Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (32 page)

As Joan resumed her seat, Sir Edward Montagu rose to say a few fond words about his brother, then several of his retainers, the Earl of Derby, and last, Ned, who was here with Bella representing their parents.

The room hushed as Ned rose, regal in dark velvet patterned with gold fleur-de-lis. Joan had caught Bella grasping her brother’s arm as he shifted on his chair next to Countess Catherine, shaking her head with a look of concern. Joan held her breath, waiting for the nastiness she was sure Ned was about to unleash. He acknowledged his father’s long friendship with the earl, briefly sketching Montagu’s rise to the earldom and beyond, and his courageous behavior when captured by the French. Then, smiling down at Countess Catherine, he assured her that his family would pray for her in her grief, mentioning with a smirk her long friendship with his mother and “your love for my father, and his for you.”

God in heaven
. Joan saw how the guests shifted in their seats, exchanging uneasy glances. When Catherine rose with an agonized moan, Joan quietly suggested that Bess and Sybil escort their mother out of the hall, and told Will to stand up to thank the prince and the princess and end it all with a toast.

As Catherine was led from the hall, Ned pretended not to notice, launching into a description of his father’s plan for a Round Table. Will lurched to his feet and interrupted Ned, thanking him and Bella for their presence. He then raised high his jeweled mazer, tossed back the contents, and called to a servant to refill it, then belched for all to hear. The guests lifted their vessels and drank, the volume quickly rising as they clattered for more.

“The belch was a
noble
addition,” Joan said to Will with a roll of her eyes. Though it had relieved the tension, and he had done as she asked, she was too worried about their living arrangements to be encouraging. Upon their arrival the previous afternoon, the servants had put Joan’s belongings in Catherine’s bedchamber, a spacious room with a large bed curtained in a red brocade and hung with tapestries portraying stories from the Bible. Will’s things were put in his late father’s chamber, right next to it. The adjoining door had remained shut through the
night. But tonight? Will’s laugh was too loud, his face too red, the whites of his eyes too visible, like a terrified horse. Unpredictable.

Ned laughed when she reproached him for goading the countess, saying he could not resist exposing the lie of her simpering piety, and expressing disappointment that Joan had been too busy organizing the Montagu children to hear his account of the earl’s bargaining for a grandchild with royal blood, Plantagenet blood. God help her, she hated him then. She called for a servant to light him to his room and disappeared into the kitchen to give instructions for the guests to be seen to in the morning as they made their departure.

Back in the hall, Joan found the Montagu sisters huddled together by the fire, talking softly so as not to disturb the guests spread out on pallets all around them. Bess thanked her for taking charge during the feast. “Mother has retired to the cottage in which she means to keep her retreat. Your Efa gave her a strong sleeping potion to ease her through the night. Thank you.” How strange it felt to have Will’s sisters deferring to her as the lady of the house. But they seemed relieved.

Joan stayed up late playing chess with Efa, though she was bleary-eyed from the long day and had trouble thinking through the moves.

“My lady, you need sleep.”

“What if Will comes through that door tonight? Could you put something in the wine?”

“There is no need, my lady. He is already cursed. He reeks of it.”

“Someone has put a curse on him?”

“That, or he imagines it. Either way, it has hold of him.” Efa rose. “I shall take my leave now, but I shall be right outside.” Joan’s women were sleeping in a small anteroom, as if she and Will were sharing the bed, hoping to fool the household.

As soon as Efa closed the door behind her, Joan slipped beneath
the bedclothes, exhausted. She was drowsing when she heard the inner door unlatch. Sitting up sharply, lifting the covers to her neck, she called out, “Who is there?”

Will stepped through, the brazier softly illuminating his bare legs sticking out below a loose linen shirt. He climbed onto the bed and peeled back the covers, pulling her down beside him. “You will do your duty to me, wife. I need an heir.” His breath was mead-sweet, his hands sweaty, his lips cracked and dry, scratching her skin as he kissed her. “I have a right,” he said when she did not respond.

“So take me,” she challenged, hoping it was his pride speaking and not a newfound lust for her.

He tried. But his own body defeated him and he finally turned away from her, cursing the prince.

“Ned? What did he do?”

“He got me drunk after the funeral Mass.”

“Is that all?”

“He is the devil, I swear it. But he won’t have you. You are
my
wife.” He buried his face in the pillows.

Poor, stupid boy. With her foot she poked him in the side. “You’ve all the time in the world.”

“Mother will know,” he mumbled into the pillow.

“How? I’ll prick my finger and smear some blood on the bed. We’ll behave as shy newlyweds in public and go our own ways behind our chamber doors.”

Will rolled over. “He’ll not have you. I won’t give you up.”

Which one? She did not ask. “Go now.” She pushed him again with her foot. “I am rising with the servants to bid farewell to the guests. You should as well.” She turned away from him as he sat up, sniffling, and finally padded off to his room.

She had hoped sleep would take her after he left, but her mind spun with riotous abandon through the earl’s fall at the tournament, Catherine’s madness, the funeral, the burial, Will’s misery. At some point she fell asleep, only to wake hot, the bedclothes
twisted round her. Rising to open a shutter, she turned around and gasped to see Ned sitting in a chair by the bed, the brazier softly illuminating his golden hair.

She scrambled back into bed, covering herself. “What are you doing in here?”

“Ensuring that he doesn’t return once sobered.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “How beautiful you are, cousin. When you are my queen, you’ll bathe in goat’s milk and sleep between silk sheets.”

She ignored that last part, wondering if it was Ned who had cursed Will. “You’ll be gone tomorrow. Who will guard me then?”

“He won’t bother you. Tonight he meant only to show me he’s won. Sleep well, my love.” He touched her hair, then went back to sit.

