The First Princess of Wales (51 page)

“Bella is asleep, so the rest of you sleep, too, and in the morn we will get help. If anyone wakes up and is afraid, just wake me up and I will hold you,” she told them.

The leaves rustled occasionally as they shifted closer. Bella was tight against her breasts and John lay between her and Thomas. She had been afraid to look at her cut arm, but on the morrow she must try to wash and tend it, mayhap find some plantain or figwort to ease the pain. In her sore back, legs, and arms she felt either gripping cramps or nothingness. When she closed her eyes, the whole forest careened around, whirling in the strange hum of her dizziness.

Faces floated to her from the dark places of her own brain: de Maltravers—he had been real at last, stepping from her nightmare of revenge, and she had beaten him. Pierre Foulke, poor distracted Vinette Brinay, so changed by something unspoken, something terrible beyond the blow to her head. Old Morcar’s magic stars wheeled overhead in the vast heavens, and Prince Edward rode away in black armor, farther and farther away. Her mother’s wasted face, beset by dragons of revenge and fear on her deathbed—Edmund and her brother John were dead, gone and dead. Sometime, she slept.

S
he awoke to the twitter of the predawn forest dusted with gray chill. Her body ached and she stretched stiff limbs, gathering the babe closer for warmth. John lay curled up, breathing with his mouth open. Thomas! She sat bolt upright jostling Bella awake. Thomas was gone!

“I am glad you are awake. I was guarding you,” a voice behind her whispered.

She spun to see her eldest son sitting bent-legged a few yards away with a large stick across his knees.

“Oh! Thank heavens! I thought you were gone.”

“No, but since Father is always gone to fight, I have to help,” he explained patiently as though he were lecturing a foolish child. “Anyway, I heard horses and something like horns so I thought mayhap Father came back and brought some men.”

“Horses! Horns. Are you sure? I do not hear anything.”

She stood on wobbly legs and shook her filthy skirts out. Her head pulsed with a pain she could almost hear, and her cut arm was too stiff to move. Bella whined and John awoke with a look of bewilderment on his face as though he remembered nothing of the night before. And then, she, too, heard, or maybe felt, the rumble of horses’ and the faint call of a man’s voice.

She lifted Bella awkwardly with her good arm. “Get up, John. Up. They may have started looking for us. We should have gone deeper into the forest last night. We will have to hide. Thomas, bring your stick and come on.”

They skirted around the far edge of the shallow forest pond. The voices now were more distinct as if the water brought them to her. Shaken by their quick pace and the way Joan held her with one arm, Bella began to cry.

“Mother, here—we can all prob’ly get in here,” Thomas said and pointed to a huge, rotting tree with a nearly hollow base.

“Aye, all right. Get in, then. In.”

So swiftly the voices and crashing of horses’ hooves in the thicket came closer. They stood pressed in the tree, John in first, Thomas, then herself holding Bella. She prayed the child would not cry.

Saints! The male voices were calling her name, but it sounded like so many horses and the peasants only had had three she had seen. No, no, of course—they had no doubt stolen all the prize horseflesh of the Château as well as everything else by now.

“Lady Holland! Lady Holland!” the mingled voices came closer.

“Mother, they know we are here.”

“Be quiet. No one talks unless I say so.”

“But, Mother,” John whispered, “I can see one man through this hole in the tree, and he is not one of those bad serfs. He is a knight, just like Father.”

Her heart crashed against her ribs.

“Lady Holland! Hallo! All is well! Are you hereabout? Come forth in the Prince of Wales’s name.”

It was too wonderful—a trick, no doubt, but the accent of the voice was pure noble Plantagenet English. She moved out one step and peeked around the tree. The man was armored and wore the unmistakable azure and gold
surcote
of English royalty. She tried to cry out to him across the pond, but she had no voice. Tears of joy and relief coursed down her dirty face.

“Thomas,” she choked out. “Run—call to the man—to tell him we are here.”

The boy darted out shouting even as the tiny clearing around the pond exploded with Plantagenet knights, some even bearing the black-and-white trappings of the Prince of Wales.

