The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers (16 page)

“Fortunately not. I fear its fate was sealed at St. Mary’s. Repentance—or some dire punishment—as I know to my cost.”

His laughter became a low growl. “Then if you are so short of gifts, I must do what I can to remedy it.”

I considered this, conscious of how singular this must seem. “The King does not give gifts to girls of no family.”

“This one does. He gives what he wishes, to whom he wishes. Or at least, he gives a palfrey to you, Mistress Alice.”

“I can’t, Sire.…” I was not lacking in good sense. It would be indiscreet. The mare was far too valuable.

“What a prickly creature you are! It is nothing, you know.”

“Not to you…”

“I want you to enjoy her. Will you allow me to do that? If for no other reason than that you serve the Queen well.”

How could I refuse? When the mare pushed against my shoulder with her soft nose, I fell in love with her—just a little—because she was beautiful and she was the King’s gift.

The Queen is ill. She cannot move from her bed and begs me to read to her.
When Edward visited, I stood to curtsy, already closing the book and putting it aside, expecting to be dismissed. Edward’s time with his wife was precious, but he waved for me to read on and sat with us until I had finished the tale.

It was a dolorous one in which the Queen found particular enjoyment.
She wept for the tragedy of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde. The King stroked her hand, chiding her gently for her foolishness, telling her that his love for her was far greater than that of Tristan for his lady, and that he had no intention of doing anything so spineless as turning his face to the wall to die. Only a sword in the gut would bring him to his knees. And was his dear Philippa intending to cast herself over his body and die too without cause but a broken heart? Were they not—after so many years of marriage—made of sterner stuff than that? For shame!

It made the Queen laugh through her tears. “A foolish tale,” she said, with a watery smile.

“But it was well read. With much feeling,” Edward observed.

He touched my shoulder as he left us, the softest of pressures. There was no need for it—and yet he had chosen to do it. Did the Queen notice? I thought not, but she dismissed me brusquely, pleading a need for solitude. She covered her face with her hands.

Her voice stopped me as I reached the door.

“Forgive me, Alice. It is a grievous burden I have given myself, and sometimes it is beyond me to bear it well.”

I did not understand her.

Edward has had his clock placed in a new tower.
I stood and watched in awe. Edward’s shout of laughter was powerful, a thing of joy, for at last his precious clock had come to the final steps of its installation, the tower to house it complete and the pieces of the mechanism assembled to the Italian’s finicky satisfaction. Here was the day that it would be set into working order, and the Queen had expressed a desire to witness it. Had Edward not had it made for her, modeled on that belonging to the Abbot of St. Albans, with its miraculous shifting panels of sun and stars?

“I can’t!” Philippa admitted. “I really can’t!” when she could not push her swollen feet into soft shoes. “Go and watch for me, Alice. The King needs an audience.”

“Thank God!” Isabella remarked.

“For what precisely?” Philippa was peevish. “I fail to see any need to thank Him this morning.”

“Because you didn’t ask me to go to look at the monstrosity.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. Alice will enjoy it. Alice can ask the King the right questions, and then tell us all about it. Can’t you?”

“Yes, Majesty,” I replied, not truly understanding why I had been singled out.

“But not in great detail,” Isabella called after me as I left the room. “We’re not all fixated with ropes and pulleys and…wheels!”

So I went alone. I was interested in ropes and pulleys and cogs with wooden teeth that locked as they revolved. I wanted to see what the Italian had achieved. Was that all I wanted?

Ah, no!

I wanted to watch and understand what fascinated Edward when he didn’t have a sword in his hand or a celebration to organize. I had no excuse. I wanted to see what beguiled this complex man of action. So I watched the final preparations.

We were not alone. The King had his audience with or without my presence, the Italian and his assistant as well as a cluster of servants and a handful of men-at-arms to give the necessary strength. And there was Thomas, who could not be kept away from such a spectacle.

“We need to lift this into position, Sire.” The Italian gestured, arms flung wide. “And then attach the weights and the ropes for the bell.”

The ropes were apportioned to the men-at-arms, the instructions issued to hoist the weights for the winding mechanism. Thomas was given the task of watching for the moment when all was in place. I was waved ignominiously to one side.

