Like Fire and Powder (Violent Delights Book 18)

Chapter 3: the engagement according to Elizabeth York

I already hate him.
If it weren't enough that he's a usurper who murdered my uncle. But he's a nobody. From nowhere of no proper noble birth. I was raised my parents' perfect, beautiful princess, for the finest auction in all of Europe. And now I'm being sold to a bandit that waylaid us upon the roadside. More than that, he has no reports even of my beauty to flatter my vanity, he is marrying me for name and excepting to get a passable woman along with it. I didn't enjoy being groomed as nothing but a very pretty pawn in my parents endless political games. But. At least if it were some prince or even old king in the middle of Europe, at least he'd have had to pay a high price for me. Some deal something of that nature at least my marriage bed bought something. Now it's being taken at sword point. So I was wrong I'm worse than a common whore, common whores get paid for their service to the crown. My father's got paid very well, said with much love they were quite kind to me.
"There, you look lovely," my mother says, fussing with my fine deep blue cloak. Just the color that sets off my eyes.
"Why does it matter when the deal is done as you said— why in Jesus' name should I look lovely for him? Do you help thieves load their own carts and hitch up your stolen horses? You don't. Cecily if you can find a way to make me look disgusting in the next seventeen seconds I'll be eternally grateful," I say, turning to my sister.
"I can do it, hold still," this is why Cecily is my best friend. She punches me squarely in the face with three generations of repressed York wrath.
Our mother actually screams despite not being the one punched in the face. This general commotion and the varying reactions completely confuses the scruffy Tudor guards who rush up.
"Family thing, we're all fine," I say to them, very nicely, as they crowd around making sure my mother is all right. I've known my mother every single one of my nineteen years and she has not once been all right.
"Your nose is bleeding," Cecily says, shaking out her fist, flushed with triumph as our mother restrains her.
"Is it? You're marvelous," I say, untucking stray curls.
"You are both going to be the end of this family," our mother predicts.
"It's only York blood mother, what did you expect?" I ask, biting my lip till it bleeds. Then I wipe that smile from my face. I know it's like my father's rogue smile, endlessly charming. I don't want to be charming.
"Don't you dare glare so help me god, you think I won't lash you personally and I will," our mother hisses, as we're escorted into the palace.
I glare.
Escorted into the palace is an odd turn of phrase when this, Windsor, is in fact my childhood home. Home isn't a proper word. Childhood prison. And now it shall be my womanhood prison isn't life strange? Not really. I was always going to be bought and sold but this is low. Even for a girl a like me.
The halls are lined with soldiers, both french, and scruffy Welsh, likely men for hire. Richard's men are turned out and probably fled. And I take it by the wenches and the smell of ale his strict 'no whores everyone actually attend mass and don't sleep through it' policies have been swiftly over ruled. I'm going to start anticipating little perks as an example I can now sleep through mass once more. And if anyone pinches me I'll completely scream. They can't stop me. I will not go quietly.
"Stop glaring. I don't know why either of you are so sullen. You're lucky they're not marrying you to Jasper Tudor," our mother hisses.
"Is he real? I thought you were making him up to scare us is he not dead? Daddy said he'd killed him," Cecily says.
"Yes he's real, he's very real," our mother practically snarls. This is nearly funny she'd have lashed us both by now if she could but she can't. It won't be funny when they put us in our rooms.
"Actually Jasper Tudor would likely poison me on my wedding night, or strangle me with his stockings, or snap my neck, in which case I would be dead, and therefore no longer alive, and therefore in a much better situation than I am in now for dead I shall enter heaven. I've confessed and I don't sin anyway. In heaven I'd be with the angels here in hell I'm living with the Tudors. So, no, mother, that would be improvement on my current situation," I say, pleasantly.
"You're very dramatic," my mother says, very tired of me.
"I'm in a very dramatic situation," I point out. She thinks I have my father's temper.
"You have your father's temper," she sighs.
It's why I exhaust her.
"It's why you exhaust me. I did think when he kept giving me girls one of you would have a lick of sense."
"I have plenty of sense. I just do different things with it than most people," I say, making Cecily laugh.
Thankfully our mother lacks time for a smart remark to that, for we have reached the main hall. I used to spend every Christmas here, playing with my cousins. My father would have his mistresses come and my mother would pretend they didn't exist. My uncle George would look at all the girls in their pretty dresses. And Richard would disappear with his wife as soon as he could manage. Cecily and I would dance for hours.
Now there's men with swords everywhere. French and Welsh soldiers, all in this new Tudor's adopted colors. There's plenty of fire light and torches even with sun shining through the windows. And we're being walked in like horses at an auction. I think my father's hunting dogs got more grace when he was picking a bitch to breed. As in, I was there, and they absolutely did. Those dogs were loved. I'm not loved. I'm a piece of property.
And there stands my future husband.
