Passage to Pontefract by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page A

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,