CHAPTER XI
Soon after her arrival in London Coby went to Goody Watson’s and bought the best second-hand clothing her budget would stretch to: a plain woollen bodice and skirts for Susanna, and a couple of silk gowns for herself. The latter were somewhat out of fashion and the embroidery needed mending but they were good enough for court, especially for the wife of a country knight. It would not do to dress above her station.
Thus transformed once more into Lady Catlyn, it was time to face her next challenge. Lady Frances Grey had agreed to consider recommending Coby to the Princess of Wales as a lady-in-waiting, but wanted to meet her first. On the following Thursday, therefore, Coby’s mare was groomed and saddled, and she and Mal rode to Suffolk House to dine with the Greys.
The dinner itself passed in a blur of fine tableware and elaborate dishes flavoured with sugar and spices. Thankfully the duke did not share the current craze for the skraylings’ hot pepper, but there were plenty of other delicacies on offer. Coby had been forced to learn to eat in a more ladylike fashion since giving up her boy’s guise, but she still filled her plate with a gusto that raised a few eyebrows. She flushed and tried to eat as daintily as Lady Frances, cutting her food into tiny morsels that hardly needed any chewing.
At last the dishes were cleared away and the gentlemen retired to the library to discuss business.
“Won’t you join me in taking a turn about the garden, Lady Catlyn?” Lady Frances said, getting to her feet. “It’s such a fine afternoon.”
“Is that wise, my dear, in your condition?” the dowager duchess asked. “We wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”
“I’ll send for a warm cloak,” Lady Frances replied. “And Lady Catlyn will make sure I don’t stay outside too long, won’t you, my dear?”
“Assuredly, my lady.” She glanced sidelong at Lady Frances, but if the duchess truly were with child, her condition had not advanced far enough to show.
The gardens of Suffolk House stretched down to the Thames. Coby had seen only glimpses of them, last time she was here with Sandy, and though they were barer at this time of year they had a stark elegance that fitted their mistress better. Low box hedges traced elaborate knot patterns around beds just starting to break into fresh leaf, with violets and daffodils adding a splash of colour to the gloom. At the corners of each bed, red-and-blue painted poles topped with the unicorn of Suffolk gleamed in the spring sunlight. A gilded pleasure-barge, almost as fine as the Queen’s, rocked at its mooring place, ready to take the duke and duchess to their estate upriver or to one of the many royal palaces.
“So, your husband wishes you to spy for us at court,” Lady Frances said.
“Um, yes, my lady. He is well aware of the great service you did your father in that respect.”
“I would be happy to do so again, of course, but it appears that God has other plans for me.” She stroked her stomacher and smiled in contentment. “I hope to provide my husband with an heir, as you have done for yours.”
Coby had no answer to that.
“I must say,” Lady Frances went on, “you look a great deal like that servant of Sir Maliverny’s, the one he brought to my father’s house before he went to Venice. What was his name…?”
“Jacob Hendricks, my lady. He’s my cousin.”
“Ah, well, that would explain it.” The smile she gave Coby suggested she was not fooled. “A pity he had to leave your husband’s service.”
“Y-yes, my lady. He… he had news of my uncle and aunt, whom he feared had perished at sea, so of course Sir Maliverny had to let him go back to Antwerp to see them.”
She wished it were the truth, but no news had ever come to her of her parents’ fate, though she had made enquiries amongst the Dutch community in London for years afterwards.
“And yet I heard he was seen entering the Sign of the Parley not three weeks ago,” Lady Frances said.
Coby froze, clutching her hands together and staring at the bright yellow trumpets of the daffodils that shook their heads in the breeze as if mocking her.
“My dear…” Lady Frances halted by a bower covered in climbing roses, their new leaves still dark crimson and folded against the frost. “If I am to recommend you to the Princess of Wales, I must have the truth from your own lips. Are you or are you not the same person I saw three years ago, in the service of Sir Maliverny Catlyn?”
