by Anne O'Brien
At least he was spared the pain of parting. I closed the door of his chamber, swallowing my tears. I was Alice Perrers, King’s Concubine no longer, humiliated, repudiated, maliciously destroyed.
Who was not in the Painted Chamber to witness my downfall?
Gaunt.
Who made no attempt to see me, to stand for me?
John of Gaunt.
He too had abandoned me. The alliance, tenuous at best, did not bring him to my side when I most had need of him. I was no longer of any value to him. He’d been refused the position of regent for his nephew Richard by the magnates who feared his power, and I had no means of helping him. It would do no good for Gaunt’s name to be coupled to any degree with mine.
He turned his back on me.
And my poor, lost Edward? I had Wykeham tell me how he fared. On the days when he was driven by anger, he accused Windsor far more harshly than he accused me. And then there were times when old loyalties returned to Edward, when he looked for me, asked for me, and was told that I could not come. Days when his senses deserted him. I knew of the hours when he sat in uncomprehending gloom with tears on his cheeks. The King was nothing but a lonely, forgotten old man, with no one to stir his spirits to life. Who would reminisce with him? Who would talk to him of the glory days, as I had done?
No one.
Gaunt was too busy plotting revenge against de la Mare and the Earl of March, who now stood with Wykeham as one of Edward’s councilors. Isabella was back with her husband in France. There was no one to remember the past.
I also knew of the increasing number of days when Edward’s thoughts turned inward.
“I will bury my son, my glorious Prince, and then I will die.”
I wept for him. I did not write to Windsor. I could not find the words; nor could I bear his pity.
Chapter Fourteen
For the first days at Wendover I grieved until hot rage blew through me like a wind before an August storm. It shook me by its virulence as I heaped my hatred on the absent, crowing, self-satisfied Master Speaker.
“May Almighty God damn you to the fires of hell! May your vile body be gnawed on by worms, your balls roasted in everlasting flames and…” I was not circumspect in my choice of language, but it brought no release.
Never had my life stretched so emptily, so helplessly before me, my hands so idle and without power. My knowledge of the outside world in those terrible weeks was reduced to what was common gossip, brought into the house by my servants and passing peddlers. Poor stuff! The Prince’s body lay embalmed in state in Westminster Abbey week after week. There were no moves to bury him, Edward unable to make a decision. Princess Joan and the young heir were at Kennington. Gaunt was biding his time, but furious with events. The Good Parliament had ended its days, preening over its success in holding the King to account.
“And I am banished, by God! How dare they! How dare they!”
With a need to occupy my hands and my mind, I swept through the manor, stirring up steward and servants to clean and scour and scrub every surface, every nook and cranny. There was absolutely no need for me to disturb their perfectly adequate daily routines, but I could not rest. They would have to suffer me, perhaps for the rest of my life. God’s Blood! At thirty-one years I could not contemplate it.
Braveheart slept at my feet, oblivious to my mood, uncaring of whether we were at Wendover or Sheen.
I stalked from room to room, my pleasure in my surroundings and my acquisitions dimmed. Even the magnificent bed—a gift from Edward—carved and swagged with deep blue damask hangings, the oak tester and pillars polished to a rich gleam, did not satisfy me. I saw far too much of that fine weaving that closed me in, for my nights were troubled. If I had had a looking glass, I would have abjured it. It would have shown me all too clearly the effect of my lack of appetite and restless thoughts. My collarbone pressed against the cloth of my gown, and my girdle must be tightened or it would fall around my ankles. As I pressed my fingers against my sharp cheekbones, I grimaced, suspecting that the dark thumbprints of weariness would not enhance my looks.
Lured by the soft warmth of autumn, I took the side door out into the orchard, where the apple trees hung heavy with the fruit and doves preened in the dovecote, a lovely scene if I were of a mind to admire it. But before I could take a breath, an unbidden image leaped into my mind, so that I sank down on the grass, helpless, enclosed in that one moment of the past.
“Today you are my Lady of the Sun,” Edward says as he hands me into my chariot.
