7

Jane only giggled ruefully when Isabel sneaked another illicit hour off work to ask whether the King was helping her pay to take her now-rejected divorce suit to Rome.

‘It's supposed to be a secret,’ she murmured. But her blush said it all.

Isabel didn't even ask whether the rest of the rumour was true. It explained everything, from Jane's expensive new wardrobe to the way Jane had said, when Isabel had first taken it into her head to apprentice herself to Alice Claver rather than go home to her parents, ‘everyone chooses their own way of escape’, to their father's complaisance. Isabel tried not to feel angry with John Lambert for accepting Jane's way of escape from marriage so much more easily than he had his younger daughter's (the sin of adultery must seem less sinful when it brought a monarch into the family; and anyway it was hard to think of sin and Jane's breathy, laughing innocence at the same time). If Isabel tried, she could see why her father would quietly prize a king's favour more highly than her own virtuous industry. But she couldn't turn the other cheek, and forgive. After all, she'd been disinherited.

Apparently vaguely aware of a need to make up for having been economical with the truth earlier, Jane put a soft hand confidingly on Isabel's sleeve. ‘He's so …’ she whispered, and though her voice trailed away without completing the sentence, Isabel could tell, from the blissful expression on her sister's face, that she was not referring to her husband. ‘It's all so …’ she went on, in the same breathy, wondering tone. ‘Sometimes I'm at court and I look around and I just don't believe it's all really happening to me …’ She smiled down at her toes. With a hint of defiance strengthening this wispy performance, she added: ‘And he: so kind, so gracious.’

Isabel was struggling to be pleased for her sister. She remembered how the King's charisma had overwhelmed her, too, when he'd looked into her eyes. How could Jane have resisted? And Jane couldn't know how foolish Isabel had felt confronting the near-reproach in Anne Pratte's gaze. Jane had no idea how it would have helped establish Isabel's reputation to have been better informed. So she turned her lips up, dutifully, trying to smile. But she couldn't help also saying, rather sourly, ‘I just wish you'd told me sooner.’ Then, a split second later, the beginning of a thought flashed through her head which put a real smile on her face. ‘Jane,’ she breathed, suddenly excited, ‘would you take me with you to court, one day?’

Jane was no fool. She knew there must be some reason why her sister, who'd only wanted to twist threads on market stalls a few months before, suddenly wanted to go to court. ‘Just to see,’ Isabel said innocently. She didn't quite know herself, yet; she just knew that even if she hadn't been the first to discover her sister's relation with the King, she could at least be the first to explore the God-sent advantages it might offer. She didn't think her sister was quite convinced of her innocence. But the subject lapsed.

Instead, Isabel started praising Jane's tan velvet gown. ‘Lucchese,’ Jane simpered, pirouetting for her. Jane loved compliments. ‘Not cheap.’

‘If only we could make velvet here in London,’ Isabel went on, letting a note of genuine wistfulness into her voice. ‘And other silks. At half the price the Italians charge … if only someone, the Mercers maybe, would put up the money to try …’

But Jane just wrinkled her nose. ‘What money?’ she said with a hint of scorn in her smile. ‘The King's had it all off them in benevolences. Their pockets are empty. Anyway, I'm very happy with Lucchese velvet …’ Lovingly, she smoothed down her glowing skirts. Isabel sighed.

Isabel didn't mean to do what she did next, either, but on her way home she found her footsteps taking her by John Lambert's main stall in the selds. It was only when she was in sight of it, being jostled by boy apprentices, that she allowed herself to recognise what she was preparing to do: approach him and suggest he put up funds to set up a silk-weaving business, bringing in other wealthy mercers to help if need be.

She took a deep breath, already hearing the persuasive words in her head: ‘This is how we could do it …’ But, she thought, with her courage already ebbing, before she could say that she'd have to make peace; look him in the eye knowing he'd disinherited her; hope for softness in a face better suited to hardness. He'd be bound to say no. She could imagine him pronouncing unforgivable words: you should stop worrying your head about business. Or: you should be more like Jane. The stall was ten yards away, but there were too many people between her and it for her to see it clearly. It was almost a relief when, as the crowd thinned, she realised it was packed up. Her father was away.

Alice Claver had been right, she thought, turning disconsolately towards Catte Street, trying to banish the image of John Lambert's scornful face from her mind. They'd never get the Mercers of London to fund a silk-weaving industry.

Three weeks later, Jane and Isabel sat shaded from the sun in a lodge made of green boughs and hung with scarlet and blue silk flags. There was wine in front of them, and a flutter of pages rustling in and out to replace one dish of untouched refreshments with another. All around were dozens of other make-believe lodges, with the old royal palace of the Bower rearing up behind them, half-hidden by Waltham Forest. In each lodge sat more fairytale ladies with necklines plunging as low as their headdresses rose into the sky. Each lady had more impossibly white skin and pale, pampered hands and pink cheeks than the last. The picnic had gone on since six in the morning. It was nearly ten now, time for the hunt to return. Isabel could feel the cooking fires being lit, adding to the heat.