While the boys jumped about shouting outside the hollow tree, she clung to her squirming daughter. Leaning in the embrace of the hollow trunk, she cried and cried while Bella for once, did not. A tall red-haired man dismounted to speak words of comfort and take Bella from her quivering arm. And then, amidst shouts which hardly penetrated her stunned, exhausted brain, a tall, black horse loomed up behind the gathering crowd of concerned faces, a half-armored blond giant on its back.

His voice, his handsome, austere face lit with joy, then blurred before her as his big form blocked out the world behind him. “My beloved Jeannette, you are all safe. I prayed God you would all be safe and came when I heard there was trouble.”

She tried to nod, to speak. She collapsed instead into the protective embrace of the steel-covered arms of Prince Edward.

PART FOUR

Sweet passion’s pain doth pierce mine heart,

For I have loved thee from the start,

But foolishly behind high walls

I hid such proof

Nor saw this truth.

Sweet passion’s pain doth urge me plead

That I might be thy love indeed,

But blindingly and armored bright

I hid such proof

Nor saw this truth.

And now sweet passion’s pain doth teach

That my last chance must be great reach,

For wildly doth Dame Fortune’s wheel

Spin by such proof

Nor halt for truth.

Welcome, sweet passion’s pain, until

My heart shall recognize its will.

Whatever prophecies proclaim,

I know such proof,

Accept this truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

F
or two days, Joan lay suspended between the delirium of dreams and waking moments of pure joy. A man had cleansed and bound the deep slash on her arm. Marta had come back to her from Liddell so far away, and now nursed her mistress instead of little Bella. The prince, her own dear Edward, sat close by and held her hand when she begged him to untie the knots, to unbind the ties of her heart. Marta bathed her and brushed her hair as Joan floated in the security of knowing she was back in her familiar bed and no longer had to flee. Yet when she plunged into exhausted sleep, dark dragons with John de Maltravers’s evil face pursued her as she carried the tremendous burden of the children down the tunnel of fevered flight.

Later, when everything stopped rushing at her, Joan opened her eyes and the room stood still at last. The silk brocade hangings of the bed had been stripped off, but she was covered with a warm, woolen blanket from one of the servants’ rooms. Her heavy eyes skimmed the once lovely solar room where she lay. All bare, ruined, bereft of tapestries and coffers. She glanced down at her arm bound in strips of white linen; then her eyes lifted to Madeleine nodding in the chair by the low-burning hearth. But, of course—Madeleine had cared for her and she’d dreamed Marta had come back. The prince had been here, too, sitting by her bedside, holding her hand, and watching—surely, she had not imagined that.

“Madeleine.” Her voice was a rough whisper drowned by the crackle of the fire. “Madeleine?”

The plump woman’s eyes popped open. “Oh, milady, milady. Blessed saints, His Grace will be happy to hear this!”

Madeleine bustled to the door and spoke to someone in the hall, then hurried back in.

“The children?”

Joan saw tears in the woman’s round eyes. “Fine, all fine, milady, finer than fine. You are the only one took sick and that for the blood loss, His Grace’s surgeon said. Renée been seeing to Bella and the boys been happy as little pups playing with His Grace’s men and squires.”

Joan tried to smile but her face felt stiff. “His Grace—how many men?”

“Just rest, Madame Joan. If she wakes up, he says, send for me by the guards and keep her quiet.”

“Is everyone all right?”

“Aye, ’cept the prince’s men been hanging the rebels right and left for two days—the men what took and looted this Château or killed bailiffs at the fair or our two men here. Women and the other serfs he told to get back to work immediately no matter what, at once!”

The long explanation seemed to roll right over Joan although she tried to listen. She drifted off again, and when she fought to climb from the heavy reach of slumber, she knew he indeed held her hand in his big, warm one. She opened her eyes in awe at the sight of him.

“My lord prince.”

He leaned so close she could see each long eyelash fringing his crystalline blue eyes, smell the tart scent of masculine bergamot he always wore. Surely he would not dare to kiss her, but he was so close and she longed for him to.

“My beloved Jeannette, over and over again I have thanked St. George and any other saint who listened to my prayers to keep you safe.”

“Thanks to you, too, my lord. However did you know to come?”

“Rumors of peasant uprisings in the Risle area of Normandy reached us, and I had only just heard from my brother Lancaster that your Lord Thomas was with his forces. Hence, I came.”

