The Fair Maid of Kent

by Caroline Newark

  I was favoured. the king and queen arrived to see me married and Lady Catherine’s brother, Bishop Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, joined the earl’s brother, Bishop Simon, at the chapel door. I was doubly honoured with two bishops giving God’s blessing to my marriage. But I wasn’t joyful.

  My throat was stripped raw from nights of crying and I was barely able to form the necessary responses. William’s hand, damp and hesitant, clutched mine. He was thirteen years old and had the appearance of a boy: solidly built with lank brown hair and a pale square face but he meant nothing to me.

  He shot swift glances in my direction and kept pressing my fingers but he didn’t speak. I too was silent. I kept my head bowed, my eyes lowered and said not a single word. A hundred beeswax candles lit the chapel and the canons from the nearby priory sang as we walked hand in hand past the men of the Montagu affinity who had come to see us wed. Showers of silver coins rained over us as we stood on the chapel steps but instead of laughing at the sight of the village children leaping to catch the shining pennies as they fell, I wept.

  At the marriage feast, William and I sat side by side on two matching gilded chairs, so ornate and magnificent they might have been royal thrones. Above our heads shimmered a silk canopy embroidered with the leopards of England and the Montagu arms and at our feet, a clutch of liveried pages knelt with dishes of delicacies as if we were the king and queen themselves. Lady Catherine and my mother, dressed in almost identical finery, both carried the same self-satisfied smile stitched onto their faces and even Elizabeth looked pleased.

  William leaned over and carefully took my hand in his. I let it lie there, unsure what he wanted from me.

  ‘You are very beautiful, Joan,’ he said in a voice so low no-one else could hear. ‘I worried they’d get me a fat old dowager. When my father told me it was to be you, I couldn’t believe my luck.’ He giggled in a childish way and his pale eyes, the colour of ditchwater, glinted with pleasure. ‘Edward boasted you’d be his wife, but instead you’re mine.’

  I gave him a smile. He was my husband. Over a hundred people had seen us make our vows and there could be no pretending it had never happened. My marriage to Thomas might have been swept away by a tide of my mother’s making, erased as if it had never been, but this marriage would endure. It had been witnessed and blessed and committed to the records. The bare facts had been entered into the priory’s great book of Bisham in which every momentous event in the Montagu family, whether baptism, marriage or death, was written down. I was now a canon’s entry in elegant lettering, illuminated and decorated and set there for all time. I was trapped and the cage door was firmly shut.

  Everybody kissed me.

  The queen took me lightly in her velvet-clad arms and placed her soft pursed lips on each of my cheeks and told me how pleased she was to see me wed. I breathed in the familiar scent and touch of her ample breasts and the warmth of her loving eyes and wondered how it was I had been so careless as to lose her favour.

  When my cousin kissed me, his mouth lingered on mine and he whispered in my ear, ‘I wish I was in young William’s shoes.’ His eyes were bright with too much wine and the excitements of the day and I wished he hadn’t spoken.

  William and I were put to bed together, dressed in our finest nightclothes, scented and oiled as tradition demanded and covered by the most sumptuous of embroidered coverlets. But it was only a ceremony and despite the prayers and the blessings and the lengthy speeches, we were not permitted to touch each other except for one chaste kiss on the lips. William opened his eyes wide as he placed his mouth on mine but the brush of his lips was a mere butterfly’s touch and I was scarcely aware of what he had done.

  William’s uncle, Bishop Simon, placed his fleshy hands on our shoulders, squeezing mine in an uncomfortably intimate way and told us to bid each other farewell. After that we were taken to our separate chambers to spend our wedding night apart.

  Later, after the feasting, the gift-giving, the speeches and the entertainments, everyone departed leaving me alone with Lady Catherine and her daughters. A week later, amidst very little fuss, Elizabeth left for her own wedding. She was to marry Hugh Despenser, an older man, son of the traitor executed fifteen years ago on the orders of the king’s mother. It was to be a very modest affair.

  ‘If my father hadn’t wanted you for William he would never have agreed to this,’ spat Elizabeth, during the one blazing row we had on the subject of her marriage. ‘The king needed the breach healed with the Despenser family and asked for my father’s help. The arrangement suited both of them. My father considered you a valuable prize but nobody thought of me,’ she wept. ‘I’m the one who has to sacrifice my life to heal this breach, not him and not you. It’s your fault.’

  There had been no point in telling Elizabeth Hugh Despenser might be a good husband because, to her, the disgrace of having to marry a man from such a family far outweighed any other marks in his favour. I felt sorry for her but not nearly as sorry as I felt for myself. I was utterly and completely miserable.

  It was late September, eight months since my marriage to William. The long table in Lady Catherine’s room was covered by a roll of parchment full of tiny writing, detailing every penny spent at Bisham since our return the previous winter. The list was endless: ells of cloth, candles, swans, herring, olive oil, axles, traces and saddles, nails, canvas, loaves of bread, gallons of ale and numerous purchases of wheat and straw from the Montagu manors. From what I could see the clerk of the wardrobe, who hovered at Lady Catherine’s side, had done a remarkably fine job. There was an entry for the sesters of wine delivered from London last month and one for two pounds of ginger comfits for the little Montagu girls and yet another for the expenses of Lady Catherine’s page travelling to Windsor with her letters for the Earl of Derby who had been with the king.

