Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4)

by Juliet Dymoke

  'Lady,' Emma said and touched the strands lovingly, 'I never seen such hair, never in me life.'

  Emma was the daughter of one of the Woodstock huntsmen, a plump red-faced girl, eager to learn and grateful to Dame Phoebe for approaching the Lady Margaret on her behalf. Already she adored her young mistress and prayed she might not fail in her many and seemingly difficult duties. The care of the Lady Jean's four gowns was enough to frighten a poor girl who had never had but one dress to her back, but she was beginning to know how to smooth ruffled velvet and take the spots from heavy silk, and she prepared now to undo the green gown her lady wore tonight.

  'No,' Joan said, 'not yet. I'm not tired. Go to bed, Emma. I'll call if I need you.'

  'But, my lady, 'tain't fitting for me to leave you to –'

  'Oh, go!' Joan exclaimed in a sudden access of irritation such as Emma had never heard from her. 'Stupid girl, I would be alone.'

  Emma bobbed a curtsey and fled, and Joan went to sit by the narrow window. Outside there was a full moon, high in the sky, the night was warm, the air caressing. Her mother always said the night air was harmful, full of evil humours, but to Joan it spoke of mystery, of an enchantment she had never known before. She longed for Tom to come, to bring reality to this moment that seemed too delicate, to transient to be true.

  And then, after what seemed a long time but was necessary to let the palace settle into sleep, there was a soft tap. She opened the door and Lady Cross slipped in.

  'Child are you ready? They will be here shortly.'

  'I'm ready,' Joan said but she wondered if there was anything she should have done. She had washed with care before supper and her hair shone from the combing it had had.

  Lady Cross was revelling in this secret romance. There was a spice about it that excited her and being a rather foolish woman she had not paused to listen to her husband's warning of the consequences that might befall the girl left in her charge. She held up the candle now to survey Joan. 'Yes, you are lovely, my dear. Master Holland is a fortunate man. But let me take off that tight bodice, your undergown is enough. That's better. Your breasts are small, but you will grow and you have good hips. You know what a man and a woman do together – in due course?'

  'Yes,' Joan said with dignity. She had seen animals mating and, more ignorant than she would admit, wondered if it would be like that? Surely it must be different when there was love? 'But it will be a long time before –'

  Lady Cross laughed and patted her cheek. 'We all think we know everything until we find out how little that is. They have their will of us, these men, and great heaving creatures they can be, thinking only of their own pleasure. But you are more likely to be happy than some for Master Tom cares greatly for you.'

  Her words brought momentary panic back to Joan, the night's mystery lost in more earthy facts. But she had no more time to think for there was another tap on the door and Lady Cross opened it to admit her husband and the little clerk who held a crucifix in his hand. Tom was there in a blue gown that she remembered long afterwards, the details of the embroidered sleeves imprinting themselves on her memory, as so small a thing might in so great a moment.

  He took her hand, the priest told her what to say: 'I, Joan do bind myself to thee, Thomas, and do give thee my troth . . .' She heard Tom repeat the words and say, 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,' and then he slipped a ring on her finger. It was gold and heavy and she had seen it before on his own little finger. Then they knelt, the priest blessed them and she stared down at his grubby sandalled feet as if in a dream, as if she would wake and find all this a product only of her own imagination.

  She and Tom rose and Sir James said, 'I will pray that all will be well for you, my lady,' but he could not keep the anxiety from his voice.

  His wife gave an arch smile. 'Of course all will be well. My dear, do not cast cold water tonight. Let them take a cup of wine together without us older folk to trouble them. A few moments will do no harm and Tom is to leave so soon.'

  'Very well,' he agreed. 'Come, Master Rice,' and he ushered the clerk to the door.

  Lady Cross kissed Joan and whispered, 'What is a betrothal without a kiss or two?' adding archly, 'and I do not mean mine, my love.'

  Tom turned to Joan as the door closed, and set his hands strongly on her shoulders. Involuntarily she shivered. 'Are you cold, my bird?' he asked, and although she shook her head, he said, 'I will warm you. Come and sit by me.'

