by Anne O'Brien
Thomas, of course, did not write.
‘What would it take for you to tell me that at least you still exist?’ I asked the silence of my chamber.
November 1349: Bisham Manor
‘Be silent!’
I had never raised my voice in this house. It had never been necessary. Now I stood at the top of the stair to observe the affray that had brought me from solar to entrance hall, my voice echoing in my ears.
My command had the desired effect, more out of surprise than due obedience, and the commotion below me came to a halt with all eyes turned up towards me. Behind me I felt the presence of Lady Elizabeth emerging from the shadows, a slight figure swathed in black veils and a heavy cloak. Bisham in November was cold.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, curiosity rampant.
‘Who indeed?’
One fast glance around the little crowd of people who stood in my entrance hall had every sense in my body alert.
‘Would someone explain to me the meaning of this disturbance?’ I asked, my voice redolent of authority but supremely neutral. ‘It is ill-fitting for the house of the Earl of Salisbury.’
I kept my gaze trained on our steward. He was the one I must cow into submission or the edgy confrontation might disintegrate into bloodshed. The hall was awash with a knot of our household knights, boots muddying the tiles, swords already drawn, and my heart was hammering so hard and fast that I thought it must be heard by every man in the room. I allowed none of it to be evident as I trod down the steps, every inch the Countess of Salisbury.
I stopped three steps from the bottom, to claim an advantage of height.
The steward came to stand below me with forbidding mien.
‘He is not to be admitted, my lady. My lord the Earl left strict instructions…’
‘I will be admitted.’ The trenchant voice overrode that of my steward. ‘I am already admitted.’
Now I had no choice but to look at him. Nothing so predictable as a letter, a voluble courier. Here he was in the flesh, his hand on his sword hilt but he had yet to draw it in defence or aggression. Sir Thomas Holland, plainly dressed, windswept and muddied, without heraldic advertisement, which explained his presence here in my hall before he was recognised.
A crowd of servants had now gathered to augment the throng.
‘My lady.’ The steward was anxious. ‘Our knights will escort him from the estate, if you will permit.’
‘No, she will not permit.’ Thomas was unmoving, his sword now half drawn. He eyed my own black veiling, eyes narrowing at what it might mean. ‘Who’s dead?’
My temper was shorter than I expected.
‘I could provide you with a list. But for your immediate consideration, Sir Thomas, Countess Catherine died at the end of April.’
Which brought him up short. Thrusting his sword back into his scabbard he bowed low to me, then to Lady Elizabeth, still hovering at the top of the stair.
‘Forgive me. I did not know.’ His voice was as brusque as mine. ‘You must tell me the rest – but later. What you need to know is that there has been a change in circumstances, my lady.’
He was staring at me, willing me to understand what he was not saying.
‘Put up your arms,’ I ordered. ‘All of you. Let him through. I will brook no defiance here, and neither will your lord the Earl.’
Their lord. Not mine. No longer mine. I read it in Thomas’s face, in the tension of his hand still gripping his sword hilt.
When they obeyed, although not readily for Will’s dictate was law in this house, Thomas hefted a leather scrip from his shoulder. By the time he found his way to me, he had a fistful of documents in his hand.
‘His Holiness is decided,’ he announced, snapping the parchment to draw attention to it. ‘A papal bull has been dispatched to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for his immediate action.’
‘And the result?’ I would not be moved. Not yet.
Thomas continued to announce, much in the manner that he had challenged the French army across the river at Crécy. There was to be no doubt in the mind of anyone here present. I might have claimed some privacy but after three years of legal dispute Thomas was intent on announcing with utter clarity the reason for his being here at Bisham.
‘Your marriage, my lady, to the Earl of Salisbury is a mere de facto union and so is declared null and void. You were never his wife. You are no longer his wife. The marriage never happened. His Holiness instructs that your marriage to me should be celebrated immediately before a priest and as publically as possible in facie ecclesiae. That will put all matters right.’
He paused. Then:
‘We have done it. At last we have achieved justice.’ His eye fell on the steward. ‘Any man here who will dispute this may read the documents for himself.’
I trod slowly down the rest of the stairs until I was on a level with Thomas and my household.
‘Go about your business,’ I said so calmly although my heart leapt and tripped.
‘But my lady… ‘My steward all but wrung his hands.
‘Did you not hear? I am no longer the Countess of Salisbury, but you will obey me in this, the last of my orders under this roof.’
The household melted away, except for Lady Elizabeth who remained a silent observer as Thomas and I stood isolated, a little apart, in the centre of the hall.
‘How did you do it?’
‘I had little to do with it.’ For the first time his voice fell to an acceptable level. ‘It was all a matter of lost patience. His Holiness stepped in and appointed Bernard d’Albi, Cardinal Bishop of Porto, a veteran in such cases, to cut through the entanglement with a sword. The Cardinal Bishop lost patience. The Cardinal Bishop, God be praised, closed the case by the plain expedient of issuing a date when he would pronounce the verdict. He would hear no more evidence, no more excuses from the advocates of the Earl of Salisbury. There will be no appeal. His Holiness was pleased to wash his hands of the whole affair, I imagine, after more than two years.’
