Blanche bowed her head in agreement. She had lost the dear little boy she had borne, but now that she had her Henry she had ceased to grieve so deeply, although she believed she would never forget.

She was sure Philippa would always remember those children she had lost. Her greatest blow had been the deaths of her two daughters some years before, Mary and Margaret who had died within a few weeks of each other. She had never been quite the same since.

But she must not think of death now with the new life stirring within her.

‘This matter of Castile,’ the Queen was saying, ‘would seem to have been satisfactorily resolved. Pedro will have much to thank my sons for. He owes his crown to Edward and John.’

‘It was a glorious battle John tells me.’ Blanche frowned a little. Could any battle which meant death to many be called glorious? She did not think so and she knew Philippa would agree with her. If she mentioned this to John he would have smiled at her indulgently, amused at her woman’s sensibilities.

‘Aye,’ added Philippa. ‘Pedro the rightful King back on his throne. I hear news from Joan though that Edward returned from the battle in poor health. She is alarmed for him. She has changed since her marriage. She was such a flighty girl. Capable of any indiscretions I am sure. But she seems to be a good wife to Edward and they have those two dear boys.’

‘It is good for young Edward to have a little brother.’

‘It is always good for kings to have several sons, and Edward will of course be King of England one day. I always rejoiced because he was so worthy, right from the time of his boyhood. But in battle one never knows what may befall and it is good to have others who could step forward in case of disaster.’

Blanche was thinking: John believed that. John had hoped … but his hopes had been dispersed because of the birth of those two boys to the Black Prince.

As they were speaking a woman had entered the room. Blanche had seen her at court once or twice and had on each occasion been very much aware of her. She was tall and had a flamboyant somewhat coarse kind of good looks. There was a boldness about her which Blanche found decidedly unattractive.

Instead of joining the women at the other end of the chamber she came to the Queen and bowing to her and to Blanche she took a seat beside them.

Blanche was startled. Surely it was the duty of the woman first to wait until she was summoned to the Queen’s side and to sit only when she had been given permission to do so.

She waited for the Queen to dismiss her but Philippa did no such thing.

The woman took up the piece of needlework on which they were working.

‘It grows apace,’ she said. ‘My Lady Blanche is a rival to the Queen … with her needle.’

‘You like the colours, Alice?’ asked the Queen.

‘They are a little sombre, my lady.’

‘Ah, you like the bright colours.’

‘’Tis a weakness of mine. What thinks Lady Blanche?’

Blanche was astounded. She could not understand why the Queen endured such insolence.

She said coldly: ‘I like those well which the Queen has chosen.’

She noticed that a ring of rubies and diamonds glittered on the woman’s hand. Who was she? wondered Blanche.

‘Alice,’ said the Queen, ‘I wish you would join the ladies and tell them they are dismissed. I wish to be alone with the Duchess of Lancaster.’

The woman nodded but made no haste to rise and it was some minutes before she sauntered to the other end of the room. There she laughed with the women for a while and Blanche noticed that they seemed somewhat sycophantish towards her. At length they went out together.

Blanche said: ‘Who is that woman?’

‘She is one of the bedchamber women.’

‘She seems to give herself airs …’

‘Oh … that is her way.’

Blanche was astonished. The Queen was friendly to those around her; she had never stressed her rank or behaved in an imperious manner but there had been a certain dignity about her which prevented people from abusing her gentleness. Blanche had never before seen her so subdued by one of her subjects.

There were many questions which Blanche wanted to ask, but she could tell from the Queen’s manner that it was not a subject she wished discussed.

That there was some mystery about this woman was clear. She would ask John if he knew what it was. The incident had been extremely unpleasant and Blanche felt faintly depressed. It had obviously had the same effect on the Queen and the intimacy between them had become clouded.

Blanche took her leave soon afterwards and made her way to her own apartments in the castle. As she did so she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs below and looking from a window she saw the King with a group of attendants in the courtyard below. Among them was John.

The sight of the King shocked her a little. He had aged considerably since she had last seen him. But perhaps she was comparing him with John who looked so robust and well.

The King had dismounted. He was standing in the courtyard saying something to one of the knights. He looked up suddenly. For a moment Blanche thought he was looking at her, but she soon realised that his gaze had gone beyond her. She saw the expression on his face. It alarmed her faintly. She could describe it as lustful.

Then she heard the sound of laughter. A window had been opened and a woman was leaning out. She was obviously the one at whom the King had been looking.

Some signal passed between them.

Blanche understood a great deal in that moment, for the woman was that Alice of the Queen’s bedchamber whose insolence towards Philippa had been so thinly veiled.


* * *

When she was alone with John she could not stop herself from referring to what she had seen.

‘I know the woman of whom you speak,’ he said. ‘The whole court is talking of her. She has bewitched the King.’

‘It seems impossible!’ cried Blanche.

John took her hands and smiled at her tenderly.

‘It is difficult for you to understand, my dearest,’ he said. ‘The King will always be devoted to the Queen.’

‘Yet he allows this woman to insult her!’

