Royal Mistress

by Anne Easter Smith

  “The only trouble is, Master Shore,” the printer had teased the sober-faced mercer upon their meeting, “you must be celibate to be an adventurer, and I understand you have a beautiful new bride. It would be hard to give her up, would it not?”

  William grimaced as he remembered the conversation, but then the germ of a plan began to form as he watched the roofs of London fade into the twilight.

  Jane walked softly into the cool sanctuary of St. Olave’s church in Old Jewry, a place where she had never worshipped before. She saw that one confessional was open, and she slipped inside and pulled the curtain across the door, setting a bell to tinkling and alerting the priest he had a supplicant.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Jane recited when the cleric had blessed her from behind the grille. After confessing a few innocuous transgressions of sloth and disobedience, she shut her eyes tightly and told the good father her dilemma. “He cannot give me a child, Father,” she ended, surprised to find she was near to tears. “Am I not entitled to all the gifts of marriage, including intimacy and children? I understood this from the marriage vows and from the priest in my father’s parish, who said ’twas the law. I believe my husband is not able to do his duty by me.”

  The priest was silent for a while. It was usual for a man to complain about his wife’s abstinence or failure to provide him with adequate release in bed. He had not had to counsel a woman in such a matter before, although he knew there was a law that might be applied in such a case.

  “My advice to you, child, is to wait a little longer. There may be a perfectly good reason why your husband is unable to fulfill his duty to you. In the meantime, I will find out what I can to help you in this matter. You must understand, the only way out of this union is through annulment, and only bishops may grant one following a papal decree. And it may be you have to go through the courts.”

  Jane left the church disheartened but not defeated and almost fell over the rotting carcass of a cat. “God’s teeth!” she said under her breath as she skirted the dead animal, hurried past the Prince’s Wardrobe, and up into Coleman Street. “The city gets filthier every week.”

  William arched a skeptical brow at her when she returned to the shop and told him she had been to confession. No good lying, she thought. God would not help her if she began her quest to end her marriage with a lie. To her surprise, William smiled and nodded. Despite her decision of a moment earlier not to lie, she resolved to use the confessional excuse again—real or not.

  “We shall shut the shop on the morrow, Mistress Shore,” William said. He always addressed her thus in front of his apprentices. “The king is returning, and I have been summoned to be part of a small greeting committee at Tower wharf with others of our guild.” He drew her aside, his boney fingers gripping her elbow, and explained, “This will not be quite the joyous reception Edward enjoyed upon his departure in June, I can assure you. London is not pleased with its lily-livered, Louis-pensioned king, and most citizens have decided to go about their daily business and ignore his grace. But I have been thinking how we can take full advantage of the nobility who will ride past your father’s shop.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation, reminding Jane of her father’s similar greedy gesture, but then once again he surprised her with his rare smile. “I would have you sit in the window of the workroom above the shop, Jane, dressed in your finest gown—the one I had made for you after we were promised.”

  Then he reached behind a velvet curtain and brought out a headdress that made Jane gasp. It was a richly brocaded, steepled hennin more than two feet high, sewn over with seed pearls and a long translucent golden veil floating from its tip. “And see, I had this made for you to match the green and gold of the gown.”

  Jane almost snatched the gorgeous confection from his fingers, and William was pleased. Ever since his wife had confronted him with his impotence, he had deluged her with gifts. It was as well John Lambert had conversed with him over a cup of malmsey one evening and divulged Jane’s extravagance and love of finery. It had been easy to buy her silence, he thought now, watching her fit the hennin by holding it fast at the fashionable rakish angle on the back of her head. She went to the polished silver mirror and stared critically at her reflection.

  “You like it, Jane?” Seeing her pleased smile, William said, “Then I would have you wear it on the morrow. It might attract some noble custom,” William purred behind her, fluffing out the gauzy veil so it caught the light.

