Royal Mistress (8 page)

Jane’s warm, low-throated laughter woke the baby, who began to fret and want freeing from his swaddling bands. “Poor little Pieter. Are you hot, sweeting?” Jane quickly unbound the soft, pink body. Liberated, Pieter exercised every limb with burbling delight. “That is better, is it not?” Jane cooed while Sophie sadly watched her friend, who so obviously wished the baby were hers.

“You have not answered me yet. Vat vill you do?”

Jane shook her head. “I suppose I can wait a few months in case, as you say, William has an ailment he has not told me about. But after that, I shall seek the help of a priest in the matter of an annulment.”

Sophie drew in a breath, shocked. “Annulment? You would seek annulment? That vould cause a scandal, vould it not?”

“It might cause William some embarrassment, but not I,” she said, irony evident in her voice. “I am certain no one would think it my fault. Why, even my father thinks I am too forward with men.”

Sophie shook her head. “Do not say such a thing, Jane. Your father may not pay you much heed, but he cares about you.”

Jane was not so sure, but she said nothing and continued tickling little Pieter’s bare midriff.

T
hose small faults that Jane had seen in William’s physique when they had first met—his gangly legs; the lank, dull hair; his nervous sniff; his nearsighted peering at people’s clothes, for William never bothered looking at the people themselves—all began to magnify in her mind each time she was with him. That night was no exception.

He was picking at his supper of pickled eels, cheese, and wastel bread with one hand and holding the shop’s account roll open with the other, peering at the figures in the light of a candelabra, and Jane was at liberty to study her husband from the other end of the table. A large silver saltcellar separated them, and their trenchers were set upon spotless table linen. Soon William would roll up the accounts, push away his food, and down his wine. Jane did not approve of William’s indulgence with wine at supper. It was not that she did not enjoy a cup or two herself, but she resented that he said it made him sleep better. Aye, she thought, and probably dulled the senses he needed to get her with child.

“The king is already returning from France,” William suddenly said, not lifting his head from the paper. “It seems there was a treaty signed ere a shot was fired.”

Jane was astonished. She had witnessed the departure of King Edward at the end of May when he had ridden with his retinue through the streets to London Bridge to take boats to Greenwich. This expedition was supposed to have regained some of the territory lost during the war against France that had endured almost one hundred years and ended in 1453. The five-year-old Prince of Wales came from Ludlow to be keeper of the realm, although his mother would have him in her charge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as chancellor, would have England in his. It was expected that the king and a large number of the nobility would
be gone for a long time, and thus Edward had taxed his subjects to their breaking point for this glorious campaign. Once again the wealthy merchants of London had joined with the great Italian banking families like the Medicis and Portinaris to lend even more to the king to pay his massive army; both John Lambert and William Shore had added to Edward’s war chest. Great things were expected of the expedition, and to hear that it was all over in the space of four months struck Jane as odd, especially as there had been no news of victory or defeat.

“How can that be?” she asked. “The king was expected to join with Charles of Burgundy and beat the French. Did King Louis surrender?”

William shook his head. “Nay, wife, it would seem our soldier sovereign was bought off with a pension from Louis if Edward left without fighting. To be fair, Burgundy failed to keep his end of the bargain and offered little or no support to Edward. Without Charles, Edward’s efforts might have led to an even lengthier campaign and possible defeat. But, trust me, this news will not be well received by Englishmen. An English army returning from France with its tail between its legs? ’Tis shameful, and,” he grumbled, “I doubt any of us who financed the fiasco will see our money back. ’Tis a sorry affair.”

Jane privately thought the lack of loss of life and limb was a praiseworthy outcome, but as she knew William would not care about anything except his money, she kept silent. She did not want to irritate him because she had a more pressing conversation to initiate. She cleared her throat and waited for him to look up at her.

“Was there something you wished to talk to me about, Jane?” William had noticed her unusually demure demeanor and had learned it often preceded a favor. He enjoyed granting those little wishes for a new gown or pair of shoes, because it made him feel powerful over her. And it seemed to help alleviate his guilt that he could not perform in bed. He had always hated his body, wishing he could have been born strong and virile, and it had unnerved
him as a youth that he did not seem to share the lustiness of his fellow apprentices. He had never visited the stews or attempted to bed a tavern wench as they had, and he was teased mercilessly as a result. He had even been called a sodomite, which was abhorrent to him. William simply did not seem to have much of a sensual nature; he took physical pleasure in fingering his purse and counting his money. Jane’s sensuality frightened and disgusted him, and on many occasions he caught himself wishing he had never agreed to wed her. But the union was paying handsomely through referrals from his prominent father-in-law, and he had been able to purchase his shop premises outright with Jane’s dowry. In truth, business was good, he told himself.

“Aye, William, I would talk to you about us,” Jane said in as forthright a tone as she dared. “I think you know what I mean. I believe we rub together well enough as people, but we do not in between the sheets.” It irked Jane further that William never appreciated her wordplay or wit, and so she did not even pause to see if tonight were different. “May I know if you have some ailment that prevents us from normal intimacy, something that prevents us from having a child?”

