The King’s Concubine: A Novel of Alice Perrers (27 page)

I stared at him, hoping for an apology. There was no apology from the King’s new Chancellor.

“I consider that you lack experience when dealing with a man of his mettle,” Wykeham announced, pausing between every word, the echoing thud of his steps providing counterpoint. “He’s proud, ruthless, avaricious, ambitious, opportunistic, and quite without principle.”

“You omitted talented.” I smiled at his glower. “And who isn’t guilty of any one of those entirely useful commodities at this Court, my lord?”

Wykeham scowled.

“Even you, sir. Pride and ambition seem to me to be fair game for a priest newly appointed Lord Chancellor.”

With a curtsy and a swish of my skirts, I left him standing at the door to the Queen’s chambers.

Philippa pursed her lips. “I’d not trust him. I wonder why Lionel finds him such good company.”

“I have no idea, my lady,” I replied.

“You did not find him entertaining at the feast?”

I took a steadying breath. Had our conversation gone unnoticed in
any
quarter?

“No. I can’t say that I did, my lady.”

Good company? Entertaining? He had been positively sinister, the manner in which he had poked at my anxieties, undermining my carefully constructed self-possession. Within twenty-four hours of our meeting, it was as clear as the bell on Edward’s clock: No one liked or trusted William de Windsor.

The question I was driven to ask myself: Did I?

For William de Windsor had an unpleasant habit of stepping into my thoughts and trampling any attempt I made to dismiss him.

I was present, in attendance on the Queen, when Edward summoned Lionel, flanked by Windsor, to a council of war, to hammer out the thorny matter of Irish administration. Philippa rarely concerned herself with matters of business or politics these days, but her concern for Lionel, and her fear for her husband’s temper, brought her to the council table. I was not displeased. How could I have found a reason for being there, to watch Windsor in action, if the Queen had not made it easy for me? I wanted to hear Windsor’s excuses for his own involvement in the Irish problems. I wanted to see him squirm.

The King did not use his words with care or reticence.

“God’s Bones, Clarence! I thought a son of mine would have more backbone.”

“Do you have any idea what it is like?” Lionel challenged with what I considered to be an unfortunate degree of heat. “The native Irish are untamable. The English born in Ireland are loyal to the English throne only when it suits them. The only lot you can rely on are the English born in England, and they, to a man, are naught but a rascally band of brigands.”

“So you hold the balance between them! Do you leave the province in turmoil and make a run for it, leaving them to wallow in their own blood?”

“I feared for my life.” Lionel’s pretty face was unattractively surly.

“I expect you to communicate with them, not ban them from your august presence! I expect you to get them to trust you! And don’t make excuses for him,” he snapped at Philippa, who had placed a hand on Edward’s arm, as if it were possible to stem the tirade. “Your son is a coward. You’re lily-livered, Lionel.” As his ire grew, Edward became colder, the skin taut and white around his lips, his eyes pale with ice. “In my day…”

I slid my gaze to William de Windsor. His attention appeared to be focused on the carved wainscoting behind the King’s right shoulder. How would leaves and tendrils deserve such concentration? Then his eyes moved to mine…but I could not read them. Anger or caprice or even a cool distancing—impossible to say, but an unexpected self-consciousness came to me. I looked away, down at my clasped hands.

“As for the army.” The King brought his fist down hard onto the wood, causing the metal cups to ring and jump. “I hear there’s rape and pillage committed by my forces in my name. I hear they’re forced to loot to maintain themselves. What happened to the revenues I directed toward Ireland? What happened to the taxes? Whose pockets did they disappear into…?” Without warning, Edward swung ’round in his chair to change his target. “I hear no good of
you
, Windsor.”

And what would William de Windsor have to say about that? I was holding my breath. Did I want him to emerge victorious from this bout, or be buried under the justice of Edward’s recriminations? I did not know.

Windsor was entirely undismayed, his harsh features an essay in composure. His voice held neither slick apology nor Lionel’s aggression. I should not have been surprised.

“I admit the problems in the province,” he replied. “I carry out orders, Sire, to the best of my ability. I was paid what was due to me. My lord of Clarence is King’s Lieutenant; his is the authority. I am merely a loyal servant of the Crown.”

