by Karen Harper
“You will not, I think, see me on the morrow before you set out,” he was saying. “I will be closeted much with the king and farewells can be tedious.”
The aloof mask, the controlled gaze were all intact now, Joan marveled as she noted Thomas’s doubts buckle under the prince’s steely stare. “My Lord Thomas and I go to Liddell, my home in Kent, for a month before we set out for France, Your Grace,” Joan replied calmly, but she knew her hands trembled.
“How lovely for you, Jeannette, for I believe you have longed to go home ever since you first came to court over five years ago.”
She smiled wistfully at the prince, but both Holland and Roger Wakeley saw her lilac eyes had gone guarded.
“Her home now will be Château Ruisseau in Normandy, Your Grace,” Thomas said.
“The name means Brook Castle,” the prince went smoothly on, ignoring the intended reminder of Holland’s new rights of possession. “It sounds lovely. I shall picture you both there over the years.”
His voice had wavered, nearly halted at the last, Roger Wakeley observed, as the prince nodded and turned to walk stiffly away. Roger even felt a sharp, resounding pain within himself. He was sure of it now: the little Joan of Kent was beloved by the prince, a man whom—because of the past of which she had no making—she could never have, and yet, he was quite certain he would never write such to the king.
The evening unwound like a tired coil after that. The prince, never once looking back, left the hall with Queen Philippa. The bridal pair danced a few more dances and then departed, silent, hand in hand.
The little affair of Joan and Edward, star-crossed lovers, was over now, whatever it had been, the pensive minstrel thought. That she had attracted, mayhap won, the heart of the greatest prince in all Christendom should not surprise him, for had he not seen a unique promise in her much as had that old wizard Morcar from her maidenhood home at Liddell?
But, sacrebleu, her story as it stood was not unique, for many who loved were parted to wed with others. Still, he thought, mayhap the Lady Joan’s story was not yet ended with her prince, for did one not sense that the very ends of the earth could not avail to keep those two apart?
As the hall’s torches were extinguished and the room stood empty, the minstrel sat, at last, in the prince’s vacated chair and consoled his own melancholy musings with a hopeful song of unquenchable love.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Joan of Kent, Lady Holland, stretched her legs across the woolen blanket upon which her two copper-haired sons played happily. The late afternoon of this spring day was so beautiful, all bathed in gentle, warming sunshine and wafted by a delicate breeze fragrant with newly plowed fields, budded bushes, and fruit trees. Thomas, her eldest boy, born the first year of her marriage, chatted a singsong lyric to himself and, temporarily content, bounced his carved wooden knights and horses on the blanket. John, the babe born only three months ago, was content to lie on his back, gurgling and kicking his chubby legs as he watched his older brother. Joan sighed in a poignant rush of love. Hard work, dedication, two years already in this lovely area of Normandy, two sons, a busy, stalwart husband: aye, she was content enough.
Her violet eyes skimmed the Holland castle, Château Ruisseau, set in its surrounding moat, forests, and rolling farmlands. It was not a large castle by any means, but it was grander than her maidenhood home of Liddell, and somewhat finer, too, now that they had worked so hard to improve it in the short time they had lived here. The protective blue-green moat, fed by a brook which was an estuary of the River Risle, reflected the tall stone outer walls, drawbridge, and twin tall outer gatehouses. Inside the stone curtain, the outer ward was grassy and even shady from the few newly planted Linden trees so common in this province of France. Across that ward rose the inner walls of the castle itself guarded by the towering stone sentinels of the inner gatehouses. The southwest upper tower room boasted a ghost which wailed at night, so the guards said, but Joan had never wanted to pursue that nonsense. Besides, she thought grimly, she was haunted quite enough by her own memories at times and sought no other ghosts.
She flopped back on the grass and stretched her arms luxuriously wide. The perfect cup of sky seemed to be painted eggshell blue all feathered by wisps of delicate, lace clouds. Her back hurt from all the bending she had been doing all morning in the castle’s huge undercroft where the spare, precious spices were locked away as well as extra plateware, jewels, and bolts of cloth. She had decided all of a sudden today to rearrange the heavy, locked spice boxes, and her skirts and hands smelled of a strange scrambled scent of ginger, cinnamon, mace, pepper, cloves, and saffron.
