The Uncrowned Queen

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  And then she was gone, trampled beneath the hooves of Edward Plantagenet’s unreliable horse. Anne!

  “Ah, God, God!” He didn’t remember flinging himself from the stallion’s back, didn’t remember pushing the rearing, frightened animal backward into the outraged crowd. But in his dreams, his nightmares, once that terrible day was gone, he saw what happened next over and over again. Anne, plucked up from the filth of the roadway, lay limp and broken in his arms; Anne, silent, as, frantic with fear, he held her against his chest, willing breath into her small body; Anne moaning, blood seeping into her hair; Anne opening her eyes, sorrowful, shocked, confused when she saw his face so close to hers…

  But then came the blessing. She smiled. He always remembered that, dreamed of that, her smile at that moment. “Ah, love; my dearest love,” she whispered, and one finger reached up and touched his face lightly, his mouth. Then she sighed, and closed her eyes. And he thought she was dead; that he had killed her by his carelessness, his ambition.

  And in life, as in his dreams, Edward Plantagenet stood like a rock in the angry, confused crowd as it eddied and swirled around him; stood there, holding Anne’s frail body cradled against his chest and howled like an inconsolable child.

  He had killed the woman he loved.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Binnenhof exploded with noise and rumor as people ran to accommodate the sudden crisis.

  “Is she alive? Who is she?”

  “Yes, just. I don’t know. No lady, by her clothes.”

  Gudrun and Hawise—two of Louis de Gruuthuse’s kitchen women now pressed into different service—went about their work efficiently, each hurrying past the other in the Ridderzaal. Gudrun had just left Anne’s room with a load of soiled clothes, and Hawise was running to supply the third best guest chamber with clean, blanched bed linen.

  “Anyone else know anything?” Hawise hissed.

  “No. Not even a name.” Gudrun flung the words over her shoulder. “But for a no one, she’s being treated like she’s someone, that’s for certain.”

  She was indeed, thought Hawise, as she rushed, panting, up the massive main staircase to the range of rooms that had been built into the walls of the old fortress. Normally, she would have used one of the twisting sets of back stairs, but there was no time to observe social niceties today. She knocked softly on the door of the bed chamber and, hearing nothing but the low murmur of male voices, eased open the door and sidled through the gap.

  Anne was lying, coma-deep, on one of the biggest, finest beds in the castle. She’d been cleaned of the filth from the roadway—Gudrun had seen to that—though she was paler than the milk-white dressing-gown Gudrun had robed her in.

  Very odd! thought Hawise as she curtsied and placed her load of linen on a chest drawn up beside the bed. It would stay there until someone, anyone, gave her permission to change the bloody covers on the bolsters. Why was this humble woman—very humble, if the clothes taken from her bruised body were any guide—being waited on like some fine court lady? Witness the Lord de Gruuthuse’s very own doctor, a grave look on his face, currently attempting to find the girl’s pulse and not having an easy time of it. And the English king. There he was too, pacing up and down, up and down, beside the bed and looking so anguished as he gazed at the girl, you’d think he’d killed a member of his own family.

  “You!”

  Hawise froze. Lord Louis had entered the room; the maid dropped a deep curtsy, her skirts crumpling in folds as she dipped.

  “Yes. I meant you. Can you sew?” Louis was brusque.

  All the men in the room turned and looked at her. Hawise blushed and fixed her eyes on the floor, unused to the attention. “Yes, sir, I can.” At another time, the girl might have boasted she was as neat with her fingers as any lady, but her lord’s stern tone, the sense of things unsaid, frightened her.

  “Very well. Master Jacobi—you hear? You have a confederate. What do you need?”

  The doctor gently placed his patient’s hand on top of the embroidered coverlet of the bed where it lay small and white. Unmoving.

  “Spirits of wine, liquid honey, and cobwebs; the first to clean, the second and third to seal the wound. Then silk thread. Are there ladies in this castle? Ladies who embroider?” He ignored what the servant had said, naturally.

  Louis de Gruuthuse met Edward’s eyes and shook his head. “No, Master Jacobi, the Binnenhof is a masculine world. We are an area garrison.”

