Kitabı oku: «The Harlot's Daughter», sayfa 4

The King leaned forward, pinning Solay with eyes that held an uneasy mixture of apprehension and curiosity. ‘What new knowledge does that give you?’

She looked down at her chart, trying to think. Too much knowledge would be dangerous. ‘There are differences in the two ascendants. Yours is now Gemini and your moon is in Aries.’

‘But what does that mean?’

Flattery first. Then the request.

‘Your people revere you, Your Majesty. You are a singular man among men, whose wisdom surpasses ordinary understanding.’ She swallowed and continued. ‘And you are exceedingly generous to faithful friends and those of your blood.’

‘Such as you?’ His smile was hard to decipher.

She should have known that a King had heard all the ways to say ‘please’. ‘And so many others.’

His mouth twisted in derision, but fear still haunted his eyes. ‘What does it tell you,’ he whispered, ‘of my death?’

She took a deep breath. If she predicted long life incorrectly, they would only think her a poor astrologer. If she predicted death correctly, she could be accused of causing it.

‘I see a long and happy reign for Your Majesty.’ Actually, some darkness hovered over his eighth house, but this was no time to mention it. ‘All your subjects will bless your name when you leave us for Heaven.’

He leaned forward, his teeth tugging at his lips. ‘And when will that be, Lady Solay?’

She swallowed. ‘Oh, I am but a student and cannot determine such a thing.’

‘You were skilful enough to deduce the correct time of my birth. I’m surprised you could not be so precise with my life’s end.’

She lowered her eyes, hoping she showed proper deference. She had stumbled into a dangerous position. It would take all her talent to balance the King’s belief in her with his fear. ‘Forgive me for my ignorance, Your Majesty.’

He leaned back in his chair, peering at her over steepled fingers. ‘And are some of these things also true of you, since we share a birth day?’

Trapped by her lie, she decided the truth might serve her well. ‘It is interesting that you ask, Your Majesty. Since I have come to court, I found that I, too, was misinformed about the time of my birth. I was not born on the same day as Your Majesty.’

He smiled, pleased, and did not ask when she was born.

Hibernia pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. ‘You can hardly take this seriously, Your Majesty.’

He would be wise to say so. The old astrologer was right. Hibernia was bad for the King. She simply chose not to say so.

‘Of course I don’t,’ the King said, chuckling, as if relieved to be given an excuse. He rose and nodded at Solay. ‘You shall have a new, fur-trimmed cloak for your work.’

‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’ She sank to her knees in what she hoped was an appropriate level of deference for an extravagant gift.

‘And Lady Solay. You shall not read the stars again.’ The faintest sheen of sweat broke the skin between his nose and his lips. ‘For me, or for anyone.’

She nodded, murmuring assent. Her work as a faux astrologer had accomplished its purpose. Her uncanny prediction had raised the least bit of fear in the King. Useful, if managed carefully.

Deadly, if not.

She must make it useful in finding a husband.

The King had turned back to Hibernia, whispering, leaving her again on her knees.

‘Safe journey home,’ the Queen said as she left the room.

This could not be the end. ‘I had hoped—’ she began.

The two of them turned to see her kneeling, as if surprised she was still there.

‘I had hoped,’ she continued, ‘that Your Majesty might take an interest in my family.’

The King exchanged a glance with Hibernia. ‘Ah, yes. “Generous to those of your blood,” you said. What kind of interest?’

You’ll get no money, Lamont had said. Better to ask for a husband.

She cleared her throat. ‘In my marriage, Your Majesty.’

Hibernia smirked. ‘Marriage? To whom?’

She let a cat’s smile curve her lips. Would it be too bold to suggest the Earl? ‘Any man would be honoured to be recognised by his Majesty.’

The King eyed her warily, indecision in his frown.

The Duke leaned towards the King, chuckling. ‘She seemed to enjoy kissing Lamont. Marry the two of them.’

She felt as if a bird were trapped in her throat, desperately beating its wings. ‘Oh, no, Your Majesty, that was just under the Lord of Misrule. Meaningless as the Duke’s kiss of Agnes.’ A kiss, she belatedly remembered, that was not meaningless at all.

But the King was not listening. ‘Marriage to Lamont. A very interesting idea.’

Her damnable want warred with her family’s need. She wanted no marriage to an enemy of the King, yet she dare not criticise the Duke’s suggestion. ‘How kind of the Duke of Hibernia to suggest it, but I’m sure Your Majesty was thinking of someone else.’

‘You wanted a husband. If I choose to provide this one, are you ungrateful?’

