The King's Concubine

Chapter Sixteen

Every living soul in London could claim to have rubbed up against the closing minutes of Edward’s final journey to his burial on the fifth day of July in Westminster Abbey, close to Philippa’s final resting place, just as he had promised her. Did the worthy citizens not crowd the streets to watch the passing of the wooden effigy with its startlingly lifelike death mask? Even the wooden mouth dragged to the right, memento of the spasm of muscles that had struck him down. Edward’s people stood in dour silence, remembering his greatness.

This is what I was told.

Edward was clothed in silk, his own royal colors of white and red and cloth of gold gleaming, his coffin lined with red samite. He was accompanied to his tomb with bells and torches and enough black cloth, draped and swagged, to clothe every nun in Christendom. A feast celebrated his life, the food valued at over five hundred pounds, at the same time that the gutters were filled with the starving. Such wanton extravagance. But he was a good man and the citizens of London would not begrudge the outward show. Why should their King’s life not be celebrated? The isolation and failure of his last years—when was the last time any of them had set eyes on him?—were pushed aside by those who bore witness to this final journey.

But what of me?

Should I not have been allowed to say my final farewell? So I think, but it was made very clear to me that my presence was not desired. Was not appropriate. It was made more than clear by a courier from the mother of the new child-monarch, who announced the news with a set face, speaking by rote.

Could the despicable Joan not have written her orders? Of course she could have, but that would have meant treating me as an equal—and that she could never do. Even on her deathbed, if I held out to her the gift of life, I swear she would have spit in my face.

“You are not to attend, mistress.” The messenger at least dismounted and marched over to where I waited for him. I had thought he might shout from beyond the courtyard arch. “It is unseemly for one who is not a member of the family to accompany the coffin. His Majesty King Richard has ordered that you remain outside London during the ceremonies.”

“His Majesty?”

“Indeed, mistress.” He revealed not a flicker of an eye, not a quiver of a muscle. But we both knew the truth.

“I will consider the request.”

The courier looked askance but presumably carried a more suitable response back to Westminster, while I called down curses on Joan’s malevolent head. But she had the power now in the name of her son, and I was banished. I must remain at Pallenswick, where I had been reunited with Windsor. I watched the courier gallop from my land, watched until his figure was swallowed up by distance. Then I leaped into action.

Ordering my barge and an escort to be made ready for the following day, I sped up the stairs to my chamber in search of suitable garments in which to mark Edward’s passing. I had discarded no more than three gowns as too drab or too showy before Windsor appeared in the doorway.

“I didn’t know you were here,” I said, engrossed. “I thought you were riding over to inspect the repair of the mill wheel.”

“To hell with the mill wheel! Don’t do it!” he ordered, without preamble.

“Do what?”

“Don’t play me for a fool. Alice! I can see inside your head! Don’t go!”

So he had the measure of me. How could he read me so well? He was the only man who could. I kept my eyes on my busy hands, matching a fur-trimmed surcoat to an underrobe of black silk.

“Why should I not? Do I obey the directives of Joan?”

His stare was intimidating enough. “Don’t go because I don’t want to have to visit you tomorrow night in a dungeon in the Tower!”

“Then don’t visit me. I won’t expect you.” Crossly, furious at Joan and at my own weakness that I felt the hurt of it, I spread the garments on the bed, then began to search for shoes in a coffer.

“So you admit you might end up there?”

“I admit to nothing. I only know that I must go!”

“And you were never one to take good advice, were you?”

“I took yours, married you, and look where that got me! A whole fleet of enemies. And banished, forsooth!” The accusation was entirely unfair, of course, but I was not concerned about being dispassionate. I stood and looked at him, daring him to disagree, my hands planted on my hips.

And he did. Of course he did. “I think you made the enemies well enough without me.”

I took a breath, accepting his deliberate provocation. “True.” And I smiled faintly, the sore place beneath my heart easing a little just at the sight of him, strong and assured, filling the doorway to my room. But I turned my back against him. Suddenly I wanted to tell him how much I loved him, but I dared not.

“You loved him, didn’t you?” he stated.

I looked up, startled from my unwinding of a girdle stitched in muted colors—I would pay my final respects with commendable discretion. “Yes. I did.” I thought about what I wanted to say, and explained, as much to myself as to Windsor. “He was everything a man should be. Brave and chivalrous, generous with his time and his affections. He treated me as a woman who mattered to him. He was loyal and principled and…” My words dried. “You don’t want to hear all that.”

“Quite a valediction!”

“If you like. Are you jealous?” Completely distracted now from the heavy links in my hands, I tilted my head and watched him. Without doubt, jealousy as green as emeralds in the ring I had refused spiked the air between us. “I don’t think you are necessarily either loyal or principled. Only when it suits you.”

Now, there was a challenge. What would he say to that?

“God’s Blood, Alice!” The bitterness in the tone shivered over my skin.

“So you are jealous!”

He thought for a moment. “Not if you lust after me more!”

Which made me laugh. “Yes. You know I do.” Impossibly forthright, Windsor always had the capacity to surprise me, and to confess to lust was far easier than to admit to love. The power would remain with me. “I had a love—a deep respect—for Edward, but I lust after you—just as you lust after me. Does that make you feel any better?”

“It might! Prove it!”

Abandoning the garments, my mood softening under his onslaught, I walked toward him and he took me in his arms. We understood each other very well, did we not?

“I want to be with no one but you, Will,” I said, and pressed my lips to his.

I hoped he would be satisfied, and although I thought he might push me, to my relief he did not. What was it that made me love him so much? What was there to bind me to him? We did not hunt together, as I had with Edward. We did not dance—Windsor, I suspected, was as wrong-footed at dancing as I. There was not a poetic bone in his whole body to seduce me into love and longing. We did not even have the intricate and magical workings of a clock to bind us. What was it, then, except for naked self-interest? Was that all it was? I did not think so, but I could not tally the length and breadth of it as I might assess a plot of land.

But I loved him. And pretended I did not.

“Glad to hear it.” He kissed my mouth, his desire evident. “Do I come with you?”

“No. I’ll go alone.”

“I still say you shouldn’t.…”

I placed my fingers over his mouth. “Will, don’t.…”

His teeth nipped at my fingertips. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”

“Yes.”

So he did.

“I’ll keep you safe, you know,” he murmured against my throat, his skin slick, his breath short, when I had proved to him that his jealousy had no grounds.

“I know,” I replied as I fought against the dread that threatened my contentment. The powers ranged against his protection of me might be too great. The royal hospitality in the dungeon in the Tower might not be a figment of my imagination.

“I’ll not let any harm come to you.”

“No.”

His arms held the black fears at bay and we enjoyed each other; my heart was lighter with the rising of the sun.

“Don’t go!” he murmured.

And still the dangerous word love had not been uttered between us. I was forced to accept that it never would be.

I ignored Windsor’s advice and went to Westminster.

Anonymous in black and gray—posing as nothing more than a well-to-do widow, for I was not completely lacking in good sense—I took myself to Westminster, to the Abbey, with two stalwart servants, who forced a way through the crowds. I would be there. I would let the mysticism of the monastic voices raised in Edward’s requiem Mass sweep over me, and would thank God for Edward’s escape from the horrors of his final days. I would not be kept out—not by Joan, not by the devil himself. The crowds were predictably ferocious but no impediment to the elbows of a determined woman.

We approached the door. A few more yards, and then it would be possible to slip inside. A blast of trumpets brought everyone around me to a halt, apart from the usual haphazard pushing and jostling, until those at the front were thrust back by royal guards, each applying his halberd as quarterstaff. I edged my way as close as I could, and there, walking toward the great door, was the new King, not yet crowned, pale and insubstantial in seemly black, his fair hair lifting in the wind. What a poor little scrap of humanity, I thought. He had none of the robust presence of his father or grandfather, nor, I suspected, would he ever have.

And at his side? My breath hissed between my teeth. At his side, protective, self-important, walked his mother. Joan the Fair, her sour features unable to restrain her final triumph. Stout and aged beyond her years, wrapped around in black velvet and sable fur, she resembled nothing less than one of the portly ravens that inhabited the Tower.

Damn you for standing in my path to Edward’s side!

