Pour The Dark Wine

by Deryn Lake

  Elizabeth Howard chuckled, something she had not done for a long time.

  ‘I would like to learn it, Master Sylvanus. But now let me show you your quarters. The young gentlemen share two large rooms between them, as do the young ladies. All the children here are either connected to the Howards or are close family friends. We do not take outsiders.’

  ‘But are we not that, Sir,’ whispered Jasper to the Duke, ‘sired as we are by your natural son?’

  ‘The Duchess believes you have a slightly different connection. So I would rather you didn’t disillusion her.’

  ‘Who does she think we are?’

  ‘Distant cousins,’ answered the Duke vaguely, and refused to say more.

  To children who had lived, albeit temporarily, in the Château de Chambord, the castle seemed a perfectly normal place in which to dwell and they made their way within quite calmly.

  ‘It does not seem big to you?’ the Duchess asked Jasper, and was astonished when he answered, ‘No, Madam. When we lodged with the French King it was in a somewhat larger palace.’

  ‘I had no idea you were so well travelled,’ said Elizabeth in amazement.

  ‘We were with our father on — er — a diplomatic mission,’ answered Jasper hurriedly, then made an excuse to join his brother and sister to avoid being drawn further.

  ‘I suppose we are now members of a huge family,’ said Sylvanus, sighing a little for the informality of his father’s house.

  ‘We always were members of it, despite the baton sinister,’ answered Jasper in a whisper, while Sapphira wrote on a parchment left for her convenience, ‘This is where we learn courtly manners.’

  ‘Well I intend to have a good time as well,’ said Jasper. ‘Anyway there are two of us, Sylvanus. If the other boys are rude we can punch their heads.’

  ‘Can we?’ said his brother, brightening up. ‘Oh good.’

  ‘Not good, naughty,’ wrote Sapphira, but smiling.

  But it was about their sister that the two younger children felt worried, afraid that those who did not understand her disability would mock and make her unhappy. As they were left alone momentarily, Jasper whispered to Sylvanus, ‘We must protect Sapphira. There may be people here who would delight in tormenting her.’

  ‘Then they shall answer to us first.’

  But it was difficult to judge, thought Jasper, as they were ushered into the great hall where stood a body of other young people, who might be what, for the faces turned towards him all wore smiles. The children had been ranged in ages so that the first he met, following behind his sister, were all quite small. These, it turned out, were the offspring of the wicked Earl of Surrey, so were the Duke of Norfolk’s other grandchildren. Jasper looked over the boy, another Thomas, but decided that he was too young to be of any importance, while the girls seemed hardly weaned to him.

  But for Sapphira, walking beside the Duchess who was formally introducing one child to another, there was only one person in the room. At the far end of the line and therefore obviously the oldest of them all, stood a boy unlike anyone she had ever seen. Of medium height and lissom build, his fine young shoulders and chest were obviously not quite fully grown, and yet he wore his emerald green doublet with a dash and style that marked him out as someone very special. But though his body was shapely it was to his face that Sapphira’s eyes were fatally drawn.

  As finely boned as that of a girl, it was, though he was no more than fifteen, already strong and determined, the hair growing attractively round it, adding extra shape and dimension. Though curly like Zachary’s these locks were well kempt and more blue than black. But his lashes were jet, curling round clear green eyes, the colour of sea-washed glass. And now this fine set young lordling had also seen her and was staring most intently.

  My goodness, thought the Duchess, who never dwelled on that kind of thing, how those two are gazing!

  And as she and Sapphira drew level with him the ridiculous notion went through her head that such a beautiful pair should marry.

  She cleared her mind of all sentiment however, and said firmly, ‘Sapphira, may I present Lord Joscelin Howard? Joscelin, this is your cousin Sapphira.’

  He bowed politely, his eyes leaving her face only for a second. Sapphira touched her forehead, then her heart, then put her hand briefly in his before she curtsied. Somewhere somebody tittered and the Duchess whirled round like a fury while Sylvanus bristled like a lion cub, noticeably clenching his fists.

  ‘I greet you with pleasure,’ said Joscelin and smiled warmly. ‘I hope we shall be friends.’

