by Anne O'Brien
I was grateful that Thomas was nowhere in the vicinity. He could be eloquent on the contents of my jewel coffer.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I am no longer Countess of Salisbury.’
Isabella, the bride, joined us. ‘That does not mean that you must wear a gown more worthy of a kitchen maid to my wedding departure. The fur looks as if it has been chewed.’ An exaggeration of course, but she lifted the offending item with a curl of her lip.
‘That will be my son. He is acquiring teeth,’ I said, not at all discouraged at this turn in the conversation between the pair of them. ‘I have come to wish you well. We do not have the money for fripperies. Nor do I need them.’ I lied beautifully, smoothly.
‘I do not believe that you have been driven to selling your jewels.’ Philippa exhibited disgust that I should have been reduced to such extremities.
‘I may have.’
‘It is unfitting that you should live in hardship.’ Isabella was clad in damask and fur with a new jewel pinned to her bodice. Probably a gift from her newly espoused husband.
‘I can blame no one but myself. Thomas needs a war,’ I said, which was not as inconsequential as it might sound.
‘Which he is likely to get,’ Philippa confirming my worst fears, ‘but in the meantime we will discuss this little matter with the King…’
Philippa was gently outraged. I was demure. Isabella was lively. Edward, when we discovered him in a cluster of his knights, was wary and reluctant as Philippa drew him apart and announced her purpose.
‘She looks perfectly presentable to me,’ Edward observed, running an experienced eye over my person, ignoring the depredations of time and wear.
‘How can you say that? Princess Joan should not look like a poor relation whom we do not wish to acknowledge. It does you no honour, Edward.’
‘It’s not a matter of honour. I don’t have the money to support every one of my knights who marries to disoblige me.’
‘Of course not, sir.’ I added my own layer of helplessness. ‘Sir Thomas understands. He would never petition you.’
‘No! But you would.’
‘I, my lord? It is beneath my pride to do so. I am here at the behest of your wife and daughter.’
Edward eyed me speculatively. I continued to remain demure.
‘I think that you should be magnanimous, Edward, on this most auspicious occasion,’ Philippa was warmly soothing.
‘Or we could all kneel at your feet,’ Isabella warned, with an innocent glance at me.
Edward’s reaction was immediate. ‘Don’t do that! The gossips would be speculating why.’
‘You could save the money out of your building schemes, Father, and all that gilding that my mother does not really admire. We could manage with a little less.’
‘And we understand why you did not fulfil the whole of the promised payment to Sir Thomas for the French lords, cousin.’ I smiled at Edward. ‘Many would think you parsimonious but we know that you were merely stretched with other expenditure. And of course you were displeased, as would any proud man be in the circumstances…’
‘Joan cannot continue to wear old gowns, Edward!’ Philippa added another layer of guilt, while I hammered the final nail into the coffin of Edward’s reluctance.
‘I am carrying another child, my lord.’ I lowered my gaze. ‘My children need an inheritance worthy of their royal blood. The manor of Yoxall, in the state it is now, is not fit for a cat to inherit.’
Edward was no match for three determined women. He raised his hand to stop us.
‘I will consider a gift to mark the marriage of my dear daughter. And there’s an end to it.’
I rejoiced.
But not for long.
In a moment of self-will, astonishing both English and Gascons, Isabella seized the forthcoming marriage in her own hands, at the final hour refusing the much sought-after Bernard. While the ship waited, flags aflutter, to escort her across the sea to Gascony, Isabella shut herself into her chamber. She would not go. She would not wed the noble Bernard. No matter how her father might rail, she would not do it. She would have to be taken aboard with hands and feet bound if that was the royal will. She would go only under such duress.
Isabella fell into disgrace, as would any disobliging daughter. I gave up on any hope for a gift of money to mark the event which did not happen.
‘Why?’ I asked, admitting to shock as well as disappointment.
‘Because I did not wish it.’
‘That’s no reason.’
