The Rose at Twilight (20 page)

Madeline’s eyes were twinkling. “Alys, you will never guess how much we have risen in the world! Her highness wishes to retire soon, and we are to attend her. Lady Emlyn tells me that it is a great honor to be admitted to the royal bedchamber.”

“I must first find my brother,” Alys said desperately, straightening the sleeve of her gown, which Madeline, in her excitement, had disarranged.

Madeline looked at her closely. “Are you well?” she demanded, adding before Alys could answer, “You must be well, for there is no time to be ill, and there is no time to be looking for brothers either. We must go.” With that she fairly dragged Alys along with her, chattering as she went. “Did you know we are to be paid forty pounds a year? ’Tis more than I have ever had of my very own before. Why, ’tis a fortune!”

“You are an heiress,” Alys reminded her.

“True, but I have never had a cent to spend on myself.”

“Well, forty pounds is hardly a fortune,” Alys said, allowing herself to be pulled along while she looked anxiously about for her brother. “Anne spent as much on a single gown.”

“Well, I am not Anne of Gloucester and it seems a fortune to me,” Madeline said over her shoulder, adding as she turned again, “Look, Lady Emlyn is leaving. Make haste, or we shall be late.”

Alys dug in her heels. “You go without me, Madeline. I must find Roger and speak to him.”

“Not now, you goose,” Madeline said, turning again to speak more urgently. “Did you know that as maids of honor we come third in priority after the great ladies and the ladies of the privy chamber? And do you know how lucky we are to have dined in company two nights running? They say that when the queen dowager dines alone with her ladies, everyone has to eat in the strictest silence and with great ceremony. Anyone who approaches her has to remain kneeling until she dismisses them, which she will frequently forget to do. One cannot suppose Elizabeth will act in a like manner, but we must not displease her now.”

“Elizabeth has not the same need to prove her worth that her mother has,” Alys said impatiently. On tiptoe, she twisted and turned, sure she had seen her brother pass by some distance away.

“I think Lady Beatrix has also gone,” Madeline said. She, too, was stretching, trying to see over the heads of those in front of them. “For pity’s sake, Alys, her highness will depart next! What do you mean, she has not the same need?”

“Only that Anne was used to say that Elizabeth Woodville assumed a greater haughtiness than any queen before her in an effort to make people forget her common beginnings. Elizabeth of York has not that same need. For all her faults, she is no mere commoner. To be sure, she is greedy, sly, and a prevari—” She broke off with a sharp cry of pain when her left arm was grabbed from behind and she was jerked sharply around to find herself confronting a glowering Sir Nicholas. “By the rood,” she exclaimed angrily, “if people do not cease snatching at my arms, I shall soon be a mass of bruises! What do
you
want?”

Before he could reply, Madeline blurted, “Oh, thank heaven, Sir Nicholas, you must persuade her to make haste, for we dare not tarry. We are supposed to go to her highness’s bedchamber to help prepare her for bed, only Alys insists upon dawdling!”

Nicholas, still gripping Alys’s arm and visibly collecting himself, was silent for a moment before he said with forced calm, “I would have speech with Lady Alys, Mistress Fenlord, but you go on ahead. You need not both be unpunctual. I give you my word of honor that she will soon follow after you.”

Madeline looked from one to the other but did not argue. Gathering her skirts, she turned and walked swiftly away.

Alys, ignoring the firm grip on her arm and continuing to search the hall for sight of her brother, said, “Thank you, sir, for sending her away. My brother is here somewhere, and I must speak to him, but Madeline does not understand, and she—”

“She is trying to protect you from your own foolishness,” he said, “and though you may thank me for getting rid of her, you will not thank me for what I will say to you now. Nonetheless, you will hear it. Come with me.”

“I cannot! I must find Roger!” She tried to free herself.

“Not now.” He began to move toward the nearest doorway, still holding her arm, clearly expecting no more argument.

“No!” She stayed where she was, tugging against his grip. “You have no right to command me.”

