Cerys says, "So I think if the war continues, we shall not go on progress next summer. Though I hope with all my heart it will not continue, obviously. But if it does. It would not be appropriate, would it? Unless we go north, perhaps up to Hasser Court, so not far enough to be in danger, but then close enough so that Admiral Hewert can get news to us quicker. It is not too cold up there in summer, is it? Not as warm as round here, but..."
Cerys says, "And Elsbet will be joining us, now her babe is a little bigger. I do miss her, the Lord Treasurer is always so much less...himself, when she is in the court, and I know that Lady Pallina misses her too. And Liliane Cobham, her daughter is of age now, and she applies to us for a place in my train, which I shall be happy to give. I have seen her a few times and she seems kind and willing to learn. We can always give her a chance, can't we?"
Cerys says, "That would be nice, wouldn't it?"
Cerys says, "Branwen, are you even listening to me?"
"Hmm?"
Her hands are full. She stares down at them; it seems she has been sewing, or holding a needle at the least. A half-finished bear stares up at her, one ear missing, its mouth open in a gaping cry. Why a bear? She can't remember.
"Branwen doesn't get enough sleep!" Eliyne roars with laughter.
Carlotte says, "A guilty conscience will do that to a person."
She flushes, angry; at Eliyne, whose teasing has gone beyond a joke; at Carlotte, for this confirmation that she believes her guilty; at Cerys, even, for drawing attention to her. She would have them all gone and it just her and the queen, except the moment that got to Lady Pallina she would be out of court and surrounded by Clares, far from Gweon and Cerys. "I am not guilty," she insists.
"Nicolas Wrainby thinks well of you."
Cerys shoots Eliyne a look. "So do I, what of it? What does it matter if he is a man? He can think well of a woman without suspicious intentions!" But it's hard to insult or upset Eliyne. She just grins.
She wants to say: Cerys, stop, don't bother, they won't listen. Because they won't. She has given up hope that they will tire of it - even war doesn't distract Eliyne, she's like a dog with a particularly tasty bone, determined to get out all the juicy marrow - and she senses, though she can't see, Cara somewhere sneering at her. It is no secret that Lady Pallina dines with her when she is off duty, and that now Carlotte goes too, sometimes. She doesn't imagine that they talk about the weather.
She wants to say this, but she doesn't, and so the queen continues, "Nicolas is a good man, a kind man, and like to think well of anybody if they give him reason. That he is fond of her only means that our Branwen has not dealt him some mortal insult or, Lady Marr, made an assault on his honour, that is so important to him and his family."
"I'm surprised," Carlotte mutters, under her breath.
"Oh, Nicolas, is it? Should we be stitching your wedding clothes already?" Cerys blushes; Eliyne laughs, seeing this as a success, to make her sovereign falter, and presses on. "He has not invited me for a walk in the gardens, make of that what you will, you can be sure that I will!"
Alice says, "He knows your reputation."
"Oh, la di da. What would you know of reputation, girl?"
Alice withdraws into herself and won't answer. She has lost some of her childish softness, since the herbalist's drink, and if you thought she was all angles before, look at her now. She looks skinny - no, not skinny, but slim, and there is a glitter to her where previously there was just a hint of shine. She looks like a woman, and one who has seen something, felt something of life. This retreat is out of choice, not out of hurt, because how can she be hurt, when she knows reputation more than any of them? But Eliyne is not subtle and doesn't feel the difference. She opens her mouth to unleash another taunt.
"Leave her alone," she, Branwen, says.
"She speaks!"
Mariah Pagett throws herself into the breach, armed with a smile. "Did you say Cobham, Cerys? Liliane's daughter, isn't she a Cerys too?"
"Carys," says Carlotte. "She's a Carys."
"She's lovely, I've met her." Mariah is trying her best, but her smile has a sheen of desperation and her voice fails to cut through the tension. "The Cobhams are only the other side of Kellingborough, and my brother and hers go hunting together. She's a little rough around the edges, maybe."
"Aren't we all, when we're young?" Cerys asks indulgently, who was never rough around the edges, unless it was before she could even talk. She certainly doesn't remember her being anything other than gracious, elegant, refined, going back even to when she was a clumsy girl fresh from Harwood Ridge.