  Edward was suddenly beside the doctor. “You must be able to use something other than silk, surely? Horses’ hair, from their manes. It’s used in field hospitals—I’ve seen them use it!”

  The doctor shook his head. “Sire, many men die in battle, but many more from poor doctoring afterward. I do not find horse hair efficacious. I must have silk because it is strong; preferably silk thread that has been boiled.”

  “What nonsense is this? Boiled? How can that help? There is no time for this, even if we had such thread—” Hawise was very brave—and, yes, reckless, as she came to consider afterward—when she interrupted the English king. “Sire, I have a little silk.”

  They all turned to look at the maid, astonished. “I sew, as I said. A little. The nuns taught me. I make things for them. Altar clothes,” she added hastily. It was against the sumptuary laws for a girl such as she even to think of dressing in silk—that was for ladies, and only court ladies at that. But Hawise had the guilty secret of a red petticoat; something she’d been making recently. When it was finished, she intended to wear it under her kirtle to the spring fair. For luck, she’d told Gudrun, just for luck.

  “Praise be, girl!” said the doctor. “Go and find your silk and boil it well, for the time it takes to count to ten, ten times. That will soften the thread for my purposes. Do you understand?”

  Hawise nodded. She couldn’t count well herself, but there’d be someone in the kitchen who could. Perhaps the cook, since he kept the tally sticks for the larder. Without another word she ran from the room, not even stopping to curtsy.

  The doctor’s words followed her: “And send the other one back with a pannikin of boiled water. And the honey. And cobwebs too. Hurry!”

  “Doctor?” Edward spoke hesitantly, his eyes fixed on Anne’s face. “What will you do for her?”

  Master Jacobi looked up briefly from his work as he probed with gentle fingers among the matted blood on Anne’s skull, moving the strands of her hair aside.

  “The horse trampled the girl, here…” He displaced the neck of the dressing gown for a moment; the bruises on Anne’s shoulders and chest were violent and extensive. “…and here I think, too, on the side of the head. Just above the ear. Do you see?”

  Edward, used to the gore of battle, had learned emotional immunity from the shock of seeing bone, flesh, and blood mashed together, but a great wave of nausea swelled into his throat as the Jew lifted a flap of skin from the side of Anne’s head, the hair still attached.

  “One or two ribs only are broken, and one of her fingers also. I can do nothing for the ribs except strap her chest, but she must be kept still while they heal. I can bind the finger, too, so that it sets straight. Then we must clean this wound on her head and sew the skin back in its correct place. The lady”—there was the merest hesitation before the word—“is young and strong, sire. There is every reason for hope since I cannot find any fracturing of the bone of the skull. That was my chief concern.”

  Edward sat down abruptly on the chest beside the bed, pale and sweating. Somehow he forced the words out. “She will not die, master?”

  “What must be done is delicate, but no, I do not think she will die.” Before he could say more, Gudrun arrived carrying a leather bucket of steaming water in one hand and an earthenware pot in the other. She curtsied awkwardly to Louis de Gruuthuse. “Honey, master, and boiled water? Hawise said—”

  The doctor frowned. “And cobwebs? I need cobwebs!”

  The girl looked at him blankly. Irritated, he motioned for her t
o place what she carried on the chest beside the king. “Since you have no cobwebs, girl, this must serve. Rip up one of these fine sheets as quickly as you can—thin strips, if you please, but not too long. Shortly your friend will return and then, when I tell you, I want you to dip the linen in the honey. Do you understand?”

  Gudrun nodded obediently, thinking the man was mad. Cobwebs? Honey? On bandages? What for? Still, being young, and not pert—unlike Hawise—she said nothing and did as she’d been told.

  “Lord Edward, and you, Lord Louis, I will need your help very soon.” The doctor examined the head wound closely again, using a candle since most of the room was dark except for the light from the fire. “And more candles here, quickly, so that I can see!”

  Louis strode to the door. Outside, a small number of men guarded the entrance to the chamber. Leif Molnar was there as well, growing increasingly angry with fear.

  “You! Go to the pantler—bring candles quickly. As many as you can carry.” One of the guards bowed and hurried away.

