by Anne O'Brien
I was shocked to hear the proposal stated so coarsely, and I was not inclined to be compliant when every one of them would have condemned me for daring to take that role.
“Then if that’s what’s needed, pay a palace whore,” I replied with a tight smile.
“Unsatisfactory.” Gaunt brushed the idea away like an annoying fly, with an openhanded swipe. “I hope for a more subtle solution.”
“And you think I can be subtle.”
“I think you have a whole range of talents, discretion being one of them. And you were well liked by the Queen. You could be the answer to our prayers.”
I laughed, surprising them. What a turnabout from these men who viewed me as some form of pond life, dwelling in the filth of unspeakable sin. I had taken Philippa’s place in Edward’s bed; did they now want me to play the role of the loving, maternal Philippa too?
“He needs a confidante as much as he needs a whore.” Gaunt confirmed it.
“A concubine, then.”
He bowed. “Exactly.”
“A wife but not a wife.”
“In so many words…”
“Openly acknowledged by the Court?”
“If we must.”
I looked ’round at them. Not one of them approved. Not one of them wanted this.
“Why me, my lords?” I would make them admit it. I would make them say what had been unsaid through all the years since I had lifted my shift in Edward’s bed.
“Because he has enjoyed your body often enough in the past,” Gaunt snapped.
Of course they knew. All the Court had known, even if it was not spoken of except in murmurings over wine cups or in whispers between lovers, in their efforts to protect Philippa. Even when she was the instigator of the scandal. The sheer hypocrisy of it beat against the walls that hemmed us in, stirring into rampant life my determination to be cowed by no one.
“So I return to Edward as his lover,” I remarked conversationally. “What then?”
“Make him return to government. Make him pick up the reins of authority again. We can’t continue as we are now with the King shut away and the Prince taken to his bed in Gascony.” Gaunt’s fist thumped the board.
“I don’t know that I can.” Gaunt would get no bloodless victory over me.
Wykeham sighed. “You can. You’re a clever woman, Alice.”
I tilted my head and looked at him, noting his use of my name.
“And you’re our last hope.” Latimer flushed at what he had admitted.
I stood as if I might refuse. As if I might leave. How exhilarating was power, knowing that I held them all in the palm of my hand. I took a step.…
“Needs must when the devil’s in control!” Gaunt snapped. “Enough! Here’s the truth of it, Mistress Perrers. We are in mortal danger. The days of England’s greatness appear to be draining away, and I smell rebellion in the air. We need my father at the helm. He’s not young, but he’s still capable of wearing the crown and ruling, if only we can…” He lifted his hands in near despair. “If only we can catch his interest and bring him back to life.”
We. We were in collusion. We were a circle of plotters, taut with expectation, all driven, all concerned for the future, our own and England’s, but their repugnace for this negotiation with me smeared the air like the miasma of pestilence. A quick anger shook me, and I turned my stare on Gaunt. By God! I would make them beg.
He turned away to drive his fist into the stone lintel at the window. It was Wykeham, generous Wykeham, who spoke the words.
“Will you do it?” he asked. “Will you rescue our King?”
Again, a beat of hesitation, as I luxuriated in making these men of power and breeding wait on my decision.
Then: “Yes. I will.” And I saw the relief sweep through them, muscles relaxing, smiles appearing. The business was done—or so they thought. But it was not—not to any degree. “And what, my lords, did it take for you to trample over your damned morality and ask me, the King’s whore, for help?”
To do him justice, it was Gaunt who replied. “It will be worth the price if we can restore the King to his powers.” Walking ’round the table, he took and kissed my hand. “We are grateful.”
“How can I refuse so gracious an admission,” I murmured.
There was a concerted sigh. And in that exhalation I realized the truth of what had been done here. The power of these courtiers—excepting Gaunt—their future preferment, their wealth and place in government might rest on the King’s pleasure, but now their ambitions were dependent on me. We all had everything to lose if the King were allowed to fade into obscurity. We were indeed in collusion. But I would not let them off the hook quite yet.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked, distressingly frank.
“What do you want, lady?” Latimer asked, amusing me with the form of address. Much had changed in the last hour. I took a little time, pretending the ideas were new to me.
“Nothing much, my lords.” I smiled at their palpable relief. “A servant. A bedchamber and a parlor with an outlook over the gardens. Clothing and jewels befitting my new position. An income, so that I am not penniless. Am I not worthy of all of that?” And then—what I desired most of all to expunge my memories of past humiliations. “I want recognition, my lords. I want acknowledgment that I am the King’s Concubine. I refuse to live any longer under the shadow of embittered silence and rancorous rumor. There is no one to hurt now by stripping the covers from my relationship with the King.”
Their gratitude was risible; they thought that I had made an easy bargain. What fools they were, as were most men. Did they not know that I would have gone to Edward freely? My compliance did not need to be bought. But a woman must seize her opportunities, as Windsor would have said.
