by Jean Plaidy
‘She is bright and sees herself as the centre of life. Everything that happens she believes must concern her. That was how she came to her conclusion.’
‘How can they take her away!’
‘She is their daughter, my lady.’
‘And this match … a child.’
‘It is the custom.’
‘Do you think they will send her to Germany?’
‘I should think that is probably the intention. Her future husband’s family will wish her to be brought up in their ways.’
The Queen clenched her fists together angrily. ‘It is a cruel thing to be a royal princess, Edeline.’
‘Perhaps so, my lady, but there are advantages.’
The Queen raised her eyes and studied Edeline. Calm, honest, precise, she would never flatter, always say what she wished. The Queen said fervently: ‘I thank God that you will be with our child.’
‘I thank Him too,’ said Edeline.
It was a long journey from the Court of Castile to that of England, but the Princess Joanna was excited at its prospect.
There was a tearful farewell with her grandmother – but the tears were really on her grandmother’s side. Joanna would miss that doting kindness which was more like adoration, but there was so much to look forward to. The Bishop had embraced his Filiola for the last time, and they had left the sunny land of Castile and passed through the rich vineyards of France and in time they came to the coast. How the poor little Spanish attendants chattered in near-hysterical fear at the sight of the rough waters they had to cross and how the boat heaved and sighed, and how sick so many of them were and how young Joanna loved the pull of the wind and the protesting groaning of the ship’s timbers as she ploughed her way across those frothing waters to the coast of England.
And then … home.
She was picked up and smothered with kisses. This was her mother whom she regarded coolly. Why did she leave me? she asked herself. Oh I know my grandmother begged and pleaded, but she left me.
Her father was there – big and splendid. She had never seen such a man. She bowed – very ceremonially as they did in Castile – and he laughed and picked her up.
‘Ah, we have a little beauty here,’ he said, and kissed her rather roughly. She gave him her cool smile. He, too, had abandoned her. ‘We are pleased to have you home, little one.’
Then there was her sister, the Princess Eleanor – fourteen years old, very grown up and beautiful; and very important it seemed by the way everyone treated her.
‘Welcome home, Joanna,’ said this important sister. ‘And come and meet your brother Alfonso.’
Alfonso was five years old – nearly two years younger than she was. He was rather meek too; and a little shy. He looked at her as though he were appealing to her to love him. She liked that.
‘And Margaret.’ A three-year-old who was only just aware of what it was all about, but delighted, as they all were, to have a seven-year-old sister presented to them.
‘Mary is in the nursery,’ said the Princess Eleanor. ‘She is only a baby.’
So now she knew them all – her family. She could reign supreme there as she did in Castile but there was one who might prevent her and that was her important sister the Princess Eleanor.
The first tussle came over the attendants. The Spanish ones suddenly disappeared.
‘Where are they?’ she asked her sister.
‘They have been sent back to Castile,’ she was told.
‘But I do not want them to go back to Castile.’
‘Our father has sent them.’
‘I will see him and they will be sent back to me.’
The Princess Eleanor laughed aloud. ‘They went on the King’s orders.’
‘But they were my attendants.’
‘I don’t know what happens in Castile, but here when the King gives an order it is obeyed without question. You will have to realise that, Joanna.’
‘But these attendants came with me.’
Her sister shrugged her shoulders.
‘I want to go back,’ said Joanna.
‘Don’t be silly. You are home with us now and we are your family.’
‘My grandmother was my family and she would never have sent my attendants away if I wanted to keep them.’
‘This is not your grandmother’s court and you have been spoilt there. Someone said it the other day.’
‘Who?’
‘I am not telling.’
Joanna seized her sister’s wrist and cried, ‘Tell me. Tell me. Whoever said that shall be punished.’
The Princess Eleanor quietly pulled the child’s fingers away from her wrists. ‘You must not be disrespectful to me. I am the eldest and I have my special household. The King talks to me. I will not have this behaviour in the nursery.’
Joanna was abashed. ‘I … I …’ she stammered.
But Eleanor waved her aside. ‘Our mother says we are to be kind to you, to help you to know our ways, so I shall not punish you this time.’
‘Punish me … But … nobody punishes me.’
‘Nobody did. They will now.’
‘Who?’
‘Edeline, I suppose. She is your governess.’
‘Edeline would never dare …’
‘I think she would. You are with your own family now, Joanna. We want to love you … everyone does. We want you to be our dear sister. You have been allowed too much of your own way in Castile where you were alone in the nursery. It will be different here.’ The Princess Eleanor suddenly knelt down and put her arms about the little girl. ‘We all want to love you … we want you to be our little sister … but there are several of us and you cannot be of any more importance than the rest.’
Joanna was silent suddenly. Then rather pleased. It would be more fun in England than it had been in Castile, she was beginning to think. And if they had taken her Spanish servants – about whom she cared little – she still had the Lady Edeline about whom she cared a lot.
