The King's Daughter (22 page)

I spent longer than I needed over tying the bandage just right. I felt towards Thalia the same warmth that filled me when I was looking after one of my pets, or being kind to Baby Charles. A fondness grew in me for the one I was being kind to. I knew that I had betrayed her with my hesitation. Tending her let me begin to think better of myself again.

‘Sometimes it’s safer if others think you a fool,’ she said.

‘Do you mean me, or you?’

‘Both.’

‘We should know but not seem to know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that how you are with me?’

She pulled away her hand, which I realised that I had been clutching. ‘What do you truly want from me, your grace?’ Her voice shook. ‘I no longer know where I am! When I first arrived, I tried to be courtier-like and agreeable and keep a respectful distance, but that wasn’t what you wanted. Then I tried to tell you the truth, as you asked but you didn’t like that, either. Now you tempt me out of cover into greater and greater danger. How am I to keep myselfsafe while giving you true answers? I’m now confused out of all good behaviour!’

The moment teetered, unbalanced and fragile. But a door was cracking open. I had no idea what lay beyond. I gave it a push.

I drew a long breath. ‘I’m not angry that you called me a fool, because it’s true. I was being one.’ I stood up. ‘Wait.’

I felt under my pillow for the little piece of Scottish granite and held it over my heart. ‘I vow to you that I won’t grow angry if you tell me I’m a fool, or anything else, so long it’s true. Here…!’

With my free hand, I lifted a gold chain over my head. On it hung an enamelled gold medallion bearing the profile of the goddess Diana, carved in white sardonyx and framed in diamonds and pearls. ‘I mean to say, I can’t promise not to be angry for a time, but I swear not to punish you. Please take this and wear it. And if you ever think that I’ve forgotten my promise, just touch the medallion to remind me.’

‘I can’t take that. It’s too costly for me.’

‘Its value lies only in the meaning. That goddess punished truth-seekers in terrible ways. I vow never to do the same.’

After a moment, she opened her fingers and let me drop the chain and medallion into her palm.

‘Vow or no vow, you still own me,’ she said. ‘That’s the only truth that matters. You have no right to demand truth from a slave.’

My warmth cooled. I put the wax stopper back onto the little stoneware jar. ‘Do you think I begged for a blackamoor maid to carry my handkerchief, until my mother indulged me by buying you?’ I slammed the jar back into its chest. ‘… that I wanted to flaunt you like an egret feather or a locket made from the hair of the Great Cham’s beard and a dragon’s tooth?’

‘No one asked my opinion in the matter, neither.’

‘Well!’ I was uncertain what to say next. ‘I can’t apologisenor make an excuse for owning you, because no one asked me. I didn’t want you bought. It’s no good being angry with me!’

She weighed the chain in her hand while she studied me with her large eyes.

‘You’re a slave too,’ she said.

‘What?’ My jaw trembled as I tried to form words. I raised my hand to slap her.

‘Though your price is a little higher.’ She raised her forefingers in a mocking cross to ward off my slap.

I looked at the handkerchief around her wrist and dropped my hand.

‘You see!’ she said. ‘You don’t want to hear the truth. Only the part of it that you choose.’ She held up my chain and jiggled it in my face. ‘I’ve just done what you ordered me to do and you don’t like it. Now you want to punish me for obeying you.’ She dropped her eyes to my still half-raised hand. ‘A slave can never trust the master.’

She sank into a curtsy of such exaggerated reverence that my cheeks burned. ‘I beg you, your grace, to release me from honesty.’

‘I’ll release you from everything, if that’s what it takes!’ I cried. ‘I give you back to yourself! See how you like it! You’ll see how easy it is to be your own mistress without help from anyone! And good cess to you!’

Trying to straighten again, she stepped on her hem and staggered. ‘That’s a cruel temper!’

‘Cruel?’ I was now filled by an unreasoning fury. ‘I call it generous!’

‘And when it amuses you, you’ll forget your generosity.’

‘How dare you?’ I ran to my writing chest, flung it open, fumbled for a pen. I sharpened the tip of the quill as if beheading it. Spat into the ink to moisten it and scribbled. ‘There!’ I shook the paper under her nose. My voice shook almost as much. ‘Your manumission! D’ye want it or not?’ I heard the Scots leaking back into my voice, a sign even to me of my fury.

