“Surely they did. We must ask them the next time we see them.”
“My father is dead,” I said softly. “’Tis a year now.”
Ursula rested her hand on mine. “I’m sorry.” After a brief silence, she spoke again. “Why are you at court, my lady?”
I felt the change of subject was a deliberate effort to get my mind off my sadness. Gratitude flooded me as I struggled to recover my composure. “I’m a ward of the queen’s. I’ve been brought here from the nunnery to find a husband. What about you, Ursula?”
“A ward of the queen?” she exclaimed. “Ta-dee-da! Then I must mind my manners.”
I laughed.
“I’m here to find a position,” she replied. “Though my father is a knight, he has no means. I have no dower for marriage, and I need to maintain my keep.”
Barely able to contain my excitement, I said, “Then you need look no further, Ursula! I am seeking a gentlewoman companion.”
Her face lit up. “But nothing can be this easy…except maybe in my father’s tales.”
“Fortune has indeed smiled on us this night,” I replied, marveling. A varlet cleared away our dishes and another brought a dessert of cinnamon apple pudding with almonds and raisins. It was so good, I requested a second helping. “So your father is a wordsmith? What does he write about?”
“Mostly love and knightly feats of arms over damsels who look like you,” she said.
I was too startled by this to offer any objection. We giggled through the evening, and the next morning, when Sœur Madeleine returned, I lost no time introducing Ursula. She gave us her approval and a promise to do what she could to expedite my audience with the queen so that Ursula could begin drawing payment. Here Sister proved greatly successful: The day of my audience arrived less than a week later, far earlier than I expected. Suddenly I was filled with dread.
“But, Sœur Madeleine, what should I say to the queen? What should I do?” I asked with panic as she and Ursula assisted me into my most prized gown, the lavish lavender and silver tissue, trimmed with miniver, that I had worn when I met Sir John Neville.
“Be yourself, ma chérie. Be yourself, and you will melt the hearts.”
Her words failed to reassure me. I already knew Marguerite d’Anjou was not easily charmed. “Will you come with me?”
“I regret not. I have many matters to attend, but Ursula can accompany you,” she said.
I gave Ursula a nervous smile as she twined daisies into my hair, which hung loose down my back. Sœur Madeleine smiled with approval, for that was Queen Marguerite’s emblem. “Her hair is so thick, it can take more, Ursula,” she advised before she left.
The great bell on the abbey’s clock tower struck the hour of three. My stomach tightened. The time had come to head for the White Chamber and my audience with the queen. Ursula stood back to assess her handiwork.
“I don’t rightly believe I have ever seen anyone as fair as you. Your eyes are like gems weighted down with lashes…. Your skin, ’tis fine as alabaster, and your hair pours down around you like heavy silk, as richly dark and glossy as the feathers of the black swan. You are lovely, m’lady,” she said without a trace of envy as she helped me into my woolen cloak.
Ursula’s kind nature touched me deeply, and I gave her a long embrace. With my hood up and my head down to protect the flowers in my hair against the wind, we crossed the inner ward and took the river path to the stately keep. It pleased me greatly that I turned heads along the way, for I needed reassurance. The day held the nip of approaching autumn, and a strong wind blew, ruffling the dark river with waves, but there was no rain. The cool weather was a relief against the recent unrelenting heat of summer, and as a result, the Thames was crowded with a profusion of gilded barges. There was much bustle of both nature and business, as swans glided past, gulls mewed and dove for fish, and boats pulled up to the barge landing, unloading men and goods.
We reached the keep and took the worn tower steps up to the audience chamber, but the sentry standing guard at the anteroom stopped Ursula. “Only those with appointments may enter.”
I was about to protest, but as Ursula removed my cloak, she leaned close and whispered, “Chin up, bosom up—and all will be well!” She drew back, a grin on her face, and I went in laughing.