  He took her chilled hands and drew her down on to the window seat, talking a little though she could never remember afterwards what he said. And when the talk turned to kissing it seemed to her so natural that she wrapped her arms about his neck, her mouth discovering new delights under his, not knowing how she was enflaming him. He was straining her to him and as his lips moved over her face, in between his kisses he was muttering, 'I did not mean it to be so – a swearing only – but my love, my love, you are truly mine now.'

  'I am, I am,' she whispered back, without knowing what she said. 'Oh Tom, I am yours and no one can take you from me.'

  'We are as bound as if we had been wed.' Already his hands were at the fastening of her gown, sliding the heavy material from her shoulders, his fingers fumbling with her kirtle. He knelt to pull off her shoes and hose, sliding down the pretty red garters she had made herself and kissing the warm flesh where they had lain. She put her fingers in his hair, no longer able to think clearly, and when he lifted her and carried her to the bed, amid the wild sensations his undressing of her had aroused she had no desire to curb him, only for the unknown joy her body longed for so eagerly.

  He pulled off his own gown and came naked to her. She shut her eyes in sudden shock for she had never seen a naked man before, and a shiver went through her as he took her in his arms. But his body was warm, his lips familiar, and if his hands made strange explorings it was after all only Tom whom she had known so long and who loved her. And whom she now loved with awakening desire.

  The grey dawn light had come before he left her.

  'You are my wife now,' he said, 'and nothing can undo what we have done.'

  Alone again she lay drowsily content, the future reckoning far in the distance, nothing mattering but this night of joy.

  'It may be difficult for me to come again,' he had said. 'I share a chamber and will have to slip away when I can.' He did not add that he had let the two young squires who shared his quarters think him wenching in the village, encouraging ribald remarks which for the first time in his life he would want to repudiate.

  And only once more did he come to her. Joan lay night after night of that week longing for him, re­living every moment of that unplanned consummation. Even the morning's hasty re-arranging of the bed, the secrecy, his ring on a cord about her neck, all added its spice.

  Lady Cross had laughed and pinched Joan's cheek so that she blushed, saying, ‘I'll warrant Master Tom did not hurry to leave you,' well pleased with what she had intended from the first. She added, 'Men are not like the romantic creatures you read of, are they, my dear?'

  Joan, dreaming on her window seat, was glad when Lady Cross went away downstairs, leaving her alone, but it was true. Love to her had been bound up by the romances she read by the light of a candle to Isabel, stories of Arthur and Guinevere, verses from the Romaunt de la Rose, but there was nothing of the hero of such tales about Tom. He was robust, eager, filled with ambition and energy, his desire for her a part of his desire for so much else, and he made her laugh, so that ever after she remembered that first strange union of the flesh without any of the unknown fears stirred up by the half-understood gossip among the Countess's ladies.

  At last he came again, when Emma slept soundly, and Joan knew again the ecstasy of that first night. But it was brief, for later, when to his amusement she had fallen into a sudden deep sleep, he awoke her again with a kiss and told her he must ride out that day to join the King's army.

  'No tears,' he said, 'we've all our lives, sweet heart.'
And wrapping his gown about him, he was gone from the room before she was properly awake. She wondered that he could take so brief a farewell. She wanted to call after him, to fling her arms about him, terrified of what might happen to him in the danger of war. It did not occur to her that this was what he did not want.

  Later she watched him ride out, a brave figure in her eyes in hauberk and cap, his helm hanging from his saddle, a jupon embroidered with the arms of his house over the hauberk, his man Dickon and two of the Salisbury squires with him. She tried to appear casual, to show no more than ordinary courtesy, joining the other children in wishing him well, but as Dame Phoebe called the girls to the bower to their sewing, she turned and ran out by the cloister, round the still pools where the fish darted, and into the green coolness of the maze.

  There where Tom had first kissed her she wept, the tears blotching her skin, in fear for Tom, in terror at what they had done. She walked restlessly, her mind in a turmoil, her heart crying out for Tom who had taken her and left her so soon. She heard her name called and Isabel came into the maze.

