I stood there in front of him in my best wool gown with ribbons in my hair and a plaited girdle at my waist. I was still only a girl and in spite of what I’d thought, I wasn’t sure I was ready to be a wife. I swallowed twice and twisted my fingers together.
‘Sir Thomas?’
He undid my fingers and held them to his lips.
‘Yes, my lady?’
‘Should I call you “my lord” now we’re married?’
His mouth twitched as if he was trying not to smile. ‘No. You should call me Thomas.’
He pulled me close, so close I could smell the warmth of him and see the tendrils of hair which curled over his ears and the small dark flecks deep within his eyes. He put his mouth gently on mine and I felt the pressure of his lips and tasted the wine on his breath.
He kissed me in a way he hadn’t before.
‘Thomas?’ I whispered.
He kissed me again and this time I opened my lips slightly and kissed him back. I liked what we were doing but kept thinking about what else he might want me to do.
The candle guttered and spluttered and nearly went out. There was almost no light from the little window in the gable wall and, with no fire, the room was becoming cold.
He let go and put his fingers on the plaited girdle I wore round my waist. He gave a little tug as if he was going to lead me like a dog on a leash.
‘We’d best remove your fine clothes, my lady,’ he said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t want them spoiled.’ His voice sounded different as if he’d drunk too much.
I gulped and wished I’d brought a maid with me. I’d never been undressed by a man. Perhaps I could suggest he returned to the abbey to fetch someone? But it was too late; his fingers were insinuating themselves into my clothing and touching my undergarments.
He removed my surcote and then lifted up my right hand and kissed the soft skin of my inner wrist until I shivered and bit my lip and wanted him to go on for ever.
Without saying a word he turned me round and began undoing the laces of my gown. The touch of his fingers as they travelled down the length of my back was almost more than I could bear and I wanted him to slide his hands around my waist and pull me tight against him. He gave one swift tug and the soft blue cloth fell to my feet. I stood there, half-naked in my linen shift.
I shivered.
‘Cold?’
‘No,’ I whispered.
‘Frightened?’
I shook my head, although I was.
‘Good.’
He led me to the bench and sat me down. Then he knelt at my feet and held my ankles while he took off my shoes. By now my cheeks were burning with shame. No man had ever seen me without my gown and I felt most uncomfortable, yet I didn’t want him to stop.
He lifted the hem of my shift and slid his hands slowly up my legs and fiddled with the ribbons whilst all the time watching my face. Without taking his gaze away, he carefully rolled down my pretty red stockings and drew them off. I’d worn them especially for him because they were my best but he didn’t notice. Now my feet and legs were bare.
He stood up, looked at me and smiled. Before I could say anything he bent down and scooped me up. He carried me in his arms to the bed and laid me beneath the covers.
I watched as he undid the ties and laces on his clothes but when he was clad in just his shirt he turned to the table and swiftly blew out the candle leaving us in the dark.
‘Thomas?’
‘Shh!’
There was some rustling and a muttered curse and the weight of the cover lifted, letting in a cold draught of air. The mattress dipped as he climbed in beside me. He was completely naked.
He gathered me tightly in his arms. The feel of his thighs against mine through my shift made me shiver and I didn’t think it was because I was cold or because I was frightened.
‘Thomas?’
He kissed me and began trying to remove my shift, sliding the fine linen carefully over my arms.
‘Thomas?’ I whispered, struggling out of the unwanted garment and being shocked at the intimate feel of his bare skin on mine. ‘Thomas. I don’t know what to do.’
He held me so tightly I could feel the solid curves of his body pressing against mine. ‘Yes you do,’ he said quietly.
He kissed me again, slowly this time with his mouth open, and gradually to my surprise I found I did; I knew exactly what to do.
At some hour in the depths of the night when there was nothing to hear but the call of a night owl and the rustle of small creatures in the roof above our heads, he kissed me awake, brushing my eyes and mouth with his lips. In a drowsy half-sleep, barely aware of what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close.
‘Please,’ I murmured. ‘Do it again.’
It was indescribable; it was wonderful; it was joy. Why didn’t people say marriage was like this?
Afterwards, I slept, and when I awoke, a weak grey light was already lapping at the window and he was watching me. He wasn’t smiling. I remembered Alice’s repeated warnings of how men were born and bred to violence and thought perhaps I had offended him in some way. He would have known many women in his years of soldiering, women who excelled in the art of pleasing a man, but I had not even known what to do. Perhaps I’d been a disappointment.
I felt hot tears begin to sting the back of my eyes.
‘Did I please you, my lord?’ I whispered, nearly too afraid to ask. ‘Was I to your liking?’
For a moment his face didn’t change and then his eyes softened. ‘Thomas,’ he corrected me. ‘And yes, you pleased me very much. Yes, very much indeed.’
He leaned over and placed gentle kisses on my eyes and then on my mouth.
‘What about you, my lady? Did you enjoy what we did?’
I blushed, too embarrassed to look at him now we were no longer lying in the dark. ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I liked it very well.’