After that she began to settle in. She was different from her sisters and certainly from little Alfonso. She was more volatile, high-spirited and quick-tempered. Edeline was constantly trying to restrain her but without much result. The Queen said that Joanna, having been born in a torrid climate, was different from the others. The attendants referred to this constantly, making excuses for her behaviour. It was characteristic that they should want to, for she was very pretty. She was dark, which seemed appropriate since she had been born in such a land, and she had her mother’s Castilian looks rather than those of the Plantagenets. She was referred to as Joanna of Acre and she liked that. It set her apart. She was constantly at the centre of some nursery storm and she liked that too. She had to call attention to herself for her sister Eleanor was a very important person indeed and after having reigned supreme in the Castilian nursery she must make her presence felt at home.
There was much that she missed – the warmer climate, the adulation of her grandmother, the feeling that she was at the very centre of their lives. Strangely enough she was happier with her family. Her mother loved her dearly and wanted to make up for having left her in Castile; her father was proud of her but instinctively she knew that her elder sister, the important Eleanor, was his favourite; little Alfonso thought her wonderful. She had been warned to be careful of him and not to knock him over or treat him roughly because he was delicate. Margaret was only a child – two years younger even than Alfonso so she did not count for much and as for Mary the baby she was too young to be of any significance whatsoever.
She, Joanna, was old for her years. She had been born with a certain knowledge, the attendants said. ‘You may be sure that there will be trouble when that one grows up,’ they said. She heard them and liked to think it was true. She liked the way they nodded their heads and curled up the corners of their mouths when they said it.
Sometimes the great sister Eleanor condescended to talk to her. They talked about marriage, for they were both betrothed.
Poor
Mary the baby would never marry. She was going into a convent. How did they know that? Joanna asked. Mary was a baby as yet. What did she know of convents? The Queen Grandmother had said so. It was to please God who had given their mother so many babies who had not lived and two of them boys at that. Alfonso was weak too, and it was Eleanor’s opinion that he would never be the King because he wouldn’t ever grow up enough.
It was all very interesting.
She, Joanna, was betrothed to Hartman who sounded interesting. She wondered about him. He was a German and would be a king, so she would be Queen Joanna. It was quite a pleasant prospect.
Eleanor told her that she was to have an Alfonso, who would be King of Aragon.
‘So you will be a queen too,’ said Joanna.
‘I long to be a queen,’ replied her sister.
‘You are old,’ said Joanna, ‘you should be one by now.’
‘I should have to wait until Alfonso’s father died, as you will have to wait for Hartman’s to die.’
‘But they marry people before they are kings and queens, don’t they? You must be very old.’
‘I am fifteen,’ said Eleanor.
Joanna shook her head commiseratingly. ‘It is very very old.’
‘What nonsense! It is not old. I shall go to Aragon when … I am ready.’
‘But,’ persisted Joanna, who would never stop worrying a subject until she had made her point, ‘you are old enough now. Why don’t you get married now?’
Eleanor smiled secretly.
‘Because, baby sister, I do not think our father wishes it.’
Joanna studied her sister with great respect. A secret. Since she had been in England she was now and then beginning to realise that she did not know everything.
It was like a pattern which repeated itself. The Queen lay at Woodstock praying for a boy.
She was fruitful enough. It seemed almost as though no sooner was one pregnancy over with its inevitable disappointment than another had begun.
She had wanted to come to Woodstock. She had an idea that it might be lucky to change the place of her confinement. She had never given birth in Woodstock and she had asked Edward if she might go there for the last weeks of waiting and, indulgent husband that he was, he was ready to give way to her whims.
She had loved the peace of the place. She had walked in the woods with her daughter Eleanor and young Joanna, their attendants following a little way behind them. The trees were so beautiful for it was the month of May – surely the most beautiful of all. She was anxious that Joanna should love the English countryside which was so different from that of Castile and she took a great pleasure in pointing out the buds and blossoms of the hawthorns and the fruit trees which at this time of the year were laden with blossom. She listened to the birdsong and tried to teach Joanna to recognise a bird by its singing.
Joanna liked to be the centre of the lessons and to astonish her mother by the quickness with which she could learn.
The child loves praise, thought the Queen a little anxiously. It was true that her own dear mother in the excess of her loneliness had made too much of Joanna and instilled in her a certainty of her own importance.
The Princess Eleanor made a daisy chain and hung it about her mother’s neck. How concerned her eldest daughter was. She was always nervous when her mother was expecting a child. In fact she seemed to be aware of the pregnancy before she was told. Dear children, what a comfort they were to her! She could look at those two bright healthy faces and take comfort. If she could not get a healthy boy she could get some fine girls.
So they had walked through the woods and there were always those who would urge her not to tire herself. She did not in the peace of Woodstock. A different place might bring better luck.
The Lady Edeline had said: ‘You should not fret, my lady. It is better to let matters take their course.’
What a wise woman Edeline was. It was a great comfort to know that she was so close to Joanna. When the child went to Germany to marry Hartman she would beg Edward to let Edeline go with her.
Of course she should be going soon. Her future father-in-law wanted her to. But Edward said she was too young. As for Eleanor he was always putting obstacles in the way of her going to Aragon.
