The King's Mistress (23 page)

Master Martin rose from his chair with effort, moving as if his joints were stiff. He had a dazed look in his eyes.

“What has happened, Father?” I asked as we embraced. He smelled sour as if he’d already had much to drink though it was not yet midday.

“She is gone. My Tommasa. First my son, now my wife. God in heaven, what am I to do? How am I to live?”

He held me so tightly I could feel each of his fingertips through several layers of cloth. This was Master Martin, always a source of strength and wisdom in my life. To find him like this was a moment from my darkest dreams.

“Father, what do you mean?”

He let go of me and stumbled back. His servant, who had quietly waited behind me, helped his master into his chair and then, after bowing to me, his face solemn, moved out of sight behind the screens. Master Martin covered his face with his hands and shook his head.

I crouched in front of him. “You are frightening me. I pray you, tell me what you mean. What has happened here?”

With a moan he uncovered his face and looked at me.

“The message came. After all these years, I did not believe it ever would. But it came. ‘Flee.’ And Tommasa said that she must leave at once. Without me. She said that Janyn must have received such a message earlier, or had known it was coming. She thanked God that the queen mother had found protection for you and our granddaughter.”

“Flee … without you? And Janyn too had received such a message?”

Master Martin nodded once and took a great, shuddering breath.

“What do you mean, ‘after all these years’?”

“I had agreed when we wed. I had foolishly believed the day would never come.”

Things like this did not happen to my people. We were mere merchants, so ordinary as to be invisible. God-fearing, worthy members of trade guilds. But even as I thought that, I remembered we were no longer ordinary, for we had been cursed by our connection to Isabella of France.

“Did Dame Tommasa not question the message at all?” I asked. “At least her heart must have protested? It cannot have been easy for her to leave you.”
Or Janyn me!

“She behaved as if she had no doubt it was what she must do.” He searched my face as if hoping I might know more.

“Who brought the message?”

“A servant, hooded, cloaked. Tommasa said that she did not know him, but she knew that he was the one she’d been expecting.”

“How?”

“She said only that she knew.”

“And you demanded no further explanation? She is your wife, Master Martin. Did you give her permission?”

He flinched as if I had hit him.

I was only trying to make sense of what he was telling me. I told him what had happened in the church, describing the woman who had handed me Janyn’s beads in as much detail as I could. “Does she sound familiar?” I asked him.

Master Martin’s eyes filled with tears at the mention of his son’s rosewood beads, but he said the woman did not sound familiar.

I told him the significance of her giving me the beads.

“Then you had been warned, as I had.”

“Why did you not send word to me, Father?”

He just shook his head.

“How might I find the woman? Perhaps if I learned how she had known I would be there …”

“Let him go, Alice. He is gone. They are gone.”

“Do you not wonder?”

“It does no good.”

“Where
have they gone?”

“Home. To Milan. Or wherever her family might hide them.
If
they make it to safety.”

“I must hie to Milan.”

“No, Alice. You must not call attention to them.”

“I cannot simply wait here!”

“Wait? There is no waiting. They are gone, Alice. They will not return. To return would be to die.”

I stared up at him, momentarily robbed of the ability to speak. I had lived with the possibility that Janyn might someday die on a journey, but I had never thought he might be forced to choose between coming back to me and remaining hidden but alive.

“Tommasa said we should consider ourselves widow and widower, you and I.” Master Martin broke down in sobs.

“Widow?” I whispered, horrified by the word.

I rose and moved behind him, absently rubbing his shoulders, his neck, needing to touch another human, to give or be given comfort. I stood at the edge of understanding, terrified to step over, resisting making it real.

“Have you heard anything of Janyn since September?” I asked.

Master Martin crossed himself. “Not a word, not a sign. May God protect them.” His voice broke and he struggled to regain his composure. “And may He keep them in His loving care.”

I crossed myself and murmured, “Amen,” and then regretted saying it, for it seemed like acquiescence. “What will you do?”