“Oh.” She stared dreamily up at him afraid to ask if his “hence” was for the peasant uprising or the fact her lord had been away. Whichever, she was so glad to see him that for one precious moment nothing else mattered. But then, memories of the day the serf rebellion had started crept back in.

“My lord prince, on the day the Jacquerie spread here—the day I went to the fair—”

“Aye, I know all, my Jeannette. Do not think on it now. Your spunky little boys are safe and your babe Isabella, too, so all is well.”

“But I must tell you, Your Grace. At the fair, at the church—he told the serfs to come here to take the Château—de Maltravers was here.”

He sat gently on the edge of the big bed but she nearly spilled against him. “Listen, my love, you have been very ill for over two days with a blood fever caused by that cut on your arm. You called Madeleine Marta and called me by your father’s name on that first long day, so you probably thought—”

“No! My lord prince, John de Maltravers came here! You must believe me. Ask the servants. Then he came to the fair. He wanted to kill me because I kept his lands from him. He did this to me!”

She tried to lift her bandaged arm but it was so heavy, and the room spun crazily as her voice echoed off the walls.

“Jeannette, my love, lie back now. Hush. Listen, sweet, my men have been through the village with a fine comb, shops, church, peasant cots, fields and all, and there was no de Maltravers.”

“The Church of St. Ouen—he is dead up in the belfry tower where he took me and he killed an old man who was deaf. He wanted to—to harm me. Then he just fell over and died.”

“We will talk about this more on the morrow, Jeannette, but my men even chased several fleeing rebels clear up there in the belfry. One jumped to escape capture. There was no one, nothing up there.”

“Maybe the old woman with the pet goose saw him. Ask her!”

“All right, we will. Lie back now and calm down or I will be forced to climb in there with you myself and hold you still.”

Despite her agitation, she blushed at his words and lay back on her pillow. How wonderful he looked with that thick, tawny mane of unruly hair and the turned-down blond mustache. The dim light of the room shadowed in the angular hollows of his cheekbones and under his shaggy brows. His slightly parted lips looked so firm yet so—

Saints! She had to get hold of herself. She had so much to tell him, but she must never let happen again the sweet, treacherous flow of passion that had made her all wildness at his mere touch in Monbarzon. Enough of that exquisite torment when he left again or when he passed by her coldly in the world to which he really belonged.

“You are frowning, my sweet. Does the arm pain you?”

“No. I—thank you. No, I am just fine.”

“Oh, of course, as always,” he mocked gently. “No one need take care of wild, little Jeannette. She can ride all over enemy territory, save her children from the unholy terrors of the Jacquerie, and slay fond princes at a single glance.”

Her eyes were so heavy, but she tried to meet his teasing blue gaze with her own.

“My little boys are afraid of dragons,” she heard herself say. “The escape tunnel was so dark they were afraid of dragons, and they thought once your letters to me were dragon letters hidden with some treasure.”

“Jeannette, you had two of my letters in the woods with you, but you never answered any I sent you. I thought mayhap you detested me now.”

She dragged her eyelids open one more time. The Prince of Wales, bending over her looked every bit a frightened little boy at that moment.

“No, never that, whatever the sweet pain,” she whispered and fell heavily asleep despite her desire to hear what wonders her Edward would say next.

T
he Château had been thoroughly looted but the rebels had been thoroughly punished, Joan learned the next day from her various visitors. Pierre Foulke and the brutal, loutish Simon had fled so drunk and laden with loot they had been easily captured and hanged on the town green for murder and riot. Other rebels had been tracked and captured; yet others had simply disappeared. Several of the possessions from the Château, which had not been ruined in the brawling, were recovered but most had apparently vanished. Vinette Brinay was missing as well as any sign of John de Maltravers except for a knife found on the lowest level of the belfry of St. Ouen which Joan claimed was indeed his. And so the mystery of the prince’s fortuitous arrival was offset by the strange disappearance of the dragon de Maltravers and the tragic vanishing of poor Vinette Brinay.

