The King's Concubine

Chapter Five

It became my habit to keep a journal of sorts. Why? Did I need a reason? Only that I should not lose the skill I had learned with such painstaking effort. No one needed me to write in a palace where men of letters matched the number of huntsmen. Sometimes I wrote in French, sometimes in Latin as the mood took me. I begged pieces of parchment, pen, and ink from the palace clerks. They were not unwilling when I smiled, when I tilted my chin or slid a long-eyed glance. I was learning the ways of the Court, and the power of my own talents to attract.

And what did I write? A chronology of my days. What I wished to remember, I wrote for more than a year.

Did I ever consider that the damsels might discover what I wrote? Not for a moment. They mocked my scribbling. And what I scribbled was excruciatingly dull. Once, to satisfy their curiosity, I read aloud.…

“‘Today I joined the damsels in my first hunt. I had no enjoyment of it. The King celebrates his fiftieth year with a great tournament and jousting held at Smithfield. We all attend. I am learning to dance.…’”

“By the Virgin, Alice!” Isabella yawned behind her slender fingers. “If you have nothing better to write about, what in heaven’s name is the value of doing it? Better to return to scouring the pots in the kitchens.”

Dull? Infinitely. And quite deliberate, to ensure that no damsel was sufficiently interested to poke her sharp nose into what I might be doing. But what memories my writings evoked for me, rereading my trite comments when my life was in danger and turmoil. There on the pages, in stark letters, in the briefest of record, the pattern of my life unfolded in that fateful year, as clear as a flock of winter rooks digging in a snow-covered field. What a miraculous, terrifying, life-changing year it proved to be.

Today I joined the damsels in my first hunt. I had no enjoyment of it.… What a mastery of understatement that was. The gelding I was given was a mount from hell. I would never see the pleasure in being jolted and bounced for two hours, to come at the end to a baying pack of hounds and a bloody kill. Truth to tell, the kill happened without me, for I fell off with a shriek at the first breath-stopping gallop. Sitting on the ground, covered with leaf mold and twiggery, beating the damp earth from my skirts, I raged in misery. My crispinettes and hood had become detached. The hunt had disappeared into the distance. So had my despicable mount. It would be a long walk home.

“A damsel in distress, by God!”

I had not registered the beat of hooves on the soft ground under the trees. I looked up to see two horses bearing down on me at speed, one large and threatening, the other small and wiry.

“Mistress Alice!” The King reined in, his stallion dancing within feet of me. “Are you well down there?”

“No, I am not!” I was not as polite as I should have been.

“Who suggested you ride that brute that thundered past us?”

“The lady Isabella! That misbegotten bag of bones deposited me here.…I should never have come. I detest horses.”

“So why did you?”

I wasn’t altogether sure, except that it was expected of me. It was the one joy in life remaining to the Queen when she was in health. The King swung down, threw his reins to the lad on the pony, and approached on foot. I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the sun where it glimmered through the new leaves.

“Thomas—go and fetch the lady’s ride,” he ordered.

Thomas, the King’s youngest son, abandoned the stallion and rode off like the wind. The King offered me his hand.

“I can get to my feet alone, Sire.” I was ungracious, I knew, but my humiliation was strong.

“I’ve no doubt, lady. Humor me.”

His eyes might be bright with amusement, but his order was peremptory and not to be disobeyed. I held out my hand, and with a firm tug I was pulled to my feet, whereupon the King began to dislodge the debris from my skirts with long strokes of the flat of his hand. Shame colored my cheeks.

“Indeed you should not, Sire!”

“I should indeed. You need to pin up your hair.”

“I can’t. There’s not enough to pin up, and I need help to make it look respectable.”

“Then let me.”

“No, Sire!” To have the King pin up my hair? I would as soon ask Isabella to scrub my back.

He grunted, a sign of annoyance I recognized. “You must allow me, mistress, as a man of chivalry, to set your appearance to rights.…”

And tucking my ill-used crispinettes into his belt, he proceeded with astonishingly clever fingers to repin my simple hood to cover the disaster, as deft as if he were tying the jesses of his favorite goshawk. I stood still under his ministrations, a stone statue, barely breathing. Until the King stepped back and surveyed me.

“Passable. I’ve not lost my touch in all these years.” He cocked an ear to listen, and nodded his head. “And now, lady, you’ll have to get back on!”

He was laughing at me! “I don’t wish to!”

“You will, unless you intend to walk home.…” Thomas had returned with my recalcitrant mount, and before I could make any more fuss, I was boosted back into the saddle. For a moment as he tightened my girths, the King looked up into my face, then abruptly stepped back.

“There you are, Mistress Alice. Hold tight!” A slap of the King’s hand against the wide rump set me in motion. “Look after her, Thomas. The Queen will never forgive you if we allow her to fall into a blackberry thicket.” A pause, and the words followed me. “And neither will I!”

And Thomas did. Only seven years old, and he had more skill at riding than I would ever have. But it was the King’s deft hands I remembered, not Thomas’s enthusiastic prattling.

The King celebrates his fiftieth year with a great tournament and jousting.… Magnificent! The King was superlative in his new armor. I could not find the words, burnished as he was by the sun, sword and armor striking fire as his arm rose and fell, the plumes on his helmet nodding imperiously. And yet I feared for him, my loins liquid and cold with fear. I could not look away, but when blood matted his sleeve, dripping from his fingers, I closed my eyes.

