A Marriage Made in Secret Read online

  ‘Ah, there you are.’ Isabella smiled a welcome and Mathilde felt her spirits lift immediately. She was no longer taken aback by the Queen’s smiles. Over the past few months they’d become more and more frequent, so that now the only surprise was that she bestowed them on someone like her. The Queen didn’t seem to care where she came from, nor that her accent, according to Lady Berthe, was that of a northern peasant. No matter what she herself might have witnessed, or what the spies said—and they muttered more and more the longer they stayed in France—Mathilde refused to think any ill of her.

  ‘It’s a beautiful morning, is it not?’ Isabella gestured towards her open window shutters.

  ‘It is, Your Grace.’ She passed her the bowl on a tray. ‘Mild, too. I forgot to take my mantle, but I hardly felt any chill.’

  She clamped her mouth shut abruptly, realising that a simple yes would have sufficed, but Isabella only heaved a satisfied-sounding sigh.

  ‘A propitious day, then. My son will be preparing to sail from England and I must make ready to meet him.’ Her expression turned thoughtful. ‘Perhaps you need a new mantle? Something special so that you will not forget it again.’

  Mathilde dropped her gaze quickly. Being scrutinised by someone so beautiful was hard, making her feel even more ordinary.

  ‘Red will become you, I think.’ Isabella nodded with conviction before waving a hand at Lady Berthe. ‘Give her my red cloak with the velvet hood.’

  ‘Your Grace?’ Mathilde lifted her hands in protest. ‘I could not...’

  ‘You can when your Queen commands it.’ Isabella’s tone wasn’t threatening, but her words were final none the less. ‘Berthe will have to remove the ermine, of course, but it should suit you very well. You deserve a gift and I need all of my ladies to look their best.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ Mathilde bowed her head, suspecting that her cheeks were already a similar colour to the cloak, recognising the words as a veiled reference to her wardrobe, to the old linen kirtles and woollen gowns that had once belonged to her mother. They were the best that her father had been able to provide, but they were hopelessly old-fashioned by now and threadbare in places despite all her mending.

  ‘I shall wear red this morning, too, for good fortune.’ Isabella’s perfect cheekbones rounded with a smile that made her more impossibly beautiful than ever. ‘This is an important time for me, Mathilde. We all need to make ready.’

  * * *

  Lady Cecily gave her the cloak later that afternoon, presumably because Lady Berthe couldn’t bring herself to hand over something so fine to a person like her, Mathilde thought, although she was too pleased with the gift to care. She could have spent hours simply rubbing her cheek lovingly against the fabric. The woollen exterior was lined with velvet, ten times more luxurious than anything she’d ever worn before in her life.

  ‘I have a green surcoat you can borrow this evening, too, if you like?’ Cecily offered, leading her into a side chamber away from the spies. Her manner had also thawed considerably over the summer months, so much so that now Mathilde regarded both her and Katharine as friends. Family even, like a pair of older aunts. ‘We’re of a similar height so it should only need a few adjustments and the Queen has put aside some linen for you to make a few new dresses, too.’ She squeezed her arm sympathetically. ‘She does not mean it as an insult, rather as a gift for your service.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mathilde smiled, torn between gratitude and embarrassment.

  ‘Was this your mother’s?’ Cecily gestured at the gown she was currently wearing. ‘I remember the style.’

  ‘Yes. It was one of her favourites, but she has no more use for it.’ She coughed and smoothed her hand awkwardly over the skirts. That was all she could say, all she could ever say about her mother. Sometimes she wished that she could speak about her more, but even after six years her feelings were too raw, like a festering wound that refused to heal. Sometimes she thought it had scabbed over, but then the scar came away and the pain and guilt were still as fresh and searing as ever.

  ‘I see.’ Cecily nodded with a look of understanding. ‘Well, perhaps I can do your hair tonight, too?’

  ‘I’m not sure...’ Mathilde touched a hand to her head self-consciously. She’d worn her hair in the same style every day for the past five years, in a single braid over one shoulder. ‘My father said that I ought to be modest.’

