Lady of the Garter (The Plantagenets Book 4) Read online

'I am not,' Isabel flared. 'I am eight years old and I have learned some Latin and how to add up money. What more do I need?'

  'To curb your temper,' he said and then added in an imperious tone, 'Go in, all of you, there are your nurses looking for you. And I want to talk to Jeanette.'

  He took her hand and ignoring the grumbles of the others walked away with her towards some trees. There he swung himself up on to a low hanging beech branch and pulled Joan after him.

  'I wish I were older. I thought father would take me with him this time.'

  'If anything happens to him you will be king,' Joan said.

  'I know.' He began to pull at some young beech leaves, the bright green of May. 'But that wouldn't prevent him taking me with him if I were old enough. He talks of the day when I will earn my spurs – and I mean to earn them truly. I feel,' he paused, searching for words, 'I feel that I was born to fight, that I will be a great soldier. I've read everything about my great-great-great uncle King Richard, that they called Lion-Heart. I want to be like him.'

  'If you want to you will be.'

  'Is wanting enough?' Edward turned his blue gaze on her with an earnestness that, had anyone been able to remember it, would have shown his likeness to that admired ancestor. 'I don't know. But I think to be a soldier in the cause of chivalry is as good a way for a Christian man to live as any other. The old men say chivalry is not what it was – they always say nothing is as it was when they were young – but I mean to make it so. When I was born my mother dedicated me not to any saint but to the Blessed Trinity, and the last time my father took me to Canterbury I made a vow at the tomb of St Thomas, in the Holy Trinity chapel, to be a true knight in the service of God and chivalry.’' He paused, for she had listened in silence to this speech. 'I couldn't tell anyone else how I feel, Jeanette.'

  'I know,' she answered. 'We've always told each other our secrets.' And then that ready colour she could not control came into her face as she remembered tearing leaves between her own fingers so short a time ago. Dared she tell him her own glowing secret? She had never kept anything from him before and yet this was so great a matter and she was afraid. If any whisper of her love for Tom got out they would whisk him away from her, she was sure of that. Being of the blood royal she would be bestowed at the King's pleasure, and would his pleasure fall on Tom Holland? Assuredly not. But she could trust Edward, her own dear cousin with whom she had grown up. She hesitated and was beginning, 'Edward, there is something . . .' when he interrupted her.

  'Did you see that knight who rode in with Lord Burghersh when he brought the letter this morning?'

  'Yes, if you mean a tall man with a pleasing manner. I thought him very elegantly dressed and he smiled on us all when we came out of chapel after Mass.'

  'Aye, like puppies out of a basket,' he said. 'His name is John Chandos and he is to be my tutor in arms. I am glad for I liked him at once.' He jumped down from the tree and held out his hand to his cousin. 'Come, Dr Burley will be waiting for me with those eternal treatises of Aristotle and I must fill my head with them before I can go hunting.'

  She let herself down with the aid of his hand.

  The moment was gone and as they ran across the grass to the archway that led to the central door of the palace she knew she would not speak of what had passed in the maze.

  There was a bustle of activity in the great hall that evening, and a buzz of talk at supper for the Countess of Salisbury preparing for her ride north in place of her absent husband to their castle at Wark. The Scots might well attack the English by the backdoor to aid their allies, the French, and Kate Montague was made of stern stuff. She was giving her orders briskly. A vigorous, warm-hearted intelligent woman with a figure unspoilt by child-bearing, she was prepared if necessary to put on battle harness with her garrison.

  She kissed Joan and assured her with a little smile that she would take great care of William who was to ride with her.

  William! Joan thought. If the Countess but knew it her concern was not for William, fond though she was of him. He was sitting beside her now and as they helped themselves from the same dish, he remarked that the campaign might mean that his father would be released from the French prison where he lay.

  'I wish my lord would come home,' he said. 'Nothing is the same when he is not here. Perhaps the King will pay his ransom.'

  'I hope so,' Joan agreed and amid the noise and chatter surreptitiously allowed her gaze to wander across to Tom where he sat beside the newcomer, Sir John Chandos, with whom the Prince was talking eagerly. Tom caught her eye but wisely looked away again almost at once. Was he too to ride out in the morning with all the other knights here, she wondered? Fear clutched at her, tears threatening, and though she tried to eat some of the meat on her platter, her stomach revolted against it.

