The King's Mistress (59 page)

Indeed, our time at Sheen leading up to our remove to Windsor for the Feast of St. George was a peaceful, happy period, but for news that I tried to keep from Edward. A mob had attacked Lancaster’s Palace of the Savoy, damaging the outbuildings and the gate and gaining access to the hall before being stopped by armed retainers. The duke had escaped over the Thames to Kennington, seeking to shelter behind Princess Joan’s popularity as the widow of the beloved Prince Edward and mother of Prince Richard. She had calmed the crowds.

It was Geoffrey who explained to me why Lancaster was so distrusted, even despised, by the common folk. “He undid all that the commons felt they had achieved in the last parliament. There is also a rumor that he is behind the omission of the Bishop of Winchester from the general pardon.” Though parliament found fault with him as chancellor, Wykeham was beloved as bishop.

That was a topic of interest to me as well, our good friend being so unfairly singled out. I had been shocked to hear he was the one victim of the parliament of the previous year who had not been pardoned.

When I’d asked Edward why he had not pardoned Wykeham, he had said, “He sided with those who attacked the honor of my trusted chamberlain William Latimer.”

“He spoke the truth about him,” I had said. But I did not remind Edward that Latimer was no longer chamberlain. I was learning that it angered him when I pointed out such confusion, and I did so only when it was crucial.

“We shall speak of it no more,” he said. I saw by the set of his jaw that he meant it.

“Is the rumor true?” I asked Geoffrey later. “The decision was Lancaster’s?”

He nodded. “He loathes Wykeham, blaming him for all the losses in France. The commons also resent Lancaster’s support of Henry Percy using his influence in the governing of the city.”

“What else should I know of the duke?”

“I believe you know the rest. I do not know what to think of him these days.”

Nor did I, but I very much feared him.

E
DWARD OFTEN
drew me out of my darksome thoughts, rejoicing in his regained strength. Though we no longer rose at dawn to ride out into the countryside as we had done in the past, we did take short
rides together and walked in the garden. In the evenings we played chess or listened to music and song. But I could not ignore the milkiness of his once-piercingly blue eyes, how easily he tired.

One morning, as we walked beneath a rose arbor, Edward paused and took both my hands. The sun shone on his pure white hair and for a moment he was the man I had first glimpsed in the great hall of his mother’s castle.

“You have given me such joy in my old age, Alice, my love.”

“You have given me equal joy, Edward.”

He shook his head. “No. You have suffered much pain along with the joy. I have become a labor. And we began in such tragedy—the death of your beloved husband.”

My breath caught at his acknowledgment of my suffering. I bowed my head, unable to think of a response.

“I pray that you remember me with love, no matter what may come.” I lifted my head to reassure him, but he continued before I could speak. “I fear you shall face one more labor before you rest, but I pray it may prove unexpectedly happy.”

“What labor? What are you talking about, my love?” The apology in his eyes made my stomach ache.

He lifted my hands and kissed each in turn, then let them go and tapped the finger on which he wore the signet ring with which he sealed his letters to me. “When you see that I am gone, remove this from my finger and keep it. Remember me by it, my beloved.”

I caught up the hand with the signet ring on it and kissed it. “You are not dying yet, my love.” But it was a denial of what I felt to be true. We had little time left together.

“I have also arranged for an account in gold to be opened for you in France. In case of exile. I do not trust the commons to honor my pardon once I am dead. Joan and Jane, take them away. They must not be harmed.”

“Exile,” I whispered. Fleeing to France with our daughters. “Oh, Edward!”

He drew me into his arms and held me, whispering of his love, but also words less comforting, “What have I done? What have I done?”

I reassured him out of habit, though I shivered with fear. He foresaw exile, danger to our daughters. Would our son be safe?

I put all my hopes and prayers for John into the needlework on the robes for his knighting. At the Feast of St. George, Prince Richard
would be knighted and admitted into the Order of the Garter, and our son would be knighted. Princess Joan was helping with the work on her son’s ceremonial robes. I was comforted by her presence in the palace. She took charge of the household and of my few leisure hours, insisting that I rest, eat, and pour out my heart to her.

