‘The scars will not show, they say. Lie back. Do you know who attacked you?’
He coughed and pointed to the leather bottle. She helped him take a swig, ‘Too many – oh, Jesu, leave it! – enemies now.’
‘But Lord Stanley is imprisoned in the Tower.’
‘But his men are not. Nor his dam, Tudor’s mother. Too many enemies now. Oouf!’
‘Stay calm. Let me see the other damage.’
‘Spare my modesty! Ouuucch!’
The furrows in her forehead diminished for she had sufficient sensitivity in her fingertips to know that the leg bone had been broken cleanly and excellently reset against the wooden splente. Her wrist was clasped as she straightened. ‘Did … did I have to go through this, changeling, to make you come back to heel?’
‘Of course.’ She kissed the purpled brow. Perhaps, after all, this was an answer to her prayers – God’s way of keeping Miles alive.
‘You are so – so beautiful, Heloise. Do not run away any more.’ He lifted a hand to knuckle her cheek and she took it within the casing of her fingers, so close to weeping for sheer joy that he was still alive. ‘Your visions, my fey …’ He swallowed and stared towards the morning sky. ‘I am just a mortal and I forgot that. I have been trying to play God, Heloise, and He doesn’t like it. But I meant it for the best. I swear to you I acted within the law. I—’
‘We will talk another time, when you are strong enough to argue.’
‘No, now. Why, changeling? Why did you fly from me?’
She let go of his hand evasively. ‘Because you are a man of secrets. Because I believed, like a dullard, that you married me for other reasons.’
‘I did. You have divine breasts.’ The chuckle was painful. Serve him right!
‘For your face?’ Briskly, she examined the jar of ointment left by the physician with a professional sniff. ‘I believe I can do better. Is there an apothecary close by?’
‘Several streets away. Pershall knows it. He will go for you if you smile.’
‘I had rather see to it myself, sir. They may not have what I need. I will confer with your physician first.’
‘If you go slapping some mash of fermented toad tongues and ground-up newt turds on my sores, I shall not be answerable for my actions.’
‘For you, sir, an infusion of arsenic in nettles strained through cheesecloth.’ But it was a poor jest. ‘I will send up your manservant to guard your virtue.’
‘Then go if you must. Wear your pattens and take Martin to squire you, but hurry back and take care.’
It needed the lodesterre to help her locate her groom. She should have used intuition instead of asking; the Red Rose servants all were at half-mast and the labyrinth of passages and bolt holes would have thrilled the Minotaur.
With a borrowed basket on her arm, feeling useful and housewifely, Heloise finally set off along the cobbled thoroughfare hoping to circumvent the Flemings’ quarter. Not that she distrusted foreigners, it was more that they would be unable to assist her if she lost her way. Martin trustingly trotted behind her, but like any countrywoman, his mistress was soon flummoxed by the lack of signposts and was close to admitting that the common belief that women had little sense of direction might be true. One instant there might be a nobleman’s house with a porter standing duty, but turn the next corner and there was a narrow, beggarly street, beset with sinister alleyways and tightly shuttered casements. Gutters oozing their fermenting contents to pleasure the soles of passers-by dismayed her further.
They retraced their steps to the Red Rose and ventured east, ill at ease, but the Hanse shopkeepers nodded in friendly fashion. It was shameful to ask directions and the unfathomable river of words confused her, but she and Martin ended up with a flaxen-headed lad guiding them for a groat.
He chattered easily, insisting they observe the famous ‘London Stone’ as they passed along Walbrook Street. Even if the stone had been there since the days of King Ethelstane (as the boy explained), Heloise was not impressed. Save for its iron casing, it looked more like the ‘pay on the nail’ stones found in most marketplaces, and surely it was most inconveniently placed, too – close to the gutter, and a hazard to passing carts. You could see the splinters of wood and the scrape marks.
Their young guide led them on to a narrow tenement hard by Oxford Place, and when they showed reluctance to leave the main thoroughfare, he pointed out the apothecary’s pestle and mortar painted on a hanging sign.