She was so close I could have touched her. I had to restrain myself from striking out, for in that moment of blinding awareness, I resented her supremacy, her preeminence, the power that she had usurped, which was once mine. A power against which I had no defenses.

I hope your precious son rids himself of your interference as soon as he’s grown! I hope he chooses Gaunt’s influence over yours!

Did she sense my hostility? There was the slightest hesitation in her footstep, as if my antagonism gave off a rank perfume, and she turned her head when she had come level with me. Our eyes met; hers widened; her lips parted. Her features froze, and I was afraid of the threat I saw writ there. It was within her authority to bring down the law on my head, despite the solemnity of the occasion. My future might rest in those plump, dimpled hands. What had possessed me to risk this meeting? I wished with all my heart that I had heeded Windsor’s caustic warnings.

Joan’s mouth closed like a trap and her hesitation vanished. How sure she was! With a little smile, she placed one hand firmly on her son’s shoulder, all the time urging him forward into the Abbey. So much was said in that one small gesture. And then they had moved past me, so the frisson of fear that had touched my nape eased. She would let me go. And I exhaled slowly.

Too soon! Too soon! Joan stopped. She spun swiftly on her heel. The men-at-arms lining the route stood to attention, halberds raised, and fear returned tenfold, flooding my lungs so that I could not breathe. Would she?

Our eyes were locked, hers in malice, mine in defiance, for that one moment as immobile as the carved stone figures that stared out with blind eyes above our heads. Would she punish me for all I had stood for, all I had been to Edward? For this ultimate provocation in the face of her express orders?

Joan’s smile widened with an unfortunate display of rotted teeth. Yes, she would. I almost felt the grip of hard hands on my arms, dragging me away. But she surprised me.

“Close the door when we are entered. Let no one pass!” Joan ordered. “The proceedings will begin now that the King is come.” She turned away as if I were of no importance to her, yet at the end she could not resist. “Your day is over,” I heard her murmur, just loud enough so that I might hear. “Why do I need to bother myself with such as you…?”

For the briefest of ill-considered moments, spurred by brutal insolence, I considered following in the royal train, slipping through before the great door was slammed shut, and taking my rightful place beside my royal lover’s tomb. I would insist on my right to be there.

Ah, no!

Sense returned. I had no rightful place. Sick at heart, I fought my way out of the crowd and back to my water transport, where I was not altogether surprised to find Windsor waiting for me. Nor was I displeased, although furious with Joan, but mostly with myself for my impaired prudence. In true woman’s fashion, I took my embittered mood out on him.

“So you’ve come to rescue me!” I said with a nasty nip of temper.

“Someone had to.” He was suitably brusque under the circumstances. “Get in the barge.”

I sat in moody, glowering silence for the whole of the journey; I had been put very firmly in my place, more by Joan’s final words than by anything else. Windsor allowed me to wallow, making no attempt at conversation to discover what had disturbed me. He simply watched life on the riverbank pass by with a pensive gaze.

Why do I need to bother myself with such as you…?

I had always known that the days of Edward’s protection would end, had I not? But to be cut off quite so precipitously…It had been frighteningly explicit. There was a new order in England in which I had no part. I must accept it, until the day of my death.

My personal mourning for Edward was far more satisfying, to my mind, and what he would have wished me to do. On my return, I did what he had loved, what he had reminisced over even when he could barely sit upright against his pillows, much less climb into the saddle. I took a horse, a raptor on my fist, Braveheart at my heels—older but no wiser—and hunted the rabbits in the pastures around Pallenswick. The hunting was good. When the falcon brought down a pigeon, my cheeks were wet with tears. Edward would have relished every moment of it. And then, retired to my own chamber, I drank a cup of good Gascon wine—“dear Edward, you will live forever in my memory”—before I turned my back on the past and looked forward.

But to what? Isolation. Boredom! They were better than being hunted down by a bitter woman bent on vengeance, despite her words that I was nothing to her. I knew it was not in Joan’s nature to abandon the chase. Thrusting myself under her nose had not been one of my wisest choices.

“I shouldn’t have gone, should I?” Wrapped in a heavy mantle, unable to keep warm, I huddled over the open fire when the weather turned unseasonably wet and wild.

“I told you not to,” Windsor remarked, entirely without sympathy, except that his hands were astonishingly warm around my freezing ones.

“I know you did.” I was moody and out of sorts, much like the high winds and sudden squalls of heavy rain that arrived to buffet us.

“Don’t worry. They can’t get to you, you know. Your banishment was rescinded by Gaunt himself.”

“Do you believe that she’ll forget?” His optimism was unusual.

“No.” So much for optimism! He scowled down at his fingers encircling my wrists, with the cynicism I appreciated in a world of flattery and empty promises. “How much did the King leave her in his will?”

I answered without inflection. “A thousand marks. Not enough to crow about. And Richard gets Edward’s bed with all the armorial hangings.”

Scowl vanishing, Windsor guffawed immoderately. “Far better that you should have had the bed!”

“Joan will probably have it burned to rid herself of the contamination of my presence. She’ll not let the boy sleep in it.”

“Are you mentioned?” he asked.

“No.” I had not expected it. I had no place in Edward’s will. He had given me all that he could, all that he had wished to give.

“At least that should give her cause for rejoicing.”

“I doubt it! When I left Sheen I made sure I had Philippa’s jewels packed in my saddlebags and Edward’s rings safe in the bodice of my gown. Short of searching my body in full public view, she couldn’t get her hands on them!”

Windsor laughed again, then sobered. “Enough of Fair Joan. We can’t spend the rest of our lives worried out of our minds, can we? So we won’t.”

Which I had to admit was the best advice I could get.

Windsor released my wrists and raised his cup of ale in a toast.

“To the storms. Long may they last. May they flood the roads and riverbanks between London and Pallenswick until Joan forgets.”

“By the Virgin! Until hell freezes over!” But I took his cup, finished the ale, and echoed the sentiment. “To the storms.”

The rain and winds abating, the roads were soon open again, and the Thames was once more busy with river traffic, so we heard of events in London and elsewhere. Some of them encroached on my existence not at all. How strange that was.

The boy Richard, clad in white and gold, was crowned on the sixteenth day of July. A Thursday, forsooth! Unusual, but chosen as the auspicious Eve of St. Kenelm, an undistinguished but martyred child King of the old Kingdom of Mercia.

“Doubtless Fair Joan thought the lad needed all the happy auguries he could get,” Windsor growled.

Which was a sound assessment. There were troubles afoot. In the absence of a strong English army with a king at its head, the French had seized the initiative with numerous incursions along the south coast of England, burning and pillaging all they came upon. The town of Rye became an inferno. Some French marauders even reached Lewes. In Pallenswick we felt safe enough.

How strange to have no association with such momentous events, to be entirely divorced from the King’s plans to drive the French out. Who would take on the direction of foreign policy? Gaunt, I supposed. I closed my mind to it, for it no longer touched me.

But some events, through association, touched me closely.

Wykeham, my dear Wykeham, was formally pardoned, thus confirming the healing of the wounds between Edward and his former Chancellor. At least I had been able to achieve that much for an old friend. Wykeham wrote:

I am restored to grace, but not to political office. I shall turn my mind to the matter of education at Oxford with the building of two new colleges. I know that will appeal to you—although no woman will set foot within their doors! I might owe you that—but we must both accept that it cannot be done.

It made me smile. How difficult for a priest to acknowledge a debt to a sinful daughter of Eve, but he had done it, and with such elegance. I wished him well. I thought we were unlikely to meet again.

Finally, there came some unsettling news that made me laugh—and then frown. With the meeting of Parliament, Gaunt was invited to join a committee of the Lords to deal with the threats from across the Channel.

“So, Gaunt’s star is in the ascendant,” Windsor remarked, reading Wykeham’s letter over my shoulder.

“To be expected,” I replied. “He has the blood and the experience.”

“Unfortunately no reputation for success!”

Windsor’s contempt did not disturb me. What would Gaunt’s waxing power mean for me now? Our ambitions no longer ran in parallel lines. But Windsor was thoughtful, taking Wykeham’s letter to reread at his leisure. It always worried me when he felt the need to brood over a cup of ale.