No need, of course. His energy always prodigious, he was touched with magic that day. Fighting in the melee with all the skill and dash and finesse of a hero of the old tales, he had the grace at the end to heap praise on those whom he defeated.

That day he was all hero to me.

Afterward, when the combatants gathered in the banter much loved by men, the Queen’s ladies threw flowers to the knight of their choice. I had no one. Nor did I care, for there was only one to fill my vision, whether in the lists or in the vicious cut and thrust of personal combat. And I was audacious enough to fling a rosebud, when he approached the gallery in which we women sat with the Queen. He had removed his helm. He was so close to me, his face pale and drawn in the aftermath of his efforts, that I could detect the smear of blood on his cheek where he had wiped at the dust with his gauntlet. I was spellbound, so much so that the flower I so ineptly flung in his direction struck the cheek of the King’s stallion; a soft blow, but the high-blooded destrier instantly reared in the manner of its kind.

“Sweet Jesu!” Startled, the King dropped his helm, tightening his reins as he fought to bring the animal back under control.

“Have you no sense?” Isabella snapped.

I thought better of replying, horrified at what I had achieved, steeling myself to withstand the King’s reproof. Without a word he snapped his fingers to his page to pick up the helm and the now thoroughly trampled flower. I looked at him in fear.

“My thanks, lady.”

He bowed his head solemnly to me as he tucked the crumpled petals into the gorget at his throat. My belly clenched; my face flamed to my hairline. Proud, haughty, confident, the King would treat me with respect when I had almost unhorsed him.

“Our kitchen maid cannot yet be relied upon to act decorously in public!” Isabella remarked, setting up a chorus of laughter.

But the King did not sneer. Urging his horse closer to the gilded canvas, the fire dying from his eyes as the energy of battle receded, he stretched out his hand, palm up.

“Mistress Alice, if you would honor me…”

And I placed mine there. The King kissed my fingers.

“The rose was a fine gesture, if a little wayward. My horse and I both thank you, Mistress Alice.”

There was the rustle of appreciative laughter, no longer at my expense. I felt the heat of his kiss against my skin, hotter than the beat of blood in my cheeks.

I am learning to dance. “Holy Virgin!” I misstepped the insistent beat of the tabor and shawm for the twentieth time. How could I appreciate the ability to count coins under the stern tutorship of Janyn Perrers, yet not be able to count the steps in a simple processional dance? The King’s hand tightened to give me balance as I lurched unforgivably. Should it not have been a graceful dance? The King was a better dancer than I. It would be hard to be worse.

“You are allowed to look at me, Mistress Alice,” he announced when we came together again and snatched a conversation.

“If I do, I shall fall over my feet, Sire—or yours. I’ll cripple you before the night is out.”

“I’ll lead you in the right steps, you know.” I must have looked askance. “Do you not trust me, Alice?”

He had called me by my name, without formality. I looked up at him to find his eyes quizzical on my face, and I promptly missed the next simple movement.

“I dare not,” I managed.

“You would refuse your King?” He was amused again.

“I would when it would be to his detriment.”

“Then we must do our poor best, sweet Alice, and count the broken toes at the end of the evening.”

Sweet Alice? Was he flirting with me? But no. That was not possible. I exasperated him more often than I entertained him. As was quickly proved, if I had had any doubts.

“By God, Mistress Alice. You did not lie,” he stated ruefully as the procession wound to its end. “You should issue a warning to any man who invites you.”

“No one will! Not every man is as brave as you, Sire.”

“Then I’ll remember not to risk it again,” he said as he handed me back to sit at Philippa’s side.

But he did. Even though I still fell over his feet.

The Queen did not forbid me to dance with the King, but she appeared to find little enjoyment in the occasion.

The Queen has given the King a lion. Ah, yes! The affair of the lion. Observing the damsels with scorn where they huddled, hiding their faces, retreating from its roars in mock fear, and keen to find a comforting arm from one of the King’s gallant knights, I walked toward the huge cage, where I might inspect the beast at close quarters. I was not afraid. I would not pretend to be so. How could it harm me when it was imprisoned behind bars and locks? Its rough, tawny mane, its vast array of teeth fascinated me. I stepped closer as it settled on its haunches, tail twitching in impotent warning.

“You’re not afraid, Mistress Alice?” Soft-footed, the King stood behind me.

“No, Sire. What need?” We had returned to formality, and I was not sorry. Was he not the King? “The girls are foolish, not really afraid. They just wish to…”

“They wish to attract attention?”

“Yes, Sire.”

We looked across to where the fluttering damsels received assurance and flattery.

“And you do not, Mistress Alice? Does not some young knight take your extremely critical eye? Is there no one you admire?”

I thought about this, giving his question more consideration than perhaps was intended, appraising the wealth of strength and beauty and high blood around me.

“No, Sire.” It was the truth.

“But you admire my lion.”

“Oh, I do.”

The lion watched us with impassive hatred. Were we not the cause of its imprisonment? I considered its state, and my own past experience. Both kept under duress, without freedom. Both existing on the whim of another. But I had escaped by miraculous means. There would be no miracle for this lion. This poor beast would remain in captivity until the day of its death.

