Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4)

by Juliet Dymoke

  'It is eleven years since he came prisoner to me at Newcastle,' Joan said, 'a long time to be captive. I think I feel sorry for him.' He was handsome enough, she thought, to turn heads at court, but the open scandal of his affair with the sister of Roger Mortimer, was a source of constant friction and Isabel had pointedly ignored Kate when they entered the stand.

  Thomas leapt to his feet. 'They're coming! Mother, they're coming! Can you see my godfather?'

  A wave of sound borne on the warm air reached the waiting ladies and slowly at the bend of the road the long columns of mounted men began to appear and the cheering grew louder. At the head of the procession rode the captive French King, Jean, looking neither to right nor left. His square face was framed in neatly cut dark hair and above his beard on the left cheek was a newly-healed scar for he had been wounded in the battle. He rode his own magnificent white war horse and over his head was carried his banner of red silk, gold fringed, while beside him on a small pony was his fourth son captured with him, the fourteen-year-old Philip, sulky-faced and hating the humiliation his father accepted with such dignity.

  Then came the Prince of Wales, modestly mounted on a smaller black horse. As he came into view the shouting rose, everyone mad with delight. Caps were flung in the air, flowers thrown in his path, and even ladies in the stand were all on their feet, clapping their hands. Joan found tears of excitement running down her cheeks.

  'Oh, he is brave! And to take his place behind the French King on that little horse! Dear Edward, who but he would have thought of that?'

  He saw her and his mother and sisters and his godson Thomas, and inclined his head, his smile grave. Behind him were his three brothers; Lionel already nick-named Long Lionel, his gangling legs stretched far below his horse's belly; fifteen-year-old John riding proudly, his eyes on his brother's back, while the amiable Edmund laughed and waved to the crowd. The Prince's retinue followed the brothers, Sir John Chandos with his large beaked nose prominent in his clean shaven face, openly delighted, Bart Burghersh, a grin as usual on his wide mouth, the Prince's chamberlain, Nele Loring small and quick-witted, and as devoted as the rest. The great red dragon banner of Wales was carried by Simon Burley, always in close attendance on his childhood's companion, while Sir James Audley, bearing a captured banner, held himself stiffly, his wound still bandaged and painful. And then Joan saw Tom himself and called to Thomas, lifting John in her arms.

  The great stream of nobles passed by, headed by the Duke of Lancaster, his head twisted as always to one side. His daughters called out and clapped, the elder, Mary, looking for her husband the Earl of Arundel; the younger, the lovely silver fair Blanche, with her eyes fixed on Prince John of Gaunt, her betrothed. The banners were bright in the May sunshine, the martlets of Arundel, the lion of the Beaumonts, the fusils of the Percies, Stafford with a red chevron on gold, Norfolk with his leopards on gules, and every man was dressed in armour, each with his squire attending him and horses laden with gold and silver, furs and jewels, the prizes of conquest.

  As the procession passed the ladies left their pavilion to be ushered by a side door into Westminster Hall where the King was waiting to greet his victorious son. There was mild applause for King Jean as he entered first, but as Edward came forward and knelt to his father the packed hall exploded, the shouting echoing to the roof, the joy uncontainable, and Joan hugged her younger son, crying out to Thomas to look and remember for he might never see the like of this again.

  Eventually in the crush Tom made his way towards his wife and sons and caught her in his arms, kissing her eagerly before greeting the boys.

  'Tom,' Joan was laughing and crying both at the same time, 'Tom, how glad I am you are come through safe. You are not hurt at all?'

  'Not a scratch,' he said cheerfully, 'and enough ransom money to buy you ten new gowns, wife.'

  'And me, father?' Thomas cried. 'What have you brought for me? Some gold? Or a silver cup? Oh, tell me.'

  'What a little merchant,' Tom said laughing. 'Yes, I have gifts for you and for John, enough to satisfy even your acquisitive little heart.'

  'He has a box he keeps locked,' John said, 'the key's around his neck. He's greedy and he won't spend a silver penny, even last week when it was my birthday.'

  'I've enough for all.' Tom swung the boy high into his arms. 'Cloth of silk for the girls and necklaces and even a fur cap for Dame Dorothy – how do you think she will like that?'