She was wearing a borrowed robe provided by Jane – a more magnificent piece of gold-shot green than she'd ever seen outside Alice Claver's storeroom, over a kirtle of the finest lawn, embroidered with tiny scarlet strawberries. She was trying her best not to look overawed. She was sweaty. There were prickles of moisture in her hair, and the inside of her bodice was soaked. She didn't know how Jane, wasp-waisted in a flowing scarlet ensemble so tight it must be unbearably hot, could manage to appear so composed and effortlessly cool. Only her fingers, quietly turning her rings round, as if to unstick them from her skin, suggested any kind of discomfort.

It had been beautiful to ride side-saddle through the coolness of the dawn, and a thrill to watch the falcons rise off the wrists of accomplished hunters, and later a pleasure to lie back on the cushions and listen to the horns and the hounds in the dense clouds of green that now hid the hunting party. Part of her felt hazily that she had somehow stepped inside a tapestry; that if she looked more carefully she might see the grass underfoot was scattered with pearls, or spot centaurs trotting by.

But Isabel was also stiff and bored; she was uncomfortably aware of being not nearly as elegant as the ladies of the court, and, except for Jane, alone. It hadn't been so bad before the men rode out. Jane had other admirers as well as the King, and the two most important of them had spent the first part of the morning vying for her attention. Lord Hastings (dark, bowing, fine-featured and supremely affable) had escorted them from the palace, laughing, picking buttercups for Jane to put in her hair, telling mischievous stories about the dog-fights in the kitchen when they'd changed the animals at the spit, and encouraging Jane to take his falcon. Then Lord Dorset (blond, bowing, fine-featured and also supremely affable) had brought them two jewelled cups of wine and plumped their cushions and amused them with a slightly crueller story about Lord Hastings being bucked off his new horse into a puddle in full sight of the Queen. It was only after the hunters had cantered off into the trees that Isabel had begun to feel really uneasy: when, every time they stepped outside their bower to try and create movement in the still, stifling air, they came across more of the perfect ladies, each one laughing and murmuring to a companion; each one, as far as she could tell, quite unable to see either her or Jane. It made her feel even more invisible than her first days of apprenticeship had; spectral. Jane squeezed her arm encouragingly when she saw Isabel look first surprised, then downcast, at the snubs. ‘Don't pay any attention,’ she whispered, and there was a brave edge to her smile. ‘That's Elizabeth Lucy. She doesn't like me.’

And she drew Isabel further into the edges of the forest, where, if the air still didn't move, at least there was more shade; and pointed out the children playing nearby. ‘The King's children,’ she muttered. Nearest was a little girl of maybe five or six, with hair as startlingly copper-coloured as the Queen's, much redder than Isabel's gentle strawberry-blonde, though this flame hair graced an ordinary, round, solemn child's head that wasn't much like the extraordinary, bewitching, heart-shaped face of the beauty Isabel had glimpsed riding proudly ahead on the way to the forest. Three or four smaller girls, all with the same flaming hair and placid faces, sat quietly nearby, as if the heat had sapped their will to move. A toddler – a boy – was crawling towards a carved wooden horse on an enormous carpet so padded and plumped with cushions that Isabel couldn't imagine how he could make progress; and, watching him, sitting on a stool, nursing a baby, sat a strapping young woman in the Queen's colours. Jane smiled, as if fondly; but she didn't move any closer. Isabel saw that, after all, she hadn't really stepped inside the tapestry. Neither had Jane. They were still outside, watching, as if from behind glass.

Her spirits only lifted when she heard the thunder of hooves; when, after the cavalcade emerged from the trees followed by men carrying two bucks and several hares, the ladies swayed decorously to the purple-draped wooden platform to have the morning's sport re-enacted for them, with many blood-curdling cries, before being ushered, half-fainting from the heat, into the still hotter, enclosed space of the royal pavilion to toast the King's success and taste the meat that had been cooked while they watched.

Isabel's heart sank for a moment when Jane pulled her aside, not letting her into the pavilion with the first surge of the crowd. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘Why not?’ But Jane just shushed her with an urgent shake of the head.

They scuffed their feet as ladies streamed past; but a minute or two later, to Isabel's relief, Jane let them join the forward movement after all. ‘I saw the Duke of Gloucester up ahead,’ Jane whispered, with more dislike than Isabel had seen her showing for anyone; as if she'd been humiliated by him. ‘The King's brother. The one they say murdered the Duke of Clarence; the other brother. Let's give him a chance to get ahead. He gives me the shivers.’ She shuddered eloquently. ‘A horrible man. Rat face; cold eyes.’