Joan sat on a bench one of Prince Edward’s men had set out for her in the May sunlight of the inner courtyard on the first day she felt well enough to be up. She watched her sons jog around her on ponies and swing wooden swords in the air. She felt much stronger today but not sure enough to venture outside the walls to the greens or forest fringe—not after all the peasant upheaval still rumored to be racking the distant countryside and not with the prince gone right now riding circuit in Pont-Audemer.

“Mother, look at me! Bet I could win a joust with this horse if I had some armor. For England and St. George!”

Joan sighed and watched them ride around and around in endless circumference of the courtyard, charging imaginary enemies with their swooping wooden swords. How quickly time passed: soon they would need a quintain and a low tiltrail—and a father at home to teach them such knightly skills. Little Thomas was eight already, John six, and Bella growing, and she had no intention of rearing the three of them alone here in this French Château Ruisseau whatever Thomas Holland thought of her! And how strange it was now to see this home of theirs through different eyes after nine years—to see it as cold and lonely, even hostile, or at least it would be when her Edward was gone again, for his moments here were fleeting and she knew that well.

As if her thoughts had summoned him, the prince with four armed men and one standard bearer thundered through the inner gatehouses to the delighted shrieks of her little warriors. How strikingly the Prince of Wales’s emblem—the three white feathers and the German motto “I serve”—shone against its black background. How comforting to sense his strength and know his power protected them all while he was here.

“Jeannette, you look wonderful out here in the light of day. I have been waiting for you to feel well enough to come out,” Prince Edward beamed down at her. The sun, gilding his hair and shoulders, shone in her lavender eyes as she gazed up at him. With his steady perusal still on her, he handed down to a waiting squire his unvisored black helmet and unbuckled his ebony breastplate. Under it, he wore a dark brown, quilted tunic and leather breeks. His polished boots boasted silver rowel spurs to match the horse’s trappings.

“Duchess of Kent,” he began, with a wave of his hand to dismiss the hovering squire, “will you not ride out with me? I saw some luscious red cherries just for the picking in the east orchard beyond the copse.”

Her heart pounded at the invitation. She would not fear to ride outside now, of course, with him, but she had both longed for and dreaded the moment which must come now that she was up and about and hardly weak anymore. Lying there in that bed upstairs all these days, thinking, dreaming, she knew it was no good; she could never become his lover again only to lose him in the agony of interminable, eternal separations.

“I was keeping an eye on my little rogues, Your Grace.”

“Two of my men will watch the boys, Jeannette, and we will take the two other guards with us just for insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“Aye. The area is as clean as I can get it of violent Jacques, but with you I take no chances. Did you, perchance, think I meant insurance for aught else?”

“No, of course not,” she floundered, miffed by his amused smile at her blush. “Besides, I am anxious to know what else you found out about—well, you know, the things you said you would look into further.”

“Aye. Then friend Hugh here will give you a hand up. Watch that arm.”

The avid-eyed, red-haired squire darted back in view to link his hands to boost her up. Prince Edward’s strong arm encircled her and settled her firmly before him in the big saddle built for a man in full battle armor. She waved to the boys and they trotted off.

“Did you learn aught of Vinette or de Maltravers, my lord prince?”

“Business, business, my Jeannette. Here we are almost alone in glorious spring and you start about business.”

“The girl was dear to me, Your Grace, a faithful maid and evidently more unhappy than I ever guessed at the fact my lord and I tried to keep her from seeing that bastard Pierre Foulke. She must have thought she loved him and it grieved her so, she just got all hurt and broken by the rebellion. I am only grateful I could convince her to untie my bonds.”

“Aye, sweetheart,” he said, his deep voice much sobered as they jogged over the wooden drawbridge and down the narrow road where she had dared to face the peasant rabble a mere four days ago. “I am sorry, my Jeannette, but I have no real news of where she has gone. Only, perhaps, an explanation of why she is gone.”

“To flee capture as a rebel when your men arrived?”

“No,” he said slowly as if choosing his words very carefully. “I have had my men ask around and I myself spoke with your little maid Renée who had her foot broken in the mêlée when we stormed the castle. Renée says that Pierre Foulke got blazing drunk at that riotous banquet they forced your kitchen servants to prepare.”

“Aye. You said every wine cask was split and drained. If it were not for your men being good hunters and the spring fruit and vegetable gardens being on, we would have starved for certain after all the victuals they robbed us of. Say on.”