The First Princess of Wales (5 page)

“Here,
demoiselle,
in here,” Lady Euphemia intoned and halted by a tall, carved oak door. From within came the intriguing sound of a deep male voice reading to the accompaniment of a single, fine lute. “Now, do not let Her Royal Highness Isabella and her butterfly
mignonnes
overwhelm you. They are all about your age and the princess herself quite favors having young and pretty maids like you about, my dear. Come, you shall see. Butterflies all.”

The scene within was breathtaking. A cluster of exquisitely gowned ladies in rainbow silks and sendals sat on stools, like floating lily flowers on a pond of sky-blue carpet in a large and airy room. Gold and green tapestries of unicorns and winged griffins graced the walls, and a massive bed, covered and canopied in glittering silver silk, sailed like a tall boat near the living, silken lilies. A long-robed man, black-haired and sharp-faced, read deep-voiced in French from a book as all the lovely ladies inclined their heads and listened politely while their embroidery and tapestry frames stood temporarily idle. A young lutenist in the brightest yellow-striped tunic played a muted
chanson
to match the serious tenor of the reader’s voice. Two deep-set windows with crystal panes flooded the scene with golden light.

“The princess,” Lady Euphemia whispered and elbowed Joan gently. “Over by the window, the fairest of them all.”

Her heart pounding, Joan’s eyes sought the princess, eldest of the three daughters of the English Edward and his Flemish Queen Philippa. The lady was indeed the fairest, light-skinned and blond as herself. Her kirtle and armless
surcote
were silvery sendal, almost like her bed, and were edged with the finest white- and black-spotted ermine. She alone did not seem intent on the instructive reading. Her eyes darted about and she twisted the silver tasseled cords of her pearl-studded girdle. Her blue eyes snagged on Joan and then jumped to Lady Euphemia as a quick smile lifted her pouting red lips to a grin.

“Master Robert, a pause, only a pause for a moment’s respite,” the princess chirped, her voice dancing like little bells on a winter sleigh. “Euphemia,
mon amie.
Look,
mes belles
! Euphemia has brought us my distant cousin Joan of Kent, a fair maid indeed to grace our bowers and our halls. Come, come, Joan. Come to meet your new friends.”

Joan’s uneasy heart flowed out in gratitude to the lovely, young princess at this effusive welcome, more wonderful and charming than she had dared to hope for. With Lady Euphemia pushing her ahead and clucking something about “butterflies” again, Joan self-consciously wended her way past the ladies who hastened to rise in a rustle of skirts when the princess did. Lady Euphemia went out and quietly closed the door.

Isabella’s dainty hands grasped her own and held them wide to look at her. Then she moved closer in a rush of crushing silver silk and jasmine scent for a hug so quick and light Joan had no time to return it. “My dearest, dearest Joan. How we shall all delight in having you with us, will we not,
mes amies
? Here, let me introduce you to everyone before we go back to the lesson for the day. Her dearest grace, the queen, insists my sister Joanna and I hear instruction from Master Robert every day, you know. Joanna is eleven and she has gone to visit the queen for a bit and escaped this reading today, it seems. You shall take her place then.”

She winked slyly at Joan as though there were some unspoken message there and tugged her hand so that Joan faced the curious circle of pretty faces. “Constantia Bourchier, Mary Boherne, Nichola de Veres,” the names began and rushed by as Joan nodded and smiled at each new face. Yet the fluttering eyes were more than merely polite or simply curious, Joan thought—nervous perhaps, resentful, even critical. She was much relieved when the petite and charming princess indicated a velvet-tufted stool near her own, and everyone rustled to her seat again so that the queen’s Master Robert and his lutenist might finish.

The reading, Joan soon realized, was from a manual of virtuous conduct for women by someone named Ménagier of Paris. She tried to focus her mind on the words but she was too excited to listen. Besides, it was obvious from the princess’ fidgeting that she scarcely took in the ominous warnings to ladies to always be obedient to their dear lords and on and on—that the man’s pleasure in all things must come before the lady’s. A lady must never nag whatever her lord’s follies—here to Joan’s surprise and dismay, the princess nudged her foot with her slippered one and surreptitiously rolled her light blue eyes—and again, Master Robert intoned, let your lord’s pleasure be before your own in all good things. At the shared innuendo of that repeated line from the serious, black-gowned Master Robert, Joan, too, bit her lip to keep from giggling. Her heart soared; this lovely, young princess was not at all grand and austere. Here, with her, mayhap there could be friends and fun and freedom!

