The King's Mistress (62 page)

I watched her pretty face, more beautiful than ever surrounded by the crisp wimple of her habit, as Bella struggled with some decision. I was relieved when she looked me in the eyes and said, “No, they do not like him. Nor do I, Mother. I know it is not my part to criticize your choice of husband, but have you not suffered enough? Would it not be better to find someone quiet and steady? Like Robert.”

The wisdom of my child moved me to tears. “I have no intention of wedding Wyndsor, my sweet. I have pledged myself to Robert. But I very much fear what Wyndsor is about.” For the second time that day I sank down on a bench, this time in the hall, but now it was my daughter who joined me. She pulled me into her embrace and rocked me gently as I wept.

“God grant you peace,” she murmured. “God grant you joy.” Over and over she wished me such blessings.

Peace and joy. I treasured what I had of both at that moment, for I did not believe I would enjoy either in the near future.

G
RADUALLY, OVER
the summer and into the autumn, I became reacquainted with my family, my properties, and myself. It was a happy time, but not altogether peaceful. There were rumors I was to be brought before parliament to answer for my “crimes against the king and kingdom,” rumblings from past holders of my properties, hoping to catch me at a vulnerable time and grab back their property without compensating me. Robert, Dom Hanneye, and Richard Lyons were busy assisting me in keeping the wolves at bay.

Because of the unsettled situation, Robert was not so often at Gaynes, and I missed him sorely. Over the summer I had lived for our moments together during the day, our lovemaking at night. When he was away I often brought Joan and Jane to my chamber to sleep with me.

T
HE RUMORS
proved true. In the first parliament of the reign of the young King Richard, I was brought to trial for my “misdeeds.” This time the knives came out, well sharpened. The Duke of Lancaster and Princess Joan assured me that no matter what the commons and the court said, what they threatened, I would be safe. They recommended that I remain at Gaynes until actually summoned to appear. When I did arrive at Westminster, Lancaster forbade me to wear widow’s garb.

“You are not my father’s widow.”

“These are not widow’s weeds, my lord.” I wore a dark, simple gown and plain headdress, without decoration.

“You have never dressed so plainly. You are not to wear weeds.” His coldness sufficiently frightened me that I did not argue. I detected neither gentleness nor understanding in his eyes.

I had been assigned a large, beautiful bedchamber in the palace,
one that I had never seen before, though I recognized several tapestries, cushions, and chests that had once been mine. Someone had perhaps meant that as a kindness. Gwen found some of my more elegant gowns in the chests, and with a little work we changed the bodices so that I would at the least appear less provocative. I wore no jewels. Those that I still had, I had hidden.

On the morrow, I was ready. Though I did not shed my miniver-lined cloak until I reached the door to the chamber in which I would face my accusers, I’d begun to shiver the moment I left my room. I remembered taking this walk with Edward, knowing that he took strength from my presence. I now took courage in that memory.

For hours upon end I stood before the parliament, trying not to look into their angry faces, trying not to absorb their hatred. I stood exposed, forbidden to speak in my defense, a sinner at the pillory.

Two of the most serious charges against me were lies, but with enough truth behind them that it would be impossible for me to disprove them. I was accused of having used my influence over the king to prevent Nicholas Dagworth from going to Ireland to consider the charges against William Wyndsor, and of having persuaded the king to make reparation to Richard Lyons. Both William and Richard were referred to as my partners in business.

I was tried as a
femme sole
, a woman alone, solely responsible for my actions. Had I not been so terrified, I might have enjoyed the irony, that I was solely responsible for obeying my king and his family.

As the trial wore on the charges against me multiplied. Folk came forward, invited by parliament, to make their claims. The allegations were, for the most part, trivial, people petulantly claiming unpaid debts, kin claiming that I had coerced their relatives to enfeoff land to me that they were furious was now out of their reach—all the usual petty complaints made against wealthy persons. But they were threatening nevertheless, because
invited
. Parliament was searching for enough to condemn me, once and for all.