William’s face drained of color, and he clutched his napkin over his lap. “I do not believe it is your place to ask me such a thing. I am your husband and you must submit to my will. I am sorry if you are not content with me in”—he paused to weigh his words and then blurted out angrily—“satisfying your lusts, but it cannot be helped. Now let us please change the subject or I shall leave the room.”

Jane pushed back her chair and stood. “Nay, William, ’tis I who shall leave the room. But not before I remind you that I will have every right to seek an annulment if you cannot fulfill your husbandly duty.” Without waiting for his response, she moved to the door and was gone so quickly, William’s tongue could not form any words with which to stay her.

He rose unsteadily and went to the window, his hands trembling as he opened the shutter and stared out at the roof of the Masons’ Hall next door. How could he have lost control of his wife so quickly after wedding her? What was this nonsense about an annulment? He had never struck Jane, but he was moved to violence tonight. If he had a heart, William would have acknowledged that he had deprived his wife of intimacy and ultimately motherhood. But William had grown up believing the world was against him and that if he did not take care of himself first, he would be doomed to mediocrity. He believed fervently that money bought him security, and new business ventures held the only excitement in an otherwise dreary existence. He reached down to scratch a flea bite on his leg and interrupted a mouse nibbling on a morsel of cheese, causing the creature to scuttle away. He scowled. The vermin in this city were a nuisance, but one learned to live with them—a little like an annoying wife, he decided.

If the truth be told, he had already tired of the new venture: marriage and its financial rewards. He thought about his old life, his life before Jane, and wished he could have it back. But annulment? Admit publicly to failure as a man? Nay, he could not tolerate the thought of humiliation and scandal. Annulment was out of the question, but he resolved to find out more about the law in case Jane were serious about her threat. What else could he do? he wondered; all he knew was mercery. He was good at it and had no reason to risk his position in the guild. Then he remembered a conversation he had had recently with Master Caxton, a former leader of the merchant adventurers in Flanders who was now in the household of the duchess of Burgundy and a fellow member of the mercers’ guild. He had intrigued William with the lucrative possibilities of joining the merchant adventurers who used their business skills abroad in Bruges or Antwerp.

“The only trouble is, Master Shore,” the printer had teased the sober-faced mercer upon their meeting, “you must be celibate to
be an adventurer, and I understand you have a beautiful new bride. It would be hard to give her up, would it not?”

William grimaced as he remembered the conversation, but then the germ of a plan began to form as he watched the roofs of London fade into the twilight.

J
ane walked softly into the cool sanctuary of St. Olave’s church in Old Jewry, a place where she had never worshipped before. She saw that one confessional was open, and she slipped inside and pulled the curtain across the door, setting a bell to tinkling and alerting the priest he had a supplicant.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Jane recited when the cleric had blessed her from behind the grille. After confessing a few innocuous transgressions of sloth and disobedience, she shut her eyes tightly and told the good father her dilemma. “He cannot give me a child, Father,” she ended, surprised to find she was near to tears. “Am I not entitled to all the gifts of marriage, including intimacy and children? I understood this from the marriage vows and from the priest in my father’s parish, who said ’twas the law. I believe my husband is not able to do his duty by me.”

The priest was silent for a while. It was usual for a man to complain about his wife’s abstinence or failure to provide him with adequate release in bed. He had not had to counsel a woman in such a matter before, although he knew there was a law that might be applied in such a case.

“My advice to you, child, is to wait a little longer. There may be a perfectly good reason why your husband is unable to fulfill his duty to you. In the meantime, I will find out what I can to help you in this matter. You must understand, the only way out of this union is through annulment, and only bishops may grant one following a papal decree. And it may be you have to go through the courts.”

Jane left the church disheartened but not defeated and almost
fell over the rotting carcass of a cat. “God’s teeth!” she said under her breath as she skirted the dead animal, hurried past the Prince’s Wardrobe, and up into Coleman Street. “The city gets filthier every week.”

William arched a skeptical brow at her when she returned to the shop and told him she had been to confession. No good lying, she thought. God would not help her if she began her quest to end her marriage with a lie. To her surprise, William smiled and nodded. Despite her decision of a moment earlier not to lie, she resolved to use the confessional excuse again—real or not.

“We shall shut the shop on the morrow, Mistress Shore,” William said. He always addressed her thus in front of his apprentices. “The king is returning, and I have been summoned to be part of a small greeting committee at Tower wharf with others of our guild.” He drew her aside, his boney fingers gripping her elbow, and explained, “This will not be quite the joyous reception Edward enjoyed upon his departure in June, I can assure you. London is not pleased with its lily-livered, Louis-pensioned king, and most citizens have decided to go about their daily business and ignore his grace. But I have been thinking how we can take full advantage of the nobility who will ride past your father’s shop.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation, reminding Jane of her father’s similar greedy gesture, but then once again he surprised her with his rare smile. “I would have you sit in the window of the workroom above the shop, Jane, dressed in your finest gown—the one I had made for you after we were promised.”