The Uncrowned Queen (50 page)

Anne stared at the parchment. The words had almost lost sense, she'd read them so many times. Deborah picked up the letter and scanned the bold black words.

…with all speed. It is the king's express pleasure that the said Lady Anne de Bohun join with His Majesty's family in a mass of thanksgiving to be held…

“This is official. An official summons. You must send an answer.”

Anne was surly. “Let the messenger wait. Or go. I don't care.”

Deborah tried again. “The Cuttifers will pay dearly for this if you do not go to court, Anne.”

“But this is not of my choosing.” Anne hunched the coverlet over her shoulders, an adult substitute for pulling it over her head. Deborah smiled tenderly and reached out to stroke her daughter's hair. Sometimes she could still see the willful child beneath the woman's skin.

“Of course. Yet they have been kind to you.”

Anne covered her eyes with her fingers. The adult was in full flight. “What can I do, Deborah? How can I choose?”

Anger is the most useless of all emotions, daughter
.

How many voices spoke? One? Two?

But how can I go to him?
It was an instinctive response as Anne's hand sought Deborah's, the words unspoken.

All was still within the tented bed as mother and daughter breathed together, deeper, slower, deeper once more.

There is only one choice and anger must be put aside. You have an obligation and a duty
.

Herrard Great Hall was soundly asleep except for these two women. And the third who had joined them. The curtains of the great bed shivered. The voice was a breath, a soft wind that passed through the room like a swallow.

One choice. You will choose, and then you will know
.

Outside, something barked: dog or fox? The sound was answered by a distant howling. It was the mid-dark of the night, a time when even the restless dreamed most deeply.

Are we dreaming, Mother?

There was nothing further, no answer to this question. Why, then, did Anne see a door open and light stream through and hear the sound… the sound of what? A waterfall? Water falling from a great height?

“Anne, can you hear me? Anne, wake.”

Deborah was shaking Anne by the shoulder. And that intensified the dream from the past, which had returned with full force. The dream of the wolf, tearing, ripping at her shoulder as she lay in the snow. There was a scream and an eagle dropped from the sky, driving the wolf away with its slashing talons, its beak. Cowed, running with blood, the wolf howled and fled as feathers brushed Anne's face. The eagle settled beside her in the snow. Its great pennons were raised, casting a shadow across her body.

The eagle and the wolf… Why?

“Wolf? Ah, sweet girl, wake now. Come back to me.” Deborah's throat was dry with fear. “There are no wolves in England. They're gone. They're all gone to Scotland. Anne? Anne!”

Anne de Bohun opened her eyes and saw the silver tracks on the lined cheeks. Gently she reached out and wiped the tears from her mother's face. “Yes. You are right: there are no wolves. Eagles rule us now.”

Anne rode into Wincanton the
Less to speak with Long Will and Meggan about the planned rebuilding of the cottages in the hamlet; their tumbledown state was her personal reproach and she meant to make that good.

Guilt was a powerful force. Whether she stayed, or went to London, that decision would trouble her hour by hour, day by day. Anne shook her head, as if to distract a troublesome wasp. Step by step, step by step. All she could do was all she could do.

“Take timber from the spinney by the mill,” she told the two villagers. “Work must be accomplished before autumn if you're to have a better winter in this place.”

Dame Meggan smiled at their lady. For the first time in long, long years, the village women had the possibility of fat on their ribs over winter, and if they did, it was Anne de Bohun who would put it there. “Lady, the labor's not such a problem—we'll all work—but with so many men gone from the village to fight, a skilled builder to help us join and raise the house frames is what we sorely need.”

Anne nodded. “Very well. We must find you a builder.” Morganne, Anne's mare, nudged her mistress, impatient with standing while the people talked. Automatically Anne reached up to smooth her nose. “Enough from you. You've had break-fast. Perhaps I should shake your legs out and you will not be so impertinent.” A long ride—that would help to clear her thoughts, help her find the impetus to action.

“Will, you and Dame Meggan must decide what is most urgent and send me a message at the Hall. I can spare Wat for a day or two. He shall go to Taunton and get what is required.”

Holding Morganne firmly beside the bit, Anne walked the horse to a crumbling wall. Finding a large rock, she stepped up and swung herself neatly onto the horse's back, arranging her right knee around the pommel of the saddle so that her skirts hung down, decently covering her legs. No more riding astride for Anne de Bohun.

Gathering the reins in her gloved hands, Anne swallowed a shaky breath. To settle herself on the back of this good horse, to smell sweat from a well-worked animal, was to sweep back to that
mad ride from s'Gravenhague to Brugge through a frozen world. It was just more than half a year since she'd huddled behind Edward Plantagenet in that frigid winter, riding across Europe as the world changed its balance around them. And now he wanted her to return to him. No, had ordered her to London.

“Mistress?” Meggan was smiling up at her.

It was good to be wanted, needed; to feel useful in the lives of these people. Should she leave this place? Could she?

“We heard. About London.”

The horse danced for a moment as Anne's fingers tightened on the reins. Meggan nodded and, though she smiled brightly again, anxiety made her voice rough. “The summons from the king.”

“Who told you?”

Meggan looked down, embarrassed to meet Anne's eyes. She shrugged. “People talk, lady.” Then she lifted her head. “Will you stay long at the court?”

Anne patted the restless mare and when she spoke, in a clear, carrying voice, she chose her words carefully. “You may tell them all, everyone here in Wincanton the Less, that the king is an old friend. An old friend of my family's and, therefore, of yours. And if I go to London, if I go, it will be for the good of us all. And I will hurry back.”

Dame Meggan, too, spoke loudly, for the benefit of the villagers who were standing in their doorways, watching the exchange curiously. “We are all sure of it, lady. And no doubt the king will be pleased to consider your wishes when you ask to return?” Years of fear, years of hard winters and little food were behind Meggan's truculence.