“Mistress,” he said grimly, “if you do not come quietly, I will carry you. You seem to care not one whit what others may overhear, but what I have to say to you is best said in private, and must be said now. Then, like it or not, you must go to her highness’s bedchamber if you have been commanded to do so.”

She saw that several people were looking their way. Meeting his gaze again long enough to measure his willingness to carry out his threat to carry her, she found no softening in his expression, but in a last ditch effort, she said, “Sir Nicholas, you do not understand. Truly, I must speak to my brother.”

“Then shortly I will send for Ian, whom I last saw flirting with one of the more comely players—or mayhap she was a rope dancer—and I will command him to find Lord Wolveston for you. In the meantime, I will see you safely to your duty.”

She had not thought of Ian, but she knew he would be able to search the entire palace if necessary to find Roger, whereas she could not, and so, reluctantly, she allowed Nicholas to place her hand on his forearm and take her to that same doorway through which Madeline had disappeared moments before. Beyond it, in the corridor, he looked swiftly about before urging her toward an anteroom. Once inside, he shut the door behind them. The room was empty save for a pair of carved back stools against one wall.

Alys, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, widened her eyes and said, “I ought not to be in here alone with you, sir.”

“You ought not to do many things, mistress. ’Tis on that very subject that I mean to speak to you. I have had cause before to warn you about guarding your tongue, have I not?”

Moving a more prudent distance away from him and trying to sound casual, she replied, “You have said some such thing, I suppose, but I cannot think why you wish to talk with me now.”

“Lady Alys, it is unwise to speak disparagingly of the Princess Elizabeth. She is safely wedded to the king now and will soon be the reigning Queen of England.”

“There are many who doubt the Tudor’s intention to allow her to reign beside him,” Alys pointed out.

“Queen regnant or queen by marriage makes little difference to you, however. Stir her temper, and you will suffer for it.”

Alys grimaced. “Soon enough, sir, what Elizabeth thinks of me will not signify, for I shall have gone beyond her reach.”

“What she thinks of you must always signify so long as she has the king’s ear,” he retorted, “but what makes you think your situation is about to change in any way?”

“I am to marry Lord Briarly.” Suddenly, alone in that room with him, in the silence that followed her simple statement, she felt overwhelming despair. Roger would refuse to help her, and no one else could. Saying the words aloud brought the facts home to her more profoundly than before. She was to be married, and she would have absolutely no say in the matter. Though she had been aware since childhood that the day would come, it had seemed distant, unthreatening. But now, the king’s blunt words, and her own, echoed again in her mind, haunting her, frightening her.

“So Briarly is to be the man,” Sir Nicholas said slowly, his words carefully measured, his eyes narrowing speculatively, as though he would bring a portrait of Lord Briarly into his mind.

“Aye, and no doubt he will take me straight back to the north, for Elizabeth will certainly not bid me stay at court.”

“One of the Stanley lot, is he not?”

“Aye, so the king did say.” She wished she could read his thoughts in his expression, but she could not.

“Then I know of him. Old for you, I should have thought.”

She made an impatient gesture. “That would not distress me, sir, for his age will undoubtedly be accompanied by both wealth and power, and thus would many account him an excellent match for me. ’Tis his politics I abhor. That his family betrayed their true king is a circumstance I can never forgive.”

“Duw bendigedig!”

The fury in his voice made her wince, but she lifted her chin and said with tolerable calm, “I do wish you would not spit Welsh at me—and blasphemous Welsh at that, by your tone. I cannot think why my speaking the truth should make you angry in any event. You do not seem to be the sort of man who would commend another for betraying his king.”

“I do not commend Briarly or his relations,” Sir Nicholas said between his teeth. “As to the Welsh, I called only upon the blessings of God, which is no blasphemy but only a relieving of exasperation at the idiocy of some females. The plain fact is that what I think of Briarly’s politics has no more to do with the matter at hand than what you think of them does, for the past is done, lass, and we must look to the future. If yours is to be with Briarly, you would do better to speak well of him than to condemn him, just as you would do well to speak of the king’s bride only in such words as might be repeated to her pleasure.”

“I am not such a hypocrite!”

“You are a fool!”

“You have no right to rebuke me.”