Two years and more. I was twenty one years old. I had been Thomas’s wife for nine years, Will’s wife for only a little less. Now all was resolved. It was so hard to take in, that I was no longer under duress from anyone.
Thomas was stuffing the documents back into the bag, regardless of their legal value, before flinging the bag to the floor. There we were. No legal impediment between us. No lock and key. No third person to intervene. What Lady Elizabeth had heard I neither knew nor cared. Thomas had brought my freedom and I would claim it.
Thomas opened his arms.
There was no royal page here to spoil the moment, there never would be again. And yet there was a strange hesitancy between us.
‘I have come to reclaim what is mine.’
‘And I accept.’
Slowly, I walked forward. His arms closed around me, strong and firm. He kissed my mouth. Then his hand slid down my arm to take mine.
‘Show me to your room.’
I turned in a moment of obedience, then all I had learned in the past, all I hoped for in the future, snapped into place.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘We will do nothing that can be interpreted as subterfuge or illegality.’
‘We have all the proof we need.’ He applied his toe to the leather satchel. ‘What more do we want? What more do you want? It has taken us a lifetime and a fortune to achieve it. Why cavil now?’
‘I accept what you say. But this is what we will do.’ I did not release his hand, rather threaded my fingers with his. ‘We will go to Windsor where the court will be gathering for Christmas. We will be wed in the Chapel with the Archbishop and the papal bull and the whole court to witness it. We will announce the papal decision with a royal fanfare. And then – only then – when all is achieved in the full light of day – you will take me as your true wife.’
‘Before God, Joan!’
His voice had risen again.
‘We have waited so long. We w
ill tie the ends, neatly and legally. For the sake of our legitimate children, if not for ourselves.’
‘Have I any choice?’
‘None. We will do it well and in seemly fashion this time.’
His nose narrowed as he inhaled, but I knew that I had won.
‘Then do whatever it is that you need to do to leave this place, madam. There is no time to waste.’
I surveyed my bedchamber at Bisham for the last time, feeling no regret at abandoning the luxury and comfort that had been my prison of sorts for so many months. All my personal belongings had been removed. It was as if I had never been here.
‘What will you do?’ Lady Elizabeth, at my shoulder.
‘Go with Sir Thomas.’ My eye was on the prie-dieu where I had spent so many hours of interminable prayer.
‘You must make your peace with my grandson.’
I turned to face her. What she saw in my face made her step back.
‘Why should I?’
‘He did not beat you.’
‘He locked me up. He denied me justice.’
Her pressure on my arm was light as if a fragile bird had landed there.
‘Make your peace, Joan. Who can see the future?’
‘All I see is that your grandson is not in it.’
The grip tightened like a talon. ‘It may be that one day you will need an ally. You do not know what you will be called on to face. It may be that one day you will need William’s kindness and loyalty.’
It struck a chord, deep within me, so that the worst of my acrimony drained away. So it might be. It would be a foolish woman who turned her back, refusing to mend a broken bridge, however difficult the task. No, I could not foresee the future, but I recognised it for wise advice. I leaned to kiss her dry cheek.
‘You have my thanks, Lady Elizabeth. If nothing else you have taught me to play an excellent game of chess.’
Will’s grandmother smiled. ‘God be with you, Joan,’ she said. ‘I know that you will follow the straight course to what you see as happiness. But don’t forget to keep your friends from the past.’
Thomas and I were wed, again, beneath the austere and no doubt frowning arches in that most holy of holies of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, with no great concern for our garments or untoward festivity. I was clad in the first silk robe that came to hand while Thomas’s knee-length cote-hardie had seen better days, although at least its sleeves had an eye to what was fashionable, short in front and trailing gracefully at the back. The only deference to my being a bride was that I wore my hair loose and unbraided beneath my veil. There was no livery collar as a gift in this ceremony, for celebration was not in anyone’s mind. At papal insistence, our marriage was solemnised by no less that the Bishops of London and Norwich as well as the Bishop of Comacchio, the papal nuncio himself. No one was to be left in any doubt of my restoration to the bosom of my true husband. It was an event achieved by persistence, King Edward’s gold, and the Pope’s irritation with every man and woman concerned in the affair.
‘And in spite of a certain low cunning to stop us,’ Thomas observed sotto voce as I placed my hand in his once more, ‘who would have thought the noble Montagu family capable of such sleight of hand?’
‘Who would have thought them capable of creating so much ill-will?’ It would still not be an easy task to forgive Will for his part in the last two years of stalemate.
