The King's Concubine. Anne O'Brien

the lacing of my gown …

      Until I was brought back to reality.

      ‘Put me down, Sire!’ I ordered. ‘You must not worry the Queen with this. She is ill today. Where are you taking me?’

      He came to a sudden halt. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked down at me, as jolted as I. How close his eyes were to mine, his breath warm against my temple. ‘In faith, Alice, you frightened me beyond reason. Are you in pain?’

      ‘No.’ I was too aware, far too aware. ‘Please put me down. Why are you carrying me when I can walk very well on my own?’

      The lines that bracketed his mouth began to ease at last. ‘Allow me to be gallant, if you will, and carry you to safety.’

      I could hear the Italian tending lovingly to his mechanism and the voices of the soldiers. The proximity of the servants. ‘Put me down, Sire,’ I repeated. ‘We shall be seen.’

      ‘Why would that matter?’ His brows winged upwards as if he had not considered it.

      But I knew it would matter. All the Court would know of this within the hour. ‘Put me down!’ I abandoned any good manners.

      Edward turned abruptly into the chancel, marched along its length and set me down in one of the choir stalls, allowing me some degree of privacy.

      ‘Since you insist …’

      And kneeling beside me, he kissed me. Not a gracious salute to my fingers. Not a brotherly caress to my cheek, as I imagined such a one to be. Not a chaste husbandly peck on the lips such as Janyn Perrers would have employed if he had ever come so close to me. Edward gripped my arms, hauled me against him, and his mouth descended on mine in a firm possession that lasted as long as a heartbeat, and more.

      He lifted his head and I looked at him, stunned. My blood hummed, my thoughts scattered. ‘You should not have done that,’ I managed in a whisper.

      ‘Would you lecture the King on his behaviour, Mistress Alice?’

      He smiled ruefully, before he kissed me again. Just as forcefully. Just as recklessly. And when it was ended, ‘You should not have looked at me so trustingly,’ he said.

      ‘So it was my fault?’ My voice, I regret, was almost a squeak. ‘That you kissed your wife’s damsel?’

      For a moment, Philippa’s presence hovered. We felt her with us. I saw the recognition in Edward’s eyes, as I was sure it was in mine. And I saw regret there as his voice and features chilled.

      ‘No, Alice. It was not your fault. It was mine. You could have been injured and I should have been more careful with you.’ It was difficult to keep my breathing even, and when I shivered with a sudden onset of nerves, Edward stood. ‘You’re cold.’ He shrugged out of the sleeveless over-tunic he had worn in the church for warmth, and draped it around my shoulders. And when his hands rested there, heat built in me again, so that my temples throbbed with it.

      ‘Sire …’ I warned as footsteps approached. Edward stepped back, struggling to be tolerant of his physician’s meaningless questions and orders for me to rest to allow my humours to settle.

      ‘I’ll return you to the Queen,’ Edward said when the physician was done.

      Yes, I thought. That would be best. To be away from this man who was all too compelling. And then a thought. ‘How is the clock after the accident, Sire? The Queen will want to know.’

      And he rounded on me, with a blaze of anger. ‘To hell with the clock. I don’t regret kissing you. I find you alluring, intoxicating …’ He glared at me as if it was indeed my fault. ‘Why is that?’

      ‘A moment’s fear, Sire. I doubt you will remember this interlude tomorrow when the danger is over and the clock restored.’

      ‘This is not a sudden impulse. Do you feel nothing?’ he demanded, the hawkishness very pronounced.

      I dissembled. ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘I think you do.’

      ‘Would it matter whether I did or not? I am the Queen’s damsel.’

      ‘As I very well know, God save me.’ His temper still simmering. ‘Tell me your thoughts on this debacle, Alice.’

      ‘Then I will. For it is a debacle. Yet I think you are the most amazing man I have ever met.’ For was that not true?

      ‘Is that all? I want more from you.’ He was all authority, his hand strong on mine, his whole body as taut as a bow string. ‘I want to see you again before tomorrow. I will arrange it. Come to me tonight, Alice.’

      No permission. No soft promises. A Plantagenet order. I had no misconceptions of what would await me. I think for the first time in my life I had nothing to say, not even in my head.

      I told the Queen that the clock was experiencing difficulties but that the King had it all in hand.

      * * *

      Did I know what I was doing? Had I seen it developing, unfurling, from the very beginning? Oh, I knew. I was never a fool. I saw what I had done. I saw when his attention was caught. I noted the first scratch of my pen in my puerile writings when I had called him Edward rather than the King, when he gave me the little mare, when I began to think of him as Edward, the man.

      Did I enchant and entrap him, as the malicious tongues were to accuse many years later? Was I complicit in this seduction?

      Complicit, yes. But when did any woman entrap a Plantagenet? Edward had his own mind and pursued his own path.

      Was I malicious?

      Not that either. I was too loyal to the Queen. Guilt was not unknown to me, whatever slanders held otherwise. Philippa had given me everything I had, and I was betraying her. Regret had teeth as sharp as those of Joan’s ill-fated monkey.

      Ambitious, then?

      Without a doubt. For here was a certain remedy for obscure poverty. When a woman spent her young years with nothing of her own, why should she not seize the opportunity to remedy her lack, should the opportunity fall into her lap?

      Ah! But could I have stopped the whole train of events before I became the royal whore? WhO’s to say? With Edward I could be myself, not a silly damsel without a thought in my head but gossip and chatter. Edward listened to me as if my opinions mattered. I found his authority, his dominance, his sheer maleness intoxicating, as would any woman. When his eyes turned to mine, it was as if I had just drunk a cup of finest Gascon wine. He was the King and I his subject. I was under his dominion as much as he was under mine.

      Could I have prevented it? No, I could not. For at the eleventh hour it was taken out of my hands.

      That night I waited, apprehension churning in my belly until nausea threatened to send me running to the garderobe. Taking a sip of ale, I sat on the side of my bed, feigning interest in the gossip of two damsels as they plaited each other’s hair for the night. I pretended to be unravelling a stubborn knot from a length of ribbon, except that I made it worse. Abandoning it, I took off my veil and folded it. Refolded it. Anything to keep my hands busy. I could not sit. I stood abruptly to prowl the room.

      What division of loyalties was here in my mind, my heart. Commanded by the King, recipient of his kisses. Servant of the Queen, who honoured me with her confidences. This was a betrayal. A terrible riding roughshod over the Queen’s trust, stealing from her what was rightfully hers. It was impossible to argue around it.

      I looked around the room, at the damsels quietly occupied. What to do now? Was it all a mistake? Had I misunderstood? There would be no royal summons after all and my guilt could be laid aside.

      A knock on the door. I jumped like a stag, and my hands were not steady as I opened the door to a page in royal insignia.

      ‘It is the Queen, mistress. She cannot sleep. She has sent for you. Will you come?’

      ‘I will come,’