“Does nothing fill you with terror? Other than horses, of course.”

There! He had unnerved me again. “Yes,” I replied. “But it’s a fear you’ll never know, Sire.”

“Tell me, then.”

Before I could collect my wits, I found myself explaining, because he was regarding me as if he really cared about my fears. “I am afraid of the future, Sire, where nothing is permanent; nothing is certain. Of a life without stability, without friends or family, without a home. Where I am nobody, without name or status. I don’t want to be dependent on the pity or charity of others. I had enough of that from Sister Goda. And at the hands of my sister-in-law, Signora Damiata. It is a lonely existence and I fear it. I want to make something of myself, for myself. I don’t want to die in penury.”

Holy Mother! I looked fixedly at the lion, horrified. Had I really admitted to all that? To the King?

“It’s a lot to ask,” he replied simply. “For a young woman in your situation.”

Countess Joan had observed as much, if with less courtesy. “Is it impossible?”

“No. That was not my meaning. But it’s a hard road for a woman alone to travel.”

“Must I then accept my fate, like this poor imprisoned beast?”

“Are we not all governed by fate, mistress?” I was aware that his attention was turned from the lion to me and, with just as much speculation, that the conversation had taken a very personal turn, and I sought for an innocuous reply.

“I don’t intend ingratitude, Sire. I’m aware of how much I owe the Queen.”

“I didn’t know that you saw your future in so bleak a light.”

“Why would you, Sire? You are the King. It is not necessary that you either know or care.” For that was how I saw it.

“So you think I don’t care? Am I so selfish?” He was clearly startled; his fine brows met over the bridge of his nose, and I wondered whether I had displeased him. “Or is it that you have a low opinion of all men?”

“I’ve no reason not to. My father, whoever he was, gave me no reason to think highly of them. Nor did my husband, who took me into a sham of a marriage to ward off his sister’s nagging. I did not matter overmuch to either of them.”

For a moment the King looked astounded as my bitterness overflowed, as I thought he might if one of his hounds dared to bite him on the calf.

“You don’t hold back with the truth, do you, mistress? It seems I must make amends for my sex.”

“You owe me nothing, Sire.”

“Perhaps it is not a matter of owing, Alice. Perhaps it is more of what I find I wish to do.”

The lion roared, lashing out with its claws against the metal, interrupting whatever the King, or I, might have said next. He led me away as attendants from his menagerie came to transport the beast, and I thanked God for the timely intervention. I had said quite enough to damn myself.

But the King was not finished with me quite yet. “You are not justified in your reading of my character, Mistress Alice,” he said as we came to the door, a wry twist of his lips. “I know exactly what you fear. I lived through a period of my life when my future hung on a thread, when I did not know friend from enemy, and my authority as King was under attack. I know about rising every morning from my bed not knowing what fate would dish out for me that day—whether good or evil.”

I must have shown my disbelief that a King should ever know such insecurity.

“And one day I will tell you.”

He walked away, leaving me dumbfounded.

I have a gift. From Edward himself. I frowned at my gift, all spirit with a mane and tail of silk, as neat as an illustration from a Book of Hours, as she fussed and tossed her head in the stable yard.

“You don’t like her?”

“I don’t know why you should give her to me, Sire.”

“Why should I not?”

“And why do you always ask me questions that I find difficult to answer?”

Edward laughed, not at all disturbed by my retort. “You always seem to find one!”

“She’s never short of a pert comment, that’s for sure.” Isabella had arrived to stroke the pretty dappled creature. “When did you last give me a new horse, sir?”

“When you last asked me for one, as I recall. Two months ago.”

“So you did. I must think of something else, since you’re generous today.”

“You have never had need to question my generosity to you, Isabella,” the King replied dryly.

“True!” she declared, giving a final pat to the mare. “Get what you can, little Alice, since His Majesty is in the mood for giving! Here’s your chance to make your fortune from the royal coffers.” And she wandered off, restless as ever.

“My daughter is free with her opinions.” He watched her go. “I apologize for her lack of grace.”

It had been an unnerving little interlude, leaving the King with less of his good humor, but still I asked: “You have not told me why you have given me the mare, Sire.”

“I have given you the mare because you need a mount to take care of you when my son cannot. She will treat you very well. If you will be so good as to accept her.”

His reply was curt, giving me a taste of his latent power, his dislike of being thwarted or questioned, his very masculine pride. I would not be ungrateful and would accept with more elegance than Isabella had shown. I set myself to charm. King or not, he did not deserve to have his openhanded magnanimity to a servant thrown in his face.

“I am not ungracious, Sire. It is just that no one has ever given me a gift before. Except for the Queen. And once I was given a monkey.” He began to smile. “It was a detestable creature.”

Edward laughed. “What happened to it? Do you still have it?”

“Fortunately not. I fear its fate was sealed at St. Mary’s. Repentance—or some dire punishment—as I know to my cost.”

His laughter became a low growl. “Then if you are so short of gifts, I must do what I can to remedy it.”

I considered this, conscious of how singular this must seem. “The King does not give gifts to girls of no family.”