I did not tell her about Edward’s fears for my exile, nor did I confide in her my worries regarding Lancaster. I could not tell how she herself felt about the duke, her brother-in-law.

But I did inquire of the duke himself when he arrived at Windsor as to the disposition of my jewels.

He leaned toward me, and in a conspiratorial whisper assured me that they were safe. “They will be there for you when you have need of them. If you wish to add to them, you have only to ask.”

I found it difficult to warm myself after that until a long ride brought me out in a good sweat.

I worked on Edward’s robes as well as John’s. Despite its being his jubilee year there would be no extravagant headdresses for Edward this time, for he was unlikely to remember to hold his head upright. They would besides only call attention to his tremors. I designed robes with gold and silver threads and the most dazzling whites we could find, to give him a beatific glow. We trimmed his long white hair and beard and used some of Princess Joan’s lotions to brighten his hair. He enjoyed the fuss.

We had become like father and daughter now, most fond of each other, sharing years of memories. Sometimes we were almost mother and child. It hurt my heart to see him so confused, so impatient with himself, so frightened. My vibrant, passionate Edward was gone. It was as if the glorious shell had cracked open and exposed an infant within. I played the fool with him to rouse a sparkle in his eyes and some weak laughter. I danced jigs, sang the silly songs with which I cheered my children. In the chapel or out riding, I wept. Wept for Edward and for myself. I was losing him. Every day brought subtle changes, a new weakness, another memory gone. His remaining time grew short.

Joan knew, and having so recently stepped into her own grief, she understood when to speak and when to be still. I saw the fear in her eyes that her too-young son would soon be king.

His knighting ceremony came none too soon. It was a glorious celebration. Prince Richard had been well trained by Joan to look every bit the king-to-be, walking straight and tall, his head held high. He was
Plantagenet in all but his stature, carrying his beauty on a smaller frame than Edward and his sons.

I wept to see my own son knighted. How proud he looked, how straight he walked. Sir John Southery. His child-wife seemed impressed by the event, though I had heard her ask rather loudly why the king looked like a magician, not a ruler. Fortunately, Edward did not hear.

As soon as the last guests departed he and I took the barge to Sheen, hastening to have him out of sight of the gossiping court before he succumbed to exhaustion. We were there but two nights when he suffered another spell, this one robbing him of the use of his left arm and leg. In his immobility, he grew by turns irritable and filled with vague regrets.

On a particularly gray May morning, Edward was overcome with remorse for having given some of Richard Lyons’s lands to his sons Edmund and Thomas when my friend had been in the Tower. Richard had, of course, been included in the general pardon.

“Richard will accrue more lands, my love.”

“He has been a good friend to you and a comfort to your family, Alice. I would do something for him. My sons do not need his properties. If I restore those to him, and pardon the several hundred pounds he owes the Exchequer, would that be of use to him? Would it be enough for him to begin again?”

I called it generous.

As with Lancaster’s obvious knowledge of Edward’s advice to me to hide some of my jewels, this private conversation became public knowledge and would later be used as proof that I told the king to give Richard Lyons money. I became the hunted, the prey.

D
EATH, WHEN
at last he stepped forward to take my beloved Edward, chose an exquisite setting in which to claim his dance. Tempted from our reverences in the chapel by the balmy, fragrant air, Edward and I walked out into the May morning, marveling at the explosion of color in the gardens, the sensuous feel of the breeze.

“Let us dine out here today,” he exclaimed.

I had agreed and was about to call for a servant when Edward suddenly clutched my hand tightly. Seeing the paroxysm of pain in his face, I called out to the guards to help me return him to his chamber.

“Call for the king’s physicians!” I shouted at the servants as we hurried past—Edward still had hold of my hand even as the guards
carried him in their intertwined arms. I had never seen such torment on anyone’s face.

“My head, my head,” he moaned as the guards laid him on his bed. Stury managed to release my hand from Edward’s desperate grasp.