But I laughed when I read of Parliament’s outrageously high-handed petition to young Richard. How predictable of them! In the future, only Parliament should have the right to appoint Richard’s Chancellor, Treasurer, and every other high office of state they could discover. Parliament would control the King at every step. No one was ever to be allowed to do what I had done when Edward was too ill to do it for himself. There would never be another Alice Perrers, ruling the royal roost.

Yes, I laughed, but there was not much humor in it.

I found nothing to laugh at afterward. A heavy hammering on my door at Pallenswick, much like the thump of a mailed fist, brought me hotfoot from my receipts and estate records. Windsor, I knew, was engaged in draining water meadows over at Gaines. Nor would I expect him to knock on my door when he returned—we still led a strange peripatetic life, in no sense a united household, as if our marriage were still some unshaped business entity that sometimes demanded our intimacy and sometimes did not. No, Windsor would not knock. Rather he would fling the door wide and stride inside, his voice raised to announce his arrival, filling the house with his formidable, restless presence. This was not Windsor. My heart tripped with a fast rebirth of the fear that always lurked deep within me, but I would not hide.…I strode toward the repeated thud.

“A group of men, mistress.” My steward hovered uncertainly in the entrance hall. “Do I open to them?”

“Do so.” If this was a threat, I would face it.

“Good day, mistress.”

Not a mailed fist, but a staff of office, and potentially just as forceful. The man at my door was clothed in the sober garments of an upper servant: a clerk or a gentleman’s secretary. Or, a breath of warning whispering over my neck, a Court official. I did not know him. I did not like the look of him, despite his mild expression and his courteous bow, or the dozen men at his back. My courtyard was crowded with pack animals and two large wagons.

“Mistress Perrers?”

“I am. And who are you, sir?” I asked with careful good manners.

All had been quiet on the London front over the past months, Richard getting used to the weight of the crown and Joan queening it over the Court. I had not stirred from my self-imposed exile.

“Keep your head down,” Windsor had advised after my previous flirtation with danger. “They’ve too many problems to be concerned about you. Defense of the realm has taken precedence over the old King’s mistress. Another few months and you’ll be forgotten.”

“I don’t know if I like that thought.” Obscurity did not sit well with me. “Do I want to be forgotten?”

“You do if you’ve any sense. Stay put, woman.”

So I had, and as the weeks had passed with no further evidence of Joan’s malevolence, my dread had abated. But if Windsor was well-informed, as he usually was, what was this on my doorstep? It did not bode well. Mentally I cursed Windsor for his overconfidence, and for his absence. Why was a man never around when you needed him? And why should I need him, anyway? Could I not deal with this encroachment on my own property? I eyed my visitor. This man in his black tunic and leather satchel carried far too much authority for my liking. My throat dried as his flat stare moved over me from head to toe.

But they cannot arrest you. You have committed no crime. Gaunt stood for you! He rescinded the banishment!

I breathed a little more easily.

The official bowed again. At least he was polite, but his men had an avaricious gleam.

“I am Thomas Webster, mistress.” From the satchel, he took a scroll. “I am sent by a commission appointed by Parliament.” Soft-voiced and respectful despite those assessing eyes, he held out the document for me to take. I did so, unrolling it between fingers that I held steady as I scanned the contents. It was not difficult to absorb the gist of it within seconds.

My breathing was once more compromised. My hand crushed one of the red seals that spoke of its officialdom, and I pretended to read through it again whilst I forced a deep breath into my lungs. Then I stood solidly on my doorstep, as if it would be possible for me to block their entry.

“What’s this? I don’t understand.” But the words were black and clear before my eyes.

“I am given authority to take what I can of value, mistress.”

The beat of my heart in my throat threatened to choke me. “And if I refuse?”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, mistress,” he said dryly. “You’ve not the power to stop me. I have a list of the most pertinent items. Now, if you will allow me…?”

So they came in with a heavy clump of boots, Webster unfolding his abomination of a list. It was an inventory of all I owned, everything that Pallenswick contained that belonged to me.

Panic built, roaring out of control.

“The house is mine!” I objected. “It is not Crown property. It was not a gift from the King—I bought it.”

“But bought with whose money, mistress? Where did that money come from?” He might have smirked. “And whose are the contents? Did you buy those too?” He turned his back on me, beckoning to his minions to begin their task.

There was no answer I could give that would make any impression. I stood and watched as the order of Parliament’s commission was instigated. All my property was hauled out before me into the courtyard and stowed in the wagons and on the pack animals. My linen, my furniture, even my bed. Jewels, clothing, trinkets, and through it all Webster reading from his despicable list.

“A diadem of pearls. A gold chain set with rubies. A yard of scarlet silk ribbon. A pair of leather gloves, the gauntlets embroidered in silver and…”

“A yard of ribbon…?” A cry touching on hysteria gathered in my throat.

“Every little helps, mistress. We have a war to fund,” he replied caustically. “Those jewels will fetch by our reckoning close to five hundred pounds. Better a well-armed body of men to defend English soil than these pretty things ’round your neck!”

It was useless. I watched in silence as everything was carried out of my house. When I saw the robes clutched in the arms of a burly servant, a heap of fur and silk and damask in rich blue and silver, the robes that Edward had had made for me for a second great tournament at Smithfield, I choked back the tears. They had never been worn; that second tournament was never held. The robes were cast on the wagon with all the rest.

And there I was, left to stand in the empty entrance hall of my own house.

“Have you finished?”

“Yes, mistress. But I should warn you: Parliament has taken on the burden of your creditors. Any man with a claim against you is invited to put forward his demands.”

“My creditors?” It grew worse and worse.

“Indeed, mistress. Any man with a grievance for extortions or oppressions or injuries committed by yourself”—how he was enjoying this!—“can appeal to Parliament for redress.”

“Where…where did this order come from?” I demanded. Oh, I knew the answer!

“From Parliament, mistress.”

Inhaling slowly, I clenched my fists against the shriek of anger in my head. This was not from Parliament. I would wager the pearl diadem that had just disappeared into the pack on the back of a mule. I knew whose fingers were in this pie. So she was not content to allow me to live in obscurity! I knew from whence this campaign of retaliation had stemmed and it was vicious! I could see her rubbing her hands with the satisfaction of it.

God’s Blood!

I forced myself to think coldly and logically. If this was all she took…I had other manor houses, each well furnished. I would allow her this, however furious it made me.

And then I saw Webster removing yet another scroll from his satchel.

“Have you not taken everything you can?”

“This is not a reclamation order, mistress. It is for you to present yourself in London.”

I snatched it from him. Read it. I was to appear before the House of Lords.

“A trial?” I gasped. He stood unspeaking, stony-faced. What possible charges had they discovered now? “Tell me!” I demanded. “Is this a trial?”

“It is written there, mistress.” Webster indicated the document crumpled in my hand. I must appear before the House of Lords on the twenty-second day of December. And the charge against me? Fraud. Treason!

Treason? That was not possible!

But I knew that anything was possible. Fury was replaced by terror. This was to be no political slapping of my knuckes: This was to be a trial with legal consequences. How far would Joan go in her desire for revenge? The penalty for treason was death.

Windsor returned from a damp morning in the flooded meadows around Pallenswick to find me sitting mindlessly on the floor in the now empty parlor. No furniture, no tapestry; even the log basket beside the fireplace had been taken.…I was stunned, as if Joan had struck my face with the flat of her hand—as she had once so long ago. When I failed to register the echo of his boots on the polished boards, he knelt and lifted the document from my unresisting fingers. Skimming down it, he swore fluently, threw his gloves and sword onto the floor, and sat down beside me.

“I see the vultures have been here.”

“Yes.” His boots in close proximity to my skirts were filthy with mud and slime and the odd strand of duckweed. I did not care.

“Where are the girls?’ he asked.

“With Webster,” I replied dully. “Being fed bread and small beer in the kitchen. If our visitors left us any…”

“Is every room as empty as this?”

Words failed me. I lifted my hands, let them drop. Misery engulfed me.

“What are you going to do?” He thrust the question into the silence.

“I think I’ll sit here and wait for the ax to fall on my neck.”

“Really?” Windsor stood. He gripped my forearms and with a flex of muscles stood, lifting me with him. “Stand up, Alice. You need to stand on your feet. You need to think!”