  All the old wisdom of generations of wise women, the magic that Zachary had so shunned on her behalf, reawakened in Sapphira. No, she thought, we will be lovers.

  And with that a girl who had been standing half-hidden behind him stepped forward and treated Sapphira to an icy look. Then, turning on her heel, shaking her mass of carrot-coloured hair out behind her, walked away.

  *

  A month in the company of her stepdaughter, loving as she was, proved to be enough and in early April, Katherine Latymer set off in a shower of rain to journey back to London. All the way she was dogged by a host of rainbows, as the sun broke through the prism even while drops of glistening rain still fell. The sky alternated between the clear light-blue of springtime and woolly shaped clouds, black and white. Primroses and daffodils were everywhere, carpeting the woods with gold, while trees that would blossom next month were already weighted with tight buds.

  There was a wonderfully trenchant feel to the day, cool and incisive, the day for people with a purpose. And Katherine, travelling in widow’s black, was glad she was returning to her mansion at Charterhouse, beyond the press of the city, in the clean sweet air of the country. Here, she felt, she could re-plan her life and examine the teachings of the new wave of religion in which, it seemed to her, God was more accessible to ordinary mortals like herself. But would that future, she wondered as she neared her gracious home, contain Sir Thomas Seymour? Or was he the type of rogue who kissed a woman and then forgot her? Was the promise to seek Katherine out when she was respectably widowed perhaps not worth the breath with which it was spoken?

  Yet as she entered the house she suddenly knew the answers. He had been there, she could tell by the very atmosphere. Thomas Seymour had stirred the air of the place. Why, she could almost sniff his spicy perfume, beneath which lay the true smell of him. Not unwashed and rank as were so many, but clean and masculine, slightly leathery, as if so many hours in the saddle had actually become part of him.

  Katherine had travelled to Mary’s home in Surrey with only a few servants so that the estate had been well attended. And now, to bid her welcome, her steward stepped from his quarters and greeted her.

  ‘Has everything gone smoothly, Napper?’

  ‘Yes indeed, Lady Latymer.’

  ‘Have there been visitors?’ She knew the answer before he spoke.

  ‘Yes, Madam. Sir Thomas Seymour has called three times to offer his condolences and enquire for your welfare.’

  The world grew brighter by a million suns, fairy people flew about her head, and Katherine’s heart danced a galliard.

  ‘How kind,’ she said coolly, trying to keep calm. ‘Did he say he would return?’

  ‘I took the liberty of telling him you would be back today, Madam. He has requested me to ask if he may sup here this evening.’

  ‘Of course he may,’ said Katherine carefully. ‘Thank you, Napper. You have done everything very well.’

  So, at last, at the age of twenty-nine, her birthday being three weeks away, life was to begin. She was to be wooed by a man only a few years older than herself. Now came the challenge, for up to this moment her physical attributes had hardly counted, her elderly husbands only wanting a sweet-natured nurse, her beauty of no consequence. In a panic, Katherine hurried upstairs, only pausing to order a bath, and stripped naked before a mirror as Catherine Howard had once done.

  She looked hardly touched, she thought
with relief. For her body, which had endured not even a minor pregnancy, had stayed slim. In fact her waist was minute and very supple. Facially, though, she was rather pale but her unpinned hair hung almost to her waist, honey-gold in colour, and thick enough for Thomas Seymour to bury his hands in. Yet of all her features her eyes were the finest; hazel green, sometimes the colour of emeralds, sometimes of good cider, and just as sparkling now that she thought of him. She did not, Katherine thought, scrutinising herself harshly, look her age. Perhaps she had something to be thankful for that she had married elderly men. She not only felt eighteen, she looked it too.

  Though she must wear black, Katherine took enormous trouble with her appearance that night, reddening her lips and colouring her eyes, and brushing her hair till it shone beneath her beautiful French hood. Then, with every appearance of calmness, she picked up her despised embroidery and stitched with fingers she pricked so frequently, little drops of blood fell everywhere.

  The April evening was sublime, tranquil and mellow, yet wild with birdsong. Every feathered creature in Christendom sung its anthem as through the gentle green dusk the Adonis of Henry Tudor’s court, the lion of his day, the most flattered and copied courtier alive, made his way to woo the pretty young widow upon whom he had set his heart.