Eliyne picks out a stitch and laughs again. "Oh, rough around the edges is good! Not that you'd know that, Cerys. But I'm sure some of us do. Branwen? You're a married woman! And-"
"And you're not, so how would you know?"
She has to say this to stop her from continuing her sentence, because if she continues she will want to get out, and that will only give Eliyne even more fuel. But the room drops a few degrees; she drops her eyes and pretends to stitch the bear, while people work out what to say. Her needle scratches it in the eye.
Eliyne stands. Her needlework frame dangles by her side, threads trailing from a wren like particularly vibrant innards. "Oh, Branwen, for crying out loud! Can't you take a joke?"
Movement from the queen's corner; it's enough to stop the retort fighting its way to her tongue in its tracks, and distract Eliyne. Cerys is on her feet, her hands on her hips, and glaring.
"Right," she snaps. "The rest of you, leave. I want to talk to Lady Clare alone. And if anybody says, but Lady Pallina says... Well, Lady Pallina is not here, is she?" Her eyes glint. The ladies gather their skirts in a rustle and make to leave. Carlotte holds the door open for them, her pinkish eyes cast downwards, but she has to wait; Eliyne hovers, hands grasping at her skirts so that her stockings show in a flash of white, incongruous against her vivid autumnal dress. "Lady Marr, go." Eliyne whisks up her train and bobs away with a knowing look. Carlotte disappears behind the door. Satisfied, Cerys turns to her, clapping her hands together. "There! Now. Branwen. Talk to me!"
She holds up the bear. "I think a lion might have been a better choice..."
"Don't be obtuse. I never knew you be so quiet before."
"Lady Pallina," she sighs. There isn't anybody listening and Cerys is her friend; why shouldn't she say this? She hasn't time to get to Gweon and unleash her full anger. And she doesn't need to explain. The whole city knows about the rules that have been imposed on her.
"She is certainly very..."
"Infuriating?"
"I was going to say wary," the queen chuckles.
"That too." She looks down at the unfinished bear, suddenly welling with anger. If it was up to Lady Pallina, she would not be able to do this, and word will get back to her, and she will be furious. The feeling fights its way to her tongue, and she blurts out,"Just because she was your father's whore doesn't make her your mother."
Cerys' hand goes to her mouth; her eyes show shock. "But I have no other mother."
This has hurt her, it's clear. She's chosen to take it as a jest of sorts - Branwen, can't you take a joke? she thinks, and almost scowls - but the queen is stung by this statement, and her attempt to hide it tugs at her heart and makes her feel guilty. She has never meant to hurt Cerys.
"I apologise," she says, trying to sound humble. "I spoke without thinking." She still means it, though.
"You often do." They share a smile. "Lady Pallina doesn't like you. Or rather, she used to, until this... I do not regret the Moon of Mercy, Branwen. Lady Hesta has been quiet, her chattering hangers-on send me gifts and thank me for saving their precious sons and husbands, and nobody can accuse me of harshness. For the sake of myself and the kingdom, I cannot regret it. But I regret its effect on you."
"You have enough to worry about," she says, meaning the situation up north, which is turning stale. There have been no great victories reported, but no great losses either. The weather sounds bad, worse than it is here, and any movement is hard going in the snow. Even the northmen are hiding until things start to look up. She thinks of Dewi, trapped in a circle of tents and gnashing his teeth, or pawing at the tent flaps like a dog begging to be let out of the house, and of Ranulph, surrounded by his men, waiting patiently for a call to action, and perhaps thinking of her.
"All my subjects are my concern, all of the time. Even when I'm asleep. Including you!" Cerys says this as a joke, but her face turns serious and she reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. "I shall speak to Lady Pallina. You cannot always be surrounded by people, it isn't practical, and Alice looks up to you, it wouldn't be fair on her to deny you her company." Does she know about Alice's pregnancy? She was certain not, but looking at her now, she wouldn't be surprised. There is that look in her eyes that says she knows more than she is letting on. Dear Cerys, so tactful, so humble. "None of the other ladies have to suffer as you do, and some of them, their indiscretions are certain. Lady Marr, for example. Lady Elsbet. Marjory Hasshome, remember her? Marjory and her knights of roses. She was never put under guard."
