I stood as straight as I could and looked him right in the eye. ‘Sir, I will answer no more of your questions. You have impugned my virtue and it is not what I would have expected from my husband’s kinsman.’
‘Virtue!’ hissed Lady Catherine. ‘What virtue do you possess, you disgusting slut? I know exactly what you are and the depths to which you’ll sink.’ She turned to her brother-in-law. ‘She’s a whore. She’s been a whore since before she married my son and she’ll be a whore till the end of her days. She’ll rot in the corruption of her own flesh.’
‘Lady mother,’ protested William’s brother, ‘You can’t say such things without proof.’
‘I have proof,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘I have seen her with my own eyes, crawling into the lap of a man who was not her husband, half-naked, her gowns in disarray and her hair loose on her shoulders.’
‘I knew it,’ said Elizabeth.
‘You know nothing,’ said William’s brother angrily. ‘Where was this, lady mother? Were there witnesses?’
‘Her steward was there,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘A good, loyal man. He saw it all. Her maid had been locked away so she couldn’t bear witness to her mistress’s sin, but the servants knew; they heard. And she would ensnare you too, my son, if she turned her wiles on you. She has no shame. There is no end to her depravity.’
‘And the man?’ said Bishop Grandison. ‘Who was it?’
‘That is of no importance,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘It is her sins we are examining.’
William’s grandmother narrowed her eyes. ‘Who would she tell?’
‘What do you mean?’ said William’s uncle.
‘Girls always tell someone, my son. If she had a secret she would have whispered it to somebody. The question is to whom?’
They all turned to Elizabeth.
‘Not me,’ she said. ‘We were not friends. I despised her.’
‘Who else was there? A sister? ‘An old nurse?’ said the elderly Lady Montagu.
‘She has cousins,’ said Elizabeth.
William’s uncle laced his fingers together. ‘My wife would not be so unwise. She knows well the punishment for disobedience and a sin like this would mean chastisement. She would not dare. If she had knowledge of her cousin’s wickedness and kept it hidden from me or if she had so much as lifted a finger to help, she knows I would see she lived to regret it.’
‘What about the other cousin?’
‘She rarely sees Lady Segrave,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘We have no connection with the family.
‘The mother?’ said William’s grandmother. ‘Would she have confided in her? A girl in distress? What could be more natural than to turn to her mother.’
Lady Catherine hissed through her teeth and turned pale. ‘The dowager countess? Never. She would not deceive me. Impossible. We agreed this marriage together. She would not have lied. Not to me.’
‘Not then, sister,’ said Bishop Grandison, patting Lady Catherine’s arm. ‘But later. What if knowledge of this liaison occurred after the matter was settled and the contracts drawn up. What if she was caught between a disobedient daughter and the collapse of her plans. Which would be more important to her: to protect her family or to protect her soul?’
The eyes swivelled back to me.
‘Did you tell Your lady mother about this man?’ said the bishop.
‘My mother and I did not see each other until just before my marriage,’ I replied. ‘She came here to Bisham to prepare me for my wedding.’
‘And did you tell her of this man, this Thomas Holand? What did you speak of?’
‘Reverend Father, my mother and I spoke of many things. We were a loving mother and daughter who had not seen each other for three long years. She had arranged this wonderful marriage for me but she was concerned because I was so young. You forget, I was only fourteen years old, barely more than a child.’
William’s uncle snorted. ‘Child? You were a practiced whore. I’ve seen your sort on the streets of London, plying their trade in the taverns and alleyways, lifting their skirts as they lead a man to the stable-yard.’
The bishop drew his mantle across his chest as if to distance himself from the noxious stews of London and their manifest horrors.
‘If there had been a marriage of sorts there would have been witnesses,’ said the elderly lady dowager who I thought had been dozing but who had apparently been thinking. ‘Every marriage has its witnesses, especially one where a man is trying to trick a woman. Can we find out who they were?’
I shivered, hoping no trace of our witnesses could ever be found.
‘A man would take his squire,’ said William’s uncle. ‘Or his brother. Does Holand have a brother?’
‘Yes, said William, in a low voice. ‘He does. He sent him home with his prisoner after we took Caen.’
‘And a girl?’ said William’s uncle turning to the women. ‘Who would she take? Who would she trust to keep her mouth shut?’
Elizabeth spoke. ‘Her maid. But she didn’t have one of her own; she shared mine.’
‘And where is this maid of yours?’
‘Here at Bisham, uncle. She came with me to Hanley on my marriage to Lord Despenser. She is my chief maid. But I’m sure…’
‘Get her,’ said her uncle.
Ignoring his rudeness, but as always, obedient to his wishes, Elizabeth rose and went to the door where she had a whispered conversation with whoever was outside and a few moments later a frightened-looking young woman whom I recognised from our days in Ghent, was escorted into the room by one of William’s grooms. She looked at me with horror and dropped her eyes to the floor.
‘You, girl!’ barked William’s Uncle Montagu. ‘You know who this is?’ He indicated me.
She nodded. ‘Yessir. The Lady Joan, sir.’