  ‘As you shall be, but modest does not mean always looking the same. You can wear ribbons at least. Green ones to match the gown—’

  ‘Red,’ Katharine interrupted from where she was sitting beside the fireplace sewing pearls on to a bodice. ‘The Queen’s right, she’ll suit red. It will make a nice contrast with the green.’

  ‘Maybe both?’ Cecily walked across to a small chest and started rummaging inside.

  Mathilde sat down on a coffer, excited by the idea of a new surcoat that evening, even a borrowed one. At home they’d never been able to afford pretty things and it was rumoured that the feast planned to celebrate the Queen’s departure for Boulogne, where she was travelling to greet her eldest son Edward, was going to be more spectacular than ever. Hopefully it would also signal the beginning of the end of their stay in France. Isabella had said that the Prince was coming to pay homage to Gascony on her husband’s behalf, but she’d still made no mention of returning to England afterwards and the uncertainty was making Mathilde even more homesick.

  ‘Lady Cecily...’ She took advantage of the relaxed mood to ask, ‘Do you think we’ll be going back to England again soon?’

  ‘Going back?’ Cecily’s hand wavered as she drew a length of ribbon from the chest. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But we’ve been here for six months now. Surely the Queen wishes to return to her husband?’

  ‘Some questions are better left unasked.’ Cecily closed the lid softly. ‘And some answers are better left unspoken.’

  Mathilde sighed inwardly. She’d turned eighteen over the summer, but everyone here still treated her like a child.

  ‘We should tell her.’ To her surprise, it was Katharine who interceded on her behalf. ‘Since she’s caught in this web with us now, too.’

  Web? Mathilde looked around the room, struck with a sudden image of the three of them all wrapped up together in silken spider’s threads.

  ‘We shouldn’t involve her.’

  Cecily’s voice was firm, but Katharine ignored her, putting her sewing aside and rising ominously to her feet. She was a proud-looking woman, grey-haired, gaunt and unswervingly severe.

  ‘Maybe we should let her decide whether or not she wants to know the truth?’

  Katharine fixed her with a hard stare and Mathilde hesitated, wondering if perhaps Cecily was right and she’d rather not know. The dangerous path she’d envisaged four months ago loomed before her again, dark and forbidding, only this time with a fork in it, a route of escape if she chose to take it.

  ‘Kat...’ Cecily attempted another warning, but Katharine only jerked her head in the direction of the Queen’s withdrawing chamber where the spies were all gathered.

  ‘Why not? We know that she isn’t one of them. She’s proved that she can keep her mouth shut. Now, which do you prefer, girl, truth or ignorance?’

  Mathilde straightened her spine. Put like that, there was only one answer. ‘I want the truth.’

  ‘Good. Then tell me, what do you think of a husband, a king, who delights in humiliating his wife, who gives away her fortune to his favourites, who ignores her wishes and threatens her very safety?’

  ‘Kat!’ Cecily’s tone was admonishing. ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what? She said she wanted to know.’

  ‘I do.’ Mathilde swallowed, determined to prove her worldliness, no matter how shocked she was by the words.

  ‘What Kat’s trying to say is that the King made the Queen’s life in England a misery,’ Cecily explained in a softer voice. ‘While she remains in France, she’s safe and treated with respect, even if we have to live with his spies.’

  ‘You mean the Queen doesn’t want to go back to England?’ Now she felt truly shocked. Frightened, too. England was her home, her country, but if Isabella didn’t go back then neither would she.

  ‘Not unless he changes his behaviour towards her, no.’ Cecily seemed to be avoiding her gaze.

  ‘Pah!’ Katharine gave a snort of contempt. ‘How many opportunities does the fool need?’

  Mathilde sucked in a breath. To call the King a fool was treason, but Katharine looked unrepentant.

  ‘Tell me, girl, what do you know about Roger Mortimer? Do you know who he is?’

  Mortimer? She searched her memory, surprised by the apparent change of subject. There was something familiar about the name. She’d heard her father speak of him once...