  I had been thinking of Thomas and wondering if I hated him sufficiently to pull out his entrails. He had lied and cheated and tricked me. He had fastened on my ignorance and persuaded me into his bed. He had used me in the worst possible way and my mother said I would never be pure again. He had taken everything of any value from me and I wished I had never listened to him. I wished I had never met him. I wished he had left me in Sir Two-faces’ house to be burned alive and then I wouldn’t be suffering as I was suffering now, forced into servitude as Lady Catherine’s daughter-in-law.

  ‘Joan! Pay attention!’

  I jumped.

  ‘If you can’t sit still and concentrate you’d better go and occupy yourself usefully elsewhere,’ said Lady Catherine irritably. ‘Go and see if that little man has finished in the chapel.’

  The chapel at Bisham was beautiful with a ceiling of silver stars, tall glazed windows and carvings of leaves around the doorway. Sir William was determined to make it the most glorious of all his possessions and to that end had sent for a man from Florence to decorate the walls.

  I sniffed. The air smelled of fresh-picked flowers, beeswax and rich cloth, with just the slightest hint of something rather unpleasantly earthy. In the corner sat the little oak chest fastened with huge iron clasps in which the valuables were kept. I ran my hand across its surface but the wood felt rough and I wondered why no-one had seen fit to have it smoothed.

  There was no sign of either of the two canons who came daily from the priory to say the Mass, or of the Italian with his brushes and messy pots of paint. But I was pleased to see he had completed both his magnificent paintings.

  One was a depiction of the final day of judgement with lines of men in Montagu livery herded by winged angels up to the gates of Heaven. At the bottom was a multitude of ragged sinners being pitchforked by grinning devils down into the flaming pits of Hell. It looked horribly real.

  The other was God’s expulsion of man from His garden.

  I contemplated Eve emerging from a small wickerwork gate like the one in the orchard of the béguinage.
She had a luscious rounded beauty and in her hand she carried an apple. She displayed a great deal of naked flesh and I wondered if the earl would be disturbed by her ample curves as he tried to concentrate on the raising of the Host. There was a fluid sheen to her skin which glowed in the candlelight making her seem almost alive.

  I thought I was alone but a prickling feeling down my spine told me I was being watched. I turned and there he was, half-hidden in the shadows. He was standing perfectly still and it occurred to me he must have been watching me for some time.

  I was shocked at how frightened I was. In the emptiness of the chapel he seemed much larger than I remembered and much more threatening. The lines at the side of his mouth were taut and he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘My lord,’ I whispered, feeling my legs start to tremble and my hands shake.

  ‘God keep you well, my lady.’ His voice was flat and told me nothing of what he was thinking.

  Whatever words I might have wanted to say remained stuck in my throat as I realised this was not the Thomas of my night-time dreams, the Thomas who had held me in his arms and promised to cast jewels across my marriage bed. This was a colder more brutal Thomas, the one who had lied, the one who had forced me into sin. This was a man who might well have it in mind to do me further harm.

  He stepped forward into the light and walked slowly down the nave.

  ‘I gather our plans are undone, my lady. I hear they have married you to young Montagu.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘Why did you not do as I told you? Why did you not tell them you were already wed?’

  He was furiously angry. I could tell from the cold look in his eyes.

  ‘I did. I told my mother, of course I did.’

  ‘So why do I find you married to another man when you are my wife?’

  I wanted to move away from him but didn’t dare. He looked as if he might hit me.

  ‘My mother said our marriage was no marriage at all,’ I whispered. ‘Without a priest, she said it was not a true marriage.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Of course I believed her. She is my mother. Why would she lie?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Why does any woman lie?’

  ‘My mother always does what is right; she is a good woman.’

  ‘Your mother would rather see you married to the devil himself than married to me.’

  I gasped in horror and hurriedly crossed my fingers. ‘Don’t say that. What’s wrong with you? What have you done?’

  He sighed. ‘I explained to you how my father was murdered by his enemies.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Your mother’s family regard any Holand as an instrument of evil. Can you not see why she lied? Why would she want the son of a traitor for you when she could have the Earl of Salisbury’s heir?’

  ‘But you said…’

  ‘And then there is the matter of the money. Sir William is wealthy. She is marrying you into one of the richest families in England.’

  I hesitated. I couldn’t believe my mother had lied, she had sounded so certain. She had sworn a blessing by a priest was a necessary part of marriage and without it a couple were not properly wed.

  ‘Two people exchanging promises isn’t a marriage,’ I said, doubtfully.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a deceit. You tricked me.’

  ‘And why would I have done that?’

  ‘You wanted me in your bed.’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘A skinny little thirteen-year-old? If I’d simply wanted a woman in my bed, I would not have chosen you. I took you to bed because you were my wife. It was my duty as a husband.’ He smiled at me. ‘And to my surprise, it was my pleasure.’

