Thomas would come to the Queen’s chamber with a message and they would meet on the stairs and share a swift kiss. Then there were the quick touches of hands in the hall, a look, asmile. Secretly brushing his groin as they passed in a corridor. The mews and the stables had become their sanctuaries and they would lie together at the back of Noir’s stall, making love, whispering, touching. And today in the woods on this grassy bank. She refused to think of tomorrow, or even to the end of the day, but to live in the moment, for it was all they had.
‘I suppose we should return,’ Thomas said reluctantly. ‘The women will be looking for you, and I have my duties.’ He was stretched out on the grass beside her, arms bent behind his head.
Jeanette puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. ‘Back to embroidery,’ she said. ‘I hate it. I don’t know what I would do without these moments.’ She leaned over to kiss him, knowing she would never grow tired of doing this. She traced his eyebrows with her fingertips. ‘I wish there was only us in the world.’
‘Like Adam and Eve?’ he asked, grinning. ‘I would enjoy seeing you clad in nothing but your hair every day.’
She hit him playfully. ‘You know what I mean.’
Catching her wrist, he turned it over and kissed the delicate blue veins on the inside. ‘Ah, but the purgatory of embroidery and attending to duty only sweetens the stolen moments.’
They rose and brushed themselves down. Hawise and John had been waiting a short but discreet distance away with the birds and horses. It was a bittersweet pleasure for Jeanette to watch her chamber lady and Thomas’s falconer conducting their own courtship openly, without having to be secret.
Several days later, while Hawise was helping her to dress in the morning, Jeanette caught her breath as the maid tightened the side laces of her undergown, for her breasts were full and tender. She had overslept and felt nauseous and still tired.
Hawise said quietly, ‘Mistress, it is perhaps not my place to say, but the laundress has not washed your flux cloths in the last month. Is all well with you?’
‘Of course it is!’ Jeanette snapped. ‘And you are right, it is not your place to say!’
Hawise curtseyed and moved away, her eyes downcast.
Jeanette sat down on the bed and, fiddling with her plait, counted back over the past weeks. She had lain with Thomas on numerous occasions, but he had always been careful not to spill his seed inside her, even if it was a sin to – except for that very first time in the stables. She knew the theory that a woman could not conceive unless she released her own seed – signalled by pelvic shivers of pleasure – and it had not happened then, but perhaps that particular science was wrong.
Hawise returned with a selection of hair ribbons for her plait, and Jeanette sighed. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘But there is no cause for worry. I am certain my flux will come any day.’
‘Indeed, my lady,’ Hawise agreed, but her expression did not match the tone of her voice. ‘A midwife told my mother that if any woman should find that her womb is congested so that her flux fails, she should bathe in water as hot as she can abide and partake of vigorous walks and riding.’ Her cheeks reddened. ‘If she has a husband, she should indulge in energetic love-sport, for it will also assist in the matter. If it is more than that, then it is in God’s hands.’
Jeanette raised a thoughtful brow at the information, especially the latter advice, and thanked her maid. ‘That is useful to know,’ she said, ‘but I am sure the situation will resolve itself soon.’
She lost no time in following the directions, and Thomas, as the recipient, was delighted and wide-eyed at her increased wildness, especially when she straddled him in a manner that the Church considered utterly sinful. She felt so powerful watching the look on his face as she moved above him, glorying in her own sinuous carnality, even while praying that all this determined activity would bring about the desired result.
After a week of strenuous effort and several baths, there was still no flow of blood. Her breasts had grown more tender, and she had started to feel nauseous on waking in the morning. The remedies had failed, and this was more than a congestion. She studied her body as she prepared to dress. Her waist was still narrow, her belly flat. But what would happen when it started to swell? The latest style of overgown was loose and full, and she would be able to hide her condition for several months, but there would come a moment of reckoning. What then would the Queen and her ladies say – and do? How would her mother respond? They would all want to know who the father was, and if they discovered that it would be the end for Thomas. Even if the Gascon marriage did happen, it was already too late to claim the child as that of her bridegroom.
She left the matter for another three days in fading hope that her flux would come, and then decided to approach Thomas and tell him. While attending the Queen to comb her hair, she sought permission to visit her hawk.
Philippa smiled at her. ‘If that bird was your husband, you would be the most attentive wife in the land.’
Jeanette flushed and looked down.
‘I know it is difficult when you are awaiting news from Gascony,’ Philippa said with sympathy. ‘Do not fret; it will arrive in its own good time.’
Jeanette felt sick. ‘Yes, madam.’
Philippa called for one of her jewel boxes, riffled among the contents, and presented Jeanette with a little sapphire and pearl brooch. The Queen’s response to anyone who was down in the mouth was to either stuff the person with sweetmeats or bestow small fripperies upon them. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘be of good cheer, and go and visit that bird of yours.’
Jeanette took the trinket, curtseyed and hurried from the room, then had to stop and lean against the wall to combat a wave of nausea.
Hawise touched her arm. ‘Your cloak, my lady,’ she said.
Jeanette straightened and swallowed hard. Hawise draped the garment around her shoulders and made a show of fastening the Queen’s pin to the collar until Jeanette was able to continue.
Once they arrived at the mews, Jeanette sent John de la Salle with a message for Thomas to come, and that it was urgent. Then she sat down on a bench outside to wait for him. She dared not go inside to the falcons. They would sense her tension and bate their wings, and the smell of their excrement might overwhelm her delicate stomach.
When she saw Thomas pacing towards her, tall and graceful, his hand on his sword hilt, her heart kicked in her chest with love, anxiety and fear.
He took one look at her face and sat down at her side. ‘What is wrong?’
Now that it came to telling him, her throat was blocked and she could only shake her head.
