The Harlot's Daughter

Chapter Two

In the hour after sunset, Justin strode towards the King’s chamber, dreading this meeting. The King expected an answer on his list of grants. He wasn’t going to like the one he would hear.

But Justin would deliver it, and quickly. He had another mission to accomplish before the lighting of the Yule Log.

Entering the solar, Justin saw Richard on his knees, hands clasped. He paused, thinking the King at prayer, but when Richard dropped his pose and waved him in, Justin saw an artist, squinting over his parchment, sketching.

As Justin forced a shallow bow, the artist left the room, handing his drawings to the King.

‘Aren’t these magnificent, Lamont?’ The man had drawn Richard kneeling before a group of angels. ‘The gold of heaven will surround me here and my sainted great-grandfather will stand behind me.’

Only young Richard would call the man a saint. ‘Your great-grandfather died impaled on a poker for incompetence in government.’ And sixty years ago, most had cheered at his death.

The King narrowed his eyes. ‘He was deposed by ruffians who had no respect for their King. Do you?’

Justin clenched his fingers, his sergeant-at-law ring digging into his fist. ‘I respect the King who respects his realm and the advice of his barons.’

Years ago, Justin had respected this King. Then, the young boy bravely faced rebellious peasants and promised them justice. That promise, like so many others, had been broken many times over.

Frowning, the King put down the sketches. ‘It’s abominable, having to go to the Council every time I need the Great Seal. Give me the list.’

‘The Council has said no.’

The King, stunned, merely stared at him. Only the crackle of the fire broke the silence.

‘Even to Hibernia?’ he asked, finally.

‘Especially to Hibernia. The man tarries at court with his mistress while his wife waits at home in embarrassment.’

‘You go too far!’ The King shook his fist. His voice rose to a squeak. ‘That’s not the Council’s concern. These are my personal gifts, not governmental ones.’

Obviously, the King did not understand the new order. ‘They affect the Treasury, so they come under the Council’s purview.’ There might be a legitimate grant or two on the list, but in the end, he suspected, he would be serving summons to the lot of them. ‘Until we complete a full review of the household expenses, there will be no new grants.’

‘Is this the legal advice you gave the Council?’ The King spat ‘Council’ as if he hated the very word.

‘Parliament made the law, Your Majesty.’

‘And by that law a Council can rule a King?’

‘For the next year, yes.’

The King narrowed his eyes. ‘You tell your Council that by Twelfth Night I want the seal affixed to this list. The entire list.’ A wicked smile touched his lips. ‘And add a grant of five pounds for the Weston woman.’

Justin clenched his jaw. The amount would barely keep a squire for a year, but the woman had done nothing to earn it. The King was simply trying to flaunt his power. ‘I will convey your message,’ he said. ‘I do not expect them to change their minds, particularly for the woman.’

Barely suppressed fury contorted the King’s face. ‘Remember, Lamont, according to your precious law, by this time next year, I will be King again.’

The King’s very softness of speech caused him to shiver. This was a man who never forgot wrongs.

Well, that was something they had in common.

As Justin left the room, laughter laced the halls as the court gathered for the lighting of the Yule Log. He did not slow his steps. The Lady Solay had to be stopped. Quickly.

Scolding herself for speaking harshly to Lamont, Solay took her small bag of belongings to the room she was assigned to share with one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, wondering whether the choice was an omen of the King’s favour or a sign that he wanted her watched.

She unpacked quickly as Lady Agnes, small, round, and fair, hovered in the doorway. ‘Lady Solay, hurry. We mustn’t miss the celebration.’

Shivering in her outgrown, threadbare cloak, Solay crossed the ward with Lady Agnes, who had not stopped talking since they left the room.

‘The Christmas tableaux for his Majesty tomorrow will be so beautiful. I am to play a white deer, his Majesty’s favourite creature.’ Agnes had come to England from Bohemia with Queen Anne and still trilled her rs. ‘And for the dinner, the cook is fixing noodles smothered in cheese and cinnamon and saffron. It’s my very favourite.’