But Jane smiled joyfully when Lord Hastings, tousled and sweaty and even handsomer than before, spurred towards them. She fumbled in her right sleeve as he drew up and pulled out a green kerchief; his token, which she must have accepted in private on the ride to the woods, and which she now handed back. She laughed at him, so invitingly and intimately that Isabel, relieved at a moment of real human contact, couldn't help joining in.

‘I prayed for you to take the buck,’ Jane dimpled, breathy and baby-voiced, ‘and see how God answered me.’

He touched the kerchief to his lips, grinned, and trotted off.

So Isabel was confused when Lord Dorset, tousled and sweaty and also handsomer than before, spurred his horse towards them a few moments later, and Jane, smiling very sweetly at him, fumbled in her left sleeve and pulled out a mulberry kerchief, his token, which she handed back.

‘I knew you'd get the hares,’ she breathed at him. ‘With your sharp eyes. I was praying for your success.’

And this time Isabel just watched, gape-mouthed, as Dorset put the mulberry kerchief to his lips in a gesture identical to Hastings', and trotted off back towards the King, straight-backed and successful.

‘Jane,’ she whispered, not knowing whether to be shocked.

Jane only giggled. ‘Well, it made them both happy,’ she whispered back. Jane never really felt guilty when caught in one of her pieces of guile. Her voice sounded pleading, but her smile was so merry and infectious that Isabel began to laugh again, out of sheer relief at this naughtiness amidst the dignity and blank stares. Jane added, through Isabel's laughter: ‘And they hate each other so much; they'd have been miserable if I'd turned one of them down for the other. I couldn't have taken one token without taking the second, now, could I?’

So this was how Jane bore the lonely dullness, Isabel thought, feeling a little happier for her sister. If, that was, Jane even found this boring or lonely. Perhaps she didn't. Jane had always known how to amuse herself with some almost innocent bit of mischief. Isabel was less surprised this time, when, once they'd arranged themselves somewhere low down the table in the tent, and were eating in silence, and the big, casual King loped up to them, as golden and tousled as a lion, crunching at the piece of meat speared on the knife in his hand, Jane gave him a dewy look full of promise and pulled an embroidered crimson kerchief from her bodice. ‘I knew you'd take the biggest buck,’ she breathed invitingly. ‘No one else can compare to the Sun in Splendour …’

He laughed; a long, lazy chuckle that suggested to Isabel he knew perfectly well what Jane had been up to, but didn't mind her minxiness in the least. After taking back the token, he leaned down and touched Jane affectionately on the tip of her nose with his finger, and murmured something in her ear.

Isabel politely looked away. She was expecting to be ignored. But the King, unlike his courtiers, wasn't a man for discourtesy.

‘The second lovely Lambert daughter,’ he said, startling her; lighting her up with a long gaze. It was the kind of look that made her feel he not only knew her well and admired her, but also that she was the loveliest and wittiest person in the room, and that he was about to laugh heartily when she made her next brilliant pleasantry. She'd heard he always had this illuminating effect. Anne Pratte, her guide to what people said, was clear on this point: King Edward could be relied on to know the title, acreage and rental income of every knight in every remote corner of the land. This might, Anne Pratte was careful to add, just be because he needed to know how much he could count on when he stung them for loans, which he often did. And the reason he was also said to know the name of every knight's and merchant's wife might be because he had slept with them all. But that was just gossip, Isabel thought, dazzled. He said: ‘I was the unexpected guest at your wedding,’ as if politely reminding her of something she might have forgotten. He continued, just as easily, ‘I'm sorry for your loss, Mistress Claver. Your husband died with courage.’

She bowed her head. So, respectfully, did he. So, after a second, did Jane. ‘Thank you, Sire,’ Isabel whispered.

A pipe and viol started playing a jig behind them. Following the rhythm, the King waved a hand and raised merry eyebrows. The sad moment was over.

‘If I may say so,’ he went on, his eyes gleaming with the pleasure of the compliment he was clearly about to pay, ‘that is a very beautiful silk you're wearing.’ He leaned over to touch the green-and-gold overskirt Jane had lent Isabel. The gesture brought his face level with Isabel's and his big body so uncomfortably close that she nearly jumped back.

Grinning rather wolfishly at her, with his eyes now only a few inches from hers, he added, in a husky growl that, in someone else, might pass for a whisper: ‘One of the Claver house's elegant imports from Italy, perhaps?’

He must know where it was from, she thought, in a daze. He must have bought it for Jane himself. It must have cost … Suddenly, she almost laughed at herself. Kings didn't have to notice details, or refrain from flirting with their mistresses' sisters, any more than Jane had to wear only one knight's token. Why was she being so solemn? Perhaps it was going to be easier than she'd realised to bring the conversation round to the subject she wanted to discuss.

