Mistress to the Crown

Oh, for more onions. Broken hearted, I held my wrist to my eyes so I could glance back at Talwood. He was firmly signalling me to stay in place.

What in Heaven …? Ah, phew, the narrator stepped back into the candlelight and King Menelaus strode up to the wall of Troy. The cascade of poetry stopped abruptly. Menelaus held out his hand, waiting for me to return with him to Sparta.

Devilment crept into me. Poor Helen. Had Menelaus been a William Shore? I gravely shook my head at his highness of Sparta and flapped my fingers like ass’s ears. The court began to chuckle and then shriek with laughter as the player became really angry.

His overlord, King Agamemnon, joined him. He also held out his hand to me. Still I refused and then suddenly there was a scraping of chair, a movement across the high table, followed by applause. A third king! Tall and magnificent, King Edward halted before the gates of Troy, looked up at me and held out his hand.

By the Saints, I’d never intended this. How I managed that narrow ladder behind the edifice with my heart trying to escape my body, I’ll never know.

England’s king was a huge haze of gold and sable. I inclined my head to him like Princess Helen should, and he graciously led me forward to make a player’s curtsey to the court, then keeping firm hold of my hand, he grinned down at me like a lion viewing dinner.

‘I knew you’d come to me eventually,’ he said.

Mistress

I

Paris saved me from answering. Not to be excluded from the tumult of clapping and stamping, he materialised on my left, grabbed my hand with surprising assurance for an artisan, snatched off his wig and bowed. Tethered ash blond hair and smiling teeth gleamed in the candlelight. A young man with dangerous ebullience. He had to be one of the court, I realised, but I was so euphoric it did not matter. I tugged my hand free from his and beckoned the rest of the players out of the darkness. Just because they were not nobles, it did not diminish their right to tributes.

We all made obeisance again and then – thank God – proud hands clasped my shoulders. I knew Hastings was standing behind me.

‘Excellent, Will!’ exclaimed King Edward, but his eyes were on me. ‘Heard you helped out at the final moment, Mistress Shore. Our thanks to you and our compliments on your dancing.’

I could scarce whisper a thank you as I was high on the huzzahs. Sweet Heaven, name a woman who wouldn’t be!

‘I’m Dorset, by the way,’ said Paris in my ear, as if the revelation would ensure I melted. He kissed my hand.

‘Ignore him,’ said King Edward. ‘Paris has been defeated. Let us leave it that way.’

Hastings’ fingers tightened. ‘“Helen” needs to change.’

‘Only her mind,’ murmured the King, ‘or is that now done?’

Too dazed to follow the footwork of this conversation, I did not dare stare above the diamond clasps of his highness’ doublet. ‘Later, then,’ he was saying to somebody.

‘Can we all come?’ quipped Dorset, his lascivious gaze upon my breasts.

And then the atmosphere chilled.

‘Elizabeth,’ purred King Edward.

I thought for a foolish instant that he spoke to me and then she appeared from the shadows, a woman in her late thirties, her belly high with child. His queen, Elizabeth Woodville, with emeralds glittering around her throat and golden threads crisscrossing her headdress. Behind the transparent demi-veil, a frown marred her perfect forehead and her full lower lip betrayed her to be somewhat out of temper. I was overwhelmed, not by her ill-humour, but because she was wearing one of Tabby’s girdles over her magnificent brocade gown. I gasped in delight and sank in a deep curtsy, far too euphoric to shiver at the malevolence flowing off her.

‘Ah, the Trojan horse,’ she remarked cryptically, setting her hand upon the King’s proffered wrist. ‘They say, “Beware the Greeks when they bring gifts”.’ Her moon-cool radiance beamed straight across my head at her husband’s friend.

‘Indeed, madame,’ agreed Hastings dryly. ‘Indeed.’

I expected no less than the promise of an escort home as soon as I had cleansed the colours from my face and wriggled back into my own apparel, but when Lord Hastings sent a page requesting me to join him in his chambers, I agreed with delight. Even though the bells of St Martin-le-Grand would soon be sounding curfew in the city, I cheerfully followed Talwood through the coney warren of servants’ passageways.

Hastings was sprawled with his feet upon a footstool and a fine glass goblet in his hand. His doublet and stomacher were gone, the collar of office dangled from the back of his chair, and only a gemmed cross glittered among the loosened laces of his shirt. He bestirred himself in welcome and kissed my cheek.

‘Here is the necklace back, my lord,’ I said, laying the golden leaves upon a little painted table.

