his seat and moved toward the stairs with a yawn and a stretch, as if to retire for the night without explaining himself further.

I hurried to block his way. “Why have you never mentioned this?”

His expression was one of slightly drunken indifference. “I thought it best not to. I knew you would feel slighted. But these were official meetings, nothing to which you might reasonably have been invited.” He patted my forearm.

“Except as your wife.”

“You were not with me at the time.”

Life as a battle was to him a good life. All I wished for was peace, and to be with my children.

“You know how I’ve ached to see John. Why does he not come here? Is it Mary, his wife? Does he avoid her?”

“Ask him yourself.”

“I do not like to quiz him in letters.”

He shrugged. “I am weary of our arguments, Alice.”

“So am I. How might we mend the situation, William?”

He sniffed. “What more do you want? What needs mending?” He pushed past me.

I grabbed his arm. “William!”

He shook off my hand. “If you want to talk, look to your beloved Robert Broun.” He stalked off to his chamber.

I lay awake long into the night, so heavy of heart I could not even weep. So William knew about Robert. I wondered how long he had known, whether my unfaithfulness was why my lands had gone to him—whether he had informed Lancaster, and the duke had informed
the king. The lands I could somehow come to live without. I would find another way to provide for my daughters. But my son! I was furious that William had kept his meetings with my son from me, but even worse was John’s silence on the matter. That defection was a terrible blow. I did not know how I might learn to live with it.

• Spring 1380 •

W
ILLIAM DEPARTED
shortly after that night, refusing to enter into further discussion regarding either Robert or his meetings with John. He behaved as if our conversation about them had never taken place. I held my breath while he remained with me, watching for any signs that he knew precisely how close Robert and I were, thinking he would surely enjoy destroying our happiness if he knew of our love. I tried to engage him in further conversation about my son, asked again if he knew why John did not make more effort to visit, or why Percy did not permit it—for if it was not to avoid William, I worried that John meant to avoid me. William said that if my son wished for me to know aught, he would tell me himself. I could see no way through William’s armor against me, polished to a sheen with painful resentment and reinforced by hatred. In my son he had found the surest weapon against me.

Even after he left, I worried. He was not departing for Brittany until midsummer, but said he had much to do on his own estates first. I imagined him whispering in Lancaster’s ear, and half-expected the duke’s men to come for me at any time.

I decided to move the household to Gaynes, where I hoped to live peaceably at my favorite manor through the summer and into the autumn. I had much to think about, the sort of thought that required solitude. I had written to Henry Percy to inform him of the move, and requested that John might pay me a visit there. I prayed that my son would wish to be with me and that he would dispel my concerns by openly talking of his meetings with William.

The flurry of activity necessary before a move kept me blessedly distracted, but not so much that I missed an instance of uncharacteristic behavior. My young daughter-in-law Mary was usually the most irritating member of the household at such times, insisting on more than her share of space in the carts. But this time, while Joan, Jane, Gwen, and I rushed about, filling chests with clothing and household furnishings, Mary and her maid quietly saw to their own preparations and expressed indifference as to the household’s plans. Always alert to her moods, I was troubled by her lack of interest. A few days before our departure, I received a messenger from Henry Percy who quickly explained my daughter-in-law’s behavior. She was not to accompany my household to Gaynes.

The message was delivered by one of Percy’s retainers, who had been sent to escort Mary to a manor belonging to his lord. As he sipped wine in my hall, armed as if expecting his reception to be less than cordial, the man informed me that Mary had appealed to the Pope in Avignon for an annulment of her marriage with my son. Lord Henry felt it proper that she should remove herself from my household during the papal investigation of her accusations.

My stomach clenched. “What are these accusations?”

“I beg your patience, Dame Alice, but I was provided with no details.” The messenger fidgeted on a bench as he spoke. “You will duly be receiving word from the cleric appointed by the Pope to examine the case.”

I was quite sure by his discomfiture that he had the information but preferred not to anger me by sharing it. He was wise to avoid antagonizing me further, for I already fumed from the insult. Mary was but twelve, so I had no doubt she’d had assistance in arranging the request.
I imagined Henry, Lord Percy wished to marry her off to someone of higher standing, someone who might help his own advance to power.

Since her marriage Mary had lived with me for three long years and in all that time had never once spoken of an annulment.

“What of my original request for my son’s company?”

“Sir John Southery has been sent to study in the household of the Bishop of Exeter. My master has forwarded your request to the bishop.”

I said as little as I might, wishing to provide Percy with no indication of my reaction to such evidence of meticulous planning. Indeed, the elegance of his moves left me shaken. The long period of preparation for the Brittany campaign had allowed Percy time to arrange this betrayal strategically so that William was not there to support me. Though he would not have done so for my sake, he would have seen it as an insult to our status, and that would have infuriated him.

When summoned, Mary entered the hall garbed in an elegant gown, her expression smug and sickening to me.

“Praise God that my family is relieved of this canker,” I said under my breath, that only she should hear. For the others, I smiled sweetly.

“And I am relieved of a whore’s son,” she hissed.

“A king’s son, you ignorant child.”

