Chapter 10 Smithfield, London, May 1362 #3
‘I do not know.’ Alys’s curiosity was insatiable – she wanted to know everything. ‘I suppose we shall return sometimes for gatherings and celebrations.’ He hadn’t really thought beyond the day.
Alys licked her fingers delicately. She had a feline air about her – a kitten not a puppy. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I shall miss all of you.’
His own hands were sticky, and his chin too where the honey had dripped. ‘I should wash this off before I check the jugs again,’ he said, starting to turn away.
Alys nodded. ‘Yes – oh, look, the mummers are here! You don’t want to miss them!’ She skipped back to her mother with Rohese in her wake.
Roger finished his pastry, and the youths hastily cleaned their hands and mouths as the entertainers entered the room with whoops and yells, their faces concealed behind fantastical animal masks.
Stags and does, hares and hounds, a fox and a swan, all cunningly fashioned from wood and parchment, spangled cloth and fur.
Tom forgot to wonder what the moment with the pastries had been about as the mummers took to the floor, their leader banging two drums strapped to the back of a young boy wearing a parti-coloured tunic of green and red samite.
He and Roger resumed their duties, refilling jugs and setting out bread and nuts, while the mummers performed stories from Aesop’s fables.
The crow and the cheese, the eagle and the sparrow.
Tom loved these tales, and it was magical watching the mummers bring them alive in the warm July evening with the sun slanting through the windows on to the decorated tables.
Between the vignettes, there was a pause for people to drink from replenished cups; to empty their bladders and talk to companions.
The Prince appeared quietly at Tom’s side and clapped one hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘Are you boys enjoying the day?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sire,’ Tom said, and Roger nodded vigorous agreement while brushing crumbs from his tunic.
‘Excellent. I am very pleased at how well you have been fulfilling your duties.’ He tapped his son’s shoulder. ‘Roger, go and attend to my lady. She has a gift for you, for your good service.’
Roger bowed and departed, leaving Tom alone with his stepfather. The evening light glinted on Edward’s hair and beard, and his floret crown caught sparkles of brightness on the edge of the gold petals.
‘I have a question for you,’ Edward said. ‘There is no wrong answer and no right one, but I want you to speak truthfully.’
‘Yes, sire,’ Tom answered, puzzled, his heart beating slightly faster.
‘How well do you like Alys FitzAlan?’
Frowning, Tom looked up at his stepfather and then turned his gaze across the room to the FitzAlan family.
Alys was chattering animatedly to her mother and pointing to the juggler’s little dog, which was begging on its hind legs for titbits.
‘I like her well enough,’ he replied. She was a girl like any other.
Sometimes she would poke her nose in where she shouldn’t and sometimes she was thoroughly irritating, but then so was his sister Maud.
At other times she could be fun, with a quick wit and understanding.
His stepfather squeezed his shoulder a little harder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean how well do you like her?’
With a sudden swoop of his gut, Tom understood just what he was being asked, and what that platter of pastries had signified.
‘I do not need a reply immediately, my boy, but I want you to think about it carefully. Your mother and I are considering your future and wish to include you in our deliberations.’
Tom tried to imagine Alys joining his mother’s household as one of her damsels, as was customary with young brides and betrothed girls.
She was all right from a distance, but to be matched with her?
Such things happened to others, not him.
He turned his regard to his mother and found her already watching him, clearly aware of what was being broached.
She nodded her head and smiled at him significantly, by which he understood that she and his stepfather were of one mind, and although he had been told there was no need to decide, the matter was already well in hand.
‘I like her well enough,’ he repeated flatly, his thoughts stumbling.
‘I know it must feel strange, and although it is our dearest wish, we want you to be comfortable with the idea, and I know it will take time. A betrothal does not mean an immediate marriage, but speak now if you have any strong objection to the girl.’
Tom swallowed the lump in his throat and consoled himself with the thought that it wouldn’t happen immediately. ‘No, sire, I do not.’
‘Well and good. Think on it, but do not dwell on it.’ His stepfather squeezed his shoulder in a man-to-man gesture.
‘Now then, I have left a pouch in my chamber with some jewels in it that I wish to give to the Earl of Pembroke. Go and bring them to me – they are in the painted coffer by the bed. Take Roger with you. You may tell him if you wish.’
