The Uncrowned Queen (34 page)

“Christ's eyes! Richard!”

Only the king's strong wrists saved them both from disaster. He reined so savagely that blood ran from his horse's bit and it screamed in protest. “I hope you're proud of that! You could have killed us both.” Edward jumped down to look at the horse's damaged mouth.

“No, I'm not proud. But neither should you be. We have to stop this, Edward. You have other things to do now. Anne will have to wait.”

Edward turned on his brother, eyes wild. “Torture. Have you thought of that? She could die.”

William rode up, flecked white with foam from his exhausted horse. “The duke is Lady Anne's friend, my liege. As is the duchess, your sister. No one will harm Lady de Bohun tonight…” He resisted the temptation to cross himself, because nothing was certain with such accusations. “And we meet the duke tomorrow. We must think about tomorrow.”

William saw something die in Edward's eyes. The king gently
wiped blood from his horse's muzzle with the trailing edge of his cloak, soothing the frightened animal. “Tomorrow. Yes.” After a moment, he pulled himself back up into the saddle. “What advice do you have, William?”

Hastings smothered relief and spoke carefully. “Our greatest strength in this case is your sister, the duchess, sire. Tomorrow, during our audience with the duke, we should point out that Lady Anne is under the protection of England, since it is the country of her birth. And that she should be released to the duchess until such time as—”

Edward turned in his saddle to peer at his chamberlain. “Until such time as I am restored and the Lady Anne can return to our court in London.” He gathered up his reins and patted the neck of his nervous horse. He was exhausted. And angry. Principally with himself.

Richard spoke with hearty encouragement. “Exactly so, brother. A very good plan. Should we now return to the farm? There's little of the night left to us.”

Edward cast one long last glance toward the sleeping city of Brugge. Most was in darkness, yet, as he turned his gaze toward the Prinsehof, there was a single light burning still. Was that where she was? Was that where Anne was waiting, in despair, to be rescued?

He turned his mount's head for home and kicked the horse into a gentle trot, mindful of its damaged mouth. His companions fell in behind him on the narrow track beside the rain-swollen river. The decision had been taken.

The official visit of Edward Plantagenet, the deposed king of the English, to Charles, duke of Burgundy, was to take place on the Feast day of Saint Stephen. Duke Charles profoundly hoped that Edward's presence would distract the people of Brugge from their fears—and now from the latest scandal: the strange disappearance of their bishop.

First light had brought the bishop's chaplain to the Prinsenhof, asking if his master wished to return to his palace to lead the household and his brothers in the feast-day mass. The chaplain was conducted to the cell where Anne was being held, but the confused guard, watching at the door, said that the bishop had already left, hours earlier. It had been dark, but he'd personally seen him go, had even knelt to receive his blessing.

And, throwing open the door, the monk saw only Lady Anne de Bohun in the room, curled asleep in a vast cathedra. Of the bishop there was no sign except a certain aroma, discernible even now. The bishop, like Brother Agonistes, did not believe in using water to cleanse the sinful body, except during the sacrament of baptism.

Shaken awake, the frightened girl had no more to add. Yes, she and the bishop had talked for many hours and he had counseled her; and, yes, when he'd left she'd presumed he was returning to his palace within the monastery. Where else would he go?

The chaplain did not look the woman in the face, fearful of
sorcery. Out of charity, however, he sketched a cross over the anxious but very pretty penitent's head and expressed the pious hope that her “conversation” with the bishop had brought her closer to God and therefore redemption. Then, frowning, he strode back to Odo's palace.

On his return, confusion lit the fire, and then uproar fanned the flames of uncertainty to furnace heat. The bishop could not be found! Clamor turned to panic, which traveled around the walls of the city, right back to the Prinsenhof, as the bishop's monks and servants scattered throughout Brugge, knocking on doors, asking questions. Who had seen the bishop? Where could he have gone?

