“By God, you are not.”

“By God, I am.”

She dropped her hold, retreating in obvious disgust, lips drawn back from her neat teeth. But I followed her. I was no minion to be put in my place. And I was weary of baseless accusations.

“If we are talking of worth and payment here, then consider this, my lady: How many nights have I sat beside the King when he is sleepless? How many nights have I talked or read to keep the nightmares at bay? How many days have I devoted to the melancholy that drags him down?” I pushed on to make her think beyond her prejudices, to make her acknowledge me and what I had achieved. “You know what it is like when a strong man suffers. He is demanding, and yet inconsolable in his weakness. It is not easy for a woman to stand buffer against the horrors that attack him. You know this from your own experience.”

For a moment I saw her hesitate. She understood what I meant. But not for long.

“The Prince is my husband! It is my right and my duty to stand with him! You have no right!”

Holy Mother! Any prudence I might have melted under Joan’s scorn. “And the King is my lover,” I rejoined. “He gave me Philippa’s jewels and I will value them. I will wear them and enjoy them.”

“You wear them like a slut—shamelessly, blatantly—a Court harlot who has demanded jewels for her body.”

But I did not think I was. These were not gifts given in a spirit of payment for services rendered; the jewels had been given out of love. Yet I was without redress. My reputation was made and I must live with it, but sometimes it was very hard to accept the consequences. Perhaps Joan’s savage attack wounded me after all. And that was why I said the unforgivable.

“I had no need to demand, my lady. The King obviously considers gold and gems suitable payment for my superior skills in the bedchamber.”

“Whore!” She stormed from the room.

Joan never forgave me, and I was to pay a high price for my heedlessness, higher than I could have dreamed possible, even though I made an attempt at conciliation, for Edward’s sake. I was not entirely heartless, you understand. Unfortunately my good intentions made matters worse.

Edward decided to visit the Prince at Kennington; I accompanied him with serious intent. Edward, I decided, deserved some peace in his household. War between his mistress and his daughter-in-law—both of us no better than two screeching, scratching cats—should be avoided. Within minutes, King and Prince were deep in discussion of the state of the present truce with France, and I, my feet on a path toward what I suspected would be a lost cause, was shown by the steward into Joan’s solar.

She sat at her embroidery, by her side on the floor her young son, turning the illuminated pages of a book. A charming boy with fair hair and round cheeks, Richard leaped to his feet and bowed with quaint grace.

I curtsied. “My lord. My lady.” I would be courteous.

Joan remained seated with disdain in her eyes. “Mistress Perrers.” Her voice was as flat as her stare.

“His Majesty has come to speak with the Prince.” I was very formal. How to broach this? Head-on as if in the tilting yard was the only way. “How is the Prince?”

I had not needed to ask. I had seen it for myself. His loss of weight was pitiful. Eyes feverish, skin gray, hair dull and lank. The basin positioned beside his daybed was ominous in itself. Joan’s features closed, tight with distress. Unable to hide her fears, she shook her head. I knew she would not lie, would not pretend. For once, her guard was down, with even the moisture of tears in her eyes. This was my one possibility, for Edward’s sake, of draining the poison from her hatred of me.

Grief strong in the set of her mouth, the hard lines deep from nose to chin in her soft flesh, Joan forgot she spoke to me. One tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. “I don’t know what to do for him!” It was a cry from the heart.

“I can help.”

“You! What can you do?” Furiously, she dashed away the tears.

I could have retreated. I would have, if I had known where this would lead, yet faced with such grief, knowing the terror of helplessness for myself when Edward looked at me as if I did not exist, I could not. In my arms I had a little coffer, a delight of sandalwood with ivory corners and metal hinges, and an intricate little lock and key. It was a costly gift in its own right, but its contents were of far greater value to the Prince. I had brought the only offering I could think of that might be acceptable. For sure the Princess would take nothing else from me. I placed it on the chest that held a tangle of her embroidery silks.

“What is that?”

“A gift.”

“I have coffers enough, and of greater value than that.” She barely looked at it, setting a number of stitches, stabbing clumsily at the panel for a purse or an altar cloth.

I thought it unlikely, given its value—for it was a gift to me from Edward—but I let it go.

