The King’s Daughter. Christie Dickason

and willing. ‘Whatever you wish,’ she would say. ‘Shall I find Belle’s other collar, then?’ Or ‘I shall go at once and change into my riding skirts…’

      Soon after she arrived at Combe, we had become the angel and the imp. I felt safe deciding that we should dig a secret cave in the hay barn where we might talk unheard. Or that we jump from an upper window to test whether our skirts would spread to slow our decent. Anne always agreed to whatever I proposed, but if she turned pale and silent when she trudged at my side, I would take pity and turn back—for her sake, I would tell myself, but with secret relief.

      When we began to share a bed each night, I made the best of it, and entertained myself by whispering to her in the dark that the wind thrumming under the roof was the Death Drummer who always played before someone died. Or that trowies lived under the stones of the Smite ford and would reach up and pull her down if she tried to cross…I had seen one myself, I assured her.

      Sometimes I frightened her with tales of a wild and unruly Scotland, where, I said, I was allowed to ride for miles by myself, seeing only the eagles and the seals on the rocks. ‘And at dinner,’ I would tell her, ‘the nobles put their elbows on the same table as the king. And had such fierce debates that they leapt up and hacked at each other with their knives until blood flew through the air, and you didn’t know whether you drank wine or blood from your glass.’

      ‘You must find England very tame and tedious,’ she said once.

      Stricken by her look of misery, I continued to lie and assured her that she and I entertained ourselves so well that I hardly ever thought of Scotland at all, anymore.

      My guardian, Lord Harington, continued to be kind enough to me and always respectful, never raising his voice in anger, and guiding me as if I had been his own daughter. In the absence of other parents, I might have loved him.

      But one night, soon after I had first arrived at Combe, I had attempted to spy, to learn more about my new home. Hidden in the stairwell, I overheard him complaining to his cousin, who was also named John Harington, a godson of the old queen, and now, so I was told, one of my brother’s gentlemen.

      ‘Will you try to have a word when you’re next at court? The king has ignored my last letter.’ My guardian sighed. ‘She’s a heavy charge laid upon me by his majesty—and likely to prove a costly one.’

      I flattened myself against the wall of the staircase, grateful to be wearing a soft gown. There was a long pause, during which I held my breath and felt my pulse begin to thump in my ears.

      ‘I know that his majesty is concerned with weightier matters than a daughter,’ Lord Harington went on. ‘But perhaps, coz, you might think how to prod his memory on the subject of the promised allowance for keeping her. Or have a word with Cecil.’

      My heart, already half on offer, had slunk back to its kennel with its tail between its legs. Now, since our return from the execution of the Gunpowder Traitors, I felt that his heavy charge weighed him down almost unbearably.

      Just once, shortly after my return from London, our eyes locked over the supper table. His glance held so much concern that I had to glare down at my plate to prevent tears. The people in my life would keep changing. There was nothing I could do about it. When I was married, I would leave not only Combe, and England, but also my guardian. That night over supper, for the first time, I thought that I might miss him.

      His wife, Lady Harington, on the other hand, had terrified me from our first meeting. My lady guardian was a woman of absolute certainties. Unlike her easy-going husband, she had a fearsome frown and strong views on how a young girl should be schooled. After my return from Coventry, she carried on her detailed instruction as if never interrupted. Whether her steady purpose grew from ignorance of what had happened or defiance, I could never decide.

      Both Anne and I had already learned how to wipe our fingers at the table, to take the precious salt on the tips of our knives, and to count our linens against pilfering by our women. Teaching by her own example as well as by words, Lady Harington now marched on through the long list of other bad habits that we must learn to prevent in our servants.

      No serving man ever dared to piss in the corners of her fireplaces. No scullery maid at Combe ever polished a glass on her sleeve or blew her nose in her apron. By constant example, Lady H showed us how to measure respect or insolence in others, to the very finest degree. And how to bring down with an acid word anyone who stepped over any of the invisible lines of rank and place that she taught us to see. She adjusted the angle of my head when I curtsied. For three months, I nodded meekly and accepted her instruction. Any moment, I thought, she might teach me how to make order out of the rest of the tumbling chaos of life.

      Sometimes I tried to play again as I had once done, when I still felt like a child. I would make Belle sit up in a miniature gilded carriage in her blue velvet collar whilst Cherami, my most obliging small greyhound, pulled her across the floor, his nails clacking like tiny hoofs. While Anne laughed and clapped, I looked on as if from a great distance.

      When the late winter weather allowed, I sometimes sat very still in the gardens and tempted the robins to eat crumbs from my hand. Once, while Anne made a dumb show of being ill, I tasted a worm to try to understand its attractions. I whistled back at the wild birds, trying to speak their language, but caused agitation in the bushes and trees.

      ‘I think you’ve confused them,’ said Anne.

      In truth, birds, with their sharp little eyes and edgy flutter, troubled me.

      On the journey south from Scotland, well-wishers had given me six caged birds to join my animal family—two larks, a finch and three paraquettos from the West Indies. I felt that the little creatures wished to be friendly but could not trust me, who had the power to thrust them back into their cages. Their fragility terrified me—those tiny bones and trembling heartbeats, so fast that my own heart would crash to a halt at such a speed, or else burst into flame. I feared that I might accidentally crush one of them in my hand. This terrible power alarmed me so much that I avoided handling them. Unobserved, I released a lark and a paraquetto and said that they had escaped.

      Then I found the remains of the paraquetto left under a bush by a cat. Staring down at the sodden little bundle of bloody blue and green feathers, I wondered if, after all, even unhappy, they were not safer in their cages. I knew that I was the true assassin.

      The paraquetto. Abel White. Clapper. Lord Harington burdened. Digby dead. Because of me.

      ‘I am dangerous to know,’ I whispered one night to Anne. ‘Even for you.’

      ‘Why?’

      Could she not see why? I thought. She had heard Mrs Hay’s tales.

      ‘I just am,’ I said.

      ‘Don’t be absurd!’ She rolled onto her side away from me. ‘Unless you mean the risk of tearing my best gown.’

       11

      Winter was clinging on into March, treading heavy-booted on the first green shoots of early spring. My large hunting greyhound, Trey, lifted his head and tested the damp grey air. Then Wainscot, too, lifted her head. Her ears swivelled towards the entrance avenue leading to the main house at Combe. Because Anne had chosen to stay inside by the fire, I was riding with only a groom and six of my hounds.

      I held a small bunch of little wild daffodils to inhale their fresh odour while I rode, though I knew better than to curdle the milk by taking them into the house. Then I heard the hoof beats that my dog and horse had already heard. I shivered and threw down the daffodils. I pressed Wainscot forward through a haze of dark leaf buds, still as tight as fingertips while Trey and the other greyhounds sprinted ahead.

      As we broke out into the avenue, a riderless horse was trotting down the track towards us. Riderless, like a horse in the tapestries of battlefield scenes, or at a king’s funeral.

      Wainscot gave a joyful whinny of welcome.