At once I saw why the sentry had refused Ursula entry. The small alcove was filled to overflowing with people who hoped to see the queen. I gave my name to the clerk who stood at a high desk near the door, and cast about for a place. The closest bench was occupied by a group of nuns whispering prayers on their rosaries, no doubt beseeching God for His help in getting the benefices they sought. Near them a weary-looking knight and his lady spoke together in hushed tones of a problem with the dues on their manor. By the leaded windows on the opposite wall, a group of black-gowned clerics conversed about the weather. A messenger from Anjou sat in a nearby corner, wearing the cross of Lorraine. The place beside him lay empty, and I claimed it.
My seat was situated directly opposite the entrance to the audience chamber, and soon the door opened to let out a beautiful young lord and his retainers. Golden hair flowed from beneath the lord’s jewel-studded velvet cap, but though his face had the grace of proportion, I thought him too womanly and without appeal. A deferential silence fell as he swept past, broken only by the swish of fabric as everyone stood and bowed.
“Who was that, sir?” I whispered to the messenger from Anjou.
“The Earl of Wiltshire, ma dame,” he replied. Then, as if realizing I was a newcomer to court and needed clarification, he added, “James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire and of Ormond.”
I gave him a smile to express my thanks. I had heard of this earl before, in an inn where we had stayed on the journey to Westminster. Wiltshire was one of the names mentioned as a possible father to the queen’s young son. The door stood open to the audience chamber, and I turned my gaze on the queen. Young, beautiful, and sparkling with jewels, Marguerite d’Anjou sat on her throne chair, engaged in conversation with an opulently dressed, handsome fair-haired lord in a furred cloak who stood beside her on the dais. Even from the distance, I could tell from his relaxed stance and the way she looked up at him that their relationship was a close one.
“And who is the lord with the queen, sir?”
“That, ma dame, is Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset,” he said with great reverence.
I nodded my thanks. This name required no explanation, for even I knew that twenty-three-year-old Somerset, who had succeeded his late father, Edmund, to the dukedom, was the most powerful lord in the land—king in all but name. His late father, Edmund of Somerset, had arranged Marguerite’s marriage to King Henry. In gratitude, she had taken him to her bosom—and, it was widely rumored, to her bed.
Clearly the queen had a high regard for the son as well, since he was always at her side and she never went against his will as she did with her husband, King Henry. Castle gossip had revealed that once, when King Henry was freshly recovered from a bout of madness, he saw a traitor’s torso impaled on a pike and inquired after it. Informed that it was a human part, he had expressed horror at the practice of quartering a human being and demanded that the torso be taken down and given a decent Christian burial. Naturally, the practice continued. King Henry never knew his wishes were ignored, for he soon returned to the confines of his madness. Everyone had laughed openly at the tale, but none dared laugh at Somerset, except secretly. “I wager the queen’s son was sired by a Somerset,” I had heard someone snicker behind a tavern wall, his tongue no doubt loosened by drink. “But whether Edmund or Henry, father or son, it scarcely matters now, does it?”
I did not have to wait long to see the queen. My name was called immediately after the messenger from Anjou, who bore a missive from the queen’s father, the much-loved poet-king René of Anjou, known as “René the Good.”
Weak-kneed, my heart pounding, I walked up the long aisle leading to the queen on the dais, aware of her gaze on me, trying not to not
ice the sour-faced clerics dotting the benches on both sides or the courtiers who stood together in clumps, undressing me with their eyes as they whispered behind their hands. Then I remembered Ursula’s advice, and a wide smile came to my lips. Lifting my chin high, I inhaled deeply and drew back my shoulders. The walk to the throne chair no longer seemed so arduous, and I reached it soon enough. Sinking low to the floor, I dropped my head into the silvery folds of my gown and curtseyed before the queen.
“You may rise,” Marguerite d’Anjou said in a voice accented with the throaty sweetness of her native land.
The queen, though petite, was no less formidable up close. Drenched in jewels, she glinted dangerously, and the eyes she fixed on me, green as the pears of Anjou, held warning. A gold and ruby circlet sat on her dark blond hair, which was braided and twirled into pearl nets on either side of a face that was a trifle short and broad, with a jaw too square for a woman. Yet she might still have passed for fair had her skin had not been flawed by marks left by the pox, which she had caught on her journey to England as a young princess of fifteen—my age now. As I stood before her, I thought I saw a softening in her hard look, and I dared to widen my smile once more. Then Somerset’s laugh drew my attention to him.
