The First Princess of Wales

by Karen Harper

  It amused the prince mightily that the first of the fish and egg courses had even been served before Jeannette managed to reerect her pretended wall of indifference and undertake some conversation to ward off his silent stares. Her graceful hands took only a few jellied eggs on her plate and the slightest helpings of seethed pike in claret and salted herring in ginger.

  “You made a disparaging comment upon our arrival today, my lord prince, concerning my attitude toward my betrothed, Sir Thomas. I feel you must realize I was pleased to see him briefly in London before he left for his lands in the north. His wounds, though painful, will heal well enough given time.”

  “I know that, ma chérie Jeannette. I made certain he had the best surgeon’s care on the night he was hurt. But stomach injuries can sap a man’s strength. It is best you are apart for a while then.”

  She shot him a sideways look through her thick lashes, but his face was neither taunting nor bitter. “Do not believe I wish him any harm, Jeannette. He is a dear companion-in-arms, a brave warrior older than I who has taught me much. He told you, I suppose, that before he was hit by a damned French crossbow, he captured the Count d’Eu and Sire de Tarcarville on the field at Crécy and will ransom them for the hefty sum of seven thousand pounds? The money, no doubt, will go to formally furnish his new castle in Normandy with which the king has rewarded him for his bravery and loyalty. A moated castle called Châteaux Ruisseau near the River Risle at Pont-Audemer. He told you all this?”

  There was a strange edge to his voice, a tenseness of expectancy his calm demeanor could not belie. He watched her carefully, his big, bronzed hand grasping, then ungrasping the stem of his gem-encrusted goblet.

  “Aye, he told me all of it. The castle and farmlands do sound pretty. We are betrothed, so why should he not tell me of it?”

  “Why not, indeed? You find the betrothal pleasing then? I would have to say your demeanor here with the ever-avid Salisbury suggests the whole thing does not mean a fig to you.”

  “Saints, Your Grace. You know how it goes at court with betrothals!”

  “And with fidelity in general.” He leaned closer to her as if to check to see if her wine goblet were filled. She had not touched her food but had managed to drink frequently from the goblet, perhaps to hide behind its fluted rim. His pulse thudded as his eyes dipped to the sweet, shadowy cleavage between her breasts pressing against the soft velvet and rich satin. There must be a way to be alone with her, to slake his perpetual thirst for her. He was a fool, and so was his temporarily amenable lady mother if either of them believed a little time with this blond Jeannette would ease his need for her. He motioned to one of the hovering butlers who filled Joan’s goblet with the rich, burgundy wine.

  “Not hungry tonight, ma chérie? I have heard that when one’s heart is smitten, the appetite flees. In your case, in longing for the lucky Thomas Holland or someone closer, I know not. Perhaps you will play your lute and sing for me if you are too fond to eat all these delicious dishes for Isabella’s joyous betrothal. How is it that little song about love goes now? Ah, I have it.” He sang the words, low and raspy, his voice almost a sensual whisper that sent shivers along her spine to flutter little butterflies wildly in her stomach:

  “Alas, my love hath gone away

  And now no meat nor drink, I say,

  Shall ever please me more until

  He loves me of his own free will.”

  “Singing at table is forbid in mannerly company, Your Grace. I fear you have been away too long at war to remember that. And I care not for your reading of my light eating. Mayhap my kirtle is just fashionably tight-fitted enough or I do not wish to be overstuffed for the dancing. I promised several handsome lords a dance, you see.”

  He grinned wickedly at the ploy as though he believed it not. And then, she forced him to eat the words of his song as she tried to eat enough to match him helping for helping at the sumptuous feast. From the meat course she took generous portions of stag haunch, chicken boiled with ginger, and seethed partridge colored sky blue with mulberries. He eyed her hotly while she tried to best him with frosty stares and a large plate at the next course consisting of apricots from Armenia, pomegranates, dates, plum porridge, Brie cheese, and candied flower petals. They ate sometimes without speaking, annoyed that the unspoken challenge of their game was occasionally interrupted by Isabella’s chatter or numerous healths drunk to the affianced couple. Even the king’s boisterous asides to them hardly halted their gustatory battle. Joan almost bolted from the table when she licked her fingers in an intentionally annoying way only to have his strong knee and thigh thrust against her leg under the tablecloth. But when the servers cut a huge, hollow pastry before the queen and twenty black pigeons flew out to circle to the lofty ceiling, Joan stopped long enough to realize she felt as stuffed as the roast peacocks with lighted tapers in their beaks had been.

