Anastaise dimpled with pleasure, whether she’d deliberately made the Queen seem younger and kinder – she didn’t seem the type for flattery. Instead, he asked, ‘How do you get the gold so bright?’
Anastaise was breaking open one of Christine’s packages to show him the wafer-thin sheet of beaten gold and beginning to explain that you took beaten egg-white, without water, and painted it over the place the gold was to go, then, moisturising the end of the same brush in your mouth, you touched it on to the corner of the leaf, ready cut, then lifted it very quickly, put it on the prepared place and spread it out with a separate dry brush. ‘And whatever you do, don’t breathe; or your piece of gold will fly off and you’ll have the worst trouble finding it again. And then it’s the same as the painting. You let it dry. You put another layer on. You let it dry. You put another layer on. It’s all just patience.’ When the goldwas ready, you polished it – with the tooth of a bear or a beaver; or with an agate, or an amethyst stone – first quite gently, then harder, then so hard that the sweat stood out on your forehead.
Christine slipped away. Owain was so enthralled he didn’t notice.
Jehanette’s maid was in the kitchen, preparing a meal. The children were playing with their grandmother upstairs; while Jehanette was at the Halles market. ‘Take some meat and bread and wine out to Anastaise,’ Christine directed. ‘But tell the boy to come here and eat with me.’
She didn’t think why. It was an instinct: like warming yourself at the fire, or opening your shutters when the sun was bright. Usually she liked her quiet meals with Anastaise: everyone else out of the house; hearing the idle talk the beguine brought with her from the convent where the sisters worked in the cloth trade of Temple New Town, or tending the poor. The beguines knew everything; and no one more than Anastaise. But today she wanted some time alone with this boy with hope in his eyes and hunger in his mind. It was a waste of his intelligence to let him go back to soldiery.
He came quickly, eagerly, glowing as if someone had applied gold leaf to him.
He said, with genuine warmth: ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ and, taking a piece of bread and a slab of meat and a slice of onion on his knife, without waiting to be asked, as if he felt at home, while munching, ‘This has been the best day …’ Then he paused, and she saw the thought he couldn’t name begin to take form on his brow: ‘I only wish …’
She said, a little brusquely, cutting him off: ‘Eat up. I find I have some time today after all. When we’re done, I’ll take you over the river if you like. We could look at the university districts. I can see you’re interested.’
The look on his face was reward enough. It encouraged her to go on.
‘Tell me,’ she said, leaning forward, supporting her littleheart-shaped face with both her hands, and caressing the boy with the gentlest look imaginable, ‘you’re a bright boy; I can see you want knowledge; and, as I understand it, your family history means you aren’t encumbered by estates that would take up all your time either. So why haven’t you thought of giving a bit of time to educating yourself?’ She nodded hypnotically at him, willing him on. ‘You could, you know …’
She saw him stop looking happy. His face got a pinched, miserable expression she didn’t like at all.
‘What, go to the University, you mean?’ he said in a small voice. ‘In England?’
He didn’t know how to explain it to her. He didn’t know how to summarise all those years of snubs and sneers from beefy English pageboys and knights and even servants – the jokes about being a wild man from Wales, an eternal outsider – in a voice that wouldn’t betray his feelings. ‘I never thought about it, because I don’t think I could. You see, I’m foreign …’ He gave her a desperate look. ‘Welsh,’ he added.
She
Anastaise was breaking open one of Christine’s packages to show him the wafer-thin sheet of beaten gold and beginning to explain that you took beaten egg-white, without water, and painted it over the place the gold was to go, then, moisturising the end of the same brush in your mouth, you touched it on to the corner of the leaf, ready cut, then lifted it very quickly, put it on the prepared place and spread it out with a separate dry brush. ‘And whatever you do, don’t breathe; or your piece of gold will fly off and you’ll have the worst trouble finding it again. And then it’s the same as the painting. You let it dry. You put another layer on. You let it dry. You put another layer on. It’s all just patience.’ When the goldwas ready, you polished it – with the tooth of a bear or a beaver; or with an agate, or an amethyst stone – first quite gently, then harder, then so hard that the sweat stood out on your forehead.
Christine slipped away. Owain was so enthralled he didn’t notice.
Jehanette’s maid was in the kitchen, preparing a meal. The children were playing with their grandmother upstairs; while Jehanette was at the Halles market. ‘Take some meat and bread and wine out to Anastaise,’ Christine directed. ‘But tell the boy to come here and eat with me.’
She didn’t think why. It was an instinct: like warming yourself at the fire, or opening your shutters when the sun was bright. Usually she liked her quiet meals with Anastaise: everyone else out of the house; hearing the idle talk the beguine brought with her from the convent where the sisters worked in the cloth trade of Temple New Town, or tending the poor. The beguines knew everything; and no one more than Anastaise. But today she wanted some time alone with this boy with hope in his eyes and hunger in his mind. It was a waste of his intelligence to let him go back to soldiery.
He came quickly, eagerly, glowing as if someone had applied gold leaf to him.
He said, with genuine warmth: ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ and, taking a piece of bread and a slab of meat and a slice of onion on his knife, without waiting to be asked, as if he felt at home, while munching, ‘This has been the best day …’ Then he paused, and she saw the thought he couldn’t name begin to take form on his brow: ‘I only wish …’
She said, a little brusquely, cutting him off: ‘Eat up. I find I have some time today after all. When we’re done, I’ll take you over the river if you like. We could look at the university districts. I can see you’re interested.’
The look on his face was reward enough. It encouraged her to go on.
‘Tell me,’ she said, leaning forward, supporting her littleheart-shaped face with both her hands, and caressing the boy with the gentlest look imaginable, ‘you’re a bright boy; I can see you want knowledge; and, as I understand it, your family history means you aren’t encumbered by estates that would take up all your time either. So why haven’t you thought of giving a bit of time to educating yourself?’ She nodded hypnotically at him, willing him on. ‘You could, you know …’
She saw him stop looking happy. His face got a pinched, miserable expression she didn’t like at all.
‘What, go to the University, you mean?’ he said in a small voice. ‘In England?’
He didn’t know how to explain it to her. He didn’t know how to summarise all those years of snubs and sneers from beefy English pageboys and knights and even servants – the jokes about being a wild man from Wales, an eternal outsider – in a voice that wouldn’t betray his feelings. ‘I never thought about it, because I don’t think I could. You see, I’m foreign …’ He gave her a desperate look. ‘Welsh,’ he added.
She
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