Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (46 page)

“Well done, brother!” Otho nodded to Hugh. “See to all this. I’m taking Thomas off to celebrate with a tankard or three.”

Along the way to the drink, they gathered well-wishers. By the time they arrived at the tent, they were a dozen strong. God had spared so many of his friends. It was indeed a joyous reunion. Thomas eased down onto a bench, glad to stretch out his legs after the long ride.

His old friend Roland brought him the first tankard. “God grant Lady Joan is safe delivered of a male heir!” He sank down next to Thomas, well on his way to a good drunk.

Thomas had downed two tankards by the time Prince Edward parted the crowd to find out if it was true about his cousin’s pregnancy. His words and manner were merry, his congratulations loud, but his eyes—Thomas did not like what he saw there.

The prince took a seat and regaled the crowd with the tale of a Christmas adventure—he, his father the king, and the Earl of March had assembled an army to defend Calais against an intended raid by the French, and succeeded brilliantly. “I should have summoned you, Thomas,” said the prince. “You would not have had the time to get Joan with child and we all might have celebrated now.” He laughed as if he’d said it in jest, and departed.

But he’d not been in jest. And the devil of it was, hearing about the skirmish, Thomas regretted having missed it.

“We’ll be back in the fight by summer,” Otho predicted. “You’ll get your chance.”

“You know me so well.”

“Anyone could see that you wished you’d been there.” He leaned close. “I don’t know what to make of the prince’s remarks. Surely he does not see himself as your rival?”

“You read him well. Now come, drink up. This is no place for such talk.”

In all the waiting and yearning for marriage, Thomas had never considered how it might muddle things. If he took part in the summer mission, would he be home in time for the birth? Did that matter? He shook off such thoughts. Joan was everything to him. For now, a tourney was enough. He settled in to enjoy the reunion with his comrades-in-arms.

A
S SPRING ADVANCED
J
OAN SLOWED DOWN
,
NAPPING IN THE AFTERNOONS
,
walking shorter distances with Jester and riding very little, heeding Efa’s advice even when she yearned for more activity. This child growing in her womb was too precious for her to do otherwise; she had waited too long for this experience. Her senses heightened; she felt everything more keenly—emotions, beauty, wonder. For the first time since childhood, she would sit for hours in the garden listening to the insects and the wind, the animals in the distance, watching butterflies and bees sample the blossoms.

“God’s wondrous world. Nothing at court equals this,” she said to Besetta one afternoon as the two of them sat in the kitchen garden enjoying the natural light for their needlework. Joan was embroidering a little cap for the baby, and Besetta was darning her husband’s hose.

The housekeeper smiled. “Carrying a child brings us close
to our animal companions, and all nature,” she said. “Does the queen enjoy such peace when she is with child?”

Joan told her about Philippa giving birth to Lionel in Antwerp, John in Ghent, her pregnancy in Calais.

“Poor woman,” said Besetta, bending to her work. “I should not like to be a queen.”

“Nor would I.”

J
OAN CELEBRATED
T
HOMAS
’
S RETURN A FORTNIGHT LATER
,
EAGER TO
share her new experiences with him. Patiently she listened to his account of the Garter gathering, then rushed to tell him about the birth of a litter of kittens, the first wobbly steps of several lambs, how she’d helped prepare the kitchen garden for spring.

“You, my love?” Thomas took her hands, turned them over and over. “I am relieved to find them still smooth. So you jest.”

“I wear gloves, you foolish man. Did you love me only for my uncalloused hands?”

“I am not so foolish as that.”

“They do say that mothers-to-be are strangers even to themselves.… You’re frowning. What is wrong?”

He told her of the summer mission. “Will you be bored? Lonely? Shall I send for Blanche? Would you prefer to go to her?”

She kissed him to silence him. “I’ll send word to Aunt Blanche, but only because she made me promise to do so. I am content, my love, and have Efa, Besetta, and Helena to spoil me. Believe me, I am happier than I can ever remember.”

