LITMIR.BIZ

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I called back. Whatever it was, it could wait. Everything could wait. Here was the superbly well-connected man with whom I would spend the rest of my life. I shook out my skirts, smoothed the deeply embroidered panels, ensured that my light veil fell in seemly folds about my face, and prepared to meet my future.

      The gates were already open to receive the impressive entourage with mounted retainers, a curtained palanquin, and various wagons loaded with the necessities for a lengthy stay. Most prominent on pennon and flag was the flowing red sleeve, accompanied by a cluster of red martlets on silver and blue, which I took to belong to the Earl of Pembroke. Mightily impressive, I decided, although nothing to compare with my father’s royal leopards, his standards snapping in red and gold and blue in the brisk wind.

      I straightened my spine, lifted my chin. The Earl of Pembroke must be aware of the jewel he was getting with marriage to a daughter of Lancaster, first cousin to King Richard himself. If the solid might and luxury of Kenilworth did not impress him—and how could it not? —then I certainly would.

      I wondered fleetingly why I had no recall of meeting him before this, since most of the high nobility had come within my orbit at Richard’s coronation three years ago. Perhaps he had been fighting in France. Perhaps he had a high reputation as a knight on the battlefield or in the tournament like my father. I would like that.

      And then there was quite a fuss as two ladies were helped to step from the cumbersome travelling litters. The Countess of Norfolk, whom I knew: as thin and acerbic as vinegar, her hair severely contained in the metal and jewelled coils much in fashion when she was a girl. And a lady, younger, whom I did not. But where was he?

      ‘Where is the Earl?’ I whispered, when I could wait no longer.

      Dame Katherine, who had come to watch with us, stepped behind me, her hands closing lightly on my shoulders.

      ‘There,’ she remarked softly. ‘There he is. John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke.’

      I could not see. I looked back at her, to follow the direction of her gaze. I could see no Earl of Pembroke, no man dressed finely, or mounted on a blood horse, who had come to wed me, but I felt no presentiment. Until, behind me I heard my governess sigh and her fingers tightened just a little.

      ‘There is he. Just dismounting,’ Dame Katherine repeated. ‘With his grandmother, the Countess of Norfolk, and his mother, the Dowager Countess of Pembroke.’

      And so I saw him, in the act of leaping down from his horse.

      I sucked in a breath of air, every muscle in my body taut. My lips parted. And at that moment I felt Dame Katherine’s palm press down firmly on my shoulder. She knew. She knew me well enough to know what I might do, what I might say in a moment of wilful passion. My head whipped round to read her expression, and the pressure, increasing, was enough to anchor me into all the courtesy and good manners in which I had been raised.

      ‘Say it later,’ she whispered. ‘Not now. Now it is all about the impression you make. Consider what is due to your birth and your breeding, and to your father’s pride.’

      And so I sank into the required obeisance before our well-born guests.

      The women of Norfolk and Pembroke returned the greeting. The Earl bowed. Then scuffed the toe of his boot on the stones, rubbing his chin with his fist.

      ‘He is younger than Henry,’ I whispered back in disbelief, in a mounting horror, when I could.

      He was a boy. A child.

      ‘Yes, he is,’ Dame Katherine murmured back with a weight of compassion in her reply. ‘He is eight years old.’

      And I was seventeen. I could not look at Philippa. I could not bear the pity I knew I would read in her face.

      As I expected, I was summoned to my father’s private chamber within the hour, allowing me only the opportunity to gulp down a cup of ale and endure a strict lecture from Dame Katherine on the exquisite good manners expected of a Plantagenet lady—whatever the perceived provocation. I promised I would keep her advice well in my mind. So far I seemed to be unable to utter a word.

      How could he do this to me? How could my father inflict a boy not out of his first decade on me as my husband? The thoughts revolved and revolved with no resolution. He had done it. At least Philippa did not attempt to console me with bright platitudes. Her kiss on my cheek said it all.

      Now I curtsied before Constanza, my father’s Castilian wife, who sat in chilly pre-eminence, her feet on a little footstool. Then to the rest of the party: the Countess of Norfolk, the Countess of Pembroke, the youthful Earl who was watching me bright-eyed. And there was my father coming towards me, a smile of welcome lighting his features. Tall but lightly built, he was every inch a royal prince, and his gaze commanded me.

      ‘Elizabeth.’ He took my hand to lead me forward and make the introductions. ‘Allow me to present Elizabeth to you. My well beloved daughter.’

      The Countess of Norfolk, of matriarchal proportions and inordinate pride—as befitted a granddaughter of the first King Edward and thus Countess in her own right—regarded me, and saw fit to smile on me, the silk of her veils shimmering with emotion. The widowed Countess of Pembroke too smiled, as well she might. Did we not all know that my hand in marriage was a formidable achievement for any household, however noble? Constanza stood and kissed my cheek in as maternal a manner as she could accommodate. Meanwhile the Earl, the boy, stood stiffly to well-drilled attention and watched the proceedings with a fleeting interest. It made me wonder what he had been told of this visit. How much did he understand of its significance?

      And I?

      I smiled with every ounce of grace I could summon, even when my face felt like the panel of buckram that stiffened Constanza’s bodice in the old Castilian style that she often resorted to in moments of stress. Dame Katherine would have been proud of me as I acknowledged all the greetings. But below my composure I seethed with impotent anger, laced through with fear at what such a marriage would hold in store for me. Was I not old enough for a true marriage, in flesh as well as in spirit? Wallowing in the troubadours’ songs of love and passion, my blood ran hot as I yearned for my own knowledge of such desire. How could I find it with a child?

      ‘Allow me to present you to John, my lord of Pembroke.’

      This boy would not make my heart flutter like a trapped bird. My blood, cold as winter rain, ran thin as I smiled more brightly still, allowing the boy to take my hand and press his lips to my knuckles with a neat little bow.

      Certainly he had been as well instructed in the arts of chivalry.

      ‘This is your betrothed husband.’

      I swallowed. ‘Yes, my lord. It pleases me to meet you,’ to the boy. ‘I am honoured that you would wish to wed me.’

      No! I wished to shriek. I am not pleased, I am not honoured. I am in despair. But daughters of Lancaster did not shriek. Plantagenet princesses did not defy their father’s wishes.

      ‘I will endeavour to make you a good wife.’

      He was a child, barely released from the control of his nurses. How could I wed such a one as this? I had always known that I would wed at my father’s dictates but never that he would choose a boy who had not yet learned to wield a sword, who was certainly not of an age to live with me as man and wife. There would be no consummation of this marriage after the ceremony.

      ‘It is I who am honoured that you would accept my hand in marriage,’ the boy replied, pronouncing each word carefully. So he had been informed and trained to it, much like our parrot.

      ‘When will we be wed, sir?’ The Earl looked up at my father, who smiled.

      ‘Tomorrow. It is all arranged. It will be a day of great celebration, followed by a tournament where you will be able to display your new skills.’

      Tomorrow!

      The boy John of Pembroke beamed.

      I took a ragged breath.

      So

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