“Furthermore,” I added, “if I am to be involved in the running of the royal household, I need access to the royal Treasury for funds.…”
There was an exchange of glances, an uncomfortable lift of shoulders, but what choice had they? “It can be arranged.” And Gaunt led me to the door, his hand light on mine. I knew little of him other than that Edward had a high regard for him, knew nothing of his ambitions. He was not the heir to the throne. What did he hope for from this agreement? He did not have the look of a man satisfied with life. A premonition touched my nape with chill fingers: that one day I would find out.
At the open door, I smiled and curtsied again.
“I will do it, my lords. I will be Edward’s concubine, openly in the full knowledge of the Court. I will, if it is in my power, restore your King to life.”
So much settled in a dusty room in the old palace. But was it? Now I must turn my mind and all my persuasive powers to the one obstacle to the success of our venture. It was in my mind that it might not be an easy task.
“Will he respond to me?” I asked Braveheart, retrieving her from her unhappy vigil outside the plotters’ door.
She sneezed as she stood and stretched. She foresaw the future as unclearly as I.
Not wishing to let grass grow under my feet, for I could not afford to be squeamish about such matters, I wrote immediately to Greseley.
I anticipate having considerable funds at my disposal, sir. Buy or lease whatever you can for my future comfort.
Greseley acted with exemplary speed. Within the month I was the leaseholder of the Orby lands, with the control of the wardship and marriage of the young heir. Ten manors all told. I was becoming a woman of means.
I had been Edward’s lover for six years, but in all that time I had never been the one to take the initiative. Edward had always sent for me. Yes, I had challenged him on the day of the hunt, but never again. I knew how difficult a proud man could be, how his pride must be allowed to dominate. Edward demanded and I obeyed. A Plantagenet never asked for favors. I had never removed my garments without his invitation or without his participation. I was his minion, and I would not have had it any other way. A strong woman needs a willful man to match her. If not, respect flie
s out of the window or is crushed underfoot.
Now I stood outside Edward’s apartments, my limbs trembling, and not with the cold air that shivered the tapestries. My belly lurched at what I must do. Tactics, I decided. It must be like planning a battle campaign, knowing when to attack and when to retreat. What, I wondered, would William de Windsor advise this time?
Attack the weakest element in the fortifications and give no quarter until the battle is won. In fact, never give quarter, or the opponent gains ground.
That was no help to me. I must simply use my instincts as a woman and pray that Edward would respond. Holy Virgin, let him not turn me away! I stepped over the threshold, closing the door softly behind me.
First an antechamber, empty and uncannily still. Then an audience chamber in a similar state of abandonment. Finally the Halidon Hill Chamber, a private room, where a man could take his ease with books and music. I knew the room well, with its magnificent tapestry of Edward’s first great military victory, when, still a young man, he had demonstrated to the Scots who was master. On a low stool was a chess game, set up but unplayed. A fire burned low, gleaming on the polished wood of a coffer and a settle and a cupboard. A great chair was set beside the hearth, next to it a coffer set with a flagon and cup, a neglected dish of sweet pasties. Someone had left a candle bracket that was in danger of burning out.
And there was Edward. Every inch the King, bejeweled and clothed in costly fabrics, the mighty Plantagenet, Edward, the third of that name, who had made England a great power for all of forty years, stood as if carved from stone. He did not even turn his head.
I waited, neither speaking nor moving.
“Leave the food and go.” Edward’s voice was rough.
He stared out over the gardens and enclosing walls to the distant meadows and encroaching forest. Or perhaps he stared at nothing at all. He stood straight, legs braced, shoulders firm, head raised. There was nothing amiss with his health, I decided. My heart lifted a little. But the room, apart from the neglected chess game, was curiously impersonal. No books. No documents on the table. No habitual hawk on its roosting pole. Only the magnificent battle scene on the walls, its colors stark, even brutal in their vibrancy as the golden sun glinted on blade and armor sewn in silver thread. It seemed to me that the stitched battlefield dwarfed the King with its splendor. He could not have chosen more apt surroundings in which to sink into oblivion.
Edward did not turn to see whether his order had been obeyed. I did not think he cared.
I would have to make the first move after all.
“A cup of wine, Sire?”
My request dropped into the heavy silence. His body tensed. Slowly, very slowly, he turned, one hand resting on the stone ledge against which I now saw that he leaned. Perhaps he was more fragile than I had first thought.
Then, as the light fell fully on him, I saw what had previously been hidden.
Oh, Edward! What have you done to yourself? And as it hit home: Did you love her so very much?
What weight could my scribbled notes possibly have against this evidence of abject loss? Edward’s face had thinned, the lines between nose and mouth deeply gouged, cheeks hollowed. His throat and neck showed a deterioration of flesh that he could not afford. Worse—far worse—was the dimness of his eye, the blue faded almost to gray, and the pale transparency of his skin. His mouth had not smiled, I thought, for weeks. The hand on the window frame was almost translucent. It looked incapable of wielding a sword.
First compassion. It flooded through me, almost to reduce me to tears. Then came fury as bright as the King’s gold-crowned helm in the tapestry.
