A Marriage of Lions

by Elizabeth Chadwick

Genres: Medieval; Medieval Romance

Synopsis

The Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice

'Picking up an Elizabeth Chadwick novel you know you are in for a sumptuous ride'
Daily Telegraph

*

England, 1238

Raised at the court of King Henry III as a chamber lady to the queen, young Joanna of Swanscombe's life changes forever when she comes into an inheritance far above all expectations, including her own.

Now a wealthy heiress, Joanna's arranged marriage to the King's charming, tournament-loving half-brother William de Valence immediately stokes the flames of political unrest as more established courtiers object to the privileges bestowed on newcomers.

As Joanna and William strive to build a life together, England descends into a bitter civil war. In mortal danger, William is forced to run for his life, and Joanna is left with only her wit and courage to outfox their enemies and prevent them from destroying her husband, her family, and their fortunes.

'Elizabeth Chadwick has taken the few facts known about Joanna's life and turned them into a rich, detailed portrait of a woman attempting to survive brutal court politics.' The Times

*

Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick

'An author who makes history come gloriously alive'
The Times

'Stunning . . . Her characters are beguiling, and the story is intriguing'
Barbara Erskine

'I rank Elizabeth Chadwick with such historical novelist stars as Dorothy Dunnett and Anya Seton'
Sharon Kay Penman

'Enjoyable and sensuous'
Daily Mail

'Meticulous research and strong storytelling'
Woman & Home

'A riveting read . . . A glorious adventure not to be missed!'
Candis

Release date: September 9, 2021

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

Awakening to darkness in the soft feather bed she shared with her nurse, Joanna gasped as she surfaced from the grip of her dream. At her side, Mabel’s familiar, warm weight dipping the mattress anchored her to comforting, blessed reality. Grainy light from the night candle outlined the other beds in the room and the slumbering forms of the Queen’s ladies mounded like foothills before the inner chamber where the King was sleeping with his wife.

The dream was already fading, but it had been about her home at Swanscombe, and her mother – her dreams always were. Rolling on to her back, she gazed at the painted gold stars on the chamber ceiling, gleaming in the dim flicker of the candle light. Six months had passed since she had arrived at court on her eighth-year day to be raised and trained in the young Queen’s household. With scarcely a backward look, her father had left her here and returned home to his new wife and child.

Joanna had a vivid memory of touching her mother’s cold tomb slab, knowing that she lay beneath the stone, wrapped in her shroud, inches away but unreachable. The marriage vow said no man should separate a couple whom God had joined, but God himself had sundered her parents’ bond, and a new wife had taken her mother’s place and borne a son. The past, herself included, had been swept aside as of little consequence – a failed effort. Her father said a place in the royal household was a great honour and a magnificent opportunity for a daughter who possessed better connections than prospects of wealth, but Joanna knew it was because neither her father nor stepmother wanted her at Swanscombe under their feet.

Thirsty, she eased from the bed and tip-toed, agile and barefoot, around the sleepers to the flagon of spring water standing on the sideboard. Dame Willelma’s fluffy white lap dog Sausagez raised his head to watch her, and then curled around again, nose to tail in his cushioned bed.

From behind the closed inner chamber door, Joanna heard Queen Alienor’s light voice, and the King’s rumbled reply, ending on a throaty chuckle. He had visited his young wife almost every night since their arrival at Woodstock and Joanna had lost her initial shyness and grown accustomed to his presence. Her tutor, Dame Cecily, said it was the Queen’s duty to bear children now she was old enough, and King Henry’s to beget them.

Joanna liked the King. His skin smelled of roses and incense. Sometimes he would pat her head and enquire with a kindly smile how her lessons were progressing. He was always giving the Queen thoughtful little gifts and surprises and clearly doted on her. To Joanna it was a magical thing – a man who loved and paid court to his wife.

