Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Joan knelt rigid and dry-eyed by the bed, hardly aware of the people there, the words spoken, only remembering how she had endured this agony before at Tom's deathbed, at little Edward's. But for Edward himself, when he lay still and at peace at last, there was only relief that his suffering was over.

  His private humility, his outward devotion, shone brightly at the end. Not considering himself worthy to be buried near the shrine of St Thomas he asked that he should be laid to rest in the little chapel in the undercroft that they had built as part of their dispensation and where her face lived in stone. But the feeling roused by his passing was so great that by general opinion, it was agreed that he should have a place of high honour on the south side of the chancel near the great shrine. She too concurred in this breaking of his own desire but every other detail of his will was scrupulously carried out, the procession, the black horses drawing the funeral car, his achievements on the coffin, followed by a great procession of lords and knights. All the way from Westminster where he had lain in state, along the Strand and over London Bridge the streets were lined with weeping, mourning people, and down through the countryside of Kent, peasants came from the fields, cottagers to wait in the villages to see the greatest soldier in Europe pass to his last resting place.

  Their love touched Joan deeply and she stood with the grief-stricken old King, with her brothers-in-law, to see the coffin borne by half a dozen knights to be set for the last time before the high altar and surrounded by tall yellow mourning tapers. Simon Burley was there and Nele Loring, Bart Burghersh unable to stem his tears, their loss, their grief, supporting her in hers.

  Afterwards there were many rumblings about the succession. Richard was still a child, and many people thought that England would be safer in the hands of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. After him there was his son Henry, a sturdy youth far stronger than the delicate Richard, and a growing party formed about the Lancastrians. But Lancaster told her firmly: 'I will never oust my nephew. Believe that, my dear sister, for you saw me swear to Edward.'

  She did believe him, even though she knew he dreamed of a crown, maybe in Castile, maybe in England.

  Whatever he did he would not break his given word, but only Richard stood between him and the throne, for he would make short work of the claim of his brother Lionel's daughter and her son. Joan had spoken to the King, begging that his own will in the matter was made known.

  He gave a cackling laugh. 'Dear cousin, pretty cousin, why do you look so anxious? My grandson will sit on my throne even though his legs won't reach the ground, eh?'

  His silliness irritated her and the presence of Alice even more, especially when Mistress Perrers from her stool beside his chair slid her hand up his arm and spoke slyly.

  'Your grace, whatever the Princess may think I'm sure there are many years still before you leave us. The Prince of Wales may be a grown man when the time comes.'

  He patted her hand. 'Aye, you have given me back my youth, sweeting.'

  Joan, angry that Alice should have made it appear she was considering the King's end imminent, looked down her nose at his paramour in a manner Edward would have appreciated. To the King she said, 'It is not a light matter, cousin Edward. Moreover it is a family concern.'

  'What a bother about something which is already settled,' Alice said and idly twisted one of the King's long, still-curling grey locks in her finger. 'Whom do you suspect of stealing your son's birthright, my lady?'

  There was no point in talking further, Joan thought, and making the King a deep curtsey while ignoring Alice, she left them to each other. She would have to rely on Lancaster's oath, the loyalty of Parliament and Edward's friends.

  Strangely, it was a year later that Edward lived again for her, that her loss no longer seemed the black emptiness such as she had known after Tom's death. Perhaps it was the passing of the years, when the edges were smoothed, outlines less sharp, that gave her a different reality.

  On an evening before Trinity Sunday, when the June day was fading into a brilliant sunset her small retinue turned into the gate of the cathedral close. The journey had been slow and tedious, her clumsy carriage, painted red and gilded and decorated with her badge of the white hind, a high white canopy over her head, jolting her roughly over the rutted road worn by the passing of thousands of pilgrims. Emma had placed cushions behind her and on each side but it was still an uncomfortable few days before she arrived at the gate of the cathedral close. Sir Robert Savage and Sir Roger Clarendon went before the carriage and cleared a path through the crowd so that she might be set down at the south door of the church. She had grown fat over the last five years and found walking any distance robbed her of breath.

