The King’s Sister Read Online Free PDF Page B

will be down in the mews because he wants a hawk of his own, or in the stables because he wants one of the brache’s litter. He tells me that he will enjoy living at Kenilworth—did you know he was to stay here? —because he can wield a sword against Henry and take part in a tournament.’
    Philippa smiled.
    So did I, the muscles of my face aching.
    ‘He—Jonty—says that he doesn’t mind if he does not see me every day. He will be quite busy with his own affairs to turn him into the perfect knight.’
    I began to laugh. So did Philippa, but without the hysterical edge that coloured mine.
    ‘He says he will make an effort to come and see me, if I find that I miss him.’
    We fell into each other’s arms, some tears mixed in, but a release at last in the shared laughter.
    ‘If it were you,’ I asked at last, ‘what would you do?’
    ‘Treat him just like Henry, I suppose’.
    Which was all good sense. Pure Philippa. And indeed what I had decided for myself.
    ‘You mean pretend he isn’t there when he is a nuisance, comfort him when he has fallen from his horse and slap his hands when he steals my sweetmeats.’
    But Henry liked books and reading, he liked the poetry and songs of our minstrels, as did I. Jonty seemed to have nothing in his head but warfare and hunting.
    ‘Something like that.’ Philippa did not see my despair. ‘You can’t treat him like a husband.’
    ‘No. Obedience and honour.’ I wrinkled my nose.
    ‘You can’t ignore him, Elizabeth. He’ll be living here under your nose.’
    ‘How true.’ My laughter had faded at last. ‘Philippa—I wish you a better wedding night.’
    She wrapped her arms around me for a moment, then began to remove the layers of silk and miniver until I stood once more in my shift, the jewels removed from my hair,standing as unadorned as might any young woman on any uneventful day of her life.
    We did not talk any more of my marriage. What was there to say?
    I gave my husband a magnificently illuminated book telling the magical tales of King Arthur and his knights, as well as a parrot of his own as wedding gifts. To my dismay, the book was pushed aside while Jonty pounced on the parrot with noisy delight. He called it Gilbert rather than Elizabeth, after his governor who had taught him his letters. I was not sorry.
    ‘Does your husband not keep you company this morning, Elizabeth?’
    Some would say it was a perfectly ordinary question to a new wife. If the husband in question were not eight years old. So some would say that perhaps there was amusement in the smooth tones.
    I knew better. Isabella, Duchess of York, sister to Constanza, my father’s Castilian wife, owned an abrasive spirit beneath her outward elegance, as well as an unexpectedly lascivious temperament. Constanza’s ambition for restoration of the crown of Castile to her handsome head had been transmuted into a need for self-gratification in her younger sibling, who had come to England with her and promptly married my uncle of York. I was fascinated by the manner in which Isabella pleased herself and no one else, but I did not like her, nor did I think she liked me. Her expression might be blandly interested, but her eye was avid for detailas she made herself comfortable beside me in the solar as if with a cosy chat in mind.
    ‘Learning to read and write I expect,’ I replied lightly. ‘His governor does not allow him to neglect these skills, even though his mind is in the tilt-yard.’
    She nodded equably. ‘How old will
you
be, dear Elizabeth, when he becomes a man at last?’
    ‘Twenty-four years, at the last count.’
    ‘Another seven years?’ Isabella mused. ‘How will you exist without a man between your sheets?’
    Her presumption nettled me. Everyone might be aware of the situation, but did not talk about it. ‘We are not all driven to excess, my lady.’
    I observed her striking features, wondering how she would reply. Isabella had, by reputation, taken more than one lover