She had learned through whispers and gossip, a tactic often overlooked by many, that the few who had been sent from court but not to Dover during the King’s absence, consisted of three esteemed council men and an almost unknown, Lady Percy. Through inquiry she had mapped the House of Percy through tongue and ear, listening to the rumours that surrounded this ambitious, over-reaching family that seemed to extend their fingers to wrap finally around the King’s own ankles.
Well, what did she expect? They were hedonists diverted from the one true faith, broken by the desire and lust of their previous King and the mother of the current. She had heard, whether it was true or not, that the parents had always been ones to sup at the feet of their masters, to breed their children into making further claims in the higher echelons of society. She had heard it as: one daughter for the King, a son for his table and another for reservation in case the first yet died. But, what did Héléne herself know of family? She was an orphan adopted by a step-father, with dead siblings for all but one who lived in the battlefields of Italy. She wasn’t one to judge on that front, but the faith and the ambition was quite enough for Héléne to draw her battle lines.
With manipulation, she made sure to meet Lady Percy during the festivities that celebrated the Iberian royal family — an oddity, perhaps, if one was to muse on the idea of Mary Tudor as the only true claimant to the English throne. Steadying her trained precision, she approached, her blue and white visage matched with a similarly embroidered French Hood that veiled long, thick black hair. “You are not drinking, my Lady. May I tempt you with something? I have heard that if it was not for you, and your immeasurable talent, that English would be in quite a position,” Héléne charmed in English, her mother-tongue set aside. @unconqucred
