The People’s Queen. Vanora Bennett

you’ll sort out the wool problem too – he’s promised it will stop.’

      ‘Gnn-h.’

      He should sound more excited.

      ‘You’ll have the money you need for this year…and the Italians may come back too…’

      With a flicker of impatience, she wonders if those sounds he’s making are actually an acknowledgement of what she’s saying, or just the sounds of pleasure at being massaged. It’s even possible that they’re snores. He sometimes does nod off while people are talking to him. And he’s just had a bath.

      ‘That would be good,’ she goes on experimentally. ‘Don’t you think?’ She looks up while her hands tie the little knot at the end of the bandage.

      His eyes are only half-shut. He’s half smiling, like an old alley cat, with torn ears and eyes and scars and a missing limb or two, purring on a sunny wall. It’s only when she takes away her hands and takes his bandaged foot out of her lap that he stops. With an air of surprise, he peers down at her.

      ‘Don’t you think?’ she repeats sharply. She can hardly believe he’s taking no notice. She’s been so sure he’ll be overjoyed. Grateful. He should be. It’s the most astute fund-raising idea anyone in his service has come up with in years.

      ‘What, what?’ he splutters. ‘Oh…Yes indeed.’

      He hasn’t been listening to a word, but thinks he can get away with pretending. All Alice’s impressive statesmanlike thought, all that careful weighing of percentages and outcomes, all that convincing herself that, through today’s good idea, she’s proving herself capable of becoming the intelligent strategist of tomorrow, the good angel at Duke John’s shoulder: all gone to waste…ignored.

      Alice is not always perfectly statesmanlike. The flash of rage she’s having that her idea has had such a disappointing response is too vivid to allow measured self-criticism. She doesn’t ask herself questions such as: Was this, really, the best moment? Is Edward truly in a state to take in talk of debt today?

      Instead, she thinks: Is this all I am to him, after all these years? Someone whose voice he can just ignore? A servant, a nurse, a bloody pair of hands?

      Then, mastering herself a little, she moves on to: Well, if he doesn’t want to listen, it’s not the end of the world. He’d agree all right if he had a sensible bone left in his body. He’d be jumping at the idea.

      Finally, taking a deep breath, Alice tells herself that it’s up to her to help him make the right decision.

      She says, briskly rushing him on, in tones that suggest she’ll brook no nonsense, ‘Lord Latimer agrees with you – that taking out this loan could be the solution to several problems at the same time.’

      Edward answers, ‘Latimer…a good man, Latimer. Very good.’ But he sounds a little fretful now. He’s looking around. He’s beginning to understand that the massage is over, the bandage tied. There’ll be no more till the morning.

      That’s assent enough, Alice judges. There’s no need to feel exasperated with him. He’s agreed.

      ‘You’re tired…we’ll get you into bed,’ she says, much more gently. He nods. His eyes are drooping – a child deprived of a treat.

      She heaves him up. He stands, helpless, with his arm limp over her shoulder. When she begins to walk, in tiny steps, he shuffles along with her to the bed.

      ‘So shall I tell Latimer to prepare the papers you want drawn up? And send him to you in the morning?’ she says as they move.

      He nods. He’s forgotten the whole conversation already, she can see. He just wants to be stroked and comforted and tucked into bed.

      She blows kisses all the slow tiptoeing way to the door, gentle kisses, as if to a baby. His eyes are shut long before she gets there.

      But once she’s out on the other side, she picks up her skirts and runs, as fast as she can, down the corridor, feeling the power in her legs, pushing her up and away, rejoicing as she goes in the quickness of her breath and the pink on her cheeks and the heat of the blood coursing through her. She can’t help herself. After hours of going so slow, she has to celebrate being young and alive.

      And she has to find William Latimer, fast.

      

      The candlelight is reflected in his eyes.

      The servant has gone.

      The lean tanned face is showing its deep lines. Lord Latimer’s smile is a lion’s casual snarl, eyes half-closed with sheer pleasure, head stretching luxuriously back on the neck, a beast of prey feeling the power of himself. He must have been a devil with the women in his time. ‘It doesn’t stop here, you know,’ he’s saying. Quietly – half-growl, half-purr. ‘Or it needn’t. If you wanted to go further.’

      She stays still. What can he mean? They’ve solved every problem already, haven’t they?

      But there’s always further to go. There’s always a refinement. She’s always known that. So Alice raises her eyebrows just a self-possessed fraction. It won’t do to look naive.

      ‘You mean…’ she says. Not quite a question. She folds her hands and waits.

      The candle flickers on the table between them. Latimer looks around without moving his head, just a flicker of eyes – he has an old soldier’s stillness about him – but there are no open doors or windows in this room bare of hangings. He puts his elbows on the table. He leans forward until his eyes are burning so close to Alice that they seem to separate and float, four golden-green circles over very white teeth, bared. He breathes, ‘The debt he’ll be buying. Lyons. The discounted debt…’

      Alice waits. His excitement is catching. She’s no longer as composed as she would have liked to be. She can feel her body leaning forward, closer and closer, until her face is nearly touching his – as if they’re lovers, about to kiss. Her heart beats faster.

      ‘…fifty marks for every hundred borrowed from the Crown.’

      Alice says, in a monotone, ‘Yes.’

      ‘Imagine if you were to buy those debt papers on from Lyons. Pay a bit more. Sixty marks, say. He’d be glad of the profit…’

      ‘Yes…’ Be patient, Alice tells herself. It doesn’t do to sound mystified.

      ‘Then, once they were your bonds, you’d cash them in at the King’s treasury…’

      ‘Yes,’ Alice says, nostrils flaring, already scenting the beginning of the answer.

      ‘…at face value.’

      Alice stops breathing. It seems a long time before she realises her body has stopped obeying her, and tells her chest to expand and take in air, and let it out.

      She says, and she no longer cares that her voice is trembling, ‘You mean – I’d buy something for sixty marks, and exchange it for a hundred marks straight from the treasury?’

      Doubling my money, or just about. Though Latimer would want a cut.

      He nods. ‘We’d split the profit.’

      The candle flickers, but neither of them notices any more. All Alice can see is those golden orbs, dancing before her eyes.

      After a long silence, she says, flat-voiced again, ‘How?’

      But she knows. The three hundred people of the royal household are divided into two layers, the upper one of which, the domus magnificencie, numbers more than a hundred people, and centres on the King’s chamber. It’s run by Latimer. It’s Latimer who formally controls access to the royal presence. It’s Latimer who chooses the chamber staff of knights and esquires of the body, the King’s closest attendants (apart from Alice). He’s also in charge of the steward who’s in charge of the domus providencie, the lower part of the household, that teeming mass of people