Mistress to the Crown. Isolde Martyn

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      What should I do? Send an apprentice to Westminster or my lord’s house? Tell Shore? Take the gloves myself? Was this forgetfulness deliberate? Ha, vain fantasy on my part to suppose such a thing. This great lord would no doubt send some menial to retrieve the gloves, yet I stood there holding them and dared to dream.

       II

      I met Lord Hastings again within a few days. He summoned my father to bring samples of silks and gauzes to Beaumont’s Inn, his London house. The request read: Since the fabrics are to be purchased for my lord’s stepdaughter and Mistress Shore resembles her, would Master Lambard please ask his daughter to accompany him! So Lord Hastings had discovered the family connection. I felt very flattered. Of course, Shore would have made trouble had he known, but he had gone to Suffolk to collect cargo that had arrived from a manufactory he part-owned across the water in Bergen-ap-Zoom.

      I had visited the houses of wealthy merchants, but I had never stepped inside a noble lord’s dwelling, and Beaumont’s Inn, with its two gables and three storeys, looked to be extremely modest. It lay at the south-east end of Thames Street, close to Paul’s wharf and neighbour to Baynard’s Castle, where King Edward’s mother, the Duchess of York, lived. Only a strip of garden and a laneway separated the two properties.

      Father and I were shown up into a hall with long windows that looked westwards towards the River Fleet. Two immense tapestries adorned the facing wall. I do not know a great deal about the stitching but the dyes I do know. Indigo, woad and madder predominated and I would have wagered these hangings had been made in Anjou and come to England as part of Queen Margaret’s dowry when she married King Henry. In fact, the golden salt upon the high table might have been hers as well for it was shaped as a swan, one of her badges.

      The man who had been privileged to receive this spoil was in conversation with two men from the Tailors’ Guild and all three were leaning over drawings set out on the high table. When the steward announced us, Lord Hastings dismissed them and stepped down to greet us.

      Ah, I am a mercer’s daughter to my fingertips! There is such beauty in a well-dressed man. Lord Hastings had excellent taste. He clearly understood colour, and his long robe of Saxon blue velvet was tailored skilfully across his shoulders. Falls of gilt brocade hung from his padded sleeves just above the elbows and his indoor shoes were finely tapered and made of dark blue leather embroidered with his maunche in white and violet thread.

      ‘Ah, I see you have brought my gloves, Mistress Shore.’ My senses picked up a descant to that plainsong remark. ‘Bring the samples to the windows, Master Lambard, if you please.’

      As he stood with his steward flicking through our squares of cloth, the sunlight showed me a lord who was far older than I had first thought. His forehead was lapped by fine, plentiful hair of a lustrous fairness, a pale scar angled up from his left eyebrow and a frown mark slashed his brow above his nose. Otherwise, the lines in his face hinted at a kind and generous disposition.

      ‘Your daughter is of my stepdaughter’s complexion,’ he said, looking round at Father. ‘It would please me if she could remove her headdress.’

      ‘Of course, my lord,’ agreed Father, his mind utterly on selling.

      What choice had I? I took off the velvet and buckram cone that sat upon my coiled plaits and let the steward take it into his care.

      ‘Since she is not yet wed, my stepdaughter, Lady Cecily, wears her hair loose. If you would oblige me, Mistress Shore?’

      I did not take my gaze from Lord Hastings’ face as I reached up and removed the pins, one by one, and let my blonde plait fall. There was something deliciously sinful in him asking this of me. A married woman’s hair is for her husband or her lover.

      ‘Unbraided!’ commanded Lord Hastings, his gaze touching my hair and coming to linger on my lips. In obedience, I brought my plait forward over my right shoulder and slowly loosened the braid and with a toss of my head sent the strands swirling across my shoulders like an unfurled cloak.

      ‘You have beautiful hair, Mistress Shore.’ So had he. I could have clawed through his and drawn his face to mine. I had never experienced the power of kisses, but this lord would know the craft of lips, the delicate thrusting, the petite mesure parfaite.

      My father, fussing which brocade to proffer first, had missed the dance of stares, but he knew what to advise. The choosing was swift and decisive, and leaving my father to bargain with Hyrst, his steward, Lord Hastings led me up to the dais.

      ‘Tell me what you think of these.’

      ‘Are they for a tapestry, my lord?’ I asked, picking up the nearest paper – a charcoal sketch of a helmed man wearing a mask, breastplate, leather skirt, greaves and sandals.

      ‘No, it’s an entertainment for the court. The Siege of Troy. Lord Rivers’ notion. Unfortunately I doubt I’ll have time to put it on this year. Here’s the Lady Helen.’

      The drawing showed a creature in a long, yellow wig and voluminous white gown. Metal cones armoured her massive breasts and steel tassets protected her broad thighs. She looked like a fishwife playing Joan of Arc.

      ‘Why are you smiling, Mistress Shore?’

      ‘Your pardon, my lord, but unless your desire to is to make people laugh, I cannot imagine anyone stealing this lady from her husband. Why, Prince Paris would need a derrick to get her on board his ship. Oh, but I suppose she is to be played by a man.’

      He took the cartoon from me. ‘Do you believe any of this tale is true?’

      ‘That a princess could leave her husband for a handsome Trojan? I am sure that has been happening since time began. However, I do not suppose the war lasted ten years. That is probably the storyteller’s exaggeration. Or if it did, I expect the Greeks went home at Christmas and Easter.’

      ‘They were heathens, Mistress Shore.’

      I shrugged. ‘Ah, well, perhaps they had orgies to attend.’

      I was flattered by his company. There must be weighty matters on this great man’s mind and yet he was making every effort to be pleasant.

      ‘My lord, is it true we shall be soon be at war with the French?’

      ‘Yes, Mistress Shore.’

      ‘That is not good news for the city. Is it to punish the King of France?’

      King Louis had funded a mighty rebellion a few years earlier. He had brokered an alliance between King Edward’s cousin, Warwick, the King’s younger brother, George, and the exiled former queen, Margaret of Anjou. The result was an invasion that drove King Edward and Lord Hastings out of England for the winter, but they returned in the spring and after two bloody battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury, King Edward slid back onto the cushions on his throne at Westminster and clapped on his crown again.

      ‘To punish the King of France?’ replied Lord Hastings, humouring me. ‘Yes, Mistress Shore, it could be seen that way but there are better reasons. You do not approve of the King’s enterprise?’

      ‘I know that King Louis has invaded Brittany and would like to conquer Burgundy, my lord. I understand also that England has treaty obligations with СКАЧАТЬ