Royal Mistress

by Anne Easter Smith

  But then she had kissed Tom Grey.

  She stamped her foot and glowered at herself in the mirror. May he burn in eternal hellfire. He has spoiled me for all others, and certainly for cheerless, staid William Shore.

  The rain held off long enough for the wedding to take place at St. Mary’s and not spoil Jane’s elegant gown during the short walk from the Lambert house. The contract and vows were exchanged at the church door before the couple and their witnesses entered the sanctuary for the mass. Jane’s thick, yellow hair fell to her waist, and Sophie’s lovingly made blue- and white-ribboned chaplet, festooned with daisies and mayflowers, encircled her head. She was a beautiful bride, her mother told her, and even her father nodded and smiled when his eldest daughter emerged from her chamber.

  Neighbors hung banners and ribbons from windows, and several children cheered and flung flowers over the couple as they processed back to the house for the feast. Everyone knew and liked Jane for her warm smile, her ability to make them laugh, and her kindness to the children, especially when they were sickly. She brought back snippets of ribbon and lace from the shop for the girls, and made the boys balls from scrap pieces of fabric and horsehair that she sewed inside whatever material was left at the end of a bolt.

  John beamed at everyone lining the street and invited them to join him and Amy at the house for wafers and wine. Jane met William’s eyes as they neared the front door, and she smiled shyly. Caught off guard, William smiled back.

  “Mistress Shore, may I escort you in for dinner,” he said, formally. Then he added quietly, “It pleases me that I have taken you to wife, Jane. I trust you, too, are content.”

  William had recited his vows with as much feeling as he might have discussed the weather, but Jane had been glad that he did look at her when he said them, and she took heart that he meant to keep them. He had put a fine band of gold upon her finger, intricately ornamented with carved roses, and had put his lips on hers to seal the bargain with good grace, she thought.

  “Quite content, William,” she answered him, hoping that this unusual unbending might lead to an easier union as husband and wife than there had been in their courtship. She went into the house happier than when she had left it an hour earlier and sought out Sophie and her Jehan, who had been invited to share the feast. Jehan openly ogled her, infuriating Jane, and she managed to steal Sophie away from him by saying she needed her friend’s help up in her chamber. Unperturbed, Jehan went in search of food.

  Despite her pregnancy, Sophie was able to negotiate the narrow staircase to the top floor and followed Jane into the wide loft bedchamber.

  “What now?” Jane asked in desperation, turning and grasping Sophie’s hands. She could feel the calluses on the silkwoman’s thumb and index finger, and Jane was glad she was a weaver and not a spinner.

  “Oh, Jane,” Sophie said, amused, her plain face lightened by a smile. “You vill vait in bed for Villiam to come to you and if you can, make certain you blow out all the candles.” Jane was used to Sophie’s endearing use of a v for a w in her speech. It was the only vestige left of her Flemish parents’ heavily accented English. “ ’Tis not so bad in the dark.”

  Jane was not comforted by this, and she pulled off the chaplet, its blossoms wilting, and flung it on her dower chest. “But will he know what to do? Why, he only kissed me for the first time at the church door.” Sophie picked up the chaplet and, uncomfortable with idle fingers, began to rework the garland. Jane watched her friend as she imagined her in bed with Jehan. It cannot only be a duty, she concluded, there must be something more to it or poets would not write about it nor singers sing their ballads. Once, when she had felt a youth’s hardness pressing through her skirts, a surge of desire had enveloped her that had made her moan. She also knew from a young age that touching herself in her private place would send pleasurable waves through her whole body. Perhaps her friend had obeyed the church teachings about such activity and Sophie did not know.

  She propped herself up on her elbow. “I suppose I cannot refuse to take him to my bed, can I?” she groused. And then she smiled. “Forgive me, Sophie, but I keep wondering how someone as tall as William will manage with someone as small as me.”

  Sophie laughed. “Take courage, Jane. It means you need only look at his feeble chest and you do not need to look him in the eye.”

  That amused Jane all the more, and the two friends fell into each other’s arms laughing.

