The Uncrowned Queen

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “I need to say good-bye to him. I cannot leave it unresolved.”

  Her foster mother stirred the vat of quinces steadily, evenly, being careful not to break the fruit. “Why? There’s a peaceful life to be had in this place.” Leif has returned to us. Stay for his sake and your own. That was what Deborah wanted to say.

  Anne turned away from Deborah’s direct glance. She felt the heat rise to her face as she shook her head. “I cannot have peace in this place. Not unless the king permits it. I returned without his permission and he could force us into exile again.”

  Deborah turned back to the simmering fruit. “He’d have done that by now, if he meant to do it at all.”

  Anne scooped out the muslin bag of precious nutmegs, cloves, and cinnamon quills with a long spoon, laying it carefully to one side for drying and reuse. “He’s still the king. I disobeyed him when I returned to England.”

  The steam rising from the liquid was perfumed and rich. One last stir and Deborah tapped her own spoon on the rim of the three-legged pot. “He wasn’t on the throne then. He’s king again now, but she’s still the queen. New prince or not, there will be danger in London. From them both.”

  “I will make an agreement with the king and try to reach an accommodation with Elizabeth, if I can. It’s the only way to secure our future here.” Anne began sorting sound fruit from bruised in the basket of unpeeled quinces as Deborah sat down beside her and picked up her paring knife.

  “Leif can help you do that, daughter. He can help with a peaceful, secure future in this place.”

  Anne swung around to face her foster mother. She knew the answer before she asked the question. “Why do you say that?”

  Deborah lifted the first of the yellow fruit, weighed it in her hand, and carefully began to peel it. “If Leif and you were to marry, you would have the protection you need. Here, on your own land.”

  Anne began to speak, then changed her mind. Deborah concentrated on her work as the long, curling strand of yellow peel gathered and fell from her knife.

  “It would be a good match for you. You could build something, together. He’s a good man and a hard worker. You’re well suited and he loves you dearly. And the boy would have a proper father. You could give your son brothers, and sisters. For you, Leif Molnar would leave the sea, and though he brings nothing with him but a strong back and a calm mind, you have goods enough to found a family. And this man will never let you down.”

  “By that you mean Edward has? And will?” Anne’s frustrations sharpened her voice.

  Deborah nodded, implacable. “He has no choice. You can never be more than his mistress. He has a wife. Do you really think you can become his leman, known and shamed before the whole world? You? How will your son feel, when he is older? He will hate you for it.”

  Picking out one of the largest fruit to peel, Anne turned her back on Deborah. Nothing could hide the quaver in her voice. “You are cruel.”

  The old woman reached out to grasp Anne’s hand in hers. “Are you sure you have the strength to go to him and then to walk away, truly walk away, knowing that, this time, you will never, ever see him again? Must not see him again?”

  Anne was angry. “How can you doubt me? I have done this in the past. It was not my choice to go to s’Gravenhague.”

  The old woman nodded but would not be deflected. “But it’s different now. It would be so easy to slip into court life once more. You’d even enjoy it, for a time; you’d accumulate power. And perhaps you’d be acknowledged as your father’s child—yes, no doubt the king would want to do that, to give you increased status—and that would remove some of the pain you’ve endured. But only for a while. It would never be enough. I don’t doubt your strength but I know what you feel for this man. You have surrendered. You have allowed the king to become the lodestone of your life. How can you choose, really choose, to walk away if you see him again?”

  Anne was shaky but defiant. “You speak of my father. The father I have never met. Perhaps it is time for that meeting also.”

  Lovingly, Deborah brushed Anne’s cheek, wiping away a smut from the fire. “We can change most of what comes to us; we truly can. But some things cannot be altered. Love is one of these things. You cannot love where you have no inclination. And you cannot will love away, either. This is not about your father. It is about your lover.”

  Anne shook her head. “I have to go, Deborah. I have to resolve this. And I must secure my place and that of my son in this country. To meet my father may help me in that. Afterward… well, we must wait on fate for an answer.”