What was he doing to himself? How could the victor at Crécy wallow in miserable self-pity! Almost I spoke the words aloud, but then forced my anger to drain away. Ungoverned emotion would achieve nothing. The air around me was stuffed full of it, like goose feathers in a cushion. Smothering. All-enveloping. Edward had allowed it to gain the upper hand. But I knew: Emotion would not serve to accomplish my quest, but female cunning might. It might just save this man from himself and restore him to his uneasy realm. Perhaps in the end Fair Joan’s conclusions on a woman’s need for guile and duplicity were not incomprehensible.
So be it. I trod into his direct line of sight. “My lord.”
“Alice.” His eyes were unfocused; his voice, without its impressive power, grated from disuse.
I walked slowly forward, halting within an arm’s length, interested in Edward’s reaction. He seemed uncertain. And so he would be. I had dressed most conservatively, quiet and discreet as a nun. As a wife! I had laughed as I had donned the somber dark-hued gown and cotehardie more fitting to a housewife than a royal mistress. And so I played out my allotted role: I neither curtsied nor lowered my eyes in dutiful respect. I certainly did not kiss him in greeting, as I might have in the past.
“Yes, Sire,” I stated in a cool manner, hands folded demurely at my waist. “As you see. It is Alice.”
He frowned. “Who let you in?”
“Wykeham.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
This was not good!
“As I am aware. You don’t have to. I’ll talk to you.”
There was quick surprise in his eyes. Perhaps irritation. “I didn’t send for you.”
“No. I gave up waiting.”
Edward’s initial response was now overlaid by disquiet. Not quite disapproval, but not far off. Good! That was what I wanted. Would he order me to go?
“I would rather you weren’t here. I would be alone.” Not quite an order to leave, although I doubted he would see the difference.…
My reply was as flat as Wykeham’s new paving in the great Court at Kings Langley. “Time for reflection is good, my lord. And I have reflected much.” I put a hint of bite into the words. “Over the two months I have reflected—since you last spoke with me.”
“Two months?”
“It is more than two months since you buried Philippa and shut yourself up here.”
The vertical line dug between his brows. “I had not realized.…”
“Then you should. It’s far too long for a king to shut himself away from his subjects.”
I waited to see whether the Plantagenet temper would surface, and was disappointed when it didn’t. My success was not a certain thing, even though I had thought long over this, as I unpacked my clothes in the new rooms that had been immediately set aside for me—Latimer was nothing if not an efficient steward. If Edward rejected me now, how should I force him to take note of me? Sexual allure? Not that. He was too solitary, too worn down with grief. Later, perhaps, but seduction was not yet the path forward. Stern admonitions—not that either. Plantagenets did not react well to stern admonitions from their subjects, even their lovers. Compassion? No—he would see that as pity.
I was here to draw Edward back from the brink of whatever hell he had made for himself, with cold logic. Had I a view to my place at Court? My own financial security? Of course I had. But my future and Edward’s healing need not be entirely separate. I had no guilt as I poured the two cups of spiced wine—no longer warm but still palatable—and held one out. He took it automatically.
“I’m leaving Havering tomorrow. Drink with me to my safe journey.” I did not smile. I was brisk.
“Leaving…?”
“There’s nothing to keep me here now.”
“Where…?”
“Ardington. I have a mind to see if it suits me to live there permanently.”
Edward did not reply. So I would stir the pot a little more. I sat, even when he did not—such a breach of royal etiquette!—sipped the wine, inspected one of the cherry tarts on the plate, and bit into it. “This is delicious. Come, Edward.” I made deliberate use of his name. “I can’t eat all these myself.”
He sat, but not close, regarding me as if I had transformed into a hunting cat that had just unsheathed it claws. “Why are you going?”
“I am no longer a royal damsel. I am
not needed.”
I let the silence play out, finishing the tart, licking my fingers, but in a businesslike manner. And then: “Have you thought about me at all through the past weeks, Edward?”
He shook his head.
“What have you been doing?”
“I have been thinking.…” His voice trailed off.
“I expect you’ve been thinking of all you’ve achieved,” I observed. “All that you’ve done since the day you cast off your mother’s authority and seized the ruling of England in your own hands. I imagine that took a lot of courage for a young man who’d barely reached maturity.”
“I have thought of that.…”
“Philippa helped you, didn’t she?”
For the first time, Edward smiled, a strained affair. “She was my strength.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t think I could have done it without her. My mother was a ruthless woman, and I was of an age to need a regent.…”
It was as if a wall had been breached, allowing the pent-up waters to escape. First a trickle, but fast becoming a flood. The old tale of the beautiful but vicious Queen Isabella, who would have ruled England with her notorious lover, Roger Mortimer, at her side, keeping the young Edward as close as a prisoner. Until Edward arranged a coup to bring Mortimer down, to strip his mother of her regency. He was all of eighteen years old, but the memories of that night in Nottingham when he took back his power were as vivid as if they had happened yesterday.
I nodded. “And Philippa helped you to stand firm, claim your birthright.”
Edward’s face was alight with it. “She was magnificent.”
“She must have been very proud of you.”
The light vanished. The rush of words dried up in a summer drought. Edward frowned, staring down into the cup, and I saw his jaw clench at some unpalatable truth. I knew what it was. I would say it.
