B0010SEN6I EBOK

by Worth, Sandra

  “Isabelle,” Sœur Madeleine announced sternly.

  I knew what that tone meant. I turned slowly, my heart sinking in my breast.

  “We are not attending the banquet. You have no need to change.”

  “May I ask why, Sœur Madeleine?” I inquired in a small voice.

  “Did you not hear his niece’s name? She is a Neville.”

  “Not all branches of the Neville family support the Duke of York. Many are Lancastrian.”

  “Peut-être, but I take no chances with you, Isabelle. We will ’ave supper in our room and go to bed early so we can be ready for tomorrow’s voyage. Now ’elp me out of my gown before I die of the cold.”

  Her resolute expression left no room for hope and I knew entreaty was useless. I swallowed my disappointment and slowly closed my coffer. “Aye, Sœur Madeleine.”

  Untying the cloth belt that secured her gown, Sister removed her rosary from around her waist and pressed it to her lips before setting it down on the chest. I unfastened the brooch that secured her veil; took off her white crown band, wimple, coif, and the soft white cotton cloth underneath; folded everything; laid them neatly aside; and helped her out of her pleated white habit, which made up the outer garb of the Benedictine Order. I hung it to dry on a peg in the garderobe. After aiding her into the high bed, I brought her a goblet filled with wine, which she quickly emptied, and some cheese, which she waved away. In her simple cotton shift, with her thin gray hair exposed and the blanket drawn up to her shoulders, she no longer seemed plump and robust, but old and frail. Seized with compassion, I refilled her goblet and mopped her brow with a towel dipped in the perfumed water from the silver basin. I ran my brush of boar bristles gently over her pink scalp and wispy hair. “Is this better, Sœur Madeleine?” I asked.

  She sighed with pleasure. “Oui, mon enfant,” she said softly, and closed her eyes.

  I crossed to the window. Guests had begun arriving, and their laughter drifted up to me in my bower, piercing my heart. I’d been in a nunnery for the past eight months, and I longed for the company of young people, and for laughter, and music, and dance—all that I’d missed since my father’s death.

  “Isabelle, sing for me,” said Sœur Madeleine abruptly.

  I went to the coffer and removed my small wooden lyre. It had served me well at the convent, since it was not loud, and even at night I had been able to drown my loneliness in its sweet notes. I carried it to the window seat and opened the window. The air, cool and damp, brushed my cheek. The violent storm had lifted, and the wind had chased away the clouds and ushered in what promised to be a lovely July sunset. A pale purple hue stained the east now, and in the west the few clouds that remained had turned to peach, casting a glow over the village, where a few lights already twinkled. But in the months since my father’s death, I had found that nature’s beauty, far from soothing the ache of my spirit, summoned an inexplicable sadness from within my depths.

  I missed my mother and my father, and I had no sisters or brothers. I was on my way to court to be married, but while my heart yearned for the kind of love that troubadours sang about and wordsmiths described in their lovely manuscripts—the kind of love my mother and father must have had for one another, since he never wed again after her death—I knew love would likely not be my portion. Marriages were made for lands and wealth, not love, and few young women with lands to offer a husband could hope that fortune would bestow on them a love match. Even royalty married for alliances and trade agreements, and my future lay in the hands of the Lancastrian Queen Marguerite d’Anjou, wed at fifteen to a mad king. What pity would she have for me? Her interest lay only in my wardship and marriage, because the wardship paid her a fair annual income, and my marriage would fetch a goodly profit for her purse.

  I didn’t know why the world was made so bitterly, but in this it played favorites, and I—foolishly, I suppose—dared to hope I’d be one of the rare and fortunate few who would find Fortune’s favor. In the meanwhile I longed for small joys, like the banquet that I might have attended tonight, where I could laugh and be with young men my own age, and feel the lightness of life.

  I bowed my head with an acute sense of loss and plucked the chords of the latest lament to sweep the land. Raising my voice in song, I poured my heart into the words, and the haunting melody so encompassed me that I heard my own tears in the music….

  Will I never feel the sun before clouds gather?

  Will my heart never dance before it dies?

  Will I never know your love, beloved?

  You are lost to me, lost to me….