“This one does. He gives what he wishes, to whom he wishes. Or at least, he gives a palfrey to you, Mistress Alice.”

“I can’t, Sire.…” I was not lacking in good sense. It would be indiscreet. The mare was far too valuable.

“What a prickly creature you are! It is nothing, you know.”

“Not to you…”

“I want you to enjoy her. Will you allow me to do that? If for no other reason than that you serve the Queen well.”

How could I refuse? When the mare pushed against my shoulder with her soft nose, I fell in love with her—just a little—because she was beautiful and she was the King’s gift.

The Queen is ill. She cannot move from her bed and begs me to read to her. When Edward visited, I stood to curtsy, already closing the book and putting it aside, expecting to be dismissed. Edward’s time with his wife was precious, but he waved for me to read on and sat with us until I had finished the tale.

It was a dolorous one in which the Queen found particular enjoyment. She wept for the tragedy of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde. The King stroked her hand, chiding her gently for her foolishness, telling her that his love for her was far greater than that of Tristan for his lady, and that he had no intention of doing anything so spineless as turning his face to the wall to die. Only a sword in the gut would bring him to his knees. And was his dear Philippa intending to cast herself over his body and die too without cause but a broken heart? Were they not—after so many years of marriage—made of sterner stuff than that? For shame!

It made the Queen laugh through her tears. “A foolish tale,” she said, with a watery smile.

“But it was well read. With much feeling,” Edward observed.

He touched my shoulder as he left us, the softest of pressures. There was no need for it—and yet he had chosen to do it. Did the Queen notice? I thought not, but she dismissed me brusquely, pleading a need for solitude. She covered her face with her hands.

Her voice stopped me as I reached the door.

“Forgive me, Alice. It is a grievous burden I have given myself, and sometimes it is beyond me to bear it well.”

I did not understand her.

Edward has had his clock placed in a new tower. I stood and watched in awe. Edward’s shout of laughter was powerful, a thing of joy, for at last his precious clock had come to the final steps of its installation, the tower to house it complete and the pieces of the mechanism assembled to the Italian’s finicky satisfaction. Here was the day that it would be set into working order, and the Queen had expressed a desire to witness it. Had Edward not had it made for her, modeled on that belonging to the Abbot of St. Albans, with its miraculous shifting panels of sun and stars?

“I can’t!” Philippa admitted. “I really can’t!” when she could not push her swollen feet into soft shoes. “Go and watch for me, Alice. The King needs an audience.”

“Thank God!” Isabella remarked.

“For what precisely?” Philippa was peevish. “I fail to see any need to thank Him this morning.”

“Because you didn’t ask me to go to look at the monstrosity.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. Alice will enjoy it. Alice can ask the King the right questions, and then tell us all about it. Can’t you?”

“Yes, Majesty,” I replied, not truly understanding why I had been singled out.

“But not in great detail,” Isabella called after me as I left the room. “We’re not all fixated with ropes and pulleys and…wheels!”

So I went alone. I was interested in ropes and pulleys and cogs with wooden teeth that locked as they revolved. I wanted to see what the Italian had achieved. Was that all I wanted?

Ah, no!

I wanted to watch and understand what fascinated Edward when he didn’t have a sword in his hand or a celebration to organize. I had no excuse. I wanted to see what beguiled this complex man of action. So I watched the final preparations.

We were not alone. The King had his audience with or without my presence, the Italian and his assistant as well as a cluster of servants and a handful of men-at-arms to give the necessary strength. And there was Thomas, who could not be kept away from such a spectacle.

“We need to lift this into position, Sire.” The Italian gestured, arms flung wide. “And then attach the weights and the ropes for the bell.”

The ropes were apportioned to the men-at-arms, the instructions issued to hoist the weights for the winding mechanism. Thomas was given the task of watching for the moment when all was in place. I was waved ignominiously to one side.

“Pull!” the Italian bellowed. And they did. “Pull!”

With each repetition, the pieces of the clock rose into position.

“Almost there!” Thomas capered in excitement.

“Pull!” ordered the Italian.

They pulled, and with a creak and a snap one of the ropes broke. The weight to which it was attached, now without the tension, crashed down to the floor, sending up a shower of dust and stone chippings. And before I could react, the loose remnants of the rope flew in an arc, like a whiplash, snaking out across the stone paving, to strike my ankles with such force that my feet were taken out from under me.

I fell in an inelegant heap of skirts and frayed rope and dust.

“Signorina!” The Italian leaped to my side with horror.

“Alice!” The King was there too.

I sat up slowly, breathless from shock and surprise, my ankles sore, as the Italian proceeded to wipe dust from my face before discreetly arranging my disordered skirts.

“Signorina! Mille pardons!”

It all seemed to be happening at a distance. The cloud of dust settling, the soldiers lowering the still-unfixed pieces of the clock, now forgotten in the chaos. Thomas staring at me with a mixture of fright and ghoulish fascination.

My eyes settled on the King’s anxious face. “Sire…” I said. I was not discreet.

“You are quite safe now.” He enclosed my hands within his and lifted them to his lips.

And my senses returned.

“I am not hurt,” I stated.

Ignoring this, Edward sent Thomas at a run: “Fetch my physician!”

“I am not hurt!” I repeated.

