Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (37 page)

R
iding right behind the royal party in the procession to the harbor, Joan witnessed Ned prancing like a peacock, waving to the crowd, averting his eyes from the injured soldiers who lined the route. He could not look on them, their gear sitting beside them, clearly hoping that someone might take pity and offer them passage. It was she who waved to them as they called out to her, wishing her a safe crossing. Jester, too, riding with Joan in an openwork basket, greeted his old friends with happy barks and wagging tail.

Ned fell back, kissing Joan’s hand and asking, “Do you hear how they love me, cousin?”

“They would love you even more if you found room for them on your ship. And do not tell me how little space there is. It’s the plunder that’s weighing down our ships. Leave it behind, well guarded, and bring your troops home first.”

“My little Franciscan. Have you taken a vow of poverty?” He urged his horse forward, raising his hand again to wave at his cheering audience.

“Might
we
accommodate some of them?” she asked Will.

“That is not how it is done.” He seemed to suck in the hollows in his once round face as he straightened and looked grimly ahead.

She had thought that this war-haunted Will, no longer a boy, might find his own voice, dare to show up the prince, but he disappointed her, as fearful of an original gesture as ever. She wondered who had ordered him to rush back to Villeneuve-le-Hardi in time to escort her home. He’d appeared when Helena was already waiting in the cart with Joan’s belongings, greeting her with a hug and a kiss, assuring her that he meant to see that she had a safe, comfortable crossing, all with such forced cheer that she knew he was obeying orders.

On board, she stymied him by refusing the “comfort” of the cabin. She remained on deck, Jester snuggled in her lap, while Will and his men nervously watched over her, walking along with her when she led Jester round on his leash. Several of the king’s guard, none of them her friends, also kept her in sight.

“Do you fear I’ll jump over the side?” she asked Will.

“That dog might trip you up, he stays so close to your skirts.”

“You are a poor liar.”

He protested.

She asked him to tell her of his experience in the field. She sensed a deep change in him, a maturity.

“Now you ask?”

“I’ve barely seen you.”

“And whose fault is that? You’ve been playing the prince’s lady. I would have been in the way.”

She asked again, saying that she would certainly never see a wounded man again without thinking of the horror of stabbing the pirate on the burning ship, feeling the blade stick, then penetrate, the hot blood covering her hand, making her lose her grip on the hilt, the power with which he’d thrown her off.

“You were not trained for war. I was. Killing was nothing to me.”

She did not believe him. “You are changed, Will.”

“Try to rest. We have a long journey ahead.” He left her.

The way he said that—“a long journey ahead”—sounded
like a threat. She grew more certain of that when she saw her mother on the dock in Portsmouth.

“Why are you here?”

“I have not seen you in months, my child. I could not wait until—you might come round to visit.”

Joan noted the hesitation. At the inn where they were to stay the night, Margaret evaded questions about where they were headed by talking of the Van Artevelde family—she and Efa had befriended them and helped them through a difficult time.

“She will bear witness to your marriage to Thomas when the time comes,” Margaret promised, briefly smiling.

Joan asked after John. If something was happening, her brother’s good fortune was most likely the cause.

“John is to receive your father’s lands from the king on Michaelmas, a prelude to his betrothal to Elizabeth of Juliers.”

“What price am I paying for my brother’s good fortune?”

“This is not about John.”

“What is ‘this,’ and who is it about if not him?”

“You and the prince. You accepted many costly gifts from him, including this dog you so cherish. The prince was ever by your side in Calais.…”

A familiar charge. “And that is my fault? I never wished to be there. And, once I was, Will was always away. How can I be blamed?”

Margaret poured both of them more wine.

Joan pushed her cup aside. “What is my punishment?”

Her mother stared down into the cup she turned round and round in her hands as if it might hold the answer.

Joan put her hand out to stop it. “Tell me.”

“Philippa believes you are better off away from court, far away, while the legality of your marriage is being decided.” There were tears in her mother’s eyes.

“And you are cooperating for John’s sake.” Joan let go her mother’s hands. “She knows Thomas and Lady Maud are on
their way to Avignon, doesn’t she? She misses nothing regarding me, damn her.”

