The King's Mistress (16 page)

“Bless you, Dame Agnes,” said Janyn. “You make us both very happy.”

It was less than a fortnight before my lying in that the queen mother finally sent a messenger formally stating her intention of standing godmother to our child. If it was a girl she would of course be first godmother, and our daughter would be named Isabella.

M
Y SWEET
Isabella was born at the end of June after a long labor that I later learned frightened Janyn. Dame Agnes and Dame Tommasa were lovingly present throughout my ordeal, as well as my dear Nan, Gwen, and Felice, a midwife I liked very much.

My first daughter was rosy cheeked and dark haired, with wonderfully long fingers and toes and the appetite of a ploughman. From the moment I beheld her, and especially once she found my heavy breast and gave suck, I adored her. Of course I still loved Janyn above all men, but from the moment she was born Bella was the center of my life. She was always “Bella” to Janyn and me and all the family.

Dame Tommasa stood in for the dowager queen at Bella’s baptism, with the wife of Janyn’s guild master as second godmother, and
Geoffrey as godfather. My Salisbury grandparents and my parents attended the christening, the latter, I presume, because it was quite a social affair, though of course I was still sequestered in my lying-in chamber. Mother did not bother to slip in to see me, though most of the other women attending did so.

I wept as I nursed Bella that night. Of course my emotions were raw so soon after childbirth, but I believed that Mother’s slight was intentional. Fortunately, this sorrow did not, could not, consume me, for something far stronger lifted me up—I loved motherhood. I refused a wet nurse because I wanted to enjoy everything about this time, and Janyn did not try to overrule me, for he, too, shared my absorption in Bella. He often sat with me as I nursed her, his face alight with love.

In July the Perrers and my grandparents, my brothers and sister, Nan, and many friends attended my churching, the ceremony in which I lit candles on the lady altar in thanks for my safe delivery. It was an elegant, merry occasion, made more exciting by signaling my readiness to resume lovemaking. Janyn brooked no further delays.

A month later we were informed that Isabella the queen mother was on progress to London and would grace us with a two-day visit to Fair Meadow in a fortnight. She expected, of course, to meet her goddaughter and namesake. I told myself it was a great honor and averted my mind from the familiar worry with the frenzy of activity preparing for the move.

Only then did Janyn insist I engage a wet nurse. “It is important that you begin to trust Bella to others, Alice. As my wife you have responsibilities. I need you by my side, with the queen mother and whenever we entertain. There may come a time—” He stopped himself and looked away. “I see you have begun packing.”

I reached up and took him by the shoulders to turn him back to me. He looked down with an apologetic smile.

“You were saying there may come a time?”

“Alice, come.” He drew me over to a bench and sank down with a sigh, patting the space beside him. “I am your elder by many years. One day, God willing not too soon, you will be fully in charge of our daughter and all our children. That is why I’ve been so keen for you to learn my business and the customs of our circle, so that you may move forward without fear. I do not mean to be harsh in insisting on the wet nurse.” He put his arm around me.

I rested my head against him, feeling the pounding of his strong
heart. I willed myself to believe there was nothing more to his comment than he’d said.

We rode side by side to Fair Meadow, and my precious Bella was none the worse for being hours without me, riding in the cart with her wet nurse. In fact, it was lovely to see her face light up as I approached her in the yard of our home and to hear her gurgling laughter as she grasped my nose.

Once there we had two days to prepare for the queen mother. Gwen and Dame Tommasa fussed over my gowns, making tucks—I seemed to have lost more weight in the past few days—and adding jewels. My hair was washed in a complicated mixture of oils and lotions, requiring me to sit outside in a wide-brimmed hat with a gap in the crown through which my hair was pulled to allow the sun to brighten it. At the same time my face was subjected to a disgusting paste that hardened painfully—it was to erase the freckles that I’d collected working in the garden the past fortnight.

“I am not wooing the queen mother,” I protested, but my tormentors did not even pause in their endeavors.

I complained to baby Bella and her wet nurse as they sat in the shade nearby.

“I can think of little more delightful than having such a fuss made over me,” said Mary, the nurse. “Do you not feel like the queen herself?”

