by Anne O'Brien
No, I would not betray Edward with one such as William de Windsor, but he was a damnably attractive man for all his impudence. And he surprised me by a sudden change in direction that I was to discover was typical of him. A clever stratagem to unsettle the listener.
“No. I don’t suppose you will. Will you do one thing for me, Mistress Perrers?”
“Since you obviously don’t desire me in your bed, what would that be?”
“Keep me acquainted with Court opinion and any change in royal policy in Ireland.”
So! His interest was political, not personal. A little piqued at his rapid rejection of my charms—how inconsistent can a woman be?—I asked, “What’s it worth?”
“Do I have to pay you?”
I assayed a simper.
And William de Windsor kissed me. Not a kiss of passion or of affection, but a firm pressure of his lips at the corner of my mouth, like a promise of what might be.
And in instant response, without thought, I struck him with the flat of my hand against his cheek.
Windsor gave a shout of laughter. “Sweet Alice! Such lack of control!”
“Such lack of respect!” I was shocked equally by both his action and mine, and fought to claw back the control. My heart was beating faster; my blood was hot, and not from the heat of the sun through the glass. “I see you’ve learned your manners amongst the sluts of Dublin.”
“I match my manners to my company, mistress.”
As his gaze disrobed me down to my skin, my control flew out of the window. I reached out to strike him again, fast as a snake, but he caught my wrist and dragged it to his mouth, kissing the soft skin where my blood beat like a military drum.
“Tempestuous Alice! But seriously.” He released me as fast as he had taken possession. “Keep me informed. And get what you can for yourself. Without the King or Queen to cushion the blows, your enemies will swoop in and swallow you up. Unless your goal is to return to the gutter, fill your coffers now.”
“I’m not so mercenary.”
“We’re not discussing something so trivial as being mercenary, woman! It’s self-preservation. If you don’t look to yourself whilst the power is to hand, no one else will. And if you’re thinking, ‘Does this make me too hard, too avaricious?’—then consider this: Who will give you a moment’s thought the day that Edward goes to his grave?”
I shook my head, horrified by the picture he had thrust so forcefully into my mind.
“Answer me, Alice.”
For a moment I saw compassion in his face. I hated to see it, but I replied with the truth. “No one.”
With Philippa and Edward dead, the Prince would wear the crown, and Fair Joan would be his consort. There would be no place for me in Joan’s Court.
“Did you think to be damsel to Joan the Whore?” Windsor asked.
His crude words, startling me with their mirror image of my own thoughts, drove home my predicament. It was the last thing I could envisage. As long as she was in Aquitaine I need not fear her, but returned to England she would be no friend to me. I recalled her scorn, her disdain of all things lowborn, her contempt for me.
“Even provision for your sons will not be secure. Have you thought of that?”
My hot blood ran cold and sluggish, but I tried to ward it off. “I am not in any danger. Nor am I without resources.”
“Two tuns of Gascon wine for service to the Queen? Edward is hardly generous!” His laughter was hard and humorless.
“I have property…” I insisted.
“Enough to allow you to live as you do now?” Windsor fired back.
“I have manors and town property.…” I clung on desperately to what I had hoped would keep poverty at bay.
“So your manors and town properties will keep the wolf from your door, will they, in the hard times? You’ve had a taste of life cushioned by royal wealth. Will you be willing to accept less? It’s a long winter when you have nothing. I should know. But if you will not be open to my advice…”
“I never said that.”
“No. You didn’t. But give it some thought.”
I studied the harsh lines of his face, the marks of his experience, not all of them pleasant.
“Why do you do this?” I asked. “Why do you bother yourself with my future? I am nothing to you.”
With one hand he raised my chin, tilting my face to the light, and I allowed it, since I had asked the question. But what would I make of the answer?
“In all honesty, I don’t know,” he said softly, as if searching in his mind for a reason that did not wish to be discovered. “You’re cross and perverse and not my sort of woman at all. But for some strange reason I would not wish to see you bereft. Now, why should that be?”