  Everywhere around him was a crystal loveliness. The Thames ran at spate, fresh with rain, rippling and billowing tiny waves, while the fields, as he turned inland from Temple Bar, were lush with watering, every blade of grass bearing a glassy drop. The great hall of the Blackfriars, now deserted and silent as Thomas rode past, was the colour of evening roses in the fading light.

  He went on through deepening countryside, full of sweet smells and comforting rural sounds, till at last came into view the great monastery of Charterhouse. Before Henry VIII’s brutal rape of this ancient Carthusian order the sound of vespers would at this hour be ringing over the fields, but the sacked buildings, once dedicated to St Bruno and named after his first monastery, La Grande Chartreuse in France, stood like an empty shell. Thomas, far from a religious man, nonetheless crossed himself as he went past the deserted and shadowy place.

  But coming into view, built almost within the monastery’s confines, was a sight to cheer him. The late Lord Latymer’s stately house, all mullioned windows and fine towers, an excellent place to be part of a Lady’s inheritance, lay ahead, its creamy brickwork turned to amber as the sun went down behind it.

  Thomas reined in and swung from his horse, removing his plumed hat and combing his hair before he slowly walked his mount to the gatehouse, where he was courteously welcomed. As an ostler hurried from the stables to assist, Thomas wondered just what sort of reception Katherine would give him, with her husband but recently buried. Yet it was no dismal snatching of a man still in the flower of youth. Lord Latymer had had his full share of years, and good ones at that.

  Yet I shall be solemn, Thomas thought, for she must be sad, even if only for the sake of appearances.

  But there he misjudged her, for as he was shown into her private room, where she sat by the window sewing in the fading light, she immediately got up and welcomed him with a smile.

  ‘I bring you my condolences, Madam,’ said Thomas formally, bowing stiffly and wearing his funeral face.

  ‘I miss him,’ she answered with obvious sincerity. ‘We were good friends.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed!’ He sighed. ‘May I ask if he went peacefully?’

  ‘In my arms, in the morning sunshine.’

  ‘There could not be a better end,’ said Thomas and kissed her hand with true respect. She was, in his considered opinion, more attractive than ever.

  ‘I desired to know from your steward whether I might stay to sup. Will that be in order, Lady Latymer?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Katherine laughed radiantly. ‘Why are you being so formal with me?’

  At last Thomas felt himself on safe ground. ‘I am obliged to, pretty Kate. I would not upset your mourning for a cage of gilded apes.’

  ‘Gilded apes?’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘That would be a rarity indeed.’

  ‘But not as rare as your sweet nature,’ he said, and really meant it.

  They dined alone, by candlelight, and afterwards walked in the grounds, their footsteps quite naturally leading towards the deserted monastery. The late sky was in stripes of extraordinary colour, violet, jade and indigo, while a springtime moon, very silver and seemingly distant, threw the empty cloisters into patches of deepest shadow. In the stillness of that lovely evening Thomas Seymour took Katherine by the hand.

  ‘May I court you,’ he said, ‘woo you, make love to you, everything?’

  She looked at him very seriously. ‘But I am so recently widowed.’

  ‘But would your husband mind that? Did he not say to you to live on and be happy?’

  It was a shrewd guess but he knew he had spoken the truth by her indrawn breath.

  ‘Yes he did say that, privately. How did you …?’

  ‘Because, though I did not know him well, Lord Latymer never struck me as a selfish man.’

  Katherine burst into tears, very suddenly, just like the April showers that both of them had dodged all that day.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said brokenly. ‘And now I can never ask his advice again.’

  ‘What advice do you need?’ Thomas’s voice was very quiet.

  ‘Whether to love you, Tom Seymour. Or whether to send you packing as the great rake and seducer which I know you to be, for your reputation precedes you, believe me.’

  ‘You do me an injustice, Kate.’

  ‘That’s not true. I was at Court, remember. I saw for myself how all the women, married and otherwise, ran after you.’

  Thomas put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him and smiling at the way the moon turned her tears into little trickles of mercury.

  ‘But if I have the choice of so many women as you say, why am I here now? Why have I picked you to love? For I do, Kate.’