“Pull!” the Italian bellowed. And they did. “Pull!”

With each repetition, the pieces of the clock rose into position.

“Almost there!” Thomas capered in excitement.

“Pull!” ordered the Italian.

They pulled, and with a creak and a snap one of the ropes broke. The weight to which it was attached, now without the tension, crashed down to the floor, sending up a shower of dust and stone chippings. And before I could react, the loose remnants of the rope flew in an arc, like a whiplash, snaking out across the stone paving, to strike my ankles with such force that my feet were taken out from under me.

I fell in an inelegant heap of skirts and frayed rope and dust.

“Signorina!” The Italian leaped to my side with horror.

“Alice!” The King was there too.

I sat up slowly, breathless from shock and surprise, my ankles sore, as the Italian proceeded to wipe dust from my face before discreetly arranging my disordered skirts.

“Signorina!
Mille pardons!
”

It all seemed to be happening at a distance. The cloud of dust settling, the soldiers lowering the still-unfixed pieces of the clock, now forgotten in the chaos. Thomas staring at me with a mixture of fright and ghoulish fascination.

My eyes settled on the King’s anxious face. “Sire…” I said. I was not discreet.

“You are quite safe now.” He enclosed my hands within his and lifted them to his lips.

And my senses returned.

“I am not hurt,” I stated.

Ignoring this, Edward sent Thomas at a run: “Fetch my physician!”

“I am not hurt!” I repeated.

“I’ll decide whether you are hurt or not,” Edward snapped back, and then to his Master of Clocks, who still fussed and wrung his hands: “See to the mechanism. It’s not your fault, man! I’ll deal with Mistress Alice.”

Never had I been so aware of his presence, the proud flare of nostrils that gave him a hawkish air even when he was not. Even when rank fear was imprinted in his face.

“Can you stand?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes.”

Gently, he lifted me and stood me on my feet. To my surprise I staggered and was forced to clutch at his arm—no artifice on my part, but a momentary dizziness. Without a second thought Edward swept me up into his arms and carried me away from the dust and debris.

For the first time in my short existence I was enclosed in the arms of a man. All the feelings I had imagined but never experienced flooded through me. The heat of his body against mine, the steady beat of his heart. The fine grain of his skin beneath the weathering, the firmness of his hands holding me close. The pungency of sweat and dust and
sudden panic when life came under threat. My throat was dry with an inexplicable need, my palms slick with it. Every inch of my skin seemed to be alive, shimmering in the bars of sunlight through the glazed and painted windows. I was alight, on fire, my heart thundering against the lacing of my gown.…

Until I was brought back to reality.

“Put me down, Sire!” I ordered, horrified. “You must not worry the Queen with this. She is ill today. Where are you taking me?”

He came to a sudden halt. “I don’t know.” He looked down at me, as jolted as I. How close his eyes were to mine, his breath warm against my temple. “In faith, Alice, you frightened me beyond reason. Are you in pain?”

“No!” I was too aware, far too aware. “Put me down. Why are you carrying me when I can walk very well on my own?”

“It seemed the right thing to do at the time.” The lines that bracketed his mouth began to ease at last. “Allow me to be gallant, if you will, and carry you to safety.”

I could hear the Italian tending lovingly to his mechanism, and the voices of the soldiers, the proximity of the servants. “Put me down, Sire. We shall be seen.”

“Why would that matter?” His brows winged upward as if he had not considered it.

But I knew it would matter. I knew all the Court would know of this altercation within the hour. “Put me down!” I abandoned any good manners.

Edward turned abruptly into the chancel, marched along its length, and set me down in one of the choir stalls, allowing me some degree of privacy.

“Since you insist…”

And, kneeling beside me, he kissed me. Not a gracious salute to my fingers. Not a brotherly caress to my cheek as I imagined such a one to be. Not a chaste, husbandly peck on the lips such as Janyn Perrers would have employed if he had ever come so close to me. Edward gripped my arms, hauled me against him, and his mouth descended on mine in a firm possession that lasted as long as a heartbeat, and more.

He lifted his head and I looked at him, stunned. My blood hummed;
my thoughts scattered. “You should not have done that,” I managed in a whisper. “That is not the right thing to do.”