She grinned cheekily back and shook her head. Somewhere in her head she could feel the first glimmer of an idea. She raised a storyteller's finger.

‘Ahh, no; it's not from Italy,’ she said playfully, making sure to catch the King's eyes and hold them. ‘Not this cloth. But it is beautiful, isn't it? It's from the newest manufacture of Italian silk cloth in Europe – from Tours.’

Don't give me away, she silently prayed to Jane; she'd felt Jane startle at her lie. Then, gratefully, she sensed her sister's shoulders rise in acquiescence. Jane was always playing this sort of joke on people, after all. She'd give Isabel the benefit of the doubt for now; she'd go along with the story.

‘Tours?’ the King asked. ‘They make silk in France now?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, with an extraordinary external calm matched only by the extraordinary turmoil inside. ‘In his wisdom, the King of France is doing all he can to encourage the weaving of silk cloths at Tours …’

She fixed him with her most persuasive gaze.

‘You may wonder why?’ she went on.

The King paused. Isabel was aware of Jane at her side, scarcely breathing.

She could imagine what Jane must be thinking. The King was good-natured, but how good-natured would even the most tolerant of kings go on being if he got bored? Then, to both girls' combined relief and terror, he smiled and began to look at least a little intrigued. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Because,’ Isabel continued, not missing a beat, ‘he understands that establishing a silk industry in France is going to give an honest and profitable occupation to ten thousand people.’

She'd forgotten Jane now. But Jane's whole attention was still fixed, in utter astonishment, on her odd little sister. Isabel was almost singing, Jane was thinking; as if she were wooing him. She wasn't having a little joke, bending reality to amuse herself, as Jane might have; it looked for all the world as though she was about to start selling him something. ‘Ten thousand people,’ Isabel went on, ‘all ranks and sorts of people, from clergymen to noblemen to religious women to others – all the people who'd sat idle before. Ten thousand people – imagine. That's a fifth of the population of London.’

Edward wasn't angry, in fact his eyes were glinting at Isabel with what Jane thought might be amusement at this thin young girl-widow's eloquence.

‘That's why silk manufacture has been spreading out of Italy for twenty years. To Spain. To Flanders. To France. Because rulers of countries all over Christendom are coming to realise that establishing a silk industry helps everyone in a community,’ Isabel intoned. Really, Jane thought, almost shocked, she was staring at him like a snake hypnotising its prey. But Edward seemed willing to be hypnotised. At least, he sat down on the bench and gestured Isabel to sit next to him.

‘How so?’ he asked. Jane was left standing.

‘Because,’ Isabel answered coolly, sitting down beside the King without for a moment letting her voice stop caressing his ears, ‘there are so many crafts in silk. Children and women can raise the silkworms, and reel and wind the silk they produce. The poor and the old can sort the silk, dress it, weave it and dye it. Merchants can run silk shops. And any citizen can plant mulberry trees or make partnerships with merchants.’

She smiled confidently at Edward. ‘And, of course, getting so many people into their honest and profitable new occupation can only be good for their king,’ she went on. ‘As Your Majesty will appreciate.’

He lifted an eyebrow and leaned closer. ‘Go on,’ he said seriously. Even Jane, whose fearful heartbeat was now slowing to a rate at which she could breathe almost normally, recognised this as an unambiguous signal to continue.

Isabel said purposefully: ‘A new manufacture attracts more outsiders into the City – like the five thousand newcomers who have come to Tours. That means bigger revenues – from taxes on grain and wine and salt and food and clothing – and also from tolls on merchandise entering and leaving the City, which obviously all go up too, because all those new people need new houses and shops and looms and workshops built for them.’ She was rattling her figures off with glib expertise. She was smiling more intently than ever at the hypnotised Edward. ‘And don't forget that once the business is established, the king will also be able to earn much more than before in dues for exporting textiles – because there will be many more textiles to export.’

She paused for emphasis: ‘It's hugely profitable, in fact,’ she said, with magnificent assurance. ‘That's why the wise king is willing to make the initial outlay. Of course, it's not cheap or quick to set up. But you'll reap many times the benefit later.’

How does she know all this? Jane wondered, lost in Isabel's argument. Then, did she just say, ‘you will reap many times the benefit later’? What did she mean by that?

Isabel's hands were trembling; but with her dawning sense of achievement, not with fear. The divine madness was ebbing. She couldn't believe what she'd been doing and saying. She finished: ‘The great pity is that there's no English silk-weaving centre.’ She lowered her eyes modestly, setting the King free at last. ‘Yet,’ she added.

A man standing behind Jane began to laugh and clap. Isabel turned to see who it was.

Lord Hastings was nodding at her. His feet were planted wide apart as if to steady himself. His dark face was split in the same kind of delighted grin she could see on King Edward's face. ‘Do you know, Sire, I think she's got a point,’ he said. ‘It might work. It just might work.’

