The Shadow Queen: The Sunday Times bestselling book – a must read for Summer 2018

A servant, opening the door with well-worn deference, bowed briefly and generally to the crowded chamber. For the most part, inured to such interruptions and intent on our own pursuits, we, the youthful but high-bred occupants, ignored him. There was music, there were books and counter games. There were small animals to be teased and cosseted. The boys were clustered round a longbow in need of repair. We, my sister and female cousins, were draping a length of luridly-vermillion embroidered cloth, discovered in one of the King’s Twelfth Night dressing-up coffers, around the short figure of Princess Isabella.

The servant cleared his throat, to no avail.

Who were we, to ignore what would be a summons from some higher authority for at least one of us? We, as we were all supremely well aware, were of the highest blood in the land.

Here in my company, or I in theirs if rank was of supreme importance rather than age, were the royal daughters of King Edward the Third and Queen Philippa, the princesses Isabella and Joan. There, his head bent over a harness, working with ferocious attention at a detached buckle, was William Montagu, heir to the Earl of Salisbury who was at this moment prisoner in France, captured during the French wars. The vivid, dark-haired lad with the bow in his hand, reattaching the bowstring with some skill, was Edward of Woodstock, the heir to the throne, who should have been engaged with the Master at Arms in polishing his military skills but had escaped to talk battles and horses with William Montagu and my brother John, Earl of Kent, for all his youth. And then there was Lionel, another prince of the King and Queen’s growing family, still barely two years and under the close eye of his nurse as he staggered on unsteady legs after his magnificent brother.

The servant, undeterred by our lack of response – for which Queen Philippa would have taken us to task, for nothing excused ill manners in her book of how royal children should be raised – allowed his eye to discover and rest on me. I was sitting on the floor, passing pins to my elder sister Margaret with instructions on how to fit the damask bodice as becomingly as possible to Isabella’s flat chest.

The servant loomed over me. I looked up.

‘A message for you, Mistress Joan. Your lady mother, the Countess of Kent, has arrived. She wishes to see you. If you will present yourself at her chamber.’ When I did not stir, other than to hand another pin to sister Margaret, he added. ‘Now, mistress, not some time at your convenience. It might be best.’

So my mother was at Windsor, and it was implied, by being graced by her full title rather than the simpler Lady Margaret, in a hasty mood. My mother travelled often, so much so that I rarely saw her. So why had I been summoned, selected out of her three offspring? No, it would not be politic to waste time. My mother had a temper born out of disappointment and past humiliations brought on by an absent and horribly dead husband.

So I stood, pushing the pot of pins into Margaret’s hands. Spurred by curiosity, Isabella detached herself and, trailing velvet damask, accompanied me to the door, pulling at my sleeve when I did not moderate my step.

‘What do you suppose she wants?’ Isabella, four years younger than I, was considered precocious for her age. ‘Have you committed some sin? If you have, I don’t know about it.’ Her eyes gleamed with the prospect of some conspiracy. ‘Tell me!’

I had no intention of telling Isabella, an inveterate gossip, anything at all.

‘I will soon know,’ I said.

I looked down at my side-less surcoat, pulling it and the sleeves of my undergown into order. I had not dressed with any care that morning, nor had sitting on the floor improved my skirts that were now creased. My mother had an eye for appearances and she was not tolerant. If it was a matter of sin, better not to earn her displeasure before she took issue with me.

‘Let me.’ Accepting my brusqueness as normal in the circumstances, Isabella stretched up and straightened my coif, tucked my hair almost out of sight before picking the evidence of fur from the small grey cat from my bodice. ‘That’s better, although red does not become you.’

‘Better than vermillion becomes you, cousin.’ I became aware that she was looking at me, lips pursed in thought. ‘What?’

‘Did you go to Mass this morning?’

‘No.’ She knew very well that I had not.

‘Then this might be useful.’