I chose not to answer that question. Were we both dissembling? My own emotions were inexplicably in turmoil. Almost in a panic I turned to go, but his hand sliding down my arm to my wrist stopped me. I looked back over my shoulder.
“Well?” I asked.
“We’ll not meet again.”
For which I am eternally grateful, sprang to my lips. I saw him brace himself, the smallest stiffening, against what I would say. His fingers around my arm tensed. His eyes darkened as if my reply mattered. So—perversely, as he had accused—I said nothing. And his rigid shoulders relaxed.
“Have you nothing to say?”
“Good-bye, Sir William.”
“Well, at least it’s apt.” His mouth had a wry twist. “And will you write?”
“I’ll consider it.”
His hand slid farther until he closed it around my hand.
“This is too public…” I remonstrated.
“I care not. And neither do you. I admire you, Mistress Alice. I admire your strength and your loyalty to the King. I admire your single-mindedness and your refusal to be influenced by any man’s advice—until you know what is right for you.” I must have looked my amazement. Was that how he saw me? “I admire your confidence.” He pressed his lips to the palm of my hand. “I admire your determination to be yourself.”
Windsor looked at me through his lashes. “Do you admire me at all, Mistress Perrers?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Which does not change to any degree what I feel for you. I admire your honesty even though I do not always believe what you say.”
With a little tug on my hand he drew me closer and planted another kiss, this time full on my mouth. His mouth was firm and cool and entirely seductive. The kiss lasted for no time, but it had a warmth that stroked across my skin.
“Farewell, Alice.”
A bow, a wave of his feathered hat, and he was on his way to Ireland.
Thank God!
I could not banish the man from my thoughts.
What did I feel for Windsor? I had as little understanding of that as he had for his feelings for me. I knew my feelings for Edward with the intimacy of long association. Admiration, of course. Respect coupled with an affection born of deep gratitude. Even—when I was in a mind to admit it—the eroticism of forbidden fruit.
But this man who had pushed his way into my consciousness? A far harsher emotion stabbed at me when I recalled the pressure of Windsor’s mouth against mine, against my palm. I did not wish to put a name to this emotion, but he made my flesh shiver, and I was honest enough to admit that it was not distaste.
I wished he had not gone back to Ireland.
Do you admire me at all, Mistress Perrers?
Go away!
You could make my final night here memorable.
I was delighted that he had gone! I scratched at the spot on my palm as if I could erase the memory. There! I need think no more about him.
But I did. He left with me a memento of his deplorable regard and his unwarranted warnings of those who had no cause to love me. In the early morning after his departure, I opened my door to a palace servant, one of the many grooms, judging by his overpowering aroma of horse and straw. He bowed and handed over a leather leash att
ached to a very youthful wolfhound. Then he left before I could question him.
“Oh.”
It—she—sat obediently and looked at me. I looked back. No letter or introduction came with this creature that eyed me like a juicy bone. First a palfrey, now a hound. Suddenly I, who had no affinity with animals, had acquired a surfeit of them.
“I should tell you,” I informed the creature, “I have no love of dogs, however noble their breeding.”
Unblinkingly, she continued to regard me.
“Why do I know that Windsor sent you to me? And what do I do with you?”
She panted enthusiastically, tongue lolling.
“Send you back to the stables? There’s no place for you in a lady’s rooms.”
The wolfhound sighed.
“As you say! Since I am no lady, I suppose you will stay. Does Windsor think I need a guard dog? But to protect me from whom, I wonder?”
So he did think I might be in danger. I would consider that later.
“What do I call you?” I asked as I walked cautiously ’round the animal. She sank to her belly in a patch of warm sun and closed her eyes. “Windsor, perhaps?” I suggested with a touch of whimsy. They both shared a knowing expression and more than a hint of ruthless will, even when the creature was half-asleep. As soon as I stepped away, she lifted her head, following my movements with heavy-browed eyes.
