Queen of Silks. Vanora Bennett

it was sharing work, in the way of so many Mercery families – the husband doing the wholesale trading while the wives made luxury retail products from their husbands' silk purchases, sold them, and minded the apprentices – that had made this couple look so like twins. They were both small and tubby and cheerful. William Pratte's hair was thin and grey, and both pairs of eyes were grey too, but as lively and inquisitive as those of squirrels. They finished each other's sentences, and Alice Claver's too. That would never have happened at the decorous, often silent Lambert table; but no one here seemed to mind.

      The three of them made such a point of courteously including the newlyweds in their grown-up conversation, and so strenuously avoided reference, even by the smallest untoward smirk or movement of an eyebrow, to the pleasures of the marriage bed, that Isabel spent the entire meal going alternately hot with shame and cold with dread, just in case they were about to start.

      Her stomach churned so badly at times that she could only half-hear the harmless gossip they were chewing over from the wedding feast. John Brown, her father's replacement as alderman: going bald; looking fat; should take more exercise. Her father: looking indecently handsome; what had his robes cost him? (Here three bright pairs of adult eyes turned cautiously towards her, then away.) Gratefully, she felt Thomas's hand cover hers under the table and squeeze. His hand was damp; his face hangdog; he must feel as nervous as her.

      ‘You'd never have got King Henry turning up like that at a merchant's wedding,’ little Anne Pratte whispered confidingly, turning to Alice Claver. Isabel waited for Alice Claver, the head of this household, to look forbiddingly at her; it didn't do to gossip about kings. But the larger woman just snickered encouragingly and replied, with a disrespect Isabel found startling: ‘No, never; give me a big handsome hero for a king any day, especially if he's going to take a proper interest in us …’

      ‘… And stop the Italians cheating us,’ William Pratte butted in hopefully. ‘And knock some sense into the Hanse. Maybe even get the French pirates while he's about it. I'll be for the House of York, all right, if King Edward's going to really stir himself to help the City. No more loafing around while every lord in the land runs wild and our business goes to rack and ruin. I tell you, it'll be ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ every morning at my table if Edward goes on doing better than that …’ He screwed up his face and stuck his tongue out of his mouth, letting it loll like a lunatic's. The street-boy code for half-wit King Henry.

      Isabel stared. She should have been scared of what her father would definitely have called treasonous talk. But there was something about the casual mischief flickering round the table that she thought she was going to like, once she'd had time to get used to it.

      ‘Well, let's hope he wins, then,’ Alice Claver said briskly. ‘He still has to catch Warwick.’

      ‘Now,’ she swept on, turning so suddenly to Isabel and Thomas that the bride hardly had time for her heart to leap into her mouth. ‘You two. Talking of our business going to rack and ruin, isn't it time to get you to work?’

      Alice Claver's manner might have been brusque, but her eyes twinkled so merrily that Isabel didn't feel offended. For a moment, at least. Then she realised Thomas, at her side, was bristling with resentment, and thought, falteringly, that perhaps she'd misunderstood the mood.

      ‘Get your lovely legs into the storeroom, eh, Thomas?’ Alice Claver went on prodding, with the beginning of a rough growl of laughter in her voice. ‘Show Isabel the ropes?’

      Isabel looked down at the table, but not before she saw the Prattes giving each other another of their sharp, birdlike looks – enough to show her it wasn't the first time they'd heard Alice Claver say this sort of thing to her son, and that they didn't expect a positive outcome. Isabel squeezed Thomas's hand back. If he felt bullied, she wanted to show her support.

      ‘Aw, Ma,’ she heard Thomas answer. It was a child's whine, and there was a cunning look in his eye that she could see meant he had no intention of working today and would say anything to avoid it. Isabel let her hand go soft again. ‘We only got married yesterday.’

      Alice Claver looked unimpressed. ‘Well, you've had all morning to loll about, haven't you?’ she said, and there was more roughness and less laughter in her voice now. Isabel blushed. The Prattes glanced at each other again. Visibly restraining her impatience, Alice Claver continued: ‘You know William's very kindly offering to take you round the selds. Showing you the kind of range of goods you might think of buying to set yourself up. Introducing you to the kind of people at Guildhall who can advise you.’

      She paused, as if this would jog Thomas's memory. But Thomas stayed mulishly quiet.

      Anne Pratte piped up, in her fluting little voice: ‘You don't need to worry about Isabel, Thomas. I'll look after her for the afternoon. I'm going round Alice's embroidery suppliers; it would be useful for Isabel to meet them. She can come with me …’

      Isabel could see both offers would be helpful if Thomas were to start buying in enough stock to get going as a merchant in his own right, and she needed to learn the names and faces of the silkwomen she'd soon, perhaps, need to commission work from. She squeezed his hand again and looked encouragingly at him from under her lashes, trying to convey that she'd like him to say yes. But Thomas just scowled harder.

      ‘Ma,’ he repeated, with the elaborate patience of a man talking to an idiot. ‘I just said. We've just got married. And Isabel wants to go and see off the King's army. We were going to take a picnic.’

      The eyes all turned on Isabel, making her face burn. She'd been acutely embarrassed by Thomas's tone of voice. However informal people were in this household, it surely couldn't be right to talk back to your mother like that. Besides, she'd made no plan for a picnic or a trip to see the army leave Moorfields; if anyone had asked her, she'd have said no. She knew nothing about soldiers except that they were dangerous. Why court trouble? And she certainly didn't want to be Thomas's alibi for shirking an arrangement his mother had made for him. It would only make Alice Claver dislike her, and she didn't want that either.

      But she was Thomas's wife now. It was her duty to stand by him. And she didn't like the way Alice Claver was using the Prattes as an audience to try to shame Thomas publicly. She'd have to find a way to sweet-talk him into doing what his mother wanted, privately, later. For now, all she could do was brazen out Alice Claver's accusing stare, try to smile light-heartedly, as if nothing were amiss, and pray that the hot tide of blood staining her face red right to the roots of her hair would recede.

      There was a long, frustrated pause.

      ‘Well, if that's what Isabel wants,’ Alice Claver said coldly, turning away. She didn't finish the sentence. No one else finished it for her this time, either.

      ‘Come on, Isabel,’ Thomas said, getting up and pulling her along behind him.

      Isabel glanced back from the doorway. The Prattes were quietly shaking their heads at each other. But Alice Claver was still staring straight at her, and there was a cold anger in her eyes. With a sinking heart, Isabel realised she'd made an enemy.

      Like every other Londoner who'd gone to gawp gratefully at the soldiers who'd come into their city without robbing or raping them, when it came to it, Isabel and Thomas Claver were too nervous of the men at arms camping outside the walls to go very near. Instead they joined the crowd lurking cautiously under the fruit trees that the city people grew on their vegetable patches, munching bread, trampling people's beans and peas, knocking over archery butts – enjoying the muted thrill of threat from the peace of the dappled shade, but not wanting to enter that vast, gleaming, sunlit tapestry of horsemen and sharp blades. We're like cows chewing our cud, she thought, lulled into a half-dream by the drone of insects and the buzz of the crowd and the warmth of Thomas Claver's arm around her waist, not knowing whether to feel proud or ashamed of the prudence of her own city sort. And, watching the fighters clean their harnesses and weapons – the word was that all these knights and squires and countrymen and cut-throats would be marching north tomorrow to find the Earl of Warwick and finish him off – she also thought, and they're like wolves.

      She and Thomas hadn't