Mistress to the Crown (4 page)

But Shore’s jealousy was pricked. Next morning, the sly knave sent out an invitation to his friends’ wives to come at a quarter to ten and take refreshment so that when Lord Hastings arrived, I should be making petty talk upstairs and unable to come down. Oh, how his distrust made me seethe.

No bargain was made with Lord Hastings that morning, but I noticed later that he had left his gloves behind, not on the open counter by the measuring rule, but tucked at the end between a shallow basket of remnants and the wall.

What should I do? Send an apprentice to Westminster or my lord’s house? Tell Shore? Take the gloves myself? Was this forgetfulness deliberate? Ha, vain fantasy on my part to suppose such a thing. This great lord would no doubt send some menial to retrieve the gloves, yet I stood there holding them and dared to dream.

II

I met Lord Hastings again within a few days. He summoned my father to bring samples of silks and gauzes to Beaumont’s Inn, his London house. The request read:
Since the fabrics are to be purchased for my lord’s stepdaughter and Mistress Shore resembles her, would Master Lambard please ask his daughter to accompany him!
So Lord Hastings had discovered the family connection. I felt very flattered. Of course, Shore would have made trouble had he known, but he had gone to Suffolk to collect cargo that had arrived from a manufactory he part-owned across the water in Bergen-ap-Zoom.

I had visited the houses of wealthy merchants, but I had never stepped inside a noble lord’s dwelling, and Beaumont’s Inn, with its two gables and three storeys, looked to be extremely modest. It lay at the south-east end of Thames Street, close to Paul’s wharf and neighbour to Baynard’s Castle, where King Edward’s mother, the Duchess of York, lived. Only a strip of garden and a laneway separated the two properties.

Father and I were shown up into a hall with long windows that looked westwards towards the River Fleet. Two immense tapestries adorned the facing wall. I do not know a great deal about the stitching but the dyes I do know. Indigo, woad and madder
predominated and I would have wagered these hangings had been made in Anjou and come to England as part of Queen Margaret’s dowry when she married King Henry. In fact, the golden salt upon the high table might have been hers as well for it was shaped as a swan, one of her badges.

The man who had been privileged to receive this spoil was in conversation with two men from the Tailors’ Guild and all three were leaning over drawings set out on the high table. When the steward announced us, Lord Hastings dismissed them and stepped down to greet us.

Ah, I am a mercer’s daughter to my fingertips! There is such beauty in a well-dressed man. Lord Hastings had excellent taste. He clearly understood colour, and his long robe of Saxon blue velvet was tailored skilfully across his shoulders. Falls of gilt brocade hung from his padded sleeves just above the elbows and his indoor shoes were finely tapered and made of dark blue leather embroidered with his maunche in white and violet thread.

‘Ah, I see you have brought my gloves, Mistress Shore.’ My senses picked up a descant to that plainsong remark. ‘Bring the samples to the windows, Master Lambard, if you please.’

As he stood with his steward flicking through our squares of cloth, the sunlight showed me a lord who was far older than I had first thought. His forehead was lapped by fine, plentiful hair of a lustrous fairness, a pale scar angled up from his left eyebrow and a frown mark slashed his brow above his nose. Otherwise, the lines in his face hinted at a kind and generous disposition.

‘Your daughter is of my stepdaughter’s complexion,’ he said, looking round at Father. ‘It would please me if she could remove her headdress.’

‘Of course, my lord,’ agreed Father, his mind utterly on selling.

What choice had I? I took off the velvet and buckram cone that sat upon my coiled plaits and let the steward take it into his care.

‘Since she is not yet wed, my stepdaughter, Lady Cecily, wears her hair loose. If you would oblige me, Mistress Shore?’

I did not take my gaze from Lord Hastings’ face as I reached up and removed the pins, one by one, and let my blonde plait fall. There was something deliciously sinful in him asking this of me. A married woman’s hair is for her husband or her lover.

‘Unbraided!’ commanded Lord Hastings, his gaze touching my hair and coming to linger on my lips. In obedience, I brought my plait forward over my right shoulder and slowly loosened the braid and with a toss of my head sent the strands swirling across my shoulders like an unfurled cloak.

‘You have beautiful hair, Mistress Shore.’ So had he. I could have clawed through his and drawn his face to mine. I had never experienced the power of kisses, but this lord would know the craft of lips, the delicate thrusting, the
petite mesure parfaite
.

