Secrets at Court (14 page)

But not in that order.

So when a woman with a crutch rose out of the darkness before him, at first he thought he dreamt. ‘Anne?’ Would a vision in a dream answer?

‘Nicholas?’

No dream, perhaps. He took another step and tripped, sprawling across the floor.

The laughter—no, that was not what he would dream. It was Anne.

He groped for the candle, but it had rolled away, flame extinguished. Gingerly, he moved his legs, his knee and hip as wounded as his pride.

In the dark, he could hear her catch her breath, trying to douse her mirth. ‘I don’t think I could lift you,’ she began, ‘but I could lend you my crutch.’

And at that, he had to laugh, too. No way to maintain dignity or present himself as a rational, logical man. No way to apologise in grave tones or explain away a momentary pique. The man who fixed things, solved problems, smoothed over all difficulties, could not even rise from the floor unaided.

He sighed, his tongue loosened just enough by the wine he had drunk. ‘Ah, Anne. I had planned to apologise for behaving rudely on the way home from Canterbury, but you have just seen me at my worst. Accept my total humiliation as a token of my deep regret.’

Thankfully, she did not laugh again, but lowered herself to the floor, relieving him of the need to struggle to his feet.

Sitting next to her, wrapped in darkness, felt as private and intimate as in the confessional booth.

‘I accept,’ she whispered. ‘But you must pay a penance.’

‘Will the aching head I am sure to have in the morning not be penance enough?’

She must have shaken her head. ‘I revealed something of myself and you spurned me for it. Your punishment shall be to answer my questions.’

So that you can scorn me?
He had told her already of his greatest failure and she had said nothing, but she was a woman, and did not understand the demands of war. ‘Ask.’

‘First, where are you from?’

Where are you from?

Why did his lips freeze on the reply?

He could barely summon an image of the countryside of his childhood. A marsh. A meadow. All things he had left to forget.

‘Lincolnshire. I was born in Lincolnshire.’ He pushed himself up from the floor. If he were to deal with the past, he must at least be sitting upright.

‘Is your family still there?’

Family. Did he have such a thing? His mother had died before he could remember. There was nothing for him in Lincolnshire. Not then, and certainly not now.

‘My mother died. My father never left. He died two miles from the place he was born.’

Not in Scotland or France. Not serving his King with the proud English longbow as he had dreamed. Instead, he died a tanner, permeated with the stink of animal skins. Trapped by his lust into marrying a woman who had presented herself as a chaste maiden instead of an experienced wench, already with child.

Lust was not to be trusted, Nicholas had decided. Even his own.

‘So you have no one?’ There was surprise, concern in her voice.

‘No.’ No one he wanted to remember.

His stepmother had preferred her own son to him. And Nicholas had allowed his feelings to rule him. He had kicked, screamed, disappeared for hours. He wanted nothing of home, nor they of him.

He was no scholar, but his father sent him to the monks, who beat enough Latin into him that he could hold his own as an ambassador to His Holiness. But even then, the plan had been for him to sink into the same pit as his father, surrounded by urine and blood and dung and stale beer.

‘But you left,’ she said, interrupting his memories.

‘I ran away.’ Finally, witless fool that he was.

‘You? What was your plan?’

‘I had none. I just...ran.’ The last impulsive thing he had ever done. By rights, he should have ended up dead in the gutter of the London streets. Instead, he was picked up from the side of the road by a knight as hungry for adventure as he was. One who appreciated the young boy’s ability to wield his brain as well as his sword.

Yet that impetuous act had given him the life he wanted.

‘And now you’ve been all the way to Avignon.’ Her voice was as wistful as he had felt as a child when he would escape to watch the road, wishing he could see where it lead.

‘Avignon, Calais, Amiens, Toulouse, Bordeaux...’ And more. Places whose names he couldn’t even remember.

‘I envy you.’ Her voice, in the dark, brought him back from memories. ‘I’ve never been beyond Lady Joan’s household. Not until Canterbury.’

