Chapter 15 #2
Her travail was prolonged and difficult, for the child was big and she had to push hard and long.
The Twelfth Night sky was darkest blue, glinting with stars, and still the baby had not come.
Fatigued from hours of unproductive toil, Jeanette struggled as her strength started to fail.
She knew she must keep working with the contractions, for otherwise they would both die.
But she was so tired, so very, very tired, and she could hear anxiety creeping into the voices of her ladies.
She closed her eyes. She would either leave this battlefield as a victor or a corpse.
The next contraction swept over her, biting through her loins.
Calling on St Margaret, patron of women in childbirth, to help her, she gritted her teeth and made another enormous effort.
And then the head crowned between her thighs as the midwives urged and encouraged.
They gave her small sips of honey-sweetened water and she bore deep down through her body with the last of her strength, and at last the baby slipped into the world.
‘Another boy, madam!’ cried the midwife as she lifted him, still attached by the pulsing grey umbilical cord.
He wailed uncertainly, but with more strength when the midwife gave him a sharp tap on the buttocks.
Jeanette fell back against the bolsters, gasping with relief, utterly exhausted.
Two sons for the succession now, and her duty well and truly accomplished.
They gave her to him briefly before taking him away to bathe him in a warm brass bowl by the hearth. The senior midwife stayed with Jeanette, cleaning her, checking her body, but Jeanette was too tired to pay much attention, and just thanked God and St Margaret that it was over.
The afterbirth was slow to arrive and was accompanied by a gush of blood that caused a sudden flurry of action.
While one midwife gave her a tisane of raspberry leaves, the senior woman elevated Jeanette’s lower body and massaged her womb to make it contract, and gradually the bleeding slowed.
Jeanette’s attendants sat back, red-handed, expressions fearful, but cautiously relieved.
‘You must remain still, my lady. Do not rise from the bed,’ they warned her.
Jeanette would usually have had an impatient retort on her lips but tonight was too fatigued and sore to have a single word of rebellion within her. She obediently drank the tisane.
‘Where is my son?’ she asked, heavy-eyed, as she handed back the cup.
A woman fetched him from the wet nurse by the hearth, and presented him to her, bundled in warm towels.
‘Come here,’ Jeanette said, gathering him in her arms. ‘Let me see who has caused me so much trouble.’
She parted the wrappings and gazed into the face of her new son.
Though he had nearly killed her and might yet do so, he was angelic.
Making sounds like a little crow, he opened and closed his fists within the bundling.
She counted his fingers and toes and quickly checked that he was indeed a boy.
Kissing his brow, she inhaled the scent of the precious unguent they had rubbed into his skin after his bath.
‘Now then,’ she whispered to him, ‘you behave yourself for me.’
She spoke teasingly, and her love welled up like a river.
Her task, if she recovered from this ordeal, was to raise him and his brother to be proper princes and equip them for anything cast at them by the fickle dice of life.
Although sore, weak and worn out, she was triumphant.
No one in England could now say that Edward had chosen unwisely when he married her.
Next day, Edward returned from the camp at Lillebonne to visit his newborn son, and this time, although Jeanette was under strict bed rest, he was permitted into her chamber because of his imminent departure to war.
He hurried to kneel at her bedside. She had prepared for his arrival.
Her ladies had combed her hair and twined it with gold thread to make it sparkle.
She was wearing a fresh white chemise and had rubbed the faintest flush of carmine into her cheeks because her mirror told her how pale and drained she looked.
She held their new son in her arms ready to present to Edward, who would now bear him to his baptism.
‘Another fine, strong son,’ she said.
Edward took him from her arms to greet and acknowledge him but then turned back to her with serious eyes. ‘The women say you had a difficult time birthing him.’
Jeanette gave a slight shrug. ‘He was reluctant to make that last part of the journey from my womb into the light of day, but as you can see, we have survived the ordeal.’ She gave him the dazzling smile she had spent years perfecting. ‘Do not worry.’
‘But I do. I need you to be well and strong.’
‘And I am.’ She rested her hand on his sleeve.
How good they both were at lying to reassure the other’s anxiety, both knowing the lie deep down but colluding in denial all the same.
She felt wretched. ‘I would be up and about now if the midwives would allow it, but they say I must rest a while longer.’
‘Well, you must do as they say.’ He gave the baby to the nurse.
‘You are the love of my life; I do not want to lose you.’ He took a velvet purse from his belt and tipped on to his palm a small pile of gold rings.
Taking her hand, he began putting one on each finger and even her thumb.
‘This is how much I love you,’ he said. ‘Over and over and over again. Finger and thumb, and finger and finger and finger.’ He raised her hand to his lips and kissed each ring.
Every one was a work of art, some wrought in gold, others set with jewels – ruby, amethyst and diamond.
Jeanette’s eyes filled with tears. She thought of the ring she had given to Tom, and now she in her turn was receiving these as pledges of love and duty. She looked at him through a blur. ‘My dearest love,’ she said, and lifted her face. Edward leaned over and kissed her lips.
The senior midwife cleared her throat at such highly inappropriate behaviour, and Jeanette felt Edward’s mouth smile over hers before he drew away.
‘I must take our son to his baptism,’ he said.
‘I have thought to name him Richard for his ancestor who was a mighty warrior-king, and who once reigned in England and Aquitaine. His brother shall one day rule England, God willing, and follow in the footsteps of others of that name, but this little one shall govern here, so let him be named for one of its greatest princes.’
‘As you wish, my lord,’ Jeanette said. She had thought that Edward might call him Edmund for her own father, but he already had a brother of that name, and perhaps Richard was more appropriate for Aquitaine.
