The King's Concubine

Chapter Fourteen

For the first days at Wendover I grieved until hot rage blew through me like a wind before an August storm. It shook me by its virulence as I heaped my hatred on the absent, crowing, self-satisfied Master Speaker.

“May Almighty God damn you to the fires of hell! May your vile body be gnawed on by worms, your balls roasted in everlasting flames and…” I was not circumspect in my choice of language, but it brought no release.

Never had my life stretched so emptily, so helplessly before me, my hands so idle and without power. My knowledge of the outside world in those terrible weeks was reduced to what was common gossip, brought into the house by my servants and passing peddlers. Poor stuff! The Prince’s body lay embalmed in state in Westminster Abbey week after week. There were no moves to bury him, Edward unable to make a decision. Princess Joan and the young heir were at Kennington. Gaunt was biding his time, but furious with events. The Good Parliament had ended its days, preening over its success in holding the King to account.

“And I am banished, by God! How dare they! How dare they!”

With a need to occupy my hands and my mind, I swept through the manor, stirring up steward and servants to clean and scour and scrub every surface, every nook and cranny. There was absolutely no need for me to disturb their perfectly adequate daily routines, but I could not rest. They would have to suffer me, perhaps for the rest of my life. God’s Blood! At thirty-one years I could not contemplate it.

Braveheart slept at my feet, oblivious to my mood, uncaring of whether we were at Wendover or Sheen.

I stalked from room to room, my pleasure in my surroundings and my acquisitions dimmed. Even the magnificent bed—a gift from Edward—carved and swagged with deep blue damask hangings, the oak tester and pillars polished to a rich gleam, did not satisfy me. I saw far too much of that fine weaving that closed me in, for my nights were troubled. If I had had a looking glass, I would have abjured it. It would have shown me all too clearly the effect of my lack of appetite and restless thoughts. My collarbone pressed against the cloth of my gown, and my girdle must be tightened or it would fall around my ankles. As I pressed my fingers against my sharp cheekbones, I grimaced, suspecting that the dark thumbprints of weariness would not enhance my looks.

Lured by the soft warmth of autumn, I took the side door out into the orchard, where the apple trees hung heavy with the fruit and doves preened in the dovecote, a lovely scene if I were of a mind to admire it. But before I could take a breath, an unbidden image leaped into my mind, so that I sank down on the grass, helpless, enclosed in that one moment of the past.

“Today you are my Lady of the Sun,” Edward says as he hands me into my chariot.

And there I sit, garlanded with flowers, swathed in cloth of gold, pulled by four shining bay horses. I am no less superb. A cloak of shimmering gold tissue, opulent in its Venetian style, is spread around me, so disposed to show a lining of scarlet taffeta. My gown too is red, lined with white silk and edged in ermine. Edward’s colors. Royal fur fit for a queen, no finer than the myriad of precious stones refracting the light: rubies as red as fire; diamonds; sapphires, dark and mysterious; strange beryls capable of destroying the power of poison. Philippa’s jewels. My fingers are heavy with rings. “Today you are the Queen of the Ceremonies, the Queen of the Lists,” Edward says. He is tall and strong and good to look upon.

I am the Lady of the Sun.

I blinked as a swooping pigeon smashed the scene, bringing reality back with a cruel exactitude. How low I had fallen! I was caged in impotent loneliness, like Edward’s long-dead lion. Powerless, isolated, stripped of everything I had made for myself.

I was nothing.

Impatient with myself, I rose to go back inside and harry someone into doing something, but was stopped by my two daughters, Joanne leading her younger sister in their escape from their governess. Joanne, six years old, was fair and strong limbed like her father. Jane, two years younger, was a shy child, not like me at all, despite her dark hair and plain features. They ran laughing through the orchard, shouting to each other in their joy of freedom. And my heart tripped a little at their innocent pleasure. I did not remember running or laughing in my childhood. I recalled very little joy. God help me to keep their lives safe.