True, she had imagined him by her side in the last months of her pregnancy, and had thought he might insist on being with her, but it had been a dream. Long ago, Thomas had pledged his life to the restoration of the honor of his house. His greatest moment had not been winning his petition but becoming a founding member of the Order of the Garter. She’d known
this. Yet in no way did Thomas neglect her, and she could see in his unguarded eye how he loved her. Still, in her weaker moments she was jealous—of his armor, so lovingly tended, of his destrier, fed and exercised with such care, even of Hugh, who had served him so long, as page, then squire, and now sergeant.

Until his departure, Thomas easily fell back into the life on the land. Having lost so many tenants and servants to the pestilence, he joined in to help with much of the work in early summer. Men and women did appear seeking work, and Joan learned from Thomas’s caution, as well as his trust of the judgment of Andrew and Besetta, how to choose good help. Knowing that departures and homecomings would shape their life together, Joan meant to become self-sufficient.

But when the time came for Thomas to depart, Joan thought her heart would break. He found it no easier, swearing that he could not leave after all, his place was with her and their child. And it fell to Joan to assure him that she was in the best hands and there was little he could do. “Bring honor to our family, my love.”

After Thomas and Hugh departed, the summer played out in quiet days filled with dreams of motherhood, Joan lazing in the garden, talking to the grooms as she visited the horses, walking in the fields with Jester and the hunting dogs, planning a mews with Andrew and a carpenter. Lady Blanche arrived in mid-October with piles of beautiful coverlets for the cradle and gorgeous wool and silk cloths for a post-pregnancy wardrobe. Joan had feared that she might find her aunt aging and broken with grief. But mourning had given Blanche new impetus. She was at law with an abbot whose lands abutted hers, and deep in plans to revitalize several manors. She approved of Joan’s adaptation to married life.

“Few women are so industrious during their first pregnancy. Good. How do you like being lady of the manor?”

“I wake every morning wondering how long this contentment can possibly last, who is about to shatter it.”

Blanche kissed Joan’s forehead, lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “It will last as long as you keep your head.”

In short order, Blanche organized a thorough freshening of the master bedchamber in preparation for Joan’s lying-in. She, Efa, and Helena would sleep with Joan as she took to her bed before birth, while Besetta ran the household.

By the time Thomas returned, Joan had withdrawn for the birth. But she insisted that he be permitted some time with her in their bedchamber. He looked frightened as he picked his way past the pallets set up for her three companions.

Joan drew him down onto the bed beside her, holding him so that he might feel their rowdy child. “This is how we continue, my love,” she said. “Through mothers’ pain.”

She was not so philosophical when her labor began. For years she’d listened to the ladies of the queen’s chamber exchange dramatic stories of their labors, particularly in the days leading up to the queen’s deliveries. But nothing had prepared her for her own descent into travail. That such a miracle as a child should be born of such agony.

“Blame it on Eve’s sin, my lady,” said Blanche.

“I’m not Eve!”

Back and forth she walked, supported by Besetta and Efa, then Blanche and Helena, the women trading off as the hours added up to a day, and still the child tested Joan’s endurance. She wept to think that her mother had endured such pain to bring her into the world.

At last, the moment. She’d been torn apart and waited for death, but instead she heard an infant’s shrill cry, the sound tugging at her heart so strongly she gasped. Efa handed Joan her son, a perfectly formed child. Nothing she had ever felt, nothing she had called love, nothing came close to what welled up within her at that beholding.

“A son!” Blanche called down to all who waited. “A fine, healthy son. His dam is weary, but rest will renew her.”

When Joan woke, Thomas was sitting beside her, holding her hand, gazing on her as if she were the most amazing woman in God’s creation. “We have a son, my love,” he whispered.

“I know.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Have you seen him? He has ten fingers and ten toes, and I very much fear he has the long Plantagenet nose.”

“Nonsense!” Blanche set the swaddled baby in Thomas’s arms. “Look. It is a baby’s nose like all others.”

“A button,” said Thomas, kissing it.

“I must have dreamed it.” Joan laughed.

“He is perfect, my love.” Thomas’s voice was husky with emotion. “I wish our mothers had lived to see this day.”

They said nothing for a while, holding hands, gazing on their son.

“We must send word to the king,” Joan said. “And Ned,” she added with some reluctance.

“The prince? Why?” Blanche asked sharply.