‘I thought you might,’ he said.
‘Is it possible… could we…?’
He laughed and gathered me close, crushing me against his chest and placing his mouth on my forehead.
‘There’s no time. Look! Morning is here.’
‘But I may come again tonight?’
‘No.’ He kissed my mouth gently. ‘Not because I don’t enjoy having you in my bed, my lady, because I do. But we can’t risk a child. You’re too young and it would spoil our plans.’
I hadn’t thought about a child. It had never occurred to me but of course it should have; I did know about such things. I knew God sometimes blessed you with a child if you shared a bed with your husband but I hadn’t thought it could happen to me. Not with Thomas. Not now.
Thomas rolled himself out of bed and started pulling on his clothes. I lay watching him, marvelling at how differently made he was to me and loving the dark hair on his chest which ran in a ruffled line all the way down his body. When he saw I hadn’t moved, he grabbed the cover and pulled it off the bed. The sight of me curled naked on the sheet made him pause. I looked up at him from under my lashes, hoping he might change his mind.
‘No!’ he said. ‘I told you; there isn’t time. Up! Come on! Otho will be here any moment and I don’t suppose you wish to greet him like this.’
I was embarrassed at the blood stains on the sheet and bundled it into a heap, hoping he hadn’t noticed but I’d heard too many giggled stories of young women no longer virgo intacta to be in any doubt as to what this was. I struggled into my various garments and with Thomas’s help managed to get myself into a state of some order.
‘How do I look?’ I said doubtfully.
He put his head on one side and considered the matter carefully.
‘You look delightful but please, my lady, turn round and put on your stockings. My brother is very partial to
bare feet.’
He made me laugh and I was certain this must be love.
As soon as I had pulled on my stockings and tied the ribbons he came and sat beside me. He was different, dressed in his clothes; separate from me, older, no longer the Thomas of last night and I didn’t know what to say. It felt wrong to be sitting with a man on the edge of a bed.
‘I have a little gift for you.’ He reached into his purse and pulled something out. ‘I don’t have the funds for what you desired but I want you to know I haven’t forgotten. Give me your hand.’
I did as he asked and into my outstretched hand he put something small and hard and round – a little silver coin.
‘It’s a gross, made here in Ghent. See! A cross.’ He turned it over. ‘And a lion.’
It lay where he’d placed it, gleaming dully in the palm of my hand.
I lifted it with my fingers and examined it closely. ‘Oh but it’s beautiful.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not worth much but each time you look at it you’ll remember me.’
‘Oh, Thomas!’
He seemed embarrassed at what he’d said and got quickly to his feet.
‘I’ll get us some water.’
Moments later he returned carrying a bowl and a plain earthenware jug with no enamelling.
‘I like my women clean,’ he said, kissing the top of my head as if I was a child. ‘Now you’d best give the ring to me for safekeeping. We can’t risk it being discovered on your person’
By the time Otho arrived I was putting on my shoes. He and Thomas stood by the door talking in low murmurs. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. There was a smothered laugh and I heard Thomas say, ‘Twice!’ Otho looked over to where I sat on the bed and then back at his brother. He frowned and said something. Whatever Thomas replied, amused Otho. ‘You lucky sod!’ he said.
They talked some more while I sat patiently waiting.
Eventually Thomas came over and offered me his hand.
‘Come, my lady. We must get you back before you’re discovered.’
When I was wrapped in my cloak I turned to him and whispered, ‘When will I see you again?’
He hesitated. ‘We are moving out today, my lady. I’m truly sorry.’
‘Moving out?’
‘Yes. Sir William and the Earl of Suffolk are taking us west across the Scheldt. The princes have decided to attack Tournai.’
I didn’t know where Tournai was or why it was to be attacked.
‘But what will I do?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Pray. It’s all a wife can do for her husband when he’s away.’
‘The men of Cambrai are raiding the Count of Hainault’s castles and if we do nothing they’ll soon control the whole of the valley of the Scheldt from Cambrai to Valenciennes,’ Otho explained.
‘Is that bad?’ I had no idea what the men of Cambrai were trying to do and why it was of such importance. I didn’t even know where Cambrai was, or Valenciennes.
Thomas gave his brother a grin. ‘My wife is no military planner, as you see. My lady, if the men of Cambrai control the valley of the Scheldt there is nothing to stop the French armies from marching into Brabant and the duke will not be happy facing them on his own. He’ll wonder why he joined with us if we’re not there to fight with him.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I do whatever Sir William commands.’
‘But you will come back?’
He took my hand in his. ‘I will come back. This is only a small matter. We’re not marching into France. One day soon we will and then anything could happen.’
‘It’s what the men want,’ explained Otho. ‘An opportunity for glory and honour.’
‘And getting rich,’ laughed Thomas.
‘That too.’
‘And now you’d best take my wife back. I’ll go and find Sir William and try to explain my absence of yesterday evening. Gut-ache will do, I think.’
‘You won’t tell him about me, will you?’ I said, suddenly frightened at what we’d done and what the earl might do.
