The Silken Rose

by Carol McGrath

  ‘It’s for my chamber at Windsor, not Westminster, and I expect it ready for when we move there after Christmastide. You may go, Rosalind. I shall send the artist to the workshop this week.’

  ‘Your Grace, as you wish.’

  They were dismissed. Rosalind hoped this embroidery would not bring condemnation on her work from the Church or the King. She thought for a moment of how her papa always said he had rescued her mother and grandmother from the Cathar Inquisition in Toulouse. Her mother was not a Cathar, but Rosalind’s grandfather had been. She shuddered. She could not afford to be associated with free-thinking Cathars and nor must the Queen.

  As they returned to the waiting wherry, she said to her embroiderers, ‘If you speak of this embroidery, I cannot keep you in my employ.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress Rosalind, we understand.’

  She tried not to worry.

  A flock of gulls screeched along the river, too adventurous and somewhat too far inland. Rosalind settled in the boat and never spoke again until they reached Westminster. The difficulty with Queen Ailenor was that she would not be gainsaid. Once set on an idea she had to see it executed. They needed the money they earned. The Master of the Wardrobe, who dealt with expenses, denied the Queen nothing and he had instructions presumably from the King who adored his queen. The whole of London knew this. Yet the burghers grumbled about Queen Ailenor, complaining she was extravagant. Rosalind loved the Queen. She had saved Rosalind from Jonathan de Basing and for this Rosalind was grateful.

  As they walked towards the workshop, Martha remarked, ‘All those stars and the figures too. It can’t be completed for at least a year, Mistress. It is very detailed. It won’t be ready for the birth.’

  ‘The Queen said Christmastide or thereafter. Still, it is a larger embroidery and will take all our time to have it ready within three-quarters of a year.’

  Jennet wasn’t listening. Her eyes had strayed again, this time across the courtyard. ‘Jennet,’ Rosalind said crossly, ‘what are you doing?’

  A group of squires were gathered around a practice quatrain. One stood out. The design on his tabard was familiar, since she had just last week embroidered it onto Earl Simon’s shield for the gift that was to go to Kenilworth. As if sensing her watching, the squire spun around, waving a blunted sword ready to strike the practice ball. He threw down his sword, spoke to his companions and sprinted over to them.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said to the women. ‘I have business here.’

  Their guard looked doubtful.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I do know Master Thomas. We’ve met before many times.’

  The squire had reached the group of women. He looked straight at Rosalind. The others looked away.

  ‘Come along, you.’ Martha pulled the gaping Jennet away.

  The guard followed Martha and Jennet, though he threw a look of concern over his shoulder.

  Thomas laughed. ‘Mistress Rosalind, what a pleasure. I had hoped to see you. We have just returned to Westminster.’

  ‘Yes. Master Thomas, you’ve have not been at court for nearly a year now.’ She stared at the crest on his tabard.

  ‘I have been with Earl Simon in Rome. We are back recruiting for Earl Richard’s crusade. I think my uncle hopes that I shall be sent on the crusade and killed. He will claim my lands.’

  ‘Your uncle! You have lands?’

  ‘And a manor house. My family are vassals of Earl Simon. My uncle is my guardian.’ Thomas shook his head. ‘He doesn’t care for me.’ Thomas kicked a clump of muddy earth.

  ‘Who are your noble people?’ Rosalind’s tone was curious. She looked up and held his eyes. They were the blue of cornflowers in the field. Although he had escorted her to the palace before Earl Simon set out for Rome, he’d never spoken of his kin.

  ‘I am Thomas Beaumont, not knighted yet, so just plain Beaumont, a distant relative of Earl Simon. One day I shall be a knight.’

  She shrugged. ‘Are you, indeed?’ She could not help feeling that Thomas had been deceptive by not revealing before whom he really was. She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that I am a suitable person for you to speak with as an equal any more, Thomas Beaumont,’ she said archly.

  ‘I think you are, Mistress Rosalind. I hope now that I am back at court you will see more of me.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You are fairer than ever, if I may be so bold.’ He reached out to touch her face. She jumped back as if a cat had scratched her.

  He reached out again and with one finger lifted her chin.