  THREE

  COLEMAN STREET, LATE SUMMER AND AUTUMN 1475

  Nothing could have prepared Jane for what happened on her wedding night. Try as he might, and Jane was kind and gentle with him, William Shore was unable to fulfill his duty to her as a husband on that occasion nor in the weeks that followed. Even more puzzling to the new bride was his nonchalance about his impotence. At first she was quiet and understanding as he fumbled with her breasts and tried to become aroused. After many failed attempts, she had taken matters into her own hands and attempted to seduce him, using her natural instincts to try, in vain, to bring him to climax. She was astonished at her own talent, having had no teacher, and she found herself so ready to be taken—even by William—that she would have to pleasure herself after he fell asleep exhausted by his efforts.

  It was not long before Jane’s initial frustration turned into anger, for it became apparent that she had been cheated even of her right to be a mother, let alone the pleasuring the priest had promised was also her due. Her mood was not helped by the weather that summer.

  July was one of the worst for rain anyone could remember, and the London streets became awash in mud, muck, and rubbish that even the highest pattens could not navigate safely. The Moor Field outside the city wall at the end of Coleman Street was flooded so badly there was no harvest of vegetables, and cows stood knee-deep in water, looking as miserable as the gloomy skies above them. Jane was thankful her husband’s lodging was above his shop, thus she did not have to step out into the mire on most days to tend to customers as she had at her father’s.

  And then the summer heat arrived, making Londoners irritable, and babes, young children, and old people susceptible to outbreaks of disease.

  “When did the July rain start?” she asked Sophie one hot August day when the flies buzzed around the rubbish left behind after the muddy streets had dried, and the two friends sat in the shade of the only tree in the Vandersands’ tiny garden. William had allowed her a rare afternoon to herself, and she had made her way to Sophie’s humble house, where she found her friend using her old hand spindle so she could tend to her children with her free hand when needed. Spinning silk was tedious work, and Sophie was fortunate Jehan had obtained a wheel for his wife for her indoor work, as the distaff and spindle she had learned to use at her mother’s knee was slow and awkward. While Jane amused the new baby with a length of colored ribbon and watched the two older children play with a ball, Sophie worked diligently at spinning the raw silk into thread. “I was trying to remember if it had rained on St. Swithin’s Day?”

  “Ja, it rained on the saint’s day but only a gentle pit-pat,” Sophie replied. “How does the saying go? You taught it to me once:

  St. Swithin’s Day, if it doth rain,

  For forty days it will remain.

  St. Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair,

  For forty days ’twill rain no more.”

  “We should set no store by it, Sophie, for it has not been forty days yet, and look at the sky now. ’Tis so hot, the blue in it has all dried up.”

  Sophie eyed her friend, who seemed somewhat serious this afternoon. She noted the gown Jane was wearing was very handsome for everyday wear, but she had long since given up chiding Jane for her extravagance. “You seem far away, lieveling,” she said. “Is there something the matter?”

  Jane rocked the now sleeping baby in her arms, brushing the flies away. “I knew I could not hide from you, dear Sophie. Aye, there is something wrong. There is a reason why William has not wed these forty years; he is impotent
.” The new word in her vocabulary fell heavily from her lips. It was the first time she had actually brought herself to say it.

  Sophie gasped and stopped her spinning. “That is bad, Jane. Are you sure? Mayhap he is ill. Sometimes the men are unable to . . . you know . . . ven they are ill. Jehan had a stone inside his kidney and he left me alone for a month until it came out.”

  “Nay, he is not ill. He is simply not interested in me—or any woman, I would guess.”

  “Vat vill you do?”

  Jane did not know what she would do. On the one hand, she did not have to put up with William mounting her night after night, as Sophie said Jehan was wont to do, but it did not seem right to her that he did not keep his side of the marriage bargain. “He swore before God that he agreed to love and honor me in heart, body, and mind and that our solemn union was intended among other things for the procreation of children,” she said, shooing a fly off little Pieter’s face. “And I swore to honor those vows, too. I want to have my own babes, Sophie, otherwise why would I have agreed to marry such a dull man as William Shore.”

