The King's Mistress (65 page)

“You have a home so near London you’ve no need to stay in mine.”

“Ours,” he reminded me.

“Janyn’s,” I countered.

He withdrew to his own home north of London for a few months. I rejoiced at the peace that settled over the house.

Even more wonderful was the afternoon Robert reappeared. I greeted him as my steward and friend when he arrived, and invited him to walk out to a far paddock to inspect a drainage problem. When we were safely out of sight of anyone who might report to William, I stopped and took his hands.

“Robert, does this mean …?”

I managed to say no more before he had silenced me with a long, passionate kiss. When at last we stepped apart, we stood for a while looking into each other’s eyes, needing no words.

“You were right, my love,” he said as we walked on through the fields. “When he is away, we shall be together. It is how it must be for now.”

We planned with care how we would manage our nights together, and agreed to speak of William as little as possible.

“It is not as I would wish it,” he said, “but it is far better than being without you at all.”

Our mood was so light, our hearts so full, we found it difficult to return to the mundane topic of drainage, and somehow our discussion of the boggy ground provoked much laughter between us.

Robert went away again when William returned in the summer to plague me. He attempted a reconciliation, sleeping with me a few times, but our arguments began anew and he dived into the brandywine to fortify his venom, afterward sleeping where he fell. I ordered the servants to prepare a small chamber for him and told them to ensure he was there when they woke. I did not want my daughters to find him lying in the rushes when they came to the hall to break their fasts.

I learned to listen to William just long enough to know when to agree or disagree, to nod or shake my head.

In early autumn we moved to the manor of Crofton in Wiltshire, ostensibly to meet William’s family—they had property within a day’s ride. His parents were both long dead, but cousins, siblings, and the
younger generation lived there about. I found his nephew John Wyndsor, who had expected to be William’s heir and still was in his will as it stood, an ignorant lout of a man, but William’s sister was a lovely woman with whom I enjoyed talking about children.

The family had been scandalized by our wedding. I felt them covertly examining me, this infamous woman about whom they would love to hear more scandalous details. How perverse of such a well-favored figure of a man, who had so valiantly and nobly served King Edward and the Duke of Lancaster, to settle for a merchant’s daughter with three bastards, no matter that one was a knight wed to a Percy. In truth, they were all too careful to say such things in my presence, but my daughter-in-law Mary made certain to repeat all that she had gleaned by listening behind tapestries and at partially closed doors.

Mary was too self-centered, and perhaps too young, to realize that I prompted her to repeat to me what she regarded as hurtful comments. She was only too delighted, and I was grateful to learn the lay of the land. I must know as much as possible about William in order to protect myself from him. I maintained a courteous demeanor toward him in public, and, on those increasingly rare evenings when he had not overindulged in brandywine, tried to be civil in private.

My efforts in the latter eventuality were seldom completely successful, leading me to wonder whether he was as unhappy as I. One evening I dared ask him. I could not help but hope he had a mistress with whom he would prefer to bide.

“Unhappy with you, wife? What cause might I have? That you insulted me in front of the Duke of Lancaster and the mother of the king? That you refused my affections until you had no choice? That you still refer to
our
properties as yours—or, worse, your first husband’s, that Lombard smuggler?”

And this on a night during which he had, I thought, drunk little.

“Why, then, do you stay?”

“To torment you.”

It was a kind of power, antagonizing me, forcing me to submit. I realized with dismay that it might be true, and if so, there was little hope that he would walk away for good.

D
ESPITE THE
hostility between us, in October, before a new parliament, William fulfilled his promise to begin working toward restoring my forfeited properties. He made the claim that I had been
his wife when tried as a
femme sole
the previous year, and therefore my forfeited property was
his
forfeited property; as he had been accused of nothing, his property had been unlawfully taken. This would also render many of the private petitions enrolled against me null and void, for they named me and not my husband. It was legal sleight of hand that we hoped would work in our favor.

