The King’s Sister Read Free

chin with his fist.
    ‘He is younger than Henry,’ I whispered back in disbelief, in a mounting horror, when I could.
    He was a boy. A child.
    ‘Yes, he is,’ Dame Katherine murmured back with a weight of compassion in her reply. ‘He is eight years old.’
    And I was seventeen. I could not look at Philippa. I could not bear the pity I knew I would read in her face.
    As I expected, I was summoned to my father’s private chamber within the hour, allowing me only the opportunity to gulp down a cup of ale and endure a strict lecture from Dame Katherine on the exquisite good manners expected of a Plantagenet lady—whatever the perceived provocation. I promised I would keep her advice well in my mind. So far I seemed to be unable to utter a word.
    How could he do this to me? How could my father inflict a boy not out of his first decade on me as my husband? The thoughts revolved and revolved with no resolution. He had done it. At least Philippa did not attempt to console me with bright platitudes. Her kiss on my cheek said it all.
    Now I curtsied before Constanza, my father’s Castilian wife, who sat in chilly pre-eminence, her feet on a little footstool. Then to the rest of the party: the Countess of Norfolk, the Countess of Pembroke, the youthful Earl who was watching me bright-eyed. And there was my father coming towards me, a smile of welcome lighting his features. Tall but lightly built, he was every inch a royal prince, and his gaze commanded me.
    ‘Elizabeth.’ He took my hand to lead me forward and make the introductions. ‘Allow me to present Elizabeth to you. My well beloved daughter.’
    The Countess of Norfolk, of matriarchal proportions and inordinate pride—as befitted a granddaughter of the first King Edward and thus Countess in her own right—regarded me, and saw fit to smile on me, the silk of her veils shimmering with emotion. The widowed Countess of Pembroke too smiled, as well she might. Did we not all know that my hand in marriage was a formidable achievement for any household, however noble? Constanza stood and kissed my cheek in as maternal a manner as she could accommodate. Meanwhile the Earl, the boy, stood stiffly to well-drilled attention and watched the proceedings with a fleeting interest. It made me wonder what he had been told of this visit. How much did he understand of its significance?
    And I?
    I smiled with every ounce of grace I could summon, even when my face felt like the panel of buckram that stiffened Constanza’s bodice in the old Castilian style that she often resorted to in moments of stress. Dame Katherine would have been proud of me as I acknowledged all the greetings. But below my composure I seethed with impotent anger, laced through with fear at what such a marriage would hold in store for me. Was I not old enough for a true marriage, in flesh as well as in spirit? Wallowing in the troubadours’ songs of love and passion, my blood ran hot as I yearned for my own knowledge of such desire. How could I find it with a child?
    ‘Allow me to present you to John, my lord of Pembroke.’
    This boy would not make my heart flutter like a trappedbird. My blood, cold as winter rain, ran thin as I smiled more brightly still, allowing the boy to take my hand and press his lips to my knuckles with a neat little bow.
    Certainly he had been as well instructed in the arts of chivalry.
    ‘This is your betrothed husband.’
    I swallowed. ‘Yes, my lord. It pleases me to meet you,’ to the boy. ‘I am honoured that you would wish to wed me.’
    No!
I wished to shriek. I am not pleased, I am not honoured. I am in despair. But daughters of Lancaster did not shriek. Plantagenet princesses did not defy their father’s wishes.
    ‘I will endeavour to make you a good wife.’
    He was a child, barely released from the control of his nurses. How could I wed such a one as this? I had always known that I would wed at my father’s dictates but never that he would choose a boy who had not yet