The First Princess of Wales (20 page)

She yanked her arm away and went wildly off balance at the top of the steps. The prince’s quick hands shot out to seize her before she could tumble back, but her head hit the stone wall.

“Maltravers! Maltravers here!” she either shouted aloud or in the prison of her own shocked mind.

She struck out at the prince’s encircling arms thinking she would scream or faint. But she did neither. He scooped her up, flying skirts and all, and deposited her in her little chamber as if he had known exactly which of the many strange doors in the long hall was hers.

The next day she was very, very grateful he had bid her a hasty good-night and beat a coward’s retreat before he could see his Jeannette be very, very sick or curse him and his whole family for welcoming the traitor de Maltravers in their laughing midst.

P
rince Edward stared at the seven hundred polished gold spurs stretching endlessly down the gray stone wall in the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Queen Philippa still knelt in prayer at his side but, unlike his pious mother, he neither closed his eyes nor sent his thoughts heavenward. At last she whispered an amen, crossed her ample bosom in reverence, and rose.

“The souls of three hundred and fifty knights all slaughtered because they did not recognize the power of a mass of cornered peasants,” Queen Philippa observed as they strolled slowly up the nave of the great church. “It is an omen we might all note well, especially in France where Philip taxes his serfs so cruelly. They can be a danger when inflamed and then show no proper respect for God-given authority.”

“Aye. English rich and poor shoulder to shoulder at Crécy to face Philip’s vainglorious knights who rode their bowmen down—that was our strength that day.”

Philippa took her son’s dark green velvet arm and her plump hand patted his wrist as she spoke. “And the blessings of God profited you, my dear Wales, and your own prowess to win your spurs that day. Soon Calais, which plagues you and your royal sire so and devours all our wealth to keep so many soldiers there, will fall, too. I was just thanking the Blessed Virgin that the spurs of my two dear Edwards are attached to their glorious heels and not hung like stag heads of victory in some foreign shrine.”

He laughed as they emerged into the sunshine of the cobbled Burg Square to rejoin their retinue. But though smiling and waving pleasantly to the gathered crowd of Flemish citizens, Philippa spoke again to him out of the side of her mouth.

“My dear, dear son, I also prayed for a fine marriage for you, too, as well as that of Isabella. You simply cannot afford to pine after little Jeannette, you know. It is most foolhardy and must of necessity go nowhere.”

People, standing two and three deep along the path they would take back to the palace across the square, shouted his praise for victory at Crécy, calling again and again, “Glory to Edward, the Black Prince!” in both Flemish and French. He recognized their adulation with a raised hand but his rakish, blond brows had crashed over the icy blue eyes and a chiseled frown etched his proud face in arrogant anger.

“I
like
her, Your Grace. She amuses me and I favor her greatly. She may bring no valued foreign lands or sought-for alliance as does Isabella’s nervous Louis de Male, but she is different. Besides, she does not truly care for me and it pleases me to tease her, so just leave off, I beg you. Besides, she will marry your liege man Thomas Holland soon enough and be off all our hands in some moated castle in Normandy, so leave be, Your Grace.”

No one but her two eldest, willful children, Edward and Isabella, even talked to her thusly, Philippa fumed, and she shot him an icy glare despite her last nod and smile to the crowd in the square as they returned to the shadowy arms of the palace. She did not wish for any sort of row with Edward now, for they had already argued bitterly twice over his attentions to Joan of Kent, and each altercation had ended in a stalemate of threats, moves, and countermoves that had resulted in both Joan’s betrothal and Philippa’s reluctant promise that the prince could be with her here, abroad until her marriage to Holland this winter. Lately Philippa had actually begun to wish he would find someone else, anyone for a mistress, to forget the stubborn, if lovely, little Joan she had taken to rear because she felt such a responsibility that her dear husband Edward had not lifted his hand to save Joan’s father, Edmund of Kent when, indeed, the court all knew he could have. At least now, she served as a fine companion to keep Isabella’s frightful whims, tempers, and extravagances more in check.

