The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers

by Anne O'Brien

  I stared at him. “Why did you have to tell me now?”

  “When should I tell you?”

  Windsor was humoring me, distracting me. I pushed his hands away so that I stood alone. “Tomorrow. Last week. Anytime but when my face is blotched with tears and my home stripped bare and my mind full of Joan’s perfidy.”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “No, I didn’t! How could I? You have never said it before.” How could he be so obtuse? There he stood, solid and real and difficult! And infinitely loved. “I want to enjoy it, not have it outweighed by the fact that I might be staring financial ruin—even death, if they prove treason against me—in the face! And I think you should know”—I did not even hesitate—“I love you too.”

  Windsor grinned. “There you are, then!”

  I plastered my hands over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

  “I don’t see why not.” He had captured my hands again, humor still lurking in the curve of his mouth. “We’ll celebrate our mutual love and worry about venomous Joan together.”

  His mouth was hot and sure on mine.

  “Oh, Will…”

  “What is it? I’ve just proclaimed my undying love for you. And you don’t look very happy about it!”

  I sighed. “I’ll come about.”

  “Let me help.” And he kissed me again.

  My thoughts were all adrift as I sank into that embrace. But not for long. This was no time for amorous sighs and pleasurable longings. I was not yet free to enjoy them, as Windsor well knew. Framing my face in his hands so I must attend, concentrate, Windsor began to speak in a low, controlled voice that belied the emotion that pulsed beneath his skin. “Now listen to me. You need to be strong, Alice. Listen!” With his hand beneath my chin he made me look at him. “You will stand before the Lords and answer every question they put to you. There is no evidence of fraud against you. As for treason—they’ll not make that stick.”

  “You are so confident.” I frowned, not at all persuaded.

  “No, I’m not. I am too realistic. But you need to show a confident face or they’ll tear you apart.”

  “Why would they do it? Now, when my days at Court are over?”

  “You know why. They’ll destroy you for the days when you held power and they did not.”

  “Can we stop them?”

  “I don’t know. How can we know until we know their evidence? But we’ll have a damned good try.”

  I took a deep breath, conscious at last of some of the despair sliding away, and I asked what I wanted most in the world. “When I have to go, will you come with me?”

  “The devil himself wouldn’t keep me away! Don’t weep anymore.…Tears have no currency in the game we’re playing!” His gaze was fierce, his hands steady as he took the linen and finished mopping my tears with a thoroughness he might use to dry his horse after a rainstorm. “Are you not my wife? Do I not love you? Be brave, Alice. You have been so all your life. We will go together to Westminster and confront the bloody scavengers in their den. As for now…I think we are owed some time of our own. In God’s name, we haven’t claimed much over the years.”

  “To do what?” My thoughts were still wayward, seeing the malevolent, sneering faces of Edward’s Court ranged against me.

  With a huff of impatient breath, Windsor clasped my shoulders and shook me. “Stop thinking! Come to bed—and I’ll show your doubting mind that I truly do love you and that it’s not a figment of your imagination.…On the other hand, we don’t have a bed, do we?”

  “No!” I felt ridiculous tears begin to well again, but managed a croak of a laugh.

  “I swear it won’t be a problem!”

  In my bedchamber—our bedchamber—Windsor spread his cloak on the floor in a patch of sunshine, folding his tunic for my head. And in broad daylight he gave me a glimpse of what I had never known—a distilled essence of the magic of unencumbered love, freely given, freely received. I felt the chains of duty and expectation slip away, replaced with soft bonds of delight and passion and hot desire.

  “Convinced?” he asked between kisses.

  “Oh, Will…”

  I could not string two words together, wrapped as I was in the moment. It was impossible not to admire his soldier’s body, firm and well muscled, as he stripped off hose and boots. The sunshine softened the hard planes, highlighting the power of thigh and shoulder.

  “Poitiers?” I murmured, pressing my lips to an old scar that ran along his ribs, angling from sternum to waist.

  “Yes.” He stretched, lifting me with him, inquiring, “Do you intend to kiss all my scars?”