“I can’t.”

“Is the woman I love so easily intimidated?”

I stood rigid in his embrace, unable to think, unable to respond. Into which black hole had all my courage vanished? I was full to the brim with self-pity, and because I no longer felt brave, I wept for my own weakness, for all I had lost. That the gifts given to me by Edward out of love and gratitude should be snatched back in spitefulness, destroying the physical evidence of Edward’s place in my life. And when honesty forced me to consider that I had not always been entirely without blame, I wept for that too. I had enjoyed my power as King’s Concubine. I could not be completely absolved of using crown gold for my purchases, but I had always paid it back. Hadn’t I? Well, for the most part I had paid my debts. And here was the day of reckoning. I wept into Windsor’s shoulder.

“Is the woman I love so lacking in backbone that she will stand and weep rather than fight for what is rightfully hers?”

They were harsh words, but he tightened his hold and propped his chin on top of my head until I began to relax and take my own weight. The solid beat of his heart had a reassurance all its own. I eventually rested my forehead against his shoulder and could breathe evenly again.…

The word blazed in my mind. I looked up sharply, dislodging his chin, seeing myself reflected in his eyes.

“What did you just say?”

“Which bit of it? That you lacked backbone?”

I ran my tongue over dry lips, scrubbed at my face with a square of linen that Windsor obligingly offered me, and frowned. “I think you said that I am the woman you love?”

“You are. Didn’t you know? You don’t look very pleased with the idea.”

My hands tightened on his sleeves. “Say it again. As if you mean it.” In case he did not. Pray God he did!

“Dear Alice. I love you. You hold my sun and moon in your hands!”

“And that is poetic!”

I thought his answering smile was a little wry. I could not believe it! But I must, mustn’t I? Windsor was not a man to say what he did not mean. An immeasurable joy rioted through me, as if to fill me with a shimmering light to disperse the shadows in my mind and heart. Until all the events of the morning flooded back…

I stared at him. “Why did you have to tell me now?”

“When should I tell you?”

Windsor was humoring me, distracting me. I pushed his hands away so that I stood alone. “Tomorrow. Last week. Anytime but when my face is blotched with tears and my home stripped bare and my mind full of Joan’s perfidy.”

“I thought you knew.”

“No, I didn’t! How could I? You have never said it before.” How could he be so obtuse? There he stood, solid and real and difficult! And infinitely loved. “I want to enjoy it, not have it outweighed by the fact that I might be staring financial ruin—even death, if they prove treason against me—in the face! And I think you should know”—I did not even hesitate—“I love you too.”

Windsor grinned. “There you are, then!”

I plastered my hands over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“I don’t see why not.” He had captured my hands again, humor still lurking in the curve of his mouth. “We’ll celebrate our mutual love and worry about venomous Joan together.”

His mouth was hot and sure on mine.

“Oh, Will…”

“What is it? I’ve just proclaimed my undying love for you. And you don’t look very happy about it!”

I sighed. “I’ll come about.”

“Let me help.” And he kissed me again.

My thoughts were all adrift as I sank into that embrace. But not for long. This was no time for amorous sighs and pleasurable longings. I was not yet free to enjoy them, as Windsor well knew. Framing my face in his hands so I must attend, concentrate, Windsor began to speak in a low, controlled voice that belied the emotion that pulsed beneath his skin. “Now listen to me. You need to be strong, Alice. Listen!” With his hand beneath my chin he made me look at him. “You will stand before the Lords and answer every question they put to you. There is no evidence of fraud against you. As for treason—they’ll not make that stick.”

“You are so confident.” I frowned, not at all persuaded.

“No, I’m not. I am too realistic. But you need to show a confident face or they’ll tear you apart.”

“Why would they do it? Now, when my days at Court are over?”

“You know why. They’ll destroy you for the days when you held power and they did not.”

“Can we stop them?”

“I don’t know. How can we know until we know their evidence? But we’ll have a damned good try.”

I took a deep breath, conscious at last of some of the despair sliding away, and I asked what I wanted most in the world. “When I have to go, will you come with me?”

“The devil himself wouldn’t keep me away! Don’t weep anymore.…Tears have no currency in the game we’re playing!” His gaze was fierce, his hands steady as he took the linen and finished mopping my tears with a thoroughness he might use to dry his horse after a rainstorm. “Are you not my wife? Do I not love you? Be brave, Alice. You have been so all your life. We will go together to Westminster and confront the bloody scavengers in their den. As for now…I think we are owed some time of our own. In God’s name, we haven’t claimed much over the years.”

“To do what?” My thoughts were still wayward, seeing the malevolent, sneering faces of Edward’s Court ranged against me.

With a huff of impatient breath, Windsor clasped my shoulders and shook me. “Stop thinking! Come to bed—and I’ll show your doubting mind that I truly do love you and that it’s not a figment of your imagination.…On the other hand, we don’t have a bed, do we?”

“No!” I felt ridiculous tears begin to well again, but managed a croak of a laugh.

“I swear it won’t be a problem!”

In my bedchamber—our bedchamber—Windsor spread his cloak on the floor in a patch of sunshine, folding his tunic for my head. And in broad daylight he gave me a glimpse of what I had never known—a distilled essence of the magic of unencumbered love, freely given, freely received. I felt the chains of duty and expectation slip away, replaced with soft bonds of delight and passion and hot desire.

“Convinced?” he asked between kisses.

“Oh, Will…”

I could not string two words together, wrapped as I was in the moment. It was impossible not to admire his soldier’s body, firm and well muscled, as he stripped off hose and boots. The sunshine softened the hard planes, highlighting the power of thigh and shoulder.

“Poitiers?” I murmured, pressing my lips to an old scar that ran along his ribs, angling from sternum to waist.

“Yes.” He stretched, lifting me with him, inquiring, “Do you intend to kiss all my scars?”

“That would take far too long.” He loosed my shift and I stood naked, exposed. “I am in lust and desire, Will. My knees are weak with longing.…”

“And with love?” His own lust and desire were as evident as the liquid heat between my thighs.

“Yes, and love.”

The floor was hard, with no goose down, no linen, no lavender-scented coverings. It mattered not one tiny feather from the pillows we did not have. I let him take me as he wished. Or perhaps I did not exactly allow it at all. He was not a man to ask permission, and I would have it no other way. My mind was wiped free of everything but the two of us there together in a house that echoed with emptiness, the sun gilding breast and thigh. Two private people entirely absorbed in each other, attracting no interest from the outside world.

“Why do we love each other, Will?” I asked.

“I’ve no idea. Don’t worry about it. Some things are granted simply to be enjoyed.…”

His enjoyment of me was balm to my soul, his weight solid, his possession thorough. I held on to him when every muscle and nerve shivered in response to his attentions, as I had never needed to hold on to any man before. My heart was full of joy, so much that I might weep again. But I did not. It was a time for rejoicing, and Windsor’s clever hands pushed back the shadows.

But not forever.

When he slept, hair mussed, face buried in his tunic folds, I lay awake. A trial? Unknown evidence? I held Windsor’s love for me close, a talisman to ward off the fear.

“Did they get Philippa’s jewels, then?” Windsor asked when it became necessary for us to dress.

I fear my expression bordered on the smug. “What do you think?”

“God’s Blood!” His laughter echoed strangely in the unfurnished room. “Tell me, then.”

“It pays to be prepared and vigilant. But they will require a little polishing.”

With some forward planning against the day when this might happen—had I not always been chary of just such an eventuality?—my steward had hidden them, together with Edward’s rings, in a sack half-full of weevil-ridden flour. Webster, thank God, had considered the confiscation of the detritus of my cellars beneath his dignity.

Windsor was making headway with the laces of his tunic. “By the by—I have this for you.…I was distracted.” He delved into the inner lining. “I don’t think I’ve ever given you a gift before.”

He took out a silver looking glass. It shone enticingly in the soft light, its engraved stems and leaves skillfully intertwining around the rim like the arms of lovers.

I frowned. “No!” I said stonily, ungraciously.

Windsor stared at the glass, and then at me with solemn astonishment, as if my female mental processes were beyond his understanding. “Alice, my love! I haven’t stolen it. I came by it by fair means—and show me a woman who does not use a glass.”

