But Mother did not reproach me. Instead her gaze swept over me from head to foot. There was a small frown between her brows; I thought it was because my hair was untidy and put up a hand to smooth it. My appearance was my vanity; I was fair and had no need of the dye. My skin was pale rose and cream and my eyes were wide and blue. I knew I was a beauty. I won’t pretend.
‘You are quite right,’ Mother said, after a moment’s scrutiny, with a wry twist of her lips. ‘You, of all our treasures, should be kept safe at a time like this. Unfortunately, your father insists that you should attend dinner tonight.’
I gaped at her, not understanding. I had only been referring to the plate and linens. Seeing my confusion, her smile grew, but it was a smile that chilled me in some manner I did not quite understand. It hinted at adult matters and I, for all my seventeen years, was still a child.
‘Your presence has been requested,’ she said. ‘The Earl of Warwick comes at the head of the King’s army. They march against the rebels. He is bringing his captains here to dine with us tonight and take counsel with your father. Two of his sons ride with him, Ambrose and Robert.’
My heart gave a tiny leap of excitement which I quickly suppressed out of guilt. The Earl of Warwick was coming here, to my corner of Norfolk, bringing danger and excitement to a place that seldom saw either. It was a curious feeling that took me then, a sense of anticipation tinged with a sadness of something lost; peace, innocence almost. But the rebels had already shattered both peace and innocence when they had risen up against the King’s laws.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘About the King’s army, I mean. It is hard for you, with John a prisoner and family loyalty split.’
She looked startled for a moment and then smiled at me, a proper smile this time, one that lit her tired eyes. ‘You are a sweet child, Amy,’ she said, patting my cheek. Her smile died. ‘Except that you are not a child any longer, it seems.’
She sighed. ‘Do you remember Robert Dudley?’ She was watching me very closely. I was not sure what she was looking for. ‘He asked your father if you would be present at dinner tonight. No…’ she corrected herself. ‘He requested that you should be present, which is a different matter entirely.’
Her look made it clear what she thought of the sons of the nobility asking after a gentleman’s daughter. I suppose she imagined that no good could come of it, despite my father’s ambitions.
‘I remember him,’ I said. I smiled a little at the memory for a picture had come into my mind, a small, obstinate boy, his black hair standing up on end like a cockerel’s crest, a boy whom the other children had mocked because he was as dark as a Spaniard. More cruelly they had called him a traitor’s grandson because the first Dudley of note had been a lawyer who had risen high in old King Henry’s favour and had then fallen from grace when the new King Henry had wanted to sweep his father’s stables clean. It had all happened before I was born, before Robert had been born too, but the ghost of the past had haunted him. People had long memories and cruel tongues, and as a result he was a child full of anger and fierce defiance, seeming all the more impotent because he had been so small and so young. I had secretly pitied Robert even whilst he had sworn he would be a knight one day and kill anyone who slighted his family name.
‘When did you meet him?’ Mother was like a terrier after a rat when she saw that smile.
‘I met him years ago at Kenninghall,’ I said. ‘And once, I think, when the Duchess took us up to London.’
My mother nodded. I felt the tension ease from her a little. Perhaps she believed that no harm could have come of a meeting between children under the auspices of the Duchess of Norfolk.
‘You were very young then,’ she said. ‘I wonder why he remembers you.’
‘I was kind to him, I suppose,’ I said. ‘The other children were not.’ I remembered dancing with Robert at some childish party at court; Lady Anne Tilney had scorned his proffered hand for the galliard and so he had turned to me as second choice. We must have been all of twelve years old and he had spent the entire dance glaring at Lady Anne and stepping on my toes.
‘They may be regretting that unkindness,’ my mother said, with another of her wry smiles, ‘now that his father rivals the Duke of Somerset for the King’s favour.’
A shiver tickled my spine like the ghosts of the past stirring again. I wondered whether Robert’s father had learned nothing from his own father’s fate. Why men chose to climb so high when the risk was so great was a matter on which I had no understanding. It was as though they enjoyed tempting the gods with their recklessness and repeating history over and again.
Mother’s mind had already moved on to more practical matters, however. ‘Wear your blue gown,’ she instructed, ‘the one that matches your eyes. Since you and I are to be present we shall at least make your father proud even if we will be bored to distraction by talk of military strategy.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I said dutifully.
‘I’ll send Joan to you,’ Mother said. ‘And don’t lean out of the window to see what goes on outside whilst you dress.’ Seeing my blank look, she said with a hint of irritation: ‘Did I not mention but a moment ago that there is an army coming? There will be nigh on ten thousand men encamped in the fields beyond the orchard. I do not want you to become their entertainment.’
‘No, Mother,’ I said. I thought it would be easy enough to steal a look without being seen. The encampments, the fires, the horses, the food cooking, the scents and the noise… Stanfield Manor would be abuzz and it was impossible not to feel the expectancy in the air.
‘Remember that soldiers are dangerous, Amy,’ Mother added sharply, ‘commoner or nobleman alike.’
It seemed excessive to say ‘yes, Mother’ again, so I nodded obediently and hurried away to the stairs, aware that her watchful gaze was pinned upon my back. There was nothing to dispute in what she had said, nor in those things that she had not put into words. I might be young but I knew what she meant about soldiers and the way in which they snatched at pleasure with both hands in case it was their last chance. I did not want to be that prize, seized for a moment’s gratification then cast aside.
Even so, I thought about Robert Dudley whilst Joan helped me to dress and started to plait my long fair hair. She was slow and methodical, her tongue sticking from the corner of her mouth as her fingers worked. My thoughts, my dreams were the opposite of slow, skipping lightly from one place to the next. My memories of Robert were vague but that did not stop me from pinning my dreams on him. What sort of a man had he become? Was he handsome? Would he like me? Even as I counselled myself to hold fast to my common sense, I could feel excitement bubbling through me.
‘Keep still, Mistress Amy,’ Joan tutted as the braids slid from her fingers. ‘You are hopping about like a hen on a thorn.’
It seemed to take her an age of pinning and smoothing and straightening but finally she was done and I flew down the stairs. Yet when I reached the door of the hall I hesitated, stung by a sudden shyness at the sound of voices within. I smoothed my skirts, patted my coif, took a deep breath, but my feet seemed fixed to the flagstones. I could not move.
‘Amy!’ Mother appeared in the doorway, voice as sharp as a needle. ‘Why are you loitering there?’ Her gaze darted past me, looking for trouble. When she found none, it did not seem to appease her.