“He begged the honor of standing as godfather to our firstborn son. It is an auspicious beginning for our child.” It was. But already she wondered at herself for pursuing this.

“God help us,” said Blanche. “Where will we put his retinue?”

“Oh, Aunt, don’t worry. He’ll send a messenger with gifts. He won’t come all this way himself.”

“At what cost to us, this honor?” Thomas asked, softly, as if uncertain he wished her to hear.

But Joan heard. “What’s happened, Thomas? What’s Ned done now?”

A false smile. “Nothing, my love. It’s a passing mood.” Now his smile became true, as the baby squirmed.

“Our little Tom,” said Joan. “He’s ours, Thomas—ours, not the king’s or the prince’s.”

Joan had been wrong in her prediction. Shortly before her churching, Ned arrived carrying gifts, and stayed for two
nights. She’d not had time to find the white hart bed coverings he’d given them and, when he noted their absence, lied about taking them down for the birthing. “I could not bear to stain them.” She heard Thomas’s intake of breath at her lie, but so be it. Ned had come all this way in honor of their son and she would be courteous, if not loving. “We haven’t the room for all your retinue.”

He walked her to the window to show her that his men were putting up pavilions in the far meadow. “They are accustomed to campaigning, they will be fine.”

Ned did not think about the cost of feeding them all, or the work involved. Thomas and Blanche shared the honor and burden of hosting him with Besetta and Andrew. Joan preened in the attention he showered on her. And, afterward, the tenants paid in depleted stores.

“I pray you do not invite him after the next birth, Joan, or we’ll starve, and all our tenants with us.”

Thomas’s words stung with truth, and though she had not invited Ned, she promised to be more careful in future.

But Thomas still paced, brow furrowed.

“Something more?”

“The lie about the white hart hangings.”

“Diplomacy, my love. It was a generous gift—”

“An intrusive gift, Joan.” He held her eyes.

“Yes it was, my love. My Plantagenet relatives have ever been a curse in my life. But they are my family and our sovereigns, and they deserve our respect, if not our affection. For our son’s sake, if not for ours. Is that not so? Even Robert has been forgiven. And Blanche.”

Thomas groaned and slumped down beside her, taking one of her hands and kissing it. A vein pulsed on his scarred left temple. “I hoped—you are of no use to them now, wed to someone already subject to them. I’d hoped they would leave you in peace, except for the annual St. George’s Day gathering of
the order. What if he follows through on what he said, taking charge of his godson’s fosterage? Our son would be beholden to him. And so would we.”

“I know. But he will be anyway. Ned will be his prince, and someday his king. But I do pray the war focuses my cousin’s attention elsewhere.”

The tension broke as baby Tom’s shrieks preceded his appearance in Efa’s arms. Thomas laughed, kissed Joan’s hand again, and rose. “Saved by a hungry child,” he said, lifting Tom from Efa’s arms. Handing him to Joan, her bodice unbuttoned and ready, Thomas whispered, “How I envy you, my son.”

Joan watched her beloved melt as their son’s mouth closed round her nipple, sucking contentedly. She reached up to stroke his face. “I am who I am.”

“And I would not have you any other way.” He kissed her hand and strode out of the hall, whistling.

Peace had been restored, but a crack had appeared in paradise, and it was her doing. Joan had spent her life resenting the burden of her Plantagenet blood, and now she had brought that curse on her son. And on Thomas. God forgive her.

P
OOR HARVESTS
,
THE EXPENSE OF FIGHTING IN FRANCE
,
THE PAPAL
petition, and then pestilence had depleted Thomas’s coffers. He had never received the full payment King Edward promised him for the Count of Eu, nor would he in future, for Raoul, his dear friend, had been executed as a traitor upon his return to France. Had Thomas and Joan accompanied him, they might have met a similar fate. Thomas crossed himself. God had been good to them. But, with a fine son and another child on the way, he needed an appointment by which he might prove
his worth to the king and earn an annuity. Even better if it afforded a chance for booty. Joan was a woman made for jewels and fine clothes, and he wanted to give them to her. She never complained, but he could not imagine that she would always be content to live such a simple life, so much humbler than the one she had once known.