“She sits before you.”

“But why? Why will you not?”

“I don’t like what I see.” This was the truth; I was not seeking compliments.

“Which bits?”

Was this the time for humor, when I still sat, disheveled, in my shift? “All of them…I’m not…Oh, Windsor!” Infuriated, for it was a pretty thing, I clasped my hands in my lap.

“At what age does a woman begin not to care about her appearance?” Windsor had no intention of allowing me to refuse. “I think she must be on her deathbed.”

He fell to his knees beside me on his much-creased cloak, held the glass up, and with his free hand traced the line of one of my too-dark brows.

“I see no ugliness,” he said softly, “for you are lovely in my eyes. I want you to see Alice. I want you to see the face of my wife and the woman I love.”

His words took every refusal out of my mind. How could I not accept the gift without unforgivable churlishness? And my image was not as bad as I had feared. The face that looked back at me was no beauty, but the lack of symmetry was striking in itself. Even the brows were supportable. I tilted my chin and smiled, and my reflection did likewise; perhaps this unexpected happiness had given me a softening of feature. So I became an owner of a looking glass when I had vowed I would not, and was not displeased when Windsor kissed every bit of my reflected face.

We moved to Gaines, where we at least had a bed—so far.

I knew exactly the impression I wished to make for my appearance before the Lords. I had thought I would be edgy, apprehensive of the outcome, with mouth dry, heart pumping so that I must swallow against nausea. And I was, all of those, but more than that I was defiant! Since the visit of the deplorably efficient Webster, Joan—with the backing of the courts—had been encroaching step by poisonous step. My beloved manor near Wendover, Edward’s gift, had been taken from me, my people turned out, my furnishings impounded, without my even being there to give my yea or nay. As I was informed, my ownership of the estate was not legal. It had reverted to the Crown, and was now the property of King Richard. Not that he had much use from it. On his mother’s advice he granted it to his half brother, Thomas Holland, Joan’s son by one of her earlier, dubious, probably bigamous marriages.

I’m sure it gave her inordinate pleasure.

I seethed with impotence, for disconcertingly, worryingly, Gaunt too made much of my inability to fight back. My house on the banks of the Thames hopped easily from my hand to his. All my London property along the Ropery was added to the total of the royal Duke’s own wealth. Two of my choicest manors dropped neatly into the pocket of Gaunt’s son-in-law. I was truly dispensable in Gaunt’s eyes. He had no further use for me, and I learned a hard lesson: Never trust a man who puts power before loyalty.

So, to attend my so-called trial, I dressed not with circumspection but in a blaze of rebellion.

“There!” I smoothed my hands down my dress before fastening a loop of gold and opals around my wrist to match the collar lying snugly against my collarbone, addressing Jane, who sat on the floor of my bedchamber to watch the transformation from country wife to Court lady. Not all of my garments were stored at Pallenswick. “I’ll show them I don’t fear them!” I announced, and marched down to the parlor, where Windsor awaited me. For a long moment he remained slouched in a chair and looked me over.

“By the Rood, Alice!” His voice was belligerent.

“Is that good or bad?” I thought I looked very well for my summons to kneel before the overmighty Lords.

Lips tight pressed, without a word, Windsor marched me back to my chamber, picked Jane up off the floor where she still sat, and deposited her in the middle of my bed with an absentminded ruffle of her curls.

I clenched my hands into fists. “I don’t like your high-handedness!”

“And I despair of your lack of perspicacity!” He faced me, his manner annoyingly imperious, his voice cracking like a whiplash. Nor did I appreciate his choice of words. “Are you stupid? You are on trial, Alice. For fraud and treason. How difficult do you want to make it for yourself? Do you really want to antagonize the misbegotten titled scum who’ll sit in judgment over you before the first word is uttered?”

I felt my face flush with heat. “They are already antagonized. What does it matter what I wear?”

“Oh, it matters! You look like a concubine!”

“I was a concubine!”

“I know. We all know. But there’s no need to slap them in their high-blooded faces with it. Look at yourself in all honesty.”

He spread his arms to take in my appearance, and I forced myself to see through his eyes. Through the eyes of the Lords. It was, I suppose, on the edge of regally treasonable, as if I had usurped the power of the monarchy for myself. Not quite with the flamboyance of the garments I had worn as Lady of the Sun, but with enough éclat to take the eye, for I wore the same violet silk and gold cotehardie that had driven Isabella to wrath.

“You’re fighting for your freedom here—perhaps even…”

“My life?” I snapped back, the flush fading to an icy pallor.

“Don’t be melodramatic.” He barely hesitated. “I can’t say I see you on a scaffold, but you can’t argue against it—there’ll be more than one of those ranged against you who’ll call for your death.”

“Which seems to be a contradiction to me.”

“And to me also, my combative wife.” He pushed his hand through his hair and groaned. “You need to be careful; don’t you understand? If they choose to resurrect the charge of witchcraft against you…” I saw the worry on him. “And you need to wear something less…challenging.”

“If you say so.” I knew he was right. Of course he was. I sighed and began to strip off the splendidly offending garments. “It’s difficult when the mother of the King is sharpening her nails, isn’t it?” He did not reply. As I stood with my outer robe crushed in my hands, I admitted, “I am afraid. Oh, Will, I am afraid.” I needed his help and his fire in my belly.

Windsor’s voice gentled at last. “I know.” He took the garment from me and laid it on the bed, smoothing its folds with care. “It is very dangerous. But we know well how to manage hostile forces, do we not?”

“Oh, we do.” The underrobe, unlaced by Windsor’s nimble fingers, fell around my feet. I sighed again. “I’m sorry. I let my emotions run away with me.”

“Of course you did. You’re a woman. And a very dear one to me. I won’t let them harm you, you know.”

“I think you might not have a voice in the matter.”

“How little faith you have in me.” He thrust a pair of plain leather shoes into my hands. “Don’t stand there thinking about it. If you’re late, they’ll sneer even more down their aristocratic noses. But remember: I will be with you. I’ll not let you suffer alone.”

“Suffer! My thanks!”

I dressed rapidly and circumspectly, going to my trial in sobriety and seemliness. No jewels! To wear even one of Philippa’s jewels would be like putting a flame to dry kindling laid ready for the fire.

Thus I returned to London for the first time since Edward’s funeral. It seemed to me a much longer stretch of time than the actual weeks since I had fled from the door of the Abbey with Joan’s triumphant prediction resounding in my ears. Momentarily my spirits leaped at the familiar noise and bustle, the sight of wealthy merchants and their wives in as much finery as Edward’s sumptuary laws would allow. The glimpse of the Thames between warehouses, opaque like gray glass in the winter air, drew me. I was not a natural country dweller and never would be—then I recalled with a cold squeeze of a hand around my heart that I was not here for the pleasures that London could offer.

I touched Windsor’s arm for reassurance, grateful when he covered my hand with his own. If affairs went badly for me, I might spend my days in a dungeon or banished from the realm. Or worse…Trying to reply to some bland comment made by Windsor as we wove a path between beggars and whores and the dregs of the London gutters that milled by the waterside, I swallowed against a knot of pure terror.

Dismounting at the Palace of Westminster, Windsor took charge of our horses and I questioned one of the officials. Where were the Lords intending to meet? I was directed to a chamber that Edward had sometimes used for formal audiences, such as the visit of the three kings so many years ago. So this too was to be very formal. But then there was no time to think. Windsor was pulling at my mantle and we walked briskly toward my fate. Guards barred our way at the door; the lords were not yet assembled. Impatiently, I turned to see a man sitting on one of the benches usually occupied by petitioners, waiting for us.

“Wykeham.” Windsor nodded briefly.

“Windsor,” Wykeham reciprocated.

The two men eyed each other with little warmth. That would never change.

“I thought that you of all people would have kept clear of this place,” I said, to hide my astonishment that the bishop should be here. “It’s not politic for a sensible man to be seen in my company.”

“You forget.” His grimace as he kissed my fingers was a praiseworthy attempt at a smile. “I’m a free man, pardoned and reinstated. I shine with honest rectitude. Parliament in its wisdom has turned its smiling face on me, so nothing can touch me.”