I heard beneath the trivial accusations that Richard Stury had been right. They needed someone to blame for the losses the realm had suffered in the last years of Edward’s reign—so much sovereignty lost in western France after years of costly wars, so much taxation. Of course, no one believed that I had somehow caused the defeats, but they accused me of weakening the king with lovemaking.

We had succeeded too well in hiding his illness from the people,
and no one in the royal family was coming forward to defend me. They could not afford to open the discussion to the subject of a flawed king—that had led to armed rebellion in the time of my Edward’s father. Such talk would be dangerous with a boy now on the throne.

My very soul seemed to be on trial. In an attempt to prove that I had cast a spell over King Edward, they sought out and arrested the Dominican friar, Dom Clovis, whom I had consulted so long ago.

I heard Lancaster ascribe to me Edward’s arguments about the inappropriateness of relying solely on Nicholas Dagworth’s biased judgment regarding William’s service in Ireland. A half dozen former officers of Edward’s household whom I’d counted, if not friends, certainly not my enemies, exaggerated my influence over the king.

How they could speak such lies in my presence, I could not understand. I had always treated Edward’s household officers with respect. With each new condemnation I stood taller, refusing to hang my head in the face of such lies. But my courage left me at night. Then I was haunted by nightmares of being taken to the Tower, of being beheaded … such horrors every time I slept that I took to pacing my chamber rather than closing my eyes.

All the while the trial dragged on I screamed within,
I am powerless! How can you fear me? Why do you need to encase me in walls six feet thick? I have never had a choice except to do what I could to protect my chicks
.

I had benefited from my liaison with the king, yes, of course I had. I did not deny that. But so had he benefited, and through him the realm. And what of his children? My children? I feared what would become of them if I were imprisoned or exiled.

After a great deal more, on which I was forbidden to speak out in my defense, parliament’s judgment was thus: the property I had accrued as gifts from the king
or through my own means
during my liaison with him were forfeit; parliament took care to state that only in my case was it waiving the laws that protected enfeoffments and other property transactions, fearful lest any of them might so forfeit their own property in due course. Apparently I was a uniquely undeserving landowner. All the jewels they could seize from me were also forfeit. The worst of this was my pearls. They confiscated what they believed to be all the pearls Edward had given me—twenty thousand according to their count. That was the punishment that cut the deepest. Those gifts of love … even those were taken from me. Confiscated as well were the
jewels entrusted to Lancaster. Even the gold Edward had intended for my support in exile had been discovered. How parliament had known of all this I could not fathom except that either the duke or William had been indiscreet. Though to what purpose, I could not understand.

The crowning punishment was my exile. Exile! I was forbidden on English soil, on pain of imprisonment in the Tower … or worse. All I could think of was never seeing my son John again—or my sister and brother. And Bella! My faithfulness to Edward had cost me everything. I swore in my heart that I would at least take with me my precious younger daughters. I would not be parted from Joan and Jane.

I stood there before the hate-twisted faces in the ornately carved, painted, and gilded hall of Westminster, feeling stripped of all honor.

And I was forbidden to speak a word in my own defense. Inwardly I demanded to be heard.
Listen to me! I obeyed the dowager queen Isabella, Queen Philippa, King Edward, Prince Edward, the Duke of Lancaster. I obeyed them in everything. What do you gain from destroying me?

Ah, but that was the key, of course. They gained property, they gained a fortune in jewels. I wondered to whom the spoils would be presented. I cursed them all.

W
HAT OF
the promises Princess Joan and Lancaster had made? It was after my appearance before parliament, after my fate had been determined, that I was escorted back to the palace of Westminster to meet them. Unbeknownst to me, another guest had been invited: William Wyndsor. I had not spoken to him since that afternoon in the gardens at Gaynes when I had refuted him.