  ‘Your father is one of the wealthiest guildsmen in London and I am but an impoverished squire. It is you who should consider me lesser.’

  She felt disappointed tears gather behind her eyes. ‘Not so. You will be betrothed into your own class no matter how poor you claim you are. Your uncle will find you a noble heiress.’

  ‘I shall choose my own bride, thank you, Mistress Rosalind. My uncle will not decide for me. He is only interested in lands to add to his own.’

  ‘I have my workshop to consider.’

  ‘Not for ever.’ He spoke with a serious note.

  ‘The workshop is my purpose.’ She thought for a moment, softening, and said, ‘Perhaps one day I shall want children and a home of my own. If so, I shall choose my own husband.’

  ‘Is that so? Well then, I must return to the sport.’ He caught her arm and said in an almost whisper, ‘Wait for me to come back to woo you. Wait until I return from the new crusade.’

  ‘Godspeed, Master Thomas,’ she said shaking him off. ‘Women cannot be wooed so easily.’ She longed with all her being to make him the promise, but she could not. She could not risk disappointment. Instead she said, ‘Bring me back Ottoman silk from Jerusalem? Bring me back the tree of life embroidered onto it and perhaps I shall be here waiting.’

  ‘Your wish, sweet Rosalind, is my pleasure. Good-day, my lady.’ With a backward wave, he was gone, loping towards the entrance to the stable block. She sighed as her eyes followed his golden head. He was of the knightly class. She was a burgher’s daughter.

  For days following the visit to the Tower Jennet gossiped to anyone willing to listen to her descriptions of the Queen’s green samite gown with its trailing sleeves and her Grace’s fruitful bearing for she had glowed with happiness. Jennet told everyone how the Queen had offered them sweetmeats from a silver dish and a cup of ale whilst they discussed the new embroidery. Thankfully, Rosalind thought, Jennet was silent on the content of the embroidery. Rosalind locked the worrying design in a chest until the cartoons could be drawn on linen by Queen Ailenor’s artist. She called Jennet into her presence and looked sternly at her youngest employee. ‘You know you are not to discuss this design with the others, only that it is to be a hanging depicting the Nativity for the Queen’s chamber at Windsor.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress Rosalind, I know that I shall lose my place in the Queen’s workshop if I speak of it.’

  ‘Good; that is the way of it. No loose talking to builders or craftsmen. Or squires.’

  Rosalind blushed, realising just what she had said, and swiftly sent Jennet on her way.

  10

  Spring 1239

  In May, Ailenor’s ladies closed the shutters against the spring sunshine and hung cloth over them. The hangings shifted in a breeze drifting through a solitary opened window. Despite predictions that a woman entering seclusion in the four weeks before birthing should be kept warm and a fire burning night and day in the hearth, Ailenor insisted on the opened window. ‘Silk cloth of the softest blue must be hung over the other two.’ Her tone was firm. Willelma tut-tutted but patiently had sought out the requested blue, an expensive colour, only used in England for a hundred years.

  ‘Ah, bien!’ Ailenor said as the blue hangings were hung. ‘How can light be harmful to a woman about to give birth?’

  Despite her ladies’ protests, no one had a sensible answer and rays of calming sunlight filtered into the chamber through her one unshuttered casement.

  On the day she
entered her seclusion, Henry presented her with gifts to help ease her travail - a silver and gilt belt blessed by the Archbishop. ‘It is Our Lady’s girdle. It was in my widowed mother Isabella’s possession. When she ran away from England, stole my sister Joan’s betrothed, Hugh of Lusignan, and married him, Archbishop Edmund insisted this stayed in our keeping. Now it is for you, my love.’

  Ailenor gazed on the faded belt. ‘But Joan was Queen of Scotland.’

  ‘We found her a better bridegroom, one who would help us unite our countries in peace. Alexander was a fine choice at the time.’

  Henry knelt before her at the door to her chamber and tearfully wished her well. She would not see any man until after their child was born. They would, he said, love their child, prince or princess. ‘After all,’ Henry said, ‘Your own mother has borne four beautiful princesses.’ He seemed to preen. ‘Two are married to the greatest kings in Europe. A royal girl child, like Joan, or Isabella, my sister who was married to the Emperor, or even Nell,’ - he frowned - ‘wed to Earl Simon, is a valuable asset to any royal dynasty.’

