“No, I did not.”

“Nor did Gaunt.” Wykeham glanced up under frowning brows as if to seek proof of what he suspected, and read the answer in my face. “Take care, Alice. You’re swimming with big fish in a small pool here. Gaunt is a powerful man and might wish to become even more powerful. And when he does—when he doesn’t need you any longer—he will be quick enough to rid himself of you.”

“He doesn’t threaten me,” I replied. I thought about our last exchange, when I had returned to Court after Joanne’s birth. “I think he would protect his father by whatever means. And to do that he needs me.”

“I think he would feather his own nest.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“One day you will not be indispensable.” A traveling inkstand followed the two books. “Stay away from him. He’s not known for being scrupulous.” When he looked up again his expression was smoothly bland, as if it were simply a piece of advice to a friend. But it was not. I knew it was not. It was a warning.

“I can’t afford to antagonize Gaunt,” I stated harshly.

“What? When you are the King’s sight and hearing? His right hand?” Wykeham was mocking me now.

“For how long? You know my circumstances better than most. I need all the friends I can get, as you so aptly stated.”

“Then you should turn your mind to making some, rather than antagonizing the whole Court.”

“How can I, when what I am to the King lies at the root of all the hatred? To my mind I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I lose Edward, I lose everything. The Court will crow with delight. If I stay with Edward, I have a legion of enemies, because they resent my power. What do I do, most sage counselor?” He was not the only one who could stoop to mockery.

He thought about that. “I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s honest enough.” I growled moodily. “You could pray over me, I suppose.” I wished I hadn’t come.

“I will.…”

“Don’t! I could not bear your pity!”

“You need someone’s.”

I flung away to the window, leaving him to his books, fighting against a ridiculous urge to weep.

“You could try the Prince when he returns,” Wykeham said eventually, when he had allowed me time to recover. A man of cunning politics, Wykeham, in spite of being a man of God. I shook my head. There was no path for me to follow there. Joan would be no friend of mine. “He’s expected home any day now.”

“That’s as may be.” Adroitly I changed the direction of our exchange. “But what of you? At least you’ll not be without comfort in your political exile. A dozen castles, palaces, and houses to your name at the last count.…”

His smile was wry. “But all belonging to my office. None of them mine. I too am vulnerable.” The warmth was gone, and I was sorry.

“I’ll see that you are rewarded,” I found myself saying.

“Now, why would you do that?” How calm his voice, how trenchant his words. “Do I look as if I need your charity?”

“No! And I’ve no idea why I offered it! Since you are so unfriendly I should consign you to the devil.”

“I’ll not go. I’m aiming for a place with the angels.”

“Then my advice is this—don’t associate with me.”

His smile, a merest breath, was a little sad. “You do yourself down, Alice.”

“I merely follow the fashion.”

“I’ve seen you with Edward. You are good to him, and for him.”

“But only for my own ends.” The scathing quality of my reply mirrored his and shook me by its virulence.

“I’ll not argue the case, since you’re determined to douse yourself in self-pity today. You clearly don’t need me to point out your sins.” He looked ’round the bleak, empty room. “Well, that’s it.”

I was sorry I had tried to provoke him. “When do you go?”

“Now.” He bowed, quite formally. “God keep you, Mistress Perrers.”

“He’s more likely to keep you, my lord bishop.” And when he laughed, I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Do you know?” I whispered, in a moment of gentle malice. “Sometimes I have thought that we could have been more than friends, if you were not a priest and I not a whore.”

Wykeham’s solemn face creased. “Sometimes,” he whispered back, “I have thought so too. If you ever need me…”

He stopped at the door, and then went out, closing it quietly behind him so that I stood alone in the deserted room. Finding a forgotten quill on the floor, I picked it up and slid it into my sleeve. Bishop Wykeham was a friend worth having, and he was right to castigate my slide into self-pity. I had made my bed and for the most part enjoyed lying in it. It would be an unforgivable weakness if I were to whine about the repercussions.

I must be strong. For Edward, if not for myself and my children.