Drinking her water, Joanna noticed that the outer door was a crack open with a glimmer of light beyond, which meant that Madam Biset was at her prayers again. Perhaps she might like a drink too. Joanna carefully poured a fresh cup and, slipping into the vestibule, approached Madam Biset who was kneeling at a small table counting her rosary beads before a figurine of the Virgin Mary. Joanna’s arrival shadowed the candle flame and Madam Biset looked up, two thin, vertical lines creasing between her eyebrows.

‘Child, what are you doing out of bed in the middle of the night?’

Joanna curtseyed and held out the cup. ‘I woke up, and I was thirsty, madam. I knew you were at prayer and I thought of you.’

The frown relaxed. ‘Bless you for your kindness, child.’ Madam Biset took the drink. ‘The Queen has asked me to pray for her fruitfulness, so that she may conceive an heir for England tonight. Come, you may say a prayer with me.’ She patted the folded cloak at her side.

Joanna obediently knelt upon the cloth. Clasping her hands, she focused her gaze on the exquisite little statue. The Virgin’s robe was blue and she wore a delicate golden crown. The baby Jesus sat in her lap, one arm extended to the world. The Queen was so anxious to bear the King a son. Only this morning she had been consulting a treatise on conception from the medical school at Salerno, and tonight Joanna had helped to prepare the tub containing special herbs and rose water in which the Queen had bathed before retiring to bed with her lord.

Madam Biset implored the Virgin to grant the Queen succour and grace regarding the matter in hand, counting a bead on each plea, but suddenly stopped in mid-flow as angry shouts rang out, followed by several loud crashes that sounded like furniture being smashed.

A drunken voice roared, ‘Where is he? Where is the man who has stolen my crown? Where is the liar who calls himself King! I will cut out his beating heart and feed it to the crows!’

A man shambled out of the darkness towards Joanna and Madam Biset, his clothes in stained disarray, one leg of his hose wrinkling around his calf, exposing a hairy thigh. He swiped the air with a long knife, slashing wildly at an invisible foe.

Joanna screamed and grabbed Madam Biset’s arm.

‘You, woman, where’s the King?’ He bared his teeth and Joanna caught the stench of sour wine and vomit from his open mouth.

Madam Biset, on her feet now, pointed to the small chamber used by the clerks. ‘In there,’ she said. ‘He went in there a moment ago.’

He turned and stumbled towards the room, knife poised.

Madam Biset dragged Joanna into the bedchamber, slammed the door and rammed the draw bar across. ‘Go to Cecily,’ she commanded. ‘I will rouse the King.’

The ladies were stirring, shocked out of sleep, wide-eyed and alarmed. Mistress Roberga hurried to bring more light. Joanna ran to her bed where her nurse, Mabel, was groping for her clothes. Dame Cecily was already gowned and securing a veil over her long, grey plait. Sausagez dashed around the room, yapping at full volume, indiscriminately attacking ankles.

‘There’s a man with a big knife outside.’ Joanna’s voice quavered. ‘He … he said he was going to cut out the King’s heart. I was bringing Madam Biset a drink and he came at us out of the dark …’ She shuddered, remembering the gleam of the blade stabbing the air. The open, stinking mouth.

Cecily took Joanna’s cloak from the foot of the bed and swept it around her trembling shoulders. ‘Just one man?’

Joanna nodded. ‘He s-said the King had stolen his crown.’ She shrank in alarm at more violent sounds from outside the door – shouts, swearing and scuffling.

Cecily pressed Joanna’s shoulder in firm reassurance, and moved protectively in front of her. Dame Willelma had managed to grab her dog and tuck him under her arm, where he continued to lunge and yap.

Someone blasphemed outside the barred door. ‘The King will die! The King will d—’ The last word ended on a blow, a wild yell, and then a thud. Eyes wide, Joanna huddled against Cecily.

Behind them, the inner chamber door flung open and the King emerged, white-faced, a sword tightly clenched in his right hand. He had thrown a cloak over his undershirt, and his legs were bare.

Outside, a fist struck the door, and Joanna flinched. ‘Sire, madam, it is Gilbert the Marshal – we have taken the felon.’