Seeing me, they ran to jump and caper, full of chatter and news. With promises that we would ride out in the afternoon, I dispatched them back to their lessons. They would read and write and figure. No daughter of mine would lack for such skills, and nor would my sons. I wanted no ignorant, untutored gentlemen with the King’s blood in their veins and nothing between their ears. John, as befitted a lad of royal birth, learned the lessons of a page in the noble Percy household. Nicholas, at eleven, was taught his letters by the monks at Westminster. I had such a pride in them. As for my girls—they would each have an advantageous marriage as well as an education. I smiled a little as I stooped to pick up a much-worn doll that Joanne had dropped on the grass. Combing my fingers through its disordered hair, I vowed that I would ensure that my daughters were capable, even without a husband.

A movement caught my eye. A robin flew up into the boughs of the apple tree, making me look up.

“Is this you?”

I hadn’t heard, neither the approach of horses nor the soft footfall. Nor even felt the movement of air. Startled for a moment, the fear still lively that Parliament might not have finished with me, I took a step back. And then I clutched the doll to my breast, because I knew the voice and the solid figure outlined by the sun through the branches.

The years rolled back and away to the day I first set eyes on Edward in the great hall at Havering, his body backlit by the low rays of the afternoon sun, the hounds at his feet, the goshawk on his wrist, a corona of light around his head and shoulders. He’d been crowned with gold. I had simply stared at such an aura of power.

But this was another time, another life.

William de Windsor stepped forward, and the moment passed as he was enclosed in dappled shadow. I suddenly felt an upheaval in my belly, my mouth dry with nerves, my whole body weak with longing. I would run to him, cast myself into his arms, press my mouth against his, and feel the solid beat of his heart under the palm of my hand. It was three years since I had seen him last. Three long years! I could cover the distance between us within the space of one heavy beat of my heart and…

No, no. I must guard my response. I must be measured and calm. Lightly controlled…

Why? Because it was never wise to give weapons into the hands of others, even the man I loved with a physical desire so strong that it shivered through me like an ague. How terrible it was to fear putting myself under the dominion of a man whose affection I craved. But if my life had taught me one indisputable fact, it was the need to be resilient, self-reliant. I must not show my husband how afraid I was of giving him power over me, power to hurt and wound and destroy.

But he will not hurt and wound and destroy. You know him better than that.

No, I do not know him at all!

But I could not stop my mouth from curving in a smile when my eyes lifted to his.

“William de Windsor! By the Virgin!”

“Alice Perrers! As I live and breathe!” The familiar goading tugged at my heart. “Picking apples?”

“No.” I held up the doll. “And I thought I was Alice de Windsor, your wife.”

“So did I. But it’s so long since our ways met.…” He took off his hat, sweeping a splendid bow. “I didn’t recognize you in this rustic garb. It took me some days to find you.”

“I suppose you thought I was a servant.”

“Impossible!” His voice was warm, but he did not approach me. A tension in his stance warned me that all was not well. The skin was stretched taut over his cheekbones, and the habitual cynicism touched his mouth with what was barely a smile. Momentarily I wondered why, but my own anxieties prevailed. I took another step away, thoroughly irritated with myself and with him as he observed: “I hear you’re banished from Court by the great and the good.”

“Yes, as you can see. The Good Parliament—good, by God!—in its wisdom decided to sweep the palaces clean of all unwholesome influences. Latimer, Neville, Lyons…all gone.”

“And you.”

“And me. They left me until last, to savor the moment. They cast me into outer darkness.” All my pent-up frustrations overflowed. “And if I set foot within a yard of Edward, they’ll rejoice in taking every last inch of my property and packing me off even further into oblivion. Your wife will be living somewhere in France for the rest of her life, so you’ll never see her at all!”

“They’ve got your measure.” Windsor’s teeth showed with a wolfish grimace. “Is that why you’re holed up here, not a silk ribbon or a jewel to be seen, rather than banging on the door at Sheen for admittance?”

“Yes.” I smoothed my hand over the plain russet kirtle beneath the unfashionable open-sided cotehardie, miserably unadorned even if the wool was a good weaving. “My new role in life. Rural seclusion.”

“Perhaps we’ll both grow to enjoy it.”

“I doubt it!”

“So do I. But we are no longer invited to dine at the royal table, and so must make do with the scraps dished out to us.”

It was almost a snarl, enough to give me thought, to snatch my mind from my own ills. How could I not have seen? I should have asked him the moment he stepped into my orchard.

“What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t heard? Summoned—again! In disgrace—again! Relieved of my position.” The words were clipped, every vestige of edgy banter gone under a layer of black temper.