‘Do I want a dagger in my ribs?’
‘No, of course not.’
He kissed my hands and looked me straight in the eye. ‘Tell no-one. Remember this is our secret. Now go.’
I pushed the sleeping boy to one side with my foot. He opened an eye but I put a finger to my lips and quietly opened the door. In the pale light coming through the cracks in the shutter I could see two grey lumps curled on a pallet and the heavy dark folds surrounding Alice’s bed. The gentle sound of breathing filled the room.
I tiptoed to the bed and pulled the curtain aside. Alice turned her head. She was awake.
‘I presume it’s done?’
‘Yes. Oh Alice, it…’
‘You have ruined yourself and your family, Jeanette, you realise that, don’t you? I have lain awake all night praying for you but I can see no happy ending to this. When the king finds out I dread to think what he’ll do and before you utter another word I don’t want to hear any more. I regret my part in last night’s affair. I should have gone straight to Lady Catherine.’
Alice was so disapproving I could have wept.
I pulled off my cloak, removed my shoes and climbed onto the bed.
‘He’s leaving.’
‘Of course he is.’
‘Sir William’s taking men to attack Tournai. He’s going to fight.’
‘Oh you stupid girl! What did you expect?’
‘But what if he’s killed?’
‘Then you will have ruined yourself for nothing.’
Sometimes when the cobwebs of sleep were still sticky in my eyes I wondered if I had imagined my marriage and if those hours in the little attic room were nothing but a dream. It was hard to be a wife and yet no wife, to have a husband who was not a husband and could never be mentioned. When I listened to Lady Catherine’s women talk of their houses and their children and their numerous burdensome duties, I felt sad to have no house, no child and no duties other than to keep my lips tightly sealed. This was all Thomas had asked of me: to keep silent.
That year was a troubling one to be an Englishwoman with a husband on campaign and I suffered no less than anyone else; perhaps even more because I suffered in private, my fears unseen and unshared. In the final days of Lent Sir William and his fellow commander, the Earl of Suffolk, were captured by the French during a skirmish. Thirty of their men were killed and only one escaped. With no-one to stop them the French crossed the Scheldt and marched into Hainault.
I prayed more than I had ever prayed in my life before. My knees were rubbed raw and my shoulders ached but by mid-summer my prayers were answered. My cousin returned from England to fight a great sea battle where he defeated the French fleet and hanged their admiral from his own mast. He then turned his attention to Tournai.
I listened carefully as the queen read out my cousin’s daily letters telling her of his attempts to bring the French king to battle: how the Valois had refused his challenge to fight body to body, how my cousin and his friends had encircled the town of Tournai and how the siege was dragging on and on. One night the queen’s mother, the dowager lady of Hainault, had crossed the marshes and gone down on her knees to the Valois, who was her brother, and the English king, who was her son-in-law, and had begged them to make peace.
And then it was over. There was to be a treaty. There would be no fighting until next summer and we would keep the towns we had taken. All prisoners were to be returned and Sir William would come home to Bisham. Naturally there were to be celebrations: a week of extravagant gift-giving, tournaments, feasting and entertainments, and I knew Thomas would come for me.
We met by arrangement late one evening at dusk by the postern gate, hidden from prying eyes by the low-hanging branches. The
greetings I had planned, the little speech of welcome and all the words I wanted to say, died on my lips the moment I saw him. I had imagined this moment in the drowsy hours of half-sleep but now he was here I felt strangely embarrassed. He didn’t look like the Thomas of my dreams; in truth he didn’t look like Thomas at all. He was leaner and darker and older and his clothing was different.
He greeted me as a husband should, removing his cap and giving a small nod of the head.
‘My lady’ His voice was low and very familiar. ‘God keep you well.’
I tried to give a small smile to show how pleased I was to see him but somehow my mouth wouldn’t do what I wanted and my lips started to tremble.
‘Have you missed me, my lady?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
He seemed pleased with my answer.
‘And our secret?’
‘I have told no-one.’
‘Good.’
‘Lady Catherine says we are returning to Bisham when the games are finished,’ I said. ‘She believes Sir William will come home.’
He nodded his head. ‘And you will accompany her.’
‘But…’
He held up his hand. ‘You are my wife and must do as you’re bid. I need you to stay in Lady Catherine’s household a little while longer because I am going away. The king’s war is over and I must find another war with richer pickings.’
‘Was there no prize money at Tournai?’
He laughed. ‘No, there was no prize money at Tournai.’
‘Where will you go?’ I whispered.
‘I shall go east. Pope Clement has proclaimed a Crusade. Otho and I will join with the German knights and fight against the Tartar hordes.’
‘Why a Crusade?’
‘For honour, for glory, for the forgiveness of my sins.’
‘Have you sinned much?’ I asked. I thought he probably had, he was that kind of man.
‘More than most but the Church tells me I will be rewarded in Heaven if I follow a Holy War.’
‘Will the Church not reward you on earth?’
He laughed softly. ‘Oh, my lady, you are my earthly reward.’
The Fair Maid of Kent Page 9