  It didn’t take so very long to travel from Somerset to London if the weather was kind and the tracks dry. But for Anne de Bohun, this journey felt like the longest she had ever taken, though the sun shone faithfully day after day as a glorious summer smiled on England. Wanting her journey to be discreet, Anne had hired a closed wagon in Taunton instead of riding. It was a cumbersome thing, set on high wheels with small, shuttered windows and substantial cushions, yet not even a mile from the town walls, Anne knew she’d made a terrible mistake.

  The hardness of the sun-baked track caused the body of the wagon to sway and lurch on its leather straps as the team of horses picked up speed. Soon Anne was as nauseated and dizzy as she’d ever been on board the Lady Margaret and the cushions were so unyielding she felt every hole and rut in the track. Yet, even in the strange, hallucinatory state brought on by heat and dehydration, she was still certain that her decision to ask Leif Molnar to stay with Deborah and little Edward at the Hall was the correct one. He’d wanted to come with her, of course, but protecting the boy was now Anne’s greatest concern; somehow she’d convinced Leif of that.

  She’d decided to take Wat with her, to ride beside the wagon. Ralph of Dunster, a large, nearly silent man whom Leif had found and personally approved of as a potential guard, was driving the wagon. Jane Alleswhite, Meggan’s niece from the village, had been half trained by Deborah to attend Anne once she reached court; she made up the last member of this little party.

  This same Jane was now sitting opposite Anne, faint and pale from having puked her recent dinner all over her new lindseywoolsey dress, and was deeply shamed. The smell in that closed, stuffy wagon was vile, yet Anne knew they could not stop each time either of them felt the urge to vomit. It would take days longer to arrive at the capital and that was time she could not afford.

  “When it hits you the next time, girl, hang your head out of the window. Better to be sick outside, into the road, if you can.” Poor Jane raised her sweating, green face and groaned. Anne spoke urgently. “We must resist, Jane. Count with me until the feeling goes away. One, two, three…”

  Jane wailed, “I can’t count,” and threw herself to the window, thrusting the shutters outward just in time.

  “Oy!” Wat was riding at the back wheels of the carriage and his outraged bellow startled the horses, which Ralph, cursing freely, fought to control.

  And so the journey went on, and each day—there were three of them—became more and more hallucinogenic. Even at sea, sailors learned to cope with seasickness on a long voyage, but this journey was different. The women gave up eating since nausea had killed their appetite. Even liquid was rationed: empty stomachs had little enough to give back when retching set in, but even water made a difference. Then, on the afternoon of the third day, there was an old familiar smell on the gusting wind. London’s summer reek was back in Anne’s nostrils and its voice was in her head once more. Iron-clad wheels on cobbles, the braying of animals on their way to slaughter, human voices calling, shouting, laughing, cursing… And soon the wagon joined the flowing mass of animals and people as they streamed along the Strand.

  How many years ago was it since Anne herself had stumbled along this very road, bereft, following Deborah to a new life? A peasant girl clad in homespun, leaving her uncomplicated life in the forest behind forever and intimidated by the strangeness, the noise, and the stench. And
the men who’d looked at her so lustfully.

  Now, Lady Anne de Bohun, dressed in clothes worth more than some of the houses lining this ancient roadway, rolled past, hidden from view. And as Anne’s wagon lurched by, shutters firmly latched—there was stench inside certainly, but that outside was worse—the common people on the roadway grudgingly stepped back, shoved each other out of the way beneath the overhang of the houses, just as she and Deborah had once done on London Bridge. And they shouted out as the closed vehicle passed, liberally scattering muck from its wheels as it went. Anne heard their catcalls, their whistles; heard them calling out, “Are you too proud or too ugly to show yourself, lady? Show us your face so’s you can see what you’ve done!” Yet Anne did not open the shutters. Once she’d been a peasant; now she was not. The workings of fate were all far, far too complicated to understand.