I sat on the bed beside my beloved, begging him to look at me, to speak to me. His eyes did not seem able to fix on me. His words became garbled.

I remember little of the days that followed. I stayed by his side as much as I was permitted, but the physicians often sent me away, to eat, to sleep, to walk or ride.

“He will need you,” Master Adam reminded me. “You must not fall ill.”

Gwen took care of me as I had of Edward. I was at a loss now. I had no role but to care for the shadow of the man I had loved.

Gradually Edward recovered enough to speak a little and sit up for brief periods.

I sent for Wykeham. I did not care what Lancaster thought of that. Edward knew that he was dying and needed someone he trusted to shrive him, someone who loved him.

Edward lived as if in a dream for several weeks, so broken and depleted that in my prayers I asked that his soul be released from the prison of his unruly body. Though frightened what it would mean to me and my children to lose his protection, remembering all too well the terror with which Janyn and his mother had received the news of the death of their protector, I could not bear to see him thus diminished. Death was like a cat, playing with his prey. I prayed for Edward’s release.

On the twenty-first of June he suddenly suffered another most grievous pain in his head, shouting for relief. The servant who had watched with me hurried away for the physicians. But within moments, clutching my hand so hard it was as if he shared the pain with me, Edward mercifully let go his mortal prison and was at peace.

I had followed so closely his every tortured breath that when it ceased, so did mine. I imagined Death spreading his light-swallowing robe over Edward, and felt a flutter of panic. I must follow them. Edward needed me. Pain gripped me and I doubled over, at last gasping for breath. All the agony of watching Edward’s suffering flamed within me, all the emotion I had hidden from him.

I squeezed Edward’s hand, the large, once beautiful, once warm
and enticing hand, remembering how his mere touch could melt me. I felt the signet and, remembering Edward’s request, forced myself to ease my hand out of his death grip and work the ring off his finger. I did it clumsily, chafing his finger, and wept as I hid the ring in my bodice. When the physicians arrived, and Lancaster and Thomas of Woodstock, they ordered me to leave the room. I threw myself across Edward’s body, wanting no one else to touch him, for I knew that once they did, his soul would leave. I was not ready. Master Adam peeled me away. In that uncoupling I felt a terrifying emptiness, a void of echoing nothingness. No purpose, no anchor. Looking round, I saw only anger and condemnation in the men’s faces. I stumbled out of the chamber, seeking solace in the chapel.

Princess Joan advised me then to leave, to seek sanctuary and peace at one of my manors. She herself trembled at the thought of her ten-year-old son being crowned.

But there was much to do before I departed. Numbly I went about the palace for several days, managing the servants, advising on the locations of Edward’s belongings. I could not leave him. Could not part from my life with him. I completed tasks I had promised to do for Edward, disposing of all signs of his illness, giving presents to his physicians.

Later I heard rumors that I had taken all his rings and hurried out of the palace with them. No one came forward to declare that I had lingered at Sheen for days. No one.

Edward was to be taken in grand procession to Westminster in early July. I would not be in the funeral party. Nor did I stand with the crowds who came from near and far to line the way, straining to catch a glimpse of his hearse, draped in a red silk pall on which were displayed his arms.

I heard that his funeral effigy carried his death mask, revealing to all who saw it the droop of the right side of his face. Edward would have hated having his weakness so exposed.

R
OBERT ARRIVED
to escort me to Gaynes. Apparently Stury had asked Richard Lyons to find him and bring him to Sheen. By the time he arrived I could not wait to leave the palace, my emotions drained, all sense of Edward gone from those rooms, the corridors, and gardens. Perhaps no one came forth to deny the rumors of my rushing from Edward’s deathbed because to all but the servants I had
disappeared the moment the king died. All around him, the household, the family, the court had rushed into activity, ignoring me. I had been played out and was now out of the game. I pressed myself back against walls as the courtiers and household and family hurried past. I kept to the shadows in the chapel. As Gwen and a few servants packed my belongings, I took my leave of the bedchamber in which Edward and I had spent so many loving days and nights, lost in our delight in each other. I wondered whether I would ever return.