Then she had overseen the all-day task of sweeping out the winter rushes strewn about the seven bedrooms the household seldom used; looked in on the scullions scrubbing the worktables in the buttery, pantry, and bolting rooms; and supervised the new plantings of the herb and green gardens in the outer ward to the northeast. This hour at least, until her Lord Thomas rode in from riding circuit of the demesne as he was wont to do frequently in these tenuous times between England and France, was all hers with just the babes to worry about.
She pictured Château Ruisseau as she had first seen it when Thomas had brought her here as a bride only two years and a month ago—yet forever. The lofty battlemented walls softened by the fringe of grassy greens, the gemlike moat, and surrounding forests had quickened her heavy-laden heart on that morn she had first beheld it as nothing had for a long time—except one man, and she never thought on that when she could help it.
How vast the place had seemed to her and Marta then, though compared with mazelike Windsor or Westminster, it was but a shepherd’s cottage. How grateful she had been for all the work it took to set it aright, to occupy her mind and body, and exhaust her so she slept at night when her amorous, possessive lord rolled off her and slumbered heavily at her side in the silence of their comfortable solar bedchamber.
Marta had lived only a year, long enough to see little Thomas born and get the wee bonny lass she had long been a mother to started in her new life, and then, as if too old or tired to live on in a third country after her beloved Scotland and adopted England, she had simply, quietly died in her sleep one night.
Another sigh escaped Joan’s parted lips, for she missed the old scolding woman so terribly at times she thought her heart would wrench awry. How quickly people came and went, just like those wisps of clouds up there. Marta gone, old Morcar, Mother, her brother Edmund and his Anne, a father she had never even known, others who might as well be dead like the Princess Isabella, and, of course, the prince.
She sat bolt upright and hugged her arms to herself as if she had felt a sudden chill. Surely, it was getting late and Thomas and his men would be clattering in across the drawbridge soon, having given a show of force to the French serfs who owed fealty to the Hollands since the English conquests the year of Crécy. It was rumored now there might be another English campaign into France to win more soil back for the rightful Plantagenet owners. She hoped an English army never came through here, but then, if it did, she would at least be able to hear some news from London and not be so out of touch.
Just as she knelt to gather up the babe and wrap little Thomas’s toys in the blanket, she heard the rumble of horses. “Your sire is back, Thomas. See! See Papa on his horse!”
The toddler squealed and laughed as Thomas Holland reined in while his party of guards funneled noisily across the wooden bridge into the outer ward.
“Ho, ma belle!” Thomas greeted her. “Out here alone with the two little knaves? Not a good idea, Joan, I have told you that before.”
“We are fine, my lord. Madeleine was here with us but I sent her back in and Master Roger has a spring cold. You did not find any trouble, I pray.”
“Nary a hitch except for serfs’ continual complaining, and the barleycorn plantings are in the south fields. Here, let me take the lad in on Midnight then. What is for supper?”
“Mackerel, frumenty with simnel biscui
ts, and your favorite custard flawns.”
“By the rood, that sounds fine. I swear, love, I could eat a horse!”
“Horse, Papa, horse!” little Thomas echoed as his father lifted him up on the big saddle. The boy’s wide copper eyes fixed on the hilt of his father’s long sword which he tried to grab.
Thomas trotted his horse alongside Joan as she carried the babe and the sack of toys in over the drawbridge. Her Lord Thomas had been in a soaring mood of late since she had weaned the second babe and her time of tenderness after his birth had passed. Now her body was his again at night after a respite when it was quite untouched. She did not mind, of course. She was fully used to it now and accepted the fact that the sweeping ecstasy she had known with another man had only been a passionate dream, a bittersweet reminder of something haunting gone forever. She felt affection for Thomas Holland, and a warm glow of contentment that he desired her and found pleasure in her. For that—and the babes—she would be eternally content.