“I suppose I had better keep you. And I cannot in all conscience call you Windsor. It had better be Braveheart instead.”
When I sat, Braveheart rested her great head on her paws and slept, and I set my mind to pick apart Windsor’s warnings—a far more valuable occupation, I chided, than recalling his kisses. I could not afford to brush aside Windsor’s warnings as inconsequential.
It was time to contact the Tabard at Southwark again.
Greseley had continued to be busy in his and my interests, even to the extent of a little private moneylending. I did not bother overtly with the details of this, leaving my clerk to his own devious devices, discovering my involvement only when the documents of the pertinent court case were sent to me in absentia. One Richard de Kent, a London fishmonger, was sued by Greseley for the return of two hundred marks that I, through Greseley, had lent him. Far more important, my agent had used income from the Gracechurch property to buy for me a life interest in the manor of Radstone in Northamptonshire. And, of course, I had Ardington…and the ambition to buy more.
With a sum of money borrowed from the royal treasury—with Edward’s permission, of course, and to be repaid at a later date—I wrote my orders to Greseley. The manor of Meonstoke was acquired for me. My future suddenly seemed far less insecure.
And what do you have to say about that, Sir William?
I thought he would find something suitably disparaging. If our paths were ever unfortunate enough to cross again.
Chapter Nine
The royal castle of Windsor, with its massive walls and towers, was a magical place. Mirrored rooms glittered with reflected light or, under Wykeham’s flamboyant hand, allowed roses to riot from floor to ceiling in blue and green and vermilion. It was too garish for my taste but much admired, and with enough gold leaf to cover Edward’s warship, the Christopher, from prow to stern. The summer lay softly on this sumptuous statement of royal power, but the Queen of England lay immobile on her bed. Even the smallest movement of head or hand racked her with pain. I could do nothing for her. The willow bark now had little effect against such corruption of the body. It had not soothed her for many months, and the frequency of the drafts she was taking was a nagging concern to me. But Philippa begged for the cup of bitter wine and sank gratefully into sleep when she could tolerate her waking hours no more. I sat with her as she moved between delirium and a keen awareness that demanded the truth and gave no room for lies. The damsels were not slow to leave me the duties of the sickroom.
I was not sorry. Did I not owe everything to this generous woman who had so much love in her heart, who had a spirit strong as a mighty oak, as soft as the feathers on a dove’s breast? She had seen enough in me to lift me from obscurity to my strange life in the royal household. I owed her everything. No, I was not sorry to sit with her as her life ebbed.
“Is Isabella here?” she asked.
“No, my lady. She is in France with her husband.”
“Of course.” Philippa’s lips tried ineffectually to smile. “I’m astonished she hasn’t washed her hands of him.” She managed a breath of a laugh. Then: “Where is Lionel…? Ah, no…I remember now.…” Tears sprang to her eyes, for her beloved Lionel was dead. In the wine-fueled aftermath of a glorious marriage in Italy to the Visconti heiress, Lionel had succumbed to some nameless fever. Philippa sighed. “I am so weary, Alice.…”
I bathed her face and lips, my mind gripped with fear.
“Read to me from my missal. The prayer to the Virgin…”
So I did, and it gave her comfort.
“Am I dying, Alice?” The assent stuck in my throat. “I see it in your face. Tell me this, if the first reply is too hard. Will it be long now?”
“No, Majesty. It will not be long.”
“Bless you. You have always been honest. Is the King still in England?”
“Yes, my lady. He is in London—at the Tower.”
“I need him.” Her breath barely stirred the air. “Send for him. Tell him…tell him not to delay.”
“I will, Your Majesty. Immediately.”
“Will Edward blame me?” she wept. “For diverting him from his duties in France?”
“No, my lady.” I wiped away the tears from her cheeks, a task that she was unable to do for herself. How could I not weep with her? “The King will never blame you. He loves you more than life. The King would never forgive you if you did not tell him how you suffered.”
