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‘Born here, yet you can’t seem to remember the day and you don’t know the difference between the gate tower and the residential wing.’ He took her arm. ‘I’ll take you to your room.’
‘No!’ She pulled her arm free, and turned gingerly on the narrow stair. He was still too close. ‘Sleep is difficult for me,’ she said. That, strangely, was true. She wondered why she had shared it with him.
‘So you wander the castle like a spectre?’
She grabbed an excuse. ‘I was going to study the stars to prepare for the King’s reading.’ He would not know that a horoscope came from charts and not from the sky.
He moved closer. ‘Then I will accompany you.’
She released a breath, not caring whether he believed her. At least Agnes was safe.
Their steps found the same rhythm as they climbed to the top of the Tower. Cold air rushed into her lungs as they emerged from the dark stairway on to the battlements. After the darkness of the Tower, the night, lit by stars, seemed almost bright, although the half-moon shed only enough light to polish the strong curve of his jaw.
He waved his hand towards the sky, a gesture as much of dismissal as of presentation. ‘So, milady, look out on the stars and make what sense of them you will.’
She looked up and her heart soared, as it always did. How many sleepless nights had she spent trying to discern their secrets? Now, like familiar friends, their patterns kept her company when sleep would not come.
She hugged herself, trying to warm her upper arms. He moved behind her, his broad back cutting the wind, suddenly making her feel sheltered, though his voice turned cold. ‘Strange method of study. In the dark. Without notes or instruments.’
‘I only need to watch them to learn their meaning.’
He snorted. ‘Then all soldiers should be experts on the stars.’ Behind her, he took her by the shoulders, his breath intimate as he whispered in her ear, ‘Do you know any more of the stars than you do of your birth date?’
She swallowed. Was it his question or his nearness that caused her to tremble? ‘I know more than most.’
Yet of the stars, like many things, she knew only the surface. By memorising the list of ascendants in her mother’s Book of Hours, she had gleaned enough to impress most people, but only enough to tantalise herself.
Thankfully, he let her go and leaned against the wall next to her. ‘You could not know what takes the University men years to learn.’
His dismissal rankled. ‘I had years.’ Years after they left court and her mother was busy with suits and counter-suits.
His dark eyes, lost in shadow, gave her no clue to his thoughts. ‘And did the stars give you the answers you sought?’
His question surprised her. She had studied the heavens because she had nothing else to do. She had studied hoping they might explain her life and give her hope for the future. ‘I am still searching for my answers, Lord Justin. Did you find yours in the law?’
He turned away from her question, so silent she could hear the lap of the river out of sight below the walls.
‘I was looking for justice,’ he said, finally.
‘On earth?’ She felt a moment’s sympathy for him. How disappointing his life must be. ‘You’d do better to look to the stars.’ The stars surely had given her this time alone with him. She should be speaking of light, charming things that might turn him into an ally. ‘Let me read yours. When were you born, Lord Justin?’
He frowned. ‘Do you think your feeble learning can discover the truth about me?’
She touched his unyielding arm with a playful hand. ‘My learning is good enough for the King.’
Her fingers burned on his sleeve. She swayed towards him.
He picked up her hand. All the heat between them flowed from his fingers and into her core. He held her a moment too long, then dropped her hand away from his arm.
‘The King cares more for flattery than truth.’ His voice was rough. ‘I would not believe a word you say.’
She waved her hand in the air, as if she had not wanted to touch him at all. As if his dismissal had not hurt her. ‘Yet you believe in justice on earth.’
‘Of course. That’s what the law is for.’
Was anyone so naïve? ‘And when the judges are wrong? What then?’
‘The condemned always claim they’ve been unjustly convicted.’
Fury warmed her blood. Parliament had given her mother no justice. ‘Even if the judgement is right, is there never forgiveness? Is there never mercy?’
‘Those are for God to dispense.’
‘Oh, so justice lives on earth, mercy in Heaven, and you happily sit in judgement confident that you are never wrong.’ She laughed without mirth.
