The King's Concubine

Chapter Seven

Philippa was ill—a return of the old complaint that never entirely left her. I rubbed salve into the taut skin of Philippa’s hands as gently as I could.

“You are sad, my lady,” I observed. Not even lute music lifted her spirits.

“I feel the weight of every year of my life today.”

She missed Edward. She missed his company and the unquestioning love in his face when he looked at her. With him she was once again the young girl—but without him she sank into gloom, and the hours dragged their feet. As if latching onto my thoughts she winced and pulled her hand away, suddenly petulant.

“Forgive me, my lady.”

She shook her head. “I need to consider the arrangements.…”

“Arrangements, my lady?” She allowed me to scoop up more of the salve, leaves and petals of violets pounded into mutton fat, evil-smelling but good to relieve hot swellings.

“For my death.”

My fingers hesitated before continuing their task. I had not realized the depth of her melancholy. “There is no need.…” I tried to soothe her.

“But there is. I need to prepare an effigy—for my tomb.”

“You have many years, my lady.”

“I do not. You know I don’t.” I looked up to find her dark eyes fixed on me, willing me to tell the truth. “You know! Don’t lie to me, Alice,” she whispered. “You of all people…”

And so I told her what I saw in her face, because I owed it to her.

“I know, my lady. I’ll not lie,” I whispered back.

A slight smile touched her mouth. “I want my effigy to look like me, not some slim young girl—something I haven’t been for too many years. If ever…”

“Then we shall arrange it,” I said. “Tell me what you want me to do to help you.”

Philippa released her hand from mine and placed it under my chin, lifting and turning my face to the oblique light from the window. She ran her thumb over the line of my jaw.

I remained perfectly still, the silk of my bodice barely stirring.

“Well?” she asked. Her hands dropped away as if she had been burned, and thus released, I met her gaze as fearlessly as I could. “There’s a translucence about you, Alice. And a fullness in your face that I don’t recall.…”

Still I said nothing. The Queen sighed, her eyes clouded with a mix of emotion. “I’ve carried twelve children, Alice. With some I’ve suffered. With some I’ve rejoiced. I know the signs. I’m right, am I not?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I suppose he does not know?”

“No. He does not.”

Because I did not know how to tell him. It had been the one thought in my head since that morning, almost two months ago now, when my predicament forced me to my knees with an oath of despair when I vomited into the noxious depths of the garderobe, then staggered to slide down the wall when my knees trembled and gave way. The King, potent in all things, had got a child on me within three months of Edward’s eye and Philippa’s mind alighting on me.

I now saw my predicament reflected in Philippa’s expression. Edward valued his image as the King who upheld all that was good and moral in England: a mirror for his people. Would he want a bastard foisted upon him by a hapless girl whom he had honored with his attentions? Before God, he would not. And Philippa? If I were the King’s legal wife, I knew how I would react to his upstart mistress swelling before my eyes with the evidence of his bastard, forcing her mountainous belly on the attention of the Court. If I were Philippa, I would have the whore whipped from my sight. Conscious of how vulnerable I was, I saw my precarious future hanging in the balance as I sat back on my heels, the violet salve forgotten by both of us, and waited for the blow to fall.

Philippa considered me. When she spoke her voice was as hard as the pestle with which I had ground the tender violet petals. “Go and pack your belongings. I think it’s time you left Court.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

Did she mean forever? Yet how could I blame her? How could she live with this terrible evidence of her husband’s unfaithfulness burgeoning before her eyes? I swallowed against the rock of dismay that lodged itself in my throat.

“I’ll arrange it.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

Disregarding the pain, the Queen pushed herself to her feet, her face a stone mask. “I wondered whether you might refuse to go.”

And I bowed my head. “How can I? I am your damsel, my lady, and if you dismiss me, then I must go.”

Her lips twisted. “I thought you would insist on begging Edward’s tolerance. To remain here and give birth under the shocked gaze of the whole Court. When were you going to tell me?”

“When I had to.”

“Did you think I would disapprove?”

“Yes.” It was little more than a sigh.

Suddenly she stooped to seize my hand, her nails biting deep into my flesh. “Of course I do. I hate it. I despise what you have done! Do you think I wish to see you like this, knowing what you do with my husband? Sometimes I despise you too, Alice! Holy Virgin—I wish I had never set eyes on you.…” Her bosom swelled as she took a deep breath and forced a vestige of a smile to her lips. “And I despise even more that I cannot blame you—when it was all through my instigation.” Releasing my hands, she turned her face away. “Get out. I don’t want to look at you.”

So I was dismissed from the Queen’s presence.

“Will you tell the King, my lady?” I asked.

“I will tell him everything he needs to know.”

I walked out of the Queen’s chamber, my hand throbbing where her nails had scored me deep enough to draw blood.

The next morning, as dawn touched the sky, I left Havering. There was no one in the courtyard to bid me farewell or see me settled into the litter provided for me. Thus my departure was anonymous and unrecorded, much like my arrival. But then I had had Wykeham with me. Now Wykeham was at Windsor and Edward at Eltham, neither cognizant of the Queen’s decision. The Queen would be on her knees in the chapel. There was no one. Isabella, if she had known, would have spat on my feet.

This was it. The end. Dismissed with a royal bastard child and nothing of my own other than the clothes in the saddlebags. The greater the distance I traveled, the bleaker my future became. All was so uncertain. And not least what Edward would say when he discovered my absence and the reason for it.

