Page 38 of The Rose at Twilight

He did nothing. Neither did he speak. He waited patiently until she could bear the silence no longer, glared at him again, and said in a sharp voice, “What would you do?”

“That,” he said calmly, “would depend upon the circumstance, but you would be wise to have naught to do with any Yorkist plot now in the making. That is to say,” he added with a gentle note that was somehow more ominous than if he had spoken angrily, “if the outlaw Lovell expects aught of you, you must disappoint him.”

Looking directly at him now, forcing what she hoped was the same calm note as his own into her voice, she said, “If there is a plot, sir, I am not party to it. For that you have my word.”

He nodded, releasing her bridle. “It is enough, mi geneth. We will find the others now.”

She had not expected him to accept her word so readily.

In truth, she was disappointed that he had ended the conversation so abruptly.

And in the days that passed before their wedding, though she had hoped to spend time with him, to get to know him better, she was disappointed in that as well, for Sir Nicholas was scarcely ever to be seen for longer than a moment or two.

The court moved by barge to Westminster the following week, and when Sir Nicholas was not in attendance upon the king, he was riding off with a troop of his men to look into some small matter or another for him.

None of these sorties took him far from Westminster, but even when Alys knew him to be in the palace he made no effort to seek her out.

She assumed that his behavior was due to concern for her reputation, for although they were betrothed, she knew they must not seem to anticipate the marriage ceremony.

The fact that he had accompanied her, not once but twice, on a journey of more than a hundred miles without anyone else present who might be thought a proper chaperon—Jonet, being only a servant, did not count—would not distress anyone, for he had been acting as her protector, commanded to do so first by Sir Robert Willoughby on behalf of the king, and then by the king himself.

And even to the most determined rumormonger, she decided, his troops must be accounted to have been some protection to her honor.

Once, to her shock, she found herself wishing it had been otherwise, and that she knew him far better than she did.

She wondered what it would be like to be possessed by a man who could make her fear his anger one moment and watch for his smile the next.

She knew little of coupling. That was one disadvantage to the way she had been raised.

In less private establishments, she knew that men and women coupled where and when they would, but she had never seen such things.

She had seen animals mate, but whenever she tried to imagine herself and Sir Nicholas in such positions, her imagination boggled.

It would be better, she thought, had they had the opportunity at least to sit and talk about themselves, but of course men and women rarely talked in such a fashion.

Men dictated and women submitted, and that was that.

The thought that Sir Nicholas would dictate to her and expect her to submit to his every wish had much the same effect upon her imagination as thinking of the mating animals had had.

He might have made more of an effort to seek her out, she knew, had opportunity arisen to do so, but the male and female courtiers might have been residing in two separate palaces for all that they saw of one another.

Elizabeth was feeling sickly, and it had been agreed that she ought not to tax herself.

There was still no official declaration of her condition, and when Alys asked, she was told the subject was not suitable for discussion.

Nonetheless, with the king’s full consent, Elizabeth was pampered and coddled.

Her ladies read to her, waited upon her, and tended her as though, Alys thought wryly, she were made of glass, as though women through the ages—Elizabeth’s own mother, for one—had not birthed child after child without much difficulty at all.

Lady Margaret, however, had not had such an easy time of it, having produced only Henry Tudor.

She was resolved that nothing would threaten one whose womb most likely carried the first seed of his dynasty, and in this, Elizabeth Woodville agreed.

The queen dowager had not worked to see her daughter on the throne, only to have that position endangered through loss of the babe.

Elizabeth accepted the attention as her due, but Alys spent only a small portion of her days waiting on her, for the king, despite a growing reputation for being close with a shilling, had commanded that she be gowned as befitted his ward and the heiress to Wolveston.

Alys had no objection to make to that plan and willingly stood for hours while elegant fabrics were draped about her and suitable colors and styles discussed.

Not only did Madeline and Jonet offer advice but also the Lady Margaret, who, once her son had been generous enough to give the command, was determined to see it carried out in style.