  An hour, then two, passed inside that stuffy wagon on the crowded streets of London before the journey ended and Anne de Bohun found herself, once more, at the doors of a great dark house. Blessing House. And there, at last, she collapsed.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Louis de Valois woke in the dead of the night. The dream he’d been sent, certainly by God, was a clear inspiration. It seemed to him that he was flying and, when he looked down, he could see the whole of the kingdom of England spread out beneath him, beneath the tips of his wings. He was a bird. Not just a bird. An eagle. And then, coming at him out of the sun, was another eagle—huge, fierce, screaming. But he had fought that eagle and, though he himself had been almost mortally wounded, in the end he had found his opponent’s weakness. With a last slash of his beak he had ripped the enemy’s breast until it dripped blood to the earth far, far below. With a last defiant scream, his adversary had plummeted away, falling, fluttering, its life so clearly ebbing as it fell…

  “Light! Light!”

  Alaunce Levaux scrambled up from his truckle bed, which lay across the door of the king’s chamber. He’d taken a long time to get to sleep because the rushes were old, smelly, and lousy with fleas from the king’s dogs, and they were heaped up far too close to his face. And now, finally, just as he’d been visited by oblivion…

  “I’m here, master; here I am.”

  Levaux always slept fully dressed. He’d learned from long experience that his master woke from restless sleep very often and he was heartily sick of the embarrassment—and the cold—of waiting on the king night-naked. It was the work of a moment to strike flint and light the candle he kept ready in a silver dish beside the king’s bed.

  The king snorted; his impatience was caustic. Levaux was getting old. And slow. Just like his master.

  “Get me the monk.”

  Levaux was fuddled with the rags of sleep. “The monk, Your Majesty? Which…?”

  The king roared, “The monk! Agonistes. I want Brother Agonistes. Now!”

  That tone of voice meant many things: death, destruction, bad digestion. Levaux fled the room like a wraith but Louis’s words followed him. “He’s to go to the court of that usurper. Tell him that! I want information, do you hear? Information! There must be a way to wound that regicide, to hurt him where he least expects to be hurt. The monk will find a way. He’s to leave tonight. Immediately. Go! Do this or remember well the cage, Levaux. Remember the cage!”

  Levaux scuttled away. He would do his master’s bidding, certainly he would, but the king was clutching phantoms to his breast for comfort. It was high summer in France but the world had turned dark for Louis, as everyone at court now knew. Certainly, a fragile three-month truce was in place with Burgundy—but that was only because Louis’s dreams of influence over the destiny of England had disappeared with Warwick’s death and the defeat of his cousin, Queen Margaret. Louis was nothing if not pragmatic.

  But what could the monk do in the face of such events? What difference could he possibly make if he went to the court of King Edward in England? Levaux shook his head as he stumbled through the darkened palace. He hated nights like this. He would have to wake le Dain, and the barber loathed being woken in the night—it made him frightened. And fear made the king’s chief confidant savage.

  Omens. Very bad omens everywhere. Especially since he, and he alone, knew the secret that le Dain was hiding from the king. No doubt it would come out, in time, then… Heaven protect them all. Meanwhile, he would keep his head down and do what he was told. Obedience might save him for a little while longer, God willing.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  “She’s gone. Some days since, my lord.”

  William Hastings, the chamberlain of England, had the craziest urge to laugh as he gazed on Deborah’s bent head. He stretched out a hand and raised her from her curtsy.

  “Do not be frightened, mistress. Just tell me where the Lady Anne has gone.”

  Deborah composed herself. She had some liking for William Hastings but the sudden wash of fear was a warning she should heed. “My lady’s business is her own, sir.” The king’s chamberlain was one of the greatest magnates in England, and he was in Anne’s hall, supported by a considerable force of armed men all waiting outside in the inner ward. It was bravely said. William’s lips twitched. He liked courage.

  “Nonetheless, I am on the king’s business and here by his command, Mistress Deborah. He expects obedience from his subjects. I ask you again: where is your lady?”

  “She has gone to London.”

  William slewed around toward the sound of a man’s voice. The chamberlain’s eyes narrowed. “I know you.”

