It was a disturbing thought, and Thomas decided they definitely needed to take themselves in hand and begin training.
After their ride, Thomas returned to the accounts he had abandoned for fresh air, but still did not feel like tackling them. Going to the hawk perch near the window, he took Empress on his wrist and fed her a few gobbets of raw meat from his cupped fist. The action made him think of Jeanette and their time in Flanders, and he wished he could have those moments again for the first time.
Otto arrived with a jug of wine to share, and Thomas returned Empress to her perch. The two brothers were standingside by side when John of Kent’s messenger dismounted in the courtyard.
Thomas’s chest tightened with anxiety. With the pestilence rife, the expectation was that anyone bearing letters might be the harbinger of terrible news.
De la Salle brought the messenger to Thomas’s chamber and the man knelt before Thomas and produced a small packet from his belt pouch. Thomas broke the seal, opened the letter, and swiftly read the lines.
‘I do not believe this,’ he said grimly. ‘How can this be?’
‘What is it?’ Otto asked.
His heart in his boots, Thomas handed him the letter. ‘Master Heath has been arrested and thrown into prison for speaking against the King and the King’s justice. He is no longer representing Jeanette and will be replaced by another attorney.’ He clenched his fist and struck the wall. ‘I do not believe this. Christ! I met Master Heath in Avignon and I seriously doubt he would have said such things.’
Otto shook his head in bafflement.
‘I suspect someone has been interfering, and since it is by order of the King, a seeker for answers would not have to look very far.’ Thomas dismissed the messenger and sat down heavily on the window bench. ‘They won’t win,’ he said grimly. ‘When I dig in for a fight, it is to the death – I care not who my enemy is. I have gone too far and too deep to lose it all now.’
On an early April morning, Jeanette arrived at the royal hunting palace of Woodstock in the Montagu travelling wain. The harnessed horses drew to a halt and she stepped from the cart with relief. The journey from Oxford had been relatively short – only a few hours – but it was still too long a time to be confined at close quarters with Katerine. They had been visiting the priory of St Frideswide, founded by Lady Elizabeth, who was laudedthere at least for her pious works. If only they knew, Jeanette thought.
They had spent three days at the priory. The pestilence had been gaining ground in Oxford and the city had been cloaked in a vile miasma of smoke and stench. Jeanette had been thankful to leave and return to Woodstock’s pale walls and tranquil, rustic surroundings. Elizabeth had chosen to remain at the priory rather than make the journey, bedevilled as she was by her aching hips and increasing infirmity. King Edward was at Langley Palace with Philippa and their family, but the wider court and hangers-on were domiciled here at Woodstock.
Instead of following the others inside, Jeanette clipped a leash to Nosewyse’s collar and slipped away, desperate for a moment to herself after the confines of the cart. She drew her skirts through her belt in the style of a farmer’s wife so they would not obstruct her and strode out with the dog, taking pleasure in the easy strength of her young body. Nosewyse ran ahead, chasing scents along the woodland paths. They followed the line of a stream and she inhaled the pungent aroma of wild garlic from the early white ransom blooms. The gardeners had been less diligent since the pestilence and many areas had become overgrown and weedy. Not caring that she would be scolded on her return, Jeanette sped along the muddy trail after her dog.
She had heard nothing from Thomas, who was not at court because the King did not require his services during a truce. She prayed every day for his safety. Master Heath’s arrest had shocked her deeply – all Katerine’s doing, she knew, and stemming from that conversation where she had trapped Master Heath into speaking the words that had brought him down. In the last few months, Jeanette had run the gamut of every emotion from despair, to hope, and back to despair. It was like constantly going up and down a set of stairs. Reach the top,retreat to the bottom, then begin climbing again. Somewhere along the way she had realised, with relief, that she did not need to be in constant motion, but could wait in the middle and be stronger and less exhausted. These days she no longer railed against Katerine and Elizabeth, but showed them her indifference, and that gave her power. The same with William, although he too had reached a similar settlement. His resolve to do nothing had changed from an aimless drift to a point of anchor.
