The King's Mistress (36 page)

“My lord!” I cried.

The fire left his face. He let go of me and crossed himself.

“If you want me, take me as a lover. Naked, both of us. As equals in lovemaking.”

For a long while we stared at each other, gradually calming.

At last he said, “As equals in love.” He smiled and rose to remove his shirt and leggings. His great, strong body was not so beautiful as Janyn’s. Scars tugged at his skin, and it sagged a little with age. And yet I wanted him.

I slipped off the bed and undressed, pushing away his hands when he would hurry me, smiling and shaking my head.

At last he lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. He entered me easily and cried out as I moved around him. Too soon he came, too soon.

Afterward he lifted me on top of him and gathered my breasts between his palms, sucking and tugging at my nipples with his teeth until I ached so with desire that I cried out. Only then did he enter me once more and possess me.

He had promised nothing but that I would be grateful. But once I had tasted his body I could not turn away from him.

• Spring 1362 •

A
FTER OUR
first lovemaking, both of us riding the powerful waves of passion, anger, and release, I woke to myself. The image of what he had told me of Janyn’s death overwhelmed me and I turned away from Edward, sick with grief.

“What is it, sweet Alice? Did I hurt you?” He stroked my hair.

His tender concern melted the ice around my heart and my tears began to flow.
Janyn, Janyn, my first love, my husband. Murdered. His beautiful body bereft of breath and then torn open
. The pain of imagining the agony of his last moments left me breathless.

“Is it what I told you of your husband?”

I cried out, and Edward held me.

“There is no shame in grief for a beloved,” he said.

I slept, waking to find those incredibly blue eyes watching me.

“Alice,” he whispered, stroking my breasts, my thighs. I moved beneath his touch, and he eased himself onto me. We made slow, gentle love. I found comfort in it.

“I swear that I will not abandon you,” he said afterward. We lay side by side, holding hands in quiet contentment. “And when I deem it time, Bella will be with you.”

I
N MIDAFTERNOON
, Gwen was summoned to dress me so that I might move through the palace to my chamber without causing more gossip than had already been stirred up by my relationship with the king. Gwen’s hands trembled as she helped me with my shift, revealing
her fear. With gentle care she undid my headdress and wrapped it so that it draped about my face and neck, hiding evidence of the king’s beard on my tender flesh.

Once back in my chamber, Gwen asked, her voice breaking, “What will the queen do to you?”

“I do not know, but I believed His Grace when he said that he would take care of me.” I took off my headdress and sank down on a bench by the little window. There I sat for a long while, a cup of wine in hand, staring out at the birds chasing one another. Somehow the violent details of Janyn’s death had renewed my mourning, as if I had held on to a belief until then that he would miraculously reappear. I envied the birds. It was mating season, after all, and I was a hen. I wondered what they did when they lost a partner. It was said that swans mated for life. I had been foolish to think that, like the swan, I had mated with Janyn for life. It had always been likely that I would outlive him, for he’d been twenty years my senior. I had not wanted to think beyond my happiness with him.

When I noticed that as Gwen moved about the room she was casting worried glances at me, I thought it best to share with her the shocking news.

“His Grace told me that Janyn was murdered—strangled and stabbed through the heart. I do not know how I shall ever have the courage to tell Bella how her father died. Or if it would be best to let her continue to believe he died of the pestilence.”

I wept then. Gwen joined me on the bench, praying and weeping with me, as if she, too, had held back the full force of her grief until now. We prayed for Janyn’s soul, and then we shared memories, talking of his many virtues and graces.

When I rose from our private requiem it was as if my heart had opened and I was able both to mourn Janyn and rejoice in the promise of Bella’s return. I hesitated to rejoice in the king’s affection. I tried not to imagine more lovemaking, but of course that was exactly where my thoughts wandered, and my body responded as if he were indeed touching me. I felt like a wilting flower that had been watered. I felt a part of life once more.

L
ATE IN
the afternoon the queen sent for me to join her and several other women working on an embroidered altar cloth. Gwen’s eyes were like those of a cornered puppy as she dressed me. I was frightened as well. I did not know what to expect.

The queen greeted me with affection. She did not inquire about the signs of tears. I wondered if perhaps she had already spoken to the king and knew that the cause was my widowhood, one of the topics we did not discuss before the other women.

But the others were sympathetic, asking if I was unwell or had received unhappy news. We all feared the return of the pestilence with the spring weather.

“I had a bad dream,” I said.

The queen smiled to herself as she bent over her needlework.

I attended her that evening. She did not mention Edward, but she did know that I had been told how Janyn died.

“May he rest in the peace of salvation,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. “Queen Joan will of course say nothing of this to young Bella. She will learn of it from you in good time.”

That Bella would be told the truth of her father’s death by anyone but me had never entered my mind.

“You will wish to arrange for Masses for Janyn’s one-year obit here at the chapel.”

I felt as if I were outside my body, observing the two of us discussing Masses for my husband’s soul. It seemed impossible that it was only nineteen months since he had disappeared. So much had happened, I felt I had changed utterly.

I wondered whether Philippa had just received word of how Janyn had died or whether she had been biding her time until someone slipped and told me.

“What of Dame Tommasa, his mother?” I asked. “Do you know how she died, Your Grace?”

