Conn Iggulden: Stormbird

Suffolk felt a surge of affection for the young king. He had watched Henry grow with the hopes of an entire country on his shoulders. Suffolk had seen those hopes falter and then crumble into disappointment. He could only guess how hard it had been for the boy himself. Henry was not stupid, for all his strangeness. He would have heard every barbed comment made about him over the years.

‘Your Grace, Master Brewer has vouchsafed a plan to bargain for a wife and a truce together, in exchange for two great provinces of France. He believes the French will deliver a truce in exchange for Maine and Anjou.’

‘A wife?’ Henry said, blinking.

‘Yes, Your Grace, as the family in question has a suitable daughter. I wanted …’ Suffolk hesitated. He could not ask whether the king understood what he was saying. ‘Your Grace, there are English subjects living in both Maine and Anjou. They would be evicted if we give them up. I wanted to ask if it isn’t too high a price to pay for a truce.’

‘We must have a truce, Lord Suffolk. We must. My uncle the cardinal says so. Master Brewer agrees with him — though he has no beer! Tell me of the wife, though. Is there a picture?’

Suffolk closed his eyes for an instant before opening them.

‘I will have one made, Your Grace. The truce, though. Maine and Anjou are the southern quarter of our lands in France. Together, they are as great as Wales , Your Grace. If we give such a tract of land away …’

‘What is her name, this girl? I cannot call her “girl” or even “wife”, now can I, Lord Suffolk?’

‘No, Your Grace. Her name is Margaret. Margaret of Anjou.’

‘You will go to France, Lord Suffolk, and you will see her for me. When you return, I shall want to hear every detail.’

Suffolk hid his frustration.

‘Your Grace, do I have it right that you are willing to lose lands in France for peace?’

To his surprise, the king leaned in close to reply, his pale blue eyes gleaming.

‘As you say, Lord Suffolk. We must have a truce. I depend on you to carry out my wishes. Bring me a picture of her.’

Derry had returned while the conversation went on, his face carefully blank.

‘I’m sure His Royal Highness would like to return to his prayers now, Lord Suffolk.’

‘I would, yes,’ Henry replied, holding up one bandaged hand in farewell. Suffolk could see a dark red stain at the centre of the palm.

They bowed deeply to the young king of England as he walked back to his place and knelt, his eyes closing slowly, his fingers lacing together like a lock.

Margaret let out a gasp as a hurrying figure thumped into her and they both went sprawling. She had a blurred sense of tight-drawn brown hair and a smell of healthy sweat and then she went down with a yelp. A copper pot crashed to the courtyard stones with a noise so great it hurt her ears. As Margaret fell, the maid flailed to catch the pot, but only sent it spinning.

The maid looked up angrily, her mouth opening on a curse. As she saw Margaret’s fine red dress and billowing white sleeves, the blood drained from her face, stealing away the flush from the kitchens. For an instant, her eyes flickered to the path, considering whether she could run. With so many strange faces in the castle, there was at least a chance the girl wouldn’t recognize her again.

With a sigh, the maid wiped her hands on an apron. The kitchen mistress had warned her about the brothers and the father, but she’d said the youngest girl was a sweet little thing. She reached down to help Margaret to her feet.

‘I’m sorry about that, dear. I shouldn’t have been running, but it’s all a rush today. Are you hurt?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Margaret replied dubiously. Her side ached and she thought she had scraped an elbow, but the woman was already shifting from foot to foot, wanting to be off. Back on her feet, Margaret smiled at her, seeing the gleam of sweat on the young woman’s face.

‘My name is Margaret,’ she said, remembering her lessons. ‘May I know your name?’

‘Simone, my lady. But I must get back to the kitchens. There’s a thousand things to do still, with the king coming.’

Margaret saw the handle of the pot sticking out of the trimmed hedge by her foot and picked it up. To her pleasure, the woman curtsied as she took it back. They shared a smile before the maid vanished at only a fraction less than her original speed. Margaret was left alone to stare after her. Saumur Castle had not been this busy for years and she could hear her father’s deep voice raised somewhere nearby. If he saw her, he would put her to work, she was certain, so she headed in the opposite direction.

Her father’s sudden return to Saumur had brought Margaret to bitter, furious tears more than once. She resented him as she would have resented any stranger who arrived with such airs, assuming all his rights as lord and master of her home. Over the decade of his absence, her mother had spoken often of his great bravery and honour, but Margaret had seen the blank spaces on yellowing plaster as paintings and statues were quietly taken and sold. The collection of jewellery had been the last to go and she’d observed her mother’s pain as men from Paris arrived to appraise the best pieces, staring through their little tubes and counting out coins. Every year had brought fewer luxuries and comforts, until Saumur was stripped of anything beautiful, revealed in cold stones. Margaret had grown to hate her father by then, without knowing him at all. Even the servants had been dismissed one by one, with whole sections of the castle closed and left to grow blue with mildew.

She looked up at the thought, wondering if she could get up to the east wing without being spotted and put to a task. There were mice running freely in one of the tower rooms, making their little nests in old couches and chairs. She had a pocket full of crumbs to entice them out and she could spend the afternoon there. It had become her refuge, a hiding place that no one knew about, not even her sister Yolande.

When Margaret had seen the men from Paris counting the books in her father’s beautiful library, she’d crept in at night and taken as many as she could carry, stealing them away to the tower room before they could vanish. She felt no guilt about it, even when her father returned and his booming orders echoed around her home. Margaret didn’t really understand what a ransom was, or why they’d had to pay one to get him back, but she cherished the books she’d saved, even the one the mice had found and nibbled.

Saumur was a maze of back stairs and passages, the legacy of four centuries of building and expansion that meant some corridors came to a stop for no clear reason, while certain rooms could only be reached by passing through half a dozen others. Yet it had been her world for as long as she could remember. Margaret knew every route and, after rubbing her elbow, she went quickly, crossing a corridor and clattering through a wide, empty room panelled in oak. If her mother saw her running, there would be harsh words. Margaret caught herself dreading the footsteps of her governess as well, before she remembered that terror of her youth had been dismissed with all the others.

Two flights of wooden stairs brought her up to a landing that led straight across to the east tower. The ancient floorboards were bowed and twisted there, rising away from the joists below. Margaret had lost entire afternoons stepping on them in complicated patterns, making them speak in their creaking voices. She called it the Crow Room for the sound they made.

Panting lightly, she paused under the eaves to look out across the upper hall, as she always did. There was something special in being able to lean over the vast space, up at the level of the chandeliers, with their fat yellow candles. She wondered who would light them for the king’s visit now that the tallowmen no longer called, but she supposed her father would have thought of it. He’d found the gold somewhere to hire all the new servants. The castle teemed with them like the mice in the tower, rushing hither and yon on unknown errands and all strangers to her.