Whispers at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  ‘Not even the king?’ He knew little of women, but in his experience, they did as they were told. Perhaps les femmes Anglaise were different.

  She shook her head. ‘She has a loving father and mother. They have given her everything she needed. Or wanted.’ Her words were wistful.

  ‘So she has everything she desires.’

  Cecily shrugged.

  ‘And you, Countess? Did your parents give you everything you desired?’

  She nodded, her smile quick but sad. ‘Until they died.’

  He should not have reminded her of her loss, yet he felt a moment’s regret. He had lost his family years ago. Had he loved them? He could not remember.

  ‘Yet you have not wed either.’ Suddenly, he wanted to know why.

  ‘Only because the king has not yet selected my husband. I expect the man to be named by the end of the Christmas season.’

  I hold the title, she had said, the first night they met. She, and her title, would be a prize for some nobleman. One far above a humble chevalier. He wondered, with a thought he refused to call jealousy, who the man would be.

  ‘So now,’ Lady Cecily said, in a tone that he now thought of as her ‘countess voice’, ‘I’ve told you about Lady Isabella. What is your plan?’

  He must convince this woman he was doing something. ‘She sounds wilful and capricious.’ And thus, perhaps more dangerous than de Coucy had suspected. ‘Perhaps knowing that will cool his ardour.’

  ‘You shall not disparage her! Would you have me tell the princess vile tales about Lord de Coucy?’

  ‘You would find none. He is admired even by his enemies.’

  ‘The Lady Isabella has no enemies!’ As if there were nothing more to say. ‘She is the daughter of the king.’

  ‘If you will not let me speak ill of her, how am I to dampen his ardour?’

  They had reached the top of the stairs and, ahead, saw Enguerrand enter a room. The princess followed.

  Cecily gripped his sleeve. ‘We must do something.’ She looked towards the open door, then bit her lip. Suddenly, she smiled. ‘I know! While you are here, you will entertain the princess.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That way, she will find it difficult to spend too much time with Lord de Coucy.’

  Already, the plan had gone awry. ‘The princess may be content to while away her hours with one of the mightiest lords in France. She will not feel the same way about a landless chevalier.’

  ‘Ah, but that is the way it is practised in the French courts of love! The landless knight inspired by the high-born lady. That is what Isabella told me.’

  Landless knight. Did she know how true that was? ‘And you? Will you then distract Lord de Coucy?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Her voice dripped with disdain. ‘I am to be betrothed soon. I cannot be seen too much in the company of a French hostage.’

  The Lady Isabella emerged from the room, looked over her shoulder with a smile and waved to de Coucy unseen, still inside.

  Marc raised his eyebrows and looked back at Lady Cecily. ‘You blame de Coucy for this folly,’ he whispered, as the princess approached. From what he knew of women, this one seemed as eager as his friend. Or more. ‘I think Lady Isabella shares the fault.’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’ She gestured towards the room and then raised her voice so that the princess would hear. ‘You will share quarters with Lord de Coucy.’

  Then, putting on her countess posture, she joined the princess, who smiled in his general direction, though he could not be sure she actually saw him. The Lady Isabella, he was certain, had already chosen her courtly lover for the season.

  Now, he faced three weeks of Yuletide celebrations pretending to interfere with Enguerrand’s plans in order to support them. He sighed.

  This Noël would be anything but joyeux.

  Chapter Five

  With the hostages settled, Cecily left the tower to give her deference to Queen Philippa.

  Isabella had said renovations were complete, but as Cecily entered the new wing in the upper ward, glassmakers, painters and carpenters still littered the corridors.

  ‘I thought the work was done,’ she said, rising from her curtsy. Yet it obviously continued. The sculptor would still be needed and she could not possibly ask for him to be released.

  Despite her promise to Gilbert, she felt a sense of relief.

  The queen dismissed the workmen still painting the walls of her receiving chamber. ‘Their work on the outer walls and the Hall is complete. My quarters are near finished, as are the king’s, but your guest quarters are still wanting, I’m afraid. Edward plans two more wings...’ She waved her hand in the direction of the outer walls. ‘But until those are built our guests are still crowded, I’m afraid.’

  Cecily swallowed a grimace. They would not be so crowded if rooms had not been sacrificed to de Coucy and de Marcel.

  ‘But come,’ the queen said. ‘Let me show you my chambers.’

  She led Cecily through rooms for praying, for sleeping and for dressing, pointing out the details, including the glass windows, each embedded with the royal coat of arms, which quartered the lilies of France with the leopards of England.

  As if de Marcel and his kind had invaded the most private heart of England. As if she could escape him nowhere.

  ‘And this,’ the queen said, when they reached the final chamber, ‘is for dancing.’

  Cecily looked around in wonder. ‘Mother would have loved this. She loved to dance...’ She bit her lip.

  A countess does not cry. Not even when her husband is killed.

  The queen paused. ‘This is your first Christmas without her.’

  The queen’s compassion made Cecily feel like a child again. How many Christmases had she spent with the royal family and her own? And now, only her royal family remained.

  ‘I also miss my son Edward this year,’ the queen said.