Her lightning-tempered son disengaged her arm and for a moment, the queen believed he meant to stalk off and leave her before she could say more about his feeling for the wayward Joan. But he merely sprinted a short distance down the hall to join a rollicking group of courtiers coming toward them—no, mayhap, not rollicking with those grim, desperate looks. Blessed saints, that wily John de Maltravers was among them, and she never could abide him since that dreadful business with Joan’s executed father and King Edward II’s alleged murder years ago. That her dear husband Edward allowed the man to be a trusted, if exiled, ally was entirely too disturbing for thought in this blessed week of Isabella’s wedding.

Her son was gesturing, shouting, giving a display of Plantagenet male temper she had seen often enough over these last several decades to recognize instantly. “My lord prince, what tidings are these?” she called to him even as she approached.

Edward’s handsome face was furious, and he gripped her arms to steady her. “No, not the king ill?” she began.

“No. Your Grace, these men say Isabella’s fine fiancé has ridden off and pursuit is futile.”

“Ridden off to where, my son? Nonsense. He only went hawking with a small party. Ridden off unbidden to visit someone, perhaps.”

The taut leash on the prince’s temper snapped even as he shook his head to warn her hope was useless. “Damn his conniving French soul! To flee over the Flemish border to the French—to throw all this in our faces for Crécy! By the saints, I shall find the prancing, beady-eyed bastard and kill him for this!” he shouted.

“Oh, blessed Virgin! Your father! Isabella—no one has told her? I must go to them at once,” Philippa cried. Her pale blue eyes swept the rapt, nervous men, a mixture of familiar English faces and the unknown ones of Flemish burghers. She turned away from her livid son still praying it was some terrible jest.

“You say he rode off, gentlemen? For good? Are you certain? He seemed to favor our dear princess well and was quite resigned. Oh, Blessed Virgin, this will crush Isabella and drive our lord king to further violence at Calais!” She felt flushed and suddenly very weary. She was but eight months gone with this tenth pregnancy; her bulk was great. She tottered and felt her eyelids flutter.

Prince Edward helped her quickly to a bench and she leaned back against a secure stone wall. “Go to your sister, Edward. Tell her I am grief-stricken and will see her as soon as I can manage. I shall find His Grace and tell him if he has not heard it on the winds already. With me, since I am with child, he must be calm. He will deny me nothing. And tell—tell Isabella”—she lowered her voice and gripped his green velvet wrist hard—“tell her that Louis de Male was not fit for a Plantagenet such as she! Tell her it is a coward who vows he only goes hawking and scurries away. She was desperately unhappy to leave her home at Windsor and now we will all be together again. Tell her.”

“I shall, Your Grace. De Maltravers here can fetch the king since he is so privy to him lately.” Edward turned and hurried up the grand staircase where he had helped the shaky Jeannette only last night. He had wanted to say something more to the watchful de Maltravers, but he really did not know why he disliked or distrusted the man so vehemently. His father had taken other favorites into his confidence quickly before, even the little French turncoat Godfrey de Harcourt who had helped them triumph at Crécy. If Jeannette herself had not reacted so strangely to de Maltravers whom she could not possibly have known, perhaps the man’s presence would not bother him so.

In the nearly deserted hall upstairs, he paused to knock on Jeannette’s door to take her along to help cushion the blow to Isabella. He had looked for her at morning meal, but like some of the other ladies, she had chosen to stay abed. No wonder, for the foolish baggage looked green about her pretty gills last night after that food and wine orgy. Her daring stubbornness always amused him at first but perpetually ended in upheaval, accusations, and general disaster.

He rapped once more, then raced down the hall to Isabella’s suite. As he neared the door, it was as if his thoughts of upheaval, accusations, and general disaster had preceded him.

A woman’s piercing shriek shredded the air, and as he shoved the heavy door inward, a crystal bowl of perfumed water exploded in flying shards just inches from his head. He jumped as a heavy, brass candlestick shattered a dangling chandelier and sent tinkling glass pieces raining to the deep Persian carpet.

