Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4)

by Juliet Dymoke

  His determination brought a smile to Jean's face and eventually she and Tom yielded. It was time the boy went to some great lord to serve as a page and it was in her mind to ask Edward to take him into his household. As to his actually riding to war Tom made no promises, but when in October they finally marched out of Calais he took his son with him, at the same time assuring Joan he would not allow him into any real danger.

  It was a miserable winter. Joan sat by the fire of her lodgings in Calais with only one or two ladies for company, and the faithful Emma who ruled her tiring women with so firm a hand that it afforded Joan some amusement. The weather turned bitterly cold and wet, and looking out into the street at the rain driving past the window she remembered the day, so long ago, when she had ridden in triumph into the English camp besieging this town, and the victory feast where she had lost her garter and so given the name to King Edward's great order. She had little imagined then that when she came again she would be Tom's wife before all the world, the mother of four children, with another under her skirt.

  At Christmas she heard that Tom was sitting with the Prince at Villedomange, engaged in the siege of Rheims. To take that city, so sacred to the French, and seize the sacred Oriflamme, would be the crown of their campaign, but Rheims was well prepared. There were sorties and skirmishes but the icy rain continued to fall and dampen spirits. Young Geoffrey Chaucer the poet was taken, and ransomed by the King himself who liked his verses. A shaken messenger arrived by sea with the news that a French fleet had sailed to the English coast and attacked and sacked Winchelsea, and in a fury King Edward and his sons abandoned Rheims and turned for the capital itself. They occupied St Cloud but there seemed to be no way they could take Paris, and from its walls the Dauphin Charles looked down his Valois nose and mocked them.

  In March Joan bore another daughter without any complications, a plump healthy babe to whom she gave her own name. Emma found a good girl to be wet nurse and Joan lay in bed torn between thankfulness for her new daughter and fears for Tom. She sent Robin to the English camp to tell Tom the news and Robin returned with a grim account of what he had found there, a desperate shortage of essential supplies, men dying from exposure, dysentery rife. His master and young Thomas were in good heart, he said but things were bad for the English. He added that Sir Thomas seemed to have a low fever about him, but so did half the men in the camp.

  Joan grew more anxious, and at last on an evening in late April when she was tired of waiting there was a sudden clatter of hooves and her husband and son rode down the street and dismounted by the door. She ran to meet them and was enfolded at once in Tom's arms, and only when he raised his head did she see how pale he looked.

  'My dear!' she exclaimed. 'Are you ill? Robin did say – but come up to the fire.'

  'I'm not ill,' he said, 'only tired.' He insisted on seeing his new daughter, but as he took Joan's chair by the hearth he was shaken with a racking cough. Thomas brought his father a cup of wine and Joan sent Emma to make one of her herb mixtures that could ease a chest complaint.

  'Rest,' she said, 'rest, my dear, and Thomas shall tell me what you have been doing.'

  The boy had seized the remains of her supper and between mouthfuls said, 'We didn't have a victory at all. It was all rain and cold and men getting sick. My pony went to skin and bone for we had no fodder left, and then it died and I've only got a poor hack my lord of Salisbury took from a farm and gave me.'

  'That was good of him,' Joan said. 'But why are you back? Has the army no hope of entering Paris?'

  'None.' Tom leaned his head wearily against the chair. 'It can't be done. We've lost too many men and the country is too stripped to feed us. You've no idea what it is like, the fields black and empty, the farms deserted, houses burned. And last Monday, no, the Monday before, there was a terrible storm. I've seen nothing like it and it finished us.' 'There were hail stones as big as hen's eggs,' Thomas told her and took another slab of bread and cheese. 'One hit me on the head and there was a great wind. It was so cold our fingers froze and father coughed all day and spat blood, didn't you, sir?'

  'I told you not to worry your mother,' Tom said sharply, and seeing the consternation in Joan's face went on, 'It's nothing, my heart, only an ague from this foul weather. And I'm back because I am to be the King's Lieutenant in Normandy. He and the Prince are arranging terms with the Dauphin, at Bretigny I think.'