The King gestured and the women drew the bar to admit Joanna’s uncle, Gilbert Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, a wide-shouldered man with heavy brows and watchful dark eyes. He and Henry were of a similar height, but the Earl looked taller because of his breadth.

‘Sire,’ he said, bowing, ‘we have caught and disarmed an intruder intent on doing you harm. He awaits your interrogation.’

Henry nodded stiffly. ‘How did he get in?’

‘Climbed in through your chamber window, sire – so I believe.’ The Earl pushed one hand through his thinning hair. ‘I was retiring to bed when I heard the commotion and rallied the guards. If you had not been visiting the Queen …’ He let what he did not say speak for itself.

Henry exhaled hard. ‘Have the rest of the palace searched – every room, every chest and cupboard. Check behind the hangings and curtains. Leave nothing to chance. Let me dress and I will speak with him. Thank God, my lord Marshal, that you keep late hours.’

‘Thank God indeed, sire,’ Earl Gilbert said, and bowed from the room.

Henry turned to the women and Joanna noticed he was shaking, just like her, and the night was not cold. Was the King afraid? But he had possessed the courage to face the danger with his sword, as had her uncle. She clenched her fists, determined to be as brave as they were.

‘Ladies, all is well,’ the King said tremulously and gestured with his free hand. ‘Our thanks are due to Madam Biset – her quick thinking has saved us all. Pray settle yourselves and return to bed when you are ready.’ Handing the sword to his squire with a grimace of distaste, he retired to the bedchamber to dress.

The hearth maid poked the embers to life and Lady Giffard set about preparing hot spiced wine to calm everyone’s anxiety.

Dame Cecily kissed Joanna’s cheek. ‘Come, child, it is over and no harm done. Indeed, we may benefit from this because we are warned now to take better precautions. There are remedies for any situation if you ask for God’s help and use the wits He has given you.’

Joanna nodded wordlessly. Fear still churned in her stomach like indigestion, but Cecily’s words comforted her.

The King re-emerged from the bedchamber fully clothed, followed by Queen Alienor, a cloak covering her chemise and her hair a loose brown cascade down her back. ‘Be careful, sire,’ she entreated, touching his arm.

Taking her hands, he raised them to his lips. ‘I promise I shall, have no fear. I will return later, and in the meantime, take succour from your ladies. Your door will be safely guarded for the rest of the night.’ He kissed her forehead and took his leave.

The Queen watched him close the door, and then with a sigh, sat down by the fire.

Cecily gave Joanna a few sips from her cup of spiced wine before sending her back to bed with Mabel. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said gently. ‘In the morning all of this will be behind us.’

Joanna climbed between the sheets, drew her knees towards her chest and faced the fire and candle light to watch the women gathered at the hearth. Listening to their low-voiced conversation as they sat over their wine, she put her thumb in her mouth – something she had not done in many weeks, but tonight she needed that security. When Sausagez leaped up beside her and curled up nose to feathery tail, she did not push him off.

‘Thank God the King was with me,’ the Queen said. ‘He might have been killed. Indeed, but for Dame Margaret’s quick wits we could all have been murdered in our beds.’

‘You should not dwell upon it, madam.’ Dame Cecily’s voice was soothing. ‘God has seen fit to preserve us all.’

Alienor gathered her loose hair over one shoulder and ran her fingers through it, rich, dark-brown in the firelight. ‘But we should not make it more difficult for God than it has to be. I will insist that my lord puts bars at all the low windows tomorrow.’

Joanna’s eyelids fluttered down. Bars at the windows. Would they too be like prisoners? In her mind’s eye she saw the man running at them again, ready to do murder, and shivered, but she remembered too Madam Biset’s swift reactions to the crisis and Cecily’s calm protection. She thought of the King holding his sword, ready to fight, although he had been afraid. She was safe in her bed, watching the women share companionship and reassurance by firelight. The lesson here was to rise to the challenge, face it, and never let fear take control no matter how scared you were.

