Rumors at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  ‘The boy must leave us this year,’ Cecily said, her tone wistful.

  Leave to be fostered. Just as Gil had done when he came to be taught by Cecily’s father. ‘Who will be his teacher?’

  ‘We have not yet decided.’

  The years of his training unrolled before him in an instant. As a page in this very castle, he had learned to serve at table, recite poetry and care for the battle steeds. Then, as a squire, he learned to wield first a wooden, then a steel sword and to keep the lord’s armour ready until he, himself, was knighted. ‘Would you consider me? I could teach him all his grandfather taught me.’

  There was silence as the two exchanged looks again. But they did not say yes.

  He rued asking. Every time he thought he had earned the right, he faced a reminder. This child was heir to one of the greatest titles in England. And even Cecily’s fondness for him was not enough to allow her to give her child into his care.

  ‘An idle idea,’ he said, quickly, as if he had spoken without intent. ‘I am about to go to war again.’ Boys no older than this one would accompany their knights, not into battle, but in the path of harm, even so. ‘The boy is too young for that.’ An excuse, but it would serve.

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘Chut, Denys,’ his father said.

  ‘Your father is right, Denys,’ he said. And something hurt in his heart as he saw this proud, stubborn young boy. No, a Brewen would not be good enough, but some day, a mighty lord of Castile might be. ‘Before you train for war, there are years of learning manners and poetry.’

  The boy’s face said clearly what he thought of that. ‘It is fighting and honour I must learn, not poetry.’

  Cecily pulled her son to her, a gesture both chiding and protective. ‘I would keep him with us a little longer.’ The words of a mother, not a countess.

  Denys squirmed, trying to shrug off her embrace. ‘I want to go now! With Sir Gilbert.’

  Gil looked at the boy, the son he did not yet have, as eager for war and glory as Gil himself had been when he knew no better than to be fearless. He exchanged a glance with Marc, then leaned towards young Denys. ‘Once you leave here, you will seldom see your home or your parents again. Take another few months. Your parents will find the right man to entrust with your training.’ He clasped the small shoulder. ‘Be ready.’

  The light brown eyes lit up. The nod and the smile were firm and steady. Yes, this boy would make as good a warrior as his father and grandfather.

  Cecily stood and took the boy’s hand to lead him to bed. ‘Besides, we cannot ask Sir Gilbert’s promise before he has the chance to speak to the woman who will be his wife. To her will fall the burden of his first training.’

  Only at her words did Gil realise he had never thought of consulting Valerie about this decision.

  He mumbled something, suddenly understanding, despite his confident statement, how many things in his life were about to change.

  * * *

  After Sir Gil spoke to her of marriage, Valerie whispered not a word of the conversation to anyone.

  She heard nothing from her husband-to-be, who had travelled to Losford. Nor did the Duke reach out to confirm the news and, as the days went on, she wondered whether she had heard aright.

  ‘He says we are to be married soon,’ she complained to the magpie, one day when they were alone in the room together. ‘And then he disappears for days without a word!’

  The bird tilted his black head and made a series of sounds, with the up-and-down lilt of a sentence, which clearly sounded to Valerie like, You poor dear. Isn’t he a problem?

  ‘Yes!’ And then she smiled, unsure whether she was amused at the bird or at herself for fancying he answered her.

  Perhaps the proposal had been an illusion. Perhaps, if she remained silent, the world would stay as it was and when Easter came, she might be able to go home.

  But after a week of uncertainty, she could stay silent no longer. Alone with Lady Katherine one afternoon, she spoke the words aloud. ‘My Lord of Spain has chosen Sir Gilbert Wolford to be my husband.’

  Husband.

  She waited, silent, uncertain whether she hoped Lady Katherine would confirm what she had said or dismiss the idea.

  She got a soft smile and a quick hug. ‘I wish you both well.’

  Real, then. She would be the man’s wife. The feel of his hand, warm on her arm, floated into memory. She swallowed. ‘Thank you.’ Easier to say than she had feared.