Never been away from her lady. Never seen anything her lady did not also want to see. ‘And you wanted to. As much as I did.’ His head was beginning to clear.

‘You could not understand how much it meant to me to be...free. Just for those few days.’

Ah, but he did. For it was what he had sought all his life. What was finally near his grasp. ‘And don’t you want more?’

‘More? I have food, clothing, shelter. And if I am lucky, a place in heaven. What more could I want?’

‘Marriage?’ An abrupt question. ‘Isn’t that something you might want?’ He had asked her the question weeks ago. Now, he was not sure what answer he wanted to hear.

She looked down and then back at him, with a smile that said she thought he was a wiser man than that. ‘Is it something I might want? As a rabbit might look up at the moon and want to jump there?’

‘But...’ After a life of being a smooth-tongued diplomat, he found himself speechless. He did not know much of her family, but she was a knight’s daughter. Even if she had little dowry, there might be someone. But she was implying her limp alone would...

Well, it would. Who would want to marry a woman who could not tramp up and down the castle stairs or chase the children? Yes, there might be an elusive ‘more’ to be yearned for, but one must be grateful for life alone or be willing to face the alternative.

She was right. Food, clothing, shelter...but even the son of a lowly Lincolnshire tanner had wanted more than that.

‘Even the King wants us to aspire to more. To chivalry.’

‘And to chivalric love? Thus should a lady aspire to inspire,’ she said. ‘My lady has certainly done so.’

Her lady. Her lady. ‘I have heard all I need to about Lady Joan. If I have paid my penance, I think I will find my bed.’

Without hesitation, she thrust her stick into his hand, as if he, too, might need help to rise.

He did.

And after, he gave her his arm, helped her up and let her point him in the right direction.

‘Why were you here?’ he asked, fog finally clearing from his brain. ‘Wandering the halls in the dead of night?’

She leaned on his arm and whispered in his ear, ‘The Prince and my lady wanted...time alone.’

And so poor Anne was left to wander the halls. The anger she refused to feel rose in him. ‘But that’s not right.’

‘You won’t tell the Archbishop, will you?’

Simon Islip had never crossed his mind. All he could think of was Anne and how damned brave and stubborn and selfless she was.

He shook his head. ‘Can you return to bed now?’

‘I think so. It is near dawn.’ She turned and called out behind her, ‘Sleep well.’

Behind him, the uneven thump of foot and crutch faded. Then he went down the innumerable stairs, each one a rebuff, and out into the cool air of a September night, and off to find a bed alongside the poor knights in the lower ward.

But he did not sleep. He was thinking of Anne.

Day after day, a woman beyond the blush of maidenhood moved uncomplaining through constant pain. Pain that had etched small lines around lips pursed against it and at the edge of eyes that had winced too often.

Why would he chatter to such a woman about marriage?

It must be the occasion. For weeks, he had been immersed in details of matrimony. What made a marriage official under the church? When was a couple married and when could that be put aside? When would Edward and Joan be allowed to marry? He had been thinking of nothing but marriage. If he had met Anne during the campaign in France, he would have asked her about ships and horse fodder and the price of salted herring.

He rolled on to his back and watched the sky grow light, struggling to control the direction of his foggy thoughts.

He was not a man who would ever marry. Least of all a woman like Anne of Stamford. Yet all the reasons he listed, her infirmity, the burden she would be, not only seemed cruel, they had proven untrue or unimportant.

No, the truth that came to him was more stark.

The truth was, he had nothing to offer her, or any woman, but a strong right arm and a nimble brain. All he had to show for thirty-one years on this earth was the horse beneath him and the armour on his back.

And when he died, there would be nothing to show at all.

Chapter Fourteen

W
hen the King and Queen returned to Windsor for Michaelmas, Edward insisted that the entire court join his inspection of the progress on the new buildings.

Summer was past, the season looked toward winter. But despite the drizzle and the awkward footing in the Upper Ward, Anne enjoyed getting outside, away from detailed discussions of the size of the ostrich feathers and leopards’ heads to adorn the red-velvet marital bed.

