The King's Mistress (15 page)

But Janyn squeezed my hand and whispered, “Pay his manners no heed, speak to him as if he had all the courtesy of a knight in the court of love, Alice. I need him. He has an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. He has ingratiated himself with much of the royal family and other noble houses by being the first to offer loans when they are embarrassed for coin.”

I was also wary of the Lombard financiers and traders with whom Janyn associated. He was not considered a member of the group, whom Londoners referred to as the Society of Lucca, but he knew them through Dame Tommasa’s family. He explained that as he traded in their territory he needed to assure himself of their friendship. Although they were elegant, courteous, full of exciting tales, and all in all delightful companions, I could not help but consider them dangerous to know.

The problem was that the London merchants considered them rivals, and indeed the Lombards enjoyed advantages—such as lower taxes and other favors from the king, in exchange for loans—that the London merchants did not share. The men of the Society of Lucca were also notorious smugglers, and it was understandable that merchants who foreswore potential sources of wealth in order to obey the law of the land and the rules of their guilds resented smugglers above all other folk. I feared that our association with them might jeopardize our reputation, but Janyn said much the same of them as he did of Richard Lyons, that he needed them. As was not the case with Lyons, however, he also enjoyed their company.

At Christmas we entertained Janyn’s parents, but not mine. Father told me that my husband’s connection with the Society of Lucca, of which he’d been unaware before my marriage, was unacceptable to his
guild of grocers. There was doubtless some truth to this, but I knew that he and Janyn still did business, so it was plainly Mother’s decision to avoid my hospitality. It was enough for me that Father did not prevent Nan from bringing Will and Mary round for weekly afternoons of games and jollity; nor did my brother John’s master suggest he should not sup with us on Sundays.

I
N LATE
winter came a blow for which I should have been prepared, but when Janyn announced that he would depart on a journey in a few weeks I felt sick at heart.

We were sitting before the fire after dinner when he said, “Alice, I must leave in a fortnight for Lombardy. I wanted to tell you before you heard it from my parents or my factor.”

It was the news I’d dreaded. All I could think to say was, “So soon!” I reached for his hand.

He pressed mine. “You knew that this day would come. I have never hidden it from you.”

“But it is not yet spring,” I moaned. “Should you not wait until the spring?”

“What if I should be delayed and not return in time for the birth of our first child?” he asked.

“But traveling in winter!”

He cupped my face in both his hands and looked long into my eyes, then kissed me and held me close.

“My love, I must go now. I have made the journey at this season before, and was home well before midsummer,” which was when Dame Tommasa believed I would be brought to childbed. “You must trust in God. Pray that He watches over me.”

“Is it the dowager queen who sends you and puts you at such risk?” I asked.

“In part. But we have agreed not to speak of her.”

“In the company of others, but surely we may discuss her here, in our home, with none to hear?”

“The less you know, the easier it will be for you to say nothing.”

As I moved to protest he silenced me with another kiss.

“You are not a fair player,” I pouted.

“What say you of this? To compensate for my silence on my travels for Her Grace, I shall include you even more in my work. I’ll discuss with you all my business affairs not related to Isabella and take your
suggestions into consideration. I’ll ensure that you meet all with whom I trade, so that you may make informed decisions.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

I may have been young and inexperienced, but I saw in his proposal a way to be part of his life, not just a pretty pet.

“Yes. It is a fair trade. But you forfeit all peace between us should you go back on it.”

Our new agreement did nothing to ease my fears about his journey, but Janyn immediately began to fulfill his promise, introducing me to yet more men with whom he traded, and showing me through the storerooms where he explained the value of the spices, jewels, cloth, statues, and sundry other merchandise. He even showed me the lists he kept of his contacts and what he judged to be their strongest points. There was little time to teach me more, but I took heart from his obvious approval of my questions and suggestions. I was grateful for his tutoring. It was to prove an invaluable gift.

And then he was gone.

