Читать книгу The Agincourt Bride онлайн | страница 55

I stumbled down the stairs in a state of disbelief. Of course I had considered it possible that Catherine might not remember me after such a long period of separation, bearing in mind how young she had been when we parted, but such an evident change in character was a tragedy. I felt as if my heart was being squeezed in a giant fist.

The ante-room where I had been ordered to wait was on the ground floor, off the main entrance. It had been a bare, cold room when Louis and Jean used to have their lessons there, but now there was a brazier to warm the draught from the door and a tapestry on one wall depicting a woodland scene, with benches arranged beneath. No candles had been lit however and only a few dusty beams of twilight slanted in through the narrow windows.

Such gloom echoed my mood. Angrily dashing tears from my eyes, I cursed myself for being so foolish as to believe that my former nursling would automatically greet me with warmth and joy. She had been sent to Poissy to be educated as a princess and royalty was used to receiving personal service from noble retainers. Courtiers fought amongst themselves for the honour of pulling on the sovereign’s hose or keeping the keys to his coffers. I knew that my duty as a menial servant was to be invisible, performing the grubbier tasks in my lady’s absence and, if caught in the act, turning my face to the wall and scuttling out of sight. To gaze directly at a princess and expect her to remember the affection she had shared with me as a child, had been to defy the social order. I might harbour a lifetime’s love for the tiny babe I had suckled, but there was no rule which said she must return the sentiment. Quite the reverse, in fact. She was far more likely to have closed her mind to her neglected past and embraced her glittering present. Downcast, I nursed my injured feelings and contemplated a future which seemed once more joyless and bleak.

‘Mette? It is Mette, is it not?’

I’d been huddled on a bench in the far corner of the ante-room, too wrapped in misery to look up when I heard someone open the door. Then the low, sweet voice startled me to my feet with such an acute pang of recognition it made my very bones tingle. A hooded figure stood hesitating in the doorway, the face in shadow.