The King's Damsel by Kate Emerson Page A

seven miles distant. I liked Hartlebury at once. It had good ponds, a rabbit warren, and a deer park. While we were there, we hunted and fished, but we were soon on our way again. We traveled northwest to Mitton, where the River Stour divides into several streams that drive mills, then rode on to Bewdley through wooded countryside and newly planted fields. We stayed at Tickenhill Manor, just west of Bewdley, a house built at the very top of the hill on which the town is built, among trees in a good park.
    Thus, by slow stages, we made the journey to Ludlow Castle, twenty miles from Worcester and the official seat of the government of the principality of Wales. Building had been going on there for months, but Lady Salisbury still deemed the castle unfit for occupation by a royal princess. We settled in instead at Oakley Park, a few miles to the northwest. It was the Shropshire residence of SirWilliam Thomas, who moved his family out for the duration of our stay.
    As spring turned into summer, I gradually forgot about Maria’s odd behavior. We were easy with one another again.
    I continued to spin stories at bedtime and as we sat and wrought, too. One day in early summer, I told the old tale of Floris and Blauncheflour, one my father had told to me, about a king’s son who risks his life for the girl he loves. Surrounded by avid listeners, I recounted how Blauncheflour was sold to merchants and taken to Babylon and how Floris followed her there, found her among the maidens in the sultan’s palace, and rescued her. This happy ending provoked sighs of rapture. In the realms of legend and lore, as well as in real life, the triumph of true love is never a sure thing.
    “All men should be so loyal to their sweethearts,” Cecily said.
    “My suitor is.” Anne’s strident voice dared the rest of us to disagree.
    I exchanged a speaking glance with Mary Fitzherbert. We’d all of us heard more than enough about the trouble that Sir Giles Greville’s desire to marry Anne Rede had caused. Lady Salisbury disapproved of the match, but that was not the greatest obstacle. It was that Anne’s mother, Lady Rede, insisted upon a huge jointure for her daughter in the marriage settlement. Sir Giles wanted Anne as his wife, but he had no desire to give in to his future mother-in-law’s demands. Since Anne’s father was too ill to take part in the negotiations, they dragged on. A happy ending was by no means certain.
    “It is not the lot of a woman to choose her own husband,” the princess said. As was so often the case, she sounded more like a prim and proper woman of five and twenty than a ten-year-old girl.
    “No woman should be forced to wed someone repugnant to her,” Cecily, who had just turned twenty, said in her usual soft whisper, but with more force than was her wont. I wondered if she hadrejected such a suitor. At her age, her father must already have tried to arrange a match for her.
    “We must obey our elders.” Her Grace kept her eyes on her embroidery. “When I am older, I will marry a foreign prince, just as my mother did, and perforce leave my homeland behind forever.”
    I thought I heard a catch in the princess’s voice at the last. I glanced her way in time to see her miss a stitch. In no other way did she betray her reluctance to be sent away from England and all she held dear.
    I frowned, considered a moment, and then spoke hesitantly. “Your Grace, you are the king’s only heir. Surely you must remain here. Why, one day you could be queen in your own right.”
    Everyone stared at me. I wondered if I had suddenly grown another head. Feeling mutinous, I pursued the thought.
    “If a girl is the only child, she must inherit her father’s estate. As I did.”
    “Hush, Tamsin,” Anne hissed at me. “It is treason to speak of the death of the king.”
    “But I was not—” I fell silent. Heat flooded into my face as I realized that I had . How else should Princess Mary become queen except through the death