around the table and a maid in a bleached apron and coif brought the hand basin, offering it to me carefully so that it did not spill. As I made use of the water and towel, Walter gave his father details of our journey while the two girls tried not to stare at me as they absorbed every detail of my appearance.
‘I believe you have come to London on the queen’s business, Madame?’ enquired Master Vintner, regarding me as intently as his daughters. ‘Are you at liberty to reveal what that business is? Perhaps I can be of assistance to you.’
I smiled. ‘That is a kind offer, sir, but I think it unlikely that a professional man like yourself would have much business with craftsmen skilled in ladies apparel. Queen Catherine has sent me to visit certain recommended tailors and merciers – I think you call them haberdashers? – in order to refresh and replenish her wardrobe. Walter has promised to guide me to the quarters in the city where these are to be found.’
The lawyer looked surprised. ‘Really? You amaze me. I had no inkling that my son was familiar with the haunts of fashionable ladies. Walter, were you neglecting your studies all that time I was paying for your education at the Inns of Court?’
Once again poor Walter went bright pink. ‘No indeed, Father, but I do know the way to Threadneedle Street. When I last looked, that was the location of the Tailors’ Hall, where I believe all masters of that craft in London are registered.’
‘Ah yes, I see,’ nodded his father. ‘So you will take Madame Lanière there tomorrow.’
‘And may I ask how long you intend staying in the city?’ Mistress Cope’s enquiry was couched in such a way as to indicate that she hoped it would not be too many days, an inference that was not lost on her brother.
‘Elizabeth, Madame Lanière is welcome to stay as long as the queen’s business keeps her here,’ Master Vintner said firmly. ‘And tomorrow I think you might acquire a good haunch of beef to roast for our dinner and I will ensure that there is some fine Bordeaux wine to go with it.’ He cast a disapproving glance at the dish of cold mutton pie which the serving woman had placed on the table alongside a loaf of day-old maslin bread and a hunk of hard cheese. ‘Is there none of that onion tart left to go with this pie?’ he asked. ‘There was plenty left last night as I recall.’ He leaned in my direction to ask confidingly, ‘I expect you like a good slice of onion tart as much as I do, Madame?’
‘Perhaps not quite as much,’ I responded with a smile. ‘But I do care for a slice of roasted beef.’
‘The onion tart was eaten for our midday meal, brother,’ Mistress Cope interjected.
‘I did not have any,’ Mildy piped up, speaking for the first time.
I cast a swift glance at Mistress Cope and saw her pale cheeks colour slightly. It occurred to me that the remains of the onion tart had been hers and hers alone, but she did not look plump enough to be hoarding food for her own consumption.
‘You do not like onion tart, Mildred!’ the dame told her niece acidly. ‘And young ladies should hold their tongues at table unless invited to speak.’
‘I would like to ask you girls where you learned such excellent French,’ I intervened, changing the subject.
‘Our mother taught us,’ answered Anne proudly. ‘And she taught us to read as well.’
‘And Latin, have you learned any Latin?’
‘No. Our father speaks Latin but he says it is not necessary for females.’ Anne looked a little crestfallen, as if she would have been keen to study the language that opened the door to so much learning. ‘Do you know it, Madame?’
I shook my head. ‘No, and I am only just learning English so you are well ahead of me, being fluent two languages already. In France not many women even learn to read.’
‘That is the case here in England as well,’ said Master Vintner. ‘My wife was an exception and wished her daughters to be educated to a certain degree. My sister does not read, do you, Elizabeth?’
Mistress Cope sniffed. ‘I have never felt the need,’ she said stonily. ‘Running a household requires other skills.’
I cut a piece of mutton pie with my knife and bit into it. The meat inside had not been stewed long enough and was tough and stringy. I swallowed it with the help of a sip of the wine Master Vintner had poured and decided to make do with bread and cheese. I noticed Walter and his father both chewing mightily and pondered how much skill it took to hire a cook who could cook or find a pie shop that could make pies.
However, when I was shown to my chamber later I found it clean and well furnished with a jug of water for washing and a night pot for my convenience. I decided that what Mistress Cope lacked in the kitchen, she made up for in the bedchamber, then smiled at my own thought, glad that I had not voiced it aloud and in company. Then, exhausted after my journey, I snuggled gratefully beneath the covers and blushed to think that I had even conjured a single thought about any bedtime activity other than sleep.
On waking the next day, my first thought was for Genevieve. Guilt stabbed me as I realised that I had seen my beloved mare led away down an alley and had not given any further thought to her welfare. However, during our evening meal my two saddlebags had been delivered to my chamber and I had been able to shake out my best blue Flanders wool gown and hang it on a convenient clothes pole to allow the creases to fall out. I intended to wear it in the evening for Master Vintner’s promised feast. Meanwhile, I washed my face in the water provided, gave my travel-stained russet riding kirtle a good brush to remove the worst of the mud splashes and donned it once more before hurrying downstairs to find the stable.
In daylight the house in Tun Lane was revealed to be one in a row of substantial town houses constructed on a frame of strong, dark oak beams filled in with lime-washed lath and plaster, similar to hundreds I had seen in the towns we had passed through on the court’s progress around England. It was larger than most, boasting four windows on each side of the two gabled upper floors and was roofed with slate tiles which, considering the danger of fire in cramped city streets, I thought a vast improvement on the straw and thatch used in poorer neighbourhoods. An intriguing series of pargetted designs relieved the rectangles of plasterwork on the first floor overhang, the beams framing images of twining vines laden with fruit, a ship loaded with barrels and capering youths and girls treading huge vats of harvested grapes. There was no mistaking that this house had once belonged to a wine merchant, even if it now housed a lawyer’s family.
The narrow tunnel down which the horses had been led the previous night opened on to a rear courtyard surrounded by outhouses, one of which I rather hoped might be a privy. A stable boy was busy tipping a barrow-load of soiled straw onto a muckheap in the corner of the yard and I asked him to show me where Genevieve was. On the way past a feed-barrel I grabbed a handful of oats and enjoyed my mare’s little whicker of recognition before she snuffled them off my outstretched palm. She was comfortably settled in a stall beside Walter’s cob and looked none the worse for the previous day’s long trek. Following the advice of the horse-loving Lady Joan, I felt her legs carefully and was happy to find no sign of heat. I reckoned a day’s rest would do her no harm however.
Having found and made use of the privy, I took a quick tour around the rest of the yard, discovering that the ground floor of the house was given over to a chamber of business where two legal clerks were already busy penning entries in large leather-bound ledgers under the sharp gaze of their employer, Master Geoffrey Vintner. As I passed the open door that led directly into the yard, he called my name.
‘Madame Lanière, good morrow to you! I trust I find you well rested.’ He came out to meet me, his amiable face wreathed in smiles. I found myself wondering if this genial man could really be a forceful interrogative lawyer, then I remembered that he was also a diplomat, where I imagined that cordiality was a definite advantage.
I returned his bow with a bob. ‘Thank