“Live as a widower. Thank God for my other son, safely in the Church, and my daughter living in Lombardy. You must forget us, Alice. Find a new life for yourself at court. The son and daughter of our benefactress owe you and your daughter better lives, the best that can be arranged for you.”

Arranged. It had all been arranged with great care, Tommasa’s other children out of harm’s way, and Janyn’s wife and child in the care of the royal family. Were their hearts not breaking to be forced to desert their families?

“How could he bear to leave Bella and me? Did he not love us as we love him?”

“They left
because
they love us. So that we might be safe.”

“Who did they protect for the dowager queen, Father?”

He shook his head. “I never knew.” He had risen and stood now, idly shuffling the parchments and tallies on the table before him as if the movement calmed him. “There was a rumor I heard years ago. Folk whispered of a man our King Edward met on a journey to Rome. He was called William of Wales, and it was said he claimed to be our
king’s father, the old King Edward, the Lady Isabella’s husband whom we all believed had been murdered.”

I crossed myself. “What did our king do? Did he have him executed?”

“No. That was the part of the story that gave me pause. The king invited this man to accompany him the rest of the way.”

“So it
was
his father?”

“I know not. I could never coax Tommasa into commenting on it. It was as if she feared to say too much.” He shoved aside a parchment and stood there watching as it skittered across the table and dropped to the tiles below.

Someone most precious to me
. The husband Isabella had so wronged by her liaison with Roger Mortimer, the husband she had forced to abdicate? Might he have once again become “most precious” to her? I could not judge, for I’d come to see the royal family and their baronial retainers as so separate from the people among whom I’d grown up that they were a distinctly different breed, as alien from us as birds from dogs. The royal family lived as if they were already figures in legend. Nothing was too costly, nothing beyond their reach. How the royal family felt about one another, I could not begin to guess.

Master Martin advised me to find a new life among these legends, that they owed me this in exchange for Isabella’s curse on my husband. I did not deny that. But I could not imagine any lasting joy coming of such a life.

“Will you stay here?” I asked. “In this house that echoes with their voices, their footsteps?”

Master Martin raked his hands through his thinning hair and looked around, as if seeing the past in every object surrounding him. “How could I leave? This was the setting for all my happiness.”

“What of my homes?” I wondered aloud. “Am I entitled to them?” I felt petty for asking, and yet I needed something to grasp, something familiar.

“I—I will find out about your London home and send you word. Fair Meadow was a gift from the queen mother. Perhaps you might more easily inquire about that property at court.”

To speak of my homes as properties took the heart out of me. “I cannot believe all this. It is a nightmare. Father, I pray you, tell me it is a nightmare. Shake me awake.”

Master Martin’s eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head, I thought in prayer, but when he straightened his expression was that of someone who had made a decision and wanted no argument. His eyes, though still swimming with tears, had hardened, his jaw set. “My dear Alice, you must let go of your old life, let go of the dreams you and Janyn shared. My son arranged for your financial security. I will honor all his arrangements.” His tone was curt and impatient, as if I had outworn my welcome. “Embrace the opportunity to begin anew at court. You should be grateful for the queen’s largesse.”

I realized he wanted me gone.

“May God go with you, Master Martin.” I stumbled as I rose to leave. Stephen and Gwen steadied me.

“God go with you, dear Alice.” Master Martin made no effort to mask his relief.

G
WEN HELD
my arm all the way to the barge that awaited us on the Thames, but she did not ask what had happened until we were alone that evening.

“How did the woman in St. Mary’s come to have Master Janyn’s paternoster beads?” she asked then.

I recounted our brief conversation. It was difficult to speak the words. I did not tell her that Janyn had foretold this day, nor did I speak of the doubt taking shape in my heart. “I wish I knew more.”

My dear Gwen, more a companion and guardian than a servant to me, draped a warm mantle round my shoulders and poured more wine into my cup. I was grateful for her thoughtful ministrations.

