‘The marriages of my other children were put at the king’s disposal so we could have his favoured cousin for our son. We settled it together but when I saw you I knew we had made a terrible mistake, I knew that you, with your simpering smile and golden hair, would cause us nothing but grief and I have been proved right.’
Rather than look into her eyes as she slandered me, I stared at the glowing green jewel on her hand, but I have never liked emeralds and I didn’t like Lady Catherine’s ring.
‘Before we left for Windsor, my lord paid a visit to my son’s old steward who was said to be close to death. The man was a Montagu servant of long-standing with sins on his conscience and he wished to unburden himself. He told my husband of a night when the king came late to the house, asking for hospitality, and of the lady who made her liege lord welcome not only in her hall but in her bed. He spoke of the king’s valet sent away, a maid locked in the wardrobe and cries of passion from my lady’s chamber. He mumbled of a meal taken together and the lady’s hair spread about her like a wanton. The old man said his duty was clear and if wrong had been done it was only right that my husband should know. He was old and befuddled and made my lord believe that the lady was me.’
Holy Virgin! I had never considered the steward. I should have done because his sly little eyes were everywhere. But in his agitation to confess, the man remembered Lady Catherine’s seductive glances, her clinging to my cousin’s arm, her whispering in my cousin’s ear and had become muddled.
My knees trembled and I could think of nothing to say.
‘My lord accused me of infidelity,’ said Lady Catherine flatly.
‘I am certain you were never anything other than a loving and dutiful wife,’ I said opening my eyes innocently.
She had the grace to look disconcerted.
‘I have never given myself to any man except at my lord’s command,’ she said levelly.
I stared at her in surprise. It was hard to believe the earl had instructed his wife to seduce the king but perhaps when they were young, when Sir William was eager to rise… he would not have been the first man to thrust his wife between a king’s sheets to gain royal favours and Elizabeth had said her mother had been a beauty in her youth.
‘We all obey our lords,’ I said silkily. ‘My husband bade me follow your example in every respect and you taught me that obedience is a wife’s foremost duty.’
‘You don’t fool me,’ she hissed. ‘You never have. You’re a little whore, nothing but a whore and a slut. I knew it the moment I set eyes on you. If you hadn’t seduced the king, my husband would never have given in to his suspicions.’
Suddenly her shoulders sagged and she looked beaten but there was nothing I could say or wanted to say which would comfort her.
‘My conscience is clear,’ she pronounced as if that was the end of the matter. ‘He was distraught with grief at what he thought I’d done and no matter how much I protested my innocence he didn’t believe me. I was angry but he was angrier by far and before we could resolve our quarrel he went straight from our chamber to the field to don his armour.’ Her voice cracked. ‘All those straps and buckles, all that metal, his helmet, the painted shield, the holy relics to keep him safe, and yet he died.’
She was weeping and I felt a wave of compassion. She hadn’t been kind to me but in her end, I pitied her. But a woman like Lady Catherine would never admit defeat. She hadn’t finished with me and with her last shaft, showed her determination to destroy me.
‘My son will accompany me on my journey,’ she said looking me straight in the eye. ‘I shall tell him exactly what I have just told you. I shall furnish him with the knowledge of what I saw a year ago last autumn and spare him none of the details however distasteful because it is only right that a husband knows his wife is a whore. He will be left in no doubt and you will have the pleasure of awaiting his return wondering what he will do with you. You will sweat with fear, believe me, and before the week is out your bowels will have turned to water.’
She smiled with her teeth but nothing reached her eyes which were full of the cold, wet slime of black bile.
‘My son is a more violent man than his father ever was, and if it was in my nature to pity you, I would do so, because you will suffer greatly at his hands.’
With that she rose from her seat, brushing past me as if I wasn’t there. I heard her order her chair to be brought and her women to be summoned. She was ready to leave.
I watched from the top of the steps as Lady Catherine’s retinue followed her carriage out of the courtyard, the loaded wagons creaking heavily as they passed under the shadow of the gatehouse. And I observed William mounted high on his horse, noticing the muscular strength of his hands, the mound of power in his shoulders, the sturdy grip of his thighs and I shivered at the thought of the punishments he might devise when he heard the story of my past misdeeds.
It was three weeks before he returned and from the moment he crossed the threshold, Bisham became a place of ominous silences. My mother had once told me of what might happen should the Montagu men turn against me but I hadn’t heeded her. I had prepared no defences. My brother was too young and I had no father to take my part and no cousin who would shelter me from my husband’s wrath.
For two days no word was brought to me and I didn’t know where William was. There was no sign of him in the hall where I dined alone at the high table with the eyes of the household following my every move. The few people from Great Marlow who had come to watch us dine would have observed the richness of my clothing and the fashionable trimmings on my mourning gown; they might even have commented on what a shame it was that the lady’s famous golden tresses were hidden beneath an ugly grey veil, but I doubted they would have noticed the slight tremor in my fingers or the fact that I could barely swallow.