  ‘You are not my husband,’ I said in a low voice, not wanting to think too much about the pleasure.

  ‘I think you are mistaken.’ He seized my wrist and pulled me close to him. ‘I am very much your husband.’

  ‘You lied,’ I said.

  ‘Not to you.’

  ‘You did. It was no marriage and you knew it.’

  ‘It was a marriage in every particular which matters or have you forgotten?’

  It was the closeness of him, the scent of his clothes, the touch of his fingers on my bare skin and the sudden memory of his leg sliding across mine beneath the covers. No, I had forgotten nothing.

  ‘You deceived me,’ I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

  ‘I do not think I am the one who is practising deceit here. I promised to come back and I have. But what do I find? My little wife has taken a second husband. Have you told him about me?’

  I lowered my eyes. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Poor young man. I almost feel sorry for him.’

  I hadn’t bothered to consider William but of course I should have done. He was my true husband.

  ‘Is Lady Catherine a party to this stealing of my wife?’

  ‘No,’ I muttered. ‘My mother said no-one must know. Only Uncle Wake. He is head of our family.’

  ‘Wonderful! A deception of which nobody is aware. Just you and me and your double-tongued family.’

  ‘It is not what I wanted,’ I said, not sure by now what I wanted.

  ‘Well, my lady, whether you want it or not you have two husbands. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered.

  ‘Has he had you?’

  I blushed wildly, the heat rising quickly into my cheeks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ He pushed me back hard against the wall, still holding tight to my wrist.

  ‘They say we must wait.’

  I raised my eyes to his and saw the calculation in his eyes.

  ‘I am married to William Montagu,’ I said somewhat uncertainly, very afraid of what he intended to do with me.

  ‘I think not. You are married to me.’

  I was aware of the heat of his closeness, the hardness of his soldier’s fingers and the firm pressure of his leg pushing against the folds of my skirt. He moved even closer. Now I could feel every inch of him measured against me, with his breath warm on my face and his eyes glinting in the candlelight. I remembered the taste of his lips, the smell of his hair, the roughness of his cheek and the long hours of darkness we had once spent together in that attic room in Ghent.

  I raised my face to his and then slowly, very slowly, he placed his mouth on mine. The kiss was sweet; soft and sweet. I should have pushed him away. Instead I parted my lips as he had taught me and found myself drowning.

  Too soon he set me aside with a laugh. ‘I see you haven’t forgotten how to please your husband.’

  I opened my eyes, drugged by the warmth and the sweetness, and saw him laughing at me. I swallowed twice and tried to remember who I was. I was not to be treated like a street wench. I was a king’s granddaughter. I was married to the Earl of Salisbury’s heir and this man in front of me was nothing. He was nobody. Nobody at all. He had no right to touch me.

  ‘I think you should leave, Sir Thomas,’ I said, in the tone of voice I had once heard Lady Catherine use when admonishing one of her ladies. ‘I no longer wish to speak with you.’

  He wiped his hand across his mouth very deliberately as if he would remove all trace of me. ‘Oh I’m leaving, my lady. Why would I stay? You have made it perfectly plain there is nothing for me here. They have placed you in a gilded cage and it will take money and influence to spring this particular trap. As I currently possess neither, I shall return to the service of those who value me and hope for better days. But first I must see Sir William.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell him?’

  He smiled at my discomfort. ‘I wouldn’t be such a fool. He’d th
ink I was wandering in my wits and have me strung up for impugning your virtue. And if for one moment he did believe me, I’d be face down in the river before the day was out and you, my lady, would find yourself in a nunnery. Make no mistake, a single whisper of this and it will be the end for us both.’

  I shivered at the thought of the danger I’d be in if he so much as opened his mouth. My mother was right; it would have been better for all of us if he’d died in battle.

  But I didn’t want him dead.

  He seized my face in both his hands, squeezing my cheeks almost painfully, forcing me to look into his eyes.

  ‘I shall go now. But remember this when young Montagu is climbing into your bed: you are my wife. Whatever anyone else tells you it was a true marriage. One day I will come back for you and when I do no-one will stop me; not your family, not Sir William, not even the king, because you belong to me.’

  He pressed his mouth hard on mine, leaving the imprint of his kiss and bruising my lips. He let go, stepped back, gave a little bow and walked away. A moment later the chapel door banged and he was gone.

  I sank to the floor and rested my forehead on the smooth cold tiles. I said frantic prayers to the Blessed Virgin to help me but in the echoing silence there was no reply. I sobbed until my throat was raw and my eyes hurt. He had gone and I thought I might die from the loss. I told myself he had lied and cheated, he had deliberately used me for his own ends and yet once, long ago, in that magical springtime in Ghent, I knew I had loved him.

  After a long time, I got to my feet and looked about me at the familiar carvings on the stone: the intricately woven leaves, the fabulous beasts and, above my head, the soaring winged angels with their trumpets. But the leaves were still, the beasts silent and the trumpets mute. There were no answers to be found here in the chapel and none by clinging to my memories of what had once been. I knew there was only one way forward and that was on the path chosen for me by God and my mother. I had no choice. My destiny was to be a Montagu wife.