A Child Upon the Throne Read online

  Trembling for the safety of the city—one misplaced torch could set London ablaze—even Bishop William Courtenay pleaded for his parishioners to disperse. Various attempts were made to patch up the quarrel and resultant riots. Finally, a deputation of London officials travelled to Edward III's residence at Sheen. There a city spokesman, fearing business would suffer if the king, the duke, and other powerful lords sought revenge, profusely apologized to His Grace.

  Although Edward III's health was poor, he tried to concentrate on the barrage of explanations, but, in actuality, all he wanted to do was return to his leman, Desiderata Cecy, his hawks and his hounds and pleasant reminiscences of long-past times.

  A few words detached themselves from the official's mumblings.

  What is he saying? Edward wondered. That neither my son John nor his men has suffered any material damage from these insurrections? God's bones, how brazen my subjects can be!

  He blinked and sat up straighter in his chair, trying to follow what seemed to be very convoluted, and self-serving, reasoning.

  Surely, Henry Percy would argue that the ransacking of his residence qualifies as "damage." And had not that poor Scottish knight, Sir John Swynton, who'd had John's badge torn from his very neck by the mob, also suffered several broken ribs? And what about that Benedictine priest who was beaten to death?

  But King Edward was growing weary, his lower back ached, and he did not want to quarrel. When city leaders promised that all those who had insulted the duke's name would be found and punished, His Grace pretended to believe them, dismissed them all and returned to more pleasant matters.

  Throughout the city, the atmosphere remained explosive. The business of Parliament effectively ceased, though that did not divert Londoners' attention—or their hatred. The duke's men dared not venture out without being heavily armed. John of Gaunt himself prudently exited the city, though he demanded that the anonymous authors of vicious lampoons, impugning everything from his morality to his birthright, be immediately excommunicated.

  When peace and order were sufficiently restored, the duke proceeded to undo every last remaining act of the Good Parliament.

  Chapter 5

  London, June 1377

  Desiderata Cecy sat beside King Edward's royal couch in his palace at Sheen, along the River Thames. From a strategically placed window she could look out upon the most beautiful gardens. Today, Sunday, June 21, 1377, had been blessed with a dazzling sky and plump clouds. Too bad Edward's sight had failed him. He'd always so loved the views.

  Reaching out, Desire ran her fingers over the rings glutting the king's thin, heavily-veined hands. For the past few days His Grace had been in a semi-comatose state, only occasionally rousing himself. Today would be his last; Desire was certain of that.

  And I will be sorry.

  She did love Edward III, not just because of the legends and because he was KING, with all that title entailed. How much higher could a woman reach than to be companion to a monarch? No, she loved Edward because, while he might be more a sixty-five-year-old child than a man, he was always pleasant and possessed an optimism that might now border on delusion, but which she found touching. She loved him as a fellow human being who was in need of her and who looked at her with such a guilelessness. As her son, Ralphie, yet did. In an old man some might feel revulsion, but Desire felt... compassion.

  What has become of me? she wondered. I am not the woman I once was.

  She wished she were as ambitious and heedless of other's needs as she'd once been, as certain that what Desiderata Cecy wanted she must have simply because she wanted it. Because she willed it. But that woman was a stranger. Her ladies and the royal courtiers around her made sly comments—for one must never come outright and say how much one despises a king's mistress—about parties, feasts, and the material possessions lavished upon her, implying that was the only reason she was with Edward. And behind her back counting the days until her power ended and she would plummet to well-deserved disgrace.

  Desire knew what they said and went along with the pretense, prattling about matters of no consequence as if she were interchangeable with Alice Perrers, who'd been so intent on furthering her own and her family's fortunes.

  I have more wealth than the treasury, which means little since we are virtually bankrupt. And so many demesnes I have not visited them all. What I need, what I want... Desire sighed. For what she wanted she could never have.

  The truth was so very different than what others believed. But let them think what they would. The end had arrived, at least one end had arrived, and she must complete her performance.