“It is the contents that are valuable,” I explained gently. The nuns would have been proud of my humility. “A number of nostrums and potions. They will give the Prince ease.…”

“And do these nostrums and potions work?” She stopped stitching.

“They soothed the King in his grief after Philippa died. They helped Philippa too.”

Joan cast aside her sewing. I saw her fingers twitch over the domed lid. Surely such a gift was impossible to resist. She lifted it to reveal the carefully folded packets of herbs, the glass vials of intense color.

“They are distilled from common plants,” I explained. “I learned the skills at the Abbey. Here are the leaves of lady’s-smock to restore a lost appetite and soothe digestion. A tincture of primrose to aid rest and a quiet mind. White willow bark when the pain is too great to bear. I have written the amounts.” I indicated the sheet of parchment tucked under the lid. “Either you or the Prince’s body servants can mix them with wine as indicated. I’m sure the Prince would enjoy the effects.”

Joan looked at the coffer, the neat arrangement of packets and bottles. Her teeth bit hard into her lower lip.

“I can speak well for their effectiveness,” I encouraged as she made no move. “There is also the pulp of dog rose hips—to stanch bleeding and the loss of bodily fluids.”

We had all heard of the Prince’s appalling symptoms, the constant flow of blood and semen that could not be halted.

Joan moved. It was as if I had thrust a bunch of stinging nettles into her unprotected hand. With a jerk of her arm she swept the box from coffer to floor. It fell with a crack, damaging the hinges, so that glass from the vials shattered and the liquid ran. A dusting of herbs covered the whole, swirling into patterns. Richard squeaked in horror, then was quick to investigate, poking his fingers into the debris until Joan took a handful of his tunic to pull him away to stand beside her.

“Don’t touch that spawn of the devil!”

“Indeed it is not…” I remonstrated.

“Satan’s brew! And you are his servant!”

Her words were a shock, running cold through my blood as we looked at the mess between us, Joan still seated, I rigid with what she had implied. Until Joan raised her eyes to mine, holding them as she clicked her fingers for one of her women to approach from the far end of the room.

“Get rid of this. Burn it. And the box. I don’t want to find any trace of this on my floor.” And when the woman gawped at the detritus: “Do it now!” she hissed, like the kiss of a steel blade against its adversary.

As the woman busied herself, the Princess stood, gripped my wrist, and leaned close, her mouth against my ear. “Did you think I would be such a fool?”

I was still stunned by her outrageous response to a gift that could have brought nothing but good. “I thought you might accept what I could do to give your husband ease,” I remarked, watching the play of fury—and was that fear?—across her face.

“Ease! Distilled from common plants!” she spat. Her voice fell to a whisper that hissed in the corners of the room. “I hear you employ witchcraft to achieve your ends, Mistress Perrers. I think you have maleficium in mind. Not compassion!” Spittle sprang to her lips on the word.

But there was only one word that I heard out of the whole rant.

“Witchcraft!” I repeated, my voice equally low. It was not a word to shout to the rooftops. I had heard much said of me, but not that. A little breath of fear beat in my mind, but I managed a sneer coated in laughter. “And what do they say? Whoever they are. That I eat the flesh of children? That I keep a familiar and feed it from the blood of my own body?”

“They say you call up the devil’s powers. That you have skills and knowledge that no God-fearing woman should have.” I watched as Joan’s fingers on her left hand circled into the sign against the evil eye. “How in God’s name could you explain Edward’s fascination with so ugly and ill-bred a woman as Alice Perrers?” Her jaw snapped shut on my name.

It was the slide of a knife between my ribs, but I ensured that my reply gave away nothing of her wounding, or of the fear that spread to fill the spaces around my heart. The cold along the length of my spine deepened, as intense as ice in January.

“It is inexplicable, I grant you,” I remarked. Refusing to defend my birth or my looks, I dragged my wrist free of her grasp. “But my lord’s love for me is no product of witchcraft. Nor was this gift.” I slid my shoe over the sifting of dried heartsease flowers that still marked the floor. “But if my husband suffered as yours does, my lady, I would use the powers of the devil himself to give his body relief. I would leave no stone unturned between here and the depths of hell, if it would allow my husband a restful night and an end to pain.”