time to worry about tonight when tonight came. When the third course was brought in, giant pyramids of blancmanges wobbling in the heat, she let her partner, a bright-eyed old friend of Alice Claver's called William Pratte, lead her back to his place on the trestles and courteously pass sweet dainties her way.
Thomas brought William Pratte's wife, Anne, back to the table, then left the room. He half-glanced at Isabel. She caught the nervous look, but was too shy to smile back. It was only after he'd turned uncertainly towards the door that her lips started to curve up. She sat breathlessly quiet among his mother's friends, feeling grown-up. She couldn't be unaware of Alice Claver and the plump, knowing, eager Prattes gossiping beside her. They talked in low voices, darting cautious glances all around; but they clearly weren't trying to hide what they were saying from her.
‘Well of course they fight dirty,’ William Pratte was saying, with a mischievous gleam in his eye. ‘The nobility have never been half as noble as they like to make out. They say King Edward didn't so much win the last battle as chase the other lot into the millpond and drown them.’
Alice Claver snorted irreverently. ‘Like kittens,’ she said. ‘Well, all I can say is good riddance.’
‘Still. It's not exactly Camelot, is it?’
John Lambert was leading Jane down the row of raised arms in the centre of the room. He was radiating happiness at having pulled off his plan, skittishly kicking up his heels and smiling at everyone whose eyes he met. Yet he must be able to see the room was only half-full, and mostly with the Clavers' and Shores' family connections, not the great and good of the City he'd wanted to attract. Isabel thought: if they'd really forgiven him, the mayor would be here. The aldermen. Her relief at having got the ordeal of the wedding over was so great that the thought almost made her feel sorry for him.
‘Do you think it's true what they say?’ Anne Pratte was half-whispering, her eyes batting flirtatiously up and down. These people seemed to be much more disrespectful and sharp-tongued than her father, Isabel thought, with a flicker of interest. She'd only ever heard the York royal family discussed in tones of hushed reverence at home. Did they always talk like this? ‘About the youngest brother; the Duke of Gloucester; how he killed …’
She dropped her voice. Isabel sensed she'd hear the same stories again. But for now a movement at the other end of the room was distracting her; a flurry at the door. Thomas? She glanced up.
A crowd was forming over there. She could hear the sounds of hooves and metal outside. There were new people sliding into the room, round the edge of the group; and she could see one of them was Alderman John Brown. At the centre of the crowd was a tawny uncovered head, taller than the rest, with bobbing and bowing going on all around it.
William Pratte was still whispering conspiratorially, getting back to the meaty talk, lifting one hand off his plump knees; including Isabel, to her slight alarm, in his bright-eyed gaze. It was almost as if these middle-aged people, with their knowing ways and cheerfully treasonous talk, hadn't realised how young and inexperienced Isabel was; if she hadn't known such a thing to be impossible, she might have thought they were deliberately trying to include her; trying to be friends.
The crowd by the door shifted and cleared, like clouds blown by the wind. For a second, Isabel could see over the three grey heads bent in front of her, and what she seemed to be seeing was her father, down on his knees, grinning like a lunatic at the floor and being patted on the back by a tall man in clothes that seemed to shimmer gold in the heavy afternoon light.
‘Look,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse with surprise.
William Pratte followed her finger. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Alice, look.’
Alice Claver's head turned, and stayed stuck in a stare directed at the doorway. But Anne Pratte was still caught up in the whispering.
‘But Alice, that's exactly what they are saying,’ she was muttering happily. And then she looked up, too, saw Alice Claver rising slowly to her feet, still staring, and began to gape like an astonished fish. ‘It's the King!’ Anne Pratte said foolishly – foolishly, because others were dropping to their knees too now, crowding in: the mayor, suddenly and miraculously present; Will Shore's parents; the Prattes; Alice Claver (how had she got there so fast?). Now John Lambert was scrambling to his feet to get out of the crush of kneelers, dancing backwards in something close to panic to create a place of honour for the monarch who was gracing his table with this extraordinary visit, and startled apprentices and serving girls, getting the message, were rushing to and fro clearing away the dishes from the tabletop and whisking in fresh dishes and strewing the boards with rose petals. And every bare head was bowed, but every pair of eyes was raised, fixed on King Edward, drinking him in.
‘Well,’ said the King, casually moving through the room towards Isabel's father and patting him on the back again, and every mouth opened in adoring appreciation of his words, ‘how could I let my best friend in the City of London marry his daughters without coming to wish them well?’
John Lambert was pink with gratification; his smile almost cracking his face in half. He didn't look handsome and distinguished, for once; his bowed posture and that smile reduced him to servility. He looked as though he was thanking God for having given him the opportunity, over the years, to lend King Edward £1,052 10s, the sum he so often liked to remind his daughters was as much as the Duke of Gloucester himself could hope for in rents in a year and more than most knights could hope to lay their hands on in a lifetime; he looked as though he was thinking that the reward of the King's presence here, now, was enough to repay those debts even if he never saw a penny of the money again (which he might easily not). Still, no one could look handsome next to this King, whatever they were thinking, Isabel realised. Edward's golden presence would always diminish everyone else.
The King and his friend – a dark, laughing nobleman almost Edward's height, who would have been the most striking person in the room if he'd come alone, and whom Anne Pratte identified for Isabel, in a piercing whisper, as Thomas, Lord Hastings, the King's dearest friend – looked as though they were here to stay. The King ate a slice of beef. He drank a cup of claret. He smiled at Jane till she blushed. He congratulated Will Shore on his bride. He asked the groom's permission to dance with her. He led Jane, floating like thistledown, through an entire basse dance. Why her, not me? Isabel thought, without really understanding the thought; she knew really that she'd have been terrified to touch the King's person. But everyone turned to Jane first. ‘There, you see,’ Anne Pratte burbled to Isabel, her face glowing, her disrespectful gossip of a few moments before entirely forgotten, blotted out by the majesty of majesty, ‘your father's in the good graces of the King, all right … what an honour … can you imagine? I've never heard of anything like this before … you'd never have got King Henry mixing with merchants, that sad sack … I've always said loyalty deserves to be rewarded.’
Now John Lambert was rushing to Isabel to present her to the King. She was embarrassed by the look of triumph on her father's face, but she let him take her hand. However fast her heart was beating, she kept her eyes turned down as he pulled her along the side of the table and began muttering ‘Sire’ and ‘May it please your grace’, and bowing and scraping. She made her deepest curtsey and rose, with her eyes still down. She didn't want to be drawn into the excitement. But it was infectious. ‘Aha, another Lambert beauty,’ the King said. And his voice was so deep and rich and full of unexpected beauty that it surprised her into looking up; for a second it had reminded her of the voice of the stranger she'd met in the church. For a second, as she met this stranger's eyes, she was disappointed to see a bigger face, fleshier and handsomer. But something kept her gazing into these eyes, full of lazy laughter; aware of his sensual mouth, twitching up at one corner as if starting to laugh at some secret joke he was about to share with her. Perhaps it was the long gold of the afternoon, but in the warmth of that gaze she felt time was suspended. The crowded scene faded. All she was aware of was the man's eyes holding hers until she felt her own cheeks tingle with pleasure and her mouth widen into a smile. Until, to her surprise, she found she was laughing; a laugh of pure, animal joy.
They were lighting candles at the back of the room, she noticed, coming to, wondering where this immense happiness had come from so suddenly.
Then