“I’ll decide whether you are hurt or not,” Edward snapped back, and then to his Master of Clocks, who still fussed and wrung his hands: “See to the mechanism. It’s not your fault, man! I’ll deal with Mistress Alice.”

Never had I been so aware of his presence, the proud flare of nostrils that gave him a hawkish air even when he was not. Even when rank fear was imprinted in his face.

“Can you stand?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes.”

Gently, he lifted me and stood me on my feet. To my surprise I staggered and was forced to clutch at his arm—no artifice on my part, but a momentary dizziness. Without a second thought Edward swept me up into his arms and carried me away from the dust and debris.

For the first time in my short existence I was enclosed in the arms of a man. All the feelings I had imagined but never experienced flooded through me. The heat of his body against mine, the steady beat of his heart. The fine grain of his skin beneath the weathering, the firmness of his hands holding me close. The pungency of sweat and dust and sudden panic when life came under threat. My throat was dry with an inexplicable need, my palms slick with it. Every inch of my skin seemed to be alive, shimmering in the bars of sunlight through the glazed and painted windows. I was alight, on fire, my heart thundering against the lacing of my gown.…

Until I was brought back to reality.

“Put me down, Sire!” I ordered, horrified. “You must not worry the Queen with this. She is ill today. Where are you taking me?”

He came to a sudden halt. “I don’t know.” He looked down at me, as jolted as I. How close his eyes were to mine, his breath warm against my temple. “In faith, Alice, you frightened me beyond reason. Are you in pain?”

“No!” I was too aware, far too aware. “Put me down. Why are you carrying me when I can walk very well on my own?”

“It seemed the right thing to do at the time.” The lines that bracketed his mouth began to ease at last. “Allow me to be gallant, if you will, and carry you to safety.”

I could hear the Italian tending lovingly to his mechanism, and the voices of the soldiers, the proximity of the servants. “Put me down, Sire. We shall be seen.”

“Why would that matter?” His brows winged upward as if he had not considered it.

But I knew it would matter. I knew all the Court would know of this altercation within the hour. “Put me down!” I abandoned any good manners.

Edward turned abruptly into the chancel, marched along its length, and set me down in one of the choir stalls, allowing me some degree of privacy.

“Since you insist…”

And, kneeling beside me, he kissed me. Not a gracious salute to my fingers. Not a brotherly caress to my cheek as I imagined such a one to be. Not a chaste, husbandly peck on the lips such as Janyn Perrers would have employed if he had ever come so close to me. Edward gripped my arms, hauled me against him, and his mouth descended on mine in a firm possession that lasted as long as a heartbeat, and more.

He lifted his head and I looked at him, stunned. My blood hummed; my thoughts scattered. “You should not have done that,” I managed in a whisper. “That is not the right thing to do.”

“Would you lecture the King on his behavior, Mistress Alice?”

He smiled ruefully before he kissed me again, just as forcefully. Just as recklessly. And when it was ended: “You should not have looked at me so trustingly,” he said.

“So it was my fault?” My voice, I regret, was almost a squeak. “That you kissed your wife’s damsel?”

For a moment, Philippa’s presence hovered between us. We felt her with us. I saw the recognition in Edward’s eyes, as I was sure it was in mine. And I saw regret there as his voice and features chilled.

“No, Alice. It was not your fault. It was all mine. You could have been injured and I should have been more careful with you.” It was difficult to keep my breathing even, and when I shivered with a sudden onset of nerves, Edward stood. “You’re cold.” He shrugged out of a sleeveless overtunic he had worn in the church for warmth, and draped it around my shoulders. And when his hands rested there, heat surged through me so that my temples throbbed with it.

“Sire…” I warned as footsteps approached. Edward stepped back, struggling to be tolerant of his physician’s meaningless questions and orders for me to rest to allow my humors to settle.

“I’ll return you to the Queen,” Edward said when the physician was finished and had gone about his affairs.

Yes, I thought. That would be best. To be away from this man who was all too compelling. And then on a thought I asked, “How is the clock after the accident, Sire? The Queen will want to know.”

And he rounded on me with a blaze of anger. “To hell with the clock. I don’t regret kissing you. I find you alluring, intoxicating.…” He glared at me as if it were indeed my fault. “Why is that?”

“A moment’s fear, Sire. I doubt you will even remember this interlude tomorrow when the danger is over and the clock restored.” Ah, but I would.

“This is not a sudden impulse. Do you feel nothing?” he demanded, the hawkishness very pronounced.

I dissembled. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do!”

“Would it matter whether I did or not? I am the Queen’s damsel.”

“As I very well know, God save me!” he exclaimed, his temper still simmering. “Tell me your thoughts on this debacle, Alice.”

“Then I will. For it is a debacle. Yet I think you are the most amazing man I have ever met.” For was that not true?

“Is that all? I want more from you.” He was all authority, his hand strong on mine, his whole body as taut as a bowstring. “I want to see you again before tomorrow. I will arrange it. Come to me tonight, Alice.”

No permission. No soft promises. A Plantagenet order. I had no misconceptions of what would await me. I think for the first time in my life I had nothing to say, not even in my head.

I told the Queen that the clock was experiencing difficulties but that the King had it all in hand.