  ‘What did John tell you of Sir Gilbert?’

  John. She had called the King... John.

  I did not mean to suggest that My Lord of Spain...

  Valerie flushed with the memory. Meeting Gil’s eyes, denying any accusation about Lancaster’s conduct, and all the while, fighting the flutter in her own heart at the knight’s nearness.

  What if it was true? What if Katherine and the King...?

  She could not ask, of course, but she must be alert and search for signs. Better to know the truth and keep a prudent tongue.

  ‘My Lord of Spain has not spoken to me. It was Sir Gilbert, Gil, who told me the news. And he said so little...’ She thought back on all he had refused to say and shook her head. ‘What can you tell me of him?’

  Katherine shrugged and dropped her hands from Valerie’s shoulders. ‘I know little of the man.’ She looked away.

  ‘But I know even less,’ Valerie said. His reputation was fierce, Lancaster trusted him, but had he something to hide? If Katherine was so close to the King, surely she would know. ‘Is he...demanding?’

  A gentler word than cruel, for if he were, who would tell her so?

  A brief look of surprise. ‘I know my lord holds him in high regard.’

  ‘As he did Sir Hugh?’

  A frozen stillness touched Katherine’s face. She had said nothing of her husband to Valerie. ‘I am certain he did, yes.’

  Silent, Valerie, too, averted her eyes, afraid she had somehow seen something too...intimate.

  But then, a rustle, a clearing of the throat, and Katherine spoke again. ‘Sir Gil is a capable warrior and a trusted adviser. I am certain my lord thought he would be a good match for you.’

  And yet, Katherine looked as if there were more unsaid.

  ‘They called him The Wolf of Castile.’ Valerie shivered.

  ‘A compliment to his prowess. He is a fearsome warrior.’

  Fearsome to the enemy. Would he be so to her?

  ‘Valerie?’

  Gil’s voice sounded behind her, breaking her thoughts. As if speaking of him had summoned the man. And yet, now that she knew he was there, she seemed to sense him with her whole being.

  She lifted her head, turned and caught her breath.

  He was taller than she remembered, but his face was just as stern, as if he disapproved of her. No, worse. As if he disliked being forced to rest his eyes on her. There had been moments, when they had looked at each other, when she thought, perhaps...

  Had she been wrong? Was her life to be lived with a man who disdained to look on her? Perhaps he would be willing to come to her only in the dark, only when he could bed her without seeing her—

  ‘I must see to the children,’ Katherine said, quietly slipping out of the room to leave them alone.

  The door closed behind her, leaving the chatter of the caged magpie to fill the silence.

  Valerie fixed her smile in place. A small smile, a bowed head, these had appeased Scargill. For a time. ‘I am glad that you had a safe journey, my lord.’

  His frown, reminding her.

  ‘I mean, Gil.’

  This time, he nodded, though without a smile. ‘And you? Have you been well?’

  A slight hesitation in his words, as if he might, in truth, care that she had been well.

&
nbsp; She nodded. Did the man, indeed, have compassion? If he, too, wished to avoid this marriage, perhaps they could—

  ‘Lancaster obtained a special licence from the Archbishop...’ he began, all hesitation gone. ‘We can wed any time after Easter.’

  Words so cold, so devoid of all feeling that she felt as if he were discussing how to load a boat.

  She knew better than to look for passion in a marriage. Every time her mother had been widowed, she had selected a new husband with the same assessment she would bring to the picking of the ripest apple from the tree. And yet...

  ‘My family is gone...’ she began. The father who had died before she was born. The mother who had wed two more husbands. Only the land remained. The land that had been given to them by the first Castilian Queen. ‘So we will wed on your holdings in...’ She waited for him to speak.

  ‘Leicestershire.’

  To the north. Far from Kent. A place she knew nothing of. ‘We will wed in Leicestershire, then.’

