Figures in Silk (26 page)

Nothing to suggest a hidden love.

Jane smiled wistfully at them. She didn’t mind the possibility that Isabel might be hiding something from her; not if it made her happy. If Isabel did turn out to have a secret in Westminster, Jane thought, trusting in God to make everything come right in His own time, she’d tell her sister about it whenever the moment was right.

Goffredo hadn't come back by Passiontide. Nor had Dickon.

But Isabel’s pleasant new routine of weekly visits to the princess, dinners at the Red Pale with Will Caxton, and Friday night stays at the silk house was well enough established for her to have grown used even to the place’s lonely nighttime creaks and scuttlings.

She couldn’t go for the usual fitting on Good Friday itself, so, unusually, she went the following Tuesday instead, April 9, once the churches were glorious with flowers and the Lenten shrouds thrown back and people with roast lamb in their stomachs had lost the meatless scratchiness of March and got roses in their cheeks instead.

She hardly noticed the balminess of the breeze. She let the river slip by unwatched. She was happily preoccupied with the task ahead: discussing with the princess the placement of tassels and the commissioning of new laces and points for a pair of crimson damask sleeves embroidered with fleurs- de-lys, which would also need unpicking and reworking. With white roses, perhaps?

It was only as she got off the boat at Westminster that she realized something was wrong.

There were more people out and about than usual, all sorts—men- at- arms, house wives, monks—and there was an air of panic about them. Rushing about like ants whose home has been trod-den on, she thought curiously. What’s got into them?

Then the bells began. Abbey bells. One booming, gloomy note, over and over again. It went right through her head.

Half- deafened, she trotted into the gate house to ask. There was a fat woman outside, holding a grocery basket, sobbing.

The gatekeeper’s hat was off . He looked frightened.

“Someone’s died,” Isabel said: a kind of question.

The man crossed himself and shivered. “God rest his soul. He only had a cold,” he mumbled confusedly.

“Who?” Isabel snapped. But even as she asked, she realized she knew; and with the knowledge came dread at all the unknown possibilities this death might bring—a dread so intense that she almost burst into tears like the fat house wife outside. By the time the gatekeeper had composed himself enough to mutter two words—“The king”—Isabel was on her way out.

She had to get back to London. Jane would need her.

10

"All I can say,” panted Anne Pratte, half running along beside Isabel—who had nodded curtly when she’d seen the white- headed silkwoman hovering by the Ludgate jetty, but hadn’t slowed down, because she was trying to avoid acknowledging that Anne Pratte was waiting specially for her even if no other explanation was likely; because she didn’t want to get caught up with the Catte Street women now; because she wanted to get to Jane’s as quickly as possible—“is thank the good Lord that Goffredo isn’t going to be back for a while with his people. Because this is not the time. Not at all the time. Now, do slow down a bit, dear, would you? I’m all out of breath.”

Isabel sighed and stopped. Anne Pratte’s little chest was heaving so much she’d put a frail claw of a hand to her throat. But it didn’t make Isabel soften as much as she was meant to. She knew Anne Pratte was using her fluffiness as a weapon. Alice Claver must have sent her out to bring Isabel home. “I can’t come home with you now,” Isabel said firmly, though less firmly than she’d meant to. “I have to go to Jane.”

Isabel’s heart was pounding. She’d spent the entire trip back imagining Jane, alone in her room, listening to the bells; with her future gone, with no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one to tell her what was happening. Imagining Jane’s pain made her feel dizzy. Bereft.

She had to shout above all the other voices, and the bells. There were bells ringing everywhere, the same slow one- note lament being bashed out from every belfry, so loud and discordant and ominous you could go mad from it. No one had known the king was ill, but now everyone was whispering. He’d caught a cold fishing. He’d had a fit thinking about the king of France. His death brought utter shock. It was pandemonium everywhere you looked: markets closing hours ahead of time; shutters going up against the midday sun on the windows of houses; youths scurrying home under mounds of bolts and bags and bundles of goods; a crowd of citizens shouting at St. Paul’s Yard, some in their ill- fitting military harness, with straps hanging loose and bellies hanging out; and every church doorway up Ludgate Hill a smaller buzz of panic and people. No one able to see whether this news would rupture the delicate webs of agreements they’d made of their peaceable lives; everyone fearing the worst.

Anne Pratte’s face fell. She looked piteous. “Have the apprentices closed down the shops?” Isabel asked. Reluctantly, Anne Pratte nodded. “Is everything properly shuttered and boarded?”

