The Fair Maid of Kent

by Caroline Newark

  Gently I undid the knot and peeled back the soft leather. He blinked, his eye half-closed, unused to the brightness. A small puckered scar crossed the eyelid and ran partway down his cheek but the eye itself was whole and perfect. He was not some hideous monster, he was Thomas, the same Thomas who had walked with me in the orchard of the béguinage seven long years ago.

  ‘Can you see me?’ I whispered. ‘With both eyes?’

  ‘Yes,’ he breathed into my cheek. ‘I can see you for what you are: the most desirable, most beautiful young woman in the world. And my wife.’

  We lay like this for a long time, barely speaking, him stroking my face and my hair.

  ‘I can’t do more than this,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘I want to, Christ knows how much I want to, but if I did I wouldn’t be able to stop and I mustn’t put you in any more danger than you’re in already.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said, snuggling up closer and feeling the long, lean length of him next to my body. The rough cloth of his padded jacket pressed hard into the soft folds of my gown as I pushed my leg beneath his.

  ‘I know.’ His breath caught as I ran my hands over his chest and down his body. ‘But you have no sense, wife, so I must be sensible for both of us. There is a long and perilous path ahead and I mustn’t behave like a boy beneath a hedge on Mayday.’

  ‘I wish you could.’

  ‘So do I, but I can’t. Now, sit up and tidy yourself before I forget my duties completely.’

  He removed his arms and gave me a little push.

  ‘What will happen now?’ I asked, trying to pin my hair back up. ‘Do I go back to William?’

  ‘Yes. Return to Montagu. Do what you usually do and put this out of your mind. Say nothing, but prepare yourself for when he finds out what I’ve done. Be ready with your story and say to him whatever you need to keep yourself safe because I shan’t be there to protect you.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘We should be finished here in a week or so. The garrison are close to surrender and if the Valois comes with his army, he won’t fight. Not again. We are too many for him. There’ll be a treaty and then I’ll ask permission to return to England. I now have the name of a man who can help me. He has spoken in the courts at Avignon many times and will know how to do this.’

  What had seemed a dream was creeping frighteningly closer.

  ‘Will I see you again?’

  He took my face between his hands and kissed my mouth.

  ‘No. It’s better we don’t risk it.’

  ‘Nothing happened today that need frighten my confessor,’ I murmured. ‘My conscience is clear.’

  ‘You, my lady, have an extremely adaptable conscience.’

  ‘I know,’ I laughed. ‘It’s a great benefit.’

  I didn’t see him again. A week later the French army appeared on the heights of Sangatte and one look at the size of our army and the massive defences our men had erected along the beaches and over the marshes brought the Valois king to the negotiating table. For four days he bargained in vain whilst we held our breath and the defenders of Calais moved closer to starvation and collapse. On the fifth night, while I slept fitfully in my bed dreaming of Thomas, the French burned their tents and by next morning they were gone. Calais was ours!

  It had taken my cousin exactly eleven months to force the garrison into surrender and he was none too pleased. Together with everyone else, I watched the grand ceremony as six of the richest men of Calais stumbled barefoot with ropes round their necks through the massed ranks of our men and offered themselves up to the English king’s mercy in order to save their fellow townsmen. But my cousin chose not to be merciful and ordered their beheading. It was a moment of great drama as the queen cast herself at her husband’s feet and begged for the lives of those poor starved creatures and my cousin raised her up and gave her what she asked for. If it had been carefully planned as an entertainment for the watching thousands, it could not have been more thrilling.

  ‘Thank you, Blessed Virgin,’ I whispered under my breath. ‘Thank you for delivering mercy so speedily and allowing us to go home. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate all aspects of Our Lord’s creation but I really am heartily sick of the damp.’

  10

  Inquisition 1347

  The drumbeats ceased and with peculiar gracefulness the newly painted Montagu barge glided slowly towards the river bank. I was weary beyond measure but the sight of the Bisham villagers out in force to greet us was like a burst of sunshine on a dull December day. It had taken us the better part of a long and uncomfortable week to make the journey from Calais but at last we were home.

  We disembarked at the foot of the jetty to a salute of trumpets and a guard drawn up for our inspection. As we walked together up the familiar path towards the gatehouse we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by a laughing, cheering crowd. Men tossed their caps in the air, women shouted blessings and little children threw bedraggled posies of late-summer flowers at our feet. There was no sun and the grass was sodden but at least the people were pleased to see us.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ I asked as we stepped across the threshold into a surprisingly warm and dry house.

  ‘Entertain,’ said William, gazing at the soaring glory of the hall as if he had never seen it before.

  And entertain we did: invitations quickly sent out; long days of hunting through the woods and open spaces of our deer park; energetic hawking expeditions up the valley of the Thames; and for the older and less able or for the women unwilling to ride far, sedate picnics in the Bisham orchard complete with minstrels and games for the children.

  In the late afternoons when the feasting was done and before the younger men drank themselves senseless, we danced and made merry, but as night fell and the torches were lit our neighbours gathered quietly around the fire to listen to William’s stories of his part in the king’s victorious campaign.

