The Uncrowned Queen

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  The big man said nothing but then he smiled and leaned down, gently wiping the tears away; the tears she was so ashamed of. “No need for these.”

  “Wissy? Why are you crying?”

  Leif picked the boy up in a whirl and dumped him, laughing, on top of the harvest wain filled with sacks of unthreshed grain. “That’s not for you to ask, young man. Your aunt is tired from the journey, that’s all. Let’s take her home, shall we, and get this wheat to the threshing floor.” And suddenly, as if she weighed no more than the boy, Leif scooped up Anne de Bohun and tossed her up beside her son; she was winded by surprise.

  Meggan nudged Long Will. “London’s a bad place, Will. Look how thin she is. And sad too. We’ll fix that though, now she’s home. Maybe he will?”

  Long Will picked up his scythe and his sharpening stone. “None of your business, woman. Leave them be. Gossip is the Devil’s tool, as well you know.”

  But as he trudged back to the village, Meggan beside him, Long Will heard the boy singing loudly on top of the harvest wain as Anne’s bullocks pulled the wagon along the track to the Hall. And as Will looked back, he saw Leif join in, walking beside the open wagon. And their lady, who had looked so unhappy only moments ago, was giggling on her perch, high up on the mountain of sacks. And then she began to sing as well and all three voices—the man’s, the woman’s, the child’s—made harmony together for a moment, until Edward lost the tune and they all laughed.

  Meggan looked at him in sly triumph. “Told you so. All will be well. You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  In work there was healing and, as the year finally began to turn toward winter, Anne de Bohun pushed herself ever harder so that she would have no time or energy to think. Each day she joined the women from the village on the threshing floor in the largest of her barns and, like them, flailed the wheat to detach the ripe grain from the husk. Then, with all the women standing in a circle, together they tossed the grain to separate it from the chaff. These women had become her friends because she never asked them to do what she did not do herself.

  Each evening saw the chatelaine of Herrard Great Hall stretch her weary back as she shoveled the last of the clean grain into sacks she’d sewn herself. And, because she was hungry, truly hungry at last, she ate ravenously at night—which pleased Deborah and made Leif smile, to see her so greedy—and fell asleep in front of the kitchen fire as she sewed yet more sacks, oblivious of her itchy clothes. More than once Leif carried Anne up to her own great bed and placed her, fast asleep, beside her dreaming son.

  One night Deborah was settled before the fire in the flagged kitchen, a pile of sacks beside her, as Leif joined her. “Ale, Leif?”

  The man sat beside the old woman on the settle and gave her a grateful nod. He said nothing as he drank deep. Then, wiping his hand across his mouth, he ventured an opinion. “She’s better, I think.”

  Deborah squinted in the light from the fire; it was getting harder to thread the big sacking needle. That was a worrying sign of old age. “Can you see to do this, Leif?”

  “Of course.” Like all seamen he was good with rope and deft with his fingers. And what was this thread but a jute rope made very small? “Do you agree with me, Deborah, about Anne?”

  Taking back the needle, Deborah flashed a glance at her companion. “In body, I agree she’s mending well. Time is the solution to…”

  Leif’s face was grim. “Edward Plantagenet.”

  The old woman laid a hand on the man’s knee. “Will you wait, Leif?”

  He smiled faintly. “What choice do I have?”

  “All the choice in the world.”

  They both turned. Anne was standing, barefooted but dressed in her working kirtle, at the bottom of the stone stairs that led down to the kitchen from the rooms above.

  “You were asleep.” Leif stood, abashed. He was embarrassed to think Anne had heard them discussing her.

  “I woke.” Anne was short. She would not tell them about the dream: wolves and eagles fighting. Always, every night. She spoke urgently. “Leif, I would not hold you here for the world. You have been so good to us, helped us so much. We have no right to—”

  Leif put his hands on Anne’s shoulders and gently pressed her to sit in his place beside Deborah.

  “Yes, you do. Every right. Mathew Cuttifer asked me to come here and make sure you were well prepared for winter. There’s still a lot to do. I’m not leaving. Not unless you want me to.”

