The King's Damsel (5 page)

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “She is thirteen, is she not? Some girls are wed and mothers by that age.”

“Not Thomasine, Sir Lionel. It is well known that too-early breeding produces sickly children and unhealthy mothers.”

His gaze shifted to me, giving me a long, assessing look. “Perhaps you are right. As it happens, I am not taking her to be wed, but I
am
taking her. The decision has been made.”

With a visible effort, Blanche rallied. “Then I will accompany my stepdaughter, wherever she may be going.”

“No, Lady Lodge, you will not.”

“I do not understand why it is necessary to take Tamsin away.” There was a quiver in her voice. “A girl’s place is with her family.”

Sir Lionel continued to stand while we sat, his back stiff and his mien arrogant. His lips curled into a sneer. “I beg to differ, Lady Lodge, and the girl is my responsibility now.” Once again, his tone brooked no argument.

Blanche’s eyes filled with tears. “You cannot mean it,” she whispered.

“Oh, but I do.”

The distaste in his expression made it clear he did not care for weeping women and would not be swayed by any such display of emotion. But then, to my surprise, he suddenly dropped to one knee between the benches. Showing me his back, he touched his gloved fingers to the underside of Blanche’s chin. He lifted her tear-stained face until she was obliged to meet his eyes.

“Dear lady, you have no cause for sorrow. I only wish to help Mistress Thomasine advance in the world. Surely you know that most girls of her years have already entered some gentle or noble household, there to learn the social graces and meet others of like station.”

Say rather to fetch and carry for higher-ranking ladies, I thought.
I had no desire to become someone’s unpaid servant, even if it was under the title “waiting gentlewoman” or “lady-in-waiting.”

Blanche drew in a deep breath. She held his gaze. “Given Tamsin’s wealth, perhaps she should stay at home with me and invite other young women to enter
her
household.”

My heart swelled with pride. My stepmother might have been reduced to tears by Sir Lionel’s reluctance to compromise, but she was neither weak nor witless. For a moment, I thought this last game attempt to change his mind might even succeed.

He rose slowly. His voice almost sounded regretful. “Forgive me, Lady Lodge, but your stepdaughter has not the age and you have not the consequence to make such an arrangement feasible.”

This blatantly offensive remark stunned me. I wanted to protest that it was not my stepmother’s fault that she had not been born a gentlewoman. She was a knight’s lady by marriage. Surely that was all that should matter.

Before I could speak, Blanche bowed her head, silently acknowledging the truth of Sir Lionel’s words. Satisfied, my guardian returned his attention to me. This time his study of my appearance was so intent that I wanted to run away and hide. I remained on my bench, motionless, glaring at him in defiance. I went weak with relief when his gaze once more shifted to my stepmother.

“They did not lie when they told me Mistress Thomasine was beautiful,” he said, “but I had not realized her stepmother would rival her in looks.”

To my astonishment and dismay, Blanche colored prettily at his compliment.

I could not understand why she should feel flattered. The praise had come hard on the heels of an insult. Besides, it could hardly be a surprise to her that men found her attractive. My father had been accustomed to tease her about her power over such poor, smitten
creatures, knowing full well that she had no interest in anyone but him.

I considered Sir Lionel’s praise of
my
appearance to be arrant nonsense. My looking glass assured me, morning and night, that I had only middling beauty, especially when I compared myself to my stepmother, with her thick golden hair and her violet-blue eyes. I had my father’s coloring—very ordinary light brown tresses and eyes of a plain pale blue, and if my current height was anything to go by, it seemed likely I would end up being as tall and gaunt as my two great-aunts who were nuns.

Clearly Sir Lionel preferred looking at my stepmother. After a moment, he even presumed to settle himself beside her on her bench. Blanche did not object. I was the one who squirmed uncomfortably, watching them, although I could not say why seeing them sit so close together both disturbed and alarmed me. Sir Lionel took no further liberties and all their conversation seemed to center on me.

Although I could not catch every word they exchanged in low voices, I could tell that Blanche had not yet given up hope of persuading Sir Lionel to change his mind. She seemed to be trying to charm him into seeing things her way.

