Joanna Hickson - The Lady of the Ravens

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I’m trying, but she makes a better scullion than a scholar.’

It was my turn to laugh. Now in her early forties, my mother had never known the luxury of having her own household or even bringing up her own children and yet she displayed a sense of humour and a zest for life that never ceased to surprise me. Where I wore dark clothes out of choice, she preferred to dress in light colours, sewing her own kirtles in blues and pinks and somehow acquiring gowns in colours like mustard yellow and dove grey, trimmed with rabbit fur, and displaying her widowhood only in the rather old-fashioned white veils she chose to wear. Or perhaps she could not afford to replace them with the new headdress fashions, as a result of having served an impoverished ex-queen and being short of funds all through the York years.

I changed the subject. ‘What news of Nicholas? Has he taken possession of the Vaux honours yet?’

After King Edward seized the throne, his first parliament had confiscated the properties of all those Lancastrian landholders who had fought against him. Thus on reaching his majority, my brother had been denied his inheritance. Now that King Henry had taken the throne he expected to reclaim it.

My question kindled the light of battle in my mother’s eyes. ‘No, and he is very keen to do so. King Henry has called a parliament for November and promises it will revoke the attainders; then it will be a matter of reclaiming the manors, but I imagine in some cases that may not be easy.’

‘I thought King Edward granted you your dower lands when you returned from France after Queen Marguerite died.’

‘Yes, he did, but I have been subsidising Nicholas and the income barely covers our basic needs. I am hoping my well-connected daughter will acquire me some employment in the household of the new queen, when we have one.’ She gave me an inquiring look. ‘When is that likely to be, do you know?’

‘No – and neither does Elizabeth. She fears King Henry may even call the marriage off.’

‘Surely not! His mother would never let him do that. Margaret has promoted that marriage for years and there is no doubt it would do much to placate persistent Yorkists. Why should he back out now that he has the throne?’

‘Perhaps because he wants to establish a Tudor dynasty.’ I laid stress on the Tudor name, recalling the words of Usher Gainsford. ‘A queen without ties to any English house might suit him better than one who has a claim to the throne that some consider stronger than his.’ I dropped my voice as I said this, conscious that Jess might have Yorkist leanings and her ear to the door.

‘You mean marry a foreign princess?’ My mother gave a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘I don’t think so. None of Europe’s present rulers would risk giving a daughter to a king who’d won his throne by a twist of fate. They’d want to see him keep it for a few years first and Henry Tudor needs to get his dynasty started as soon as possible. I’d say he’s just waiting to be anointed with the holy chrism and then Elizabeth will be whisked to the altar!’

My mother made a good point, although an opposing view was aired at my next port of call. Having collected the apothecary’s order, I took a roundabout route back to Coldharbour so that I could also drop in on my friend Rosie in Crown Seld, a square off the busy Cheapside market, where her mother ran a business devoted to the arcane craft of passementerie: the production of decorative trimmings in silk.

The workshop was a riot of gossip and colour. Spools of silks in a score of hues were stacked on shelves along the walls and on the tables at which the weavers were working, cones of costly gold and silver thread were in constant use by rows of females of all ages. Young apprentices worked under the eagle eyes of older workers, whose gnarled and calloused fingers revealed their experience in fashioning the delicate braids and laces used to embellish and fasten the gowns and robes of the wealthy and noble.

This form of employment was the exclusive domain of women, men lacking the dexterity needed to handle the delicate threads involved. The practitioners were called silkwomen and inevitably, when a group of females were gathered together employing busy fingers while their minds roamed free, there was always plenty of chatter. In days gone by, Lady Margaret had often sent me there to collect her passementerie purchases and during these errands I had discovered the stimulation of city scandal and become particularly friendly with Rosie, a bright, forthright woman a few years my senior, quick-witted, married to a mercer and a fount of information from the streets and guilds.

Knowing that she hated stopping in mid-weave, I pulled up a spare stool beside her and, like my mother, she immediately sought inside knowledge about the new royal regime. ‘What a welcome guest you are, Joan! I hope you’re going to tell us why we’ve heard nothing more about our new king’s much-vaunted marriage to Elizabeth of York.’ Blonde and buxom in a blue kirtle and brimmed linen cap, Rosie winked at me at the same time as she expertly tied off the end of a gold lace, clearly part of a batch destined to attach sleeves to a gown or doublet belonging to some exalted personage. ‘Since her triumphant return to London she seems to have disappeared entirely. I could say much like her brothers. Where’s she hiding and why?’

It was true that Elizabeth’s arrival in the capital five weeks before had been greeted with great joy and celebration by its citizens, who had lined the streets waving banners, throwing flowers and shouting her name as she rode past – in marked contrast to the somewhat muted reception afforded the new, self-declared king, Henry Tudor, some days earlier. However, not wishing to feed the city rumour mill, I dodged the question. ‘You’re obviously working on an order for some rich customer, Rosie,’ I remarked, fingering the lace she had just completed. ‘This looks fit for a queen.’

My evasive reply drew a frown from my friend. ‘Well, there’s no secret about this,’ she said, taking back the lace and adding it to the pile beside her. ‘Tomorrow we’ve got to send two hundred gold cord-laces to the pointmakers, who’ll fit the aiglets, and then they’re going to George Lovekyn up in Threadneedle Street.’ Wasting no time, she hitched a fresh length of gold thread to her thumb and finger and began another line of loops, her fingers flying up and down and to and fro like shuttles, so fast that I couldn’t begin to follow the pattern they made, only witness the ever-growing length of the braided lace they produced.

‘Wasn’t Master Lovekyn recently appointed Royal Tailor of the Great Wardrobe?’ I asked. ‘You must have heard that news, if I have.’

Her expression cleared. ‘Ah, so you think these laces are meant for the Lady Elizabeth? For her wedding garb perhaps?’

‘I’m saying no more, except that some fabulous fabrics and furs were delivered to a certain lady recently.’

‘Then why wouldn’t we send the laces to where the lady is staying?’

I affected wide-eyed innocence. ‘Because I haven’t mentioned who the lady is, or where she is living.’

Rosie cast an exasperated look at the other women working nearby, whose ears had all been tuned to our chat, and they exchanged dissatisfied shrugs. I knew that my hints would be embroidered and spread almost as fast as their fingers wove each lace but I considered that a few rumours refuting the prevailing gossip that the Lancaster–York wedding was in doubt could only be beneficial to both the ladies I served.

Her fingers still flying, Rosie took another tack. ‘They say King Henry won’t marry King Edward’s daughter until he has proof that his sons are dead. But some of those new yeomen guards searched the Tower for days and found no sign of them.’