“Would you lecture the King on his behavior, Mistress Alice?”

He smiled ruefully before he kissed me again, just as forcefully. Just as recklessly. And when it was ended: “You should not have looked at me so trustingly,” he said.

“So it was my fault?” My voice, I regret, was almost a squeak. “That you kissed your wife’s damsel?”

For a moment, Philippa’s presence hovered between us. We felt her with us. I saw the recognition in Edward’s eyes, as I was sure it was in mine. And I saw regret there as his voice and features chilled.

“No, Alice. It was not your fault. It was all mine. You could have been injured and I should have been more careful with you.” It was difficult to keep my breathing even, and when I shivered with a sudden onset of nerves, Edward stood. “You’re cold.” He shrugged out of a sleeveless overtunic he had worn in the church for warmth, and draped it around my shoulders. And when his hands rested there, heat surged through me so that my temples throbbed with it.

“Sire…” I warned as footsteps approached. Edward stepped back, struggling to be tolerant of his physician’s meaningless questions and orders for me to rest to allow my humors to settle.

“I’ll return you to the Queen,” Edward said when the physician was finished and had gone about his affairs.

Yes,
I thought.
That would be best.
To be away from this man who was all too compelling. And then on a thought I asked, “How is the clock after the accident, Sire? The Queen will want to know.”

And he rounded on me with a blaze of anger. “To hell with the clock. I don’t regret kissing you. I find you alluring, intoxicating.…” He glared at me as if it were indeed my fault. “Why is that?”

“A moment’s fear, Sire. I doubt you will even remember this interlude tomorrow when the danger is over and the clock restored.” Ah, but I would.

“This is not a sudden impulse. Do you feel nothing?” he demanded, the hawkishness very pronounced.

I dissembled. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do!”

“Would it matter whether I did or not? I am the Queen’s damsel.”

“As I very well know, God save me!” he exclaimed, his temper still simmering. “Tell me your thoughts on this debacle, Alice.”

“Then I will. For it is a debacle. Yet I think you are the most amazing man I have ever met.” For was that not true?

“Is that all? I want more from you.” He was all authority, his hand strong on mine, his whole body as taut as a bowstring. “I want to see you again before tomorrow. I will arrange it. Come to me tonight, Alice.”

No permission. No soft promises. A Plantagenet order. I had no misconceptions of what would await me. I think for the first time in my life I had nothing to say, not even in my head.

I told the Queen that the clock was experiencing difficulties but that the King had it all in hand.

Did I know what I was doing? Had I seen it developing, unfurling, from the very beginning? Did I see the pits and traps that were opening before my feet? Was I denying the truth even to myself?

Oh, I knew. I was never a fool. I saw what I had done. I saw when his attention was caught. I noted with the first scratch of my pen in my puerile writings when I had called him
Edward
rather than “
the King
,” when he gave me the little mare, when I began to think of him as
Edward,
the man.

Did I enchant, entrap, weave him into my toils, as the malicious tongues were to accuse many years later? Was I complicit in this seduction?

Complicit, yes. But entrapment? I was never guilty of that. When did any woman entrap a Plantagenet? Edward had his own mind and pursued his own path.

Was I malicious?

Not that either. Never that. I was too loyal to the Queen. Guilt was not unknown to me, whatever slanders were aimed at me. Philippa had given me everything I had, and I was betraying her. Regret had teeth as sharp as those of the ill-fated monkey.

Ambitious, then?

Without a doubt. For here was a certain cure for the ills of obscure
poverty. When a woman spends her young years with nothing of her own, why should she not seize the opportunity to remedy her lack, if that opportunity should fall into her lap?

Ah! But could I have stopped the whole train of events before I became the royal whore? Who’s to say? With Edward I could be myself, not a silly damsel without a thought in my head but gossip and chatter. Edward listened to me as if my opinions mattered. I found his authority, his dominance, his sheer maleness intoxicating, as would any woman. When I saw his clever, handsome features, when his eyes turned to mine, it was as if I had just drunk a cup of finest Gascon wine. He was the King and I his subject. I was under his dominion as much as he was under mine.