She lay there pretending to sleep until he departed shortly before dawn, his visitation far more disturbing than Will’s.

I
N THE MORNING
, H
ELENA DISCOVERED THE BLOOD ON THE BEDCLOTHES
.
“Shall we save these for the dowager countess, my lady?”

“Yes, of course.”

Efa shook her head. “How could that be? I was so sure.”

“I pricked myself,” Joan said for her ears only.

Despite knowing she should be present as the guests departed, Joan took her time dressing, waiting until Helena noticed the prince and princess riding out of the yard.

Will, too, had missed them, arriving in the hall so close upon Joan’s heels that she suspected he’d listened for her. He made conversation with the guests still breaking their fast while Joan bustled about seeing that all had what they needed for their journey home.

Word spread through the servants within days, gossipers
all of them, that the young earl and his countess were at last happily bedded, supported by rumors that Will had banished his favorite groom from his bed. But Ned had been right. Will did not return to her chamber. Relieved, she threw herself into the task of managing the household. Though now and then she wondered how long the curse would hold.

“As long as he believes in it,” Efa ventured.

M
argaret was proud of the grace with which Joan had taken up her responsibilities as Countess of Salisbury, knowing that her daughter believed her place was with Thomas. All at court spoke of her with fond admiration. She was so like her father, so fair of face and form, with a captivating charm, all eyes turning to her as she entered a room.

It pained Margaret to deliver the terrible news she came to bear, but better that Joan hear it from her. In July, the king had sailed to Sluys to determine the truth of reports that the Flemish cities were in turmoil and therefore in no position to support his war. He hoped also to win back the support of Philippa’s brother William, Count of Hainault, who’d shifted his allegiance to the French king. He learned that the crisis in the cities was largely due to Jacob Van Artevelde’s increasing unpopularity. His power had gone to his head, and the Flemish merchants accused him of setting his henchmen against them. Yet, because of his relationship with King Edward, Van Artevelde was chosen to represent the Flemish towns at the meeting on board the king’s ship anchored off Sluys.

Joan expressed no surprise. Margaret shook her head and motioned for Helena to refill her mazer. “There is more.”

After the meeting, Jacob departed for Ghent with obvious
reluctance. For good cause. Shortly after he returned to his house, it was surrounded by a hostile mob led by the councilmen who opposed him, all shouting, “Come out and tell us what the English king said!” When he called out that he would report to them on the morrow, the mob said they would break down his doors and kill him.

Joan had listened quietly, hands to mouth as the end became clear to her. “He sacrificed himself for his wife and children?”

“No. It seems Jacob was not quite so ready to suffer martyrdom,” said Margaret. “He fled out the stable block, hoping to reach sanctuary in a nearby Franciscan priory. But he was caught and beaten to death by the mob.”

Helena gasped.

“May God grant him peace.” Joan crossed herself. “No matter their motivation for befriending me, the Van Arteveldes welcomed me into their home and gave me sanctuary.”

“I know,” Margaret whispered.

“And now Thomas and I have lost the key witness to our betrothal. God has abandoned us.”

“Perhaps not. The king has rescued the Van Artevelde family. They should arrive in London within days.” Margaret turned to Helena, who had gone quite pale. “What do you think? Will your kinswoman still support your lady?”

“I believe she would, my lady.”

“I pray you are right.”

T
HOMAS HAD LEARNED TO EXPECT A VISIT FROM
L
UCIENNE SHORTLY
after arriving in London, though how she knew so precisely when he would appear mystified him. He seldom knew until he
boarded what vessel would carry him across the Channel from Brittany, and where he would land. She came to talk, to tell him all the court gossip, to relax with an old, trusted friend. But this day she was agitated.

“Is it Joan? Has something happened?”

“Not to her. But something that might affect your cause. Sit and I will tell you.”

He listened to her description of Jacob’s end. “The Flemish tyrant butchered. God have mercy, I have half a mind to cheer the bloody rabble.”

“He was your main witness.”

“But Dame Katarina is here, you said. In London? Do you know where?”

Lucienne said yes to all. “And Countess Margaret wishes us to speak with her. She would prefer to do it herself, mother to mother, but as it might jeopardize her son’s proposed betrothal to Elizabeth of Juliers—”

Quite a match
, thought Thomas.
The queen’s niece for Joan’s brother, John
. “You will do this?”

“Yes.”

He kissed her cheek. “I should have loved you more.”

“I should soon be bored with you.”

He smiled, though he knew her too well to miss the false note in her voice, the lack of laughter in her eyes. “I trust you already have a plan.”

“Of course!” Secrecy was important—Katarina must not offend the king, her benefactor. Henry Vanner, a vintner who lived a street away from where Katarina Van Artevelde and her children had taken lodgings among their fellow Flemish merchants, agreed to host the meeting as partial payment of a debt he owed Lucienne. Thomas and Lucienne were to appear at his home late the following Sunday afternoon when Katarina was dining with the Vanners, who would put on a show of being uneasy about their appearance.

A
SERVANT WELCOMED THEM
,
RECOGNIZING
L
UCIENNE
,
TAKING
their cloaks and showing them to the group seated round the fire, only to be met with a stern rebuke by his master. Katarina Van Artevelde, elegant in her mourning, assured him that Lady Lucienne was a welcome acquaintance. “But I do not know this gentleman.” She had not seen him since his wounding.

“Sir Thomas Holland,” he said, bowing to her.

“Sir Thomas!”

Vanner’s wife turned with feigned concern toward Dame Katarina, who had half risen, then sunk back down, her hands to her heart, her face ashen. “Are you unwell, my dear? Should I send them away?”