‘No, keep it as your player’s fee, my dear Elizabeth. You exceeded all my expectations. Here, let me!’ He fastened it back about my throat, before he poured me wine. Feeling the necklace against my skin and the costly goblet between my fingers, my senses thrilled. Elizabeth Lambard was in Westminster Palace drinking with the King’s close friend. Except he looked haggard in the candlelight – utterly forgivable – The Siege of Troy would have leeched anyone’s vitality.

We touched rims. ‘You did well,’ he said, raising his glass to me.

I shook my head with genuine modesty. ‘By the skin of my teeth. The other players were very kind and Master Talwood made a wondrous guardian angel. No, it is certainly you who deserve all the praise, my lord.’ I drank to him.

There was no return sparkle in his eyes. No hint that he desired to make love tonight. Sometimes I forgot he was so much older. Around us, the silence seemed suddenly precipitous and my delight began to ebb. I took another sip of wine.

‘I noticed her highness was wearing one of my women’s girdles. Was that your doing, my lord?’

His forehead puckered as if the remark was not worthy of his attention. ‘No, I believe Lady Brampton presented it to her grace. Pray sit down, Elizabeth. I need to talk to you.’

Apprehensive, I made myself comfortable on a cross-legged chair and, with mounting dismay, watched him prowl across to the hearth and turn.

‘Elizabeth, you and I have come to a crossroads.’

I had anticipated this. But not so soon. Nothing lasts. I know that. The petals of the violet shrivel; its perfume lingers only in the memory.

‘You want no more to do with me?’ Had I behaved inappropriately tonight? Did I still lack the bedroom skills to please him? Or was I some matter to be tidied up before he left for France?

‘Stop it!’ he scolded. ‘I see all manner of thoughts flitting through your mind. Of course your company is a delight, my dear, but I can no longer be your lover. You need a younger man.’

‘But you are—’

‘Older than you by almost twenty years.’ I had thought him scarce forty. Astonishment must have blazed across my face for he added: ‘How kind of you to look surprised.’

‘I am, I truly am. But, please, do not think that—’

He held a finger to his lips. ‘Doucement, little one. Our arrangement was temporary as we both agreed.’ He drew a deep breath and I should have expected what came next. ‘Out of loyalty to me or because of your sense of virtue, you have already said no to the King of England. Tonight you have a chance to reconsider.’

‘Tonight?’ Deep inside me, excitement began to stir but it was shackled by a suspicious anger. ‘Was this your agendum all along, my lord? I know the man supposed to play Helen did not break his ankle.’

‘Yes, you are right, he didn’t. The opportunity was provided at royal request and now it is up to you, Elizabeth.’ He took a taste of wine, watching me over the glass. ‘I have brought the horse to water. You do not have to drink.’

So, broken in for the next rider, I was to be sold on.

‘I trusted you, my lord.’ Hurt underscored each word. My hand shook as I set down the glass. I intended to leave but he stepped into my path. ‘Please-let-me-pass!’

‘No!’ he said, holding up his palms. ‘You must hear me out and … and stop looking like an outraged virgin in a soldiers’ bath-house!’

I sat down but I kept my back poker-stiff.

He dropped on his haunches beside me and his voice was gentler. ‘Elizabeth, you offered yourself to me for no other reason than you wanted to learn and, by Heaven, I was happy to teach. All you asked of me was the name of a worthy lawyer, and in this world of venality I found that unselfishness remarkable, a breath of purest air. Now I am asking a favour. You have a choice tonight. The favour I ask is that you do not make your decision rashly.’

‘A choice? Do I?’ Disbelief spiked my voice; tears mustered behind my eyelids.

‘Of course, you do, my dear.’ He set a reassuring hand across mine. ‘You can go back to your husband before curfew and nothing more will be asked of you ever again.’ Back to my little kerchief of bleak space beyond the partition? A future of respectable celibacy – the worsted world of William Shore and lecherous Ralph the Younger?

The haughtiness left my spine and I stared unhappily down at my lap like a chastened child. His thumb scuffed my wrist. ‘Can you not see that Life is challenging you, Elizabeth? Are you going to ride into the joust or watch from the crowd with everyone else?’

‘Christ’s mercy!’ I rose to my feet in anguish. ‘I am everyone else. His grace said the awe would wear off but it hasn’t. I am nobody, my lord.’

Hastings stayed where he was. ‘Elizabeth, my dear, King Edward can have any woman in this entire kingdom – and he desires you.’

‘Ha! Only because he saw me naked at Gerrard’s Hall!’ I exclaimed in disgust, rising and pacing to the window. ‘I am a toy on a stall. He just wants what you have, like a child that cannot bear to be left out.’

I heard the rustle of taffeta sleeves. He had climbed to his feet.

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