The mood was festive. Henry the fiddler joined the throng, entertaining those less interested in hearing the clerk of the works discuss the precise angle of the kitchen roof.

The workmen, interrupted, stepped aside to let the King extol his plans. Anne, with a nod of permission from a stonecutter covered with white dust, perched on the block of shaved stone to admire their work.

The new hall and chapel, paid for with French ransoms, were rising against the north wall of the Upper Ward, grand as a cathedral, and flanked by two gatehouses. Sleeping chambers would be luxurious compared to the cramped quarters within the Round Tower. It would be done soon. And years from now, when Lady Joan became Queen Joan, this would be her home.

And Anne’s.

Paid for many times over. Yes, she would be safe here, protected by royal walls, and in a castle where even the passage to the kitchen was protected by a stone tower.

She felt Nicholas beside her before she saw him, and when she looked up, he glanced down at the ground before he met her eyes. He smiled, as tentative as a young page, as if uncertain what to say.

She returned it, equally uncertain.

‘How go the plans?’ he asked.

‘As you might expect,’ she said, aware they were surrounded by ears. ‘There is much to do. They want all in readiness so they can be wed just as soon as the Pope’s dispensation arrives.’

‘The Prince asks me twelve times a day when it will come. As if I were the cause of the delay.’ He sighed. ‘But in all the rush, you hold no needle today.’

She looked down at her fingers, amazed to see them empty. ‘I have finished my part. It is the court tailor who is working without rest now.’

Silent, they both looked toward the hall. Robert the Fool ran around the Upper Ward, tripped over a block of stone, or pretended to, then fell flat on his back at Lady Joan’s feet. When she leaned over to help and the children clustered around, he bounced to his feet, clapping, and they giggled with glee.

‘Does Lady Joan like her new home?’ Nicholas asked, finally.

‘It has not been much on her mind. First, the wedding. And then...’

‘Then, Aquitaine.’

‘Where the bridges must be rebuilt.’

His brows rose with surprise.

‘Yes, I remember.’ Her smile felt soft, at ease, finally, with who they both were.

Quiet for a moment, they listened to the clerk of the works discuss the increased number of fireplaces for the kitchen. Nicholas pulled out one of his cloth balls and tossed it idly for a few moments, then, without warning, threw it to her.

Startled, she fumbled the catch, laughing as it rolled off her skirt and onto the damp grass. She leaned over, scooped it up and threw it back at him, smiling with satisfaction when he dropped the ball.

‘The boys,’ Nicholas said, a few minutes later. ‘Will they go, too?’

She followed his gaze. Lady Joan was surrounded by her four children and the Prince seemed to be lecturing the two boys on the finer points of stag hunting.

‘Of course. Where else would they go but with their mother?’

He did not answer and suddenly, she wondered about her assumption. How old were Thomas and John? Eight? Ten? Old enough to be sent to another household for fostering.

‘There will be another son, some day,’ Nicholas said, still looking at the boys.

‘God willing.’ There was no assurance there would be a child, let alone a King, but at least neither was barren. Of that, they had proof.

‘They will be with their mother, at least.’

And she knew that Nicholas was thinking of Lady Joan’s sons. What would happen when there was another child? How would they fare, being of the King’s household, yet not royal?

Would they suffer as Nicholas had?

She reached to touch his sleeve. ‘The boys will be cared for.’ First, the Prince had been their godfather. Now, he would be their stepfather. He would take the responsibility seriously. ‘I am certain of it.’

But what of the girls? Little Joan was nearly the age her mother had been when she wed Thomas Holland, while Maud was not old enough to be let away from the nurse’s hand. What would happen to them?

Her lady, Anne had discovered over the years, was drawn to the company of men, no matter what their age. Her daughters were never neglected, her lady was too good for that, but they did not seem to be cherished, as the boys were.

Perhaps it was because she had lost one of her boys.

