Free We Speak No Treason Vol 1 by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

wench. But her Grace’s mother was far from pleased by her evening’s entertainment.’
    I choked on laughter. I pictured the old woman glowering on her knees, while Elizabeth, regal in her chair of estate, looked loftily over her head. There was probably a grain of truth in what Agace said. Although her husband was Constable of England, and, it was said, a bounty of treasure flowed constantly into her children’s lap, Jacquetta still occasionally would rule a smaller realm. I took the tray in my hands.
    ‘Yes, you bear it up to my lady,’ said Agace, turning to warm her rump. ‘Great idle wench,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘Sixteen, are you? And not betrothed? You should be professed as a nun.’
    ‘What?’ I said, lusting to kick her fat legs. ‘This minute? While my lady of Bedford still needs me?’
    ‘Yea,’ she said grudgingly, ‘she seems to like your touch with her hair and finery. Outrageous vanities, she has.’ She pursed a pious mouth.
    ‘She minds me of our one-time mistress,’ I said, ‘when she was awaiting a visit from Ned... from the King.’
    Agace tittered coarsely. ‘Mayhap she has thoughts of a leman, too. To while away time while the Earl is busy with affairs of state.’
    Once I would have laughed. Now I was shocked.
    ‘Jesu, mercy!’ I cried. ‘At her age? ’Twould be a shameful thing!’
    ‘Seemingly not.’ Agace winked. ‘The Queen’s brother John wed the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and she is nigh eighty years, and he nineteen. They call it the devil’s marriage.’
    ‘He cannot love her,’ I said, sickened at the thought.
    ‘I always vowed you were lack-wit,’ said Agace with contempt. ‘What has love to do with it, I ask you? Or with any of the marriages of the Queen’s kin? The Duchess of Norfolk is passing rich, and of ancient line. Likewise the Duke of Exeter’s daughter, lately wedded to young Thomas.’
    Little Tom, who played with me, Hoodman Blind. A wedded husband.
    ‘I trow my lord of Warwick was ill-pleased with that,’ Agace went on cunningly. ‘The maid was promised to his nephew.’
    Here was a name to play soldiers with. The great Warwick. The man who had saved England by the sword. The King’s strongest ally, who had set him on the throne.
    ‘Yea, Warwick,’ said Agace, watching me. ‘He who roasts six oxen for a breakfast, then throws his doors wide to all. Did you know? He welcomes men, strangers and knaves from off the street, to take as much meat as their dagger can bear away.’
    She laid a spoon beside the platter. ‘Now, carry this up to my lady, and pray it’s to her taste!’
    What should I call her, I wondered, mounting the draughty stairs. Countess? Dowager Duchess? Among all the riches Edward had showered on his Queen’s kin lay an earldom for her father, Sir Richard Woodville. I tapped and entered Jacquetta’s chamber. The air was pungent from reeking herbal potions. Gyb, white-muzzled now, added his rank odour from the centre of the bed,
    ‘Try to take a little, Madame,’ I said, proffering the meal.
    The Dowager Duchess sneezed, and glared at me.
    ‘Her Grace was right,’ she croaked. ‘This is a plaguey chill place for such as I to spend the holy season of Christmas.’
    I made her a curtsey, looking under my lashes at the ill-tempered old face. White bristles, like those of Gyb, sprouted on her chin.
    ‘The court would be warmer, Madame,’ I agreed. I picked up her satin robe from the floor and hung it on a hook. I waited patiently while she spooned a mouthful of Agace’s egg dish between her lips. As I expected, she spat it out into the bowl, like a cross-grained infant.
    ‘I cannot eat this pap,’ she declared.
    Fighting an urge to throw the tray, I sympathetically smiled. ‘They have wondrous cooks at court, have they not, my lady?’ I murmured. ‘I hear that the subtleties are fashioned so cunningly that one can hardly bear to eat them. Yet when they are tasted one cannot leave their enjoyment.’
    ‘Yes,