by Anne O'Brien
I kissed him on the cheek.
‘Some of them it will be better to forget.’
There was a task I needed to carry out. A task the outcome of which I thought might become of importance to me in the future. I was unsure why I should be so concerned, but the need occupied my mind to the exclusion of all else, a constant itch like a louse in a seam. Best to put it right.
‘Will you give me something?’ I asked.
Our very public marriage thus over in a rush, and before Edward would persuade Thomas to abandon me and join the new adventure to save Calais from French inundations, I made my petition. Thomas was already preoccupied with the details of the forthcoming campaign, even now being recounted to him by Ned and my brother John.
‘I need something from you,’ I repeated, tugging on Thomas’s sleeve.
‘You cannot refuse a bride on her wedding day,’ Isabella remarked in passing, ‘even if it is for the second time. Or even the third…’
I pushed her away. This was important, not to be discussed within hearing distance of anyone but Thomas and myself. I only broached it here because I was unsure what his next move would be under the persuasion of his fellow Garter Knights.
‘If it is in my power, you will have it,’ Thomas said, walking reluctantly aside with me. ‘But if you want jewels or fine clothes, you will have to wait. It has beggared me to get you at last.’
‘Such an admission to make to a bride!’ On impulse, I touched his cheek, free to do so at last under the quizzical but indulgent eye of the whole court. ‘You have all the documents from the Cardinal’s decisions,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘All of them?’
‘Except for the papal bull. Which is somewhere in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s keeping.’ His brow wrinkled as he pulled his thoughts back from the need to gather archers and retainers. ‘Are you afraid that there is still a question over our marriage?’
‘No. Not at all.’
But the concern touched me again and made me shiver, like the first hint of rain on a hot day, presaging a summer storm.
‘I’ll keep them safe, if that troubles you.’
And it did trouble me, although I hid it. ‘Would you be willing to give them into my keeping?’
‘I will. And be glad of it.’
‘Will you do it now?’
‘This minute?’ And seeing my brows rise. ‘If I must.’
Escaping from the audience chamber where we had been gathered, we made our way to Thomas’s accommodations in this warren of a palace. Small and cramped as it was, he was forced to riffle through pieces of armour and outer clothing until he produced a small roughly constructed travelling coffer, not at all suited to precious documents. There they were, stuffed in as if of no importance. If it had been a weapon he would have cleaned and wrapped it in linen until it was next needed.
Sighing, I took the coffer from him. ‘I will look after them.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ I thought about it, eventually saying, ‘I think that they might be more important for me than for you, one day.’
‘I can’t think why. As long as all is legal for the inheritance of our children.’
‘I am not sure why. I just have a need to keep them under my eye. And now come with me.’
‘Where?’
‘To a more comfortable chamber than this rabbit hutch.’
In the coming days I smoothed out the documents, re-ordered them, and had a coffer made for them with a lock and key. I kept them in my chamber; when I travelled, they travelled too. Why the insecurity? It might be that one day I would need to prove once again which marriage was legal and which was not. I would have the evidence to hand.
Throughout all the careful arrangements I made, I remained fully aware that I had done damage to my reputation. I had heard the whispers when Thomas and I had made our vows before the combined bishops. Royal brides should not indulge in clandestine events which would cast doubts on what was legal and what was not, but on that day when we consummated our marriage in fine style it was far from my thoughts. We had waited long enough. Not a falconers cot or Thomas’s hard mattress but a bed, a huge Montagu travelling bed, brought to Windsor by either Will or the Dowager Countess at some time in the past, with all its carved posts, its tasselled hangings and embroidered symbols of Montagu power. I had made use of it when at court. I would make use of it now.
‘This seems strangely inappropriate,’ Thomas observed, still fully clothed, stretched out and looking up at the Montagu motifs on the tester.
‘It has not been used apart from me to sleep in.’
‘Time it was!’
‘Might I suggest that you remove your boots?’
There we were, alone; two persons legally wed, with all the past anguishes forgiven, enclosed together in one room with a bed and privacy as there had not been for so many years.
‘I thought of you,’ Thomas said, obediently as he sat up to pull off his boots. ‘I thought of you in the rankness of battlefields. In the long-winded sessions in the courts at Avignon. When I was your steward.’
‘All the time, in fact?’ I laughed a little to hide a surprising nervousness as, clad in my linen shift, I sat on the edge of the bed, remembering the discomfort of the falconer’s cot.
‘No,’ he admitted, with as much of a sheepish grin as I had ever seen from him. ‘Sometimes I was preoccupied. But you were a beacon in the darkness, a precious gift that by pure chance I had won for myself when I had nothing of value to my name other than my sword and my horse.’ He shuffled to sit more closely beside me. ‘I should have been thrashed for taking you as my wife as I did, but how could a man resist the beauty that you owned as a young girl? And of which you were fully aware.’ His fingers, heavy with sword and rein calluses, trailed down my cheek. ‘Did you think of me at all?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted promptly. ‘I thought of you when I needed to be rescued from the locked doors at Bisham. Your absence infuriated me.’