‘I require you to think carefully before you answer and be sure to tell me the truth. I will know if you lie and I’m sure you have been told what happens to young women who lie, haven’t you?’
She looked as if she might faint with fear. She nodded but was unable to produce more than a squeak.
‘You know what a marriage is? You understand how a man and a woman promise themselves to each other? You will have seen a priest give a blessing to a couple and pronounce them man and wife.’
She nodded again but I thought she would have nodded if he had asked was I a unicorn or had wings sprouting from my shoulders.
‘Did you at any time attend a marriage between this woman, this Lady Joan, and a man, a man other than my nephew, Sir William Montagu? It is very important you give us the right answer.’
She turned her head to me.
‘Don’t look at her!’
The poor woman jumped and began to tremble.
‘Well?’
‘No, sir,’ she whispered.
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You never obliged her by witnessing an arrangement she had with another man?’
‘No, sir. Never, sir. I swear, sir.’
‘She never asked you to accompany her to some house where a man was waiting to receive her?’
‘No, sir.’ I could barely hear her reply.
‘She never bought your silence?’
This time there was nothing more than a squeak of fright.
William’s uncle spat onto the rushes with a sound of disgust. ‘Get rid of this fool. She’s of no use to us.’
The woman was escorted out still trembling and looking at her mistress to see if she had given the right answers. She would have sworn black was white if Elizabeth’s uncle had asked her, she was so frightened. But for me, her denial was an opportunity.
‘You see,’ I said quietly once the door was closed. ‘I have told you the truth. There was n
o marriage. No witnesses, no marriage.’
‘I do not believe you,’ snarled William’s uncle. ‘You are lying.’
But William could face no more.
He was ashen-faced, cringing under his uncle’s words like a whipped hound. ‘Leave her alone,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have had enough.’
‘What do you intend to do with her, brother,’ said Elizabeth. ‘She has sullied your name. Do you propose to allow her liberty to carry on with her shameless ways, letting her and this man spread these slanders abroad?’
‘Lock her in her chamber,’ said Lady Catherine.
‘That’s it,’ said William’s grandmother. ‘Lock the bitch in a kennel.’
The men nodded, all certain of my guilt but each one knowing that a plan of campaign was urgently needed regardless of what could be proved or disproved.
Reluctantly William rose and gave his orders. I was to be escorted back to my rooms and was to remain in seclusion until my husband decreed otherwise. A guard was to be placed on the door.
As I walked back up the stairway I sensed a dozen men of the household standing in the shadows, watching in bewilderment at my spectacular fall from grace, and heard them mutter in disbelief: what could the lord’s wife have possibly done?
I shivered and wondered how long it would be before Thomas came to rescue me.
It was the Eve of the Nativity of the Christ Child and the comforting sounds of the Bisham household preparing to celebrate twelve days of feasting were filling the air. A tantalising smell of roasted meats and aromatic spices rose up from the kitchens, and from somewhere outside my window men called merry greetings to each other as they dragged great boughs of holly across the courtyard.
The house was full of joyful singing and happy laughter but here in my chamber there was nothing but silence. I sat with almost no company, just two maids who knew better than to utter a word. My hounds no longer lay curled in front of the hearth and the perch where my sleepy falcon had nestled deep in her feathers, was empty. My astonished ladies had been sent home to their husbands without a word of apology and I had been told they would not be returning. William was determined I should have no contact beyond the walls of Bisham. There were to be no letters, no messages and no meetings with anyone not approved by him. I was, as every man in the household must have realised by now, a virtual prisoner of my husband.
‘The dowager countess, my lady,’ said William’s groom apologetically, holding open the door and ushering in a woman enveloped in black.
I looked up, expecting to see Lady Catherine but instead saw the even more unwelcome figure of my mother. She swept in, bringing with her an icy draught which chilled the whole room. She cast her eyes round the poverty of my arrangements and sat herself down in the chair which I had just vacated, leaving me to stand like a needy petitioner.
‘I have been told,’ she said, without the kindness of a greeting or a kiss on the cheek. ‘I knew I should have dealt with that scoundrel at the beginning. I should not have listened to my conscience.’
‘Greetings, lady mother,’ I said, giving her a daughter’s curtsey.
‘Well? What have you told him?’ she demanded.
‘Who?’ I asked politely although I knew perfectly well who she meant.
‘Your husband. What does he know?’
What indeed? For seven years I had shared William’s life, yet he knew nothing of me. He had never asked my opinion on any matter so I had never felt inclined to confide in him and apart from those early months of our marriage when a tentative friendship sprang up as we journeyed into the West Country to visit our marriage portion, we had never been close.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘You’re not sure?’ She pulled off her gloves and waved them at her maid who scuttled across the floor to relieve her of her burden. ‘You must know what you’ve said to him. I trust you haven’t been so foolish as to tell him the truth because truth will be the end you and let me make this quite clear: when you fall, I do not intend to fall with you.’
‘I am quite certain your position is safe,’ I said coldly. ‘Nobody will blame you. I shall tell them you knew nothing.’
But she was like a dog with a rat, worrying, snarling and snapping, determined to see it destroyed.
