The Shadow Queen

by Anne O'Brien

With no more than a quick glance at Isabella, I accompanied her to my own chamber, where I found the door to be already open and much activity inside. I entered to stand in the midst of it.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘I have instructed your women to pack your clothes, Joan.’

  ‘Why?’

  A foolish leap of hope, of anticipation. Were we to go to Avignon after all? My thoughts ran on, seeing the Cardinal in my mind’s eye, the papal court, the solemn judges, inviting me to stand beside Thomas and give my evidence. And Thomas, tall and impressive, scarred in battle, wealthy and determined, stating his case. We would be victorious…

  Until I realised what my companion was saying.

  ‘We are going to Bisham.’

  ‘Bisham.’ I repeated, my fingers stretched flat in the folds of my skirts to prevent them curling into fists. I smelt a rat, and one long dead. There was planning here. This would be no short visit, if the number of coffers being filled by my busy women was evidence. ‘For how long?’

  ‘A long stay.’

  ‘I did not realise you were intent on leaving court.’

  ‘I have decided that a visit to Bisham would be restful. For both of us.’

  ‘But it is not my wish to go to Bisham.’

  And there, behind me, was Will, now hovering in the doorway.

  ‘Your preference, considering your defiance of my son, has no relevance,’ Countess Catherine was saying.

  It dawned, bright and shiny, like a new gold coin held in my hand.

  ‘You would not.’

  ‘We think it best.’

  I turned on him, in a flare of ill-usage. ‘But come in, Will. Are you party to this? I did not think you were coward enough to hide behind your mother’s skirts.’

  Will stepped in, looking uncomfortable. The Dowager Countess merely looked warmly decisive.

  ‘I do not give my permission,’ I said.

  ‘We do not need it,’ Will replied.

  ‘I will petition the King.’

  ‘You will not get a hearing.’ Will was now as rigidly purposeful as his mother. ‘It will be better if you acquiesce quietly Joan. In this too I will be obeyed.’

  A picture rose in my mind. If I did not acquiesce quietly, would I be dragged, complaining bitterly? Would I have a guard of soldiers with orders to make me comply? I thought not but I had more dignity than to risk such an eventuality.

  Anger burned strong and bright as I silently obeyed the commands to don a fur-lined cloak, already laid ready for me, with a velvet hood. I was being given no choice in where I would live, but one day, I vowed, I would have a choice and I would make Will Montagu pay. For the first time in my life I could find nothing good to say of Will Montagu. How could I ever have thought that I would be allowed, through my own advocate, to voice my objections to my present state?

  I learned a hard lesson in naivety.

  ‘I will go to Bisham,’ I said. When Will smiled and held out his hand to me, expecting me to accept his judgement, I turned my back. I would not offer even the semblance of good manners. It was not appropriate for a woman of royal blood to be hustled to Bisham, to isolate her, to close her mouth in all matters appertaining to her marriage.

  I would wager my livery collar that Magister Nicholas Heath would be no visitor to my doorstep.

  I could never have believed the depths to which Will and the Dowager Countess were prepared to sink to silence me. I was kept in confinement, in strict seclusion against my will. Not in a dungeon with lock and key but I was not free to travel outside the grounds of Bisham. For the first time in my undoubtedly self-centred life, I could understand my mother’s lifelong bitterness. She had suffered imprisonment at Arundel Castle whereas I, a child of two years, had no recollection of it. And my mother with a price on her head and an executed husband had feared for her future if not her life. No wonder it had put its mark on her character, her suspicions of everyone, her need to ensure her position at court. It explained her driven determination to let nothing stand in her way. I had not understood.

  But now I saw clearly as in a fair mirror, even though my life was not in danger, simply my freedom. Being a prisoner to all intents and purposes opened my eyes to the ambitions of those around me and my own weakness. It was made impossible for me to contact Thomas or Magister Siglesthorne or even Magister Nicholas Heath to obtain any impartial legal advice. My attempt to find an advocate to speak for me came to an abrupt end for no visitors were allowed. If Magister Nicholas Heath even existed, if he ever spoke for me in Avignon, he did so without my knowledge. He was never allowed past the great door of Bisham. If Thomas’s success rested on my participation, he would never achieve his unbiased legal judgement and all his investment in it would be nothing but waste.