That evening I learned of a condition regarding their reassurances of my safety about which I had not been informed, plainly because I might not have cooperated in shielding Edward from the gossips had I done so. My beloved Edward, his sons the prince and Lancaster, and William Wyndsor, had made a pact regarding how I was to be made docile after I was no longer needed to attend the king. My exile would not be enforced so long as I lived under William’s rule as his wife. I might live peacefully with my children so long as I acknowledged that he was my husband.

I had stopped breathing while I listened to this. My mouth was so dry that even after I remembered to draw breath, I could not speak for several long moments while everyone waited for my humble submission.

“Might live with my children?” I managed at last. “Do you threaten to take Joan and Jane from me if I do not agree?”

“They are the daughters of the late king,” said Lancaster. “As his son, I am responsible for them.”

Bastard! Changeling!
I hissed inwardly, cursing him. My worst nightmares had not touched this depth of betrayal. I would rather be beheaded than live with no hope of seeing my daughters. But I knew that nothing I said would matter to them. My fate had long since been decided. I was the scapegoat. I simply sat there, in a thronelike chair, a jeweled mazer before me, facing those three I had counted as friends from time to time—particularly Princess Joan. Lancaster I had long distrusted. But I had believed in her friendship.

How had I not foreseen this? William’s persistence, his thick skin.

Edward had planned this. I remembered his words in the garden the day he told me to keep his signet ring.
I fear you shall face one more labor before you rest, but I pray it may prove unexpectedly happy
. How could he think so? What a pawn I had been! But, of course, he had not been in his right mind then. Lancaster had taken advantage of his father’s confusion, had tricked him into agreeing to this travesty.

“A marriage is not valid unless both parties agree,” I declared, looking at Joan for corroboration. She averted her eyes, fussing with a sleeve.

Lancaster coughed, no doubt hiding a chuckle. “Dame Alice, you have lain with Sir William many times. You would find it difficult to convince Archbishop Sudbury that you were not willing.”

“I have not! Never!” I looked to William, who stared at a spot on the table. I was nauseated. I loathed him.

“It is this or exile?” I asked.

Lancaster gave the subtlest of nods, as if not entirely approving of his own inhumanity.

“And my lands?”

“Those we cannot save for you. But, in time, Sir William might win them back.”

I cursed William then and there. Cursed him and vowed that he would never enjoy the wealth I had so carefully accrued for my daughters.

Joan reached out to me then, gently covering my hand with hers. She explained that the people would forget me as soon as they knew I was safely under the control of a husband, and one with strong
connections to the great ones of the land. William was known as a fierce guardian of the law. A man of martial skill, a respected knight of the realm.

I was aghast. “It is you who have kept him adamant about our having pledged our troth?”

“Not me, my friend,” said Joan. “I have only this past week learned of this agreement.”

But William had told Richard Lyons of it long before. And Edward had told me. I had willfully ignored the warnings. I cursed myself for having been so blind as to think it was passion that drove William when it was anger, his sense of being robbed of his due, that had always been the fiercest of his emotions.

“How can you trust him to keep me safe? He failed you in Ireland. Why William, of all men?”

Lancaster was unmoved. “He is my man, Alice. He has always served me well.”

But not Edward, not his king
. No, that was not true. William had earned him the money to fight in France. He had a thick skin. Perhaps he enjoyed playing antagonist. I must remember this.

“Is this your wish, William?” I asked. “To wed a woman who does not want you?”

He had sat all this time with eyes trained on that spot on the table before him. While I had questioned his trustworthiness he had finally moved, clenching his jaw. He looked at me now, his eyes assessing me, as if he were sizing up a filly for purchase. “Alice, my love, surely by now you should have no illusions about marriage.” He reached for my hand but I withdrew into myself. “In time you will want me, Alice. You will.”

Never, I shouted inside.
Never. And I shall never forgive you, any of you
.

M
Y PUBLIC
ordeal was not yet over. I was commanded to present myself at a public Mass in Westminster Abbey, so recently the scene of my son’s wedding. To the Archbishop of Canterbury I was to confess my sins and humble myself, begging forgiveness. For this I stubbornly wore my widow’s weeds. Archbishop Simon Sudbury raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.