Page 43 of The Rose at Twilight

T HE NEXT MORNING ALYS awakened early to the sound of voices in the room.

The bed curtains were drawn, but she peeped out between them to see, in the gray dawn light from the two windows flanking the hearth, that Tom was helping his master to dress.

Embarrassed by the squire’s presence and by a sudden flood of memories from the night before, she ducked back before he might see her.

Lying back against her pillows, listening to the soft murmur of their voices, she soon drifted back to sleep, and when she awoke again, the room was empty.

She realized then what she had not really noted before, that Sir Nicholas had been dressing not in courtly attire but in his mail chausses and brigandine.

Jumping out of bed, she found her green silk robe, put it on, and padded swiftly, barefoot, to the door. Pulling it open as carefully as she could, she peeped into the sitting room. To her relief Jonet was there, with a basket of her mending.

Looking up, Jonet smiled and greeted her, putting away her work and getting to her feet as she talked. “I thought you would sleep all day, Lady Alys. Her grace, the queen, has twice sent to ask of you, but she most kindly forbade me to waken you.”

Alys had meant to ask at once where Sir Nicholas had gone, but her attention was caught by one phrase among the tumble of words. “The queen? Elizabeth has not yet been crowned queen.”

“Nay, but she is wife to the king, madam, and we have been commanded to style her so henceforth.”

Alys sighed. “And now you choose to call me madam? I vow, Jonet, when Sir Nicholas spoke of the changing world, I did not understand how rightly he spoke. I do not like it so.”

“Then, when we are alone, mistress, I will continue to call you as I have before. I, too, prefer it, I confess.” She moved swiftly past Alys into the bedchamber, and went to open the wardrobe. “What will you wear?”

“Anything,” Alys said. “Where is Sir Nicholas?”

“Gone into the city, Miss Alys. A matter of duty, he said; and, God be thanked, he has taken that pestrous fool Hugh Gower with him. The man is addled. Blurting his so-called compliments where all and sundry can hear them, then looking hurt when I tell him to stop, as if he has done me a kindness and been slapped for it.” Jonet began to riffle through the clothing in the wardrobe.

“He means well, I suppose,” Alys said. She sighed.

Clearly her husband’s feelings about the previous night were different from hers.

She had wanted to talk with him, to watch his face when he responded, to touch him again.

Waking to find him gone from her bed had been bad enough, waking to find him gone away altogether was worse, and discovering that he had been able to go without even waking her to say farewell was the worst of all.

She soon discovered that there was more unpleasantness in store for her, for once she had dressed and broken her fast, she had no further excuse to avoid the ladies’ solar.

Elizabeth was absent, but many of her ladies were present, including Madeline Fenlord, for it was nearly eleven o’clock, and dinner would soon be served.

Alys’s entrance was greeted with gaiety and laughter.

Some wished her well; others made bawdy references to the duties of marriage, which made her blush and wish herself elsewhere.

She was grateful when Madeline turned the conversation to some matter of gossip and the others finally left her in peace.

When everyone began to adjourn to a nearby room for the midday meal, Madeline moved close to Alys and said, “They are like starving children when it comes to snatching up the crumbs of other people’s lives, are they not?”

“More like ravenous birds,” Alys said, listening to the rattle of chatter around them, “unable to remain still for long before they must feed again. But unlike the hungry children with whom you compare them, one does not pity them overmuch.”

“I do,” Madeline said firmly. “Only look at them as they truly are—at us all, for that matter—confined to these rooms, to the court, with only one another for company. There are very few who are true friends, for experience in past years has taught us all that a friend today might prove our enemy tomorrow, only for his or her own advancement, or that of a father or husband.”

“Or brother,” Alys agreed, her eyes upon Sir Lionel Everingham’s youngest sister, Sarah, a pretty, dark-eyed child, but newly come to court, and looking daggers now at Alys.

Madeline made a face at Sarah, who flushed red and turned quickly away to speak to someone else. “That little bitch deserves thrashing,” Madeline said grimly. “She has been going about this past sennight preaching idiocy, if not treason.”

“Treason!” Alys’s eyes widened.

“Aye, if you believe that to disagree with the king is such, as we—may God preserve us—have been warned it can be.” She swiftly crossed herself, then bent nearer.

