Power & The Price

Harcourt was feeling rather irritated when the feast had turned to a ball. William was supposed to have come before the dinner, and had left an empty chair at the most prestigious table on the continent instead. Needless to say, after having been disappointed by Katherine for months, he was not surprised to see his solution also disappoint.

He supposed that the festivity looked rather beautiful and even tasteful. It was pouring down outside, but inside the fire was crackling, the band played, the chandeliers glittered, and so far, the young folks were dancing pavanes rather than voltas and galliards. In order to preserve the warmth, all the doors were closed, and so it was hot.

A couple of days earlier, Grace had arrived and Francis had left. A sombre affair to the councillors, but once the dust settled, even they realised that Grace was the superior choice for a Langley alliance. The girls had been dancing all night, and had laughed since she arrived, exchanged meaningful glances, and appeared to have slipped so rapidly and so deeply into enduring friendship despite their differences.

The thing about Grace was that she was highly intelligent, and her court had taken great advantage of this, pouring as much knowledge and wisdom into the young princess as they possibly could. She was a few years older than Katherine, but the discrepancy in learning could easily place them as tutor and student in many fields, despite both women being educated as princesses. It made her an unnatural choice for Katherine’s lady-in-waiting, but the advisers had decided that it was far too early to unravel the paradoxes in Katherine’s favour.

They danced couple dances together — Grace, too, was unmarried — and took turns on the leading and following role, intermittently losing each other to dance with different partners.

Once the exertion and the heat got the better of them, they sat themselves down in the windowsill, drank and talked endlessly about men, clothing, salves to banish the effects of the cold weather on the skin, their horses, the factors that could have held up William. Katherine talked about her daughter Johanna’s return to court, and while Grace was childless, managed to placate Katherine more than any of her advisers had. It was comfortable. There was the feeling in the air that this was the tone of Katherine’s reign, at least for now, filled with small and comfortable parties at court.

Suddenly a cold wind blew through the room, and everyone turned their head to the source of the breeze, which was the large double doors that were being opened by a pair of guards.

Harcourt suddenly got to his feet, and De Vere followed. The large oak doors opened with loud and extended sighing and scraping as they slid over the wooden floor. Through the opening came a cloaked figure followed by a couple of servants, all of whom soaked from the rain.

Katherine sat in the corner with her goblet, leaning past the pillar next to which she sat to get a good view of the spectacle.

The figure dropped his cloak while he strode in, and from the cocoon of soaked wool appeared William, dressed in perfectly dry court clothes in rustling, luminous silk. Even his face and hair were pristine, and his neck boasted a small, excellently starched ruff.

There were four servants that he had brought, each of whom carrying a package of some sort, and he himself carried the smallest one of them all. Dumbfounded, the band had stopped.

‘Apologies for my tardiness,’ William said mostly into the silent crowd, but particularly to Harcourt, whom he was closest to, ‘I was held up in Gartham. It appears Lady Lettice will miss me indeed.’

Harcourt had to physically keep himself from rolling his eyes. ‘At least I won’t have to take the carriage ride up alone,’ he said. ‘Welcome, Lord William. We missed you grandiosely at the banquet.’

‘And I you,’ William insisted, his dark eyes widening in a mad flare. ‘Say… where’s Her Majesty?’

The moment her title fell, Katherine stood up.

There was a strange magnetism to the man that she could not explain to herself, and likely baffled those around her. Confronted with his presence, she felt more like a bashful young girl than she did a promising new monarch. Yet she had no choice but to stride in confidently, grin gregariously, and clap her hands together.

‘Lord William,’ she said as she neared and extended her hand. ‘What terrible weather you’ve brought.’

He playfully skimmed her features with his eyes and after a prolonged look, finally dropped to his knees, where he took her hand in order to kiss the ring on it. Katherine did not dare look down.

‘Terrible weather, but I hope you will find my gifts more agreeable,’ he said from below her.

