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.’

       11

      Winter was clinging on into March, treading heavy-booted on the first green shoots of early spring. My large hunting greyhound, Trey, lifted his head and tested the damp grey air. Then Wainscot, too, lifted her head. Her ears swivelled towards the entrance avenue leading to the main house at Combe. Because Anne had chosen to stay inside by the fire, I was riding with only a groom and six of my hounds.

      I held a small bunch of little wild daffodils to inhale their fresh odour while I rode, though I knew better than to curdle the milk by taking them into the house. Then I heard the hoof beats that my dog and horse had already heard. I shivered and threw down the daffodils. I pressed Wainscot forward through a haze of dark leaf buds, still as tight as fingertips while Trey and the other greyhounds sprinted ahead.

      As we broke out into the avenue, a riderless horse was trotting down the track towards us. Riderless, like a horse in the tapestries of battlefield scenes, or at a king’s funeral.

      Wainscot gave a joyful whinny of welcome.

      Clapper. Without Abel White.

      I swung my right knee over the saddle head and slid to the ground. When he saw us, Clapper broke into a canter and nearly knocked me over as I ran to meet him. Surrounded by a mêlée of wriggling dog haunches and sniffing noses, I hugged him, rubbed his neck and kissed his nose and breathed in his smell. It really was Clapper, not the ghost horse I had imagined for an instant when I first saw that he had no rider. He was sleek and well fed. He still wore his old tack. I quieted Trey, pushed past Wainscot who had arrived close behind me, and began to search the saddle for a message or some other sign of who had returned him.

      No pouch. No saddle bag. No sheathe for a sword nor a lance-holder where a paper might be hidden. No letter tied to the bridle. I flipped up the saddlecloth. Nothing there. Nothing under the quilted leather pad of the seat. Nor fastened to the back of the cantle, nor under the saddle flaps.

      ‘Did you escape and find your own way back here alone?’ I asked him.

      Then, under the small buckle guard at the top of the girth straps, I found something. Not a letter, a small blue-grey spring of rue, threaded through the steel buckles. I extracted the sprig carefully and held it to my nose.

      Clapper nudged me hard. I put a calming hand on his neck. I needed to think.

      A fresh-cut evergreen herb, not dried, still sharply musky with its odd animal smell. It had to be a message. It had not found its way into the buckle by itself. It had been put there by someone who knew that I would search.

      Evergreen. I looked at the sprig in my hand. Surely that was the message—evergreen. Perhaps Abel was still alive after all

      But rue? My first surge of joy turned sour. Even in this wintry weather, there were other plant choices. He…whoever it was…I wanted the messenger to be Abel White but tried not jump to conclusions…might instead have chosen the evergreen bay to signify victory, honour and success. Bay protected. But he had not sent a victor’s bay.

      Or he could have sent protective rush. Or round-leafed box, or a mottled heart leaf of the little sowbread cyclamen, to ward off evil spells. Or even a feathery stem of grey mugwort that is tucked into a traveller’s shoes to give him strength for his journey. I could have read a happier story in any of those.

      Rue spoke of repentance and sorrow. Rue spoke of regret. Rue could heal but also curse.

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