He had been sorry to leave Scotland and deeply chagrined later that year that his father had not allowed him to return to France and join the Prince of Wales. For by Michaelmas they heard the stupendous news in London. The Prince and his remarkable general, Sir John Chandos, had not only won a brilliant victory at Poitiers, but they had captured the French King!
Young John rejoiced with all England. He took his part in the triumphant pageants and tourneys that greeted the return of the young conqueror and his royal prize, but he had had to fight envy. Edward was a brilliant hero, Edward was heir to the throne, the court adored him, the people quite properly doted on him, but what was there left for a third son who felt himself potentially as great a warrior?
Lionel didn't care. He liked sports and wenching and drinking. He amiably tried to fill any role his father told him to, and beyond that he had no ambitions. But John cared very much and spent many bitter hours. His rebellion was entirely inward and soon subdued by his strong sense of loyalty, both personal and dynastic. Gradually his seventeen-year-old energy, that winter of 1357, baulked of glory, flowed in other channels. He developed an interest in art, music and reading, where his taste ran to the romantic and stirring tales of olden time.
He also discovered passion. He became infatuated with one of his mother's waiting-maids, Marie St. Hilaire, a handsome, good-natured woman in her mid-twenties who initiated him into the forthright pleasures of sex. This affair lasted over a year, when she became pregnant. The Queen, who demanded a high moral tone from her ladies, was disgusted and angry with her son too. The King, however, and John's older brothers, were amused. His father remarked jovially that at least the boy was a truly virile Plantagenet, and this episode turned the King's mind to finding John a suitable wife.
Marie was well provided for and bore her baby without fuss in London. It was a girl, and she named it Blanche in honour of the bride the King had picked out for the baby's father.
By this time John was nearly nineteen and had quite outgrown Marie. It was easy for him to fall in love with the beautiful Blanche of Lancaster. He saw her first in her father's rose garden at the Savoy Palace, and in her white-robes with her silver-gilt hair unbound as she played a Provencal melody on her lute, she epitomised for him all the Elaines, Gueneveres, Melusines of who he had read.
His marriage brought him luck and a great measure of the power he wanted, yet now at twenty-six he had still not found the opportunity to achieve glory on his own.
Castile would do that. The very sound of "Castile" was like the martial clash of cymbals, and he repeated the seductive word to himself while he rode towards the pavilions after the tournament. His heart beat faster as he saw how he would answer his brother's need at the head of an avenging host, in a latter-day crusade to fight for justice and the divine right of Kings.
He would issue the call to arms throughout his vast domains. He could raise an army of his own retainers almost overnight, and finance the expedition from his own pocket. This was to be the Duke of Lancaster.
John's musing eyes grew brilliant and he flicked Palamon to a faster pace.
As he neared the pavilions a child darted out from behind one of the tents and waved her dirty little claws. "Great Duke," she whined, "gi' alms, gi' alms - we've naught to eat."
Her slanting dark eyes peered up at him through a tangle of dusty black hair, lice crawled on the filthy rags that barely hid her skinny little body. The stallion moved away from her under the pressure of John's knees as he said, "There's food for all down by the river - bread, ale and roast oxen." He pointed to the crowd of feasting peasants.
She shook her head with a sly smile. "We darena, noble lord, we'm outlaws - me da's skulking in tha' forest."
John shrugged and gestured to Piers Roos, his young body squire who rode behind him with others of the Duke's men. Piers opened the purse at his waist and flung the girl two silver pennies. She caught them in mid-air and darted off like an otter to disappear in the bushes.
"I suppose the woods are full of runaway churls today," remarked Piers laughing to his companions. "Come as near as they dare to the feasting. And as for that ugly maid, she's a veritable changeling."
John was not listening, and yet the last word uttered by Piers' clear young voice penetrated his mind with an effect of shock. Changeling. What was there in that word to stir up turmoil? His heart of a sudden pounded heavily and his stomach heaved as though with fear. Grey eyes, grey woman's eyes seemed to stare at him from the sky - troubled, far-seeing eyes like the de Roet girl's. No - eyes like Isolda Neumann's.
He turned in his saddle and spoke sharply to the young men behind him. "Go to your tents, all of you, and leave me alone. I wish to ride in the forest."
Piers Roos looked startled; solitude was a state rarely desired by the Duke or anyone else, except of course hermits and anchorites. He scanned his lord's face, which seemed angrily tense, and wondered if the jousting had inflicted some obscure injury. "You'll want your helm, my lord?" he said diffidently, holding it out. "There are outlaws in the greenwood - there might be danger."
"Bah-" said John, kicking Palamon's flank. "What danger to me could there be from a handful of renegade villeins?" He spurred the horse and cantered off through the holly bushes and elders on the fringe of Windsor Great Forest.
Piers watched the yellow head and the scarlet and azure jupon until they disappeared, then turned to his companions. "Palamon is winded and lathered from the tourney," he said, frowning. " Tis not like him to neglect the stallion, whatever strange mood has come to him-" The other young men merely laughed; and, delighted to be released from duty, shouted for the pages to bring them wine, as they clambered from the saddles.
John was not thinking of the stallion, but he allowed the tired horse to slacken pace and rode slowly beneath the dappled beeches while he suffered for the first time in years from memories so painful that it was impossible even now in his maturity to dwell on them calmly.
Isolda Neumann had been John's foster-mother for eight years, from the moment of his birth at the Abbey of St. Bavon in Ghent. She had nursed him at her breast, while the baby she herself had borne soon died. John remembered of her clearly only her calm grey eyes, and the softness of her voice as she sang to him and that he had loved her more than anyone in the world. His parents, the King and Queen, had been remote gods, infinitely respected, but preoccupied with great affairs, seldom at home, and, too, there were the other eight children to claim their attention. Isolda had belonged to him alone.
She was the handsome widow of a respectable Flemish burgher, and she had a remaining child, an only son four years older than John. This boy, Pieter, had naturally accompanied Isolda when Queen Philippa's whole household moved back from Flanders to England. Pieter had been born with a twisted leg, but otherwise he was healthy and large for his years. A sly, pimpled boy, given to spiteful tempers and tale-bearing, he had apparently felt from the beginning for little John, his mother's nursling, a vicious jealousy. Perhaps Isolda had not bothered to hide the far greater love she bore her charge, while perhaps she neglected her own son, pushing him too soon from her bed to sleep with the stable-boys and vagrants in the castle cattle-sheds.
Whatever the reason, Pieter's shrewd little mind, which was as twisted as his leg, eventually concocted a subtle revenge.
It had happened here at Windsor in the fetid death-dealing summer when red crosses were painted on every other house in London and the plague bells jangled day and night; but to all the children isolated behind the great castle walls there seemed to be safety enough, and they played together in the courtyards and gardens with carefree joy augmented by the relaxed vigilance of their terrified elders.