The King's Concubine. Anne O'Brien

      For George, who managed to live comfortably for

       a year with both me and Alice Perrers.

       As ever, with love and thanks.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      All my thanks:

      To my agent Jane Judd who appreciated the possibility of Alice Perrers as an unconventional heroine. Her advice and support, as always, are beyond price.

      To Jenny Hutton and the HQ team. Their guidance and commitment were invaluable in enabling Alice Perrers to emerge from infamy.

      To Helen Bowden and all at Orphans Press who come to my rescue and continue to create masterpieces out of my genealogy and maps.

      To Phia McBarnet who patiently introduced me to the benefits of social media and set my foot on the steep learning curve.

       Prologue

       ‘TODAY you will be my Lady of the Sun,’ King Edward says as he approaches to settle me into my chariot. ‘My Queen of Ceremonies.’

      And not before time.

      I don’t say the words, of course—I am, after all, a woman of percipience—but I think them. I have waited too many years for this acclaim. Twelve years as Edward’s whore.

      ‘Thank you, my lord,’ I murmur, curtseying deeply, my smile as sweet as honey.

      I sit, a cloak of shimmering gold tissue spread around me, to show a lining of scarlet taffeta. My gown is red, lined with white silk and edged in ermine: Edward’s colours, royal fur fit for a Queen. Over all glitters a myriad of precious stones refracting the light—rubies as red as blood, sapphires dark and mysterious, strange beryls capable of destroying the power of poison. Everyone knows that I wear Queen Philippa’s jewels.

      I sit at my ease, alone in my pre-eminence, my hands loose in my bejewelled lap. This is my right.

      I look around to see if I might catch sight of the black scowl of the Princess Joan. No sign of her, my sworn enemy. She’ll be tucked away in her chamber at Kennington, wishing me ill. Joan the Fair. Joan the Fat! An adversary to be wary of, with the sensitivity and morals of a feral cat in heat.

      My gaze slides to Edward as he mounts his stallion and my smile softens. He is tall and strong and good to look on. What a pair we make, he and I. The years have not yet pressed too heavily on him while I am in my prime. An ugly woman, by all accounts, but not without talent.

      I am Alice. Royal Concubine. Edward’s beloved Lady of the Sun.

      Ah …!

      I blink as a swooping pigeon smashes the scene in my mind, flinging reality back at me with cruel exactitude. Sitting in my orchard, far from Court and my King, I am forced to accept the truth. How low have I fallen. I am caged in impotent loneliness, like Edward’s long-dead lion, powerless, isolated, stripped of everything I had made for myself.

      I am nothing. Alice Perrers is no more.

       Chapter One

      WHERE do I start? It’s difficult to know. My beginnings as I recall them were not moments marked by joy or happiness. So I will start with what I do recall. My very first memory.

      I was a child, still far too young to have much understanding of who or what I was, kneeling with the sisters in the great Abbey church of St Mary’s in the town of Barking. It was the eighth day of December and the air so cold it hurt my lungs. The stone paving was rough beneath my knees but even then I knew better than to shuffle. The statue on its plinth in the Lady Chapel was clothed in a new blue gown, her veil and wimple made from costly silk that glowed startlingly white in the dark shadows. The nuns sang the office of Compline and round the feet of the statue a pool of candles had been lit. The light flickered over the deep blue folds so that the figure appeared to move, to breathe.

      ‘Who is she?’ I asked, voice too loud. I was still very ignorant.

      Sister Goda, novice mistress when there were novices to teach, hushed me. ‘The Blessed Virgin.’

      ‘What is she called?’

      ‘She is the Blessed Virgin Mary.’

      ‘Is this a special day?’

      ‘It is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Now, hush!’

      It meant nothing to me then but I fell in love with her. The Blessed Mary’s face was fair, her eyes downcast, but there was a little smile on her painted lips and her hands were raised as if to beckon me forward. But what took my eye was the crown of stars that had been placed for the occasion on her brow. The gold gleamed in the candlelight, the jewels reflected the flames in their depths. And I was dazzled. After the service, when the nuns had filed out, I stood before her, my feet small in the shimmer of candles.

      ‘Come away, Alice.’ Sister Goda took my arm, not gently.

      I was stubborn and planted my feet.

      ‘Come on!’

      ‘Why does she wear a crown of stars?’ I asked.

      ‘Because she is the Queen of Heaven. Now will you …?’

      The sharp slap on my arm made me obey, yet still I reached up, although I was too small to touch it, and smiled.

      ‘I would like a crown like that.’

      My second memory followed fast on my first. Despite the late hour, Sister Goda, small and frail but with a strong right arm, struck my hand with a leather strap until my skin was red and blistered. Punishment for the sin of vanity and covetousness, she hissed. Who was I to look at a crown and desire it for myself? Who was I to approach the Blessed Virgin, the Queen of Heaven? I was of less importance than the pigeons that found their way into the high reaches of the chancel. I would not eat for the whole of the next day. I would rise and go to bed with an empty belly. I would learn humility. And as my belly growled and my hand stung, I learned, and not for the last time, that it was not in the nature of women to get what they desired.

      ‘You are a bad child,’ Sister Goda stated unequivocally.

      I lay awake until the Abbey bell summoned us at two of the clock for Matins. I did not weep. I think I must have accepted her judgement on me, or was too young to understand its implications.

      And my third memory?

      Ah, vanity! Sister Goda failed to beat it out of me. She eyed me dispassionately over some misdemeanour that I cannot now recall.

      ‘What a trial you are to me, girl! And most probably a bastard, born out of holy wedlock. An ugly one at that. Though you are undoubtedly a creature of God’s creation, I see no redeeming features in you.’

      So I was ugly and a bastard. I wasn’t sure which was the worse of the two, to my twelve-year-old mind. Was I ugly? Plain, Sister Goda might have said if there was any charity in her, but ugly was another world. Forbidden as we were the ownership of a looking glass in the Abbey—such an item was far too venal and precious to be owned by a nun—which of the sisters had never peered into a bowl of still water to catch an image? Or sought a distorted reflection in one of the polished silver ewers used in the Abbey church? I did the same and saw what Sister Goda saw.

      That night I looked into my basin of icy water before my candle was doused. The reflection shimmered, but it was enough. My hair, close cut against my skull, to deter lice as much as vanity, was dark and coarse and straight. My eyes were as dark as sloes, like empty holes eaten in wool by the moth. As for the rest—my cheeks were hollow, my nose prominent, my mouth large.