  ‘Yet you will see him again, some day.’ The queen’s son was absent, but still on this earth. The prince and his bride, Joan, the Countess of Kent, had left for Aquitaine in July, one corner of France, at least, where an Englishman still ruled. She wondered how far that was from Marc’s home.

  ‘But not the others. I will not see the others.’

  ‘Forgive me, Your Grace.’ How could she complain of her own loss when the queen had lost six of the twelve children she had borne? Yet the king’s wife, plump and motherly, was full of sympathy that made it easy to forget her station. ‘I should not have spoken so.’

  The queen reached for her hand and squeezed. Forgiveness. ‘Your parents did not expect you to mourn for the rest of your life.’

  Cecily’s parents, she knew, would have been appalled to see her languishing as if diseased. Neither had any patience with ill moods, tantrums or tears. Yet despite her struggle against her grief, the last three years seemed to have disappeared in a fog of loss. ‘I know, Your Grace.’

  They expected me to put emotions aside. And she had failed, utterly.

  ‘You remind me of your mother.’

  Cecily mumbled her thanks, forcing her lips to curve upwards, knowing it was far from true. ‘I am proud that you think so.’

  ‘The last few years have been difficult, my dear,’ Queen Philippa said, ‘but life must go on. We must see you settled.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I fear in the past we have been too lenient. There are risks, dangers, for a woman alone.’

  Cecily blinked. The scandal surrounding the prince’s marriage must have made the queen more sensitive to behaviours at the court. ‘I assure you, Your Grace, you have nothing to fear.’

  ‘Yes, I know that you would do nothing that would disappoint your parents.’

  Cecily stiffened. ‘Out of doubt!’ Surely the queen did not fear for her chastity.
‘No more than Isabella would disappoint you and the king.’

  Queen Philippa’s smile was fleeting. ‘The king has been preoccupied with state matters, but he is now considering the question of your husband.’

  ‘I am ready, Your Grace, to wed the man of the king’s choosing.’ She donned a determined, hopeful face. And yet, her hopes were that the man would be one who, when he died from war, or illness, or accident, she could release without mourning.

  She could face no more losses.

  Queen Philippa studied her, silent. ‘What do you think,’ she said, finally, ‘of Lord de Coucy?’

  Cecily considered the question with horror. Surely the king would not consider de Coucy, or any Frenchman, as her husband and custodian of the most important stronghold in the kingdom. Yet she must choose her words carefully, uncertain why the queen asked. ‘He seems skilled and chivalrous at the joust.’

  Even if his friend did not.

  The queen sighed. ‘Isabella has been urging Edward to restore his English lands.’

  ‘Should a Frenchman be given soil my father died to protect?’ Isabella had said nothing of this to her, perhaps because she knew Cecily would be aghast.

  The queen put a hand on hers. ‘Sometimes, we must hide our feelings, my dear. Sometimes, we must even forgive.’

  Ah, the queen, whose tender heart had spared more than one man who deserved her husband’s wrath. ‘Yes. Of course, Your Grace.’ Cecily renewed her vow to suppress her tears. But she would not forgive. Ever.

  ‘Cecily, I would like you to keep close company with Isabella this season.’

  Ah, now it became clear. The queen’s true concern was not Cecily’s behaviour, but her own daughter’s.

  Had Isabella’s folly become so obvious? If she were advocating for de Coucy to receive English lands, the situation was even worse than Cecily had feared. In that case, her desperate plea to de Marcel was justified.

  ‘I intend to, Your Grace.’ She smiled, as if casting off all care. ‘She is determined that I enjoy all the giddiness of the season before I marry.’

  ‘We have been selfish, I fear, keeping her close.’

  ‘She is glad of it. I know she is, Your Grace.’

  ‘Still, she is alone.’

  There was no answer to that.

  In the silence that followed, the queen seemed to be lost in thought. Perhaps she was thinking of the lost alliances, lost opportunities. If Isabella had married the King of Castile or the Count of Flanders or the King of Bohemia, perhaps King Edward would hold the French throne, as well as French gold.

  But when next the queen spoke, the moment had passed. ‘Come. Let me show you the Rose Tower. The paintings are not yet complete, but it will be exquisite.’

  She did not speak of Isabella again.

  * * *

  Yet later, as she left the queen, Cecily knew she had been right to be concerned. Now, she must not only protect Isabella from the Frenchman and her own foolishness, she must protect the queen from worrying about her daughter.

  And more, she must ensure that de Coucy never was given sway over even an inch of English dirt.

  Had Marc de Marcel been privy to this plan all along? Did he truly share her goal to keep the princess and de Coucy apart? Or was his real objective to undermine her efforts?

  Determined to know, she searched the castle and found him, finally, talking to the keeper of the hunting dogs. A deep breath first, before she entered the kennel. Everything about the hunt seemed a cruel reminder of her mother’s death.

  The boar charged your mother’s horse and she fell to the ground. It was all too fast. There was nothing we could do.

  De Marcel rose when he saw her, and the huntsman bowed and backed away.

  ‘We must talk,’ she said, when they were alone with the hounds. ‘Your friend. De Coucy. He seeks control of English lands.’

