The Silver Bride

by Isolde Martyn

  *

  He should have kept his mind on his work, Miles reflected, as they later galloped back, bruised and victorious towards Bronllys. But he had a drawstring bag of dues clinking safely in his saddlebag and when Thomas Vaughan had taunted him about the new mare with foal that he had lately acquired, he had forced the cur at swordpoint against a tree out of earshot of his men.

  Vaughan had needed little persuasion to tell him the rest. It seemed that an English noblewoman had rode upon Traveller into Wales, and it was common gossip in the valleys that she carried Rushden’s babe.

  *

  Maybe she should give Traveller back to Rushden as a peace offering, reflected Heloise, leaning against her bed as though it were a misericord. Dafydd was rubbing an ear against her elbow for tickling. Yes, and while she was at it, have Ned’s dog secretly burnt at the stake to trumpets followed by universal rejoicing. She sadly turned over the remains of her best leather shoes. The wicked creature had also ripped the leather thongs off one of her wooden pattens, put teeth marks across the other, demolished a garter, chewed the end of an embossed leather belt and shredded a corner of her feather bed, before being smacked soundly on the nose. With a deep breath, Heloise charged like a tourney champion into the nursery only to discover her charge’s rear end halfway out the window, and the sound of horns filling the courtyard.

  ‘It is my lady mother!’ exclaimed Ned, wriggling in past the window mullion with his gypon and his hose nearly parting company, ‘and there will be presents!’

  *

  The entire household spilled out across the courtyard like an upturned milkmaid’s bucket and then, according to their rank, were swept back up into lines, like counting beads, by the clucking chamberlain, Sir Nicholas Latimer. Heloise, superior to the falconers, but inferior to the treasurer, abandoned her line to reprimand Ned who, polished and sponged, was hopping up and down the steps like a well-dressed flea.

  Diminished by the glory of Duke Harry and his son, Heloise felt safer, yet no less anxious. What if the duchess had met the true Lady Haute at Westminster or Windsor? One consolation, Heloise reflected, winding Ned’s sleeves tightly round her gloves so he could not bounce, was that if she were unmasked, Miles Rushden would face a few unwelcome questions as to why he had pretended to recognise her. Where was Rushden? She was curious to know which row of bowing heads he had slid onto for he did not seem to hold any actual office other than friend and confidant. She glanced around her, but the man was absent. Perhaps he was looking for his horse or harassing some poor villeins for taxes they could not afford.

  *

  Catherine Woodville, youngest sister of the bewitchingly beautiful Queen of England, was twenty-six years old and rather disappointing as she stepped down with her little daughters from her chariot. Her forehead was fashionably plucked so it was impossible to see if she had the same family ash-blonde hair that was supposed to have stolen King Edward’s heart. Judging by her russet travelling gown, it seemed as though the duchess cared little for fashion or else the duke was mean with her allowance. Maybe she had merely given up competing with her gorgeous sister – Heloise knew the feeling.

  Not only sumpters laden with panniers clopped into the bailey, but cart after cart wobbled in. An astonishing collection of long-haired, aging men or cramped youths crawled out with stiff limbs from beneath the wagon awnings, clutching rebecs, hurdy-gurdies and all manner of instruments. Elderly men or young castratos! The duchess was a careful lady, thought Heloise, observing that Duke Harry was viewing them with exasperation. They regrouped and began to play as her grace hoisted her skirts to her anklebones and fastidiously sidestepped the puddles.

  My lord of Buckingham stood, hands on hips, with Ned now loose beside him. Far from greeting his wife with any affection, his grace exclaimed, ‘God help us, you have not bought another hobby horse,’ as a brightly painted toy (this time with a gilt mane) was unstrapped and presented by a servant on bended knee to Ned.

  The child took his manners from his father and his face puckered into sulkiness. ‘Where are my stilts? You promised me STILTS!’

  With a tight smile, Heloise marched up behind the child, plucked his hat down over his eyes. ‘Bow and kiss your mother’s hand! NOW!’

  Ned shoved his hat up, rolled his eyes upwards at Heloise in his best demon imitation, but he gracefully presented his mother with a charcoal drawing – of the castle, the sun, a flower and a very vicious-looking portcullis. The duchess took it as she might a posy from a village child and drifted along the rows of officers, hoped Lady Haute had not found Brecknock too cold, and took herself straight to her bedchamber with a megrim.

