A Rose for the Crown

by Anne Easter Smith

  Kate flew down the broad staircase, her thoughts still trapped in the chamber above, trying to absorb the cruelty of George’s words. She almost collided with Philippa, who was carrying a basket of wool to spin. Kate’s wild eyes and unkempt hair under her hastily donned cap told Philippa that George had said or done something to upset his young bride. She put down the basket and looked earnestly into Kate’s troubled face.

  “My dear, whatever has happened? You look as wild as a goose fleeing from a fox. Is it George? Has he misused you? I pray you tell me and I will set things aright.”

  Kate longed to be gathered into Philippa’s motherly embrace, where she could sob out her secret, but she dared not give in to her longing. She was now convinced that she must indeed be a harlot, and when the saintly Philippa found out, she would surely throw Kate out of Haute Manor. She pulled herself together and managed a wan smile.

  “Nay, Mother, do not fear. I have a headache today, that is all. And Molly was nowhere to be found to dress my hair. I am ashamed to worry you so. May I help you with your spinning? Or shall I mind the children this morning?”

  Philippa was not entirely convinced by Kate’s light dismissal of her mood but chose not to press the point. She pulled on her long nose, a gesture that Kate was growing used to when Philippa made decisions.

  “The children are in the garden, Kate. They will be glad of your company more than mine, I have no doubt. And the fresh air might clear your head.”

  Kate’s anger diminished as she went through the garden, picking off deadheads, saving the seeds for another planting and keeping Robert and Maud in view. Surely she had been mistaken in George’s tone. She tried to convince herself that he must have been nervous. After all, she was an experienced married woman—if only he knew, she snorted to herself—and perhaps she was his first sexual encounter. But still, from all she had observed of men while she was Thomas’s wife, bedding women never seemed far from their thoughts. I must really have repelled him by my actions, she thought sadly. She called to the children to stay away from the river and continued her stroll, trying to distract her mind as she looked about her.

  The manor was pleasantly situated on the banks of the little river Brett. The hundred-year-old church, flint, with a square, crenellated tower, stood hard by. The two-storied house was wattle and daub with the pinkish wash that was characteristic of many buildings in Suffolk. Weather-beaten oak beams supported the roof, new chimney and polished horn windows. Although it was half the size of the Mote, Kate was delighted with her new home. There was a coziness about it that grand Ightham lacked, and being so close to the river, it reminded her of the farm at Snoll’s Hatch.

  Philippa had welcomed her gladly upon their arrival from Kent; another pair of hands was always welcome in a busy household with two children of under ten years. After embracing her son and his new wife, Philippa had turned to George.

  “Tell me, George, has Sir John allowed you this absence while he is still at sea?”

  George found a stubborn patch of mud on his hose and busied himself with it to avoid looking her in the eye. “Aye, Mother, he does not have need of me at present.”

  Philippa raised an eyebrow at George’s reply. She could recognize when he was being contrary and devious. Her firstborn—named for his father—would inherit Haute Manor but for now was content to learn the wool trade from Philippa’s parents, who had sent him to their business in Calais. He was four years older than George and a capable, solid young man. When George was born, young Martin had fussed over and spoiled his brother. Unfortunately, it was not long after George’s birth that their father decided to follow the sword and left, failing to instill any discipline into his younger son. George had been a moody child, uncontrolled and demanding, and Philippa knew she had indulged him to compensate for his father’s absence. She would not make the same mistake with Robert and Maud.

  Kate had been entranced by the journey to Suffolk, she told Philippa, who was amused by her daughter-in-law’s youthful enthusiasm. Kate told her only of the high points. They crossed the Thames at Gravesend, where she marveled at the bustling harbor with its tall-masted ships maneuvering around one another as easily as ducks and geese. After a night in a noisy tavern, where none of the Haute party could sleep for the drunken sailors, they continued through the abundant deer forests of the country of Essex and into gentler Suffolk. She described how the cold rain penetrated through all the layers of clothing she wore and admitted she had been grumpy by the end of the day. Philippa protested at that, saying she could not imagine Kate ever being grumpy, and George politely demurred.