  “That would take far too long.” He loosed my shift and I stood naked, exposed. “I am in lust and desire, Will. My knees are weak with longing.…”

  “And with love?” His own lust and desire were as evident as the liquid heat between my thighs.

  “Yes, and love.”

  The floor was hard, with no goose down, no linen, no lavender-scented coverings. It mattered not one tiny feather from the pillows we did not have. I let him take me as he wished. Or perhaps I did not exactly allow it at all. He was not a man to ask permission, and I would have it no other way. My mind was wiped free of everything but the two of us there together in a house that echoed with emptiness, the sun gilding breast and thigh. Two private people entirely absorbed in each other, attracting no interest from the outside world.

  “Why do we love each other, Will?” I asked.

  “I’ve no idea. Don’t worry about it. Some things are granted simply to be enjoyed.…”

  His enjoyment of me was balm to my soul, his weight solid, his possession thorough. I held on to him when every muscle and nerve shivered in response to his attentions, as I had never needed to hold on to any man before. My heart was full of joy, so much that I might weep again. But I did not. It was a time for rejoicing, and Windsor’s clever hands pushed back the shadows.

  But not forever.

  When he slept, hair mussed, face buried in his tunic folds, I lay awake. A trial? Unknown evidence? I held Windsor’s love for me close, a talisman to ward off the fear.

  “Did they get Philippa’s jewels, then?” Windsor asked when it became necessary for us to dress.

  I fear my expression bordered on the smug. “What do you think?”

  “God’s Blood!” His laughter echoed strangely in the unfurnished room. “Tell me, then.”

  “It pays to be prepared and vigilant. But they will require a little polishing.”

  With some forward planning against the day when this might happen—had I not always been chary of just such an eventuality?—my steward had hidden them, together with Edward’s rings, in a sack half-full of weevil-ridden flour. Webster, thank God, had considered the confiscation of the detritus of my cellars beneath his dignity.

  Windsor was making headway with the laces of his tunic. “By the by—I have this for you.…I was distracted.” He delved into the inner lining. “I don’t think I’ve ever given you a gift before.”

  He took out a silver looking glass. It shone enticingly in the soft light, its engraved stems and leaves skillfully intertwining around the rim like the arms of lovers.

  I frowned. “No!” I said stonily, ungraciously.

  Windsor stared at the glass, and then at me with solemn astonishment, as if my female mental processes were beyond his understanding. “Alice, my love! I haven’t stolen it. I came by it by fair means—and show me a woman who does not use a glass.”

  “She sits before you.”

  “But why? Why will you not?”

  “I don’t like what I see.” This was the truth; I was not seeking compliments.

  “Which bits?”

  Was this the time for humor, when I still sat, disheveled, in my shift? “All of them…I’m not…Oh, Windsor!” Infuriated, for it was a pretty thing, I clasped my hands in my lap.

  “At what age does a woman begin not to care about her appearance?” Windsor had no intention of
allowing me to refuse. “I think she must be on her deathbed.”

  He fell to his knees beside me on his much-creased cloak, held the glass up, and with his free hand traced the line of one of my too-dark brows.

  “I see no ugliness,” he said softly, “for you are lovely in my eyes. I want you to see Alice. I want you to see the face of my wife and the woman I love.”

  His words took every refusal out of my mind. How could I not accept the gift without unforgivable churlishness? And my image was not as bad as I had feared. The face that looked back at me was no beauty, but the lack of symmetry was striking in itself. Even the brows were supportable. I tilted my chin and smiled, and my reflection did likewise; perhaps this unexpected happiness had given me a softening of feature. So I became an owner of a looking glass when I had vowed I would not, and was not displeased when Windsor kissed every bit of my reflected face.

  We moved to Gaines, where we at least had a bed—so far.