In the eyes of the whole court we took the conventional vows. No hawks here, but Philippa, resigned and prepared to be sentimentally tearful over a new bride, bestowed her majestic presence on us. Isabella ready with a sly congratulation and at least some envy. My brother John disinterested in fraternal fashion since it affected him not at all. Ned, surprisingly stern in his brief well-wishing, declaiming, rather enigmatically, that it might be impossible for me to achieve all the happiness I was hoping for. And the King, stopping off to honour us in an edgy fashion, en route between Hereford and Calais, managed to give an air of acceptance despite his impatience for he had a vastly important project in mind and resented the delay caused by something so trivial as a marriage, particularly that of a woman who, Edward observed, not sotto voce, did not seem capable of making up her mind. Calais was about to come under attack from the French. While Thomas and I exchanged vows and concentrated on the legalities, Edward was plotting ways and means of organising his own invasion of France with a substantial force of archers and cavalry without raising the French alarm. It coloured the whole proceedings, with Edward’s instructions to the trio of bishops to hurry it up.
I suspected that Thomas would be riding with him for Calais before the ceremony was over, if the King had his way. My grip on my lord’s hand was uncompromising.
And then it was done, the shade of my mother standing at my shoulder, where I shrugged off her dismay with a light heart. This was no poor knight who joined his hand to mine, a knight without land or prospects. This was a Knight of the Garter whose name would be writ in gold. I was certain of it.
‘It is still a poor marriage for a princess of the blood, to a man with nothing but his military accoutrements and his annual payment from the King,’ I imagined her saying as the Bishop of London, whose jaundiced expression suggested a degree of displeasure with the whole event, announced the final blessing on this troublesome couple.
Was I satisfied?
I felt Thomas’s increasingly forceful presence beside me, standing with me before the altar with a commanding air of confidence. When I turned my head to look at him, he looked at me. Yes, I had made the decision that was right for me. Between us were love and acceptance and a strong hope for the future together.
The lines beside Thomas’s eye and mouth deepened into a smile, and in that smile, of triumph, of pure male gratification in what he had achieved, I read the strong emotions that had kept him battling for me against all the odds. I discovered that I was returning the smile.
Yes, I was satisfied. As much as I ever was in life.
I knew this interview would be difficult, but I could not avoid it. To do so would be the work of a coward and I was never that, and I had in mind Lady Elizabeth’s advice.
‘I have come to say farewell.’
It had not been difficult to discover Will. Where would he ever be when he needed time for reflection? He was in the royal stables, not that I would ever believe that he would avoid me. In his quiet way, he had grown into a man of a certain courage. I had not seen him since we had laid his mother to rest beside the old Earl at Bisham Priory. We had had little to say to each other that was seemly on that occasion. We pared it down to commiserations.
Now he simply stood and looked at me, a well-polished bridle in his hands. Anger was there in his stance, but also resignation, the friendly contours of his face finely drawn. It might have been a task more fitting to one of his squires but he had been polishing as if his life had depended on it.
‘Your grandmother says I should make my peace with you.’
‘And what do you say?’
It would not be easy. This, as I well knew, had been a blow to his pride. He would be forced to accept the sympathy and not a little mockery from his knightly friends that he had been unable to keep a wife. It was not every day that the Earl of Salisbury lost a valuable wife in a legal judgement. My antipathy towards him, that he had dared to manipulate my future, that he had lied to me, that he had kept me in a veritable prison within my own home ebbed like a spring tide. Once I had liked him. Now that I was no longer answerable to him, I could perhaps like him again.
‘Farewell, Joan.’ His expression was closed to me.
‘Is that to be all there is between us?’
I remained distant from him. On this occasion Will clearly did not like me, nor did I blame him. I had rejected him for a mere knight. But I was not disheartened. I knew what was best for him.
‘I regret the death of your mother.’
His straight regard was sceptical. ‘There was no love lost between you.’
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��Growing up as I did under her dominion, she had a hand in making me the woman I am.’
‘I think that she would have denied that.’ He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. ‘She never really recovered from my father’s death. She was devoted to him, saw no wrong in him.’
‘So much so that she did not see that her son would be a great man too,’ I replied with more sharpness than I had intended. ‘She was proud of you but was loathe to see the steadfast courage in you.’
‘Ha!’
I raised my brows in query.
‘I am unused to such fulsome commendations from the woman who was my wife.’
‘I can be fulsome, now that I am free.’ At last I smiled at him. ‘You should marry again, Will. As fast as you can. Enjoy some marital bliss.’
And there at last was an answering gleam in his eye.
‘My thanks! Then I should tell you. I already have a new wife in mind.’
He still had the power to surprise me.
‘So fast? I should feel slighted.’ It was easy to mimic disappointment.
Which he did not believe for one moment. ‘She’ll never be the wife that you were, Joan. Or that you were not. You will know her. Elizabeth. Daughter of Lord Mohun of Dunster.’
An eminently suitable match. I did know her. ‘Is she your own choice?’
The harness was cast aside. ‘Yes. Her family are willing.’
‘Of course they are. Who would not wish to be wed to the Earl of Salisbury.’
‘You, for one.’
I laughed and at last approached to grasp his hands that were now free to be grasped. ‘You will deal well together. Much better than we ever would.’
‘I expect life will be calmer.’ He rubbed his fingers over my chin, leaving smears of polish so that I wrinkled my nose. He rubbed it away with his sleeve. It was good to return to this slight intimacy.
‘I will always be your friend, Will.’
‘I suppose I will be yours too, when my pride has recovered. I regret some of the past years.’