He regarded me steadily. ‘I swear there is as little romance in you as there is in me. How can so beautiful a woman have so little sentiment in her soul?’
‘I have no idea. But my senses are truly engaged.’
‘Ha!’ His gaze turned speculative.
‘Did I not stand beside you when you challenged Edward? Did I not give up all for this?’
I swept a hand to indicate our present surroundings; better than the mews they might be, better than Thomas’s accommodations, but the chamber I had been allotted on my arrival, the castle being thronged with important visitors, was not comparable to any of the rooms I had enjoyed at Bisham as Countess of Salisbury. The bed might be impressive but the light through the high windows was meagre, and the tapestries had never seen the hand of a master craftsman. Moreover, who knew where we would spend our future nights?
Then my hands were captured, as were my lips. When Thomas drew my shift from my shoulders I shivered with some apprehension.
‘You are as much a virgin as when I left you.’
‘Of course.’ My breathing was compromised. ‘Did you truly have a harlot in every camp?’
‘Not quite every one. Did Will never try to bed you?’
His mouth imprinted kisses along my shoulder. Breathing was becoming difficult, but pleasurably so.
‘Not with any real enthusiasm. Or success.’
‘I will be very successful.’
‘I have no doubt of it.’
And he was. Was I disappointed after a lifetime of waiting? Not so. My disquieting memories of the discomforts of the Ghent mews were cast into oblivion, as they deserved.
Chapter Eight
January 1350: The Manor of Yoxall, Staffordshire
I was effectively struck dumb. But not for long
‘May the Blessed Virgin preserve me!’
I had not expected quite such a change in my circumstances. This was not naivety as much as lack of experience. But here was a shock that made me pull my mount
to a standstill while I took stock. I had informed Isabella that I had no fear of living on a knight’s holding in the wilderness of the far north of the country. Raised as I had been with all the comfort and wealth of King Edward’s court, I had not known the half of it here in Staffordshire.
Penury. Poverty. Depredation.
The words jostled in my mind. This was to be my experience as Lady of the Manor.
‘We are pleased to welcome you, Lady Holland.’
It still surprised me when I was not addressed as Countess of Salisbury.
‘It pleases me to be here.’
I smiled around me, and at the youthful steward, warmly because I must. It had to be said that it did not please me at all but I stepped through the door, stopping to look back at the courtyard, the outer buildings, the stable block, with an inner shudder. Then proceeded within to where the rest of my household awaited me.
‘You have the ability to dissemble with great ease, Joan.’ Thomas took my hand and led me into what passed for a Great Hall. It was no larger than Philippa’s personal audience chamber. ‘It is a quality I have always admired in you.’
‘I have polished it over many years,’ I said, still smiling, ‘but not under these circumstances. Do you wish to live here? Do you wish me to live here?’
We were at the utterly forgettable manor of Yoxall in Staffordshire. I doubted that I would discover Yoxall on any map in Edward’s collection. Small, isolated, if anything it was even more dilapidated than Broughton in Buckinghamshire that we had passed rapidly through. The manors had belonged to Thomas’s mother Maud, whom I had never met. On her death she had left them to Thomas, a lifetime interest.
‘No. I do not wish to be here.’
But he too smiled on his dependents and accepted the wine cup, drinking manfully of its harsh contents. I sipped with decorous precision, intent on leaving as much as possible.
‘At least we have somewhere to live,’ he had said with no great enthusiasm when, after greeting his retainers, his cook and his indoor servants, we were left alone.
So this was to be my life, perhaps with an unspoken expectancy that this new royal bride would have the coin in her coffers to put all matters right. As we had travelled north we had been surrounded by evidence of despair and ruin: plague had ravaged those who worked on the manors, lack of investment over the years had done the rest. This was not a wealthy family that I had joined. Thomas merited the promotion to the rank of banneret, but clearly he lacked the two hundred pounds annual income to support the status. The two manors I had inspected would never be worth two hundred pounds each year.
Nor did I have the wealth to remedy the lack.
‘I have the strongest impression,’ I said, placing the wine cup and its contents on the floor beside the hearth, ‘that you regret that our marriage stepped into the path of your joining Edward in his campaign to Calais.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘With ease.’
Thomas had decided not to go.
I made a circuit of the hall. There was very little to inspect. There was a tapestry but with more holes and damp-induced mould than stitching. The stools and the tables stacked against the wall showed evidence of woodworm. I did not like to consider the state of the bedchambers.
Thomas was watching me. ‘We will make of it what we can,’ I said, ‘until Edward forgives you and makes you the great man you ought to be.’
‘I hope it is before I die.’
But he took my arm and escorted me around the rest of my new home while I absorbed a cold dose of reality. I could do nothing but ensure efficiency and that all under our dominion were fed. The money at our disposal was astonishingly little so that as I stepped into what would be my chamber, I had visions of cutting and re-sewing my gowns. There would be no rebuilding of these two little manors. Besides, Thomas was not interested in planning anything that did not involve a charge of cavalry or a siege or a complex campaign. I knew with some depression of spirits that it would be only a matter of weeks before he answered the call of duty to fight at Edward’s side. I ran my hand along the soft blue of the bed curtains, over the coverlet that had once matched but was now faded into a uniform grey.