  I knew exactly the impression I wished to make for my appearance before the Lords. I had thought I would be edgy, apprehensive of the outcome, with mouth dry, heart pumping so that I must swallow against nausea. And I was, all of those, but more than that I was defiant! Since the visit of the deplorably efficient Webster, Joan—with the backing of the courts—had been encroaching step by poisonous step. My beloved manor near Wendover, Edward’s gift, had been taken from me, my people turned out, my furnishings impounded, without my even being there to give my yea or nay. As I was informed, my ownership of the estate was not legal. It had reverted to the Crown, and was now the property of King Richard. Not that he had much use from it. On his mother’s advice he granted it to his half brother, Thomas Holland, Joan’s son by one of her earlier, dubious, probably bigamous marriages.

  I’m sure it gave her inordinate pleasure.

  I seethed with impotence, for disconcertingly, worryingly, Gaunt too made much of my inability to fight back. My house on the banks of the Thames hopped easily from my hand to his. All my London property along the Ropery was added to the total of the royal Duke’s own wealth. Two of my choicest manors dropped neatly into the pocket of Gaunt’s son-in-law. I was truly dispensable in Gaunt’s eyes. He had no further use for me, and I learned a hard lesson: Never trust a man who puts power before loyalty.

  So, to attend my so-called trial, I dressed not with circumspection but in a blaze of rebellion.

  “There!” I smoothed my hands down my dress before fastening a loop of gold and opals around my wrist to match the collar lying snugly against my collarbone, addressing Jane, who sat on the floor of my bedchamber to watch the transformation from country wife to Court lady. Not all of my garments were stored at Pallenswick. “I’ll show them I don’t fear them!” I announced, and marched down to the parlor, where Windsor awaited me. For a long moment he remained slouched in a chair and looked me over.

  “By the Rood, Alice!” His voice was belligerent.

  “Is that good or bad?” I thought I looked very well for my summons to kneel before the overmighty Lords.

  Lips tight pressed, without a word, Windsor marched me back to my chamber, picked Jane up off the floor where she still sat, and deposited her in the middle of my bed with an absentminded ruffle of her curls.

  I clenched my hands into fists. “I don’t like your high-handedness!”

  “And I despair of your lack of perspicacity!” He faced me, his manner annoyingly imperious, his voice cracking like a whiplash. Nor did I appreciate his choice of words. “Are you stupid? You are on trial, Alice. For fraud and treason. How difficult do you want to make it for yourself? Do you really want to antagonize the misbegotten titled scum who’ll sit in judgment over you before the first word is uttered?”

  I felt my face flush with heat. “They are already antagonized. What does it matter what I wear?”

  “Oh, it matters! You look like a concubine!”

  “I was a concubine!”

  “I know. We all know. But there’s no need to slap them in their high-blooded faces with it. Look at yourself in all honesty.”

  He spread his arms to take in my appearance, and I forced myself to see through his eyes. Through the eyes of the Lords. It was, I suppose, on the edge of regally treasonable, as if I had usurped the power of the monarchy for myself. Not quite with the flamboyance of the garments I had worn as Lady of the Sun, but with enough éclat to take the eye, for I wore the same violet silk and gold cotehardie that had driven Isabella to wrath.

  “You’re fighting for your freedom here—perhaps even…”

  “My life?” I snapped back, the flush fading to an icy pallor.

  “Don’t be melodramatic.” He barely hesitated. “I can’t say I see you on a scaffold, but you can’t argue against it—there’ll be more than one of those ranged against you who’ll call for your death.”

  “Which seems to be a contradiction to me.”

  “And to me also, my combative wife.” He pushed his hand through his hair and groaned. “You need to be careful; don’t you understand? If they choose to resurrect the charge of witchcraft against you…” I saw the worry on him. “And you need to wear something less…challenging.”

  “If you say so.” I knew he was right. Of course he was. I sighed and began to strip off the splendidly offending garments. “It’s difficult when the mother of the King is sharpening her nails, isn’t it?” He did not reply. As I stood with my outer robe crushed in my hands, I admitted, “I am afraid. Oh, Will, I am afraid.” I needed his help and his fire in my belly.

  Windsor’s voice gentled at last. “I know.” He took the garment from me and laid it on the bed, smoothing its folds with care. “It is very dangerous. But we know well how to manage hostile forces, do we not?”

  “Oh, we do.” The underrobe, unlaced by Windsor’s nimble fingers, fell around my feet. I sighed again. “I’m sorry. I let my emotions run away with me.”

