by Anne Carsley
Blanche had not exaggerated; spring and the May, together with warm red brick and rolling fields, peached gardens, and eager welcome, made Wynoton a haven for Julian’s spirit. Blanche’s father, Sir Edward, seldom went to court, preferring to remain on the lands that had been his for generations. Her mother, Lady Sarah, was as gay and flighty as her daughter, but her young sister, Jane, was, at ten, as sober as if she were three times that. Thomas, the six-year-old heir, also had a stately manner.
“I wonder that you can bear to leave here.” Julian and Blanche were sitting in the garden late one afternoon, watching the early roses blow against the low stone walls and laughing at the hound puppy’s attempts to catch his tail. Julian’s hair blew long and free over her shoulders, and her yellow silk gown was the color of the daffodils at her feet.
Blanche looked up at her friend. “The court is excitement, the very hub of the kingdom. I can always return here.” Her glance went beyond Julian and the brown eyes flamed into brilliance as she recognized the approaching figure on the walk. “The neighbors know we are here.”
The tall blond young man in his early twenties, William Parton, acknowledged the introduction to Julian almost absently, his eager gaze not leaving Blanche’s vivid face. He offered his arm to both young women as they strolled, but Julian excused herself, knowing that they no longer saw her. Suddenly she passionately envied Blanche for this life and the love that was hers. Charles Varland’s mocking gaze danced in front of her eyes, and she felt a stab of pain.
Restlessly she left the garden proper and drifted into the trees at the edge of the woods. The air was sweet and fresh, the shadows long at this time of day. At first she did not see the embracing couple standing under the spreading elm. When she did her embarrassment was acute.
“Your pardon, my lord, my lady. I was dreaming and did not look where I wandered.”
The Parkers drew apart. Lady Sarah laughed, seeming as young as her daughter in the twilight. “My dear, we have not shocked you! It is the spring, I vow, that and my lord’s bold words!” She shook out her skirts and touched a slender finger to Julian’s cheek. “You are too serious, child. Stay with us and we will make you gay. I must hasten to view the dinner; the new cook is a terror!”
After she vanished down the path, Sir Edward sank down on a conveniently placed bench, stretching out one stiff leg before him. “Will you sit with me, Julian?” As she slipped into the space beside him, his smiling face grew grave. “Do you wonder at us, my dear?”
Julian answered with all her heart, “I am charmed, sir. Am I amiss in thinking that Blanche may soon be betrothed?” Might it not have been this way for her, too, in an English garden with her love nearby, if the fortunes of her family had been different?
“So we hope. Our lands march together, and it would be a good match. But tell me—would you say that my lady and I are happy, that we have a good life here?” The brown eyes, so like his daughter’s but without their laughter, fixed themselves on her face.
Julian said, “Surely that is not to be commented upon by a stranger, sir.” She saw small Thomas elude his nursemaid and dash behind a flowering bush to hide at the far end of the lane. A bird cried softly from the wood and was answered by another. Smoke curled up beyond the gracious house and drifted on the freshening breeze that was still cool for May.
“But I ask it. Lady Julian.” There was the faintest hint of a command in his words.
“A good life, as you have said. Sir Edward. Rich in love and contentment and promise for the future.” Julian felt the trickle of suspicion but tried to allay it with her truly felt words.
“Sarah was eighteen when I wed her. I was already in my forties, my wife and two sons died in the plague, and I went to foreign wars. I saw her first at the wedding, and she had fancied herself in love with another. Archbishop Cranmer kindly interested himself in my affairs, and so the match was made. Her father commanded and she obeyed. She wept often that first year, and I absented myself for very pain. Yet of it all came what you see now.” He did not look his age as he gazed gravely at her. “The world is so arranged, the order of things set. From adherence to the rules comes happiness.”
“That established order you admire burned your benefactor at the stake for heresy only last year, Sir Edward. Better to say that your happiness was a fluke of the capricious gods. I do not accept such credulous thoughts.”