The King smiled at Hastings. ‘Lord Hastings knows about trade,’ he said comfortably, welcoming his friend into the circle with a gesture. ‘You know that, don't you? He's a stapler when he's at Calais. One of you merchants: making fortunes out of cloth. If he thinks it could work, then …’ He waved his hand again.

Lord Hastings passed Jane as if she wasn't there. ‘Bravo, Mistress Claver,’ he said, bowing as he squashed onto the bench with them. ‘Who'd have thought you had a business head on your shoulders? And now – what can you tell us about this initial investment?’

She rode home at the back of a party of knights returning to London. Jane stayed behind. For a few moments, Isabel revelled quietly in her solitude; the first time all day she hadn't had to guard her expression. It was also the first time she'd had to consider the leering way the Marquess of Dorset, Jane's blond second admirer, had cornered her in the tent's shadows while Jane was dancing with Lord Hastings, after a lot of food and drink had been consumed by everyone present. Dorset had lurched his admittedly handsome body at her, and pressed beery lips down on hers, grinning. She'd pushed him away, but he'd just said: ‘Oh come on, you know you want it’, and, ‘you're a beautiful woman, you know’, with lust and contempt equally mixed on his face. She'd had to kick his leg quite hard, while trying not to let anyone see what she was doing, to make him pull back. He'd sworn and stepped away, but he'd gone off, shrugging, still with that drunken, leering, triumphant grin on his face. Thinking about it now, she let her face twist into open contempt for the first time. Why did Jane tolerate him?

But there were more important things to think about. It was only once she was alone on the road, up on her horse, that Isabel became yawningly, terrifyingly aware that she needed a real silk expert for the follow-up negotiations the King had suggested take place with Lord Hastings, tomorrow, at the Palace at Westminster. She'd already taken this deal as far as her own cheek and intuition and what scraps of knowledge she'd gleaned at Alice's would go. She didn't know what to ask for next.

She couldn't ask Alice. Alice would take all the credit for doing a deal with the King. She couldn't ask Anne Pratte, either, because Anne's first move would be to tell Alice. Isabel knew that without having to test it: Anne wouldn't be able to resist. Nor could Isabel ask William Pratte, for all his standing with the Mercers and loyalty to Alice – because he would tell Anne, and Anne would tell Alice.

She plaited the reins between her fingers, thinking. For a few moments she wondered about asking Goffredo. He knew everything. And he'd enjoy the adventure more than anyone. But then she imagined the overheated atmosphere that sharing a secret with him, even for a day or two, would produce; and shook her head. She'd just stopped him pawing her at every opportunity. She didn't want all that starting again.

That only left Will Caxton. His business in London wasn't with Alice, unlike Goffredo's, so if he suddenly absented himself the next morning, Alice wouldn't bother herself too much with where he was going. But he was so unassuming, so low-key. Her first instinct was to rely on someone whose expertise she could hide behind: someone more flamboyant, a showman. And yet, as the horse jolted her one way or another on its leisurely amble, she began hesitantly to grasp the reality that her own showmanship had got her this far. She didn't need someone else's flamboyance, after all; only some detailed knowledge and negotiating experience. And gingery, gentle Will – who'd done as much, really, to make her part of Alice Claver's circle as Goffredo ever had; who always behaved with respect, as if she were his friend – would provide all she needed of that, and more. He wouldn't try to steal her glory either.

She sat up straighter and kicked her horse out of its amble and into a smart trot. It was settled.

‘Westminster? Whatever for?’ Will Caxton said blankly, when she whispered her request to him that night. He didn't want to waste his precious last days in England on something unnecessary. He had business of his own to transact. ‘Not something else to do with your sister?’

He hadn't met Jane. But all of Alice Claver's circle disapproved of her.

Cagily, Isabel replied, almost whispering: ‘Not exactly … though I've told Alice it is. I wouldn't ask if it weren't important.’

He sighed.

‘Well, I hope it is, that's all,’ he said resignedly.

‘Please, Will. I really need you,’ she muttered, and sensed him softening. ‘And please don't tell Alice you're coming, either. I'll explain once we're on the boat.’

Once they were both safely on the wherry seat, side by side, watching the other boats go by in the morning glitter, past the gnats and dragonflies dancing on the reeds, she started to whisper what she wanted of him. Will Caxton didn't believe her at first. He even got a little short with her. She sensed, from the slight colour around his sandy hairline, that he was as close as he ever got to being angry. ‘I haven't got time for wild goose chases,’ he said sternly, as if doubting he'd done right to be so friendly with this untested girl. ‘Are you absolutely sure you're not just making this up?’

Even when she showed him the scrawled laissez-passer Lord Hastings had given her, to get her through the Palace guards, he wasn't sure. He screwed up his eyes and peered at it with undisguised scepticism.