  ‘The special licence allows us to marry anywhere, not just in our home parish. The ceremony will be held here, with the court.’

  ‘So your family will come here. Your parents—’

  ‘Died long ago. No one will come.’

  ‘Why?’ A question too sharply asked. Was he ashamed to have his people meet her?

  He shrugged, his face like stone. ‘There is no one you need meet.’

  No one had spoken of his family. Even Katherine had sidestepped her questions.

  Smile. Look accommodating. ‘Then after we are wed, we will go there. You will show me the land, I will meet—’

  ‘No.’ He broke his gaze and walked to the window. ‘I have not visited in years.’

  ‘But your serfs, your crops, those must be managed.’

  ‘A steward handles those things.’

  His response remained firm and calm while Valerie felt her grip on her temper weaken. ‘He must do an excellent job, if you do not need to oversee his work.’ She could not keep the edge from her voice. In her experience, stewards needed guidance. Careful guidance.

  ‘That is not a life I like.’

  Not a life I like. As if he could choose.

  ‘Then where are we to live?’ The words slipped out before she could stop them. Sharp, insistent, demanding.

  He looked surprised. ‘In Castile, of course, where My Lord of Spain is King.’

  Castile. Said in the same tone of reverence the Queen used, as if the strange, foreign soil were the Holy Land. ‘I believe,’ she said, between gritted teeth, ‘that a king currently resides there.’

  He stood taller and took a step, as if he had been attacked, but he did not raise a hand. ‘That King usurped the crown. Until Castile is ours again, we need no home but the court.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. She did not. How long would living be postponed while they searched for this Holy Grail? Yet no disloyal doubts could be spoken before the Queen. It seemed this would be true with her husband, as well. So quickly she had forgotten her wifely duty...

  She bowed her head. ‘I will do whatever you ask of me,’ she said, in a voice more calm than her mind.

  ‘I shall ask nothing of you.’

  His voice like a hard, cold wind. She raised her eyes to see a face just as harsh.

  The few things her first husband had asked of her, to join his body, had not been pleasant, but they had been her duty. If this man asked nothing, what would her purpose be? What would she do? ‘Nothing?’

  A shift on his face. As if she had caught him in a lie. He spoke again. ‘Nothing but a son.’

  Now, she turned to ice. He asked for the one thing she was not sure she could give.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘that I have no children?’

  He nodded, showing no surprise. ‘Then it is time.’

  Oh, yes. Time and more.

  Now she was the silent one. She had done whatever her first husband asked of her, but she had failed in her most important duty. Certainly, it was not for lack of effort on his part. She closed her eyes against the memories of their bed, where she would lie beneath him, gritting her teeth against the pain, waiting for it to be over...

  Was she barren? She did not know. Even her mother had not borne a son, despite taking the seed of three different husbands.

  I must stop fighting. I must not question. Just do as he asks.

  ‘Assuredly,’ she murmured, then remembered to curve her lips upward. ‘A wedding wherever and whenever you like.’

  ‘It will have to wait,’ he said, in a voice empty of desire. ‘Until we secure ships for the expedition to La Rochelle.’

  ‘But I thought, I mean...’ Cloistered with the Queen, Valerie had paid little attention to the preparations for war. She knew little of the world beyond Kent, but even she knew that La Rochelle was far from Castile. ‘I thought you sailed to return La Reina to the throne.’

  He shook his head. ‘That must wait. There is a siege in Thouars. King Edward sends a force to relieve them.’

  Eyes wide with shock, she opened a mouth full of questions...

  And he was gone.

  Chapter Six

  After Gil was safely out of earshot, Valerie let fly a word she had heard Scargill utter in his angriest moments.

  Thankfully, there was no one to hear her except the black-and-white pie bird, who squawked with appropriate horror.

  She began to pace again, trying to walk off the anger she had worked so hard to hide.

