Chapter 33
Jeanette finished dictating instructions to her scribe and with a sigh of relief stretched her arms above her head.
She had been at work since dinner, and it was late afternoon now.
Her mind felt as heavy as wet fleece and she needed to rest. She had returned from Canterbury yesterday after visiting Edward’s tomb and had not stopped since her return.
She had issued commands for the defence of her dower lands from possible attack by sea from the Castilians.
Enrique of Trastamara was assembling a fleet in France and threatening to invade England via Wales.
She had already sent men to assess vulnerable areas and report back and had spent the day issuing orders and reassurances.
Having been married to two soldiers of extraordinary ability, she was no innocent when it came to such matters.
And at least for now, John and London’s citizens had made their peace following the incident at St Paul’s.
Richard had been sitting with her for the last hour, his lessons with Master Burley having finished for the day, and she turned to him. ‘What do you say? Shall we take a moment to walk the dogs in the gardens?’
He nodded eagerly and skipped to collect the braided leashes from the peg in the wall.
There was no need to whistle for Amber and Damask for they were already scrabbling at the door, and the moment it was open they dashed out of the chamber and down the stairs, tails whirling into a blur.
Richard followed, sure-footed and swift, and Jeanette came after him, lifting her gown hem above her ankles to negotiate the steps.
Richard had been out in the fine weather training with his hawk and learning to ride and fight, although he much preferred hunting and the expertise of the chase to swordsmanship.
The summer sun had lightened his hair to rosegold with fairer ribbon streaks chasing through the waves.
He found a stick and threw it for the excited dogs, then ran along with them, laughing.
While not keen on the weapons training, he was quick and athletic, and Jeanette’s happiness watching him was tinged with wistful longing.
If only Edward could see him. But then her beloved Thomas had not seen his own children flourish and grow beyond childhood either.
In April, at the traditional Garter Feast at Windsor, Richard had been knighted with his cousin Henry as England prepared for war with France.
Richard was to go on campaign with his royal uncles, and Jeanette’s stomach had clenched with fear at the notion of sending her boy into this arena.
Richard was eager to go, not for the war but because he was a figurehead, which meant more parading and being admired in public.
She worried that he was not ready for all the expectations being loaded upon him alongside the clothes and pageantry.
Alice Perrers’ son John de Southray had been knighted too, much to Jeanette’s irritation.
She wanted to dislike the youth, but he was personable and good-natured, and she could not shun him purely because of his mother’s pernicious influence on the King.
The latter had presided over the knighting ceremony, seated on a great golden throne, but much of the time had been slumped over like a half-empty sack and had slurred his words as though drunk.
After knighting the youths and attending the Garter ceremony on St George’s Day, the King had taken the royal barge and retired to his palace at Sheen.
There he had remained, other than a brief foray to Windsor to pardon Richard Lyons for his financial crimes; he had even given him a thousand marks – the precise sum that Lyons had once offered to Edward in a barrel.
Jeanette knew it would never have happened if the King was in his right mind, but he was clearly wandering in some shadow world of his own.
He had ordered magnificent ermine-trimmed robes to clothe his restored mistress and given her a gold cup worth forty pounds.
His spending on her had increased, and it was plain to all that she was draining his coffers while she still could.
She had even secured an extended pardon for her own deeds of financial espionage.
An irritating, biting, blood-sucking flea.
The rumours about her and William de Wyndsore had continued to rumble, and although Alice was closeted at Sheen with the King, de Wyndsore was often seen in residence at her large house on Thames Street and plainly had the run of the place, including stabling his horses there.
Eventually, when the dogs and her son had romped to their hearts’ content and Jeanette had refreshed her mind and stretched her legs, they turned back to the manor.
Midges danced in the evening light and blackbirds warbled, defending their territories in the green summer world.
They dined on spiced venison pies with a sweet-sharp fruit sauce, saffron eggs, honey pastries crusted with glazed nuts and dishes of tiny strawberries served with thick yellow cream.
As twilight deepened, servants lit the candles and they cast a soft golden glow.