The crowds lining the narrow streets waiting for Edward Plantagenet to arrive with his party became badly unsettled in the tumult. Accusations of witchcraft one day and evaporating bishops the next. Where would it all end? Signs and omens, frightening portents…

However, the visit of the deposed English king was a distraction the Bruggers appreciated. Edward Plantagenet remained popular in their city, not least because the citizens remembered the largesse from the king and his courtiers at the time of their duke and duchess's wedding. They were hoping for the same today. The crowd shuffled and shoved, each person intent on finding the best place from which to see the show. Men liked Edward Plantagenet because he looked like a proper king, and women sighed for him: his shoulders, his face, his long legs, and his bright eyes. Yes, the people of Brugge wished him well and were happy to cheer him on in his quest to regain his throne—provided it didn't cost them too much.

Edward and his brother, surrounded by their few knights, archers, and mercenaries, did their best to make an impressive show. They would not look like supplicants if they could help it! The brothers rode side by side into the city through its wide-opened gates; they were blessed with a brilliant blue day after weeks of cold and gloom. There was a certain irony in the respectful bows their party received from the men who manned the Kruispoort as they rode beneath its battlements. Of course, these men were the day watch.

Richard expelled a deep, relieved sigh. “Promising so far, brother. The weather, I mean. The sun's back.”

The duke, appareled in the most respectable of his good clothes, waved cheerfully to the curious citizens as they hung out of their windows to watch the Plantagenets and their party ride toward the Prinsenhof. He hoped the numerous pretty women among the spectators would be a distraction to Edward.

“A very good omen, Richard. Particularly the sun. Sol remains our friend it seems.” Edward, like his brother, nodded, smiled, and waved at the women calling out from their doors and casements, but his eyes were bleak. Only the Lady Mary knew if Anne was alive or dead.

“It's clear that ours is a popular cause, my liege. Duke Charles will find comfort in the warmth of our reception.” William Hastings was riding directly behind the brothers and had to shout to be heard over the welcoming din.

“Amen to that, Your Majesty.” Richard was determined to keep Edward's spirits up, though none of them believed the crowd's adulation would guarantee anything from Charles of Burgundy.

Edward nodded and caught an orange thrown to him by a pretty girl in a casement window. Bowing his thanks as his horse carried him on beneath the tall gables of her house, the king handed the shriveled little fruit to his brother.

“I have a plan. It has little to do with how his people feel about us. It's very simple. Ask for ships. Ships and money.”

“And men?”

They were passing now under the first of the great gates into the Prinsenhof, the horses' hooves clacking sharply on the cobbles. The sound bounced back from the massive walls around them. Edward shivered as he passed through the shadowed, echoing gate. Alive or dead, Anne was somewhere deep within this pile of buildings. “What? I didn't hear you, Richard.”

Dismounting, the men in the English party gathered around Edward, adjusting cloaks, pulling tunics and jerkins straight, hauling up their hose to debag wrinkled knees after the ride.

“I said, what about men? Do you think he'll give us men?”

No time for a reply. The steward of the Prinsenhof advanced out of the shadowed interior of the building, bowed deeply, then more deeply again, until, finally, he sank down to kneel upon one knee, his gesture mimicked by a small fleet of palace functionaries in his wake. In a resonant voice, the steward called out so that all within shouting range could hear: “Your Majesty, my master the duke of Burgundy, lord of Peronne, Roye, Montdidier, Liege, Ghent, Flanders, the Lowlands, and of Gorinchem; governor of the most noble order of the Golden Fleece and knight of the illustrious order of Saint George, bids you welcome on this most auspicious day.”

Edward bowed slightly from the waist to acknowledge the honor of the invitation and signaled that the steward should stand. As the man and his attendants rose to form themselves into a carefully graded procession of precedence, Edward raised his eyebrows and whispered from the side of his mouth, “Very promising, Richard. Proper state, it seems.”

Richard of Gloucester grinned happily. “Well, it's about time our dear brother-in-law acknowledged us, and you, properly!”