I dreaded any and all news of the proceedings, wanting to be quit of that life as much as I wanted to be quit of William himself. I felt cursed. But it was important for me to know how things stood, and so I listened to William’s and Geoffrey’s reports.

My impression of the petitions in general was that people accused me of having accepted gifts proffered in exchange for my efforts to obtain a favor from the king, the chancellor, or the chamberlain, and when they received no satisfaction, accused me of having made no effort on their behalf. I had seen such complaints made against all in Edward’s household and on his council over the years, and knew full well they were seldom credited. One might work diligently on behalf of another, but if the king or his officers refused to change their judgment, there was nothing more to be done. When I wondered aloud why few had made such complaints about me before, yet now so many came forth, William told me the petitioners had a common refrain, “But I did not dare pursue my rights, for it was well known that no one dared touch the king’s mistress”—or words to that effect.

I felt a great fool. Far from the giddy glamour of court life and the safety of Edward’s love, I was angry with myself for my naïveté. Now that I was back in the circle of London merchants among whom I had been raised, once more influenced by their practical approach of luxury without prodigality, I did not understand my own hubris at court. I had known that what was legal for a man was rarely so for a woman, likewise a noble versus a commoner. Had I been more modest in my ambitions for my daughters, had I refused more of Edward’s gifts, I might now be free to live openly as Robert’s wife. Remorse ate at me.

William sensed it and goaded me by reciting petitions from memory when he was in the mood for attack. But when one afternoon he found me weeping in my bedchamber, he relented.

“I promise you I will speak no more of this, Alice. You have been cruelly used, and I would make it up to you.”

He often made such pretty speeches, but seldom kept his promises. This time he did. For a while we enjoyed a fragile peace.

His petition was taken under consideration, but no decisions regarding my lands came out of that parliament. Because of William’s argument that I was a married woman, I was henceforth required to do business as such, which compounded my difficulties, for William’s credit was poor. And despite letters from the Duke of Lancaster stating that I and all who traded with me were under his protection, merchants were wary of trading with me because my sentence of exile had not yet been officially revoked.

Once again I was fortunate in my friends. Richard Lyons and Robert smoothed out the ruffled feathers of those merchants I most needed to deal with.

R
OBERT AND
I lived for the times when William would disappear for a fortnight or longer. Wrapped in Robert’s arms, I dreamed of freedom.

My daughter Joan seemed to have fallen in love with Robert as well, becoming suddenly vain about her dress and following him about the estate, hoping to catch his eye, hanging on his every word. He was most gallant with her. Jane was obsessed with animals, and her appearance—feathers, hay, mud, and blood adorning her, badges of honor—was the opposite of her sister’s. Caring for my daughters absorbed me, nurtured my ailing heart.

I
N THE
parliament held a little over a year later William and I were issued pardons for my not going into exile and for William having sheltered me all that time. But I was not yet fully exonerated, nor were my forfeited lands returned.

William went to Lancaster for advice, and was encouraged to volunteer for a campaign that was to be undertaken in Brittany the following year under his brother Thomas of Woodstock, now Earl of Buckingham. Lancaster suggested that if William not only took part in the campaign but agreed to bear some of the costs for the contingent, he would gain King Richard’s favor, which could very well lead to the restoration of my forfeited lands. I exhorted Richard Lyons and my merchant friends to finance William’s part of the campaign; not one of his own kinsmen contributed. The plan worked. Within months, long before he departed for Brittany, the majority of my forfeited lands were restored—but to William, not to me.

When he informed me of this, I could not believe it. I had done
everything Lancaster demanded of me. I had cared for his father when I might most reasonably have taken my leave of court. I had given up everything for the royal family, yet still I was punished. Now I had been used to provide William with a lordly living, just as I had suspected on that fateful evening at Westminster when he was presented as my betrothed.

I rushed out of the house, seeking shelter in the church.
What do You want of me, Lord?
I asked over and over.
What more do You require of me before You allow me peace?
I prayed for deliverance.

