The People’s Queen. Vanora Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ When her heart does its usual nervous little leap at the sight of that lovely, and too familiar, back, it reminds her that she hasn’t always been so phlegmatic about her position at court.

      Alice smoothes the red folds of her robe over her knees, remembering. She touches Edward’s arm with a hand; she leaves it trailing there, against his sleeve, so he can see her fingers. They aren’t particularly beautiful hands, hers – too square and strong for a lady. How mortified she was, back at the beginning (sitting very obediently at Queen Philippa’s feet, sewing her tiniest stitches, carefully watching every courtly female in the room from under her lashes for fear of making a mistake), to realise that the two goddess-like demoiselles sitting on cushions beside her were whispering about her hands. ‘Meat cleavers,’ she made out, puzzling over the foreign words before she understood the sharp looks her way and sly hints of smiles. ‘Wherryman’s oars. Bear’s paws. Don’t you think?’ Then, with dawning shame, ‘Thick ankles, too…’ She remembered her eyes widening as her insides turned over. One of them saw she was eavesdropping, and nudged the other, and they both quickly bent over their embroidery. Alice hadn’t been there long enough at that stage to be sure which of the sisters was which. They were both blonde and long-limbed and apricot-skinned in that un-English Hainaulter way (Queen Philippa liked to surround herself with other people from the Low Countries). They were both self-assured with it, and so alike they might have been twins. Her first thought was to stick out her chin and make a fight of it with the pair of them. But she wasn’t such a fool as that. She knew she didn’t know how to fight here, yet. So she just sat on beside them, numb and prickling, fighting alternating desires to hide her shameful hands and to use them to give the smug, beautiful sisters a good slap round the face. She was burning with the slight. But she could feel herself absorbing it too. She thought: I’ll bide my time, for now (though I’ll get my own back later).

      She was wrong to want to hide her hands, at least. She’s learned that since. Her hands might not be as white and slender and long-fingered as Katherine or Philippa de Roët’s, but they’re young. Firm. Fresh-skinned. That’s what Edward likes about them. He often holds her hands, even nowadays. He doesn’t just hold them. He holds them up, and looks at them with eyes whose pale, pale blue is beginning to go cloudy, and strokes the skin. Alice’s hands make him nostalgic.

      But that isn’t why she wants him to notice her hands tonight; why, next to him, she’s fiddling and pleating so insistently at her robe or his sleeve. Or at least it’s not the only reason. Perhaps the sight of Philippa de Roët’s effortless beauty has made Alice feel insecure, and reminded her of the other small matter on her mind.

      Even though Alice’s robe is the most splendid in this hall, and has no doubt cost dozens of seamstresses the best of their eyesight to be finished in time, her fingers and wrists are bare.

      She should have jewels all over her hands to match the thousands of seed pearls sewn in cloudy swirls all over the silk.

      There’s nothing glittering at her neck, either. And no jewels dressing her hair, just a thin glitter of gold thread from the caul net holding the dark waves in place under her cap.

      It looks shocking to have nothing. Naked. Almost improper.

      When Edward doesn’t immediately look down at her bare hand, she moves it to cover his. Blue veins; knobbles; big brown freckles. But the face above them, still fine-boned and lean, is so handsome, so noble. He’s still a god among men. Her King Arthur.

      She’s aware of the quizzical look on Edward’s face. She thinks: He knows what I’m going to say.

      He almost certainly does know what she’s up to, and the favour she’s going to ask. He’s no fool, Edward. They play games about gifts: she begs, or he begs; she holds out, or he holds out. They both like bargaining. They’re both fascinated by money. It’s one of the things she likes about him.

      ‘Do I look enough the Queen of the Sun in this, do you think?’ she asks, raising the hand to his shoulder and running it down his arm with the beginning of sensuality. Edward smiles and shivers pleasurably, like an old cat lying in the sun having its tummy tickled. He’s always ready to take pleasure where he finds it. From the floor, she’s aware of the Duke of Lancaster’s eyes boring into her too. She ignores him. Let him wait his turn. She says, ‘My lord…truthfully now?’

      Edward half smiles, with half-hooded eyes, and inclines his head forward. But he doesn’t look at her hands, or her bare throat. ‘You are a paragon of loveliness, mon amour,’ he says, but she’s aware of the distance creeping into his playfulness. ‘More every day. Today especially. You’ll astonish the world.’

      ‘Even’, she says delicately, ‘without jewels?’

      Edward doesn’t sigh, quite. But he doesn’t meet her eye, either. Less gently, he says, ‘Dear girl, you have jewels. Your own jewels. A great many of them too.’

      She says, ‘But with this robe, Queen Philippa’s rubies would be…’

      Smiling over her head, and bowing to her without hearing her out, Edward rises to his feet. The Duke of Lancaster is on the dais and approaching the table.

      ‘A fine performance, my boy,’ Alice hears Edward boom at his son from over her head. He sounds relieved to have a way of ending this conversation with Alice. Yet the dead Queen’s jewels aren’t official royal gems, not part of the treasury, just Queen Philippa’s private collection of trinkets. There’s no real reason of state why Edward shouldn’t let Alice, or any other commoner, mistress, favourite, or friend, use them. Alice used to have to clean them. It was part of her job as demoiselle, back in the day. She held them up to the light, dreaming. She tried them on. She knows them all. So she keeps nagging him about them, even on the days, like today, when it clearly irritates him. One day, she thinks, without particular rancour, he just might give in – because, after all, why shouldn’t she wear them? She’s doing the work of a queen, so why shouldn’t she have the reward? What good are they doing anyone in their boxes?

      She knows, really, why he’s reluctant. Edward wants to keep a part of himself, and his memories, separate from her; he wants a place he can remember the big silvery-blonde Queen he loved for so long. He doesn’t want another woman wearing Philippa’s trinkets. She respects that; she really does. But she can’t help herself. It’s not in her nature not to ask for more.

      ‘…the rubies would be so perfect…’ Alice finishes, disconsolately. Her voice trails away. There’s no point. Neither of the men is listening.

      

      ‘You’re taking a chance, aren’t you?’ Duke John says with slightly rough familiarity, as they step close in the column of couples. Alice doesn’t mind dancing, if it’s the stately, dignified basse dance, and if it’s with him. They’ve talked privately before; she’s spent many a Christmas with Edward and his family. Her estate at Wendover, north of London, is close to part of the Duke’s Lancastrian territory; so they’re neighbours. But he’s never made a public point like this of acknowledging her before. With him at her side, she doesn’t even mind entering the crowd of courtiers who are just a little too impressed by their own noble lineage to enjoy meeting her eye, even though she can see the de Roët women in the line of dancers, and they’re both still as terrifyingly lovely as ever. Ah, who cares? she tells herself, suddenly gay. I’m having a better life than either of them. Katherine’s now the widow Swynford, with a little estate somewhere up in Lincolnshire and several children running wild. And Philippa’s married to one of Edward’s esquires, that clever little elf Chaucer, though no one thinks they’re happy; she scuttled straight back to work with the Duchess of Lancaster, mean Castilian ladies-in-waiting and all, after both her babies, as if nothing would persuade her to stay home with her husband. They’d probably СКАЧАТЬ