The King's Mistress (2 page)

I suited my parents’ plans. I was pretty, well formed, well behaved, quick witted but not openly opinionated. As presentable as Father’s luxury wares. I was willing and eager to be betrothed, believing that
my life would only then begin; and the outcome of the Sunday I am about to recount certainly shaped the rest of my life, for good or ill.

That my moon cycle had recently begun had been fair warning to me that my parents would begin to discuss my betrothal to someone of use to the family. But I had not expected them to take action quite so soon. Mother explained to me in her usual chilly wise that I was now of an age to assume my role in the family, to link it with another successful merchant family, and therefore she saw no reason to delay.

“The money we have spent for the grammar school you attend is better spent elsewhere. You shall not return to it.”

She did not willingly waste anything, particularly affection, on me, saving that for my brother John, the eldest. Indeed, she had declared her milk used up by nursing him, and before my birth engaged a wet nurse. My two younger siblings had in their turn been handed over to wet nurses, and when weaned we were all cared for by Nan, a servant who saw to our every need with affection and devotion—but she could not entirely make up for Mother’s indifference.

Father was my champion. He had insisted on my time at the grammar school, and, unbeknownst to Mother, had also taught me much about the qualities and grades of cloth, as well as how to negotiate a good price and keep accounts. With his encouragement I often hid behind the curtained doorway in our home’s undercroft, where he stored and displayed his merchandise, and listened to his negotiations with customers; afterward he would explain his tactics. He seemed to enjoy my precocious suggestions. I enjoyed sharing this secret endeavor with Father and told no one about it, not even my best friend Geoffrey Chaucer.

On that fateful Sunday, I sensed that the household woke holding its collective breath. Father nervously whistled and twice asked Nan the whereabouts of his boots as he paced in the hall. John was ready early and restless as well.

My gown and surcoat had been made for me from Mother’s latest castoffs, an azure gown—of escarlatte, the finest wool—and a green surcoat. Unlike her usual instructions to make my gown shapeless, she’d had her maid fit this one to my blooming breasts and slender waist. Nan’s hands trembled as she dressed me with the help of another maid, who was also subdued. No doubt they were anxious that Mother should judge my attire satisfactory and not find occasion for an angry outburst.

Although I sat quite still while Nan combed my hair I was aquiver
with anxiety. I distracted myself by trying to divine what prosperous merchant Father would favor for me. I knew he would not content himself with the most handsome man with the sweetest temperament, for the goal of my marriage was an alliance of our successful house with another, preferably even grander, one. Nor could I hope for someone my own age.

I had once thought that my best friend Geoffrey might be the one, but his parents had recently sent him off to serve as a page in a noble household. Seeing my disappointment, Father had reminded me that though the Chaucers were sufficiently wealthy and respectable, their son was but thirteen years old. Before he might wed, a young man must have a position or inheritance that could support a household, and Geoffrey had neither.

I was distracted from my brooding when Nan motioned for me to turn around so she might check that all was buttoned and tucked. She clapped her hands as I spun about, but when I turned to face her again I saw that she was crying.

“Nan, what is wrong?”

“You will have a dozen marriage proposals by evening and be wed by Christmas,” she cried. “And then I’ll not see you again. You’ll forget your old Nan.”

I hugged her so tightly she squealed and pushed away. “I love you too much to forget you,” I said, and meant it with all my heart.

“You will undo all my work,” she protested, but I could see that she was well pleased.

As I stepped into the hall my brother John broke off his pacing to stare, then dropped his gaze, swinging his head slightly as if looking for something on the floor.

“What is it?” I asked.

He looked up again, his eyes drawn to my now-flushed face, then my long neck, which was quite bare.

“I hardly know you, dressed so,” he mumbled, turning toward Father, who had joined us.

“For pity’s sake, Alice, do not bite your lip.” Father drew me aside. “You have nothing to fret about. This is your day to revel in your youth and beauty, eh?” He took one of my hands and bowed to it, kissed it, then stepped back to have a good look at me. “God’s blood,” he swore under his breath. He did not smile, but neither did he frown.

“Do I look beautiful, Father?” I asked, confused by his expression.