‘Why would he agree to see you?’ he said, after a long silence.

She couldn't quite keep the note of exasperation out of her voice as she replied, more shrilly than she'd have liked, ‘I've told you why; it's true.’ Perhaps that almost convinced him. At any rate, he fell quiet. Looked thoughtfully at the paper again. And, as Westminster loomed up ahead – the double towers of the Abbey and the great arching roofs of the Palace, the fairytale homes of priests and princes – she could see him begin to work out negotiating points; whistling under his breath. Just in case.

The corridors they went through were no grander than those they were used to, but there were many more of them. The Palace seemed an entire city in stone. They didn't know where to go or what to say to soldiers, so they waited in silence at the gates while the soldiers conferred, and waited again, several more times, as they were shuffled along corridors by hesitant underlings.

Eventually a tall, dark, harassed-looking man who looked a little like Lord Hastings came out to their latest stone corridor and bowed. A page piped out his titles: Ralph Hastings, Esquire of the Body, Master of the King's Horse, and Keeper of the King's Lions, Lionesses and Leopards. Isabel guessed this must be Lord Hastings' brother. Trying not to look overwhelmed, she dropped a curtsey as deep as Will Caxton's answering bow.

Ralph Hastings led them down yet more corridors to the Lord Chamberlain's rooms. He talked, very calmly and slowly, in his outlandish Midlands country voice, putting them at their ease. ‘This is a good time to call on my brother,’ he said, ‘after his morning duties are over. It's the first moment in the day he gets time to think.’

Isabel knew Lord Hastings' duties as chamberlain ran from organising the household – ordering the King's meals and arranging audiences with him – to secretarial work, to intimate duties of the body: ensuring the fires were tended and candles lit in the royal bedroom, the bed aired, the chamberpot emptied, and dogs and cats driven out of the chamber; helping His Majesty dress, making sure his clean linen had been warmed at the fire, handing him his carefully brushed clothes, and preparing and supervising his rosewater baths.

Isabel wondered: how does Lord Hastings get time to run the Calais garrison and the King's Midland armies and mint new issues of coin if he has to do all that too every morning? Curiously she asked, ‘Doesn't he get pages to do the morning duties for him?’

But Ralph Hastings shook his head, with a courtier's astonishment at this childlike outsider's ignorance in questioning Palace ways. ‘Touch the King's person?’ he asked, with raised eyebrows. He must mean ‘no’, Isabel decided, feeling abashed. Lord Hastings must do all that himself.

She was aware of Will Caxton, at her side, almost imperceptibly shaking his head. She wished he hadn't seen her make a fool of herself. ‘Let me’, he muttered, ‘do the talking.’ For a moment she was nettled by this. But mostly she felt relieved. This was why she'd brought Will, after all.

The chamber they entered was large and airy, but simple enough: a great mullioned window looking on to the river, water light reflected on the bare walls, a large table covered with papers set near the back wall, two scriveners sitting at it tidying the papers and making notes, and, by the window, Lord Hastings himself, splendid in blue velvet tunic and hose, with his hat already sweeping off his head and his laughing eyes on Isabel, beginning to bow as he said, with what she thought to be affectionate welcome: ‘Ah, the young Mistress Claver! Come in, come in … we have business to settle, I believe.’

Lord Hastings knew Will Caxton's name (as he seemed to know everyone's). As soon as Will Caxton was formally announced by the page, he turned with great ease to the sandy, skinny merchant and said, ‘We haven't met. But your work at Bruges was famous; of course I know of that. And we all admired the excellent agreement you struck with the Hanse merchants.’ Then, to Isabel, with respect and courtesy combined: ‘I see you've brought a colleague as talented as yourself. A good friend to have.’

Will was more self-possessed before nobility than Isabel had perhaps expected. He bowed and answered formally; took his place at the table with poise. It was easy to take her lead from him. It was only for a brief moment, as they settled themselves to talk, that she caught his eyes on hers. His head nodded, in quiet approval.

In the hour that followed, she was surprised many times by how adept Will Caxton was at the business at hand. He set out what would be needed to establish a silk-weaving industry, clearly and briefly; and, equally calmly, Lord Hastings agreed to everything. The contract (which named Isabel as an entrepreneur in her own right, along with Alice Claver, Goffredo D'Amico and both Prattes, to be known collectively as the House of Claver) did not even include Will Caxton. ‘I'm planning a different business,’ he said, when Lord Hastings raised an inviting eyebrow at him. ‘I'm just here to offer advice.’

Isabel couldn't believe how easily what she wanted was, thanks to Will, taking shape in the document one of the scriveners was composing as they talked. The contract specified that the silk industry they would set up would have the King's protection for twenty-five years. The scrivener's legal French, which she could only just follow, allowed the House of Claver to make contracts with a full workshop of Venetian dyers, spinners and weavers to immigrate to England.