Tom was glad to go and suspected his stepfather was giving him a moment to gain his breath. He grabbed Roger, who was full of pleasure at the stamped leather purse Tom’s mother had given him, containing three golden nobles and a white doe pin for his hat.
‘Your father wants to betroth me to Alys FitzAlan,’ Tom said without preamble as they set off on their errand.
Roger shrugged, unfazed. ‘You have to marry someone,’ he said practically. ‘Her father is very wealthy, and a great soldier and sea captain.’
‘Yes,’ Tom said dubiously. Everything seemed to have been settled in an instant, before he was even a man – a door of opportunity already closed. ‘Just as long as I don’t have to marry her tomorrow.’ He gave Roger a worried look. ‘You don’t think she’ll come to Bordeaux with us, do you?’
‘Probably not,’ Roger said brightly, but Tom could tell he didn’t know. Roger was lucky – no marriage was being cooked up for him.
They arrived at the Prince’s apartments and the guard admitted them to collect the jewels from the painted chest at the bedside. The boys made a fuss of the dogs curled up on the bed awaiting their master’s return and began the journey back to the hall.
‘I know a short cut,’ Roger announced. ‘Just down here.’ He indicated a covered passageway leading from one section of the building to another. The roof was being repaired, and a heap of wooden shingles was piled up at the side, waiting the return of the labourers.
Somewhere in the shadows beyond, a man was moaning: ‘Oh, Christ, you will kill me, I swear you will, ah, God!’
The boys looked at each other. Tom poked his head round the corner and saw a man slumped against the wall, his breeches around his knees, and a woman working over him, her skirts raised as she rose up and down on him and he clutched her buttocks.
Although the light was dim, there was sufficient to see that the woman was Alice Perrers, recently widowed wife of the London goldsmith Janyn Perrers.
On her husband’s death she had been granted a position in the Queen’s household as a chamber lady.
The man in the throes of some kind of paroxysm was the King.
He cried out, uttering lewd epithets as he reached his crisis, and the woman gave a low, triumphant laugh and threw back her head, but she was not so overcome as to be out of her senses.
Her gaze flicked to the side and fixed on the boys.
Roger dragged Tom away and they fled, taking the long way back to the hall after all and bursting into the noise and festivity with relief.
‘Did you see what she was doing?’ Roger demanded. ‘And with the King!’
Tom nodded, unsure whether to laugh or be very scared. ‘She saw us!’
‘What if she did?’ Roger’s expression belied his bravado. ‘What can she do? The King is my grandsire, and the Prince is my father and your stepfather. She is no more than a lady in waiting, and a lowly one at that.’
Tom shook his head. He had enough wit to realise that a woman with that sort of power over the King was not just a ‘lady in waiting’, and she seemed to know what she was doing – certainly the power had been hers not the King’s in the shocking moment they had witnessed.
He brought the pouch of jewels to his stepfather, who regarded him with a concerned frown. ‘Has what I said earlier disturbed you?’
Tom shook his head. He couldn’t tell his stepfather the true reason for his anxiety. ‘No, sire, but may I speak with my lady mother?’
‘If you wish – indeed, I think it a good idea. I am sure she will be able to allay any worries you may have. Come to her in the morning for a proper talk and spend as much time with her as you need.’
Roger, who had overheard Tom’s request, looked at him wide-eyed as soon as they were out of the Prince’s earshot. ‘Are you going to tell your mother?’
Tom grimaced. ‘I can hardly tell my stepfather, can I? My mother will know what to do. She always has a plan.’
Next morning, Jeanette took her time rising from her bed.
She had things to do – plenty awaited her following yesterday’s investiture ceremony – but Edward had intimated last night that Tom wanted to speak with her about the betrothal.
‘You have a way of making people trust and confide in you,’ he had said.
‘Something is bothering him, and I want to know what it is. He won’t tell me, but he asked to speak with you. ’
Once Jeanette’s ladies had dressed her in an undergown of soft green silk, and braided her hair for the day, she summoned Tom to her chamber and he entered, spruce in his squire’s livery.
The dogs rushed to greet him, tails frantic, and he made a fuss of them – overmuch as he released his tension.
How tall he was growing, she thought, and so much like his father.
Just now he was avoiding her gaze. At length, a servant distracted Hal and Nimble with morsels of bread and meat jelly, and she drew him to sit with her on the window seat.