The Assassin's Wife (16 page)

“She certainly looks happy.” I gave Joan a pewter goblet from the press.

“Please God, Lionel’s wrong and we’ll be back in Sudeley this summer!” Joan chuckled, humming a merry little tune as she poured the wine.
 

I found my Lady just as elated, dancing about her chamber as if practising for a ball.

“Ah, Nan, you should’ve seen him!” She clasped her hands together like a coy maid and executed a giggling twirl. “Such a handsome young man and so tall. He’s the very flower of courtesy.” She snatched the goblet, the ecstatic gleam in her eyes sending a jolt of alarm through me. She hardly listened to my request to visit Brother Brian. Instead she drained her wine and prattled of the many compliments the king had lavished upon her.

“But did he grant your petition, my Lady?” I grew disturbed by her frantic manner.

“He promised to give it his personal attention.” She giggled. “He said fair damsels shouldn’t be troubled by heavy business matters.”
 

When I relayed this news to ever practical Joan, she looked dubious. “I’ll wager this young man makes clever promises but he’s little intention of keeping them. I hope my Lady isn’t fooled by pretty words.”

“But if the king’s given a promise—” Alison looked puzzled and disappointed.

“The king relies on his charm to dazzle all the ladies,” said Lionel. He glanced up from heaving logs on the fire. “His ambitions are far more important to him than keeping his word.” He grinned at Joan. “Some of us keep our promises though, don’t we?”
 

Joan’s flush and downcast eyes cheered me but I couldn’t help thinking how gullible Eleanor seemed. Loneliness made her highly susceptible to flattery. Her frivolous chatter continued to alarm me.
 

Chapter Eighteen

“The king’s here!” Jack rushed into the kitchen wild with excitement.

From outside came the clatter of hooves and Lionel’s startled voice raised in greeting.

Barely a week since Eleanor’s visit, Edward Plantagenet arrived at the house accompanied by two noble companions and a mere handful of retainers.

“What are we going to do?” A flustered Joan clutched at her throat and ran about the kitchen clucking like a startled hen. “We’ve very little wine—there’s a meat pie—”

“But where are we going to put them?” I shook her arm, conscious of the approaching hum of male voices. “Alison, run and tell Gerta to prepare my Lady. Tell her the king’s here—and hurry!” I addressed the bright-faced scullion next. “Jack, go and help Lionel with the horses and try to buy us some time—”
 

“We’re not ready for visitors.” Joan babbled, plucking at her apron, tugging at strands of wayward hair. “We can’t put them in that chamber Dame Eleanor calls the parlour—It’s not been used for months. How can we strew fresh rushes now? Even without that fusty smell we’ve little enough wood for fires—”
 

I’d never seen Joan in such a flutter. Fleetingly I thought of my aunt with her
pretended parlour-chamber and how my uncle winked at me whenever she mentioned it. “Then where?” I feared our guests would enter at any moment. “Most of the chambers are damp and mildewed from lack of use. There’s nowhere else. What are we going to do?”

“Gerta must take him to my Lady,” a goggle-eyed Joan replied. “And the rest must come in here.”

We staged a frantic attempt to tidy the place, and then, smoothing our hair and gowns, sank to our knees just as Lionel ushered in our royal guest.

While the king parleyed privately with Eleanor, we entertained our illustrious visitors in the kitchen, plying them with what meagre provisions we could muster.

The gentlemen sprawled by the hearth, the common servants by the trestle. All drank our ale at an alarming rate and made ribald remarks which scandalised Joan and sent us into peals of laughter. A rich odour of spice and male sweat, a rustle of opulent fabric and a dazzle of jewels, overwhelmed the familiar shabbiness of our surroundings. It seemed as if we’d been invaded by a gaggle of exotic birds in brilliant plumage.