How dim and faded, she mused, seemed that violent, engulfing rapture that had once devoured her with a man. Like the muted, wavering reflections in the moat, such foolish longings merely rippled through her memory and passed away.
In the cobbled inner ward surrounded on three sides by the castle’s living and working quarters, Thomas reined in and dismounted. A groom appeared from the stables beyond the chapel to lead Midnight away, and the little family walked through the arched entryway emblazoned above with both the Holland crest and the deer and ivy coat of arms of Joan’s family.
In their Great Hall they could already smell the mingled, delicious odors of supper cooking from the adjoining kitchen. Although supper in the great houses of the realms of England or France usually lasted from four to six of an afternoon, here at Château Ruisseau, they usually dined upstairs at their solar table while Roger Wakeley played the lute and sang. Only when there were holy days or infrequent guests—English knights passing through with news, messengers from Joan’s brother John at Liddell, or from Thomas Holland’s lands in Lancashire, or even the monthly traveling troubadors who passed through to visit Roger Wakeley and entertain for a night—only then did they sup at the long table on the dais in the hall.
Madeleine, the children’s plump, stolid nurse appeared to take her babe off to his little bed and Vinette Brinay, the red-haired, freckled village girl Joan had elevated to the position of her head lady’s maid since Marta had died, appeared to drop a sprightly curtsy despite her arms being full of newly folded linen towels.
“Milord Holland. Madame. I was almost done with the Madame Joan’s sewing and Lynette says supper’s to table soon,” Vinette told them.
“By the rood, I hope so,” Thomas groused. “I am starved. And tell Lynette to see the men are all fed heartily after that jaunt out all day. And I saw Pierre Foulke this morn, girl—that one so sweet on you whom I had to send away last week from all his lollygagging about the premises.”
Vinette’s brown eyes lit in her attractive, blushing face, and she smiled gap-toothed. “Oui? And did he say aught of me, my lord?”
“A bit. I told him to cease his damned rabble-rousing speeches about the workers demanding fewer taxes and to hie himself back to his workshop. Good tanners are aplenty in this region and if he does not increase his output, I swear I shall replace him.”
“My Lord Thomas,” Joan interjected, “Vinette hardly is a part of your dealings with young Master Pierre, the tanner.”
“No, lady, of course, only she ought to be a settling influence on him if she sees him or ever hopes to wed with him—with my permission.”
“The maid is much too young, my lord. Go on now, Vinette, and we shall be up directly. And stop to tell Master Wakeley he need not play lute at table if he is not much recovered from his chill.”
The girl opened her mouth to reply but decided against it, and holding her newly pressed towels too tightly to her small breasts, she curtsied again and hurried up the stairs which connected the corridor outside the Great Hall to the upper balcony joining the main upstairs bedrooms. They both watched the maid disappear around the curve of stone staircase while Thomas joggled their toddler in his arms.
“Much too young,” Thomas repeated, picking up the thread of conversation as if there had been no interruption. “St. Peter’s bones, madame, you were also much too young when you came to court at Windsor, and that did not stop you from involvements here and there with roving rogues.”
“Including you, my lord, so let us say no more on that,” she shot back, amused he had dared to refer to the Prince of Wales as a roving rogue. “I do not need scoldings about the past. That is all water over the mill dam now.”
“I pray so, Joan, continually.”
Little Thomas looked from one parent’s face to the other as their voices became increasingly tense; yet he nestled quietly in his sire’s arms. Joan patted the boy’s back and started upstairs while her husband clumped up close behind. She had no desire to begin to discuss the past now or ever: it was a topic they assiduously avoided on both sides like the plague as if they had a truce on that potentially volatile Pandora’s box. But once Thomas fastened on his chastising tone, he was not easily dissuaded.
“I think you coddle Wakeley, too,” he said from behind her as they reached the hall which connected their solar chamber and the five best bedrooms of the castle.
