The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers

by Anne O'Brien

  “Dear Edward. You came.” The words were slurred but I heard the pleasure in them.

  “Did you ever doubt that I would?”

  “No—Alice said you would come.” She glanced momentarily to where I stood beside the door, but I had no importance for her. All her focus was on the man at her side. “What a marriage we have had. All these years.”

  “I would wed you again. Tomorrow. This very minute.” Edward smoothed the thinning, matted hair back from her brow.

  “And you have as much charm as ever.” The gasp might have been a laugh.

  “You are all I ever wanted.”

  The words struck me with such force that I stepped back against the tapestry—I could feel the stitching and the underlying stone solid against my back—to give them space. You should not be here! My conscience was implacable.

  “When we are separated…” I heard the Queen whisper.

  “No!”

  “When we are separated,” she repeated, “will you grant me three requests, my dear lord?”

  Edward inhaled. “Lady. Whatever you ask, it will be done.”

  “Then—settle my debts. I can’t bear that they be left unpaid.”

  “You always were extravagant.”

  The gentleness in Edward’s reply caused my tears to overflow.

  “I know. Will you do it? And then fulfill the gifts and bequests I’ve made.”

  “I will.”

  “And at the last—Edward, my love, will you lie beside me in Westminster Abbey when your time on earth is finished?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  Edward bent his brow to her hand. They remained like that, the room still about them, and I left them to their solitude, closing the door quietly. They did not notice. They did not need me.

  I walked unseeing through the antechambers, making my way to climb to the deserted wall walk. My thoughts were appallingly self-absorbed, but I could not redirect them. I wept for the two I had just left, but where would I lie when I was dead? Who would lie beside me, at his or my request? I was as alone and friendless as I had always been, except for this fast-fading woman and her broken husband. Who could I call friend in the royal household? No one. Who would even have a thought for me? William de Windsor might—but his was a self-interest as strong as mine. Wykeham would condemn me.

  So I wept out of grief for Philippa and Edward and myself. And out of fear of a future I could no longer see.

  Her last moments came on the fifteenth day of August, when Wykeham gave the Queen the last sacrament. We were with her, Edward and young Thomas of Woodstock, and all her damsels, who wept bitter tears, as did the household, from falconer to meanest scullion. Philippa had left her mark on the lives of everyone who served her. I prayed for her comfort and her soul, touching for the final time her foot beneath the sumptuous bedcover with its embroidered sprawl of Plantagenet lions. Near the end, she raised her hand to beckon me, and whispered, her words barely stirring the air between us.

  “Promise me!” she begged.

  “I promise.”

  Did she know what she had asked of me? Did she understand how heavy the burden would become? I think she did not, yet I would do it. I would continue to repay the debt I owed her.

  The King held the Queen’s hand as she drew her final breaths, and kissed her forehead.

  “Edward. My love. What a family we made together…”

  Edward bowed his head and wept unashamedly. I might own his affection, his respect, the demands of his body. Philippa owned his heart and always would, even to her grave. Edward had lost his lodestar. His rock. His clear place in the firmament.

  So passed the Queen from this life. It was as if the great castle had been hollowed out, robbed of its entity. Windsor became a dark place. Edward walked the rooms and corridors like a ghost, all his vigor and Plantagenet spirit eclipsed by grief. He did what he must, what was necessary, but it was as if a husk of a man issued orders. And he did it alone. I, his mistress, had no role in these preparations for his wife’s final resting place. His dear Philippa’s embalmed body would be transported to the Tower by royal barge along the Thames, and from there in procession through the streets before reaching Westminster, so that all might witness and mourn her passing. She would be buried in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, as she had wished, in the tomb long prepared for her, with an effigy that showed her as she was, a plain woman with an abundance of love in her heart.

  In a voice devoid of emotion, Edward acknowledged all the Queen’s gifts: The Exchequer would pay me—and the other damsels—the sum of ten marks twice yearly at Easter and Michaelmas for services to the Queen. We were given a length of black cloth for mourning garments. I was not singled out in any way.