  Anne shook her head. “No. Never.”

  Why had she said that? She smiled at him, embarrassed. “I mean, it’s true. We do need you here. We can’t finish all that needs to be done without you. Can we, Deborah?”

  Her foster mother nodded placidly, eyes on her work. This was between the two of them; she did not speak.

  “Ale, Lady Anne?” Leif diverted Anne’s confusion with instinctive kindness.

  Anne stretched and shook her head. “I’m aching in every muscle and bone. And itching!”

  Now Deborah spoke. “It’s the chaff. It gets into everything. You need to wash it off. I’ll boil water for you and you can bathe in front of the fire. You’ll sleep better, I promise you that.”

  Leif swallowed the last of his ale hastily. “Well then, I’ll be off to my bed.” And that was what he intended to do. And yet, later, he found an excuse to wander past the kitchen on his way to inspect the horses—to see if they’d been fed properly, that was what he told himself—and happened to cast one glance through the small kitchen window, which was open to let the steam out.

  He saw Anne from the back, naked but for the bath sheet wound around her hips, holding her arms high as Deborah gently washed her body. It was just a glimpse—the line of one shoulder, the supple curve of her back as she bent, the grace of an arm as she held it extended. Love and pity overwhelmed Leif. It was not right that her ribs were so clear beneath her skin; not right that grief had made Anne so slender. He fed the confused horses a second supper that night, thinking deeply. He knew what Anne de Bohun needed, even if she did not. She needed him.

  It was his task to make her see that.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Two days later, when the harvest was all gathered in and they’d burned the stubble in the fields, the first rains began. Anne stood at the door to the stable, Morganne’s reins in her fingers, and watched the puddles forming in the inner ward. This was perfect timing. The country was parched and the rain would soften the soil. Some of the strips they’d just harvested would be left fallow to rest, but a third of them would need plowing so that the winter grain could be planted. At last, at last, things were going well.

  She squinted up at the sky. The rain was setting in, and she would need her hooded cloak today to ride to the village. There was planning to be done for the Harvest Home feast she would shortly hold in the threshing barn. She stroked Morganne’s nose and the horse whickered, tossing her head.

  “Yes, we’ll go very soon. I’ll just get my other cloak.”

  Ducking her head, Anne set out from the stable to run across the inner ward, but a voice called out to her, a man’s voice. “Anne de Bohun!”

  She turned, the rain blinding her for a moment… “Moss!”

  The gate to the Hall had been left open and, as if to mock her earlier happy mood, Brother Agonistes—the former Dr. Moss—had ridden through, surrounded by a group of armed men. With the exception of the monk, they were all dressed in the York livery of murrey and blue. Agonistes held an ivory cross high, flourishing it as he rode toward Anne, his red eyes burning with unnerving fervor.

  “You know that is not my name. I am God’s servant now. And you are a witch who has been found out.” His voice was very cold.

  Anger brought energy to Anne’s tired body. She stood straighter and stared back at him, unblinking. “And this is deluded nonsense. You are not welcome in my house. But, plainly, you must be very frightened of me—or yourself—to need so many men about you.” She turned her back on him and strod
e toward the door of her Hall. Nearer, nearer, if she could just get to the door…

  Agonistes spurred his horse forward across her path. “Stop! I have authorization to take you from this place.”

  The monk pulled a small scroll from the sleeve of his habit. Anne turned and looked at the man, wiping the rain from her eyes. The monk waved the scroll as he danced his horse forward.

  “Oh, I assure you, all is in order, witnessed and signed. You have broken the terms of your exile from this country. The king himself has given me this task.” He was riding around her now, circling, taunting her.

  Anne’s heart jumped behind her ribs. “Let me see this thing.”

  Deborah had been collecting eggs from the hens in the orchard and chose that moment to enter the inner ward on her way to the kitchen. She nearly dropped her basket as she hurried toward her daughter. “Anne?”

  The monk ignored the interruption. His horse curvetted closer to Anne de Bohun. “Ah, so you can read, Lady Anne? Too much education in a woman is a useless thing. Except today. Read what is written here. If you really can.” He sneered as he offered her the document. Anne saw the dangling seal. The king’s seal.