  'Joan! Dame Phoebe is asking why you have not come in. What are you doing here? Why, you've been crying!' The Princess gave a little crow of laughter. She was a precocious child and already aware of her own value as her father's eldest daughter. 'Oh! Is it because Tom has gone? I saw how you looked when you danced with him last night. I do believe it is.'

  Joan controlled her tears. 'Then you are a foolish girl. I have had a bad ache in the head, that is all, and came here to escape foolish chatter.' And she marched out of the maze, leaving Isabel staring slyly after her.

  Within a few weeks the chapel bell began to ring wildly one evening and she ran in to learn of the King's great victory over the French at sea. 'And it's ringing for mother too,' Isabel said. 'I've another brother. He is christened John – John of Ghent.’

  'Perhaps they will come home now,' Joan said hungrily, but the bell did not ring again with any startling news. There was no word from Tom, nor could she ask except in a general manner, for Isabel was alert as a cat. Alone in the chamber she had shared with Tom she realized to the full what might result from those two wild nights of love. Suppose she was with child? And how would she know? She had a desperate need to confide in someone and she did not want to talk to Lady Cross whose unctuous manner made her feel small and young and ignorant. There seemed to be no one she could trust utterly except Emma, and one afternoon when she had gone to change her dress for supper she turned to Emma and the whole story tumbled out.

  'And I may be pregnant,' she finished in an anguished voice, seizing the rough strong hand. 'How can I tell if it is so? Oh, Emma, what shall I do?'

  Her maid had listened, her eyes widening in surprise, but she was a sensible girl and had grown up in a simple family where the facts of life were there for all to see. She put her arms about her young mistress and said, 'There, my lady, don't fret. I doubt ye'll have a babby yet – ye be o'er young for't – but I'll watch ye, and we'll soon know, I promise ye that.'

  'And you'll tell no one? You'll keep my secret?' Emma looked down into a face already so lovely and at the moment so distressed. Aye, she thought, I'll keep it unless it canna be kept. Aloud she said, 'Nay, dunna think I'd ever betray ye. Forsooth, lady, never would I do that, I swear it by our Holy Mother. Maybe ye've been a thought wild in wedding so, but Master Holland be a proper man and I'll not blame ye.'

  'Oh, he is, he is,' Joan said and the relief of being able to speak of him kept Emma talking with her until the supper hour. Emma's sturdy common sense was something to which she could hold through the weeks that followed until at last Emma told her beyond doubt that she was not with child.

  Joan lay in bed and wept with even greater relief. She wanted to bear Tom a child, but not yet, not until the world knew she was his wife. Her mother talked of her betrothal to William and began to embroider a coverlet for her bridal bed and Joan watched her with a curious fascination. She saw the silken birds and flowers take life under her mother's deft fingers, listened to the other ladies chattering of weddings with giggles and sighs. None of them knew she was no longer a virgin. Though her greatest fear had been relieved, the consequences of those hot embraces in her mother's bed still had to be faced and terrifying possible scenes filled her active imagination by day and by night.

  The winter seemed long and dreary: snow blanketed the gardens and ice covered the pools. She sat by the fire in the ladies' bower and sewed or read and wished for something, anything, to happen. She felt so much older now than the other children, separated from them by one enchanted week, and as she watched the snow melt and the first windflowers appear, she longed to see someone ride through the gates, a single messenger, or a crowd of knights and squires home from the war.

  In March Sir James Cross died suddenly. He clutched at his chest one night at supper, made a strange gobbling noise in his throat and by the time he was carried to his bed he was dead. His grieving widow asked leave to go to some relatives in the north, Joan did not know where. After the burial Mass she tried to speak to Lady Cross alone, to beg the widow not to forget her witnessing of that strange betrothal, a witnessing that would one day be needed, but Lady Margaret prevented any chance of private conversation by sharply ordering her daughter not to bother the bereaved lady. Joan watched the widow ride away, the hood drawn about her face. It seemed fate was bent on leaving her alone with the burden of her secret.

  Only Emma's robust cheerfulness kept hope alive. 'Never you worrit,' she said. 'The Blessed Virgin will see y'r man home again one o' these days.'