Solay’s mouth watered at the thought. Her tongue had not touched such extravagant sweetness in years. As they entered the hall, Solay looked around the room, relieved when she did not see Lord Justin.

All her life, she had ignored the prejudice of strangers, yet, unlike all the others, his condemnation had unearthed her long-banked anger, exposed it to the air where it threatened to burst into flame, stirring her to fight battles long lost.

Worse, he had touched something even more dangerous. Close to this man, she felt want. The unruly emotion threatened the control she needed if she were to control those around her. And her ability to influence others was her family’s only hope.

Lady Agnes left to attend the Queen, who was touching the brand to the kindling beneath the Yule Log. Solay looked for another woman companion, but each one she approached drifted out of reach.

The men were not so reticent. One by one they came to study her face and let their eyes wander her body. Feeling not a speck of desire, she turned the glow of her smile on each one, circling each as the sun did the earth.

She learned, as she smiled, that the King had bestowed a new title, Duke of Hibernia, on his favourite courtier.

The men did not smile as they told her.

‘Congratulations, Lady Solay.’ Justin’s words came from behind her. ‘The King has put your name on his list already.’

Only when she heard his voice did she realise she’d been listening for it. Yet surely the excitement she felt was for the news he brought and not for him. ‘His Majesty is gracious.’ She wondered how gracious an amount he’d given.

‘The Council is not. It will not be allowed. The Council cares not that you pick a birth date to please the King.’

Her cheeks went cold. ‘What do you know of my birth?’ Few had known or cared when she came on to this earth. The deception had been harmless. Or would be unless the King found out.

‘One of the laundresses served your mother twenty years ago. She remembers the night of your birth very clearly. It was the summer solstice and all the castle was awake to hear your mother’s moans.’

She bit her lower lip to hold back a smile of delight. Her birthday. She finally knew her birthday.

But she must cling to the tale she’d told. ‘She must have mis-remembered. It was many years ago.’

‘She was quite sure she was right. And so am I.’

Fear swallowed her reason. If the King were to believe her reading, he must have no doubts about her veracity. ‘Would you take the word of a laundress over that of a King’s daughter?’

‘The laundress has no reason to lie. The King’s daughter apparently does.’

She raised her eyes to Justin’s, forgetting to shield her desperation. ‘You haven’t told the King?’

‘No.’

Relief left her hands shaking. ‘He need not know.’ Surely a few light words and a kiss would cajole this man to silence. She touched his arm and leaned into him, pleading with her eyes. Her lips parted of their own accord. ‘It was harmless, really. I thought only to flatter him.’

The angry set of his lips did not change as he stepped away. ‘When next you think to flatter the King, remember that, for the next year, the power belongs to the Council.’

Fear smothered her joy. Now that he knew the truth, he held a weapon and could strike whenever he pleased. This man, so able to resist a woman’s persuasion, must want something else.

She had a moment’s regret. She had thought he might be different. ‘I see. What is it you want for your silence?’

He raised his brows. ‘Don’t confuse my character with yours, Lady Solay. I do not play favourites.’

‘So you will hold your tongue and then call the favour I owe you when it’s needed.’

Seemingly surprised, he studied her face. ‘Do you trust no one?’

‘Myself, Lord Justin. I trust myself.’

‘Surely someone has given you something without expecting anything in return?’

Her thoughts drifted to memory. All those courtiers who had fawned over her mother while the King lived disappeared the night he died. All their kindnesses, even to a little girl, had only one purpose—access to his power. ‘Not that I remember.’

‘Then I am sorry for you.’

She saw a trace of sadness in his eyes, and steeled herself against it. ‘I don’t want your pity. You’ll want something some day, Lord Justin. They all do.’

‘You are the one who wants something, Lady Solay. Not I.’ He turned his back and left her standing alone in a crowded room.

She shrugged as the next man approached. What Lord Justin said did not matter. His actions would tell the tale.

Justin strode down the stairs and out into the upper ward, glad to be free of her. The dark, her nearness, went to his head like mulled wine.

He should go to the King immediately with her deception, he thought, rubbing his thumb across the engraved words on his ring. Omnia vincit veritas. Truth conquers all. Just tell the king she had lied and she would be gone.