And there I sit, garlanded with flowers, swathed in cloth of gold, pulled by four shining bay horses. I am no less superb. A cloak of shimmering gold tissue, opulent in its Venetian style, is spread around me, so disposed to show a lining of scarlet taffeta. My gown too is red, lined with white silk and edged in ermine. Edward’s colors. Royal fur fit for a queen, no finer than the myriad of precious stones refracting the light: rubies as red as fire; diamonds; sapphires, dark and mysterious; strange beryls capable of destroying the power of poison. Philippa’s jewels. My fingers are heavy with rings. “Today you are the Queen of the Ceremonies, the Queen of the Lists,” Edward says. He is tall and strong and good to look upon.
I am the Lady of the Sun.
I blinked as a swooping pigeon smashed the scene, bringing reality back with a cruel exactitude. How low I had fallen! I was caged in impotent loneliness, like Edward’s long-dead lion. Powerless, isolated, stripped of everything I had made for myself.
I was nothing.
Impatient with myself, I rose to go back inside and harry someone into doing something, but was stopped by my two daughters, Joanne leading her younger sister in their escape from their governess. Joanne, six years old, was fair and strong limbed like her father. Jane, two years younger, was a shy child, not like me at all, despite her dark hair and plain features. They ran laughing through the orchard, shouting to each other in their joy of freedom. And my heart tripped a little at their innocent pleasure. I did not remember running or laughing in my childhood. I recalled very little joy. God help me to keep their lives safe.
Seeing me, they ran to jump and caper, full of chatter and news. With promises that we would ride out in the afternoon, I dispatched them back to their lessons. They would read and write and figure. No daughter of mine would lack for such skills, and nor would my sons. I wanted no ignorant, untutored gentlemen with the King’s blood in their veins and nothing between their ears. John, as befitted a lad of royal birth, learned the lessons of a page in the noble Percy household. Nicholas, at eleven, was taught his letters by the monks at Westminster. I had such a pride in them. As for my girls—they would each have an advantageous marriage as well as an education. I smiled a little as I stooped to pick up a much-worn doll that Joanne had dropped on the grass. Combing my fingers through its disordered hair, I vowed that I would ensure that my daughters were capable, even without a husband.
A movement caught my eye. A robin flew up into the boughs of the apple tree, making me look up.
“Is this you?”
I hadn’t heard, neither the approach of horses nor the soft footfall. Nor even felt the movement of air. Startled for a moment, the fear still lively that Parliament might not have finished with me, I took a step back. And then I clutched the doll to my breast, because I knew the voice and the solid figure outlined by the sun through the branches.
The years rolled back and away to the day I first set eyes on Edward in the great hall at Havering, his body backlit by the low rays of the afternoon sun, the hounds at his feet, the goshawk on his wrist, a corona of light around his head and shoulders. He’d been crowned with gold. I had simply stared at such an aura of power.
But this was another time, another life.
William de Windsor stepped forward, and the moment passed as he was enclosed in dappled shadow. I suddenly felt an upheaval in my belly, my mouth dry with nerves, my whole body weak with longing. I would run to him, cast myself into his arms, press my mouth against hi
s, and feel the solid beat of his heart under the palm of my hand. It was three years since I had seen him last. Three long years! I could cover the distance between us within the space of one heavy beat of my heart and…
No, no. I must guard my response. I must be measured and calm. Lightly controlled…
Why? Because it was never wise to give weapons into the hands of others, even the man I loved with a physical desire so strong that it shivered through me like an ague. How terrible it was to fear putting myself under the dominion of a man whose affection I craved. But if my life had taught me one indisputable fact, it was the need to be resilient, self-reliant. I must not show my husband how afraid I was of giving him power over me, power to hurt and wound and destroy.
But he will not hurt and wound and destroy. You know him better than that.
No, I do not know him at all!
But I could not stop my mouth from curving in a smile when my eyes lifted to his.
“William de Windsor! By the Virgin!”
“Alice Perrers! As I live and breathe!” The familiar goading tugged at my heart. “Picking apples?”
“No.” I held up the doll. “And I thought I was Alice de Windsor, your wife.”