The stream eventually led to another garden with a pool and a spring. Nosewyse stopped to drink, lapping with his swift, pink tongue, and she crouched beside him and scooped the clear, fresh spring water into her mouth. Supposedly a king, hundreds of years ago, had housed his mistress here and this garden and well were dedicated to her. Her name had been Rosamund and she had died while still a young woman and had been buried at the nunnery at Godstow. Jeanette imagined her sitting by this spring trailing her fingers in the water, perhaps with a dog like Nosewyse for company. She made a wish to the lady of the well, asking her blessing to keep Thomas safe, and to bring them together, and promised to light a candle next time she was in church.
‘Where have you been?’ Katerine demanded when Jeanette returned. ‘You look as if you’ve been walking through hedgerows.’
Jeanette looked down at her damp, muddy skirts. ‘I nearly have,’ she replied with a smile. ‘My legs were cramped and I had to stretch them after the journey, and Nosewyse needed to walk. You wouldn’t want him to make a mess in the chamber, would you?’
‘Well, change your gown, you look like a hoyden.’ Two deep vertical frown lines sat between Katerine’s eyebrows, and a light sheen of sweat gleamed on her skin.
‘Certainly not the sort of wife you would want for your son,’ Jeanette said pertly, and went to her bed space where her garments hung over a clothing pole.
The maids helped her to change into a fresh gown of apple-green silk trimmed with fur and re-dressed her hair, tucking it inside her wimple.
Servants brought food to the chamber, and the women dined there rather than go to the hall. Katerine picked at her food, eating a few flakes of herbed salmon and then pushing her dish aside. Jeanette fed small morsels to Nosewyse, who plucked them delicately from her hand.
Katerine retired to her bed space at the back of the room but Jeanette was not ready to sleep and sat by the open window, watching the stars, while Nosewyse curled up on her coverlet. She remembered the times with Thomas in Ghent. Sneaking out of the ladies’ chamber to join him and the other knights, and rolling dice in the tavern. She thought of spring evenings when she was still innocent with the world before her at sunrise, and her eyes stung with tears. Where was that future now?
Eventually, with a sigh, she summoned her maid to undress her to her shift and plait her hair into a soft braid, then, holding the little book of psalms in her hand, she knelt at her bedside and said her prayers, asking God to watch over Thomas and Otto, and everyone she cared for. And then she lay down to sleep with the book still in her hand, and Nosewyse curled at her feet in an imperfect circle.
In the middle of the night, she awoke to the sound of Nosewyse softly growling, and low moans from the direction of Katerine’s bed. It was still dark, but a glimmer in the sky hinted at dawn. Jeanette pushed aside her covers and went to Katerine,to find her sitting up, drinking from a cup, with her maid in attendance.
‘Go back to bed,’ Katerine said sharply when she saw her.
‘I thought something was wrong.’
‘Nothing is wrong, go away.’
Jeanette did as Katerine bade her, but being wide awake by now, she slipped her feet into her shoes, pulled a loose gown over her chemise, topped it with her cloak, and left the chamber, saying she was taking Nosewyse to relieve his bladder.
Outside, the dawn was breaking in a glorious wash of egg-yolk gold. She inhaled the sweet air and listened to the twitter of birdsong and the cries of the roosters on the dung heaps. The air smelled enticingly of spring and growing things. She took Nosewyse on a circuit of the smaller garden close to their lodgings. The dew soaked through her shoes and darkened the hem of her gown but she did not mind; indeed, she enjoyed the invigorating sensation of the sparkling cold against her skin.
From the gardens, she walked to the kitchens and purloined a small loaf from a scullion to whom she sometimes talked, much to the disapproval of Katerine and Elizabeth, who considered that fraternising with common people would bring about the ruin of the already precarious world order.