‘No, no,’ he often said, ‘let them grow up first. They are but children.’
The truth was he wanted to keep them with him. He was a loving father – and oddly enough although he craved for a son it was his daughters whom he loved.
Oh, if I could but give him a son! she thought.
Lying in her bed she thought of what had happened in this palace in the years gone by. It had stood here for many many years – in a different form perhaps, for it was natural that places such as this should be added to during the centuries. Here the Saxon kings had held their Wittenagemots. King Alfred had lived here and a more recent ancestor, Henry I, had set up his deer-fold into which he had introduced wild beasts for the amusement of all those who came to watch the behaviour of these creatures.
But it was the ghost of the fair Rosamund who haunted Woodstock more than any other. Legends had been created about the fair Rosamund, so beloved of the King, who had incurred the jealous fury of that virago Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Queen was not sure that she believed that that fierce lady had offered Rosamund the choice of a dagger or poison, but that was how the song went.
And in her bower, which Henry had built for his beautiful mistress, Rosamund had waited for the birth of her child which was the King’s also.
Had she too prayed for a boy?
And she had given the King boys – two strong ones. Poor Rosamund who had died in nearby Godstow Nunnery repenting her sins.
The Queen prayed for the soul of the Fair Rosamund.
When her daughters came to sit with her she talked to them of Woodstock. There were so many stories about the place. She did not wish to discuss that of the Fair Rosamund with her daughters, but they knew that their grandfather Henry III and their grandmother, who was so much a part of their lives, had once stayed at Woodstock and had wandered together from the palace and into Rosamund’s Bower. In this romantic spot they had spent the night. And this had proved to be providential. For that very night a mad priest had gone to the King’s bedchamber and in the darkness had thrust a knife into his bed again and again, thinking the King was there, which he would have been had he not been at Rosamund’s Bower.
‘Imagine if he had killed your grandparents,’ said the Queen. ‘Then your father would never have been born … so nor would you.’
Joanna was awestruck at the prospect. She could not imagine a world without Joanna of Acre.
The next day the Queen’s pains started.
It was, as usual, an easy confinement. It was, as she had thought before, the same pattern. The quick labour, the girl child … a weak one this time over whom the women shook their heads.
The children came to see their mother. Eleanor alert-eyed, Joanna curious, Alfonso frightened, Margaret bewildered.
‘Dear lady,’ said Eleanor, ‘how fare you? It is a girl, they tell us.’
‘Another girl,’ said the Queen. ‘She is very small.’
‘I want to see her,’ said Joanna.
They were taken to the cradle where she lay and stood silently looking down with amazement and dismay at the wizened little creature who was their new sister.
The Princess Eleanor came back to the bed.
‘Dearest Mother, you are not ill, are you?’
‘No, my child, I am well. Your father will be disappointed but the next one will be a boy.’
The Princess was worried. Her mother looked wan, and the thought had occurred to her that if the Queen died her father would marry again. He was a young, virile man. Suppose he married a young woman who could get boys?
Her mother misconstrued her looks of alarm.
‘You must not fret child. A woman is exhausted after an ordeal like this. I shall be well in a few days.’
The Prin
cess knelt by the bed holding her mother’s hand.
‘Oh dear lady, get well, get well.’
The Queen touched her daughter’s hair and smiled at the others who had come back to the bed.
Edeline came in to lead them away.
‘The Queen needs rest,’ she said.
The Queen needed comfort too for within three days the puny baby was dead – and the long ordeal, the vigil of hope and prayer, was proved to be once again in vain.
Chapter V
THE SICILIAN VESPERS
Llewellyn had discovered peace and happiness in the stronghold of Snowdonia. His Demoiselle was all he had dreamed her to be. Loving, gentle and clever, she was his entirely. His welfare was her greatest concern. She watched over him, cared for him, and was capable of advising him. She taught him the delights of disinterested love. There had always been conflict in his family, brother against brother, and never being sure when the next piece of treachery would arise. Here at last was someone whom he could trust completely. It was a wonderful revelation. It had bemused him a little at first; he had not quite believed it to be true. But now that he had proved again and again that it was so, he settled into a sense of security which was near exaltation.
He had never dreamed such happiness was possible.
The Demoiselle, too, found contentment. Her only sadness came from her anxieties concerning her brothers. Almeric was still Edward’s prisoner in Corfe Castle and Guy was still in exile, wanted for the murder of Henry of Cornwall. If only they could be free; if they could be given the opportunity to start again, she could cease to worry about them and give herself up completely to the peace and contentment of her new life.
It was more than a year since Edward had given his permission for them to marry and each day when she awoke she thanked God for bringing her at last to peace.
She loved the mountains – rugged and beautiful, a menace to the enemy, security to themselves.
‘Our beloved mountains,’ she called them.
There were times when she fancied Llewellyn fretted over his loss of power. Then they would talk together and she would try to make him see how unworthily temporal glory compared with what they had discovered. She would feel delirious with happiness when she fancied he was realising this.