Head of the room, stolen crown on his head. He's shorter than I, ugly, with a long nose and faded brown hair. His face is deeply flushed as though he's been ill, and he smothers a cough as we step into the room. He's got sunken, craggy cheeks and thick lips. One eye is a bit more swollen than the other, or the other is lazy I can't tell from here. He's dressed in dark red, wool clothes, simple though the leather coat he wears over it is fine enough. But he wears a sword at his hip. He looks every bit his thirty years with already grey streaks in his hair. No beard though, clean shaven as a boy. He's got gold rings on his fingers and a jeweled collar but nothing else. I recognize the jewels he stole those already. My father wore that collar sometimes.
I know his mother. I've met her she dined in my father's court. Margret Beaufort. Richest woman in England, end of the Beaufort line and unable to have any children, but she's chaste the gossips say. A tiny woman, not unhandsome, but small and thin like a little bird. She's dressed more like a nun than the mother of the king, but she's here, supporting her child and his bloody deeds. She is his mother I may fault her for bringing him into the world after he's bedded me but for now I'll hold off.
And then there's the other one. The third and final member of the illustrious House Tudor. If I were given the option to be locked in a room for an hour with Lucifer, Haman, or Jasper Tudor. I'd ask for Lucifer and a pitcher of wine for us to share. Jasper Tudor is older than my father, he was one of my grandfather's murderers. I've never seen him before this moment and I never wished to. It isn't an exaggeration to say God left him in the world to better prepare a place in hell for him. Infinitely cunning, and ruthless on the battlefield, Richard blamed him for the Duke of Buckingham's betrayal of us. No plot left undone, no lie left untold. He is the architect of my family's destruction, and he did it all from a cell across the channel with a few sheets of parchment. Threat is an understatement I've been uneasy since we got word he was back in Wales.
The probably legitimate son of a Dowager Queen and a Welsh footman, Jasper Tudor is past fifty, he's something like ten years my late father's senior. But age has done nothing but hone his evil it would seem. A tall man, probably my height or a bit taller, he's thick like a war horse, with blue black hair that's streaked with steel grey. He's clean shaven, with a fresh wound above his eye and a bruise on his thick jaw. He has deep, black hooded eyes, that nearly droop, not at all unlike a cruel mastiff. He's about as watchful, hanging back a few feet behind his nephew, no fine robes, in fact he's matching his nephew in rough red wool, a sword at his hip, a dagger on his belt, and wearing a black leather cloak, and unless I'm much mistaken he's got mail on. They both do. His hair is practically short, cut to his chin and slicked back. He has his hands folded calmly, but poised. His face though is stone, admittedly if you didn't know all that he was and that he likely has ten plans for your death you might not even pick him out of a crowd. But the man leeches violence. I want instantly to be nowhere near him that's how completely unsettling he is. His eyes are on our party, coolly passing over us each in turn, like a hunter selecting prey.
But I walk forward anyway, my mother on one side, Cecily on the other but just behind me.
My husband stares at me, soft uninteresting brown eyes, and he looks like he's trying not to cough again. His eyes are watering a bit and he looks entirely unwell, but like his uncle he's clearly predatory. A man all too used to disappearing into the shadows, now he's blinking in the light and unsure of who to attack first.
"King Henry of England," they announce him and we curtsey deeply. Then they announce us and we stay curtsied, only slowly rising when we're done. I want to stare him in the face so badly but now standing here I can't. My every instinct says to simply get away.
I force myself not to glance up at them again. I can't. I just want to go. But I can't even want to go home this was my home.
"Welcome to my court," Henry Tudor says, his accent is unmistakably flat. I wasn't ready for it. A London accent certainly but this man isn't from London. It's cool and all too collected, something two beats off from his real voice.
"Your Majesty," I curtesy again a little.
"I trust your journey went well?" He asks, "No problems?"
He's the problem in all of England. I'm well aware my face is bruising and blood is dripping from my nose. I do know that that's why he said it like that. I'm not about to acknowledge it.
"Yes, Your Majesty," I say.
"Good. Well. I won't keep you I'm sure you must be—very tired," he says, finally giving in and coughing. I've clearly been recently punched and he looks like he has the plague.
"I'm well, your Majesty," I say. Better than he is. Perhaps he's dying that would be grand.
"Good. Well, we shall have to dine later this week. I'll send word," Henry Tudor says, a hand to his chest to stop the cough.
"My lord," I nod, still not raising my eyes.
"All of you are dismissed," Henry Tudor says, stepping back, clearly ready to go attend to his usurper affairs.
The guards move to escort us out, and he turns to go.
"Put all of them in separate rooms. They're not to speak to one another till the king gives the word," Jasper Tudor says, staring at us. His voice startles me, entirely deeper than his nephew's and unbelievably cold. But he's sporting the same soft London accent that is oh so false. Henry looks at him for a half a moment. He didn't know they were doing that. Why are they doing that?
I grip Cecily's hand for a moment. I can't protest. Well technically I could.
"Just go along with it," my mother mutters, sensing my thoughts.
"It's fine," I say. I would think he means to rape me. But Jasper came up with that if that is his plan he's as much a devil as the stories say. But whatever is happening tonight, the Tudors are already playing games.
The horrible pair retreat together, moving eerily identically, dressed identically. In another context and another world I'd automatically assume they were players impersonating demons. But in this one they're my personal demons.