  Of course I attempted to send a letter to Thomas to explain my incarceration. Another to my mother, for surely she would not accept this imprisonment of her daughter. They were intercepted, returned without comment, the young and impressionable page whom I had bribed dismissed to be replaced by another, more worldly-wise. My guard was doubled when the Dowager Countess returned to court, leaving me at the mercy of Will’s vigilant grandmother, Lady Elizabeth.

  I heard nothing from the outside world.

  ‘I wish to speak with the Earl of Salisbury,’ I said to our steward, a dour individual who had replaced Thomas.

  ‘The Earl is engaged at court. Is there anything I can do for your ladyship’s comfort?’

  Oh, I was comfortable, allowed my dignity, served with due reverence as Countess of Salisbury. Any visitor, if allowed, would have seen nothing amiss. I suspected that news had been sent out that I was indisposed and needed a time of quiet reflection. Perhaps, it might be hinted that there was a future heir on the near horizon. No one came. To all intents and purposes as I fumed in the seclusion of my own room, I was my husband’s captive.

  If outrage could have burst the walls of my prison, Bisham would have been no more than a pile of stones.

  ‘Play chess with me, Joan,’ Lady Elizabeth invited.

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘Better to take your fury out on my chessmen than let it eat away at you.’ Her eyes, encased in fine lines, twinkled. ‘And I will tell you of my young days as Elizabeth de Montfort, when I had little more power over my marriage than a chicken in a henhouse when faced with a hungry fox.’

  Placing the chessmen on their board with deft precision, she then proceeded, in a series of quick, clever moves, to threaten my King. My mind was not on the game.

  ‘I’ll not play with you again, madam!’

  ‘I suspect you have your own games to play, my dearest Joan.’

  Yes, I was furious, unable to vent my anger on anyone, for it would have been unworthy of me to make Will’s grandmother suffer. Yet anger was better than despair.

  I played chess often in those days, enjoying Lady Elizabeth’s keen wit, enjoying occasionally demolishing her chess pieces. I even laughed with her. But time hung heavy. My future was being decided far away and I was helpless, a sensation that I did not appreciate. And what was Thomas doing? Nothing, it seemed, to aid my rescue.

  And yes, despair set its hand on my heart.

  Chapter Seven

  The door of the chapel, where I was kneeling in a futile attempt to achieve some heavenly solace and privacy from Lady Elizabeth at one and the same time, was pushed open. I did not stir. I thought it would be my aristocratic governor, come with unerring curiosity to discover where I might be and what I might be doing that she would not like.

  ‘Magister John Vyse, my lady.’

  The faceless servant, one of Will’s choosing, withdrew, leaving me with a man I recognised, resplendent in clerical garb.

  ‘My lady,’ he bowed.

  ‘Sir.’ I rose from my knees, every sense alert.

  ‘I am honoured to be allowed to visit you, madam.’

  I suspected a gleam in his eye, except that so eminent a man would never stoop to anything as unseemly as a g
leam of malice. Quiet, low spoken, radiating priestly authority, Magister John Vyse was the masterful Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, and here in my chapel in full ecclesiastical regalia of his office, his cope gleaming with gold-worked grapes and vine leaves.

  ‘Should you be allowed to be here alone in my company, sir? You are the first visitor I have enjoyed in too many months to count.’ I considered his solemn expression. ‘You must be aware of my situation.’

  ‘I am indeed. But as you see, I am admitted. A notable man of the church such as I, my lady, has the right to be alone in your company. I said that it was your wish to confess your sins.’

  How could I not be suspicious?

  ‘We have a household priest for such matters.’

  An acceptable conversation, but all was not as it seemed here. I must have a care. The Dean of Salisbury might be Will’s man, sent to spy and report on my behaviour.

  In spite of my cool response, Master Vyse, splashed with a myriad of colours from one of the windows, continued.