  Leif looked Lord Louis directly in the eye. “How does my wife do, lord?” He spoke clearly, calmly, and Edward, inside the bed chamber, heard him. His face drained white. Anne was married?

  Louis de Gruuthuse was surprised as well. He’d not had time to question Edward since the flurry and drama of the king’s arrival back at the Binnenhof, the filthy, bloodied girl in his arms and the duke of Gloucester shouting for assistance, but clearly the woman currently lying unconscious in the third best bed chamber was very important to the king. The agony of great loss was in Edward’s eyes, and on his face.

  Edward strode to the chamber door and looked searchingly at the man who claimed to be Anne’s husband. Implacable, as if on guard, Leif Molnar stared directly back. For a moment, the king was intimidated. There was a spark of red in his rival’s eyes, he’d seen it quite distinctly when the man first turned and looked at him.

  “You are her husband?”

  Leif nodded but did not bow. Now he knew, with utter certainty, that he hated this man. King or no king, duty or not to his master, the fate of the kingdom of England—none of that mattered to Leif Molnar any more.

  “I want to see my wife.” No hint of deference, no plea.

  Edward stood aside silently as the Norseman strode past him; he’d been right, they were of a height.

  The room was quiet except for the fire’s crack and sputter. The doctor went about his work silently, washing the last of the blood from Anne’s face. Leif’s own face was rigid, a mask of control, as he walked toward the carved bed on which Anne lay. For one wrenching moment it seemed he was looking at a corpse, but then her chest rose, microscopically, and she opened her eyes.

  “Leif?” She managed to mouth the word, and even smiled as she swallowed painfully. “Give Edward what we came with,” she whispered; then her eyelids quivered and closed and she was still again.

  Leif wheeled around. Edward was watching him from his place by the fire. “You did this.”

  It was more than a flat accusation, it was a curse, and its contempt was an affront to Louis de Gruuthuse. Distraught husband or not, this could not be tolerated.

  “Guard!”

  “Wait!” Edward’s voice cracked through the room as Louis’s men appeared. “What did she mean?”

  There were tears in Leif’s eyes, which added to his rage, his humiliation. “She has nothing to give you. Nothing!”

  It took four men, six, finally eight of Louis de Gruuthuse’s bodyguards to remove Leif Molnar from the chamber, but in the end, remove him they did, ignoring Edward’s protests.

  Louis de Gruuthuse was glacially polite. “This woman’s husband he may be, Your Majesty, but I cannot permit such insolence to your person in this house. He will not be harmed. And when his wife has recovered, he will be released and they can both go home.”

  During the flurry of the ejection, Hawise had returned with a wooden bowl holding a mass of wet silk thread. She was followed by two soldiers, each carrying standing branches for candles the height of a man, made from forged iron. Each guard also carried at least a gross of thick candles made from precious summer wax. When they were lit, the scent of honey filled the room; the breath of grace.

  The candle stands were positioned on either side of the bed so that the doctor’s work would be lighted from both sides and from above.

  “Now, if you would just help me?” Dr. Jacobi motioned for the maids, Gudrun and Hawise, to draw back the sheets so that he could move Anne across the bed.

  “No! Do not touch her.” Edward strode forward and the women pulled back, frightened. “I will lift this lady.”

  He gathered Anne gently against his chest and, tender as a father with a sleeping child, lifted her from the surface of the bed. He leaned down to place her flat upon the mattress as the doctor had ordered, and her hair, the color of amber, spilled between his fingers into the light. Russet and gold glimmered against Anne’s white face, and then, oh how he remembered.

  “Your Majesty?” The doctor was nervous. The king still held the girl in his arms above the surface of the bed as if he would never put her down.

  Louis de Gruuthuse cleared his throat noisily; it was enough. Edward laid Anne on the mattress as carefully as if she’d been made of glass. And in a sense she was—milk glass. Her face was almost translucent in the candlelight, with blue shadows at her temples and under her eyes.

  “Come, Lord King, we should permit Master Jacobi to be about his work. The court will be waiting for its supper.” Louis winced as he saw the doctor lift the flap of skin from Anne’s head once more, momentarily exposing the bone of the skull beneath. Perhaps food was not such a good idea after all.