  A great feast was held that night, the tables laden with food, the meat delicately dressed in rare and expensive sauces, salmon poached whole and lying in silver platters decorated with water lilies, fruits of all sorts, quinces which the King loved made into jellies. Marchpane had been fashioned and coloured into a red dragon to honour the Prince, flanked by fleur-de-lys, and the great boar's head, heralded by trumpets, was borne in, a garland of flowers in its mouth.

  There was an awkward moment when King Edward was offered the dish and the young French Prince lost his temper, shouting that as his father was the English King's overlord he ought to be served first. The Queen intervened tactfully, and the glowering boy subsided, finally drinking too much and having to be helped away to his bedchamber by two attendants.

  The two Kings drank goblet for goblet, speeches were made, including a long and rather tiresome one by Simon Islip, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and everyone was relieved when he sat down and the King's minstrel, Godelin, sang to them. Lionel's page, one Geoffrey Chaucer, had written some verses for the occasion, and finally the company sang a song the French used on their marches and to which the English soldiers had set their own words. The King turned to Jean and asked why he did not sing. 'Let us forget for tonight at least our differences,' he said.

  The Frenchman gave him a sad smile. 'Did the Jews sing in Babylon?’

  During the evening Joan went to the Prince of Wales and kissed him, holding his hands tightly, adding her own voice to the tide of congratulations. He seemed to her to have become the very epitome of knighthood, his bearing all that it should be, hauteur and modesty combined, dignity and valour and a pride in conquest making him a man for others to follow, and her own pride in him was as heady as the rest. He presented her to the French King and seeing them there together, hand in band, Jean said, 'Ah, monsieur le Prince, this is your bride?' And then, aware of the surprise on their faces he added hastily, 'I have made a mistake? I thought –' and then broke off with a very French shrug of the shoulders.

  Edward, who had presented her only as his cousin, hastened to introduce her as Lady Holland and the King bowed over her hand.

  'Madame, forgive my error. I have heard of your husband if he is Sir Thomas of the silk eye-patch.'

  Joan laughed. 'Aye, sire, you are right this time.'

  'He is a fine soldier,' the French King acknowledged. 'He has given us cause to be anxious when he sets about us.' He went on to tell her she must visit Paris when peace was made, and she thought no more of his mistaken assumption, wondering only why it had occurred to him. But after she had moved away, Edward stood silent looking after her with an odd expression on his face.

  It was long past midnight when Joan and Tom went at last to their tiny chamber in the crowded palace. Tom's squire Arnold attended him and Emma helped her mistress out of the elaborate silver gown, leaving only one candle burning as she curtseyed and retired. Joan was already in bed and Tom came to his side, pulling the covers over them both and clasping his arms behind his head.

  'What a day! Even after Crecy I don't think there were so many people to cheer us home, nor such a feast.'

  'How I have thanked God for your victory,' Joan said. 'It is so hard to wait at home.'

  'I still don't know how we did it. No one, not even the King, could have led us as Edward did, however much he may give his father the honour and call the strategy his.'

  'Tell me,' Joan turned on her side to look at him. 'I want to hear it all.'

  'Well, all the Sunday, the day before, Cardinal Perigord tried to make
peace between us but of course to no avail. Jean wanted the Prince to surrender himself as part of the peace terms – as if he would! By God, they were conceited, those Frenchmen. Did you know they have founded an order, Our Lady of the Noble House, because they are so jealous of our Garter? They were mad to attack us where there were vines and bushes to protect our archers. But they never gave our bowmen due credit, and the stout fellows cut the French chivalry down like scythes in a cornfield.'

  'What happened next?'

  'That Gascon soldier, the Captal de Buch, who is such a doughty fighter, drove a small force of cavalry into the French flank while the marshals, Warwick and Suffolk, ordered the front assault and that about finished it. I was with Chandos in the last skirmish. King Jean surrendered and it was all over, but by God, it was a fight while it lasted.'

  'Oh,' Joan threw her arm across him. 'My dearest, what a leader Edward must be.'