D
URING THIS
first separation I did not lie abed nursing darksome thoughts, though part of me was often inattentive to my companions. Gertrude had suffered a fall and would be confined to a chair throughout the spring, so I was learning to deal directly with the lower servants. Janyn had instructed his factor to consult me on accounts, Dom Hanneye listened with calm and sympathetic attention to all my fears and hopes, and the wives of the guild included me in gatherings spent embroidering cushions for the benches in the guild hall and church. I was particularly honored to be asked to stand as second godmother to the infant daughters of several guild members, an important bonding ritual among the families.

Members of the guild and many of the Society of Lucca kept me informed of news along the route Janyn was taking, even occasionally bringing word of him from conversations with merchants newly arrived from the Continent who had encountered his party. Master Martin and Dame Tommasa dined with me almost every day, and Dame Agnes and Master Edmund often joined us as well. Nan continued to bring Will and Mary to spend the afternoon at least once a week.

I
N LATE
spring my love returned. He had written that he expected to sail up the Thames in early June, but God blessed his travels and he
arrived a week earlier than I’d had any hope of seeing him. Heavy with child as I was by then, I lacked all grace and feared that Janyn would greet me with cold indifference. But he did not do so. Although our kisses required some careful positioning, they were long and passionate. We agreed to disregard the suggestions that we sleep apart for my last month.

On the first evening we left the lamps burning longer than usual so that we might gaze on each other. He was stroking my stomach when the baby kicked. Startled, he withdrew his hand and stared as my belly moved seemingly by itself. I reached for his hand and guided it back.

“Is it not a wonder?” I whispered. “Our child is alive within me, kicking and stretching and letting me know that soon it will be bored and choose to come out into the light.”

Janyn’s dark eyes were wide and moist as he moved his hands over my belly, seeking more contact with our child.

“A miracle. A blessed miracle,” he said. “But is it not painful?”

I shook my head. “The weight is painful, and the stretching of my hips, but from the moment our child moved, I have felt”—I searched for a word to describe the companionship—“I have felt a part of life, not simply an observer.”

“You are most precious, my love,” said Janyn. “I pray that you may never suffer, that God will guide and protect you in all ways.”

When I woke in the night I was in Janyn’s arms, safe and warm, and my heart swelled with love.

S
IR DAVID
, who had been so charming when he was our guest at Fair Meadow in Isabella’s company, arrived a few days after Janyn’s return. I thought it a coincidence, but soon learned from his conversation that the queen mother had been even better informed than we had about the timing of my husband’s return. As we dined, Sir David expressed his hope that my lying in would occur while he was yet in London, so that he might be the one to give Her Grace a firsthand account of her godchild.

“Godchild?” I looked at his smiling face, then at Janyn, whose expression was guarded. He was closely watching my reaction. “Oh, yes, I pray that my time is near,” I said.

Looking relieved, Janyn reached to squeeze my hand. I did my best to hide my unease, but found it difficult. He might have warned me. I did not welcome this news, and especially not coming from someone
other than my husband. I hated my growing sense of being owned by the dowager queen, of being controlled by her in every aspect of my marriage, to some dangerous purpose. Perhaps pregnancy exaggerated my reaction, but I felt suffocated by her patronage.

Fortunately the talk moved on to other matters, and after the meal Janyn and Sir David retired to the parlor used for such meetings. It was a fine afternoon, warm and sunny, and Dame Tommasa had sent word that she would meet me in the garden with a surprise. I took my needlework there, determined to set aside my fears for the sake of the child in my womb. I managed to fall asleep leaning against a lattice with the sun warming my feet. Gwen woke me when my mother-in-law arrived.

“She has come with a cart filled with seedlings of your favorite plants from her garden.”

For the rest of the afternoon I fell into the excitement of planning. Though in my condition I could not work the soil, I enjoyed consulting Dame Tommasa on the placement of the plants and imagining how the garden would look the following summer. It was a testament of faith in the future, much like the child growing in my womb.