“Edward has dismissed you…?”

“Yes. My services are no longer needed. There will be no further reinstatement. I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

“Oh, Will!” And I held out my hands to him. Of course he was aggrieved. The ultimate courtier and politician, he would hate as much as I to be thrust into this powerless obscurity. I could remain distant from him no longer. I crossed the grassy, apple-strewn divide in easy strides. “I’m so sorry, Will. Oh, Will—I am so very glad to see you.”

Even his name on my lips was a soft pleasure. All my intentions scattered in the face of his dismissal, and I stepped into his arms as they closed around me.

“That’s better,” he said after a moment when he almost resisted the intimacy. “It almost makes it worth my while returning.”

For a moment we stood silent and unmoving, savoring the shifting patterns of light and shade, my forehead pressed against his shoulder, his cheek resting on my hair, the doll still clutched in my hand. I felt him relax, slowly, gradually, beneath my hands. The robin trilled above us, but we let the deeper silence enfold us.

“So what’s the King doing?” Windsor asked eventually when the robin flew away.

“He’s not doing anything. He’s old and lonely. I don’t think he understands.” I placed my fingers against his mouth when he opened it to deliver, I supposed, some sharp comment on the King, who had accepted my banishment without redress. “He deserves your compassion, Will. Did he not plead for me? And Edward needs me—he is helpless. Who will know how to care for him?” And tears began to slide down my cheek into the damask of his tunic.

“I’ve never seen you weep before! For sure you’ve never wept over me! I think you had better tell me all about it.” Windsor led me to a grassy bank set back near the perimeter hedge and dried my tears with the edge of my cotehardie. He took the doll from me, sitting her down between us as a quaint chaperone, and held my hands between his, his eyes narrowed on my face as I sniffed. “I see you, Alice—before you even think to hide the truth. You’re too thin. When did you last sleep through the night? Your eyes are so very tired.” When he ran the edge of his thumb under my eye, it took my breath away, and then his mouth was warm against my temple. “What terrors have you had to face on your own, my brave girl?”

His compassion all but undermined my self-control. “I am not brave. I’ve been terrified out of my wits.”

“Why didn’t you send for me?”

“What could you have done?”

“Perhaps nothing. Except be here to make sure that you eat and sleep and don’t malinger. You’ve always stood on your own feet, haven’t you?”

“There is no one else.”

“I see.” As his brows snapped together, I thought I had hurt him. But what could he have done at so great a distance? “I’m here now, but you fought your enemies alone. I admire you for it. So tell me what terrified you.” His earlier sharpness crept back. “Unless you prefer to keep it all to yourself.”

Yes, I had hurt him. But that was the life we led.

“I will tell you.”

And I did, with a strange relief, even though I had determined not to. I told him of Parliament’s vendetta. The accusation of necromancy and Joan’s probable involvement. My ultimate banishment. Edward’s brave defense of me at the last, when his heart was split in two.

I sighed. “It’s been quite a month,” I finished.

“So Edward knows about our marriage. And blames you.”

I nodded and sniffed again. “Yes. But he blames you more.” I would tell him the truth. What harm would it do? “Edward damns you for the whole. He blames me for the hurt I caused him, but in his eyes you were the instigator. He thinks you have corrupted me. He even purchased a chest to lock away all the accusations made against you for his future reference. He sits and looks at it and plots his revenge, so I’m told.” I touched his hand. “I don’t think it can ever happen. He no longer has the will to carry it out.”

“Perhaps not, but I am relieved of my position,” Windsor responded, a bright spurt of anger erupting again. “For fraud. What is fraud? A mark on a line of necessity. I have taxed them heavily. I have made my own fortune. But I have kept the peace and the government is at least efficient. I have kept those arrogant lords on a short rein. And all I get is dismissal.” He shrugged and I saw the fire die in his eyes, to be replaced by resignation. “It’s out of my hands. A man who wields authority must always risk losing it.”

“And a woman who has power, unless born to it, makes enemies.”

“So both our names are to be trampled in the mud.” He dried my tears again with his own dusty sleeve—I think I no longer cared if he left smears on my cheeks—and kissed me, a demanding assault on my lips, a little rough, as if he had missed me.