Julian started to rise and was halted by his firm hand on hers.
“You have had to fight for life and safety, I know that. Do not turn from the queen’s will for you. What will you do if she turns you out?”
“Beg in the streets of London, my lord, rather than go supine to a fate of convenience!” She drew back and swept him a court curtsy. “If my lord will excuse me?”
Sir Edward sighed. “Bold words, my dear. Prepare yourself, for the royal party comes on the morrow and your betrothed with it.”
Julian left him, walking swiftly down the smooth paths and past the flowering shrubs around the slender goddess with her perpetual horn, to nearly upset Thomas as he dug busily in a hole at the root of a tree.
“My lady! There is treasure here. You can find it if you dig by the light of the moon. It will be up soon, you know. Would you like to help me find it?” The round face set in straight brown hair regarded her earnestly.
Julian wanted to laugh and cry. All was illusion in this mad world. “Thank you, Thomas, but I must seek treasure of my own. Will you forgive me this once?”
His bow was his father’s, grave and polite. “Aye, fair lady.”
The child’s accolade walked with her as she went to her room to scheme and try to blot Charles Varland from her dreams.
Wynoton had originally been built to house a large family; consequently each member of this one had privacy and to spare. Julian was now greatly thankful for this and that her own chamber overlooked the entrance to the park where the court party would come. She told the hovering maid that the fresh air had wearied her and that she would sleep long. Then she sat at the window and watched the moon rise over the moist green land. The little talisman of hawthorn, a tangible reminder of Elspeth and home, was clutched in one hand.
Suddenly, savagely, Julian was whispering, “What am I to do? I cannot have Charles, nor do I really want so cruel a lover.” She forced herself to forget the tenderness in his touch, the melting warmth of the gray-green eyes, and to remember only the casualness with which he had spoken of her. “I will run away before my body is made a pawn. I will work in a cookshop, an inn. Gods, what am I to do?”
The impasse closed around her and boxed her in. Appeal to the queen would be useless; Julian herself had closed that door by her defiance. Philip had wanted her for a moment's dalliance, no more. The Parkers, however kind they had been, could not see the dilemma she faced. A woman alone in London would quickly suffer far greater indignity than an older husband. The moonlight shone pale in the garden and stretched long fingers over Julian’s arms and face. The rose scents lifted to her nostrils, and far in the woods an owl hooted.
She lifted the hawthorn and invoked the image of the tree in full white bloom, shimmering in the moonlight. There was no conscious thought or plea in her mind, only a great longing to be free from this coil that pressed down upon her. Time seemed to bend forward as she saw herself, the young child wondering at Lady Gwendolyn’s frenzy, later the girl explaining her education to the king’s questioners, then recalling Elspeth’s mutters in the kitchen as they rode away, herself before the possessed queen and then in Varland’s arms. Was it fancy or dream that she saw herself on the crags of a seacoast, a ship riding to sea, flames behind her?
Sleepiness then hammered her down. She was so weary that she could barely walk to the bed that was spread out for her in the moonlight from another window. She fell across it as though bludgeoned, clothed as she was, unable to remove even her slippers. The rose scent deepened in the cool room as Julian turned on her back, already asleep, so that the white face was fully ou
tlined in the light. The owl called again and was answered by another.
So vision and dream and desperation were welded into one.
CHAPTER NINE
The mare’s hooves beat steadily on the woodland path only faintly illumed by the rising sun. Trees and vines stretched overhead in a green canopy as the birds in them shrilled a morning chorus. Julian held the reins lightly, feeling herself at one with her surroundings. The despondency of the past days was gone; she was light and free. She gave the mare her head and let her run; it was a relief to be active, for she had been so at Redeswan.