My delight distracted me from Sir David’s surprise comment until Gwen and my mother-in-law had helped me up to my chamber. Remembering, I told Dame Tommasa. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Such gladsome news! Son or daughter, they will be helped along in life by a connection to the royal family. I cannot wait to tell Martin.” But, despite my efforts to hide my doubts, my perceptive mother-in-law noticed that I was not so sanguine. “Are you not pleased?”

“I am aware of the great honor she does us,” I said, hanging my head more than was necessary for Gwen to comb out my hair.

“And so you should be, my child.”

I could not stay bent over for long. Straightening, I asked, “But if her favor is to remain a secret, how do we explain such a godmother? And are we to name our child Isabella if it is a girl?”

Tommasa opened her mouth as if to respond, then shut it, her large, beautiful eyes sweeping the room as if she might find inspiration in the fabrics or furnishings.

“That is a difficulty I had not considered,” she murmured as if speaking to herself.

I refrained from voicing my deeper concern. She was subdued and distracted after that, and I was relieved when she departed. I was weary to the bone and fell asleep almost at once.

It was late when Janyn came to bed, waking me with the cough he had brought with him from his travels.

“Is Sir David gone?” I sleepily asked.

“Yes, he is biding with his wife’s family nearby.”

“Did your meeting go well?”

“Yes. He is a most courteous and agreeable man. I stepped into the hall and saw Mother working in the garden. Are you pleased with all the plants she’s begun for you?”

“You know that I am, and grateful for all that she is teaching me about their care.” I stuffed another pillow behind my head so that I might see him better as I asked, “Why did you not tell me of Her Grace’s offer to be godmother to our child?” I fought to keep my tone light.

“Because I did not know of it until Sir David mentioned it.”

“When do you imagine she intends to inform us?” My tone was sharper than I’d intended.

He placed his hand on my stomach. “Had I known of this I would have prepared you, my love. I pray you believe me.”

I patted his hand, the now-familiar fear choking me. In all other things Janyn was confident, assured, but regarding the queen mother he seemed to walk on shifting sand, aware that though he had so far managed to stay upright he was ever in danger of sinking.

“I told your mother that Isabella intended to stand as godmother,” I managed to say.

“Of course you did,” Janyn said. “I would wonder had you not.” His confidence was shaken. I heard it in the way he forced his words.

“We wondered how we are to keep it secret.”

“I wonder as well, my love.”

“If we have a daughter, will she be named Isabella?”

“That would follow by custom, a child taking the first godparent’s name, but Her Grace may choose, as many do, to suggest another.”

“I am frightened, Janyn. She has such a hold over you. Over us.”

He paused for a moment, his hand on my stomach moving slightly, as if he’d begun to clench it and remembered he must not. When he spoke, he sounded weary. “She was queen of this realm, Alice, and she is the mother of our king. We are her subjects, and if she singles us out for preference we are honored, and are bound to honor her in all ways.”

“You sound as if you are repeating something your mother told you many times.”

He forced a laugh. “Already you know me so well.”

“You have in the past chafed at your responsibility to Isabella?”

“She did not favor Janet.” His first wife. “She summoned me to Castle Rising a week after my wedding and made it clear that I was to come alone. I wanted to refuse, but Janet and my parents convinced me that I was being childish, that I would jeopardize our comfort, our future, by disobeying the queen mother.” He took a deep breath. “Let us not dwell on old sorrows. The baby will hear and have a bad night.” He kissed my hand.

I wondered whether Janet had also been afraid. I pushed away that question as Janyn turned down the lamp and snuggled up against my back, easing my backache and quieting the baby. We slept through the dawn. That was the blessing of being with child—until the last few weeks I slept well, no matter what the chaos in my life.

When my grandparents supped with us in that time between Janyn’s homecoming and my lying in, I asked Dame Agnes to be with me when I gave birth.

“Me?”

“I would like someone from my family to be with me.”

“I should be honored, sweet Alice. Of course.”