Windsor raised his head and looked at me, his dark eyes holding mine, his thoughts beyond my imagining.

“Don’t weep, my resourceful wife. We shall come about. Is there anything for a much-traveled man to eat and drink in this pearl of a manor?”

Mentally I shook myself into the reality of my orchard at Wendover and the practicality of a long-absent husband returned to me. This was no time for dreams. “There is,” I said. “I’ve been an unthinking hostess.”

“And hot water to remove the filth of travel, perhaps?”

“I could arrange that.”

“Even to remove the odd louse? By God, I’ve stayed in some miserable inns.…”

“Definitely, I can arrange that!”

“And perhaps a bed?”

“I expect so.”

I led him into the house, some semblance of good humor restored between us. After he’d eaten and washed, we banished our concerns to some distant place beyond our bedchamber door and made of our reunion a private celebration. I had forgotten how resourceful he was. His hands and mouth woke my body to a depth of desire that consumed me. Even the worries that had stalked me vanished. How could they exist when he was intent on possessing my body, and I was equally intent on allowing it?

Next morning Windsor was up at dawn. I awoke more slowly, my mind full of spending the day with him and renewing the tentative bonds that we had first created so long ago. But I saw that his sword was gone from where he had dropped it beside the door, and I could hear the sound of the house astir and busy between kitchen and parlor. I dressed rapidly, knowing what I would find before I entered. Windsor, dressed for riding, was already breaking his fast. On the coffer by the door was a leather wallet topped by his gloves, sword, and serviceable hood.

All my bright anticipation fell to earth with a crash. I should have known, should I not? The pleasures of the bedchamber would not keep Windsor from what must be faced and challenged. For a little while I stood on the threshold, studying the stern lines of his face, the quick movement of his fingers, strong and capable, as he sliced and ate, my mind reliving the recent dark hours when he had ignited a flame in me. Then I stepped in.

“Are you abandoning me, Will?” I asked, producing a bright smile despite the chasm that his imminent departure had opened up before me.

“Yes, but not for long. I’ll look at my estates. In spite of an excellent steward, the mice will have been playing while the cat’s away in Ireland, and you, I think, have been preoccupied,” he said around a mouthful of home-cured ham. “But I’ll return by the end of the week.”

I would not have wagered on it, but it had to satisfy me. I came to sit across from him, resting my elbows on the board, taking a sip from his mug of ale. “Will you find out what’s happening at Court for me?”

“If it pleases you. What’s Gaunt doing? Do we know?” Windsor stood, snatching the small beer back again and finishing it, brushing any trace of crumbs from his tunic.

“I don’t know. But he’ll not be content. Parliament humiliated him.”

“Hmm! So he’ll be looking around for opportunities for revenge.” He smiled thinly, as if on a new thought, his hands busy tucking documents into the wallet. “Life might become interesting. I might even become acceptable again.”

I followed him out, deciding to allow him his enigmatic statement. I doubted he would explain, even if I asked.

“Will you try to get news of Edward? Wykeham is a good correspondent, but…”

“I will. He might wish me to Hades, but I’ll do it. God keep you, Alice.” He strapped the wallet to the saddle, whilst I stood like a good wife to wish him Godspeed. Then he turned and surprised me by cupping my face in his hands.

“I’ll do what I can. Don’t fret. I can’t have your sharp wit and intelligence wasting away to a shadow. What would I have to come home to?”

“An amenable wife?”

“God preserve me from such!” A kiss and he was gone. Less than twenty-four hours after he had arrived, with not one word of affection. Or love.

I raised my hand in farewell, retreating smartly into the house as if I did not care. Oh, but I did, and when Windsor did not return within the week I mourned his loss beyond all sense, as if it were a death.

During his absence, Windsor did not forget me or my need for news, sending a courier with a hastily written note. I read it again and again, finding it a lifeline to Windsor, as well as to Edward and the Court. Gaunt, magnificently vocal and brimful of revenge, had declared war on the actions of the Good Parliament.

You will be interested to see how busy he has been in your absence from Court.

And I was, reveling in the details, admiring Gaunt’s ruthless efficiency. He announced that the Good Parliament had proceeded contrary to Edward’s commands, thus rendering its actions null and void. Edward’s new body of twelve councilors was summarily dismissed.