  Ailenor sighed, thinking of a girl-child’s fate. Too soon, girls were stolen away by the dynastic marriage market.

  Once Henry bade her farewell, she shook off her irritation at his parting words. Everything, her future position as queen, her position with the barons, and Henry’s love, all depended on her successful delivery of a healthy child.

  Candles were lit in her chamber, casting their glow upon the image of winter painted on the wall above her fire place. He was gazing at her, clad in a flowing silvery cloak and in possession of an equally long white beard. She stared back at the strange ghostly figure. ‘He has such sad looks,’ she said, turning to Willelma. ‘I suppose he possesses wisdom.’

  She turned from the image and lost herself in thought. It was summer, not winter. She had no desire to look upon winter. In England winter seemed to last for ever. It was as well she enjoyed great spitting fires, atmospheric services held by candlelight, and the many entertainments that crowded their winter evenings. She was becoming used to the weather and May, her favourite month too, was green and gentle. Waking from her reverie she clapped her hands and turned to her ladies who had gathered with Willelma by the fireplace. She announced, ‘Poetry. Tonight I want to hear something appropriate, a poem the Lord and his Holy Mother must approve.’ She closed her eyes and considered for a moment. Opening them again, she said, ‘Lady Mary, fetch the Songs of David from my book closet. We shall read after my rest.’ She yawned dramatically. ‘I shall sleep for a bit.’

  She lay down on her coverlet. Lady Willelma drew her bed curtains closed and immediately she drifted into a pleasant doze.

  Later, as the bells rang for Vespers, she awkwardly rose from the bed. Lady Willelma helped her to her resting couch by the fire whist Lady Mary scuttled off to fetch the volume Ailenor had demanded earlier. ‘I shall use this time well,’ Ailenor said. She settled down, feeling content. Lady Sybil read to her from David’s thirty-third poem.

  That those do lying vanities regard, I have abhorred

  But as for me, my confidence is fixed upon the Lord

  She must try not to allow vanity to distract her from piety. But it was difficult. Beauty was to glorify God. Beauty was also a monarch’s right, as a king or queen was God’s anointed ambassador. She could not deny beauty, but what about vanity; that was another thing altogether. She must try harder to deny vanity.

  Servants arrived with supper, walking diffidently into her chamber, unfolding a linen cloth on which they laid out dishes that were delicately flavoured. The women ate seated in a circle by the empty hearth. The air was warm. A fire would be ridiculous.

  As she dozed into sleep that night, a last thought flitted into her mind. If only her mother, Countess Beatrice, could come and visit England. She would be so proud of her daughter. At such times a woman longed for her mother. She would write a letter to the Countess. No, there would be so much more to say after her child was born.

  ‘My first-born will be a prince,’ she said into her pillow. ‘A prince for the realm.’

  11

  Rosalind

  June 1239

  Church bells rang. The sky shone blue as Our Lady’s robes, as if declaring its own happiness at the birth of an heir for England. Trumpets proclaimed the birth of a new prince for the realm. The birth of a prince heralded a public holiday. Rosalind took an early wherry from Westminster to the City. When she stepped from the crowded boat onto the wharf at St Paul’s, she had to thread her way through streets packed with hawkers selling everything from pies to ribbons; noisy apprentices; goodwives excitedly chattering about the new prince; darkly clad priests rushing to services of thanks for the boy child in the hundred churches throughout the City. City merchants paraded, ticked out in their best garb, and dancers and jugglers and City criers blowing horns thronged the lanes leading from the riverbank.

  Papa and Dame Mildred hurried to greet her when she entered the Hall at Paternoster Row.

  ‘You’ve arrived in time for breakfast. How long will you stay this time?’ Papa drew her to the table and demanded a place set for her with a wooden platter, eating knife, spoon, and a napkin. He ordered Cook to provide an enormous breakfast of eggs, cold meats, curds, freshly baked bread, cheese, and dishes of strawberries laced with thick cream to be served to the whole household including their apprentices, embroiderers and assistant tailors, to celebrate the royal birth.