  The prince’s eagle eye saw her waver, her lips tremble. “St. George, I favor a maid with a hearty appetite.” He grinned at her. “Those other huge pastries in the shape of the leopards, mounted knight, and town of Calais will be cut soon and I shall summon us a big hunk of them. Some of that sweet orangeade from that castle moat too, I think, before you have to leave me for all that lively, bouncing dancing with your handsome knights.”

  She knew she had overstepped and badly. The room seemed to blur; the gay colors on the floating scarves of ladies’ headpieces below merged and wavered. Too much wine, both ruby red and white and too much food, spices, and sweets. Saints, why had she let the devilish beast goad her into this display and on Isabella’s betrothal eve? The queen would be furious. But if she sat here to gaze on the next course of sweets she would be sick before them all.

  “I fear I must excuse myself for a few minutes,” she heard herself tell him. She tried to force a smile. Never, never had she done something like this, never felt so full and floaty all at the same time. If it happened here in front of him, she would simply die of shame.

  He leaned forward to pull back her heavy chair for her. Surely, she thought, people will think nothing of this as guests frequently made quick visits to garde-robes during a long banquet with much drinking. If only she could navigate that whole long room to the door—smiling, nodding—get upstairs, and find her room without being ill here, she would be eternally penitent.

  He said something to Isabella and her smiling, handsome betrothed de Male, a word to the queen, too. He took her arm and she was glad. Others had risen to drink and chat, watch the dizzying jugglers, choose a first dance partner, or just stretch their stiff legs after the four-hour meal. She felt hot now, then cold, and her stomach twisted in a fierce knot.

  They were nearly to the door where she would bid him good-night, then flee. She tried to be calm: thank the blessed saints, he did not jest or goad her now. People kept talking to the prince along the way, bowing and curtsying, crazily shouting out, “England and St. George!” or “Vive Crécy!” But they went on.

  Near the doors a sturdy, square-looking man leaned a black velvet shoulder on the wall and peered over the edge of his wine cup grimly at her until he noted the prince and bowed stiffly. Her eyes snagged with his and despite her discomfort, she hesitated a moment. Black hair etched with silver fell nearly to shaggy brows to cover a wide forehead over deep-set, dark eyes. He looked to be about forty and five years of age. His long, aquiline nose seemed strangely in contrast to his square jaw, narrow eyes, and tiny mustache. He lifted both one disconcerting eyebrow and his cup to her as they went out.

  “Can you make the stairs, chérie, or shall I carry you and let them all whisper about it later?” The two guards who must be with the prince fell in step behind them.

  “No—I can walk. I am fine, really.” They went up the endless, wide stone stairs.

  “I am sorry I taunted you to this, Jeannette. You look grayish pale, and I believe I have foolishly lost you for the rest of the evening.”

  With great effort she arranged her thoughts and summoned
her words: “That man back there—with grayish hair at the door. Is he a Flemish burgher? He looks—a villain. I thought I maybe should or might know him.”

  Prince Edward helped her up the last steps, his touch strong on her elbow. “The one all in black velvet? No—he lives here now though and is a fine ally to King Edward. I am certain you have not met him. Here, we are almost there. I will summon a maid for you and hurry back down before they all suspect the worst. The man you mentioned—his name is John de Maltravers.”

  She yanked her arm away and went wildly off balance at the top of the steps. The prince’s quick hands shot out to seize her before she could tumble back, but her head hit the stone wall.

  “Maltravers! Maltravers here!” she either shouted aloud or in the prison of her own shocked mind.

  She struck out at the prince’s encircling arms thinking she would scream or faint. But she did neither. He scooped her up, flying skirts and all, and deposited her in her little chamber as if he had known exactly which of the many strange doors in the long hall was hers.