But all around him, the court was surging across the ward towards the chapel for midnight mass. It was hardly the time to interrupt one’s monarch to say…what? That the Lady Solay had lied about her birthday? What lady had not? The King, never too careful of his own word, might either take it as a compliment or as an affront.

Justin’s footsteps slowed. He could imagine the look on Richard’s face. After the King digested the fact, the cunning would creep into his eyes. Then, just as she predicted, he would hold the knowledge as a weapon, waiting to use it until she was most vulnerable. And despite everything, Justin knew that the Lady Solay was vulnerable. When her violet eyes pleaded with him, they reminded him of another woman’s. A woman so desperate she—

He blocked the painful memory as he walked by the Round Tower, looming in the centre of the castle’s inner ward. There was no need to reveal Solay’s secret tonight. The threat alone would give her pause. Besides, the Council would never approve her grant, so what did it matter?

But as he entered the chapel and bowed before the altar, the knowledge of her lie, and the desperation that caused it, lay in his gut like an undigested meal.

Right next to the admission that, for once in his life, he was holding back the truth.

Beside Lady Agnes, Solay walked out of the midnight mass with a stiff neck from craning to watch the King. She knelt when the King knelt, rose when the King rose, following his movements as closely as his shadow.

At least she did until Lord Justin blocked her view. He moved to his own rhythm, never glancing at the King, or at anyone else, except once, when he caught her eyes with an expression that seemed to say, ‘Can’t you even be yourself before God?’

Who was he to judge her? she thought, shivering beneath her thin cloak. He did not know her life.

But he already knew a secret that threatened her. And her clumsy attempt to kiss him had made matters worse.

Everyone wanted something. If she could learn what he wanted, perhaps she could help him get it in exchange for his silence.

Agnes must know something. ‘Lady Agnes,’ she began, ‘what do you—?’

‘I need the room to myself tonight,’ Lady Agnes whispered back, not looking at her.

Craving the few hours of rest between the Christmas Eve and Christmas dawn Masses, Solay opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. This was why Agnes had offered to share a room with her. Agnes needed someone to cover for her when she had a rendezvous.

Lady Agnes had chosen wisely. Solay murmured her assent.

As the crowd fanned out across the inner ward toward the residential apartments, she wondered where she might pass the night. Lagging behind the others, she slipped around the Round Tower and over to the twin-towered gate her father had built before she was born. Perhaps it would shelter her tonight.

She slipped inside and started up the stairs, but, halfway up, she heard a noise in the darkness below. She climbed faster. Another set of footsteps echoed hers.

Who could it be? Even the guards had been given a Christmas respite.

The man was gaining on her.

Holding her skirts out of the way, she tried to run, but he was faster. As the scent of cedar touched her, her heart beat faster, the fear replaced with something even more dangerous.

‘Lady Solay, you must be lost.’

She turned, holding back a laugh at the very idea. ‘I cannot be lost, Lord Justin. I was born here.’ The castle had been her playground when she was near a princess. At the memory, her chest ached with loss long suppressed.

‘Born here, yet you can’t seem to remember the day and you don’t know the difference between the gate tower and the residential wing.’ He took her arm. ‘I’ll take you to your room.’

‘No!’ She pulled her arm free, and turned gingerly on the narrow stair. He was still too close. ‘Sleep is difficult for me,’ she said. That, strangely, was true. She wondered why she had shared it with him.

‘So you wander the castle like a spectre?’

She grabbed an excuse. ‘I was going to study the stars to prepare for the King’s reading.’ He would not know that a horoscope came from charts and not from the sky.

He moved closer. ‘Then I will accompany you.’

She released a breath, not caring whether he believed her. At least Agnes was safe.

Their steps found the same rhythm as they climbed to the top of the Tower. Cold air rushed into her lungs as they emerged from the dark stairway on to the battlements. After the darkness of the Tower, the night, lit by stars, seemed almost bright, although the half-moon shed only enough light to polish the strong curve of his jaw.