A pair of huge, smelly dogs with muddy paws panted and drooled before the fire. Little Jack, cheeks scarlet with delight, revelled in the privilege of attending on them, and a dizzy, dreamy-eyed Alison fawned upon the men-folk, spilling ale and simpering excuses. Unwillingly, I found myself distracted by provocative comments and kindling glances. The heady atmosphere transformed even sedate Joan into a scatterbrain. Recalling how Eleanor’s first meeting with the young king had similarly turned her head, I despised myself for being so foolish. Nevertheless the opportunity of seeing the king and his friends at close quarters proved irresistibly fascinating. Amazed, I found myself conversing with them in an easy manner.

“What do you think, Will?” asked Lord Hastings of Lord Herbert. They lounged by the fire, supping their ale. Hastings lifted a rakish eyebrow.

The other gentleman gave a cryptic smile. He tapped his finely polished nails on his leather boots. “A castle that speaks and a woman that will hear, they will be gotten both,” he replied.

Hastings smirked, licking the red slash of his mouth.

“Ned has a way with words,” he said, warmly. His eyes slid over me. “What do
you
think of the king, fair damsel?”

“His Grace is well-favoured, sir,” I answered honestly. Seen close, the shining knight of my visions proved a golden giant with long, loose limbs and a smile as radiant as an angel’s. In a moment people fell under the spell of his easy charm. I noted how readily Lionel yielded when the king placed a friendly hand on his shoulder and requested him to take care of the horses, just as if speaking to an old friend rather than as master to servant.
 

“Aye, Ned’s a comely lad. He finds much favour with the ladies.” Hastings flicked a speck of dirt from his velvet sleeve. “But there are others who can dance as merrily, I assure you.” My cheeks burned under his candid scrutiny. Fortunately Gerta’s arrival broke this interlude.

Flustered, Joan watched the buxom Fleming set down the tray of empty wine cups. “Does my lady require more wine?”
 

Plainly Gerta misunderstood. She shrugged, slumping down heavily on an old settle.
 

“Nan, see if she needs anything,” Joan whispered. “I can never get any sense out of that lumpish wench.”
 

From Dame Eleanor’s chamber the king’s hearty laughter echoed through the corridors. The trill response of her giggles unnerved me. Twice I lifted my hand to knock and twice my courage failed. The conversation dropped to a low caressing murmur. How could I interrupt? A strange intoxicating silence lurked beyond that portal. I knew in an instant an irrevocable step—one with far-reaching consequences—had already been taken. Yet I grasped the door-handle—

Without warning, a subtle change pervaded the atmosphere. I froze, yielding to the spell of creeping solitude, the uncanny silence permeating the passageway. An irrational terror prickled my scalp sending tingles of unease down my spine. Unwillingly, my eyes shifted towards the great oak staircase. Among its crawling shadows something stirred. For a moment I thought I glimpsed a hooded figure looking down at me.
 

Fleeing to the safety of the kitchen, I discovered Hastings had turned his attentions upon a moon-struck Gerta. I stood uncertainly amidst the noise and merriment.

“Why aren’t you with Dame Eleanor?” A bewildered Joan confronted me.
 

“I daren’t interrupt.” My voice rasped, hoarse with tension, and Lord Herbert caught my eye.

“You mean she’s still alone with the king?” Joan’s eyes darted from me to the waiting gentlemen, a scarlet, shameful flush staining her neck and cheeks. She squeezed my hand, pressing her lips together as I whispered in her ear. Lord Herbert’s sardonic smile mocked our subterfuge.
 

“Have you no more to do than to lollop there like a great heifer?” Joan turned on Gerta impatiently. Before the baffled Fleming could respond, the dogs rose barking with excitement and the king entered in a gleam of blue satin and gold. Whining slavishly, the animals fell upon him, leaping up to lick his hands and face, scattering gobbets of drool on his amethyst-coloured hose. Good-humoured as ever, he stooped to fondle them. Then he turned as if to draw us all into the wide embrace of his smile.

“We thank you for your hospitality.” He rose to his full height. This stately courtesy so impressed, we knelt in homage. The firelight caught the gold collar of suns and roses about his shoulders creating a tawny halo about his head and my recent terror ebbed away.

Outside Lionel shouted for horses. Hooves sparked over frozen cobbles and stormed away into the darkness leaving us shivering by the door, hands raised in farewell. An anxious Joan soon bustled us back inside issuing a string of breathless orders. Then she turned on me with a thousand questions in her eyes.
 

