The King's Mistress (70 page)

He was often invited to read at court, a great compliment.

One afternoon as he made notes to himself on his ubiquitous wax tablets and bits of parchment in between staring out of the open door to the courtyard garden, he suddenly paused and asked, “Do you remember the story of Criseyde that so troubled you?”

“I have never forgotten,” I said.

“Your arguments have been much on my mind.”

“Are you writing of her?”

By the inward expression on his face I guessed that he was. But he said only, “Would it trouble you to know that your story inspired me to wonder how it might have been for Criseyde?”

“I am honored, my good friend.”

“I understand now; they hated you for showing them that their king—he with the power to heal with his hands, he with the well-being of the realm in his care—was yet human.”

“More so at the end than they were ever permitted to see.”

“I would show how alone Criseyde was upon her father’s defection, how vulnerable and without guidance. How her uncle used that to his own end. But I cannot make her so worthy of love and admiration as you, my friend. Nor so tragic. In that story, Troilus is the tragic player.”

Worthy of love and admiration? “You do me great compliment, Geoffrey. But as for the tragic, not all has been tragedy for me. I have experienced much joy, and have much yet to live for.”

W
HEN AT
last my little family returned to Gaynes in spring, Robert invited me to ride out with him. The freshly ploughed fields smelled rich and loamy, new leaves softened the hedgerows and the
trees that followed the line of the river. We paused in a meadow where a fallen tree provided seating for two.

Robert took my hands in his and looked me in the eyes with such determination that I feared bad news.

“My love, I believe that at last it is our time. Would you be content to bide with me as my wife? Would you take me as your husband? For I would have you as my wife, if you will, to cherish and to love through the rest of my days, as long as God grants me.”

Relief flooded me with warmth. I looked into Robert’s steady gray-blue eyes and saw love, comfort, laughter, and companionship. Everything about him was dear to me, his crinkly smile, his broad shoulders that had supported me through so much sorrow, his scent, his deep voice and quiet laugh that was more movement than sound. I loved him for never forsaking me, never failing me. I loved who I was when I was with him.

“I take you as my husband, Robert, willingly, with all my heart and soul.”

His kiss warmed me to my core and set my heart strumming. When we paused for breath, I glanced round. Seeing that we were quite alone, I rose, taking his hand.

“Shall we seal the pact, my love?”

On the horse blankets we lay, our coupling slow and yet passionate as we made use of all we knew would give pleasure to the other. There was no need to hurry, no one who would have any cause to creep up on us. Afterward we lay in each other’s arms, drowsing, until the afternoon chill prompted us to continue our ride.

Joan and Jane observed us closely during the evening meal. Robert had a different air about him, comfortable, already settled. As if he’d practiced this in his imagination for a long while.

As the table was cleared, he leaned toward my daughters and asked, “Would you permit me to wed your mother?”

Jane frowned a little, tilting her head to one side as if considering. Joan poked her in the ribs and with a dazzling smile asked, “Could we call you Father?”

“I would be honored.”

“I shall call you Robert,” said Jane, “but I do give you my blessing.”

He reached for my hand beneath the table. “And you, Joan?”

“I would rather you wed me. But if you have already lost your heart to Mother, you have my blessing.”

That evening, as Gwen brushed my hair, we spoke of our first weeks together at Dame Agnes’s, preparing for my marriage to Janyn, the beginning of my liaison with Edward, how frightened we had been, and the frustration of my marriage to William.

“You deserve happiness, Mistress. I pray that God blesses you both. I am so happy for you. You have loved one another for so long. At last your hearts are one.”

O
UR OLD
friend Dom Hanneye witnessed our vows in the church at Upminster. We invited only family to the wedding, and Geoffrey. I wore a patterned silk gown in deep, rich hues of blue and green, the feather pattern picked out in seed pearls on the bodice and sleeves. Robert wore a red velvet jacket that I had lovingly made him, with matching hat ablaze on his fair hair, and leggings of indigo. I so enjoyed dressing him, for he had never given much thought to his appearance and was startled to see himself in his new clothes. I imagine we were the most elegant couple ever to take their vows at the small church. But what I loved most was that it had not mattered whether or not we fussed with our clothing; we had no one to impress but each other, and our love transcended all that. Life away from court—I embraced it with all my heart.