‘You are a fool,’ she said. ‘You have no idea what could happen, do you? You think it will be a small matter but let me tell you, it will be utter disgrace: imprisonment, months in the dark, not enough to eat and everything lost. The rings on your fingers, those pretty clothes you wear, the sheets on your bed, they’ll all be gone.’
She reached out and grasped my wrist, pulling me close so that I half-knelt on the floor in front of her. ‘Once, it happened to me, daughter,’ she said, so low I could barely hear her words, ‘and I do not intend to let it to happen again. Now, tell me: what did you say to your husband?’
‘I denied everything,’ I said struggling to my feet. ‘You said there was no marriage between myself and Thomas Holand so that is what I told him. I said there could not have been a marriage as I was married to him.’
‘Bah!’ said my mother. ‘Do you imagine that will satisfy him for long? Wait till Lady Catherine and that scheming uncle of his get their claws into him. Once they toss your words around they’ll see just how hollow they are and then what do you plan to do, eh?’
I sat down on the stool as my mother was obviously not going to ask me to sit and this was my chamber.
‘I shall continue to deny it.’
‘And when they produce the Host and ask you to swear on your immortal soul? What then? Will you risk damnation?’
‘They cannot say it was a marriage if it was not, can they?’
My mother’s eyes narrowed with cunning. ‘That won’t matter. They will find witnesses: the woman who let you into the house; she will swear you were there with him. She will tell how you went up those stairs before dark and didn’t come down until morning. What will you say then?’
‘They’ll never find her. They don’t even know where it happened. They don’t know anything about her.’
My mother banged her fist. ‘Fool! He has to tell the tribunal everything. He will give them every tiny little detail down to the colour of your stockings and the words he whispered into your ear. They’ll want to know if you struggled in fear while he took your maidenhead or if you twisted and sighed with a young girl’s pleasure. These are dry dusty men of the cloth and they take their enjoyment that way, through the imagined doings of others. They have never felt the smooth skin of a girl’s body and they will want to know what it was like. They will ask how often you cried out his name and whether it was done in fear or in passion. His attorney will make much of his evidence and once he does that, your husband will know everything there is to know.’
Thomas had warned me but, Holy Virgin, I hadn’t thought it would be as bad as this.
‘Perhaps he won’t believe it,’ I said lamely.
‘Oh he’ll believe it, my daughter, and when he does your life won’t be worth so much as an empty husk and that piece of scum will be a dead man.’
‘Will they kill him?’ I whispered.
‘Not yet. He’s quite safe while his petition is in the hands of the Holy Father. But afterwards, when the case goes against him, what do you think your husband and the men of his family will do? Your Thomas Holand will spend his days looking over his shoulder, avoiding the shadow of an assassin. But he won’t escape, there are too many hours of darkness and a man with a price on his head is a tempting target.’
‘What if the Holy Father says it was a true marriage? What if he says Sir Thomas and I are truly husband and wife?’
My mother gave a hollow laugh. ‘That will never happen. Lady Catherine is on her way to Avignon this very moment with a heavy purse of gold and as Lord Arundel discovered, gold unlocks man
y a door in the papal palace. Lady Catherine will have the decision on your marriage returned to the bishop’s court in England. And the bishops will, naturally, rule in your husband’s favour.’
‘But what if they…?’
‘If they show any reluctance, the king will apply a little pressure.’
I sat perfectly still, considering my mother’s words and the hopelessness of Thomas’s case. Yet his attorney was a man accustomed to speaking at the papal court and wouldn’t be a fool.
‘Suppose, just suppose, the Holy Father finds in favour of Sir Thomas. I would be returned to him, wouldn’t I? William would have to let me go.’
My mother sat back in her chair and regarded me steadily.
‘William Montagu will never let you go. He is not going to relinquish a wife who is the king’s cousin, a rich, well-connected young woman. Why would he? He and his uncles will make quite certain you and your wealth remain in the Montagu family until the day you die.’
‘But if I am Sir Thomas’s wife and he comes for me…’
‘Don’t be foolish. Thomas Holand won’t get within a mile of the gates of Bisham, Montagu will see to that, and if by some mischance he did abduct you, how far do you think the pair of you would get? This is not Camelot. He is no brave young knight in a dark wood rescuing an innocent damsel. This is here, inside the walls of your husband’s house and you are not innocent. Within a day Thomas Holand would be dead with his throat slit and you would be dragged back to Bisham.’
The thought of Thomas lying dead filled my dreams. The maid who shared my bed said demons must have taken hold of my soul. There could be no other explanation for a mistress who had defied her husband and was denied the pleasures of the Christmas season, a mistress who wept in her sleep and woke screaming in the dark.
I was permitted to attend the Angels’ Mass at midnight in the Bisham chapel but at no time did William let go of my wrist. I stood by his side like a dutiful wife and nobody knew how much it cost me not to rage and scream and pull myself away. My mother, I was told, stayed to the end of the feasting but I didn’t see her again. And ahead of me I could see nothing but a long dreary winter and the prospect of a cold and bitter spring.
The Fair Maid of Kent Page 29