  'Aye, and generous in defeat. He took off the French King's armour himself and waited on him at supper. And then, tired as he was, he went out to the men and spoke to them all, walking right through the camp. He told the bowmen England would be nothing without the bent stick and the grey goose feather. They loved him for that.'

  Joan lay still, trying to visualize it all, remembering how so long ago Edward had talked of his dreams, his ambitions, now come to so glorious a fulfilment. 'How proud you must have been, Tom, to be there. You must tell the boys all of it, every detail so that they remember it.'

  'Tomorrow,' he said and brought his arms down. 'Tomorrow, and you shall hear the rest of it then, but now – I've missed you sorely, my heart.' He had her in his arms, eight years of marriage not dimming his passion for her, nor hers for him, and it was long before they slept.

  Peace talks began but years were to pass before anything was settled. Tom was made governor of the Channel Islands and Joan and the children went with him. She liked Jersey but it was to live in her memory as a place of pain and sore distress. She became pregnant again and there endured a more difficult birth than the rest. All through the heat of a July day she lay and sweated and clung to Emma's hands as the pains grew worse. A midwife had been summoned, and bending over Joan gave it as her opinion that the child would come feet first into the world which was a poor start and a danger to the mother.

  'Get on with it then,' Emma said tartly. 'Don't distress my lady with your prattle.'

  'Push, lady, push.' The midwife laid her gnarled hands on Joan's swollen belly. She had put a twig of mistletoe for a good delivery between her fingers and as yet another pain seemed to rend her apart Joan tore at the twig, crushing the berries.

  'Jesu!' she whispered and tried to smile at Emma. 'It was never so bad before.'

  Tom had come to the door earlier but she begged him to go. It was woman's business, she said, and assured him with a faint smile that after four others she would do well enough.

  But the agony went on and she was exhausted when after hours of straining the child came in the darkness before dawn. It was still-born, the cord twisted about its neck and Joan, listening in vain for the first wail, heard the midwife say she had known there was no hope for it. The baby, a girl, was wrapped in linen and taken away and Joan lay weeping into the pillow, shattered and deadly weary. Emma brought her hot wine and Tom came, sitting awkwardly on the bed and trying to comfort her.

  'Leave her be, my lord,' Emma begged. 'Sleep be what she needs.'

  In a few weeks Joan was up again, but it was long before she could put the agony of that night and its desperate end from her. The boys grew sturdy, little Eleanor promised to have her mother's beauty, and the youngest, Margaret, reminded her mother of the Princess Isabel.

  In early May a year later, Joan and Tom returned to England for the wedding of John of Gaunt to Blanche of Lancaster. It was solemnized at Reading Abbey before the whole court and perhaps no handsomer couple had been seen since the first Edward and his Queen, Eleanor of Castile. John at nineteen was as tall and fair as his elder brother, but his features were narrower, his newly­grown moustache a thin line on his upper lip. He was fastidious in his clothes and habits and the ethereal Blanche was the right bride for him.

  After the feast that followed there were entertainments and dancing, and Long Lionel, now married himself to the Earl of Ulster's daughter, led some horseplay that raised a few eyebrows.

  'It is a good thing Grande Dame is not here, Jesu rest her soul,' Isabel said. 'Lionel is a buffoon, he should have been a jester.'

  Joan gave her a sideways smile and paid Isabel back for some of her past innuendoes. 'You are right in that she would have been shocked. And what she would say to your new romance I cannot begin to imagine.'

  'You speak as if Monsieur de Courcy were nobody,' Isabel fired up. 'He holds much property in France.'

  'If he ever goes home to it.'

  'Of course he will go home. My father's proposals for a treaty are being considered by the Estates in Paris at this moment, and as the lordship of de Courcy borders English property my father looks on him with favour.'

  'Then I rejoice for you,' Joan said. 'You will be able to unpack that wedding gown your grandmother thought so expensive.'

  'She was always sharp-tongued,' Isabel retorted, 'but I never thought you were. I thought you would have been pleased for me.'

  'Of course I am pleased,' Joan relented. 'To marry for love is a rare luxury and my Lord de Courcy has had eyes for no one but you since he came as hostage with King Jean.' She wondered how far Engerrhard de Courcy was in love with the Princess several years older than himself and how far he had his eye on his own future. But that Isabel was in love with him there was no doubt.