“Is Mistress Thomasine trained in the domestic arts?” Sir Lionel asked.

“Every gentlewoman learns those skills—to manage the still house, the bake house, and the brew house,” Blanche replied. “Tamsin is most adept in all that a wife needs to know to run a household.”

She exaggerated. I was adequate.

“And is she proficient in music and dance?”

“She has been taught the social graces, as any gentlewoman should be.”

I waited for Blanche to mention that I could read, but she did not. It was a somewhat rare ability for a gentlewoman and not all gentlemen were schooled in it, either. I could not write, of course. That required separate instruction and was a skill even more rare among young gentlewomen than reading. Few of my acquaintance, male or female, were able to do more than sign their own names. What need had they of an ability to write when clerks and secretaries were plentiful?

An occasional nod of Sir Lionel’s sleek black head seemed to indicate that he was satisfied with the answers Blanche gave him. When he cast a speculative look my way, I thought he was about to ask me to demonstrate my talent by singing or strumming my lute, but the moment passed. I was relieved that he accepted my stepmother’s word for it that I had sufficient talent not to embarrass myself when I performed in public. My music master had deemed my skills acceptable but said they lacked heart.

As the interrogation continued, it became ever clear to me that Sir Lionel was not about to change his mind. I would be leaving Glastonbury with him. But where would we go? It was all I could do to remain seated on my separate bench. My embroidery abandoned, I twisted my hands together in my lap. When I could wait not another moment to learn my fate, I blurted out a question.

“Where is it that you propose to take me?”

Sir Lionel found my outburst amusing. My stepmother blanched. She glanced from my guardian to me and back again, all the while worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

Now that I had Sir Lionel’s full attention, he stood and closed the distance between us, ending up uncomfortably close to me, near enough that I could smell the cloves he’d chewed to sweeten his breath. As he had with my stepmother, he lifted my chin on his gloved fingertips and stared into my face. I glared back at him,
defiant. His eyes narrowed and he closed his fingers in a pinch. It hurt, but I did not cry out. I would not give him the satisfaction.

His lips twisted into a parody of a smile and he gave a curt nod. “You’ll do.”

“I beg your pardon, Sir Lionel,” Blanche said in an anxious voice. “She’ll do for what purpose?”

He drew back a little and once again bowed, first to me and then to my stepmother. “My apologies, Lady Lodge, and to Mistress Thomasine, for keeping you in suspense. I had to be certain, you see, that she would suit.”

“And have I passed inspection?” I did not trouble to hide my irritation. I felt he’d been playing games with us, teasing us the way a cat toys with a mouse before it pounces on it for the kill.

“You have. On the morrow, I will escort you to Thornbury Castle.”

Blanche frowned. “Thornbury? Why there? No one has lived in the castle for four years or more. Not since the Duke of Buckingham, who built it, was beheaded for treason.” She crossed herself.

Intrigued, I leaned a little forward on my bench. Thornbury was said to be haunted. Everyone knew that the late duke had consulted seers and asked them to predict the death of King Henry. Had the castle been granted to Sir Lionel by the king? I could think of no other reason why he would take me there.

“All that Buckingham owned became the property of the Crown when he was attainted,” Sir Lionel said, “and now Thornbury is to house the court of the Princess of Wales.”

This news took a moment to sink in.

“Do you mean King Henry’s little daughter?” Blanche asked.

Sir Lionel beamed at her, as if she had just said something clever. “Indeed I do, Lady Lodge. Princess Mary now has her own household and her court will take up residence first at Thornbury, then at
other locations in the Marches of Wales. As for your stepdaughter, Mistress Thomasine has been appointed, through my influence, as one of the princess’s maids of honor.”

Blanche’s relief was so obvious that I stared at her in puzzlement, wondering what she had thought Sir Lionel intended. I had no time to contemplate that small mystery. Sir Lionel began to lay out his plans for the journey, waxing eloquent about the great advantages I was to have as one of Princess Mary’s attendants. I would be issued clothing made of luxurious fabrics, be waited on by my own tiring maid, and, should I desire it, keep a lapdog as a pet. My duties would be negligible. The primary purpose of a maid of honor, according to Sir Lionel, was to look decorative.