  On St. George's Day, April 23, Edward had managed to hold his last feast of the Garter, where he'd bestowed knighthood on ten-year-old Richard of Bordeaux and his cousin, John of Gaunt's son and heir, Henry of Bolingbroke. Desire had told herself then that the king was improved, that many years yet remained to his life, even though daily events reminded them all otherwise. One of the most humiliating had been when Edward had been forced to greet a group of Londoners swaddled like an infant in cloth of gold and muslin and nailed to his throne so that he would not fall from his perch. He'd been unable to speak at the time, which was just as well for so often his words made little sense, though Desire struggled very hard to decipher their meaning in order to please him.

  Our Arthur, she'd thought following the meeting where the hero of Crecy had been held upright by expensive swaddling bands. She'd wept when she was completely alone, away from him, her maids, everyone. She wanted no one, no one to view her sorrow.

  Now Edward's moment was at hand. And afterward? Desire knew well enough what her future would hold after His Grace's death.

  Such fools you all are, thinking, hoping that I will miss the power. Her fingers absently kneaded the counterpane covering the king's wasted body as she addressed her invisible audience. You say that is what I want—to have bishops and lords and even the Duke of Lancaster coming to me, pleading for me to intercede. If you only knew.

  What Desire really wanted, what she demanded, was their hatred—all of them, from the meanest villein behind a plough in the farthest reaches of Northumbria to John of Gaunt himself. To spit out her name, to attribute all the world's wickedness to her, to look upon her with loathing, to recoil from her presence as if she were a leper.

  It was only what she deserved.

  "Ah, Harry," she whispered, addressing her dead husband, and her eyes brightened with tears.

  When King Edward bestirred himself, his confessor and a dozen other priests entered the room. Though they were intent on hearing his confession and preparing his soul for death, Edward would not cooperate. He muttered about his hawks and hunting and his plans for the future, which did not include dying. So strange that while 'twas common practice for folks, from the ordinary to the most exalted, to have premonitions of their deaths so far in advance that they would insist upon funeral preparations even while appearing outwardly healthy, the most important person in the kingdom—if not the entire world—had not the slightest inkling.

  King Edward turned his head on the pillow, toward Desire. "Look at them, so solemn-faced," he said weakly. "How silly they are!"

  "Aye, sire." Desire smoothed a strand of hair away from his brow. "By the morrow you will be up and enjoying the hunt, just as always."

  She was no Alice Perrers, who Edward truly loved, but what hold she had over him lay in her ability to pretend that he remained young and virile. 'Tis a small enough fiction, she thought, smiling down at him. To make a man happy as he lies dying. Desire took a deep breath, shuddered, and continued her vigil.

  King Edward again lost consciousness. His breathing slowed until his alarmed confessor, fearing it had stopped altogether, bent over his chest.

  His Grace's eyes fluttered open. "Jesu Miserere," he whispered.

  The priest thrust a crucifix in the king's hands, then raised it to his lips. Another priest left to send for his four remaining children. Now everyone knew Death would not
grant another reprieve.

  Edward's household servants and courtiers stood on the opposite side of the chamber, watching the drama unfold, waiting for the moment when their king would die. The end had been predicted for so long that much of the grieving had passed, though it was still difficult to imagine a world in which Edward III had not existed. He had outlived five of the six earls he'd created, six Archbishops of Canterbury, five popes, his two great adversaries, Phillip and Jean of France, and eight of his thirteen children.

  Finally, Edward III's breathing ceased. His servants began weeping; courtiers hurried away to relate the news; priests performed the necessary ablutions upon his body.

  Desire waited until she was alone with the king. She found herself crying silent tears for she'd become soft-hearted about loss of any kind, from one of Ralphie's toys to that of late summer when she glimpsed the first turning of a leaf, to this, the most enormous loss of all.

  Nay, not the most enormous loss. There was one other...

