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The rebellious wench inside me was prancing with gleeful excitement as we boarded the barge, but behind my veil my lips were tense, and my knuckles gleamed white in my lap as I seated myself beneath the awning. Talwood started to tell me about the play and what was expected – just one dance, he said. Did he realise it could destroy my reputation forever if word reached the city? Just one dance! Be brave, I chided myself, if you stumble and they laugh at you, it doesn’t matter. At least you may glimpse King Edward in all his magnificence. Yes, I admit I had been thinking much about King Edward.
Talwood had passes that saw us through a succession of courtyards and sentries until we reached the postern of a half-timbered building adjoining the Great Hall. The players’ chamber proved a chaotic hell of spangles and peevish hubbub. At one end, men in wigs and leather kilts were in mock combat; at the other a large man with faux breasts and a wig that Medusa would have envied, was having red powder rubbed below his cheekbones. My destination was a side chamber where a baker’s dozen of minstrels were practising.
Talwood introduced me to Walter Haliday, the hoary-headed Marshall of the King’s Minstrels, and delivered a warning to the rest: ‘Be diligent with our dancer, my masters. This is her only chance to practise and then she needs to get into costume with great haste. The disports begin in an hour.’
An hour! I could have encircled Hastings’ neck with a cord and tugged it tight.
I was supposed to rattle a timbrel as I danced but I asked Haliday if the tabor player could provide the rhythm instead.
‘Pretend you have a mirror, dear. Gives you something to do with your hands,’ suggested Talwood, and he kept directing me until he was satisfied.
The sound of clapping coming from the doorway made me turn. Hastings was standing behind me in his full court dress.
‘As always, you underestimated your ability, mistress.’
I stared speechless at his splendour – the high-crowned, black hat with a jewelled band; the silver collar of Yorkist sunnes-and-roses straddling his shoulders; and the Order of the Garter encircling his thigh. Such tailoring, too; the way his slashed, damson sleeves were stitched in – pouched to give breadth at the shoulders.
He thanked the musicians and ushered me from the room. As no one was in sight in the passageway, he kissed me on the mouth. I imagine he tasted my nervousness.
‘You are doing well, sweetheart.’
‘My lord, in all honesty I am fearful.’
‘Elizabeth, you will outshine the rest, believe me.’
I tried to smile. ‘It’s just that in your magnificence, you are like a stranger. Is every noble lord like to be dressed so? It dazzles me. I feel like a country mouse.’
‘But I know you are a proud little city mouse.’ He pinched my cheek. ‘You will surpass us all, believe me. And Talwood will look after you throughout. Do exactly as he says and all will go smoothly. Now, we must make haste. There’s a tailor standing by to make adjustments to your costume.’
I followed him back to the confusion of the greater chamber. The instant he entered, the room hushed. I swiftly curtsied to him with the rest.
‘Friends,’ Hastings began, addressing the players, ‘Remember the purpose of the disguising is to provide joy and laughter. If aught goes wrong, do not put on a grim visage but bluff it out. Are the battlements and wooden horse at the ready, Master Curthoyse?’
An officer straightened and stepped forward. ‘They are, my lord.’
‘Excellent. As you were, good friends. I leave you in the Master of the Wardrobe’s capable hands.’
No one moved.
‘Your pardon, my good lord,’ called out one of the actors, ‘but we ‘ave no Helen.’
Hastings gave a nod to Talwood to deal with the matter and left the chamber.
Talwood gestured me to my feet. ‘This is Helen.’
‘But she’s a woman.’
O Blessed Christ, I thought, I’m the only woman here. This is wrong, very wrong.
Beside me, Talwood bristled, ‘And your point, sirrah?’
‘Our point,’ yelled someone else, ‘is that only men can be players.’
Talwood was primed. ‘This woman is a dancer. She has no lines. Pirouette, darling, pirouette!’ he hissed. Scarlet-faced, I turned, swirling my skirt as gracefully as I might.
A dancer! I blew the actors a kiss and sank in a deep curtsy. Christ’s mercy, what if this reached the Guild? Shore would turn me out of doors. I could find myself begging on the streets tomorrow. I must be lunatic.
Appeased, the players returned to their preparations.