My thoughts drifted. Where were they taking me? Nothing had been said, and I had been too distraught at the speed and finality of it to ask. Was it to be the Abbey? The thought hit me like a pail of freezing water, drenching me from head to foot.

Not that! I won’t go. Not again!

But where would I go instead? There was nowhere.

And even though I had always accepted that my good fortune was finite, on this journey I was forced to accept the truth of it. How terrifyingly reliant I was on this Plantagenet family, with all its pride and ruthlessness and complicated plotting. With the presence of this child under my heart, I meant nothing to them other than an embarrassment to be removed. I could do nothing but allow them to decide my future.

The hours passed, a knot of fear and anger building that I should have so little control over what would become of me and this child who suddenly became very precious to me. Greseley, I thought. I must write to him at the Tabard, demand that he release some moneys from my properties to pay for a permanent sanctuary for me. But as the second day of my journey drew to a close, the autumn sun golden, the shadows extending across the road, dappling the horses, my mind grasped what should have been obvious. I had traveled too far for my destination to be the Abbey, and when I had the wit to acknowledge the movement of the sun, I realized we were traveling west.

A shout came from my escort, and the hoofbeats of the horses slowed. Curious, I pulled back the curtains despite the evening chill, and thus caught my first glimpse of the place that was to be my home.

A manor house. A little stone-and-plaster house glowing in the final rays of the sun, the gates to the courtyard and stable block pushed back to allow my little entourage to enter. And there was my new household waiting for me on the threshold: a steward, a housekeeper, to one side two serving maids who bobbed curtsies, and emerging from the stables an ostler. That night the soft welcome of the manor of Ardington—one of Edward’s own properties, as I was to learn—closed around me like the folds of a velvet cloak.

I was not content. Despite the comforts of my rural retreat, I had no serenity, neither of body nor soul. As my belly grew, my spirits declined in counterpoint. I was provided with a home and all my needs, even coin for my purse so that I would not feel without resources, but how long would that last? What would happen to me when the child was born?

In a strange way it was like an imprisonment. Although I had my freedom, I did not feel free to use it. Nothing disturbed my calm day-to-day existence. I did not travel or visit neighbors. There were books to occupy my mind, and out of boredom I sewed—how frustrated I must have been. I played my part in the running of the household, relieved that Mistress Lacey, the briskly efficient housekeeper, was tolerant of my sudden appearances in her kitchen and dairy. The world of the royal Court seemed to be as far away from me as the fabled land of Cathay. After less than a week in this haven, I accepted that I was not made for the unchanging tranquillity of rural life.

I did write—of course. To Greseley, urgency making me curt and demanding.

Master Greseley—I have need of immediate funds. What can you send me?

Only to receive an equally stark missive in reply.

I will send you a return at Michaelmas after harvest. Do not look for a vast sum. Trade is poor and your manor not yet thriving. My advice, Mistress Perrers, is to be prudent in your demands.

How infuriatingly cautious he was! So over all hung the terrible storm cloud of what I would do when the Queen’s charity came to an end. When the King’s lust died, or was lavished on another. Perhaps my successor already trod the corridors to Edward’s arms. What value would I and my child be to him?

For in all that time, I received not one word from the King. No letter, no gift. Not even a visit from the priestly Wykeham to pray over my sinful head. Nothing. I thought I would find it hard to forgive Edward that.

I gave birth to my son with little difficulty, my young body resilient and tolerant of the pain. One moment I was sitting in the kitchen with Mistress Lacey, helping her to strip the sloes from their prickly stems for want of anything better to do, and the next my waters broke. Helped to my chamber by Mistress Lacey and visited by the local midwife, who declared me to be too much in a hurry, me and the child both, I held my child in my arms within the day.

What a stalwart child he was, with lungs like the blacksmith’s bellows until I pressed his mouth against my breast, for I nursed him myself in those early days. I watched him feed with wonder. His hair was fair but I could see no likeness of Edward. His cheeks were round like crab apples, his nose showing nothing of an eagle’s beak. Perhaps he would grow into the King’s fine features. I prayed that the child, in all his innocence, would be more comely than I.

“You will become a knight and a famous soldier,” I informed him, but he fell asleep, replete, his head heavy on my arm.

I loved him. He was mine. He was dependent on me, and I loved him.

But he was also the King’s son. I knew what I must do, whatever the outcome.

Finding a long-disused pen, I wrote a letter. My pen hovered over the parchment. To Edward or Philippa? I would write to Philippa, one mother to another, even though it was supplicant to queen. My pen continued to hover, spiked with defiance.

Tell the King. Am I allowed to return to Court? What does the King think of his absent lover and her bastard?

None of those sentiments found their way to the parchment. I erred on the side of ridiculous brevity and discretion.

Majesty,

I am well and my child born. A son. I have called him John.

Your servant,

Alice

That was all I had to say. Then all I had to do was to sit and wait, discovering that patience was not in my nature at all. Holy Virgin, rescue me from this life of solitude and stagnation. In my blackest hours I imagined the Queen consigning my letter to the flames with a vicious pleasure. And who could blame her?

It was Edward who rescued me. And not before time. Edward was astride the familiar bay stallion beneath the arch, the sun gilding his face and bare head, and at his back was a body of gleaming horseflesh and soldiery with the flash of royal pennons and the glint of steel at hand and waist. How many months had it been since I had seen him? Six, I thought. Half a year of separation. And in that time, it seemed to my critical and not very friendly eye, he had grown older, a cobweb of fine lines etched beside mouth and eyes, a new austerity in his lean cheeks so that the eagle prow was keener.