She chuckled. ‘Stand,’ she commanded.

As he scrambled to his feet, Katherine put her hands behind her back. ‘And I demand that the band resumes,’ she added.

The band picked their instruments off of the ground again, and the first eyes were beginning to wander off of William and Katherine, buying them a bit of privacy. William looked to the left and the right of him, and then leaned in: ‘Life in the castle suits you, Lady Katherine. You look even more radiant than you did on your coronation day.’

Then, she returned the favour, briefly looking him up and down before giving him an answer. ‘I’m wondering if the same thing will happen to you.’

His hand crept up to the chest he was holding in the other hand. ‘I’m far too old to look any better tomorrow than I do today, my lady. Please, I’ve been considering your reaction to my gifts since I left Gartham. It’d be an honour to see the vision come to fruition.’

With the chest still in his hands, Katherine twisted the hinge to open it, and mischievously looked back up at William. ‘You think we’re out of goblets, my lord?’

She took it out while William laughed heartily. The goblet in question was magnificent, inscribed with a Katherine’s signet on one side and the date of her coronation on the other.

‘I am but a humble baron,’ William said. ‘I intend to impress not with the glorious wealth that I do not possess, but rather simple thoughtfulness. That, and I considered the possibility that I may propose a toast.’

Katherine nodded and meant to hand it over to him, still tittering along with all he was saying. He did not take it, instead placing his hand over the top to guide her hand down to her side again.

‘Well…’ he began, scraping his throat. ‘You’re going to need one too — and a bottle of something. Just a moment…’

He walked to one of the servants and produced from their baggage another goblet and a large bottle of wine, which he took back to the queen. He popped the cork out with his teeth like a drunk in a lowly alehouse, and poured first in Katherine’s goblet, followed by his own.

‘Indeed if I now may…,’ he said. ‘I would first of all like to propose a toast to the stimulating knowledge that Queen Katherine’s first suitor has vacated the premises, just in time for all of the unimportant old courtiers to feel as though they still have a shot at the queen’s favour.’

Katherine’s cheeks were on fire, especially when he then clinked the goblet against hers and downed the half glass he had poured. Subtle. Of course Katherine could not fall behind, and once she had finished her glass, William poured them both another.

‘A toast, then, to my great friend Cuthbert Harcourt, who was hardly ever home in the King Richard times, and now he will not have to ship himself off to Gartham in order to play chess with me, I believe he may never see his wife again.’

Both downed their glasses again. Katherine could only just make out Harcourt’s shameful face.

‘Thirdly a toast to our new champion, whom I know to be of pure heart and noble spirit, and whom I will not suspect at all of any unsavoury behaviour without concrete proof,’ William said. ‘Despite the fact that his handsomeness and the shapely form of his shoulders and arms was enough to warrant my very presence at court!

‘Come alliances, come prospects, come great irritation between ruler and court, come favourites, come particularly mouthy ladies-in-waiting… I do hope to prove to you, my lady, that it is always favourable to have an adviser who is truly yours, and who cares very little about the way of country when compared to the exact specifications of the temperature of the water in your bath. How’s the wine?’

Katherine blinked in disbelief. ‘The wine is splendid.’

What constituted a council meeting had been stretched sufficiently by Harcourt over the years. This one, with just William and him, was fully conducted walking through the rooms of the castle, pacing as if they had somewhere to be. It was a few days after he had arrived so elusively, and the effects of that flamboyant entry still paid off, with Katherine hanging on his every word.

It was bitter for Harcourt. He had thirty years of experience under his belt, and had been favoured above all by King Richard, to now be cast aside by an heiress he had barely ever met before. Worst of all, the favour was then bestowed upon the very man he had employed in Overleigh to take over his more menial duties. Considering the ear of the queen still had to be secured, if through the mouthpiece of his more handsome colleague, there was nothing he could do but use him.

‘There is one last thing I want to talk to you about,’ Harcourt said, beginning to feel his nerves rise now he was getting to the only meaningful thing he was to discuss that day with William. ‘The knight.’

