Mistress to the Crown. Isolde Martyn

lines. Pirouette, darling, pirouette!’ he hissed. Scarlet-faced, I turned, swirling my skirt as gracefully as I might.

      A dancer! I blew the actors a kiss and sank in a deep curtsy. Christ’s mercy, what if this reached the Guild? Shore would turn me out of doors. I could find myself begging on the streets tomorrow. I must be lunatic.

      Appeased, the players returned to their preparations.

      ‘Thank Heaven for that,’ Talwood said, fanning himself. ‘Oh, they are so precious. Now, let’s get you dressed.’

      There was no privacy and I had to swallow my sense of niceties. I had imagined a gorgeous robe with purfiled hem; the tailor presented me with two lengths of thin blue silk. Secured at the shoulders and cinched with a narrow cloth-of-gold belt, this was Helen’s costume. That unravelled my excitement. The fabric scarcely covered my knees; the side slits – ‘devils’ windows’–would expose me to the thigh; and the flesh-coloured hose and garters had gone missing. I refused to dance without a petticote.

      ‘You’re a beautiful ancient Greek, remember, dearie,’ clucked the tailor from his knees as I insisted he close up the side seams. ‘Them maidens went bare-legged because of the heat, and bare-arsed too in case they met any of those lovely pagan gods. There, I’m not sewing the windows any lower.’

      I refused the uncomfortable saffron wig. At least the pretty half-mask of white satin, edged with silver braid, was perfect, but as I began to tie it on, Master Talwood twittered in protest. Frantic gestures on his part summoned a man with several tubby facebrushes poking out of his waistcloth. Along with him came a boy with a peddler’s tray – a minute woodland of charcoal sticks, kohl and pastes of all colours.

      They smudged blushes across my cheekbones, puffed a fulsome shimmer of gold dust wherever my skin was uncovered and added red to my lips. Fine dark lines were gently drawn around my eyes and my hair was unbraided, draped over my right shoulder and tethered with a golden clasp.

      Finally, Talwood took out a wrapper from his doublet and drew back its folds to reveal a necklace of gilded leaves. ‘It’s only lent to you by my lord, you understand,’ he warned.

      The boy offered me a silver mirror. Mistress Shore had vanished behind the pagan artifice. Caparisoned in mask and silks, I felt as skittish as an inexperienced tournament horse, and these last moments of waiting while the trestles of the great hall were stacked away could have been torture save some of the players joked with me in friendly fashion and smoothed away my fears.

      Hastings came back to make a final inspection of us. ‘Is Lord Paris not here yet?’ he exclaimed wearily. ‘Curthoyse, fetch him hither NOW!’ He moved along the line and halted before me. ‘Where in Hell is Helen’s coronet?’

      ‘Lordy!’ The tailor scuttled out and returned with a circlet of tinsel threaded with artifice cornflowers, poppies and laurel.

      ‘Princess.’ Hastings clicked his fingers for the diadem. With the smile of a sinful archbishop, he crowned me.

      Westminster Palace Hall was in shadow save for the bright ring of candles in the centre where we were to strut. We were herded behind a screen and there we huddled awaiting the return of the royal retinue. I was not the only player who gasped at the massive dimensions of the hall. Huge oaken beams, carved with angels’ heads, thrust out from the walls above our heads and higher still was a great row of embrasured windows, set in jowls of stone, and in each stood a stern, crowned statue.

      I knew from Father that a huge stone table ran along the dais. Peering between my companions’ shoulders, I made out the glimmering stretch of white cloth. No one was seated there; the two thrones and benches were empty.

      Below the dais at the sides of the hall stood massive cupboards with shelves of glinting platters and flagons. Every other inch of wall was lined with trestle tables propped lengthways. In front of these were the benches and here sat the rest of the court using the trestle supports as backrests.

      A trumpet sounded. I heard the assembly rise in a rustle of apparel to make obeisance. Crammed as I was amongst the sweaty bodies jostling for a view, my mouth went dry and my heart panicked, but then the small pipes began and the Greek kings stepped forward leaving me space to breathe. I forced my lungs to calm and crossed myself against evil. Vigilant Talwood patted my arm; I had no choice but to screw up my courage.

      Our disport began with poetry but no one in the court was listening. Only when several gentlemen began to call out ribald comments to the players, did the fine lords hush to listen to the jests.

      As each Greek king was introduced, I had the chance to distinguish the chief players. The man portraying my husband, King Menelaus of Sparta, was a scrag end of a creature. His brother and blustering overlord, King Agamemnon, looked fit to run a tavern. Achilles had such a magnificent body, all bronzed with metallic paint, that he had me wondering if the King, England’s own ‘Achilles’, had stooped to play a part. No, as the warrior drew back, I heard a shrewish whine: ‘‘Ere, why ‘as ‘ector been given betta armour than me?’

      Prince Paris, thank Heaven, was sufficiently manly to be Helen’s lover. He drew great applause as he swaggered forth. Except for a glittering baldric, his chest was bare. I was shocked by his immodest kilt. The leather straps scarcely covered his breech clout.

      ‘Be ready!’ Talwood whispered as the Greek kings returned behind the screen.

      The flute’s voice sounded sensuously.

      And now Prince Paris, blessed by moonless sky,

       Like a night thief hides among the shadows

       To see this beauteous lady—

      ‘Now!’ Talwood shoved me forth and there were whoops and cheers as I curtsied.

      Hill, the tabor player, began a sensual beat and the beguiling notes of the small pipes softly slid into the rhythm.

      Snared in the circle of light, I lifted my invisible hand mirror at arm’s length and danced with my reflection. Hidden behind my mask, Elizabeth Lambard was unshackled, free to become Helen of Troy, a princess who knew she could make men kill to possess her. As I stilled, sensing Paris’ presence, like a doe hearing her hunter, it was no longer Hastings’ face in my make-believe mirror but a lover I’d always dreamed of.

      When the music ended and the applause took over, my practical self dashed out from her temporary prison beneath my heart, trying to seize back control and dampen down her twin’s sinful exuberance. I held her back a few moments longer, acknowledging the huzzahs like I imagined a real princess might with a gracious lowering of the head. Oh, this was heady, wonderful. I should not sleep tonight.

      Paris grew impatient. He strode over and embraced me from behind, his prick hard beneath his kilt. Bastard! While the narrator tediously droned out the story for anyone thick as a London piecrust, this cursed Trojan was rubbing his groin against me. Sloppy kisses gushed up my arm from wrist to neck. Worse, he turned me in his embrace and went for my mouth. I resisted; his breath stank of wine but the fellow kept firm hold of my thighs.

      ‘Don’t overdo the virtue,’ he muttered against my lips. ‘Be craaaazed with love.’ He held me tight against his belly. When he adventured his hand down my throat to my breast, I was doing the stiffening.

      ‘Lovely,’ he murmured, leering down the gap. ‘Fancy a bit of ravishing afterwards?’

      ‘Squeeze either an’ you’ll be a coun’er tenor by tonight,’ I hissed back sweetly.

      The verses ended. Paris neatly scooped me up with an arm beneath my knees. I pretended to look up at him lovingly. It was a shame he could not have kept my draperies secure. I think the whistles were for a side view of my thigh.

      There was no time to chide. While the Greek princes were whining that Helen had been snatched by a Trojan and resolving to go to war to fetch her home, Talwood hauled me through the side door and we raced through passageways until we reached the mock barbican of Troy, where it stood outside the far end of the great hall. An icing