“You do indeed. Your mother will be proud of you today. We all will be.”

“Now will you tell me who will be watching me most closely as I pray today, Father? I know you have spoken to someone.”

He took off his hat and dabbed his forehead, sweating despite the chill in the hall. “You will see him soon enough, Alice, soon enough. Walk meekly and smile sweetly to those who greet you. It will be all the better if there are suitors in reserve, eh?”

He raised his hand to pat my shoulder, as was his wont, but suddenly corrected himself and dropped it. I realized that, like John, he found me changed and somehow untouchable. I felt hot and sick and wanted to flee.

But Mother had just entered the hall from the solar above. She paused at the door with such an air of grace and command that I felt as if I were my five-year-old sister Mary, grimy and underfoot.

“Walk toward me,” Mother commanded.

I did so, shivering under her hard scrutiny.

“Turn around.”

Again I obeyed as if I were a doll she manipulated from afar.

She sighed. “We have no time to fuss. There is no remedy.”

“Margery, what are you saying? Alice looks lovely,” Father protested.

“You would think so,” Mother said with a withering look at him. “I can only hope that your chosen prey thinks likewise.”

Was it possible she was as much in the dark as I regarding Father’s choice?

“Come, John, Will.” She sighed at my little brother’s mussed hair. “Where is Nan? Has she not finished dressing Mary?”

Mother did not look my way again. I stood in the hall, embarrassed and feeling discarded. It was Nan, dear Nan, who saved the day for me.

Placing Mary’s dimpled hand in mine, she said, “Tell your sister what you told me, Mary.”

As I looked into my little sister’s wide eyes, I realized that I was seeing love, admiration, all that I had hoped to see in the eyes of my parents and John.

“You are so beautiful,” Mary declared. “I want to look just like you when I grow up.”

Tempted to reach down and press the dear child to my heart, I forced myself to be satisfied with a peck on her momentarily clean cheek and a press of her hand.

“Will you walk with me to church, my lady Mary?” I asked, and my heart melted at the delight in her eyes.

“You are beautiful as a spring dawn,” Nan whispered. “Your mother does not like to be outshone, while your father has realized his daughter is about to leave his household. Do not judge them for their simple feelings, Alice.”

And so I relaxed, once more noticing how soft the escarlatte felt against my skin, how it draped with such a liquid weight and movement that I felt graceful.

I bent to Mary. “Hold your head high, little sister. The Salisbury girls will turn all other heads this morning. You look so pretty in your gown.”

Once the family was assembled in the hall I took my cloak from the peg on the wall, but Mother shook her head and handed me one of her own, gray, lined in gris, a fine fur made from the winter hides of squirrels—only the lovely backs. On her it was more of a short cape, but it reached below my knees and felt wonderfully soft and caressing.

“Take it off as you enter the nave,” she instructed. “I do not want to have wasted the fine cloth of your robe by hiding it beneath a cloak. I purposed to show that your body is ready for bearing children.”

Her words embarrassed me, as if I were about to parade naked through the city. I must have had tears in my eyes, because Father patted me on the shoulder—now sufficiently covered—and whispered that Mother had a headache and did not mean to be curt.

I nodded to Mary and grasped the hand that she offered me. “Let us be gone!” I said with forced cheer.

It fooled Mary, and she giggled and hopped along beside me as I headed toward the door. Will suddenly charged ahead and opened it with a sweeping bow. Now I, too, giggled and was grateful for my younger siblings.

The autumn morning was damp with a river mist that would rise by midday but for the moment made me glad of the gris lining in the cloak. Such a damp, chilly morning usually inspired complaints on my part, but today it was comforting, as if I could be private a little longer. I tried to remind myself that I was merely on display to potential suitors. It might be a year or more before I walked to the church porch to be wed. But I could not shake the sense of stepping off the edge of the world known to me and into a void without boundary, without bottom. I shivered and pulled the cloak tighter round me with my free hand.

Mary still skipped along beside me. I pressed her hand, wondering how often I would see her once I was a wife, how much of her life I would know.

At the church door Nan took the cloak from me and reached for my sister’s hand, but I held firm. “She will steady me, won’t you, Mary?”