  I lifted my gaze to Heaven. The sky was awash with color. As I sang, the clouds turned to gold and deepened into rose. A lone bird soared high above, free to roam where it willed. I followed it with my eyes and my words until it faded from my sight. The sky changed again, and now, like fire, the rose glow caught the earth, bathing all the world in tender beauty. I don’t know what came over me, but of a sudden I was swept with an indescribable yearning I could neither define nor understand. Yet I knew instinctively that the only potion that could banish the emptiness, that could break the loneliness, was that elusive thing the wordsmiths called love. I brought the song to a close, bent my head, and closed my eyes. Silent words fell from my heart, and, bartering with the Fates, I sought a gift and made a promise.

  “Isabelle.”

  I blinked. It took me a moment to reorient myself. “Aye, Sœur Madeleine?”

  “We can go to the banquet, if you wish it.”

  Disbelief left me speechless, incredulous. My mind spun with bewilderment, and when at last her words registered, I laughed in sheer joy. I laughed at the sky, at the clouds, at the servants taking the horses from the guests arriving in the courtyard below. I threw my arms up and laughed, and I twirled from the window seat, laughing. I clasped my hands together to my lips in prayer, and I murmured thank you to Heaven, half laughing, half crying, and twirled again. Then I looked at Sœur Madeleine. A tender smile hovered on her face as she watched me.

  I rushed to her side, and, taking her hand to my lips, I kissed the wrinkled skin. “Thank you, dear Sœur Madeleine.”

  She blushed. “C’est rien,” she murmured. “’Tis nothing. But if we are to go, I daresay we had better hurry, ma petite.”

  I ran to my coffer and rummaged for my new gown: a rich lavender silk and silver-tissue sarcenet, embroidered with tiny silver leaves, which I had never had occasion to wear before. The high-waisted gown, with its low neckline trimmed with miniver, fell in voluminous folds into a train at the back, and it shimmered like moonlight as I took it out of the coffer.

  “You must be very careful, Isabelle,” Sœur Madeleine said as she helped me into the magnificent dress and arranged my long hair loosely around me.

  “Why?” I replied, half-drunk in my joy.

  “You are too beautiful, with your swan neck and so big eyes, and I fear there are Yorkists at the banquet. Rapists and murderers, all of them.”

  “Not all, surely?” I said, teasing in my delirium. I wondered if Sœur Madeleine had drunk too much wine. She had never complimented me before, and why should she, when my eyes were not blue, but brown, and my hair not gold, but dark as chestnuts? If only I had a mirror! But mirrors were forbidden at the priory, for, as the nuns kept reminding us, the only eyes that mattered were the eyes of God. “I saw some Yorkists once,” I said gaily, “and they didn’t look like rapists or murderers.”

  Sœur Madeleine gave a shocked cry, and for a moment I feared I had made a disastrous mistake that would cost me the banquet. But she said only, “Mon dieu, what is the world coming to?”

  “I found them attractive, as a matter of fact,” I giggled. I was drunk, surely, or I would never have dared to make such an admission.

  She gaped at me. “I should report you to the queen!”

  I bent down and kissed her forehead with a smile. Bending came naturally to me, for though I was a head shorter than most men, I was taller than most women
. “But you won’t, will you?” I laughed, not comprehending what made me so bold.

  “Mon enfant, you are impossible. I don’t know why I let you ’ave your way with me, but to tell you true, I love you like my own. Maybe because your dark hair and eyes, they remind me of—” She broke off, seemed to catch herself, and added, “Of Anjou.” She fell silent, in reverie.

  I, too, returned to reverie. But the scene that came to me made me giggle aloud.

  “What do you find so amusing?”

  “Nothing,” I lied, wiping the grin from my face with effort. I had never confided my secret memory to anyone, and certainly I had no intention of sharing it with Sœur Madeleine, no matter how drunk on joy I might be. In the previous spring, I had gone north to Yorkshire to visit friends, and we had been returning to Wensleydale after a day’s outing picnicking in a meadow filled with wildflowers. Singing and laughing, we rolled along in our cart, the sun shining brightly on the pear orchards shedding their blossoms over us. At a turn of the River Ure some distance yet from the manor, the woods parted, and two young men suddenly emerged from the river. Caught by surprise, they stood naked as babes for a moment before they quickly covered themselves as we passed—but one covered his face instead of his manly parts. My friends and I burst into sidesplitting laughter and strained to see more as our two bodyguards cursed and the driver whipped the horses and barreled past. That sight, our first ever of a naked man, kept us in merriment for weeks.