‘The reverse was a good enough reason for you becoming Lady Holland rather than Countess of Salisbury. I could not live in Yoxall with barely two nobles to rub together and a wardrobe falling into shreds around me. I could not live with Lord Bernard, either. I do not know him. I will not marry a man who does not touch my emotions.’
So that was that. Isabella remained unwed, setting herself with all the confidence of an indulged child to winning her way back into her father’s favour while Thomas and I returned to Yoxall, which gave off an even more gloomy air after the bright hues of Windsor.
‘I did try,’ I told Thomas.
‘I thought you would. But with Isabella stabbing Edward’s plans in the back, he was in no mood for open handed generosity. The girl is a law unto herself, obviously a Plantagenet trait.’ Within a breath, he became serious. ‘You must not petition the King again, Joan. Allow me some dignity, to support my own wife without royal handouts.’
‘I deserve a royal handout.’
But I gave my word that I would not.
‘When I need help,’ Thomas warned, as if I were a squire under his command, ‘I will bend the knee before him.’
No need. A document followed us, arriving in the New Year. On the grace and goodwill of the King, Thomas and I were granted a royal annuity for the length of my life, a worthy sum of one hundred marks a year. Enough to ease the worst of our ills and allow Thomas to buy a horse and armour for his son. And any future ones. Enough to consign the green gown to where it belonged, a gift to be re-cut and re-stitched with new trimming for one of my women.
26th December 1352: Manor of Yoxall, Staffordshire
The courier was dispatched to the kitchen where he would regale the cook and the two kitchen maids, and anyone else who suddenly found the need to visit there, with the burden of news he carried. They would feed him too, on the remnants of our Christmas feasting. There were no further demands on his time, for there was no one person who needed to know the content of his brief report other than myself. And therein lay the problem. I wondered how our household would receive it. My own mind seemed strangely numb.
‘I took the liberty of sending a notice to Calais, my lady,’ the courier had said.
Edward had appointed Thomas as Captain of the royal castle at Calais. It meant much travel for him and much separation for both of us but it was a symbol of royal recognition which I would never oppose. The courier’s message would be vital for him.
I went to the nursery where Tom, now more than a year old, was finding his feet. When he couldn’t walk, he shuffled with uncommon speed. A crow of his laughter greeted me at the door. His shock of dark hair was that of his father, even to the dishevelment. And there was John, a restless child even though still a babe in arms, being rocked in his cradle by a local girl I employed for that specific task. All was comfort with a bright fire and new hangings to dispel draughts. The annuity had made a difference to the state in which we lived.
But nothing compared to the news which had just arrived on our doorstep. That would make all the difference in the world to Tom. He did not know it yet, he would not have any notion of the breadth and width of the effect on his life, but one day he would reap a splendid crop from this new sowing. This child, begotten of our love, heir to a knight’s paltry manors, would have a new horizon opening up before him. One day…
I lifted him high in my arms, kissed him, ran my fingers through his hair and returned him to his nursemaid. I did not distur
b John who was blessedly asleep.
I could see their father in their long limbs, in the dense hair that grew at all angles. Was there anything of me in them? What would I wish for them? A pride in their blood, an ambition to make their mark on the world. A fierce temper when roused? Perhaps not. A determination not to be thwarted, which I could already read in Tom’s demeanour when taken to task by his nursemaid.
I waited for Thomas’s return.
‘My brother is dead.’ My first words as Thomas ran up the steps into the hall. No greeting. No comment on his travel-beaten appearance. Only one thought in my mind. ‘John is dead.’
‘It’s hard to believe. I came as soon as I heard.’ Thomas was stripping off gloves, hat and outer clothing, handing them to his squire. ‘I’ve never seen a fighter with such a charmed life in battle as your brother. I’ve seen him withstand a battering that would have felled a more robust man, and still walk away from it with barely a black eye…’
‘Death does not have to come in battle!’ A quick anger surged beneath my interruption at what seemed to me an unfairness. ‘He died from a fever that took him to his bed at his manor of Woking. He never recovered. He was dead within two days. Twenty-two years is no age to die.’