‘Thank Heaven for that,’ Talwood said, fanning himself. ‘Oh, they are so precious. Now, let’s get you dressed.’
There was no privacy and I had to swallow my sense of niceties. I had imagined a gorgeous robe with purfiled hem; the tailor presented me with two lengths of thin blue silk. Secured at the shoulders and cinched with a narrow cloth-of-gold belt, this was Helen’s costume. That unravelled my excitement. The fabric scarcely covered my knees; the side slits – ‘devils’ windows’–would expose me to the thigh; and the flesh-coloured hose and garters had gone missing. I refused to dance without a petticote.
‘You’re a beautiful ancient Greek, remember, dearie,’ clucked the tailor from his knees as I insisted he close up the side seams. ‘Them maidens went bare-legged because of the heat, and bare-arsed too in case they met any of those lovely pagan gods. There, I’m not sewing the windows any lower.’
I refused the uncomfortable saffron wig. At least the pretty half-mask of white satin, edged with silver braid, was perfect, but as I began to tie it on, Master Talwood twittered in protest. Frantic gestures on his part summoned a man with several tubby facebrushes poking out of his waistcloth. Along with him came a boy with a peddler’s tray – a minute woodland of charcoal sticks, kohl and pastes of all colours.
They smudged blushes across my cheekbones, puffed a fulsome shimmer of gold dust wherever my skin was uncovered and added red to my lips. Fine dark lines were gently drawn around my eyes and my hair was unbraided, draped over my right shoulder and tethered with a golden clasp.
Finally, Talwood took out a wrapper from his doublet and drew back its folds to reveal a necklace of gilded leaves. ‘It’s only lent to you by my lord, you understand,’ he warned.
The boy offered me a silver mirror. Mistress Shore had vanished behind the pagan artifice. Caparisoned in mask and silks, I felt as skittish as an inexperienced tournament horse, and these last moments of waiting while the trestles of the great hall were stacked away could have been torture save some of the players joked with me in friendly fashion and smoothed away my fears.
Hastings came back to make a final inspection of us. ‘Is Lord Paris not here yet?’ he exclaimed wearily. ‘Curthoyse, fetch him hither NOW!’ He moved along the line and halted before me. ‘Where in Hell is Helen’s coronet?’
‘Lordy!’ The tailor scuttled out and returned with a circlet of tinsel threaded with artifice cornflowers, poppies and laurel.
‘Princess.’ Hastings clicked his fingers for the diadem. With the smile of a sinful archbishop, he crowned me.
Westminster Palace Hall was in shadow save for the bright ring of candles in the centre where we were to strut. We were herded behind a screen and there we huddled awaiting the return of the royal retinue. I was not the only player who gasped at the massive dimensions of the hall. Huge oaken beams, carved with angels’ heads, thrust out from the walls above our heads and higher still was a great row of embrasured windows, set in jowls of stone, and in each stood a stern, crowned statue.
I knew from Father that a huge stone table ran along the dais. Peering between my companions’ shoulders, I made out the glimmering stretch of white cloth. No one was seated there; the two thrones and benches were empty.
Below the dais at the sides of the hall stood massive cupboards with shelves of glinting platters and flagons. Every other inch of wall was lined with trestle tables propped lengthways. In front of these were the benches and here sat the rest of the court using the trestle supports as backrests.
A trumpet sounded. I heard the assembly rise in a rustle of apparel to make obeisance. Crammed as I was amongst the sweaty bodies jostling for a view, my mouth went dry and my heart panicked, but then the small pipes began and the Greek kings stepped forward leaving me space to breathe. I forced my lungs to calm and crossed myself against evil. Vigilant Talwood patted my arm; I had no choice but to screw up my courage.
Our disport began with poetry but no one in the court was listening. Only when several gentlemen began to call out ribald comments to the players, did the fine lords hush to listen to the jests.
As each Greek king was introduced, I had the chance to distinguish the chief players. The man portraying my husband, King Menelaus of Sparta, was a scrag end of a creature. His brother and blustering overlord, King Agamemnon, looked fit to run a tavern. Achilles had such a magnificent body, all bronzed with metallic paint, that he had me wondering if the King, England’s own ‘Achilles’, had stooped to play a part. No, as the warrior drew back, I heard a shrewish whine: ‘‘Ere, why ‘as ‘ector been given betta armour than me?’