My father, fussing which brocade to proffer first, had missed the dance of stares, but he knew what to advise. The choosing was swift and decisive, and leaving my father to bargain with Hyrst, his steward, Lord Hastings led me up to the dais.

‘Tell me what you think of these.’

‘Are they for a tapestry, my lord?’ I asked, picking up the nearest paper – a charcoal sketch of a helmed man wearing a mask, breastplate, leather skirt, greaves and sandals.

‘No, it’s an entertainment for the court.
The Siege of Troy
. Lord Rivers’ notion. Unfortunately I doubt I’ll have time to put it on this year. Here’s the Lady Helen.’

The drawing showed a creature in a long, yellow wig and voluminous white gown. Metal cones armoured her massive breasts and steel tassets protected her broad thighs. She looked like a fishwife playing Joan of Arc.

‘Why are you smiling, Mistress Shore?’

‘Your pardon, my lord, but unless your desire to is to make
people laugh, I cannot imagine anyone stealing this lady from her husband. Why, Prince Paris would need a derrick to get her on board his ship. Oh, but I suppose she is to be played by a man.’

He took the cartoon from me. ‘Do you believe any of this tale is true?’

‘That a princess could leave her husband for a handsome Trojan? I am sure that has been happening since time began. However, I do not suppose the war lasted ten years. That is probably the storyteller’s exaggeration. Or if it did, I expect the Greeks went home at Christmas and Easter.’

‘They were heathens, Mistress Shore.’

I shrugged. ‘Ah, well, perhaps they had orgies to attend.’

I was flattered by his company. There must be weighty matters on this great man’s mind and yet he was making every effort to be pleasant.

‘My lord, is it true we shall be soon be at war with the French?’

‘Yes, Mistress Shore.’

‘That is not good news for the city. Is it to punish the King of France?’

King Louis had funded a mighty rebellion a few years earlier. He had brokered an alliance between King Edward’s cousin, Warwick, the King’s younger brother, George, and the exiled former queen, Margaret of Anjou. The result was an invasion that drove King Edward and Lord Hastings out of England for the winter, but they returned in the spring and after two bloody battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury, King Edward slid back onto the cushions on his throne at Westminster and clapped on his crown again.

‘To punish the King of France?’ replied Lord Hastings, humouring me. ‘Yes, Mistress Shore, it could be seen that way but there are better reasons. You do not approve of the King’s enterprise?’

‘I know that King Louis has invaded Brittany and would like to conquer Burgundy, my lord. I understand also that England has treaty obligations with Burgundy, but I wish the realm might have continual peace so our trade may prosper. War means higher taxes and good men risking their lives. Hasn’t there been enough killing in the quarrel between the Houses of York and Lancaster? No, I do not uphold a war with France.’

He seemed amused by my outspokenness. ‘I shall inform his grace the King of your opinion, little mistress.’

‘I pray you do not, my lord,’ I said genially, for I knew he was teasing me, but inside I was bristling for I dislike being belittled. ‘As for taxes, a man may milk a cow, for sure, but there comes a time if there is insufficient grass when—’

His gasp of laughter interrupted me. ‘Mistress Shore! And there was I believing you only get milk if you pump a cow’s tail, but now you tell me it’s a matter of grass.’

For an instant I thought to clamp my lips closed and wallow in mortification but instead the she-devil in me brazenly retorted, ‘My lord, you may believe what you will. Perhaps in Leicestershire there are a lot of cows with aching tails!’

Hastings drew a breath at my audacity, for he was from those parts, then laughed heartily, slamming his hand upon the table. It was fortunate that his steward’s polite cough ended the conversation for although you can push the boat out far when you are younger and female, it is best not to get into unfamiliar waters.

Lord Hastings’ hand between my shoulder blades was extremely agreeable as he escorted me back to Father. ‘Your daughter has a sharp wit, Master Lambard.’

‘Oh, please do not tell him that, my lord, or he will start noticing.’

Father pushed an armful of samples at me with a glare to hold my tongue.

As we walked back to Silver Street, he said, ‘That man will seek to have you, Elizabeth.’

When I made no answer, he added, ‘You’ll not encourage him. I’ll not have any daughter of mine causing a scandal. The Guild won’t like it.’