  ‘I have informed your steward that it is my understanding that you have sins of a nature dangerous to your immortal soul. They require a cleric of some standing to discuss them and absolve you. I have also informed your steward that the Earl has authorised me to set your soul right with God. Given that authority, there was no question of my being refused admittance. How could there be, my dear lady?’ He ran his hand down the gleaming stole. ‘I thought it befitted the occasion to show some clerical magnificence. Your worthy steward would not dare deny me, representing as I do the cathedral of Salisbury.’

  No, he would not. So what was this subterfuge? My spirits began to dance as they had not danced in weeks. I glanced at the door, which was firmly closed.

  ‘It is true that I have need to confess, sir.’

  His voice took on an even more respectful key as if addressing the Blessed Virgin herself. ‘And I will hear your confession. But all in good time, for I am here on a quite different matter, my lady. Even so it might be pragmatic for you to kneel as if you were unburdening yourself to me and to God.’

  Which seemed eminently sensible, but still I would watch my words, even as I knelt. Master Vyse made the sign of the cross over my head, while I bent over my linked fingers, the crucifix of my rosary clasped hard between them.

  ‘So let us get to the business in hand, my lady.’

  ‘I understand then that you have not come from the Earl to lecture me on my disobedience.’ Hope was now leaping within me in lively mood.

  ‘I am not. I am here to represent you, my lady.’

  I looked up, eyes wide.

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘To the purpose of justice. At Avignon. His Holiness insists that you have a new attorney.’

  ‘I was of the understanding that I had one, appointed by the Earl.’

  ‘Well you have and you haven’t, my lady. His name is Martyn.’

  I frowned, without recognition. Was it not Magister Heath? ‘I know no one of the name Martyn.’

  ‘As I thought. I wager that you have been told nothing.’

  ‘I am kept close here, worse than a nun in convent. Do I understand that you can remedy that?’

  Which Magister Vyse proceeded to do, while I became more and more irate with every twist and turn in this case that should have restored me as Thomas’s wife. But Magister Vyse’s voice was so serene, so full of patience, that eventually my own emotions settled to hear what had been developing without my knowledge.

  ‘When Sir Thomas heard that you had been kept here against your will and under strong guard, he saw the need for urgency and submitted a second petition. Sir Thomas requested His Holiness to remedy this impediment – your lack of an advocate to speak for you – to the cause of justice. So His Holiness did exactly that. He sent an apostolic brief to the Archbishop of Canterbury and commanded that you be permitted to appoint an attorney of your own, answerable only to you, to act legally on your behalf.’

  ‘But what happened to Magister Nicholas Heath? And who is this Magister Martyn?

  ‘It is a long story.’

  ‘So tell it to me.’ I abandoned my plan to speak circumspectly. Surely this man was my ally. ‘Before God. I have nothing better to do.’

  I had had enough of kneeling. I stood and beckoned so that we took two of the stools set against the wall, where we sat face to face. And so this was what unfolded for me. Thomas, appearing before Cardinal Robert’s Tribunal, had success within his grasp, Magister Siglesthorne presenting the evidence with superb clarity and detail. The two witnesses of our marriage spoke up about what had been seen and done. Magisters John Holland and Nicholas Heath picked apart the evidence and investigated the reliability of Thomas’s onetime squire and page, but being now full grown and men of some distinction, nothing detrimental could be discovered to give their evidence even a shadow of untruth.

  ‘So what is the problem?’

  ‘The problem, if you wish to call it that, is the Earl of Salisbury’s determination to win, and our King’s collusion with him.’

  Magister John Holland had been ordered to absent himself from any further proceedings, at the same time as Magister Nicholas Heath was arrested by King Edward for contempt against the Crown.

  ‘A cunning gambit to stop everything before it could go any further. The contempt was, I suspect, a fabrication, another subterfuge to remove your attorney from the scene so that the case must come to a halt. As you know, the King wishes your present marriage to stand.’

  Two new attorneys were appointed by Will. Magister James St. Agatha for himself. Magister David Martyn for me.