“Your own father, were he here, would speak so. By heaven, even a more indulgent father would put you across his knee and smack some sense into you before he let you put your fool head on a block. Have a care lest I do more than just speak for him.”

“Oh, how dare you!” she cried, turning angrily toward the door. “I will not stay here and listen to you. My father is dead, and you have absolutely no right—”

“You said that before,” Sir Nicholas pointed out grimly, barring her way, “and I tell you now, mistress, to count yourself fortunate that I know I have no such right. I will find your brother for you. Perhaps he will attend to you as you deserve.”

“You need not,” she snapped. “I will send Ian myself to find him.” There were tears in her eyes, and she dashed them away, angry that she should display so childish a reaction to his displeasure, and wishing she might simply draw a sword or dagger to defend herself against insults, as a man might have done.

“Do as you please,” he said quietly. “I have only one more thing to say to you. Something I ought to have said long since.”

That he was still angry was clear to her despite his even tone, and she struggled to keep him from seeing that his mood affected her. “Say it then,” she muttered.

“When we met the king at Greenwich, I spoke to him briefly of the reason for our delay in the north, and told him that all who had dwelt within Wolveston Castle had died. The sickness was already in London by then, and appeared to have spread throughout the kingdom, so we spoke at some length of that. Then I told him of your fostering, that you had been at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, and were acquainted with the Princess Elizabeth.”

“What of it?” She was curious now. The angry undertone was still present in his voice, but there was nothing in his words to explain it. “My acquaintance with her family is no secret, sir.”

“The king recognized your family name,” Sir Nicholas said. “He remembered your brother’s name among those who had fought at Bosworth and he spoke of attainder, declaring that the Wolveston lands—a considerable property, he said—would be claimed by the crown if Wolveston did not submit. So certain was he that I did not debate the point, wanting to be certain of my facts first. Your brother did submit, but before he did I asked questions of men from the north who had no cause to speak falsely to me.”

“What questions? I do not understand you.”

He regarded her sternly. “It is possible, of course, that in England, just as the law gives land to only one brother, that if that brother is attainted, the others must be included in the bill, but … Ah, I see that that need not be the case.”

Alys, comprehending at last the direction his thoughts had taken, felt warmth flood her cheeks and would have turned so that he could not see her guilt, but his hand flashed out to stop her.

“No, mistress. I have said nothing of this matter to anyone else, but I am loyal to my king—a point that ought to weigh favorably with you. I will have the solution to this puzzle. You have only one brother, have you not?”

He was looking straight into her eyes, and much though she would have liked to deny it, she could not. She nodded. “I had two others, Robert and Paul, but they died eight years ago.”

“I thought as much. Those others at Wolveston?”

Squeezing her eyes shut so that he would not see the terror welling within her, she whispered, “I do not know.”

“You saw the one.”

“Aye, but I had never seen him before.” That was true. She opened her eyes, fighting to hide her fear, pleading silently for him to believe her.

“You knew he was not your brother. Why did you not speak?”

Careful to keep her voice calm, she said, “I had no cause to trust you then, or any reason to speak.” Remembering what her first thoughts on the point had been, she added, “I did suspect they might have been sons of some other, more prominent Yorkist family that my father’s servants tried to protect by insisting they were part of ours, but I did not know. Then I became ill and forgot about them until now.”

His gaze was a searching one, uncomfortably so, but she met it without flinching, and when after a long moment he still had said nothing, she said, “I … I must go now, sir. It will not do for my absence to be remarked.”

“Aye, we have lingered here too long,” he agreed, moving to open the door for her. Before he did so, he paused with his hand on the latch to add, “You mind that tongue of yours in future, lass. Say nothing that you would not wish to hear repeated.”

She glanced up at him, her fears subsiding, replaced by curiosity. “Why does it matter to you what I do or what I say?”

The question seemed to take him aback, for his cheeks showed color, but he recovered swiftly and said with a shrug, “I suppose that, having taken responsibility for your safety before, I am finding it difficult to relinquish it now. I feel much the same way I would feel were one of my sisters to behave so foolishly.”