“Nonsense,” he replied. “It is simply not in your nature, dear girl.”
“Have you seen my costume, Philippa?” Elizabeth wanted to know.
“I have,” her sister answered. “It is quite outrageous, but then it is also quite clever, and ’twill suit you. You are mocking the courtiers who would mock you. The king will very much enjoy the jest. Mother will too, when you tell her.”
“I have never been ashamed of who I am,” Elizabeth said quietly.
“Nor should you be, dear girl,” Lord Cambridge said.
They left her, and Nancy brought Elizabeth’s breakfast to her bedchamber. The tray contained a little dish of fresh strawberries with clotted Devon cream, a plate of Cook’s wonderfully short scones, butter, honey, and watered wine. Although she would have eaten eggs and meat had they been offered to her, Elizabeth knew Cook was considering her very fitted costume. She ate slowly, enjoying her food, and putting off for just a short while more the time when she would have to be dressed and at Greenwich. When she had finally satisfied her appetite enough, Nancy had her little tub ready. “How am I to wear my hair with the costume?” she asked her young tiring woman. “I don’t think it should be down, do you?”
“I’m going to contain it in a gold mesh snood,” Nancy said. “You don’t want your lovely hair detracting from your wonderful costume.”
Elizabeth quickly bathed, drying herself with a large cloth that had been warming before the fire in her bedchamber hearth. Then with Nancy’s help she began to dress. First she sat and drew on her creamy white silk stockings. Next came a man’s short silk chemise. She pulled on the white breeches, which were slashed, with tufts of lamb’s wool peeking from the slashings. A sleeveless jerkin of curly lambskin went over the chemise, followed by an open-fronted white silk doublet with large puffed sleeves. Like the breeches the sleeves were slashed, with tufts of lamb’s wool poking through, and the doublet itself sewn with crystal beads. She sat briefly so that Nancy might gather her hair and tuck it into a gold mesh snood. The girl then placed several little pink-and-white-striped bows in Elizabeth’s hair. Then the tiring woman knelt to place black leather shoes, cut to resemble sheep’s hooves, onto her mistress’s feet. Elizabeth stood up.
“Oh, mistress!” Nancy exclaimed. “It is so clever.”
“You have the masque?” Elizabeth asked.
Nancy nodded, handing it to her.
Elizabeth held the masque of a pretty lamb’s head to her face by its long gilded stick. “What do you think?” she asked Nancy.
“I think”—Nancy giggled—“that you would frighten the flock if you appeared in the meadow that way; but today you will delight the king and his court with your cleverness. Shall I go and see if Lord Cambridge is ready?”
Elizabeth nodded. “And her ladyship too,” she said, turning about to peer at herself in the mirror. The costume was perfect, and she smiled. Today’s fete was in her honor. Elizabeth Meredith, a simple country heiress from the north. Not a noblewoman of impressive lineage with a great name, but the daughter of one of King Henry VII’s loyal knights. She wondered what the father she did not remember would think of it all. When Nancy returned to say that both her ladyship and Lord Cambridge awaited her, Elizabeth moved downstairs to the foyer of the house to join them.
“Dear girl! It is even better than I had anticipated,” Thomas Bolton crowed, delighted. He was quite splendid himself in a matching costume of black silk and black sheep’s wool. His doublet was also decorated with crystals, and he carried a silver masque. On either side of his head had been affixed curved ram’s horns.
“Philippa,” Elizabeth said, looking at her sister, who was quite beautiful in a gown of blue-green iridescent silk sewn with crystals. The silk brocade fabric of the underskirt looked like a peacock’s tail in design, and she carried a masque of peacock feathers. Her glorious auburn hair was loose about her shoulders.
“It is daring,” she said in a worried tone. “Your legs are most prominent, sister. I wonder if you should show them so boldly.” Then she laughed at herself. “But no matter! There is no gentleman here for you, so it means little. And the Friarsgate heiress shall certainly be remembered for her wit and her ability to play a clever jest on the court. Most will wear naught but masques, but others will be gloriously costumed.”
“Then we are ready,” Lord Cambridge said.
Together they walked through the house’s garden and the wood beyond the brick wall. They exited onto the lawns of the palace and made their way to where the king sat with Anne Boleyn by his side. She was garbed in his favorite Tudor green, and carried a little mask representing a frog. As they had previously planned, Philippa moved ahead of her sister and uncle. Stopping before the king, she curtseyed low, smiling as she did, although she thought her face would crack at greeting not just the king, but the Boleyn wench as well.
“My liege,” she said politely, drawing her masque away just long enough for him to see her.
“Lovely!” the king enthused. “You are a perfect peacock, Countess.”
Philippa curtseyed again, then stepped gracefully aside to allow the king a view of her sister and uncle. Both bowed, and then, as they had decided earlier, Thomas Bolton and Elizabeth Meredith danced a gay little dance all the way to the foot of the king’s chair, where they bowed once again, drawing their masques aside so he might see them.
“We greet your majesty and Mistress Anne,” Lord Cambridge said.
“Bravo! Bravo!” the king cried, clapping his hands delightedly. “How clever you are! Never have I seen such costumes. They are quite marvelous!”
“We hoped it would please your majesty,” Elizabeth said.
“You thumb your nose at the court, Mistress Meredith.” The king chuckled.
“I simply wish to point out that I am what I am,” Elizabeth returned wickedly.
“By the rood,” the king said, “’tis a pity there is no man at this court worthy of you, Elizabeth Meredith. If there were I would make the match myself, but you are your mother’s child, more so than your sisters, I see. You must return home to find your fate.”
“I am, as my mother before me, your majesty’s most humble servant,” Elizabeth said, making an elegant leg as she bowed again.
Henry Tudor roared with laugher. “Like your mother, only when it suits you, I suspect, Mistress Meredith.”
