Thwarted Queen (9 page)

I flinched, the pleasant summer afternoon gone.

“Eleanor!” said Margaret, flushing. “Where did you hear that?”

Eleanor hung her head and fiddled with her work. “I was repeating only what Chantal said,” she murmured. Chantal was a local girl who worked in the kitchens.

Margaret put a ringed finger under the child’s chin, tilting it so that she could look directly into her daughter’s eyes.

“That is not the sort of thing ladies say,” she admonished gently. “You know your lord father wouldn’t be pleased. And one day you’ll be a married lady. You’ll never be happy unless you learn to curb your tongue.”

“Yes, Mama,” murmured Eleanor, dimpling. “But suppose I wish to take the veil?”

Margaret was saved from replying by the appearance of a diminutive figure rushing over.

“Mama! Mama!”

Three-year-old Joan threw her arms around my neck. I smiled, taking her in. Joan’s dark brown, almost black hair had come free from her headdress and was coiling down her back. She was dressed in a silken dress of dark blue that was stained and badly creased. Yet she looked carefree and happy.

Annette de Caux, both governess to the older children and nursemaid to baby Henry, followed Joan at a more sedate pace. She held Joan’s discarded headdress in one hand. “Lady Joan,” she exclaimed. “It is not seemly for you to wander with your hair so wild—” She broke off as she caught my eye and sank into a deep curtsey.

I smoothed Joan’s loose hair and gathered her into my arms. I covered her soft cheeks with kisses.

Annette sighed and thinned her lips.

Joan tilted her head and smiled. “Mama,” she said, clutching at my sleeve with sticky fingers. “Where’ve you been? I want to play ninepins.”

“It’s too hot to play now, my sweet,” I murmured, brushing strands of hair out of Joan’s face with the tips of my fingers. “And I’m busy. I must finish this sewing.”

“But you’re always busy nowadays,” replied Joan, her lips quivering. “I only wanted to play for a little while.” She pouted for a moment, then smiled.

I sighed. Joan was breathtakingly lovely, her eyes a deep blue, her face shaped like a heart. Pink roses bloomed in her cheeks. I held her more closely and inhaled her sweet scent.

“Why don’t you let Annette take you to the kitchens?”

At this, Joan’s face lit up. Annette folded her arms and shook her head.

“Are we going to be allowed to have sweetmeats?” Joan asked, running the tip of her tongue around her rosy lips.

Margaret laughed. “Yes indeed, you sweet child.”

“Are you coming too, Margaret?” asked Joan as she scrambled off my lap.

“Lady Margaret,” said Annette softly.

Margaret laughed again. “Your mother and I will come soon enough. We can play ninepins outside when it is cooler.”

I bent and gave Joan one last kiss. “Go now,” I said, giving her a gentle push.

“Come on, Eleanor,” called Joan, holding out her hand to her friend. “We can go to the kitchens and eat as much as we like. Mama said.”

Eleanor glanced at her mother, who nodded. She made her curtsey and waited for Joan.

Joan blew me a kiss and ran off with Eleanor.

Annette followed, chastising, “You should always remember to make your curtsey to your lady mother. You should always wear your headdress. Your lord father would be gravely displeased to see his eldest daughter behaving like a kitchen wench—” Her voice faded away as she continued to instruct three-year-old Joan on the proper way to behave.

Margaret and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. A sudden cloudburst prevented us from saying any more as we made for the castle swiftly.

An hour passed, the sun came out, and I was smoothing a tuck with my right ring finger on a dress I was making for Joan when I glanced up. My heart pulsed in my throat. Bess was with the young man in the gardens below. Their heads were close together as they strolled along.

“Look at that,” declared Lisette. “She’s got him all to herself. She never thinks about the rest of us.”

“Lisette!” exclaimed Margaret, turning towards her youngest sister.

I pricked my finger. A spot of blood landed in the middle of the flower I’d been embroidering.

Margaret rose, took a basin of water, added salt, and with a linen cloth set about getting the bloodstain out of Joan’s new dress.

The door opened and Bess danced in.

“Such a charming young man,” she declared.

“No need to ask whom you’ve been with,” remarked Isabel, snapping her ivory needlecase shut.

Bess turned to me. “The young man’s name is Monsieur Pierre Blaybourne, and he’s just joined the garrison here at Rouen as an archer.”

