A Child Upon the Throne

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  Harry the Pious. Not so much a condemnation from their father but an accurate appraisal?

  Matthew had been so certain of himself and those around him when he now wondered whether he'd understood them at all. And now it was too late. He may have laid Harry's body to rest but not the memories, the questions, the regrets.

  For weeks, Matthew puzzled over these and other related matters. As if sentences put to parchment, he withdrew them and examined them in the waning hours of the night, when he was fishing, or just sitting, staring across the waters.

  Finally... Matthew made his peace. He decided that despite what he had personally done, the ideal of knighthood remained noble, remained honorable in the purest sense of the word—and that was all that mattered. Knighthood was as perfect as the grail itself. 'Twas in the quest for the grail that he, and others, failed.

  There would always be naysayers, those who hated just to hate and criticized just to criticize, but those voices did not speak truth, at least about knighthood. And he had been a good knight. Not the stuff of Arthur and legend—and no such knights had whispered to him atop Glastonbury Tor or anywhere else—but Matthew had been as dedicated as most of his contemporaries. He'd done as he'd been told. He'd been brave; a worthy opponent in every campaign. He'd brought his brother, at least, out of Auvergne's mountains. He'd never abandoned Harry; he'd sacrificed himself so that his brother could survive another day, so that he might, God willing, indeed return to his wife and child. His father had loved him; his father had told him he would have done as Matt had at Limoges. Matthew had never betrayed his king or his duke and even with Prince Edward he'd served him to the end in spirit if not in body. Matthew had loved Edward of Woodstock as well as he could while honoring his own conscience.

  And so it came down to this... after all those months, after all this introspection, Matthew could congratulate himself, finally. At least about one thing.

  I have endured.

  And that, he now believed, was enough.

  Chapter 15

  April, 1380, The Cherry Fair

  Maria Rendell knew that this Cherry Fair would be her last. She had entered the world with the new century and she would exit this year. In her eighty years she'd witnessed four kings, insurrections, wars, floods, droughts, prosperities. The rise and fall of nations like the rise and fall of tides, like the rise and fall of her own particular lifetime. When she looked back, all of it had a rhythm, even though she'd been unable to discern such at the time. Now it seemed clear enough. But while the rhythm of kingdoms would continue its unraveling, hers had come to an end.

  She knew the date of her death as certainly as she knew the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, the seasons one easing into the other. A part of her had always known, that this would be her year and the cherry orchard her death bed. As she'd known that her eyes were blue or that she had arms and legs—just another fact to be taken for granted. But how quickly the decades had passed! And over the past few years that knowing had gone from a prickling to a constant presence. Until now, if she'd been a mage rather than mortal woman, perhaps she'd have been able to turn to view Death, seated beside her. And say, "Welcome, old friend. 'Tis glad I am to finally meet you."

  A lifetime trickling down to a handful of hours. She reminded herself that she must cherish every moment. To especially enjoy the cherry blossoms, which surely were the largest she'd ever seen, with the white so dazzling they might have been fashioned from angels' feathers. And, as if sharing a private message, a handful of trees—surely, those that had been behind her husband the night of their midnight meeting when he'd returned from the Scottish campaign—were arrayed in the deepest pink, the color of universal love.

  Today, as always, she sat at the dais. Surrounded as she was by family, she found herself more than content. I would like to know, she thought, while gazing into the faces of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, how well you'll fare in life. I would like to see you grown. Better not to focus on what she was leaving behind, but on her forthcoming reunion with all those she'd loved.

  Maria knew what the priests said, that hell, or at the very least purgatory, most likely awaited her, as it did them all, so she would only meet with those who'd not been granted the grace to enter heaven.

  I don't believe a word of it.

  Clerics couldn't have it both ways, though they always tried. You can pray, purchase indulgences and faithfully execute your penances, wiping out your sins—and yet your first way station on crossing over would be purgatory? If you were lucky. So what purpose all the prayers, penances, payments of indulgences, month minds and endowments? The church could either effectively keep Satan from claiming you or it couldn't.

