Read Online Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell - Free Book Online Page B

I was certain that they did, for how else could they have given such brilliant displays of their talents? The monies lavished on clothing and accoutrements was astounding to my provincial eyes. Even more astounding was the fact that the expense was undertaken only so that the Queen might give the courtier an opportunity to spend even more money on leasing a crown estate or purchasing a monopoly. There seemed no end to the amount of time and monies exhausted for appearances’ sake alone. It was a way of life that seemed to produce nothing of worth and yet consume everything of value.
    The first few weeks, when I returned to Lytham House to fall upon my bed in exhaustion from sheer boredom, Joan would rub my feet to draw out the aches.
    We spoke to each other in whispers, never sure of who else might be listening. It seemed in this place that one could never be sure when they were being observed. The room could appear empty, then in the blinking of an eye it could be filled with servants. They appeared, silent as apparitions, and left the same way.
    All but one. All but the slopswoman. She always seemed to be cackling to herself, muttering a tuneless song as she went about her unsavory task. Joan could perform a perfect imitation. She would run her fingers through her hairs to bedraggle them, and then she would draw her cheeks into her mouth, fold her lips into each other, and hobble around the room. The only thing she could not duplicate was the servant’s red, bulbous nose.
    “You should not do such things, Joan!” I could hardly speak for laughing.
    “Why? Do you fear my face will be stuck this way?”
    “Aye. Nay! Stop—’tis unseemly!”
    At that moment, the servant in question entered the room. Joan straightened, but the woman was ignorant of the game we had been playing. She went about her work in her normal way.
    “What is it that she sings?” Joan had seated herself on the bed beside me, so I did not have to speak very loud.
    “Do you want me to find out?”
    Before I could reply to the contrary, Joan had pushed herself away from the bed and was stalking the servant on cat’s feet, an ear turned in an obvious manner toward the woman.
    I stopped my breath, hoping the servant would make no sudden movement, but she did not. Joan dogged her until she left.
    “And?”
    She shook her head. “Mutter, mutter, mutter, WHITE. Mutter, mutter, mutter, GRAY. Mutter, mutter, mutter, TIGHT. Mutter, mutter, mutter, DECAY . . .”
    For some reason the recitation made me shudder. But then Joan drew up her skirts and began to dance a jig. “And a hey nonny, nonny.”
    “That was not part of it!”
    She dropped her hold on her skirts and came back to sit beside me.
    “Maybe it was and maybe it weren’t. But you will never know!” She took my foot back into her lap. “Did they laugh at you today?”
    “Nay.”
    “See then?”
    “Neither did they talk to me, any of them.”
    “They are afraid of you.”
    I scoffed. “Aye, beast that I am.”
    “They are.”
    “Afraid of what?”
    “They are like all those fishwives in King’s Lynn that mock the fairest maids, afraid that they will never regain what it is they once had.”
    “I only wish I could stop going.”
    Joan stopped rubbing my foot. “Never say that!”
    “Why not? ’Tis true.”
    “When you stop going, the earl will have no use for you.”
    She was right. She was always right. “Is there no way I could have what I want and do what he wants?”
    Joan raised her eyes to mine. “There is one. You could have his babe.”
    His babe. That would require the sharing of a bed. But after our wedding and my introduction to the Queen, the earl had never touched me again. I cannot say that I much minded. “I could. But it requires two for such . . . things.”
    “Why should he take you into his bed if you claw and spit at him every time he comes near?”
    “If I do, ’tis only because he claws and spits at me.”
    “Sheathe your claws.”
    “If I sheathe