“Joan! It is treason to curse your queen.”

“Doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she knows, but in truth it is Ned’s attention that worries her.”

“So I am to be closed away in a convent?”

“I don’t know where you are headed. No one but Will, his mother, and his retainers are to know where you are.”

“So that Ned does not discover me.”

“Or Thomas. I am no longer trusted where he is concerned.” Margaret reached out to Joan. “I had no part in the plan, I swear to you. When I received the queen’s message, I asked if Efa might be with you. She’s gone on ahead. She will ensure your comfort and health—”

Joan shook off her mother’s hand, calling for Helena to prepare her for bed.

“Joan—”

“Be silent unless you mean to deliver me from this. You have one child now. Go to him.”

After all were asleep, Joan crept to the door, trying the latch. Locked from without. She checked the one window. The drop to the street would be risky and, even if she survived it, two of Will’s men stood watch below. She was his prisoner.

T
HE ATMOSPHERE IN THE PAPAL ENCLAVE WAS A SHOCK TO
T
HOMAS
and his mother after their journey through the French countryside. Everywhere they’d witnessed the scars of the war with England—cities, towns, villages, farms devastated. And here in
Avignon were pilgrims seeking prayers for the souls of fathers, brothers, sons.

But within the papal enclave the bureaucracy ground on, cardinals and clergy moving about protected by retinues of clerks, approachable only after sufficient silver or other valuables had changed hands.

Thomas saw the confusion in his mother’s eyes, heard the frustration in her tight voice, intuited her disillusionment from the hours she’d spent in front of her portable altar. But she spoke of none of that. In public she was all business, arranging for comfortable, affordable lodgings and quickly making friends of several goodwives certain to have the pulse of the papal city as well as an abbess in Avignon on business for her convent.

“The abbess is here seeking funds. With so many nobles dead, and the king’s heavy taxation, she has lost her primary benefactors, and her abbey’s crops were either seized by our armies or burned. She says that even King Philip is in financial distress. I predict that we’ll learn much here that will be of interest to King Edward.” It was a part of Maud’s litany of hope.

“She must still have sufficient wealth if she can afford to be heard here,” said Thomas. The court officials threatened to consume every last shred of Thomas’s money and patience. Many made it clear that they would accept information about King Edward’s plans, his financial situation, his forces, in lieu of some of the silver. Of course, Thomas refused. They found his loyalty amusing, considering his petition.

But Pope Clement took the case seriously, assigning Cardinal Adhémar Robert to handle it.

At their first meeting, Thomas and Maud knelt to the cardinal and kissed his ring.

“Rise up! You are both most welcome. Come, share some wine while we talk.”

His crimson robes were of silk, his chamber filled with
carved furnishings draped in embroidered silks, the walls hung with tapestries of conquest and wonders.

“I surround myself with things of beauty to remind me of God’s beneficence,” said the cardinal, seeing Thomas’s interest.

His smile was a contrast in white teeth and olive skin. Wolfish, Thomas thought as he settled on a well-cushioned chair. A servant offered them goblets of wine. Maud turned hers round in her hands. Thomas imagined her wondering whether the heavy pewter and precious stones had been gifts from former petitioners.

“To the satisfactory resolution of your marital problem,” said the cardinal, raising his cup.

They drank. It was an excellent wine, but Thomas set it aside after the obligatory sip. “My lord cardinal, I did not expect such a notable advocate.”

“It is not unusual, I assure you. I shall merely oversee the case. My assistants will do all the work.” A cool smile. “I am blessed with a most industrious staff, which, unfortunately, means that they are overwhelmed with work.”

By the time they departed the cardinal’s chamber, Thomas and Maud had a list of a dozen clerics requiring gifts, but had been asked nothing about the case.

“I am in danger of losing my faith in this cesspit,” Maud said, striding out of the cardinal’s palace with such determination that Thomas did not need to shorten his stride to accommodate her. “All that they say about the corruption of the papacy in exile is true,” she growled as they hurried through an elegantly cultivated garden toward the street.

