In the morning, Joanna attended mass with the other ladies before breaking her fast on bread and cheese. The church bells were still ringing, and the palace flurried with activity as messengers were sent out far and wide bearing the news of Prince Edward’s birth. In the ladies’ chamber there was talk of nothing else.
Joanna took her sewing to the bright window embrasure, now and then pausing her work to watch the river sparkle under a cloudless sky. Trading vessels plied their way under oar and sail between the various wharves, and red cattle were drinking at the waterside across the river.
The door to the Queen’s chamber opened and Lady Sybil emerged, cradling a swaddled bundle. Immediate warmth flooded Joanna’s heart. She had never connected with her baby stepbrother at Swanscombe, for, in her eyes, his mother was a usurper, but this infant she could love with pure, unalloyed joy.
Sybil sat down in the sunlit embrasure and the ladies gathered to take their first look at him, cooing and exclaiming. Joanna tip-toed forward. He was bound from head to toe in swaddling and snuggled in a soft, creamy blanket. She could see a little face, the closed eyelids, delicate as tellin shells lined with fair lashes of coppery gold. Yesterday he had been hidden inside the Queen’s womb but now he was here, whole and himself. The face and the little body all wrapped up. ‘It is a miracle from God!’ she whispered.
‘Indeed.’ Sybil smiled at her. ‘You may touch his head for luck and remember this day all your life.’
Hardly daring, Joanna set a light fingertip on the baby’s forehead where his soft skin met the band of his cap. He screwed up his face and opened his mouth in a gummy yawn. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she whispered. A fierce, protective yearning filled her heart, and in that instant, she fell overwhelmingly, irrevocably in love.
Over the next several weeks the Queen recovered from the birth and settled into her role as a new mother. Baby Edward grew plump and thrived. Joanna was given permanent charge of folding the napkins to line his swaddling and was very proud of the task. She observed closely as Sybil or the wet nurse, Alice, changed him and wiped his bottom with rose water, and she loved to watch him suckle at Alice’s breast. The entire process of Edward’s nurturing and tending made her feel whole and nourished too.
Gifts for little Edward poured into Westminster – cloth and gemstones, silver cups and plate, jewelled reliquaries, ivory rattles, boxes of spice, goblets and drinking horns. Henry presided over the gift-giving, weighing the prestige of each one with a judgemental eye. His heir was the most precious thing on earth and deserved presents to reflect that preciousness. If an offering fell short of his exacting standards, Henry returned it as being unworthy and demanded better. After he sent back a cloak to a furrier because the ermines were of inferior quality, Joanna overheard a court clerk remark to his companion that Richard the Lionheart had once said he would sell London if he could find a buyer, but Henry, it appeared, was selling his son for as much as he could obtain. Joanna quashed the thought that the King was being ungracious and even foolish; he had been carried away by his pride in his son and his desire to surround him with the best of everything, that was all. He was the King; she owed him her loyal gratitude, and surely it was wrong to criticise him.
The Queen remained in her chambers recovering as high summer closed over the city. The river glistened in the sun and the air ripened with the stink from the privies and wharves lining the bankside. But at Westminster there were gardens and closes too, perfumed with flowers and graced by the shade of trees. Taking Sausagez for his daily walk around the complex, Joanna soon came to know all its corners and enclaves.
A constant stream of visitors flowed into and out of the Queen’s apartments, especially haberdashers and seamstresses as they prepared the Queen’s wardrobe for her churching ceremony where she would give thanks for the safe delivery of a healthy infant and celebrate her return to court. She would also welcome the King back to her bed.
The court tailors fashioned Alienor a magnificent gown of patterned gold silk with a matching ermine-lined cloak. The King had presented her with a delicate jewelled crown, twinkling with sapphires. All the ladies had new robes for the occasion too. Joanna’s was of blue silk embellished with a hem-strip of gold left over from the cutting of the Queen’s robes, and she loved it; never had she owned such a gown before and it made her feel important and valued.