Anne understood. Her reply was patient and kind; she hoped her words were true. “Yes, Dame Meggan, he will consider my wishes. Good day to you all.”

Anne nodded confidently to the villagers as Meggan took a step back. The chatelaine of Herrard Great Hall settled herself more deeply into the saddle and straightened her back. Heeding the signal, the mare danced; she was eager to run, eager to stretch her stable-slackened muscles. At the edge of the hamlet, the broad, dusty road between the houses became a two-wheel track. It led
straight: deep into a substantial wood of well-grown oaks and elms. Anne's trees. Anne's land. Yes, she would let Morganne run and run, and perhaps she would find the answer. She leaned forward, whispering, “Come, dear child. Fly for me.”

The horse needed no urging and instantly the handsome mare and the woman moved over the ground together like coupled birds. But Anne de Bohun knew the truth.

Run all you like
, Truth said.
You will have to face me at last. Pride contends with passion. The king has beckoned and he believes you will come to him gladly
.

“Ha! Gladly?” Anne shouted the word and startled Morganne, who stumbled mid-stride. Her mistress reined the confused animal to a standstill. Horse and rider were both breathing fast.

In the end, did she, Anne de Bohun, have strength enough to defy Edward Plantagenet should she decide to stay at the Hall, to ignore the summons?

Truth laughed heartily.
Defy? The proper question you must ask is, do you want to?

It was the feast day of John, the blessed and holy Baptist, and June was approaching the end of its proud season. This perfect summer had begun in late May, as if to bless the return of the king, and it had continued with blue skies and sharp stars, with soft winds and the greatest splendor of foliage in the lanes and byways that any could ever remember in the kingdom of England.

But still she did not come to him.

“And? What do you hear?”

“Lord King, the Lady Anne declined the escort you sent to her recently, and they have returned to the palace. The message, given verbally, was that her people had need of her presence and she must tend to their needs first.”

The king paced the privy chamber, blood itching beneath hot, tight skin. “First? What does this mean? Perhaps she means to come later in the year?”

William suppressed a shrug. “I do not know, sire. Those whom you sent said the lady locked them out of her Hall and declined to tell them more. Short of besieging the place, they had no choice but to return.”

Edward Plantagenet continued his pacing, back and forth, back and forth. Hastings was reminded of the lions at the Tower before feeding time. “Is the bower fit to receive the Lady Anne when she does come to court?”

The chamberlain nodded. The bower was prepared. He had created a wonder for the eyes of one woman and one man alone. An ancient tower within a wild garden had been found and, in less than two weeks, all had been refurbished within and without so that now it stood, empty and perfect, to receive this woman who so obsessed the king, to the great danger of the kingdom.

“Why, William? Why does she not come to me when I ask her?”

The words were out of William's mouth before he could stop them. “Perhaps she is frightened, liege?”

“But I am her protector. How could she, or the boy, come to harm if I make it clear Anne de Bohun is my chosen favorite?”

Denial lay behind the confident words and they both knew it. Hastings said nothing and Edward whirled around to face his oldest, closest friend. There was dread behind the fury.

“Elizabeth? Perhaps she makes Anne fearful? I understand my duty and so does the queen; she will always be honored as my wife and I think we are closer, as we should be, since the birth of our son. But Anne… I need her here!”

William Hastings was an unusually well-educated man for a soldier, and as the king roared, filling the small stone room with his rage, an image troubled him. An infant, held by the heel of one foot, plunged into a cauldron of shining water and emerging red-faced, screaming. But invincible. Godlike. Except for the one place on his body that had not been dipped into the water of the Gods… Achilles. The great hero of Troy who died from a wound to the unprotected heel.

Anne de Bohun was Edward Plantagenet's fatal flaw. Now, when the king should be focused completely on rebuilding his dynasty and convincing the populace of its stability—and his right, therefore, to the throne—the specter of this girl rose up once more; rose, as it had far too many times in the past, to distract the king from his duty. William understood sexual infatuation, which was tolerable since its power always waned with time. But this was different and he feared, as the Greeks had, the curse of love.

“No! I know that look, William. You think she is bad for me.
You do not understand. You cannot.” Fury fled the king's face to be replaced by such sadness, William was nonplussed.

“Your Majesty, she is just a girl. There are many girls.”

“In London? In my kingdom? Yes. And each one eager to boast of bedding the king. Each one hungry for the advantage that would bring. But don't you see? Anne doesn't want any of that. She wants me. Only me. I am her knight and I am the father of her son. And he is my eldest son.” Moodily, the king gazed off into the distance.

William suppressed his irritation with a determined effort. In the end, when sentiment was set aside, Anne's son, enchanting as he was, was only a bastard and there was now a legitimate prince. Not for the first time did Hastings regret the court's fondness for reading books of chivalry. Otherwise rational men, such as the king, risked becoming distracted by a fatally emotional view of existence—a misty, changeable, female vision of life—as a result of these ridiculous stories of knights and their unattainable ladies. Simple things—relationships between men and women, for instance—became muddied and confused where before there had been clear rules of engagement between the sexes. Still, he was wary of speaking that particular truth. Edward was exhausted from having fought his way down the kingdom in the last three months. Speaking bluntly now would serve none of them well. Plantagenets were known to be highly strung, highly charged, and Edward was no different. It was the obverse face of the coin of greatness. On one side there was the image that was public, that of a pitiless man of war, the leader of his people, sword in his right hand, scales of justice in his left; but on the other side there was the private man, the father, the lover and, yes, the dreamer of courtly dreams. This man was in love with Anne de Bohun. And she was his unprotected, unblessed heel.