  Kate did not tell Philippa how quiet George had been as they rode through marshes and forests. Late one afternoon, she had asked George about John Howard and his life as squire to the great landowner.

  “I am attached to Sir John’s household ’tis true,” George told her. “But I learn the arts of chivalry and war at my lord of Norfolk’s castle in Framlingham. You must know Howard is Norfolk’s man. They are kin, though I am not sure how. My father’s land is his by right of my lord of Oxford, John de Vere. But some years ago, when Edward became king, de Vere, who was one of King Henry’s generals, forfeited his lands to the crown, and they were given to Howard to oversee. Oxford is in exile now—he deserves to be—and my father became Howard’s retainer. And that is how my master came to take me as squire. And eventually I will be a knight.”

  Kate did not notice the resignation in his voice. “Why, that is wonderful! I’m married to a knight.”

  “Not yet,” grumbled George, staring ahead, unimpressed by her excitement. “I am not very good at it, you see.”

  “What do you mean? It sounds like such an adventure. I would like it above all things. What must you do every day? Joust? Wrestle? Ride to the hunt?” Kate was eager.

  George sighed and decided to regale her, if only to stop her incessant questions. “Nay, Kate. To be a gentleman, one has to also read, write and learn Latin and French. There are studies in poetry, mathematics, music and the law, which I admit I like. But they also discuss war and military strategy, which I hate. And then we have to read these boring romances that are supposed to teach us etiquette and how to converse with ladies. In the evening, we learn to play an instrument and to dance and sing. I like that part, too. We are taught the knightly code and . . .”

  “The what?” Kate interrupted, fascinated.

  “The knightly code. ‘To have all courtesy in words, deeds and degrees . . . ’ um . . . I have forgotten the rest.” George grinned at her. “I told you I am not very good at it.”

  “And that is all? When do you learn to fight?”

  “After dinner and all through the afternoon, God help me! I do enjoy the hunt, I must confess. I am happy when we are hunting.”

  Kate was a little disappointed not to hear more details of fighting with battle-axes, maces, dirks and daggers, but she could see George was tiring of the subject and sinking into silence once more.

  Suddenly, a piercing scream came from the cart behind them and then another. It was Molly. Kate and George wheeled their horses around and witnessed two robbers attempting to drag Molly off her high seat and a huge, brawny man wrenching Ralph from his.

  “Mother of God! Help us!” cried Ralph, as he tumbled to the ground, grappling with his assailant. Kate rode hard at the two attacking Molly. Cornflower’s hoofs caught one man in the head and knocked him to the ground, while Kate thrashed the other about the head and shoulders with her knotted whip. Molly escaped and ran behind a tree.

  George was unprepared and slow off the mark. He eventually pulled out his smallsword and urged his horse towards Ralph and the giant. Ralph had had no time to draw his dagger and was ground down easily by his attacker. Just as George was about to make contact with his sword, the third man, who had been only dazed by Cornflower for a few moments, pulled him roughly from his saddle.

  Kate was losing the battle with her robber, though he would not walk away with less than two black e
yes and a vivid welt across his face from her whip. Her face was red with anger, but her dilated pupils betrayed her fear as the man, her two hands finally caught in his grimy grasp, hauled her off Cornflower’s back. They both landed in a heap, Kate kicking and screaming and the man cursing and slapping her.

  “Take your filthy hands off me!” George flailed about with his sword helplessly, spread-eagled as he was on the forest floor by his attacker. “Help! Help! Thieves! Murderers!”

  From out of nowhere, his pleas were answered. Through the woods charged four knights, swords drawn and eager for a fight. “À Mowbray, à Mowbray!” shouted one. “À Norfolk!” another.

  Seeing the armed horsemen, all three thieves took off at a run and became one with the forest, dissolved as if by magic.

  One of the knights picked Kate up. “How is it with you, mistress?” He chuckled. “You gave him something to remember for a few days, I’ll warrant.”

  “I thank you, sir, for your assistance. We were taken by surprise.” Kate smiled at the tall young man, who visibly wilted. “Molly! Ralph! Are you hurt? ’Twas a fearful fellow who attacked you, Ralph. You are lucky to be alive.”

