Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (52 page)

“My lady,” whispered Brother Francis, touching her shoulder. “It is over. Now you must rest.”

She sat up, but only to kneel beside the bed. “I’ll watch with my husband until dawn.” Brother Francis bowed and stepped back, murmuring prayers behind her.

At dawn, Ned lifted her and carried her to her chamber, softly calling for Helena to prepare her for rest. He kissed Joan on the forehead, and withdrew.

She had such dreams. Riding after Thomas, whose horse was swifter, better at maneuvering between the trees of an increasingly dense forest. Floating on a lake in a mist, listening for the oars of his boat. Flying through the air toward a high tower on which he stood, watching the sunrise. Joan woke to a yawning emptiness. Her hands were so cold, her mind so blank that she thought she might have died as well.

“My lady, will you dress?” Helena asked, her face marked by grief.

“Who is still here? Brother Francis?”

“The infirmarian left his novice Antony to assist you in preparing my lord’s body, if you wish his help. Prince Edward is biding nearby, awaiting your summons. Sir Hugh and the other retainers have organized watches with their lord’s body. And the servants are going about their duties as silently as possible, their hearts heavy for your loss. Our loss. All the household loved my lord Thomas. He was the best of men.”

He was. Of that Joan had no doubt.

“While you sat with my lord, the maid Janet and I busied ourselves, my lady.” Helena held up a black wool gown. “You have another one for more elegant—”

“And you spared me the task. Bless you.” Joan was a widow. As Helena dressed her, Joan called on God to help her cope with all that must be done.

“Have they found any trace of Simon?”

“No, my lady.”

“Have Sir Hugh question the servants who are not of my household.” Someone might have seen him depart. Someone
might have helped him. Though too late to save Thomas, Joan meant to know who had robbed her of her beloved. “While he does that, we shall wash Earl Thomas’s body. The novice can assist. And send for my cousin the prince.” He could advise her on where to have Thomas held until she could remove him to the Greyfriars in Stamford, according to his will. “Come, Helena, it is time.” She needed to busy herself.

Reentering the room, she was moved by the quiet presence of Thomas’s battle-scarred men, bowed in grief or sitting tall, determined to be strong yet showing their sorrow by their very stiffness. He had inspired devotion.

Her breath caught as she drew the cover from her beloved’s body. Already he lacked healthy color. So soon he had slipped away from her. Emotion nearly choked her. Taking the wet cloth from Helena, Joan bathed Thomas. Such cold flesh. She noted the wounds marking his courage, discipline, dedication, and prayed that God would mark them as well and keep him close. How she wished Thomas might have lived long enough to rest easy at last, reaping the bounty of the earldom that she had brought him and the renown that he had earned, and to enjoy Tom, John, Maud, and Jeannette, and they him. Their father had been absent so much of their young lives. He might have been so inspiring as the boys grew older. Not now. With the help of Helena and Antony, Joan sewed Thomas into his shroud with fine herbs. She did her best to remember the words Efa had said over her mother.

Hugh awaited Joan outside the chamber to report what he’d learned from the local servants. She’d forgotten that he was questioning them.

“They swear they did not know Simon. One saw him leave, alone, but did not know to challenge him.”

“And you believe them?”

“I do, my lady.”

She turned at the sound of Ned’s voice in the hall beyond,
familiar, a touchstone. For a moment, she rejoiced. She might relax in his protection. But Thomas had been jealous of him.
No, my love, no. It was you from the moment you smiled at me
.

“His Grace the Prince of Wales requests your presence at dinner,” said Hugh.

So formal? “How did he say that to you?”

“My lady?”

“His very words.”

“He asked if you had sat down to a meal since my lord fell ill. I did not think so. He said, ‘I thought not. Tell my cousin that Ned is here. Over dinner she can tell me how I can best be of service.’ ”

Joan felt a flutter of hope. She need not bear all this alone. “Have you told him about Simon?”