  ‘Yes!’ She sat up straighter, pleased to find something she did know. ‘Roger Mortimer of Wigmore! He was imprisoned for rebelling against the King when—’

  She stopped mid-sentence. If she remembered correctly, Mortimer was one of the Marcher lords and the stronghold of the Mortimer family was Ludlow Castle and...

  Henry Wright of Ludlow.

  The truth dawned as if a candle had suddenly flared to life in front of her eyes. ‘He was the man who visited the Queen in secret!’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘But I thought he was sentenced to execution. Did the King pardon him?’

  ‘Ha!’ Katharine threw her head back scornfully. ‘He escaped. He found himself an accomplice, drugged his guards, climbed a chimney, scaled a rope ladder and then rowed away to safety. Mortimer escaped from the Tower, the ver
y bastion of royal power, humiliating the King in the process. Believe me, he’ll never be pardoned now. That’s why he’s in exile.’

  ‘But then why did he come here?’ Mathilde drew her brows together, feeling hopelessly confused all over again. Why would the Queen meet secretly with a traitor? And what did that make Henry Wright, the man she’d been talking to, who she’d almost been excited to see, just that morning?

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ Katharine leaned closer as if she were trying to gauge her every reaction.

  Mathilde shook her head, unwilling to try. Any answer seemed tantamount to treason, but the intensity of Katharine’s expression demanded one. A memory of the way Isabella had smiled at Mortimer flitted into her mind before she pushed it quickly away again. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Good!’ Cecily placed an arm around her shoulders. ‘Our place is to serve the Queen, not to question her behaviour. We ought not to have opinions about it.’

  ‘But we do, don’t we?’ Katharine’s eyes flashed belligerently.

  Cecily squeezed Mathilde tighter as if she still wished to protect her, though she didn’t interrupt as Katharine started speaking again.

  ‘The Queen believes that the time has come for her to make a stand.’

  ‘Against the King?’ Mathilde was so shocked that for a moment she thought she must have misheard. ‘With a traitor?’

  ‘Mortimer’s only a traitor because he stood up against Hugh le Despenser, the King’s favourite.’ Katharine’s tone made it clear where her own sympathies lay. ‘In most English eyes, that makes him a hero.’

  ‘But what kind of stand? What does she plan to do?’

  ‘Nothing’s certain yet, but once her son lands on French soil, Isabella has a weapon.’

  ‘A weapon?’ Mathilde heard the tremor in her own voice. ‘How can a twelve-year-old boy be used as a weapon?’

  ‘Because Prince Edward is the heir to the English throne, someone she can use as a figurehead to challenge her husband and reclaim her rightful position.’ Katharine laughed, though it sounded more like a cackle. ‘The King has agreed to send her exactly what she needs to defy him and he has no idea. Oh, we’ll be going home eventually, but as for the manner of it, that remains to be seen.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Keep moving!’ Lady Berthe whispered viciously into Mathilde’s ear, making her wince, though it still didn’t help. She couldn’t help but falter at the sight of the immense crowd gathered in the great hall that evening, like a brightly coloured, swarming hive of bees, more people than she’d seen gathered together in one place in her life. She had a sudden fear of being crushed, but fortunately the Master of Ceremonies announced the Queen at that moment and the mass of people fell away, opening a path up between them. It was no wonder. Isabella was resplendent, dressed in a pale silver-blue gown with a pearl-encrusted headdress and a long, shimmering silk train, looking like a mermaid or some other mythical creature.

  Mathilde followed behind, for the first time not feeling utterly out of place in the Queen’s retinue. As promised, Lady Cecily had adjusted one of her own surcoats to fit and the open sides, revealing the tightly cinched waist of her kirtle beneath, encircled by a red girdle, made her feel older and more sophisticated. She was even aware of a few admiring male glances as she walked, though she had no inclination, or any idea how, to respond.