  'Then it has all been for nothing?' She thought of the long winter, the bitter campaign, the lives lost to no purpose.

  'You don't understand, lady,' her son said belligerently. 'I've learned a lot, I can tell you how knights should earn their spurs, what a chevauchee is like, how to deal with scum who get in our way on a march. And you needn't worry about father, he was no worse than the rest. And he's better now, aren't you, father?'

  'Of course,' Tom agreed, but Joan, wondering at her young son's extreme preoccupation with his own concerns, sent him to find one of the serving maids and see that hot food was brought up for the Earl. Then she knelt by Tom's chair and took his cold hands in hers. 'My love, you do not look better, but I will care for you.'

  'Then I shall soon be well,' he answered, smiling down at her. 'You and a little sunshine and warmth will soon set all to rights.'

  Summer came and though he improved a little the cough remained, at times better, at others worse. The treaty was signed at Bretigny. The King gave up his rights to the French throne in return for an enlarged Aquitaine, the county of Guisnes with a long section of the northern coastline, and the French King's ransom was reduced somewhat. The exhausted army returned to England bearing the first instalment of the still crippling sum. Jean began his journey home as a pilgrim to Canterbury, and at Calais the Prince of Wales who had brought him to London four years ago was most aptly the one to set him free.

  'He's a man of honour,' he said to Joan when she entertained him to dinner that evening. 'I would have liked him for a friend.'

  'Then you don't think the treaty will last?'

  'Who knows? Doesn't every child at home play French against English? When have we ever had peace for long with them?'

  'Please God this time,' she said and looked at Tom's thin face.

  They moved to Caen, sending for their other children, but as summer died and the autumn mists returned it became clear that Tom was more seriously ill than she had suspected. The deadly results of the previous appalling winter, exposed to constant cold and wet, seemed to have permanently affected his lungs, and though he carried out his duties as lieutenant meticulously he coughed constantly, spitting blood once more. The doctors bled him and purged him and only succeeded in weakening him further, and in December he was unable to leave his bed.

  In desperate anxiety she sat beside him, her younger son as often as not beside her, six-year-old Eleanor watching wide-eyed and frightened as her father struggled for breath. It was a wretched Christmas though Joan made something of the feast for the children's sake, and three days later, towards midnight, after entertaining some dignitaries from the town, she went wearily to Tom's chamber, to sleep on the pallet she had had set at the foot of their large bed.

  Tom's white face on the pillow seemed transparent, the scar on his cheek standing out, the socket of his lost eye a dark cavity seeming deeper than before. He saw her and, too weak to move his arm, his fingers opened a little. Understanding, Joan sat down and put her hand into his. He gave a deep sigh, coughed, and she wiped his mouth. 'My heart,' he murmured his favourite words for her, so low that she could scarcely hear. 'We have been . . . so happy.'

  'So happy,' she repeated and then at once she stiffened. There was a change in his face, unmistakable, a glazing to his eye, and she cried out for Robin.

  'Fetch the doctor . . . a priest . . .' she said urgently, 'and rouse the children. Hurry . . . Hurry!'

  'Oh Jesu!' he said. 'My lady, it can't be that –' and then he stopped and ran from the room.

  Joan slid her arms round Tom's inert body so that he lay again
st her shoulder. Unable to suppress her tears, words came tumbling with them. 'My love, my darling, if I could only give you some of my strength. I lost you once – oh, don't leave me now.'

  He was heavy against her, his breathing so difficult that the air seemed to bubble in his throat, and sheer panic rose in her so that she called out again for Emma, for someone, for anyone to come. But before any of them could reach her Tom had turned his head a little on her breast and died in her arms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  'There!' Edward said. 'Beat that if you can, Burley.'

  'My lord,' Sir Simon shook the dice, 'you have all the luck tonight. I shall lose my purse to you without a doubt.' He threw and then flung up his hands. 'You win, sir.'

  Edward scooped up the coins. 'And I need to. I lost to James last night, and Sir Denis here won a pair of my best gloves from me at chess this afternoon.'