“Best to say nothing,” I said, with a warning look. I noted Jack’s interest as he crouched by the hearth pretending the business of cleaning.
 

Undressing for bed, Eleanor’s incessant chatter set my teeth on edge. The hectic flush in her cheeks and the feverish light in her doe-eyes betrayed complete infatuation with the young king. Sick with foreboding, I folded away her discarded garments.

“We must be careful not to expect too much of the king’s promises,” I said.
 

She preened before her glass, running restless hands through the falling tangle of her pale hair. “But isn’t he incredibly handsome, Nan?” She giggled, scattering jewelled pins, swivelling this way and that, admiring her figure in the glass.

“Incredibly.” I gathered up the pins and dropped them into the little enamelled casket on the shelf. “But he’s very clever with words.”

She tumbled into bed and lay smiling up at the faded curtains, her eyes full of secrets. She said nothing at all about her petition.

Chapter Nineteen

The king kept Christmas at court, and from what we heard, celebrated it with much pomp and luxury. He sent gifts to Eleanor, including a great haunch of venison, sweetmeats and costly delicacies, but the bearer of them brought no message for her beyond that of “good cheer.”

Eleanor, on the other hand, being pious, kept Christmas with unexpected austerity. At midnight we celebrated the Mass, a solemn occasion in which Brother Thomas urged us to reflect on the gift of the Saviour’s Birth. As he intoned the prayers in his soft voice, my eyelids drooped. At the end of a raw, arduous day, I longed for sleep. But barely had I lain down before Eleanor roused me again.

“I like to keep the Angel Mass,” she said. She opened the shutters and I blinked in the cruel light of dawn. “Will you join me?”

I helped her dress, my fingers clumsy with cold, but she paid scant attention. “Do you know this special service marks the actual birth of the Holy Child?” Her shining eyes pierced my guilt. What did I care for such matters?
 

Bone-weary, I stood again in the little, draughty chapel and endured more of the priest’s irritating drone. Eleanor’s face lit up as if with ecstasy, so that in her dark gown she might have been a nun enjoying a holy vision. Bright as the sweep of a sword’s blade, a sudden image of mad King Henry at his prayers flashed through my head, startling me into wakefulness.

The vision tormented me all the way back to the bed-chamber but I said nothing. Eleanor remained abstracted while I stripped off her garments and then slipped silently into her bed. Snuffing out the candle, I lay down and closed my eyes, my mind still spinning with disturbing images.

A fierce pounding snatched me from the very edge of sleep.

“What is it?” Eleanor’s voice seemed to call me back from a great distance.
 

Before I could reply, the singing began. It was the same voice as before, but when it broke off, such a profound silence enveloped the house that neither of us dared move. Then a chilling, hollow laugh rippled along the walls of the corridor. Something so maleficent in its tenor caused the hairs on my arms to rise like hackles on a cornered hound. It petered out at last into a desperate fading sobbing, during which Eleanor began muttering repetitive prayers begging it to depart and I sank into an unpleasant, drowning sleep. In the fragmented dreams which followed, white-coifed nuns processed through icy cloisters singing plaintive anthems.
 

“What do you think it was?” Eleanor’s morning question stirred a profound unease.

“We were tired, my Lady. The noise was probably someone in the streets.”

Keen to avoid any talk of spirits, I slipped to the kitchen to assist with the preparation of breakfast.

After the feast I’d enjoyed at my uncle’s house, the frugal fare in Silver Street surprised me. We began Christmas Day with frumenty. At dinner Joan presented us with a rabbit broth flavoured with almond milk and spiced with cloves, nutmeg and ginger, followed by a roasted capon in pepper sauce, a tart of eggs and ground pork with pine nuts, wafers with cheese, and a platter of dates, figs, pomegranates, raisins and nuts. As Lionel toasted the season with festive ale brewed with apples and honey, I couldn’t help but compare this meal with the vast amount of delicious courses Aunt Grace offered.