Isolde Martyn - Mistress to the Crown

Master Catesby was my age, the son of a knight and the nephew of Sir John Catesby, who was Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Sleek auburn hair, the hue of weasel fur, pranced about his shoulders. He was one of those men who lean back nonchalantly when they talk to you.

I had no intention of sleeping with him. Nor he with me, and how assiduous he was in explaining that his clients were dukes rather than housewives and that he dealt in demesnes and not divorce. However, he did not show me to the door before the hour bell had finished striking.

Since Lord Hastings already had an ‘interest’ (Catesby underscored that word rather prematurely), yes, he would recommend a proctor to help me, but there was no precedent for bringing a charge of impotence against a husband. It was clear he thought I had a walnut for a brain.

‘To be frank, Mistress Shore, as far as obtaining a divorce after ten years of marriage you have not got a leg to stand on, but money can open any door, even His Holiness’s in Rome. Money and powerful friends. You have beauteous legs, I’m sure. Do not stand on them, spread them!’

To be truthful, he couched that advice with more circumambulation, but that was the sum of the matter. And the initial cost?

I offered him what I could afford, but to my relief he pushed the purse back at me.

‘I do this as a favour to Lord Hastings. Which reminds me, Mistress Shore.’ He waved my lord’s letter. ‘He’s asked me to give you a message. He desires you to wait upon him tomorrow at a quarter to ten. And, be warned, there is always a price to pay.’ I presumed he meant Lord Hastings expected reimbursement of a horizontal nature, but I was wrong.

‘Divorce is an ugly process, Mistress Shore. Once you are recognised as an oath-breaker and outside the protection of your husband, your credit and reputation will be at stake.’

I rose to my feet. ‘You clearly still think me rash and headstrong, Master Catesby, but women should be free to make their own decisions. If I had a mark for every girl compelled into wedlock, I should be passing rich.’

The lawyer’s smile was as smooth as polished alabaster as he came to see me out. ‘I’ll not argue that one. But on the practical side, what else can girls of respectable family do save marry?’

‘Take up the law, perhaps, Master Catesby?’

‘Heaven forbid, Mistress Shore,’ he laughed, and unlatched the door. ‘Farewell and good fortune! I’d sin my way to matrimonial freedom if I were you.’

Can any prince or ploughman put an estimate on freedom? Freedom to walk alone or with friends? Freedom to choose with whom you share a bed? Freedom to laugh?

Freedom at last to love?

Mornings were not difficult for me to extricate myself from our house; I regularly visited my silkwomen, shopped in Cheapside or, much to Shore’s annoyance, took provisions to feed the street children in our neighbourhood

That hour, as I set foot in Beaumont’s Inn, my courage was wound tighter than a tailor’s yarn. Except … Except if Lord Hastings granted me an audience in his private chamber, could I thank him enough?

Hyrst showed me into the hall and loftily bade me wait there. I did not sit down for I wanted to keep my rose gown free of creases. I’d barbered the nap to make it look new.

Two men servants came past bearing fresh bed linen. They eyed me speculatively as they made their way to the door behind the high table. I did not like their interest. It made me feel cheap.

Hyrst returned less haughty. ‘Mistress Shore, my lord requests that you join him in the garden. This way, if you please.’

My sight of Lord Hastings could have adorned the margin of The Garden of Earthly Delights : a noble lord reading beneath a lathed arbor of vines and rosa alba , with a mazer and a flagon at his knee and a page in attendance.

‘Mistress Shore.’ He set aside his book and stood to take my hand, then bestowed me upon the nearby cushioned bench and sat down again upon his cross-legged chair, beckoning his page to pour me a beaker of perry. The welcome in his face showed I was anticipated and not a pother.

He was clothed simply. A loose-sleeved slate blue mantle, edged with coney, reached to his knees. His shirt was belted and its tails just covered his codpiece. Above the neck of his honey-hued stomacher, the cordals of his shirt were undone and I could see the tendrils of blond hair that must span his chest. To hell with his age! The lusty creature inside me was wide awake. I no longer needed to ratchet up my determination, but I was as nervous as a fieldmouse in short grass.

‘Was Master Catesby able to help you?’

‘Thank you, my lord, he has given me the name of a worthy cleric at the Court of Arches. I am very grateful.’ I was prepared to show him how much.

‘Hell, be done with thanks. Can’t blame you for being wary of lawyers. Escrew you soon as look at you.’ He removed the mazer lid and took a mouthful, grinning at me across the rim. ‘Pretty headdress.’

I smiled, sipped and looked around. Wild strawberries and periwinkles lapped the flagstones where we sat and a chequer-board of well-scythed turves and beds of seedlings was spread before us. ‘This … this is a very fine garden, my lord.’

‘Not of my making, sorry to say. All rented.’

‘Have you lived here for very long?’ Oh, this was not easy.

‘Only since I returned with the King from Burgundy. Before the rebellion, I had rooms at the palace. Still have. This is an extravagance, really. I spend more time at Westminster or Eltham than I do here.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘What was yesterday really about, Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth – my given name – the way he said it was a caress.

‘Are you sure you want to know, my lord?’

He leaned back languidly. His eyes, narrowed against the sunlight, searched my face. ‘Maybe I can assist you.’