‘You believe your mother should be exonerated.’
Surprised he recognised a meaning she had missed, she was silent. Better not to even acknowledge such a hope. Better not to picture her mother back at court and revered for the good she had done. ‘She was brought back to court before the year was out.’ Restored to her position beside the King for his last, painful year.
‘Not by Parliament.’
‘No, by the King himself. The Commons never had the right to judge her. And neither do you.’
‘It is you I judge. You’ve lied about your birth date. I suspect you are lying about why you are not abed. It seems truth means nothing to you.’
‘Truth?’ He talked of truth as if it were more valuable than bread. She held her tongue. She had already been too candid. If she angered him further, he would never keep her secret. ‘Perhaps each of us knows a different truth.’
‘There is only one truth, Lady Solay, but should you ever choose to speak it, I would scarce recognise it.’ His voice brimmed with disgust.
‘You do not recognise it now. My mother was a great helpmate to the King.’
He shook his head. ‘Even you can’t believe that.’ A yawn overtook him. ‘I’m going to bed. I leave you to your stars and your lies.’
‘Some day when I tell you the truth, you will believe it,’ she whispered to his fading footsteps.
Shivering and alone under a sky that seemed darker than before, she crossed her arms to keep from reaching for him as he descended the stairs.
Chapter Three
Solay snatched only an hour of sleep after Mass, then spent the feast day watching Justin and wondering whether he planned to expose her lie. Finally, exhausted, she escaped for a nap as soon as the King left the Christmas feast.
Her respite was brief. Before dark, Lady Agnes bustled into the room, carrying a white robe and two bare branches. ‘Here’s my costume for the disguising.’ She held up the simple off-white shift and waved the branches over her head. ‘Will I not look like a hart?’
A knock relieved Solay of responding. Agnes would resemble a horned angel more than a white stag.
At the door, a page, garbed in a vaguely familiar livery of three gold crowns on a blue background, handed Agnes a note and ran. She read it, then, smiling, closed the door.
‘I need you to take my part in the disguising,’ she whispered.
‘I would be honoured,’ Solay told her, trying to place the page’s livery. How bold to ignore the King’s entertainment for a private tryst. Did lusting make one so mad?
‘Quick. We haven’t much time.’ Agnes helped Solay into the undyed gown, slipped a linen hood over her face, and tied the branches around her head.
‘Tell me what I must do.’ Beneath the hood, she squinted, trying to see out of the eye holes.
‘Just watch the others in white. Do as they do and at the end, curl up at the feet of the one who plays the King.’ Agnes stopped tugging on the robe and peered through the slits in the hood to meet Solay’s gaze. ‘They must think you are me.’
Behind the hood, Solay laughed. ‘I’m disguised and I’ve just come to court. Who will recognise me?’
‘Everyone saw you yesterday.’
Everyone watched in glee as the King humiliated her, Agnes meant. And then, of course, the men had come for a closer look.
But only Justin had really seen her.
Agnes squeezed Solay’s fingers. ‘Please. Do not remove your hood, no matter what. Too many know what part I was to take.’ Agnes opened the door a crack, looked both ways, then pushed Solay into the hall. ‘And thank you,’ she whispered, her round blue eyes full of gratitude.
Solay crept down the stairs to the Great Hall, fingers touching the cool stone wall for balance. The branches wobbled uncertainly at the back of her head. Anonymous beneath her white hood, she felt strangely free as she entered the Hall.
Until she saw Justin.
Head down, he huddled with three other men. He was not costumed, of course. This man refused to disguise himself or his feelings.
As she walked towards the masked group gathering at the end of the Hall, his gaze drifted from the conversation to follow her. Knowing he was watching, she realised that Agnes’s costume exposed her ankles and hung slack around her hips. She turned her back on him and touched her hood to make sure her hair was covered. A stray dark lock would betray her.
The King’s herald called for silence and she pulled her attention back to the tableau. Like a mirror, the scene reflected the King who observed it. A pretend King sat on a mock throne. Heavenly beings in blue surrounded him. Beasts of the field came to lie at his feet.