Later, I caught one of William’s grooms on the stairs. ‘Where is your master?’ I asked, giving him an empty smile.
‘In the chapel, my lady.’ The man waited, but I waved him away.
When I was a little girl still playing in the nursery, Lady la Mote had said that an unpleasant task was always best done quickly before you had time to think of a hundred reasons why you might wish to avoid it. That way you would never suffer the worry which robs you of a night’s sleep. I needed to face my husband’s wrath soon because I had already lost too many nights of sleep with an anxious churning in my belly.
I went swiftly back to my room and washed my face. I dabbed some rosewater on my neck and shoulders, pinched my cheeks to give them a better colour, and thus prepared, went down the stairs to find my husband.
I opened the door quietly. The chapel glowed in the light of a dozen candles but it felt as cold as the tomb and I shivered. He was kneeling on the altar steps with his head bowed, still wearing his mourning clothes. I tiptoed soundlessly until I stood behind him. His head moved slightly, indicating his awareness of my presence. I moistened my lips in my nervousness, reminding myself that this was William and he loved me.
He rose and turned his face towards me. It was streaked with dried tears but as hard as the rocks in Quarry Wood.
‘My uncle beats his wife,’ he said coolly as if discussing the price of a sack of wool. ‘Sometimes he uses his fists but if he has a mind to, he takes a stick or uses his belt. He says a man mustn’t shirk from his duty but strike until the skin is split as otherwise there is no lasting pain or hope of redemption. Once he took her to the chapel to confess her sins and had his men hold her while he whipped her.’
Alice! Oh Holy Mother of God! My legs began to tremble and I felt sick.
‘He says it is the only way to assure himself of an obedient wife. Do you think I should take my whip to you? It would give me the greatest pleasure to hear you whimper as the lash cuts into your flesh and the blood runs red against the white of your skin.’
His eyes glittered.
>
‘Or shall I put you in a nunnery? My mother tells me of a place she knows where the rule is strict. The women have barely enough to eat and spend all day and night on their knees praying for God’s mercy. They are rarely permitted sleep. I need never see you again and you would remain there to the end of your days. They’d shave off your hair which would be a shame, but there’d be no-one to see and my mother says it is a snare for men’s lust.’
I instinctively put up my hand to protect my hair as if William would attack me that very moment with his knife.
‘A nun’s habit is coarse compared to silk, but it would be so cold you’d seek warmth anywhere, even in plain homespun. And if your prayers were not sufficiently penitent I should require a shirt of goat’s hair, one which would scourge your skin each time you moved. My mother says the wearing of this garment can induce such ecstasies of pain, a woman prays to whichever saint she calls her own, for a speedy release in death.’
‘William, please!’
‘Or I could lock you in the tower room. It’s bare and there’s only a narrow window. You’d never escape. But I’d be merciful, I’d let you have some straw, you wouldn’t have to lie on the floor. And I’d see you fed, you could have the crusts left over from my table, sufficient to keep the flesh on your bones. I’d hold the key so there’d be no point in trying to bribe your gaoler with whatever was left of your charms. I’d visit you if I so desired, if I fancied seeing what imprisonment would do to your spirit. Women go mad in prison, you know, it’s to do with the way they are: weak, feeble creatures who need a man to rule them.’
‘Please, William. Don’t do that to me. Please.’
I began to cry.
He ignored my tears, closing his fingers painfully on the soft flesh above my wrist.
‘I can do anything I like to you, wife,’ he hissed. ‘Anything at all.’
He turned on his heel and strode out of the chapel, still holding my wrist, leaving me stumbling in his wake. When we reached his private room he thrust me onto a stool where I sat shivering, terrified of what would come next.
‘How could you do this to me?’ he hissed. ‘I clothe you, I feed you, I give you gifts and honour your bed and yet you betray me. Why?’
‘It’s not what you think, William,’ I babbled. ‘I didn’t want it to happen. I couldn’t stop him. He was stronger than me.’
‘You could have resisted. A virtuous woman would have held him off.’
‘I did. You must believe me, William. I tried to resist but he told me it was an honour to be desired by the king and I should be grateful. He said a husband who stepped aside would be pleased because his wife would bring him royal favours.’
‘I received no favours,’ he spat. ‘Not one single manor or preferment came my way so clearly you didn’t please him.’
‘He hurt me, William, he hurt me horribly.’
‘You could have called for help.’
‘He covered my mouth. I couldn’t scream. I prayed for you to come and rescue me but you were a day’s ride away and I was alone. I prayed to Our Lady but…’
I had spent two years carefully revisiting the events of that October and had convinced myself I’d been far from willing. My cousin had imposed his attentions on me, forced me to raise my skirts, coerced me into his arms and persuaded me into a night-long indulgence of his lust. I was totally innocent. None of it was my fault.
I wasn’t sure if William gave credence to my story but with disaster staring me in the face, the deceits slipped readily off my tongue.