  'What is the matter with you, Joan?' her mother demanded. 'I trust you are not sickening with a fever. It has been very damp this spring.'

  'I am quite well, madame,' Joan said hastily and she crumbled her bread, pretending to mop up the juices with it. She was allowed now to forsake the small-beer of the nursery for a measure of Gascony wine, and she drank, feeling the liquid warm her. 'It is a great pity the Countess goes to Northumberland and I must journey to London at the same time,' the Lady Margaret was saying, 'but I wish to see your brother before he leaves for Southampton. Although he is only page to my lord of Warwick, it will be his first sight of what men are about when they go to war.'

  ‘Yes, madame. I will pray for him,' Joan said meekly.

  'Well, I suppose with Dr Burley and Sir James Cross and his lady as well as Dame Phoebe you will all do well enough until I am back.' Lady Margaret spoke in the usual rather stern manner that had for long been her defence against the world. She had never recovered from the bitterness of her husband's execution and she had never forgotten that if he had lived her place would have been very different. Even the Queen's kindness in adopting Joan she found somewhat galling and it was difficult for her to tolerate being under the same roof as the boy Roger Mortimer, grandson and namesake of the man responsible for Edmund of Kent's beheading. She found fault with him continually and vented her irritability on him now by a sharp command to mind his manners and use his knife more often than his fingers.

  Roger was used to her carking and merely said, 'Yes, madame,' and got on with the business of eating while Joan hastily threw several pieces of meat to the hunting dogs that scuffed among the rushes.

  The talk among the men was all of the coming war. Every young man in England was eager to follow their King who was no more than twenty-eight himself, and Lord Burghersh gave it as his opinion that the King had the right in his argument with the French. 'He wrote saying as much, and sending his letter to Philip of Valois,' he added, 'which letter the French King returned saying it was incorrectly addressed.'

  There was general laughter at this and his son, Bart, a few years older than the Prince but already one of his closest friends, said, 'A puffed-up lump of pastry is Philip. He refused our King's challenge to single combat.'

  'Hardly surprising, seeing he is near fifty,' his father retorted drily, 'but we must not underestimate the armies he can muster.'

  Richard Fitz-Simon, a young knight attached to the Prince's meinie, said with the brashness of on who had not yet fought, 'They'll soon crumble when they taste our chivalry.'

  Lord Burghersh shook his head. 'Not yours, Fitz-Simon. You are commanded to remain with the Prince. He must have a suitable household about him as Regent. But your time and his will come.’

  Fitz-Simon subsided with as good a grace as he could and Tom took the opportunity to ask, 'Have you orders for me, my lord? It is time and more that I bloodied my sword.'

  'Indeed,' Burghersh agreed. He was a man of great dignity whose speech was seldom hurried and whose advice the King occasionally took, a compliment rarely given. 'His grace means to raise my lord of Salisbury's ransom and it would be fitting if you were there to greet him. You may serve God and your Kin
g and your lord in this enterprise. Be at Portsmouth by the twentieth day of June, Master Holland.’

  Tom's face suffused with pleasure and Bart Burghersh leaned over with a grin. 'Oh, it's a holy war we go on, Tom, but I swear as far as the Flemish merchants are concerned there's more a smell of good English wool than incense about this business.'

  Joan had listened with burning cheeks to the men's talk. How could Tom be so eager to go, to leave her after all he had said? She gazed down at her hands gripped in her lap and wished she could still the thudding in her heart which seemed to her so loud that her mother must hear it.

  After supper, when the trestles and benches had been stacked against the wall, there was dancing. In a circumspect manner Tom came to her and led her to the centre of the hall.

  'Tomorrow,' he said, and his hands grasped hers. 'Tomorrow the Countess will be gone, and your mother, and the Prince with all his knights.'

  'But you,' she whispered, 'you begged to go too.'

  'Of course,' he agreed at once. 'I wouldn't miss this fight for anything. I need to take a French knight with a fat ransom or some French plunder to make me rich.'