Did I know what I was doing? Had I seen it developing, unfurling, from the very beginning? Did I see the pits and traps that were opening before my feet? Was I denying the truth even to myself?

Oh, I knew. I was never a fool. I saw what I had done. I saw when his attention was caught. I noted with the first scratch of my pen in my puerile writings when I had called him Edward rather than “the King,” when he gave me the little mare, when I began to think of him as Edward, the man.

Did I enchant, entrap, weave him into my toils, as the malicious tongues were to accuse many years later? Was I complicit in this seduction?

Complicit, yes. But entrapment? I was never guilty of that. When did any woman entrap a Plantagenet? Edward had his own mind and pursued his own path.

Was I malicious?

Not that either. Never that. I was too loyal to the Queen. Guilt was not unknown to me, whatever slanders were aimed at me. Philippa had given me everything I had, and I was betraying her. Regret had teeth as sharp as those of the ill-fated monkey.

Ambitious, then?

Without a doubt. For here was a certain cure for the ills of obscure poverty. When a woman spends her young years with nothing of her own, why should she not seize the opportunity to remedy her lack, if that opportunity should fall into her lap?

Ah! But could I have stopped the whole train of events before I became the royal whore? Who’s to say? With Edward I could be myself, not a silly damsel without a thought in my head but gossip and chatter. Edward listened to me as if my opinions mattered. I found his authority, his dominance, his sheer maleness intoxicating, as would any woman. When I saw his clever, handsome features, when his eyes turned to mine, it was as if I had just drunk a cup of finest Gascon wine. He was the King and I his subject. I was under his dominion as much as he was under mine.

Could I have prevented it? No, I could not. For at the eleventh hour it was taken out of my hands. I was not to be deus ex machina.

That night I waited, apprehension churning in my belly to the extent that nausea threatened to send me running to the garderobe. Taking a sip of ale, I sat on the side of my bed, feigning interest in the gossip of the two damsels as they plaited each other’s hair for the night. I pretended to be unraveling a stubborn knot from a length of ribbon, except that I made it worse. Abandoning it, I took off my veil and folded it. Refolded it. Anything to keep my hands busy. I could not sit. I stood abruptly to prowl the room.

What division of loyalties was here in my mind, my heart. Commanded by the King, recipient of his kisses. Servant of the Queen, who honored me with her confidences. This was a betrayal. A terrible riding roughshod over the Queen’s trust, stealing from her what was rightfully hers. It was impossible to argue around it.

I looked around the room, at the damsels quietly occupied. What to do now? Was it all a mistake? Had I misunderstood? There would be no royal summons after all, and my guilt could be laid aside.

A knock sounded on the door. I jumped like a stag, and my hands were not steady as I opened the door to a page in royal insignia.

“It is the Queen, mistress. She cannot sleep. She has sent for you. Will you come?”

“I will come,” I replied quietly.

So this was how it was to be arranged. A royal stratagem. A clever, supremely realistic ploy to remove me from my room without rousing the least degree of suspicion. Would I be waylaid in some dark corridor, product of some careful planning, to be led to the King’s apartments instead of the Queen’s? I detested the thought of such secrecy, such underhanded deceit. I did not want this—but I was trapped in a web that might have been some of my own making.

While the page waited I wrapped a mantle around me and made to follow.

“I may not return before dawn,” I told the other damsels, my hand on the latch, impressed that my voice was steady. “If the Queen is ill and restless, I’ll sleep on a pallet in the antechamber.”

They nodded, lost in their own concerns. It was so easy.

The King wants you in his bed.

I shivered.

I was not to be waylaid after all. Instead I was shown by the incurious page into the smallest of the antechambers, with a second door leading into the Queen’s accommodations. It was a room I knew well, often used for intimate conversation, or to withdraw into if one felt the need for solitary contemplation. Had I not used it myself in the hour after the King made his intentions plain, after the affair of the clock? Built into one of the towers, it had circular walls, the cold stone covered with tapestries, all flamboyant with birds and animals of the forest. As I stood uncertainly in the center, deer stared out at me with carefully stitched eyes. Wherever I turned I seemed to be under observation. An owl fixed me unblinkingly with golden orbs; a hunting dog watched me. I turned my back on it to sit on one of the benches against the wall. I started at every sound, and strained in the silence when there was no sound.

What now? I could do nothing but wait. Whatever was to transpire within the next hour was not within my governance. What would I say? What would I do? The palms of my hands were clammy with sweat as my thoughts flew ahead. What if I displeased Edward? My knowledge of what passed between a man and a woman within the privacy of the bed curtains was so limited as to be laughable. My education with the nuns had not fitted me for the role of mistress, royal or otherwise. As for Janyn…I gripped the edge of the bench on either side of me until it hurt.

Holy Virgin, don’t abandon me!

But how was I fit to call on the Queen of Heaven?

The door opened. I leaped to my feet.

In my anxiety I had not noticed that it was the door from the Queen’s rooms, not the one from the corridor. I faced it, expecting another page to take me further along this treacherous journey.

Ah, no!

My blood froze. My feet became rooted to the spot. Fear was a stone in my belly.

The Queen stood there on the threshold.