  This was a new William. He wanted to be a great man like his father and grandfather before him and, with a knighthood under his belt and the prospect of his earldom less than two years away, he knew it was possible but he needed these magnificent displays of his generosity to persuade everyone else.

  ‘A different woman every night this week,’ muttered the eldest of my maids the morning after another rowdy feast which had lasted well into the evening hours.

  ‘It’s a disgrace,’ she grumbled. ‘It would never have happened in the earl’s day and the Holy Mother of God knows he had cause enough.’

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ I snapped. ‘It is not your place to comment on what a man does. He is your lord and you insult him with your gossiping.’

  She shut her mouth in a thin disapproving line and reverted to jabbing the remaining pins into my hair. She was a middle-aged woman who had served the Montagu ladies since she was a girl but sometimes she forgot her position and behaved more like my mother.

  It was true William had neglected me disgracefully since our return but I didn’t care. I preferred to be left alone in my bed. Each morning I would wake, drowsy from sleep, forgetting I was William’s wife, in William’s house, eating William’s food, drinking William’s wine. I could feel the warmth of the summer sand soft beneath my head and the blazing heat of the Calais sun dancing on my face; hear the plaintive cry of a lonesome gull and the distant boom of the rolling surf, and in my mind I touched the soft strands of hair which fell across his face and put up my mouth for his kiss. I arched my body with desire and felt myself melt into him until all I wanted was to fall asleep again and dream the day away.

  ‘I shall be gone at least four days,’ William announced one morning. ‘I have a particularly difficult tenant who is causing problems. You will, of course, look after matters here.’

  The following day I took my place on the dais as lady of Bisham, to preside over dinner the way I ha
d a hundred times before. I had no awareness that this day would be any different, there had been no warnings. While everyone ate and drank I amused myself by looking down the length of the hall at the passing travellers who had asked for hospitality and the curious townspeople from Great Marlow who had merely come to gawp.

  When the meal was finished and everyone replete, I rose to take my leave. The men of the household scrambled up in haste, pushing benches aside and disturbing the rushes as the rumble of conversation ceased. At the far end of the hall there was some sort of altercation. One of William’s new grooms, a big burly man who was not to my liking, was tussling with a small dark stranger barely half his size. An outbreak of fighting in my hall was not something I could ignore so I nodded to my page to go and find out what the problem was while I hesitated at the door.

  ‘The little man wants to see you, my lady,’ he said, puffing slightly with the exertion of having run all the way up the hall. ‘Says he has a gift for you but yon bully won’t let him near. Says he’s not fit to wipe his boots on the master’s floors and is threatening to throw him out on his arse.’

  I sighed, suppressing a smile. I was well used to gifts from passing men with bold stares and beguiling smiles who liked to show their appreciation. I doubted this would be any different.

  ‘Have him brought to my husband’s room,’ I said. ‘I’ll see him there.’

  I crossed the floor and walked into William’s room which had a completely different smell to mine: a low spicy scent of cinnamon and sandalwood and underlying that, a tang of musky male sweat; not unpleasant, merely different. The fire hadn’t been lit and the room was chilly but I sat in William’s chair and waited.

  The man had a ferrety face with small dark eyes which darted to and fro as if seeking trouble, but he looked harmless enough and, thanks be to the Blessed Virgin, he smelled clean. In front of him he held a pedlar’s pack, his bent fingers gripping tight to the battered leather, clearly frightened someone would snatch it away.

  ‘You wished to see me,’ I said, thinking how unnecessarily rough William’s groom had been.

  ‘A small gift, my lady,’ he said, dropping to one knee. ‘I have eaten well at your table and wish to show my gratitude.’

  He placed his pack on the floor and began rummaging around in the depths. The men of the household stepped back and I noticed one or two of them yawning in boredom. Grovelling passers-by were six-a-penny and gifts like this one would be of no consequence. No groom was going to enrich himself with the pickings from this sort of churl.

  The man shot me a glance from under his lashes and drew out a short length of ribbon. Black.

  ‘For you, my lady,’ he said in a low voice.

  I took it in my hand and found my fingers trembling. It was narrow enough to wind around a bunch of violets picked damp from under the hedgerow or to thread through the top of a lady’s embroidered sewing bag. Or if you were so minded and had the need, you might prefer to use it to tie in place a man’s soft leather eyepatch.

  I leaned forward to murmur thanks, my mouth close to his ear. ‘Is there more?’

  ‘A message. It is done.’

  My eyes widened. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  I wanted more. I wanted to ask how Thomas did. Was he well? Was he safe? Was he bound for Avignon? Did he speak of me? This message was such a small thing to feed upon; so little, so insufficient, so tantalisingly close to what I desired and yet so far away.

  One of the grooms coughed and I came to my senses. I could say nothing. Thomas, indeed, had told me to say nothing.

  I felt in my purse for a coin but the small man shook his head and murmured, ‘No need, my lady. The gentleman paid.’

  It is done. So that was it at last. It is done.

  I barely noticed the man’s departure, the muttered apologies of my husband’s men for my being disturbed by such a vagabond, and my stumbling walk back to the solar with the length of ribbon in my hand.