  'But there is so much danger. I am afraid.'

  'I don't mean to die yet,' he said lightly, 'nor do I need to ride for at least a week.'

  'Oh.' Relief flooded her limbs and she held tightly to his hand to steady herself. 'But a week! It will pass so quickly.'

  'It is seven days, no more, no less,' he said and there was a light in his eyes that alarmed and yet drew her so that she would have done anything he asked of her. He read the expression on her face accurately and smiled down at her. 'Time enough to be betrothed, my heart. I do not mean to leave without being sure no other man can filch you from me.'

  'How?' she whispered. 'How?'

  'Sir James is my good friend and he stays here because he is too lame to fight. He and his lady will surely witness for us, and he has a cousin who is a clerk in Oxford. A good piece will be all that is needed for him to hear our vows. Then we shall be bound and no one can part us.'

  'Jesu!' Her breath hissed as they turned in the dance. 'Tom, I dare not. My mother will be so angry when she finds out, and as for my cousin the King,' she broke off aghast at the thought of the wrath that was bound to descend on them. 'I dare not,' she repeated and clutched at a straw. 'Isabel is so sharp and I am seldom alone. Oh Tom, don't you see? I can't.'

  'No,' he said and for once his voice sounded stern. 'I don't see. I thought you loved me.'

  'I do, I do. Oh, what can I say? Someone will notice we are talking too closely.'

  'Calm yourself,' he said quietly, 'and leave all to me.' He smiled down at her again and his confidence was enough for them both. 'My love, I told you before, once the thing is done they must accept it and you shall have a grand wedding.'

  'I don't care for that as long as I may have you,' she answered and it was as if the warmth in him stilled her own trembling.

  'Then you are no true woman and that I'll not believe,' he answered laughing. 'There's not been a bride yet that does not want her finery. You shall have all, dear heart, in time. Will you trust me?'

  'Yes, yes.' Love had now defeated caution. 'Do what you will, Tom.'

  And when the dance ended and he led her back to her mother's side her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright.

  The Lady Margaret surveyed her daughter in surprise. Then she glanced across to where Master Holland was now standing talking to young Burghersh and her lips pursed. There was something about that young man that she did not like, a challenge in his bold eyes and an ease that ill became him.

  'I think perhaps you are over-heated,' she said rather severely to her daughter. 'A handsome face can turn a maid's head to no good purpose. I trust Master Holland did not behave improperly?'

  'Of course he did not, madame.' Joan managed to raise her eyebrows in surprise at the suggestion, and quick invention coming to her aid she added, 'and anyway, he is only the Countess's steward and of no interest to me.'

  'Quite right,' her mother agreed. 'He is pleasant enough, I suppose, but rather above himself and of no rank worth considering. Well, I do not mind leaving you so much now I see you in better spirits.'

  'I am in very good health, madame, I assure you,' Joan said and folded her hands in her lap.

  CHAPTER TWO

  In the morning Woodstock seemed curiously empty. The Prince of Wales rode out, a velvet cap set jauntily on his head, his new friend Sir John Chandos by his side, young Fitz-Simon carrying his banner. The Lady Margaret rode in his train, her skirts hitched up to mount and then pulled down as far as possible to cover her legs as she sat astride a small roan mare.

  Joan watched her go with relief. Her mother was somewhat overwhelming. An hour later the Countess of Salisbury set off with a large following of knights on the long journey north and her son William went with her. He turned and waved to Joan as they disappeared among the trees.

  It was quiet that day without the Prince and William. Roger and Simon attended to their lessons and Isabel sulked. Rain fell and Joan stared out at the heavy drops splashing into the pools. In the evening Lady Cross said unexpectedly that she thought it might be suitable if the Lady Joan slept in her mother's empty bedchamber, Dame Phoebe nodded her head and agreed that her eldest charge was indeed growing up fast and might be allowed such a privilege. Surprised, Joan went up to the room later to find her own possessions there, and the large bed waiting for her where she would be free to indulge her own wild thoughts without Isabel's chatter to disturb her.

  Lady Cross, entering behind her, said in her ear. 'Don't be afraid, my dear I am your friend and his.' With which cryptic remark she left Joan, startled and bewildered, to the ministrations of her maid.