She stepped slowly forward, as regal as if entering a state chamber, and closed the door behind her with the softest of clicks. She might be clad in a night shift beneath her loose robe, her hair might be plaited on her shoulder, but she was every inch a queen. Her face might be lined and pinched with long-suffered pain, but her innate dignity was superb. For a drawn-out moment we stood, alone in that little room except for the static gaze of hundreds of embroidered eyes, and regarded each other.

Philippa held herself stiffly, the elbow of her damaged arm supported by her opposite hand, yet still she had come here to see me, to remonstrate, to curse me for my presumption. It was as if she cried out to me in her agony.

And because I could not speak, I sank into a deep obeisance, hiding my face from her. Was I not stripping from her the duty and honor of her husband’s body and name? Was I not about to create a scandal that would cloak her in humiliation? What I was about to do could destroy her.…

At that moment I knew in my heart: I could not do this thing.

“Alice…” My name was little more than a sigh on her lips.

“My lady…Forgive me.…”

“I knew you would be here.”

She knew. Of course she knew. How would she not? Such an emotional tie as I had seen between them. Sometimes it seemed to me that Philippa knew Edward was present even before he entered the room. So she knew. She must know, through that same inner sense, that her husband, the one love of her life, intended to betray her.

I could not do this to her.

I fell to my knees before her. “Forgive me. Forgive me, my lady.”

Without words she touched my hair and I looked up. Her face was wet with tears, so many that they dripped to leave dark spots on the damask of her robe. So much sorrow, it struck at my heart. I lifted my hands to cover my face so that I could not witness such depths of grief. There were tears in my own eyes.

“I would never harm you, Lady.…”

“I know.”

“I’ll go back to my room.” I heard my words muffled by my hands. “I’ll not do it. I promise I will not.”

Bending awkwardly, the Queen gripped my forearm and with a grunt of pain urged me to my feet.

“I’ll tell the King that…” I continued, shame a bloody sword in my flesh. Tell him what? The words dried on my lips.

“What will you tell him, Alice?”

“I don’t know. I’ll leave Court if I must.…” Anything to heal the wound of bitter betrayal. I turned my face away. I could not look at her.

“No, Alice.”

I shook my head. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but…”

The grasp of Philippa’s fingers, which must have hurt her as much as it did me, silenced me. “No, Alice,” I heard as she took a breath. “You will do as the King wishes. Do you understand?”

It made no sense. No sense at all.

“No…no!”

“You will go to the King. When the King’s page comes, you will go with him.” How accepting her voice was.

“I can’t. I can’t be so disloyal…” I protested.

“You are not disloyal. I want you to go to him.”

Which confused me beyond reason. “No…!” I covered her hand with mine even though she was Queen, as if I could force her to acknowledge what she was saying. “You can’t want that! Don’t you see…?” I could not put it into words.

The Queen raised her free hand to hold my chin so that I must look at her, and she at me. She gave an infinitesimal nod of her head, then released me and took a step away, creating a little space between us.

“Look at me, Alice. Look at me!” she insisted. “Not as the Queen but as a woman.” She lifted her hands so that I had no choice but to see the ravages of the disease that was slowly but inexorably engulfing her. “I am almost fifty years old.” She smiled with her lips. “I have worn my years less well than my lord. My body is wearing out. My fortitude might have been strong but the deaths of my children have robbed me of that too. I feel death treading on my hem, Alice.”

“No,” I urged. “I can make the pain less for you.…”

“I know you can. And you do. But sometimes it is so great. And I cannot bear to be touched.…”

The Queen sighed and I took her meaning. The swollen flesh, the stretched skin, the displaced shoulder. Some days it took the Queen all her willpower to walk from bedchamber to solar. “I know, my lady.”

“Of course you do. Edward is virile, as much as he has always been. He has needs, as all men do. He needs a woman to warm his bed and pleasure his flesh. How can I do that? The weight of the bed linen is an agony to me. I have loved my lord. I have borne him twelve children and was honored to do so. I still love him more than life itself—but I cannot be a wife to him in the flesh. It hurts my heart, but I cannot.”

“No…” There was nothing more to say.

“Once, I could barely wait until he came to me at night. My skin warmed. My loins melted. Now I fear what he might demand from me—not that he is ever cruel or thoughtless, you understand. He does not demand what I cannot bear. I don’t want fear to stand between Edward and me—so I must make my own remedy.”

How honest she was. How heartbreakingly transparent. I watched every stark emotion chase across her face and waited for her decision. And there it was.

“Do this, Alice. Do this for me. I thought I could stand back and allow it to happen without speaking to you. But I could not. You deserve to know what I have done. You are too intelligent to be treated as a cipher, your will to be disposed of at a whim in so personal a matter.” She ran her tongue over dry lips as if she had to steel herself to continue. But she did. “I have told my lord to take a lover because such intimacy is beyond me.”

Oh, Philippa! I could imagine what it had taken her to do this. How she had to deny her pride and her position as Edward’s wife.

“I want him to have you, Alice. Why do you think I have placed you in his way?”

A new emotion began to surface in my mind. “So you planned this.…”

“Planned? Perhaps I have, although I do not like the word. It has been in my mind, let us say.”

“Does the King know?” I was suddenly horrified that it had been arranged between them, with me as the pawn to be moved on the chessboard at will, and I felt the heat of resentment in my belly.