  So it was finished.

  What now?

  You are the King’s lover. That will not change.

  But Edward did not want me in his bed. He never sent for me, not once in all those endless days when I could see his suffering. My heart reached out to him, but it was as if he were shrouded in an impenetrable mist from which he was unable or unwilling to break free. He did not want me, did not need me, and so I must wait to see my fate.

  The damsels had a final task to complete, and I took my place amongst them. At the King’s command, we packed away all the Queen’s possessions. The hangings and covers of her magnificent bed were cut and stitched into vestments for the clergy of York Minster in memory of that exultant day when Edward and Philippa were wed there. It kept our hands busy if not our minds, and I could not join in the mindless twitterings of the young women, who would go home to their families unless another Court position opened up for them.

  And then it was Christmas, a festivity that we did not celebrate. The dancing chambers remained silent. In concern for the King, John of Gaunt returned from Calais to spend the doleful season with his father, shut away at the hunting lodge at Kings Langley, but Edward did not hunt. Chancellor Wykeham, who traveled frequently on royal business between Windsor and Kings Langley, wore a troubled expression. I did not see Edward again until I accompanied Philippa’s embalmed body to the Tower in the first days of the New Year. When Edward stood beside Philippa’s coffin as it was placed in the tomb, there seemed to be as little life in his still, silent figure as there was in the body they finally laid to rest. His face was gray and worn, head bowed, fingers flexing convulsively on the hilt of his sword. Age had placed its hand on him with cruel precision.

  As the solemn words came to an end, I watched Wykeham at the King’s side make the sign of the cross. His eyes moved slowly from Edward’s ashen face to mine, then dropped when he saw me watching him, as if it had been a mere chance meeting of our eyes.

  I did not think it was.

  At Edward’s orders the solemnities were to last for six days. I thought, in despair, that for Edward they would never end. He returned to the Tower and shut himself away from everyone.

  What was I to Edward in these dark days? That was simple enough to describe. I was nothing. I did not exist. I saw him only once, and that a chance passing in an antechamber.

  Edward walked through with Wykeham, the same easy stride, but there the similarity ended. There was no appreciation of his surroundings, no ready word for those who came within his recognition. I think he recognized no one.

  I curtsied.

  Without even a glance, Edward continued to stride ahead with some grim intent.

  “Mistress Perrers is here, Sire,” Wykeham murmured to the King, surprising me. He actually touched the King’s arm to claim his attention.

  The King stopped, bowed. “Mistress Perrers.”

  His eyes slid over my face but they did not linger, did not hold my gaze. His bow had been perfunctory, such as he might make to the lowliest of his servants who performed some menial task for him.

  “Sire!” I smiled, struggling to mask my concern. “I trust you are well.”

  There was no answering smile. Was this the man whose ready laughter had echoed from the roof in th
e Great Hall at Havering? Somber black had replaced the crimson and gold of his tunic. Giving no reply, he proceeded toward the door, presenting me with a good solid view of his back. The lover who had stripped the gown from my body and wrapped me in furs was far removed from this man who passed me by without a second thought. I rose to my full height, watching him in astonishment and despair. Wykeham shrugged helplessly and followed. I was left standing alone.

  It seemed that Philippa was not the only one to be interred in Edward the Confessor’s chapel. It was as if a hand had been slapped down to still the vibrating strings of a lute.

  “Where’s the King? It is imperative that I see him.”

  “The King is in his private chamber. He will not see you.” If I heard such conversations once in those weeks after Philippa was laid to rest, I heard them a dozen times, and the answer, delivered in the bleakest of tones by William Latimer, steward to the royal household, was always the same, whether the petitioner was noble or commoner.

  “His Majesty will see no one.”