I looked down at my lap. ‘I believe you can, my lord, but not in any way you can imagine.’

‘Oh, I can imagine.’ The garland of words was strung out evenly. I glanced up, took breath, trying to ascertain his meaning. Ambiguity might be a delight for diplomats and barons, but for the likes of me? Was this just courtly teasing? If I swept away all artifice and asked him outright, what then?

His blue gaze gleamed as though he guessed my dilemma and swept on past me. A she-blackbird, a creature of carnality so the bestiaries say, was waiting hopefully for a crumb. Like me.

Do it ! cried the other creature inside of me, her fists hammering against my ribs.

The hour bells made his mouth tighten. I was but a swift meeting in today’s agendum.

Do it!

‘If it would please you, my lord, I should be willing to lie with you.’ I drew a ragged breath and plunged in even further. ‘Indeed, I should count it as an honour.’

His eyebrows arched like chevrons. ‘My dear, I’ve been solicited by the rich and the ragged but …’ I was studied anew as though he had picked up a magnifying glass to inspect every lesion in my soul. ‘Devil take it,’ he muttered, frowning, ‘you are in earnest.’

I cursed at having cheapened myself in his estimation. This precious friendship would be over now. Desire, spoken, could not be scraped away like errata on vellum.

‘Does Shore’s cockerel not crow enough for you, Elizabeth?’ I must have shaken as though the very air was bruising, because the cynical lines in his expression softened. ‘Hell! Forgive me, that was stable talk.’

Well, I deserved stable talk if I was begging to be treated like a milkmaid, and I could speak it, too.

‘Shore’s cockerel sits on the perch all day and all night, my lord, and so it has been for most of the marriage. We are ill-matched.’ I shook my head in sadness, and then clasped my hands to my lips in contrition. ‘I ask your pardon, my lord. It was presumptuous, pathetic of me to have asked you.’

A gentle finger lifted my chin. Compassionate eyes searched my face. ‘You, the most beautiful woman in London? Oh, Elizabeth.’

His voice held the kindness of a friend once again, but my self-worth was as fragile as a jenny wren’s egg. I did not believe his flattery, of course, but if only he knew the depth, the desperation, of my longing to be held in his arms, valued not judged, and loved, loved for the fledgling lonely girl within me and not my shell. The hope in my eyes must have appalled him. It was probably my imagination but there was certainly a quickening of interest in his.

‘But you could take a lover so easily,’ he said, sitting back and shaking his head in wry amazement as he looked at me. ‘Damn it, any merchant in England worth his salt would fall before you on his knees and beg.’

‘I don’t know about that, my lord. They certainly hang around my doorway like flies in search of fresh meat. See, I, too, disdain ragged manners and gutter purposes.’

It was too painful to tell him that, after one of my husband’s married friends had tried to assault me, Shore had blamed me and then monstrously suggested I lie with the man. ‘What in fucking hell does it matter if he tups you?’ Shore had said. ‘He’s a worthy fellow. At least that way you might provide me with an heir. You like playing with his children well enough.’

I looked across at Lord Hastings with a wry smile, trying to reclothe my vulnerability.

‘Then I must count myself most favoured,’ he was saying, ‘however …’ He stood up and paced to the edge of the arbor. I watched in dismay as he thrust his hands on his waist and cast his gaze upwards, letting out his breath with a sigh of amused wonder before he swung round to face me. ‘And you consider me as manna from Heaven?’

I bowed my head in respect. ‘I know you would be kind with my ignorance and gentle in teaching me.’

‘Teaching!’ He dragged his fingers across his jaw. ‘Oh, sweetheart, was ever man so tempted?’

‘Then you agree?’ Excitement eddied through me. Would this divine man initiate me into Paradise? Oh, when, when? This moment even? Except his fingers were plucking at his golden troth ring. O Jesu, no!

‘Do not take this wrongly.’ A refusal? Please God, make him say yes. ‘This is not a simple matter, Mistress Elizabeth.’ He leaned a raised elbow against the weathered lathes. ‘I was just thinking – remembering a Christian woman I once knew who fell in love with a Jew, loved him so much that she converted to his religion and became more devout than he.

‘Now, from what you have told me and from what I have observed, it seems you have behaved with propriety all these years and suddenly you want to change your coat. Dangerous waters, Elizabeth. If you throw your values overboard, what chart shall you steer by?’ His expression was telling me of an even deeper concern.

‘I thank you for the warning, my lord,’ I murmured with my head bowed like a daughter and then I looked up with a wicked grin. ‘So your concern is I shall become an apostle of the creed of lust, and end up raddled with the crabs?’ And before he could answer, I added soberly, ‘Or are you afeared I shall fall in love with you?’

Relief swept into his face. ‘By the Saints, you never hide your meaning, do you?’

I smiled, my heart aching. ‘You have been a light in the darkness of my world, my lord. Surely friends can be honest with each other?’

He nodded, not guessing me a liar. ‘Then, to be honest and speak plainly, I have a wife and family I love dearly. Kate and I do not spend much time together. I have my court duties. She has the children. Since her brother Warwick’s death, she rarely steps foot in Westminster for reasons I am sure you can understand. Yes, I admit I am not faithful to her in body.’ He grimaced in self-judgment. ‘But where my heart is not engaged, making love does not seem like such a betrayal.’