  ‘Is that all?’ said my lady companion, echoing my earlier words. ‘And why black? Such a dreary colour. Didn’t he have a pretty red?’

  ‘For a mourning gown, perhaps,’ I said with a little smile. ‘Here, have it put in my chest.’

  It is done.

  But whatever had been done by Thomas, there was nothing I could do but wait.

  I gazed across the outer walls of Bisham, gleaming gold in the early autumn sun. So neat and tidy, so sturdy and well-kept; the new buildings, constructed to my father-in-law’s design, so beautiful with their painted archways and windows of little panes of Flemish glass. As a boatman had said to me once many years ago, Bisham was a jewel.

  In the distance, the fields were shaved and yellow, yielders of a poor damp harvest. Even now wheat was rotting in the barns. Everyone knew the price of bread in the towns would rise and in the winter there would be much hunger. On the dark waters beyond the walls, a myriad of tiny boats like busy ants were ferrying people downstream to Great Marlow or Maidenhythe, perhaps all the way to London. This was the view I had seen most mornings since I first entered the Montagu household as a young girl, what greeted me on rising. But by next summer I would be gone and would never see it again.

  ‘They’re saying in the buttery the man as arrived this morning’s a bishop,’ announced one of my maids as she helped me into a fresh gown.

  It was early November, unseasonably warm but with a wind sweeping in from the west, tearing the last leaves from the trees in Quarry Wood and shaking the shutters of the solar.

  I felt cold fingers tiptoe down my spine. ‘What man?’

  ‘The man as is in with the lord. Blue with three gold mitres on his banner, the kitchen boy said. He’s got a fair lot of servants with him. Seems far too many for a bishop. Cook’s already complaining.’

  I hadn’t registered the arrival and didn’t recognise the arms. Bishop Simon had been dead these two years and it wasn’t Bishop Grandison. But who else could it possibly be? Yesterday I had ordered a man to Great Marlow for needles and English cloth but he would hardly return with a bishop. Perhaps the girl was wrong. And yet – a banner emblazoned with three gold mitres?

  I spent the rest of the day trying desperately to concentrate on my embroidery as my needle flew in and out and the pale silk stitches coloured the stem of the Lenten lily winding its way up the sleeve of the gown on my lap. A boy arrived with an armful of logs and the page from the ewery came to ask if I wished for refreshments but otherwise our peace was undisturbed. I had one of my ladies read from the latest romance but found I could barely understand a single word.

  It was late in the afternoon when William’s groom knocked on the door with a message: my husband would not be joining the household at supper as he was otherwise occupied. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual in this but my heart began to flutter and I felt slightly nauseous. My lady companions took no notice as missing husbands were a fact of life and of no concern. There was no reason to be alarmed.

  Next morning William was nowhere to be seen and I was informed by a different groom that I was not required to dine in the hall. A selection of dishes would be sent to my chamber, I had no need to disturb myself. My belly churned in the way it used to when I had to meet my mother, and when the boys arrived with the food, I picked at it. I had no appetite and could barely manage to swallow. The day was warm but beneath my linen my body prickled with fear. I felt chilled and the hands which broke my bread were cold and clammy.

  In early afternoon the noise of clattering hooves drifted up from the courtyard and one of the maids informed me the bishop, if bishop he was, was leaving. But still no word came from my husband. More dishes were brought upstairs at supper and by now my women had taken to gathering in corners, their hands half-covering their mouths, as they whispered to each other. We all knew something was not as it should be but they didn
’t know what.

  I was about to give the order to retire for the night when the message came, a command to visit my husband in the room where he conducted his private business. No explanation was given and despite the lateness of the hour I knew I couldn’t refuse or delay. So I smoothed my gown, summoned up my courage and followed the man down the stairs.

  William was seated behind the great oak table with a parchment in his hand and another on the table. He didn’t get up. His eyes sought mine but in the looking, changed from their usual indifference to a flinty hardness, the ditch-water darkening to the colour of a storm cloud.

  I kept my face composed, a small upturning of the lips to show him I was pleased to be summoned to his presence and gave a little bob. It was what he expected. In his eyes it showed a proper respect from a dutiful wife and I had no wish to anger him at the start of what I feared was going to be a difficult encounter.

  He held out the parchment.

  It was very fine, very smooth, the words written in Latin. I raised my eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ I enquired lightly.

  ‘Can’t you read it?’ His voice was curiously flat.

  ‘No. We girls were not taught Latin. Your lady mother considered it unnecessary.’

  ‘It is a summons from the court of the Holy Father in the name of Cardinal Adhémar Robert requiring me to appear before his tribunal at Avignon. Now do you know what it is?’

  Deny everything, I thought. I shook my head. ‘No. Why do they want you to go to Avignon?’

  William’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘It seems Cardinal Robert is investigating a petition lodged by one Thomas Holand requesting the Holy Father to order the return of his wife.’

  There was no sound in the chamber other than the gentle hiss of the fire as I stared back at William as innocently as I could.

  ‘But what has this to do with you?’

  ‘You know Thomas Holand?’

  ‘Sir Thomas? Your steward? Of course I know him. He was with us in Calais. He sat with you in our hall.’