Then he smiled when his eye lit on me where I stood in Mistress Lacey’s garden, and I decided I was mistaken. Dismounting, Edward strode forward, covering the grass, as energetic as he ever was.

I did not curtsy. I did not smile.

“Alice! My dear girl. You look…” His words died and he gave a shout of laughter, so that a startled blackbird flew up from the branches above me. Despite my standing as stiff as a pikestaff with the child in my arms, his hands were on my shoulders, his lips on my cheeks and mouth. He did not see my anger.

“How do I look?” I demanded, when his kisses stopped. I knew how I looked. I kept no state here: clad in my oldest gown, my skirts tucked up, my sleeves rolled to my elbow, even my hair uncovered.

“Disgraceful!” he replied promptly. “Like a penniless country wench.”

“I am a country wench.”

“And this is your son.” Releasing me, he lifted the child from my arms with remarkable aplomb.

“And yours too. I have called him John,” I said, not thawing one inch.

“A good name. I couldn’t think of better. A splendid name for so small and helpless a creature. He’s no bigger than one of my alaunts’ pups.” He held him high, so that John’s fussing became gurgles of joy. “He has the Plantagenet nose, I see.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Then you must look more closely!” Edward lowered the infant, placing him gently back in his basket at my feet. He tilted his chin. He would have been a fool not to have picked up on my mood by now. “And what’s biting you, Mistress Alice? You’re as bad tempered as a squirrel in a trap.”

“Nothing’s biting me!” I would not allow his pleasure at seeing his son to win me over.

The King looked at me, obviously considering his next move with this ill-humored shrew. He brushed a tendril of hair from my forehead and a few crumbs of earth from my sleeve. And he grinned.

“Don’t smile at me!”

“Why not?” But he became sober. “I know what burr’s got under your saddle, mistress. You thought I should have come to see you before now. And that’s the truth of it,” he added when I opened my mouth to deny such childish petulance.

So I agreed. “Yes. How many months is it, Edward?”

“Too many. But listen. Look at me.” He shook my sleeve to get my attention. “You have to accept—you are not always my first priority. I knew you were safe. I knew you were well cared for. I knew that you and your son were in health and lacked for nothing.”

Still I would not accept. “Why did you not come?”

He pulled me to a bank of grass, where we sat. “Chiefly because the King of France is dead.” Edward leaned forward, his forearms braced against his thighs, staring at the grass between his feet.

I knew something of this from my Court days: King John of France, defeated in battle and a prisoner in England until his ransom was paid by his penurious kingdom. A man of honor who waited out his days with good humor.

“He fell ill in March,” Edward explained. “A month later he was dead. I returned his body to France. His son—King Charles the Fifth now—is reluctant to keep the truce of Brétigny between us. So that means war, God help us! I’m negotiating an alliance with King Pedro of Castile—I think we’ll need him. No war yet, but the storm clouds are looming and I don’t…” His words faded. Never had I seen him so lacking in assurance. Then he turned his head and looked up at me. “I am King, Alice. I can’t put you before my duties. I must keep England safe. But I am here now, because I needed to see you and could put it off no longer.”

My cold anger melted. Here was no apology but an explanation that I could understand. An explanation from a man who was King, who did not need to explain. And yet he had. I placed my hand on his arm.

“Will you stay?” I asked.

“I cannot.”

“What is it this time?”

“What it always is. I have summoned Parliament. It is imperative that the Prince in Aquitaine receives enough finance to pursue his foreign policy. Imperative…” And I saw the line of worry dig deep again between Edward’s brows. “I went out of my way to come here!”

“And I suppose that I, being less important than England, must forgive you.”

I could feel him smile as he sat up and pressed his mouth against my hair. I had gone too far in my selfish displeasure, and I forgave him in my delight at seeing him again.

“Have you time for a cup of ale?” My question was gentle, and I touched his cheek.

“I have, and for a kiss from a woman who no longer stares at me as if I were a leper. And let me see my son again.”

Barely an hour we spent together, seated in the garden amidst the herbs and bees. Then he was mounted, the royal escort drawn up in good array, but with one matter still uncertain for me. Was it deliberate policy that he had not spoken of it? I must know.…

“Do I return to Court, Sire? Does the Queen wish me to return as a domicella?”

“Can you doubt it?” His regard was quizzical. I did not think that he understood my concerns.

“Yes,” I stated.

“She does, Alice. She has missed you.”

Or was this Edward imposing his will on a reluctant Queen? “When?” I asked. “When will you send for me?’

Edward’s eyes flashed, temper suddenly simmering close to the surface. “When I don’t have the Commons baying at my heels about the rise in prices. It’s like trying to legislate against the incoming tide. We’re trying to determine what men of rank and no rank might or might not wear—fur or embroidery—or whether the commons should—” Impatience lay heavily on him, and frustration, as he bit off the words.

“What about John?” I asked with false sweetness. “What does your new law say that a bastard—even a royal one—is entitled to wear?” I knew my humor had an unpleasant edge, but what woman would not dislike being set aside for a discussion of sumptuary laws?

And the temper died, as I had intended. “By God, Alice! I miss you. I forget to laugh when you are not with me.”

And I reached up to touch the lines beside his eyes, regretting their presence. “I miss making you laugh.”

“Never doubt that I want you back at Court.”

Then he was gone, leaving me with much to think about that was unsettling. Not so much my own circumstances, which were still far from certain in my eyes, but the events that were putting the King under so great a strain.