The result was hours of meetings with seamstresses, cobblers, milliners, and their ilk, hours more of embroidering such items as Lady Margaret deemed it necessary for Alys to do herself, and then yet more hours of fittings.

The result was a wardrobe filled with more gowns, capes, surcoats, chemises, smocks, hats, shoes, and other such apparel than Alys had ever owned in her life.

The high-waisted wedding gown was fashioned of pale blue velvet, its low-cut bodice, hemline, and cuff edges trimmed with the expensive gray-and-white fur of tiny Siberian squirrels known as vairs (their fur reserved by sumptuary law to the nobility).

It was worn over a white silk, lace-edged smock, the edges and trim of which could be seen both at the neckline and where the overskirt parted in front.

Alys thought it truly lovely, but on the morning of her wedding day, as Madeline, Jonet, Elva, Lady Emlyn, and Lady Beatrix fluttered around her, fussing, fixing, and adjusting, she felt numb and distant, as if it were all happening to someone else.

The morning swirled by in a daze of color, noise, and ritual, while she moved where others told her to move and performed as others commanded her to perform.

“You look as fine as a princess,” Madeline said when she knelt to fasten Alys’s jeweled girdle around her hips.

She touched in turn each of the three pretty objects appended to it—a mirror set in gold, a pair of jeweled scissors, and a jeweled eating knife.

“Splendid baubles,” she said. “Was this a gift?”

“From Sir Nicholas,” Alys said, feeling warmth rise to her cheeks as she said his name.

Madeline’s eyebrows rose comically. “Mayhap there is something to be said for marriage, after all. Pray, hand me some of those bride laces, Lady Emlyn,” she added, standing up again.

Taking a handful of the colorful ribbons, she proceeded to attach them to various parts of Alys’s gown.

They would be pulled off after the ceremony by guests wanting a keepsake of the occasion.

While Madeline and Lady Emlyn attached the laces, and Jonet and Elva smoothed Alys’s long hair and put the finishing touches on the lace-flower wreath that served as her only headdress, Alys took the pair of elegantly embroidered gloves Lady Beatrix held for her, and drew them on. She saw that her hands were shaking.

“Collect yourself, Alys,” Lady Emlyn said sternly, standing back to survey the finished product.

“’Tis a measure of Sir Nicholas’s favor with the king that the Archbishop of Canterbury himself is to preside over the ceremony at Westminster Abbey with the full court in attendance.

You must not tremble or falter in your responses. You must do him honor.”

Alys nodded, but her hands continued to shake and her knees felt weak. She was grateful that there were others to tell her what to do and show her where to go.

In the procession from the palace to the abbey, led by the groom and his attendants, with the bride and hers following after them, Alys felt as though she were in the sort of dream that would end with a whirling, falling sensation, a dream from which it was beyond her power to awaken.

When the procession stopped at the abbey steps, those who had attended them along the way fell silent behind them, and those who had not taken part in the procession could be heard inside, rising to their feet.

Standing beside Sir Nicholas, before the archbishop, at the open doors of the abbey, Alys knew that not even the great pomp and circumstance she had known at Middleham, or at court before this moment, had prepared her for the triumphal blare of trumpets announcing her arrival at the church door or, indeed, any of the magnificence of her wedding day.

Even the archbishop’s grave intonations failed to make it real, though the ritual had been carefully explained to her by none other than the Lady Margaret, whose practice it was to leave nothing to chance.

And thus, when Sir Nicholas’s deep voice sounded beside her, Alys started and looked at him much as though she were surprised to see him there.

“I, Nicholas ap Dafydd ab Evan of the Welsh house of Merion,” he said in a loud, clear voice, turning to face her and taking her right hand in his, “do take the Lady Alys Anne Wolveston to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, for fair for foul, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, for this time forward till death us depart, if the holy church will it ordain, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Alys’s small hand felt lost in his, though she was aware of the warmth of him. She stared at his elegant, heavily embroidered doublet and found herself wondering suddenly who had done the flawless work.