Coby swallowed. If she lied now, would Lady Frances report her to the city authorities for lewd and unwomanly behaviour? But surely she would not cause a scandal over something that had happened so long ago? She licked lips suddenly gone dry as old leather.
“Yes, my lady.”
“And are you a man or a woman?”
Coby felt a flush rise from her collar.
“A woman, my lady, upon mine honour.”
“Well, that is something. I would not like to think that your husband was making fools of the entire court.”
“No, my lady.”
“And the child; he is yours?”
“No, my lady.”
“You have taken your husband’s bastard into your family?”
“Certainly not, my lady.”
Lady Frances laughed. “Now that was the truth, if a little too near the knuckle, eh? Men are such wayward creatures…”
“Kit was born in wedlock,” Coby said stiffly. “But… his parents were unable to look after him. Venice is a rich city but there are poor people to be found there too, as everywhere.”
“So your son is an Italian pauper, whom you and your husband took in out of the kindness of your own heart.”
“Yes, my lady.” It was true, after a fashion. And perhaps other truths would bolster it. “My husband wanted an heir and I… I fear I may be barren.”
“I am so sorry, my dear.”
Coby nodded her thanks, a sudden overwhelming grief choking the words in her throat. Until she had said it aloud just now, she had not admitted the truth of it, not even to herself. But there it was. Three years of marriage, and no sign of a child. Perhaps it was a punishment from God after all, for her unnatural ambition in trying to live like a man.
She was vaguely aware of Lady Frances holding out an embroidered handkerchief, and realised that tears were spilling down her cheeks. She took it and blew her nose loudly.
“Well, you have proven yourself capable of great discretion already, and more than able to look after yourself. I shall write to Princess Juliana immediately, and recommend you to her.”
Coby curtsied deeply. “Thank you, my lady.”
“But I warn you, be on your guard. You may be well-versed in the ways of men’s deceptions, but women are just as cunning and twice as ruthless. After all, we have so much more to lose, do we not?”
The Princess of Wales sat stiff-backed on a carved chair under a canopy bearing the arms of the Duchy of Lancaster – a legacy of her ancestors’ heritage – quartered with the leopards and fleur-de-lys of the English royal coat of arms. Around her were seated her ladies-in-waiting in order of precedence: some on stools at the side of the low dais, others on cushions at her feet. Coby, as newest and least important of them, had a cushion off to one side and half-hidden behind a senior lady; a position that suited her very well, since it meant she could observe most of the royal party as well as those being presented to the princess.
Such observances were her only amusement in a life of stifling routine: dressing the princess when she rose, eating when she ate, amusing her when she grew bored, going to bed when she felt weary. How the other ladies endured it, Coby could not fathom. No wonder they were all obsessed with marriage. At least as head of a household they would have some control over their own lives, especially if their husband were often at court. Coby was a curiosity to them, a married woman who had nonetheless chosen service to the princess. Over the past few weeks she had had to use all her wits in fending off their endless questions and speculations, and she still was not sure she had convinced them she was not seeking an affair with a more powerful nobleman. This was particularly irksome as it put her at odds with Lady Derby, the one woman Coby had hoped to befriend. Lady Derby clearly considered her a rival, whilst simultaneously dismissing the possibility that any man could be interested in such a plain creature of common stock and no wealth. Coby was beginning to wish she had let “Lady Catlyn” die in the fire after all.
Her thoughts were diverted from such dark musings by a sudden blare of trumpets. She looked up, and was surprised to see Lady Frances Grey standing in the doorway, accompanied by a tall, skinny girl of about twelve or thirteen. They approached the princess and curtsied so deeply that Coby began to wonder how they would stand upright again.
“Your Highness, allow me to present my daughter, Elizabeth Sidney.”
Coby tried not to stare. This child was the daughter being courted by the Earl of Rutland? She had heard that the aristocracy often married young, and here was proof of it. Come to think of it, Lady Frances was barely old enough to have a grown daughter.
“Come nearer, my dear. Let me get a good look at you.”
The girl stepped carefully between the cushions, her face pale as milk against her dark hair.