In the morning Queen Alienor spoke to the King about fitting bars to all the low windows in the palace. Joanna’s brother, Iohan, was among the attendants of the courtiers who had gathered to discuss the night’s disturbance, and Joanna brought him a cup of buttermilk. He was eleven years old to her eight, and a page to their uncle Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke, a great and powerful lord, well positioned to advance his nephew. Iohan was heir to Swanscombe with a bright future, and he regarded Joanna with a superior air, for her prospects in comparison to his were modest and of small consequence.

‘The man Uncle Gilbert caught had already come before the King yesterday, claiming he was the true heir to the throne, but the King dismissed him as a madman to be pitied,’ Iohan said, taking the buttermilk. ‘Uncle Gilbert says he should never have been set free. He stole one of the big knives from the kitchen to murder the King and would have done so if we hadn’t arrived.’ He expanded his chest and spoke as if he had played an active part in the arrest.

‘Yes, I saw him.’ Joanna related her own part in last night’s events.

‘Well, it’s a good thing we caught him,’ Iohan said, peeved at having his glory stolen. ‘We saved all your lives for certain.’

Joanna said nothing. She was learning from Cecily which battles were worth fighting, especially with males. ‘What will happen to him now?’

Iohan shrugged and drank the buttermilk, leaving a white moustache on his upper lip. ‘He’s confessed to plotting the King’s murder so he’ll be put to death. He’s going to be tied to two horses and torn apart, and then beheaded as a warning to others.’ His voice rang with relish and bravado.

Joanna shuddered at the image.

‘It does not do to be a traitor,’ he added, folding his arms and regarding her sternly. She recognised his attempt to maintain his superiority by intimidating her. She would never be a traitor in thought or deed, but it would be terrible for someone to think such a thing when she was innocent.

‘I am glad you and Uncle Gilbert are here to keep us safe,’ she said to mollify him. Words cost nothing, and she was indeed glad to be protected. Cecily said the instinct should be encouraged and directed in men.

Iohan preened and looked supercilious.

The King and Queen moved into the room from their conversation by the window and Joanna swiftly curtseyed as they crossed her path.

Henry stopped and gently raised her to her feet, tilting her chin on his forefinger. ‘An eventful night, little demoiselle,’ he said ruefully. ‘I hope you are none the worse for your ordeal.’

Joanna shook her head. ‘No, sire.’ The King’s eyes were warm blue, and the morning light made his beard sparkle like gold. He smelled of incense.

‘I am glad to hear it.’

‘Joanna has a sensible head on her shoulders for one still a child,’ said the Queen, who was not yet sixteen years old herself. ‘She serves me well and often runs errands for Willelma. Cecily is well pleased with her progress.’

‘Well then, continue as you are, and who knows what shall grow from such diligence.’ Henry patted her head and unfastened a delicate round silver brooch from his tunic. ‘There,’ he said, pinning it to her gown. ‘Wear it always in token of that service.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Joanna curtseyed again, overwhelmed with pleasure and embarrassment.

The Queen smiled warmly and she and the King went on their way arm in arm, trailing scents of incense and flowers.

Her uncle Gilbert, following them, paused and smiled at her too, his complexion ruddy with tiny thread-veins in his cheeks. ‘I am glad to hear good news of your progress, niece,’ he said. ‘Well done, and long may it continue.’ He beckoned to his youngest squire. ‘Iohan, come with me and wipe that moustache off your lip, there’s a good lad. I’ve work for you.’

Iohan hastily scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, made a face at Joanna, ensuring that their uncle did not see, and followed Gilbert out.

Joanna looked at the shiny silver circlet pinned to her gown and with a full heart vowed to do exactly as the King commanded.



Joanna stroked the pony’s muzzle and presented him with half an apple on the flat of her palm. Ears pricked, he lipped the treat from her hand and crunched with enjoyment while Joanna watched him with pride. Usually when the court took to the roads, she travelled in a covered cart, but her uncle Gilbert had given her this pretty dappled grey gelding with a red bridle and saddle. He said good riding skills were important, for her mother had been a Marshal, and every member of her maternal family was born to horsemanship.

