The King's Mistress (35 page)

The king ignored me during the festivities, not once to my knowledge looking my way. To see him in such an official role, the
white-haired king glorious in robes emblazoned with his heraldic devices, conferring his blessing on his heir, I wondered how I had ever thought he might desire me. Surely it had all been but a dream.

My delight rested solely in my Bella’s presence, for this time she seemed thrilled to see me and embraced me with all the warmth and love I could desire. Four and a half seemed a charming age. Geoffrey declared her the most beautiful creature in the great hall, and she giggled and twirled and curtsied with delight at his compliments. We shared but a few days, all too few, and then she was swept away once more to Hertford.

T
RUE TO
her word, as soon as she’d recovered from the royal wedding Queen Philippa devoted herself to planning my new robes, observing my fittings, inspecting the work before it was finished. I argued against all but a few of the silks and velvets, but she overruled me. She chose for me shades of red from rose to purple, as well as deep golds and indigo. I thrilled to the thought of how I would please Edward. My confessions and prayers were filled with my guilty delight in these sensuous fabrics and splendid colors. Dom Creswell seemed amused by my urge for restraint. I did not dare confess to the true sins in my heart, my betrayal of the queen in every smile I gave Edward.

So began a time in which the king and I played an increasingly strange game of cat and mouse. I was included in his morning hawking parties and in informal dinners in his chamber with members of his household. But he did not kiss me, did not touch me. I was intoxicated by his presence and terrified of the enormity of what seemed to lie ahead.

We were never alone together during this time. He was always courteous and complimentary, but no more.

I doubted he noticed my new elegance, though he did send Master Adam to inquire as to the cause of the shadows beneath my eyes and my dwindling weight.

I gave the physician half an answer—I could not bring myself to confide in him my distress over the conflict between my growing infatuation with the king and my loyalty to the queen. My humors were in turmoil. I confined my explanation to the aftereffects of my ordeal in Oxford. For the first time in my life I was sleeping so lightly that the slightest sound woke me, and upon waking I was beset with the fear
that strangers were in my chamber. Though my would-be abductors were dead, I yet feared that, as it had happened once, it could happen again. Master Adam suggested a sleeping draught.

“Then I should feel truly helpless.”

“You are safe, Mistress Alice. You are in the king’s protection.” Looking down his great hawklike nose at me, he clearly thought I was a fool for doubting my safety.

“I was in the king’s protection when I was attacked, Master Adam.”

He snorted. I did not take the draught.

Queen Philippa, too, noted my weight loss and that I looked as if I were not sleeping. She’d listened to my explanation with sympathy, then shared with me her own reason for melancholy—that she had so much pain in her pelvis she would never bear another child, and that she and the king now lived as brother and sister, not husband and wife. She declared she would find something to cheer us both.

I had heard previous speculation from the women waiting on Her Grace that her riding accident had ruined her for sexual pleasure, and that shortly afterward her courses had stopped. However, I had never heard her speak of this herself. I felt honored by her confidence, sad for her, and unsettled by a sense that she was absolving me from guilt. The new gowns, this confidence—I became increasingly convinced that I was being groomed to become Edward’s mistress, a realization both thrilling and terrifying.

As we prepared for the Christmas court, the queen’s inspiration to cheer us both was that we should dazzle the court with light, drawing it to us wherever we walked. She grew quite merry as we discussed, planned, and chose bright, shiny fabrics and jewels. She hugged me often. The women noticed. They made points of small kindnesses in the queen’s presence, but left me alone in her absence. Gradually my sleep improved. I do not think it was so much because of the work, though I enjoyed it, but because of the queen’s affection. I felt more a part of her life than I had done before, part of her extended family. That went further in reassuring me of my safety than anything else.

But there was still danger of a different sort. Not Isabella’s curse but Edward’s desire, and mine. One morning in November I entered my chamber to find a length of the most beautiful, soft, richly dyed crimson wool on my bed, with a note from Edward, sealed with a signet I came to know well:
“What better color for hawking? E.”

The king was a canny hunter.

So was I.

