The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers

by Anne O'Brien

  I had not needed to ask. I had seen it for myself. His loss of weight was pitiful. Eyes feverish, skin gray, hair dull and lank. The basin positioned beside his daybed was ominous in itself. Joan’s features closed, tight with distress. Unable to hide her fears, she shook her head. I knew she would not lie, would not pretend. For once, her guard was down, with even the moisture of tears in her eyes. This was my one possibility, for Edward’s sake, of draining the poison from her hatred of me.

  Grief strong in the set of her mouth, the hard lines deep from nose to chin in her soft flesh, Joan forgot she spoke to me. One tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. “I don’t know what to do for him!” It was a cry from the heart.

  “I can help.”

  “You! What can you do?” Furiously, she dashed away the tears.

  I could have retreated. I would have, if I had known where this would lead, yet faced with such grief, knowing the terror of helplessness for myself when Edward looked at me as if I did not exist, I could not. In my arms I had a little coffer, a delight of sandalwood with ivory corners and metal hinges, and an intricate little lock and key. It was a costly gift in its own right, but its contents were of far greater value to the Prince. I had brought the only offering I could think of that might be acceptable. For sure the Princess would take nothing else from me. I placed it on the chest that held a tangle of her embroidery silks.

  “What is that?”

  “A gift.”

  “I have coffers enough, and of greater value than that.” She barely looked at it, setting a number of stitches, stabbing clumsily at the panel for a purse or an altar cloth.

  I thought it unlikely, given its value—for it was a gift to me from Edward—but I let it go.

  “It is the contents that are valuable,” I explained gently. The nuns would have been proud of my humility. “A number of nostrums and potions. They will give the Prince ease.…”

  “And do these nostrums and potions work?” She stopped stitching.

  “They soothed the King in his grief after Philippa died. They helped Philippa too.”

  Joan cast aside her sewing. I saw her fingers twitch over the domed lid. Surely such a gift was impossible to resist. She lifted it to reveal the carefully folded packets of herbs, the glass vials of intense color.

  “They are distilled from common plants,” I explained. “I learned the skills at the Abbey. Here are the leaves of lady’s-smock to restore a lost appetite and soothe digestion. A tincture of primrose to aid rest and a quiet mind. White willow bark when the pain is too great to bear. I have written the amounts.” I indicated the sheet of parchment tucked under the lid. “Either you or the Prince’s body servants can mix them with wine as indicated. I’m sure the Prince would enjoy the effects.”

  Joan looked at the coffer, the neat arrangement of packets and bottles. Her teeth bit hard into her lower lip.

  “I can speak well for their effectiveness,” I encouraged as she made no move. “There is also the pulp of dog rose hips—to stanch bleeding and the loss of bodily fluids.”

  We had all heard of the Prince’s appalling symptoms, the constant flow of blood and semen that could not be halted.

  Joan moved. It was as if I had thrust a bunch of stinging nettles into her unprotected hand. With a jerk of her arm she swept the box from coffer to floor. It fell with a crack, damaging the hinges, so that glass from the vials shattered and the liquid ran. A dusting of herbs covered the whole, swirling into patterns. Richard squeaked in horror, then was quick to investigate, poking his fingers into the debris until Joan took a handful of his tunic to pull him away to stand beside her.

  “Don’t touch that spawn of the devil!”

  “Indeed it is not…” I remonstrated.

  “Satan’s brew! And you are his servant!”

  Her words were a shock, running cold through my blood as we looked at the mess between us, Joan still seated, I rigid with what she had implied. Until Joan raised her eyes to mine, holding them as she clicked her fingers for one of her women to approach from the far end of the room.

  “Get rid of this. Burn it. And the box. I don’t want to find any trace of this on my floor.” And when the woman gawped at the detritus: “Do it now!” she hissed, like the kiss of a steel blade against its adversary.

  As the woman busied herself, the Princess stood, gripped my wrist, and leaned close, her mouth against my ear. “Did you think I would be such a fool?”