Her new mount was from her uncle’s estate at Goodrich on the Welsh borders, and his name was Arian, which meant ‘Silver’ in the Welsh tongue. She had ridden him for the first time today and he had been swift to respond to her voice and her touch on the reins. She could scarcely believe her good fortune.

‘He’s a beauty,’ Iohan said with reluctant admiration, leaning against the stable door, arms folded. Sausagez snuffled around in the straw, hunting for rodents, Joanna having brought him with her for exercise.

‘Yes, he is.’ Brimming with happiness, Joanna patted Arian’s warm dappled neck.

The last rays of evening sunlight tinted the trees beyond the palisade with burned gold. A man led a donkey towards the kitchens, two side panniers mounded with chestnuts from the woods.

‘Of course, he is far too small for me,’ Iohan said condescendingly. ‘Uncle Gilbert lets me help with the destriers.’ It wasn’t strictly true. He was allowed to polish the harnesses and mix the feed, but the head groom and the older squires saw to all the close work on the big stallions.

A fanfare announced the arrival of visitors, and moments later horses came pounding into the yard, their hides steaming and streaked with sweat. There were serjeants and knights, squires and heralds, one bearing a banner blazoned with a fork-tailed lion on a crimson ground.

‘Simon de Montfort, back from Rome,’ Iohan said knowledgeably. ‘His harbingers brought the news to the King this morning.’

Joanna eyed the men on their big, stamping horses with trepidation. Their open mouths and laughter, the boldness and colour, vivid in the burnished light. She had heard several tales in the bower about the clandestine marriage between the King’s sister, Eleanor, and the French knight Simon de Montfort. The marriage had happened shortly before she came to court. Her uncle Gilbert’s brother, William, had been Eleanor’s first husband. After he died, suddenly, the lady Eleanor had taken a vow of chastity, but had broken that vow for love of de Montfort. They had conducted a clandestine courtship – discreet, but not discreet enough, and rumours abounded that they had shared a bed out of wedlock. The King had agreed to let them marry and their hasty, secret wedding had taken place in his private chapel at Westminster. Almost immediately that secret had come undone and when the news broke in public, the scandal and upheaval had been enormous.

Eleanor had retired to Kenilworth to await the birth of the child, so swiftly conceived that many whispered she had already been pregnant on her wedding day. Simon de Montfort had journeyed to Rome to obtain a papal dispensation for the match amid much cynical grumbling about bolting the stable door after the horse had gone, and remarks louder than whispers about newcomers shouldering their way up the ranks through dishonourable and ribald behaviour. The King’s brother, Richard, and Joanna’s uncle Gilbert had protested furiously because of the implications to their own families and status, and although peace had been made it was fragile. She had overheard her uncle Gilbert grimly telling one of his lawyers that if de Montfort thought to pursue claims to his new wife’s rights from her former marriage, he would be sadly disappointed, for he would not receive a single penny.

Joanna called Sausagez to her side and leashed him, deciding it was time she returned to the Queen. Iohan watched the dismounting men, admiring their equipment, but stiff with tension.

Joanna took his arm. ‘Will you escort me back to the bower?’

His irritated look was superficial and she saw the relief in his eyes. ‘Very well, but only because you are my sister and you need protecting. Don’t think I am your servant.’

Joanna curbed the retort that Cecily said all men should serve ladies courteously. She gave Arian a final pat and left the stable, Iohan at her side and Sausagez dragging on his leash.

De Montfort, wearing a fine fur-lined cloak, reined his pawing sorrel stallion across their path, amusement brightening the hard planes of his face. ‘What have we here?’ he asked. ‘Are you both not a little young to be attending a tryst?’

Joanna’s cheeks flamed. Sausagez bared his teeth and began a shrill yapping that caused the horse to put back its ears.

‘I am escorting my sister to the Queen,’ Iohan said stoutly, although his voice wavered.

‘Your sister?’ De Montfort looked him up and down. ‘Remind me who you are.’