“This is the child Rutland wants to marry?” Princess Juliana asked over the girl’s head.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Well, she’ll need fattening up before she’s fit for the marriage bed,” the princess replied, frowning.
“I was hoping you might take her into your service,” Lady Frances said.
“Another one?” The princess glanced at Coby, who flushed and looked down at her hands.
“As you know, Your Highness, I am with child and have not the strength to chase after a grown daughter. And her grandmother is not a well woman either.”
“Very well. Send her to me next week.” Juliana cocked her head on one side. “I don’t suppose her courses have started yet?”
Elizabeth flushed scarlet.
“No, Your Highness,” her mother replied.
“Hmm. Well, you can tell Rutland he can have her when they do, but no sooner.”
Lady Frances and her daughter curtsied again and withdrew from the royal presence. Just before the duchess turned to leave, Coby swore she saw her wink in her direction. Was this some ploy of Lady Frances’s, to bring Rutland within Coby’s reach? If so it was a callous move, to use her own daughter as a pawn to draw out the guisers. Coby resolved to take the poor child under her wing and protect her as best she could from the harridans at court. The fact that Lady Frances was relying on her to do just that left a sour taste in her mouth, but what choice did she have?
The rest of the morning’s business was of little interest to Coby: an artist who had been commissioned to paint new portraits of the princess’s daughters; a delegation of scholars from the Cambridge college endowed by the princess, bearing a book of moral instruction dedicated to her, and a tailor with dolls dressed in the latest fashions from Spain and Italy. The latter were cooed over by the other ladies-in-waiting, their insistences that they could not do without such dresses for the coming year bringing a gleam of avarice to the man’s eyes.
As the tailor departed, Princess Juliana’s steward stepped forward.
“One final matter, Your Highness, and one that I think will give you great pleasure.” He handed her a letter.
Princess Juliana cracked the seal and read.
“From my cousin Joaquim,” she said, smiling. “And what is this? He sends a gift.”
“What kind of gift, Your Highness?” Lady Derby asked. “Jewels, perhaps, or a popinjay from the Indies?”
“Better than that, Your Highness.” The steward clapped his hands.
For a moment nothing happened. No sound of trumpets, no stamp of feet. Then the silence of the audience chamber was broken by a high, sweet voice, singing. Coby could not quite make out the words or the language; Portuguese, perhaps, like the princess? After a few moments the singer appeared in the doorway: a slender young man, dark of skin and hair and dressed in courtly finery.
“Bartolomeo Pellegrino, Your Highness. A castrato, all the way from Rome.”
The ladies-in-waiting burst into excited whispers at this news. The Italians were famous, or perhaps infamous, for their eunuch singers, castrated before puberty to preserve their youthful voices. Enhanced by the power of an adult male’s lungs, they were said to be the closest one could come on Earth to the voices of angels. Coby saw many of the ladies blush and heard them giggle about how handsome the young man was, and what a pity he was not a man entire.
The song died away, and Bartolomeo walked the length of the presence chamber to bow before the princess and her companions.
“I bring you greetings, Your Highness, from your noble cousin, and his heartfelt wishes for your health and happiness.”
“Welcome to England, Signor Pellegrino. Please, come sit at my feet and tell me all the news of my uncle’s court.”
Coby quietly observed the young man during this exchange. It was true he was very handsome despite being unfashionably swarthy of complexion, with a wide brow, finely curled black hair and eyes of a striking jade green. His voice, as high as a woman’s, had a soft Italian accent, though he spoke surprisingly good English. The other ladies hung on his every word, and laughed prettily at every slightest jest. Coby was content to watch and listen and note which of the ladies showed him the most favour. Lady Derby for one did not seem overly in awe of him, although she feigned interest well; mostly to please Princess Juliana, Coby suspected. Guiser or no, Lady Derby’s ambitions stretched far higher than a court minstrel. Rumour had it that Prince Robert would be visiting soon, to hunt in the park. If so, Coby was ready to do whatever was necessary to keep him and Lady Derby under observation, and perhaps determine the lady’s loyalties once and for all.