  Leif Molnar strolled forward until he stood beside Deborah. He was almost twice the old woman’s height but he leaned down and picked up one of her small hands, and patted it to comfort her, before he replied. “Yes. You know me. I have you to thank for months without light last winter in the Binnenhof. I had not thought to give so many dark days to the king.”

  Hastings glanced at the giant Norseman, eyebrows raised. He smiled, not unkindly, and said mildly, “There are worse prisons than the dungeons of the Binnenhof, my friend. Why are you here at this house?”

  Leif could have taken the words as provocation. He chose not to. “Guarding my lady’s interests. From all who would trouble her.”

  “Ah. That is a good answer and, therefore, we can be friends. For I, too, am here to help guard your lady. Her interests are the king’s. And the king’s are mine.”

  Since Leif was not a fool he heard the double tone, the ambiguity around the word “lady.” “Lord Chamberlain, my lady will be grateful for your kind interest once she hears of it. Yet I fear, since you arrive too late to tell her of it yourself, she may never completely understand the support and comfort you wish to offer. However, I am certain she would wish me to offer thanks in her stead, as her faithful servant.” He bowed gracefully, from the waist.

  Deborah was astonished. Normally, Leif spoke as little as possible. Now his speech and bearing were perfectly polished.

  The chamberlain found himself bowing in reply. That confused him. He’d presumed that this man who’d once claimed to be Anne’s husband was a common seaman. “And may I know the name of Lady de Bohun’s most distinguished servant?”

  “My name is Leif Molnar. I am the captain of Sir Mathew Cuttifer’s cog, the Lady Margaret. My master has set me the task to guard his ward, Lady de Bohun. It is my duty, my honor, and my pleasure to fulfill that task.”

  “And yet she went to London without you?”

  There was the slightest, the very slightest, sneer to the chamberlain’s words. Deborah’s eyes flicked to the Norseman. He could see her concern and smiled, gently holding out a chair so she could sit. Should she? The chamberlain had not indicated his permission.

  “Mistress, will you sit? You seem tired to me.” Politics and power crackled in the air as Leif addressed Deborah directly.

  William Hastings slapped one riding glove against the other as the woman sat in a simple chair. “You did not answer me, Master Molnar.”

  The Dane smiled placidly. “My
lady is always well guarded now, lord. I see to that.”

  Hastings ground his teeth silently. He was tired and covered in dust and now he faced the lengthy ride back to London, unsatisfied. Three more days. God only knew what would have transpired by the time he returned to court.

  “Very well. However, since the welfare of your mistress”—again, it was an ambiguous word—“is close to the heart of our king, I must ask you to tell me where she lodges.”

  Just at that moment, a child’s happy voice was heard. “Deborah, Deborah, where are you?”

  The old woman broke the tension between the two men by calling out, “In here, child. In the hall.”

  A small blur of energy hurtled into the room and resolved itself into Edward as he jumped onto Deborah’s lap. “Look, look! A green frog. Really green!”

  “So it is. But see, Edward, we have visitors. Here is Lord Hastings. You must greet him on behalf of your aunt, child.”

  Edward turned to see Hastings gazing at him with great interest. “Hello. I remember you. You stayed at our old house. You are welcome to our new one. Do you like frogs, sir?”

  It was said with perfect poise and William Hastings, the father of sons himself, was enchanted. “I am pleased to be remembered. May I see your frog, small master?”

  Leif Molnar moved closer to the woman and the child as the chamberlain sauntered toward them. Their eyes met. And locked.

  “Ah yes. A very fine, and no doubt rare, large green frog. You are most fortunate, Edward.”

  The child nodded vigorously. “He’d be very happy living with us here, you know. Don’t you agree, sir?”

  All guileless charm, the chamberlain noted. Just like his father.

  “No doubt Mistress Deborah will have her opinions on this; however, it’s my experience that frogs like ponds and long grass more than living in houses.”

  Edward shook his head. “Oh no. Not all frogs. This one’s an indoors frog. He likes it here. See?” He slipped off Deborah’s knee and carefully put the animal down on the rushes. It sat there, gulping rapidly but unmoving.