Prince Paris, thank Heaven, was sufficiently manly to be Helen’s lover. He drew great applause as he swaggered forth. Except for a glittering baldric, his chest was bare. I was shocked by his immodest kilt. The leather straps scarcely covered his breech clout.
‘Be ready!’ Talwood whispered as the Greek kings returned behind the screen.
The flute’s voice sounded sensuously.
And now Prince Paris, blessed by moonless sky,
Like a night thief hides among the shadows
To see this beauteous lady—
‘Now!’ Talwood shoved me forth and there were whoops and cheers as I curtsied.
Hill, the tabor player, began a sensual beat and the beguiling notes of the small pipes softly slid into the rhythm.
Snared in the circle of light, I lifted my invisible hand mirror at arm’s length and danced with my reflection. Hidden behind my mask, Elizabeth Lambard was unshackled, free to become Helen of Troy, a princess who knew she could make men kill to possess her. As I stilled, sensing Paris’ presence, like a doe hearing her hunter, it was no longer Hastings’ face in my make-believe mirror but a lover I’d always dreamed of.
When the music ended and the applause took over, my practical self dashed out from her temporary prison beneath my heart, trying to seize back control and dampen down her twin’s sinful exuberance. I held her back a few moments longer, acknowledging the huzzahs like I imagined a real princess might with a gracious lowering of the head. Oh, this was heady, wonderful. I should not sleep tonight.
Paris grew impatient. He strode over and embraced me from behind, his prick hard beneath his kilt. Bastard! While the narrator tediously droned out the story for anyone thick as a London piecrust, this cursed Trojan was rubbing his groin against me. Sloppy kisses gushed up my arm from wrist to neck. Worse, he turned me in his embrace and went for my mouth. I resisted; his breath stank of wine but the fellow kept firm hold of my thighs.
‘Don’t overdo the virtue,’ he muttered against my lips. ‘Be craaaazed with love.’ He held me tight against his belly. When he adventured his hand down my throat to my breast, I was doing the stiffening.
‘Lovely,’ he murmured, leering down the gap. ‘Fancy a bit of ravishing afterwards?’
‘Squeeze either an’ you’ll be a coun’er tenor by tonight,’ I hissed back sweetly.
The verses ended. Paris neatly scooped me up with an arm beneath my knees. I pretended to look up at him lovingly. It was a shame he could not have kept my draperies secure. I think the whistles were for a side view of my thigh.
There was no time to chide. While the Greek princes were whining that Helen had been snatched by a Trojan and resolving to go to war to fetch her home, Talwood hauled me through the side door and we raced through passageways until we reached the mock barbican of Troy, where it stood outside the far end of the great hall. An icing of players already clung to its battlements.
Talwood pointed to the ladder. ‘Up! Be quick!’
Before I could get both feet on the plank that served as rampart, the ardent assistants whipped the ladder away. Queen Hecuba’s brawny arm saved me.
‘A squeeze, ain’t it?’ He evidently liked garlic in his stew.
‘God’s Blood,’ I muttered in an alley voice. ‘I feel like one of them jars too broad for a pantry shelf.’
‘An’ I’m a barrel. Move, you lardcakes! ‘Elen should be in the middle.’
The ‘lardcakes’ obeyed. Cassandra, a youth in a long black wig, deftly swung around Hecuba, and we performed an intricate, perilous reversal so that I ended up midway next to Prince Hector’s wife and son.
‘Have to get it right, dearie,’ Hecuba whispered. ‘You bein’ the last to leave.’ He straightened his false bosom and then nudged me: ‘Did Paris feel you up?’
‘Aye, ‘e did.’
The others laughed. ‘Oooh, lucky you.’
‘Tell me,’ I whispered. ‘‘Ow’s the player who was to be ‘elen? Is ‘is ankle mending?’
‘He ain’t done nothing to his ankle, luv. His lordship didn’t want ‘im to do it no more.’
Aha, I was beginning to suspect as much.
‘So wot’s your name, precious?’ asked Hector’s wife, but before I could answer, the edifice shook as the attendants grabbed hold.
‘‘Ere we go, ladies,’ chortled Hecuba, as the doors opened. ‘Wave graciously. We’re royalty, remember.’
