The King’s Daughter. Christie Dickason

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      Just once, shortly after my return from London, our eyes locked over the supper table. His glance held so much concern that I had to glare down at my plate to prevent tears. The people in my life would keep changing. There was nothing I could do about it. When I was married, I would leave not only Combe, and England, but also my guardian. That night over supper, for the first time, I thought that I might miss him.

      His wife, Lady Harington, on the other hand, had terrified me from our first meeting. My lady guardian was a woman of absolute certainties. Unlike her easy-going husband, she had a fearsome frown and strong views on how a young girl should be schooled. After my return from Coventry, she carried on her detailed instruction as if never interrupted. Whether her steady purpose grew from ignorance of what had happened or defiance, I could never decide.

      Both Anne and I had already learned how to wipe our fingers at the table, to take the precious salt on the tips of our knives, and to count our linens against pilfering by our women. Teaching by her own example as well as by words, Lady Harington now marched on through the long list of other bad habits that we must learn to prevent in our servants.

      No serving man ever dared to piss in the corners of her fireplaces. No scullery maid at Combe ever polished a glass on her sleeve or blew her nose in her apron. By constant example, Lady H showed us how to measure respect or insolence in others, to the very finest degree. And how to bring down with an acid word anyone who stepped over any of the invisible lines of rank and place that she taught us to see. She adjusted the angle of my head when I curtsied. For three months, I nodded meekly and accepted her instruction. Any moment, I thought, she might teach me how to make order out of the rest of the tumbling chaos of life.

      Sometimes I tried to play again as I had once done, when I still felt like a child. I would make Belle sit up in a miniature gilded carriage in her blue velvet collar whilst Cherami, my most obliging small greyhound, pulled her across the floor, his nails clacking like tiny hoofs. While Anne laughed and clapped, I looked on as if from a great distance.

      When the late winter weather allowed, I sometimes sat very still in the gardens and tempted the robins to eat crumbs from my hand. Once, while Anne made a dumb show of being ill, I tasted a worm to try to understand its attractions. I whistled back at the wild birds, trying to speak their language, but caused agitation in the bushes and trees.

      ‘I think you’ve confused them,’ said Anne.

      In truth, birds, with their sharp little eyes and edgy flutter, troubled me.

      On the journey south from Scotland, well-wishers had given me six caged birds to join my animal family—two larks, a finch and three paraquettos from the West Indies. I felt that the little creatures wished to be friendly but could not trust me, who had the power to thrust them back into their cages. Their fragility terrified me—those tiny bones and trembling heartbeats, so fast that my own heart would crash to a halt at such a speed, or else burst into flame. I feared that I might accidentally crush one of them in my hand. This terrible power alarmed me so much that I avoided handling them. Unobserved, I released a lark and a paraquetto and said that they had escaped.

      Then I found the remains of the paraquetto left under a bush by a cat. Staring down at the sodden little bundle of bloody blue and green feathers, I wondered if, after all, even unhappy, they were not safer in their cages. I knew that I was the true assassin.

      The paraquetto. Abel White. Clapper. Lord Harington burdened. Digby dead. Because of me.

      ‘I am dangerous to know,’ I whispered one night to Anne. ‘Even for you.’

      ‘Why?’

      Could she not see why? I thought. She had heard Mrs Hay’s tales.

      ‘I just am,’ I said.

      ‘Don’t be absurd!’ She rolled onto her side away from me. ‘Unless you mean the risk of tearing my best gown.’