As she moved to her place, the court seemed as much of a façade as the play, beautiful on the surface, but concealing each player’s true nature. When she lay at the foot of the false throne and heard the applause, she wondered which player had donned Agnes’s lover’s garb.
‘Up. Now,’ someone behind her whispered.
Around her, players moved into the audience, pulling them into the scene. As she rose to follow, she glimpsed a deep blue robe through the slits in her hood. All around them, laughing men and women joined the pretty scene, posing like statues. Afraid to look up, she saw a hand, grasped it and pulled.
At his touch, her fingers seemed to dissolve. For that moment, there was no separation between them.
He ripped his hand away, refusing not with the good-natured, temporary reluctance of the rest, but with stubborn belligerence.
She made the mistake of looking up.
Beneath the heavy brows, she saw no doubt in his eyes. It was Justin. And he knew her.
She turned, reaching with both hands to draw in two courtiers next to him, trying to escape. As the real and the pretend court merged, the King applauded and some of the disguisers lifted their masks.
Ducking behind the pretend throne, Solay fled into the hall. The man in the King’s garb left, too, mask still in place, turning in the opposite direction.
She had almost reached the stairs when Justin’s voice licked her back.
‘You do not raise your hood with the rest, Lady Solay.’
‘You mistake me.’ She climbed the first two stairs, back to him. Perhaps a carefully rolled r would fool him. ‘I am a white hart, pious and pure.’
‘You are neither pious nor pure and your accent sounds nothing like the Lady Agnes.’
She lowered her eyes, her lashes scraping the linen hood, still hoping to deny who she was.
Too late. He pulled off the hood, letting the fake antlers skitter down the stairs, and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look into his eyes, dark with anger, and something more.
His breath touched her cheek. ‘And her eyes are not the colour of royalty.’
Her lips parted and she struggled to catch a breath that did not smell of him.
He swayed nearer, his lips dangerously close to hers. One more breath, and they would touch.
He let her go and held out the hood. ‘No, I see you are nothing like a hart.’
She snatched it back, her breath still coming fast. What good would she be to Lady Agnes now? ‘Did you not think I played the part well?’
He dusted his palms, to brush off her touch. ‘It seems all of life is a disguising to you, a deception for amusement.’
‘’Tis not true,’ she said, though the idea gave her pause. She had mirrored the others in the play, just as she did every day, playing a part to please the watcher.
‘Where is Lady Agnes this evening?’ he asked, ignoring her answer.
‘She was taken ill. She did not want to disappoint their Majesties.’
‘So you lie for others as well as for yourself.’
‘Why do you assume I lie?’ Not only did the man demand truth, he had an uncanny knack of discerning it.
‘Because I saw Lady Agnes just after the feast. She was laughing and excited about her part in the disguising. Where is she?’
‘She was taken to her bed suddenly,’ she said, hoping still to hide Agnes’s sin.
‘I’m certain she was, but not by illness and not alone.’ His strong brows furrowed with disapproval.
‘I told you, she didn’t feel well.’ Her tongue ran away with her, trying to make him believe. ‘She must have eaten too much of the noodles and saffron.’
‘You are the only one who thinks that Hibernia’s trysts with Lady Agnes are a secret.’
Her cheeks went cold. ‘I am newly come to court.’ Where ignorance of such secrets was dangerous. No wonder the page’s livery looked familiar. The Duke was the King’s dearest companion. Poor, foolish Agnes. ‘And if that is so, there’s nothing to be gained by speaking of tonight.’
‘You seem to have nothing but secrets, Lady Solay. Don’t expect me to keep them for ever.’
‘I denied you a kiss last night.’ She had been told a woman’s body could enslave a man, though she knew little of how. She leaned close to him, feeling her breasts soft against his hard chest, fighting her traitorous body as it weakened next to his. ‘Perhaps you want it now?’
He raised his arms. She waited, wanting him to take her.
Instead, his hands curved into fists. Nothing else moved except the truth of his response, pounding below his waist.