  But in these months I hadn’t forgotten the one who had covered his face, and sometimes I even saw him in my dreams, though only fleetingly, as I had in life.

  “Listen to me, mon enfant,” Sœur Madeleine said, taking me by my shoulders. She seemed suddenly grave, and I grew fearful. “You are young, romantic, but you must be realist. Love has little place in life. A young girl who is Lancastrian must wed with a Lancastrian. If she has no wealth, she must wed for wealth, old, ugly, and toothless though he be; and if she has some land like you, she must wed for more. To love is to open oneself to pain, and in this world filled with troubles, there is trouble enough without love to worsen matters. ’Tis best to see all Yorkists as rapists and murderers. Do you understand, Isabelle? Do you?”

  It suddenly occurred to me that old people were filled with empty warnings about life, and I felt a rush of relief. I could dismiss her words like a faint rumble of thunder that had moved far away and no longer touched us. “Aye, Sœur Madeleine, I understand,” I said to please her, my mood as bright as ever.

  Two

  THE DANCE, 1456

  AT THE FIRST CALL OF THE SUPPER HORN, I CROSSED the castle courtyard with Sœur Madeleine beneath a violet sky set with a solitary star, and wound my way up the stairwell to the great hall, trailed by my fellow guests. The hum of conversation grew louder the higher we went, until a raucous din told us we had reached the passageway to the chamber. Crowds thronged the entry, some engaging in conversation, others of low rank waiting to be seated. Heads turned as I passed, and I couldn’t help but take pleasure in my gorgeous gown and the bows and admiring glances that followed me.

  Though privy to the banquet preparations earlier, I was taken aback by the splendor of the hall. A heavy scent of roses wafted up from the scattered petals on the floor, and the room danced with light from the many flaring torches and the candles flickering on the tables and in the deep recesses of the windows. Behind the dais where Lord Cromwell would sit, a fire blazed in the enormous stone hearth bearing his coat of arms. Silver, pewter, and the panes of glass in the windows reflected the flames so that even the banners and tapestries decorating the paneled room twinkled with jeweled lights.

  Across the hall, a few knights and ladies were already at the tables below the windows, and the chamberlain led us to them. We passed Master Giles and Guy, seated with other heralds, squires, clerks, scriveners, and their wives at a lower table below the salt, reserved for commoners, bare of fruit and silver, and set with wooden bowls and cups instead of pewter and horn. They gave us a bow as we passed, and the admiration in their eyes lightened my step. Arriving at our table, I noted with delight that we had been seated next to the dais. With a crosscurrent of greeting, and a nod from Sœur Madeleine, I slipped in first, next to a burly knight with a florid complexion who stood to give a courtly bow. Sœur Madeleine took the end of the bench, and her lips remained pursed as she inclined her head to the knight in greeting, so I gave him a little smile, which I was soon to regret.

  Other knights and ladies, clergy, and those of rank came to join us at our table, and with each placement, the ruddy knight edged closer to me, forcing me to slide toward Sister until all space was exhausted and any further movement in that direction would have either pushed Sister off the end of the bench or alerted her to the knight’s antics and guaranteed a scene. Faced with this choice, I suffered in silence and tried to ignore his thigh and shoulders pressing into mine, and his bold glances that raked my bodice.

  A sudden flourish of trumpets stilled the buzz of conversation. Like everyone else, I hastened to rise, adding to the rustle of silk that rippled through the hall.

  Gazing around at his guests with a broad smile of welcome on his rosy face, and followed by an entourage of lords and ladies, Lord Cromwell entered, a pleasant-looking, fair-haired young lady on his arm whom I took to be his niece, Lady Maude. Though I had been to banquets now and again with my father, I had become accustomed to the stark regimen and drabness of the nunnery, and I couldn’t help but stare spellbound at the colorful group entering the hall, their gorgeous velvets and gold cloths aglitter with gems. Then I noticed the hound at the rear of the procession. It pranced with an air of hauteur and bore such a lordly expression that I almost laughed aloud. I glanced at its owner, and a wave of recognition flowed through me. But how did I know this knight? And if I had once seen him, how could I have forgotten such a face?