Discouraged, he expressed a need to walk about the city until his temper cooled.

“We are to dine with Abbess Marianne. Our walk must needs be short, so let it be brisk!” Maud took off at a pace that had her veils fluttering despite the lack of breeze, her boots sounding a loud tattoo on the cobbles.

At the main gate of the city, they noticed a small company of travelers standing without the gates and loudly arguing with the papal guards. Servants and men in livery stood round an elegantly garbed elderly woman who had stepped out of her litter to join the fray.

“They are English,” said Maud as they grew closer. “Perhaps we can be of assistance before they are relieved of all their wealth. Heavenly mother!” She stopped so abruptly that Thomas almost stepped on her skirts. “That is Elizabeth, dowager countess of Salisbury.”

“Will’s grandmother?” Thomas was now close enough to pick out the Salisbury arms on the knights attending her.

Maud took his arm. “Come along, it’s time we returned to our lodging and conferred with Abbess Marianne. I know the dowager’s reputation. There is no more litigious woman in all the realm. Worse even than Blanche Wake. Legal disputes are her entertainment.”

“God help us.” Thomas wondered who told Will they were here, and how the dowager countess had managed to arrive so speedily.

“Does the king see your marriage as a personal slight?” His mother had paused halfway across the sunny courtyard of their lodgings, shielding her eyes from the brightness as she looked up at Thomas. “Might he have encouraged the dowager countess to press a countersuit?”

“I did not expect him to care.”

“Honor blinds you to how the world actually works, Thomas.” Maud sighed and hurried within to dress for dinner.

I
N THE ENSUING WEEKS THEY DINED SEVERAL TIMES WITH THE CARDINAL
,
and it became clear that he had no intention of rushing his decision. Abbess Marianne explained that the dowager countess Elizabeth smelled of money, and keeping court in Avignon
was a costly enterprise, particularly since the English armies had destroyed the French crops and supplies must be ordered from afar. But that was not the only reason Cardinal Robert disliked King Edward of England. Four years earlier, Edward had arrested Robert’s lawyer and expelled him from the realm in the midst of an important negotiation. It did not help the Earl of Salisbury’s case that King Edward was said to favor his claim. The abbess advised that they avoid any contact with the dowager countess and prepare to be patient. Her advice proved sound.

The cardinal informed them that he would send lawyers under the protection of the papal seal to confer with Lady Joan and Dame Katarina—in spring. He helped the Hollands find more comfortable lodgings for the winter months.

A
T LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE PERMITTED HER THE PLEASURE OF RIDING
,
but Will did not want Joan to see the terrain, so she spent her days in the stifling wagon with Helena and poor Jester. At night she gave Will the silent treatment, as he pouted and swore that he was only following the queen’s orders. But worse was to come. For the last two days of the journey, Will insisted that Joan and Helena be blindfolded, with their hands and legs bound. They tossed about as the wooden wheels wobbled along a rough track, freed from their bonds only to relieve themselves and eat. They slept in the cart, bound, Jester in his openwork basket beside Joan, often whimpering in his sleep at the animal sounds outside. As Joan lay awake, she cycled through her list of those she counted responsible for this insult—the king and queen, Ned, Countess Catherine, Earl William, her mother,
Will—imagining fitting torments for them, even the dead earl. She hated them all, and yearned for Thomas. Helena tried to distract her with stories, songs, tales of her childhood home, but Joan paid little attention.

On the morning of the third day, Joan heard a lookout calling, the rattle and creak of a gate opening, and the echo of the horses’ hooves as they entered a walled enclosure. The cart halted.

“Where is my lady?”

Joan had never been so grateful to hear Efa’s voice.

Will was suddenly in the cart, hastily removing her blindfold, then her bonds. “Forgive me, Joan.”

“Never.” She spit in his face.

“God in heaven.” Efa’s eyes were wide with disbelief, her voice crackling as Will helped Joan down from the cart. “In what world does a lord treat his lady so?” She came round to support Joan while calling to the nearest man to free Helena from her bonds.