I grimaced. ‘Damp.’
‘I’ll order a fire to be lit in here.’
I doubted a fire had been lit there since Lady Maud had died. Had she died in this bed?
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Not a thing.’ It came into my mind, about the desolate maxim of making beds and lying in them.
And when Thomas found the chance to clip me close and kiss my lips, I was more than resigned. When one has no choice, resignation is a fine thing.
Two months later, when March heralded the first hint of green along the hedges, Thomas left Yoxall for Sandwich where Edward was collecting a fleet to deal with the Castilian navy prowling in the Channel. I remained at Yoxall.
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Perfectly.’
I was carrying our first child. Thomas had lost no time in ensuring an heir for his name and to inherit Yoxall. I hoped that the child would appreciate it.
‘Just make sure that you return,’ I added. ‘And if you can win a more suitable inheritance for this infant, I will be delighted.’
So Thomas was there at the Battle of Winchelsea where the Castilian fleet was defeated while I awaited the birth, refusing to shut myself away in self-imposed confinement until my ritual churching, which was the lot of most royal women. Many wives watched the battle from the cliffs, I was told. It did not interest me. I had my own battle to struggle with, in a chamber that still reeked of damp and mould and probably always would. The sheets has been darned and mended beyond further repair.
We called him Thomas. Young Tom.
Thomas, returning from the dangers of battle, still with the light in his eye of an excellent fight well fought, beamed at his son and heir.
‘He’ll be a good knight. Look at those hands. I’ll have to buy him armour and a horse.’
‘Not quite yet. I doubt we can afford it.’
Thomas was silent, rubbing a finger over the baby’s head which was neatly encased in a white coif. The wisps of hair matched Thomas’s own in their dense colour. Thomas’s expression was wry.
‘Pray to God for good health for this son. I don’t think I can afford more children unless there is a war I can fight in.’
I had had much time to consider this. I was not without plans. Shut away in the chilly reaches of Staffordshire had given me much opportunity.
‘Is there truly none left of the money Edward paid you for the ransom?’ I asked.
‘Edward managed not to pay it all, after the first purse,’ Thomas admitted, which I had suspected. ‘He could hardly demand its return from me without a stain on his own honour. After that he said he could afford no more. The wars were a drain on his purse strings, he said.’ He looked across the child’s waving arms to where I stood. ‘I know what you are thinking.’
‘Then I’ll say it. Not such a drain that would stop his building projects at Windsor and every castle he possesses. How much is he spending to enhance this and rebuild that? Edward simply did not approve of how you spent the coin you did get. That’s the real reason.’
‘That may be.’ He handed the infant to his nurse who bore him out, leaving us alone. ‘And no, there is none left of that.’
Of course. As I had known. The case had beggared him. Beggared us.
‘So you will no longer grace my bed?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure. You have shown more interest in your son than you have in me.’
‘Then let us remedy it. You are looking amazingly healthy for the deprived life you tell me you are living.’
Since I had been churched and purified after the birth, my votive candles presented to the altar in the Lady Chapel in the Church of St. Peter in thanksgiving for my survival, Thomas proved to be attentive and gratifyingly energetic. For once the
damp linens on my bed were not uppermost in my mind.
‘It is good to be home,’ he murmured in the breathless aftermath.
My concurrence was practical and wifely and made him lose his breath all over again.
As might have been expected, I was soon carrying another child, and since there were no prospects of any notable increase in our income to match that in our family, I decided that I needed to make a demand on some debts and family loyalties.
‘We are returning to court,’ I announced before the seams of my surcoat needed to be let out.
Thomas made no demur; nor did he show surprise.
‘I wondered how long you would be content here.’
‘My contentment is at an end. Besides there is an excellent reason to go now.’
At last a marriage had been arranged for Isabella to Bernard, eldest son and heir of the Gascon Lord Albret. It had been arranged that in November a ship would come to carry her across the sea to meet her new husband. It would be accompanied by celebrations and the giving of many gifts. Edward was glowing with the prospect of this well-connected bridegroom. I had no idea of Isabella’s thoughts.
I dressed with care, as well as with a degree of artfulness, not enough to dent my pride, but enough to cause comment from at least one influential quarter. I knew on whom I could rely when it came to matters of high fashion and she would have garments in mind since it was her wedding departure to Gascony that I would grace. Thomas did not notice, or if he did, he was wise enough to make no comment. But it was Philippa who embraced me, then inspected me with an air of displeasure after ensuring my excellent state of health and that of my child.
‘I have seen that gown at least a dozen times, if not more.’
‘And you will see it a dozen more.’
I smoothed my hands over the deep green skirts of the cote-hardie, a colour that had never flattered me. The worn patches flattered me even less.
The Queen examined me more closely, focusing on bodice and hands. ‘Where are your jewels?’
I managed a little shrug, an infinitesimal grimace. ‘I have none.’