He waved his hand towards the sky, a gesture as much of dismissal as of presentation. ‘So, milady, look out on the stars and make what sense of them you will.’

She looked up and her heart soared, as it always did. How many sleepless nights had she spent trying to discern their secrets? Now, like familiar friends, their patterns kept her company when sleep would not come.

She hugged herself, trying to warm her upper arms. He moved behind her, his broad back cutting the wind, suddenly making her feel sheltered, though his voice turned cold. ‘Strange method of study. In the dark. Without notes or instruments.’

‘I only need to watch them to learn their meaning.’

He snorted. ‘Then all soldiers should be experts on the stars.’ Behind her, he took her by the shoulders, his breath intimate as he whispered in her ear, ‘Do you know any more of the stars than you do of your birth date?’

She swallowed. Was it his question or his nearness that caused her to tremble? ‘I know more than most.’

Yet of the stars, like many things, she knew only the surface. By memorising the list of ascendants in her mother’s Book of Hours, she had gleaned enough to impress most people, but only enough to tantalise herself.

Thankfully, he let her go and leaned against the wall next to her. ‘You could not know what takes the University men years to learn.’

His dismissal rankled. ‘I had years.’ Years after they left court and her mother was busy with suits and counter-suits.

His dark eyes, lost in shadow, gave her no clue to his thoughts. ‘And did the stars give you the answers you sought?’

His question surprised her. She had studied the heavens because she had nothing else to do. She had studied hoping they might explain her life and give her hope for the future. ‘I am still searching for my answers, Lord Justin. Did you find yours in the law?’

He turned away from her question, so silent she could hear the lap of the river out of sight below the walls.

‘I was looking for justice,’ he said, finally.

‘On earth?’ She felt a moment’s sympathy for him. How disappointing his life must be. ‘You’d do better to look to the stars.’ The stars surely had given her this time alone with him. She should be speaking of light, charming things that might turn him into an ally. ‘Let me read yours. When were you born, Lord Justin?’

He frowned. ‘Do you think your feeble learning can discover the truth about me?’

She touched his unyielding arm with a playful hand. ‘My learning is good enough for the King.’

Her fingers burned on his sleeve. She swayed towards him.

He picked up her hand. All the heat between them flowed from his fingers and into her core. He held her a moment too long, then dropped her hand away from his arm.

‘The King cares more for flattery than truth.’ His voice was rough. ‘I would not believe a word you say.’

She waved her hand in the air, as if she had not wanted to touch him at all. As if his dismissal had not hurt her. ‘Yet you believe in justice on earth.’

‘Of course. That’s what the law is for.’

Was anyone so naïve? ‘And when the judges are wrong? What then?’

‘The condemned always claim they’ve been unjustly convicted.’

Fury warmed her blood. Parliament had given her mother no justice. ‘Even if the judgement is right, is there never forgiveness? Is there never mercy?’

‘Those are for God to dispense.’

‘Oh, so justice lives on earth, mercy in Heaven, and you happily sit in judgement confident that you are never wrong.’ She laughed without mirth.

‘You believe your mother should be exonerated.’

Surprised he recognised a meaning she had missed, she was silent. Better not to even acknowledge such a hope. Better not to picture her mother back at court and revered for the good she had done. ‘She was brought back to court before the year was out.’ Restored to her position beside the King for his last, painful year.

‘Not by Parliament.’

‘No, by the King himself. The Commons never had the right to judge her. And neither do you.’

‘It is you I judge. You’ve lied about your birth date. I suspect you are lying about why you are not abed. It seems truth means nothing to you.’

‘Truth?’ He talked of truth as if it were more valuable than bread. She held her tongue. She had already been too candid. If she angered him further, he would never keep her secret. ‘Perhaps each of us knows a different truth.’

‘There is only one truth, Lady Solay, but should you ever choose to speak it, I would scarce recognise it.’ His voice brimmed with disgust.

‘You do not recognise it now. My mother was a great helpmate to the King.’

He shook his head. ‘Even you can’t believe that.’ A yawn overtook him. ‘I’m going to bed. I leave you to your stars and your lies.’

‘Some day when I tell you the truth, you will believe it,’ she whispered to his fading footsteps.