The shop’s innards gave lie to its weathered, humble exterior and Heloise’s soul sang at the powdery odours and the bundles of drying herbs tasselling the beams and tickling her headdress. No dust velveted the orderly shelves and the variety of earthen-coloured jars, labelled in spidery Latin, looked as clean and cheerful as a stall of monks on Easter Sunday.
The apprentice prattled as he weighed out the ingredients: was it not strange the coronation had been cancelled a second time? And why? he asked, tapping his nose. Gloucester wanted his nephew’s crown. And what was more, these brawls between the retainers of great lords were bad for business: honest customers stayed home.
Heloise concealed her concern as she lifted the tiny, twisted bundles into her basket. London, it seemed, was as jumpy as a dog with fleas. So was Martin, and he prevailed upon her to return to Suffolk Lane by a different route – along the broader Candlewick Street. Even there, the passers-by glanced warily at any men-at-arms.
Would Miles be safer at his father’s London house? Was it like one of these? she wondered, staring up at the carved joists of the merchant drapers’ houses. Then Martin all of a sudden plucked at her sleeve.
Across the street, her veiled sister was speaking to Sir Richard Huddleston. The pair were standing beside a shop board showing no interest in either scarlet flannel or the Italian cotton underdrawers. Was it a chance meeting?
Cautioning Martin, Heloise slowed her step. Huddleston’s gap-toothed groom, waiting a few paces away with his master’s horse, was ogling the women shoppers. It was easy for Heloise to let a spotty apprentice pluck her sleeve and garrulously lure her to test his stall’s best worsted. Dionysia’s conversation looked earnest, certainly not one of dalliance, but it was ending. Huddleston bowed and swung himself into the saddle. Once he was out of sight, Heloise caught up with her furtive sister.
‘A murrain!’ snapped Dionysia and then calmed. ‘I suppose even veils are useless against one’s family. Stop looking so outraged. We were talking about the skirmish last night, and, no, I was not flirting, I would not dare covet him, and he was on his way to Cold Harbrough. Mayhap I shall go back to the Red Rose with you.’ She coiled her arm through her sister’s. ‘At least you shall lend me respectability, for now you are come there, I may come thither also. God’s Rood, I have done with slinking in and out of Harry’s dwellings like an alley she-cat just to save old Gloucester’s blushes.’ It was tempting for Heloise to scold her, but better to be a crutch than a whip. ‘And, sister dear, you shall be the first to know that Duke Harry declares he has quite fallen in love with me. I did not intend it but I really am growing wondrous fond of him. Look at this!’ She spread her fingers to display a voluptuous sapphire.
‘Didie! We shall have every cutpurse in London after us.’
‘With you for protection, sister! Harry has told me of your exploits in Brecknock. How you threw flour at some loathsome footpad and broke his knees. Very impressive. I did not know you had such courage.’ So Miles had told the duke some details of their adventures that night. That pleased her. ‘And talking of kneecaps, how is your ill-humoured husband then?’
‘Tender.’
‘Ha! Then I had best wait a while before I make a dutiful call. Heloise, tell me, what is it like to be in love? Is it obligatory to blow hot and cold like August weather?’
‘Now how would I know?’
‘Because I can see where Cupid’s bolts have shot great holes in you. You are in love, Heloise Ballaster, and any ass can see that.’
*
Except Miles, who was certainly not an ass. More like a ship dry-berthed for careening, which should have given Heloise plentiful opportunity to establish a monopoly on his time and a chance to understand him better. But, no, not a whit of it: the man’s bedchamber was as busy as the sweet water conduit at West Cheap with queues pumping him for this and that.
At times stretched like a spider’s windblown web, she was nurse, alchemist, secretary and jongleuse through the days that followed, but not lover (he was not recovered sufficiently, though his eyes lied). She was frequently dispensable; whenever Buckingham’s council shifted to Miles’s bedside, the duke chivvied her from the bedchamber like a disgraced lapdog. Then her patient hit on the notion of sending her forth like a worker bee on his behalf to bring back gossip pollened from Crosby Place and other parts. In particular, he wished to know what was going on at Westminster.