  “Of course you did. You’re a woman. And a very dear one to me. I won’t let them harm you, you know.”

  “I think you might not have a voice in the matter.”

  “How little faith you have in me.” He thrust a pair of plain leather shoes into my hands. “Don’t stand there thinking about it. If you’re late, they’ll sneer even more down their aristocratic noses. But remember: I will be with you. I’ll not let you suffer alone.”

  “Suffer! My thanks!”

  I dressed rapidly and circumspectly, going to my trial in sobriety and seemliness. No jewels! To wear even one of Philippa’s jewels would be like putting a flame to dry kindling laid ready for the fire.

  Thus I returned to London for the first time since Edward’s funeral. It seemed to me a much longer stretch of time than the actual weeks since I had fled from the door of the Abbey with Joan’s triumphant prediction resounding in my ears. Momentarily my spirits leaped at the familiar noise and bustle, the sight of wealthy merchants and their wives in as much finery as Edward’s sumptuary laws would allow. The glimpse of the Thames between warehouses, opaque like gray glass in the winter air, drew me. I was not a natural country dweller and never would be—then I recalled with a cold squeeze of a hand around my heart that I was not here for the pleasures that London could offer.

  I touched Windsor’s arm for reassurance, grateful when he covered my hand with his own. If affairs went badly for me, I might spend my days in a dungeon or banished from the realm. Or worse…Trying to reply to some bland comment made by Windsor as we wove a path between beggars and whores and the dregs of the London gutters that milled by the waterside, I swallowed against a knot of pure terror.

  Dismounting at the Palace of Westminster, Windsor took charge of our horses and I questioned one of the officials. Where were the Lords intending to meet? I was directed to a chamber that Edward had sometimes used for formal audiences, such as the visit of the three kings so many years ago. So this too was to be very formal. But then there was no time to think. Windsor was pulling at my mantle and we walked briskly toward my fate. Guar
ds barred our way at the door; the lords were not yet assembled. Impatiently, I turned to see a man sitting on one of the benches usually occupied by petitioners, waiting for us.

  “Wykeham.” Windsor nodded briefly.

  “Windsor,” Wykeham reciprocated.

  The two men eyed each other with little warmth. That would never change.

  “I thought that you of all people would have kept clear of this place,” I said, to hide my astonishment that the bishop should be here. “It’s not politic for a sensible man to be seen in my company.”

  “You forget.” His grimace as he kissed my fingers was a praiseworthy attempt at a smile. “I’m a free man, pardoned and reinstated. I shine with honest rectitude. Parliament in its wisdom has turned its smiling face on me, so nothing can touch me.”

  I had never heard him so cynical. “I hope I can say the same for myself after today, but I am not confident.”

  “I expect you can talk them ’round.” His mordant humor had an edge. Warmed by his attempt to reassure me, however much an empty gesture it proved to be, I asked what I had never asked before.

  “Pray for me, Wykeham.”

  “I will. Even though I’m not sure it matters to you. You spoke for me when I needed it.” He pressed my fingers before releasing them. “I’ll do what I can, lady. The Lords might listen if I speak for you.…”

  The unusual term of respect from Wykeham almost brought me to tears, and I curtsied deeply to him, as I had never done before.

  “You have some strange friends, my love,” Windsor observed when Wykeham was gone. “The man—priest or not—is enamored of you. God help him!”

  “Nonsense!” I replied, marshaling my scattered emotions. “I helped to get him dismissed.”

  “And you reunited him with Edward. You are too hard on yourself.” He folded my hands in his and kissed my lips, my cheeks. “Remember what I told you,” he whispered against my temple.

  And then I was on my own.

  Without any fuss or fanfare, I was shown into the chamber. There was no chair placed for me this time: I was expected to stand throughout. Before me and beside me, on three sides, the ranks of hostile faces stared their enmity, just as I had imagined. And in the end Windsor could not keep his promise to be with me—he was barred at the door. He did not bother to argue when faced with the point of the guards’ halberds. I could imagine him pacing the chamber outside to no avail.