  His face turned dark and grim. ‘The lands belonged to his family. They are rightfully his.’

  ‘So you knew.’

  ‘It is no crime.’

  ‘Do you also think to gain by stealth what you could not earn in battle?’

  ‘I fought for my own country and king. I want no part of yours.’

  ‘And yet, you killed my father!’

  But instead of the shame or guilt she had hoped to see on his face, there was only shock.

  At her shout, the dogs started to bark and she flinched. The hounds must have bayed so, just before they found her mother.

  Their keeper rushed in, quieting them with a few stern words. He threw a puzzled glance their way and she motioned de Marcel to follow her outside.

  ‘What did you mean?’ he said, when they stood just beyond the door. The walls sheltered them from the worst of the wind.

  She cleared her throat, trying to swallow her fury and bring her voice back to its proper tone. ‘I said, you fought long enough to kill my father.’ It sounded absurd, to repeat such a thing.

  ‘The earl?’

  She lifted her head, proud still to claim him. ‘His colours were gules and or. With three lozenges on the shield.’

  He frowned, as if trying to remember, then shook his head. ‘I never met him in battle.’

  How could he not understand? ‘He was killed by a Frenchman.’ He must have been, for he died in war.

  ‘From where? I am of the Oise Valley.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘The men of Bourgogne are different from the men of Picardy or Normandy.’

  ‘Not to me. He was killed by one of you.’

  ‘But not by me.’

  What difference did that make? ‘You are French.’

  ‘And so, he claims, is your king. Your king who insisted on taking France from its rightful ruler!’ He shouted now, having caught her fury. ‘If you want to know who killed your father, look to him! To his greed! To his lust for power!’

  ‘I will not listen to such slander. You know nothing of the king.’

  He must have heard himself shout, recognised his anger. He clenched his fists and his jaw and took a breath. But lost none of the intensity. ‘I do not need to know him. It is thus with all men. Kings, peasants. Even those who boast of chivalry. They are brutal and cruel and seek only for themselves.’

  ‘And are you the same?’

  A stricken look on his face, and then the edge of yearning, as if he had glimpsed something he wanted and lost it. ‘Do not ever doubt it, Lady Cecily.’

  She did not.

  All her life, Cecily had been surrounded by expectations of honour and duty. This man violated every code she knew. If he himself had not killed her father, he had, she had no doubt, killed other men just as cruelly. He was no better than a wild beast.

  ‘So you knew that de Coucy wanted the princess to help him gain his lands.’

  ‘Is that a sin equal to the rest you accuse me of?’

  ‘A man willing to violate the code in small things cannot be trusted in large ones.’

  ‘So we are quit of our bargain?’

  She wanted to say yes, turn her back and never see or speak to him again.

  Yet the queen had asked for her help and this man, this man she did not like or trust, seemed her only ally.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We are not. I must not allow...’

  He did not argue, or question, but his eyes did not leave hers. Waiting. Demanding. Somehow full of a passion and pain she could not imagine.

  But nothing filled the silence but falling snow.

  She cleared her throat, searching for breath. He had not admitted whether he had known de Coucy’s purpose, but it did not matter, after all, what de Coucy wanted. It was Isabella’s desires that concerned the queen.

  ‘Does the thought of de Coucy and the L
ady Isabella truly aggrieve you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Said without hesitation. Or doubt.

  ‘Then we are bound by that purpose.’ The words, after she said them, sounded uncomfortably like a vow.

  ‘And by only that,’ he answered.

  Behind them, dogs barked and she stilled at the sound. But the dogs did not chase the boar today. They had only been released from their cages for daily exercise. She glanced at the hounds’ keeper, relieved he did not look their way. She had been too long in de Marcel’s company.

  ‘Until tonight, then.’ She nodded, a gesture of dismissal, and walked towards the Round Tower, not looking back.

  * * *

  Marc watched her walk away, reining in his fury. At her, he wanted to think, but it was not. It was his own behaviour that rankled.

  Are you the same?

  He was. Which was why he knew.

  One of the hounds jumped on him with snow-covered paws, holding a stick in his mouth. He smiled, then hurled the stick across the ward, waved to the dog-keeper, and headed indoors.

  No, he had not killed this woman’s father, but he had killed other men. What else was a warrior in battle to do? Yet those men no doubt had wives and mothers and daughters who mourned them.

  Had he thought of that at the time? If so, he had buried it. But now, looking into her face was like looking into the face of all he had done and wondering.

  Once, he had harboured illusions, too. Perhaps he still did.

  Did he have regrets? No. No chevalier could regret what duty required.

  A man willing to violate the code in small things cannot be trusted in large ones.

  How little the Lady Cecily knew of men at war. The rules they touted were a story told to cloak the truth, honoured on the surface, betrayed without consequence. And when faced with enemies who were not of the noble class, honoured not at all.

  But she would know nothing of that. Wrapped in velvet and music and tales told by kings, Lady Cecily would have heard only the stories fit to be told in the hearing of the ladies of the court. So she would know the code forbade violation of a noblewoman’s virtue, unaware that such protections did not extend to a serf’s wife.