  Anxious to convince the duchess that she was competent, Heloise had her lies queued up, but neither she nor Ned was given an audience. Thwarted but not yet acquitted, she took her grace’s lack of interest as a rebuttal.

  ‘I am not impressed,’ she muttered to Bess, who shrugged unsurprised.

  The duchess finally sent for her after dinner. As Heloise followed Ned across the carpets and the furs to make her curtsey to the background chords of shawms and flutes, she felt like a lacewing having its wings pulled off; the noble ladies of the bedchamber were busy estimating the worth of her clothing.

  With testimonials fresh in her ears from Sir William, Duchess Catherine was amiable to Heloise. While they picked over Ned’s brief history in obligatory fashion, the little knave quarrelled with his siblings, and had to be removed by Bess. The duchess did not blame Heloise for his rudeness. Perhaps it was the way he always behaved to get any attention from his mother. It was only when an aging Welsh harpist was summoned in to play, that Heloise was able to stand back, thankful that the interrogation was over.

  No, not quite. It was now time to become acquainted with Ned’s little sisters, admire his baby brother, suffer the nurse’s condemnatory stare, and nod to the other children’s nursemaids. When she finally retired to the edge of the chamber with her persona intact, she was considerably relieved. The saints must be feeling generous. Neither Duchess Catherine nor any of her female entourage claimed to have met the worthy Eleanor Haute before.

  ‘Are you at all musical, Lady Haute?’ The duchess called out to her, with more enthusiasm than when they had discussed the nursery minutiae.

  ‘Yes, your grace.’

  Ned, who had been allowed back in, tried to clamber up her skirts, pleading with her to sing her grasshopper song. Music was clearly a means to please her mistress further and acquire a well-placed ally, so Heloise modestly sat down on the stool in front of the duchess’s cream leather toes and sang a love song.

  Oh sleep, my lord,

  My earthly treasure,

  Sweetly doth the nightingale sing,

  For in your love,

  Is all my pleasure,

  And all my joy is of your making.

  I will keep guard,

  Against the long night,

  Sleep now sweetly, loving friend,

  That in the morning,

  You may kiss me,

  And our love shall know no end.

  Outside, Miles, now washed and groomed to kiss hands, hesitated to interrupt whoever was singing so exquisitely. Duchess ‘Cat’ had found yet another voice and a new palm to press coins into. That would please Harry like a burr in a saddlecloth. But the singer was a woman, not a castrato. Miles frowned and leaned back against the stone wall. The music slid beneath the door, invading his hard-edged heart and the sweet, crystal voice gouged at his soul.

  Oh that I could

  Heal the deep wounds,

  Ah Sweet Christ, were it not so,

  God in mercy,

  Love thee alway,

  In love, my life – in death my woe.

  I kept my love,

  Against the long night,

  But at dawn Death took my friend,

  Lonely am I,

  In the sunlight,

  Oh Christ, your pardon on me descend.

  ‘Miles?’ De la Bere’s large paw was s
haking his shoulder. ‘Music caught at your gut, man?’

  Watery grins were not one of his best accomplishments. ‘It is no matter, Dick. A little sadness. It will pass.’

  ‘Look to the future with Myfannwy, eh? You will have another child before long.’

  ‘Yes.’ The weary fingers that rubbed across his chin touched again the damage they had wrought in penance.

  ‘Let us go in then. The song is over.’

  But nothing was over, for it was a familiar slender young woman who sat on the stool at the duchess’s feet, not with her skirts spread in a violet leaf but in complete self-abeyance, white hands neat upon her lap and her knees close together like a dreamy child lost to the world. As the applause surrounded Heloise Ballaster, he watched awareness flicker back into the hazel eyes. Then she saw him and rose, ashamed. He had intruded on part of the deception.

  ‘Sir Miles, we do not often see you here.’ The song had animated Duchess Cat as always. ‘The music drew you?’