  I was still stunned by her outrageous response to a gift that could have brought nothing but good. “I thought you might accept what I could do to give your husband ease,” I remarked, watching the play of fury—and was that fear?—across her face.

  “Ease! Distilled from common plants!” she spat. Her voice fell to a whisper that hissed in the corners of the room. “I hear you employ witchcraft to achieve your ends, Mistress Perrers. I think you have maleficium in mind. Not compassion!” Spittle sprang to her lips on the word.

  But there was only one word that I heard out of the whole rant.

  “Witchcraft!” I repeated, my voice equally low. It was not a word to shout to the rooftops. I had heard much said of me, but not that. A little breath of fear beat in my mind, but I managed a sneer coated in laughter. “And what do they say? Whoever they are. That I eat the flesh of children? That I keep a familiar and feed it from the blood of my own body?”

  “They say you call up the devil’s powers. That you have skills and knowledge that no God-fearing woman should have.” I watched as Joan’s fingers on her left hand circled into the sign against the evil eye. “How in God’s name could you explain Edward’s fascination with so ugly and ill-bred a woman as Alice Perrers?” Her jaw snapped shut on my name.

  It was the slide of a knife between my ribs, but I ensured that my reply gave away nothing of her wounding, or of the fear that spread to fill the spaces around my heart. The cold along the length of my spine deepened, as intense as ice in January.

  “It is inexplicable, I grant you,” I remarked. Refusing to defend my birth or my looks, I dragged my wrist free of her grasp. “But my lord’s love for me is no product of witchcraft. Nor was this gift.” I slid my shoe over the sifting of dried heartsease flowers that still marked the floor. “But if my husband suffered as yours does, my lady, I would use the powers of the devil himself to give his body relief. I would leave no stone unturned between here and the depths of hell, if it would allow my husband a restful night and an end to pain.”

  “Get out.”

  “My lady.” I curtsied.

  “Get out. Or I will lay evidence before the authorities that you plied me with witches’ condiments.”

  “Your evidence is worthless.” For Edward’s sake, I would not allow my temper to rule.

  “Get out of my sight.”

  I did. I did not try again. Joan was too eaten up with hatred. I told Edward nothing of my interview. He did not deserve to know.

  Witchcraft. Maleficium.

  The vicious accusation continued to buzz in my brain, like a persistent bee in the depths of a foxglove flower. There was no evidence that Joan could use against me; of that I was certain, since there had never been any bewitchment, but it was too dangerous an accusation to be taken lightly.

  Evidence could be fabricated, could it not?

  Chapter Twelve

  I had caught Windsor off guard in the audience chamber. Holy Virgin! If I had jolted him out of his habitual sangfroid, he all but stunned me. He swept the rushes from beneath my feet.

  It did not start off well. We had moved on in our royal perambulations from Woodstock to Sheen, where a weighty delegation had arrived from France to begin negotiations for a permanent truce. I intervened. On instructions from me, Latimer sent the delegation away. I watched them go, aware of their furious dissatisfaction. They made no attempt to hide it.

  “Dangerous, Mistress Perrers!”

  The voice was at my elbow.

  “And what does that mean?” I scowled indiscriminately at
the departing delegation of angry, highborn Frenchmen and at Windsor.

  “It won’t be popular.”

  “What won’t?”

  “Dictating who will and who will not see the King.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?”

  How could I not know? This was not the first time Latimer and I had intervened between king and petitioner. Did I need Windsor to tell me how much resentment there was? As for resentment…I glared at the man at my side. I resented his presence. I resented his opinion. In that moment I resented everything about William de Windsor.

  “You’re playing with fire,” he stated. Such an obvious statement.

  “I know that too.”

  “It will put a weapon into the hands of those who would be rid of you.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “So why do it?”

  He could think ill of me if he wished. There he stood, regarding me with an element of deep suspicion that did nothing to improve my mood. I did not need this, not at this precise moment. I’d had enough hard words from the Princess to last a lifetime. But if Windsor would condemn me without a hearing, then so be it!

