The Maiden’s Tale (33 page)

Orleans put out his hand toward her. She looked at him, then wordlessly put hers into his and let him draw her to him as he said, “Let it go, love. Find out who was made a fool by this man and send her away but make no more of it than that.”

“Whoever it was, she betrayed me.”

“And we know nothing of betrayal?” he said gently.

Alice’s silence to that held a great many answers that did not need to be given, before she said, “As you wish,” and knelt beside him again, not letting loose of his hand or of the poems still held to her breast. “But, love…”

Orleans drew her hand to him, turned it over and kissed her palm, stopping her, then saying to her silence, softly quoting. “ ‘Now what tiding, my lady and my mistress? How fares our love?” “

Alice drew a sobbing breath of protest. “Charles…”

“ ‘All be that danger has and great distress,” “ he said. ” ’As of long time been all too near, My naked heart despite the force of heaviness Without contrary thought On my side still makes you sure promise That I shall serve you to my last With love unvarying.“ ”

Laying the poems down, Alice reached out to touch his face, tears in her voice though not run free from her eyes as she answered, “ ‘AH be that danger has and great distress As of long time been all too near. My heart’s love is in your governance, And ever while I live you need not fear That you shall find it turned to variance.” “ And in their eyes was everything there was and everything there never could be between them.

Frevisse turned away, not to see it, but behind her, aware as surely they must always be of how little time they had, Orleans said, “But all else aside, my lady, you cannot keep the poems any more.”

Brokenly Alice said, “They’re all I have of you.”

The pain in her voice turned Frevisse back toward her, ready to join Orleans in persuading her to be rid of what could so easily betray her, but Orleans needed no help. “Alice.” He gave her name the softer French sound, making a caress of it. “You have them here.” He took his hand from hers to touch her forehead. “You have them here.” He moved his hand toward her heart. “You do not need them here.” He touched the poems where they lay between them. “Burn them.”

As if already grieving for a death, Alice asked, “And your copies? You’ll burn those, too?”

“I cannot,” Orleans said simply. “Not destroy past recovery something I have made with so much of my heart as I made those.”

“Then you’ll both still be in danger from them,” Frevisse offered.

Orleans smiled with pure and open pleasure. “Not if they cannot be found out.”

“There’s never so secure a hiding place as can’t be found,” Frevisse said.

“Perhaps not, but something can be lost past finding. I have lost them. It is already done. In a forest of poems. All my other poetry, copied out and kept but with no one but my lady and I able to know which are hers and which are not. Saint Cecelia knows I’ve written enough of poems to lose almost anything among them. Some were written to a purpose, others for the sport of seeing what I could do, some merely for someone else’s humor. Men may guess from now to Judgment Day but never know which is which, I promise you. Will that do?”‘

He asked it of both of them but it was Alice’s answer he wanted, and her smile met his with something of his laughter as she answered, pleased, “That will do.” And rose to her feet, went to the hearth, and one by one—there were after all not so very many of them—gave up the folded papers to the red heart of the low-burned fire until at the last, when all were no more than black ruins dying into ashes, she held out the embroidered ribbon to the flames, but after a moment took it back, stood up, and went to lay it in her breviary open on her prie-dieu.

Chapter
29

Only slowly was Jane able to sort out that she was alive. Not gone into the dark of death and whatever came afterwards but alive and lying in the truckle bed in Lady Alice’s bedchamber, across the room from where she ought to be but she made sense of that, beginning to remember she had been awake before, when William had carried her into here. He had told her then… what?

That everything was well. That Orleans lived and had been moved to Suffolk’s room. That the poems were safe.

And if the poems were safe, then so was Lady Alice; and thinking that, Jane had fallen to sleep again, all other questions not mattering.

But they mattered now, she found, more memory coming back.

Someone had wanted her dead.

She had understood that when William and the others were fighting to keep her alive, but keeping alive had been what mattered then. Now it mattered that someone…

Herry.

William had told her that, too. That Herry had killed Eyon and tried to kill her. And Master Bruneau had meant to kill Orleans but had not. And it was over with and they were gone and so was Robyn. Everything was over with and well—but how could it be well if Master Bruneau had tried to kill?— and she was safe.

But she was not, she found. She was afraid. Afraid of how nearly she had been dead. Of how easily she could have been. Of how hard it had been to stay when she could have gone.

“Afraid,” she whispered.

“No need to be,” said William beside her, and she found he was holding her hand. Or she was holding to his. Tightly.

She let her head roll sideways on the pillow so she could see him. Unshaven, his doublet and shirt open at the throat, gray shadows of exhaustion around his eyes, he was wonderful to see. More wonderful when he smiled and said, “It’s afternoon, almost evening. You’ve slept the day away.”

