“Mistress Perrers—we will weigh your evidence to support your innocence. Have you discovered any lawyer who will speak of the origin of Lyons’s pardon? Have you discovered the documents?”

“No, my lords. I have not.”

“Then the evidence against you still stands and you must be presumed guilty.” How gentle his voice sounded. How venomous!

“I have found one who will speak for me,” I stated.

“Indeed?” The disbelief in that single word was impressive, and chilling to the depths of my soul.

“I would call John Beverley,” I said.

“And he is?”

“An attendant in King Edward’s retinue. A personal body servant. A man whom the King—the late King—trusted implicitly.”

“Then we will hear him.”

The door at my back was opened. I prayed, I prayed as hard as I could, that John Beverley had not fled.

“Keep him here, whatever you do!” I had told Windsor that morning, “and stop scowling at him.” John Beverley was the only man Windsor and I could locate who had a smidgen of courage and respect for the truth. Whatever effort it had taken from Windsor, we had brought Beverley at least as far as the door to the chamber. I thought perhaps the means employed by my determined husband had been physical: Beverley was nervous. I feared he was also untrustworthy. But what choice had I but to put my freedom into his hands? All I could do was pray that his past loyalties would hold true. He entered, thinning hair untidy, as if he had dragged his hands through it, his gaze flickering over the Committee. When he saw Gaunt, his nervousness changed to horror. The skin of his face became gray, and my heart fell.

“John Beverley,” Northumberland addressed him.

“Yes, my lord.” His hands were gripped ferociously, his broad features anxious.

“You were body servant to King Edward?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“We are here to ascertain the truth of the pardoning of Richard Lyons. You recall the matter to which I allude? To your knowledge, did Mistress Perrers persuade His late Majesty to grant Lyons a pardon?”

“Not to my knowledge, my lord.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, my lord.”

I sighed. Beverley was a man of few words, his eyes those of a terrified deer facing the hounds. Pray God he would use those words on my behalf.

“How is that? How can you be so sure?”

“I was in attendance on His Majesty constantly in those last days, my lord.” A few petals of hope began to unfurl beneath my heart. Beverley’s voice grew stronger as his confidence grew. Here was something he could speak of with authority. “I never heard the matter of a pardon mentioned by the King or by Mistress Perrers.”

“So neither of them talked of it.”

“No, my lord. Neither King Edward nor his…nor Mistress Perrers. I swear the King never gave the order for a pardon for the man.”

A dangerous statement, all in all. If the pardon had not come from Edward, it had been on Gaunt’s own initiative. Thus, Gaunt had usurped a royal power that was not his by right to use. I held my breath as the tension in the room tightened. There was a shifting of bodies, the slide of silk against damask, a scrape of boots against the floor. And on Gaunt’s brow a storm cloud gathered. If Beverley did not notice it, he was a fool. Would he stand by his word, or would he play the coward? Windsor’s intimidation or monetary inducement suddenly weighed little against Gaunt’s unspoken ire.

“You will swear to that? You will take an oath to that effect?” asked Northumberland. “That Mistress Perrers did at no time persuade the late King to issue a pardon for Richard Lyons.”

“Well…yes, my lord.”

“It would, you understand, be dangerous to swear to something of which you are to any degree uncertain.…”

“Ah…” And as I watched him, Beverley’s eyes skipped from Northumberland to Gaunt.

“Do you claim, Master Beverley, that Mistress Perrers had no influence on the King’s decisions? You say that you were with the late King constantly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“But were there not times when Mistress Perrers was alone with the King, without your presence?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“And during those times, could she perhaps have raised the question of Lyons and his pardon?”

“Well…she could, my lord.” Beverley gulped.

“If that is so…are you free to say that Mistress Perrers did not undertake the pardon of Richard Lyons?”

I heard him swallow again, seeing the pit before his feet, a dark morass of claim and counterclaim that he had dug for himself. I too saw it, but forced myself to stand perfectly still, watching Gaunt’s face.

“No, my lord. I suppose I am not.”

“Then, by my reckoning, you cannot support Mistress Perrers with your testimony. Can you?”

“No, sir. By my conscience, I cannot.” I thought Beverley sounded relieved at having the decision made for him.