L
IFE WITH
William grew ever more intolerable. We spoke hardly a civil word to each other and rarely slept together—at least that was a blessing. He fed my resentment by insisting not only that he was right but also demanding I admit to being wrong. Which I refused to do, though I also refused to argue unless it had to do with my children, which infuriated him. I saw how his unyielding insistence on being right, on never considering the possibility of being otherwise, had led to his downfall in Ireland and elsewhere. It was this tendency of excessive pride in him that caused problems with our tenants and the shopkeepers leasing my properties in London.

His nephew John was adept at feeding William’s appetite for antagonism. During one visit he had been particularly busy. William returned from John’s home in a quiet mood, the sort of quiet that alerted me to stormy days ahead. He was coldly polite if asked a question, vague about his time away; and his eyes wandered continually between his surroundings and me, as if he were reassessing our life together. As the days wore on he grew sullen and rude, treating me like an inconvenient guest whom he’d been irritated to find ensconced in his home on his return. The one night he came to my bed I refused him, calling loudly for Gwen, for he was drunk and had gripped my wrists as if he meant to rape me, not make love to me. I had already suffered this behavior on a few darksome occasions, and had no intention of submitting to it again. The following morning, he at last confronted me.

“You lied to me about the king’s rings.”

“Rumors, William. I kept only the signet he had told me to keep.”

“They’ve not found the rings.”

This was old news. “I know, and you are well aware that I have told them all I know of it. Why are you bringing this up?”

“Where is the signet now?”

I fought to show no emotion. “In a safe place. I shall bequeath it to my son John.” I was grateful I had given it to Robert for safekeeping. But I also worried that somehow William would find out that it was in his possession.

“What of Queen Philippa’s jewels?”

I grew hot with the nerve of him. He already had the costliest jewels Edward had given me.

“The Bishop of Winchester has vouched for me that I never possessed them, though I had worn them. You know all this, William. What is your intent?”

“Walsingham has told my nephew much about you and your whoring ways.”

So John Wyndsor had been to St. Albans. It explained much. Thomas Walsingham, a monk at that troublesome abbey, wrote with a pen dipped in venom and spoke from a soul filled with hatred for the Duke of Lancaster and for me.

“Tell your nephew to have a care. If Lancaster should hear of his friendship with Walsingham, he might lose favor. Bereft of the duke’s patronage, your nephew might find life difficult.”

“Until he inherits from me,” William snarled.

I could hold my tongue no longer. “You already have my lands and jewels, why stay if you despise me so?”

“You are my lawful wife, Alice. We are bound till death do us part.”

“We need not live together. Release me from this false marriage, William. Grant us both some rest.”

“It suits me to stay.”

I lived for midsummer, when he would leave for the Brittany campaign. He did not expect to return until late autumn. As the time drew near for him to leave he became more civil, however, and seemed to look upon the household with more affection.

One evening he had been most courteous, even charming, at dinner, entertaining our guests with stories of his previous time in Brittany and in Ireland, providing amusing imitations of both sides on the battlefield and in negotiations. I had never witnessed this talent of his. The last tale had been of a skirmish in Ireland that had been particularly bloody and was won by a clever ruse. Such talk had excited him, it was quite clear.

“You have a passion for soldiering,” I said after our guests departed.

“I do. I feel most alive in arms, riding to challenge the enemy. That
is why I have advised your son to take up arms likewise in Lancaster’s service.”

The pleasant glow I had been enjoying after a successful evening abruptly dimmed. “What? You advised John? When did you see him?”

John had not stayed in my home since my marriage to William. I had not seen him in more than a year, and then but briefly at an inn near where he was biding for a few nights. Although I had never gleaned a clear reason from Percy as to why my son had not been at liberty to visit, I had assumed it had something to do with his dislike of William, who had antagonized so many of the nobles with properties in Ireland. To learn that William had seen John was therefore a cruel shock.