Master Robert and the little canary-garbed lutenist were no sooner out the door than the room erupted in giggles and murmurs and darting females.

“Oh, I cannot
believe
what Her Grace chose for us to hear today,” the princess squealed, holding her sides. Tears of laughter streamed down Mary Boherne’s pretty face and the red-haired girl in green whose name had slipped by Joan was holding her sides in quivering laughter.

“The next reading tomorrow,
demoiselles,
” Princess Isabella went on, her girlish voice deepened ludicrously to imitate the stern tones of Master Robert, “will be about how all you young, sweet, and quiet little things must fall at your master’s feet if he but gazes on you with one grim glance, fall and kiss his muddy boots—”

“Aye, or kiss wherever he will have you,” Mary Boherne shrieked, and they all fell into gales of hysterical laughter again.

Joan laughed too, but the jest seemed hardly palpable. Did they hate Master Robert or such pious instruction so much they had to mock it so? All Mary Boherne’s words about kissing a lord’s muddy boots made Joan think of her “Sir Mud and Mire,” the man she had watched at the quintain yesterday, and how he had made her feel she wanted to kiss him—or maybe scream at him and so—

“Oh, Lady Joan, forgive us,” Princess Isabella got out between her attempts to catch her breath. “You see, we here have all taken a vow—and you, too, simply must join us, must she not?” the girl plunged on, not waiting for the assent which never came from her clustered ladies. “A vow to do all we can to seek our own pleasure and to have as many men in continual whirls as possible. If you will agree to keep it all secret, especially from all men, we shall tell you straightaway, will we not,
mes chéries
?”

“Aye, of course,” the red-haired Constantia Bourchier said, and several other voices chimed in.

“It is tremendous fun, of course, and we all pick out someone new at least twice a fortnight to—well, to entrance, to make our obedient and eternal slave in love forever. We tell each other all our secrets and even”—here the titters began again as if all sensed a marvelous jest was about to be reiterated—“well, we even entice the same gallant knights sometimes, compare our tactics and the men never know.
Touché!
We fight our own battles
d’amour
our own way.”

They all seemed to turn and stare at Joan. She hoped she did not register surprise—only, at most, interest and, hopefully, delight. “Oh, I see. A marvelous secret. Of course, no one would know, and I shall never tell. Only, I have never had a
beau,
you see, for there were no young men but a few pages and squires at Liddell until my brother Edmund came home with his retinue a fortnight ago to bring me here.”

The lovely, young maids looked taken aback, dismayed. “No swains, no
beaux,
no romance?” someone asked.

“Romance? Saints, I did not say that. I have read them all, Tristain and Isolt, Lancelot and Guinevere, and I can play romances on the lute and many French
chansons
about love.”

“But your home—your castle at Liddell,” Mary Boherne ventured. “Such a small household there were no
galants
?”

“Leave her be, all of you,” Princess Isabella swept to Joan’s rescue. “Just think, not a one of you plays the lute. Will that not be a novelty to attract the knights like little flies,
oui
? Why, even my pompous brothers shall be swept off their feet by that, and where will their rude teasings of our dear secret society be then, eh? Shoo, shoo, all of you now and let me talk with our
chére amie
Joan, and if anyone protests someone as lovely as Fair Joan of Kent being our new and dear friend, let not Joanna or me hear of it! Be off now. Oh, if only my eldest brother Edward had not gone off to his lodge at Berkhamstead now, I swear by St. Peter’s bones we would try your wiles out on him, dear Joan. He teases me unmercifully, though of course we adore each other. My dear Edward was never a quick catch like the other fools who snap at pretty bait and female cleverness.”

“The Prince Edward,” Joan asked, her mind reeling from the mere suggestion her dear new friend could mean she should tempt such a one as the next king of all England. “Our sovereign Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales?” Joan faltered.