Still kneeling, she looked down at the floor, hoping her deference would mitigate his anger at her small show of defiance. ‘Of course not, Your Majesty. It would be just the expression of your generous ascendant planet to bring Lord Justin so close to the throne.’

She looked up through her lashes to see him frown at her subtle reminder that he was elevating an enemy.

A light flared in his blue eyes. ‘And for my magnificent generosity, I ask only one thing of you.’

‘Anything, of course, Your Majesty.’

‘You will keep me informed of his actions for the Council.’

Suddenly, his purpose was clear. This marriage was to be for the King’s benefit, not hers. She should never have thought otherwise. ‘Do you not think they will be in constant contact with Your Majesty as well as Lord Justin?’

‘That’s what you are to discover.’

She bowed her head in defeat. ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’

‘Do your part and perhaps I will provide a grant for your family next year.’

Next year, when the Council’s charter expired and she would still be married to a man who hated her. ‘Your Majesty is ever generous.’

King Richard waved to a page standing outside the door. ‘Summon Lord Justin.’

The King’s summons bode ill, Justin thought, as he entered Richard’s chamber with a brief bow to what looked like twin kings.

Solay stood before the King and Hibernia. She touched her lips when he entered and his blood surged as he remembered the taste of them.

The King’s fury of two hours ago had been replaced with his dangerous, calculating look. ‘It seems the Lady Solay would marry.’

Startled, he ignored the twist in his stomach. Was this not exactly what he had suggested? ‘Most women do.’ He should be grateful the King had backed down from a confrontation with the Council over the woman. Belatedly, the amount she needed seemed minor.

‘You seemed to enjoy her kiss.’

No reason to deny the truth. ‘What man would not?’ He felt a flare of envy for the one who would be her husband and have the right.

‘So, then, you will be pleased to have her as your wife.’

Lust surged through him from staff to fingertips, drowning logic. To be able to bed her, to take her, seemed the only yes in the world.

He saw a flash of fear in her eyes, but she blinked and it was wiped away. Lips slightly parted, she looked up through her lashes as if she were at once trying to seduce him and play the innocent.

He was sure, and the thought brought him pain, that she was not.

His mind regained control over his body. The woman had neither honour nor honesty in her. ‘She is not what she seems,’ he said, the words shaken up through a rusty throat. It was long past time for truth. ‘She does not share a birth date with Your Majesty.’

She flinched and he fought the feeling that he had somehow betrayed her.

‘So she told me,’ the King said. ‘She was misinformed about her birth.’ He smiled. ‘As was I. Lady Solay seems to have some talent as a reader of the stars.’

‘Or so she has convinced you. Did she also confess that her flattering verse was borrowed?’

Her eyes widened in surprise. Justin smiled, grimly. Had she expected he would keep her secrets for ever?

The King frowned, shifting on his chair. ‘So you already know what a clever woman she is.’

‘I would prefer an honest wife to a clever one.’ It was not only the King he must dissuade. It was himself.

‘You have difficult requirements, Lamont,’ the King continued. ‘You’ve already turned down two honest heiresses most younger sons would have embraced with fervour.’

He met Solay’s eyes again, full of fresh pain. Just as that first time when she entered the Great Hall, he could not break away from the force that flowed between them.

‘Speak.’ The King’s voice seemed to come across a great distance. ‘Will you have her?’

What would the King do if he said ‘no’? Give her to Redmon? The man likely pushed his last wife down the stairs when she became quarrelsome over his dalliances.

Solay mouthed the word ‘please’. Her pleading, desperate eyes held echoes of another woman, another time. He had not been able to save that one.

For a moment, nothing else mattered.

‘Yes,’ he said, his gaze never leaving Solay.

The word stood between them, a pillar of fire. She released a breath and a smile trembled on her lips.

Having broken the spell, he found a kernel of sense left in his brain. This time he would not sacrifice his happiness for a woman he could not trust. This time he would be sure there was an escape.

He faced the King. ‘But I have a condition.’

The King frowned. ‘Condition?’

‘I must be convinced that she loves me.’

She gasped and he smiled at her. It was an unusual demand, and, in this case, an impossible one. Yet he had seen the disaster of a marriage forced. He would not brook it again.

The King dismissed him with a wave. ‘I never thought you a man who believed the love poems, Lamont. Love can come later as my dear wife and I discovered.’

Having planned his escape, he found he could breathe again. ‘Nevertheless, the Church requires we both consent freely. If I have stated a condition that is not met, the marriage will not be valid.’

He and Richard glared at each other. Even the King could not deny the power of the Church.