Through the spring and summer Joan, Jane, Gwen, and I worked to re-create at Gaynes what I could remember of Dame Tommasa’s garden in London and the one that she had helped me plant at Janyn’s and my London home when I carried Bella. Robert brought clippings of the most unusual plants from our other manors, and I brought clippings from the garden in London. By late summer, when I discovered that I was with child, the garden was truly taking shape. I had worried that I might not conceive after taking potions to prevent it for so long, and considering my age, but Robert and I were blessed.

“I am the most fortunate man under heaven,” he whispered, one ear to my swelling stomach.

Joan, Jane, and I all blossomed that summer. Joan met another Robert much to her liking, a young lawyer from Kingston-upon-Thames, Robert Skerne, whom we had retained for some property transactions. They were a handsome couple, and I found myself praying that he would return for her when he considered himself capable of supporting a household. Jane proved a passionate and creative gardener, and I left much of the planning of Tommasa’s garden to her. I had never
been happier. Walking, hawking, plunging my hands in the earth and creating a garden I expected to enjoy for years to come, strolling across the fields or along the streets of London on Robert’s arm, spending an afternoon sewing with my daughters and Gwen … all these simple pleasures were a constant delight to me.

I
WISHED
I might forgo William’s first-year obit at Windsor, for though I was not very great with child yet I no longer enjoyed riding. Nor did I wish to be reminded of my unhappy marriage. But I could not forget William as he was at the end, so lost, so disappointed, and could not refuse to pay him that one last honor. Fortunately most of the journey would be by barge. My daughters and Gwen put much effort into designing a silk velvet surcoat to hide my swelling stomach. Although Robert escorted me to Windsor, he did not attend the Mass. Geoffrey escorted me in his place.

Sir Robert Linton, the friend who had offered his home in Somerset as a haven for me and my children in my darkest hour, had come to pay his respects. He asked after me and the children.

“We are well. Thriving. I shall never forget your kindness in my time of need.”

I saw several old acquaintances from court—Richard Stury made a point of speaking to me. He was not so grim visaged as in the past, his hair now snow white and his smile more relaxed and sincere. He found he enjoyed retirement.

“Quietly stalking the wildfowl, deer, and boar on my estates, becoming acquainted with my wife at last—I should think it about time I knew the woman who bore me five children!” He chuckled at his own words, something he had never done in my presence. “And you, Dame Alice?”

“I feel blessed to be free at last to enjoy my daughters, my lands, and my memories, Sir Richard. God has been good to me.”

John Wyndsor I ignored, and he ignored me. We were locked in litigation, though it was no longer entirely by my choice—Joan and Jane wanted to see me vindicated in this.

This time I did enter the palace, with great trepidation, and walked about in the company of ghosts, my eyes finding it impossible to alight on anything in Windsor that did not conjure a memory, particularly of my dear Queen Philippa. I had not expected to feel my grief over her death still so poignant. For me she still ruled the castle. I could still
hear her merry laughter and exclamations of delight, could smell her evening almond milk. And Edward—his striding steps sounded just ahead, his scent was in the air. Suddenly I lost my courage, rushing back through the hall and out into the yard, grateful to breathe air untainted by shades of the past. I prayed I need never return.

Nor did the gossip around us inspire regret in me that I was no longer at court. Indeed, as I listened I grew increasingly eager to withdraw again to my quiet life. Princess Joan was not in attendance; she had retired to Kennington in August with a vague malady and had died within days, some said of a broken heart. Poor, beautiful Joan, who might have been queen.

W
HEN JOAN
, Jane, Gwen, and I stepped onto the river landing on our return to Gaynes, Robert, who had gone on ahead to alert the servants, awaited us with our horses. We rode home along lanes made colorful with falling leaves. We were all quiet from the solemnity of the occasion and traveler’s weariness. As usual, within moments of arriving home Joan and Jane were off to the stables, the immediate lure the litters of puppies and kittens, anxious to see how much they had grown in a week.