  There was triumph in the man’s eyes but Anne ignored it, twitching the scroll from his hands. Turning her back, she unfurled it; the rain fell on the parchment and the letters began to run, but she grasped the sense. All of it.

  “We, Edward, by the Grace of God, Sovereign Lord of the Kingdom of England, France, Ireland and Wales, Duke of …decree that the woman known as Anne de Bohun, of Herrard Great Hall in the county of… having broken the terms of exile… shall be banished from our Kingdom, never to return… In this matter, my agent, the Dominican monk known as Brother Agonistes… shall remove the said Anne de Bohun from our Kingdom at his pleasure and escort her to a place of his choosing so that she may be placed in the hands of the Church to answer certain other charges.”

  Above the dependent seals there was a signature at the foot of the little scroll: E. Rex. The ink trickled mournfully, staining her fingers. Anne rolled the scroll tightly. “This is a fraud. This is not the king’s signature.” She faced Agonistes squarely but heard the tremor in her voice. So did he.

  Agonistes held up his crucifix once more, waving it in her face, back and forth, back and forth. He spoke very softly; he had no need to shout. “I am the servant of the Lord and also of the king. Willing or unwilling, you will come with me. Now!” The last word was a bellow as men sprang down from their horses.

  “No!” Anne turned to run toward the Hall, toward Deborah, but rough hands caught her, hauled her up, and threw her in front of a waiting soldier on his horse.

  “Anne!” Deborah’s wail was terrified. Dropping the eggs, she ran forward, fighting to get to Anne, hitting out and running between the men, the horses, but they were too fast. They wheeled as a disciplined group and were gone, cantering over the drawbridge, gathering speed as the rain blotted out the sky.

  Deborah ran toward the Hall. “Leif, Leif! Where are you? Help me! Help Anne!”

  It was a blur, a nightmare. What was she doing here?

  Anne sat up in the box bed and regretted it immediately. Her vision was partly obscured—one eye was swollen almost shut—and her head was ringing with an intensity that made her want to vomit.

  Now she remembered. She’d fought them, slashed at the eyes of the man who’d held her on the horse. They’d stopped the cavalcade and then she’d tried to hit Moss. They’d beaten her for that. Painfully, she closed her eyes and swallowed. There was blood in her mouth. It was so tempting to slide down into the dark…

  No! She would count to three, and then…

  It was the dress that claimed her attention first in this shadowed, wavering world. Earth-colored and clumsily made from coarse wool, it was a penitent’s garment, draped over a coffer placed directly in front of the bed. She couldn’t avoid seeing that dress.

  And then she saw that she was naked. And cold. Shivering, half closing her one open eye against the pain, she groped for something to cover herself. There was only a sheet.

  “I’m over here, witch.”

  Where was he? Where was the voice coming from?

  Anne swallowed as she tried to speak; even her throat was painful. “I can’t see you.”

  He laughed. An unpleasant sound. “Open your eyes. Both of them.” That was cruel. And bracing. Anne forced herself to focus.

  “Ah yes, there you are, Moss. Hiding in the shadows as usual. What are you frightened of? It can’t be me, surely, after what you had them do.” Her tone held the flick of a whip.

  He stood at the end of the bed, the crucifix held up before him like a weapon. “A woman should be reverently silent when a servant of the Lord, or any man, indeed, is pleased to give instruction.”

  “Silent reverence?” Anne shook her head. “I suppose you call this”—she indicated the bruises and the blood—“instruction?”

  The monk signed the cross over the bed. “The Lord guides me. By mortifying the flesh you will be brought to salvation.” Momentarily, his face twisted as he looked at her: the shape of her body was clear beneath the sheet. He threw her the penitent’s robe. “Your worldly clothes have been stripped away. Cover yourself. We have lost time waiting for your… recovery. If we are to catch the tide, we must ride fast.”

  It hurt Anne to laugh. “So it’s no easier if I’m unconscious? What are you worried about? People talking?”