  ‘Yes, the music.’ He denied himself the temptation to look at Heloise, suppressed the raw pain the song had roused in him, the yearning, the sense of loss. Was there no end to Mistress Ballaster’s accomplishments? She would be even harder to be rid of if Cat become her buckler and she had won other hearts. Miles looked in disgust at the dotardly adoration wreathing the blowsy face of the old Welsh minstrel. No, she must go! In a few days, she had shaken his steady world. He dared not give her longer.

  ‘Was it the figs at supper, Sir Miles?’ the millstone about his neck asked sweetly some time later. The others in the room were safely distracted by the new psaltery that the duchess had bought in Hereford.

  ‘Your pardon, Lady Haute?’ An iron bar would have looked friendlier.

  ‘Why, you seem quite out of sorts, Sir Miles.’ Heloise was speaking to her toes.

  ‘I have no need to talk to you, madam,’ he muttered, raising his hand as if he staunched a cough. She was hard put not to laugh. Next he would only be communicating by sliding coded letters penned with onion juice into her palm.

  A blast of hand-organ and pipes together permitted him to retaliate. ‘You know how I manage to keep my sanity, madam?’ He was staring straight ahead now trying to pretend they were not speaking together but he no longer sounded ill-tempered. ‘By thinking of ways of bringing about your demise. Strangling is at the top of my list.’

  ‘Well, you shall have to do it in the common gaze, sir,’ she cooed, ‘since we are never to be alone.’

  ‘That ruling, my dear Lady Haute, is only to avoid ravishment not murder.’

  ‘Ah, but theoretically you could do one, then the other or even—’ His exasperated frown shamed her into silence.

  ‘Are you ever quiet, Mistress Ballaster?’ Miles observed witheringly, deciding it would be absolute heaven to throw her across his knee. ‘I assure you, murdering you slowly will give me all the satisfaction I require.’

  He glanced sideways, but the lady had lapsed into pensive silence. ‘By the by,’ he announced with pleasure. ‘I forgot to tell you the bargaining is over. I have Traveller back.’

  *

  It was a small revenge, but forcing the duke and duchess to watch Ned and Sir Thomas Limerick’s grandson perform a tiny interlude in Latin in the solar before supper was giving Heloise no end of satisfaction. She had insisted that all the parents endure the spectacle. While Ned’s tutor and Bess organised the chaos behind the settle where the tiny, excited performers were crouching, ready with handsacks stitched with eyes and mouths, she ushered in the reluctant audience.

  ‘You speak Latin, Lady Haute?’ Rushden, ever shadowing the duke, greeted her a few moments later as she stood near the door with Sir William.

  ‘Eheu! Worse than my French, but better than my Greek. Do not go, sir. Please watch.’ She meant it kindly.

  ‘No, such things pain me.’

  ‘You may be a father one day.’

  She expected him to toss a jest for her to catch, but his adamance had a pained edge to it. ‘They are beginning. Excuse me.’

  Sir William, having overheard the exchange, managed a warning afterwards. ‘Think you should know something, Lady Haute,’ he muttered, pulling at his long ear lobe. ‘Rushden lost his wife and only son to the pestilence. Boy would have been Ned’s age, had he lived.’

  So that was why he avoided Ned. ‘Sweet Jesu, forgive me.’ She crossed herself. ‘And was he with them when …?’

  ‘Ah, there’s the rub, my lady. He was ill himself with the variola when the news was brought to him. Caught it travelling back from here and was abed at Newport for a week. The tidings made him crazed.’

  *

  So Rushden did have a heart beneath his armour, Heloise, moved to pity, thought sadly as she stole past a sleeping Bess and snoring Benet to check on Ned and found him dreaming happily, thumb in mouth, a cloth donkey cuddled beneath his arm.

  Dropping a kiss upon Ned’s cheek, she thought of the other child, whose death had been announced at some indifferent inn in Newport. How cruel for his poor father – she imagined Rushden lying in a simple chamber, his face scarlet, beaded with the vesiculae like evil droplets of sweat. Had a servant brought him a letter or spoken the tidings? Some instinct made her open her coffer and take out the ring that her father had snatched from Rushden for her nuptials.

  Dear God! Her head began to spin. No! she screamed, sinking to her knees, her palms pressed to her eyes, but the vision came: a younger Rushden with the tears trickling down his poor crusted face, in rage tearing the letter again and again and again and hurling it into the fire. Spare me! No more! she protested, stumbling back to the nursery, but the unseen power forced her mind to watch as Rushden sank to his knees, and with a bestial howl of fury dragged his nails down, down across the blisters.

