The Shadow Queen. Anne O'Brien

looked down at my side-less surcoat, pulling it and the sleeves of my undergown into order. I had not dressed with any care that morning, nor had sitting on the floor improved my skirts that were now creased. My mother had an eye for appearances and she was not tolerant. If it was a matter of sin, better not to earn her displeasure before she took issue with me.

      ‘Let me.’ Accepting my brusqueness as normal in the circumstances, Isabella stretched up and straightened my coif, tucked my hair almost out of sight before picking the evidence of fur from the small grey cat from my bodice. ‘That’s better, although red does not become you.’

      ‘Better than vermillion becomes you, cousin.’ I became aware that she was looking at me, lips pursed in thought. ‘What?’

      ‘Did you go to Mass this morning?’

      ‘No.’ She knew very well that I had not.

      ‘Then this might be useful.’

      Shrugging aside the damask so that it fell in a heap to the floor, from her bodice Isabella unpinned a jewelled reliquary, far too fine for so young a girl to be wearing but Isabella had insisted. It was hers to wear, given at her birth by an indulgent father who saw no wrong in his wayward daughter. It contained, as we all knew since repeated frequently to impress, the tears of the Blessed Virgin herself.

      Isabella’s bright face was lit with intrigue.

      ‘I think you should wear this.’

      ‘I am honoured.’

      And I was. Isabella did not give possessions willingly. She transferred it from her bodice to mine, where the gold glittered impressively as I moved.

      ‘But why would I need a symbol of such power?’ I asked.

      ‘It will keep you safe from sin.’

      ‘I have committed no sin.’

      ‘No, but your lady mother might think that you have.’ She might indeed. I kissed Isabella’s cheek.

      ‘But take good care of it,’ she admonished. ‘I want it back when this interview is over.’

      ‘Quickly if you will, mistress.’ The servant, breathing heavily, was still waiting in the doorway.

      Following the servant to my mother’s distant chamber, I still found the opportunity to linger on the way. I disliked being beckoned in such a manner when she had not seen me for more months than I could recall. She would not have demanded my brother’s presence so forcefully, but then, to her mind, sons were of far greater value than daughters.

      I stopped by a window, to press my cheek against the cold glass, a luxury on which the King had just spent a fortune in an attempt to ward off the draughts. Since my veils fluttered a little, it had not been a great success.

      ‘Mistress!’

      ‘I am coming!’

      I entered her chamber to curtsey with practised precision and innate grace, but if I had intended to make a good impression, I failed.

      ‘Joan. At last.’

      My mother. Margaret, Lady Wake, Lady of Badenoch, Dowager Countess of Kent.

      Tall and spare, my mother gave off the air of a determinedly held widowhood. Her close-fitting gown was rich but sombre in layers of grey and black and the deep purple of autumn blackberries. Her veil was richly embroidered but not one curl of hair was allowed to show beneath the wimple that she still embraced despite the dictates of fashion. Her face was long, the skin finely grained, but there was no evidence of any humour or pleasure in her existence. Indeed, her stark solemnity with its close folding of her lips was intimidating, as was the heavy musk of her perfume as the satin of her skirts rustled into stillness. She looked older than her years. She had barely more than forty to her lifespan.

      ‘I expected you a half hour ago.’

      An exaggeration, of course. My mother did not touch me. The Queen, who had absorbed me into the royal nursery when I was no more than two years old and had supervised my upbringing ever since, would have folded me into her arms after such a lengthy absence. Queen Philippa would have smiled at me.

      ‘I came as quickly as I could, madam. I was reading with the princesses.’ The lie came easily, slipping off my tongue. I had lied before. ‘Our tutor wished us to have knowledge of the life of St. Ursula who is the patron saint of young virgins, such as we are. We will be celebrating her Feast Day on the twenty-first day of October with a masque before the court. We were commended on our reading.’

      My mother had not led the easiest of lives. Some would say a life full of degradation. Perhaps she deserved my pity; when a woman’s husband was executed for treason, and that in disgraceful circumstances, and she within weeks of producing a child and under arrest for her husband’s sins, she will not feel blessed. And then there was the resulting loss of lands and titles and pre-eminence as a consequence of that husband being declared traitor. My mother had lived under suspicion because she had set her own hand to some of the treasonous letters.

      But that was all in the past. Since a royal pardon had drained away a portion of her guilt but not all of her bitterness, my mother had dedicated her life to the reinstatement of her family. A laudable objective, but sometimes I found it difficult to experience any emotion but resentment.

      As now.

      ‘That is good. I approve of St. Ursula,’ she said, still seated in the high-backed chair beside the window where the light fell on her unflattering hair-confinement. ‘I hope that you are a credit to the Queen and to your governors. Do you take heed of all your lessons?’

      ‘Yes, madam.’

      ‘Do you observe your daily prayers? Do you attend Mass?’ ‘Yes, madam.’

      Standing now, she approached, to walk in a circle around me, before stopping to lift my chin with her fingers. I was not sure that she believed me, but her reply was complimentary.

      ‘Then you are everything I had hoped for in a daughter.’

      Released, abruptly, I lowered my eyes.

      ‘I hope so, madam.’

      ‘A beautiful girl, well nurtured, without sin.’

      ‘I make confession, madam.’

      I prayed, aware of the weight of Isabella’s powerful reliquary against my breast, that my mother could see no colour of culpability in my cheeks. It seemed, from the faintest of smiles that was bestowed on me, that she could not. But then the smile vanished.

      ‘I trust that your behaviour is decorous and seemly when at court, when you are in the company of the King’s young knights. I do not wish it to come to my attention that you are of a flirtatious disposition, Joan.’

      ‘My deportment is exemplary, madam. Queen Philippa commends me on it as an example to her own daughters.’ My reply was supremely colourless.

      ‘So I have heard.’ The Countess returned to her chair, seating herself in a billow of silk, before pinning me with a direct stare. She breathed in, her nose narrowing as it did when she was displeased. ‘I can rest assured that you have been well chaperoned.’ She considered me, the soft pads of the fingers of her right hand tapping against the Book of Hours that she had picked up and now rested on her lap. ‘It is, I think, time.’

      When I remained silent under her regard, my mother stopped tapping but instead curled her hands around the fierce animals, carved with open mouths and sharp teeth along the arms of her chair.

      ‘A marriage has been arranged for you,’ she announced. ‘Your hand has been sought by the most pre-eminent of families.’

      There it was, declaimed without warning or fanfare, the announcement I had feared, even though I had always known that in the making of alliances, daughters were of inestimable value. Margaret and I would be expected to marry well, but this was the moment I had been dreading. I swallowed soundlessly, gaze still lowered to the hem