It was a formidable statement of innocence.

“You’re quick to slough off any blame, Windsor,” Lionel snarled.

“I suppose you take no action on your own authority,” Edward demanded of Windsor, waving his son to silence.

“No, Sire,” Windsor responded, undisturbed, outwardly at least, by either the King’s contempt or Lionel’s fury. Against my better judgment, he won my acclaim.

“You think Ireland’s a lost cause?”

Windsor thought for a long moment, as if it were a new idea, studying his hands that were placed flat, palms down, on the council table before him. If he said yes, he would displease the King; if no, then Lionel’s excuses would be undermined by one of his own officers. Which way would he jump? Windsor raised his eyes and cast his dice.

“No, Sire. I do not.”

He did not even look toward Lionel. He had known what he would say from the outset. He had his future entirely planned out, with or without Lionel. Had he not admitted to being ambitious, thoroughly self-interested? He might have omitted unscrupulous, but I recognized it.

“Ireland is dangerous, unpredictable,” Windsor stated. “It’s on the edge of rebellion. But I think it can be remedied. It just needs careful handling.”

“And you could do it.” The King made no effort to hide his distaste.

“Yes.”

“At a cost, I suppose.”

“As you say, Sire,” Windsor concurred. “With enough power and wealth behind me, I’ll whip Ireland into shape.”

“I’ll consider…” Edward fell into an abstraction. His fingers began to tap on the table’s edge. His deliberation stretched out in an endless, uncomfortable silence, and his fingers stilled. His gaze, turned
toward the window with its colored glazing, seemed to lose its focus. Those around the table began to stir in their seats. Still the King made no pronouncement. I became aware of the slide of unnerved glances from one man to another around the table as Edward sat motionless, lost in some inner thought.

“Edward!” Philippa demanded his attention. She placed a hand on his arm. And then apparently apropos of nothing, she added, “Edward! We must find Lionel a new wife.”

The King blinked as if drawing back from the edge of some dark precipice.

“Yes, yes. So we must. I have it in mind.” He was uncommonly brusque, although I knew that Lionel’s remarriage after the death of his young wife three years ago now was a matter of policy. A new royal wife would mean the prospect of a new alliance. “But first this other matter…” Edward frowned, hesitated.

“Who will you send, Sire?” asked Wykeham, who had been an observer throughout of the clash of royal tempers, and the unsettling royal indecision at the end. “Who will go to Ireland?”

“I’ll sleep on it.” Edward stood; so did everyone else apart from the Queen. “I’ll give it some thought, Windsor. Come to me tomorrow, Lionel, and your mother and I will consider the merits of a new bride.…”

The council was over with little to say for itself but a lot of bad blood and no outcome. In his youth, I thought that Edward would not have allowed it to be so. Over Philippa’s shoulder as I helped her to her feet, William de Windsor’s eyes met mine, with a victorious gleam. Glancing up, the Queen noticed.

She said nothing but grasped my hand as tightly as she was able.

After Mass the next morning I found Windsor leaning with studied negligence against the wall outside the Queen’s apartments.

“Mistress Perrers. At last.”

His bow was a study in elegance. Or was it no more than a charade? Undecided, I made little attempt at courtesy, with the merest bend of the knee. The Queen would have condemned me for my ill manners.

“Sir William. I did not see you at Mass.”

“That, Mistress Perrers, was because I was not there. Where are you going?”

I inhaled sharply. “Why?”

“I thought I might escort you.”

“To what purpose?”

“Such grace! I had thought better of you, a queen’s damsel—and other things.” Oh, he was a worthy adversary. “Allow me to accompany you, and you will discover my purpose.”

“If you wish.” I strode ahead of him on my errand for the Queen, but not for long. His energetic stride brought him abreast of me soon enough, closer than I liked. I made a show of tweaking the fall of my sleeve. “Perhaps if you attended Mass, sir, prayer and supplication would aid your future.”

“Do you think? I doubt it.”

“Confession, then? It is said to be good for the soul.”

“I’ve found it overrated. Now,
you
could do much more for my future, Mistress Alice.”