  A light had been extinguished in Edward’s heart. Abandoning London, he shut himself away in his rooms at Havering, where Philippa had loved to stay, letting matters of government slide. The problems in France, where the Prince was increasingly under attack and still not restored to health, might not have existed for all the interest he took. The country shivered under ice and snow as the rooms of the palace echoed in a weird desolation. The Court whispered, uncertain, in a grip of gloom. A country without its head, without its King. Without leadership.

  The whispers intensified. The King was as good as dead.

  Philippa’s ladies had dispersed to their families or to other noble households where their skills were in demand as confidante or companion. Not I. The pattern of my life hung on the decision of this king who shut himself away in his chamber. I had never felt so alone, not even when standing in the street, a new widow. At least Greseley came to find me then. No one saw my need at Havering.

  I wrote to William de Windsor, perversely, since I had hedged on the promise to do so, informing him of the lack of policy toward Ireland and the reason for it, and perhaps to tell someone of my own insecurity.

  The King gives no direction to government. I doubt he thinks of Ireland at all. You are your own man, free to administer affairs as you wish. I think you may expect no more information from me. I fear my days at Court are numbered.

  And then, on a whim—perhaps an ill-considered one:

  I miss your forthright conversation, Sir William. Sometimes I wish you were recalled again to London to answer for your sins. I think I might give you a hearing. At the risk of sounding weak and destroying your expressed admiration of me, I have no one to talk to here.

  Such was my isolation. I sent the letter but had no knowledge of its arrival.

  We were a Court in waiting for Edward to emerge from his mourning and take up his sword once more. Did not King Arthur sleep, to return to England in her hour of need? Surely Edward would do the same.

  He did not.

  I tried to reach him, of course, only to find a guard on his door. I was not even announced. The King did not wish to see me. I wrote to Edward, persuading Latimer to ensure my plea was delivered.

  Don’t shut me out, my lord. Let me talk to you. Let me give you solace. We both suffer from the loss of your dear wife. We can mourn together.

  Remember what we have been to each other.

  Allow me to return to your side.

  My pen hovered over the page as I considered whether to tell him of the child that grew in my belly. I did not. Latimer took the note but there was no reply.

  “Did he read it?” I asked.

  “I don’t think he did.” Latimer’s face was stark with furrows of concern. “It is impossible to reach him.”

  Almost I admitted defeat. Short of running the guard through with his own sword and battering down the door, I could achieve nothing.

  But it broke my heart to leave Edward in this trough of despondency. Who would talk to him? Who would read or play chess with him? Who would entice him out of the black pit that he had fallen into? “Get him to see me!” I ordered, even though I had no authority of my own to order anything. I almost laughed at the expression on Latimer’s face. He was unsure whether I was an abomination in the sight of God and man or a heavenly courier sent to release the King from his travails. I closed my hand on his forearm, gripping hard. “Tell the King I carry his child, if you have to. And if you can’t, get Wykeham to do it. But do whatever it takes to get me into the King’s presence!”

  Latimer eyed me.

  “Do it, Latimer.”

  Do it! For all our sakes!

  Well, my vehemence had some effect. We were walking, Wykeham and I, Braveheart pattering after us, through the antechambers into the old section of the palace that was now rarely used. At last the Chancellor had come to my room to summon me. Except that this was not the way to the royal apartments.

  “Where are we going?”

  He did not reply, striding so rapidly, robes billowing, that I could barely keep up. His expression was stormy, his features tight with displeasure.

  “Is it Edward?” I asked. “Has he asked for me?”

  “No.”

  Hope died. “Then where…?”

  “Just shut up and wait, woman.…”

  He marched on in a surly mood, with me beside him. In truth I was intrigued. This part of the palace was empty and silent, the walls stripped of their tapestries, the floors unswept. I noticed with interest that others had walked this way before us, and recently, their boot prints and scuff marks plain in the dust. The prints stopped at a door that Wykeham pushed open, and I was directed with a brusque nod into a chamber I did not know, my wolfhound shut out to whine and scratch in the antechamber. Much like many others, it was a small room built into the curve of a wall, bright with bars of sunshine angling through the narrow window slits. A fireplace was built into the wall, but there was no fire, and the room was as cold as an unused room could be. A standing table occupied most of the space, with stools set around it, but they were unoccupied. The men in occupation stood in a little group by one of the windows. The room seemed crowded with a heavy presence. It looked, I thought, like a war council.

