Free The King's Mistress by Emma Campion Page B

I knew what it meant, Nan. It sounds exciting. Mother must have been delighted to have an excuse to travel and be seen in her pretty clothes. Do you think Father has found another partner for a ship? He so wanted to buy another ship.”
    As there was always much intrigue around large commercial investments, Nan seemed satisfied with that possibility.
    “You are looking very fine, Alice. Dame Agnes is taking good care of you.”
    “Every day I work on such fantastic gowns and headdresses, Nan. I never dreamed I would be so finely dressed. But it does not fill the loneliness I feel being apart from all of you.”
    We held each other’s hands and studied each other’s face.
    Nan broke the emotional silence as Dame Agnes approached. “Try to be content in the home of your loving grandparents, Alice,” she said softly. In a normal tone she added, “I see how Dame Agnes and your maid treat you, and I am no longer worried for you.”
    Despite my initial feelings of strangeness, I enjoyed the day immensely and it was hard, very hard, to take my leave of Nan and my siblings. We were almost out the door when John rushed through it. My heart leaped with joy to see him, and to see how much he had wanted to catch me. We held each other tightly—it was the first time we had hugged each other in years.
    He stepped back and looked at me, then pulled me out into the yard, away from the others. “You’ve gained back your color and some weight. I am more than glad to see you thriving, Alice. You are better off with Dame Agnes—I told Father that it would prove so.”
    “Father told you of his plans before I heard of them?”
    “He told me to shut me up. I had asked him to do something about Mother’s behavior. You would have laughed—I told him that I would not stand for her treating you so.” He laughed at himself, a melancholy sound. “As if I had it in my power to do anything to protect you.”
    I was moved beyond words. “She has been even more spiteful toward me of late than is her custom.”
    “I am glad you came today, when she is well away from here.”
    “Please come to dine with us someday soon,” I said.
    “An apprentice lives at the mercy of his master’s whims, Alice. But I will try.” He took my hands. “You did not ask whether I knew where our parents have gone. That means that you do.”
    I shook my head. I did not care to speak a lie to my brother, who had been so good to me.
    He looked disappointed, but not disbelieving. “The suddenness of their journey frightened Cook and Nan. I had hoped you would know who or what might inspire such haste.”
    “In faith, I was so glad to hear they were away and I might see you and Mary and Will that though I did wonder, I was too excited to care much.”
    Dame Agnes came out to urge us to complete our farewells, for it grew late. Mary and Will ran out to embrace me and deliver wet kisses one more time, and John and I clasped hands as he promised to try to dine with us soon.
    I cried myself to sleep that night. I did not understand how I could be both happy and sad about the way my life was changing. Nan used to say that God always mixed the bitter with the sweet so that we did not forget that every pleasure has its cost.

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    “And shortly, deere herte and al my knyght
,
Beth glad, and draweth yow to lustinesse
,
And I shal trewely, with al my myght
,
Youre bittre tornen al into swetenesse
.
If I be she that may yow do gladnesse
,
For every wo ye shal recovere a blisse—”
    —Criseyde to Troilus, G EOFFREY C HAUCER ,
Troilus and Criseyde
, III, 176–81
     
     
    • 1356 •
     
    I N THE morning, noticing my still somber mood, Dame Agnes suggested I might accompany Grandfather to their parish church for some quiet prayer. She, Gwen, and Kate could spare me from the needlework for a while.
    “You have worked hard of late and it will be good for you to walk about.”
    St. Mary Aldermary was another parish church for wealthy merchants, and as Grandfather