THE NEXT MORNING BELLEBELLE woke before Prime, feeling as if her head were stuffed with goosefeathers. A protective veil enclosed her, like the dull gray mist of a Southwark dawn where nothing seemed real. Not unpleasant, it was a welcome relief from the black despair of the night before. Although distant, she could sense that anguish lurking quietly in the dim corners of her mind, like a wild beast in hiding, ready to spring without warning.
Setting about her morning chores in a mindless fashion, Belle-belle decided she would go to Tower Royal and beg Henry to allow Geoffrey to come home.
By now Henry’s anger would surely have lessened. All she need do was explain that Geoffrey was the whole of her life, except for him—Henry. She accepted that Henry was lost to her, unless he would allow her to make it up to him in some way. But if she lost both him and her son she would have nothing left to live for. She instantly rejected that possibility. Of course, he would allow Geoffrey to come home. She was sure she could persuade him.
If she couldn’t, she would appeal to her idol, Queen Eleanor. She was a mother, after all, and would surely understand. An image of Henry’s contorted purple face and thrashing body whisked across her mind, but she hastily retreated from the terrifying picture. Today he would be his old self once again. He would let her son come home.
“Geoffrey be—is coming home today,” she told the hounds as she fed them.
Filled with confidence now, Bellebelle hummed a tune as she put on her best clothes: a new green kirtle over a cream-colored gown, the fox-fur cloak Henry had given her, woolen stockings, sturdy black boots, and a dark blue shawl to wrap round her head and neck. Underneath her chemise she tied a small cloth bag containing some of the silver and copper pennies she had saved. After a moment’s thought she took the silver-and-gilt chess set and ivory figures and placed them on top of Geoffrey’s bed. They would be the first thing he would see when he climbed up to the bower.
In the early morning hours carts left for London with produce to sell, and Bellebelle hoped to catch a ride with one of them. She broke her night’s fast with a thick slice from a wheaten loaf and a chunk of sheep’s cheese washed down with mead, then wrapped the rest of the loaf and cheese in a clean white cloth and put them into a straw basket to take with her. At first light she let the dogs loose in the garden. She carried the hens one by one into the back shed with the goats, bolted the garden gate, and started down the path that led to the village.
After a quarter of an hour’s walk the path curved; the trees grew sparse and Bellebelle could see the distant ploughland shrouded in a heavy silvery-green mist under an arching gray sky. The air was chill and moist but there was no sign of rain. Just the thick swirls of mist. A few yards further brought her in sight of the oak roof of the mill, whose blurred outline jutted up above the vague shapes of a few cottages. Before she reached the village green, where the road to London forked, she heard the sound of bleating kids and the wheels of a cart rumbling by, although she couldn’t yet see anything.
“Can you take me anywheres near Tower Royal?” she called out. “I can pay.” She heard the cart pull to a stop.
“Aye. Hop in—if ye can find room,” said a cracked voice. “Tower Royal be my first stop as it happens. Cold as a witch’s teat this morning, not a day to be walking.”
As she approached, Bellebelle could see that the voice belonged to the driver of the cart, a white-haired old man from the village who made regular trips into London. She made a place for herself in the straw, pushing aside stacked wheels of white cheese, tubs of butter, and covered wooden buckets of milk. In addition to three kids tied together, there were ten geese in large crates and a sow in pig. She petted the kids, who stopped bleating.
“What be ye going to Tower Royal for, lass?”
“To see me son. He’s been visiting his father and I’m going to bring him home.” Still surrounded by that protective veil of fog, the words came easily, increasing her feeling of confidence. “He wants to send him off to school at St. Paul’s, but I think he be too young to leave his mother. In time, of course, I know he have to go, but not yet. When he do go to be educated proper arrangements can be made for me to see him regular.”
The old man turned and gave her an odd look but only grunted in reply.
“Here we be, lass,” said the driver. “Tower Royal. Lower bailey near the kitchen.”