  Ralph had the beginning of a black eye and his nose was bleeding. “I be fine, mistress, I thankee. I should have killed the brute,” he growled, trying at least to sound fierce as his knees began to buckle.

  The third knight was attempting to help George, who was lying facedown, feigning unconsciousness. “Look, comrades! ’Tis our own George Haute.” His laugh was not kind. “May I ask, Master Haute, where was all your training? You should be ashamed of your feeble efforts—and in front of this fair maid and her servants.”

  “This is not any fair maid, she is my wife!” George’s voice sulkily acknowledged, getting to his knees.

  Kate could not believe their luck. “Sir, you know my husband? Are you from Framlingham then? I heard you cry ‘à Mowbray’ as you charged.”

  “Aye, madam, we are Norfolk’s men, and Lionel here is with Sir John Howard, like George. Did I hear him say you were his wife? This is indeed news to us.” He chuckled.

  George remounted his horse and ignored the man. He was not being very gracious, Kate thought, puzzled, so she thanked the knights profusely and watched as they rode off. She took the potion bag from Molly and administered a tincture of witch hazel to Ralph’s nose and eye, while George and Molly tightened a few ropes around the cart’s contents.

  All this Kate did not divulge to Philippa, but she chattered on about her impressions of Suffolk. They had crossed over the River Stour to Sudbury and across rolling grasslands broken only by brakes and thickets, which were littered with flocks of sheep. And finally on to Chelsworth village. She found the landscape bleaker than Kent’s. The horizon had no high Downs to divide it from the wide sky, but the light was magical, she said.

  Kate also did not tell Philippa that George had insisted on economizing along the route by having them all share the same straw mattress at the inns every night, which afforded the newlyweds no privacy at all. She had not been averse to waiting until they reached Haute Manor before sharing a curtained bed with her husband. However, even then, intimacy was not to be.

  Coming back into the present, Kate kicked a stone across the path with her patten.

  LATER, WHEN THE SUN was at its highest and the children had been fed their dinner of soup, meat and fish pies with bread, Kate offered to feed the geese in the field across the river, and Philippa declared her intention of retiring for an hour while the children took their nap. George declared his intention of spending the rest of the day in Lavenham, and Kate shrugged, disappointed.

  Kate left the house and stopped briefly at the stable to see Cornflower and give her a carrot. As the horse nuzzled her with its velvet-soft nose, she felt someone watching her. She turned and saw Simon, one of the stable boys, loitering by the water trough. He averted his eyes quickly and picked up a bucket, pretending to be hard at work. He was a handsome youth, about her age, but his eyes were weak, and a sulkiness hung around his mouth. Kate was perplexed by his unfriendliness but picked up a bucket of grain and nodded as she walked past him down the path behind the house. Going over the footbridge to the pasture beyond, she thought she heard George calling for Simon, presumably to saddle his horse, and she sighed. The geese hissed at her until she flung the food for them, whereupon they fought one another over it and let her be.

  The modest Haute estate stretched from the stream and south towards Lindsey Tye. Kate loved wandering by the river, seeing an otter or two frolicking on its silvery strands or a pair of moorhens chugging their way upstream, and she thought that by starting her walk there she would find some solace after the turmoil of the morning. She dawdled along the way, stooping to pick a late-summer daisy and a few gillyflowers and tucking them into her belt. As she got out of the shelter of the trees and the house, the sun disappeared behind some clouds and a cool breeze sprang up and made her shiver. She put down the bucket and hurried back to the house to fetch her shawl. She had been gone no more than twenty minutes.

  All was quiet in the hallway upstairs. Philippa and the children must already be asleep, she surmised, and so took off her noisy pattens and mounted the steps in her soft leather shoes. She walked lightly down to her chamber at the far end of the corridor and was about to put her hand on the door latch when she heard a noise inside. She thought George had said he was going to Lavenham. But a moan of pleasure, followed by “sssh” and quiet laughter froze Kate to the spot. George was in there, and it sounded—incredibly—as though he was in the throes of lovemaking. This could not be! She felt ashamed and angry, standing there listening to the sounds of love and of George very obviously enjoying himself—with someone else. Who could it be? This was intolerable after his rejection of the morning. She lifted the latch and flung open the door.