  For Maria, the priests' personal reign of terror had ended some fifty years past, after her collapse before Thomas Becket's tomb. That and other related events had started her on a journey that ended here. With little concern for the state of her immortal soul and a firm belief that love was the one thing that remained eternal. And would encompass her upon her crossing—human love and the love of her Creator.

  Maria's gaze swept the tables flanking both sides of the dais. She recognized many of the guests, their faces and forms gradually ravaged by time. As were hers. Recently, she'd been re-reading Ecclesiastes and ruminating on the preacher's words: 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.'

  Indeed it does. She inhaled deeply of the cherry blossoms. In one form or another all this will endure long after mankind is not even a memory.

  "Are you feeling well, Maman?" Hugh Rendell bent over to kiss her cheek. All of her four children were in attendance and all had repeatedly asked her some form of the question.

  She looked into Hugh's dear face—Hugh named in memory of her long-dead father—and nodded. "Do I look ill?"

  Hugh smiled. "Never, Maman. You just seem... distant."

  She patted his hand. "I feel fine. Better than I have in years."

  Still she knew it was time. Verses from Ecclesiastes tugged at her thoughts like a child tugging her skirts, even as she greeted friends, gathered a great-grandchild into her lap and kissed his plump cheeks, or when she agreed that yes, this year's blossoms were indeed the most beautiful she'd ever seen.

  "To every thing there is a season... A time to be born, a time to die... and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

  Tomorrow evening she would have her bedding brought to the orchard where she would wait. Like a rendezvous with a lover or simply with a beloved. She sensed the dead drawing near—her parents, her twin, even grandparents she'd never met and the babe she'd lost. Aunts and uncles and friends, of course. But most of all she felt the presence of the men she'd loved. As if, should she turn her head, she might see Richard leaning against the trunk of a tree, framed by the cherry blossoms, shimmering the way his golden hair used to shimmer, smiling at her. Or her husband, his face exquisitely flawless, moving at the edge of the guests, slowly, deliberately making his way to come stand beside her.

  He would bow and take her hand in his and then... There would be Richard, on the opposite side, and they three would walk away together, as they had so many years ago.

  But they'd never walked together with her between them. There had never been that easiness in actuality for hadn't she ever been the serpent in the garden?

  How young I was, how heedless, how selfish. And yet she'd long ago forgiven her former self, for along with all the flaws, she'd possessed the surety that love was enough, that if she was willing to sacrifice everything she would be rewarded with what she most craved. A transcendent love, a passion that rivalled anything in the Romances. Choosing to disregard the denouements of those tales, which seldom ended well.

  Ah, the arrogance of youth. It was naïve, charming—and so necessary. For if we ever acted as we do with age, kingdoms would not be built, loves would not be won and lost, children created, continents explored, necessities invented, wrongs right
ed. We would all be too lost in our moth-eaten maunderings to accomplish anything.

  "A time to love, and a time to hate... A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted... A time to kill, and a time to heal..."

  I am not sorry, Maria thought, for anything.

  That was the problem priests had with her, that she would never agree that loving two men was mortal sin. Besides, they three had paid the price for their actions, hadn't they? No need for penance when their choices, spun to their final conclusion, had provided consequence enough.

  Maria could see them now, Richard and Phillip, their heads close together as they sketched out hasty wedding plans after her and Phillip's frantic flight to Rockingham Castle; Richard and Phillip, swords flashing, fighting almost to the death near the pharos beyond Dover Castle; Richard, England's mightiest earl, kneeling before Phillip, a mere baron, in the bailey at Fordwich Castle, seeking his vassal's forgiveness for having lain with his wife...