Shivering and alone under a sky that seemed darker than before, she crossed her arms to keep from reaching for him as he descended the stairs.

Chapter Three

Solay snatched only an hour of sleep after Mass, then spent the feast day watching Justin and wondering whether he planned to expose her lie. Finally, exhausted, she escaped for a nap as soon as the King left the Christmas feast.

Her respite was brief. Before dark, Lady Agnes bustled into the room, carrying a white robe and two bare branches. ‘Here’s my costume for the disguising.’ She held up the simple off-white shift and waved the branches over her head. ‘Will I not look like a hart?’

A knock relieved Solay of responding. Agnes would resemble a horned angel more than a white stag.

At the door, a page, garbed in a vaguely familiar livery of three gold crowns on a blue background, handed Agnes a note and ran. She read it, then, smiling, closed the door.

‘I need you to take my part in the disguising,’ she whispered.

‘I would be honoured,’ Solay told her, trying to place the page’s livery. How bold to ignore the King’s entertainment for a private tryst. Did lusting make one so mad?

‘Quick. We haven’t much time.’ Agnes helped Solay into the undyed gown, slipped a linen hood over her face, and tied the branches around her head.

‘Tell me what I must do.’ Beneath the hood, she squinted, trying to see out of the eye holes.

‘Just watch the others in white. Do as they do and at the end, curl up at the feet of the one who plays the King.’ Agnes stopped tugging on the robe and peered through the slits in the hood to meet Solay’s gaze. ‘They must think you are me.’

Behind the hood, Solay laughed. ‘I’m disguised and I’ve just come to court. Who will recognise me?’

‘Everyone saw you yesterday.’

Everyone watched in glee as the King humiliated her, Agnes meant. And then, of course, the men had come for a closer look.

But only Justin had really seen her.

Agnes squeezed Solay’s fingers. ‘Please. Do not remove your hood, no matter what. Too many know what part I was to take.’ Agnes opened the door a crack, looked both ways, then pushed Solay into the hall. ‘And thank you,’ she whispered, her round blue eyes full of gratitude.

Solay crept down the stairs to the Great Hall, fingers touching the cool stone wall for balance. The branches wobbled uncertainly at the back of her head. Anonymous beneath her white hood, she felt strangely free as she entered the Hall.

Until she saw Justin.

Head down, he huddled with three other men. He was not costumed, of course. This man refused to disguise himself or his feelings.

As she walked towards the masked group gathering at the end of the Hall, his gaze drifted from the conversation to follow her. Knowing he was watching, she realised that Agnes’s costume exposed her ankles and hung slack around her hips. She turned her back on him and touched her hood to make sure her hair was covered. A stray dark lock would betray her.

The King’s herald called for silence and she pulled her attention back to the tableau. Like a mirror, the scene reflected the King who observed it. A pretend King sat on a mock throne. Heavenly beings in blue surrounded him. Beasts of the field came to lie at his feet.

As she moved to her place, the court seemed as much of a façade as the play, beautiful on the surface, but concealing each player’s true nature. When she lay at the foot of the false throne and heard the applause, she wondered which player had donned Agnes’s lover’s garb.

‘Up. Now,’ someone behind her whispered.

Around her, players moved into the audience, pulling them into the scene. As she rose to follow, she glimpsed a deep blue robe through the slits in her hood. All around them, laughing men and women joined the pretty scene, posing like statues. Afraid to look up, she saw a hand, grasped it and pulled.

At his touch, her fingers seemed to dissolve. For that moment, there was no separation between them.

He ripped his hand away, refusing not with the good-natured, temporary reluctance of the rest, but with stubborn belligerence.

She made the mistake of looking up.

Beneath the heavy brows, she saw no doubt in his eyes. It was Justin. And he knew her.

She turned, reaching with both hands to draw in two courtiers next to him, trying to escape. As the real and the pretend court merged, the King applauded and some of the disguisers lifted their masks.

Ducking behind the pretend throne, Solay fled into the hall. The man in the King’s garb left, too, mask still in place, turning in the opposite direction.