Isabel asked. Anne Pratte nodded, even more reluctantly. “Are all the girls in, and is there supper for everyone?” Another woebegone nod. “Well, then, you’ll be fine. You’ve got it all in hand. Go back. I’ll come as soon as I can,” Isabel said.

“But, dear, you can’t wander round on your own in all this,”

Anne Pratte quavered. “Alice would never forgive me if I let any harm come to you.” She stopped as if struck by an idea. “I know!”

she exclaimed brightly. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Isabel said.

Anne Pratte gave her a birdlike, considering stare. Isabel stared levelly back. The Catte Street women would, once they stopped panicking, probably want to know how Jane was faring, she thought. Isabel smiled down at Anne Pratte, but firmly. “Tell Alice I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.

They’d reached Old Jewry. Isabel banged on Jane’s door, only half listening to Anne Pratte’s meek “All right, then, dear,” and retreating footsteps. But as she was let into the courtyard and turned to hand the boy her reins, she realized Anne Pratte was going no further than the Prattes’ own home over the road, to wait out Isabel’s visit.

Jane was sitting in her great hall, on a stool, up against the edge of the window, leaning her cheek on the leaded panes, still in bright skirts, watching the crowds.

She didn’t get up when her eyes fell on Isabel. But she raised her head. The leading had imprinted her cheek with a red lattice of diamond marks. She must have been there for hours, ever since the bells began.

Jane smiled vaguely. “Just like that,” she said. She clicked her fingers, then looked surprised at them for making their loud sharp sound. “Gone.”

It was unbearable. Isabel rushed to her, enfolding Jane’s unresisting limpness in her own arms. They swayed together like that for a while; for long enough that Isabel noticed the first raindrops begin to batter against the glass; for long enough for her to realize Jane was still staring over her shoulder through the window; for long enough for her to realize Jane wasn’t going to cry.

“Look at them,” Jane said. “Running about. Everyone so scared.” She was still smiling. Her voice was hollow. “But no one knowing what to be scared of.”

Isabel didn’t know how to be of comfort. After a pause, she pulled up a stool and sat down.

“How can I help?” she asked. But Jane only said, kindly, but as though from a great distance: “You mustn’t worry about me, Isabel. I don’t need anything. I’ve been lucky.”

“But do you have money?” Isabel asked. She knew the house was Jane’s, and that Jane had an allowance, but she’d never thought about the mechanics of it. If the king was dead, would it stop?

Jane shook her head as if she didn’t want to think of such things now. “I’m fine, honestly. I’m quite rich, I think. I have rents, shops, I don’t even know what. Father administers it all; he set it up so I’d never have to worry; he pays my allowance.” She laughed, plucking at her rings. “He’s always said how bad Edward is with money,” she added. She opened her eyes wide at what she’d said, but didn’t stumble or sob as she corrected herself: “Was.”

“What will you do?” Isabel asked, trying to force Jane to acknowledge the reality of King Edward being gone, of being left alone here: to organize herself for an uncertain future in some new way. “Do you want to stay with me?” But she knew as she said it that that was a bad idea. Alice Claver wouldn’t be able to behave. Perhaps Jane should go for a while to their father’s, in Somerset?

Jane only shook her head. “Why would I go away?” she said blankly. “There are memories here, in everything I touch and see.

This is my home. Where would I go?”

There was a bang at the door. Footsteps.

Jane was up off her stool and running across the room.

From the shadows out of sight, beyond the doorway, Isabel heard Jane’s voice cry, “I thought you’d never come!” and a deep voice she thought she knew from somewhere answer with a murmur of comfort.

She sat absolutely still on her stool, hardly daring to breathe.

When Jane came back into the room, Isabel noticed tears glistening on her face. Not enough to blotch her skin or make her ugly; just a couple of dewdrops on her cheeks and squeezing from her green eyes. But she looked relieved; less frozen. And behind her was Lord Hastings—razor- cheek-boned, straight- nosed, 21 bareheaded, and tousled from the ride, with his dripping hat in his hand and his long, dark eyebrows making a single slash of a line across his forehead. He still looked young; unlike the king, he’d stayed slim and fighting fit. It took Isabel a second or two to notice that the dead king’s best friend had his arm around Jane’s waist.

Hastings nodded at Isabel with a glimmer of acceptance that came close to a smile. She’d always liked his straightforwardness.