I thought about Edward’s sense of duty. It was what I admired in him. When the French had marched into Ponthieu and threatened the security of Gascony itself, Edward had abandoned his policy of peaceful coexistence and begun to plan for a new war, reclaiming his relinquished title of King of France. Some might whisper that he was too old to plan such a sustained invasion—not like the old days—but what choice did a man of such pride have? The Prince, still laid low, remained too weak to lead an army, so therefore Edward must resume the mantle of command. He was King. All that he had achieved in his lifetime must not be thrown away. So in that very month, he had sent John of Gaunt to Calais. Edward and an army would follow. Even now he was at the Tower, organizing the invasion.
But now he would not. He would come to Philippa’s side, whatever the cost. England’s power in France would weigh lightly in the balance if the Queen was in need. I prayed he would be in time. The shade of death squatted in the shadows in the corner of the room, obscene in its presence, growing stronger as the days passed.
Edward arrived by royal barge that beat its way against the tide along the Thames, and I went down to the landing stage with others of the household to greet him. Perhaps to warn him a little. I had not seen him for six weeks, and the change in him was unmistakable.
Oh, I doubt it was noticeable to a subject who simply saw the outer glory of the King of England. Still fair and upright, still handsome with regal presence, he had a smile and a word for those who had rowed him from the Tower. His tunic flattered his broad shoulders. The golden lions stitched against the red were truly resplendent, and the sun gilded his hair as the barge was maneuvered into the river landing.
But I was aware of the change from the moment he stood up from his seat at the stern. Once, he would have stood for the whole journey, dignified but approachable, the leader of his people, to see and be seen. Now he sat. Furthermore—I saw it even if no one else did—he took his page’s arm as he stepped from barge to land, not heavily but enough to give him stability. He stretched as if his limbs were stiff, and his first strides were uneven. The lines around eyes and mouth were more deeply engraved than when I had kissed him farewell. Oh, Edward! How
grief and the passage of years can leave their mark. How the burden of duty can wear away the body’s resilience. My first thought was to go to him, to kiss away the sorrow that darkened his eyes, but I kept my distance. This was no time for greetings from the King’s lover. I had no place in this homecoming, and I knew nothing I could do would assuage Edward’s suffering. For a moment I wished I had not come, but stayed at the Queen’s side, where I had an acknowledged role. And I felt a cold foreboding for the coming days.
No Queen. No place. No position. No reason for Alice Perrers to remain at Court.
I pushed away the bleak thought as fast as it assaulted me. Nothing new here, merely the imminent inevitability of it. Now, in this moment, all that mattered was Edward’s reunion with his stricken wife.
The steward bowed. I curtsied. Edward acknowledged the waiting group of courtiers. I actually took a step backward, but the King’s eyes sought me out.
“Mistress Perrers.”
“Your Majesty.”
“Speak to me of my wife.” His voice was low and harsh with unshed tears. “She is dying?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Does she know?”
“She is aware. She regretted asking you to come.”
“I could not leave her. How could I? She is everything to me.”
“Yes, Sire.”
I swallowed hard. The heartrending affirmation could not have made my situation clearer. I stepped back again as the King turned to stride up the steps toward the castle, his vigor restored with the urgency to get to Philippa’s side before it was too late. But he halted with his foot on the bottom step and looked back.
“Come with me. She will need you.”
And although I shrank from the task, I obeyed.
So I was witness to their reunion. It hit me harder than I could have imagined, illuminating as it did the lack in my own life. The love shone between them, undiminished by death. Briefly the image of William de Windsor stole into my mind, whether I wished it or not—typical of the man himself. There was something between us, but nothing like this. I could not imagine love like this, beyond the physical, beyond the passage of time. Philippa raised her hand from the bed linen and placed it into the hand of the King, her lord and her love. Edward fell to his knees at her side.