With Martin and her maidservant for escort, Heloise took a boat upriver. The courts of justice were in session in the Westminster Great Hall, so she joined the queue of pilgrims to St Peter’s great abbey and lit a candle at St Edward’s marble shrine. Like the other commoners clustering at the tomb of Henry V, victor of Agincourt, she longed to stroke his gilded armour, as if his fame might seep in through her fingertips, but a priest with a leather switch stood guard, daring any visitor to be so bold. At least the poet Chaucer’s modest grave in the abbey cloister might be touched and a prayer spoken for his cheerful spirit.
It was the new curiosity at Westminster that was drawing the greatest crowd. Cordoned by kettle-helmeted White Boar halberdiers in azure and murrey jackets, the abbey sanctuary contained the beleaguered queen. Modest lodging for a great lady used to a palace! Standing on a-tiptoe, Heloise stared up at the stern embrasures, hoping for a glimpse of King Edward’s youngest son or one of the princesses. Poor children, hedged in by weaponry, how they must yearn for freedom to frolick.
The captain of the guard was examining warrants. A man in physician’s garb was waved through and so were two brawny laundresses, laden with pressed sheets. Was this slapshod security deliberate, to encourage recklessness and conspiracy? Goodness, she chided herself for thinking so suspiciously.
‘Lady Rushden, this is unexpected.’ Thomas Nandik, the Cambridge student, materialised at Heloise’s elbow as she led her servants down to the King’s Bridge Wharf. Clean shaven though little less swarthy, and with vertical scarlet satin ribbons ribbing his black broadcloth doublet, the scholar still wore a hungry visage like a dog waiting for scraps. ‘Perhaps I may escort you back to Dowgate?’
‘Thank you, I-I have other errands yet, Master Nandik.’
‘No matter.’ His long, loping stride kept pace with her swift steps.
She halted. ‘No truly, Master Nandik, I hardly think you will be interested in Rennes linen and Paris thread.’
‘On the contrary, my lady.’ The earthy eyes understood the excuse, knew she disliked him, but the wretch insisted on waving up a boat for them and helping her aboard. ‘I think we should get to know each other better, my lady. I would do much to earn your favour.’
‘I am not sure why.’ She shifted in the stern to avoid his thigh.
‘Can you not read my mind?’ His meaning was perilously plain. A perdition on the creature! If only Martin and her maidservant were not facing the other way.
‘Do not belittle the power you have over others,’ the scholar murmured, blatantly setting his hand upon her knee.
‘Go your way.’ Dislodged, his hand edged round her waist, making a stealthy foray for her breast. Biting her lip angrily, she halted that adventure, but the odious creature bent now so that his breath prickled her neck.
‘I needs must come swiftly to the precious nub of the matter though I would rather have couched this more circumspectly. I know you have a special gift, my lady, and I envy you. Despite all my charts and texts, even if I were to spend the rest of my life studying the magic arts, I will never master the forces that are already at your command. Oh madam, if Rushden has not yet broken your maidenhead, the two of us can unleash a force on Midsummer Eve that will make us rich beyond our dreams.’
‘Are you insane?’ Have carnal knowledge of this creature in the midst of some sordid pentangle! His lewd glance made her blushing flesh crawl further. ‘I have no inkling what you are babbling about, Master Nandik. Now unhand me and, not that it is any of your business, I am a wife in every sense of the word and glad to be so.’
‘More’s the pity, then. I should have warned you earlier to keep yourself unsullied.’ The earthy gaze was sour now. ‘Like taking a life, the breaking of a virgin’s hymen releases a power that can be driven against one’s enemies.’
Miles, when she later told him privily, did not know whether to roar with laughter or risk his leg and hobble down to punch the villain.
‘It is not amusing,’ Heloise repeated with a shudder and in compensation was coaxed up to nestle in the crook of his arm.
‘No, it is not,’ he agreed. ‘Do you feel safer now?’
‘With you tethered to a lump of wood? Oh yes, safe as … as a lamb baaing defiance at a full-grown wolf.’ She had been going to say as safe as the treasury had been in Lord Hastings’s hands, but that bone was best avoided.
Miles chuckled. ‘To think that I might have driven an arcane power released by your … Mercy! You cannot strike a sick man.’
‘Watch me!’
