They passed through the main receiving room of the queen’s apartments and into the queen’s privy chamber where Katherine lay sprawled gracefully upon an upholstered settee. Her belly was greatly distended. The queen’s eyes lit up as Rosamund approached, and she held out her beringed hand in greeting, a smile on her lips.
Rosamund caught up the queen’s hand and kissed it, curtsying as she did so. Behind her Annie curtsied as well.
“My friend,” the queen said in her accented English. “How good it is to see you once again! I am happy to have you here. Especially now. I have assigned you a chore, Rosamund of Friarsgate. I do not forget how beautiful your hand was when you wrote me. You will write my correspondence for me while my secretaries are forbidden my presence. I allow no idleness among my women.”
“I am honored to serve you, your majesty,” Rosamund replied.
“You are making your home at Bolton House?” the queen asked.
Rosamund nodded. “My cousin Tom is a kind and generous fellow, your majesty. I cannot remember ever being treated so well.”
“You will have a pallet here in my apartments while you are with me and on duty,” the queen explained. “And you will take your turn sleeping in my chamber on the trundle. Your servant is permitted to go in and out of my apartments and the palace, to fetch whatever you may need. We are all removing to Richmond in another day, I am glad to say. I realize you know none of my ladies, so you may want to go into the dayroom and be introduced.”
She was dismissed. Rosamund curtsied once again and backed from the room, Annie behind her, wide-eyed and practically speechless. The queen had eight ladies-in-waiting. There were seven countesses among them. The wives of the Earls of Suffolk, Oxford, Surrey, Essex, Shrewsbury, Derby, and Salisbury, as well as Lady Guildford, the mother of two of the king’s jousting partners. The queen had thirty maids-of-honor and among them some of the most illustrious names in England, but also Maria de Salinas and her sister Inez. It was Inez who introduced Rosamund to these women. The queen’s ladies were pleasant, but there was no great warmth in their welcome, and Rosamund once again felt out of place.
“Do not pay any attention to them,” Inez de Salinas said softly. Her brown eyes were understanding and sympathetic. “They are all much taken with themselves and spend their days, when they are not in the queen’s presence, comparing their pedigrees. They enjoy being superior to one another.”
“I am hardly superior to anyone,” Rosamund said matter-of-factly.
Inez laughed. “Actually your presence acts to prick their consciences,” she explained. “The queen has not been shy about telling them how you were her champion from your manor in faraway Cumbria. How your kindness often meant the difference between poverty and complete penury for her. They felt guilty because any of them might have helped her, but they were all so afraid of doing the wrong thing, of offending the old king, of embarrassing their families, that they ignored my poor mistress and left her to her tribulations.
“And then there was you, Rosamund Bolton. It did not matter to you what anyone might say or think. You did whatever you could do to help my mistress because it was the right thing and because you believed in her. You did what any good Christian woman would do. They, these superior English miladies, did not. They will avoid you and ignore you for the most part, though some might be kind; others will speak harshly to you when they think the queen is not about to hear. You must not be disheartened.”
“I know that I do not belong here,” Rosamund replied. “I came because the queen asked me. Thank God I have my cousin!”
“Sir Thomas Bolton?” Inez laughed again. “He is the most amusing fellow. Of course there are those who say scurrilous things about him.”
“Much is said, I am certain,” Rosamund answered, “but what has been proven against my cousin? Nothing. The court is so rife with gossip. I remember it well from my youth when the Princess Margaret knew everything said and the truth of it all. One cannot help but listen, but it is not necessary having listened, to believe.”
“You are the most practical Englishwoman I have ever met,” Inez told her.
“That is because I am a country woman, and not a great lady,” Rosamund reminded her.
Inez presented Rosamund to the queen’s other ladies. Most barely looked at her. One young woman said, “Oh, yes, the shepherdess from the north.” Some of the younger girls laughed meanly, but then Lady Percy said, “Only someone very ignorant would insult the lady of Friarsgate, who is the queen’s friend, Mistress Blount. Sir Owein Meredith’s widow, and heiress in her own right, holds some of the finest and most beautiful lands in all of Cumbria. And if her wealth comes from sheep, why would you lay scorn on her for it? Much of this country’s wealth comes from sheep, as any educated person could tell you. I also happen to know from my relation, Lady Neville, that Friarsgate raises some particularly fine warhorses.” She turned to Rosamund. “You will forgive Mistress Blount, my lady?”
“Ignorance is best corrected, not forgiven,” Rosamund replied.
Some of the ladies gasped, but Lady Percy laughed. “Well said, Rosamund Bolton!”
“You have made a good beginning,” Inez whispered, “but I think you may have made an enemy of Gertrude Blount. Still, she is not that important in the scheme of things, and it is obvious that Lady Percy approves of you.”
So Rosamund joined the queen’s ladies, and two days later the court decamped Westminster, to everyone’s relief, and moved back upriver from London to Richmond. As the ladies jostled against one another to find space in the various transports, Rosamund offered Inez de Salinas and her maid passage in her own little barge. Inez was delighted not to have to travel upriver in cramped quarters.
“You have your own barge?” She was surprised.
“A gift from my cousin Tom. He feels I should have my own transport while I am at court,” Rosamund told her as the four women settled themselves in the little cabin.
It was a chilly day, and the skies were gray and threatening. The cabin of the barge, however, was warm, for beneath the bench seats were small flat braziers of hot coals. The two bargemen bent their backs as they rowed with the incoming tide, keeping pace with the rest of the royal travelers. When they reached Richmond, Rosamund saw the king for the first time in over seven years. She was very surprised, for Henry Tudor was probably the handsomest man she had ever seen in all of her life.
He stood six feet four inches in height. His hair was a brilliant red-gold. She did not remember his hair being so bright before, but of course it must have been. She had not been interested in him because in those days he was but a lad. She was his senior by three years. Now, however, he was a man. And what a marvelous man he was! she thought, blushing at the boldness of her own thoughts. He swung about to look at the barges landing, and she would have sworn that for the briefest of moments his blue eyes met her amber ones. But then he turned away, laughing with his companions at something that had been said.
“We shall not be able to partake in the Twelve Days of Christmas festivities,” Inez said sadly, “but once our mistress the queen has been delivered of her child there will be great celebrations.”
“My husband is dead but a few months,” Rosamund told her. “I am not of a mind to celebrate, though they will at Friarsgate for the sake of my daughters. Still it will be a sad celebration with their father dead and in his grave, and their mother away at court.”
“I will go home to London on Christmas Day to be with my husband,” Inez said. “He is a minor functionary for King Ferdinand. I know he misses Spain, but like me he feels we must remain loyal to Queen Katherine.”
“Are you older than your sister?” Rosamund asked.
