The Red Knight

Lady Mary directed the laying out of the food. Spontaneity, with Desiderata, often involved careful preparation and a great deal of work. Usually by Lady Mary.

Lady Rebecca Almspend, the Queen’s bookish secretary, sat behind her, ticking items off as they were unpacked. They were old allies and childhood friends.

Rebecca kicked off her shoes. ‘It is spring,’ she said.

Mary smiled at her. ‘When a young man’s fancy turns to war,’ she said.

‘Too true. They’ve left us for the first foe in the field, and that is enough to turn any girl’s head.’ Rebecca frowned. ‘I think he’ll offer for me. I thought he might before he left.’

Mary pursed her lips, looking at the two stone jars of marmalade – the Queen’s favourite. She could eat a great deal of marmalade. ‘Did we really bring just two jars?’

‘Honestly, Mary, the stuff costs the earth – oranges from the south? White sugar from the Islands?’ Rebecca tossed her head. ‘She’ll have no teeth when she’s thirty.’

‘No one would notice,’ Mary said.

‘Mary!’ Rebecca was appalled to find her friend weeping. She slipped off her stump, and threw her arms around Mary. She was widely known as sensible, which seemed to mean that all of them could cry on her shoulders. In this case, she stood with her stylus in one hand and her wax tablet in the other, clutched to her friend’s back, feeling a little foolish.

‘He left without so much as a good-bye!’ Mary said, fiercely. ‘Your hillman loves you, Becca! He’ll come back for you, or die in the attempt. Murien only loves himself, and I was a fool-’

‘There, there,’ Rebecca muttered. Over by the willows that lined the river, there was laughter – the flash of the queen’s hair.

‘Look, she has her hair down,’ Mary said.

They both laughed. The Queen tended to let her hair down out of its coif at the least excuse.

Rebecca smiled. ‘If I had her hair, I’d let it down too.’

Mary nodded. She stepped back from their embrace and wiped her eyes. ‘I think we’re ready. Tell the servants to start laying plates.’ She looked around at the trees, the angle of the sun. It was beautiful – as spring-like as could be imagined, like a scene in an illustrated manuscript.

At her word, Mastiff, the Queen’s man, stepped out from behind a tree and bowed. He snapped his fingers, and a dozen men and women moved with the precision of dancers to lay out the meal. They were done in the time it would take a man to run to the river.

Mary touched Mastiff’s elbow. ‘You work miracles, as always, ser,’ she said.

He bowed, obviously pleased. ‘You are too kind, my lady,’ he said. He and his team melted back into the trees, and Mary summoned the Queen and her friends to lunch.

The Queen was barefoot, lightly clad in green with her hair free down her back and her arms bare in the new sun. Some of the young men were fully clad, but two of them, both knights, wore simple homespun tunics and no leggings, like peasants or working men. The Queen seemed to be favouring them – and the short tunics and bare legs did show off their muscles to good advantage.

When they sat on the new grass to eat, though, they had to fold their legs very carefully. This made Mary smile, and meet Rebecca’s eye who grinned and looked away.

Lady Emmota, the youngest of the Queen’s lady’s, had her hair down as well, and when the Queen sat, Emmota sat next to her and the Queen pulled the girl to lie down with her head in the Queen’s lap. The Queen stroked her hair. The young girl gazed at her with adoration.

Most of the young knights were unable to eat.

‘Where is my lord?’ asked the Queen.

Lady Mary curtsied. ‘And it please you, he is hunting, and said he might join us for lunch if the hart allowed him.’

The Queen smiled. ‘I am second mistress to Artemis,’ she said.

Emmota smiled up at her. ‘Let him have his blood,’ she said.

Their eyes met.

Later, while the young men fenced with their swords and bucklers, the women danced. They wove wreathes of flowers, and danced in rings, and sang old songs that were not favoured by the church. As the sun began to sink, they were flushed, and warm, down to their kirtles, and now all of them were barefoot in the grass, and the knights were calling for wine.

The Queen laughed. ‘Messires,’ she said, ‘none of my ladies will get a green back for the quality of your fencing, however much we ladies may be affected by the rising sap of spring.’

The women all laughed. Some of the men looked crestfallen. A few – the best of them – laughed at themselves and their fellows alike, but none of them answered her.

Rebecca put a hand on Mary’s bare arm. ‘I miss him too,’ she said. ‘Gawin would have given her a witty answer.’

Mary laughed. ‘I love her – and she’s right to speak. Emota will fall into the first strong arms that will have her. It’s all the light and the warmth and the bare legs.’ At a motion from the Queen, she walked over and offered a hand to draw the Queen to her feet. The Queen kissed her lady.

‘You arrange everything so well, Mary.’ She took her hands. ‘I hope you had a pleasant day as well.’