Peering at her through the strands of hair that drooped from the hat, I burst out laughing. Soon she was laughing as well, and Bella gurgled and kicked.

That is how Janyn found us, and he gamely teased me about my frightening appearance.

Our time at Fair Meadow was everything I’d hoped for. The long, late-summer days, the slow, languorous lovemaking, the hours spent admiring our daughter and planning for more children. How I loved Janyn and Bella, how happy we were. I see our country home as always in sunshine. I was determined that it be so.

But before we could relax together there we faced a day and a night of entertaining the queen mother and her retinue. We received word shortly before her arrival that she would have in her company her grandson John of Gaunt, the king’s third son. He would not stay the night, but after feasting move on to a royal lodge.

“It is a great honor to welcome the young Earl of Richmond,” said
Janyn. “He will fall in love with you. He is but a few years older than you are, and very handsome. I think I shall be jealous.”

The difference in our ages seemed much on Janyn’s mind of late. “I see no man but you in my dreams, my love,” I assured him.

Albeit as fabulously dressed as she had been on her last visit to Fair Meadow, Isabella seemed subdued. Even with the assistance of her groom she stumbled on dismounting and for a moment seemed shaky and confused. I crossed myself as the elegant John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, and Sir David rushed to support her on either side. It was as if her years had suddenly caught up with her.

“Deus juva me,”
Dame Tommasa murmured beside me. She had turned quite pale.

But the queen mother gently waved away Sir David and lightly rebalanced herself against her grandson’s proffered hand. Although her steps were stiff rather than fluid as in the past, she did not falter as she approached us. Janyn ran forward to bow to her and welcome her to our home, and I followed close behind.

Her smile was radiant and her eyes clear as she regarded us with affection. After compliments all round we entered the hall, and when Isabella was handed her namesake, Janyn beaming beside her, Gaunt presented my daughter with a silk-clad cushion alive with embroidered unicorns and other fanciful, merry little creatures.

“And when she is ready, a pony shall be added to your stables for my namesake,” said Isabella, kissing my daughter’s forehead.

Then Gaunt touched my arm and asked if I would return to the yard with him.

His eyes were blue gray, with dark brown lashes and arched brows; his hair was blond; his jaw, square and strong. He was a tall man, with wide shoulders, and so handsome he seemed more a god than a man. I followed him out the door—for how to refuse him?—with apprehension, wondering what was amiss.

Isabella’s groom stood in the center of the yard holding the reins of a magnificent mare, muscled and sleek, coat dark and glistening. She pawed the packed earth and shook her head with a throaty whinny as we approached.

“The Lady Isabella says she promised you a hunter,” said Gaunt, “and she has kept her word.”

I stopped, staring at the beautiful creature now regarding me with
cautious interest. “Mine?” I asked in a choked whisper. I could not possibly control such a horse.

“Would you care to give Melisende an apple, Dame Alice?” the groom asked. He nodded to a young servant who stood at a little distance, and the lad ran to me and proffered several apples.

Of course I stepped forward, took one of the apples, and held it behind me as I gently stroked the horse’s side. Melisende nudged my shoulder, searching for the fruit. Her careful training was evident in the way she took the treat from my open hand.

“You have made the Lady Isabella very happy with a namesake, Dame Alice. I thank you.”

I said something sufficiently courteous and grateful, all the while wondering how these royals were schooled to express themselves so calmly and naturally while offering such obvious untruths. Once Isabella had decided to stand as godmother for our child I’d had no choice in the matter.

My hunter was to be curried and rested. I was eager to ride her, yet felt disloyal toward Serenity and reluctant to be even more in Isabella’s debt. I was also discomfited by the direction of the earl’s gaze—to the point at which my necklace disappeared between my breasts. However, I expressed my thanks to him as fulsomely as Janyn would wish me to.