“Now why would he do that?” asked Isabel.

Margaret looked at me closely as she continued to rub salt and cold water onto the bloodstain.

“He says he’s doing it to protect Cecylee,” replied Bess, laughing.

The room went very quiet as three pairs of eyes fell on me. Margaret’s grey eyes grew thoughtful, Lisette’s currant brown eyes flashed angrily, and Isabel’s pale ones bore right through me.

I felt a shiver of a whiplash pass up my spine. I rose from my seat.

“I know nothing of this. I have not seen this...Blaybourne since the day we met a week ago.”

Bess laughed and pulled at my sleeve. “There’s no need to be so serious. He’s invited all of us to the archery butts to see him practice with the other men. They are having a contest now and want us to judge who is the best archer.”

Immediately, the solar hummed like a hive. Lisette jumped up and called for her maid to bring her new red dress. Margaret, Isabel, and I put our sewing away and summoned our women for rosewater and lavender water and for pastes made of angelica flowers and ground almonds to cleanse the skin.

Jenet helped take off my everyday blue linen and I slipped into a dusky rose silk worn over a pale green chemise. I studied my jewel case, deciding on pearls to go with the pink silk while Jenet tidied my hair and rearranged my headdress. By the time Jenet had finished dressing me, the other ladies were ready. Lisette was vivid in red, Bess’s dress of the deepest green set off her green eyes and chestnut hair, Margaret wore heavy purple damask, and Isabel wore sky-blue silk.

The shower had cooled off the thundery weather. Outside, a light breeze lifted our veils, and we walked a well-trodden path amongst oak and hornbeam, beech, hazel and hawthorn, followed by servants bearing refreshments.

Just outside the city walls were the archery butts, small mounds of earth and stone used as platforms for practice targets. The targets themselves were limited only by the imagination. Sometimes the archers used scarecrows, sometimes a rough plank with crudely painted symbols. Today, they set up a well-dressed French soldier stuffed with straw. His tunic bore the royal arms of France.

A knot of perhaps twenty archers gathered a little distance away. They checked the horn knocks on their bows to be sure they held the string properly, waxed the bowstrings to ensure the arrows flew easily, and wound silk thread through the flights of each arrow to hold the goose feather quills firmly to the arrow shaft. As we approached, Blaybourne separated from the crowd, smiling and bowing. He was attired in a brown linen tunic and hose, topped with a leather jerkin, an outfit that blended in perfectly with the other men on the Rouen garrison.

“I am charmed that such lovely ladies should grace our archery contest—“.

“Who wins?” Bess asked, fixing her green eyes on him. “Is it the person who shoots the fastest?”

“Or perhaps the one who is most accurate?” asked Margaret.

“Or perhaps the tallest and most well-favored gentleman?” put in Lisette smiling up at him.

“And what think you, my lady?” asked Blaybourne, turning towards me.

“Shooting accurately and quickly are important, of course,” I replied, “but perhaps we should also look at how well kept each archer’s kit is, because that gives some indication of his character.”

He bowed.

“Or perhaps,” I put in laughing, as a sudden thought struck me, “it should be how
untidy
it is.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” I said. “How untidy it is, on the grounds that an archer who can shoot both fast and accurately and yet has the most untidy tackle, must have a very quick and agile mind in order to be able to find what he needs in the midst of such shambles.”

He clapped his hands and laughed. “An unusual contest. So let me see, the other ladies will judge speed and accuracy.”

I smiled.

“And you, my lady, will judge for yourself how untidy he is.”

Everyone murmured assent, and we arranged ourselves on the benches under the oak tree like brightly colored birds. The marshal held up his hand, then let it fall. The archers nocked and drew. They aimed, then let fly with hand following string almost as swiftly as the arrows flew. Bow strings twanged, arrows whistled, as the archers reached for the next arrow in belt or quiver, to nock and draw, aim and let fly, in a lethal, unrelenting hail of arrows.

Two archers lined up at a time to shoot, standing sideways to the direction of the target and drawing to ear or jaw. By this method of doublets—which I had suggested—we eventually narrowed the contestants down to Blaybourne and his rival, also tall and barrel-chested, but dark, scowling, and rough in his manners.