I returned to Court as circumspectly as I left. Who should be the first to cross my path, to grasp the chance to put me in my place, if for any reason I misread my strange status in the royal household, but Isabella, who was crossing the courtyard from chapel to hall—just as gloriously beautiful and as querulous as I recalled. And quite as extravagant: The gown on her back and the jewels at her throat would have ransomed King John himself back to France, if he were still alive. No change here. In my absence no one had managed to wed her and carry her off to nuptial bliss. I was sorry.

She changed direction like one of Edward’s ships under full sail, and came to block my path as I climbed the steps.

“So you’re back with us.” Her lip curled.

I took a few more steps before I curtsied. I did it well. The steps gave me an advantage of height over her.

“We haven’t missed you.” She eyed me. “Your looks haven’t improved—although your figure has, I expect.”

Her smile was thin, her demeanor haughty. The ladies, a little knot of the Queen’s damsels who accompanied her, did not try to hide their amusement at my expense. So this was to be the tone of my life if Isabella had her way, mocked and ridiculed and despised. But I had grown daring in my absence and by Edward’s visit. I felt strong and would not be provoked. I stood my ground, waited. Sometimes there is strength in silence.

“Nothing to say, Mistress Perrers?” Isabella cooed. “That’s unlike you! And where is the bastard? Does he look like my father? Or one of the scullions perhaps?”

A declaration of war. I was provoked, after all.

“Your brother is well cared for, my lady. In His Majesty’s manor at Ardington.”

I had left John behind. How difficult that was. But it was necessary, and Edward had established a nursery for him with his own servants, a nurse and governess. He would lack for nothing. I had kissed him and promised never to abandon him. Now I used my height advantage against the Princess, chin raised. “He is a true Plantagenet. His Majesty is much taken with him.”

Isabella’s nostrils flared. The damsels held their collective breath.

“Airs and graces, Mistress Perrers. How ambitious you are. What do you hope for? A title? A rich marriage on the back of my father’s misplaced generosity?”

I replied without inflection. Oh, I was far surer of myself now. “I hope for nothing but respect and recognition for my services, my lady.”

Anger lay bright on her, the jewels glinting at her sharp inhalation. Isabella opened her mouth to reply with a stream of invective, but we were disturbed, a group of courtiers entering the courtyard from the direction of the stable block. Loud and well satisfied after a vigorous hunt, the gentlemen bowed. I heard Isabella’s little intake of breath, saw a stiffening in her spine as her attention was arrested, her expression softening. She smiled.

Duly interested, I observed the group to see who had been honored with the Princess’s wayward admiration. Whoever it was, I doubted it would come to more than a passing flirtation. It would have to be a man of character to put a curb rein on Isabella. Had she not refused every suitor offered to her, a positive string of the highborn sons of Europe? I could see no response to her in this group of gentlemen, who were all more intent on the excitement of the kill. The courtiers moved off, the damsels following.

“Jesu! He’s good to look at.” She forgot who I was. Her eyes followed the departing figures.

“Who?”

“Him!”

At the door one of the knights looked back over his shoulder toward us, but then, with no more acknowledgment than a nod of his undoubtedly handsome head, followed the rest. He seemed to me to be very young.

“I don’t know him.”

“How should you?” Isabella’s scowl was ferocious. She had remembered again. “You’d better go and remind the Queen of your existence. She has a new damsel since your departure. You may find you’re not as indispensable as you’d like to think. Take care, Mistress Perrers!”

“I am always careful, my lady.”

But her blow had struck home. My fears bloomed large again. At the royal whim, I and my son could be rendered destitute. I would never forget sitting in the parlor of the King’s little manor at Ardington, wondering where I would be the next day, the next week. I was nothing, had nothing, without the goodwill of my lover and my lover’s wife.

Isabella flounced off, while I caught up with the damsels to discover who had taken the Princess’s fancy. Enguerrand de Coucy: one of the knights who had come to England in the retinue of the ill-fated King John of France during his captivity, and still here, unsure of his welcome if he returned to the land of his birth. Was he a suitable mate for Edward’s daughter? I doubted it. But if she wed him and de Coucy succeeded in returning to France, taking his new wife with him…

I hoped Isabella achieved her heart’s desire.

The Queen sat in her solar, her embroidery unstitched in her lap, as I sank to my knees before her, unable to look at her. A silence played out, ominous, full of presentiment.

“Alice.”

“Yes, my lady.” Nothing to read in that. Her embroidery slid to the floor. My fingers curled slowly into fists as I waited.

“You have returned.”

“Yes, my lady.” My knees quivered with the strain of kneeling, but I tensed my muscles to show no weakness.

“Where is the child?” Her voice was harsh, and I remembered how she had ordered me from her presence.

“At Ardington, my lady.”

Then Philippa’s hands were stretched to cup my cheeks. “Look at me! Oh, I have longed to see you, Alice!”

My eyes flew to her face, where tears tracked their silvered path.

“My lady…” It shocked me to see such overt grief.

“Forgive me,” she whispered. “I was cruel. I know it—and it was not your fault, but I couldn’t…” Her explanation dried. “You do understand, don’t you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

For of course I did. I kissed her distressingly swollen fingers, rescued the stitchery, and helped her to dry the tears, all as a good domicella should. She had aged in my absence, but still she could manage a watery smile that wrung my heart. And so I slid back into my place in Philippa’s household as easily and smoothly as a trout into a cooking pot of boiling water. Philippa—kindly, suffering Philippa—kissed my cheek, asked after my son, gave me an embroidered robe for the babe, and presented me with a bolt of red silk for a new gown.