“No.” Philippa’s brief laughter was harsh. “He is a man who has always made his own decisions, and he will do so in this. Would any Plantagenet prince allow a woman to choose his lover? Never! We all dance to Edward’s tune.”

The crawling horror subsided a little. “But with all the beautiful women at Court…”

“My husband is well aware of the beauty around him. If he wanted a particular woman as his lover, he would take her. But you have a strange charm, Alice. I have prayed he would see it and respond to it.”

“But it is betrayal! And is it not degrading to him? Even for us to be speaking in this manner?” I found my voice had dropped to almost a whisper, as if the vividly embroidered creatures might hear. “It is a dishonor to his manhood.”

“No, my dear girl. Never think that. It would be too much of a burden for him to embrace chastity—he is a high-blooded man—yet he has done so in recent months for my sake.” Her smile held a world of acceptance. “This is my gift to him—and yours to me. I lifted you up from nothing, Alice. Now you can repay me.”

“My gift to you.” I let the words filter through my mind.

“Yes. You speak of humiliation. But think! How could I bear it if he were to take a common whore in the heat of frustrated passion? Or a titled woman of my own Court? A man in the throes of passion does not always discriminate. And I could not bear the scandal.…The worst is always believed, and I haven’t the strength to hold up my head against it.…”

Soft footsteps sounded in the distance, drawing nearer.

“Are you sure about this, my lady?” I asked. The moment had arrived. There would be no going back for either of us.

“More sure than I have ever been of anything.” She leaned forward, clumsy but determined, to place a kiss between my brows. “I must go—I don’t want us to be found here together. This is no plot, and Edward must not consider it as such. Give him what he wants, Alice, knowing it is with my blessing.”

She turned to go, but I stopped her with my question.

“You once told me that you had a role for me to play. Is this it?”

“Yes.” She looked back. “You will find that Edward is a magnificent lover.” The grief was almost her undoing; I heard the sob in her throat. “I will make it as easy as I can for you.”

For the length of a breath, but which seemed an age, we regarded each other: Philippa with a certainty born of desperation, I with astonishment at her courage and knowledge that it would not prove to be a simple role for her or for me. How could a loving wife accept her husband’s whore as her own daily companion? It would be beyond my tolerance. Now I understood exactly what the Queen had meant by a grievous burden.

Then she was gone, and I was left in a quagmire of unbelief, my mind racing. The door to the corridor opened as the one to Philippa’s rooms closed. I raised my chin and prepared to become the King’s mistress with the blessing of his wife. All I had to do was follow the royal page.…Before God! This was a night for courage, and I suspected I had used all that was allotted to me.

There was Wykeham, regarding me as if I were a louse to be burned in the candle flame.

He stepped aside with the most dismissive of gestures. Not once did his eyes meet mine, not even fleetingly, but stared somewhere over my left shoulder. It was as if he could not look at me, for fear of acknowledging the terrible transgression that was about to be branded on my soul.

“You are to come with me, Mistress Perrers.”

So Wykeham was to be Edward’s minion on this sensitive mission. Yesterday he would have called me Alice. Yesterday he would have greeted me with a smile and asked after my health. Today he scorned me as the most despicable of creatures.

“This is a sin!” he growled in confirmation, if I had needed it, as I walked past him from the room.

“It is the King’s will.” The less I said, the better.

“You should not be part of it.”

I was brief but defiant. “I am summoned.”

“By your own contriving, no doubt. What you do must disgust any man possessing even an ounce of decency. The Queen has given you everything and this is how you repay her.” Wykeham’s mouth shut like a trap.

“I think we should go,” I replied, and turned away so that I need not see his vile disgust of me glitter in his eye. What had passed between me and the Queen must remain locked away, and so I must be content to let this man I had called a friend think what he wished of me, even though he condemned me for a sin not of my committing.

He led me through the deserted corridors. Had everyone been sent away deliberately? Not one page, no clerks or body servants, not one of the royal household was about on that night that set my feet on a new and dangerous path. My escort was unnervingly silent, so that I could taste his disapproval in my mouth, feel the burn of it on my skin. For the length of a single breath I stumbled almost to a halt. What if I didn’t comply? Was this how I wished to lose my virginity, as a creature in the clever royal scheming to benefit King and Queen? My mind was clouded with uncertainty, my heart encased in ice. So, what if I refused? What if I…? But events had moved on too far and too fast, as I knew, and I was being carried along, a mindless leaf in a stream. Quickly I pattered after Wykeham, until he came to a halt so abruptly that I all but trod on his heel. Wheeling ’round, he forced me to retreat a step, but he seized my wrist in an unpriestly grip.

“You should not be here!” His eyes were furious, his lips stretched in anger.

“Will you deny me to your King?” I would say anything to stop the accusations. “Not even you could do that, Wykeham.” I put a sneer into my voice. “You can build walls and arches, but you can’t dictate to your King!” Anything to shut him up.

Instantly he released me, thrusting me away so that I staggered against the wall.

“Wykeham…!” I gasped.

His mind was closed against me. And what could I have said without betraying the Queen’s carefully crafted deceit? With a brush of his knuckles against a door, Wykeham opened it, stood back, and gestured me to go through. I stepped into the room. The door closed at my back.