  Save for the hound at his heels, he walked alone at the end of the group, lean, broad-shouldered, and taller than the others, his tawny head brilliant in the candlelight, his eyes scanning the crowd as if he searched for someone. Somehow I knew it was a maiden, and a strange pain twisted my heart. For one so tall, he bore himself with grace, and there was about him an unmistakable air of knightly nobility, from the fine straight nose and square jaw down to the high boots he wore in lieu of the courtier’s pointed-toe shoes. Despite his fashionable attire of green velvet embroidered with rich gold thread, his sun-bronzed complexion and muscular thighs spoke of a man who spent more time riding in the sun than drinking at feasts. A voice spoke in my head: Ah, yes, it said. Whoever she is that he searches for, surely she is the most fortunate of women. At that moment he turned his head and caught my stare. The hint of a smile touched his generous mouth, and his cheeks creased, flashing dimples. My breath caught in my throat. I knew his smile was not intended for me, yet I blushed furiously and hastily dropped my lids.

  Lord Cromwell took his place at the center of the dais and gave a speech of welcome. As he spoke, I thought I felt the green knight’s gaze on me, but I made a resolute effort not to let my glance stray to the dais, where he sat. Instead I occupied myself by counting the beauties present in the hall…at least four, and their heads shone like spun gold at the tables. I stole a glance down at my own hair. Though it was thick, shiny, and long almost to my waist, it fell straight as a Roman road behind me and in the candlelight seemed as dark as raven’s feathers. A sense of my own inadequacy swept me. If I had been given to envy, it would have engulfed me now, but as I sat admiring the fair ones, there was only acceptance tinged with regret that I couldn’t count myself a beauty like them, for beauty would have drawn his eye to me. No, the young knight couldn’t have noticed me; it was just me, wishing it were so. Wishing…

  My father’s oft-repeated words echoed in my mind: Be content, and remember, there are always those who have more than you, and always those who have less. I decided to count my blessings: I had asked to come to the feast, and here I was, and I would enjoy myself to t
he hilt.

  After grace, servants poured rose water into the small basins set out for hand washing. I dipped my fingers into mine and held them out to a passing servant to be dried with a linen cloth. When everyone had washed, the basins were removed, and the pantler distributed bread, butter, and pig fat while the butler and his boy helpers poured jugs of wine and beer. Sister quickly downed her cup and accepted a refill.

  “Bah!” said the knight at my elbow, startling me. Setting down his wine cup, he spat on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Wine’s sour and smacks of pitch! Can our lord not afford better?”

  “Where have you had better?” came the reply from someone down the table. “Tell us, and we’ll go there!” A chorus of laughter met this remark.

  “You are quite mistaken, monsieur—this wine is excellent. Very fine indeed,” announced Sœur Madeleine, tipping her cup for a longer draught. “As it comes from Bordeaux, there can be no question about that.”

  I took a sip. The wine did taste of pitch, but at the priory it had been worse: so greasy, flat, and muddy with sediment that I always closed my eyes and filtered it with my clenched teeth when I drank. Sister was truthful: Compared to that wine, this was very fine.

  The knight acknowledged Sister’s remark with a “humph” that left no doubt where he stood on the matter, and turned his attention to the fresh herring pie that had just been placed on his trencher, seasoned with ginger, pepper, and cinnamon. I caught his garlic breath as he reached across me to dip into the salt, and lost my appetite.

  “What, you don’t eat?” he asked with his mouth full, tearing a piece of bread for himself and spreading it with a thick layer of the pig fat. “A young lady like you should not lack appetite for life!” He gave me a wink and dug his thigh into mine again. I felt myself redden to the roots of my hair.

  “Oui, mon enfant, eat,” Sister chimed in. “You are too slender as it is. Mange, ma petite.” Then she tapped me on the knee and said, “You are causing some interest across the hall. Do not encourage them, Isabelle.”