  ‘Oh Tom,’ she said and cuddled into his arms, like a kitten longing to be stroked.

  ‘My dear love,’ he said, and kissed the top of her head.

  Katherine looked up at him. ‘Of course I want you to woo me, to make love to me, to seduce me. It is just that I am afraid you might trifle with my poor affections. You see, despite the fact I have been married twice, I am still an innocent. Oh, I don’t mean virginal, they had enough potency for that. It is just that I am so inexperienced and you so worldly.’

  ‘Then the sooner you let me be your lover the better.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, sweetheart,’ said Katherine, and closing her eyes, raised her face to be kissed in the moonlight.

  *

  The very last light was going from the Thames on that splendid April evening. Everywhere there were rushing sounds as water swirled and eddied and the creatures who lived in the river or on its banks prepared for the night. Reluctantly, because the ambience was almost too precious to leave, Zachary and Norfolk walked slowly together through the riverbank orchard in the direction of Zachary’s house, sniffing the scents and listening to the sounds of peaceful approaching darkness.

  ‘So,’ said the Duke quietly, putting his arm round his son’s shoulders. ‘You did well. I am reinstated at Court, and my foolish relatives free. I have a lot to thank you for.’

  The astrologer turned to look at him. ‘But still be careful, Lord Duke my father. His Grace the King forgets nothing, nor forgives.’

  The Duke nodded wearily. ‘Politics, politics. How many good men will die before this reign is over I wonder?’

  ‘How many before the Tudors are seen out might be a better question,’ answered Zachary, very solemn.

  ‘Thoughts like that could have you in the Tower.’

  ‘No one other than you will ever hear them.’

  ‘Not even your wife?’

  ‘Not even she,’ answered Zachary with a sigh. ‘She loves her Seymour cousins and even to her I must be careful what I s
ay.’

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘In her garden, picking certain herbs by moonlight.’

  The Duke raised his brows but said nothing.

  ‘And how are the children?’ asked Zachary, changing the subject uneasily, or so his father thought.

  ‘Very well. The boys are in their element, riding and swimming and fighting. And learning too. Jasper is very bright. He will make a courtier yet.’

  ‘I hope not!’

  The Duke pulled Zachary close to him. ‘You are in a strange mood, my son. Introspective and sad.’

  ‘These are sad and introspective times, Sir. But tell me of Sapphira. How fares my little girl?’

  ‘She has become friends with the son of one of my long-dead cousins, Joscelin, and with Ursula, to whom he has been betrothed since a child.’

  ‘That does not auger well,’ said Zachary.

  The Duke stared at him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because three is an awkward number in friendship.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ answered Norfolk roundly. ‘The children under my wife’s care are all the best of friends. Sometimes you let your imagination run riot.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied his son. ‘But if there is any trouble, send for me at once.’

  ‘Trouble? What kind of trouble could there possibly be?’ asked the Duke, amazed.

  ‘You seem to forget something.’

  ‘And what is that, pray?’

  ‘That it was Sapphira who bewitched the King into signing my release from the Tower.’

  ‘I had not forgotten. But what of it?’

  ‘Simply, Lord Duke my father, Sapphira is more powerful than Cloverella and myself put together. I only hope that nobody ever really crosses her path.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ answered Norfolk confidently. ‘At Kenninghall our charges are one family of happy children, and so they will remain.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Zachary as they went into the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It had always been an unwritten rule in the household of the Duke of Norfolk that its younger members received as good and as stimulating an education as any royal child. Accordingly, every day of the year barring feasts, two tutors sallied forth from their apartments to the room put aside for scholarship, to impart to their pupils a knowledge of Classics, Greek, Latin, French and Mathematics. One of them was elderly and imposing and had taught the renegade Surrey, thus achieving the honour of creating an excellent poet out of a reprehensible boy. The other was a social misfit, a blushing genius who detested children but who, unfortunately for him, had the gift in plenitude of passing on his knowledge to the unpleasant young. When in class, this unfortunate was prone to a tic in his right cheek which was watched with fascination by his pupils, and which one or two of them had attempted to copy. Thus his life was a nightmare and he would gladly have resigned it all had it not been for the fact that he quite literally had nowhere else to go.