The Lady of Misrule by Suzannah Dunn

Author:Suzannah Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pegasus
Published: 2015-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

III

Not long after the coronation, I came through from the bedroom one morning to find Jane reading something which evidently didn’t please her. She was drawn tall in the chair, affronted by whatever it was and subjecting it to unfavourable inspection. It wasn’t a book but a single leaf of paper, which she folded and slapped back down on to the table, her hand pressed to it as if to keep it down.

She never folded any of her own writing, or not that I’d ever seen. Was that a letter that she had, there? How on earth would a letter have found its way in here? She glanced up and caught me nosing.

‘I need to talk with Guildford,’ she said, as ever giving nothing away. ‘Arrange that for me, would you, please.’

Well, that was a first. Clearly something was wrong. Could it be a letter? Not bearing good news, obviously. Something family-related? I dithered by the door in case she wanted to tell me but of course she didn’t.

I took the request to Mrs Partridge, who didn’t question it nor even look surprised, but asked me where Jane would like them to meet. I didn’t know, because I hadn’t thought to ask.

‘Because it’s raining,’ she said.

I was barely up and knew nothing, so far, of the day.

The doorway, then, we decided – the jetty would provide a modicum of shelter – and she went to dispatch word to Guildford via her own husband while I returned back upstairs to find Jane already fastening her cloak.

On his way across the inner bailey towards us, Guildford looked dazed, which, given the rush and the rain, was understandable. William seemed to have developed a limp. Guildford nodded first to me – no doubt dreadful-looking me – before turning his attention to his wife on an intake of breath, preparing to launch into the appropriate courtesies, but she was already demanding, ‘Have you heard?’

The content of the letter was about to be revealed.

He knew nothing of any letter though, and turned wary. ‘Heard?’ He was probably worried that he was in trouble with her, which was certainly how it looked, although that was nothing new. He took his place beneath the jetty, standing alongside her, and so there we all were, all four of us, shoulder to shoulder and backs to the house, staring into the tipping rain.

‘Five days,’ Jane complained. ‘It’s taken her just five days to repeal everything. Five days into her reign and that’s the last seven years’ work destroyed,’ and then she broke away, stomping nowhere in particular, just out into the rain, leaving Guildford and me next to each other but with her absence between us. ‘Everything,’ she regaled Guildford, ‘everything he did, gone.’ He: the King, the boy-King, her great friend, her supposed soulmate. Which was all very well but she should come beneath the jetty, I thought, or her cloak would get soaked and our room would smell of wet dog. ‘Can you believe it? And how

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