The King's Concubine. Anne O'Brien

fur bands and an enamelled girdle. All made for someone else, of course, the fibres scuffed along hem and cuffs, but what did I care for that? They were a statement in feminine luxury I could never have dreamed of. And so shiny, so soft, fabrics that slid through my fingers. Silk and damask and fine wool. For the first time in my life I was clothed in a colour, glorious enough to assault my senses. I felt like a precious jewel, polished to a sparkle.

      They exclaimed over my hair, of course.

      ‘Too coarse. Too dark. Too short to braid. Too short for anything.’

      ‘Better than when it was cropped for a novice nun,’ I fired back.

      They pushed it into the gilded mesh of a crispinette, and covered the whole with a veil of some diaphanous material that floated quite beautifully and a plaited filet to hold it firm, as if to hide all evidence of my past life. But no wimple. I vowed never to wear a wimple again.

      ‘Put these on …’ I donned the fine stockings, the woven garters. Soft shoes were slid onto my feet.

      And I took stock, hardly daring to breathe unless the whole ensemble fell off around my feet. The skirts were full and heavy against my legs, moving with a soft hush as I walked inexpertly across the room. The bodice was laced tight against my ribs, the neckline low across my unimpressive bosom. I did not feel like myself at all, but rather as if I were dressed for a mummer’s play I had once seen at Twelfth Night at the Abbey.

      Did maidservants to the Queen really wear such splendour?

      I was in the process of kicking the skirts behind me, experimentally, when the door opened to admit Isabella. The two maids curtseyed to the floor. I followed suit, with not a bad show of handling the damask folds, but not before I had seen the thin-lipped distaste. She walked round me, taking her time. Isabella, the agent of my kitchen humiliations.

      ‘Not bad,’ she commented, as I flushed. ‘Look for yourself.’ And she handed me the tiny looking glass that had been suspended from the chatelaine at her waist.

      Oh, no! Remembering my last brush with vanity, I put my hands behind my back as if I were a child caught out in wrong doing. ‘No, I will not.’

      Her smile was deeply sardonic. ‘Why not?’

      ‘I think I’ll not like what I see,’ I said, refusing to allow my gaze to fall before hers.

      ‘Well, that’s true enough. There’s only so much that can be done. Perhaps you’re wise,’ Isabella murmured, but the sympathy was tainted with scorn.

      Peremptorily she gestured, and in a silence stretched taut I was led along the corridors to the solar where Philippa sat with her women.

      ‘Well, you’ve washed her and dressed her, Maman. For what it’s worth.’

      ‘You are uncharitable, Isabella.’ The Queen’s reply was unexpectedly sharp.

      Isabella was not cowed. ‘What do we do with her now?’

      ‘What I intended from the beginning, despite your meddling. She will be one of my damsels.’

      A royal damsel? Isabella’s brows climbed. I suspect mine did too. I was too shocked to consider how inappropriate my expression might be.

      ‘You don’t need her,’ Isabella cried in disbelief. ‘You have a dozen.’

      ‘No?’ A smile, a little sad to my mind, touched the Queen’s face. ‘Maybe I do need her.’

      ‘Then choose a girl of birth. Before God, there are enough of them.’

      ‘I know what I need, Isabella.’ As the Queen waved her daughter away she handed the rosary back to me.

      ‘My lady …’

      What could I find to say? My fingers closed around the costly beads, whatever the Queen might say to the contrary. In the length of a heartbeat, in one firm command and one gesture of dismissal of her daughter’s hostility, the Queen had turned my life on its head.

      ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ So Isabella had the last word.

      She did not care that I heard her.

      Why me? The one thought danced in my head when the ladies were gone about their customary affairs. A damsel—a lady in waiting to the Queen.

      ‘Why me?’ I asked aloud. ‘What have I to offer, Majesty?’

      Philippa perused me as if searching for an answer, her features uncommonly stern.

      ‘Your Majesty?’

      ‘Forgive me. I was distracted.’ She closed her eyes: when she opened them there was a lingering vestige of sorrow, but her voice was kind enough. ‘One day I’ll tell you. But for now, let’s see what we can do with you.’

      So there it was. Decided on some chance whim, with some underlying purpose that the Queen kept to herself. I became a domicella. A lady in waiting. Not a domina, one of the highborn, but a domicella. I was the youngest, least skilled and least important of the Queen’s ladies. But I was a part of her household. I was an inhabitant of her solar.

      I could not believe my good fortune. When sent on some trivial errand through a succession of deserted antechambers, I lifted my skirts above my ankles and, fired by sheer exuberance, danced a measure of haphazard steps to the lingering echoes of the lute from the solar. Not well, you understand, for it was something I had yet to learn, but more than I had ever achieved in my life. It fascinated me what confidence a fine robe with fur edgings could bestow on a woman. When a passing maidservant, one I had brushed shoulders with in the hot squalor of the kitchens, dropped an open-mouthed, reluctant curtsey before rushing off to spread the news of the marvellous advancement of Alice Perrers, I danced again. This was more like it. Alice Perrers: a court lady, in such finery as she could never have imagined. It was all too much to believe, my transition from greasy servant to perfumed damsel, but if one of the kitchen sluts afforded me a sign of respect, then it must be so. I was so full of joy that I could barely restrain myself from shouting my good fortune to the still, watchful faces in the tapestries.

      I would, if I had my way, never set foot in a kitchen again.

      What would clerk Greseley say if he could see me now? Waste of good coin! I suspected. Better to put it into bricks and mortar! What remark would Wykeham find to make, other than an explanation of his ambitions to construct a royal bath house and garderobe? I laughed aloud. And the King? King Edward would only notice me if I had cogs and wheels that moved and slid and clicked against each other.

      I tried a pirouette, awkward in the shoes that were too loose round the heel. One day, I vowed, I would wear shoes that were made for me and fitted perfectly.

      As for what the Queen might want of me in return, it could not be so very serious, could it?

      They tripped over their trailing skirts, the Queen’s damsels, to transform me into a lady worthy of my new position. I was a pet. A creature to be cosseted and stroked, to relieve their boredom. It was not in my nature, neither was it a role I wished to play, but it was an exhilarating experience as they created the new Alice Perrers.

      I absorbed it all: anointed and burnished, my hands smothered in perfumed lotions far headier than anything produced in Sister Margery’s stillroom, my too-heavy brows plucked into what might pass for an elegant arch—if the observer squinted. Clothes, and even jewels, were handed over with casual kindness. A ring, a brooch to pin my mantle, a chain of gilt and gleaming stones to loop across my breast. Nothing of great value, but enough that I might exhibit myself in public as no less worthy of respect than the ladies from high-blooded families. I spread my fingers—now smooth with pared nails, to admire the ring with its amethyst stone. It was as if I was wearing a new skin, like a snake sloughing off the old in spring. And I was woman enough to enjoy it. I wore the rosary fastened to my girdle, enhanced with silver finials even finer than those of Abbess Sybil.

      ‘Better!’ Isabella remarked after sour contemplation. ‘But I still don’t know why