  He was pleased with Jane’s response: “I will be there, husband. When else will I ever have the chance to wear the gown again? We do not move in such elegant company, more’s the pity. How do I look, sir?”

  “You shall wear it at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, my dear,” William replied, ignoring her last question. “All shall see that I trade in nothing but the finest materials. Soon I shall be able to set up shop at the Mercery, like your father.”

  Jane looked at him in the mirror and gave a sharp laugh. “Always business with you, is it not, William? Can you not for once pay your wife a compliment?”

  “I wedded you, mistress. Is that not compliment enough?” he retorted, and stalked off. Ungrateful wench, he thought to himself, wishing for the hundredth time he had come to his senses and refused John Lambert’s offer. But then he relented. In some ways, he reminded himself, the union had paid off.

  London proved William correct. There were no banners and flowers festooning the houses and businesses along the Chepe, no fanfares or troubadours, no children skipping along beside the king’s retinue, and no shouts of “God save the king.” A few groups of townspeople gathered at the great conduit and the standard a little farther along Chepeside and waited for Edward to ride by, but mostly Londoners went about their daily tasks and thus informed their sovereign of their displeasure.

  It was a blue September sky, the sun warming the riders as they processed slowly through the streets. King Edward was magnificent on a black warhorse that was caparisoned from flaring nostrils to twitching tail in dagged silk, embroidered all over with York’s white rose and Edward’s own Sunne in Splendour badge, the leather harness decorated with gleaming brasses. The king’s eyes flitted over the jaded faces of his subjects, and he felt a twinge of guilt remembering these same faces from June smiling and cheering him on to glory. Damn them, he thought, he had brought back an army without limbs lost or wounds won, and with only a few dead—mostly from disease; they should be grateful. He shifted in his saddle, aware of the aching in his joints, a new and unpleasant result of contracting a tertian fever in the low-lying marshes around Calais. His physician warned him he might suffer the pains, as well as sudden chills and fever, for the rest of his life and advised the king to be more judicious in his eating habits. Edward had been astonished to hear the diagnosis, never having had a day’s serious illness in his thirty-three years, and his normal affability had deserted him then as, in a rage, he had ordered the doctor from his tent.

  All at once, Edward sat straight in his saddle, his melancholic ruminations interrupted by a group of young women, gawping and smiling at him on a street corner. Edward’s deceptively lazy blue eyes could never pass over female figures without singling out the prettiest and imagining her in his arms, and one of them had caught his fancy. He inclined his head and winked at her, satisfied to see the maid blush and turn her head. In that moment, riding by John Lambert’s shop and looking the other way, he had failed to see the beauty sitting in the window, gazing intently at one of the young nobles in his train.

  Edward may not have noticed Jane Shore, but his chamberlain had.

  One of several riders behind the king, Will Hastings scanned the sullen crowd and marveled at how quickly the Londoners could change their mood. He had exulted at the exuberance Edward’s exodus had generated in these same citizens not five months earlier. In truth, Will could not blame them and guiltily tried to ignore the bulging saddlebags on his squire’s horse, which contained treasures given him by a relieved king of France for
Will’s having turned Edward around and homeward. He also misliked the humor of the English soldiers who had ridden disconsolately to their homes over the downs and along the paths from Dover and Sandwich, cheated of any spoils that would have accrued to them on the battlefield. And they all need paying, he thought. God help us if they are not.

  He shook off the ominous musings and raised his eyes above the crowd to the mostly empty windows on the second and third stories of the substantial merchant houses that lined the north side of the Chepe. On his left was the Mercery, a block-long arcade of shops and stalls, some with upper floors. A figure in an open window caught his eye and the face he saw made him draw in a sharp breath. Sweet nails of Christ’s cross, but she is a jewel, Will told himself. He noted the richness of her gown with the shimmering hennin crowning her oval face, the creamy rounded tops of her breasts rising just above the neckline of her bodice, the graceful wave of her hand as she saluted the riders. Even the slight frown and downturn of her full mouth did not detract from Will’s coup de foudre. Without even speaking to the lady, he was smitten. Who was she, and how had he missed her in all his and Edward’s forays into London looking for pleasure? As he eased his lean frame around in the saddle so he could observe the vision, the tunic under his cloak was visible with its black bull’s head crest embroidered upon it.