“The princess is a child of nine, Mistress Thomasine,” he told me. “When she is not at her lessons, she will have need of companionship. Those who win her trust and affection will then be in a position to influence her when she visits her father’s court.”

“It is a great honor to serve royalty,” Blanche said hastily, trying to fill the gap left by my silence.

“I do not want to leave you,” I whispered. During the three years Blanche had been married to my father, she had become my friend as well as my stepmother. In a rush, I crossed from my bench to hers. Her arms came around me and held me tight.

To serve royalty
was
a great honor. I knew that. And yet I would still be going to live among strangers. And I would be at the beck and call of a mistress. That Princess Mary was younger than I was made that prospect even less appealing.

Sir Lionel snapped out a command. “Enough of this nonsense, Mistress Thomasine. You will do as you are told.”

“Perhaps, Sir Lionel,” Blanche said in her mildest voice, “you might leave us alone so we can make preparations for the journey. And we must decide which maidservant Tamsin will take with her.”

“Edyth,” I mumbled into the fabric of her gown. “I want Edyth.” Of all our servants, I had known Edyth Mells the longest. Her mother had once been tiring maid to mine. If Edyth came with me, I would not feel so alone.

Sir Lionel, having succeeded in winning our cooperation, left us to our packing. He had taken a room at the George, the commodious inn that had been purpose-built to house those making pilgrimages to Glastonbury Abbey. It also catered to those on secular errands.

A
t dawn, wrapped in a heavy cloak against the morning chill, I stepped out into the courtyard. Edyth was right behind me, so close that I felt her shiver of fear at the sight of all the mounted men waiting for us. A luggage cart containing my possessions had already been hitched to a nag.

“Where is my palfrey?” I asked Sir Lionel.

I had resigned myself to the fact that I must be decorous on this journey to Thornbury and a palfrey’s gait never approaches a trot or a gallop. They amble. I’d expected to find Amfilicia waiting. The dapple gray mare had been a gift from my father to Blanche, purchased before she convinced him that she preferred to travel in a litter.

“You will ride on a pillion behind one of my men,” Sir Lionel said. “You have no need of your own horse.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Blanche caught my arm and pulled me into a final farewell embrace. “You need not obey him forever,” she reminded me in a whisper. “Bide your time until you are free of his control.”

Now that the moment of parting had come, I felt tears well up in my eyes. I let them fall, as did my stepmother, and we clung to each other, weeping, until Sir Lionel lost patience and ordered that I be lifted onto the pillion at once. Edyth was already mounted behind another of Sir Lionel’s men. She clung tightly to his waist, fearful of falling, and looking even more unhappy than I was.

I scrubbed at my eyes, dashing away the moisture, and twisted my head as far around as it would go as we rode away. I watched my stepmother, a brave smile in place and waving, until we passed through the gate.

I’d ridden on a pillion before, but not since I was a child. In the country, my favorite mount was Bella, a swift horse of a golden dun color. Father had put me on her back, astride, as soon as he deemed me old enough not to fall off. With my skirts kilted up, I’d enjoyed as much freedom as a boy throughout my girlhood. It had only been during the last year of his life that my father had insisted I learn to ride like a lady.

I did not much care for the sidesaddle, but I preferred it to a pillion. I owned a particularly nice one, high in the back for support and with a hollow to support one knee. The pillion, by contrast, was naught but a hard wooden frame padded with a leather cushion scarcely softer than the wood. It was strapped to the back of the horse behind the saddle. My feet rested on a footboard hung from the offside instead of in the velvet sling that was part of my sidesaddle.

My grief at being separated from hearth, home, and family was thus made worse by acute physical discomfort. Riding on a pillion meant that I had to turn my upper body at an awkward angle in order to grasp the waist of the man in front of me. I had no choice but to do so. If I did not hold on, I would tumble off. I had to cling
ever more tightly to him as we descended the little hill just outside of Glastonbury.

He was a burly fellow wearing a leather jerkin. He turned his head to look at me when we started across the quarter mile of low-lying ground beyond. He seemed curious and not unkind and I forced myself to smile at him. I consoled myself with the fact that he did not stink of anything worse than leather, sweat, and horse.