he must want this as little as I do? It’s so degrading. Bad enough to be pushed into marriage for the convenience of others, but to marry a man who must be commanded, after making it clear he doesn’t have a mind to it, is shaming. All the court will know of it, for they’ve seen how things are between us. And now I shall be obliged to face down all the stares and pretend all is well. As for the rest...ugh! It hardly bears thinking about.’ Wrapping herself warmly against the icy passageways and open spaces of the courtyard, she crossed over to the stillroom near the kitchen door where Mistress Molly had already begun the task of pounding lumps of sugar in a mortar with a pestle as big as her arm. ‘The king loves his marchpane,’ she puffed, as Ginny entered.
‘Done the almonds yet?’ Ginny said, looking round at the benches lined with jars and parchment-lidded pots. ‘It might be best to let them blanch while you do that. I’ll do them, if you like. For a favour.’
Mistress Molly had been taught the art of sugarwork and simpling by her aunt who, despite being thought a witch, had died peacefully in her bed. There was little that Molly did not know about herbs and their uses, and this was not the first time she had been visited by Mistress Virginia seeking a remedy for some ailment. She smiled at Ginny’s bribery. ‘I know what it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’
‘How do you know?’
The grinding stopped for Molly to shake her aching hand and to dart a look of saucy wisdom at her mistress’s daughter. ‘Take a glance at your face,’ she said gently. ‘Anyone would think you’d been given the devil himself to marry. You want me to give you something for it, don’t you?’
‘For it, or against it. I don’t know which. I have to do something, Molly.’
‘Depends what. Put him to sleep? Put you to sleep? Make him love you? Make you love him? Make him impotent? Make you...?’
‘No, Molly!’
‘I was going to say, make you have twins.’
‘How on earth would that help matters?’
Picking up the heavy pestle, Molly resumed the pounding. ‘Two for the price of one,’ she said. ‘He’d leave you alone for a fair while after that.’ The pounding continued until she realised there had been no reply. ‘Is that what you want?’
But Ginny was staring out of the window, biting at her top lip. Then, rousing herself, she sighed. ‘It’s getting dark again. Where d’ye keep the almonds?’
Molly lifted down an earthenware pot from the shelf above her and passed it to Ginny. ‘Best to put the water on to boil first,’ she said with a sly grin.
Not being at all sure what she wanted a potion to achieve, Ginny put the almonds to blanch and then left Molly to her task. But Molly’s thoughts on the matter were somewhat clearer. Rather than allow the problem to resolve itself, which might take some time in Ginny’s present mood, she put aside a basin and began to add dried herbs picked during the summer months. Vervain, yarrow, mistletoe and rue, thyme and bay, chopped and bound together with honey and oil of roses. These she shaped into tiny fairy cakes and, that same night under the light from the rising moon that turned the garden to silver, she placed them just beyond the boundary where the grass was long and brittle with frost, whispering a blessing upon each one. The day of the king’s visit, with Ginny’s future husband, would be on the fourteenth day of February, Saint Valentine’s Day and, although Ginny had been too preoccupied to notice it, Mistress Molly had not.
* * *
By the time Ginny’s sister and her husband arrived from their home a mere four miles away, the preparations for the king’s arrival that same day were nearing completion. Outwardly serene but inwardly anxious about every detail, Lady Agnes’s veneer cracked only for a brief moment as she threw her arms around her elder daughter with something like relief. ‘Oh, Maeve, my dear, thank heavens you’ve come at last. And, George, you, too. Such a day! I’ve had to double the quantities, you know, and now he’s bringing women with him.’ With more than a hint of drama, she waved her arms aloft.
‘Mother,’ said Maeve, with a sideways glance at her husband with a warning not to speak, ‘stop worrying. There are plenty of places to sleep here. The court is used to it, you know. The palaces are like rabbit warrens. As long as we have enough food and drink, sleeping won’t present a problem.’
‘They like a bit of indecision about that,’ said Sir George.
‘George, dear, that’s not helpful,’ said Maeve, stifling her laughter. ‘Where’s Ginny got to? You said in your message something about a husband. Is it true?’ Unwrapping her fur-lined cloak, she draped it over the end of a bench before her mother picked it up and returned it to her.
‘Not there, dear. The steward is rehearsing the pages. Come into the small parlour. And yes, it is true and I expect she’s still up in her room, sulking.’
Maeve, whose understanding of her younger sister exceeded her mother’s by miles, rose to her defence. ‘No, Mother. That cannot be. Ginny doesn’t sulk. I dare say she doesn’t much like the idea of the king choosing her husband for her, and nor would I, but she won’t be sulking. You and she have been quarrelling, haven’t you? Is that it?’
Turning her gaze upon Sir George as if to seek comfort, Lady Agnes heaved a noisy sigh, drooping her shoulders. ‘Discussions,’ she said. ‘Heated discussions. You know what she’s like. So determined. We’d have had her married years ago if she’d been more cooperative about the business. Oh, I know she’d have married Sir Jon when your father first proposed it, but since that fell through, all the matches he’s suggested have been rejected without a single look. It’s taken her recent visit to court and the king’s command to make it happen, whether she likes it or not.’
‘And apparently, she doesn’t,’ said Sir George. ‘So who is he?’
‘Same man. Yes, Sir Jon Raemon. You might well look astonished.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ said Sir George, blinking. ‘He’s widowed now.’
Lady Agnes’s eyes rolled with a look of despair. ‘She’s seen him again at court and now she doesn’t like him.’
‘Doesn’t like him?’ said Maeve, frowning. ‘But she would have accepted him before. So this has to do with her pride, Mother, hasn’t it? We have to talk to her, George.’
‘We do, dear,’ he agreed, ‘but can we first get out of these clothes before Henry arrives, or we shall be taken for a travelling merchant and his doxy.’ He dodged smartly to one side to avoid the sharp slap aimed loosely at his ears, laughing at his wife’s lovely face and the sudden flare of grey eyes. But out of his mother-in-law’s hearing, his frivolous tone changed to something more serious. ‘You know what this sounds like, don’t you?’ he said to his wife, closing the door of their chamber. ‘Remember how Henry set his sights on you, too?’
‘Too well,’ Maeve replied. ‘If you’d not stepped in when you did, I might have—’
‘Shh! Don’t say it, love. Trouble is, I doubt if Ginny will understand what Henry has in mind for her. She’s such an innocent about what goes on at court, even after a month there, and your mother won’t have explained it to her, will she?’
‘No, my love. But somebody had better. Shall we warn her?’
‘Your father will put
