The Forbidden Queen полностью

‘There are no festivities planned,’ I warned. ‘We live quietly.’ I thought I sounded ungracious and tried to make amends. ‘That is to say that usually we see no need to feast and…’ This was no better. Windsor sounded much like a convent of aging nuns.

‘Quietly?’ Edmund interrupted, grinning. ‘It’s no better than a damned tomb. It’s a dismal place. Old King Edward, who feasted and frolicked at every opportunity, must be turning in his grave. I think we should celebrate.’

‘Celebrate what?’ James asked warily, which gave me pause. It made me think that he might have had experience of some of Beaufort’s wilder schemes. I could imagine Edmund Beaufort being wild.

‘Your release, man. Let’s make it a Christmas and Twelfth Night to remember.’ And Edmund Beaufort actually grasped my hand, linking his fingers with mine before I could react. ‘What do you say, Queen Kat? Shall we shake Windsor back into life? Shall we make the old rooms echo with our play?’

Edmund Beaufort was irrepressible. Queen Kat? No one had ever called me that. But my heart was lighter. For the first time in many weeks my spirits had risen, and my room was full of noise and laughter. I did not know whether to laugh or rebuke him for his lack of respect. I did neither, for he gave me no time.

‘Do you object to games and dancing, Majesty? I do hope not.’ Releasing me as fast as he had seized hold of me, he swept me another magnificent bow, as full of mockery as it was possible to be, following it with a dozen agile dance steps that took him to plant a kiss on Beatrice’s cheek. ‘We’ll celebrate around you if you’ve no taste for it—and you can sit on your dignity and let us get on with it.’

I laughed at the irreverent picture, and at Beatrice’s astonished discomfiture. But there he was, waiting for my reply.

‘Well, Cousin Queen? Do we celebrate with you or around you? Or do we leave you to your misery and take ourselves off to Westminster instead?’

I was struck by an overwhelming longing to be part of this youthful group.

‘Let me arrange the festivities for you,’ Edmund Beaufort pleaded in false anxiety. ‘I will die of boredom if you refuse. Let me loose to bring this place back to life again.’

And you too. I heard the implication that was not spoken.

Entirely baffled, I felt the prickle of tears at his concern.

‘I’d let him if I were you,’ James remarked. ‘He’ll only badger you into insensibility if you don’t.’

‘Please let us dance, my lady,’ Joan added.

‘And even play games. We are not too old for games,’ Meg observed.

‘I would like it too,’ Beatrice added solemnly.

I raised my palms, helpless before all the expectant faces. ‘It seems that we celebrate,’ I managed.

Edmund crowed at his success. ‘Then we will. I’m at your feet, my lady. Your wish is my command.’ True to his statement, he flung himself to his knees and raised the hem of my gown to his lips. When he looked up his face was all vivid life and expectation. ‘We will turn night into day. We will transmute shadows into brightest sunlight.’

That was what I wanted.

The years fell away from me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Edmund Beaufort took control with a snap of his impertinent fingers. I had never met anyone with so much inexhaustible energy. Or such a charmingly insolent denial of authority, such wanton disregard for my enforced cold respectability as Queen Dowager and Queen Mother. Or such wilful casting aside of court etiquette. Unleashed on the quiet Court at Windsor, Edmund Beaufort blew the cobwebs from the tapestries and stirred the old rooms into joyful activity, breathing life into rooms that had not seen occupation for years. I found myself at the centre of a whirlwind.

Our staid court became a place of ragingly youthful high spirits, the young courtiers who elected to remain with James and my damsels in no manner reluctant to be drawn into Edmund’s plans. It was as if they were awakened from a long sleep, and I too. I was drawn in whether I wished it or no. And I did. I came alive, my despondency and desolation vanishing like mist under early morning sun. There was no lying abed in those frosty December mornings when the sound of the hunting horn beneath my window blasted me into activity. Neither was I allowed to cry off. We hunted through the days, come fair weather or foul.

Some days, seeing my wariness around horses, Edmund arranged that we take the hawks out into the marshes on foot. There was little sport to be had, nothing but wet feet and icy fingers and shivering limbs by the time that the noon hour approached, but Edmund, in his role of Overseer of Inordinate Pleasure, had all arranged with my Master of Household. As the pale sun reached its zenith, wagons pulled by oxen trundled towards us along the track.

‘What is this?’ I squinted against the hazy sun.

‘Everything for your comfort, of course, my lady.’

I watched with astonishment.

‘When did he arrange this?’ I asked James, who stood with his arm openly around Joan’s shoulders.