Chapter 13 #3
Outside the hall, she clutched his sleeve, but he shrugged her off. ‘You showed my letter to your friends in jest,’ he said furiously. ‘It was private, not something to be cheapened into laughter by a gaggle of silly little girls.’
Alys gasped. ‘It wasn’t like that!’
‘Do you take me for a fool when I see the evidence before my eyes? Yes, I suppose you do!’
‘I was so proud you had written to me. You did not tell me not to share it.’
‘I did not write it for the entertainment of your friends. How am I ever going to trust you if you do this? What else will you share?’
She bit her lip. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she repeated defensively. ‘It was . . . it was a wonderful thing – I wanted to share it. If I had kept it to myself, I think I might have burst!’
Her words jolted him. He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her and show her just what she was playing with. He was raw and angry at the laughter of the other girls, and his feelings were still tangled up in resentment and insecurity over the new baby.
‘It will not happen again,’ Tom said curtly, ‘for I will send you no more letters or gifts – then you won’t have any cause to burst, will you?’
Alys took a step back, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘That is not fair! You have been so bad-tempered since your return.’
‘Well, perhaps I prefer the camp to the bower. I am going to bed. I bid you goodnight – wife.’ He stalked off, still wanting to kiss her and exert his authority. He knew he was behaving badly but for now he just didn’t care.
Standing near the window with her clerk nearby, his stylus poised over his wax tablet, Jeanette cradled her infant son.
He had recently been fed by his wet nurse and had his clouts changed but was not yet cocooned in his swaddling.
Swaddling was necessary, of course, for a child’s limbs to grow straight, but there was no harm in having a cuddle for a few moments.
He was such a beautiful baby, alert in the world.
Even as a newborn, his eyes were alive with knowing.
She murmured to him that he was the son of a prince and would one day be a great king.
She would guide him, just as Queen Philippa had guided her own sons.
The waiting scribe had already written the salutation to Adam de Bury, London’s mayor, thanking him for the fine squirrel skins he had sent as a gift while enquiring after her health.
Cultivating the London merchants was important, for their networks and finances stretched far and wide.
She kissed her son’s cheek, returned him to his nurse, then addressed the scribe.
‘For as much as we know that you earnestly desire to hear good tidings of us and our estate, be pleased to know that on Monday last, we were safely delivered of a son, for which God be thanked in all his mercy, and I thank you for all your prayers and good wishes, and your gifts.’ She nodded to indicate she had finished beyond the regular salutations and left the scribe to convert his rough document into elegant script inked on parchment.
Alys was sitting nearby with some sewing and had chosen to be by herself, without her companions. Her underlip was caught in her teeth as she concentrated on her task – a jewelled cuff for one of Tom’s tunics.
‘That is intricate work,’ Jeanette remarked admiringly.
‘I hope Tom will like it,’ Alys replied.
‘I am certain he will.’
‘It is a gift to make amends,’ Alys said. ‘He was angry that I had shown his letter to my ladies.’
Seeing her downcast face, Jeanette thought how everything was so much more sharply felt at that age, with every small upheaval becoming a mountain.
‘I did not realise how much it would upset him,’ Alys continued. ‘He says he cannot trust me and that he will write no more fair words to a silly girl.’
Jeanette sat down beside her and gave her a brief hug.
‘Perhaps you should not have been so open with a private thing – you have embarrassed his manhood. But in his turn, he was too abrupt, and that too is foolish. You must learn discretion, my dear, and so must your ladies, or face dismissal, but this will only shake your world if you let it. Give him your gift, say you are sorry, and you understand better now. The Prince will speak with Tom and put him right, for it is not as one-sided as he thinks it is. It may seem like a great shadow over you, but truly, it is but a swift cloud over the sun.’ She gestured to the cuff.
‘This is beautiful work. Your husband will appreciate it, and he will appreciate its maker too, I am sure.’
Next day, Jeanette invited Tom to spend some time in her chamber and properly meet his new baby brother. She was still not permitted to leave confinement and preside in the hall, but she was determined to make life as normal as possible for her household.