  'Well, praise be, we're here,' Emma said. 'Step down carefully, my lady.'

  Joan took Robin's hand and alighted, Richard slid down from his pony and together, hand in hand, they entered. Pilgrims and worshippers coming in and out stood respectfully aside for they recognized her at once. There were nudges and whispers and the crowds bowed as she passed, the widow of their beloved Prince having long ago earned their respect and affection, and many of them smiled at the young Prince of Wales who walked so gravely beside his mother.

  Puffing a little, Joan went up the steps worn by pilgrims on their knees to the sanctuary where stood the great shrine of St Thomas Becket, glittering and covered with jewels, its wooden case lifted at this hour so that the pilgrims might see its glory. It was always surrounded by suppliants but they moved back as Richard came to lay an offering upon it. He and his mother genuflected but they turned aside to the main object of their visit, a new tomb by which they knelt, Richard blinking at the shining gilt effigy of the father he had both loved and feared.

  It was a magnificent tomb, fit for the nation's hero, the figure finely wrought in gilt, the head lying on a helm with a lion for its crest. The armour etched with fleur-de-lys and lions seemed to glow where a shaft of light touched it and over all hung a tester painted with an impression of the Holy Trinity. Above that from a beam hung the jupon, scarlet and blue and gold, in which Joan had so often seen Edward in life, his shield and sword, his gauntlets and his cap of maintenance. Around the sides of the tomb were set alternately his arms for peace, the scarlet and blue of England, and his arms for war, the black shield and silver ostrich plumes. But it was at the face she was gazing for the sculptor had captured his likeness well, every line so familiar, the long finely-chiselled Plantagenet nose, the wide set eyes that had looked on her with love – never in all their years together straying elsewhere – the firm mouth that had kissed hers so often, the drooping moustache and clean-shaven chin, no sign here of the ravages of the disease that had wrecked his last years. Beneath this tomb his poor body lay, but she thought that all future generations would see him here in this effigy as he had been in his best years – grave, devout, a great knight, his life spent in the service of England, his high purpose never lost. Even the horror of Limoges, the act she now believed of a sick and distraught man, could not dim the honour due to him, and she leaned her head against the tomb, past tears and aware only of gratitude that he had been hers, that the reserve he showed to the rest of the world had been lifted when they were together and that she knew the man within.

  Tomorrow the monks would sing their high Mass for the repose of his soul and she with Richard and her retinue would be there to hear it, and no doubt hundreds of others too. It was strange, she thought, that he had died just a year ago on the feast of the Trinity, that day he had loved above all others in the Church's calendar, and that his soul had left his body at three in the afternoon, the hour the sundial had shown in the garden at Kennington when he had first discovered his love for her.

  She remembered the words on it and how she had quoted them with hope. Now she thought only of the line he had brushed aside then – “Time Was is past, thou canst not it recall”. There were words round the tomb too, words written by Peter Alphonsus that Edward himself had chosen.

  Great stor
e of mansions I did hold,

  Land, wardrobes, horses, silver, gold,

  But now I am of all bereft

  And deep in ground alone am left.

  My once admir'd beauty's gone

  My flesh is wasted to the bone.

  For God's sake pray to Heaven's high King

  To shade my soul with mercy's wing.

  The lines never failed to stir her, for she had them written on a parchment which she kept in her jewel box, and the pity, the grief mingled with hope epitomized for her all that Edward had been.

  The monks were processing in now for the office of Compline, their voices cool and clear, rising into the arched roof. With a little sigh she rose from her knees to take a lingering look at the beloved face, still and staring upwards at the Trinity painting above his head. So he would lie for all time and men would never forget him, nor the ideals by which he had tried to live. If only Richard might do the same! She set her hand on his shoulder.

  'Come,' she said, 'you will be wanting your supper.'