  ‘A day or two,’ she said, reaching for a boiled egg. A servant poured her a cup of buttermilk. ‘The City is wild at the news of the Prince.’

  ‘Queen Ailenor is in favour again. No talk of a she-wolf today.’

  Rosalind frowned. She knew there were city merchants who called Ailenor a she-wolf foreign queen. There was no love for the French in London, and although she was a Provencal they still called her French.

  ‘There’s to be a feast at the Tailor Hall. Will you join us?’ Papa was saying.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to come. Thanks for including me.’ There was no Embroiderers’ Guild in the City. As member of the Tailors’ Guild, her father held office and was highly respected amongst other City tailors. Since she embroidered the Queen’s gowns with gold and silver embroidery, pearls and semi-precious stones, she hoped she would be respected also.

  He pushed back his platter and said, ‘I’ve sent a golden plate to the palace as a gift for the new prince. The Guild will present a golden bowl set with precious stones.’ He laughed. ‘King Henry will send his messengers for the gifts today. He’s keen to take our wealth.’

  ‘I hope the King thanks you all,’ Rosalind remarked, cynicism creeping into her words. Only the very best presents would be considered worthy for a prince of the realm. She had observed how King Henry could be dissatisfied with gifts. In fact, she had once overheard him complaining to Queen Ailenor that his nobles did not give him enough presents. He demanded pure gold of the highest quality and rolls of fabrics such as Italian silk from the London burghers. If a gift was not valuable enough, he would return it and ask for a replacement.

  She had sent a purse to the Queen stitched with a cinq-foil design on green velvet that morning and had lovingly placed a silver spoon inside, one she had spent her hard-earned coin on. It was sent to Queen Ailenor herself and not to the King. She even waited in an anteroom until the liveried page she entrusted it to assured her he had placed it in Lady Willelma’s hands as requested.

  The Westminster embroidery workshop was busy. The day of celebration was welcome to her embroiderers who returned to their families to enjoy their day off. Rosalind had carefully padlocked the long low hall-like building before she set out for Paternoster Lane. They had set up the work for the new tapestry. The ground would be of the finest blue woollen cloth on which her embroiderers would stitch stars, flowers, and vine tendrils. This was her most important commission to date and the largest. It was unfortunate she had to deal with Adam de Basing, who had purchased the backing fabric an
d blue ground for the tapestry. He was too curious for comfort.

  Once she came into Adam de Basing’s orbit, he bustled daily through her workshop, his unpleasant son panting at his heels, nosing into whatever work her embroiderers did. Fortunately, Jennet was wary of Jonathan and never flickered her eyelids his way, not once. She sat at her embroidery, serious as a nun, when the de Basings walked into their workshop. Jennet’s eyes remained lowered.

  Smiling at the memory of Jennet’s prim behaviour, Rosalind unpacked the few belongings she’d brought with her. The attic room was always kept available for her, though recently her father spoke of moving to a larger house. Alfred was more successful than ever since Rosalind had become Queen Ailenor’s embroideress. Queen Ailenor’s Savoyards flocked to him like peacocks in a courtly garden, always in need of new surcoats and tunics.

  Rosalind laid out an overdress of fine blue linen with sleeves stitched with celandines and pansies. It was a favourite gown. She’d seen at breakfast how her stepmother glowed with her first pregnancy. Papa seemed proud, hopeful of a son to train up one day to inherit his trade. If he still clung to the notion she would be betrothed to Jonathan de Basing, he never voiced it. She thought of Thomas Beaumont as she plaited ribbons into her hair, wondering if he was in the City with Earl Simon and Lady Eleanor who were lodging in the Bishop’s new palace on the Strand.

  Their paths had not crossed since the meeting in March. Thomas had departed with Earl Simon to Kenilworth. She was sure the castle lay close to his uncle’s manor and let out a pained sigh. He’d asked her to wait for him but the crusade could be delayed for years. He might never return. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. With blue ribbons hanging loose from her fair hair, she stared out at the sparrows lined up on the roof of the gable opposite. They were free to arc up into the heavens when they so wished. Thomas was not free. He was in service to a great earl. She gulped. His uncle would expect him to marry a knight’s daughter.