Bellebelle, who had dozed off, now woke with a start, rubbed her eyes, and looked up. A pale sun shone through gray clouds. She had a hazy impression of a garden with fruit trees, vines, and a small fishpond. Crates of squawking hens and other birds were stacked against one white-washed wall. The old man was unloading tubs of butter and buckets of milk, half the cheeses, and all of the geese. An important-looking man with a gold chain around his neck marked off the items on a wax tablet while servants carted off the goods. The man paid no attention to Bellebelle in the cart, and left as soon as everything was unloaded.
“Not yet Terce so’s we made good time,” said the driver. “If ye wants a ride back I be leaving from Smithfield just after Nones.”
Bellebelle jumped down from the cart, gave the driver a copper penny, and thanked him. The clamor of noise had brought her fully awake, but she still felt dull-headed. The courtyard was a beehive of activity: scullions washing utensils in an outside trough, grooms sweeping horse-droppings off the flagstones, servants emptying pots and basins, others catching fish in a net from the pond. Bellebelle saw a laundress pounding sheets in a huge tub of water; another picked up dried sheets and clothes from a grassy plot, and folded them into a large wooden crate.
A few of the servitors eyed her curiously. Fearful lest someone ask her to leave, Bellebelle approached the laundress folding the sheets.
“Can you tell me where the children be?”
The laundress turned and glanced at her. “The older ones be at their lessons, the wee ones with their nurses.” She stared at Belle-belle’s breasts and frowned. “Not the new wet nurse, I hope?”
“Oh, no.”
“Well, that’s a blessing. The poor babe’d fair starve if ye was. Are ye here to help with the young ones? I doesn’t recollect seeing ye ’afore, but then so many comes and goes, I can’t hardly keep tally, now can I?”
“No,” said Bellebelle, avoiding a direct answer.
The laundress gave an indifferent shrug and picked up the crate of dried laundry. “I’ll be taking this lot up to the chambers. Ye can follow me.”
Bellebelle followed her through a back door and down some steps into an enormous kitchen. Kitchen boys turned carcasses of beef and mutton on a spit, while others stirred long spoons into great iron cauldrons hung by huge hooks and chains over the fire. Cooks chopped vegetables at long tables, drenched slabs of meat into wooden bowls of salt, or plucked feathers from a mountain of dead birds. The floor was covered with blood, offal, feathers, and vegetable rinds. The air was filled with the pungent odor of roasting meat, animal flesh, and ordure, and the babble of many voices talking all at once.
Bellebelle had never been inside a castle before, and if she hadn’t been in such a hurry to find Geoffrey she would have liked to spend more time looking about. Instead, she hurried after the laundress through the kitchen, then a room where casks of wine were stacked on wooden racks and loaves of bread neatly laid out on tables. Soon she was in a dark passageway, up a winding staircase, down another passage.
“There be the children’s quarters, where they has their lessons,” said the laundress, pointing to a door. “In the chamber next to it you’ll find the little ones.” She continued on her way, turned a corner, and disappeared.
Through the open door, Bellebelle could hear the chanting of the children’s voices. She noticed the door was open a crack and cautiously pushed it open further. Inside a large chamber, a young boy with curling golden hair, a girl, a smaller boy, and Geoffrey were seated round a long table. A cleric stood at the head of the table over a gilded psalter. He read aloud in Latin; the four children repeated the words after him.
Geoffrey looked content and at home, quite at ease in these surroundings. In truth, he and the girl—who must be Henry’s oldest daughter, Matilda—had the exact same solid build, russet hair, and wide-set gray eyes. The golden-haired boy must be the second son, Richard, the small boy Henry’s youngest son, also Geoffrey. No one looked around or appeared to have noticed the open door. Bellebelle watched for a moment, noting that her Geoffrey repeated the Latin phrases with great ease while the other children spoke haltingly, stumbling over words. She could not bring herself to tear Geoffrey away when he was doing so well, outshining the royal offspring. She would see Henry first, she decided, then come back for her son.
Bellebelle gently pulled the door almost shut, paused, uncertain what to do next. The Tower was such a warren of passageways and winding stairs she had no idea where to look for Henry. The laundress had turned a corner at the end of the passage; she would follow in her footsteps.
The passage was freezing cold and Bellebelle shivered, pulling the fox-fur cloak closer about her shoulders. She rounded the corner and from the far end of the passage heard raised voices.