  She stared down at Edward's face, taking note of the slackness in the mouth, the relaxing of his knobbled hands on the coverlet.

  How had Harry looked when his life had slipped from him? Since Harry's brother, Matthew Hart, fled at the very sight of her, she was left to her imaginings, each one more terrifying than the last. Actually, Desire knew very little about her husband's death beyond the fact that he was referred to as a hero, as were so many who had participated in the Great Chevauchée. But what had been the manner of his passing? Swift? Slow and painful? Had he called for her and Ralphie? What were his final words? She'd learned little more than that Matthew had been with him, meaning that Harry would not have died alone...

  Desire smoothed Edward's brow, which was as warm to the touch as if he were only sleeping. This was a portentous moment. It would be discussed, every nuance, for years, perhaps generations to come. Priests and chroniclers would put quill to parchment and relay the minutest of details—the date of his demise, who attended, Edward's final words, his dress, the size and shape of the chamber in which he expired, the final dispersements of his largesse, any evil portents preceding his death or subsequent miracles. The scribes would also shape opinions of those yet to be born.

  Which meant there was only one thing to do.

  Desire bent over to lift Edward's head from the pillow and remove a thick gold chain from around his neck. Then she stripped the rings from his fingers and thrust the jewelry inside her purse. Meaningless, all of it. She had coffers, rooms full of similar. But her actions would surely cause tongues to wag and chroniclers to sharpen their feathers and bend over their writing desks, frowning their disapproval as they documented her scandalous behavior.

  "I am sorry, sire," she said to the corpse. "But you know what is in my heart."

  Desire turned and tiptoed from the room.

  * * *

  At Warrick Inn, Matthew and Margery were just beginning a game of chess when his squire entered the room.

  "Excuse me, my lord," Jerome said. "The duke has just announced that His Grace is dead."

  Matthew picked up his king, squeezed it in his fist, and replaced it on the wooden board. "'Tis all over then."

  London's bells began to ring, hesitantly at first, then seemingly in a rolling wave, relaying the news.

  Margery reached out to place her hand over Matthew's.

  He looked down at the slender fingers covering his own. "It is as it is," he whispered, quoting one of the dead king's mottoes. He did not speak for a long time. Then he said, "I am very tired," removed Margery's hand, stood and left the room.

  Chapter 6

  London, Summer to Fall, 1377

  "I am so pleased to see you." Margery smiled at her father, Thomas Rendell, who sat beside her in Warrick Inn's small pleasance. Thomas and his wife, who was resting inside the Inn's guest chamber, had arrived for Richard of Bordeaux's coronation. Lords were attending the event from across the kingdom as if to remind jackals, both domestic and foreign, that, while the lion might have been downed, his cubs had converged to protect his pride.

  "Who would miss our prince's coronation?" asked Thomas, his tone light. His wife Constance's psaltery rested against his knees. He'd been measuring lengths to replace two broken strings on its board but his attention was clearly elsewhere.

  Margery wondered whether her father's remark about Richard's coronation might be sarcastic. In these emotional times, anything even hinting of the political had to be carefully treated.

  They were nestled in a turf seat tucked into a wall topped by sweet-smelling herbs. Before Thomas's arrival she had been weaving a garland of periwinkles which rested half finished on her lap.

  "They say 'twill be the most magnificent ceremony ever," Margery said after a time. She did not add that Thurold and John Ball were wild at the expense of it when England was bankrupt, so many good Englishmen were out of work and foreign workers were flocking into the kingdom, undercutting wages and disrupting the normal balance of commerce.

  "I am old enough to remember our Edward III's coronation," Thomas said without elaboration. Margery cocked her head to study him. Thomas Rendell must be sixty years of age or thereabouts and yet, where Edward of Windsor had become a doddering ancient, Thomas would still command a woman's attention and a man's respect. Had it been the same with his father, her grandfather? If so, 'twas no wonder Maria Rendell had been forever captivated.

