‘Red for disloyalty to one wife, and a poor choice of a second.’
I had difficulty in being mannerly towards Gloucester, who had attacked my future with the legal equivalent of a hatchet. The Act of Parliament he had instigated would stand for all time. No man of ambition would consider me as a bride. I was assuredly doomed to eternal widowhood. And so with savage delight I lifted a length of blood-red silk, snipped a hand’s breadth with my shears and held it over the candle so that it curled and shimmered into nothingness.
‘There. Gloucester is gone, he is nothing to me.’ I caught an anxious look from Beatrice as we watched the silk vanish. ‘I can’t believe you are a friend of Gloucester, Beatrice.’
‘No, my lady.’ She shuddered. ‘But is this witchcraft. Perhaps in France…?’
‘No such thing,’ I assured her. ‘Merely a signal of my intent. Gloucester will be hale and hearty for a good few years yet.’ I looked round the expectant faces. ‘Now Bishop Henry. He has been kind—but to my mind as self-interested as are all the Beauforts. Not to be trusted.’
‘Rich purple,’ from Beatrice. ‘He likes money and self-importance.’
‘And the lure of a Cardinal’s hat,’ Cecily added.
The purple silk went the way of its red sister.
Who next? I considered my father, who had instilled in me such fear—mad, untrustworthy, kind one moment, violent and cruel the next—but I knew that it had not been his choice to be so.
And then there was my brother Charles, who would be King Charles the Seventh if he could persuade enough Frenchmen to back him, and would thus usurp my son’s claim to France. But was it not his right, by birth and blood, to rule? I could not deny him his belief in his inheritance. This was no easy task, but the fascination of my damsels urged me on.
I chose a length of pure white silk.
‘Who is that?’
‘My husband. Henry. Sadly dead before his time.’
They became instantly solemn. ‘Pure.’
‘Revered.’
‘Chivalrous. A great loss.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, and said no more, knowing it would not be politic. Henry, as pure and cold as the coldest winter, as cruel through his neglect as the sharpest blade. I admired his talents but did not regret his absence, as the white silk flamed, and died as he had in the last throes of his terrible illness. ‘He no longer has a place in my life.’
‘He was a great king,’ Meg stated.
‘He was,’ I agreed. ‘The very best. In his pursuit of English power he had no rival.’
The memory of my immature infatuation, his heedless forsaking of me, flooded back and for a moment my hands fell unoccupied in my lap, the silks abandoned, and my women shuffled uncomfortably. The joy had gone out of it.
‘What about Edmund Beaufort?’ Beatrice asked, immediately looking aghast at her daring, for here was a sensitive issue. Would I lash out with anger at their presumption? Would I weep, despite all my denials of hurt? Would I embarrass myself and them?
And I thought momentarily of Edmund, how I had fallen into the fantasy of it, as a mayfly, at the end of its short existence, drops into the stream and is carried away. Edmund had woven a web to pinion me and take away my will. How I had enjoyed it, living from moment to moment, day to day, anticipating his next kiss, his next outrageous plot. How could any woman resist such a glorious seduction?
She could if she had any sense. He was as self-serving as the rest, and I had been a fool to be so compromised, with no one to blame but myself. In my folly I had trusted so blindly. I would not do so again. I would not be used by any man again. I would never again be seduced by a smooth tongue and clever assault. No man would command my allegiance, my loyalty. Certainly not my love.
‘He is hard to resist,’ Meg observed solemnly, as if she had read my thoughts.
Oh, my control was masterly, my sense of the dramatic superb. I lifted a glittering length of gold thread from my coffer and replied from my heart.
‘Here he is. Edmund, who wooed me and could have won me if he had had the backbone. One of the glittering Beauforts. He was cruel in his rejection of me.’ And I burnt the whole costly strand, not even snipping off a short length, as I smiled around the watchful faces. I think I had won their admiration, or at least their respect.
I left them, full of laughter as they considered the men of their acquaintance who failed to live up to their own high standards. I admired their light-heartedness, their assurance that one day they would marry and, if fortunate, know the meaning of love. I would always be lonely. I would remain isolated and unwed. I would never love again.
Anger kept me close companionship in those days.
Fired with my resolution to tread a solitary path, I embraced my new strength of spirit within the sharp confines created for me by his grace of Gloucester. I would be Queen Dowager, admirable and perfect in the role allotted to me.
I had grown up at last. And not before time, Michelle would have said.
‘I wish to visit some of my dower properties,’ I informed my little son. ‘And you must come with me.’