“So did I. But it’s so long since our ways met.…” He took off his hat, sweeping a splendid bow. “I didn’t recognize you in this rustic garb. It took me some days to find you.”
“I suppose you thought I was a servant.”
“Impossible!” His voice was warm, but he did not approach me. A tension in his stance warned me that all was not well. The skin was stretched taut over his cheekbones, and the habitual cynicism touched his mouth with what was barely a smile. Momentarily I wondered why, but my own anxieties prevailed. I took another step away, thoroughly irritated with myself and with him as he observed: “I hear you’re banished from Court by the great and the good.”
“Yes, as you can see. The Good Parliament—good, by God!—in its wisdom decided to sweep the palaces clean of all unwholesome influences. Latimer, Neville, Lyons…all gone.”
“And you.”
“And me. They left me until last, to savor the moment. They cast me into outer darkness.” All my pent-up frustrations overflowed. “And if I set foot within a yard of Edward, they’ll rejoice in taking every last inch of my property and packing me off even further into oblivion. Your wife will be living somewhere in France for the rest of her life, so you’ll never see her at all!”
“They’ve got your measure.” Windsor’s teeth showed with a wolfish grimace. “Is that why you’re holed up here, not a silk ribbon or a jewel to be seen, rather than banging on the door at Sheen for admittance?”
“Yes.” I smoothed my hand over the plain russet kirtle beneath the unfashionable open-sided cotehardie, miserably unadorned even if the wool was a good weaving. “My new role in life. Rural seclusion.”
“Perhaps we’ll both grow to enjoy it.”
“I doubt it!”
“So do I. But we are no longer invited to dine at the royal table, and so must make do with the scraps dished out to us.”
It was almost a snarl, enough to give me thought, to snatch my mind from my own ills. How could I not have seen? I should have asked him the moment he stepped into my orchard.
“What are you doing here?”
“You haven’t heard? Summoned—again! In disgrace—again! Relieved of my position.” The words were clipped, every vestige of edgy banter gone under a layer of black temper.
“Edward has dismissed you…?”
“Yes. My services are no longer needed. There will be no further reinstatement. I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”
“Oh, Will!” And I held out my hands to him. Of course he was aggrieved. The ultimate courtier and politician, he would hate as much as I to be thrust into this powerless obscurity. I could remain distant from him no longer. I crossed the grassy, apple-strewn divide in easy strides. “I’m so sorry, Will. Oh, Will—I am so very glad to see you.”
Even his name on my lips was a soft pleasure. All my intentions scattered in the face of his dismissal, and I stepped into his arms as they closed around me.
“That’s better,” he said after a moment when he almost resisted the intimacy. “It almost makes it worth my while returning.”
For a moment we stood silent and unmoving, savoring the shifting patterns of light and shade, my forehead pressed against his shoulder, his cheek resting on my hair, the doll still clutched in my hand. I felt him relax, slowly, gradually, beneath my hands. The robin trilled above us, but we let the deeper silence enfold us.
“So what’s the King doing?” Windsor asked eventually when the robin flew away.
“He’s not doing anything. He’s old and lonely. I don’t think he understands.” I placed my fingers against his mouth when he opened it to deliver, I supposed, some sharp comment on the King, who had accepted my banishment without redress. “He deserves your compassion, Will. Did he not plead for me? And Edward needs me—he is helpless. Who will know how to care for him?” And tears began to slide down my cheek into the damask of his tunic.
“I’ve never seen you weep before! For sure you’ve never wept over me! I think you had better tell me all about it.” Windsor led me to a grassy bank set back near the perimeter hedge and dried my tears with the edge of my cotehardie. He took the doll from me, sitting her down between us as a quaint chaperone, and held my hands between his, his eyes narrowed on my face as I sniffed. “I see you, Alice—before you even think to hide the truth. You’re too thin. When did you last sleep through the night? Your eyes are so very tired.” When he ran the edge of his thumb under my eye, it took my breath away, and then his mouth was warm against my temple. “What terrors have you had to face on your own, my brave girl?”