The words were for nothing but to distract her, quiet her, Jane knew, and she was grateful, willing to be distracted.

“Dame Frevisse is here,” he said. “For propriety’s sake.”

Dame Frevisse had been there when she was being so ill, she remembered. So ugly ill. So nearly…

Jane shied from remembering how nearly she could have been lying here now the way she had seen Eyon lying. Dead, empty. Gone away.

“That’s done,” William said, somehow knowing. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. And then the palm. And then the back of it again. Slowly, warmly. As if he were infinitely glad he had the chance to do it. As if he were infinitely glad she was there. Taking away her fear. Giving her something besides fear to feel.

Across the room, watching them, Frevisse smiled, then lowered her eyes to the breviary in her lap. She had spent the day slipping aside from Alice’s gratitude and the household’s upheaval of talk and excitements, had left Alice to deal with Suffolk and with Orleans’ care and with all the questionings there had been from everyone who had the chance to ask anything of anyone; had instead retreated into her nunhood, into the seeming mildness of bowed head and silence, and been finally left alone to them and to her prayers. Prayers for Orleans. Prayers for Master Bruneau. Prayers for Lady Jane and William.

There at least, with Lady Jane and William, something of her prayers looked to being answered, something coming well out of the past days’ tangle of ambitions and desires. Because of all that never should have happened, they seemed to have found, sooner than they might otherwise have done, the commingled affection and dependence that would make their marriage more than a convenience for them both, would make it a deeply rooted necessity between them, out of which love might very well grow.

A better love than what there was between Alice and Orleans, whose love was real enough in its kind but doomed never to be more man it was, able only to circle forever inward on itself, forever hidden, never growing. A sad love.

But then there were always love and loves and Love, and all of them had come clashing together here these few days past, including Bishop Beaufort’s love that Frevisse thought had to be among the basest of any love there was—the love for worldly things and not least the love of power over other people’s lives. There was a love far worse than whatever was, had been, or might be between Alice and Orleans. Whether Bishop Beaufort would give the reward he had offered for her help, since her help had gone so contrary to particular of his purposes, she did not know and did not care. Nor, no matter what St. Frideswide’s need and Abbot Gilberd’s desire, was she going to ask Alice for anything, though Alice was likely to give something without her asking, both in understanding of how things were at the priory at present and in gratefulness for how useful Frevisse had been to her. And if she did, it would be to St. Frideswide’s good and the good of Alice’s soul, but so far as Frevisse cared…

Hands folded on her breviary, she thought the quiet words she had lately finished praying from None…
scientes quod non corruptibilibus auro vel argento redempti estis ..
. Know that not with corruptible gold or silver were you ransomed. Not with worldly gold or silver or any of the things they bought, but with Love.

Love strong enough to bring and bind one person to another: William to Jane, Jane to William, in spite of everything.

Love strong enough for one person to let go of another:

Alice from Orleans, Orleans from Alice, because of everything.

Love strong enough beyond the world’s uses that soon— please God, very soon—she herself would go gladly back to St. Frideswide’s with their new prioress. Go back to prayers at the proper hours and nunnery matters to worry over and chance to draw quiet into her soul again out of the great silence of God. A silence more rich to her than all the noise and flailings of the world. The silence of Love.

Author’s Note

It isn’t difficult to find out about such folk as Bishop Beaufort and the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Suffolk, and his wife, Alice Chaucer; or that Charles, duke of Orleans, was captive in England for twenty-five years; or even that there was a parliament at Westminster in November 1439, with William Tresham elected its Speaker (and not to be murdered until eleven years later). But of Jane, the earl of Suffolk’s niece, all you’re likely to find readily is a very minor mention in
The Complete Peerage
where a document from 1490 is quoted concerning Jane “with the Blemysh” who was “kept secretly,” put into a nunnery but refused to take her vows when the time came and thereafter married William, “an honest rich yeoman’s son of Suffolk.” From that very little, something can be guessed about her, a woman who dared to refuse the life she had been raised to, dared to take her “blemyshed” self into the world, and made a life of her own choosing despite all the odds against her. But guess is all we can do, save that that same document of 1490 adds that her grandchildren John, Margaret, and Agnes were still living, with children of their own.

Of the duke of Orleans’ poetry, the most pleasant editions I dealt with are
The Poems of Charles of Orleans,
selected and introduced by Sally Purcell; and
Fortunes Stabilnes: Charles of Orleans’ English Book of Love,
by Mary-Jo Arn.