Solay glanced at the King. ‘Allow us a word, Your Majesty.’

They stepped out of earshot of the King. As she touched his arm, he struggled to keep his mind in control.

‘I know you care nothing for my life, but have you no care for your own? You are angering the King beyond reason.’

‘I told you not to let him force you. And I won’t be forced either.’

‘There is fire between us, Justin,’ she whispered, but her fingers choked his arm. ‘I am willing and I shall learn to love you.’

He steeled himself against the fear in her voice. ‘If I believe a word of love you say, I’ll be sadly deluded. I have bought you some time to find a man you really want to marry. Perhaps you can convince some other fool of your love.’

He stepped away from her to face the King again, relieved to be removed from her touch. ‘I stand by my word.’

‘Nevertheless,’ the King said, smiling, ‘I shall have the first banns read next Sunday.’

Sunday. The reality of what he had done pressed on his shoulders like a stone.

‘So soon?’ she asked. ‘We cannot wed until Lent is over.’

Hibernia cut in. ‘There’s time enough for you to marry before Lent begins.’

‘We won’t be married at all unless I am convinced of her love,’ Justin said.

The King shrugged. ‘Very well. Lady Solay, you have until the end of Lent to convince him of your love.’ His look turned menacing. ‘And, Lamont, you have until the end of Lent to be convinced.’

Chapter Six

Solay ran after Justin as he left the King’s solar, determined to begin her campaign to convince him she would be a loving and pliable mate.

She touched his arm to stop him before he reached the end of the hallway.

‘I shall ask the King’s permission to visit my mother and inform her of the impending marriage,’ she began. ‘Would you accompany me?’

‘No.’

‘Later, then. I would not interfere with your work—’

‘Solay, stop. This is folly.’

‘You were the one who suggested I marry.’

‘I did not mean to me.’

‘Then why did you agree?’ Surely her whispered ‘please’ could not have convinced him. ‘You care nothing for the King’s approval.’

He met her eyes with that cold honesty she had come to know, yet a hint of caring shadowed his gaze. ‘I did not want him to force you.’

‘I was not forced. I want this marriage.’ If she said the words more loudly, would they sound more convincing?

‘You want a marriage, not a marriage to me.’

I don’t have a choice! The thought screamed in her head. Without this marriage, she would return home empty-handed.

She tried to calm her mind. Fighting him would get her no closer to learning the Council’s secrets.

She leaned against his chest. All those courtiers who had fawned over her mother for the King’s sake, what words did they use? ‘I think the King suggested we marry because he could see how much I already love you.’

He undraped her like an unwanted blanket. ‘For someone with so much practice, you’re a poor liar.’

No one else had ever thought so. ‘Why can you not believe me? You feel the attraction between us.’

His eyes burned into hers. ‘Lust, yes. I would lie if I denied that.’

She could feel his breath on her cheek, feel the tingle starting again deep inside her. He moved nearer and she closed her eyes, lifting her chin. Now. Now he would kiss her.

Suddenly the air was empty of him. She opened her eyes to see him standing out of reach, arms crossed. ‘But lust is not love.’

She forced her eyelashes to flutter. ‘But it can be a start, can it not?’

He shook his head. ‘I am not a senile King looking for someone to warm my bed. I demand more than your body.’

What else did a woman have? ‘The King lusted after many women who shared his bed. My mother shared much more.’

‘Let me tell you why you said “yes”.’ He held a finger to her lips to stop her from interrupting. ‘You agreed to please the King. And I assure you, whatever reasons he had for this marriage are for his benefit, not yours.’

She said a silent prayer that he never discovered the real reason. ‘Perhaps they were for your benefit. Isn’t it high time you took a wife?’

‘I have no interest in a wife. And if I did, I would not want a viper in my bed. Do you think if we are married I will change my mind about the living you want from the Crown?’

Any ordinary man would. She held her tongue.

He did not wait for her to answer. ‘If you think to share my life, then you will be wasting your time long past Lent. I agreed so you could have time to pursue one of those men who has stared at you moon-eyed. By the end of Lent, you could have a willing husband. One you want, or at least one who wants you.’

‘If we are betrothed, I hardly think others will see me as a potential bride.’

‘Marriage itself doesn’t stop most men,’ he muttered.

She shook his stubborn sleeve. The King had given her a husband. She would have no second chance. ‘But I want this marriage!’

‘Then you will be very disappointed come Eastertide. Nothing you say or do will convince me that you are capable of love for anyone, particularly me.’

As he walked away, she realised that instead of merely pleasing the King, she now had to convince a man who hated her that he should be tied to her for the rest of his life.