“Thank you. We appreciate your honesty. You are free to go.”

Gaunt’s face was blandly tranquil; he appeared satisfied with a job well-done as he looked at me. It was as if we were alone in the room, and I knew that I would be judged without mercy.

The Committee conferred in low voices.

John Beverley left the chamber with not one look in my direction, keen to dissociate himself from any suspicion of connivance between us. I could hardly blame him. Not all men were given the courage to stand by the truth. Not all men were like Windsor, who I knew would stand by me to the death. Standing alone before Gaunt’s handpicked lordly minions, I needed Windsor as I had never needed anyone before. Since Philippa’s intervention in my life, I had struggled and maneuvered to keep my feet in the fast-flowing stream of Court politics. I had striven to make my future and that of my children safe. I was even proud of my success. Now all was brought to nothing. Here I stood, helpless and vulnerable, without friends.

Except for William de Windsor.

The strange sense of relief that I was not completely alone, whatever happened, was my only glimmer of hope in this moment of dread.

“Mistress Perrers!” There was Northumberland demanding my attention. Gaunt’s expression was carved in stone. Northumberland stepped forward. “We have made our decision. This is our judgment.…”

And how little time it took to undermine all I had made of my life.

“We consider you to be guilty of obtaining the pardon for Richard Lyons.”

Guilty!

“Therefore this Committee, in the name of the Lords of the Realm of England, confirms the original sentence delivered by the Good Parliament. The sentence of banishment remains against you.…”

Banishment! Again! The word beat heavily against my mind.

But Northumberland had not yet finished twisting the knife in my heart’s wound.

“…also we command the forfeiture of all your remaining lands and possessions obtained by fraud and deceit.”

The enormity of it shook me. The illegality of my actions was simply presumed without any need to show proof. My own purchase of land and property was presumed to be through deceit, and so I was to be stripped of everything, whether illegal or not. I was presumed guilty, not proven to be so. So much for justice. How they must hate me. But had that not always been the case?

“Do you understand our decisions, Mistress Perrers?”

I stood unmoving, aware of all those eyes: some condemning, some sanctimonious, some merely curious to see how I would react. Gaunt’s eyes glittered with triumph and avarice. My estates were open to his picking. From ally to enemy in that one sentence. I could barely comprehend it. And when I did, I despised him for it.

“I understand perfectly, my lords,” I remarked. “Am I free to go?”

“We are finished here.”

I curtsied deeply and walked from the room.

Am I free to go? I had asked. But where would I go?

Before my mind could fully grasp what had been done, I was standing in the antechamber. The judgment was passed; I was not restrained, yet banishment, a black cloud, pressed down on me. Blindly I looked for Windsor, waiting for me by the window. I think I must have staggered, for in three strides he was beside me, holding my arm.

“Beverley played the rabbit, I presume. He scuttled out before I could get my hands around his scrawny little neck.”

I blinked, unable to string two thoughts together or find words to explain what had been done to me.

“Alice?”

I shook my head. “I…I can’t…but I need to…”

One close look at my bleak expression was enough for him. “Don’t try to speak. Come with me.”

He lost no time, but led me out into the icy air. I shivered but was glad of the cold wind on my face. In the courtyard, horses were waiting with Windsor’s servants. As if from a distance, I realized that he had feared this, and made provision even as he had encouraged me to believe that justice would smile in my favor.

“Thank you,” I whispered. How dear he was to me. How much I had begun to lean on his good sense, his cynical streak of practicality.

He raised the palm of my hand to his lips, then, realizing how cold I was, stripped off his own gloves and drew them onto my hands, wrapping his own mantle around my shoulders. The warmth was intense, welcome, despite the cruel tingling of my fingers.

“You are very…kind to me.”

“Kind, by God! Do I not love you, foolish one?” He peered into my frozen face. “I suppose you still don’t believe me. But this is neither the time nor the place to beat you about the head with it. Just accept that it’s true and that I won’t desert you. Feel that?” He pressed my gloved palm to his chest. “It beats in unison with yours. Is that poetic enough for you? Perhaps not, but it’s the best you’ll get at this juncture.” His kiss on my mouth was firm. “Now up with you. Before the vermin change their mind. I’ll take you home.”