His compassion all but undermined my self-control. “I am not brave. I’ve been terrified out of my wits.”
“Why didn’t you send for me?”
“What could you have done?”
“Perhaps nothing. Except be here to make sure that you eat and sleep and don’t malinger. You’ve always stood on your own feet, haven’t you?”
“There is no one else.”
“I see.” As his brows snapped together, I thought I had hurt him. But what could he have done at so great a distance? “I’m here now, but you fought your enemies alone. I admire you for it. So tell me what terrified you.” His earlier sharpness crept back. “Unless you prefer to keep it all to yourself.”
Yes, I had hurt him. But that was the life we led.
“I will tell you.”
And I did, with a strange relief, even though I had determined not to. I told him of Parliament’s vendetta. The accusation of necromancy and Joan’s probable involvement. My ultimate banishment. Edward’s brave defense of me at the last, when his heart was split in two.
I sighed. “It’s been quite a month,” I finished.
“So Edward knows about our marriage. And blames you.”
I nodded and sniffed again. “Yes. But he blames you more.” I would tell him the truth. What harm would it do? “Edward damns you for the whole. He blames me for the hurt I caused him, but in his eyes you were the instigator. He thinks you have corrupted me. He even purchased a chest to lock away all the accusations made against you for his future reference. He sits and looks at it and plots his revenge, so I’m told.” I touched his hand. “I don’t think it can ever happen. He no longer has the will to carry it out.”
“Perhaps not, but I am relieved of my position,” Windsor responded, a bright spurt of anger erupting again. “For fraud. What is fraud? A mark on a line of necessity. I have taxed them heavily. I have made my own fortune. But I have kept the peace and the government is at least efficient. I have kept those arrogant lords on a short rein. And all I get is dismissal.” He shrugged and I saw the fire die in his eyes, to be replaced by resignation. “It’s out of my hands. A man who wields authority must always risk losing it.”
“And a woman who has p
ower, unless born to it, makes enemies.”
“So both our names are to be trampled in the mud.” He dried my tears again with his own dusty sleeve—I think I no longer cared if he left smears on my cheeks—and kissed me, a demanding assault on my lips, a little rough, as if he had missed me.
Windsor raised his head and looked at me, his dark eyes holding mine, his thoughts beyond my imagining.
“Don’t weep, my resourceful wife. We shall come about. Is there anything for a much-traveled man to eat and drink in this pearl of a manor?”
Mentally I shook myself into the reality of my orchard at Wendover and the practicality of a long-absent husband returned to me. This was no time for dreams. “There is,” I said. “I’ve been an unthinking hostess.”
“And hot water to remove the filth of travel, perhaps?”
“I could arrange that.”
“Even to remove the odd louse? By God, I’ve stayed in some miserable inns.…”
“Definitely, I can arrange that!”
“And perhaps a bed?”
“I expect so.”
I led him into the house, some semblance of good humor restored between us. After he’d eaten and washed, we banished our concerns to some distant place beyond our bedchamber door and made of our reunion a private celebration. I had forgotten how resourceful he was. His hands and mouth woke my body to a depth of desire that consumed me. Even the worries that had stalked me vanished. How could they exist when he was intent on possessing my body, and I was equally intent on allowing it?
Next morning Windsor was up at dawn. I awoke more slowly, my mind full of spending the day with him and renewing the tentative bonds that we had first created so long ago. But I saw that his sword was gone from where he had dropped it beside the door, and I could hear the sound of the house astir and busy between kitchen and parlor. I dressed rapidly, knowing what I would find before I entered. Windsor, dressed for riding, was already breaking his fast. On the coffer by the door was a leather wallet topped by his gloves, sword, and serviceable hood.
All my bright anticipation fell to earth with a crash. I should have known, should I not? The pleasures of the bedchamber would not keep Windsor from what must be faced and challenged. For a little while I stood on the threshold, studying the stern lines of his face, the quick movement of his fingers, strong and capable, as he sliced and ate, my mind reliving the recent dark hours when he had ignited a flame in me. Then I stepped in.