  'I am hungry,' he admitted in a whisper, in awe of this place where his father lay. 'Mother, are we going to Leeds again on the way back? I like it there.'

  'We will sleep there tomorrow night,' she answered and turned sadly from the sanctuary. She could not expect him to grieve as she grieved. He had never seen Edward ride out to war, he could not remember his father other than ill, and his memories would only be of a tired and sick man.

  On the following morning after the Mass they left Canterbury and by nightfall had reached Leeds Castle, that lovely place set on two islands in a lake, and while Richard scampered from one to the other and up and down spiral stairs to the turrets, she rested in a room on the inner island where the sun poured in and the air brought a fragrance of summer flowers. Oddly she was not unhappy. She had much to remember and a future to plan as the mother of the next King of England.

  A week later they were back at Kennington and Emma set about unpacking her mistress's toiletries, the pots of paste, the darkening for brows and lashes, unguents for her skin, a lotion to keep the colour of her hair, for Joan was reluctant to let the last vestiges of her beauty fade. Richard sat on the window sill of the great bedchamber where his father had died, the huge bed still hung with black, the ostrich plumes in silver thread embroidered above the pillows. From pegs on a wall where the Prince's armour had once hung, his mantle of the Garter was still suspended, and an embroidered tabard. It was hard, Richard thought, to have so famous a father; there was so much one had to live up to and he would find it very difficult. He did not want to ride to war and his cousin Henry Bolingbroke always beat him at practice with the quintain or at the butts. He did not think he liked Cousin Henry nor his Uncle John very much for he found him cold and austere, and he was thankful that his mother stood between him and the loud-voiced swaggering men at court.

  She was sitting by the table, her plump jewelled fingers turning over several missives that had come during her absence, when he gave a sudden shout. 'Mother! There's Sir Simon riding in at the gate. He must have guessed we'd be back today, but he looks very solemn and he's dressed in black. He doesn't usually –' he broke off for his mother had risen and was standing very still.

  'I think,' she said slowly and came to take his hand, 'it may be tidings of your grandfather. Come, Richard, we will go down and hear what Sir Simon has to tell us.'

  Half frightened by her unusual gravity he clutched her hand. Tears stung his eyes for he was sure she must mean that his grandfather was dead and he had been fond of the shambling old man who had rumpled his hair and kissed him and sometimes pressed a gold noble into his palm. He knew what it would mean and a little shiver ran through him.

  In the hall, Burley had removed his cloak and hood and was halfway across to the stair when they appeared.

  Joan said, 'Simon, we are glad to see you. But I think you bring us grave news?'

  'Yes,' he said and looked down at the boy beside her. Sir Simon had never married and his entire life had been given to the service of Edward of Wales until last year when it had been unhesitatingly transferred to his son. He knelt. 'The King is dead,' he said and taking Richard's slender hand, put it to his lips. 'God save your grace. I am honoured to be the first to salute you, King Richard.'

  The boy looked up at his mother. 'I am King?' he asked in a dazed voice.

  'You are King,' Burley answered and rose to his feet, 'and I am come to escort you and the Princess your mother to Westminster.'

  Impulsively Joan took her son's face between her hands and kissed his forehead. 'Try to be what your father was,' she said and then turned to Burley. 'Sir Simon,' she paused, an echo of a warning spoken long ago in Lambeth Palace coming to her mind – 'did anyone dispute Richard's claim – for any reason?'

  'None,' he answered promptly. 'Why should they, my lady?'

  She shook her head, but the doubt remained. If Edward had lived none would have dared, but as it was, the sooner Richard was crowned, the better. And no one should dare to call him a bastard. She tightened her hold on Richard's hand and then asked as another thought struck her, 'What of that woman, Alice Perrers? I'll not take my son to court if she is still there.’

  'She has gone. She was alone with the King when his grace died and she seems to have taken everything she could find, even the rings from his fingers, before she fled – which she had the good sense to do.'