  The next day she was very, very grateful he had bid her a hasty good-night and beat a coward’s retreat before he could see his Jeannette be very, very sick or curse him and his whole family for welcoming the traitor de Maltravers in their laughing midst.

  Prince Edward stared at the seven hundred polished gold spurs stretching endlessly down the gray stone wall in the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Queen Philippa still knelt in prayer at his side but, unlike his pious mother, he neither closed his eyes nor sent his thoughts heavenward. At last she whispered an amen, crossed her ample bosom in reverence, and rose.

  “The souls of three hundred and fifty knights all slaughtered because they did not recognize the power of a mass of cornered peasants,” Queen Philippa observed as they strolled slowly up the nave of the great church. “It is an omen we might all note well, especially in France where Philip taxes his serfs so cruelly. They can be a danger when inflamed and then show no proper respect for God-given authority.”

  “Aye. English rich and poor shoulder to shoulder at Crécy to face Philip’s vainglorious knights who rode their bowmen down—that was our strength that day.”

  Philippa took her son’s dark green velvet arm and her plump hand patted his wrist as she spoke. “And the blessings of God profited you, my dear Wales, and your own prowess to win your spurs that day. Soon Calais, which plagues you and your royal sire so and devours all our wealth to keep so many soldiers there, will fall, too. I was just thanking the Blessed Virgin that the spurs of my two dear Edwards are attached to their glorious heels and not hung like stag heads of victory in some foreign shrine.”

  He laughed as they emerged into the sunshine of the cobbled Burg Square to rejoin their retinue. But though smiling and waving pleasantly to the gathered crowd of Flemish citizens, Philippa spoke again to him out of the side of her mouth.

  “My dear, dear son, I also prayed for a fine marriage for you, too, as well as that of Isabella. You simply cannot afford to pine after little Jeannette, you know. It is most foolhardy and must of necessity go nowhere.”

  People, standing two and three deep along the path they would take back to the palace across the square, shouted his praise for victory at Crécy, calling again and again, “Glory to Edward, the Black Prince!” in both Flemish and French. He recognized their adulation with a raised hand but his rakish, blond brows had crashed over the icy blue eyes and a chiseled frown etched his proud face in arrogant anger.

  “I like her, Your Grace. She amuses me and I favor her greatly. She may bring no valued foreign lands or sought-for alliance as does Isabella’s nervous Louis de Male, but she is different. Besides, she does not truly care for me and it pleases me to tease her, so just leave off, I beg you. Besides, she will marry your liege man Thomas Holland soon enough and be off all our hands in some moated castle in Normandy, so leave be, Your Grace.”

  No one but her two eldest, willful children, Edward and Isabella, even talked to her thusly, Philippa fumed, and she shot him an icy glare despite her last nod and smile to the crowd in the square as they returned to the shadowy arms of the palace. She did not wish for any sort of row with Edward now, for they had already argued bitterly twice over his attentions to Joan of Kent, and each altercation had ended in a stalemate of threats, moves, and countermoves that had resulted in both Joan’s betrothal and Philippa’s reluctant promise that the prince could be with her here, abroad until her marriage to Holland this winter. Lately Philippa had actually begun to wish he would find someone else, anyone for a mistress, to forget the stubborn, if lovely, little Joan she had taken to rear because she felt such a responsibility that her dear husband Edward had not lifted his hand to save Joan’s father, Edmund of Kent when, indeed, the court all knew he could have. At least now, she served as a fine companion to keep Isabella’s frightful whims, tempers, and extravagances more in check.

  Her lightning-tempered son disengaged her arm and for a moment, the queen believed he meant to stalk off and leave her before she could say more about his feeling for the wayward Joan. But he merely sprinted a short distance down the hall to join a rollicking group of courtiers coming toward them—no, mayhap, not rollicking with those grim, desperate looks. Blessed saints, that wily John de Maltravers was among them, and she never could abide him since that dreadful business with Joan’s executed father and King Edward II’s alleged murder years ago. That her dear husband Edward allowed the man to be a trusted, if exiled, ally was entirely too disturbing for thought in this blessed week of Isabella’s wedding.