How easy it had been, after all, to slip into the old riding habit given her by Isabella while one was being made up for her and go out of that peaceful house to the stables where one of the few coins she had left assured the eager help and silence of the groom there. “A short ride only. I could not sleep and do not wish to rouse the family.” The first slow walk and then the full gallop over the meadow and into the woods—the intoxication of it was delicious. She had no plan beyond simple escape for the day. Surely the queen’s health would not permit her to take part in the lively hunt, not even to be with her adored husband would she risk losing an heir. Julian knew that she could face the risk of rudeness to her hosts; a sudden fever she would say. Who could disprove it?
She went on into the wood for the next hour, her mind drifting free, feeling strangely removed from her difficulties and from the ache of Charles. Her stomach began to growl with a hunger she had not felt for days despite the rich foods Lady Sarah had had prepared. It was far too early for berries, and she had brought no other money with her. Perhaps she could find a farmer and beg a bowl of milk if she went toward the road that must eventually lead into a village.
The sound of a far-off horn came to her ears just then, followed by the cries of hunters and dogs yelping in pursuit. She had come too close to the hunt and must reverse her path lest her way be blocked by the very thing she had come to avoid. She pushed her heels into the mare’s flanks and turned off into an even narrower trail which forced them to a walk. The sounds faded behind her as she rode, and she mopped her wet brow with the sleeve of the brown habit.
The path curved upward, then down abruptly in an incline that was too steep for the mare. At the side of a ledge of rock was a shimmering pool, fed by a spring back in the cleft. There was a tiny edging of sand on one side; a few inches above it butterflies whirled in gold and purple madness. Julian dismounted in one movement and twisted the reins around a branch. Water might still the pangs for lack of food.
She drank swiftly and then lay back on the sand to let the warm sun beat down on her unprotected face. Once again she felt at one with her surroundings and remembered the exhaustion of the past night. Time drifted by as she thought that this was likely the peace before devastation. Something in her held back and waited. She dozed briefly.
“And what am I to do, wait until you deign to call? Let me come.” The voice, soft and breathless, was oddly hard. “You know that I hunger ...”
“No, there is discretion to be observed. You are foolish to think otherwise.”
The second voice was hard in its turn but matter-of-fact. It pierced Julian’s senses and almost made her sit up; only her innate caution bred of a hard school held her quiet. The sun burned on her lids, and she lifted them slightly without moving the rest of her body.
“You don’t have to go yet. Why can’t we stop here?” A gasp and a pause.
“That is why.” The second voice now held leashed anger.
Julian could see them only hazily against the sun. Two men—one burly and tall, with sandy-colored hair, and lines grooving a long face, the other slender and blond with the quick movements of youth—stood on the bank above. Her senses were heightened from her encounter with Charles; she knew what she might not have otherwise known, that these two held intimacy beyond the ordinary.
The whisper again. “Has she seen? Gods, they are everywhere! I would like to ...”
It faded before the older man’s quick response. “Only a country wench asleep. No harm done. Come.”
She strained her ears as she heard them move faintly into the bushes. The sense of being watched stayed with her, and she did not shift her position as she longed to do when she risked another quick look under her lashes. It was well that she did not, for the blond man had retreated only a few steps and was still watching, his face malevolent in the sun.
Julian thought herself a rational individual, all the more so for the emotional excesses of Lady Gwendolyn’s latter days, but now she knew that evil was in this fair place, walking in the full sunlight. The hawthorn tree glimmered in her mind, behind it the altar of St. Paul’s. Was she going mad? She fought for balance and somehow found it in her memory of Charles Varland’s quirking mouth and brilliant eyes. She lay quietly.
The older man’s voice was warm and caressing as he called, “Come now, the lodge is not far. Hurry.”
The sense of evil retreated with their footsteps, but Julian forced herself to count slowly to one hundred before she stretched, yawned, and sat up, the picture of country laziness if anyone still watched. The mare still stood placidly, cropping the new grass. The slant of the sun showed that it must be well past noon. The scents of water and lush earth came to her as a bird burst into a stream of notes close by.