‘Iohan de Munchensy, son of Warin de Munchensy of Swanscombe, sire,’ Iohan said, jutting his chin.

De Montfort’s smile lost some of its humour. ‘A Marshal by maternity,’ he said. ‘Well, your mother’s family came from the stables, I suppose.’ He looked round at his companions and laughed, and then pressed his heels into his mount’s sides. The horse surged towards Joanna, hooves dancing. She sprang backwards, feeling sick, and scooped the hysterical Sausagez into her arms. Iohan stepped in front of them, his body a rigid shield. De Montfort smiled and pranced closer again. The palfrey’s hot breath gusted and the shod hooves flashed. Joanna whimpered. De Montfort made a contemptuous sound and pulled the big chestnut back. ‘What a fine little hedge knight you are, Iohan of Swanscombe,’ he said. ‘Begone to your nursemaids. I do not make war on milksops and mongrels.’ Abruptly he reined the horse away and clopped across the courtyard to his waiting groom.

Joanna blinked, determined not to cry. Iohan wrapped his hands around his belt. ‘Don’t worry, de Montfort won’t be staying long.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because his wife is great with child. He’ll be going to Kenilworth for the birth as soon as he has reported to the King.’

Joanna shuddered. The dying blood-red light in the west, the steaming horses and the raw masculine power seemed like a weight dropping across her shoulders, heavy with threat.

‘He doesn’t frighten me,’ Iohan said.

She didn’t believe him. She had been terrified, and he was no braver than she was.

*

That night the court gathered in Woodstock’s great hall to enjoy conversation, music and games of chess and dice. Simon de Montfort had been welcomed back into the royal household now that his match with the King’s sister had received the Pope’s sanction. Henry was being conciliatory towards his new brother-in-law, and the Queen was effusive, for Simon’s wife was soon to bear her first child and she harboured hopes of her own fruitfulness.

While the King was occupied to his personal delight with the artists and craftsmen who were designing a new mural for the Queen’s bedchamber, de Montfort stood at the fire with a cluster of knights and courtiers, roasting chestnuts on the wide, flat blade of a serving knife. Their mood was convivial and the jests and laughter increased in volume as the wine sank in the flagons.

The blaze from the hearth heated Joanna’s cheeks, and almost seemed to connect her with the red-faced laughing men. Their strength and vital masculinity intimidated and fascinated her. She looked around, seeking reassurance, but Cecily had discreetly retired to empty her bladder, and Lady Giffard and Madam Biset were on the other side of the room, playing chess.

De Montfort caught Joanna’s gaze and fixed her with his stare. ‘Come here, child,’ he said, beckoning.

Joanna’s stomach churned, but courtesy brought her to her feet and towards him, like the chicken charmed by the fox.

‘Ah, my little mistress of Swanscombe,’ he said with a vulpine smile. ‘You did not give me your name earlier. What would it be now?’

Joanna swallowed, for anonymity was protection and she hated being singled out. ‘Joanna, sire.’

‘Well then, Joanna of Swanscombe, would you like a nice roast chestnut?’

She gazed at the nuts jumping on the flat blade of the knife, and then looked into his eyes, and they were steely like the metal.

He winked at her and stooped to a pile of blackened shells in a shallow cup on the hearth. ‘Here, have this one – it’s cooling down.’ He held it out on his palm. His fingers were thick and powerful, muscular from controlling spirited horses and wielding weapons.

Joanna stood transfixed, her fists clenched at her sides. The men with de Montfort chuckled, watching her.

‘Take it,’ he urged. ‘I promise it won’t hurt.’

Against her will, she held out her hand, but dropped her gaze. The nut was still hot, although not enough to burn.

‘Eat it, young mistress, it’s good.’

They watched her with an avid pack hunger that made her terrified to be the focus of their attention. She raised the chestnut to her mouth and bit into the burned shell, before spitting it back into her hand and throwing the fragment on to the hearth; and then fled, her eyes blurring with tears. An acrid taste soured her tongue and she was mortified by the sound of the laughter trailing in her wake. She was so distraught, she did not see Dame Cecily until she ran into her.