Something about the clash of those voices—angry, bitter, accusing—warned Bellebelle that a violent quarrel was in progress, and not to approach. But she was drawn to the sound like a homing pigeon. She crept silently down the passage and almost stumbled into the chamber, pulling back just in time.
The door was flung wide. Bellebelle had a fleeting impression of a large chamber, green wall hangings spangled with gold and silver, a table, stools, and a huge green-curtained bed. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the two people in the center of the room. One was Henry, his face twisted into a scowl. Facing him was Eleanor, whom Bellebelle had worshipped as the Queen of Heaven ever since she had seen her face on the statue of the Virgin in St. Mary Overie’s. She had glimpsed her at the coronation, even kissed her hand for a brief ecstatic moment, and seen her a few times thereafter when she happened to be in Bermondsey as the queen rode by. Each time she had thought Eleanor the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, her radiant vitality blazing like the summer sun.
The queen, slightly older now, was no less lovely, but not the gracious, smiling woman that Bellebelle remembered. Her face, framed in an ivory wimple covering her hair and neck, was deathly pale; her tall slender body clad in a purple tunic decorated with pearls and feathers visibly trembled. With rage, Bellebelle realized.
“How dare you ask me to take in this bastard and raise him as if he were my own son! How dare you!” The voice, husky and vibrant, penetrated every corner of the room. “Where is he now?”
“He is at lessons with the other children. I had him with me at Westminster last night, then rode over with him this morning.”
“He is here? Now? Without my permission?” Her voice rose in disbelief.
“Where else could I bring him? It will not be for long. Soon the boy will go away to be educated at St. Paul’s.” Henry paced back and forth. “In truth, Eleanor, I do understand how you feel—”
“If you understood how I feel, you would never ask me to do this thing. Never, never, never!”
Holy Mary Virgin, they must be speaking of Geoffrey! For a moment Bellebelle felt faint and had to lean against the wall.
“I refuse to abandon this child,” Henry suddenly shouted. “I will not throw him into the gutter!”
Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest. “Give him back to his mother, this—this London harlot. He must leave here at once.”
Her cheeks burning, Bellebelle felt as if she had been slapped across the face. The queen might have been speaking of a hound-bitch that roamed the London streets.
“I cannot. She has betrayed my trust, lied to me. Geoffrey has promise; he deserves better.”
Eleanor shrank back as if she had been dealt a physical blow. “Why—why you truly care for this mongrel, don’t you?”
“Of course I care. What do you take me for?”
“I don’t think I wish to answer that. And the mother? This vile whore?”
“I care for her too. Or did.” Henry stopped pacing and glared at his wife, his jaw thrust forward in a threatening manner. “Do not speak of her in such terms.”
“How touching. In what terms should I speak of her? What makes you think the brat is even yours?”
“He’s the image of little Matilda.”
“What?” Eleanor’s voice was incredulous. “Do you dare to tell me this whore’s brat resembles our daughter? I refuse to believe it. This conniving creature has somehow convinced you the brat is yours.”
Henry approached the queen and held out his hands. “If you would only see him for yourself—”
“Don’t touch me!” She took a deep trembling breath. “Never! I will never set eyes on this misbegotten vermin. Or on any of them!” She gave him a look of such contempt that Bellebelle found herself shrinking from it. “How many bastards do you claim now, or have you lost count?”
Henry put his hands up to his temples. “Jesu. What does it matter? That’s not the issue, is it?”
He looked ill, Bellebelle thought. Henry’s red-rimmed eyes had a haunted expression; his clothes were rumpled, as if he had not slept in weeks.
“It’s not the boy’s fault, Eleanor, none of this coil is his doing. Don’t punish him.”
“What is that to me?” Eleanor walked over to Henry and viciously slapped him back and forth across one cheek. He did not flinch; her hand left a crimson welt on his face. “You still have the effrontery to expect me, the queen of England, to care for your slut’s by-blow!” Eleanor’s arm drew back as if she would strike him again. “Does my humiliation mean nothing?”
This time Henry caught her hands and held them in a grip of iron.
“Of course it means something!” He swallowed. “Let me remind you that I could order you to do this and you would be forced to comply. Instead I have humbled myself to ask you to be charitable. But do not push me too far.”