She jumped to her feet and ran up the incline, not even pausing to brush her gown when she tripped and fell to her knees. She knew only that she must leave this place as quickly as possible. She pushed the mare to speed when they burst out of the edges of the wood. They fled over the long golden meadows, around the crests of hills, through one copse after another, across a smooth road, and down almost to the curve of the river.
The high note of a horn brought her up short as she looked to her left. At the same moment a hunting party, brilliant in russet and gold, topped the nearest rise at her right. She swung her head and saw that there was no reasonable escape. The two groups were advancing on each other, and she could not doubt that this was the royal party itself. Several figures detached themselves and rode toward her, waving as they came. She had no choice but to remain where she was. This would be private parkland, and she could not risk flight; for that there would be no explanation.
“Who are you, madam, to ride alone within the bounds of the royal preserve?” The three men were middle-aged, bearded, a trifle weary. The one woman was much younger, blond and lively, with sparkling eyes and a sensual mouth. Julian recognized her instantly as Jane Dormer, favorite lady of the queen and betrothed of the Spaniard, De Feria. It was too much to hope that she herself would not be known to the lady.
Jane Dormer said in a dulcet voice, “Why, it is Lady Redenter, sent to the country to rest. I vow, you look quite . . . brisk.” The white teeth shimmered in the light, and the men watched her covertly. “Well, ride along to the royal lodge with us. A lackey can be sent for your clothes.”
Julian said, “The lodge?” She felt as blank as her words. “I rode out early and became lost. It is better that I return to Wynoton.”
They were riding together now; the other parties had merged behind them, and she heard the laughter combined with snatches of song and cries of hunting exploits. The river glinted in the distance, and the massed trees rose up behind a long low building with four turrets. Barges were drawn up at the bank while figures moved back and forth from them.'
“Well,” Lady Dormer answered, “the Parkers and their household as well as other notables from the surrounding estates were summoned earlier to the feast in honor of the day’s hunt at their Majesties’ own lodge of Tevo. We will be glad to have you earlier.”
Julian started to protest and, looking at the lady, knew herself fairly caught. Jane was the queen’s own confidante, cautious and careful of her mistress, a dangerous enemy, friend to a select few. It would be useless to appeal to her, and Julian would not stoop to what was so clearly expected. The random thought brushed her mind that Jane was said to truly love the Spania
rd. England and Spain seemed to have merged, she thought resentfully.
Now she said, “Then perhaps my gowns may be fetched. I cannot appear in this garb, and my face is burnished by the sun.”
“We came by barge from London and are well equipped. You shall be prepared for the occasion in my own gowns. We are, I think, of a size.”
Julian inclined her head. “You are too kind, madam.” The other girl began to laugh, the sound lifting on the wind as the others surged around them.
Venison and other delicacies were being prepared, tumblers and jugglers were everywhere, gallants bawled out war songs for their ladies, stories were exchanged, and dogs ran madly about. The sun was just setting when Julian made her way out into the courtyard and stood looking around her. The queen, it seemed, had come only to be with Philip and was resting long in her chambers. The members of the court who had come were mostly young and ready for the gaiety promised.
The rollicking music stirred Julian’s blood, and her foot began to tap. Her moss green skirts billowed, the long lacy sleeves swaying in the freshening wind. Jane had gone to attend her mistress, but Julian had not been left unwatched; even now the tall maidservant stood near her. Petty it might be, but Julian had derived a goodly deal of satisfaction from the fact that Jane’s dress had required special lacings before it fit her.
Wine was flowing now as she looked around for Blanche or Lady Sarah. Some of the men wore elegant little masks of black as they postured before a small group of ladies who fanned and laughed. Suddenly one of the gentlemen spun away in a quick movement and held out a gloved hand to Julian as he gestured toward some of the musicians. He did not remove the dark cap that covered his hair, and the mask slanted over his nose. She took time to think it strange, but by then he was whirling her in the rapid paces of the dance.