Book Tour – First Of The Tudors By Joanna Hickson

Edmund asked.

I took a deep breath, hesitating to prick my brother’s bubble. ‘Yes – and no,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ Indignation raised the timbre of his voice. ‘Jesu Jas, a gown fashioned of such fabric would make any female feel like a queen!’

My hackles rose. I hated Edmund calling me Jas and had told him so on numerous occasions, yet still he persisted. It was a boyhood nickname and we were no longer boys but squires in the service of the king, soon to become knights. My name was Jasper. I had stopped calling him Ed on the day we came to court.

‘But she is not a queen and there are sumptuary laws. Our sister could be royally fined for wearing a gown made from such fabric. You know its use is restricted to royalty, archbishops and the effigies of saints.’

I touched the cloth, admiring its shimmer as the slight movement stirred it into life; it was soft and sinuous under my fingers. I imagined the deft fingers that had wound the fine gold wire around the warp fibres with infinite skill and patience. Edmund was right; wearing it would make anyone feel illustrious.

Cloth of gold! Just how had Edmund come up with the huge price it commanded?

Edmund drew himself up to his six-foot height. ‘The daughter of a queen may wear what she likes. They would not dare to fine her.’

Exasperated, I flicked the fabric so that it rippled, like a sudden flurry on a calm lake. ‘Your head is in the clouds, brother. Come back to earth. Our sister lives in Tun Lane, London. Nobody knows what we know. In her world she is not Margaret, just Meg, and she is about to marry the man of her choice who is not a prince but a lawyer. She will be a wife and, God willing, a mother. She is happy, with a warm home and enough money for her needs. Whatever you dream for your own future, do not wish it on her.’

Irritably Edmund twitched the length of fabric into his arms, gathering it in like a shield against reality.

‘I know what she is – what she has chosen to remain – but she is still the daughter of a queen, the granddaughter of a king, and I will give her the honour of royal raiment, even if she never wears it.’

I shrugged. ‘So be it but you have wasted your money.

And do not dare to reveal her true birth by so much as a whisper at the wedding or you will win Mette’s enduring wrath – and mine too for that matter.’

My brother paused in his careful folding of the cloth- of-gold. ‘Mette – is she still alive then?’

Unlike me, Edmund no longer went to The House of the Vine in Tun Lane where our sister had lived since the death of our royal mother fourteen years ago. In recent years he had acquired what I considered an exaggerated sense of rank and the refuse-strewn back streets of London offended him. ‘Of course she is alive.

You know she is. She always asks after you, as does our sister.’ Mette was Meg’s foster mother, the faithful servant into whose care our own mother had entrusted her little daughter on her deathbed, hoping she might enjoy the happy childhood she herself had not known. Our mother was one of many children of the sixth King Charles of France and the ravages of the king’s madness had had consequences for them all in the fierce struggle for power that resulted. Now Meg was to marry her foster brother William, who had recently qualified as a lawyer at the Middle Temple. A spring wedding at St Mildred’s
church.

‘And what do you tell them?’ Edmund asked as he laid the cloth on top of his chest, which stood next to mine against the wall in our chamber in one of the many towers of Westminster Palace.

‘I tell them you are well. That is all.’

Edmund’s chest was filled with apparel of every kind. I had wondered before how he managed to afford such finery since he received the same royal pension as I did. I presumed he must be winning at dice or frequenting the moneylenders of Lombard Street, like many of our fellow squires. I hated debt and could do without fashionable clothes, preferring to buy harness and armour if I had any spare funds but I did quite envy the dashing figure Edmund cut about the court.

‘You are coming to the wedding, are you not?’ I added. My query contained a note of anxiety for Edmund could be unreliable.

‘Of course I am coming. I would not miss a feast.’ A smile revealing perfect teeth lit his dark features – another advantage he enjoyed, my own smile being marred by a chipped front tooth, the result of an unhappy collision in a joust. ‘What are you giving her?’

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. A tendency to blush was one of the drawbacks of having red hair and a fresh complexion. There was no reason to feel ashamed of my gift, yet I knew Edmund would think it niggardly.

‘A hogs- head of ale.’

‘Ale?’ He was incredulous. ‘You are giving them ale?’ ‘Yes, the traditional Bride Ale, strongly brewed and flavoured with herbs and honey, for all the guests to drink their health.’