Poor Wykeham was once more deprived of royal office. As was the Earl of March. Gaunt would relish that dismissal, holding the young man wholly accountable for the clever plot with the de la Mares to undermine Gaunt’s own power.

Latimer is released from his imprisonment. I know this will please you.

And then Gaunt began hunting in earnest, his own forces taking Peter de la Mare prisoner.

He is held fast in a cell in Gaunt’s castle at Nottingham. Word is that there is no prospect of a trial. The Earl of March has been forced to hand over his Marshal’s staff in the face of Gaunt’s threats. Gaunt is nothing if not thorough. Try not to be too overjoyed. It is unseemly in Lady de Windsor.

I laughed aloud. I had no sympathy for the man who had forced Edward to plead for me in public. Ah! But I did not enjoy the next paragraph. I think Windsor must have known I would find it hard, because it was written plainly, without comment.

Gaunt has charged Wykeham with fraud as Edward’s Chancellor. I am told that the evidence was thin, but Wykeham is deprived of all his temporal appointments and forbidden to come within twenty miles of Edward’s person. He has retired to a monastery at Merton.…

I regretted it. Once again Wykeham had suffered political isolation for his loyalty to Edward.

And the one name omitted in Windsor’s comprehensive summary?

Alice Perrers. What of me?

Well into the third week, at the end of a sultry day that weighed us down with damp heat so that even taking a breath was wearying, Windsor returned. I was out of the house, dashing into the courtyard, the instant I heard the approach of a horse. I hardly allowed him to swing down from the saddle before I was at his shoulder, pulling on his sleeve.

“What’s happening?”

“Good evening, my wife!”

“What about me?”

“Ah! No one is mentioning your name, my love!”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Impossible to tell.”

“And Edward?”

He shook his head. “He’s ill. It’s thought to be only a matter of time.…”

He looked tired, on the edge of a short temper, as if he had ridden long and hard. As if business had not gone entirely as he would have liked. I sighed. “Forgive me, Will. What of you? I’ve been selfish.…”

“Let us say single-minded.”

Tossing his reins to a groom, he walked with me into the house. He drew my hand companionably through his arm.

“You sent me no word of your fate,” I accused as we moved into rooms dim with evening light.

“What’s to write?”

I saw the glint of anger in his eye despite the shadows. I had been selfish. After a lifetime of major and minor selfishness, I was learning that there were others who needed my compassion and comfort. Windsor seemed an unlikely man to need them—and he would never ask them of me—yet I was beginning to know he might actually value a solicitous welcome from me. So I applied myself to the wifely skills that still came unhandily to me with Windsor, relieving him of his gloves, hood, and mantle, dispatching a servant to bring ale, and pushing him to sit on a settle beneath an ancient oak tree at one side of the house, where we would enjoy the blessing of any movement of air. Conscious of how weary he was, I sat beside him, and leaned to push wayward strands of hair back from his brow where they had stuck with perspiration.

“Very wifely.” He smiled. But the usual mockery was missing.

“I’m practicing. Allow me to try my skills.” I poured the ale when it was brought to us, and gave it to him, waiting until he had drunk deep. “You have been to Court.”

“Yes. To Sheen.”

“And?”

“My dismissal is confirmed. I’ve been rewarded a pension of one hundred pounds a year for my past services. And should be grateful for it. The King wouldn’t see me. He sent a thin-lipped lawyer with the message!”

“Perhaps he couldn’t see you,” I suggested, to lessen the slight.

“Perhaps. I doubt the message would have been any different.” He sat and brooded, staring at the scuffed toes of his boots. “It was strange.” He looked up at me. “As if the heart had gone out of the palace. Everyone waiting for the King to breathe his last.”

I could not reply. We sat in our own little silence.

“What will you do?” I asked eventually.

Windsor hitched a shoulder. “Administer my estates.” His smile was wry. “Much as you will, I expect.”

I knew what I wanted. I had thought of this. I knew what I wanted more than anything. I said it before I could tell myself that it would be better not to.

“Stay with me, Will. Stay here. Don’t go back to Gaines.”

His brows rose. “How conventional. Set up home, like husband and wife?”

“Why not?”