A
T THE
Christmas court the queen wore gowns with so many jewels and pearls to catch the light that she indeed seemed radiant. So, too, did I. Geoffrey told me of the continuous murmuring among the courtiers about the queen’s intentions for me, and asked outright whether I was being displayed to the king.

His words verified my fear that all at court saw the royal couple’s design for me. Of course they would note that Philippa dressed me as a younger version of herself. Of course all knew that I attended Edward’s dinners, and that we hunted and hawked, sometimes without companions. I assured Geoffrey that Edward and I were never alone of late, but that I felt like Criseyde, being dressed to impress the king. And who was my Troilus? Janyn? Would he look down on me from Heaven and think me a faithless wife? What I was being drawn into was sin, no matter how sincere my love for Edward, for he could never wed me.

Queen Philippa was successful in her unholy goal. Edward seemed most drawn to my low-cut bodices, and made no attempt to hide the hunger in his eyes when they dwelt on me. Indeed, he often caught my attention, and then held my gaze for a moment before looking down again at my breasts. He knew what he was about. Had he been bold enough to lift my skirts, he would have found me most ready to yield, God help me.

Janyn was gone. I believed that now. And I had been too happily wed and too long abandoned. My body yearned for a man’s attention, and that man was my king.

So on the fateful early-spring day when I arrived at the mews and discovered only Edward there, I knew where our morning’s sport would lead, and, God forgive me, I was more than ready, I was eager.

On that morning I wore red beneath a short, Lincoln green cloak lined in gris, but my red skirt was prominent, and my red hat. Blood red, cut from the escarlatte Edward had given me. He wore a jacket and leggings of the deep purple called purpura. He wore it well. We shone like jewels as we rode through the woods to the marsh. It was early April. We were enjoying our last days at Sheen before leaving for the St. George’s Day festivities at Windsor. An early-morning mist swirled
along the ground, helping me imagine I was riding into a dream, a space outside time.

We hunted with falcons that morning. Mine, when I stroked him, looked sharply into my eyes for a heartbeat then turned to gaze away, ready for the hunt. As always, looking into his eyes, sensing his wildness and the potential damage he could wreak with his beak and claws, I thrilled to the bond between us, two predators who might so easily kill each other, joining to hunt. We could not speak to each other, could not make a pact, and yet we trusted, we touched, we thrilled to the power we shared.

The falconer and a boy had gone ahead to choose the best area of the marsh while another boy and the dogs waited with us. The two returned with news of herons and ducks very near. We were cautious in our approach, the need for silence adding to the excitement. My falcon saw the birds before I did, suddenly leaning away from me. I felt his tension. The dogs flushed out a heron. I held my breath, my heart pounding, as I released my falcon. I watched him climb, then dive. The heron rose, so awkward until airborne, then so graceful. I almost regretted the skill of my bird as he swooped and struck. The falconer sent the best swimmer to pluck up the catch. My falcon returned to my glove, his feathers quivering, blood on his claws and beak. I murmured my admiration.

Edward’s bird was now aloft, diving down toward a duck, and quickly afterward his took a heron as mine went for another duck. We smiled and congratulated each other with our eyes. Edward had once told me that the lack of human voices during the hunt brought him a strange peace—strange to find peace in the midst of the brutality of sudden death. But I had understood … the cries of the birds, the rush of wings, the panting of the dogs, the sudden baying.

The falconer and his boys were busy with the prey as Edward now moved close to me, his eyes shining. He looked glorious in the purpura, his long white hair wild beneath his hat, his face ruddy with the early-morning chill and the riding, intensely focused, his posture straight and soldierly. He leaned toward me and brushed my cheek—matted feathers dropped onto my lap.

“Blooded,” he said as he put a proprietary hand on my thigh and looked me in the eyes as if in challenge.

I laughed, feeling reckless and alive.

“Your wildness draws me, Alice. You know that. When you are one
with your hawk, your horse, at ease in the woodland—that is when I most desire you.”

Though my gut clenched in fear I slowly smiled, for I could not deny to myself that I liked the way he touched me. I liked it very much.