‘How now, child.’ Cecily took her by the shoulders and held her fast. ‘Come, come, this is not my steady, sensible Joanna. What is wrong?’

Joanna gulped and dashed her sleeve across her eyes.

Gently but firmly, Cecily took her hand and examined it. ‘What is this?’

‘The men …’ Joanna’s voice hitched. ‘They are roasting chestnuts and … and Messire de Montfort made me take one.’ The story sounded feeble when spoken aloud, but her humiliation was intense.

Cecily tightened her lips. Taking a firmer grip on Joanna’s hand, she marched back into the hall and, going up to the laughing men, addressed them fearlessly as if they were recalcitrant youths. ‘What are you doing that you have nothing better in your minds than teasing a child?’ She fixed de Montfort in particular with a gimlet stare.

He bowed to her, smiling. ‘Madam, I but offered the girl a roasted chestnut, and not even a hot one at that. It is no fault of mine.’

‘It never is, my lord,’ Cecily retorted in a voice that Joanna had never heard her use before, for although quiet, it cut like a whip.

De Montfort bowed. ‘I shall give your kind regards to my wife, Lady Sandford.’

‘As you wish,’ Cecily said. ‘Tell her that she is constantly in my prayers.’

She departed the hall, one arm protectively around Joanna’s shoulders. ‘When men gather in groups to drink and feast, they become a pack,’ she said with distaste. ‘The King is not like that of course, but others are made of coarser stuff and you would do well to be wary.’

Once in their chamber, she took Joanna to the stone sink set in the wall, and poured cool water from a jug standing at the side. ‘Come, let us clean you up.’ She tenderly wiped the sooty marks from Joanna’s face and hands. ‘Learn from this experience, child. Do not ever let men tell you what to do, for they are not worthy of your soul – none of them. Indeed, you should be teaching them worthiness.’

Joanna bit her lip, for she could not imagine doing such a thing. Dame Cecily could stand up to anyone without fear, and she longed to be like her, but how could she hold her ground against grown men when they were wolves and she was a small deer?

‘Come with me,’ Cecily said, ‘and we shall pray.’

Taking Joanna’s hand, Cecily led her into the Queen’s intimate private chapel. The beeswax candles gave off a honey light before the altar, and a red glass lamp illuminated an exquisite statue of the Virgin with the Christ child perched on her knee. As they knelt, Cecily squeezed Joanna’s hand. ‘Make your peace,’ she said. ‘Be still, and ask God’s Holy Mother to guide you. She will listen, for she is a woman, and she will always answer another such.’

Joanna pressed her hands together and closed her eyes.

Cecily’s smooth wooden rosary beads clacked together as she unfastened them from her belt and clasped them between her fingers.

Gradually, the peace and the silence filtered their way through Joanna’s jangled being and her breathing calmed. The humiliation and the panic of being singled out diminished to an uneasy flicker. Cecily’s support and tuition had increased her resilience over the past months, but the incident had revived her anxiety about how powerless and expendable she was. A vulnerable little girl to be teased for sport. She opened her eyes and prayed to the Virgin for the wisdom and strength to be like Cecily and to face every trial with grace.

Eventually, Cecily lifted her head. ‘You must not let incidents like this destroy you,’ she said firmly. ‘Let them increase your strength. You shall grow in yourself as you grow in your body and such things will become trivial in time. Never forget, but do not be troubled. Leave it here with God and bring your prayers and fortitude instead.’

‘Yes, Dame Cecily,’ Joanna said, and lifted her head, bolstered with new determination.

‘That’s better.’ Cecily patted her hand. ‘Come, we shall have some sweetmeats and Eunice shall play her harp for us.’

Joanna nodded, keen to put the moment behind her and go forward with her new learning.



On a grey morning in late November, the Queen was queasy for the third day in a row, and the royal physician pronounced what everyone had begun to suspect – that