Both stood there: the scowling churl frowning as he nocked and drew with his right hand, while Blaybourne faced him, wearing gloves of soft tanned leather, using his left hand to knock and draw. Both arrows flew, but the one from Blaybourne pierced the heart of the stuffed French soldier, who toppled over into a heap of straw and old clothes. There was a cheer, followed by laughter as Blaybourne came back to receive our congratulations.

Even Isabel was quite warm in her praise.

“I’ve not seen a left-handed archer before,” she remarked. “Can you shoot with your right hand too?”

“I’m sure he can,” put in Lisette, her usually pasty complexion tinged with pink. She drained her cup of wine. “He could pierce anybody’s heart with either hand,” she giggled.

Isabel looked at her, but Lisette drained another cup of wine.

“My lady Cecylee, would you like to inspect the archers?” inquired Blaybourne with a bow.

Smiling, I took his arm. “It has to be suitably untidy,” I remarked, tilting my head. “Somewhat untidy will not be good enough.”

“And what does my lady consider to be suitably untidy?” he asked laughing.

I felt a flutter in my chest, so I frowned.

“You take this very seriously.”

“Indeed I do. I do not give my favors away lightly.”

Blaybourne raised his eyebrows but did not reply.

Each archer laid out his things on a piece of rough cloth. There was the bow, which was about five and a half feet long. There was the bow case, made of canvas. There was the leather quiver to hold the arrows, the arrows with their goose-feather quills, leather belts to tie the quiver around the waist, arm guards or bracers, and finger tabs to protect the fingers from the bowstring. There was also wax, silken thread, horn nocks and various tools for repair.

At length, I came upon one that was very untidy. As I straightened up, my eyes met Blaybourne’s.

“Yours?” I queried.

He smiled.

“You knew—”

“I did not. I left it here just as you see.”

I shook my head.

“It is true,” he said, “I am naturally untidy. I am always losing things.”

Another archer standing nearby agreed. “Yes, my lady. Untidy, that’s what he is.”

Soon there was a chorus of nodding men.

“How unfortunate,” I murmured, “for that means you win.”

“How can that be unfortunate?”

“It will make you unpopular,” I remarked, looking at the other archers who were staring at me expectantly.

I raised my voice. “I am awarding two prizes. The first is the duke’s prize for the fastest and most accurate archer, who has the tidiest kit.”

I beckoned to the scowling man who came forward, his face now wreathed in smiles, as I gave him a badge made in the likeness of Richard’s white lion. He pinned it onto his tunic with a flourish.

“Next, I present the duchess’s prize for the fastest and most accurate archer who has the untidiest kit.”

I pinned another emblem onto Blaybourne’s tunic. It showed a rose tree with a castle in the background. “It signifies the Rose of Raby, which is what folk called me when I was a girl,” I murmured.

“I will treasure this with my life.” He took my hand and kissed each finger separately.

My cheeks burned, for it reminded me of a gesture Richard had made when he’d come courting. Why was I being so foolish? My embarrassment was sure to set tongues wagging.

Blaybourne nodded to the marshal, who came beside him and whispered something. The marshal signaled to the men from the garrison, and they departed in the direction of the castle. Then Blaybourne turned to the others watching. “Which of you ladies would like to try your hand at archery?”

Isabel went first, but she needed no instruction.

“How deft she is,” remarked Margaret. “I’d no idea she was so talented.”

Then he bowed and asked Margaret to try.

“I don’t know if I should at my age.”

“My lady, you are not old,” he said, “and it will do you good.”

He handed her his gloves and tied a leather arm guard on each arm.

Margaret drew. The arrow hit the ground in front of her with a thud.

“Try to look up, my lady. And pull to your ear.”

This time the arrow whistled off and landed several yards away.

The ladies clapped, but Margaret, breathing heavily, handed the bow and gloves back to the archer.

“I do not wish to tempt fate,” she said smiling. “Let the others try.”

Lisette went next. Turning her head sideways, she gazed up at him through her lashes while he gave instructions.

“Lisette,” murmured Margaret.

The arrow flew but landed only a yard or so away.

“Oh dear,” remarked Lisette. “I don’t feel very stable. Perhaps if you were to steady my arm?”

She gazed at him and crumpled to the ground.

I took a linen napkin from a servant to wipe her face, which was now beaded in sweat.