  ‘Whom I do not know,’ I repeated.

  ‘Of course you do not, my dear lady. It is merely another delaying tactic – Magister Martyn, when he approached the Tribunal, informed Cardinal Robert that he was in no position to submit any evidence on your behalf. As for Magister James St. Agatha, he claimed to know nothing whatsoever about the case.’ My informative priest shrugged his vine-strewn shoulders. ‘How would he? It was not intended that he ever should.’

  So much legal subterfuge, of which I had been entirely unaware. The sordid cunning to which Will and my royal cousin Edward were prepared to stoop astonished me, but perhaps it should not have done so. Will would hold me to this marriage, whatever the cost. What better means than ordering his advocate to absent himself or claim ignorance? I might be surprised at the lack of honour in his actions, but then, was I not a valuable wife?

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked, trying not to despair utterly. ‘Do I try to get my instructions to Magister Martyn? I don’t see the value of that, if, as you say, he is in the Earl’s pay and under his instruction.’

  ‘I agree entirely.’ Master Vyse beamed at me, taking one of my hands between his. ‘I will be your attorney. That is why I am here.’

  So. Here was an offer I must consider. His air of authority was without question, as was his status in the Church, his ability to speak with good logic and power. There was one problem, my cynical mind informed me.

  ‘But you are not my choice, sir.’ Who was to say that this cleric would be any more honest that the rest? ‘How do I know that I might trust you any more than I could trust Heath or Martyn?’

  ‘But I have been appointed for your comfort, my lady.’ There was undoubted self-satisfaction in his pronouncement. ‘I have been appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, on the direct orders of His Holiness.’

  A positive banquet for thought.

  ‘But will you tell the truth?’

  ‘I will, my lady. I am appointed to give your side of this sad situation.’

  ‘Do I trust you?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  We stared at each other, both, I suspected, assessing the other. What choice did I have? None at all. This was no time for procrastination.

  ‘Then I will tell you, Magister Vyse.’

  And I did. All the details I had told so many times before. Finally, I looked at him, hope
resurrected when I had almost abandoned it. ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Make clear to me one fact, my lady. Were you forced into this marriage with the present Earl of Salisbury?’

  Was I forced against my will? Force had a habit of wearing many different faces. Ultimately I had not been dragged to the altar, nor had I been threatened with retribution beyond what I could bear. But neither had I been free to reject Will.

  ‘The marriage with the Earl of Salisbury was not of my seeking,’ I said. ‘I did not wish it to take place. I did not willingly make my vows but felt under a compulsion to do so.’

  ‘Then if that is the case, I can help you.’ Magister Vyse nodded briskly. ‘I will put your complaint honestly and fairly before the Cardinal.’ He kissed my fingers. ‘Don’t let anxiety drag you down if you do not hear from me. It will not be a fast outcome, I fear, but I hope it will be as you would wish.’

  ‘And if you fail?’

  He pursed his lips.

  ‘Then you remain Countess of Salisbury. Not a bad life, some would say.’

  No, it was not, simply not the one I wanted. I lifted my head, raising my hand, for there were soft footsteps, slightly halting, instantly recognisable, approaching.

  By the time Lady Elizabeth entered the chapel, with all the false discretion common to her, I was kneeling before the altar, the Dean of Salisbury pronouncing his blessing on a newly-confessed sinner.

  ‘Would you give a message from me to Sir Thomas, sir?’ I whispered under cover of his final benediction.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Will you say this to him.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Tell him this in my words. Joan of Kent says: I took my vows to you in good faith. I would do the same again tomorrow. Keep me in your heart and mind, as you are in mine. I pray constantly for your success.’

  He smiled making once more the sign of the cross.

  ‘It will be my first task when I arrive in Avignon, my lady.’ And then, when Lady Elizabeth had disappeared through the door into an antechamber, he said: ‘Might I enquire why you allowed yourself to become party to a marriage that could only be called bigamous?’

  I permitted my brows to climb. ‘You might indeed enquire, sir. But it is not my intent to inform you.’