Seeing so clearly now that I had no choice, that he had chosen, I thought I might at least play with all my heart, as I rode, as I hawked. I prayed that I might also keep my wits about me. We had been approaching this moment for a long while, but in my wildest imaginings the Alice whom the king undressed and caressed was older, wiser, more experienced. I was but myself, uncertain and overwhelmed by the power this man, this king, wielded against mightier folk than I would ever be. In my daydreams I
chose
to lie with him. But I understood, I felt in his touch, his eyes, that the choice was really his, and I saw that he had been luring me for a long while, subtly, patiently, oh, so skillfully.

If there was a way to refuse a king, I had not learned it. Nor would I.

After the hunt Edward simply said we would retire to his chambers. As we rode back to the palace he entertained me with his wit and snatches of song—he had a rich, deep voice. In his chamber he offered me brandywine. It seemed a heady drink for midmorning, and too heating, for though it had been cold on the marsh I felt a sheen of sweat beneath my gown and knew my face was flushed with my body’s own heat. But a few sips helped calm my trembling—until he took me in his arms and kissed me with a rough passion that left me weak with fear and desire, in such a powerful and confusing mix that I pushed out of his embrace and turned away from him.

What am I doing?
I asked myself in something like panic. The enormity of what this meant, to lie with my mistress’s husband, my
queen’s
husband, stopped me.

The king had removed his jacket. The linen shirt beneath it exposed white hair on his chest mixed with dark blond. With his long pale hair and beard, he caught the light from the fire and seemed more than human. He reached for my hand.

“I am frightened, Edward.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “Look into my eyes and say that you do not want me to make love to you.”

I looked into his eyes and felt myself drifting down into their depths. I felt welcome, warm. I leaned closer to him despite my fear.

He stroked my throat as he would his hawk. “Alice,” he whispered. He dropped his hands and took a step backward. “The motto I first used for a great tournament was ‘It is what it is.’ I accepted what God brought my way. I vowed to face without faltering all that He presented to me and to find the best way to conquer it. You would be wise to resolve to do as I did. You are a young, beautiful, desirable, wise widow who has caught the heart of her king. Take him and keep him well, Alice. Welcome him into your heart and body, and he will care for you with such devotion and passion you will never regret it. He promises.”

“My lord, my body and my heart are willing. Do not doubt it. But I am bound in duty to the queen. How can I betray her in such wise? For this seems the very worst betrayal.”

He bowed his head. I almost reached out to touch the silken, silvery strands of hair.

“My beloved Philippa is consumed by pain. To lie with her would cause her such torment that it would be a grievous sin on my part. She knows that I am yet a man, Alice. My queen is no fool.”

He reached for my hands, brought them to his chest so that I might feel the pounding of his heart.

His words had reminded me of Philippa’s veiled blessing on our union. I had been groomed for this without anyone asking whether or not it pleased me. I was yet a pawn. But looking at the king, seeing his desire, I sensed I yet held some power.

It gave me the courage to say what was in my own heart. “I have a memory of love that is not yet in the past for me, Edward. Can you tell me that you know for certain Janyn is dead? And will you promise me that my daughter Bella will be brought into the court where I may raise her?”

He closed his eyes and made an odd sound.

“Can you also promise that you will not discard me in a few weeks?”

He pulled me close, his hands moving down to the small of my back. “You would bargain with me, Alice? Like a merchant’s wife?”

“I
am
a merchant’s wife, Edward.”

He pushed me away so suddenly I lost my balance and stumbled into a chair. “You are a merchant’s
widow
, Alice,” he said, his voice rough with frustration. I had never seen him look so angry, his blue eyes pale in his flushed face, his long white hair wild. He frightened me. “Janyn Perrers is dead. You were right to doubt that he died of
the pestilence … he died by a murderer’s hands, strangled and then stabbed through the heart.” He spat the words out as if to stab me in turn.

Though I feared him, the manner in which he was telling me what I had begged to hear infuriated me. I rose up and slapped my king’s cheek. I slapped it as hard as I could. He grabbed my fist, then scooped me up and carried me through the curtains to his bedchamber, throwing me down on the bed and roughly reaching beneath my skirts. I grabbed his hand. His eyes burned into me.