  Gudrun held Anne’s head immobile while the doctor began a line of tiny stitches along the girl’s scalp, for all the world like the edging on a blanket.

  Louis de Gruuthuse swallowed his gorge. “We can visit this young lady later, when the doctor has finished his work and she has recovered, my lord.”

  But Edward was standing beside the bed, fascination lending momentary detachment. He had seen enough doctoring in the field to realize that this man had superb technique and his earlier squeamishness dissolved in gratitude. Dr. Jacobi was sewing Anne’s scalp back together as carefully and neatly as any duchess about her embroidery, though the red silk thread was an ominous note against the white skin. After many minutes of careful work, the doctor exhaled a sigh, straightened his back, and turned to Lord Louis and the king. An undemonstrative man, he was almost smiling now. “In the end, it is a simple wound. We must wait for the morning now to see how she fares.”

  The king nodded, his eyes fixed on the still figure in the bed. “I will remain here, Lord Louis. Forgive me, but food is not what I need now. What is needed is prayer for Lady de Bohun, and that I can supply, by her bedside.”

  Louis was astonished. This was the legendary Lady de Bohun? How had he not recognized the woman who had passed like a meteor through the trading community of Brugge three or so years ago? Waving a dismissal to the now very curious doctor, Louis de Gruuthuse hurried forward to the bed, delicate sensibilities forgotten. And then he understood.

  In Brugge, he’d never seen this woman in anything but the clothes of a courtier and certainly never with her hair loose, as it was now. And earlier this evening, when she was carried into his castle by the king in the midst of a panicked crowd of courtiers and servants, her face had been obscured by blood and she’d been wearing clothes that were anything but lavish.

  “Yes. It is Lady de Bohun. I see that now.”

  He and Edward locked glances. Louis de Gruuthuse now understood everything. He bowed with the grace of the born courtier.

  “I shall see that you are not disturbed, Your Majesty,” he said, and backed away reverently, gently closing the door as he left.

  In the silent room, Edward Plantagenet leaned forward and delicately brushed a strand of hair from Anne’s face. She did not move. He picked up one pale hand and held it to
his face. Her skin was cool and soft. “My darling girl. I’m here. I’ll be with you all this night. And tomorrow—as long as you need me. But, if you can hear me, tell me, what do you have for me, Anne?”

  There was no answer, just the crack of the fire as a log dropped and sparks flew up the chimney. But in that sudden flicker of light, Edward saw Anne’s small leather pack. It had been cast without thought into a corner of the room and now an edge of bright blue with a flash of yellow caught the king’s eye. “Forgive me, my darling girl.”

  In two strides he had picked it up and unbuckled the straps that held the bundle together. And there, inside, wrapped tightly in a kirtle beneath a shawl of finely woven blue and yellow, he found what he was looking for.

  The milk-pale girl in the bed remained still and silent as Edward Plantagenet stuffed the letter from his sister into the front of his jerkin; he would read it later. He weighed the heavy purse of coins in his hands and gazed at Anne’s closed eyes, the bandages around her head. Anne had paid for his freedom. Was the price worth it?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The baby whimpered, hungry again. Duchess Jacquetta picked the prince up from his cradle and rocked him, but it was not enough. Even one of her fingers to suck made no difference. “There, there, little man; soon, soon.” Wails turned into a healthy bellow.

  “Mother?” The voice from the bed was sharp. “It’s no good, I cannot sleep; the poppy they gave me did not work. Give him to me. At least one of us will be happy.”

  The baby was swaddled tightly, arms bound to his sides. Just like a little silkworm, thought his grandmother tenderly as she took the boy who should have been born the prince of Wales over to her daughter. Elizabeth Wydeville struggled to sit up and uncovered one breast, swollen and proud now that the milk was well established. Taking the baby in the crook of her right arm, she tapped him on the cheek so that he turned his head toward her. Smelling the milk, he fastened his tiny open mouth around the nipple. The wailing stopped as, urgently, the infant sucked and snuffled and sucked again, so fast that he choked. An indignant roar filled the small room.