The Forbidden Queen полностью

Mistress Johanna Waring. If Henry had thought he had made every preparation for my accouchement, he had been wrong, for this self-important individual had arrived in my expanding household the day after Henry’s departure, with much baggage heaped in two large wagons, and a shortage of breath due to her advanced age and considerable girth. Mistress Waring—I would never have dared address her as Johanna—nurse to the infant Henry and his brothers, and one time tirewoman to Lady Mary Bohun, Henry’s mother.

‘A great lady,’ she had informed me, sighing gustily, ousting Alice from her favourite seat and lowering her weight onto it on that day of her arrival. ‘Dead too young. And Lord Henry not yet eight years old.’ She fixed her eye, which brooked no dissent, on me. ‘I expect that you will be a great lady one day.’

And Mistress Waring had brought with her a package.

‘Can’t have the heir born without this, now, can we?’ She pulled at the ties and cloth with surprisingly nimble fingers for a lady of her bulk and years. ‘It was Lord Henry’s, of course. He was such a lovely boy. I always knew he would be a great king. See? When he was old enough to pull himself up?’

There were faint teeth marks in one of the little birds’ heads.

I touched it with my fingertip so that the little wooden box rocked gently on its two falcon-headed supports. I could not imagine Henry so small, so helpless that he would fit into this crib. It swung smoothly against my hand, as my baby would be swung to sleep here. I could not recall if I had had a cradle. Neither did I recall a nurse who had held me in such affection as Mistress Waring had held Henry. And as I was now Henry’s wife, Mistress Waring took me in her briskly solicitous hand and laid down the law.

‘She’s nought but an old besom,’ Beatrice sneered down her narrow nose. ‘She has instructed me to ensure that all windows are kept tightly closed in your chamber, my lady, to allow no foul air to permeate.’

‘Is that not a good thing?’ I asked, quick to pour oil on potentially troubled waters.

‘I don’t see why I should do it. It is the work of a servant.’

‘But she is favoured by the King,’ I replied.

That was enough to restore peace to my dovecote. I was, to my pride, gradually learning to manage my disparate household. Beatrice might have little respect for my opinions, but Henry’s word was law. The windows were kept tightly shut. But as for Windsor, now that I had decided, I would not be put off. Not even by Henry’s officious nurse.

‘Why ever should I not go?’ I asked.

‘Lord Henry will not like it,’ Mistress Waring stated.

‘Lord Henry is not here with frozen feet,’ I replied sharply, rubbing my toes through my fur slippers. I had chilblains.

‘I can heal your chilblains with pennyroyal, my lady,’ Mistress Waring admonished.

‘Then you can heal them in Windsor.’

I left the room, but Mistress Waring followed me to my bedchamber where I directed Beatrice and Meg to select the clothes I would need. Henry’s nurse stood at my shoulder, where she could lecture me without being overheard.

‘What is it, Mistress Waring?’ I asked wearily.

‘My lady, it must not be.’

‘Mistress Waring—my child will thrive at Windsor because I will be more content.’ She folded her lips. I eyed her. ‘What? I can always come back to Westminster when Henry returns from France, if that’s your concern.’ It had crossed my mind. Indeed, he need never know I had defied him. I really could not see the importance of where I bore this child.

But when Mistress Waring made the sign of the evil eye, I looked aghast, a chill brushing my skin that had nothing to do with the draught whistling round the open door or the grey mist, like an unpleasant miasma, that had blanketed the Thames.

‘It’s the old prophecy, my lady,’ she whispered.

‘A prophecy?’ I whispered back.

‘Made when Lord Henry was born. Come with me.’ I followed, out of my chamber and into my private chapel. ‘I’ll tell you here, because it does not do to speak of some things except in the sight of God.’ She lowered herself awkwardly to her knees before the altar, and I did likewise.

‘Lord Henry was a delicate child—there were fears for his life. An old wisewoman gave a prophecy to his mother, the Lady Mary, to reassure her that the child would not die.’

Mistress Waring made the sign of the cross on her ample bosom.

‘But this has nothing to do with me,’ I replied, puzzled.

‘It might have to do with your child.’

‘And this wisewoman’s sayings will stop me going to Windsor? I think this is nonsense,’ I remarked.

‘It made the Lady Mary weep,’ she asserted.

I would have none of this. I stood and walked from the chapel, back to my chamber where the packing went on apace. By the window, a little ruffled by the strange incident, I let my hand fall to stroke the head of the nearest little falcon on the supports of the cradle. They must have looked over the child that Henry had been, I thought fancifully, keeping watch. Who was keeping watch over him now?