Chapter 17 #4
‘Yes, of course. We spent the spring and summer preparing the new chamber for her and Tom. She knows what to expect and what her duty is, and I do not foresee any trouble. She is ready to be a wife in every sense of the word. What about Tom?’
Edward raised his brows. ‘He is a man of the world,’ he replied carefully.
‘He conducted himself well on the campaign even in difficult circumstances and has shown his maturity. He played his part and kept his head even in the thick of battle. He leads his men well and he has an excellent rapport with them. You would have been proud of him and his conduct – and so would his father.’
Jeanette swallowed hard and her throat was tight. ‘He has always taken after his father,’ she said. ‘I know Thomas would have been very proud. And you have continued that work with him and been a fine father in his finishing.’
‘I had good material with which to work, and I do not forget that his mother is a princess and that he is the great grandson of a great king.’
Jeanette’s pride swelled at his praise, but she was not blinded to practicalities. ‘We should keep an eye from a distance, for he is still young and still being tested, especially when it comes to a wife.’
‘I am sure they shall both manage,’ Edward said. ‘They have some fine examples to follow.’
‘That is true,’ she said with a smile. ‘How was your brother?’
Edward stood up in the tub. ‘His usual self – I was glad of his steadiness and his purpose in the field. I trust him with my life, and I say to you that you can trust him too if you ever have need of a friend and ally.’
‘I need to come to know him first,’ she said ruefully, ‘and establish common ground.’
‘You would be well rewarded.’
The look in his eyes was almost pleading, and she resolved to set aside her reservations. ‘Then I shall do my best,’ she said.
Tom turned over in the luxurious, soft bed, awoken by the early morning light streaking through the shutters.
Beside him Alys was still sleeping, her silky brown hair spread abroad on the pillow, her breathing slow and deep.
He had proved himself with her twice last night, intoxicated by having the right to bed her as his wife.
No more struggling with the frustration of chastity.
No more furtively seeking the release of his own hand or hurriedly, guiltily, taking a woman of the camp.
His stepfather, while accepting his men needed that release and he was never going to prevent them from using whores, strongly disapproved.
Some men contracted a painful disease of the genitals from lying with the camp women, and the deed itself was the sin of lust. Thus far, Tom had escaped such punishment from God and had done penance for his sins after confessing to his chaplain.
But now he was home, he and Alys had the time to become true husband and wife, and such things were behind him.
What Alys had made of last night’s encounter he did not know, but she had been willing and compliant, and he did not think he had disgraced himself.
He had learned a great deal about life on the recent campaign, and about other men.
His stepfather and the Duke of Lancaster were stalwart and honourable, and he was determined to hold fast to their code.
Pedro of Castile was a different matter entirely and, as they had discovered to their cost, not a man of honour at all.
He had reneged on his promise to pay the Prince for the army assembled to defeat Enrique, until forced into another agreement – and still no money had been forthcoming.
They would have held him harder to it, but the troops had been struck by the flux and its evil miasma had spread throughout the army.
His stepfather had been seriously unwell and laid up for several days, although he had made a gradual recovery.
Tom had remained healthy and so had Lancaster, but several of Tom’s archers had been struck down and one of the older men had died.
So many were sick that Edward had ordered a muster to return home and prepare an accounting from Bordeaux.
It had been another week before they left, by which time his stepfather was just about well enough to sit astride a horse.
Tom leaned over his sleeping wife, raising a lock of her hair to his nose to inhale the clean herbal scent.
Returning to this comfort had been a difficult adjustment after the battle camp – to the luxury of a warm bathtub, a soft bed and well-cooked food that wasn’t bread and salt fish stew out of a cauldron.
To know he did not have to be constantly on his guard with his hand on his dagger.
To have this clean, beautiful young woman at his side, who had given him her virginity and her trust, and who might already be carrying his heir, was almost impossible to comprehend after months on campaign.
Yet, perversely, almost wistfully, he missed the camaraderie, and the bonds formed with other men that no woman waiting at home would ever understand.