The King moved on and Anne rose to follow. Nicholas fell into step beside her, kicking chunks of stone and leftover pieces of wood out of her way.

Do not grow comfortable with this, she reminded herself. The Pope’s message will come soon. A wedding will be celebrated.

And Nicholas will be gone.

* * *

Relieved, Nicholas had seen the Archbishop of Canterbury arrive at Windsor just a few days later, carrying the Pope’s message. He had called the Prince and Lady Joan together, closed the door and, Nicholas was certain, extracted the formal and official promises demanded in exchange for permission to wed.

For the next few nights, candles had lit the night as the royal tailor stitched, while minstrels and the chapel singers clashed as they practised.

On the fourth day, Lady Joan declared they were ready. And so, Nicholas found himself in St George’s Chapel in Windsor on a bright, October day, as Edward and Joan stood again before the altar. A royal wedding. The only one he was ever likely to see. He had learned from Anne. He would use his eyes to see, to make a memory.

He was not a man to notice the pomp of royal costume, but the golden sparkle of the bride’s gown made him blink. Edward and Joan were beaming at each other, with smiles that belonged in the bedchamber, not in the chapel. Standing before them, Archbishop Islip looked slightly sour, but his voice was clear. He was flanked by at least four other churchmen, as if everyone wanted a portion of the honour of marrying England’s next King.

The rest of the royal family was there, of course.

If he were any judge, King Edward and Queen Philippa were trying to look pleased. And failing.

Dashed hopes, perhaps on King Edward’s part. Mourning lost chances for alliances with more than one Continental kingdom. Or, perhaps, mourning his failure to achieve them. Hadn’t those chances been lost long ago? He had not been able to successfully conclude a marriage agreement for his eldest son. What options, really, had been left?

And the Queen—well, he knew little of women, it was true. But her lips seemed tight together, as if it were the only way to keep the semblance of a smile on her face. Joan had been part of her household, raised beside her own children, including Prince Edward. And instead of becoming the model wife and mother that the Queen was, she had disrupted the fabric of church and family not once, but twice, and entangled her son in the second.

Then there was Isabella, Edward’s oldest and favourite daughter. The next to be wed, surely. She was nearly of an age with Joan, who had been so reviled for her ancient age. But Joan, at least, had been married. Isabella, at nearly thirty, was still unwed and her father had never seemed eager to find a husband for her.

She had been called wilful, Nicholas had heard.

There were others, aunts, knights and even Joan’s children, discreetly off to the side, but despite all the glittering members of the royal family, he found himself looking for Anne.

Anne, the only one who had seen these two married before.

He found her, finally, next to one of Isabella’s ladies-in-waiting. Cecily, he thought. The one she said she could laugh with.

Anne managed to stand through the ceremony, as was the custom. He searched her brow and lips for the pinch of pain, but her expression was unusually placid. If she had pain, physical or emotional, she was hiding it well.

He wondered whether she hid other things, as well.

* * *

Anne watched the happy couple saying the vows again and felt as if she lived in a dream. The echo of a chapel at midnight.
I, Edward, take thee, Joan...

And even after all that had happened, after all of Nicholas’s assurances, she thought, somehow, that it would not succeed. That God, or the Pope, would refuse permission. After all, there were such good reasons why they should not wed. Reasons which had nothing to do with Joan’s other marriages or what Anne knew. The Prince was godfather to her children, now standing below the rail, watching. They shared a grandfather, so were too close to marry. Any of those things should have been enough.

A more inept ambassador, one less skilled than Nicholas, would have failed to convince the Pope to grant an exemption. Or would have failed to persuade the Archbishop to do as the King willed.

Any of those things could have happened and the burden of guilt would have been lifted from her.

Instead, here they were, making a mockery of the laws of God.

And she hadn’t stopped it.

And none of them would ever know that the vows now spoken meant that once again, according to the laws of the church, Joan was joined to two men at the same time.

And Anne of Stamford was the only one who knew it.