“They will be out for a long while,” said Robert, taking my hand and leading me into the garden.

Now the flowers were mostly spent and going to seed, the saplings almost bare. But it held promise of more to come in another spring, and I found it beautiful.

We sat on a wooden bench, on a prettily embroidered cushion that Joan and Jane had presented me on my birthday. “For your bench in the rose arbor,” Joan had said. “Bella told us that Dame Tommasa always made cushions to fit the garden benches.”

“So she did.” The cushion they had given me was embroidered with the moon and stars, and reminded me of the surcoat I’d not thought my mother-in-law would dare to wear, silver and gold moons and stars on a dark background. “Bless Bella. Bless you angels for this.”

In February I gave birth to a sweet, fair-haired daughter. Her godmother was my brother John’s wife, Agnes, and Robert and I called her Agnes Joanna. As she grew into a beauty like her namesake Princess Joan, we soon forgot her first given name. I had come to understand that Joan had been as good a friend to me as she could.

A year later, our son Geoffrey was born. My old friend Geoffrey
Chaucer was of course his first godfather, and made much of the fair-haired boy.

After Geoffrey’s birth I knew that I had passed my childbearing years and I did not mourn for that. Though I loved my children above all else, even Robert, I had not forgotten how utterly my life had changed when I reached childbearing age. It was good to move beyond that. I had been most fortunate in my children. I had lost only two before birth, and lost only one who had lived and thrived. Four beautiful daughters and one adorable son survived.

It was then that I began to write this history of my life, or in truth dictate it to my dear Bella. I felt my years and worried that death might take me before Agnes Joanna and Geoffrey might have a chance to know me, to hear my story from my lips. I did not wish them to hear only the gossip about their mother, but to know all, and then be free to judge the truth of it.

Joan wed the lawyer Robert Skerne when she was seventeen. He
had
returned for her. Jane wed a wealthy merchant, Richard Northland, and made the journey to Italy with him that I had so yearned to make with Janyn. She saw Milan, and many Perrers, but learned nothing more of the fates of Janyn and Tommasa. She found the family unwilling to speak of that trouble.

Joanna was an imp of a girl, always courting laughter with her japes. She was a freer spirit than any of her sisters, always surrounded by family, especially her doting parents, and knew no fear. She adored her brother Geoffrey, who looked so like my long-dead brother Will that my sister Mary often forgot and called him that by mistake. He was a dreamer, a lover of animals like Jane, always nursing a wounded or sick wild creature. I took care to see him not as a replacement for my dear John but as his own wondrous person. Robert envisioned him as a conscientious landholder, reviving woodlands, enriching the fields. To our great sorrow, Geoffrey died of fever when he was but six years old.

On my last visit to Kennington, Princess Joan had said of the loss of my son John, “Perhaps it is a blessing he did not live long enough to disappoint you as my sons have disappointed me.”

I would gladly have suffered any disappointment to watch my son Geoffrey grow to manhood. Though with a father like Robert guiding him, I do not believe he would ever have disappointed either of us.

• • •

M
Y DAUGHTERS
and I continue to fight John Wyndsor in the courts. In my will I have stated that all my manors and advowsons other than Gaynes I leave to my daughters Joan and Jane, including all “those which John Wyndsor, or others, have, by his consent, usurped, the which I desire my heirs and executors to recover and see them parted between my daughters, for that I say, on the pain of my soul, he hath no right there nor never had.” Sometimes I wish that William had never shown me the revised will. I pray that my daughters win. Gaynes I have bequeathed to Joanna. And I have no doubt that Robert shall be generous to all my daughters in his will.

We are all of us horrified by the overthrow of dear King Richard by Lancaster’s son and heir, who calls himself Henry IV. Joan’s fears for her son’s reign have proved tragically prescient. Geoffrey does not care for Harry, as he calls him. Nor does Harry care for Geoffrey; censure is his favorite instrument of rule, and Geoffrey’s poetry has been judged dangerous. It is Harry’s loss, for Geoffrey’s poem of Criseyde is a true rendering of a torn heart.