‘I don’t toy.’ I tried to sound calmer, dignified. ‘How dare you call me a changeable flibbertigibbet? Go on, take it!’

She looked at the paper and back at me. ‘You’re in earnest?’

‘Don’t stare at me so!’

Thalia took the paper and read it. With satisfaction, I saw it begin to rattle in her hands.

‘So?’ I asked. ‘Are you content now?’

She folded the letter carefully into four and tucked it into her bodice. She stood for a long time with one hand pressed flat and rigid against her breastbone over the paper, staring into the corner of the room. ‘Do you want me to be grateful now?’

‘Aren’t you?’

She gave me another of her opaque looks. ‘You mean well.’

‘I’ll have it witnessed!’ I managed not to shout. ‘Tied up in ribbons and seals, if y’ like. But there’s your proof of my intention. With my signature!’

She nodded.

‘Aren’t you even a little grateful?’

‘Oh, aye,’ she said, imitating me perfectly. ‘That I am, among much else.’

‘Well then?’

‘And now that I’m free, you’ll send me away?’

‘Why would I do that? Why d’you think I wrote that if I didn’t want you to stay here and talk to me?’ I understood my own words only as I heard them come out of my mouth.

‘Are you in earnest?’

‘God in Heaven, why can’t you believe me? You’ll make me angry again.’

‘And now, you’re not?’

‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘I am angry! Show me that damned necklace before I…’

She seemed not to hear me. She stood looking down ather hand pressed against her breast. ‘Please, your grace…’ She shook her head then looked down at her hand again. ‘With your permission… I need…’ She made a vague flapping motion with her free hand and ran from the room.

‘And I’m not a slave, neither!’ I called after her, and burst into tears.

When I calmed down, I saw how she had tested me. The door had opened although I did not yet see what lay beyond it. I sent my chamberer to the gallery where Thalia still slept, with a draught to help her endure the pain that night.

I felt calm as I slid into sleep, without knowing why. The next morning, I woke early, filled with unexplained joy. I lay listening to Anne’s gentle snores, trying to decide why I looked forward to the day with such expectation. I could not say that I had gained a friend. The relationship into which Thalia and I seemed to have launched ourselves was far too spiky and complex to be called friendship. All the same, I was eager to see her again and ask how her arm was healing.

My first task of the day was also clear.

33

Through my secretary, I dismissed Frances Howard. She could go wait for the return of her young husband somewhere else. Then I appointed Thalia Bristo as my Lady Musician of the Bedchamber, her salary to be paid by my steward and properly recorded in my household rolls. I told my chamberer to bring a new pallet bed to my lodgings and a locked chest for Mistress Bristo’s belongings.

Then I sent for Thalia and waited happily to tell her what I had done.

She took a very long time to appear. When she did present herself, her renewed wariness felt like a slap.

‘Walk with me,’ I said. Silently, she followed me down into the orchard away from curious ears.

‘Where’s my chain?’ I asked, without breaking step. ‘I told you to wear it.’

She paced steadily beside me. ‘Your chain? Then it’s not truly mine now? You also told me that I was my own mistress, did you not?’

I walked on several more paces, breathing hard. I recognised a crossroads. It was now my choice which way to go. I noted the angry heat of my forehead and cheeks. I remembered the easy joy with which I had slid up into the day.

‘Mistress Bristo,’ I began, not entirely certain what was going to come out of my mouth.

‘Tallie,’ she said. ‘I’m easier with Tallie.’

I stopped dead and looked at her. I knew suddenly what I felt when I was with her, even when I was angry with her, or confused, even amongst all the strangeness, false steps and mutual misunderstandings. She made me feel not alone. Just as I had felt not alone on the Cat Nick with Henry, looking down on Edinburgh. As I had not felt since coming south with any creature, except my dogs and horses, and Henry, when we could meet. Not even with loyal Anne. Henry was still my other soul and I was his. But we were two different halves of a single nut. Unlikely as it seemed, Tallie felt like the same half that I was.