On the eve of the churching ceremony, Henry held a social gathering in his beloved great painted chamber. The Queen was still in confinement but Henry had little Edward brought to him in his cradle to show him off to his courtiers, with Alice his wet nurse and Lady Sybil’s husband Hugh Giffard keeping watch over the baby.
Growing increasingly anxious about Edward’s exposure to so many people, Alienor eventually told Sybil to go and bring him back. Sybil curtseyed and summoned Joanna to accompany her.
‘One day you will be training and leading young ladies of your own on such errands,’ she said as they walked, and gave Joanna a shrewd look. ‘Dame Cecily thinks highly of you and I am inclined to agree with her.’
Joanna warily eyed the people spilling outside the buildings on to the gravel walkways. The air was convivial, a little raucous, the raised voices and exaggerated gestures revealing how freely the wine had been flowing. It was all part of her education in resilience, so she would know how to comport herself in every situation. She hoped she would not disappoint such expectations.
They entered the King’s painted chamber through the ornate doorway, over which strong black lettering proclaimedke ne dune, ke ne tine, ne prent ke desire– ‘he who has and does not give, will not, when he wants, receive’. Walking beneath those words into the chamber always filled Joanna with a sense of destiny and awe. She loved it too and knew it was the King’s pride and joy.
The walls were painted to resemble green curtains secured with golden rings, and the work was so skilled it was difficult to tell that it was plaster not cloth. At the room’s far end, protected by depictions of King Solomon’s armed guards, the King’s bed had the same hangings but of actual green wool, heavy and thick, and the bed posts were gilded with stars. A quatrefoil window at the side of the bed gave a view into Henry’s private chapel.
Pages and squires moved among the gathering, serving wine and small dainties. An immense hubbub of voices talking all at once filled her ears. Men said that women were the greatest gossips, but this crowd of mostly males was making a fair effort to disprove it. One of the loudest voices belonged to Simon de Montfort, who was holding forth on the matter of the best way to wield a lance in combat. Men gravitated to de Montfort’s charisma like the moths that gathered to the candle flames in the hall. Joanna felt the draw of his powerful energy, but unlike the moths, she knew to keep her distance.
Henry’s gaze kept flicking with displeasure to the boisterous knot of men surrounding his brother-in-law. He turned a sharp look on Sybil and Joanna as they made their obeisance.
‘Sire, the Queen is asking for the lord Edward,’ Sybil said. ‘May I take him?’
‘I am not yet ready,’ Henry said petulantly. ‘I would have sent a summons if I was.’
Joanna had never seen Henry in such a mood before; to judge from his flushed complexion, he was not sober.
Sybil stood her ground with quiet dignity. ‘Sire, the Queen will not settle until the lord Edward is returned to her side, and I am only concerned for her wellbeing and that of your heir.’
Henry tightened his lips and continued to scowl, but her appeal had pierced the veil and he heaved a martyred sigh. ‘Very well.’ He cast his gaze around the room until it landed on his sister, and he called her to him, raising his voice. ‘Eleanor, your nephew is retiring to the nursery. Let his favourite aunt bid him farewell before he departs!’
The Countess, who had been standing beside her husband while he held court, left the group and came to Henry, her silk gown shimmering. ‘If I am his “favourite aunt”,’ she said, leaning over the crib, ‘then he is my most cherished nephew.’
‘I am pleased to hear it, sister,’ Henry said, and relaxed a little. ‘He shall be a great king one day.’
Edward crowed as if agreeing with his father. A group of courtiers followed the Countess’s lead and gathered around to admire the baby. Simon de Montfort wandered over, and Joanna saw his expression harden as he observed his wife cooing over the crib.
He cleared his throat. ‘Eleanor, we should be going too,’ he said.
She straightened and went to him as if tugged by a string, turning her back on Henry. Simon took her hand and kissed it, claiming his right. Joanna gasped, shocked that Eleanor would turn from Henry without a proper obeisance.
Henry’s expression darkened with growing anger. ‘You would whisk my sister away under my very nose yet again, my lord of Leicester, and without my leave?’