“Do you now threaten me because I will not grovel at your feet?” She twisted back and forth, trying to free herself from his grip. “How long have you know this creature that means so much to you?”
“Since I was ten years old. I—” He suddenly let go her hands and gingerly touched the welt on his face. “I hold—held—her in great affection. You, I love. She takes—she took nothing from you, Nell, I swear it, but she has been like a part of myself—”
“Since you were ten?” Eleanor’s eyes glittered with tears; her voice dropped to a whisper. “You have known this tart since you were a child? Why, she knew you before I did!”
Henry jammed his thumbs into his belt and thrust his head forward. “No, I knew you first, remember? I was only three or four when you first bewitched me at your wedding feast in Bordeaux, an awed little boy, so smitten by the great lady that he gave her flowers by the roadside.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before Eleanor spoke again. “The boy is only a little older than young Henry, you said. You must have bedded her in London before you were crowned, while I was still in Normandy?”
“Yes, yes, yes! Mea maxima culpa! What does it matter now? As you must know, there have been others—there will always be others. None of them important. Only this one whom I have known for so long.”
Henry turned away as if he could not bear to see the queen’s face, frozen into a mask of pain. Eleanor tried to speak but no sounds came forth.
Watching them, Bellebelle felt her own heart must break.
“However, the bitch has betrayed me, and I intend to root her out of my heart. But the boy is not accountable for her actions! He did not ask to be born, and he must not suffer for it.”
Eleanor had found her voice. “His suffering? What about my suffering? Must I have this mongrel under foot as a constant reminder of your faithless nature?”
“God’s eyes, if you would only let me explain the circumstances …”
Bellebelle had heard enough. More than enough. She backed away from the door and staggered down the passageway. The protective veil which shielded her had been torn aside; she felt like a raw open wound. To have been the cause of the naked anguish she had seen in Eleanor’s eyes, the open enmity between Henry and his queen, filled her with so much guilt she did not think she could bear it. If only she could weep, there might be some relief, but she felt beyond tears.
She was at the end of the passage now. Hesitating, she wondered which way she should turn. The scene she had just witnessed—no, not just witnessed but been a part of—swam before her, blurring her vision. She fell back against the wall.
There was no possible way she could ask Henry to return Geoffrey. Not now. From all he had said, and how bitterly he had said it, Bellebelle doubted if Henry would ever be willing to see her again. She could either take Geoffrey away by stealth, some time in the future when Henry was not in London, and try to make some sort of life for them both, or leave him to be educated by his father who, from all she had heard, would do right by him.
She could try to take him away now, of course, but she was sure to be stopped and questioned. She felt so shattered, so filled with pain, she did not know what to do. The thought of losing her son was more than Bellebelle could support. But what would be best for Geoffrey? She must have time to think, to decide …
Right now all she wanted was to escape from Tower Royal and her overwhelming sense of shame. If only she could flee from the hateful words that still rang in her ears, blot out the rage and hurt that still stung …Behind her she heard voices.
Bellebelle darted round the corner then down another passage. The winding staircase lay just ahead. She half-slid down the stairs, almost falling in her haste, ran along another passage that looked familiar, then through the pantry and kitchen, out the door into the courtyard. She raced all the way around the side of the white stone walls to the front courtyard of the Tower. Guards were stationed by the keep and next to the open courtyard gates. A line of traffic—knights on horseback, clerics, and richly clad burghers on foot—came and went across the wooden drawbridge that spanned the moat.
Bellebelle joined the crowd, crossed the moat, then found herself in the outer bailey. Within a few moments she was through the outer gates and onto the road that would lead her into London.
Bellebelle vaguely recalled that Tower Royal lay not too far from Aldgate. Not that it mattered where she was, or what road she followed. The thoroughfare into London was thronged with carts, horses, and people on foot. With no destination in mind, she let the crowd carry her aimlessly along, jostling her this way and that, through the massive city gates, which she barely glanced at, into the heart of London.
She was only half aware of the gray shroud of smoke hanging in the air, the soot covering the cobblestones. Had the city always been this dirty? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d walked London’s streets. Bellebelle had no idea how long she’d been walking until the tangy odor of roasting chestnuts brought her up short. Ahead lay a cookshop; she was at the Strand, near the foot of London Bridge. The open stalls filled with bolts of cloth, strings of onions and garlic, the lilting London voices—all were now achingly familiar.
