Royal Mistress by Anne Easter Smith Page A

William—that she would have to pleasure herself after he fell asleep exhausted by his efforts.
    It was not long before Jane’s initial frustration turned into anger, for it became apparent that she had been cheated even of her right to be a mother, let alone the pleasuring the priest had promised was also her due. Her mood was not helped by the weather that summer.
    July was one of the worst for rain anyone could remember, and the London streets became awash in mud, muck, and rubbish that even the highest pattens could not navigate safely. The Moor Field outside the city wall at the end of Coleman Street was flooded so badly there was no harvest of vegetables, and cows stood knee-deep in water, looking as miserable as the gloomy skies above them.Jane was thankful her husband’s lodging was above his shop, thus she did not have to step out into the mire on most days to tend to customers as she had at her father’s.
    And then the summer heat arrived, making Londoners irritable, and babes, young children, and old people susceptible to outbreaks of disease.
    “When did the July rain start?” she asked Sophie one hot August day when the flies buzzed around the rubbish left behind after the muddy streets had dried, and the two friends sat in the shade of the only tree in the Vandersands’ tiny garden. William had allowed her a rare afternoon to herself, and she had made her way to Sophie’s humble house, where she found her friend using her old hand spindle so she could tend to her children with her free hand when needed. Spinning silk was tedious work, and Sophie was fortunate Jehan had obtained a wheel for his wife for her indoor work, as the distaff and spindle she had learned to use at her mother’s knee was slow and awkward. While Jane amused the new baby with a length of colored ribbon and watched the two older children play with a ball, Sophie worked diligently at spinning the raw silk into thread. “I was trying to remember if it had rained on St. Swithin’s Day?”
    “ Ja, it rained on the saint’s day but only a gentle pit-pat,” Sophie replied. “How does the saying go? You taught it to me once:
    St. Swithin’s Day, if it doth rain,
    For forty days it will remain.
    St. Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair,
    For forty days ’twill rain no more.”
    “We should set no store by it, Sophie, for it has not been forty days yet, and look at the sky now. ’Tis so hot, the blue in it has all dried up.”
    Sophie eyed her friend, who seemed somewhat serious this afternoon. She noted the gown Jane was wearing was very handsome for everyday wear, but she had long since given up chiding Jane for her extravagance. “You seem far away, lieveling, ” she said. “Is there something the matter?”
    Jane rocked the now sleeping baby in her arms, brushing the flies away. “I knew I could not hide from you, dear Sophie. Aye, there is something wrong. There is a reason why William has not wed these forty years; he is impotent.” The new word in her vocabulary fell heavily from her lips. It was the first time she had actually brought herself to say it.
    Sophie gasped and stopped her spinning. “That is bad, Jane. Are you sure? Mayhap he is ill. Sometimes the men are unable to . . . you know . . . ven they are ill. Jehan had a stone inside his kidney and he left me alone for a month until it came out.”
    “Nay, he is not ill. He is simply not interested in me—or any woman, I would guess.”
    “Vat vill you do?”
    Jane did not know what she would do. On the one hand, she did not have to put up with William mounting her night after night, as Sophie said Jehan was wont to do, but it did not seem right to her that he did not keep his side of the marriage bargain. “He swore before God that he agreed to love and honor me in heart, body, and mind and that our solemn union was intended among other things for the procreation of children,” she said, shooing a fly off little Pieter’s face. “And I swore to honor