  The French King stepped forward as his sister Isabella approached the dais, his golden hair and bejewelled tunic making the resemblance between them more striking than ever. They were truly a gilded pair, these heirs of Philip the Fair and Joan of Navarre, Mathilde thought, allowing her gaze to wander past them and along the high table, past a row of elaborately dressed French nobles and courtiers before settling finally upon Henry Wright.

  She felt a jolt as if Lady Berthe had just jabbed a malicious elbow into her ribs, her body turning hot and cold at the same moment. That is, her skin felt too hot, but her limbs appeared to have frozen. He was standing beside the chair of one of the nobles, as if he’d just been engaged in conversation, but what was he doing there, mingling with the court so openly? If what Katharine had told her earlier was true, then he was one of Mortimer’s men and a traitor, too, or as good as, but unlike the first or even second time they’d met he was making no attempt to conceal himself now. There was nothing remotely secret about his position just a few feet from the French King and English Queen, looking dark and inscrutable and alert, as if he were noticing every detail of the scene before him.

  No sooner had the thought entered her head than his eyes locked with hers, a lightning flash of blue darting across the room and making the air between them seem to pulse and crackle with tension. She caught her breath as one of his eyebrows lifted, but she refused to look away. She had the strange impression that if she looked for long enough then she would be able to tell whether he was friend or foe. She wasn’t sure which she preferred, or what those definitions even meant any more, but she held on to his gaze without blinking, determined to get to the truth, until his lips curved suddenly and he winked.

  Quickly, she twisted her face to the side, as he’d surely known that she would, her cheeks aflame with mortification. She didn’t like what his wink implied and she was afraid that someone else might have noticed and got the wrong impression. To her relief, however, the Master of Ceremonies saved her again, announcing the meal and allowing her to take a seat along one of the six rows of trestle tables, thankfully on the opposite side of the room to Henry Wright. From there, she made a point of not looking in his direction again, focusing all of her attention on the entertainers who played lutes and harps and sang tunes while they ate.

  * * *

  It was a lengthy meal, as befitted the occasion. Mathilde counted off each of the twenty-four courses in turn, thinking that she would never get used to the way they ate at court. At home, three courses was a great feast. Here, it would have been considered an outrage. If only she could have saved some of the food and sent it home to her family. Dicun in particular ate like a horse and yet was still never full after a meal...

  She paused with a piece of marchpane halfway to her lips, the thought bringing with it a rush of homesickness so strong that she felt almost winded, her heart hammering hard against her ribcage and her breath emerging in short, erratic bursts, ones that made it impossible to speak, yet she seemed powerless to do anything about it. There were actual tears welling in her eyes and, to her horror, she felt one start to roll down her cheek. Suddenly, in the midst of hundreds of faces, she felt utterly lost and alone, as if she were watching the banquet from inside a bubble, there and not there, a living phantom at the feast.

  Chest heaving, she stood up and made her way around the edge of the hall. She knew that she ought not to leave, not without the Queen’s permission, and that Lady Berthe would scold her for it later, but she had to get away before she did something even more embarrassing.

  Mercifully, nobody stopped her as she rushed out into a stairwell away from prying eyes. There was a small window there, the shutters open to let cooling air into the hall, and she pushed her face up towards it, drawing in deep lungfuls until her heartbeat gradually returned to normal. Then she turned around, sagging back against the cold stone of the wall and chiding herself for ingratitude. She ought to feel honoured to be there, not as if she wanted to collapse in a heap and start sobbing.

  ‘Are you following me now, lady?’

  She jumped, knowing the identity of the speaker even before she lifted her head, though she still hoped she was mistaken. She wasn’t. Henry Wright was sitting on one of the steps before her, half hidden in the shadows, one arm draped casually over a knee as if he hadn’t a care in the world. She hadn’t noticed him there when she’d entered, although she hadn’t heard footsteps behind her either. In truth, she didn’t know which one of them had followed the other, but either way she didn’t want to see him. She wanted to be alone.

  ‘Of course not!’ She thrust her jaw out, blinking rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ His tone shifted, turning to one of concern as he stood up and moved closer.