  Canis shifted beneath her slippered feet, where she'd rested them upon his ribs. Her private footstool. Maria plucked a piece of chicken from her blawmanger and slipped it to her pet under the tablecloth. Jongleurs wandered among the guests, strumming their lutes, singing their songs; others juggled and performed the usual acrobatic tricks. Earlier she'd taken her great-grandchildren to watch a dancing bear. Hadn't there been such a bear nearby when she'd begged Phillip to marry her? For, when in the presence of this gallant knight who minstrels had lauded for his heroic efforts at the Battle of Bannockburn, how could she endure marriage to a man forty years her senior?

  A man two decades younger than I am now.

  Maria spotted her granddaughter in conversation with her father and beckoned Margery Watson to her side.

  "Grandmere." Margery greeted her with a small curtsy. Maria raised her hand in a halting motion. "Do not ask about my health," she said imperiously.

  She patted the bench next to her chair and motioned for Margery to sit. Once she was settled, Maria asked, "How fares your knight?"

  Margery jerked back as if she'd been slapped. What a peculiar question! Her grandmother knew well enough that she and Matthew Hart had been parted nearly two years. Was her memory slipping? It could happen that quickly with the elderly. One moment they spoke in coherent sentences and the next they were jabbering like monkeys.

  Margery reached for a goblet of cherry wine and raised it to her lips. She strove to be respectful but could not keep the edge from her voice. "You know I've not seen Lord Hart."

  "You will." Maria gazed past the revelers into the distance where the cherry trees butted Fordwich Castle's curtain in a frothy wave. "I've been thinking about him. And others," she added vaguely.

  Margery wanted to retort, "Well, I've not, not at all," but she feared her grandmother, like John Ball, could see things others could not.

  "The sun and the moon," Maria said softly.

  A chill rippled the length of Margery's body, as if administering a warning. She peered more closely at her grandmother. Maria didn't really appear any different. Her white hair was braided neatly behind her and her expression was calm. She wasn't drooling. She was dressed appropriately. She hadn't been wandering about with her slippers atop her head and clad in a floor rush. So what was happening?

  Maria fixed her pale eyes upon her, eyes that had once been as blue as the summer sky.

  And Margery knew.

  * * *

  All the tables had been broken down, the white linen cloths bundled and carried to castle laundresses; trash collected; the paths created by hundreds of feet carefully raked to blend in with the untouched meadow grass; brown patches reseeded. Fordwich Castle was nearly empty of its guests, as was nearby Chilham Castle and surrounding inns, hostels and religious houses.

  At dusk, Maria ordered her servants to take her mattresses and bedding into the orchard in a tradition that had begun following Phillip's death. Sometimes, when the weather warranted, she would sleep inside a tent, but tonight she knew that would be unnecessary.

  Should I have told my children the secret? she wondered, as her maids led her to her destination. That the orchard is a magical place, that during the fair it provides an opening between this world and the next, the way it is on Midsummer's and All Hallow's Eves? (Maybe the magic was only there for her. Or maybe 'twas available year round to everyone. If one only decided to sleep there).

  Canis bumped his muzzle against her hand. Did he sense her time was nigh? Animals possessed that power. But so did people. God often saw fit to warn His children so they might get their affairs and their souls in order. It was so with her. It had been so with the Black Prince, who had chosen to die on his favorite feast day, Trinity Sunday. As it had been with Richard and Phillip.

  How to explain? Was it simply a subtle shift in perception, or in the nature of the body's humors? Maria had grown used to aging's aches and pains, but might not there be something different occurring in her body? Wasn't there an unusual tightening around her heart? And she couldn't remember previously experiencing double vision, at least when unaccompanied by a fever or other illness. Most markedly, she was struggling to stay in the present. She found herself wavering back and forth in time and had to remind herself, My feet are here upon this carpet... I am in my room... at the dais... in the chapel... in the orchard.

  Three of Maria's four children still remained at Fordwich so she'd managed a private word with each before retreating to the orchard. She'd tried to say something special without arousing suspicion or alarm. Simply drop a comment into conversation so later they would remember and remark upon it.