Isabella tugged Joan back down to their stools as the remainder of the ladies trailed out the door with a mixture of fond or dart-eyed glances the princess seemed not to note. “Aye, the same. The stern, the grim, the most wonderful and terrible brother a maid ever had. And when you meet him upon his return, show him not the slightest trembling or deference like the silly ninnies all do, or he will chew you up and spit you out. I always speak up to him—when their graces are not about—and so we get on famously.”

“But, Princess Isabella, he is your brother. I could never—”

“Oh, a pox on it all—on him! He gets all the fun things to do, the wild days and nights. I wish I were a man. Would it not be wonderful?”

“Aye. I had thought on that more than once. Freedom—”

“But, dearest, that is just why we have our secret society. It is our way to freedom and a great deal of fun. Just wait and see. Let them preach fond obedience and meek compliance and marry us off to lords we have never seen and care not for!”

“Oh,” Joan sat up straight, her hands nervously smoothing the green, shimmery sendal over her knees. “Then you are to marry?”

“Of course. His Grace, my father, has eternal plans for me, for Joanna, probably for Mary, too, already, and she is but newborn. And your blood is blue Plantagenet, too, through our grandsire, of course. They will have you promised in marriage somewhere soon enough, so take your freedoms while you can,
ma chérie.
”

“But they could not possibly have plans for me. I have just arrived. I have met no one, that is, only one man, and I do not even know his name.”

“Indeed?” Isabella swung her petite foot jerkily and her silk slipper bounced and swayed where it clung tenaciously to her toes. “If you favor him, flirt with him. I tell you true, mistress, it is best to take your pleasures as you find them. We all do, though, of course, we are careful to never, never be caught at it. You must describe this one to me and mayhap I can guess who he is. And if he is someone else’s knight, oh, will that not be a delightful start for you?”

The description of the wonderful, angry, and muddy man crowded to Joan’s lips along with a hundred questions, but she read well by the princess’ fidgeting that her inquiries would have to wait. Surely, even if she joined the princess’s secret little clique, she could still keep her own heart intact and do things her own way. She had no intention of being forced to be sweet and charming to anyone she did not favor. Perhaps if her brother Edmund’s quick-eyed friend Lyle Wingfield were about, she could practice a bit on him to suit her new acquaintances. Certainly she had no plans of ever letting anyone know how the fascinating man on the big black horse yesterday had sent her heart fluttering clear down to the pit of her stomach!

“Joan. Joan! I said,
ma chérie,
do you promise? Will you keep it secret—the society and the motto?”

“Oh, aye, forgive me, Your Grace. Aye, of course. I would so much like to be your friend.”

“And the others?”

“Aye.”

“Then, here it is. We bend like this and whisper in the ear of any of our dearest friends,
‘Suis-je belle?’
—Am I not fair?”

“
‘Suis-je belle?’
Am I not fair?”

“
Oui,
Joan, for are we not all young and fair and in love with love? Is it not perfect? You especially are so fair—a perfect Plantagenet. Indeed, you favor my sister and me greatly, and wait until you see the rest of the Plantagenets. I tell you, dearest Joan, you could easily be one of us!”

Joan felt her cheeks flush at the astounding compliment, and a rush of affection for this sweet, charming girl flooded her.
“Suis-je belle?”
Indeed, why not? Fun, friends, freedom to help forget lost Liddell and Mother’s strange parting words. As long as Isabella’s predictions of some arranged marriage did not come true for a long time, surely she could be happy here. Mayhap she should just ask old Morcar about her future and settle Isabella’s foolish predictions that way.

“Your Grace, is—are you—betrothed to be wed?” Joan ventured and saw she had earned the maid’s immediate attention as well as a frown which furrowed her high, white brow above the pale blue eyes.

“Oh, aye, indeed. Eternally. When I was but three, they promised me to Pedro, son of the King of Castile, but that fell by the political wayside somehow. I did not even inquire how. Then to the Duke of Brabant and last year to the son of the Count of Flanders, Louis de Male. Flanders is where my dear mother came from, you know. I pay not the slightest heed to all their planning. Those men are all elsewhere and, remember,
charmante, ‘Suis-je belle.’
”

The young, lovely princess’s laughter echoed like brittle bells in the room and her clear blue eyes were strangely wild.

“Now I understand, Your Grace,” Joan said and entwined that laughter with her own. “What is there to fear then?
‘Suis-je belle?’
”