When Edward had gone, Jeanette studied the rings he had placed on her fingers and her ladies came to exclaim over them, praising the Prince’s thoughtfulness and generosity.
Jeanette smiled and enthused with them, but inside her heart ached at the thought of his imminent departure and the long loneliness ahead.
She would give all these rings and more for it not to be.
A few hours later, Edward returned the newly baptised baby, wrapped in fresh swaddling, to the confinement chamber, informing Jeanette that one of young Richard’s godfathers at the font had been Pedro of Castile.
Jeanette stiffened. ‘You did not tell me that ahead of time,’ she said. ‘What manner of godfather will he make for our son?’
Edward looked uncomfortable. ‘He is a king, even if an exiled one,’ he said. ‘And his daughters will marry into our nobility. It is both diplomatic and fitting, especially once he has been restored to the Castilian throne.’
She swallowed her annoyance, for the deed was done. What Edward said was true in one sense, but she would never have chosen Pedro of Castile as a godfather for any of their children.
Edward handed the baby to his wet nurse and turned to pick up his older son and namesake.
‘Be good for your mother,’ he said. ‘I will see you when I return, and I will bring you both gifts and glory, my fine little knight.’ He kissed him, then bade farewell to his two stepdaughters with hugs and embraces and promises to bring them Castilian sweetmeats on his return.
Lastly, he came to kneel at Jeanette’s bedside and kiss her again.
She put aside her irritation. She would not ruin this moment with anger and rebuff, nor would she weep and cling, but those emotions roiled beneath the surface. ‘Hurry back,’ she whispered as they embraced. ‘In God’s name, Edward, be safe and hurry back.’
‘You have my word on it,’ he said. ‘Nothing will stand in my way, I swear it.’
Nothing but death, she thought. That could not be sworn away by mortal will.
Taking her hands, he kissed the rings he had given her. ‘You are my treasure, my heart’s bravest gold.’
He left her, and through the open door she heard him speaking to John Chandos waiting outside, and knew his mind was already on the road to Castile and that she and the children were business dealt with.
Tom had accompanied his stepfather and, having said goodbye to his sisters, took his turn to make his obeisance and farewell to her. She could feel his impatience through his restraint.
‘Look after yourself,’ she said as he kissed her cheek. ‘You are precious to me, and I want you home and whole too.’
‘Yes, mother.’ He smiled, but like his stepfather, his mind was clearly on the road to Castile.
‘Look after your stepfather too. Come home safe to me, all of you.’ If she kept repeating the words, they would be true. Perhaps if she had said it more often, Tom’s father might not have died in Rouen. Perhaps one more prayer would have made a difference.
Tom agreed sincerely but dutifully, then went to bid farewell to Alys.
On his return he and his young wife were to have a chamber to themselves, and the marriage would be consummated.
Jeanette watched him take Alys’s hands and speak in her ear.
She blushed, and he slanted his head and kissed her fully on the mouth as a man would kiss a woman.
Alys gripped his forearms for an instant, and then stepped away, her complexion rosy.
When he left the room in Edward’s wake, Alys stood rooted to the spot, staring after him, her hands clasped to her breast.
‘Come here,’ Jeanette said, opening her arms wide.
Alys approached the bed, with slow steps as though in a dream. ‘It hurts,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It hurts in here.’ She touched her heart.
‘Yes, my love, I know it does,’ Jeanette said. ‘It is one of the deepest pains in the world.’
Alys knelt at the bedside and Jeanette held and rocked her against her side.
Her daughter-in-law could not know the true depth of the pain because she had not endured the ultimate one, but the first parting, even if only a surface cut compared to others, was as sharp as a glass edge because it was so new and raw.
The deeper cuts, the ones that left scars, were written not only on the heart but on the soul.
Jeanette was slow to wake in the morning. The difficult labour and heavy blood loss were still taking their toll, and when she did stir, the ladies informed her that the men had already attended mass and were ready to ride out. Calling for her bed robe, she left the bed and hurried to the window.
Banners flew and armour and harness shone in the cold morning light.
Misty steam rose from the stamping horses and clouded the air.
The knights and serjeants rode in a proud array, their posture upright, their armour bright and unmarked by rust or travel.
They could have been part of a mythical tale, and she felt a world away, watching them ride out of her life.
Little Edward’s nurse brought him to the window, and he bounced in her arms and pointed excitedly. ‘Papa!’
Jeanette followed the toddler’s finger and gazed at her husband’s straight posture in the saddle.
Behind him rode his squires, prominent among them Roger and Tom.
Although upright and dignified, Tom glanced to his right and said something to Roger, and the youths grinned with excitement.
Tom looked so much the man, yet he was still her child, her boy, this rite of passage a wonder for him, and a worry for her.
She felt excluded, isolated and vulnerable as it triggered memories of bidding farewell to his father.
But she raised her head and jutted her chin.
She must set an example and contain her emotions, even if it made them more painful, like a tight, twisted knot in her chest. Change had to happen, but always it seemed that something had to break to bring it about, and she feared that too many pieces of herself had already been shattered and would not mend if broken again.
A glance at the other ladies looking out of the windows revealed that Alys was biting her lip, her gaze fixed on Tom, her eyes glistening with tearful pride.
‘It will be a different season when they return,’ Jeanette said to her. ‘Full summer perhaps.’ She put her arm around the young woman. ‘There will be plenty to do while they are gone, for both of us.’ She would make sure of it.
Side by side, they watched until the last cart had rolled out into the pale January air, and the gates had closed behind the tail of the final sumpter horse, and the men were gone to war.