Fussing with her cushions, a signal to me that I was not seeing to her comfort, she said, “I know no more than you do, Alice. Let us talk no more of death. We have festivities to plan.”

I bent to adjust the pillows. Her behavior left me unsettled, uncertain whether or not she knew what had happened between me and her husband. Her husband.
Jesu!
I trembled as I sat beside the queen, pretending to look at fabrics and jewels.

As we looked at a red cloth woven in a small, vinelike pattern, she said, quite casually, “You were a vision of ripe womanhood in that red escarlatte riding gown, Alice. We must dress you in red more often. And pearls. Though low born, you are a beauty, and precious to us.” She squeezed my hand, but did not look up from the fabric.

She had seen me at some point with Edward.
We must dress you … Ripe … precious to us
. I could not believe she meant to reassure me that I was doing what she wished, but could not think how else to interpret her words.

O
N THE
following night, shortly after I’d retired to my chamber, the king’s page appeared to summon me to Edward. Fortunately I had not yet disrobed.

Gwen was beside herself—how was I to get my rest, how would she prepare me for bed? How indeed. All this was outside any sort of life for which I had been brought up. Though excited, I was filled with unease. Was I now his plaything, to be at his beck and call, with no life of my own? He had encouraged me to spread my wings, but how could I? I feared that his own shackles might destroy all he claimed to love in me.

Servants were arranging cots for the sergeants-at-arms who slept in the outer chamber. They glanced my way and quickly averted their eyes. When I was shown into the king’s chamber, he was already in a simple robe, and barefoot. He crossed the room to me, picked me up, and carried me to the bed. He lay there beside me and guided my hand to his groin, showing me how his body anticipated the pleasure to come. He asked me to undress. Slowly. Near the fire, so that I was not in shadow. When I was naked, Edward came to me and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs round him, and he slid into me so easily we both laughed. Wicked, wanton laughs.

“We are birds of prey, Alice my love, with no thought of spiritual life. There is only the flesh. Our flesh. Our hunger.”

In the morning, Gwen woke me. The king had already risen. On his pillow was a large pearl, and a note:
“The first of many. E.”

I
N A
few days the court removed to Windsor to prepare for the St. George’s Day festivities. With so many expected, I shared a chamber with Elizabeth and other higher-born ladies whose husbands could not be present. They whispered among themselves over the screens placed round the small bed that I was to share with Gwen—two large beds would suffice for the six of them, their servants making do with pallets laid out on the floor after their mistresses were abed.

My bed was close to a small door opening onto a passage leading to Edward’s chamber, so that on those nights I was called away, I
might depart without stumbling over the servants’ pallets. When I returned in the early morning to dress for Mass the ladies would include me in their sleepy chatter; none of them, not even Elizabeth, asked where I had spent the night. That they were so cautious in their looks and speech emphasized for me the rank of my lover.

While at Windsor Edward and I hawked and dined together, in company. I found it exciting to catch him watching me. But when away from him I was beset by doubts and fears, not at all easy in my mind despite feeling a bond between us that was strong and true.

When Joan arrived with Prince Edward, she summoned me to walk with her in the gardens. She looked more beautiful than ever, her face radiant, her clothes subtly revealing that she was with child.

She saw that I’d noticed, and her face opened up into a most beatific smile as she touched her stomach. “With God’s grace, I may be carrying a future king.”

She kissed me on both cheeks, then stood back to study me. She startled me by pressing my belly. “You are not with child, are you? But then, I think it might be too soon to know.”

“You have heard about the king and me?” She had not been at court since Christmas. But even before she responded, I thought how foolish I was to think she might not know.

“That the king has taken you for his mistress? Oh, yes, I do. The two Edwards send messengers back and forth with news of the realm and their daily activities.” She affectionately kissed my cheek. “My Edward’s father is like a child boasting about you, Alice. Be glad. Let your heart rejoice.” Then she grew serious. “I must speak to my maid, have her give your Gwen the recipe for a physick you must take before and after you lie with him, and one you must take if, despite this precaution, you quicken. You do not want a royal bastard.”

It frightened me that messengers carried news of our liaison. I had hoped that as long as we said nothing, it would remain merely a rumor. I had begged Edward to speak of us to no one. I must have made a face, which Joan misread.

She shook her head at me. “You cannot afford to be foolish. Even with my royal blood, though I have never denied my fleshly desires, I’ve heeded the dangers and done all that I could to protect myself. I would be sorry to see you suffer.”

In truth, my heart and my head were at war over the issue. I feared such precautions would take the passion out of our lovemaking and
might sicken me. And yet I did not wish any child of mine to be a bastard.

Joan patted her belly again. “Of course you are but nineteen and dream of more children. I assure you, such physicks will not ruin you for a future husband. I have taken them, and had no difficulty conceiving.”

I thanked her for the advice, and guided our talk to the roster of guests arriving for the festivities. I had realized that Joan could not conceive of my being anything but grateful to be chosen by the king. Such was the flaw, the imperfection in our union, that undermined our love—the power Edward held over me.

How strange then that it was he who reassured me on that point. One night after our lovemaking he caught me biting my lip.

“You worry yet you do not confide in me. How can I comfort you if I know not what troubles you?”