  She was more shocked by what confronted her than the two men cavorting naked on the bed were by her sudden appearance. Kate stared aghast at the unfamiliar naked body of her husband now sensually entwined with the willowy limbs of Simon the stable boy. Simon had the grace to pull the sheets around him and try to disappear into the bed curtains. George, however, leapt onto the floor, his eyes blazing.

  “How dare you walk in without knocking first!” he hissed, forgetting the chamber was just as much Kate’s as it was his. He stood there, furious, untroubled by his nakedness. Kate said not a word, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two men. Bile rose in her throat and, overcome with horror, she covered her mouth with her hand and fled from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  She imagined she could hear laughter following her down the stairs into the courtyard and across to the stables, where she bent over and spat out the vile fluid that was in her mouth. Forgetting why she had returned to the house in the first place and not heeding the stiff breeze, she threw a blanket on Cornflower, took one of the lighter saddles, which she could handle, and tightened the girth. Once in the saddle, she clung to the horse’s mane as she urged it into a canter out of the stable yard and down the lane. Soon she was galloping across the fields and into the woods beyond, her hair a russet veil billowing behind her. Anyone seeing her thus might presume it was the wind that made her eyes stream. Kate let her tears flow freely. They made diagonal streaks down her cheeks to her ears and hung like earbobs before they, too, were blown behind her. A squirrel panicked in her path, skittering this way and that, not knowing in which direction to turn. It finally found refuge on a tree trunk, its bushy red tail twitching in fear. Birds squawked off branches at her approach, and it was only when the path ran out and the trees seemed to close in around her that she slowed the horse to a walk. She emerged into a clearing and slipped out of the saddle and onto the grass. She let Cornflower loose to graze, wiped her nose on her sleeve and sat down cross-legged to think.

  “Why me, sweet Jesu? Why me?” she railed aloud. “’Tis unnatural in the eyes of God what they are doing. Why, in the name of the blessed Virgin, did he pursue m
e? Woo me? Marry me?”

  Her mind ran back to all the lies she had told in her life, the times she had wished Elinor ill, the lust she had felt for George all through her marriage to Thomas. In truth, I must be very wicked to have been punished thus, she thought. But what do I do now?

  A frightened deer ran into the clearing, its white tail indicating danger, and on seeing Cornflower, its fragile legs carried it fleet-footed back into its leafy camouflage. Kate hardly noticed it. She pulled the daisy, now somewhat wilted, from her belt and slowly plucked off its petals one by one, each with more violence as her anger against George built.

  “Damn him!” She smacked the ground, determined not to cry anymore. She lay back on the grass, took a deep breath and watched a hawk suspended motionless above her. Her thoughts returned to the obvious question. Why did he marry me? She frowned. George’s future after serving as squire to Sir John Howard was assured—or was it? She recalled his mother’s question upon their arrival at Chelsworth about Sir John’s permission to marry. Only now his evasive attitude bothered her. She remembered the surprise in the voice of the Mowbray man in the forest: “Did I hear him say you were his wife?” She wondered what George was keeping from his mother—and from her. She was resolved to ask him—to return to the house, oust Simon from her bed and use George’s secret as a threat to wrest the truth from him.

  The hawk fluttered its wings imperceptibly and plummeted to the ground as if it had been shot, its white undertail fanning out in a showy display. Kate sat up in time to see it impale a surprised hare on its razor-sharp talons. She was sorry for the hare but at the same time admired the hunting skill of the beautiful bird.

  “Ho! Rob! Where are you?” The call startled her, and she turned her head in the direction of the voice. No one was visible, but she could now hear dogs yapping and branches snapping under horses’ hoofs. She knew she should not be alone in the woods—strange woods, at that—and cursed her stupidity. But she had always felt so safe at Ightham. She jumped to her feet and began running to Cornflower, who was startled by the dogs and horses.