I watched Wykeham ride out, astonished at the sense of loss that was almost as painful as the guilt. He should not have had to forfeit his offices and his estates, and my guilt increased when Edward gifted one of Wykeham’s estates to me: the pretty, desirable, extremely valuable manor of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, with its fertile fields and timber, its easy routes to London, and I was nudged into making reparation. Greseley had acquired for me the manor of Compton Murdak, and so I granted its use and income to Wykeham. I grimaced as I signed the document. Who said I had a heart of stone? But the grant was for a limited term only, and Compton Murdak would return to me. I was not too softhearted. It behooved me to have an eye to my own wealth, after all.

So Wykeham left, and I turned my mind to a meeting I really did not wish to have, but could not avoid.

I was late. When I arrived, father and son were in the midst of clasping hands in what was undoubtedly a joyful reunion. The Prince had returned to England. It would have been a moment for national and personal rejoicing, if it had not been so shattering for any onlooker.

Shattering? It was a truly horrifying spectacle.

I knew the Prince had needed to be carried into battle as if he were a man of twice his age, that his strength had waned so rapidly that he resembled in no manner the knight who had led his troops at Poitiers. We had all mourned the death of his firstborn son. But nothing could have prepared me for this. Whatever the disease that afflicted him, he was wasting away, his face a gaunt death’s-head. Even from a distance I could see that Edward was as aghast as I.

“Thank God…!” Edward wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulders.

“It’s good to be home.” The Prince stiffened, as if he could not bear to be touched.

“I have longed for this day.”

Edward ushered his son to a seat. Isabella spoke softly, with something like despair freezing her features into what might pass as a smile. And there at Edward’s side, her hand on Edward’s arm as she smiled up into his face, was the Princess Joan.

The Fair Maid of Kent.

I had last seen Joan brushing the dust of Barking Abbey from her skirts. Now I took stock. The years had not been kind to her, her face full and round like a new-made cheese, flesh encroaching on her slight frame so that her once-fastidious features were now flaccid, coarsened, and the remnants of her earlier prettiness wholly overlaid by excess. Over all, gouged in the soft flesh next to mouth and eye were lines of grief and worry.

Edward was busy with the Prince. Isabella and Joan stood a little apart, two forceful women. As I walked toward them, Joan looked ’round, her expression such as she would direct at a servant tardy in bringing wine.

“Here is Alice,” Isabella announced with a face and voice as bland as a dish of whey.

“Alice?” Joan’s lips pursed.

“Alice Perrers. The King’s whore.” Isabella stated it without inflection.

“We had heard.…So it’s true.…” Joan stilled as she saw me, really saw me, for the first time.

I curtsied, my expression, my bright smile, one of disingenuous welcome. “My lady. Welcome back to England.”

Joan’s brows snapped together. Memory returned, as it must. “The Abbey!”

“Yes, my lady. The Abbey.”

“You two know each other?” Senses instantly on the alert, Isabella was jolted out of her blandness, like a cat spying an approaching mouse.

“Yes,” I replied. “The Princess was kind enough to give me a monkey.”

“How unfortunate that it did not poison your blood with its bite,” snapped Joan.

“I have proved to be exceptionally resilient, lady,” I assured her with gracious serenity. “You will be gratified to know that I found your advice most pertinent.”

“Your name was not Perrers,” Joan responded, as if it made a difference.

“No. I have been wed.”

“Fascinating…” Isabella purred. “A reunion. How charming…”

Joan’s gift for razor-edged comment returned with polished venom. “She was naught but a clumsy, nameless servant lent to me to fetch and carry.” She turned on me with fire in her eye. “By what ill chance did you become…?” She gestured to my clothes, my person.

“The King’s lover? No ill chance, lady. I am mistress of my own destiny now.”

“Fortunes change, dear Joan,” Isabella interposed with sparkling devilment. “As you yourself should know. Alice is a remarkably powerful woman.”

“It’s not fitting,” she spat. “And now I’ve returned.…”

“I doubt you’ll change the King’s mind.” Isabella was enjoying this.

“The King will listen to me!” Joan was not.

I waited, sure of my ground. I would not antagonize—that would not be politic—but neither would I give way before such impertinence at the hands of this woman who expected to slide into the preeminent role as the next Queen of England. The preeminent role was mine.

Edward became aware of my presence.

“Alice…” His touch of greeting on my hand was unmistakably intimate.