Listening to her musicians, Jeanette played chess with Richard, while the dogs settled at their feet and licked their paws.
They had not long finished their game, which Richard, to his great pleasure, had won, when there was a sudden flurry outside the door and the sound of urgent voices.
Jeanette looked round, startled, as John walked in, unannounced, crossed to her and Richard, swept his cloak aside and knelt to him.
‘Your Highness,’ he said. Then he turned to Jeanette.
‘There is news. My father has died, and we are going to Sheen now. If you and the King will make yourself ready, we can leave immediately – a barge is waiting.’
Jeanette put her hand to her breast where her heart had started to pound uncomfortably hard at the use of those two words applied to her ten-year-old son, who had so recently been throwing sticks for the dogs in the garden.
‘My brothers and the Earl of March are on their way. Messengers have ridden out.’
Jeanette rallied and issued swift instructions for cloaks to be brought and for baggage to be packed and sent on later. ‘Do you know any more?’
John shook his head. ‘Only what the messenger told me, and he came in haste. My father was confessed, and his chaplain was with him, and senior members of his household.’
Richard stood amid the flurry, bemused. His uncle pressed his shoulder with a firm hand to steady him, and Richard lifted his chin. ‘I am the King,’ he said, the statement flat and blank even if given in his child’s piping voice. ‘My grandfather is dead, and I am the King.’
Jeanette exchanged looks with John and strove to control her breathing.
‘Yes, sire, you are, and I and others will serve you as best we can.’
Richard stared up at his uncle, and his throat worked as he swallowed.
They left the palace, walked to the river and boarded the waiting barge, and the oarsmen pushed off downriver towards Sheen ten miles away.
Richard sat on a cushioned bench, self-contained, not speaking.
Jeanette watched him with concern but left him alone, giving him an opportunity to absorb what had happened, and trying herself to come to terms with the fact that this vulnerable child now had the weight of a country suspended above his golden curls.
‘Now your grandfather has died, you are indeed the King,’ she said to him after a while, when she was sure she could keep her voice steady.
She took his hand. ‘You are a strong boy, and you have been born for this hour. I want you not to doubt yourself but to muster all your strength and be as a king from the very start, that no man may say you are not. You will do very well, and I bless you.’ She kissed his soft cheek.
Richard nodded staunchly, although his eyes were wide and his pupils enormous.
‘Do not be afraid,’ she said. ‘We are all with you.’
‘I am not afraid, Mama,’ he answered. ‘That is not the way of a king.’
She did not think that was entirely true, but it was a fine answer. ‘I am proud of you,’ she said, her throat tight with emotion. ‘I will always be proud.’
At Sheen they were taken to the royal apartments, to the bed where the King lay.
His mouth slanted downwards at one side, suggesting he had suffered a seizure, and his eyes were sealed shut with gold coins.
A linen cap covered his hair, and he wore a clean white nightshirt with his hands folded over his breast, holding a jewelled cross.
Paler bands of skin on his fingers showed the ghostly imprint of rings.
‘Where is Mistress Perrers?’ Jeanette asked one of Edward’s chamber servants.
The man looked down. ‘She is not here, madam. She took her leave when the King died . . .’ He cleared his throat.
‘She . . . she stripped the rings from the King’s fingers and put them in the purse at her belt, and she also took a box of jewels she said he had willed to her, and chests of cloth and furs.
She was gone with a swifter flight than the soul from his body. ’
‘And no one stopped her?’
‘Madam, we had no sanction, and in truth it was better that she did not stay.’
He was probably right. Jeanette pressed her lips together and went to stand at the bedside with Richard and John. Alice could wait. For now, they had the dead to honour and the immediate situation to deal with.
‘The London citizens must be summoned here in Richard’s name,’ she said to John. ‘We cannot risk their unrest at this crucial time.’
‘I am aware of that,’ he said curtly. ‘I will do what must be done.’ And then he relented and squeezed her arm.
‘I understand your concern. The Londoners must come and pay their respects to my father and bear witness to his death, and I promise to be conciliatory. I would not put my nephew’s reign in jeopardy. ’