In private, Edward enfolded me in his arms and kissed me with Plantagenet fervor. “It has been a long time, Alice.”

“But now I have returned to you.”

“And you won’t leave.”

“Not unless you send me away.”

“I’ll not do that. I’ve been too long without you.”

Too long. I had missed him more than I had thought possible. It was balm to my soul to be kissed and caressed and loved in Edward’s bed.

Isabella left us. Isabella, headstrong and in love, flirted, flounced, cajoled de Coucy, and defied her father in equal measure. De Coucy looked unconvinced at his good fortune in becoming the apple of Isabella’s eye, perhaps wishing he were elsewhere. To wed an English princess was one thing; to take on Isabella and her formidable father was quite another.

“He’s too young, too unimportant,” Edward said, refusing her first request.

“Why can’t you do something useful!” Isabella snarled privately in my direction. “You have the use of much of my father’s body! Surely you have his ear as well! Persuade him, for God’s sake!”

It pleased me to refuse with profound grace, merely to ruffle her royal feathers. “I fear that I am unable to do that, my lady.”

For the King, with or without my interference, would make his own decisions. And he did. Recognizing a lost cause, Edward clamped a tight hold on his true feelings about the match and gave de Coucy the title of Duke of Bedford, made him a knight of the Garter to tie him to English interests, and silently wished the Frenchman well of her. They were wed in the felicitous month of July at Windsor Castle, with all the pomp and splendor that Isabella could persuade her father to pay for. By November they had taken themselves off to France.

“I hope you are no longer here when I next visit,” she said to me before she left. Marriage had not sweetened Isabella’s tongue.

“I wouldn’t wager Edward’s magnificent wedding gift on it!” I could hide my insecurities with great finesse, or even coarse wagering, when I had to.

Isabella managed the ghost of a smile. “Neither would I. A lifetime’s annuity and a king’s ransom in jewels are not to be risked on a certainty. I might even miss your sharp tongue, Alice Perrers.”

Well, well. Was this some manner of a compliment?

“I’ll pray you don’t breed any more bastards,” the Princess added.

No. Her final sally was not friendly, but I might even miss her, I decided as the year slid toward its end. The Court lacked a vibrancy on her departure. For both Philippa and Edward, I gathered my resources to relight the flame.

The year of 1366: It would not be forgotten in a hurry. We had a bad winter, appallingly bad, to bring suffering and worry and grief to the Court as well as to the commons. A hard frost kept us shivering from September to April, curtailing most of Edward’s attempts to set up a hunt, hurling him into an uncharacteristically somber mood. Philippa’s joints ached beyond tolerance, so much so that she kept to her bed. The approach of her death kept her occupied more and more as the days passed. Isabella might have brought some light into her shadowed existence, but Isabella was embracing motherhood in France. Edward was little help to Philippa, wrapped in his own melancholy.

Through those difficult months I tried my best to woo Edward from his moody silences. Would he read? No. Would he have me read to him? No. Play chess or the foolishness of Nine Men’s Morris? Would he take out the hawks on foot along the riverbank, even if it was too dangerous for the horses on the impacted ground? Would he don skates and take exercise on the Thames like the rest of the frustrated and icebound Court?

“Come and play.” I smiled, hoping to engage him in some lighthearted companionship as the sun consented to put in an appearance. “You can leave these documents and give me some of your time.”

“Go away, Alice,” he growled. “I have too much on my trencher to be reading and skating!”

I knew when I was beaten. So I went. I learned to skate and laughed with delight. I was still young and enjoyed the exhilaration.

I lured Edward to his bed on the coldest days, but he was not to be roused. He might kiss me but his manhood refused to be enticed—his mind was far distant from me. I wrapped him in my arms and read to him from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fine book about the kings of England, selecting the tales of King Arthur—until he closed the book and refused to hear any more about heroes with magic swords. He took himself off to badger Wykeham for news of his latest building schemes. Even that interest was halfhearted.

I could not blame him and bore no grudges. Had I not learned my lesson, that I did not always come first with a man of such grave responsibilities? For the King had reason enough for the blackness that wrapped his soul like a shroud. My heart ached for him. For the Prince, his glorious son and heir, lord of Aquitaine, had persuaded Edward to finance a campaign to reinstate Pedro of Castile, who had been deposed by his subjects. A risky project in the depths of winter, as Edward was well and truly warned by Wykeham—invasion would be a grievous mistake—but, like the King of old, he grasped at the chance to be conqueror once more, forced a war budget through Parliament, raised an army, and handed authority over this invading force to another warlike son, John of Gaunt. He, together with the Prince invading from Aquitaine, would bring a solution to Castile’s inheritance problems and glory to England.

“What do you think, Alice?” Edward asked as I sat at his feet before the fire in his chamber, although I think he did not care what I thought. He sipped gloomily from a cup of ale, and I sought for something to cheer him.

“I think you are the most powerful king in Christendom.”

“Will England be victorious?”

“Of course.”

“Will I still be seen as the man who holds the power in Europe in his fist?”

He raised his hand and clenched it, the tendons proud against the flesh. Age pressed particularly heavily on him that night. In the shadows the pale gold of his hair was entirely eclipsed by dull gray.

“Undoubtedly you will.”

He smiled. “You are good for me, Alice.”

I took the rigid fist, smoothed out the fingers between my own, and kissed them, aware of my ignorance and deficiencies as king’s counselor. What did I know of the state of England’s authority over the sea? Very little, but we were all to learn the truth over the coming weeks.

