‘But why Calais? It’s nothing but a mean little fishing town full of pirates. Even the queen agrees.’
Lady Fitzalan nodded to our right. I could smell the salt and hear the sullen roar of the surf and in the louring greyness could just detect a vague outline of sand dunes. But the sea was hidden by a thick veiling of mist.
‘Did you know on a clear day the king can see Calais from his castle at Dover?’ she remarked. ‘Our ships could sail here and back in no time at all and if it was ours, our armies could pass into France with ease. Think what a great advantage that would be. His Grace wouldn’t need to bargain with the men of Flanders or the lords of Normandy for a landing ground. If we held Calais we’d have our own harbour on this side of the Narrow Sea.’
‘Why not use Brittany?’
‘It’s too rocky, too dangerous and much too far to the west,’ replied Lady Arundel as if she had spent her entire life sailing the seas and knew the whereabouts of every open beach from here to Gascony.
What countryside we could see around us was relentlessly dismal, a flat bleak marshland with not a town in sight. We passed dozens of empty wagons rattling along the causeway, making the return journey to Flanders and occasionally saw a fast-riding group of king’s men out looking for signs of trouble, but nothing else. Everywhere there was a palpable feeling of danger and I was glad of our armed escort.
At that moment we both heard the herald’s trumpet and raising our eyes, saw figures emerging from the low swirling mist. Riding down the road in great splendour with rain-sodden banners and accompanied by a host of colourful noisy musicians, was the welcome sight of my cousin and his men come to welcome us to Calais.
‘This is it,’ announced William.
I looked round the snug little hall and was so relieved our home was not a tented pavilion I gave him a beaming smile.
‘It’s perfect. I couldn’t want for anything better and once we arrange for a bigger fire it won’t feel so damp.’
In truth, everywhere was damp; damp and cold and gloomy. But at least we had a house. Not one as grand as the Arundel’s but ours boasted two tiny chambers as well as the little hall so I was well pleased.
William had grown much older in the six months we’d been apart. He was now almost as tall as my cousin, with the shoulders of a warrior, and one glance at the strength and breadth of his chest made me catch my breath. The soft down on his upper lip which I had often admired had changed to a fuzz of light-brown bristles and his chin showed the beginnings of a fine beard. But his eyes hadn’t changed and they weren’t particularly friendly.
‘Did you miss me, husband?’ I said lightly as we sat by the fire that first evening trying to get warm.
‘I thought of you sometimes,’ he replied evasively.
‘Only sometimes?’ I teased. ‘Was I not worth more? I thought of you every day and remembered you each night in my prayers.’
‘As was your duty,’ he said shortly.
I wondered what he had done in the nights when he was alone. Had he gone chastely to his bed or had there been other women? I thought there probably had. Six months was a very long time.
‘Was the fighting very bloody?’
‘Yes. Better than Brittany. The greatest sport you could ever imagine.’
He stared into the flames.
‘The king did you a great honour in knighting you,’ I said, wanting him to know how thrilled the household at Bisham had been.
‘He knighted dozens. I was just one of many. It was nothing special. He could hardly have ignored me when he was knighting men like that oaf, de Ros.’
‘But you are now Sir William.’
He turned his eyes to me. ‘And you are Lady Joan once more. That must give you a great deal of pleasure.’
It was clear I had displeased him in some way. I knew I had been a disappointment as a wife. I had taken the king as a lover and yet signally failed to gain any benefit for my husband. If I had been cleverer or more desirable I could have held my cousin’s attention but as it was I had behaved like a love-struck milkmaid. It was no wonder he had dropped me hastily and never looked my way again. William had got nothing from that encounter other than the shame of an unfaithful wife.
And the prince? It would have been easy to lure Edward between my sheets and talk him into honouring William in some way but I had balked at the betrayal of our friendship. I didn’t want him in my bed, I wanted him for what he had always been to me, a loyal and steadfast friend.
‘Lady Arundel says there will be a re-telling of the glories of the campaign at the welcome feast,’ I said. ‘I shall listen carefully and cheer when I hear your name.’
‘Nobody will mention my name. You can be sure of that.’
‘I’m certain you fought valiantly, William,’ I said quietly, nervous of making him angrier. ‘Everybody knows what a fine fighter you are.’
I’d not seen him as gloomy as this for a long time and yet I had no idea what was wrong.
‘Shall I tell you something?’ he said. ‘In between charges, when Thomas Daniel slipped in the mud, the prince helped him to his feet with a laugh and a friendly word but when I was knocked to the ground I had to crawl on my hands and knees and get some baseborn squire to haul me up. The prince didn’t even notice.’
He kicked a log into the hearth and slumped back in his chair.
‘I did miss you, husband,’ I said softly, wondering what I should do to improve his mood. ‘Would you like it if we went to bed?’
I touched the sleeve of his shirt with the tips of my fingers just sufficiently to let him know what I had in mind but I might as well have been an insect for all the notice he took.
‘You go. I shan’t disturb you tonight.’