  “I won’t talk to you now! I don’t have to answer for my actions to you!”

  And then suddenly, overwhelmingly, I wished he would wrap his arms around me and allow me to lean against him. What I would not give for a moment of ease, to realize that I was not alone. I would like him to stroke my arm as if I were a soft-furred cat, fold my fingers close within his, and tell me that all would be well.…

  Of course, all would not be well! Immediately I took a step back, away from him, shivering at my appalling show of weakness, determined that Windsor should never read the turmoil in my mind. I would not make excuses. I would not explain. I realized that he was staring at me intently, and so I hurried to follow Latimer and the angry delegation, to make my escape. I did not think I could keep my reactions under a firm hand for much longer. I swallowed when hot tears gathered in my throat.

  Windsor stopped me by the simple method of stepping in front of me. “Come with me,” he ordered curtly.

  “No!”

  Regardless, he took my wrist and pulled me out of the now-deserted audience chamber.

  “And let go of me. Do you want every riffraff in the palace to be talking of us?” He released me, but I followed, knowing that if I did not comply, he would repeat the performance. “Where are we going?”

  Since I got no reply, I marched sullenly at his side, still disturbed by the recent confrontation, the disbelieving stare of the French when Latimer offered to begin the negotiations himself. Even more unsettled by Windsor’s judgment of my motives. When I found myself hustled into a corridor leading to an outer door, I balked. Halted.

  “No!”

  “Why is a woman always difficult when a man has her best interests at heart?” he asked, returning to intimidate me with his height and breadth in the narrow passage.

  “You have only your own interests at heart. I’ve never met anyone as self-interested as you,” I fired back, all my thoughts awry. “In fact…”

  “By God, woman…!” He pinned me against the wall, regardless of who might be traversing the corridor—fortunately no one—and he kissed me. It was not a kiss of mild affection. I wasn’t sure what it was. When he lifted his head, I had no breath left to speak.

  “Silence! At last!”

  “Are you out of your mind…? Will you release…!” Lord, how that kiss had stirred my blood. My heart bounded against my ribs like a ferret in a hunter’s cage.

  He kissed me again. All heat and power, appallingly seductive, and my will to resist was stripped away. When he released my mouth I simply stood, my senses compromised.

  “Excellent! Now be a biddable girl for once in your life.…”

  He had kissed me, as far as I could tell, with thorough enjoyment, but his face was stern, his thoughts preoccupied. And because I wanted to, I walked beside him, conscious of his nearness, the brush of his tunic against my arm at a turn in the stair. And then we were out in the open, climbing to the wall walk, under clouds that were low and brooding, much like my humor. There we came to stand, looking east, and I waited, limbs still shaking, wondering whether he would kiss me again. I hoped that he might, despised him for trapping me in this unexpected passion; I despised myself. I had no intention of cuckolding Edward, in private or under public gaze. The palace guards were far too obvious, far too watchful, and I retained some sense of honor even as my heart galloped like a panicked horse.

  “Tell me what’s troubling you,” he invited when the silence between us grew heavy.

  “Nothing. Since you think the worst of me…”

  “It’s the King, I presume.”

  “How should it be…?”

  “Alice…! You can’t deny it any longer. He’s beyond sense. At this moment you need a friend, and I’m the nearest you’ll get. So tell me the truth.”

  My determination to keep silent, to protect Edward at all costs, drained away. Yes, I needed a friend to help me shoulder the increasingly difficult burden. Wykeham was in Winchester. I would not put myself in Gaunt’s hands. So that left Windsor.…But was he that friend? There he stood, dark and saturnine, the epitome of louche self-serving. And yet there was in his face, completely unexpected, a kindness.…Why not…?

  “Yes. It’s Edward.”

  “You’re guarding him.”

  “Yes. What would you have me do? Put him on show in London for his subjects to gawp at?” Still I was defensive.