I had never heard him so cynical. “I hope I can say the same for myself after today, but I am not confident.”

“I expect you can talk them ’round.” His mordant humor had an edge. Warmed by his attempt to reassure me, however much an empty gesture it proved to be, I asked what I had never asked before.

“Pray for me, Wykeham.”

“I will. Even though I’m not sure it matters to you. You spoke for me when I needed it.” He pressed my fingers before releasing them. “I’ll do what I can, lady. The Lords might listen if I speak for you.…”

The unusual term of respect from Wykeham almost brought me to tears, and I curtsied deeply to him, as I had never done before.

“You have some strange friends, my love,” Windsor observed when Wykeham was gone. “The man—priest or not—is enamored of you. God help him!”

“Nonsense!” I replied, marshaling my scattered emotions. “I helped to get him dismissed.”

“And you reunited him with Edward. You are too hard on yourself.” He folded my hands in his and kissed my lips, my cheeks. “Remember what I told you,” he whispered against my temple.

And then I was on my own.

Without any fuss or fanfare, I was shown into the chamber. There was no chair placed for me this time: I was expected to stand throughout. Before me and beside me, on three sides, the ranks of hostile faces stared their enmity, just as I had imagined. And in the end Windsor could not keep his promise to be with me—he was barred at the door. He did not bother to argue when faced with the point of the guards’ halberds. I could imagine him pacing the chamber outside to no avail.

I looked ’round at those I knew and those I did not. Would there be justice? I thought not.

Be calm. Be reasoned. Be aware. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked into any admission that can be used against you. Tell the truth as much as you can. Use the intelligence God gave you. And don’t speak out of turn or with misplaced arrogance.

Windsor had been brutal in his advice.

But I was so alone. Even his love could not still the rapid trip of my heart.

“Mistress Perrers.”

I looked up sharply. Their spokesman, a sheaf of pages in his hand, was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Marshal of England. A close associate of Gaunt. I did not like this. I did not like it at all, but I clung to my resolve and I inclined my head.

“My lord.”

“You are summoned here to answer to charges of a most serious nature. Do you understand?”

So that was how it would be. Formal and legal, entirely impersonal. I still did not know what the charges were.

“Yes, my lord. I understand.”

“We require you to answer questions concerning your past conduct. There are outstanding charges against you.”

“And they are?” Fear bloomed against all my desires.

“Fraud, mistress. And treason. How do you plead?”

“Innocent,” I replied instantly. “To both. And I question the validity of any evidence against me.” I might be circumspect in my replies, but I would not be a fool. I knew what they were about, concocting some spurious occasion on which I had committed treason. Even fraud was a matter for debate.

“They are serious charges, mistress. Perhaps you should take time to consider.…”

“In what manner have I ever committed fraud?” I kept my voice clear and strong and confident, my spine straight as a halberd staff. “I have never used dishonest deception or trickery to benefit myself. I have never used false representations. If you are questioning my holding of royal manors, they were freely given to me by King Edward, gifts of his generosity, out of his affection for me.” Let them accept that statement! “Those I purchased in my own name were done so openly and legally, through the offices of my agent. I utterly deny the charge of fraud, my lords.”

My breathing, with great effort, was slow and controlled, my voice even and commanding. What evidence could they possibly have?

“But in the matter of treason, mistress…”

“Treason? On which occasion did I violate my sworn allegiance to my King?” I was on firm ground here. Not even this august body could find evidence of my bringing the state of the King into danger. “I challenge you to find any evidence of my being a danger either to the King’s health or to the security of the realm.” Perhaps not wise, but fear compelled me to state my case so bluntly. I appraised the faces turned toward me. Some met my gaze; some looked anywhere but at me. “Well, my lords? Where is your evidence?”

The Lords moved uneasily on their benches, whispered together. Northumberland shuffled his documents.

“We must deliberate, mistress. If you would wait in the antechamber?”

I stalked out.

“What’s happening?” Windsor was immediately there, drawing me to sit on the bench recently vacated by Wykeham.

“They are deliberating.”

“What, in God’s name? You were barely in there for five minutes!”

“I don’t know.” I could not sit, but prowled across the width of the room and back.

“I presume it’s not going well?”

“Nothing is going well. They charged me, but refused to produce any evidence against me. What do I make of that? If they have no evidence, why call me here? I am afraid, Will. I’m afraid of what I don’t know.”

“I wish I could be there with you.” He rose to prowl with me.

“I know.” I leaned into him. “But I don’t think it would do any good. Even the Archangel Gabriel himself could not keep the Lords from my tearing out my throat.”

Within the half hour I was called back.

“Mistress Perrers,” Northumberland said, with a self-satisfied air. “The Lords have debated the evidence against you. That you did wantonly and deliberately disobey the orders issued by the Good Parliament.”

What was this? A completely new direction? Fraud and treason had suddenly been abandoned, unless it was treason to disobey Parliament. In that moment I realized that the Lords had known from the beginning that these charges were untenable. But what was the implication here? I felt the ground shift under my feet. This was far more dangerous, a presentiment of it shivering along my spine. How I wished for Windsor’s strength beside me.

“Which orders?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. Had I not obeyed them to the letter? Surely this could not be witchcraft again? Nausea gripped my belly.

“The orders that banished you from the person of the King and from living anywhere in the vicinity of the royal Court…”

But had I not done what they asked of me?

“I reject that accusation.”

“Do you?” A complacent curve of Northumberland’s mouth attested to his certainty that my denial would hold no weight. “You were banished—and yet you returned to be with His late Majesty in the weeks before his death.…”

Be calm! They cannot prove your guilt on this.…

“I observed the orders,” I stated, choosing my words with care, whilst my heart galloped like a panicked horse. “I lived in retirement. I did not return to Court until my lord of Gaunt had the orders against me rescinded. I state this, a fact that must be well-known to all here present, as proof of my innocence.”

“This Chamber knows nothing of that. It believes that you are guilty of breaking the terms of your banishment by Parliament. A most heinous crime.”

“No! I did not! I was informed by the hand of my lord of Gaunt himself that I was free to return.”

“And you have proof of this?”

“No. But the pardon must exist.”

The letter. What had happened to it? My thoughts skittered like rats in a trap. There must be proof.…

“Furthermore”—Northumberland continued as if I had not spoken—“you are charged that you used your malign influence on His Majesty King Edward in the final days of his weakness, to achieve the pardon of Richard Lyons, whom Parliament had condemned for his dire culpability in matters of finance. By your instigation, Lyons was released from the Tower.”

It was simply not true. I considered the accusation, my mind racing over the facts. There was no evidence of my involvement. There was none! My spirits rose, and yet I was puzzled at this accusation.

“Lyons was pardoned on the authority of my lord of Gaunt, in King Edward’s name, when the decisions of the Parliament were reversed,” I replied, once more sure of my ground. “He and my lord Latimer were both released. It is no secret. It must have been known to your lordships.”

Northumberland denied it. “This Chamber holds that you are guilty of effecting the pardon of this man, a man considered to be a threat to the realm.”

“No…!”

“The scale of his embezzlement was an outrage. To grant him a pardon was an act against the authority of Parliament.…”

“There must be Court officials who know the truth. Gaunt himself…”

Northumberland’s eyes met mine, horrifyingly bright with his supremacy over me. “We are aware of none. Not one has come forward in your defense.”

“I can find them.” How amazingly composed I sounded, yet the palms of my hands were slick with sweat. “The lawyers involved with the case will speak for my lack of involvement. I had nothing to do with Lyons’s pardon. It must be on record that my lord of Gaunt had the legal papers drawn up.”

Silence. Not even the habitual scuffling of my aristocratic judges. I found that my hands had curled into fists, the nails digging into soft flesh. Northumberland gave a curt nod.

“It must not be said that this Chamber is guilty of trampling justice underfoot. We will allow you time to find your witnesses, mistress. We will hear them and assess their evidence.”

“How long?” I asked. “How long will you give me?”

“One afternoon and one night, mistress.” His smile was a smirk, if I was not mistaken.

“But that’s impossible.…”

“A committee appointed by us will meet tomorrow at ten of the clock to hear your evidence.”

“I beg for longer, my lords.…” I looked ’round at the faces, but knew that my plea fell on willfully deaf ears.