  Lying in the dark a little while later the words kept coming back to her. She could not sleep, but relived every moment of the meeting in the maze, recalling all that Tom had said in the dance when they had talked so urgently, and wondering just what Lady Cross had meant. She had no doubt that Tom had some plan and that Lady Cross would aid him, and the prospect filled her with terror mingled with an anticipation that set her head turning. She had little idea what it would mean to be wed to a knight with few possessions, for her life had been lived at court where there were servants in clean livery to do one's bidding, maids and nurses, grooms and cooks. Even Lionel at two years old had his own retinue. She did recall once staying on a small manor, driven in by heavy rain on the way to Wallingford Castle, and thinking how poor the place was, how sullen and dirty the serfs who worked the demesne, and the house servants little better. But she and Tom would surely be more comfortable than that for she had a dowry, unless the King should be too angry to give it to them. She shivered a little and tried instead to think what it would be like with Tom for her husband. She had only the haziest notion of what happened when one took a husband, and to do it under such secrecy added a further element of uncertainty. But it was only a betrothal after all, and she need think no further though it was a dangerous thing they were doing. Yet now that she lay here, now that miraculously the way seemed to have opened for them, she believed it must be God's will and she prayed to the Blessed Virgin, gabbling one 'Ave' after another. Surely the Queen of Heaven would understand the love, the need that had come to her and to Tom.

  The next day was warm again and she sat with Dame Phoebe and Isabel and Philippa de Montague, William's sister, sewing by the open door of the hall. She saw Tom ride out and wondered where he was going. For a moment fright gripped her. He could not be leaving already, without one word to her? No, he had no armour, no weapons or baggage, and he would surely be back before the summer dusk. She worked on, her stitches lamentably crooked. The dinner hour came but no Tom. Sir James and his lady were there and Joan thought they smiled reassuringly at her.

  It was not until the late afternoon when she and Isabel returned from a ride along the path through a glade of woodland that she saw his horse and a poor nag beside it in the courtyard. The yeo
man who had accompanied them helped them from their saddles and she turned away to walk slowly into the hall.

  Tom was there, a clerk in a black gown with him, talking easily to Dame Phoebe, explaining that Master Rice was on his way to visit a friend in Deddington and had been persuaded to break his journey for the night.

  Joan took her place at supper and this time forced herself to eat. Nothing must arouse any suspicion. She sat there bewildered and benumbed, her stomach turning, yet at the same time not knowing how to wait until the moment of betrothal, for that was Tom's intent she was sure. A wilful courage rose in her, a courage she did not know she possessed.

  Beside her Sir James Cross was toying with a custard. He had digestive troubles and could take little solid food. Now he looked at her out of tired eyes. Without preamble he said, 'Lady, are you sure this is what you want?'

  Her cheeks went scarlet. 'Sir James, I do not know what – no, I will not have a custard.' And then she broke off, seeing from his expression how foolish it was to dissemble, how childish she must appear when all she wanted was to seem a woman. 'Yes,' she said firmly, 'it is what I want.'

  'There is danger, child. Indeed, I think I am mad to be a party to such a thing, but Master Holland is a persuasive fellow and he assures me all will be well. Only I wonder if you have considered? Your cousin the King –'

  'I am not afraid,' she answered and lifted her head, knowing now that it was true.

  He gave a little sigh. She was a lovely girl, he thought, and did not wonder at Holland's eagerness, but he wished he had not allowed himself to be over-ruled by his heedless wife and the memory of his one-time friendship for Tom's father.

  It was only when the ladies moved to retire that Tom himself spoke to Joan, outwardly to bid her goodnight. Bowing over her hand he whispered, 'Wait for us in your chamber. We will not be long.

  The hall, the candles, all swam before her eyes. It was to be tonight then, with no preparation, nothing but the barest essentials. Dame Phoebe waddled up the stair, her bulk squeezed into the spiral. The Lord Lionel seemed feverish, she said, and left Joan to make her own way to her mother's empty room. There she let her serving maid Emma undo her hair so that it fell in a great mass about her shoulders.