I thought of every way in which we differed. Including the fact that she clearly did not feel as much kinship for me as I suddenly felt for her.

‘What took you so long to come when I sent for you?’ I asked.

‘I got lost… why do you laugh?’

‘Come with me. And remember the way, this time. Whitehall is a labyrinth.’ I took her to the Privy Stairs.

We stood side by side looking out over the water. ‘This is where I come to start from, when I don’t know where I am,’ I said.

‘So here we are?’

‘Yes.’ I thought she seemed as relieved as I was by our recaptured accord.

We continued to stare out at the glinting water. After a time, I saw that she was very far away in her thoughts, looking across the river towards Southwark.

‘Are you homesick?’ I asked.

‘No!’

‘I’d like to visit over there.’

‘I promise you, you would not.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged, closing me out again.

I took her arm and lifted the bandage. ‘At least it’s not infected.’ I replaced the handkerchief again. ‘Tallie, I need your help. I am at war. You must…’ I caught myself. ‘I ask you to be my intelligencer.’

‘I feared as much.’ She shook her head wryly. ‘Hey ho! Hey ho.’ She did not ask with whom I was at war.

‘I need you to be my eyes and ears where I cannot go.’ I hesitated. ‘The king’s orders are to keep me uninformed, most of all about my marriage. He has found a slower way to kill me than the axe or sword – torturing me with my ignorance.

‘There may be risks,’ I added.

‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed. ‘There’s risk.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Do we speak of the same dangers?’

‘Of course, your grace.’

34

TALLIE

There it is still, just across the water. Waiting for you to slip and be sent back.

Must lose my memories or else they might leak out. She listens too well for me to be safe. Like just now. She can’t possibly see what I see when I look over there – the house, the women, the base coin of counterfeit delight. The babe I saw smothered at birth and taken away to be thrown into the Thames. And yet she makes me feel that she can.

‘So here we are,’ I just said to her. And where the devil is that?

I’m dependent on the favour of a girl younger than I am, who seems to find a kindred spirit in me. If she only knew what unfit company I make.

I forget that I may be free. Can’t think what that means yet. My head won’t… The world is suddenly grown too big for my thoughts to compass. Don’t trust it yet.

I can think for myself. Only myself… makes me giddy. Decide soon what to do. Free, but not safe.

Where can I go?

Don’t ever let yourself feel safe. You’re too visible everywhere. Every move watched and judged. If I even belch, I’m proved a savage. I’ve heard the ladies whispering, ‘black witch'.

Damn the queen and her masque, hanging me out for all to see. Elizabeth still doesn’t believe the danger. She’s never been in my place…

… But I don’t think she can hide neither.

She means well. At least, she doesn’t speak slowly in that false tone like the others, to be certain that I can understand their drivel. As if court ladies with minds like lame cart horses and the morals of weasels spoke some great wisdom denied to a savage.

‘Pray, where are you from?’

‘Southwark,’ I say.

That shuts them up, though their mouths hang open with astonishment. I don’t belong to land or to water. Born at anchor in Bristol harbour, Mrs Taft told me. Bobbing about on the current, ready to float away. Or sink. Wet or dry, it’s down to chance.

I think I may have just been given a chance to land dry. Mistress Thalia Bristo, free-woman. Seeker-after-truth. Truth-teller to a princess.

Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

There was a princess in Ancient times – I heard a student visiting Fish Pool House tell about her once – who always saw the truth of the future but the gods cursed her so that no one believed her. I must learn to keep my mouth shut.

But I think she sees it too, that everyone is doubled. One self walks just beside the other – the one they think they are beside the other one. Sometimes I think she sees both of me.

That’s reality over there across the river… Sweet Lord, I’d love to show them where I’ve fetched up! In a palace! That would make them goggle!

But I fear that it’s like one of those spun-sugar palaces at a banquet, ready to crack under the first spoon. It will all disappear again, no matter how well I behave.

I’m already weary with trying to think what is true, in order to please her, instead of mouthing some platitude. Speaking the truth is hard work. Not as exhilarating as I once thought it would be, when all I had to do was repeat obedient nonsense and keep my head down. Now I have to watch all the time in case the wrong truth slips out. How long can I live as what I am not?