  They were in his Manor of the Rose, a fine stone house in Thames Street, the river sliding past the terrace on the south side. There his butler kept swans for his table in an enclosure on the water. The house served him well being only half an hour's rowing time from Westminster, while upstream lay Blackfriars, the busy wharves, and the Tower. The central chamber that served for a hall was brightened by hangings and trophies that he had brought back from France. His banners for peace and for war hung over the table on the small dais where they played and a screen on the opposite end separated them from the buttery and the kitchen beyond.

  Edward wore his customary black, but this year it might have been in mourning for it had been a year of deaths. Since Tom Holland had died last December and his shattered cousin Jeanette had journeyed home, he had lost two sisters: Margaret wife to John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, and, even more sadly, Mary who had made a love-match with their ally, John Duke of Brittany, only seven months ago. His aunt too, King David's wife, had died shortly after her husband's release and return to Scotland, and lastly old Henry Wryneck had gone, leaving Edward's brother John as the new Duke of Lancaster in right of Blanche his wife.

  Edward mourned them all and the sight of Jeanette in her widow's robes, her lovely face white and pinched, stirred him profoundly. He tried to comfort her, but there seemed little he could say. Instead he journeyed to his beloved Canterbury and made an offering there for the souls of the departed. But it was good to have Joan back at court and during the summer he noticed that the colour had come back to her face, her smile more as it used to be. He took his godson into his household and watched with some amusement as the truculent Thomas argued and fought with the other pages.

  The boy brought wine to him now and they all drank, the game ended. It was late and as Edward rose to retire, Sir Denis de Brocas begged the favour of a private word with him. Slightly surprised, Edward took the knight off to his bedchamber and there sat down and waited. Sir Denis was a Breton who had served under the English banner for some years, a knight Edward had respected sufficiently to retain in his own meinie.

  'What is it?' he asked. 'You wish a favour? A manor perhaps, land of your own? I suppose it is time –'

  'No, my lord.' Sir Denis looked embarrassed and shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. 'It is another matter entirely.' He broke off floundering, and Edward smiled.

  'Ah, perhaps then it is a woman. You've found a bride to your taste, eh?’

  De Brocas came forward, a hot colour under his freckled skin. 'A lady I love, sir, though I've said nothing to her. If – if you would speak for me –‘

  'I?' Edward's eyebrows shot up. 'Good God, I'm no lover, de Brocas. Here am I, thirty and unwed – what do I know of presenting one's suit?'

  'I thought you would be the most likely person to put my case well, my lord.'

  'I doubt it. And can you not do your own wooing?' Edward yawned, for Sir Denis was becoming a little wearisome. The man could only have looked at some lady of modest birth and Edward could not see himself coercing her into marriage. 'Speak to her yourself,' he said idly, 'or to her relations if she has them. It would be far better.'

  'Not in this case, sir. If I could only prevail upon you – if you remember, my lord, there was an occasion when we fought at Poitiers and I gave you my horse when yours was slain. You said then that if ever I was in need of a favour I might ask you.'

  'Oh yes, yes, I remember. Well, who is this lady you are so eager for? I doubt she'll listen to me.'

  'She will, sir, she will. If you would but ask –'

  'Very well,' Edward said. 'I'll do my best for you. But tell me who am I to approach. Is it one of the Queen's ladies, perhaps, that you need my services?'

  'No.' Sir Denis drew a deep breath and clasped both hands behind his back. 'It is your cousin, the Countess of Kent.'

  The Prince sat still in utter astonishment. Then he said, 'By Our Lady, you aim high, de Brocas! Don't you know she has half the unwed nobles in England after her and not a few from across the channel too? Why, she is the most lovely widow and the most desirable in all Europe.'

  'I know, my lord. I am not worthy of her, but my family is good. You have been pleased to praise me as a fighting man and if she should favour me –'

  Edward stared at him in a manner that so reminded Sir Denis of the King in one of his most haughty moods that he almost began to wish he had not broached the subject. But he was deep in love and he plunged on: 'My lord, she took Sir Thomas Holland when he had no more than I.'