  “At least then you could not be accused of manipulating an old man for your own ends. Keeping it secret is dangerous, Alice.”

  “I won’t do it! You are not helpful!”

  “I’m trying to be realistic!”

  Still I resisted, but in the end I told him everything. How Edward’s bright spirit was once more in eclipse, his actions unpredictable. Who could persuade him that it was not good policy to order every bridge in Oxfordshire to be repaired or rebuilt, simply because he wished to go hawking from Woodstock? I could not. The King was incapable of committing England to any future policy. How long could Latimer and I, and the rest of the loyal ministers, pretend that Edward was fit to be King? Edward barely knew the day of the week. His physicians could do nothing to alleviate his loss of awareness.

  “And so that’s why I try to protect him as much as I can,” I finished. “Next week—tomorrow, even—his senses may return.”

  “How admirable you are.”

  “No. I’m not. But I care too much to allow him to come under attack from those who might question his right to rule.”

  “Some would say that you do it for your own ends. To bolster the King’s power is to preserve that of Alice Perrers.”

  “Which is entirely true, of course.” Sharp irony coated the air between us. “How could anyone think I had any concern for the King’s well-being?” I turned away, furious that once again he voiced familiar calumny against me.

  “I didn’t say I believed it,” he retorted. “I think I need to distract you a little.”

  “By kissing me?” Suddenly I was afraid of my weakness with this man, afraid of the burn of tears beneath my eyelids. I was far too emotional. “I hope you won’t.”

  “No. Or not yet, at any rate. Later I might.…”

  The preoccupation was back. Windsor had other thoughts on his mind. Womanlike, I resented his preoccupation and strolled away, angry with my twisted emotions, despairing at how easily I was maneuvered into opening my heart to this man, leaving him to lean on the stone coping and sweep an arm over the battlements to take in the view.

  “I have a handful of estates in Essex,” he remarked.

  Neutral territory. I strolled back. “I know.”

  “I plan to have more.”

  “I know that too. Have you brought me all the way up here to tell me something of so little news?” My mood was horribly unpredictable.

  “No. I want to ask you
something. And from the scene I just witnessed, it’s becoming imperative.”

  He leaned on the parapet, chin resting on his folded arms, and glowered at the scene below, where one of the palace cats took its morning slink amongst the rabbit holes on the riverbank. I waited in silence. Then he turned his head to look at me.

  “Alice…”

  “William…!”

  He eyed me speculatively.

  “Alice, will you marry me?”

  Marry…?

  My mind scrabbled for understanding, for any sensible response, and found none. After all the emotion of the morning, I could not deal with this. I was forced to drag air into my lungs.

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “Now, there’s an intelligent reply. I often propose marriage to a woman in the spirit of mockery. The country is littered with my proposals. Will you marry me?” he repeated.

  Did he mean this? I could read nothing in the hard lines of his face.

  “Marriage…! But why?”

  Immediately he straightened, then, shockingly, went down on one knee. For a moment of blazing memory, I recalled Edward in his strength and power wooing me after my outburst. But there was no similarity here at all. Edward had wooed me from the heart; this was a charade, a travesty of honor and chivalry. Surely it was.

  “I love you,” Windsor announced. “Why else would a man ask a woman to wed him?”

  “You are a liar, Windsor.”

  “Ah…but how do you know?” Those bold eyes glinted in a sudden bright stroke of sunlight through the heavy cloud.

  “I don’t. Sense tells me.…Stand up! The sentries will see us and the whole world will know within the hour that you are making mischief!” When he rose to his full height, the light spread over his harsh features, gilding him in an enticing softness that I instantly rejected. Pouncing, he clasped my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers.

  “It’s not such a bad idea, you know. Wife and concubine—not an easy role to pursue at one and the same time, but I swear you have the talent for it. Will you?”

  “No.” I had no breath, no wit to say more. What an appalling morning this had been. Was he ridiculing me? If so, there was an edge of cruelty to it that I would never have expected.