The meal was lively with banter and descriptions of the latest tournaments and feasts at court. I learned that our king reveled in lavish and elaborate displays, particularly enjoying dressing up as legendary heroes. Isabella was proud of him, and Richmond seemed painfully aware of walking in a great man’s shadow. I wondered how it would be to meet the king, and whether I ever might. I closely studied how Janyn and his parents interacted with the royals, in order to follow their example. They seemed at ease, except that they took care not to contradict or fail to respond to either the dowager queen or her grandson. I was proud of being a Perrers at that moment, and grateful for all that my marriage had brought me.

After the meal everyone dispersed to rest for a while. Gwen had piled the cushions on my bed so that I might recline without needing my hair redone. I had dozed just a little while when she woke me.

“The queen mother is asking for you. She says she has something to show you in the stables.”

But I had already seen Melisende. Surely she knew that. Gwen
hurriedly dressed me in a riding outfit, and I found Isabella in the hall. She was dressed much as she had been when I’d first seen her, in her dark hunting garb, and seemed revived by her rest.

“At last,” she breathed as I appeared. “Proceed!”

Out in the stables, my new hunter had been saddled, as had Isabella’s beautiful horse, Janyn’s, Master Martin’s, and Sir David’s—the Earl of Richmond had already departed for the royal hunting lodge. We walked out of the stables, the grooms guiding the ladies’ horses and the men walking their own, and moved toward the mews. The falconer appeared with a hooded merlin on his wrist, her tiny bells jingling as she fluttered a little. He carried a glove.

“In thanks for permitting me the great joy of standing as godmother to your daughter, and of giving her my name, I present to you this merlin,” said Isabella, her beautiful face lit with the pleasure of presenting a fabulous gift. The small, costly hawks were favored by nobles. “May Dido hunt well for you.”

“My lady,” I said, trying not to gasp, “you honor my family. May God watch over you and bless you in all ways.”

The falconer handed me the glove and requested that I slip it on. As soon as I did so, he secured the merlin’s claws with the jesses on my glove and said, “Once her hood is removed, do not blink or she might attack. If you hold her too far from you she will flap her wings as a sign to bring her in closer.” With that he disappeared, returning with the others’ hunting birds as I was wondering what on earth I might do to prevent myself from blinking.

As the merlin moved, her bells sounding so sweetly, I turned to her, this beautiful and powerful creature on my arm. Her tiny hood was fashioned from what looked like buttery soft leather tanned a pale gold, with a perky plume of red and gold feathers. With the bells and the fashionable hood she might have seemed a pampered pet—but her fierce beak and claws and powerful wings were a reminder of her true character. I loved her from that very first moment.

“My lady Dido,” I whispered, “I am Alice, your companion in the hunt.”

Sir David, the only one close enough to overhear me, chuckled. “Well done, Dame Alice. You hold her as if you’d had many such falcons, and you address her with the respect she deserves.”

His compliments helped me relax, though I still worried that my arm was not sufficiently strong for me to carry the merlin and ride on
horseback, especially on an unfamiliar mount. But this last worry was banished—once the others had their birds the falconer returned and took mine from me, saying, “I’ll hand her back when we’ve ridden into the fields, mistress.”

Janyn had joined me.

I was speechless with excitement and also fear, not so much of the horse and merlin, but of making a fool of myself with so many firsts in such august company.

“Come.” He’d brought a mounting stool and held out a hand to me.

I accepted his help with immense gratitude, and soon I sat high up on my beautiful hunter. Melisende was well trained, and though she was a challenge, and therefore a little frightening, that seemed as it should be. She was a large, powerful animal, her training but a cloak that might be shed at any time. I wondered whether this was why powerful people so enjoyed hunting and hawking, the danger inherent in riding a powerful animal, handling a wild bird, letting loose the tracking dogs. Certainly Isabella glowed with life astride her hunter and Janyn moved as one with his powerful steed as we rode to the meadow in which we were to hawk.

After dismounting, with my merlin now on my glove, I followed the falconer’s careful instructions and removed Dido’s hood. Her eyes were wild and cunning, and for a moment I could not breathe, as if she had ordered me to stop all motion while she considered me. And consider me she did. God watched over me, for I did not blink during the long examination. When the queen mother called out that we were ready, I must have moved a little, holding Dido farther from me. She flapped her wings with annoyance, but calmed the moment I drew her closer.