Bellebelle started to walk across the bridge, pushed along by the crowd. There was a slight movement at her skirts. Looking down she saw the grimy, birdlike face of a street beggar, a practiced pickpocket by the way he’d sidled up to her. Habit made her tighten her hold on the basket, and ensure the purse of coins was still tied safely under her skirts, before shooing him away. At the far end of the bridge two women in striped cloaks called out to the men going across. The sight added to her pain, unexpectedly calling up memories of Gytha and Morgaine.
Bellebelle turned away and stopped to lean over the rail. A line of wool barges floated downstream. She could hear the familiar call, “Through, through.” There were the tilting boats, the wherries that carried passengers up and down the river. Why it must be years since she had crossed the bridge on foot, not since she’d lived in Southwark, in fact. In Gropecuntlane she’d been afraid she’d run into the Flemings. In the village, fearful of being recognized by an old customer, she had avoided going to the Strand or the area of London around the bridge. Occasionally she’d made trips to St.-Martin-le-Grand, where Geoffrey was born, but that had been years ago.
For something to do, Bellebelle listlessly unwrapped the cheese and bread from the basket and took a bite, not really tasting the food. A few feet away she caught sight of the ragged little pickpocket again, eyeing her with hungry eyes. He must be about Geoffrey’s age or even younger, but looked old and hardened by the wicked world of the London streets. She held out the bread and cheese; he approached her warily, like a wild badger she’d once seen in the woods behind her house, snatched the food from her hand, and wolfed it down before disappearing into the crowd.
Was that how she had looked—was it really seventeen years ago?—when a well-dressed boy, a very prince to her innocent eyes, had given her a pork pasty to eat? Close to this very spot he had boasted what he would do when he became king of England. A great deal of which he had actually done. The earlier desolation, which had receded for an instant, now flooded her. Drowning in anguish, Bellebelle watched the muddy water swirling beneath her. She was now twenty-eight years of age, or thereabouts, and she felt as if her life had come to an end. She could think of no reason to go on living.
At some point between leaving the Tower and where she now stood, Bellebelle realized, a decision had been made: she would leave Geoffrey where he was. Henry could make the boy’s fortune; what right had she, a former whore with no prospects, to spoil her son’s future? No right at all. What could she offer him? Only a vast love that accepted him exactly as he was, with naught wanting. It was not enough. Despite the damage she had done—the terrible pain and shock she had caused the queen, Henry’s rage and distrust—Geoffrey must not suffer. Henry was right about that. If her son came back to her, in time he would grow ashamed of what she had been and want nothing to do with her.
But with Henry he would have the chance to truly better himself, the chance she had never really had, the chance that wretched street urchin would never have. There was no question in her mind that Henry would either persuade or force the queen to take Geoffrey in. Eventually, even Eleanor would come to see Geoffrey’s worth. Would the queen mistreat him, take out her anguish on the boy? No. Bellebelle felt certain that was not her way of dealing with matters. Despite the violence and bitterness of Eleanor’s reaction, Bellebelle could not find it in her heart to blame her.
Bellebelle finally understood that powerful as she might be, Eleanor was human after all, not a painted statue of the Virgin, but a mortal woman who had been hurt to the quick, just as she, Bellebelle, was hurt. Underneath they were the same. Two women who loved Henry and suffered at his hands.
If she, Bellebelle, did nothing to interfere, Henry would see to it that Geoffrey flourished and prospered. Perhaps, one day, he might become a knight, or a merchant, even a scholarly clerk, for already he could read and write. There were no limits to how high the bastard son of a king might rise. If her life were finished, the boy must still have his chance.
On a sudden impulse she leaned over the rail and threw her basket into the water. It bobbed for a moment or two then slowly sank between the tiny waves. Such an easy way to disappear really. The jumping off would be hard but then, like the basket, you would feel nothing, just slowly pass from view into the deep river and be carried out to sea. So easy—Bellebelle took a deep breath and leaned far over the rail.
It was then she saw the long silver fish with big green eyes.