“I?” I honored him with a glance. “What could I possibly do?”

“Persuade the King to send me back to Ireland, of course.”

Truly perplexed, I stopped and turned to look at him, taking in the uncompromising set of his mouth, the reckless gleam in his eye. “I don’t understand why you would wish to return to the scene of your previous debacle.”

“Debacle? No such thing. Have faith, Mistress Perrers—and tell the King I’m his man. The advantages of having a man of my knowledge there, on the ground, would be invaluable. Will you do it?”

I discovered I was in a mood to be uncooperative. Just to see what he would do.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I knew more about this than I was saying. Should I tell him? Or let him find out for himself? No, I would drop the poison into his ear: It would please me to disturb the smooth exterior. “There would be no purpose in my taking up your petition with the King, Sir William.” He was on guard in an instant. My smile was serene. “The King will appoint the Earl of Desmond as the new Governor.”

“What?” Oh, he was shaken, his flirtatious manner cast aside. “What?”

“Desmond. The King will make him the new King’s Lieutenant,” I reiterated.

“Will he, by God!”

“A man of birth and high principle,” I added.

“And a man with the intelligence of a gnat. So I’ve rid myself of Lionel to be saddled with Desmond!” All the warning I saw in the expressive face was a furious clamping of lips before Windsor strode off, leaving me standing.

I laughed at the success of my ruffling. “I see you did not seek me out for the pleasure of my company, Sir William,” I called after him.

At which he promptly marched back, brow black but the formidable control once more in place. “Forgive me—although I think my behavior might have been unforgivable,” he snapped.

“It was.”

Windsor seized my hand and kissed my fingers, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “At least Desmond—unless he’s changed dramatically in recent months—will stir himself to do as little as possible and leave the ordering of affairs to me. It could be worse. I could be saddled with some interfering old goat who couldn’t recognize an insurrection if it fell on his foot.…”

He was striding off again before I could think of anything else to say.

Windsor was at the Mass next morning. He returned my regard with an atrocious parody of religious solemnity, just as his concentration on the raising of the host was unsurpassed. I was impressed with his apparent unquestioning reverence in God’s presence.

Until the end. His grin was quite satanic.

And I was impressed for quite other reasons.

Edward surprised me. Without any advice from me, he ordered Windsor back to Ireland to aid the newly appointed Governor, the Earl of Desmond. Thus a little subtle balancing, I surmised, keeping all parties satisfied and putting an able man at Desmond’s right hand. A politic move, forsooth. So Windsor was to go. I did not know whether
to be relieved or disappointed that so troublesome an influence should be removed from my life. The decision had more than surprised me.

“I thought you did not like him,” I remarked to Edward when he told me he was planning to send the thrice-damned but clever bastard back to Ireland, where he might, with luck, receive his just deserts, skewered to the heart by the sword of an Irish rebel.

“I don’t. But he understands Ireland.”

“And you don’t fear he’ll use your confidence in him to feather his own nest?”

“Of course he will. But he’s not without talent.”

“Will you send him soon?” I inquired.

“The sooner, the better. It’s a conflagration in Dublin, waiting to happen.”

So William de Windsor’s visit to the Court would be a short one. Good riddance! I decided. But I would make the opportunity to see him before he departed. And why would I do that? Had I no sense?

I had no idea. And sense was definitely in short supply.

I did not know where to find him. Pleading a sore tooth to account for my absence from the solar, I tried all the possibilities, and some I knew to be impossible. Chapel—unlikely—stables, audience chambers, a group of hard-drinking knights in one of the antechambers—now, that I would have expected. There was no sign of him. Had he gone already? Had he left at the crack of dawn under royal orders to get back to the source of his ambitions as soon as possible?

My heart, inexplicably, plummeted.

You fool,
I remonstrated.
He is nothing to you but a thorn beneath the skin. He could not even find the time to bid you farewell. He likes you as little as you like him.

And yet I had found exhilaration in our cut and thrust that gave no quarter.

I returned to the stables, and was told that he had not gone. His rangy roan was still there, and his pack animals. So where was he? Some whore’s chamber, perchance? But I did not think so. Where might he spend his last day at Court?