“That is the best we can do.”

I walked from the room, shoulders straight, head high. They knew I would lose.

“One afternoon and one night? By God! They’re sure of themselves. And I don’t like having a door slammed in my face!” Windsor struck his fist against the wall, then became fiercely practical. “So where do we start?”

“It was Gaunt’s doing; he ordered Lyons’s release. The evidence must exist,” I fretted. “All I need is someone to unearth it from wherever it’s filed away and stand beside me to put it before the Lords’ Committee.”

“Who? Who would know?”

We were walking rapidly through the corridors to the wing of the vast palace given over to Court business, a rabbit warren of clerks and lawyers.

“I don’t know,” I said. “One of the Court’s legal men. There are enough of them.”

“But will they?”

“Will they what?” My mind was already leaping ahead. Who could I pin down?

“Find the evidence. Present it before the Committee. Who in God’s name can you find to stand before the Lords and challenge their rulings?”

I stopped in my tracks. “Why would they not?”

“If there’s an interest to keep the evidence hidden…” He raised his hand as I opened my mouth to deny such an outcome. “If, I say…then retribution against any man who spoke in your defense could be sharp and swift. It could keep mouths firmly closed. Even if the evidence still exists…and I have my doubts!”

I blinked to hear it spoken so brutally. For was it not what I feared? The assurance of Northumberland had stirred my fear to hot flames.

“I can’t do nothing! I can’t just accept it!” I retaliated.

“No. And our time is slipping past.” Windsor had redoubled his pace. “Let’s see who we can track down to their legal lair. Who was the man who took all your property from Pallenswick? He might consider that he owes you the truth.”

“Why is it, Will,” I grumbled, “that you always think along the lines of debts that can be called in and gifts that need to be reciprocated?”

“Because I’ve spent my life calling them in or repaying them!” He strode on, pulling me with him. “Do you remember his name?”

“Thomas Webster.”

“Go and talk to him.” He pushed me through a door that would take me into the legal rabbit run. “I’ll see if any of Edward’s servants manage to have a memory that I can prick. With a dagger if I have to.”

I tracked Thomas Webster down to a small, shabby room where he was surrounded by vellum, ribbons and seals, and the smell of ink and elderly documents. How evocative that smell was, with memories of past times. Safer times. Master Webster looked up impatiently as I entered, then, seeing me, instantly dismissed his clerk. Not, I decided, a good sign.

“Master Thomas Webster.” I stood before his desk, arms at my sides, as he came slowly to his feet.

“Mistress Perrers…”

“Do they exist?”

He knew why I was here in his den. His eyes shifted beneath mine, and slid down to where one hand toyed with an inky quill. He knew exactly my meaning: the documents to prove that Gaunt had had the pardons drawn up.

“I am sure they do, mistress.”

“Will you find them for me? Will you stand as witness for me?”

“No, mistress.”

Well, that was plain enough. “Why not?”

Now he looked at me. “You know the reason. It’s more than my position is worth to help you.”

“Will you not even help me to prove that my banishment from Court was revoked by my lord of Gaunt?”

He did not even bother to answer.

“Then who will?” I demanded. “Who will help me?”

His face as bland as a baked custard tart, he cast the quill with its ruined nib onto the desk. He did not need to reply. As I discovered in further fruitless search for the whole of that afternoon, no one would help me. The Court lawyers became invisible. They vanished into the stonework and paneled walls like cockroaches at the approach of a candle. Those whom I cornered claimed an astonishing loss of recall.

“It’s hopeless!” I met up with Windsor, who was looking unusually harassed, in the Great Hall.

“So Webster is intransigent?”

“Webster is a self-serving bastard!”

“Edward’s servants are also less than cooperative,” he remarked. “But there is one who might come up to the mark.…”

“How much did you pay him?”

“Best not to ask! I wouldn’t wager on his appearing in the final shake-up, but at least he did not refuse outright.”

I had little hope. If a lawyer would not stand for the truth, with all the legal documents to prove his case, how could I expect a page or servant to put himself forward against the will of Parliament?

“Don’t give up hope, Alice,” Windsor said, though his face was grim. “Not until the final judgment is given. There’s always hope.”

“I’m not so sanguine.”

“Nor am I. But we can’t both give up before we begin!” I balked at the unexpected harshness, but he drew my hand through his arm and led me toward the screened door at the end of the hall.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“We stir up the kitchens to find us ale and something that passes for food. Then we keep my wavering witness under surveillance.” His grin had a not altogether pleasant edge. “If he changes his mind, we do all we can to change it back!”

We had little sleep that night.

Ten o’clock. Edward’s beloved clock at Havering would be marking the hour. The Committee chose a smaller, more intimate chamber in which to examine my evidence, one just large enough to hold a half dozen of their number and the accused. And a witness, if one were brave enough to appear. Or sufficiently foolhardy…

I entered. I curtsied to the chosen Lords seated before me behind a table, a solid barrier between accusers and accused. I looked from face to face to see who would determine my future.

The temperature in the room dropped to ice.

Seated in the center of my judges, presiding over the case against me, was Gaunt himself. My erstwhile supporter, my ally, who had striven to win my allegiance, who had annulled my banishment to allow me to return to Edward.

Sitting in judgment?

I inhaled slowly, deeply, trying to calm the terror that flared anew. Why had he chosen to do this? What effect would his weighty presence have on the judgment for or against me? The answer was as plain as the flamboyant black-and-red damask of his tunic. I looked directly at him. He looked at me. If I had hoped to find a friend amongst the Lords, I had been woefully mistaken. But then, I had never trusted him, had I? I was right not to. Gaunt’s presence, I knew full well, would destroy the one solitary hope I had clung to, however hopelessly, through that endless night: that he might once again come to my rescue. He was here to punish me. He was here to destroy any evidence that we had worked together in the past by making an example of me. He was hunting, his eyes as hard and cold as granite, and I was the quarry. I would find no rescue here.

“Mistress Perrers…”

My attention was dragged back, my interrogator once more Northumberland. Not that it mattered. Gaunt might not personally undertake the examination of my evidence, but his authority would color the whole proceedings. The outcome was, I feared, his to direct.

“Mistress Perrers—we will weigh your evidence to support your innocence. Have you discovered any lawyer who will speak of the origin of Lyons’s pardon? Have you discovered the documents?”

“No, my lords. I have not.”

“Then the evidence against you still stands and you must be presumed guilty.” How gentle his voice sounded. How venomous!

“I have found one who will speak for me,” I stated.

“Indeed?” The disbelief in that single word was impressive, and chilling to the depths of my soul.

“I would call John Beverley,” I said.

“And he is?”

“An attendant in King Edward’s retinue. A personal body servant. A man whom the King—the late King—trusted implicitly.”

“Then we will hear him.”

The door at my back was opened. I prayed, I prayed as hard as I could, that John Beverley had not fled.

“Keep him here, whatever you do!” I had told Windsor that morning, “and stop scowling at him.” John Beverley was the only man Windsor and I could locate who had a smidgen of courage and respect for the truth. Whatever effort it had taken from Windsor, we had brought Beverley at least as far as the door to the chamber. I thought perhaps the means employed by my determined husband had been physical: Beverley was nervous. I feared he was also untrustworthy. But what choice had I but to put my freedom into his hands? All I could do was pray that his past loyalties would hold true. He entered, thinning hair untidy, as if he had dragged his hands through it, his gaze flickering over the Committee. When he saw Gaunt, his nervousness changed to horror. The skin of his face became gray, and my heart fell.

“John Beverley,” Northumberland addressed him.

“Yes, my lord.” His hands were gripped ferociously, his broad features anxious.

“You were body servant to King Edward?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“We are here to ascertain the truth of the pardoning of Richard Lyons. You recall the matter to which I allude? To your knowledge, did Mistress Perrers persuade His late Majesty to grant Lyons a pardon?”

“Not to my knowledge, my lord.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, my lord.”

I sighed. Beverley was a man of few words, his eyes those of a terrified deer facing the hounds. Pray God he would use those words on my behalf.

“How is that? How can you be so sure?”