Given the task, the forty days of Lent seemed no longer than a flicker.

Within days, Solay left Windsor, riding in solitary splendour in a cart driven by one of the King’s men, to inform her family of the impending marriage.

She rubbed her nose in the fur trim of her new cloak, rehearsing the smile she would wear when she told her mother she was to be wed. She knew not how to explain that she had failed to secure the grant her mother was expecting. Alys of Weston had been away from court too long. She would never understand that a Council might gainsay a King.

Despite her worries, peace melted her bones as the two-storey dower house with the six chimneys came into view. Pretending to be a castle, it was surrounded by a small moat. The whitewash had yellowed and the thatch needed patching, but it was all the home she’d had for the last ten years and more dear now than Windsor’s corridors.

Jane ran out to meet her while her mother looked down from her upstairs window, smiling. Her fair-haired sister, clad in tunic and chausses, seemed to have grown in the weeks Solay had been away. Her boy’s garb could no longer disguise her womanhood.

As they gathered in her mother’s chambers, her mother’s blue-veined hands stroked Solay’s heavy cloak with reverence. ‘The King has given you a magnificent gift. You must have pleased him.’

Solay handed her mother a box. ‘And here is his gift for you along with a message of great importance.’ The smile she had practised came easily.

Her mother opened the box and froze, not speaking, her hand still on the lid.

‘What is it?’ Jane asked.

Her mother lifted an amethyst-studded brooch, rubbing her thumb over the cabochon stones. ‘It was yours, once, Solay,’ she said, in a voice that held too much hope. ‘A gift from your father.’

Solay reached for it, but her mother held the piece tightly in her fingers. ‘Jane, please read the King’s letter to us.’

As her sister read the clerk’s prose announcing her betrothal, the lines in her mother’s face deepened. When the simple statement was done, she rose and paced before the fireplace. ‘What land does he bring?’

‘He is a second son.’

‘Even second sons can sometimes—’

Solay shook her head. ‘He is a man of the law,’ she answered, struggling to say the words without a sneer. Or perhaps the flutter in her throat was the memory of his lips on hers. ‘He owns property in London.’

‘How much? Where?’

How could she have been so ill prepared? ‘I don’t know.’

‘What is his income?’

Solay flushed, ashamed she did not know. ‘At least forty pounds a year.’

‘A King’s ransom, to be sure,’ her mother said, archly. ‘So he brings you no land and little money.’

‘I bring little enough.’

Her mother drew herself straighter, trapping Solay with her gaze. ‘The King called you daughter. That is more than enough.’ For her mother, it would always be thus. At Solay’s age, her mother had been a King’s mistress for three years. Her mother sat back, sad understanding dawning in her eyes. ‘Tell me, Solay, what does he want from this marriage?’

He doesn’t want it at all.

Perhaps she should confess. Perhaps she should prepare her mother for the possibility that in this, too, she might fail. But as the two expectant faces gazed at her, she answered with half the truth. ‘He wants someone who will love him.’

‘What does that matter?’ Her mother shrugged.

Jane tilted her head. ‘And do you love him?’

She swallowed. ‘I will convince him that I do before we are wed.’

‘God has blessed you with a face and body that heat men’s blood,’ her mother said. ‘You can convince him of anything.’

She nodded, unable to disappoint her mother with her failure to do exactly that.

‘Now,’ her mother said, ‘what about our grant?’

Now she could not dissemble. ‘The Council has blocked it.’

‘Council? No Council overrules a King!’

So Solay explained about Parliament’s law and Gloucester and the Council’s year to bring the King to heel.

When she had finished, her mother stared at the brooch in her hand. ‘So, this is the King’s recompense for what he cannot give.’ She dropped it back into the box and shut the lid, disappointment creasing her lips.

Her mother had endured so much. Solay had to give her some hope. ‘The King has promised a grant in a year if…’

Her mother settled back into her chair and raised her eyebrows. ‘If what?’

‘Lamont works with the Council. The King wishes to be kept informed.’

Jane gasped. ‘He wants you to spy on your own husband? How can you love him and do that?’

No one answered her.

Solay’s mother nodded, as if all had become clear. ‘The King has a right to know what the Council is doing. And you will tell him. In a year, he will give us our grant. And if you persuade your husband well, we might not have to wait that long.’ She turned, briskly, to the present. ‘Now, we must begin the wedding plans, meet the man’s family—’ Her mother stopped in mid-sentence as she saw the truth on Solay’s face.

‘The King has his own plans.’

‘I see.’ A mask of resignation settled on her face. ‘And will I be invited to this wedding, whenever it may be?’