“I did, my lady. He said the man did not sound familiar, nor had he been sent by the royal party in Calais.”

How bold a plan, how confident that neither she nor Thomas would question his story. He’d had no letter, no royal seal. She stood aghast at her negligence.

“My lady?”

She took Hugh’s hand. “I have so many regrets. But you have been so very steadfast. Thank you. For everything.”

Hand to heart, he bowed to her.

In the hall, Ned stood resplendent in velvet and silk, dark colors trimmed with silver. Regal mourning. He seemed uncertain how to greet her, starting to lift his arms to embrace her, but halting mid-gesture.

“It is so good to see you, Ned.” She walked into his embrace, holding him for a moment. Then she led him to the table. “Distract me from my remorse, my grief, and my worry about my fatherless children.”

“They have you, Joan, and that is far more than most children have. You are Countess of Kent, you will now be granted seisin of the estates of the earldom. You’ve the wealth, the lands,
the power to take good care of your children, and you have your family to turn to—you are a Plantagenet.”

Joan looked at the large, calloused hand he’d placed over her own cold, trembling one. His rings proclaimed his wealth and status, and reminded her that he was right; she was not one of the disenfranchised widows she had encountered in France. Soon she would return to her estates, see her children, find a life in them.

“I should be with them.”

“I’ll arrange your journey home.”

She softly thanked him. “But Simon … he let Thomas die, Ned, he hastened—” She paused and breathed to clear her head. “How did he know we would accept him? Who helped him? It is as if he knew that Efa stayed behind at the last minute.”

“No doubt there are spies at home. We have them here. Thomas made many enemies.”

“Doing your father’s bidding.”

“We will find him, Joan. I swear to you, I will avenge Thomas’s untimely death. But your place now is with your children. Only you can comfort them.”

He had leaned close, but now sat back, quietly waiting as the servants brought the food. He looked weary, his eyes heavy-lidded, his posture not as sharp as was his custom. He looked more like the old Ned. Human. Vulnerable.

“Thomas’s burial,” she said. “He wished to be buried in the church of the Greyfriars in Stamford.”

“I have made arrangements. The Church of the Friars Minor in Rouen will hold Thomas’s coffin in a stone sarcophagus in the undercroft until the Greyfriars are ready to receive him in Stamford. I shall arrange for the journey, with several of Thomas’s men accompanying him, led by Sir Hugh, and, of course, several of the friars. This is my mourning gift to you, cousin. I pray you will accept it.”

“All the way to Lincolnshire?” Coffin. Sarcophagus. Mourning.
She did not like those words. She drank more wine to flush away the taste, but it lingered.

“Will you accept?”

“Yes. You are most generous.”

“You can return to England directly after Thomas’s requiem Mass.”

Leaving her beloved behind. She fought tears. She still listened for a cry of surprise and one of Thomas’s men rushing in with the news that their lord yet lived.

Softly, Ned said, “Joan, your children already missed you at Christmas. You must go to them.”

“Christmas?”

“It was four days ago.”

She counted backward. “Thomas died on the Feast of the Holy Innocents.” She lifted her hand to cross herself, but dropped it. Prayer had not saved Thomas; God was not listening. She wanted to close her eyes and join Thomas, be done with this purgatory.

“Your children are innocents, Joan. They need their mother.”

Did he still know her so well that he could guess her thoughts? She nodded. Of course, he was right.

By his quietly reassuring presence, Ned supported her through the long ordeal of separation—Thomas’s shrouded body lifted into a wooden casket, the slow procession through the streets of Rouen to the friary, the moment when she must walk away from her beloved, leaving him in the hands of the friars, strangers, men who’d not known Thomas’s goodness. As he had when she’d run from her life and tumbled into the hole, Ned stood watch by her during those first nights when she feared sleep, feared touching Thomas’s spirit and finding him changed, no longer needing her, no longer wanting her. In a chair by her bed, the hero of Poitiers slept, guarding her from the creatures of the night as he’d once guarded her from Will. This time she was grateful.