He wanted to believe me, I could see it in his eyes. He was only sixteen, still partly a boy, and didn’t want to think I had lied to him. Somewhere in his mind he held the image of a perfect wife. I was young, I was beautiful, he desired me. I was his bedded wife so I must be true to him. It was against everything he understood as God’s order for a man and a woman for this not to be so.
‘Why did you break your fast with him?’ he said, his eyes glinting with suspicion. ‘My mother says you were half-naked with your hair down.’
‘Oh William, I was not half-naked and my hair was down because he ordered it left unbound. I was frightened he’d hurt me again. I had to do as I was told.’
He placed a cold hand on my cheek.
‘Did… did you let him…?’
‘It was rape, William.’
There was complete silence. He chewed his lip and I sensed his anguish. But in his eyes I detected uncertainty. Please God, let him believe me because I didn’t want to end my days in some dark cold place where I’d never see the light of day.
‘You refused him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t want him in your bed?’
‘No. I only ever wanted you.’ May God forgive me the lie but it was necessary.
‘Yet you opened your legs for him.’
‘It was not what I wanted.’
He knocked me sideways off the stool.
‘Whore!’ he hissed and strode out of the room leaving me lying on the floor.
I picked myself up, examining my face with my fingers. I was unharmed. I whispered a quick prayer, thanking the Holy Virgin. At least he hadn’t tried to kill me.
He might not have tried to kill me but he wasn’t prepared to live with me in amity, he made that perfectly plain. Next day, in a cold little interview where his eyes never quite met mine, he informed me that when he was at Bisham I was to keep to my rooms. I might dine in the hall when he was absent but not when he was there. Any personal duties which in the past I had carried out for him would henceforth be performed by someone else and I was not to seek him out in any way.
As I watched him ride out along the road to Great Marlow I knew our marriage was irretrievably broken. In my pride and my carelessness I had damaged it beyond repair. My duty as a king’s granddaughter had been clear but vanity and self-will had been my undoing. As a wife, I should have laced tighter the bonds between my new family and my royal cousin, yet I had been unthinking in my care for my husband.
During the months of our estrangement I found the barren hours filled with uncomfortable truths about myself. My mind wandered, tiptoeing through the past, my sins sliding out of the shadows, worming their way through my defences until I was forced to look them honestly in the face. I was in no way innocent. It was painful to acknowledge my complicity in the dalliance I had enjoyed with my cousin, but even more painful to admit the wrong I had done in marrying Thomas Holand. Forgetting him would be my penance.
When prayer and contemplation failed to remedy the situation I found unexpected comfort in the acerbic company of the prior. He understood my plight without my explaining anything and our lengthy discussions concerning worldly sin and God’s forgiveness did much to pour balm on my bruised and battered soul. On days when I became too maudlin and was close to tears he would make me smile with stories of how the canons had hitched up their garments and taken refuge on top of the priory’s wine barrels when the river had flooded. If nothing else, that long dark winter brought me to a maturity and wisdom I hadn’t possessed before and a greater understanding of a woman’s role in God’s great plan.
Eventually, desire and loneliness drove William back to my bed and in the cold light of a rainy evening soon after the feast day of St Matthias we tentatively re-consummated our marriage. The first time brought little pleasure to either of us but gradually we learned to be kind to each other and by the summer there was reason for me to hope that all was not lost.
‘I have spoken with my mother’s brother, the Bishop of Exeter,’ said William. ‘My father regarded him as a clear-headed man whose advice was sound. He says I should forgive you.’
I gave a weak smile. ‘I do not deserve your forgiveness, William, but if you should find it in your heart to forgive me I promise to be the best wife you could have. I will do anything
for you.’
He looked at me with eyes which were dark and empty of any passion.
‘My uncle says forgiveness is a virtue and even a lewd and sinful woman can be redeemed if she is forgiven. He says you were very young and I left you unguarded.’
The lessons I had learned from Lady Catherine in the houses of Antwerp and Ghent proved invaluable in the months which followed as I trained myself to become the perfect wife for William, and when he gave me a pretty little enamelled brooch I knew I had succeeded in transforming myself in my husband’s eyes. I was dutiful and loving and never complained no matter what he asked of me.
8
The Prince 1345-6
One evening at the beginning of December we sat together in William’s room where the crackling fire gave out surprisingly little heat. It felt cosily domestic with just the two of us seated side by side in front of the hearth and one of William’s greyhounds stretched lazily at his feet. We spoke idly of household matters and whether or not Gascony would be the destination for the king’s army next year and I amused myself by wondering how I could persuade our neighbour to sell me his grey mare which I coveted. I regretfully came to the conclusion it would cost more than William could afford.
‘The king is to hold Christmas at Westminster,’ said William, not looking at me but staring into the flames.
I waited patiently as clearly there was more. This was William and in the past months I had studied him carefully and had begun to understand the devious workings of his mind.
‘I have received an invitation to join in the festivities and have decided to let you accomany me.’
‘Me?’ I said, startled out of my contemplation of the curve of his rather fine legs.
The Fair Maid of Kent Page 19