The King should have listened to Wykeham.

Our invading forces, beset by storms and gales and a shortage of food, were reduced to a fifth of their original size, with no booty or prisoners to compensate. Sitting in his chamber or pacing the halls of Havering, Edward could do nothing to determine events except to rely on his sons to uphold the English cause. Inactivity gnawed at him day and night. Why did he not go himself, to lead as he once had done? Because he too saw the waning of his powers. The future was with his sons, and it hurt him, seeing the end of his glory. However hard I tried through that winter, I could not heal the wounds for him.

As for English affairs in Ireland, they seemed likely to sink to their death into the famous bog. Edward’s son Lionel scrabbled at an impossible settlement, reducing Edward to vicious oaths against his son’s ineptitude.

Philippa despaired and wept.

And I? How did I fare? Did we, Edward and I, emerge from the morass of black despair? Holy Virgin! It was balanced on a knife’s edge, and I could have lost everything, for we faced a crisis that was, I admit, of my own deliberate making.

Frustrated with the cold rooms of Havering, in a fit of pique Edward departed to Eltham at the turn of the year, and at Philippa’s insistence we moved also, the whole Court, to be with Edward.

“You’ll see,” she fretted as her possessions were packed around her, setting her teeth against the prospect of a painful journey in a litter, however luxurious the cushions. “Eltham has more space. He feels hemmed in here. And we must hear good news from Gascony soon. We can’t leave him to brood. It does him no good.”

But, despite the new planned gardens and Edward’s own pride in the newly planted vineyard, Edward brooded in the spacious accommodations at Eltham as effectively as he had at Havering. He roared through the halls and audience chambers, patient with no one except Philippa, insisting on taking out the hounds, hard ground or no, snarling at the grooms when they were slow to deal with icy fingers and frozen leather. He snarled at me too.

“Come with me,” he snapped. “I want you with me!”

He kept me waiting, shivering in the cold outside the stables, while he listened to a report of a courier just ridden in. Only the week before he had given me a mantle of sables, wrapping my naked body in his gift in a moment of brittle good humor. I wore it now, but I might have been wearing the lightest of silk for all the good it did to keep me warm in the bitter wind.

“Let’s go!” he ordered, his temper on as short a leash as the hounds. “What are you waiting for?”

“Her Majesty is not well, my lord. I should be with her.” It was not quite an excuse. The journey to Eltham had stirred her joints to a new level of agony. Sleep for her was a distant memory without a draft of poppy.

“We’ll be back before noon.”

“Jesu! It’s too cold for this,” I murmured.

“Then don’t come. I’ll not force you.” He swung up into the saddle. The courier’s news had not pleased him.

For a moment I considered accepting his surly irritability and leaving him to his ill humor. Then perversely I joined the hunt. I regretted it, of course, returning with damp hems and frozen feet and mud-splattered skirts. My blood felt sluggish in my veins. Nor had the hunt been a success. We put up nothing for the hounds, everything of sense having gone to ground. We were frozen to the bone and Edward in no better mood.

He had spoken not one word to me—other than to “keep up, for God’s sake”—when we galloped after a scent that proved to be as ephemeral as the King’s good temper. Back at the palace, our steaming horses led away to the stables, I trailed after him as Edward stripped off gloves and hood and heavy cloak, thrusting them into my arms as he strode into the Great Hall as if I were his body servant. Without even a glance in my direction, he raised his hand, a royal summons, without courtesy.

Rebellion spiked my blood. Was this all I was to him, a servant to fetch and carry and obey unspoken orders? I halted, my arms full of muddy cloak. It was only when Edward had crossed the antechamber to the staircase leading up to the royal apartments that he realized my footsteps were not following him. He halted, spun ’round. Even at that distance I could see that his jaw was rigid.

“Alice…!”

I moved not one inch.

“What’s wrong with you, girl?”

I considered what I should say. What would be wise? I thought briefly that it might be prudent to say nothing and simply follow. And promptly consigned wisdom to the fires of hell and remained exactly where I was.

“I’m cold. Don’t just stand there.” Edward was already mounting the stairs.

I abandoned prudence too.

“Is that all you can say?” I asked.

Edward froze, his eyes a steely glint. “I want you with me.”

For a moment we were alone in the vast arching chamber. There was no one there to hear us. I raised my voice. I think I would have raised it if we had had an audience of hundreds.

“No!”

“I want a cup of wine.”

And at the same echoing pitch I responded: “Which you are perfectly capable of pouring for yourself, Sire. Or you can summon one of your many pages or even a servant to do it for you. I will not.”

Edward stared as if he could not believe what I had just said. Nor could I. I had been his mistress for three years, and never had I addressed him in this peremptory manner. But then, I had never had the need. I watched Edward’s face, the range of emotion as he absorbed my words, their tone. Astonishment. Affronted arrogance. A strange despondency. And a fury that suffused his face with color. I trembled, and not from the damp skirts clinging to my legs.

Arrogance won. Edward’s manner when he replied was as icy as my fingers. “Mistress Perrers! I want you with me!”

“No, Sire. You kept me waiting until my feet were well-nigh frozen to the cobbles. You did not care whether I hunted with you or not. You told me as much after dragging me from the Queen’s side. I made my own decision to hunt, and I will make it again now. I will not go with you. I will wait on the Queen.”