‘I do not know,’ she said, though she suspected. ‘This has all come about quickly.’ She rose, unable to witness her mother’s pain. ‘I am to return to the court in few days. Lady Agnes would have me as a companion.’ And as a cover for her affair, but she did not add that. ‘And Justin’s work is at Westminster.’

‘Excellent.’ Her mother smiled. She swallowed disappointment and moved on to necessity. ‘I expect you to parlay this into bigger things for us all. Your sister needs a husband, too.’

Her sister threw down the message. ‘Stop it. Stop it, both of you.’ She ran from the room.

Solay shared a moment’s sigh with her mother.

Her mother shook her head. ‘Jane fancies herself a student, but she was never as wise as you.’

Nor as cynical, Solay thought, wishing that Jane could stay in blissful innocence. She had shared the situation too frankly for a girl of fifteen to hear. ‘I’ll go to her.’

Solay found Jane in her chamber, with the few books her mother had not yet sold. Her sister’s eyes had seen much too much for her age.

Solay hugged her. ‘Don’t worry. After I’m wed, we’ll find a husband for you.’

Jane was stiff in her arms. ‘I don’t want a husband.’

‘Of course you do.’

She shook her head and sighed. ‘Is there no escape from being a woman?’

‘Escape? What do you mean?’

‘I want to be free. Like a man.’

Solay shuddered at the thought. How did men live with only the blunt instrument of power? Unable to bend, they were forced to break. Better to be pliant, to accommodate the ever-shifting winds of power. But Jane loved books and horses and had never enjoyed womanhood.

‘None of us choose the lives the stars give us,’ Solay said, running her finger over the cut-velvet cover of her mother’s Book of Hours with the charts of the planets in it. Now that it was forbidden, it called to her more than ever.

‘No more than we can choose our parents,’ Jane sighed.

‘Nor our husbands.’ Solay picked up the book. ‘Perhaps Mother will let me take it with me. Would you mind?’ She had taught Jane to read, but her sister had become more the scholar than she.

Jane shook her head. ‘It should be yours. You are the student of the stars.’

‘A poor one.’ But perhaps better than she knew. She had discovered something about the King’s birth even he did not know. And something about her own. ‘Jane, I found out when I was born! It was St John’s Eve.’

‘What about me?’ Jane asked, finally smiling. ‘When was I born?’

The question broke her heart. The girl would rather have a birth date than a husband. ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’ Perhaps Justin’s mysterious laundress would have Jane’s answer as well. ‘I promise.’

Five days later, Solay held out the velvet-covered book as her mother laid the last of her few dresses into the trunk. ‘May I take it with me, Mother?’

Her mother, never one to cherish books, nodded. ‘If you like, but guard it well. The books and the jewels are easy to carry and easy to sell. This one could fetch nearly a pound, should we need it.’

But her mother’s hand stopped hers as Solay lowered the trunk lid. ‘The brooch was to be yours,’ she said. ‘I will keep it as long as I can.’

Solay nodded. The brooch would have to feed them, if Solay’s husband could not.

‘You must keep the favour of the King and your husband. We will need them both in the year to come.’

Dread knotting her stomach, Solay met her mother’s eyes, hard with experience. A child no more, she must not expect to be taken care of like a child. ‘This man, he is not like others.’

‘All men are alike. Even a King. Discover what this man wants and give it to him.’

‘How am I to do that?’ How did you?

Her mother gazed out of the window, as if seeing the past in the clouds that scuttled over the winter brown grass that poked through the snow stretched across the flat Essex land. ‘When the Queen was dying, the King needed nurturing, but he wanted people to see him as a warrior still. So it was necessary for me to…’ she paused, searching for a word ‘…portray a desirable woman.’

Solay wondered, suddenly, whether she and her sister existed merely to prove that the King had been in her mother’s bed. ‘What did you want?’

Her mother brought her gaze back squarely to Solay. ‘I got what I wanted. He made me the Lady of the Sun.’

And what do I want? Solay wondered, as she hugged her mother and sister goodbye.

No answer came as the cart pulled away, loaded with a trunk carrying her only possessions. It was just as well. What she wanted for herself was unimportant. She must provide for her family.

Yet for just a moment, she wondered what the stars might predict for her own life. She let the wind blow her wish away. The heavens gave answers for countries and Kings. Astrologers read their grand designs to find hints of Christ and the Apocalypse, of comets and eclipses and wars, not to comfort puny individuals.

Right now, her fate was firmly entwined, at least until Easter, with Justin Lamont’s. That was all she needed to know.