  It was a wild and windy April day when at last the summons came and the occupants of the palace were commanded to Windsor to attend the King's Easter court. Joan rode a small grey palfrey, the reins of red leather. She had a new gown of cream-coloured velvet and a sideless overdress of dark green, her mantle edged with marten fur, the hood warm about her face. Her mother grumbled about the state of the roads and the bleakness of Wallingford Castle where they spent a night, but to her daughter it was a journey of hope, every mile lifting her spirits, for surely Tom would be among the young men assembled for the feasting?

  They rode past the priory at Clerkenwell to the sound of the Vespers bell and entered London by Aldersgate. After the freedom and fresh green of the countryside the city's streets seemed cramped and smelly, crowded with merchants about their business, housewives shopping, apprentices yelling their master's wares, beggars running after the horses to plead for alms. A man with open sores on his arm reached out to Joan asking for a penny. She would have fumbled in the purse hanging at her belt but her squire Robin Savage spurred forward and the man fell in the gutter out of the way of plunging hooves.

  'Poor wight,' Joan said. 'Robin, give him my penny.' She heard the fellow call 'God's peace on you, lady,' and she wondered if one could win peace so easily.

  Down the slope towards the great bulk of the Tower she saw the glint of water and as they passed under the gateway she could smell the tang of the river and hear the calls of boatmen. This fortress had always been to her the least likeable of the royal palaces in which she had spent her life, but the sombreness of it was lifted today by the many banners fluttering against the April sky.

  As they dismounted attendants wearing royal livery with a badge of the white swan on their shoulders, hurried forward to take their reins and Robin lifted her from the saddle. Almost the first person she saw was William and she asked eagerly if his father had been released.

  'No,' he said and kissed her, brushing her lips briefly with his. 'I hoped for it, but it seems the French want him to swear he'll not fight against them again and neither he nor the King want that. So he still lies at St Denys. But I've so much to tell you of how my mother and I have fared.'

  Lady Margaret, however, commanded his attention with a number of questions and it was not until later that he was able to talk to her. Upstairs in the chambers allotted to the Salisbury household the news tumbled out of how the Countess of
Salisbury had defended the castle of Wark against the Scots until the King came to her aid no more than a few weeks ago.

  Mary Pique and Agnes Soughden, who had shared their lady's besieged state, had come back bubbling with tales about the affair, mostly greatly exaggerated.

  'His grace was so intrigued by the sight of the Countess in war harness,' Mary whispered, 'that he could not keep his eyes from her face. She went to meet him wearing it and in the evening when she had changed into a gown he never left her side nor looked at the rest of us.'

  'Aye,' Agnes agreed and giggled. 'She had us find her best gown and jewels to please the King and – and we wondered –' She broke off and lowered her voice even further. 'I swear I saw his hand slide to her below the table.'

  Isabel, who had been listening to this gossip, leapt to her feet and slapped Agnes's face. 'You silly girl, that's naught but tattle and if you dare suggest . . .'

  Agnes's cheek was flaming but she tossed her head. 'You are too young to understand. The King your father is a lusty man.'

  'Be quiet,’ Joan said. 'Can't you see you should not say such things in front of the Lady Isabel.'

  But her mind was only half on their insinuations and she went early down to the hall where the court was gathering for supper, eagerly searching the faces for Tom's. There was no sign of him and at last, in desperation, she went over to Richard Fitz­Simon whom she knew well enough to ask if the Salisburys' steward had come home.

  'Why, no, lady,' Fitz-Simon said with no thought but that all the children would be anxious for tidings of the man who had so often played with them. 'I hear tell he's gone off to fight in Prussia. Master Tom is eager to win his way as a fighting man, it seems.'

  She made some answer, she was not sure what, and turned away to the shelter of a pillar. Why, why had he not come back? Why had he gone even further from her when he might have come home? She felt tears choking her, bright scarlet in her face as she remembered his taking of her, so full of loving and dreams of their future. Had he forgotten so soon, thrust it all from him? No, she did not believe that. He must have gone for that very reason, that he needed to win prizes and fame in order to claim her. Of course! She wiped her eyes and boldly walked back into the centre of the hall.