“I see our sister's hand at work in this, I think. Mustn't overreact.”

Charles, duke of Burgundy, was formally arrayed in his Presence chamber under a massively embroidered and gem-studded Cloth of Estate. As he waited for Edward and his men to appear, his face carefully schooled to calm dispassion, only those who knew him very well could sense his nervousness. Duchess Margaret was one such, and she yearned to touch her husband's hand or catch his eye and smile. But that would be incorrect at such a time. Still, she was grateful for the show the duke had chosen to make in welcoming her brother.

Today, Charles was dressed as grandly as any monarch in a black velvet doublet spangled with gold studs, teardrops of crystal, and evenly matched pearls of great luster. Beneath his left knee he wore the blue garter of the Knights of Saint George; he'd been made a member of that order by Edward Plantagenet himself, when he'd married Margaret of England. He had hesitated before agreeing with his wife that he should wear it today, but, in the end,
he was at peace with the signal it sent to the court. Louis de Valois would certainly hear of this gesture of support, but Charles had decided he had ceased to care what the king of the French thought. Louis, personally, had repudiated the Treaty of Peronne only so recently agreed between them. Let him now reap the whirlwind.

Charles had also chosen particularly provocative headgear today; it, too, would send a signal to Louis. As a duke, Charles was not entitled to a crown, but for this audience he was wearing a tall hat fashioned from black velvet and glossy beaver skin. It was an impressive object, topped with ostrich feathers fixed by massive emeralds and encircled by a coronet of gold studded with diamonds. It was not a coronet in the conventional shape of that worn by a duke, however. No, this appeared much more like a royal diadem. Let Louis hear of that, as well, and make of it what he would. A warning? Certainly!

“Thank you, Charles, for doing this.” Beside him, his duchess, the former Lady Margaret of England, contrived to whisper to him, almost without moving her lips. Charles nodded gravely, but he was not certain his wife understood the real significance of this reception today. None of this ceremonial would have happened, no matter how much she'd wanted it, if the times had not changed.

Duke Charles allowed himself a small, fond smile. Margaret was looking particularly attractive today, if a little tense, which was to be expected. Dressed in a simple gown of pearl-white damask beneath a sideless blue velvet over-robe lined with white cloth of gold, the duchess had also covered her hair with a low-crowned cap of pure white silk on which was mounted an airy headdress of stiffened gauze, suggestive of butterflies' wings. Only one in a hundred women had the carriage and grace to carry off such an outrageous creation and not look foolish; his wife was one of them.

Suddenly, dramatically, the closed doors of the Presence chamber were flung open and the palace steward advanced into the room, striking his staff of ivory, lignum vitae, and gold three times on the tiled floor. The servants of the palace fanned out to form an honor guard and the courtiers thronged, murmuring, into place behind them, avid to observe every moment of the meeting between the two men at the center of today's event.

“His most august and gracious Majesty, the Lord Edward, king of England, France, Ireland, and Wales. Duke of Cornwall…” As the endless titles were recited, Charles, duke of Burgundy, rose, as did his duchess, and stood waiting while Edward Plantagenet, his brother, Duke Richard of Gloucester, and their party of supporters entered the vast space that was the Presence chamber of the Prinsenhof. His face devoid of expression, Edward paced toward the distant dais, his brother by his side. The king's doublet of silver-gray Flanders velvet was slashed in the sleeves and on the body to allow a cream silk undershirt to puff out pleasingly from beneath. A black velvet cloak lined with red cloth of gold flowed from his shoulders to his heels, and his hose also were smooth black velvet, plain and unadorned, except that he, too, wore the blue garter of Saint George below his left knee. Edward's hair—dark gold, since it was winter—lay curling on his shoulders, loose and thick, and his head was encircled by a massive but plain gold band, its only ornaments Plantagenet leopards and stylized lilies. It was the single key to who he was, and was being acknowledged as: the Sovereign Lord of England, and of France.