And, as astonishing to myself as to Thomas, I covered my face with my hands and I wept.
Thomas might not always be attuned to the tears or laughter of those around him, but his care for me was immediate. I was brought into the circle of his arms, even when I resisted, so that at last I leaned and I wept even harder, regardless of dust and grime and the all-pervading aroma of horse and sweat.
‘I have never seen you weep before,’ he said at last when the flood had abated somewhat.
‘I have never had the need.’ I swallowed as I recalled the death of my mother and sister. I had not wept for them.
‘I am so sorry, Joan.’
‘He was all that was left to me.’
Resting his chin on my head, he stroked my shoulder as if I were a distressed mare, while I called my emotions into line. Deciding that I was once more in control, Thomas raised my chin and wiped my face with my own sleeve.
‘What a storm. I had no idea that you were so close.’
‘We have not been, of recent years. But once we were.’ To the sad detriment of my surcoat, I was pulled to sit on the floor near the fireplace where desultory flames consumed green logs with much smoke, Thomas’s arms still around me. ‘When he was born we were all prisoners of Earl Mortimer in Arundel Castle, our lives at risk. I stood sponsor for him because there was no one else. I was barely two years old, and have no memory of it, but I was told by my mother, and it was important to me. Now everyone is gone. My uncle. My mother…’
‘You cannot say that you miss your mother.’
‘No.’ I punched him lightly in the ribs, fast recovering now. I thought for a moment. ‘John’s widow will be distraught.’
‘I expect she’ll marry again. If I recall, she is very young. She has no children to tie her to the family. John had no heir…’
He stopped. He looked at me. I looked at him. The silence that fell between us was thick with realisation as what we had known since first hearing of John’s death fell into place, like notes in a well-known tune.
‘I respect your grief, Joan. But you do know what this will means for us. For you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course you do.’
I shook my head.
‘I’ll not think of it yet. I’ll not speak of it yet. I will mourn John with grace and due respect.’
‘But one day we must.’
Of the same mind, we said no more about it but allowed grief and mourning to run out its full course, attending John’s burial at the Church of the Grey Friars in Winchester beside our father the first Earl of Kent. I recalled that my mother had intended to move my father’s remains, from a place where he had been executed with such ignominy, to Westminster, but the plan had never come to term, so this is where John’s earthly remains would also lie. It proved to be a solemn occasion, with few in the congregation, where Isabel of Jülich, John’s young wife, her face blotched with tears, expressed the intention of enclosing herself as a nun until the day that she too died and would be buried next to her dear husband. I had no patience with her, to take the veil and shut herself away. She was younger than I.
‘A more maudlin woman I have never met,’ I said to Thomas when I could escape her tears. ‘She may be a niece of the Queen, but she doesn’t possess half her backbone.’
‘And I am only thankful that you are not of the same stamp. Will you weep so when I am dead?’
‘I will await the occasion and tell you about it.’
His responding smile was sharp and feral. ‘I’ll postpone it as long as I can.’
As we parted I once again expressed my condolences: ‘God keep you, Isabel.’
‘As He will.’ Already resembling a nun in her widow’s weeds. ‘I will dedicate my life to Him.’ And then with a tinge of unholy bitterness: ‘Enjoy your good fortune, Joan. I wish it were not so.’
Not through any dislike of me, I decided, but because of her own lack. She and John had been wed four years, enough time for them to look to the future. And they had not.
‘There is no enjoyment in my heart.’
It was all I could say. For here was the consequence of John’s death, destroying as it did the whole clear-running line of inheritance for the earldom of Kent. Of my father’s children I was the only one to remain alive since John and his wife had no children. I would inherit the Kent lands. I would inherit the Kent title as of right. There was no one to question it.
I was Baroness Wake of Liddell. I was Countess of Kent, suo jure.
Thomas and I returned to our manor at Broughton.
‘How does it feel to be Countess of Kent?’ he asked. ‘How does it feel to be one of the wealthiest landowners in England?’