My blood was up and I held my breath. This was no childish temper. This was a deliberate ploy, and a dangerous one to rouse the sleeping Plantagenet lion. I saw anger flash bright in his face as my refusal struck home. It brought the King striding across the chamber until he towered over me. Holy Virgin! In that moment he was the King, not Edward. He grabbed my wrist, even as I still had my arms wrapped around his cloak, and held it tight, unaware of his strength.

“God’s Blood, Alice!”

“God’s Blood, Edward!” I mimicked.

The silence was heavy. Thick as blood. Threatening as a honed sword edge.

“You will obey me.”

“Because you are the King?”

“Why else?”

My shivering increased but I held his gaze. “When did anyone ever deny you anything, Sire?”

“Never! Nor will you!” His fingers tightened still further, but I did not wince. “Do you question my authority?”

“Your authority?” I tilted my chin. My control was superb. “I don’t question your authority, Sire, only your bloody arrogance.” I bit down on a hiss of breath. “Do you intend to command my obedience through pain, Sire?”

“Pain…?”

“Your royal fingers are digging into my flesh!”

He eased his grip but did not release me.

When I was seventeen and newly come to Court, I would have obeyed the King without question, wary of the repercussions. I did not feel of a mind to do so now. It was a gamble, and filled with jeopardy. He might dismiss me out of hand, order Philippa to dismiss me. But now I was the mother of his son. Now I had been his mistress for three years. Now I was a woman full-grown and I did not think he would dismiss me. I thought I had more power than that, and I thought I had earned the King’s respect.

Well, we would see. I would gamble on that power and respect to wean Edward from his black mood.

“You would defy me, woman?” he roared. No respect here. I might just be wrong.

“Yes, when you are boorish and unreasonable, Sire. I’ve been away from the Queen’s side all day. I am her damsel as well as your…” I allowed a little pause. “As well as your whore.”

“By God, I order it! You’ll come with me!” His hand fell away.

“By God, I won’t!”

Even as rank astonishment ripped across Edward’s features, I opened my arms to deposit his garments in a heap on the floor, at my feet and his. Then I let the sables slip from my shoulders to join them. And I stepped around him and climbed the stair, leaving him standing alone with the heap of costly fur and velvet cloth on the muddied tiles. A page entered at the far door. What Edward might have said if we had remained alone I had no idea. At the top of the staircase I looked back to see him, as unmoving as an oak, hands fisted on hips, looking after me, the garments still at his feet.

I waited until I was sure his attention was wholly mine. Then I made a magnificent curtsy. Again I pitched my voice so that he would surely hear.

“There are other palace whores who will be more than willing to keep you company, no matter how sour your humor, Sire. You can give her my sables. I make you free of them.”

I did not wait to see if he would respond. Or if he picked up the garments.

I admitted to a terrible apprehension as I closed the door of my chamber behind me. I might have destroyed everything, and the terrible melancholy might still hold Edward imprisoned in its shackles.

I did not wait with an easy mind. The King made his displeasure felt. When he hunted I was not invited. When he visited the Queen, if I was present, he made a point of shunning me, gesturing without words for me to vacate the chamber. There was no question of my sharing his bed linen. I missed my sable mantle. The damsels gossiped, engrossed in our obvious estrangement. The Queen was anxious, but such was our relationship that we both kept our own counsel. Until the tension, colder indoors than out, became more than she could tolerate.

“Have you quarreled with the King, Alice?”

“No, my lady.” It was not exactly a quarrel.

“Have you displeased him?”

“Yes, my lady.” Definitely.

“He’s very, very restless.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Should you apologize, do you think?” Her broad brow creased in concern.

“No, my lady.”

So the Queen abandoned any attempt at reconciliation, and I waited with increasing anxiety. He was the King, after all, and I was nobody. I had risked all and must pray that I had not staked my future ill-advisedly.

It took a sennight.

I was combing my hair in preparation to sleep alone when a soft knock sounded on the door. Wykeham, I thought. Carrying a message from the King to attend his pleasure. I opened the door, the refusal leaping to my lips.

“I will not.…” The words dried.

Edward. He had come himself. And over his arm lay the glossy pelts of my mantle.

“My lord!”

I curtsied low on the threshold, hiding my face. The King had come to my room. Was this to be the dismissal I had feared, the sables a final gift to mark my ignominious departure? If I looked at him, what would I see? I raised my eyes to his—better to know immediately—but Edward, master of negotiation, was giving nothing away. If it was dismissal, it would be done in cold blood, not in the heat of passion at my lack of respect.

“Well, will you let me come in?” His voice was rough. “I don’t think the King should be expected more than once in his lifetime to conduct an intimate argument in a public space for all his subjects to see and hear.”

I stood back, pushing the door wide, but still for all his impatience, he did not step across the threshold. Instead he held out the mantle.

“This is yours, Mistress Perrers.”

I took it from him, tossing it over a coffer beside me as if I did not care.

“I was wrong, mistress. I treated you with unforgivable discourtesy.”

He was excruciatingly formal. As long as I did not waver…I remained mute.

“I’m here to ask your forgiveness.” It was still more of an order than a plea.

“It is easy for the King to be uncivil and demand to be forgiven,” I said.

“I don’t demand.”

“No?” I folded my arms in an uncompromising manner.

“Mistress Perrers…” Now he stepped in and thrust the door closed at his back. “You will doubtless accuse me of overbearing pride, but I really don’t want an audience for this!” And he sank elegantly to one knee. “I ask your compassion for my lack of chivalry. No true knight would have been as…boorish…as I was. Will you forgive me?”

