All The Queen's Ladies [NaNoWriMo Project]

The Steward's Son

Back south we go, racing forwards in time, following the cold winds. Back across the lushlands, up the river, back to the reeking city and, glistening like a diamond in its midst, the High Palace. In through a window. Not towards the throne room, now, not towards any royal chambers or noble halls, but instead into Lawrin's Keep, under the matched badges of the Clares and the Harwoods, and through a tiny little door, into the cramped and dusty space than Gweon Delles calls home. There are books strewn about and an abacus resting against the wall. You have to look hard before you see the bed; it is easily mistaken for a desk. There you will find a young man with a turned-up nose and dark curls and a look of someone who takes offence easily and gives it out in return with relish. He is hard as work, as he often is, but at some invisible sign he drops his quill, stands, and pushes his hair back away from his face with a sigh.

He has not seen Branwen in three days. In that time he finishes off reports for his father, up north with Lord Harwood and therefore leaving him in charge of stewarding for those Harwoods who stay at the High Palace to accompany Branwen; the war has taken most of them, but there are still pages and the odd guardsman to organise. He can do it with his mind buzzing away over something else, and he does, and then he finds something else to do and does that too. He hears from the other servants that Lady Branwen must always be in good company and is not allowed to be alone with the queen, which he knows will hurt her, but she does not come to see him, and he knows it is because after the chamberpot stunt, Lady Pallina has tightened her grip to make sure she cannot escape it. Like she did with her son. Gweon has considered, now she has slapped Branwen, helping the boy out of his tower and off to war. But he cannot account for the backlash, and he doesn't want to see his friend hurt any more.

Nobody has come to force him to leave. He has never met the queen, but this is her palace and if he stays, it is under her grace, in which Branwen has so much faith. Nobody bothers him here, in this little cubby hole of a room, for which he is forever grateful. From what he hears of the court, it is not a comfortable place to be. He used to be always hearing laughter or music; now it is shouting and doors slamming, and the servants have taken to wearing unreadable expressions and standing to watch him go past. He stares them out brazenly.

But it has been three days, and he is feeling lonely, so now he stands and runs a hand through his hair and decides to seek her out, regardless of her company.

He pities Branwen, and she would hate to hear him say it and so he pities her more. A steward's boy, brought up in the trade; he knows how to make people into marks on paper and how to move them around; he sees, and has always seen, this happening to her. He has seen her taken out of her patched-up childhood skirts and dressed as a lady of her own station, fine, but then her mother sends her off to court, into the public eye. For three years he has only letters, then he gets sent to the palace after her, in her train; it seems she has struck up a friendship as close as sisterhood with the queen and is to have her own keep, her own household, her own guard. He sees her mother and father grin at each other, and raise a toast to their absent daughter. He says goodbye to the crumbling stones of Harwood Ridge and trots down to the High Palace, his belongings in a roughspun sack, surrounded by Harwood things and armed men to stop people stealing them. The city alarms him - this is before he realises how little it cares for him, and comes to like it - and the palace is huge and the ladies are like shrieking, chattering birds who sweep past him as if he was not even there. Branwen embraces him tightly and pulls away to assess him. She tweaks his curls and laughs at his voice, fully broken now, and in return he makes an assessment of her. Her hair has been curled. He doesn't like it. Her dress probably cost more than his entire wardrobe of Harwood livery, and she moves with a sort of graceful restraint, as if she cannot bear the idea of tearing it. Soon it becomes normal, but no sooner is he used to the change, able to see past it to the girl he knows and is fond of, than he hears paper shuffling, sees the mark that is Branwen shifted from one column to another, and he learns that the marriage into the Clares - which Lady Harwood has been pushing for since their offer of Dewi for Mariam was rejected - has come off. In public he smiles and congratulates her, like everybody else. In private, he rages. He feels his friend has been bought and sold, and worse, that she is intelligent enough to know it and to feel trapped, insensible of the honour she is told that it is. It is a great marriage and he should be proud. This is how the Harwoods move up in the world; if he serves well, he may be rewarded, and his children, if he ever gets around to having them, could be gentlemen. But that is only if. He does not want to serve the Clares, and he says so. But you will serve Branwen, says Lady Harwood, to whom he has taken his complaint, she is your lady after all and for whatever reason thinks well of you. He agrees to serve - thinking that Branwen will not like that, and will continue to treat him as she always has, as a friend - on the condition that he does so as a Harwood, not as a servant of the Clares. Lady Harwood agrees, just to get rid of him.