There had been times of high peril on campaign, and constant danger.
He had seen, heard and done things that seemed hellish when juxtaposed against all this softness.
People had accused his stepfather of treating this campaign as an exercise in vainglory, but they were wrong.
Pedro of Castile was no paragon or paladin: in fact, he had revealed during the campaign that he was the opposite.
Soldiers taken from among Trastamara’s knights to be honourably pledged for ransom by the Prince to recoup his costs had been brought before Pedro who had executed them on the spot – an act of dishonour and disgrace.
The Prince was furious. When they left Burgos for home, weakened by dysentery, he and Pedro had barely been on speaking terms. Add to that the disaster of Trastamara’s escape to France – and it had all been for nothing, and to their detriment.
Yet here, with the shutters open to the summer dawn, the wall hangings wafting in the breeze and the safety of Bordeaux’s walls around him, it all seemed unreal. Had it ever happened? And if it had, then was this the dream?
Alys’s eyelids fluttered as she awoke. She regarded him sleepily before uttering a half gasp of surprise.
‘Good morning, wife,’ he said with a slow smile.
A pink flush spread enticingly over her face and throat. ‘Good morning,’ she answered, raising the sheet to modestly cover herself. ‘Forgive me.’
‘What for? I always wake early. On campaign we were often stirring the embers before the sun had crested the horizon. I’ve enjoyed watching you sleep, as much as I have enjoyed everything else.’
Her blush increased, and he kissed her eyelids, her temples, her lips. ‘In the worst moments I dreamed of this,’ he murmured. ‘I wonder if I am still dreaming – perhaps you are a figment of my imagination.’
She sat up, still clutching the sheet with one arm, and tucked her hair behind her ears.
He admired its glossy brown sheen.
‘I hope I am not,’ she replied with a half smile. ‘For certain I would not want to disappear if you suddenly discovered that I was. Or perhaps you are a figment of mine – no?’ She tilted her head, her expression mischievous, and he saw the Alys of old peeping through.
‘And what things we must both be imagining!’ He kissed her again and wrapped her in his arms, but after a moment pulled back, remembering what his stepfather had advised: he should be steady.
Despite his own eagerness to sample the delights of true married life, Alys would need time to adjust and might be sore the next day.
He contented himself with stroking her body for a little longer before drawing back to pull on his braies, and his bed robe.
There was always tonight, and tomorrow and tomorrow.
‘You said “the worst moments” . . .’ she questioned.
He hesitated. She always wanted to know things – sometimes thoughts he hoarded to himself – but since she was now his wife in all ways, perhaps sharing some of the burden would help him make sense of it all.
‘I will not say anything outside this chamber, I swear,’ she said into his frowning silence. ‘I made a mistake once, but you can trust me – I promise on my soul.’
‘It is not something you would want to know.’
‘But tell me anyway. I want to understand.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘I am not sure you will . . . But when I was frozen to the bone and hungry in the falling snow of the mountain roads, I thought of you and of the comfort of home. And when we were marching in icy rain with water trickling inside our clothes, and our boots soaked through to our chilblained feet, you were in my mind. The same when we were pitching our tents in the dark in a tearing wind with nothing in our griping bellies but water and onion stew.’ He swallowed in revulsion at the memory.
‘On the night before battle I thought of you and of my mother and sisters, and I wondered if I would see any of you again. And then, after the battle . . . when I saw . . .’ He grimaced.
‘That, I will not tell you, I will only say that we swore to defeat one devil, never realising that we had got into bed with another perhaps worse – a man without honour – and what is a man without his honour?’ He fixed her with his gaze.
‘I thought of you in Burgos, when we feared the knives in the dark rather than the clean battle, and our men were falling sick with the gripes and squitters. When I saw the Prince groaning in agony on his bed, I wondered if this was to be our end. Yet, we arrived in Bordeaux in fine array, and the trumpets sounded our victory, and there you were before me, fresh and scented like a rose.’ His smile was pained.
‘I have had my dream, and I have endured my nightmare, and here we are.’