  ‘We are to marry, but he refuses to tell me anything about his family or his home.’ The bird chattered back, as if he understood. ‘He speaks of nothing but Castile and then says we are not going there.’

  She paused with a sigh and stopped before the cage. That reprieve, at least, was a blessing. She longed for Florham, where every inch was well loved and familiar. ‘What, Sir Pie Bird, am I to do?’

  The bird puffed out his white body and chattered an answer, though this time she could recognise neither English nor Castilian words. Ah, well. At least he was a creature she could address without fear.

  The bird had been a gift to La Reina, but Constanza had developed an aversion to the black-and-white creature with his blue wings and green tail feathers, saying he was not like the birds of her home. But to Valerie, he was exactly like the pie birds in her garden, stealing morsels from the kitchen and picking insects off the rose bushes. She had moved the cage into the room she shared with Katherine and kept the poor thing fed.

  ‘I wish, I wish...’

  She let the sentence die.

  Her mother had named her Valerie, after a saint who was beheaded when she refused to marry a pagan. The saint had risen from her grave, carrying her separated head, so the story went, and, if that were not miracle enough, made a gift of it to the bishop who had converted her.

  Valerie’s mother claimed she chose the name as a reminder to stay strong in the midst of adversity. Valerie took a different lesson from the tale: never refuse an offered marriage.

  Certainly, her mother had been forced to wed quickly when Valerie’s father died and left his pregnant wife a widow. And yet another husband followed after that one, too, died. Her mother seemed to expect nothing of either man except that they keep mother and child fed, clothed and at Florham.

  So Valerie knew she could expect nothing more. And yet...

  ‘So what would you tell me, Sir Pie Bird? How can I accept my lot?’

  And the bird, in some combination of whistles and croaks, made a sound very much like, Dios te bendiga, mi hija.

  Bless you, my daughter.

  How many times had she heard the priest murmur that to the Queen? The bird, it seemed, had picked up the foreign words. How was it that a bird could learn Castilian and yet the Castilians could not bother to l
earn her language?

  And yet, her husband did not intend for them to live in England, it was clear. She, too, would be living in isolation in a strange land whose language she did not know, just as the Queen was. No wonder the woman had tried to recreate Castile within the small corner of the Savoy she controlled. When Valerie was stranded in Spain, she might want to do the same.

  She felt an unexpected connection with La Reina. They were both women who might be forced by marriage to live in a foreign land. And did the Queen know any more of what was to come than Valerie?

  Lancaster had not bothered to tell his wife of Valerie’s marriage, she was certain. Well, no matter how these things were done, she was going to take the news to La Reina herself, for it seemed that their fates were even more connected than she had thought.

  * * *

  ‘I wanted to tell you myself, Your Majesty,’ Valerie began, when ushered into La Reina’s presence the next day, ‘that I am to be married.’

  ‘Married? Casarse?’ The Queen had not waited for the translation to be complete.

  A deeper curtsy. Had she angered the woman? ‘Yes, Your Grace. My Lord of Spain has chosen Sir Gilbert Wolford to be my husband.’

  A whispered conference between the Queen and the priest, establishing which English knight she meant. Then, the priest turned to her again.

  ‘La Reina wishes you well in your marriage. When is it to take place?’

  ‘I am not certain,’ she began, ‘but he has said soon, because of the invasion.’

  As the translation was made, the Queen smiled, nodding. ‘El ejército naviga por Castilla.’

  Castilla. Said with the confidence of expectation.

  Valerie licked her lips and glanced at the priest. Did the Queen know less than she?

  It was not her place to speak to the Queen of military matters, but she deserved to know. At least, Valerie thought she did.

  ‘And to France, as well. Sir Gilbert gathers more ships so men can sail to La Rochelle.’

  The Queen blinked and turned to the priest. ‘Qué quiere decir La Rochelle?’

  The priest frowned. He was the liaison to the Queen’s husband. Had he known that men were being sent to France? If so, he apparently had not bothered the Queen with the unpleasant news.