‘Not without good reason. You’re like her,’ I added.
‘So people say.’ We were both talking at random now in order to cover our embarrassment, as we became aware of the flowering of an unexpected mutual attraction. Amice hurried on, ‘I can’t see it myself. Oh, I’m small, as she is, but I’ve always thought I have something of my father in me.’ In her sudden agitation she pricked one of her fingers with her needle, exclaimed with annoyance and sucked away the tiny bead of blood.
I had half reached out for her hand, to reassure myself that she had done herself no lasting injury, when I recollected how foolish I was being and withdrew it. Amice quickly fastened off her thread, stuck her needle, alongside several others, in the bodice of her gown, stood up and shook out my tunic.
‘There,’ she said, handing it to me, but avoiding my eyes, ‘see if that’s any better.’
The tunic, if not a perfect fit, was certainly more comfortable than it had been before and would make me look less ridiculous in the eyes of my fellow Yeomen.
‘Thank you,’ I said simply.
The colour crept into her cheeks again. ‘Bring it back if you have time to spare before next Tuesday and I’ll lengthen the sleeves.’ Again I received an unpleasant jolt at the reminder of my journey across the Channel and an even greater one when she went on in a subdued tone, ‘War is a fearsome thing. God keep you safe.’
Until that second it had not entered my head that I might be called upon to fight and it only required another moment or two before common sense told me that it was highly unlikely. The Knights and Squires of the Body were a different matter, but the domestic servants of the royal households would merely be deployed in attending to the comfort of their masters behind the lines of battle.
I felt, however, that there was no need to disclose this fact to Amice and continued to bask in the warmth of her concern. As none of the other seamstresses was, at that moment, looking our way, I possessed myself of one of her hands and, lifting it to my lips, gently kissed it. She glanced up, startled, blushed fiercely, then went very pale and removed her fingers from my grasp. Her earlier coquettish air had quite deserted her. She jumped when the head seamstress raised her voice.
‘Amice! If you have finished the Yeoman’s tunic you are wanted over here. We need your skill on this altar cloth. No one can set the more difficult stitches as well as you can.’
‘Coming, Mistress Vernon.’ Amice sent me one last upward glance from beneath her lashes, then turned and hurried towards the little group of women at the far end of the table.
She refused to look my way again and there was nothing left for me to do but return to my duties and my problems.
Chapter Eleven
No one complained about my prolonged absence, or if they did, I did not hear them. I caught one or two resentful murmurs when I finally presented myself for duty to the head Yeoman of the Chamber, but nothing was said overtly; a fact which, on reflection, I found a little disturbing. Was there a feeling among my fellow workers that I was somehow different? Not truly one of them? A sense that I was there under false pretences? If so, was our would-be assassin also alerted to the possibility that I was not what I seemed? And would he therefore suspect my real purpose? I tried not to think about it and to throw myself so whole-heartedly into my duties that all such suspicions would be stillborn.
I encountered no difficulty in securing the honour of waiting upon the Duke at supper that evening, other Yeomen being only too pleased to exchange the boredom of office for a few hours of leisure in which to do as they pleased. And I was presented with an extra bonus when I discovered that Humphrey Nanfan and Stephen Hudelin had also been chosen to attend His Grace. If Matthew were right, and Ralph Boyse, Jocelin d’Hiver and Geoffrey Whitelock were present as well, I should have them all under my eye at once, which would at least give me an hour or so’s ease of mind as far as our five chief suspects were concerned.
As Humphrey had promised, the officers of the household ate an hour earlier than the Duke and his guests and this afternoon, as usual, we were seated, according to our proper stations, at the tables in the great hall. The two which ran along the north- and south-facing walls had been augmented by extra trestles in the centre of the room in order to accommodate the Duchess of York’s servants as well as her son’s. As we sat down to supper at four o’clock, my eyes searched the ranks of Duchess Cicely’s women for a glimpse of Amice Gentle. I saw her at last, at a table lower than my own, and raised a hand in greeting. She inclined her head in acknowledgement of my salute, but even at that distance I gained the impression that she would rather I had not made it. She turned away quickly to speak to the girl sitting beside her.
Feeling rebuffed, my eyes came to rest on one of the handful of household women who had come south in the Duke of Gloucester’s train: a girl of commanding presence and lovely to look at. It was not possible to make out her colouring, but I could see that the face framed by the snow-white hood was a delicate oval and the mouth full-lipped and sensual.
Humphrey, who had stationed himself next to me on the bench and who seemed to have constituted himself my guardian angel, dug me in the ribs with his elbow. ‘That’s Berys Hogan,’ he hissed, ‘nursemaid to the Lady Katherine, His Grace’s bastard daughter. The child has come to pay a visit to her grandmother and will return with the Duchess to Berkhamsted after we’ve sailed for France.’
I knitted my brows. ‘Berys Hogan,’ I repeated. ‘Why does that name sound familiar to me?’
The servers were coming round with our meaclass="underline" being a Friday, it was fish.
Humphrey, picking up his knife and spoon, chuckled. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be surprising if the gossip had reached your ears, even in such short space of time as this. The beautiful Berys is betrothed to Ralph Boyse, that fellow sitting over there among the Squires of the Household, but she’s cuckolding him with Lionel Arrowsmith. Lionel’s one of the Duke’s four Body Squires and is easily spotted. He’s the one who looks as if he’s been to the wars already.’
I did not bother glancing in Lionel’s direction, but instead divided what attention I could spare from my plate between Ralph Boyse and Berys Hogan. Ralph, as far as I could tell, was a slender young man, about the same age as the Duke and myself, with very black hair and a sallowish complexion. Even had I not already been told that his mother was French I think I should have suspected the presence of foreign blood in his veins, for he was too swarthy to be wholly English. His expression was close and secret, the handsome face set in sullen, unsmiling lines. But then, in response to a remark from his neighbour, he laughed and was suddenly transformed, reminding me forcibly of the Duke himself, whose natural severity of feature could be lightened beyond all expectation by a moment of humour.
So now I could recognize Ralph Boyse and it only needed Matthew Wardroper to identify the other two this evening. I suppose I could have asked Humphrey Nanfan there and then to point out Jocelin d’Hiver and Geoffrey Whitelock, but I had no wish to arouse his curiosity by displaying an unnecessary interest in them. Besides, I was content for the present to observe Ralph Boyse, who in his turn was watching the exchange of glances between Berys Hogan and Lionel Arrowsmith without apparently seeming to do so. Several times during the course of the meal Lionel raised his beaker in Berys’s direction, whereupon she cast down her eyes in what could have been mistaken for maidenly confusion had her shoulders not been shaking with ill-concealed merriment. Furthermore, she was not averse, I noted, to sending him looks that could only be described as encouraging, a sly smile curving the sensuous lips. I recalled Timothy’s admonitions of Tuesday night and his warning that Lionel was playing a dangerous game. And now that I knew, as I had not known then, that Berys was one of the maids in charge of His Grace’s daughter, I felt that Lionel was being even more foolhardy than I had previously thought him. If trouble flared, he would incur the Duke’s wrath as well as that of Ralph Boyse.