  And still the heir to the throne was unmarried and Joan wondered if the King would not have preferred to see him wed today. To her knowledge Edward had two bastard sons. The boy born of the girl in Fish Street had died, he told her, but Roger, whose mother Edith was a serving woman at Clarendon, was already a page in his father's household and much loved by him. But the King did not seem concerned. He was intensely proud of his eldest son and on military matters they were entirely at one, though sometimes Joan thought it was Gaunt, young as he was, to whom the King turned for companionship and conversation. He was still as willing to flirt with every pretty woman at court, and the Queen watched him complacently, unruffled, proud of her full nursery. Joan was thankful that he did no more nowadays than kiss her occasionally or let his hand slide down her thigh when he chanced to sit next to her. The Prince flirted with nobody, preferring to gamble with his friends, to play at odds and evens or trictrac with the French King, even now and again at chess with young Philip who could come near to blows with Edward's brothers over a mere game.

  A few days after the bridals the court was preparing to hunt when a messenger came from France, bringing a letter for the King. He broke the seal and as he read his face grew darker, his brows drawn together.

  'So!' he said harshly. 'Your son the Dauphin informs me that he and the Estates have rejected my terms. How dare they? Who was the victor at Poitiers, my son or you, my fair cousin?'

  King Jean already had his hawk on his wrist and he stood quite still, one hand in the act of soothing the restless bird. 'I hardly think you need to remind me of that. But I am not surprised. You asked too much.'

  'Too much!' The King exploded. 'Did I not say I would renounce my claim to the throne of France?'

  Deliberately Jean handed his bird back to his falconer and set an iron hand on his impulsive son's shoulder, feeling beneath his fingers the rising temper, the young body trembling. 'You did, Cousin Edward, but at what a price! A return of your ancestors' Angevin kingdom, more than half mine in fact. Did you imagine for one moment my people would yield so much to you?'

  'It should never have been yours.'

  'And my ransom – you set a sum impossible to find.'

  'It is no more than what is due to a King!'

  The hunting party had fallen silent, the Prince of Wales moving to stand besi
de his father, the young bridegroom with him. Close at hand stood a phalanx of barons, Arundel and Warwick, the de Bohuns, Michael de la Pole and William of Salisbury, behind the King as always. Joan was waiting to mount her pony, Robin Savage already holding her stirrup, and she and Lady Blanche exchanged glances.

  Philip burst out, 'You are wicked, all of you, to keep us here –’ but was silenced by a sharp word from his father. Then Jean bowed. 'If you will excuse me, cousin. I have lost the desire to hunt this day.'

  'And I,' the King fixed him with a smouldering eye, 'have another quarry in my mind.'

  Within weeks a campaign was set on foot.

  'This time,' Tom said to his wife, 'he will crush France once and for all. It seems the Dauphin is endeavouring to raise another army – God knows where from since we slew so many at Poitiers, but we must stamp out his ambitions, by God.' The King had made Tom Earl of Kent in his wife's right and he was now a peer among other peers, the old friendship with William renewed, past bitterness long forgotten.

  'I will go with you,' Joan said with determination, 'at least as far as Calais. I can wait for you there.'

  'You do not need to come.' Tom took her in his arms. 'It will not be comfortable for you, especially as you are enceinte again. As for the children –'

  'They can stay at home with Dame Dorothy. Tom, I do not like to be away from you, and if it is a long business, especially making a treaty after the fighting, it might take a year or more. You know how well Emma will look after me.'

  'But after last time,' he protested.

  'It is unlikely I shall be so unfortunate again,' she assured him, but she did not add that it was for that very reason that she did not want the sea between herself and Tom.

  'Very well,' he said, and kissed her. 'As if l could say you nay!'

  When he heard of the arrangements Thomas burst into furious tears and begged to be allowed to sail with his parents. 'I'm not a child,' he cried, 'Leave the others but take me. My lord, I'm your heir, can't I go with you? I'll do anything, carry your armour – oh, let me come. If you don't,' he added truculently, 'I'll ask my godfather.'