The Royal Romances

Suffolk, England

March 1410

My husband smells of cheese and old sweat when he is on top of me. His teeth, the ones he has left, are more brown and black than white. Drops of sweat begin to form in his forehead and for every thrust, one or two drops lands on my cheeks.

I wish that for just one night, he would let me read or simply go to sleep early without one of his visits. But I know he will not leave me alone until I give him what was promised, so one more time, I close my eyes while he does his business, and try not to smell him. I keep my eyes shut until he lets out a weak moan and collapsed on top of me.

He is a very heavy man and I have trouble breathing until he finally decides to roll over to his side of the bed and sleep. His loud snores usually keep me awake but tonight I didn't mind. It became my time to think, to hope, for something else to come along and change this poor existence. I stare up in the high ceiling and talk to God, wishing he for once would listen to my pleading. Please, Lord, give me a son.

The mansion that is now my home is a great deal larger than what I was used to. My family is not poor but my brother and I still shared a room and there were rarely any coins to spare on extravagance. Yet we never went hungry and I could never recall that neither I nor my brother ever lacked for anything.

Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when my eyes are still shut and there is no sign of life around me, I truly believe that I never left. In my mind I was still in our modest cottage next to my brother, lying awake, listening to my mother's light footsteps from the hall as she went to feed the chickens.

But now it had been two years since my father much by pure luck and cunning had managed to arrange my marriage to one of the most prominent and also one of the oldest gentlemen in eastern England. I was furious when he told me of the match but what could I do but obey? I had no choice and only two months later we were wed and I left my family and the life I knew behind me.

For the first week, my pillow was wet every night and my husband was muttering that I had to "cheer up or at least pretend". Quickly I realized that sulking would get me nowhere, least of all back home, and slowly I started to create a new life, a new routine in a place where every move I made was being watched and analyzed.

It was now two years since I married the Duke and I am still not with child, a fact my husband reminds me of every night when his sweat and cheese stench rubs off on me once more. I know every wife must endure these visits but I can not comprehend how they survive.

For every time he enters my body, it feels like a part of me withers away. The parts of me that are headstrong, inquisitive, and naive becomes smaller for every night that passes. Maybe it is part of becoming a woman, but if it is I do not care for it.

Several times a day I go down on my knees in my private chapel and pray for a child. I long for someone I can love and cherish and someone who can make his own way in the world. Hopefully, a healthy baby boy would finally give me one night's undisrupted sleep. I do not think I'm asking for much. I simply want to read for a bit and then sleep through an entire night without my husband oozing and loudly snoring by my side.

For every night that passes, I grow more desperate for my search for solitude. Thankfully my father convinced my husband to let me keep my tutor which meant that most days, I could get lost in the world of science, exciting foreign languages, and of course my favorite subject history. It is a big part of my daily routine, and if I am not studying with Martin, I often walk around the gardens and grounds.

They appear to go on for miles, which they in fact do, and it gives me some peace of mind to look over the acres of growing land and the apparent never-ending wild forest. The untamed lands are the only part of my new home that I can stand, probably because it is the only thing that reminds me of home.

The estate is grand but all the large, empty rooms give me a queer feeling and I can not understand how my husband could have lived here by himself for so many years.

No matter how many distractions I create, I can still not ease my increasingly worried mind. I begin to visit the chapel five times a day, praying for my unborn child to arrive and for my family's health.

News travels from Cornwall that my brother has caught a fever after a trip to London and now there is nothing to do but wait. Two days after my father's letter arrives, the Duke of Suffolk, my lord husband, turns 46 and I remain fourteen. We have no celebrations but my husband gets so intoxicated that he for once can not perform his marital duties. No news arrive from my father or my brother's wife Margaret and despite my prayers, a week later I bled again.

——————————————————