“This one will start a bidding war, my queen.”
Marguerite d’Anjou grinned. “Indeed, ’Enri, she will fetch a pretty purse for the royal treasury, of that I am certain.”
They were assessing me as if they were a pair of butchers buying the cow they would slaughter for the night’s dinner. My smile faded, and I dropped my gaze to hide my anger. I took an immediate dislike to Somerset.
Marguerite d’Anjou may have recognized her lack of manners, for she leaned forward gently in her throne and said, “Child, do you have French blood?”
I was taken aback at this question. “Not that I am aware, my liege.”
“You have a French look, my dear—does she not, Monsieur Brézé?”
I turned to the lord she addressed: the great French naval hero Pierre de Brézé, the seneschal of Normandy, whom Sœur Madeleine had pointed out to me proudly one night at dinner. He stood to my right, close to the dais, opulently swathed in furs, jewels, and velvet according to the French fashion. I curtseyed to him, and he threw me a charming smile.
“Well could you be from Her Grace’s beloved Anjou, for Anjou is reputed to produce the most exquisitely beautiful women in the world,” he said, flourishing a most elegant bow.
I inclined my head in thanks. Brézé was rumored to love the queen, and indeed, the adoring eyes he turned on her confirmed it to me.
“Grand merci, Monsieur Brézé,” the queen said sweetly. Then, all business again, she addressed me. “Never mind, I have heard good report about you from Sœur Madeleine. That will suffice.” The queen fell silent, appraising me with her sharp eyes. “Lady Isobel Ingoldesthorpe, ’tis your wish to be wed and not to enter a nunnery, is that correct?”
I blushed. “Aye, my queen. Except—except…”
She waited coldly.
I found my tongue. “Except that I would have as husband a man of my choice.”
Her eyebrows shot up. She exchanged a glance with Somerset and returned her eyes to me. “The law is on your side. Only with your consent shall you be married.” A pause. “Is there anything else you would ask of me?”
“My queen, I would like to engage the services of Ursula Malory, daughter of your faithful servant Sir Thomas Malory, as my gentlewoman.”
She leaned back in her chair, and Somerset whispered something to her in French. She gave him a reply before turning her attention back to me. “Sœur Madeleine has spoken of your desire. It seems Malory’s loyalty is not as assured as you seem to believe, but I approve his daughter’s position on one condition.” She beckoned me to approach. I drew near, and she bent down to whisper, “That you report to me anything unusual that comes to your ears about her father’s activities. These are troubled times.”
So this was court. A nest of spies intriguing against one another under the guise of friendship. “Aye, my liege,” I murmured. Marguerite d’Anjou gestured dismissively to indicate that my interview was over. I curtseyed again and made my escape past the leering faces of the courtiers and the dour looks of the clerics. As I approached the entry, a guard threw the door open for me. Feeling as if stones had been lifted from my shoulders, I swept through the antechamber like the breeze, eager to take the good tidings to Ursula. I thought I heard my name called behind me in the passageway, but I ignored it in my rush to the garden, tearing through doorways and down the narrow, winding stairs of the keep. I had not gone three steps in the sunshine when someone called my name again. This time I turned.
The young man looked familiar, and I knitted my brows together, trying to place him. He came rushing up to me, breathless.
“William Norris, Esquire, at your service, my lady. I am thankful indeed to find you recovered from your bout of illness, Lady Isobel,” he said, sweeping his hat into a deep, courtly bow. “I see you don’t remember me. We met at Tattershall Castle—well, not exactly met, since I was never given the chance to request a dance that evening.” He waited expectantly.
My mind raced through the memories of that precious night, trying to find a match for this brown-eyed youth with the thick, curly brown hair who stood looking at me so hopefully.