  "London is packed to the rooftops," she said aloud. "It reminds me of the Christmas stories about there being no room at the inn. My lord's family are all at Hart's Place. Some have even erected tents in the garden."

  "Let us pray our young prince enjoys a reign as prosperous as his grandfather's."

  Everyone is pretending, are they not? thought Thomas. Mouthing platitudes and hoping for the best when the enemy raids our coasts and the kingdom trembles for its future. Our king had barely drawn his last breath when we were terrorized by swarms of French ships disgorging thousands of troops who sacked Rye, burned Lewes, which should have been safely inland, and then set fire to Plymouth. Atrocities more suited to Nordic sagas than these civilized times.

  Thomas picked up the psaltery, placed it across his knees, removed the broken strings and carefully replaced them with new ones. Constance plucked her psaltery like an angel but the accompanying singing could most charitably be described as determined.

  "I do know one thing," he said. "No matter what, England will survive." He remembered the abdication of the second king Edward—as well as the resultant scandal regarding Thomas's mother, Maria, and her lover, Richard of Sussex, (which to this day Thomas had never mentioned). The kingdom had been just as torn in 1327. And then been raised to mythical heights by Edward III and his son, the Black Prince. 'Twas simply fortune's ever turning wheel.

  Thomas leaned the psaltery on the turf seat next to him and sighed deeply. He was too fixated on the past, a sure sign of age. Soon he'd be an old fool sitting in a corner, mumbling to himself and wondering why everyone, even his wife and children, avoided him.

  "I do not harbor much fondness for London," he said suddenly. His gaze fashioned upon the gold and orange flash of minnows circling the pond directly across the pebbled pathway. "But then I've never been much of a traveler. If it weren't for campaigns and attending to our other manors, I would ne'er leave Fordwich Castle." He stretched his booted legs before him until the heels were planted upon the pathway.

  "I am grateful you chose to travel to Cambridge one particular year," Margery said with a shy smile. "Else I would not be here."

  Thomas laughed. "Aye, Sturbridge Fair. How I balked and complained about traveling five days with pack horses and carts and instructions as to what must be purchased and brought back home. The barges and wherries cramming the River Cam, from as far away as Italy and beyond, were loaded with so many goods the like of which I'd never seen. It did not matter. I was instructed to bring back a little, and sometimes a lot, of everything." He paused, and his voice softened. "But after meet
ing Alice, I counted the days from one year to the next."

  Ah, Margery's mother. Somehow their private conversations always meandered back to Alice.

  "Sometimes I think I remember Sturbridge but I'm not sure whether I'm confusing it with more recent fairs," she said. "There must have been plays, of course, and puppet shows and acrobats and stilt-walkers and jugglers. I can almost see Thurold handing me a cryspe powdered with sugar, which I'd ne'er tasted before. And it seems Giddy once got lost..." Margery's voice trailed away. In truth her half-sister had long ago become just a name. She might have dreamt chasing that tiny copper-haired hoyden around stalls and among a sea of kirtles and chausses, for Margery would have been too small herself to easily view anyone from much above the waist.

  Thomas and Alice: the past sat between them. So many questions Margery might ask. She knew her father would be eager to answer them all.

  She wasn't even sure what her mother looked like anymore. Thomas always remarked on their resemblance, save for Alice's hair, he said, which had been much lighter. Margery remembered, didn't she, her mother combing her luxuriant tresses in front of a shaft of sunshine? Would the light have come from the window opening in the Watson cottage, which, thanks to Thomas Rendell's largesse, had been the finest in all of Ravennesfield?

  Margery wanted to question her father about so many things—the timbre of Alice's voice; whether she was quiet or laughed often; whether she was clever or slow, vulnerable or haughty; whether she accepted the attentions of a great lord with awe or as her due? Did they speak of love and of shared dreams, all the while knowing such were impossible? Or did both just accept it for what it was, a dalliance with a by-blow as a result?

  But Margery would probably start off by asking something simple like, "How did you meet?"