Читать книгу The Agincourt Bride онлайн | страница 9

The grand arched entrance with its sweeping stone staircase was not for the likes of us, of course. We were led to a ground-level door alongside a separate stone building from which belched forth rich cooking smells. The heat of a busy kitchen blasted us as we were brought to a halt by a procession of porters ferrying huge, loaded dishes up a spiral tower-stair to the main floor of the mansion. The queen’s household was dining in the great hall and it was several minutes before we were beckoned to follow the final steaming pudding up the worn steps to a servery, where carvers were swiftly and skilfully dissecting roasted meats into portions. The aroma was mouth-watering even to my grief-dulled senses and my mother’s long, appreciative sniffs were audible above the noise made by the hungry gathering on the other side of the screen that hid us and the carvers from them.

We were ushered through a door beyond the servery and down a narrow passage into a small, cold chamber lit only by a narrow shaft of daylight from a high unglazed window. Here our escort brusquely informed us that we should wait and then departed, closing the door behind him.

‘What are we doing here?’ I hissed to my mother, stirred at last into showing some interest in our circumstances.

‘Not being fed, obviously,’ she complained. ‘You would have thought they could spare a bit of pudding!’ Huffily she sank onto a solitary bench under the window and arranged her grey woollen skirt neatly around her. ‘Come and sit down, Mette, and compose yourself. You want to make a good impression.’

Gingerly I lowered myself onto the bench beside her. It was not many hours since I’d given birth and to sit down was painful. ‘Impression?’ I echoed. ‘Who should I make an impression on?’ My breasts throbbed and I was becoming distinctly nervous.

‘On Madame la Bonne, who runs the royal nursery.’ Now that she had got me here, my mother risked divulging more information. ‘She needs a wet-nurse for the new princess.’

‘A wet-nurse!’ I echoed, wincing as I recoiled along the hard bench. ‘You mean … no, Ma! I cannot give suck to a royal baby.’