Gilt by Katherine Longshore Page B

to console myself. “She promised, remember?”
    “No, Kitty!” Joan cried. “She promised
you
.”
    I froze, one hand on her shoulder. Had Cat only promised me? And how much was that promise worth?
    “I was there, remember? In the maidens’ chamber. The day she was practicing her vows. She said she would make
you
her greatest lady. Her greatest friend. She didn’t promise me anything. She didn’t even look at me.”
    “Of course she meant all of us,” I said helplessly.
    “You can’t really think that,” Alice said. Quiet as ever.
    “We’ve always been together,” I said.
    “It’s always just been the two of you,” Alice said. “Kitty and Cat. And me and Joan on the side. You were always the important one.”
    Not important enough.
    “But I might have certain benefactors working in my favor,” Alice announced.
    “In
your
favor?” Joan said, petulance generating a shrill falsetto.
    “Well, yes,” Alice said. “My husband does work for Lord Maltravers.”
    I looked at Joan and mouthed
Lord Maltravers
with simpering, pinched lips. She smiled weakly.
    “I even wrote a letter to Cat,” Joan sighed. “I reminded her of our friendship. Of our history together.”
    A sudden fear clenched me.
    History. Joan knew all Cat’s history.
    “And you put this down on paper?” I asked, barely able to form the question. A piece of paper could take on a life of its own. In the right hands, it could bring down a queen.
    “It was pretty sickly,” Joan admitted. “
Remember the love my heart has always borne towards you
. That sort of thing.”
    “And that’s all?” I asked.
    “Of course.” She nodded, her face blank and guileless.
    The other girls dispersed to the bosoms of their unloving families. Mary Lascelles cried piteously over the punishment of having to return to her brother’s keeping. But whatever Joan had written must have jarred Cat’s memory, because the summons came. For all three of us.
    I had my chance to go to court. To be someone different. Someone important. Someone desired. Someone beloved of the queen.

W INDSOR C ASTLE APPEARED ABOVE THE GOLDENING RED ASH OF THE surrounding forest, the gray stone glowing white against the painfully blue October sky. This was a true castle, not a modern approximation of one. Not like the duchess’s house of brick and spit-shine. This was a castle built for defense with thick slit-windowed towers and crenellated walls.
    “There it is!” Joan yelped. We had already traveled many long, boring hours and now she leaned over her horse’s neck, as if hoping it would get her there sooner.
    I found myself leaning forward, too. My horse danced sideways slightly, caught up in my excitement. The castle on the hill looked so far away.
    “Let’s race,” I said.
    “Most unladylike,” Alice muttered. She rode primly in her dark brown riding habit, eyes straight ahead, completely unaware of the smudge of dirt across the side of her nose.
    “Last one there tends the duchess’s bunions!” I shouted, an old joke from when we were children.
    My horse leapt forward when I dug in my heels. She seemed as keen as I was to enter the magical realm of chivalry presented by such an enchanted scene.
    “Katherine Tylney!” Alice cried.
    “We’re not ladies!” I shouted back to her. “We’re chamberers!”
    Joan’s laughter undulated over the warm-cold ripples of sunlight and shadow and I knew that she followed. Alice couldn’t be far behind.
    Our horses kicked up dust on the dry road and over the cracked-earth gardens and pigpens. We slowed as the road narrowed between rows of tall, half-timbered buildings—the kind occupied by merchants and town leaders, sellers of fabrics and slippers and lace to the court, all eager and bustling because the king was in town.
    Suddenly the right side of the road opened out and up the hill to a great stone gate, looming above the rest of the houses. Protection. Defense.
    We stopped. Almost as one.
    “Here we are,” I said