“I can think of worse things.”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted it,” I said. For, apart from the brief early days after our marriage, we had never lived together. Secrecy and Ireland had kept us apart out of necessity, and since our union was of a practical nature, perhaps he envisioned us always living apart. But now there was no need for pretense.…

“I admit I had not seen us living in connubial bliss,” he said. “But since we are both here, both outcasts…”

“Could you think of any better outcome?”

“I don’t know that I could.” He leaned close and pressed his lips against mine, a very soft caress, as if he were unsure of my response—or even his own. I returned the salute, my lips warm and inviting. Suddenly I wanted him deep within me, a stroke of heat.

“Take me to bed, Will.”

We looked at each other. And smiled.

“Will…?”

“Go on. Say it.”

“Do you have any affection for me?”

“Is that in doubt?”

“Everything is in doubt.”

“Then I do.”

“That sounds as if you are placating a child.”

The harsh lines softened in wry amusement. “Hard questioning, Alice. Worthy of Gaunt himself.”

“You can tell me the truth. I won’t weep on your shoulder.”

“I wouldn’t mind. I have a very handy shoulder, and it’s yours for your use.”

“Will…!”

“Do I have an affection for you…? Who did I seek out first when I returned to England?”

“Me. I think.”

“Who did I write to, most inconveniently?”

“Me.”

“There you are, then. I think I even told you I missed you. Now, that’s a first.…”

I punched his shoulder with my fist, my heart already lighter. “Is that all I’m getting?”

“Yes. I’m tired. Come and be wifely in the bedchamber.”

Not love. Affection. But enough—it would have to be enough. And later, when we were entwined, sweat cooling on naked limbs, he said, “Alice. Do you have an affection for me?”

So he had noticed that I had not reciprocated. Of course he had. I made him wait as I always did.

“Yes, Will. An affection.” Only my heart knew that I could lie as well as any man.

Later, I sat and combed my hair at the open window, my husband still a heap in the bed. I heard the eventual upheaval but did not look over. My thoughts were not at ease, despite the pleasure of the last hours.

“What’s going on in that marvelous brain of yours?” he asked, soft-voiced.

“Edward.”

“I should have known.”

There was no judgment in his voice, though I had brought the King into our bedchamber. I turned my head.

“Do you think I’ll see him again before he dies? I don’t want him to die alone, the hard words still standing between us.” It was not easy to recall the last time I had seen him. “He never pardoned me, you see. I would like to see him once more.”

“Don’t set your heart on it. Who’s to say you’ll ever be given leave to return. It’s in the hands of the gods.”

“More like Gaunt’s.”

Windsor’s silence spoke for itself—and gave me little comfort.

* * *

I was difficult to live with. I knew I was, and could make neither excuses nor amends. After the years as Edward’s lover, confidante, and soul mate, and recently his solace, I found the distance insupportable. He had made me all that I was, all that I could ever be. To be separated from him now at the end was beyond tolerating. If Windsor regretted moving his household to join with mine, he gave no indication of it, although I think that a less confident man would have washed his hands of me, miserable creature that I was, and packed his bags. He gave me space in which to mourn the King, who was not yet dead, a silent but compassionate space. At night he held me in his arms when he knew I did not sleep. He did not chide me as I deserved, even when I snapped and snarled at him because he was the only one I could snap and snarl at.

And when it became too much for any man, he challenged me in a typical peremptory manner.

“What are you doing?”

I was staring out of the window. “Nothing.”

“Which is patently obvious and useless. Go and interfere in one of your estates. Just how many do you have?”

“Fifty-six at the last count,” I replied without thought.

“What?”

“Fifty-six.” He looked stunned. “And before you ask, only fifteen of them were gifts from Edward. I was quite capable of purchasing the others for myself.”

“By God!” He paused, as if he could not believe what Greseley and I had done over the years. “I didn’t know I’d wed a woman of such means…! No wonder they’ve got you in their sights! If you were a man, it would qualify you for an earldom.” And he gave a sudden loud roar of laughter. “And you do realize, my dear one, that all your fifty-six estates now belong to me, as your husband?”

That got my attention fast enough.

“Only in name!” I snapped. Which was not true, but I was in no mood for legalistic banter.

“Now, why do I think I might find some noxious and fatal substance flavoring my ale if I lay claim to them?”

“Hemlock, I was thinking…!”