‘But William…’
He raised his eyes to mine and I noticed how cold they were, almost as cold as the ditchwater in the trenches outside.
‘Go to bed, Joan. I have no need of you.’
For all my good intentions this was not an auspicious beginning. As my maid undressed me and put me to bed, I wondered what I had done wrong.
The next day we broke our fast with a paltry meal of bread and some indifferent cheese. While we ate, I kept up a continuous flow of news and gossip from home, hoping after a night’s sleep William was in a better mood but he was as surly as ever.
‘You can arrange the house to your liking,’ he said into the silence when I finally ran out of things to say. ‘I’ll send someone to escort you around the town and show you where you can get what you need. Don’t go out alone with just your maid. It’s not safe. It’s not only the enemy out there, there are thousands of men living in those disgusting hovels along the causeways and most of them haven’t had a woman in months.’
I dressed in my warmest clothes and stood in the hall waiting for William’s man. I surveyed the walls and planned which of the hangings I had brought from home I would use to make the room brighter. It certainly needed improvement. The men of our household bustled to and fro bringing in more logs and stacking the trestle tables against the wall while one of the boys started sweeping out the old rushes. It was a very domestic scene, reminiscent of Bisham.
‘My lady? God give you good day.’
The voice was low and came from just behind my shoulder. He could have put out his hand and touched me if he had so wished but of course he didn’t. He must have come in very quietly. I hadn’t heard the noise of his arrival or even the sound of his footsteps on the stair. I turned round slowly, most unwilling to look at him.
It had been a year since I had seen Thomas Holand and I had no wish to see him now.
‘Oh!’
My hands flew to my mouth and I gasped in horror. He was the same man as before but where his left eye had been there was now a black leather patch tied in place by a length of narrow ribbon.
<
br /> ‘What happened?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I was too slow.’
I felt unaccountably faint.
‘But… when?’
‘Last summer when we were coming up the Seine.’
He had told me how dangerous this campaign would be but I hadn’t understood the reality, not until now.
‘Was it a sword?’ I asked, remembering William’s lectures on how best to kill your enemy.
‘Yes.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But it could have been worse. At least I am alive; the other man is dead.’
He was very close to me, really much too close.
‘Is it… does it…?’
I put my fingers up towards his face but hesitated. I wanted to touch him but I didn’t dare. Not here in my husband’s house where anybody might see.
‘The pain is mostly gone but it aches at night when I try to sleep.’
My lips were trembling and I couldn’t drag my eyes away from his patch. It possessed a strange attraction, the way a honey pot does for a wasp.
His smile widened. ‘I could have lost my eye but I didn’t and now there’s only a rather unsightly scar. I don’t need this.’ He touched the patch, his hand brushing mine, sending shivers up my arm. ‘But the women like it. They say it improves my looks.’
He studied me carefully, watching the blush rise in my cheeks. ‘What do you think, my lady? Do you find me a more attractive man than I used to be?’
I turned my face away, trying to conquer the trembling sensations in my belly. ‘I wouldn’t know Sir Thomas,’ I whispered. ‘I am not in the habit of staring at men like you.’
He laughed.
‘Would you like to see it?’
He fingered the ribbon.
I took a step back. ‘No, no, not at all.’
He regarded me with amusement.
‘When I was a little boy running around my father’s hall, I had a nurse, an old woman who’d served our family for years. If I fell over she would scoop me onto her lap and kiss me better. What about you, my lady? Did you have someone to kiss you when you tumbled?’
‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘I was slapped for dirtying my gown.’
‘So you have no experience in such matters?’
I put my lips together and said nothing. He was blocking my way to the door and unless I pushed past him I had to stay where I was.
‘Kissing is said to be an excellent remedy for all kinds of hurt but I expect you know that already. People say a man can even forget the betrayals of a faithless wife when lying in the arms of a bought woman. Oh those sweet red lips which whisper such tantalising lies! Would it were true that forgetfulness comes so easily.’
He put his hand up to the patch.
‘You see, it is at night when I am awake and alone that the pain is at its worst. It is then I wish my wife was beside me putting her soft lips against my skin and kissing the hurt away. Perhaps you, my lady, would care to…?’
That was enough to bring me to my senses.
‘Sir Thomas,’ I said, gathering my cloak tightly around me as if for protection, ‘I think you should remember who I am.’
I said it in as sharp a tone as I could muster but somehow the words trailed away at the end.
He gave a small laugh. ‘Oh I never forget who you are, my lady. Never.’
He looked as if he had no intention of moving and was prepared to stand there all morning.
‘Why are you here, Sir Thomas?’ I said. ‘You don’t hold a position in my husband’s household and I wasn’t aware he had invited you to call on us.’
He smiled as if about to divulge a carefully kept secret. ‘But that is where you are wrong, my lady. Didn’t he tell you? I am his new steward.’
I felt my face redden.
‘That’s not possible.’
‘Possible or not, it is a fact. After Crécy he asked if I would be willing.’
‘You should have refused.’
He laughed. ‘Why? It is a good position. It suits me and I like the company.’