‘Hmm, what a beggar the fellow is! Can you not use your gift to drive some fear into our necromancer’s mind so he will hoof it back to Cambridge?’
‘Certainly not.’ The encounter with Nandik had taught her something: she must never use her gift for evil to control others.
‘Perhaps you should test your powers a little. Could you, for instance, make me sneeze! Try!’
‘Sneeze?’ She giggled and sobered. No, her gift was not to be squandered but she was happy to pretend. ‘Is it working?’
‘No,’ he purred, staring back. ‘I am having an entirely different reaction somewhere else. Bar the door, if you please!’
Heloise’s eyes widened. ‘You cannot possibly—’
‘Hmm, difficult, I grant you, but not impossible. Nothing else is fractured. It may require some resourcefulness on your part.’
She pensively slid the bar down into the slots and swung round. ‘I am not sure I am in that humour,’ she murmured to torment him, but his lazy smile was already willing her towards him. ‘But perhaps … yes, I think I am going to enjoy this.’
‘So am I.’ His voice was a low masculine purr. ‘Unclothe yourself, delight of my heart!’
Despite his imperiousness, it was she who had him totally at her mercy. She withdrew her feet from her little leather slippers and set her right foot upon the bedsteps, and with slow grace eased up her satined hem to uncover her garter, which she tardily untied and cast at him, before she rolled down her wool stocking with a fine and tantalising care.
‘Is it the pain in your leg that keeps making you groan?’ she asked wickedly, and seductively removed her other garter.
‘You witch!’ It was a gasp now. Slowly she removed her headdress and shook her silver hair to swing about her waist. Then she slid her inner sleeves down, unleashed her tasselled belt and let it snake around her skirt with a slither to the floor, and finally she eased her gown inch by inch upwards.
‘Ha! I make a better job of this,’ he scoffed, laughing as she was forced to seek his help. Strong hands lifted her gown free. ‘It rather spoils your game but I have you fast now.’
‘I may cause you pain.’
‘It will be sublime agony, I assure you,’ he exclaimed huskily, dragging off her chemise. ‘Wait – what are you doing? Heloise!’
‘What you did to me. Do you not like this … or … this?’
Heaven could not better this – or that – he decided, closing his eyes in divine delectation. A few months ago he did not give a fig for life – but now, with his sorceress stirring his blood to an ecstatic heat with her
fingertips, he was learning other values afresh. ‘You have been waiting for a time like this to torture me, I think.’
‘Oh yes,’ she growled, moving up to tease her lips across his mouth while her fingers worked their feverish magic elsewhere.
‘I will die, you wanton. Mercy, I surrender! Heloise, if you do not get atop me now, I vow I will strangle you.’ Iron hands nested her elbows as he hauled her into place, and slowly fitted himself into her with a low cry of pleasure that ancient Pan might have envied.
For an instant, astonishment suffused her fawn’s gaze and then the centres of her eyes grew dark and wide and she rode him, driving him to such exquisite heights that he stayed her, and then it was his turn to play the sorcerer, enforce his own magic upon her and carry her with him soaring as the world shattered about them into iridescent shards.
Heloise collapsed across him with a soft huff of breath, her hair flooding about his neck and breast. Loving arms wrapped her close, as he chanted softly:
As moonlight dancing on the sea waves,
So is my fey mistress beauteous;
As a dew necklace spun on a morning web
So my lady’s eyes shimmer with starlight.
Fortunate am I beyond all others,
That I can wind her silver hair
On the distaff of my fingers.
‘That is very beautiful,’ she whispered, snuggling against his breast, and he felt her tears like warm rain. ‘Definitely not Lewis Glyn Cothi.’
‘No, an Englishman.’ He was out of practice in versemaking but it was not bad for a rusty lover. ‘An excellent guess, though. The Welsh have written more about loving for their ale money than laments for their lovely, bully chieftains.’ Why was she crying?
Could he ever give her his heart? Heloise wondered. How pleasing it would be to find a litter of crumpled-up love speeches, tossed from his pillow: ‘Note IV: if this does not win her, omit VI and VII and proceed to VIII, tell her that you love her and pause here to press a kiss between her breasts. Remember to sigh loudly.’
The Silver Bride Page 37