Will Caxton raised the question of their safety – the City was prone to riots against greedy Lombards.

‘Where would you like to establish yourselves?’ Lord Hastings asked Isabel.

Will Caxton answered, as quickly as if they'd agreed this beforehand among themselves: ‘Here – in Westminster. That would be safer.’

And down it went into the text: that the silk weavers would be lodged in a quiet, anonymous house in the precincts of the Abbey, far from the prying eyes of the merchants of London. Goffredo was to be offered English citizenship, in case he ran into trouble with the Venetian authorities or the Italians in London. The Venetian masters would use the workshop to teach a first group of English weavers how to produce a full range of satins, damasks, velvets and taffetas. No other foreigners would be permitted to set up a rival business in Westminster or London until this quarter-century contract expired. The Venetians would have a moratorium on repaying any debts incurred at home and any taxes due in London, just as they would have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed overseas. The workshop would be exempt from municipal levies and obligations. Nor would it have to pay for imports of any raw or spun silk, dyestuffs, gold or silver that the artisans would need for their work. The King would pay the ten-shillings-a-year rent on the house. He would advance money too for the food, clothes and thirty-ducat annual salaries of the foreign workers – a quarter-century interest-free loan. All the House of Claver would have to do would be to buy the equipment: twenty looms for high-quality cloths; spinning machines; mangles, vats and tools for the dye shop. ‘We don't know how to calculate the price for the machinery,’ Lord Hastings said apologetically. ‘Best you keep that to yourselves.’ But everything else would be paid for from the King's own purse.

A silence fell as Will Caxton considered whether any other points needed to be written into the contract. The scrivener was dropping sand on his paper, to blot the ink, and funnelling it back off into the sandbox. Lord Hastings grinned. He leaned forward and tapped Isabel on the shoulder, looking suddenly conspiratorial.

‘You do know, don't you,’ the King's friend said, ‘that although it's the King's Grace who's happy to take formal responsibility for your costs, in practice the only way he'll have of getting the money for it is by borrowing from the merchants of the City of London? He's not a wealthy monarch in his own right …’

Isabel saw Will Caxton permit himself a small answering smile. He knew. She echoed it.

‘Essentially,’ Hastings went on, crossing one leg athletically over the other, ‘your father and his friends will be paying for your venture – but won't know they are. Yet your House of Claver will enjoy all the profit if it succeeds, as I'm certain it will. You've done well, Mistress Claver. This is a sweet deal for you.’ Her smile deepened as that thought sunk in. Will Caxton looked modestly down, enjoying it too. Lord Hastings looked kindly at her, as if well aware of the greater complexity of her feelings – as if realising that the love of the beauty of silk that had started her down this path in life was now giving way to an appreciation of something she hadn't seen until now: the beauty of power, used with elegance. Slowly, he nodded. Then he got up, in another fluid movement. ‘I think that's everything, isn't it?’ he said gently. The audience was over.

Outside, walking back down the corridor, accompanied only by the page this time, Isabel, whose eyes were fixed straight ahead, whose head was full of the triumphant singing of heavenly choirs, slowly became aware of Will Caxton beside her, suddenly slightly sweaty with relief, rumpling his velvet hat in his hands, then running his hands through his thin hair before putting it back on. He started whistling again, very quietly, under his breath. She half-turned her head, ready to grin at him. He winked back, but his cautious body movements suggested to her that it wouldn't yet be appropriate to rejoice out loud. She fixed her eyes on the page's tunic ahead, and carried on walking.

Will waited until they'd got right past the last soldier and were standing on the jetty, waiting for their boat back to London, before he whooshed out a great sigh of pent-up happiness. ‘We did it!’ he said, putting a hand on her arm and jigging it up and down. ‘We really did it!’ His voice was high and cracked.

Excitement flooded through her as she beamed back at him, rejoicing at being allowed to show her feelings at last. He looked his normal self again now – unassuming and astonished by his success, with his pale eyebrows giving him his usual air of surprise. He wasn't half as impressive as he'd been in the Palace any more. She had to remind herself that it was this man who'd done all that; she'd chosen right. ‘Will,’ she cried warmly, ‘that was unbelievable! You were … You were …’ She was so overcome she couldn't even think of a strong enough expression of praise. ‘You were so GOOD,’ she ended, not caring.

He grinned, bashfully. He knew she meant the highest praise; and who didn't like praise? But his voice was calmer as he said modestly, ‘Well, I've had years of experience, you know …’ He nodded at her with equal warmth. ‘And there was me, not even believing you this morning. Growling at you like an old bear. You've done an extra ordinary thing yourself, to see this opportunity; to seize it.’