But he had defused my quick anger. I managed a smile, if a pale travesty of one. And Windsor’s voice became gruff with an underlying concern.

“But that’s by the by. Sitting there will not help. Take the girls and…”

“Edward has made his will.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“It’s the talk of the market. He’s dying, Will. He must know it.”

I heard him exhale, and he abandoned any argument he might have made. Rejecting words as a lost cause, he took my hand to lead me into the parlor that he had taken over for his own business affairs, and sat me down before a pile of accounts.

“Check the figures for me, Alice. If that won’t distract you, nothing will.”

“Who are you? Janyn Perrers?”

“Why?”

I smiled, really smiled, for the first time in days. I had never spoken of the details of that marriage. “It’s how I passed the nights of my first marriage.”

“God save you!” He kissed the top of my head. “But I’ll still crack the whip. To work, woman!”

Holy Mother! It was dull work at that.

“And if you could finish them before the end of the day…”

“Am I your clerk?”

“No. You’re my wife and you are suffering.”

I felt another light kiss on my hair before he left me to it. And through those dreary November days I concentrated on Windsor’s finances and my own. I was grateful, even through the fear that this might be all that my future life held for me.

One morning, when the frost was white on the hedges, and I was so bored as to be near to ripping the pages from the ledger, Windsor entered the room and took the pen from my hand.

“What now?” I complained. “I refuse to look at one more document of tenure or…”

“There’s a man on a horse just ridden into the courtyard.”

“A peddler?” I yawned. I supposed I would value the distraction.

“More official than that. A royal courier, I’d say.” I was out of my seat.…“Alice! It could be to your danger.…”

“How can it? I’ve obeyed them to the letter in their damned banishment!”

“But still…”

“They would have sent a force to arrest me…” I shouted back, and was down the stairs into the hallway before the man had climbed the steps to the porch.

“Mistress Perrers…”

Not another nail in the coffin that the lords had constructed for me! Far less confident than I might have seemed, I snatched the missive from his hand, tearing it in my urgency. “Fetch him ale.…” I had time for nothing but the contents. For a moment I closed my eyes, then opened them and read.…

I skimmed over the word banishment, flushed with the heat of panic despite the chill of the morning. Then forced myself to read more slowly.

And the fear began to drain away. For there it was. Written by a palace clerk in the name of Gaunt.

My banishment was no more. I was free to return to Court, to Edward. So much in so few lines. My head felt light, my senses adrift, and I sank to the settle at my side.

“Will?” I called.

He was standing in the doorway looking at me, reading my face before I spoke.

“You are free?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “Oh, yes.”

And I had Gaunt to thank for it, for what reason I knew not. Past loyalties? Sympathy for his dying father? To spite Parliament, more like. I cared not. He had had the banishment revoked by the Royal Council. I was free to travel, free to return to Court. To see Edward again.

“Well?” Windsor still waited.

I stood, feeling stronger, and walked slowly across to him. I think my words surprised us both. “You are my husband. I need your consent.”

“And that’s the first time in your life you have asked for it.”

I flushed. “I need your approval.”

His gaze was quizzical. “Would you go if I did not give it?”

I hesitated.

“There has always been honesty between us, Alice.”

“Then yes, I would go with or without your permission. If I did not see him, it would be on my soul.”

He closed his hands on my shoulders, kissed my forehead and then my lips. Our final embrace was strained with unspoken words and longings.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, his arms banded ’round me.

“No.”

“I suppose I must find a clerk to finish the accountings.” I heard the smile in his voice.

“He won’t be as accurate as I am.” And I laughed softly into the fine wool of his tunic as the endlessly nagging fears of the past weeks loosed their grip.

“Go to Edward.” His compassion for me struck deep. “And then you will come back to me when you can. When it is over.”

I allowed myself to look at him, rubbing my knuckles over his jaw, running a finger over the hard line of his mouth. I knew him well enough to read the concern for me behind those austere, resolute features. I pressed my lips to his.

“Yes. I will return.”

Within hours, my belongings were packed and loaded onto two horses, a groom and one of Windsor’s household mounted to accompany me. I kissed my daughters and rode like the wind to Eltham, to Edward. And the official document authorizing my release? What happened to it? I had no recollection. With unusual carelessness I did not keep it.

Afterward I wished I had.