  "What a wonderful grandmother you've proven yourself to be, Blanche. As you were a mother."

  "Hugh, you are the kindest man I've ever known."

  Henrietta, who was, in Maria's mind, far too much like her namesake, Maria's mother, to allow for the easiest of relationships: "Have I yet thanked you for the yearly pilgrimages you take on behalf of my soul?" Hoping it did not emerge as a criticism.

  Thomas had already left, but Thomas out of all of them, would know...

  Maria dismissed her maids after they helped her into her makeshift bed. She was immediately folded into the soft pile of mattresses, as if she were a child rather than full grown. Ever watchful, Canis stretched beside her. Periodically, he would raise his head to study her, or nuzzle her hand, as if seeking reassurance.

  Overhead the stars flared like embers; the surrounding air seemed unnaturally still without even the hint of a breeze or stirring of nocturnal creatures.

  Maria remembered another night when she'd been awakened from a fitful sleep by her husband's squire and ordered to meet Phillip here. Even while racing barefoot across the wet meadow grass, she'd fervently thanked God for she'd long feared Phillip dead.

  It had been in the fall of the year. Or had it been closer to winter? Whenever, a storm had recently passed and as she ran among the fallen leaves and rotting cherries, thunder yet grumbled and lightning flashed in the distance.

  It had been so very dark, like looking down a bottomless well. The rush light she carried had been a puny thing—though it had been bright enough to illumine Phillip's ravaged face when he'd drawn back the hood of his mantle. As if such a thing would matter!

  And what a surprise, when it had been Phillip, her wandering husband, so chary with his declarations of love, rather than Richard, who had ultimately proven himself faithful. How Richard had professed his adoration, how he'd showered her with tokens of his affection, how passionate he'd been, risking all to have her at his side. She'd believed that her lover, out of everyone, would prove her constant.

  How wrong I was.

  It had not been death or another woman or even his brother the king's deposition and murder that had proven the earl false. It had been their Savior, Jesus Christ. When Richard had been dragged from her he'd been the most ardent of lovers, only to return a holy man.

  Because you forsook me for God, was that supposed to make your betrayal more ac
ceptable? To erase all the pretty words, the lovemaking, our time together with a shrug of your shoulders an "You see, I had a vision! You do understand, don't you?"

  Maria was surprised that, after all these years, Richard's perfidy still rankled. 'Twas not a saint she'd needed, but a man of flesh and blood.

  Which God gave me, didn't He, with Phillip's return?

  Maria felt as if a hand were squeezing her heart. She managed to inhale and monitored her breathing, careful not to worsen a pain that remained more a nuisance than actual discomfort.

  I've never forgiven you for forsaking me, she thought, and was taken aback at the revelation. All these years she'd told herself otherwise, for how could she be jealous of God? But there it was. And yet, Richard's desertion—now she would call it that—had released her to freely love her husband. Otherwise, she might have been forever torn between them, never to have experienced those golden years with Phillip.

  I do forgive you, my love.

  The stars, the night around her seemed to flicker. To dance. She saw Richard and Phillip, faint, pulsing in and out, as if playing hide and seek from her. Followed by her beaming twin and her parents... and others she'd treasured, who had gone before.

  "Oh," she whispered or thought she did. For they seemed to be surrounding her, all looking so young and lovely. And so very happy—even her mother, who'd never smiled so sweetly in real life.

  The orchard appeared to glow, as if illumined by a sea or charcoal braziers or candles. Around her a silence, as if even nature was holding its breath in anticipation.

  Canis's ears pricked forward and he emitted a low whine.

  Maria noticed her hands upon the counterpane. They were gnarled, the fingers and joints thickened, the little finger on her right hand crooked from an old injury. Ah, age. First, leveler; then destroyer. Her body had served her well but it had outlived its usefulness.

  I'm done with this shell, she thought. I am ready to be rid of this cage.