“Perhaps this will help?” He withdrew a scarlet rose from beneath his cape. “My lady, ’tis the mate to the one I sent you in your sickroom.”
A gull mewed on the river, a bargeman slammed into the landing with a loud oath, and the knowledge washed over me in a violent flood: This was the young man who had lifted his glass to me from across the room at Tattershall Castle. Gazing up at Sir John Neville that evening, I had turned on this squire unseeing eyes blinded by looking too long into the sun.
Four
SEPTEMBER 1456
IT WAS THE END OF SUMMER.
In my tiny chamber, I abandoned the manuscript of Chaucer that I was reading and, standing on my bed, I gazed listlessly out the high window. Fingering my mother’s crucifix, which I wore at my throat, I watched a deluge of rain drench the palace grounds. My sixteenth birthday, on Lammas Day, the first of August, had come and gone, marked by scant ceremony. The queen had sent me a silver plate of candied rose petals and gingerbread cakes, tied with a silk ribbon, while a gathering of ladies accompanied by a royal minstrel had sung to me in the great hall and then departed, laughing. It was a kind gesture, to be sure. But I didn’t know these women, and I recalled with aching pain, as if from a fragment in a dream, a childhood memory of my mother’s warm and loving embrace as she crowned me with rosebuds and twirled me around, laughing, and of my father’s face, shining with tenderness as he watched me and sang, “A posy, a posy for my fair little damsel—”
I drew my cloak close around my shoulders. With September had come a raw wind that blew through the palace halls, hissing softly through the cracks in the walls and furling the tapestries. It was not merely the weather that depressed me.
Though I had prayed much and said little to anyone during these weeks since my arrival, I had learned a great deal about state affairs, and certain issues that had seemed meaningless at the priory now took on great significance in light of my feelings for Sir John Neville. The queen hated Richard, Duke of York, and lived for his destruction. At the heart of their conflict lay York’s superior claim to the throne by birth, which the queen saw as a threat to her, and on York’s part it was the mismanagement of the affairs of the realm by the queen’s favorites. York could do nothing about his birth, and Marguerite was unwilling to give up her favorites. It all seemed so hopeless….
Below me, across the thinning grass, messengers passed to and fro on foot, striding urgently on palace business. Their grave faces tightened the knot in my stomach. I thought of King Henry, whom the queen had sent to Coventry to be nursed back to health away from the pressures of court. When in possession of his faculties, King Henry VI h
ad served as peacemaker between the queen and the Duke of York, but his void always unleashed a bitter duel between them. With the help of young Henry of Somerset, and that of his late father, Edmund, before him, the queen had hatched two plots to murder York but failed both times. Her greatest achievement had come in 1450, when she banished York to Ireland. Even there she failed: York turned his exile into triumph by settling old quarrels at the Irish court, maintaining order, and offering justice. His rule, the best Ireland had ever known, won the hearts of the Irish to the cause of York, so the queen recalled him—and tried to murder him on the way back.
During these weeks, I also received an education in the perils of life at court as I learned more about the reckless and violent men around the queen. Dalliances and amours abounded, and wary of competition, the women threw me hard looks as they swished past in their gaudy damascenes, with their noses lifted in disdain, while the men paid me bold and unwelcome attention. As a result, I dared not befriend anyone, lest they proved false, or worse—dangerous. Half-hidden hatreds and jealousies charged the air, and I watched as many a person was dispatched to the Tower for a carelessly spoken word. Fearful of joining their ranks, I kept very much to myself. Never was I as lonely as in those early days at court, facing an uncertain future, my heart filled with thoughts of the one I could not have, and with no company save Ursula and, on rare occasions, Sœur Madeleine.
Abruptly, one day in mid-September, the king reappeared at court. Although he didn’t attend council meetings, he was frequently seen at mealtime, sitting meekly on his throne, as demure as a damsel. Initially, during these appearances, he gazed at his queen with lackluster eyes, then turned and stared at the ground, seemingly oblivious of what went on around him. As I learned, the queen had brought him back to court before he was completely well in order to rid herself of the Duke of York, who was about to take over the reins of government.
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