“Mistress Claver,” he said, by way of greeting.

She nodded back. Avoided Jane’s eye. “My lord,” she answered, with all the poise she could manage; then, neutrally, to Jane’s shoulder, aware of Jane’s hand settling on Will Hastings’ arm on Jane’s waist; of the moist, hungry look in her sister’s eyes: “I should get back to Catte Street. My old ladies need me.”

She was astonished when Jane’s lips began to twitch. “I think you’ll find Anne Pratte outside,” she said, not unkindly. “She’s been sitting at her window watching us ever since you got here. Look at her. Eating us up. She’s waiting for you. She’s worried.”

Isabel glanced over at the window as she backed toward the door. It was true. There was a shadow in the window of the house opposite. Jane had guessed it was Anne Pratte; she was more ob-servant than Isabel even now. Why had Isabel thought she’d need protecting?

She didn’t have to turn round as she left the room to know Jane was already kissing Lord Hastings.

“ Oh, there you are, dear,” Anne Pratte said cozily as Isabel trudged miserably out to the wet street. She looked supremely unconcerned by the coincidence of being there as Isabel emerged.

She had a bundle in her hand and a piece of sacking over her head.

“We can walk back together, then. I’ve just been picking up a few things from home . . .”

Isabel sighed and took the bundle. Her mind was churning with so many new thoughts that there was no space for annoyance. But she wasn’t letting Anne Pratte have her own way in everything. When the older woman asked, casually, as they began to move forward, side by side, both heads under the sacking,“Wasn’t that Lord Hastings going into your sister’s house?” Isabel pretended not to hear.

She walked on, feeling her clothes get wetter, ignoring the rain funneling down the frayed threads edging the sack and dripping into her eyes. But she was aware of Anne Pratte’s sideways looks.

“You look shocked,” she heard the thin little voice say. She walked on. “Don’t be.” She kept walking. “She needs a new protector.” Isabel carried on walking, as if she hadn’t heard the voice, wondering why the raindrops on her face felt hot and salty.

“Girls your age usually don’t understand. You didn’t grow up in the war; how can you? But she’s no fool,” Anne Pratte was saying, almost as if she were talking to herself. Gradually, without looking, Isabel found herself listening. “I understand her. I’m old; and all us old people grew up with fear. When the war was on you could be swallowed up by the unknown at any moment, and you never forgot it. I was a grown- up girl the year you were born, when King Henry’s garrison in the Tower turned their guns on us to force London to be Lancastrian. Of course it turned us Yorkist instead. To a man. To a woman. We’d had enough: ships not coming in; the courts full of bully boys; the roads full of robbers. So we all came out to fight for the Duke of York. My old father was one of the men blockading the Tower. And when the French queen brought her army to the gates—they were northerners; people said they howled instead of talking, like the hounds of hell—my father was one of the Londoners who went out and told them we weren’t opening the gates to that woman. No one knew what would happen. It was terrifying; but not like giving in to the war had been before. We weren’t just waiting for death anymore; we were doing something. It was them who gave up in the end, not us: the northern men and the French queen. They went away. We won—the little people of London. That’s how brave we were. And when the Duke of York came with his army at the end of the summer, we let him in. We chose him. That’s how we ended up with good King Edward, God rest his soul, and all these years of peace and prosperity we’ve enjoyed till now.” She crossed herself.

“And it’s how I know about being afraid unless you act to protect yourself.”

Isabel stole a glance at Anne Pratte. The little old woman’s face was as calm as her voice, but her eyes were strangely full of fire. “I was never supposed to be a silkwoman, you know,” Anne Pratte added unexpectedly. “My father had me down for a nunnery—the Minories. But then my sister died. Alice, she was called; she got hit by the wildfire they started pelting us with. The Lancastrians. It stuck to her arm, stuck and burned. You couldn’t wash it off . We tried, but water only made it burn harder. I’ll never forget the way she screamed. All night long. It was after she died, God rest her, that my father went out and started helping the men at the Tower. They got the garrison commander in the end: Lord Scales. Caught him trying to escape down the Thames disguised as a woman. The boatmen recognized him. They left his body at St. Mary Overy. My father took us to see. Stab wounds everywhere. Flies. People spitting. My mother spat. I was the only child they had left. So he sent me to be an apprentice at John Large’s instead of a bride of Christ. And I married William.” She smiled, but there was sadness in her face. “And I’ve been happy with him.”