‘I do not think you have any right to preach to me, sir.’ I watched his handsome profile redden.

‘Damn it, I suppose you’ll never forget I made a fool of myself.’

We walked on in silence, both of us remembering how he had stupidly leased a house in Wood Street for his mistress and then when he had finished with her, she had moved out taking everything that could be lifted, unscrewed or levered off. Because the dwelling was rented from the Goldsmiths’ Guild and Father did not have the coin in hand to pay for the woman’s thievery, his reputation would have been ruined. Fortunately Alderman Shaa forewarned me and provided a list of all that was owed. It took all my savings to pay my father’s debts.

‘I helped you then with what little money I had, Father,’ I exclaimed, hastening to keep up with his angry stride. ‘But now all your cargoes have been safely delivered, you might consider helping me.’

He halted. ‘To grease some slimy lawyer’s palm, Elizabeth, so he’ll write to His Holiness in Rome on your behalf? Jesu! If divorce was easy, princes would change their wives like they change their cotes. Besides, you and Shore have managed all these years.’

‘Managed!’ I echoed indignantly, tempted to toss Father’s precious samples in the nearest sewer. ‘Shore’s been impotent since he had that quarrel with the cooper’s cart, and before that was not much better.’

I knew what I was missing. I had discovered how to pleasure myself.

‘I concede that Shore is not of the right temperament for you, Elizabeth,’ Father was saying, ‘but as I’ve told you many times before, he’s no sluggard and the Mercer’s Guild thinks highly of him. Why, I’ll wager he could become an alderman like me in a few years’ time. Just be patient.’

‘Patient for what? I did not want this marriage when I was twelve and now I am twenty-five and childless, I am even more resolved to end it.’

Several passers-by were eyeing us now and Father rapidly dredged up his pat-on-the-head-and-she-will-calm expression that he used with Mama when she was angry.

‘Sweetheart,’ he cajoled, putting his free arm about my shoulder to urge me forward, ‘taking a husband to law is not how a decent woman behaves. Marriage is for life. It is God’s will.’

‘God, sir, was never
married.’
I shoved his merchandise back into his arms and fisting my skirts marched on alone.

‘You try my patience, Elizabeth,’ he grumbled, hastening after me. ‘Even if you had the money for a petition to Rome, his Holiness in Rome would never listen to a woman.’

‘I’ll make somebody listen,’ I vowed.

And maybe it would be Lord Hastings.

III

‘What’s going on, Margery?’ I whispered to Alderman Shaa’s daughter on Sunday, a week later after we had heard the sermon at St Paul’s Cross. I could see that her parents and mine were heading off together to their favourite tavern for ale and pies, but Margery was blocking my way, insisting that Shore and I remain with her in the stands at St Paul’s Yard beside the cathedral. She had more flesh to keep her warm; I was feeling chilled and ravenous.

I had always trusted Margery. We had become friends at the Cripplegate School for merchants’ daughters and neither of us had found marriage easy. But there was something else that bound me to her family. Not just their help in strangling the scandal that would have dishonoured my father, but Master Shaa’s kindness in persuading Shore to let me have my little enterprise with the silkwomen.

‘Wait-and-see!’ My friend tapped the side of her nose. ‘A surprise.’

‘Oh lord, we haven’t got to watch another pair of priests being flailed around the yard, have we?’ I sat down again with great reluctance. The hour’s sermon on Divine Love, delivered by a
Franciscan with a blocked nose, had been tedious. ‘Won’t your children be missing you?’ I muttered.

‘Lizbeth! Be patient!’

The last thing I wanted was to watch some poor wretch doing penance for their sins. God’s mercy! I was the last person to desire to cast the first stone. Part of me was bursting to tell Margery about my encounters with Lord Hastings, but her tolerance of others’ foibles had narrowed since her marriage to the goldsmith Hugh Paddesley, a man I did not care for. Sometimes she sounded more like Paddesley than he did.

‘Ah, here we go,’ she exclaimed, nudging me with her elbow.

A ragtag mob of people, who had not heard the sermon, was thickening the crowd. Alarm bells sounded in my head. Adultery! It had to be adultery! I cast a sharp look at my friend. Had she suspected I was dreaming of taking a lover? No, that was lighting a bonfire with green wood for I read no rebuke in her eyes, and Shore and Paddesley were discussing cockfighting with their friend Shelley. Nothing was untoward.