  Swinging just below her window was the guild sign of the Maiden’s Head. Ah, he thought, certes, ’tis the Mercery. The lady must be a mercer’s wife or daughter. He slowed his horse so he could read the name inscribed above the door. JOHN LAMBERT AND SON. He made a note and rode on.

  Jane’s heart had leaped with surprise at the sight of Tom Grey directly behind King Edward. But then she was puzzled. Why was he among those who rode so close to the king? She barely noticed Edward but her hand continued to wave at him from force of habit while her eyes took in the rich caparison of her love’s courser, the ermine-trimmed cloak with jeweled, gold clasp draped over the horse’s back, and ostrich feathers fluttering from a gray velvet bonnet. This was no ordinary gentleman nor a possible minor nobleman, her experience told her. Nay, this was almost certainly a royal personage, but how? Who? And suddenly her hand flew to her mouth as she grasped the truth. “Not mere Tom Grey, but Sir Thomas Grey, marquess of Dorset, the queen’s son,” she announced to the dust-laden air. “Sweet Jesu, but he is a dissembler. He fooled us all. ’Tis no wonder he turned me aside. Being married was only half his tale.”

  “Did you say something, Lillibet?” Bella said, making Jane jump. She had forgotten for a moment that her sister was in the room with her. She shook her head and left her seat for the younger woman, who leaned out of the casement, waving eagerly.

  But for Jane, all the excitement of watching the procession vanished along with Tom Grey’s receding figure. She forgot she was supposed to display William’s wares to potential customers, and instead she removed the hennin to better negotiate the narrow staircase down to her father’s empty shop. John was among the guild members gathered on the steps of St. Paul’s to greet the returning king, and although it would have been impolitic for the guilds to ignore their sovereign, they hoped to make a point by assembling only a few members of each of the twelve major companies, the mercers being the highest ranking.

  Jane nodded to Matthew and slipped out of the back door through the garden and made her way carefully to Sophie’s house. She was grateful it had not rained for days, and hooking the train of her gown over her arm and clutching her headdress with the other, she picked her way through the detritus in the streets and alleys until she arrived in St. Sithe’s Lane, unheeding of the stares her rich attire was attracting. Jehan was at his work in Cripplegate, where most of the Flemish weavers were employed, and Sophie was quietly spinning when Jane knocked.

  Sophie’s warm, brown eyes welcomed her friend, and shooing a dog from the room, she pulled up Jehan’s chair for Jane. “Sit, sit, lieveling. It has been so long since I saw you. Ja, have no vorry, the children are sleeping and ve are alone.” She cocked her head as Jane remained silent, choosing not to ask why Jane had turned up more richly dressed than ever. “Is everything vell with you?” she asked cheerily, although she knew from Jane’s expression that everything was not well. “Is is the”—she crooked her little finger—“the problem the same? With Villiam, I mean.”

  Jane nodded. “Aye, Sophie, still the same. And he refuses to talk about it. But that is not why I have come.” She arranged the many folds of silk around her on the hardened dirt floor, wishing as usual that she could transport this decent family to more luxurious accommodations. “I have just seen Tom Grey, and this time must be the last,” she admitted, picking up a stray thread of silk from the floor and winding it around her finger.

  “But, Jane, I thought you vould not see him again after he told you he was vedded to another. Bad man. Slechte man,” she repeated, the Flemish translation emphasizing her disdain. “I hope he made penance for lying so to you.” She reached out and patted Jane’s fidgeting fingers. “Vere did you see him? I hope he did not force himself with you?”