  I glanced across to Wykeham for an explanation, and did not get it.

  “Mistress Perrers. Allow me to introduce you.”

  His tone was clipped, hard with distaste—but with me or the body of men, or with the whole situation, I could not tell. Nor did I need the introductions. Had I not lived cheek by jowl with them in the various palaces since the day I had come into Philippa’s employ?

  I curtsied, my mind working furiously as Wykeham made the introductions. First was William Latimer, Edward’s steward. Then John Neville, lord of Raby. A surprise: Richard Lyons—not a courtier, but a man of finance, a merchant and master of the royal mint. The others: Nicholas Carew, Richard le Scrope, Robert Thorp. All, I realized in that first greeting, united by one common factor: ambition. Their eyes were avid with it, young men who hoped to further their careers in service to the Crown. I did not know whether they were men of talent, but I thought that perhaps they were. As Wykeham closed the door behind me, I saw them more as a feral pack of wolves, ready to pounce on any opportunity to step up the ladder to high office and destroy any fool who dared to stand in their way. But how did I fit into their schemes…?

  And then there was one more. A royal son, no less. John of Gaunt.

  They bowed.

  “Please sit,” Wykeham invited.

  I did. So did the conspirators—for surely that was what they were—except for Gaunt, who stood against the wall, arms folded.

  “Why am I here?” I asked. I saw no point in adopting innocence or good manners. This meeting was not for public consumption, and I doubted that most of these fine gentlemen, except for Wykeham and perhaps Latimer, would give me the time of day in normal circumstances.

  They exchanged glances.
Who, I wondered, would be the spokesman?

  It was Latimer. “Can we trust you?”

  Well, that was forthright enough. I replied in kind. “Unless you are plotting rebellion, or the King’s death, then I expect you can.” There they all sat, faces shuttered. Wary. “Perhaps you are? Is this a plot?”

  “Not quite.” The twist of Latimer’s lips in acknowledgment was bleak. “The King has…” He hitched a shoulder under the rich damask bearing Edward’s heraldic device as he searched for a word. “…withdrawn.”

  “Withdrawn? A milksop judgment, by God!” I responded. “He has incarcerated himself in his rooms and refuses to come out!”

  Latimer cleared his throat. “We must bring him back.”

  I looked ’round at the gloomy expressions. “And you cannot?”

  I knew they couldn’t. I caught the eye of Gaunt, who had paid a visit to his father less than a week ago, leaving again within an hour with a furious face and spurs used viciously against his horse’s flanks. Now I thought he might reply, but the royal Prince deliberately turned his head to look out of the window, leaving it to Latimer to commit them to whatever devious policy had brought them—and me—here.

  “The King sinks further into melancholy. His physicians despair,” Latimer said, and looked at Wykeham, who nodded. “We want you to speak to him.”

  “He will not see me. I have tried.” They must know of my failure.

  “We can arrange that you do.”

  “And what do you want me to say to him?” I played the innocent, enjoying Latimer’s discomfort.

  “We want you to…to give him solace…to encourage him to…”

  “Say it, Latimer!” Wykeham growled.

  Latimer huffed out a breath. “We want you to give him physical comfort.”

  “In effect, you want me to play the whore.”

  “Yes.” Suddenly Gaunt was there, stepping up to the table, dominating it. He was a vitally handsome man, with his father’s height and fine features, but none of his ease of manner, a man notorious for enjoying the value of women in his own life. He waved Latimer aside and spoke bluntly. “The King is not incapable. He still has the ability to fuck a woman and reap the pleasure of it. It might bring him back to his senses.”