He caught hold of my wrist and lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear. ‘Don’t you think we shall get along well, the three of us? I shall enjoy watching you play at being the lady of the house and if there is ever anything I can do for you, any small service: unlace your gown, remove your stockings…’
‘Stop it,’ I hissed. ‘Don’t you dare come near my chamber.’
‘Why not? You already know what an excellent lady’s maid I can be.’
Holy Virgin! What was I going to do? If he was William’s steward I would see him every day. He would sit in our hall at the top of the side table, practically at William’s right hand, and I didn’t know if I could bear to be in the same room as both of them.
At last he grew tired of teasing me and stood aside to let me leave.
In the yard my groom held the bridle of a newly combed and polished Blanchefleur. Her coat gleamed and she looked quite recovered from our journey.
Thomas gave her an appraising look. ‘What a beauty,’ he remarked. ‘You must have pleased Sir William greatly for him to have bought you such a fine animal.’
‘It was a gift from the prince.’
He raised his eyebrow.
‘Ah, I see.’
‘You see nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘I still have one eye and it sees everything, believe me.’
And with that rudeness he put his hands round my waist and lifted me smartly up into the saddle. I wished he hadn’t because his touch made the skin beneath my linen tingle as I remembered things I would rather forget. My maid straightened the folds of my gown and wrapped my cloak over my knees while Thomas Holand watched with an annoying smirk on his face.
‘Leave it,’ I said irritably, gathering the reins in my hand and turning Blanchefleur’s head towards the gate.
The girl backed away in alarm from the animal’s shifting hindquarters, just in time to be hoisted up behind one of Thomas Holand’s men.
We rode in silence through the streets of Villeneuve le Hardi, the settlement my cousin and his men had built in just four months. People said it was nothing short of a miracle and showed what the English king could do when God was on his side as He clearly was at the moment.
We made our slow way past the grand houses where the king and queen and people like us lived and on to the lesser houses occupied by the knights of the shires. I had seen with my own eyes the brushwood hovels and little wooden cabins for the common soldiers, where mud oozed round the walls and rainwater collected in puddles in the doorways and was extremely thankful nobody had suggested I should live in one of those.
To my amazement, Villeneuve was like a real town with every convenience a woman could possibly want. If you ignored the stench from the marshes you could almost believe it was Great Marlow or Reading, only bigger.
‘It’s as big as York,’ said Thomas Holand when he saw me looking around in wonder at the sights.
‘I’ve only once been to York,’ I said wistfully. ‘I’ve forgotten what it’s like.’
‘Big. It’s the greatest city in the north and only London is bigger.’
As we pushed our way through the crowds of people in the market square, hardly able to hear ourselves speak above the noise, I could see hundreds of traders with their stalls laid out as if for a feast day.
At the far side of the square was a huge building almost as grand as a palace.
‘The cloth market,’ shouted Thomas Holand. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s… big.’
He smiled but said nothing.
To my horror, Thomas Holand turned up again the following morning intent on escorting me to wherever I might want to go. The message was brought by our smallest page who was still learni
ng his duties.
‘He’s in the yard, my lady,’ he piped, his scrubbed face beaming with pleasure at the importance of his task. ‘He has ordered your horse to be saddled. He said I was to be sure to tell you the day is deceptive and you should bring your warmest cloak. And your stoutest riding boots. He says the mud is something dreadful and it will rain before the end of the day. He says…’
‘Thank you,’ I said gently. ‘You may tell Sir Thomas, I am well aware of the state of the streets and I don’t need his advice as to what I should wear.’
The boy gave a quick bow and scampered out of the hall to deliver my reply.
There was nothing to be done. Thomas Holand was William’s steward, not mine, and if my husband chose to send him to me as some sort of companion then so be it. All I could do was make the best of an unfortunate and truly embarrassing situation but that didn’t mean I had to take pleasure from it.
From my position at the top of the steps he appeared to be in no particular hurry. He was leaning against a stable door with his thumbs hooked into his belt talking to one of the grooms while Blanchefleur was led into the yard. Somewhat reluctantly I came down the steps.
In Ghent I had barely known him. We had used snatched meetings to forge a kind of friendship but until now the longest time I had spent in his company was that night in the house next to the apothecary’s shop where I stupidly thought I was taking my future into my own hands.
The little attic room beneath the thatch had been dark and we hadn’t talked much. There had been no need and the deflowering of an ignorant young girl didn’t lend itself easily to conversation. I had only seen him a few times since then. That evening by the postern gate when I was seduced by promises of a return laden with riches from his Holy War; in the chapel at Bisham, nine months after the horror of my marriage, when all we had done was hurl abuse at each other and deepen our misunderstandings.
Once I had thought I loved him but when my mother explained how he had tricked me and used me, I grew to hate him. It was only later, in the years after he had abandoned me to my life with William, that I came to realise I had hardly known him at all. Our chance meeting last Christmas had prompted sad memories of a stranger who had once been kind but who in the end had proved not to be my perfect chevalier, simply another charlatan. It was a poignant reminder of all I had lost.
The Fair Maid of Kent Page 23