  'Wicked creature! 'Joan said, and she added regally, 'If she tries to come back, see that she is not permitted to enter my son's court.'

  The coronation took place on a hot Thursday, the sixteenth day of July. Joan had chosen the date herself, the feast of St Kenelm, a boy-king of Mercia long ago, and she had supervised the making of Richard's white satin robe as well as the newest fashion, a houppelande of pink velvet, for herself. No expense was to be spared, despite the bankruptcy of the royal treasury, and the citizens of London outdid each other in their efforts to celebrate their young King's crowning, for once opening their purses without reluctance for there was something about this slim boy with his red-gold hair and ready smile that won them to him.

  At the entrance to the abbey the King's Champion, Sir John Dymoke, carried out his hereditary office by riding his horse in at the door and challenging anyone to dispute the new sovereign's claim. He flung down his gauntlet but no one came forward to pick it up and as he drank from a gold stirrup cup, Joan gave a little sigh. It was a mere formality, of course, yet she was relieved when the moment had passed.

  She sat with the other ladies near the high altar and as she listened to the singing, to the Bishop of Rochester 's sermon, watched as her son was anointed, the crown set on his head, the orb and sceptre in his small hands, her mind became detached as if it were all a dream. The sunlight coming down in shafts from the clerestory windows and glittering on gold and jewels all became a little unreal. She had never dreamed so long ago when she sat in a tree with Edward, fresh from her tryst in the maze, that she and he would have a son who would wear the crown of England. Those distant days of girlhood when she had been so afraid of the consequences of her love for Tom, when Edward had been no more than her cousin, seemed to belong to another era. Yet with all her maturity and experience she had never quite lost the propensity for fear, and she was anxious for Richard now, so young and so much at the mercy of the great lords who surrounded him.

  Lancaster was there with his pugnacious son Henry. Edmund and Thomas of Woodstock, the other royal uncles, both resplendent today and already the sour-tempered Thomas was angling to have some say on his nephew's council; Northumberland, short and red-haired, was there with his own son, Harry Percy, taking part in the procession; the Earls of Warwick and Stafford, Suffolk and his crony Michael de la Pole, and William Earl of Salisbury.

  William had come to Joan before the ceremony. 'For your sake as well as his own, I am Richard's liege-man,' he had said. 'I am proud to serve him.'

  In his fifties now, his hair iron grey, he had a lifetime of such s
ervice behind him and Joan felt a sudden warm affection for him. He was one of the most selfless men she had known and as long as Richard had a few such about him she ought not to be afraid. But already there were factions, splits not visible on this day, and she was determined to keep Richard under her own care for as long as possible. There would be difficulties, an inevitable struggle to dominate so young a King, and she wished she could depend more on her eldest son, Thomas Earl of Kent, but she was shrewd enough to know he was governed only by greed and the desire for self-advancement. Even John, sending her a swift smile from his place, could not control the temper that lurked beneath the pleasant surface, and though she leaned on him it was with reservation. But she was finding great joy in Thomas's young son, her first grandchild. Alice was a good daughter-in-law and her own Eleanor, married now, and the other two girls sitting a little way from her filled her lonely hours with their chatter of bridals and husbands.

  Beside her the Princess Isabel, like herself grown heavy with the years, said in a low voice, 'I trust the Archbishop will not be too long-winded. I do not want to sit on this hard seat all afternoon.' She produced a leather bottle from somewhere beneath her skirt, unashamedly drank and passed it to Joan. 'There, my dear, I'm sure you need a mouthful of this.'

  Gratefully Joan accepted it and the wine settled her stomach. Isabel was always practical, she thought. The Princess was showing the signs of a soured and frustrated life, for her happiness with Engerrhard de Courcy had not lasted. That volatile young man soon lost interest in a wife so much his senior and ran away to France. Isabel had followed him and searched for him but no effort had brought him back and now she lived at court, growing more irritable and very like her grandmother, Queen Isabella.