“Sarah declares that her brother was promised your hand in marriage and that the promise ought to have been honored by the king, since Sir Lionel did swear allegiance to him. I tell you, the girl is mad. She does not even hold her tongue in Elizabeth’s hearing. ”

“Elizabeth will not punish her for speaking ill of me.”

“Marry, that may be so, but when Sarah says such things, she speaks ill of Elizabeth’s dearest Harry, not just of you.”

“Madeline!” Alys glanced swiftly around, then sighed with relief when she realized no one was near enough to overhear them.

Madeline shrugged. “I have already displeased her noble grace, I fear, for she asked me yestereve if I did not likewise desire a handsome husband—like your Sir Nicholas, she said. I said I did not think so highly of such men—too full of purpose, I said. Not that he is not handsome, for he is, in his way. And to think of him possessing one, why it must be most exhilarating, and mayhap even pleasant. Well, is it not?” she demanded.

Knowing she must be as red as fire, and not having any wish to reply to such a question, Alys moved to follow the others.

Madeline was at her heels and sat down beside her after the blessing, but there was no more opportunity for private conversation.

The ladies dined alone that day, so the meal was silent, and instead of minstrels afterward, they had more prayers.

It was still Lent and Lady Margaret was present.

Lady Margaret did not accompany Elizabeth and the others back to the solar, however, and the early afternoon passed with unusual lightheartedness, the ladies being entertained while they worked at their tasks by Patch, Elizabeth’s fool, who had been a gift to her from the king.

Patch was not as sharp-witted as Tom Blakall, but he had a talent for storytelling, and for making his mistress laugh, and his voice was pleasant to the ear.

On this day, seated on the dais at Elizabeth’s feet, he recited a lengthy, sweetly romantic poem.

When he had finished, Elizabeth set aside her work to thank him, then dismissing him, said idly, “We will have music now. No, Lady Emlyn,” she said when that dame instantly picked up her lute, “you would prefer to finish your sewing, as we know, so our new Lady Merion shall entertain us. As we recall, she played passably well for us when we were in residence in the north.”

Alys, having noted Elizabeth’s thoughtful gaze upon her from time to time during dinner and afterward, while the fool recited his poem, had wondered if she had somehow offended her, but she had not expected this. Reluctantly she got to her feet.

“Madam, I regret I have no instrument.”

“Lady Emlyn will lend you hers,” Elizabeth replied, taking up her needlework in a manner precluding further discussion.

Gulping nervously—her skill on the lute being less than laudable, as Elizabeth well knew—Alys stepped forward to take the proffered instrument.

“Sit here on the dais,” Elizabeth said, “where Patch did sit to recite to us. ’Twill make it easier for all of us to hear you. Perchance you will choose to entertain us with a ballad.”

Alys glanced at Madeline, who clearly had realized something was amiss, but all she got in response was a sympathetic smile.

By now, the other ladies in the room were staring at her, waiting for her to obey the royal command, so she could not even indulge herself by glaring at Elizabeth. She could only obey.

It occurred to her then that perhaps she was making too much of a small thing.

She would sit down, take up the lute, and show that she had too little skill to be asked often to repeat the task.

Elizabeth would have the satisfaction of having shown her in a poor light to the others, and life would go on as before.

The experience would be humiliating, to be sure, but it was not as though she were being thrown to lions or hanged, drawn, and quartered before a mass of gawkers at Tyburn hill.

Her courage bolstered by these thoughts, she stepped to the dais and took her seat, telling herself as she arranged her skirts that it was not so much that she was at Elizabeth’s feet as that she was at the head of the room.

Taking up the lute, she plucked the strings to be certain they were not disastrously out of tune, tried desperately to remember the words to the simplest ballad she knew how to play, and began.

She had a pleasant singing voice and hoped it would cover her lapses on the instrument, but no sooner had she finished the song than Elizabeth, shaking her head sadly, said, “You do not seem to have practiced as you ought, Lady Merion. Your voice is well enough, we suppose, but your playing displeases us.”

Flushing as much with anger as with embarrassment, Alys said, “I do apologize, madam. I am not so skilled upon the lute as I should like to be.”

“Perhaps there is another instrument you would prefer to play for us instead,” Elizabeth said sweetly.