‘Little different, when I see the state of our accommodations here at Broughton.’ I was unimpressed by the muddy state of the floor as if an army had trampled over it. ‘I notice that Isabel still insisted on being addressed as Countess. I expect she’ll cling to it like a mite to a greasy head.’ I dispatched the children to the nursery, before putting out a hand to stop Thomas disappearing towards the stables. ‘It will matter greatly to you, of course.’
Thomas had suddenly the prospect of being a landed lord of significance in the right of my inheritance.
‘We are rich beyond my dreams,’ he remarked as our possessions were unpacked from the wagons and returned to the appropriate chambers. Thomas was regarding the unloading of the travelling beds, which had seen much travel, with a critical eye. ‘Would you like to tell me how many estates and manors you now own, apart from the knight’s fees and advowsons?’
I had spoken with John’s man of law who had proved to be most enlightening with the result that I knew fairly well what I was worth. ‘Forty-three manors,’ I said. ‘Spread across the length and breadth of England.’
‘Which will bring in how much each year?’
‘More than three thousand pounds. And that’s after Isabel receives a third of John’s estates for her dower.’
‘So.’ Thomas exhaled forcefully through his nose. ‘Our bread no longer depends on my selling my sword or capturing French nobles for ransom or your petitioning the King for a charitable handout.’
‘None of those. You are a great lord, Thomas, with the right to sit in parliament. As Tom will be so after you. You will be Earl of Kent.’
‘Mmn!’ Thomas followed the beds into the hall, where he turned to me, brows flat. ‘I don’t expect for one moment that the King will extend the title to me.’
‘Not yet he won’t,’ I admitted. ‘Only when he thinks he has punished you enough. But the inheritance is ours.’
Thomas frowned on a thought. ‘I’ve no mind to tie myself to land management.’
‘Nor will you have to tie yourself to it, you ingrate. John has a c
ouncil of knights and clerks to survey and administer all. We inherit it and use it. Many of the manors are rented out. You can go fighting again, if that is your wish. I wonder if the King will see your new status as a reason to give you more authority than Captain of Calais? It may be so.’
‘We’ll not hold our breath. The King would consider Captain of Calais enough. Meanwhile, let us go and raise a cup of ale to your new title, my lady. It has been a long day.’
Nor did we hold our breath. As expected, although Edward did not see fit to extend the rank of Earl to Thomas, life changed for us, not least when we moved our whole household to Castle Donington in Leicestershire, a castle overlooking the Trent at the centre of my inheritance with more than a touch of luxury in its buildings and in the woodlands and meadows, not to mention the fisheries and parkland that surrounded it. The deficiencies of life at Yoxall and Broughton were soon forgotten. All those estates that my mother had fought so hard and so long to reclaim were now mine. I bought new gowns. No more frayed sleeves and worn fur, through hard wearing or through artifice.
Yes, I mourned my brother’s death even as I enjoyed my own gain. Now we could bide our time until Thomas became Earl, as he should. I would not allow Edward to sweep this matter aside.
I caught Thomas packing for a new campaign, as if he could hide it from me until the day he followed his battle gear through the gate. Or no, there was no campaigning, merely a time of uneasy truce while both sides struggled to find a good reason for a permanent peace between England and France. So if not war, Edward had some other plan for him. Some plan to which I was not privy. Thomas, not adept at dissembling, had an element of guilt overlying his innocent expression.
‘Where is it this time?’
‘Brittany.’
Thomas continued to place official scrolls into a coffer. This had a legal smack about it. I would wait to see what developed.
‘Well at least it’s close,’ I said, sitting in his chair, as innocent as he. ‘It might be a short visit.’
‘Yes. Short. And there again – it might not.’ He did not quite meet my eye. Nothing new there.
Standing, I tucked my hand within his arm to drag his attention back to me. ‘We have spent our whole life not knowing when we would set eyes on each other again. Why did I think this would be any different?’ I was resigned more than irritated.