His rage has calmed now. The High Palace has become a sort of home, a place he can be. He can go out into the city in the livery he is proud to wear and not be mistaken for a gentleman, and he can make his lists and see Lawrin's Keep working because of him; Lady Marr's people are discreet but useless, the Lord Treasurer's are stupid, Master Edward's men have an intelligence and precision that would make them good company were they not so boring, and amid it all the Harwood tower runs perfectly and does them all proud. Sometimes it rankles that he does not get more credit, but as his father has always said, the true man is the one who needs no credit, only results. And, of course, he can see Branwen flourish, full of tales of her fellow ladies-in-waiting, her eyes bright, as if she was born to be here. He likes hearing her stories of Queen Cerys, and hearing them relayed back to him by other servants, hearing Branwen admired, her position envied. Until her plea, anyway. Since they he has watched her become more brackish and agitated, resistant to his soothing, like a woman wrapped in thorns. If her eyes are bright, it is with anger. If she tells stories, they are ones that infuriate him too. She worries for Cerys and she worries for Alice and she worries for him. His distractions work, of course, he knows her well enough now to know how to distract her, but he cannot be with her always. He can hardly be with her at all.

Now he has worn sick of it.

The page outside her suite, William, knows him by sight and stands aside to let him through, his eyes as wide as saucers. He follows the sound of Branwen's voice into her bedchamber. She is in there with two other ladies; Lady Wagstaffe, all points and angles, and Lady Mariah Pagett, who is an intermittent feature on the queen's staffing rota. They appear to be playing tiles, with no visible currency. He bows; to the two other ladies it is honest and courtesy, but to Branwen it has a shade of mockery. She looks up at him, alarmed, but then her usual mischievous expression slides back into place. "News from my parents, I suppose?" she asks. He isn't supposed to answer.

Alice stands, taking Lady Pagett's arm. "Mariah, have you seen any of Lady Clare's tapestries since you came back? They are displayed so prettily now, you really must come and look..." The door shuts firmly behind them, leaving he and Branwen alone.

For a moment, they simply relish the company in silence. They are so used to each other that this feels normal, comforting, to be in each other's space, thinking on their own things. He thinks of all the times he has sat as his desk, listening to the rustling of pages as she reads one of his books, or the times he has busied himself with small tasks while she sews. Through the door they can hear Alice cooing.

"She's not a good actress," he says.

"No. But she tries. You wouldn't know she'd been...well. You know. Unless you asked her outright, and nobody does. They don't think they have reason to."

He knows they don't. Alice is a notorious virgin, and it is known throughout the palace that she has sent Sir Thomas' token north, to be given to whatever whore he feels will want it. When questioned on her change of heart, she says, "Lady Branwen showed me the truth. I am only glad she did so in time." When he heard this for the first time he smiled. Now he thinks of Lady Pallina, and how she will hear it.

"Only the queen can dismiss me," Branwen says, at the same moment he says, "We should go home."

Her eyes meet his. "Don't let me keep you."

"I'm not going without you."

"And I'm not going at all," she insists. "Cerys needs me. And that's exactly what they want, for me to flee back into the country with my tail between my legs...well, I won't!" Vehement, her face has become red and her hands are creasing her skirts. He does not need to ask who 'they' are.

"I can't," she continues. "Go home, that is, because my place is at Rooksrest, with Ranulph, and if I didn't go Cara would bed down in Harwood Ridge until she could drag me by the ear into a coach."

"I'd drag you back." But they both know it's ridiculous. Her lips twitch; misery forgotten, she laughs. Says, "You're lucky it was only Alice and Mariah."

He says, "I was hoping it would be Lady Pallina. See whether she would try to be polite to me or not. Whether she would hit me, or tell me to get out. I'd like to see it."

"I'll try and arrange that for next time, then!"

But she senses he is not joking, and there is a touch of fear in her eyes.