O
N THE LAST DAY IN
N
ORMANDY
, J
OAN WALKED IN ON
H
ELENA AND
Janet packing the chests for the journey. Thomas’s favorite jacket and a worn pair of his boots lay beside an open chest. Dear God, he would never wear them again. With a sob, Joan sank to her knees, gathering Thomas’s things to her. “Leave me,” she whispered. Until now she had been strong, and, once home, she must be again. But here she could rock and keen her grief, giving in to her sorrow.

O
n the eve of her departure for home, Joan received Sir John Chandos, who told her that his men had caught Simon riding west and questioned him. He’d been hired by the Breton captain who had thought to take her captive in Brittany, whose citadel Thomas’s men had burned.

“Bring him to me. I want to hear his confession,” she said. “I want to curse him to his face.”

“My lady, he had something on him when captured, some poison. He was already slurring his words when we questioned him, and by nightfall he was dead. I am sorry.”

“Then his captain.”

Sir John bowed. “We will do our utmost to find him, my lady, but you yourself know all too well the chaos of the countryside.”

“I do. But I pray your men do not use that as an excuse to neglect their duty.” She saw that her words stung, and quickly assured him that she did not question his honor. She needed him. Ned had returned to Calais, and her own men, Thomas’s men, were already across the Channel, heading for Lincolnshire.

“I am at your service, my lady.” Sir John bowed again, hand to heart.

On her own crossing, Joan felt as alone and vulnerable as she had so long ago on board the ship to Ghent. Until Thomas befriended her. How warm he had been, how strong and steadfast, how safe she had felt in his presence. Even the company of Helena and all who had been so kind could not comfort her. She withdrew into silence, sunk in remorse for all the choices that had led to Thomas’s death by malicious neglect, sick with the frustration of being denied a chance to confront his murderer.

Ned’s steward Sir Richard Stafford met her at the dock in Portsmouth to escort her to Westminster, where she was to see to the legal matters involved in taking seisin of her estates. As they rode, he regretfully informed her of a troubling situation with her property, requiring extensive politics to undo. “My lord Prince Edward has instructed me to see to recovering all of it, which might prove a lengthy process.”

“Undo what?”

He claimed that Thomas had signed over properties in a way that removed them from Joan’s control in the event of his death abroad. She could not imagine Thomas being such a fool. He had been inexperienced in such matters, it was true, but he had hired good lawyers and stewards, many of them recommended by Ned and Queen Philippa.

“I am sorry to distress you so in your mourning, my lady. Rest assured, we will correct this,” said Sir Richard.

She accepted his apology and suggested that they ride the rest of the way in silence. She would consult with Blanche. Together they would get to the bottom of all this and make it right.

N
ED HAD ARRANGED FOR HER TO BIDE IN HIS
P
ALACE OF
K
ENNINGTON
while untangling the legal mess, Westminster being a brief ferry ride across the Thames. She’d remembered it as a modest country home, but as they approached up a long drive planted
with young trees, a grand palace appeared, bustling with building works—a surprising amount of activity in winter, as if Ned were preparing for a state event.

“It would seem you have sufficient work providing the funds for all this,” she said to Stafford. “My cousin is spending a fortune on his grand estate.”

“He will one day be king, my lady,” Stafford said, as if that explained all.

“One day years from now, God willing, so why this haste? Has he a wife in mind?”

“I have heard no such rumor, my lady.”

As Joan entered the yard, a small group stepped through the hall door. God in heaven, they were here—Blanche, Maud, Efa with Jeannette in her arms. She had not hoped to see them until she went north for Thomas’s burial. Her heart lifted. Calling impatiently for a groom to assist her in dismounting, Joan then rushed to her daughters, gathering them in her arms, showering them with kisses. Then Blanche, and finally Efa. “If only you had been with us,” she sobbed in her nurse’s ear.