Chapter 22 London, April 1371 #2
Attendants assisted Jeanette from the carriage and Richard emerged after her, smoothing his robes fastidiously, a perfect miniature prince.
He regarded the palace walls with avid curiosity.
Jeanette gently ushered him forward to greet his grandfather and dropped in a deep curtsey at the older man’s feet.
Richard bent his knee, but not his head, and gazed into his grandfather’s face.
‘Daughter.’ The King leaned over to kiss Jeanette’s cheeks. His breath was sour, and his whiskers tickled her face. ‘Welcome. I am pleased to see you.’
‘My father,’ she responded. ‘I am pleased to see you too.’ Their closeness confirmed that time was not being kind to him. His eyes had deepened in their setting, and the seams of age in his veined cheeks were pronounced. A loose paunch draped over the buckle of his ornate blue belt.
‘This is your grandson, Richard, born in Bordeaux on the feast of the Three Kings.’
Richard performed a bow then continued his study of his grandsire, taking in every part of him.
‘Hah,’ said the King, ‘the stuff of future glories. Do you know who I am, child?’
Richard eyed him quizzically as if to say of course he knew. ‘You are the King,’ he piped up in his child’s voice. ‘And you are my grandfather.’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘I like your belt.’
‘It was chosen for me by a special friend,’ the King said, smiling. ‘One day you too shall wear belts like this.’
‘Yes, because I am going to be a king too,’ Richard declared. ‘But I shall choose my own belts.’
The King chuckled softly. ‘Is that so, my young man? Are you certain of this?’
Richard nodded his head vigorously.
‘Well then, we shall have to see you equipped for the task of ruling a kingdom. It is no easy thing you know.’ He gently ruffled Richard’s golden curls with a beringed hand. ‘What a fine lad,’ he said to Jeanette. ‘It is a pity he is the only one.’
Jeanette concealed her irritation. It was not worth a biteback remark.
A banquet had been organised to celebrate the arrival of the returnees and Jeanette was escorted to private chambers where she could change her gown.
During their stay at Plympton she had had a set of robes made from red and blue silk powdered with gold.
Richard’s tunic was embroidered with the royal lions and lilies that would exactly match the robe his father would wear.
Once attired, they joined Edward in his chamber and found him propped up against pillows on his bed, grey with exhaustion, drinking the tincture prepared by Master Hermon. The day had taken its toll, but Jeanette knew better than to mention his condition.
Her smile was bright as he eased to his feet. ‘My brave and handsome husband,’ she said, taking his arm.
He returned her smile, albeit wryly. ‘My beautiful wife,’ he reciprocated, ‘and our precious boy.’ He set his other hand on Richard’s shoulder and winked at his son. ‘Shall we make our entrance?’
Together they descended to the great hall and were announced by a fanfare of trumpets so loud that Jeanette’s ears rang.
Edward walked slowly, regally, with his head carried high as they were escorted to the great table, but it was still obvious he was ill, and Jeanette could see the courtiers watching avidly, assessing like vultures around a kill.
And those courtiers had changed dramatically during their eightyear absence from court.
There were faces she did not recognise, and people she did not know, who smiled with familiarity at each other but not at her and Edward, although they were unctuous and obsequious.
So many young knights who had been beardless squires and pages when she was last here and were now grown men with daggers at their hips and dangerous eyes.
All the mirth and laughter that had once imbued the court in Queen Philippa’s day was gone, like a light being snuffed out to leave shadows.
The hair rose at Jeanette’s nape with a crawling sense of danger.
Edward gave her a sidelong glance as they processed towards the dais. ‘You feel it too?’
She nodded. ‘What has happened while we have been gone?’ But she could answer that for herself. The Queen had died, the King was growing old, and others at the court had also passed away, dimming the light.
They took their seats at the high table, under a blue silk canopy embroidered with stars.
Edward sat at his father’s right hand, with Jeanette on the left and Richard at her side.
She noticed another table close to the dais set with fine napery and silver-gilt dishes edged with jewels.
Other nobles were gathering to sit there, and at the head of the table was an empty seat carved with decorated finials.
A flurry at the end of the room heralded another arrival escorted by royal pages, and Jeanette stared in astonishment as Alice Perrers made her provocative, deliberate entrance.
Beaming, the King rose and bowed to her.
Jeanette and Edward remained seated. Mistress Perrers wore a green silk gown that shone like grass reflected in a pool.
The plunging neckline, edged with white fur, framed the tops of her breasts.
A belt of gold lozenges snaked around her hips, fastened with a jewelled clasp.
She swept a deep curtsey to the King, further amplifying her cleavage, and as she rose to her feet she smoothed her hands over the front of her gown, revealing the curve of a mid-term pregnancy.
‘Mistress Perrers, welcome,’ said the King.
‘I am at your service, sire, as always,’ she replied in a voice of honey and cream.
He gestured with an open hand for her to sit at the head of the table that had been specially set up.
Then he resumed his chair and looked at Jeanette and Edward with a glittering eye, daring them to speak out.
Edward set his jaw. Jeanette regarded her father-in-law with a neutral expression, although she was burning with outrage.
When she thought of the way he had treated her when Edward was courting her – his hostility to the marriage, and his hints that she was a loose woman – she felt sick at his hypocrisy.
‘You will accept that Lady Perrers is my companion and helpmeet,’ the King said with quiet steel to Edward. ‘You will respect me, and you will respect her – and I expect the same from every member of your household.’
Which told Jeanette he was well aware of the criticisms levelled at him.
Edward took a drink from his cup, biding his time, trying to think of a diplomatic answer.
‘Is that lady the Queen?’ Richard piped up, swinging his legs.
A telling silence fell across the dais table. Jeanette put her hand on Richard’s arm. ‘No, my love, the lady is not the Queen, but she is your grandfather’s special friend.’
‘The one that gave him the belt?’
‘Yes, my love.’
‘She looks like a queen.’
‘You will see many ladies dressed in finery at the English court, but none of them are queens,’ Jeanette replied, her tone gentle, but her thoughts like knives.
‘Only the wife of the King may claim that title, and the lady, however much of a special friend she is to your grandfather, will never hold that position.’
Edward flicked a glance at his father. ‘I shall accord the lady the respect she is due, sire,’ he replied.
‘My mother often wrote to me while I was in Aquitaine, exhorting me to be a good and true son and husband. She made mention of Mistress Perrers and that a vigorous man had needs – ones she could no longer fulfil – and that she absolved and forgave you. If she could do that, who am I to disobey her mercy and grace?’
His father narrowed his eyes, but so did Edward.
‘I am not here to dispute with you, sire,’ he continued. ‘We have our differences, but we must set them aside. My mother, God rest her soul, always did what was best for England and for you, and I shall endeavour to follow her great wisdom.’
A red flush tinged the King’s face. ‘If you have half as much wisdom as your mother possessed, you will be a wise man indeed,’ he said, by way of retort, before gruffly clearing his throat.
‘I do miss her – badly. I do not know where I would be without Alice for my solace. Do not judge me, my son, until you have walked in my shoes.’ Flicking back his sleeves, he gestured for the waiting attendant to pour water over his hands to wash them.
‘Now, let us eat and drink, and speak of other matters.’