My sister tugged on my hand and nodded with such a gladsome smile that I took heart. Stepping into the nave I felt the reassurance of the familiar. I could not begin to count how many times I had stepped through those doors. The expanse of stone above me seemed to lighten my step.

“Master Janyn Perrers! Good day to you,” Father exclaimed.

My heart danced. He was a widower, wealthy and exceedingly handsome, who at one time had been a frequent guest at our table. But he’d not graced our hall in a long while, and I’d imagined he had wed. He was as I remembered—olive skin, dark eyes, and lustrous, curly hair. He had a deep, resonant voice, and his face lit up when he smiled. He wore his elegant clothes with ease. Next to Father, Master Janyn was my ideal man.

“Master John Salisbury.
Benedicite.”
Janyn Perrers bowed. “And Dame Margery.” He bowed again, but I noticed that he did not look Mother in the eyes as he did Father. Now he looked my way. “And is this Mistress Alice? Surely this is not the child I last saw playing in your garden? She cannot have blossomed into such a beautiful woman overnight!” His eyes were so friendly that I could not help but smile.

I curtsied to him and was startled by his warm hand suddenly grasping mine. Looking into my eyes as if I were the only person in the nave, he bowed over my hand, brushing it with his lips. I felt myself blush to my fingertips. I could not seem to find my voice but stared at him as he bowed once more to my parents and moved away into the crowd.

“What is he doing here this morning?” Mother hissed at Father. Her head trembled on her delicate neck.

“He occasionally worships here, Margery, you know that.”

“Not for a long while.”

“That is true. But we spoke the other day and are once more at ease with one another.”

“God’s blood, if you are planning what I think you are, I’ll wring her neck before I let her marry him.”

Now I was horribly aware of eyes following us, but could not be certain whether I was the focus of interest or whether it was Mother.
Her pale face was stained with unbecoming splotches of crimson emotion and she held her head so rigidly that her veil shivered like a delicate insect wing.

She would wring my neck before she would let me wed Janyn Perrers? That could not be what she meant. Surely. I did not like my suspicion that Father had not consulted her.

After Mass, the Chaucers paused to greet our family and Geoffrey told me that he had not guessed I could be quite so beautiful as I was that morning. I tried to laugh at his confusing compliment, but managed only a weak smile.

“You look frightened,” he said. “Are you?”

“This day is not unfolding as I’d dreamed it would,” I said, irritated to feel tears start.

“This will not do,” Geoffrey said with a most sympathetic look. “Straighten up and meet the eyes of your fellow parishioners. You are worth all of them.” He groaned as his mother’s voice intruded, calling him away. “She is worried that we will defy them and pledge our troth.”

Other families with eligible young men were now approaching us, and Father proudly introduced each one in turn to me. Many of the young men I already knew, although they behaved toward me quite differently than they had in the past.

B
Y THE
time my family and I walked out into the churchyard the mist had been burned away by a warm midday sun the deep gold of autumn. The sudden brightness blinded me, and I stumbled on the shallow steps leading from the porch. I was caught up and set back on my feet by someone with strong arms yet a gentle touch.

“God bless you,” I said, a bit breathlessly as I smoothed out my gown with one hand, shading my eyes with the other. I discovered my savior was Janyn Perrers.

But I doubt he heard me, for Mother had already pulled him to one side and was berating him in an angry whisper. I did not rush to his defense, for fear of her reaction.

Father said something beneath his breath to Nan and she called to her four charges, hurrying us across the square to our house.

John heaved a loud sigh as we stepped into the hall. “Whatever upset her, Mother will be testy for the remainder of the day.”

Will started toward the garden door, but Nan pulled him back, tidying his wild hair.

“Let us quietly await your parents,” she said.

Mary fought back tears. “Why is Mother so angry?”

I hugged her and promised it would prove to be nothing.

When Mother and Father arrived, they were hissing at each other, faces flushed with emotion. Inside the door Father grabbed Mother’s elbow and roughly pulled her closer to have the last word. She snatched her arm from him, gathered her skirts, and rushed out again. I could hear her stumble up the outer stairs to the solar. The boards creaked overhead.