  Sophie did not like to mention that living under her father’s roof, Jane had had no choice but to do her father’s bidding. She clucked her tongue instead and offered, “You are right to be sure, Jane, but you have fine clothes and a household of your own at least, vich you have always vanted.”

  Jane nodded sulkily. “But I wanted children, too, Sophie.” And she hugged the baby to her breast.

  “It has been three months only, dear friend. I have no doubt you vill interest him yet. You seem to have had no trouble attracting men to you ever since ve vere young. I used to be jealous, but now I know what it is they vant, I must say I am happy they avoided me.” She made a face to express her disgust of men’s lusts.

  Jane had to laugh. “Certes, Sophie, it cannot be so bad or there would be no more than one child born to a couple. And”—she lowered her voice for the children’s sake—“why would there be so many whores?”

  “Godallemachtig!” Sophie exclaimed, raising her eyes to heaven. “Is it not clear? They get paid to bed a man. Mayhap if Jehan paid me, I vould be more villing.”

  Jane’s warm, low-throated laughter woke the baby, who began to fret and want freeing from his swaddling bands. “Poor little Pieter. Are you hot, sweeting?” Jane quickly unbound the soft, pink body. Liberated, Pieter exercised every limb with burbling delight. “That is better, is it not?” Jane cooed while Sophie sadly watched her friend, who so obviously wished the baby were hers.

  “You have not answered me yet. Vat vill you do?”

  Jane shook her head. “I suppose I can wait a few months in case, as you say, William has an ailment he has not told me about. But after that, I shall seek the help of a priest in the matter of an annulment.”

  Sophie drew in a breath, shocked. “Annulment? You would seek annulment? That vould cause a scandal, vould it not?”

  “It might cause William some embarrassment, but not I,” she said, irony evident in her voice. “I am certain no one would think it my fault. Why, even my father thinks I am too forward with men.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Do not say such a thing, Jane. Your father may not pay you much heed, but he cares about you.”

  Jane was not so sure, but she said nothing and continued tickling little Pieter’s bare midriff.

  Those small faults that Jane had seen in William’s physique when they had first met—his gangly legs; the lank, dull hair; his nervous sniff; his nearsighted peering at people’s clothes, for William never bothered looking at the people themselves—all began to magnify in her mind each time she was with him. That night was no exception.

  He was picking at his supper of pickled eels, cheese, and wastel bread with one hand and holding the shop’s account roll open with the other, peering at the figures in the light of a candelabra, and Jane was at liberty to study her husband from the other end of the table. A large silver saltcellar separated them, and their trenchers were set upon spotless table linen. Soon William would roll up the accounts, push away his food, and down his wine. Jane did not approve of William’s indulgence with wine at supper. It was not that she did not enjoy a cup or two herself, but she resented that he said it made him sleep better. Aye, she thought, and probably dulled the senses he needed to get her with child.

  “The king is already returning from France,” William suddenly said, not lifting his head from the paper. “It seems there was a treaty signed ere a shot was fired.”

  Jane was astonished. She had witnessed the departure of King Edward at the end of May when he had ridden with his retinue through the streets to London Bridge to take boats to Greenwich. This expedition was supposed to have regained some of the territory lost during the war against France that had endured almost one hundred years and ended in 1453. The five-year-old Prince of Wales came from Ludlow to be keeper of the realm, although his mother would have him in her charge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as chancellor, would have England in his. It was expected that the king and a large number of the nobility would be gone for a long time, and thus Edward had taxed his subjects to their breaking point for this glorious campaign. Once again the wealthy merchants of London had joined with the great Italian banking families like the Medicis and Portinaris to lend even more to the king to pay his massive army; both John Lambert and William Shore had added to Edward’s war chest. Great things were expected of the expedition, and to hear that it was all over in the space of four months struck Jane as odd, especially as there had been no news of victory or defeat.

  “How can that be?” she asked. “The king was expected to join with Charles of Burgundy and beat the French. Did King Louis surrender?”