  'That was many years ago.'

  'Aye, but she seems to me to be a lady who is ruled by her heart, not her head, in such matters.'

  'What do you know of her?' Edward demanded more harshly than he realized. 'You have seen her, danced with her perhaps. I know her.' He stopped abruptly and was silent.

  De Brocas said awkwardly, 'If I should not have spoken, if I have presumed, I ask your pardon. But you did promise me a boon, my lord.'

  'And I will keep my word.' Edward rose and from his greater height surveyed the suppliant. 'I will speak to my cousin but I hold out little hope for you.'

  'My lord –' still more hesitant Sir Denis, aware he was dismissed, nevertheless went on, 'do you – do you know if there is a particular suitor that I know naught of?'

  'Not to my knowledge,' Edward said. 'Good night, de Brocas. You shall have your answer soon.'

  He watched Sir Denis bow himself out and then went down the stair again himself, all desire for sleep having left him. He went through a small door and on to the terrace, the warm summer breeze catching at his hair, blowing his long sleeves about his legs, and he raised his face into it. Away to the right he could see the dark bulk of London Bridge and its crowded houses and above them the black sky, clear and bright with stars.

  He did not know why he was so angry. Jeanette could marry whom she liked, he supposed, for he was sure she would wed again, but he was equally sure it would not be the Breton knight. The man was impertinent even to think of it. She had been little more than a child when she took Tom Holland, but Tom had died Earl of Kent and she would need a man of rank this time. Furthermore, he, Edward, would see to it that when she wished for another husband it would be a man worthy of her. He paced in the darkness; knowing every inch of the terrace, seeing his swans as grey shapes in the darkness, the river smell in his nostrils. He must keep his word to de Brocas, he supposed, but it was distasteful to him. Consequently two weeks passed before he approached his cousin.

  He invited her with his brother Lancaster and the Lady Blanche to his palace at Kennington and entertained them for several days before he could bring himself to speak to her. However, he chanced to see her on a warm August afternoon walking towards the walled plaisance, a garden he had laid out with neat box hedges and paths, sweet-smelling bushes of rosemary and lavender, and the dainty­leaved tansy. He paused in the archway, looking at her, and then came to her where she stood by a sundial.

  Glancing up she saw him and smiled. 'I've not noticed these words before. They are so sad.' And she began to trace the carved letters round the edge of the stone
with her finger. “Time Was is past, thou canst not it recall, Time Future is not and may never be.” And see this one, “Time Present is the only time for thee.” But it is not easy to put the past away.'

  'I thought your grief had eased of late,' he said, and took his stand on the opposite side of the sun­dial. The gnomen showed exactly three o'clock.

  She made a little gesture. 'One must live, and as the verse says the past can't be recalled. The present is all one has, but it is hard sometimes, Edward. I am so alone.'

  'Alone?' he echoed. 'With your children and your household, with all of us at court, myself, Isabel, mother –'

  She gave a little sigh. 'You are all so kind to me, and of course I'm not alone in that way, but I miss Tom so much. My bed is cold at night.'

  After so many years, I suppose it must be so, but I do not know what marriage is like.'

  'Dear Edward,' she smiled up at him again, 'it is a sharing that leaves emptiness when one is gone. It is warmth and closeness and confidence, or should be.'

  'Yes,' he agreed, 'that is what my parents have. It does not matter how many mistresses my father takes, it is my mother he cares for.'

  'He once told me that I was so made that love was all that mattered to me. I think now he was right.' She glanced up at her cousin. 'Are you not lonely sometimes in that way?'

  'Perhaps.' He shrugged. 'I am used to the way I live. My father is talking of the Lady Margaret of Flanders again since we made her a widow when we slew Burgundy at Poitiers. But I have had a yardstick all these years and no one has come near to that. Anyway I'm no courtier. I've learned to keep my spurs out of a lady's skirts but that's about all!'

  She laughed. 'You underestimate yourself. And who is this lady against whom you have measured all others? Your mother?'

  He did not answer that. 'We were talking of you, Jeanette. I suppose you will wed again, in time.'