Roger was the most interested in the baby, leaning over the crib, a broad grin on his face as he stroked little Edward’s cheek.
Tom was dutiful, but Jeanette could tell he was not that interested – indeed, there was no reason he should be at this age.
She called him to her side and told Alys to bring the comfit box so they could share sugared aniseeds and rose-water jellies.
Alys handed them around, her gaze downcast. Roger, predictably, dived in.
‘Now then,’ Jeanette began, commanding Tom’s attention, ‘Edward is your brother. For now, he is in the care of the nursery, and you will seldom see him in the course of your duties. I do not expect you to pay him much heed today – show me any youth who would be in thrall to a baby – but it is your duty as his older brother and a man of the household to protect him and ensure he comes to no harm. You must give him your loyalty and your good duty with your heart and soul, for one day, if God wills, he shall be the King of England and Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, and he will wield great power. It will be your task to keep him safe and help him use that power wisely. It is a sacred, important task and will take you much training to be ready for it – and I include all of you in this.’ She encompassed Maud, Joannie and Roger in her glance.
She saw the spark rise in the other children, kindled by her words endorsing the chivalry and duty required of the family, words that raised their little brother to being much more than another boring baby.
‘I trust I may rely on you in this matter.’
‘You have our word,’ Tom said, looking chagrined. ‘We shall do our utmost.’
‘I am glad to hear it, for it is to you I would turn first if I had need. Never think you are diminished by his birth – rather you have all become more important, for he will learn from your example.’
She talked to them for a little longer until she was satisfied to judge from their expressions that her words had bedded into their awareness.
She was increasingly coming to appreciate the way Queen Philippa in her prime had been so formidable at balancing the needs of everyone in the royal household.
As Tom rose to take his leave, Jeanette stopped him with a raised hand. ‘Alys has a gift for you,’ she said. ‘Go to the window where the light is better and see.’
Tom reddened, as did his young wife, and Jeanette waved them both away with a benign smile.
In the window space overlooking the river beyond, Alys stood at Tom’s side and drew a deep breath.
‘I know you might wish never to send me a letter again, but I hope you will, and I promise never again to share private things with my ladies. I made you these.’ She presented him with the pearl-beaded cuff bands.
‘They are a gift from a wife to a husband, and from a lady to her lord.’
After a hesitation, he took them and glanced back at his mother who gave him the slightest dip of her head.
Her short lecture about taking on responsibility for the protection and security of his baby brother and advising him as he grew had made him feel more mature and settled but had also shamed him.
He felt guilty about Alys, because he had taken his temper out on her the other day.
His stepfather had had words with him about that, quietly exhorting him to chivalry not petulance.
He accepted the cuffs with gravitas. ‘I thank you for the gift and for the work you have put into them,’ he said. ‘Let what happened be a bygone and not spoken of again.’ He bowed his head, and she made a small curtsey and looked up at him with her wide grey eyes in a way that jolted his stomach.
‘I have to go now,’ he said gruffly. ‘There is to be a great tourney held after my mother’s churching and we have much to do.’
‘But will you come and play chess sometimes and talk with me?’
‘If you wish,’ he said, and she thanked him with a quick smile that shortened his breath.
He bowed again and went to take his leave of his mother, with a sidelong glance at the baby, still unsure and not exactly committed.
Jeanette kissed his cheek. ‘I hope you and Alys are reconciled now.’
‘Yes, mother.’
‘Alys put her heart into those cuffs – do not treat them as just another embroidery project.’ Her level stare pinned him.
Heat burned his face. ‘Yes, I know. I will care for them.’
‘See that you do.’
He took his leave, feeling a little sick, a little relieved and conflicted, but with an awareness that although it had only been talk in the domestic chamber, he had undergone a profound change in attitude.
Jeanette watched Tom level his lance and stare down the tourney field towards the quintain post on which hung a garland of roses and laurels that he had to unhook on the tip of his lance.
He was riding a black gelding, Orage, a son of his father’s great warhorse, Noir.
Orage was fully trained to the tilt and could do everything required of a destrier, but being a gelding was more lightly built without a stallion’s powerful musculature.