  “Dress. You offend God with your nakedness.”

  “It won’t work, Moss. You can’t do this.”

  He looked at her with his head on one side, eyes jackdaw bright. “The man you call Moss is dead. You killed him. Dress and veil yourself. Men will never see your face again, not as long as you live.”

  There was a cold, dark chasm opening. “No. I will not go with you. I will go to my home.” Her voice wobbled.

  Agonistes smiled; he had broken her spirit at last. “But I have the signature of the king, your sometime adulterous lover, on the deed of exile. You saw it. You are bound for France. And burning.”

  Anne shook her head. “Why are you doing this, Moss? You betrayed me all those years ago. From the very first. Ambition and lust were your downfall; they were your sins, not mine.”

  “Silence!” Concentrated venom. He thrust the crucifix toward Anne’s face but his eyes dropped further down her body. A moment, a frozen moment, and he’d ripped the sheet away from Anne. Her eyes locked on his. She made no move to cover herself.

  “Face the truth, Moss. Here it is. My body is the truth. You want to kill what I would not give you.”

  She saw shame in his eyes for an instant, and then he slapped her. Her eyes blurred with agonized tears as he whispered, “Try to tempt the servant of the Lord again and I promise you such suffering that the stake will be a relief.”

  There were two roads now: defeat or rage. Anne chose rage. She threw the penitent’s gown across the room. “I will not wear that thing. I am not a witch or a penitent.” She reared up and the crown of her head connected with his jaw, stunning them both.

  But Moss, the self-serving courtier, stood before her now; the monk had disappeared. He jerked Anne up by the hair and his face was so close to hers she could smell old wine and the rancid breath of broken teeth. “You are lost and will do as I say.”

  “I think that’s unlikely.”

  Leif Molnar. He’d arrived so quietly on buckskin boots that neither had heard him open the door. Leaning on the haft of his axe—double-bladed, a battle-axe—he filled the door frame.

  Moss turned, one hand entangled in Anne’s hair. “You have no business with this woman.”

  Leif snorted, picked up the axe, and settled his grip. “A bad choice, monk, and a worse one. That’s all you’ve got for certain.”

  Moss’s eyes were suddenly wide and blank. He smiled broadly and released Anne’s hair, wiping his bloodied fingers against the skirts of his robe. “Foolish man.”

  He launched himself f
rom the balls of his feet, a bright dagger in the fist of one hand. He had courage when he thought the odds were on his side. But they weren’t. He was out of practice.

  Leif, the servant of Thor, seasoned by much fighting, stepped neatly to one side as Moss closed the gap. Revealed behind him was a silent party of men from Wincanton the Less. Anne’s people. Armed with billhooks sharp from harvesting.

  There was no need for the battle-axe. The billhooks did their work and Anne did not try to stop them, though she turned her head away and, closing her eyes, tried to stop up her ears.

  Perhaps she would do penance for this killing at another time, but not now. By the grace of a different God, she was free to go home.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  It was nearly two weeks since Anne’s rescue from Moss and the orchard was littered with the last windfalls of the season. The need to get the harvest in quickly had interrupted the final picking, and the first autumn gales had caught them on the boughs.

  Anne was slowly moving from tree to tree, seeking the best of the damaged fruit and putting them in her apron. Deborah had taught her well as a child: nothing must go to waste.

  “What will you do with them? Aren’t they too bruised for use?”

  Anne stood up carefully. Parts of her still hurt, though the pain was less with every new day. She smiled at Leif as he came toward her with another empty basket. “Would you say that I am too?”

  He smiled nervously. It was a black joke after all she’d been through. “No. You’re sound. Lots of use in you yet. Deborah asked me to give you this.” He put the basket down and Anne allowed the contents of her apron to tumble into it.

  “Anne?”

  She turned to him. “Yes?”

  “Show me?”

  Trustingly, she allowed him to cup her face in one hand. He turned it, very gently, this way and that. “Can’t see much anymore. You heal well.” It was true: most of the discoloration had faded and the cut over her eye had healed cleanly.