His eyes assessed the scene instantly. Isabella shouted curses, alternating them with bloodcurdling screams of grief and rage. Jeannette, her champagne hair wild in a glorious tumble, stood behind the berserk princess, her loud voice mingled with Isabella’s shrieks. Both women wore blue camlet robes and both looked almost pagan in their dishevelment and fury.

Jeannette’s voice rose and broke as she sought to comfort his sister. “Your Grace, please dearest Isabella! Please! He was not worthy of you, dearest princess. A great affront, aye—he had no right, but—”

“Stop it! Stop it! Do not even speak of him!” Isabella pressed her hands to her ears, then darted to heave another crystal bowl at the wall, inadvertently sprinkling both women with water and glass fragments to add to the chaos. The prince held his ground, quite sure neither of them had seen him yet.

“But—the point is, Your Grace,” Jeannette shouted back apparently undaunted, “a man who could act so cowardly is no true knight. Of course, you could never give your heart to such a one.”

Another vase and a last candlestick shattered, thudded into the corner of the room. “A pox on him! I hope he rides straight to hell! Only hawking! Saints bones, I favored him, Jeannette, you know, and all the while he planned to—he—”

The shrieks dissolved into tear floods as Isabella crumpled to her knees amid the sodden ruins on the Persian carpet. Jeannette knelt by her immediately, and the prince gasped as her blue robe split up a smooth, white thigh. Her arms encircled Isabella’s quaking shoulders while the girl sobbed wretchedly, then gasped for breath in panting hysteria.

He had taken a step closer when Jeannette noted him. Her eyes went wild in surprise, like a reflecting pool under wet lilacs in the rain. The picture she made for him there on the blue Persian carpet with her hair tumbled and her loose robe open made the blood behind his eyes pulse red, then white hot. He realized then both Jeannette and Isabella bore tiny red nicks on their hands and legs from the flying glass.

“You, my lord prince! If you came with the terrible news, it preceded you,” Joan said.

Isabella looked up, pale-faced, her eye cosmetics once carefully applied now a dark blur on her cheeks.

“Did they send you, Edward? Damn them! It is all their fault.”

“The Flemish burghers?
Ma chérie,
perhaps they just could not hold that hawk in their cage anymore,” he said low. “He is a damned, lily-livered bastard, and he will pay one way or the other, I swear it.”

“No—not the Flemish burghers or his guards—be damned to them all. It is Father’s fault, Mother’s—yours too. His father died in his arms at your wretched, glorious Crécy, you know. Edward, whenever he looked at me, he must have seen his dead father and hated me for it all.”

In four more long strides he stood over the two clinging women. He knelt with them. “
Ma
Isabella, listen. Your family—we love you more than anyone ever could. Now you are back with us all.”

“Love me, oh aye, so I have been told. Loved me to bind me to that hateful, treacherous Louis de Male! It is all wrong—wrong for him to hate because of what happened to his father. It is not fair!”

Joan started at the words as Isabella dissolved into racked sobs again. Louis de Male had found his way to be revenged on the Plantagenets for the death of his father. In deserting, nearly at the altar, their dear and precious child, he had struck a blow at that same vile pride and power which had trampled her own father down. And here, before her, knelt the prince, their heir and son. If she were to lead him on and then do the same—Her wide eyes locked with his; she swam willingly in the blatant caress of the deep and dangerous blue sea of his gaze.

After a breathless minute, Isabella lifted her head again, and shook Joan’s arms from her shoulders. Her lovely, young face looked twisted, ravaged.

“Leave us now, brother. Jeannette and I have much repair work here to do before they are all upon us whispering, wondering how the deserted bride is taking it. By St. Catherine, the virgin saint who died tortured on the spiked wheel, may I perish in like stead if they ever hear or see one whit of regret from me. Good riddance he is gone! Now Jeannette and I know full well not to trust a man and we shall bloody well do as we please and lead them all a merry dance! Aye, Jeannette? Jeannette!”