  Jane smiled. “Nay, my good, prim Sophie, he did not. He did not even see me.” Her face fell again. “He was riding in the king’s train. And ’twas only then I knew how truly foolish I had been to believe we could be lovers. You see, my sweet little flamande, I discovered today that Master Tom Grey is King Edward’s stepson—the queen’s son.”

  Sophie’s horrified expression made Jane laugh out loud, and the noise must have woken Pieter judging by the wail that emanated from the loft where all the Vandersands slept. And then the baby began to whimper and fuss, bringing the women’s conversation to a close.

  “Ach, dearest Jane, it is indeed the last of Thomas Grey. I am sorry for you, but soon you vill forget. You like to valk in the sunshine too much.”

  How wrong you are, pragmatic Sophie, Jane wanted to say, but she kissed her friend and the baby and shut the front door quietly behind her.

  As Jane sauntered home, the procession long since gone, she tried to push the memory from her heart of Tom’s seductive smile, passionate caresses, and gentle words. But he lingered there, reminding her constantly that the romantic love she had always yearned for had existed for her, if only for a few weeks.

  Jane was fortunate, as her friend Sophie often said, that she never felt downhearted for long. And so perhaps one day, Jane mused, she would find love again with someone new, and the thought buoyed her homeward steps and took her mind off her unfulfilled life with William Shore.

  FOUR

  LONDON, WINTER 1475–1476

  Will pulled down on his short jacket, a fashion that tended to ride up and reveal too much of his buttocks for his liking. Then he ran his fingers through his thinning brown hair before replacing his bonnet at a jauntier angle and walking into William Shore’s well-stocked shop on Coleman Street. The first person he saw, helping a young woman choose bed linens, was Jane.

  But faster and hungrier than a flea finding a dog, William Shore was at the new customer’s elbow. He bowed low, recognizing Lord Hastings.

  “Good morrow, my lord, and indeed you are right welcome in my establishment. May I help you find something?” William saw he had not held the nobleman’s attention, and his eyes followed Will’s gaze to Jane. At first annoyed, he surmised his bold-eyed wife instantly attracted this noble lord with her seductive smile, but then a profitable thought overtook his resentment as he more rightly assumed this prominent customer, having noticed Jane at her father’s window two weeks ago, had been thus lured to her husband’s shop. How right he had been to insist Jane flaunt his wares for the king’s train, for it had brought no less than the king’s chamberlain to his door. For once he thanked God for his attractive wife.

  “Lord Hastings, I am honored.” William groveled.

  “Master Shore, I give you God’s greeting,” Will said, bringing his attention back to the awkwardly tall mercer; it was as though the man had outstripped his boyish legs before he had learned how to u
se them. “I am certain I have come to the right place, as I saw the lady yonder seated in a window above Master Lambert’s mercery while the king rode along the Chepe. I was immediately taken with her beauty . . . I mean, beautiful . . . gown,” he corrected himself. “I knew I must seek out the same cloth for Lady Hastings, and Master Lambert was kind enough to direct me here.” He paused for a second, looking again at Jane and then braved the question: “Is she . . .”

  “My wife, my lord? Aye, I am proud to say she is, and Mercer Lambert’s daughter,” he gushed, confirming Will’s unhappy suspicion. “Mistress Shore!” the mercer called, an unusually disarming smile alarming Jane as she turned toward her husband’s voice. “I beg you come and greet our illustrious visitor and king’s chamberlain, Lord Hastings.” He reached out a welcoming arm to her and drew her possessively to his side. Jane curtseyed and folded her hands demurely in front of her as William rambled on. “She is my wife of a six-month or more. My dear, this gentle lord noticed your green and golden gown while you watched the king’s return from France, do you remember? It is astonishing—and flattering—that a person of your rank, Lord Hastings, who must have endured such a long and arduous journey in the service of king and country, would have noticed a piece of my cloth that day.” He rubbed his hands together. “But then that Italian silk is the finest I have, and I can understand how you must have been smitten with it. Let me show it to you now with pleasure.”