‘I am sure he would not allow that. But you see, my dear, the Queen can no longer be a wife to the King …’

‘She is his wife. She has been his wife for many years …’

‘She can no longer share his bed. That dropsical complaint of hers has immobilised her to such an extent that she can no longer live a normal life. This woman … you would not understand but she flaunts her sex at him … She is one of those women who …’

He looked at her helplessly. ‘Dearest Blanche,’ he went on, ‘try not to think of this. It is unfortunate that the King should not have chosen a different mistress – if mistress he must have, and all worldly men and women would understand that, my love. It is unfortunate that this is the one who should appeal to him.’

‘So this bedchamber woman is his mistress.’

‘It would seem so.’

‘And for this reason she flaunts her position before the Queen. She was wearing a valuable ring.’

‘She is fond of fine things and the King delights to give them to her. I suppose he had to have a mistress but that it should be Alice Perrers …’

‘I could not bear it if I were the Queen.’

John put his arms about her and then releasing her held her face in his hands.’

‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘that you shall never find yourself in such a position. You and I will be faithful unto each other until death divides us.’

She clung to him. ‘Oh John, dearest husband, do not talk of death. You cannot know how I suffer when you go away to war.’

‘Never fear. It will not be easy for my enemies to rid themselves of me. I shall continue to live for you, my Blanche, and our children. How is that young lion Henry faring today? And you look a little tired.’ He touched her stomach gently. ‘You must take care of that little one. He will soon be with us.’

‘I shall pray for a boy,’ said Blanche, ‘and that he shall be exactly like his father.’

She felt a little better. The obvious devotion of her husband, so affectionately expressed, wiped away the unpleasantness which had been planted in her mind by Alice Perrers.


* * *

A few days later news came to Windsor which brought such sorrow to the King and the Queen that they were drawn very close together and it seemed that Alice Perrers would be like a meteor shooting across the sky – to startle everyone with its brilliance and then drop to oblivion. The King scarcely left the Queen’s side and the tragedy visibly aged them both.

It was so unexpected.

It was not so many years before when Lionel, their second son, had come back from Ireland – which he had inherited through his wife who had died some years before – declaring that he had enough of the place and would remain in England.

Philippa who loved to have her family around her was delighted that he should be back with them. Easy-going Lionel who asked nothing more than that life should flow comfortably around him was a good companion. He was so pleasant to be with. He never asked for grants and lands and privileges. He was rich enough through his widow, of course; but he was unlike the rest of the family inasmuch as he lacked that overwhelming ambition which Philippa sensed strongest of all in her son John.

He had but one daughter of his marriage with Elizabeth, Philippa; and it was natural that he should marry again.

It so happened that the Visconti of Milan was looking for a suitable bridegroom for his beautiful and only daughter Violante. Negotiations were set in progress and after some time Lionel went to Milan to marry Violante. First though he had settled the future of his daughter Philippa by marrying her to Edmund de Mortimer, the Earl of March.

Then with suitable pomp he had set out and in due course had been married in Milan Cathedral to the beautiful and rich daughter of Galeazzo Visconti of Milan.

Blanche knew that John had not been very pleased by the marriage. She could read his thoughts. He still hankered for the crown, even though he had an elder brother and that brother, the ever popular Black Prince, had two sons, another Edward and young Richard of Bordeaux. She wished that she could curb those ambitious thoughts of his. But she knew she never would. They were part of his nature.

Naturally when Lionel, that other brother who would rightfully claim the crown if some disaster removed the Black Prince and his family, married again he was depressed. A young and beautiful wife, the warm sun of Italy, the pleasure-loving Lionel who indulged himself on every occasion, surely it would not be long before he fathered a child who would be yet another to stand between John and his desire.

Violante and Lionel were married and so great was the rejoicing in Milan that the festivities went on for weeks. That, John had said, will suit Lionel very well. His father-in-law Galeazzo was delighted with him, it seemed. The alliance with the English royal family was something he had set his heart on, and all seemed to be going well in Milan.

And then had come the shattering news.

Lionel was dead.

In the midst of the feasting he had become sick and although at first no one had taken his indisposition very seriously it had rapidly grown worse and a few days after it had begun he was dead.

The Queen could not believe the news when it was brought to her.

Lionel – the tallest of them all, the one who liked so much to enjoy life – dead. It could not be.

She and the King spent hours together trying to console each other.

It was too cruel a blow. Lionel was the seventh of her children to die. Two little Williams and Blanche had died at birth and that was less heart-breaking than losing them when they were grown up. Joanna had died of the plague on her journey to marry Pedro of Castile and Mary and Margaret had died of some mysterious ailments in their teens. The Queen had never recovered from that. And now Lionel, hale and hearty Lionel, was cut off like that in the flower of his youth.

She was old and sick and she knew – although she tried to pretend she did not – that Edward, who through the many years of their marriage had always kept up the show of being a faithful husband, and she believed he had been almost entirely so, was now unable to hide his lascivious longing for an insolent bedchamber woman.