  William shook his head. “Nay, wife, it would seem our soldier sovereign was bought off with a pension from Louis if Edward left without fighting. To be fair, Burgundy failed to keep his end of the bargain and offered little or no support to Edward. Without Charles, Edward’s efforts might have led to an even lengthier campaign and possible defeat. But, trust me, this news will not be well received by Englishmen. An English army returning from France with its tail between its legs? ’Tis shameful, and,” he grumbled, “I doubt any of us who financed the fiasco will see our money back. ’Tis a sorry affair.”

  Jane privately thought the lack of loss of life and limb was a praiseworthy outcome, but as she knew William would not care about anything except his money, she kept silent. She did not want to irritate him because she had a more pressing conversation to initiate. She cleared her throat and waited for him to look up at her.

  “Was there something you wished to talk to me about, Jane?” William had noticed her unusually demure demeanor and had learned it often preceded a favor. He enjoyed granting those little wishes for a new gown or pair of shoes, because it made him feel powerful over her. And it seemed to help alleviate his guilt that he could not perform in bed. He had always hated his body, wishing he could have been born strong and virile, and it had unnerved him as a youth that he did not seem to share the lustiness of his fellow apprentices. He had never visited the stews or attempted to bed a tavern wench as they had, and he was teased mercilessly as a result. He had even been called a sodomite, which was abhorrent to him. William simply did not seem to have much of a sensual nature; he took physical pleasure in fingering his purse and counting his money. Jane’s sensuality frightened and disgusted him, and on many occasions he caught himself wishing he had never agreed to wed her. But the union was paying handsomely through referrals from his prominent father-in-law, and he had been able to purchase his shop premises outright with Jane’s dowry. In truth, business was good, he told himself.

  “Aye, William, I would talk to you about us,” Jane said in as forthright a tone as she dared. “I think you know what I mean. I believe we rub together well enough as people, but we do not in between the sheets.” It irked Jane further that William never appreciated her wordplay or wit, and so she did not even pause to see if tonight were different. “M
ay I know if you have some ailment that prevents us from normal intimacy, something that prevents us from having a child?”

  William’s face drained of color, and he clutched his napkin over his lap. “I do not believe it is your place to ask me such a thing. I am your husband and you must submit to my will. I am sorry if you are not content with me in”—he paused to weigh his words and then blurted out angrily—“satisfying your lusts, but it cannot be helped. Now let us please change the subject or I shall leave the room.”

  Jane pushed back her chair and stood. “Nay, William, ’tis I who shall leave the room. But not before I remind you that I will have every right to seek an annulment if you cannot fulfill your husbandly duty.” Without waiting for his response, she moved to the door and was gone so quickly, William’s tongue could not form any words with which to stay her.

  He rose unsteadily and went to the window, his hands trembling as he opened the shutter and stared out at the roof of the Masons’ Hall next door. How could he have lost control of his wife so quickly after wedding her? What was this nonsense about an annulment? He had never struck Jane, but he was moved to violence tonight. If he had a heart, William would have acknowledged that he had deprived his wife of intimacy and ultimately motherhood. But William had grown up believing the world was against him and that if he did not take care of himself first, he would be doomed to mediocrity. He believed fervently that money bought him security, and new business ventures held the only excitement in an otherwise dreary existence. He reached down to scratch a flea bite on his leg and interrupted a mouse nibbling on a morsel of cheese, causing the creature to scuttle away. He scowled. The vermin in this city were a nuisance, but one learned to live with them—a little like an annoying wife, he decided.

  If the truth be told, he had already tired of the new venture: marriage and its financial rewards. He thought about his old life, his life before Jane, and wished he could have it back. But annulment? Admit publicly to failure as a man? Nay, he could not tolerate the thought of humiliation and scandal. Annulment was out of the question, but he resolved to find out more about the law in case Jane were serious about her threat. What else could he do? he wondered; all he knew was mercery. He was good at it and had no reason to risk his position in the guild. Then he remembered a conversation he had had recently with Master Caxton, a former leader of the merchant adventurers in Flanders who was now in the household of the duchess of Burgundy and a fellow member of the mercers’ guild. He had intrigued William with the lucrative possibilities of joining the merchant adventurers who used their business skills abroad in Bruges or Antwerp.