  The fire was almost dead in the hearth when Heloise finally uncovered her face and raised it to the crucifix on the wall. Shakily she rose to her feet, smudging the tears away and tried to busy herself, stoking the embers. Her hands trembled as she shredded the herbs to make an infusion for Ned’s breakfast. She should leave Brecknock, put an end to the lies – go from Miles Rushden in peace!

  ‘My lady.’ Heloise nearly dropped the pan in the fire.

  The old harpist, Emrys, was standing in the doorway, enjoying the fact that his sudden appearance startled her. ‘Your voice, arglwyddes, was given as a blessing,’ he declared, stepping in unbidden, making no apology for finding her with a wrap over her underkirtle and her hair plaited for bed. Before she could stop him, the man set his harp down and prowled straight through into Ned’s bedchamber. She followed anxiously, but he merely cast a glance over the child and the other two sleepers, his creped smile soft and ambivalent.

  A finger on his lips, he drew her back into the nursery, closed the inner door and perched himself on the three-legged stool beside the hearth. Then without a by-your-leave, he began to tell her in a voice, beautiful and undulating, of his beloved Welsh music, of the broth of the cauldron of the goddess Ceridwen whence came the powers of Taliesin, and his people’s dreaming. So entranced was Heloise by the legends that an hour passed swifter than clouds across the moon’s face, before the old musician took up his harp and played for her.

  Emrys’s singing voice was cracked with age like ancient glaze, but once it must have been strong and a delight to man and maid. He began to teach her, speaking slowly in his own tongue, then singing the phrases and bidding her repeat them. It was impossible to remember the Welsh at first but he coaxed each verse from her over and over again and then he sang with her, and Heloise wove a descant over and beneath his melody.

  ‘Arianlais, there’s nice it is,’ he said finally, his eyes misty in the light of the sputtering candle stub. ‘Indeed it is a pity you are not Welsh and a male child, for indeed I could make a bard of you. The great Taliesin himself would have written gladly for such a voice as yours.’ He rose. ‘The hour is late, see, but can you come to the town tomorrow even? You shall hear such music.’<
br />
  ‘The town, Master Emrys! I fear permission would not be granted.’

  Wiry thick eyebrows came together in a frown. ‘There are other ways to leave this place. Say you will come, arglwyddes. We have a visitor coming to the town, one who wears the mantle of the wondrous bard, Dafydd ap Gwilym, and a wreath of oak leaves upon his brow. Lewis Glyn Cothi, my lady!’

  Clearly she was supposed to be impressed. ‘But is the great Lewis not coming to the castle?’ she countered tactfully. ‘I am sure her grace would be pleased to hear him.’

  ‘Ah, no, Lewis will not play for the English, not since the men of Chester gave his hide a drumming. Not forgiven them, he has. Though mayhap he will come when the Lady Myfannwy weds, for he is supposed to keep a reckoning of lineage and play at such feasts.’

  ‘Myfannwy?’

  ‘Aye, Rhys ap Thomas’s ward.’ Another name that was supposed to strike her with awe. ‘Our noble Rhys is coming to discuss her dowry arrangements. But, tomorrow night, bach. Surely you can leave these swaggering English bullies and the child for a few hours? The nursemaid can mind him. Why not, a little adventure, see? Oh come, arianwallt, and sing what I have taught you tonight.’

  ‘What was it?’ she asked with good-natured suspicion. ‘A lament?’

  ‘Of course, for a land that is flattened beneath the heel of the saeson.’

  ‘Saeson?’

  ‘It is our word for Englishmen.’

  ‘Englishmen! Of course! That is what the people were muttering when the soldiers came to fetch me from the town.’

  ‘We will have you speaking Welsh in no time.’ He pinched her cheek with an old man’s mischief. ‘Come and hear our fine music. You shall be safe from fumblings, I promise you. I shall not quit your side nor leave you to be plucked by sweaty lads, though they would make a fine woman of you.’ And what was that supposed to mean?

  ‘I cannot afford to anger his grace.’ But it was tempting to leave the castle again.