She inclined her head toward the others, bidding them a chilly farewell.

I detected nary a tear among the servants or my little family as Mary and her maid departed. Jane, who had held my hand as we observed the procession of servants carrying Mary’s possessions to the waiting cart, gave a sigh as it at last rolled away.

I looked down on her with concern. “What is it, my sweet?”

She met my worried gaze with merry eyes. “Joan and I can talk as loud as we please now.”

“Mary did not like you to speak loudly?”

“Oh, she liked it very well, Mother, but we did not like her telling our secrets to the servants, especially the grooms.”

Joan agreed. “She bought special treatment with gossip.”

For the moment, I rejoiced in the gift of peace for all our household. It would be an immense relief to have the deceitful girl out of my house, out of my family.

But peace did not last long. I knew that no matter what he privately thought of Mary, my son John could not but feel the insult of her defection. I prayed it would not widen the wedge between us, the
one that William had already begun to drive home with his talk of my being unwelcome at court.

Within days of our remove to Gaynes, I learned that Thomas Arundel, the current Bishop of Ely, had been assigned by Pope Clement to find the truth of Mary’s case.

I was grateful that Robert arrived before the interview with Arundel’s clerk. I felt stronger with him by my side.

“Mary Percy claims to have been held in your home against her will, Dame Alice. That is her argument.”

I fought down the anger that rose in me at such a bare-faced claim. “Lord Percy and the late King Edward arranged the betrothal and marriage of Mary and the king’s son, Sir John Southery,” I stated without emotion. “What is the substance of her petition, other than this false claim?”

“That your son is not of noble birth, and she would have children with a man of noble blood.”

I did not respond at once, feeling a dagger wound to my heart at such an insult. This would wound John as well; it could not help but do so. I fought for calm.

“Granted, I am of common though respectable birth, but my son’s father was the King of England. There is no more noble blood in the realm; not even Percy blood is so noble.”

The clerk coughed and colored as he was forced at last to declare that John was a bastard.

“Yet knighted by his father, the king.”

“I am merely the messenger, Dame Alice.”

It was fait accompli, this interview a mere pretense of courtesy. Why they bothered I could not imagine, being only the harlot who had borne the bastard. Such ugly thoughts. I bowed my head and prayed.

“I pray you, forgive me, Dame Alice,” said the clerk. “I would not cause you such pain.”

Robert showed him out. The clerk would bide with the parish priest while awaiting our formal response.

My consolation was that John came east to Westminster in the party of the Bishop of Exeter and then continued on to Gaynes. For his part, he had been grievously insulted by Mary’s petition and was ready to protest to the Percy family, as I had expected. That did nothing to dampen my joy in seeing him—he was almost fifteen now, as tall as me and looking so like his father, from his piercingly blue eyes to his
long-fingered hands and shapely legs. My heart swelled with pride and love. But we needed to talk at once. I invited him to accompany me to watch the training of a new falcon, a gift from one of Janyn’s old friends.

As we walked through the spring garden, the beds tidy and hopeful with fresh shoots, I asked him how he liked the bishop’s household.

“It is pleasant enough, but I shall not be returning. I am now in the service of the Duke of Lancaster.”

I sought for a way to express surprise without appearing false. “So you did not care for Exeter?”

John quickened his stride for a moment, then paused as I laughingly begged him to consider the limitations of my skirts. He turned a flushed face to me—it is the bane of the fair to wear their emotions so brightly.

“If Mary wins her annulment, and you know that Henry Percy will spare no expense to ensure that she does so, I must find a way to erase that dishonor, Mother. My skill in arms should do that. The duke has promised that I shall take part in a major military expedition within the year.”

“John, you have a comfortable estate from your father.”

We had resumed our walk to the mews, but at a more leisurely pace. My son, who had been remarking on how lovely everything looked at Gaynes, was now focusing on the path before him, looking neither up nor around, and had clasped his hands behind his back—both characteristic signs in his father that he was ill at ease and choosing his words with care. I yearned to prompt him by letting him know what William had told me, but stopped myself before destroying my chance for reassurance. I needed John to tell me in his own time. I needed to know he meant to tell me.

“It is not my comfort but my honor at stake, Mother,” he said, frowning at the pebbled path. He cursed the Percy family for being so eager to own him before parliament had ruled against me and now so ignobly rejecting him. “I hate what they are doing to you. You have suffered enough.”

His loyalty to me gladdened my heart. “I have found much peace in being here, John, away from the city and far from court.” I sought to reassure him a little.

“I mean to protest the petition.”

I was certain that would be a waste of time and money. Unless he
was disappointed in love, something I had not considered. “John, do you love Mary? Do you desire her?”

“Love her? No. Desire her? In faith, I have often wished to feel her breasts.” He grinned, a good sign that he was relaxing a little. “But I’d as lief kiss a braying ass as kiss Mary Percy.”

We laughed together.

“Yet you would fight for her?”

“It is a matter of honor, Mother.”

“We shall find you someone much more to your liking, eh?”

“That is not what angers me. You have reached a settled state in your life. Sir William is a good husband; he is fighting to reinstate your properties and status.”