The People's Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

cares? she tells herself, suddenly gay. I'm having a better life than either of them. Katherine's now the widow Swynford, with a little estate somewhere up in Lincolnshire and several children running wild. And Philippa's married to one of Edward's esquires, that clever little elf Chaucer, though no one thinks they're happy; she scuttled straight back to work with the Duchess of Lancaster, mean Castilian ladies-in-waiting and all, after both her babies, as if nothing would persuade her to stay home with her husband. They'd probably both rather be in my shoes, Alice thinks.
    'My lord?' Alice replies, too innocently. 'What do you mean, taking a chance?'
    The Duke of Lancaster steps back in time with the lilting twelve-quaver beat, but with an interested look that suggests the conversation isn't over. A second later, as they lean together again, he goes on, glancing down at her finery: 'Your robe is almost exactly the same as the Princess of England's at Christmas...as I'm sure you realise,' and gives her a challenging smile with one eyebrow raised.
    Of course I realise, she thinks patiently. I had Princess Joan's dress copied, didn't I? And I did it so you'd notice, didn't I? The Princess never showed herself at a public court dinner at Christmas; she only attended family occasions. So no one outside the royal family will have seen it. And Edward's eyes are failing; he never notices the colour of robes any more. It's a joke for the two of us to share. We're supposed to draw closer, and wink, and enjoy ourselves watching each other enjoying ourselves poking a bit of fun at the Princess, and then you're supposed to think: Why, Alice Perrers, you and I, we're kindred spirits. Two peas in a pod.
    But that's not what she says. She just flirts. She lifts her eyebrows and flashes him a smile that's all teeth and daring. Demurely, she says, 'No one else has mentioned a resemblance.' Then she turns the corners of her lips up again.
    She's rewarded by a deep snort of scandalised laughter. She's got his attention, all right. He's shaking his head as he goes through the dance step, looking half-disapproving, but half-amused too.
    'What will you do if she turns up?' he says. He sounds serious, but she can see that the corners of his lips, like the corners of hers, can't quite stay down.
    Alice knows John of Gaunt is said to love his much older sister-in-law and brother, and be sad that, in the past few years, since the Prince's illness, they've gone cold on him. It's obvious to everyone they're scared he's going to wait till his brother's dead, then try and steal the throne from the little boy; but perhaps it isn't obvious to him. People say he misses them. Probably, knowing what a stickler he is for the old ways, the old respect, no one's ever tried lightening his feelings about losing his brother's family's affection by sending that old trout of a Princess Joan up, just a bit.
    Alice thinks: I won't let myself be rattled by the idea of Princess Joan coming here. Serenely, she replies, 'Why would she?'
    It's unanswerable. They both know Joan of Kent will stay home on her side of the river, in Kennington, with her dropsy-ridden hulk of a husband and her mewling, puking seven-year-old. She was once a beauty, Joan of Kent. They even say she was Edward's mistress, long ago, before she married his son, though Edward's never breathed a word of any such thing to Alice. But Joan certainly isn't the most beautiful woman in England any more, hasn't been for years - certainly not since Alice first clapped eyes on her. She wasn't a beauty any more even in her thirties, when she scandalised Christendom by taking for her third husband her royal cousin - a childhood playmate - in the obvious hope of getting a crown when he became king. And she's fat and forty-five now, and the violet eyes poets wrote about long ago are puffy and mean. She's hardly ever at court.
    Alice thinks: She calls me a gold-digger, but what's she? She might be a king's