“I was in attendance on His Majesty constantly in those last days, my lord.” A few petals of hope began to unfurl beneath my heart. Beverley’s voice grew stronger as his confidence grew. Here was something he could speak of with authority. “I never heard the matter of a pardon mentioned by the King or by Mistress Perrers.”

“So neither of them talked of it.”

“No, my lord. Neither King Edward nor his…nor Mistress Perrers. I swear the King never gave the order for a pardon for the man.”

A dangerous statement, all in all. If the pardon had not come from Edward, it had been on Gaunt’s own initiative. Thus, Gaunt had usurped a royal power that was not his by right to use. I held my breath as the tension in the room tightened. There was a shifting of bodies, the slide of silk against damask, a scrape of boots against the floor. And on Gaunt’s brow a storm cloud gathered. If Beverley did not notice it, he was a fool. Would he stand by his word, or would he play the coward? Windsor’s intimidation or monetary inducement suddenly weighed little against Gaunt’s unspoken ire.

“You will swear to that? You will take an oath to that effect?” asked Northumberland. “That Mistress Perrers did at no time persuade the late King to issue a pardon for Richard Lyons.”

“Well…yes, my lord.”

“It would, you understand, be dangerous to swear to something of which you are to any degree uncertain.…”

“Ah…” And as I watched him, Beverley’s eyes skipped from Northumberland to Gaunt.

“Do you claim, Master Beverley, that Mistress Perrers had no influence on the King’s decisions? You say that you were with the late King constantly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“But were there not times when Mistress Perrers was alone with the King, without your presence?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“And during those times, could she perhaps have raised the question of Lyons and his pardon?”

“Well…she could, my lord.” Beverley gulped.

“If that is so…are you free to say that Mistress Perrers did not undertake the pardon of Richard Lyons?”

I heard him swallow again, seeing the pit before his feet, a dark morass of claim and counterclaim that he had dug for himself. I too saw it, but forced myself to stand perfectly still, watching Gaunt’s face.

“No, my lord. I suppose I am not.”

“Then, by my reckoning, you cannot support Mistress Perrers with your testimony. Can you?”

“No, sir. By my conscience, I cannot.” I thought Beverley sounded relieved at having the decision made for him.

“Thank you. We appreciate your honesty. You are free to go.”

Gaunt’s face was blandly tranquil; he appeared satisfied with a job well-done as he looked at me. It was as if we were alone in the room, and I knew that I would be judged without mercy.

The Committee conferred in low voices.

John Beverley left the chamber with not one look in my direction, keen to dissociate himself from any suspicion of connivance between us. I could hardly blame him. Not all men were given the courage to stand by the truth. Not all men were like Windsor, who I knew would stand by me to the death. Standing alone before Gaunt’s handpicked lordly minions, I needed Windsor as I had never needed anyone before. Since Philippa’s intervention in my life, I had struggled and maneuvered to keep my feet in the fast-flowing stream of Court politics. I had striven to make my future and that of my children safe. I was even proud of my success. Now all was brought to nothing. Here I stood, helpless and vulnerable, without friends.

Except for William de Windsor.

The strange sense of relief that I was not completely alone, whatever happened, was my only glimmer of hope in this moment of dread.

“Mistress Perrers!” There was Northumberland demanding my attention. Gaunt’s expression was carved in stone. Northumberland stepped forward. “We have made our decision. This is our judgment.…”

And how little time it took to undermine all I had made of my life.

“We consider you to be guilty of obtaining the pardon for Richard Lyons.”

Guilty!

“Therefore this Committee, in the name of the Lords of the Realm of England, confirms the original sentence delivered by the Good Parliament. The sentence of banishment remains against you.…”

Banishment! Again! The word beat heavily against my mind.

But Northumberland had not yet finished twisting the knife in my heart’s wound.

“…also we command the forfeiture of all your remaining lands and possessions obtained by fraud and deceit.”

The enormity of it shook me. The illegality of my actions was simply presumed without any need to show proof. My own purchase of land and property was presumed to be through deceit, and so I was to be stripped of everything, whether illegal or not. I was presumed guilty, not proven to be so. So much for justice. How they must hate me. But had that not always been the case?

“Do you understand our decisions, Mistress Perrers?”

I stood unmoving, aware of all those eyes: some condemning, some sanctimonious, some merely curious to see how I would react. Gaunt’s eyes glittered with triumph and avarice. My estates were open to his picking. From ally to enemy in that one sentence. I could barely comprehend it. And when I did, I despised him for it.

“I understand perfectly, my lords,” I remarked. “Am I free to go?”

“We are finished here.”

I curtsied deeply and walked from the room.

Am I free to go? I had asked. But where would I go?

Before my mind could fully grasp what had been done, I was standing in the antechamber. The judgment was passed; I was not restrained, yet banishment, a black cloud, pressed down on me. Blindly I looked for Windsor, waiting for me by the window. I think I must have staggered, for in three strides he was beside me, holding my arm.

“Beverley played the rabbit, I presume. He scuttled out before I could get my hands around his scrawny little neck.”

I blinked, unable to string two thoughts together or find words to explain what had been done to me.

“Alice?”

I shook my head. “I…I can’t…but I need to…”

One close look at my bleak expression was enough for him. “Don’t try to speak. Come with me.”

He lost no time, but led me out into the icy air. I shivered but was glad of the cold wind on my face. In the courtyard, horses were waiting with Windsor’s servants. As if from a distance, I realized that he had feared this, and made provision even as he had encouraged me to believe that justice would smile in my favor.

“Thank you,” I whispered. How dear he was to me. How much I had begun to lean on his good sense, his cynical streak of practicality.

He raised the palm of my hand to his lips, then, realizing how cold I was, stripped off his own gloves and drew them onto my hands, wrapping his own mantle around my shoulders. The warmth was intense, welcome, despite the cruel tingling of my fingers.

“You are very…kind to me.”

“Kind, by God! Do I not love you, foolish one?” He peered into my frozen face. “I suppose you still don’t believe me. But this is neither the time nor the place to beat you about the head with it. Just accept that it’s true and that I won’t desert you. Feel that?” He pressed my gloved palm to his chest. “It beats in unison with yours. Is that poetic enough for you? Perhaps not, but it’s the best you’ll get at this juncture.” His kiss on my mouth was firm. “Now up with you. Before the vermin change their mind. I’ll take you home.”

“But where is home now?”

“Home is with me.”

What a strange place and time for such an assurance. Beneath his harsh exterior was a sensitivity that always had the power to move me. His intuitiveness was a thing of wonder. And he must have known: I needed those exact words to bite through the paralyzing horror. Nor did he wait for any reciprocal response from me. Blasted by rampant shock and fear, I could not tell him what had occurred. By now I was shivering constantly, a reaction that was nothing to do with the whip of the wind off the river. I gripped the reins that he forced between my fingers, but sat there, unable to make the simplest of decisions, until he leaned from his own mount and grasped my bridle. With an impatient grunt he pulled my horse after him into a stumbling trot. It jerked me back into my senses, and I pushed my mount alongside his.

“Will they enforce the banishment this time?” I asked, even as I knew the answer.

“So that’s what they did. I wondered what had reduced you to silence.”

I could not smile at the heavy humor. “Yes, and worse.”

“Who was it?”

“Gaunt. He was there. He sat in judgment on me.” All I could see was his hard face, his furious desire to wash his hands clean of his association with me.

“Then we’ll not wait around to find out.” Windsor urged our mounts into a faster trot, our escort keeping pace.

“Where are we going?”

“To Gaines. Do you agree?”

Why not? Would I be safe anywhere? “Yes. To Gaines. It is our own. They cannot question my ownership of Gaines, since it is in your name too.” I saw his quizzical look. Of course, he didn’t know. “Oh, Will! They’re going to take away all my property, my land.…”

He showed no surprise.

“Then I’ll take you to one of my own manors, if you prefer. You and the girls…”

As I thought about it, the cold in my belly began to melt. He would take care of me, whatever happened. Yet, I decided that I needed the comfort of familiar surroundings. “No. Take me to Gaines. And, Will…?” He looked across. His face was vivid and alive, strong enough to confront any danger. “I know you love me. And I love you too.”

“I know you do. Now get on, woman. The sooner we’re out of London, the better, before they find another crime to hang around your neck.”