Marjory left court when she married; a gentleman of a good name from a family short of money, so short that he had no right to be picky, when the wealthy Hasshomes came to try to restrict the damage of Marjory's behaviour. She had money and he had name, and now she has both, and two children too. The girl is too young for court, the boy the very image of his father. The mention of her is enough to bring her to mind: a lopsided smile, sweet green eyes, blonde curls. She always seemed to be touching someone or another, hanging from someone's arm, patting into place the hair of the younger girls - which had included her, back then. It's a pleasant memory.
"Marjory was always nice to me. She left me one of her roses, the one Edward Garaby gave her. It has his initials in it."
"I got Rogrett Carsen's." Cerys pulls a face. "I would swear it smells of him."
"That lavender," she remembers, suddenly, like a flash of lightning in a sky you thought was still. "So sickly. It almost made me choke." She can smell it now, even though there is no lavender in the room, a sleepy fug so strong you would know when Rogrett had entered even if you were looking the other way. She almost looks around to see him. But Rogrett is up at the war now, Marjory and the rose he paid her probably forgotten.
Nicolas Wrainby smells of southern spices. Gweon of ink, and dust, and the woods under Harwood Ridge.
Still clutching her shoulder, Cerys peers down at the bear and laughs. "Perhaps it should have been a lion," she concedes. "Go back to your rooms. See Gweon, if you want, you have my permission. Mariah tells me he turned up at your chambers the other day." Aware that she, Branwen, has been avoiding introducing the two of them, steward's son and monarch, she gives her a sly look. "A handsome man, she says, if you like haughty boys, which you know she doesn't. And ink stains on his hands. And his hair all uncombed."
"If I were you," she says, "I'd stick with Nicolas."
-
She hears, from Alice, what happens next. How, once she had gone, Cerys sent for Lady Pallina; how a barge had to go to the Small Palace to fetch her from her audience with Lady Cara Clare. She, Alice, was with the queen while they waited. Cerys was calm, saying nothing, doing nothing, only nodding when she asked if she could stay. "I thought you'd want to know," she says earnestly, "I thought, because of how she is to you, you would want me to stay and listen. And Cerys let me; I think she knew." So there they are, the queen, sitting under her canopy, and Alice, on a stool at her feet, and Mariah Pagett behind them looking out for the barge. When she announces that it has just moored Cerys asks for her skirts to be arranged, her hood to be straightened, and so this Alice does, her hands shaking though she doesn't quite know why.
The queen draws herself up, as she does, you know. She bows her head respectfully. But when she talks, her tone is hard. "Lady Pallina Thorngrove," she says, "thank you for coming so promptly." They exchange small pleasantries, so much so that Alice thinks they may just forget why they are both there, and Lady Pallina's responses are firm and confident, the way they are. This goes on for some time, until the queen suddenly gives her head a shake. "My lady, we must talk."
"That we must," says Lady Pallina.
"There are issues."
"There are."
"I ask for your help in addressing them."
"I will give all I can."
"I am glad to hear it," Cerys muses, "because I think you have been overstepping your position, my lady." Lady Pallina could have looked shocked, or surprised, but she doesn't, she only folds her hands into her sleeves and looks up at the canopy, waiting. "It is not for you to discipline my ladies. It is not for you to impose restrictions on them. I am a queen, my lady, your queen, and how can I govern a kingdom, if I am not allowed to govern my ladies-in-waiting?"
(And she, Alice, in a lather of fear the whole time, desperately trying to remember every word for when she passes this on.)
Lady Pallina inclines her head, polite, but her expression remains firm and immovable. "Much more easily, my queen. I make no apologies. What I do, I do in your service. Rumours are bad enough, but they will happen, and girls will be foolish; when you openly keep adulteresses about you, and worse, those who are unrepentant, who deny what we all know they are guilty of, who are even proud of their natures...when you encourage them, make light of their behaviour, make jests of it, it is those abroad who laugh at you. Your company must be regulated. Your own reputation must be protected."
"You were my father's mistress," Cerys says. "That does not make you my mother. These are not your duties and these are not your concerns."