‘Oh,’ Will said, his brows furrowing. ‘I’ve been told there’s a problem with a knight, yes.’

Harcourt paced forth until they reached a large banquet hall with floor to ceiling windows. The table had not been set, and there was an eerie silence that filled the air. Harcourt turned to him.

‘Of all the people that could win Lady Katherine’s favour, I would prefer if it was not some lad from Dolcotshire. Worse, it appears he has Baradran descent.’

‘And my task being…?’ William asked.

Harcourt demonstratively turned to the window from where the gardens were visible, stretching into the forest that was tautly formed over the elegant slope of the hills and mountains that bordered Norbury Castle. An exquisite sight on such a sunny day, and one Harcourt had cherished as his own for decades, and yet something was amiss.

‘She would not forgive me if we shipped him off or killed him,’ he said. ‘But he’s an athletic and active young man. There are many things that may happen. A hunting accident, a joust with a fatal conclusion… Even if it is something small, something that will mar him out of her favour. Had he not been so handsome, I doubt we would be in this situation.’

William padded over with his arms on his back. In the grass of the gardens they sat. The usual suspects, Katherine and Henry, but joined by Grace, and a young man he did not quite recognise given his back was facing them, wearing simpler clothes than the rest of them.

‘I will consider,’ he said. ‘Though I am hard-pressed to make myself disliked by Lady Katherine.’

Harcourt snickered. ‘Surely, you’d rather have the country in glory than the queen’s ear to yourself?’

He clenched his jaws and peered out of the window. The boy stood up from where he had sat cross-legged and walked towards the castle, where they could finally see his face. Fair, boyish, with tawny blond curls framing his face, and light, almost invisible eyebrows above dark eyes. ‘Who’s that?’ Harcourt asked.

William had a pit in his stomach. ‘I think that might be one of my servants.’

The secretary of state looked at his shoes and sighed. ‘I fear that you have read the job description wrong, Will. You’re here to serve the crown not through flattery and inviting strapping young lads to court, but through guiding a sinking ship to shore so it can be repaired. I received word that we will be expected in Massouron for negotiations concerning a marriage between Her Majesty and the eldest son of Queen Louise. If Katherine refuses to go, I shall hold you responsible.’

William caught the eyes of his servant briefly and felt himself begin to think it through. ‘She will go,’ he said plainly. ‘I think I’ve got just the plan…’

‘Well?’ Harcourt asked.

‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I’ll see whether it would be possible to invite another lady-in-waiting. Distraction could be a help — far better if she herself is a young married lady with a title. Not some exiled princess.’

‘A Massouric young lady?’ Harcourt asked. ‘Just so the ties to the country have time to brew and simmer?’

William tapped the windowsill as he absentmindedly looked out onto the landscape. ‘Is the crown prince a good man, Cuthbert?’

‘No,’ he said curtly.

Both men watched Katherine from their distance, behind glass as if they were the walls themselves looking out. A soft rain began to fall, and she shot up in response, hurrying off to the dry safety of the castle. They heard a lilt of laughter as the door fell shut one room down, and Harcourt was sorry to know her fate — sorry to have decided on it.

‘Though it’s hardly better than the stories I’ve heard of her,’ he said later. ‘We are both used to very elegant and noble Courtenays, who cannot be compared to this example.’

‘She told me she worries about Prince Henry,’ William said. ‘That is why I asked. It appears I will not be able to console her with the truth, if I am to believe you.’

Harcourt rolled his eyes. ‘Do not console her with the truth. Comfort her with futile distractions. Hell, who knows? I’m aware the Massouric way is to brag and exaggerate — Prince Henry might be a fine young man. We never had the pleasure of meeting.’

When William looked at Harcourt’s blue eyes, though, there was not even a speck of belief in his own words. William instead refrained from expressing that, and tried to find facility in the plan he had made.