Shrugging aside the damask so that it fell in a heap to the floor, from her bodice Isabella unpinned a jewelled reliquary, far too fine for so young a girl to be wearing but Isabella had insisted. It was hers to wear, given at her birth by an indulgent father who saw no wrong in his wayward daughter. It contained, as we all knew since repeated frequently to impress, the tears of the Blessed Virgin herself.

Isabella’s bright face was lit with intrigue.

‘I think you should wear this.’

‘I am honoured.’

And I was. Isabella did not give possessions willingly. She transferred it from her bodice to mine, where the gold glittered impressively as I moved.

‘But why would I need a symbol of such power?’ I asked.

‘It will keep you safe from sin.’

‘I have committed no sin.’

‘No, but your lady mother might think that you have.’ She might indeed. I kissed Isabella’s cheek.

‘But take good care of it,’ she admonished. ‘I want it back when this interview is over.’

‘Quickly if you will, mistress.’ The servant, breathing heavily, was still waiting in the doorway.

Following the servant to my mother’s distant chamber, I still found the opportunity to linger on the way. I disliked being beckoned in such a manner when she had not seen me for more months than I could recall. She would not have demanded my brother’s presence so forcefully, but then, to her mind, sons were of far greater value than daughters.

I stopped by a window, to press my cheek against the cold glass, a luxury on which the King had just spent a fortune in an attempt to ward off the draughts. Since my veils fluttered a little, it had not been a great success.

‘Mistress!’

‘I am coming!’

I entered her chamber to curtsey with practised precision and innate grace, but if I had intended to make a good impression, I failed.

‘Joan. At last.’

My mother. Margaret, Lady Wake, Lady of Badenoch, Dowager Countess of Kent.

Tall and spare, my mother gave off the air of a determinedly held widowhood. Her close-fitting gown was rich but sombre in layers of grey and black and the deep purple of autumn blackberries. Her veil was richly embroidered but not one curl of hair was allowed to show beneath the wimple that she still embraced despite the dictates of fashion. Her face was long, the skin finely grained, but there was no evidence of any humour or pleasure in her existence. Indeed, her stark solemnity with its close folding of her lips was intimidating, as was the heavy musk of her perfume as the satin of her skirts rustled into stillness. She looked older than her years. She had barely more than forty to her lifespan.

‘I expected you a half hour ago.’

An exaggeration, of course. My mother did not touch me. The Queen, who had absorbed me into the royal nursery when I was no more than two years old and had supervised my upbringing ever since, would have folded me into her arms after such a lengthy absence. Queen Philippa would have smiled at me.

‘I came as quickly as I could, madam. I was reading with the princesses.’ The lie came easily, slipping off my tongue. I had lied before. ‘Our tutor wished us to have knowledge of the life of St. Ursula who is the patron saint of young virgins, such as we are. We will be celebrating her Feast Day on the twenty-first day of October with a masque before the court. We were commended on our reading.’

My mother had not led the easiest of lives. Some would say a life full of degradation. Perhaps she deserved my pity; when a woman’s husband was executed for treason, and that in disgraceful circumstances, and she within weeks of producing a child and under arrest for her husband’s sins, she will not feel blessed. And then there was the resulting loss of lands and titles and pre-eminence as a consequence of that husband being declared traitor. My mother had lived under suspicion because she had set her own hand to some of the treasonous letters.

But that was all in the past. Since a royal pardon had drained away a portion of her guilt but not all of her bitterness, my mother had dedicated her life to the reinstatement of her family. A laudable objective, but sometimes I found it difficult to experience any emotion but resentment.

As now.

‘That is good. I approve of St. Ursula,’ she said, still seated in the high-backed chair beside the window where the light fell on her unflattering hair-confinement. ‘I hope that you are a credit to the Queen and to your governors. Do you take heed of all your lessons?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Do you observe your daily prayers? Do you attend Mass?’ ‘Yes, madam.’

Standing now, she approached, to walk in a circle around me, before stopping to lift my chin with her fingers. I was not sure that she believed me, but her reply was complimentary.

‘Then you are everything I had hoped for in a daughter.’

Released, abruptly, I lowered my eyes.

‘I hope so, madam.’