"Your reputation is everybody's concern," says Lady Pallina. "And your discipline of your ladies, if you will allow me to say it" - (Alice is struggling to sit still now, her hands wringing her sleeves, wondering if they will end up shouting) - "leaves a lot to be desired. I have been in the court since your father's time, longer than any of these bright young things you like to surround yourself with. If anybody should manage them, it is me."
"Are you accusing me of being unable to manage my own affairs?"
"I am saying that is what it looks like." (Gasps, from the meagre audience, and a few hisses too. Alice doesn't see who. She's wringing at her sleeves.)
"And what of you, my lady, do you consider what you look like?" Cerys has two pink spots on her cheeks and she sounds angry and disappointed all at once. A useful trick, for a monarch. It is almost motherly. "Shall I tell you what I see? I see a woman edging towards hypocrisy. Yes, hypocrisy, and I can say this to you, Lady Pallina, I am perhaps the only person who can! The last person in the world who has the right to judge Branwen - and the right to judge me! - is a jaded old mistress with a bastard child of her own. Is it not? And Euan was born, I should point out, after you were married. How can you possibly have the right to discipline Branwen for indiscretions she may not even have committed?"
Lady Pallina just looks at her. You would not know, Alice says, that she had been dealt a check, you would think she was just observing patiently and making notes in her head, but there was that hard look in her eyes. She asks if she can go and doesn't want for an answer, just turns and walks away. The queen breathes out and calls for water and while she drinks, Alice, suspicious and still trembling, goes to the window. Mariah steps aside so that she can look out of it. She watches Lady Pallina emerge, frown up at the palace, and step straight onto the barge, giving orders. The oars splash. It pulls away and downriver, heading towards the Small Palace. Alice waits until she is dismissed and hurtles straight off to her chambers, Branwen's, to tell her what has just passed.
She listens as patiently as she can, holding back the comments she would make while the story comes out. It takes time. Alice is flitting about nervously, and not just because of this confrontation. Word has got back to the court that Sir Thomas is riding down-country; how he has got away from the war is anybody's wonder, but Alice thinks he may be rushing down to see her. It is not a situation she is ready for. They, that is, the rest of the ladies, think he has probably forgotten her entirely, but that will not stop her worrying. And now this. The poor girl must feel like her world is trying to buck her off.
She sits her down on her favourite stool and gets her to repeat the more salient points, while she bustles about with glasses of wine. Alice resists it at first. But it is the season for spiced wines, warmed so that they feel as if they are unfurling in the stomach, and her reserve does not last more than a few seconds. She takes a long draft and smiles, shakily, but it is there. "I thought they would start shouting right in front of us," she admits over the glass, rubbing the pads of her fingers over the patterns scored into it. "This is pretty. A gift?"
"Yes." From Gweon. She returns her mind to the situation in the queen's chambers. "And Cara was not there?"
"No. At least, not in flesh. But I think she may as well have been. She'll know now."
"What was actually decided?"
"Nothing." Alice frowns. "At least, nothing in my hearing. Cerys looked as though she was just happy to make it out alive."
"Lady Pallina is too proper to go armed, even with a bodkin," she says, smiling despite her uneasiness. "Imagine her north, wrapped up in mail and plate! A great big sword swinging by her side..."
"...boasting with the men, and telling them how to fold their linens in camp to make sure they crease right..."
"...and then, when the northmen come, she tries to do that look on them, the one you described..." She makes a poor attempt at mimicking Lady Pallina's even, unimpressed look; Cerys is a good mimic and would do better, but she feels it is just about recognisable. "And they take one look at her and run back the other way!"
Alice laughs so hard she snorts up some of her wine, and has to mop it up with a handkerchief, embroidered inexpertly with a border of thorns, Harwood thorns. The image of Lady Pallina on the battlefield has something irresistibly comic about it, her stern eyes staring out from underneath a helmet, her voice ringing over corpses devoid of guts or blood; if she can laugh about her, if she can make a jest from her hostility, perhaps she can convince herself she is not a threat. Alice hands back the handkerchief, apologising. She tells her to keep it. Her own is a gift from Ranulph, southern lace emblazoned with the Clare coat of arms, rooks and castles clustered around a golden staff topped with a crown. It lives tucked into her bodice, whenever she remembers.