I angled my chin, considering. He looked magnificent, like a knight from one of the illustrated books, kneeling in a blaze of blue and red and gold at the feet of his lady. He’d dressed deliberately, regally, to impress me. Here was the King of England kneeling at my feet. What was more, he possessed himself of my hand and kissed it.

“No subject has ever challenged me before.”

“I know.”

“Well? Will you keep your King in suspense?” His expression was not that of a lover. The lines of irritation sharpened. “I have missed you more than I should. You’re only a slip of a girl! How could I miss you so much? And all you could do was scowl at me from the ranks of my wife’s damned women, or behave as if I did not exist.”

“Until you dismissed me from the room.”

“Well—I should not have done that.”

“No. And I am not a slip of a girl. I am the mother of your son.”

“I know. Alice…” The formality was waning.

“Nor am I merely your whore. I give you more than the pleasures of the flesh. I thought you cared more for me than that, Sire.”

“I do. God’s Blood, Alice. Have mercy! I was in the wrong.”

“We both agree on that.”

He released my hand and, still kneeling, spread his arms wide. “I have learned this for you, as any foolish troubadour would to woo his lady. How’s that for love…”

And he pressed his hands over his heart like a lovelorn troubadour and spoke the verse. The words were ridiculous, foolish, but there was no mockery in his voice or his face. The sentiment came from his heart, and with it a sadness, a poignancy for things past. Like youth that was gone forever.

Fortune used to smile on me:

I didn’t have to try:

Good looks and charming manners

Were mine in full supply:

She crowned my head with laurels,

And set me up on high.…

But now my youth has faded;

I’ve seen the petals fall.…

He stopped. “To hell with verses! My looks are fading and my manners have been less than charming. I have no excuse for either, but I beg your understanding.”

“A Plantagenet, begging?”

“There’s a first time for everything!” The poignancy was gone. Back was the pride, the authority, even though he still knelt. I swallowed my sudden tears. I was indeed charmed. “Don’t leave me in suspense, Mistress Perrers.”

“I would not dare! I have made my decision, Sire.” What mischief prompted me to keep him in suspense for one more moment? I touched his shoulder, with all the grace of the lady in receipt of her knight’s love, to urge him to his feet.

“Well?”

“I forgive you. It is impossible to reject so fine a wooing.”

“Thank God!”

He drew me into his arms, carefully, as if I were some precious object made of glass. Or as if I might still reject him. His lips were cool against mine until I melted against him, and then his embrace became a brand of fire. I had missed him too.

“It’s in my mind to give you a gift…perhaps a jewel.…You have given me a son, a gift beyond price. I should show my gratitude.…” His chin rested on the crown of my head, my hair heavy on his shoulder.

“No…not a jewel.”

“What, then?”

The thought had come immediately into my head. I knew what I wanted. “Give me land and a house, Sire.” My insecurities never left me, and Greseley had trained me well.

“You want land?” His chin lifted and I heard the surprise in his voice.

“Yes. It is in your power to give it.”

“You would be a woman of property. Then it’s yours. For Mistress Alice, who shines a light into the dark corners of my soul.”

It took my breath away. “Thank you, Sire.”

“On one condition…”

I was suddenly wary. It never did to underestimate a Plantagenet.

“That you call me Edward again. I’ve missed that.”

The rock beneath my heart, which had been there since the day I dropped my sables at his feet, melted away. “Thank you, Edward.”

There was love and gratitude in the giving of the gift, and in my receiving it. I offered my lips, my hands, my body. All my loyalty. My absence had stirred Edward’s passions, and he had no thought of celibacy. He made love to me on my less-than-sumptuous bed that could barely contain his long limbs, and wrapped me again in my sable mantle. I was no longer just his whore. We both knew it. My challenge had awakened the King to the truth of our relationship. Here was a permanence.

“I will never dismiss you,” he murmured against my throat in the dying of passion and with touching insight. “You are my love. Until death separates us.”

“And I will never willingly leave you,” I replied. I meant every word of it. My respect and admiration for him had reached new heights.

He gave me the little manor of Ardington for my own.

I carried a second child for Edward. Another son, Nicholas. A happy event. I was free to travel now as I wished to the manor, where John grew and played and shouted in his games of knightly conquest. I had no fears that I would not be free to return to Court as it pleased me. My position might still be unacknowledged, but it possessed a strange viability of its own.

“And what will become of you?” I asked the mewling infant who resembled Edward far more strongly than did his brother, John. “What will be your path to wealth and power?” I thought of Wykeham, an excellent example for any boy.

“When you are older, I will introduce you to a man who I can sometimes claim as a good friend.”

“What do I give you in recognition of this new gift?” Edward asked later, holding his son in his arms. “Don’t tell me.…”

Nor did I have to.

He gave me the wardship of the lands of Robert de Tilliol and the gift of the marriage of his heir. It was extensive, four manors and a castle far to the north of England, with the promise of gold for my coffers.

As gifts from the King to a queen’s damsel, these were out of the ordinary. They began to draw attention, but I could withstand the sidelong glances. I simply informed Greseley that his management on my behalf would take more of his valuable time.

I trust you will pay me well for my time, Mistress Perrers, he wrote back in habitual complaint.

I will pay you when I see the results, I replied, then added, I will be astonished if you too do not benefit from these investments.

To receive back very promptly: As do you, Mistress Perrers. Your acquisitions are bringing you—and me—an excellent return.

I smiled at his final response. What an exceptional man of business Greseley was.