The damnable barbican wobbled perilously as it was pushed forwards. Would the timber brackets break, spew us out across the flagstone plain of Troy in a tangle of gauze and wigs? The courtiers were laughing.
‘Oh, I adore playing a queen to a queen,’ Hecuba gushed, waving airily towards the heart of the dais. ‘Ready to blub, Mistress Hector? Got your onion, darlin’?’
With nothing to do save pose like a princess at a tournament, I began to enjoy myself. Although Hector and Achilles’ wooden swords could not strike sparks, there was sufficient force in their combat to have the courtiers cheering. When Hector received the death blow, he pierced the bag hidden beneath his waist, and enacted copious spluttering and staggering as the blood oozed between his fingers.
The onion smell was strong but I wasn’t prepared for the horrific scream right next to me. A shrieking Mistress Hector and son scrambled down to do a ‘woe is me’ over the corpse.
’employed for ‘is screeches,’ Hecuba informed me.
Then came the death of Achilles. He grabbed an arrow to his heel and died with a great deal of twitching. Finally, the Wooden Horse rumbled in. I was disappointed. It was just scaffolding with a painted great horse head sticking out on a pole. Its body was made up of warriors, each holding a curved, dun-coloured shield to resemble a horse’s flanks.
‘Doom, doom!’ Cassandra, who had already climbed down, rushed at the horse waving his arms like a housewife chasing the pigeons from a pea crop. He was carried off in the m?lеe as the Greek soldiers sprang down and some thirty men waged battle.
When the swords and verse came to a standstill, Hecuba descended to wring his huge hands over dead Paris. I tried to look bereft as ‘she’ was led away sobbing. Once all the corpses were dragged into the shadows, the fields of Troy lay deserted and I realised with a jolt that I was the only player left on the battlements
Oh, for more onions. Broken hearted, I held my wrist to my eyes so I could glance back at Talwood. He was firmly signalling me to stay in place.
What in Heaven …? Ah, phew, the narrator stepped back into the candlelight and King Menelaus strode up to the wall of Troy. The cascade of poetry stopped abruptly. Menelaus held out his hand, waiting for me to return with him to Sparta.
Devilment crept into me. Poor Helen. Had Menelaus been a William Shore? I gravely shook my head at his highness of Sparta and flapped my fingers like ass’s ears. The court began to chuckle and then shriek with laughter as the player became really angry.
His overlord, King Agamemnon, joined him. He also held out his hand to me. Still I refused and then suddenly there was a scraping of chair, a movement across the high table, followed by applause. A third king! Tall and magnificent, King Edward halted before the gates of Troy, looked up at me and held out his hand.
By the Saints, I’d never intended this. How I managed that narrow ladder behind the edifice with my heart trying to escape my body, I’ll never know.
England’s king was a huge haze of gold and sable. I inclined my head to him like Princess Helen should, and he graciously led me forward to make a player’s curtsey to the court, then keeping firm hold of my hand, he grinned down at me like a lion viewing dinner.
‘I knew you’d come to me eventually,’ he said.
Mistress
I
Paris saved me from answering. Not to be excluded from the tumult of clapping and stamping, he materialised on my left, grabbed my hand with surprising assurance for an artisan, snatched off his wig and bowed. Tethered ash blond hair and smiling teeth gleamed in the candlelight. A young man with dangerous ebullience. He had to be one of the court, I realised, but I was so euphoric it did not matter. I tugged my hand free from his and beckoned the rest of the players out of the darkness. Just because they were not nobles, it did not diminish their right to tributes.
We all made obeisance again and then – thank God – proud hands clasped my shoulders. I knew Hastings was standing behind me.
‘Excellent, Will!’ exclaimed King Edward, but his eyes were on me. ‘Heard you helped out at the final moment, Mistress Shore. Our thanks to you and our compliments on your dancing.’
I could scarce whisper a thank you as I was high on the huzzahs. Sweet Heaven, name a woman who wouldn’t be!
‘I’m Dorset, by the way,’ said Paris in my ear, as if the revelation would ensure I melted. He kissed my hand.
‘Ignore him,’ said King Edward. ‘Paris has been defeated. Let us leave it that way.’
Hastings’ fingers tightened. ‘“Helen” needs to change.’