  Her son was gesturing, shouting, giving a display of Plantagenet male temper she had seen often enough over these last several decades to recognize instantly. “My lord prince, what tidings are these?” she called to him even as she approached.

  Edward’s handsome face was furious, and he gripped her arms to steady her. “No, not the king ill?” she began.

  “No. Your Grace, these men say Isabella’s fine fiancé has ridden off and pursuit is futile.”

  “Ridden off to where, my son? Nonsense. He only went hawking with a small party. Ridden off unbidden to visit someone, perhaps.”

  The taut leash on the prince’s temper snapped even as he shook his head to warn her hope was useless. “Damn his conniving French soul! To flee over the Flemish border to the French—to throw all this in our faces for Crécy! By the saints, I shall find the prancing, beady-eyed bastard and kill him for this!” he shouted.

  “Oh, blessed Virgin! Your father! Isabella—no one has told her? I must go to them at once,” Philippa cried. Her pale blue eyes swept the rapt, nervous men, a mixture of familiar English faces and the unknown ones of Flemish burghers. She turned away from her livid son still praying it was some terrible jest.

  “You say he rode off, gentlemen? For good? Are you certain? He seemed to favor our dear princess well and was quite resigned. Oh, Blessed Virgin, this will crush Isabella and drive our lord king to further violence at Calais!” She felt flushed and suddenly very weary. She was but eight months gone with this tenth pregnancy; her bulk was great. She tottered and felt her eyelids flutter.

  Prince Edward helped her quickly to a bench and she leaned back against a secure stone wall. “Go to your sister, Edward. Tell her I am grief-stricken and will see her as soon as I can manage. I shall find His Grace and tell him if he has not heard it on the winds already. With me, since I am with child, he must be calm. He will deny me nothing. And tell—tell Isabella”—she lowered her voice and gripped his green velvet wrist hard—“tell her that Louis de Male was not fit for a Plantagenet such as she! Tell her it is a coward who vows he only goes hawking and scurries away. She was desperately unhappy to leave her home at Windsor and now we will all be together again. Tell her.”

  “I shall, Your Grace. De Maltravers here can fetch the king since he is so privy to him lately.” Edward turned and hurried up the grand staircase where he had helped the shaky Jeannette only last night. He had wanted to say something
more to the watchful de Maltravers, but he really did not know why he disliked or distrusted the man so vehemently. His father had taken other favorites into his confidence quickly before, even the little French turncoat Godfrey de Harcourt who had helped them triumph at Crécy. If Jeannette herself had not reacted so strangely to de Maltravers whom she could not possibly have known, perhaps the man’s presence would not bother him so.

  In the nearly deserted hall upstairs, he paused to knock on Jeannette’s door to take her along to help cushion the blow to Isabella. He had looked for her at morning meal, but like some of the other ladies, she had chosen to stay abed. No wonder, for the foolish baggage looked green about her pretty gills last night after that food and wine orgy. Her daring stubbornness always amused him at first but perpetually ended in upheaval, accusations, and general disaster.

  He rapped once more, then raced down the hall to Isabella’s suite. As he neared the door, it was as if his thoughts of upheaval, accusations, and general disaster had preceded him.

  A woman’s piercing shriek shredded the air, and as he shoved the heavy door inward, a crystal bowl of perfumed water exploded in flying shards just inches from his head. He jumped as a heavy, brass candlestick shattered a dangling chandelier and sent tinkling glass pieces raining to the deep Persian carpet.

  His eyes assessed the scene instantly. Isabella shouted curses, alternating them with bloodcurdling screams of grief and rage. Jeannette, her champagne hair wild in a glorious tumble, stood behind the berserk princess, her loud voice mingled with Isabella’s shrieks. Both women wore blue camlet robes and both looked almost pagan in their dishevelment and fury.

  Jeannette’s voice rose and broke as she sought to comfort his sister. “Your Grace, please dearest Isabella! Please! He was not worthy of you, dearest princess. A great affront, aye—he had no right, but—”