It was Isabel's turn to blush. Will Caxton took his eyes off her happy confusion. He looked around instead, approvingly, at the calm of the scene on the riverbanks: the gentle swell of the river plain; the rooftops covering priests and functionaries and contemplatives. ‘And this really will be a good place to work out how to do something new; not too much fuss and bustle,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps, when I come back, it's where I should settle, too …’

He stood for another minute, looking at the panorama, whistling through his teeth. Then he shook himself back into the moment, and smiled at Isabel. She could see the new respect in his gaze. ‘You're an unusual young woman, Mistress Isabel Claver,’ he said with determination, ‘and you mustn't let anyone tell you any different. Alice should know it was you who set all this up. You deserve all the credit for it, not me. I've just been the adviser, nothing more. You don't need to mention my having been here. I won't say a word to Alice or Anne if you don't want me to.’

He was delighted with his offer; he knew how generous it was. As for Isabel, she was too overcome to speak.

They all looked surprised when a messenger turned up at the house a day or two later to deliver a document for Isabel. It wasn't her place to get documents. She was the girl learning purse-making. But no one asked who it was from when she rushed to the door to take receipt of it. They didn't ask even when she came back into the storeroom a short while later, with her eyes down and pink cheeks and a bulge in her purse. They were merchants; they set store by good manners and privacy. They waited for her to tell.

Isabel couldn't speak all day. Her secret was like a vast bulge in her throat; keeping her apart. She waited till evening, after the day's work was done and they'd all left the storehouse, before presenting the contract to Alice as she took her place at the dining table. She even bowed her head submissively as Alice made a point of finishing tying the lace on her sleeve she'd noticed trailing before looking up.

Finally, Alice held out a hand for what Isabel had to offer her. She started to read. She must have noticed the weight of the document as soon as she picked it up. It was stiff with wax seals, and Alice would have been blind not to see the King's emblems on them: three blazing suns, and the royal motto, Confort et Liesse. Comfort and Joy. Still, Alice didn't say anything for a long while. She just stared at the words, as if they were dancing in front of her eyes.

Alice's face was perfectly still as Goffredo came into the room and sat down beside her at the table. The silkwoman passed the document to Goffredo, with just one word, ‘Read’. She still hadn't deigned to look at her apprentice. But Isabel thought she'd spotted a gleam of satisfaction in the other woman's eyes.

Goffredo glanced down. He looked astonished. Then more astonished. Then he put the letter down and started to laugh. As Anne Pratte wandered in, picked up the document and, wrinkling her nose, said fretfully to her husband, ‘Tell me what it means, dear’, and William Pratte started to translate for her, they too started to look astonished, then more astonished. Goffredo's laugh got louder and louder, until he was slapping his thighs and clutching his sides.

‘Just like that,’ he chortled. ‘He gave it to us, just like that.’

They were all buzzing with it now; shifting and murmuring; unbelievable news. All looking at each other; all watching Goffredo's mirth; not quite believing it wasn't a joke.

‘No corners cut,’ William Pratte said.

Anne Pratte added: ‘No expense spared.’

Then Goffredo stopped. Looked at Isabel without flirtatiousness – just with pure admiration.

‘Your name is on this,’ he said warmly. ‘It was sent to you. Tell me. What did you do?’

She was blushing furiously. Staring at her feet. Suddenly so surprised to have succeeded beyond her wildest dreams that she didn't know where to put herself. She didn't want Alice to think her boastful. She almost wanted to tell them that Will Caxton had struck the deal on her behalf, to take the eyes off her; but she stopped herself just in time. Will had said she could take the credit, hadn't he? And it had been her daring that had got the deal, hadn't it?

‘I was lucky,’ she muttered. ‘I met the King. Through Jane. I asked him.’

They all started laughing at that. Could life really be so simple? She looked hopefully up from under her lashes. They were beginning to believe it; passing the letter from hand to hand; shaking their heads in wonderment. ‘But I didn't believe, until this came, that it had really worked,’ she mumbled.

‘Look at her,’ Goffredo marvelled. ‘Sitting there so shy and sweet, as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.’ He leaned forward. Patted her on the knee. ‘Look happier!’ he commanded boisterously. ‘You've just made the deal of all our lifetimes! You're allowed to celebrate, cara!’

And before she knew where she was he'd pulled her up and was dancing her up and down the room – she didn't mind his touch this time – and everyone else laughed, and the torches dipped and flickered, and even Alice's growl, ‘Goffredo, please!’ didn't sound half as grumpy as usual.

But Isabel still couldn't quite believe it herself; not even when the hippocras came out, and Goffredo's sweetmeats, and William Pratte had made the first toast of the evening to their future success. She only really knew she'd done something worth doing when Alice started smiling directly at her, as if she'd had an idea of her own, and said, with none of her usual gruffness, with a respect that sounded almost shy, ‘Isabel – would you like to be the first to go and inspect the house at Westminster? You can have the day off. You deserve it.’