I agonized over whether to confide in Queen Philippa regarding the incident with the beads and Master Martin’s terrible news, and decided it was best that I do so. I thought—indeed, hoped—that she had permitted my visit because she had known what I would learn, and might now tell me more.

That evening, as I accompanied Her Grace to the hall, I recounted my afternoon. Her steps slowed as I spoke, and the distress on her face alarmed me.

“Your Grace?”

“We have a spy in the household, Alice. A spy! How else would that woman know you would be in the city today? You shall make no more trips to London. No more.”

“But what of Janyn, Your Grace? What of my husband’s disappearance?”

She shook her head. “Isabella. That cursed woman,” she murmured, looking at her beringed hands, not at me. “You heard Perrers, Alice. You are safe here, you and your daughter are well provided for. All will be well. I shall make it up to you.” Resuming her walk, she waved away my attempts to speak further.

I moved through my days in a fog of pain and self-recrimination. I desperately wanted to reverse time, to return to the life Janyn, Bella, and I had shared—a time so brief I feared I might someday soon believe it had been but a dream. In a way it had been just that. Even in the time we had been a family Janyn had foreseen our separation; what had seemed permanent to me had never been so to him. I tortured myself with the thought that he might have refused to leave me behind had he loved me more, had I been a better wife, had I done something more to please him. In faith, I still prayed that God would show me what I must do to deserve my happiness, to bring Janyn and Bella back to me. But I also feared what I might see in Janyn’s eyes, not love but calculation. That he had wed to please the dowager queen. That I’d merely amused him for a time.

Meanwhile, Bella and I had only me to rely on now. I was ever more grateful for the friendship of Queen Philippa, for she tried to cheer me by including me in all the evening entertainments, kept me close to her in the sewing chamber, protecting me from the quivering headdresses, and, even more, she asked the king to include me with those of her women who rode out in his company from time to time, hunting and hawking. The forests surrounding the palace of Woodstock made it a favorite for large hunting parties.

I could not believe my good fortune in being so favored. I was determined to prove worthy. I had kept my distance from the king, having rarely spoken to him since I had first met him at Hertford Castle. Now I was both excited and dismayed by the prospect of riding out in his company.

I managed to remain properly in the background until one morning when King Jean of France rode out with us. I was startled when he complimented me on a Lincoln green riding hat with a dove feather that Dame Agnes had made for me. But he soon put me at ease, and we talked of the skill necessary in choosing the appropriate cloth for an article of dress.

King Edward joined us. “Mistress Alice is too modest to tell you of her own skill. Though she has been at court but two years, she has become indispensable to the queen in all matters of her wardrobe. The queen relies on her advice.” He smiled on me. “Her father saw her gift and trained her well.”

I blushed under the appraising and approving regard of the two kings. That King Edward was aware of how long I had been at court and knew of my duties in his wife’s household surprised and pleased me. But they called too much attention to me. Lady Eleanor in particular watched as closely as did the hawk on her arm.

As time went on, King Edward coaxed me out of myself, instructing me on the handling of the hawks, discussing aspects of horsemanship. My delight in both grew as I gained confidence, and the release these activities provided from my constantly guarded behavior elsewhere perhaps made me reckless. Though I followed all the correct forms of conduct, I reveled in my hawk’s predatory magnificence and in my bond with such a wild and cunning creature, and exalted in the power and grace of Melisende as we rode. When I applauded my hawk’s attack and kill, the king would join in. When I rode hard, I would find him pacing me, and when he caught my eye, I felt the kinship we shared in the power of our mounts. He encouraged the side of me that I otherwise subdued, and I was grateful.

Perhaps I was too grateful. One morning I could not hide the ravages of the tears I’d shed because of a dream in which I’d become a woodbine to search for Janyn. In the dream I willed the vine I’d become to extend from east to west, with tendrils spreading out north to south, growing as my tears watered my roots. In a private moment the king noted the pretty way my hair escaped my green hat, and said that the blush of color in my face all but erased the signs of my sorrow. I found myself describing the dream to him.