“I coddle anyone in my charge when they are ill, including you, Thomas,” Joan replied, refusing to rise to the taunt. She knew Master Roger’s attentive concern for her well-being and happiness puzzled and annoyed her husband, but there was never any need for concern. Sometimes, she almost thought Thomas wanted some excuse to throw the minstrel out, but the fact the prince had given the man’s services to them as a gift always stayed his final surge of temper. Then, too, she sometimes suspected the occasional visitors who knew Master Roger might also know the prince’s servants, but she had never dared to ask. If so, perhaps Thomas knew it and held to his silence for that.
While Thomas deposited their son on the hearth rug and went behind the heavy tapestried curtain to use the privy garde-robe chamber, Joan surveyed the dinner arrangements. The long, polished oak table was set with plateware for two and she would feed little Thomas after they had finished since he had eaten before they went outside. Budded forsythia on branches she and Vinette had cut added a touch of beauty and grace to the comfortable chamber. There was a tall sideboard laden with pewter and silver plate on the far wall near the table and four soft-cushioned chairs stood by the hearth. A sewing table and frames for her four French maids rested by the larger of the two windows which even now caught the setting sun to wash the room in golden light.
She had slowly, painstakingly surrounded herself with beauty in this room, her sanctuary and her refuge. The two deep-pile Persian carpets, one a wedding gift from the Princess Isabella, were deepest blue and four tapestries, each of a different season of the year, graced the stone walls. The big canopied and curtained feather bed far across the long room was covered in gold brocade to match the chair cushions and even the ribbons of Joan’s precious lute which held a place of honor on the tall coffer in the corner. The ransom money Thomas had won from his captives at Crécy had allowed these lovely touches of luxury here and in a few other select rooms throughout their home.
They had merely sat to dinner, waited on by two sewers and a kitchen maid who oversaw the transport of food upstairs, when their butler entered unannounced. He carried on a silver tray the wine bottles with which he was entrusted and for which his position in the complicated feudal household had been titled.
“You are late, man, and I am damned thirsty after all that riding today,” Lord Thomas began.
“My Lord Holland, pardon, si’l vous plaît,” the dour French servant whom Joan never really trusted, intoned, “but there is a visitor, a sort of messenger passing through, from your country, I take it.”
Joan’s eyes darted up and her heart thudded as it always did, quite unbidd
en, when news of the world outside encroached upon her moated sanctuary here.
Thomas Holland’s mouth was full of simnel biscuits dripping with thick honey. “Below? Another of Wakeley’s singing friends?” he choked out.
“No, my lord, pardon, some sort of messenger certainement. And attached to the English court, I might wager, because—”
“Court? Messenger? Well, bring him up, man, and get some more food from the kitchens then!”
Joan calmly, deliberately spooned up a bite of custard flawn, but stopped with it halfway to her mouth. “My lord, this could not mean a summons to arms, could it? All the rumors about a new English war, even the peasant unrest hereabouts, might indicate such.”
Thomas shook his copper-hued head of hair and hastily wiped his mustached mouth with the small, damp linen cloth Joan always insisted he kept at table for spills and neatness. He glanced over at his eldest son playing happily before the low-burning hearth fire and rose to his feet to greet his guest. His single sharp eye conveyed his excitement, Joan thought, at the prospect of some sign he had not been forgotten by his beloved English Queen Philippa for whom he secretly tended some unspoken bond—and by her royal Plantagenet husband.
The wiry, black-haired visitor they greeted hardly looked a messenger, for they were usually strong and burly. Short, with a hooked nose and darting eyes, he was obviously famished, road-weary, and nervous.
“Milord, Milady Holland. Richard Sidwell, Esquire, at your service. My gracious thanks for receiving me so readily into your beautiful castle. I have been ahorse all day to make it here by dusk. I am sent to Alençon, but I came only two months ago from London bid by Her Gracious Grace, the Princess Isabella.”
Joan’s amusement at the little man’s overabundant use of the fawning word “gracious” sobered to joy and astonishment. “You have seen the Princess Isabella—sent by her?” Joan stammered and came around the long table to join her husband. She saw the expectation go out of Thomas at that bit of knowledge. No doubt, this visitor had nothing to do with Queen Philippa, the king, or the resumption of the French Wars.