The Uncrowned Queen

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Around and ahead of them, the party of men traveled at a rough canter across the hard ground. The earth was frozen so rigid that it drummed beneath the hooves of the horses. And the wind, if Anne looked around and past Edward’s torso, was bitter. Better by far to press herself into his back, head snuggled between his shoulder blades. That way she could pretend to be warm, pretend this was all a dream, pretend that Leif was not a prisoner in the dungeon of the Binnenhof.

  The movement of the horse was seductive, it rocked her. She was tired, so tired. Nearly asleep…

  “Anne?”

  “Yes, Lord?” She spoke dreamily into his back, his spine.

  He felt the sound travel through him. It was delicious, but he shook his head. “I am not your lord. I am your lover. Perhaps you had forgotten.”

  She shivered. She’d been so afraid of this, knew she’d not be strong enough when the time came. She did not answer.

  Edward narrowed his eyes. Half of him was doing the job he was used to—scouting the landscape automatically, alert to pursuit or threat of any kind—but the other half was a starving hound. He was alive with every sense to this girl; she was his most tangible desire and now they rode through the world together as if tied. He could feel her ribs as she breathed; the firm pressure from her breasts as they moved up and down with the motion of the horse; her thighs, her knees, lying behind his own in the pillion. He had only to drop one hand behind him to…

  “Are you his wife?”

  What should Anne say? The truth would be no protection. But if she lied, perhaps it would give her the strength to—

  “Tell me, Anne. Did you marry that man?”

  She spoke into his back again, the sound muffled by the layers of cloth between them. The words buzzed through his flesh from his spine to his heart. “You’ve been a long time gone. Is it so surprising?”

  He knew her well and even laughed then. “Nothing about you will ever surprise me.”

  The king reined his horse tighter and the animal responded, picking up its pace. This was good ground now, the party could make more speed in their flight.

  “You’re being evasive. Tell me the truth.”

  She sighed shakily. “I will tell you the truth. But not now.” She grimaced even as she spoke. It was a stupid answer; only exhaustion could have formed those words.

  They were riding due south and the world was empty of people. As the season of Yule approached and the weather turned colder, work in the fields had stopped. Winter was the time for indoor enterprise: chair-making, carding and spinning, telling stories beside the fire. And the women nursed the babies born in late summer, each mother hoping there would be enough food to make enough milk so that her little one lived to see the spring. Edward and Anne were excluded from that warm world with its fug of family and hearth. They were both outcasts now, fugitives. It was the irony of fate: Edward was now living as Anne had once, when he exiled her from England, pregnant with his son, nearly five years ago.

  Richard of Gloucester cantered up beside his brother and matched his horse’s pace with the king’s. He smiled briefly at Anne—he liked this girl, liked her courage. She asked no more than the men, refused special treatment when they camped at night, and ate less than the rest of them. Yes, he admired her spirit. But there were harsher things to concern him now than one woman’s welfare caught up in a man’s quest. He was anxious.

  “Edward, there’s a farm ahead. A big one.”

  The light was dropping fast as the brief afternoon fled. Edward slowed his horse from a canter to a trot. Anne’s thighs, behind his, clenched to help her balance with the change of pace. Richard was right. Ahead in the gathering gloom was a substantial huddle of buildings: a large hallhouse with barns around it. A light shone in one of the narrow windows.

  “Halt.” Edward called the word softly and Richard picked it up, echoing his brother’s order down the line of men. The Welsh archers and the mercenaries that Margaret’s money had bought as escort slowed their horses carefully. This road was not much traveled and last night’s ice was still on its surface almost a day later. Haul their horses to a stop too fast and disaster beckoned.

  “Form up.”

  The response was instant: the king’s companions shuffled their horses into an orderly line, two by two. The aristocrats—William Hastings, Lord Rivers, Richard of Gloucester—had often been part of Edward’s “riding court” in England and followed him without question, trusting his judgment. The archers had learned, through the wild ride across country to Lynn, that Edward’s instinctive leadership was vital to their survival. The mercenaries responded to whoever paid them; none of them questioned the order.

  “We will sleep warm tonight, my friends. For a change.” There was a flash of the king’s white teeth and a laugh that spread among them all. His confidence was heartening. They were used to campaigning and living off the land, even in winter, but they would all welcome respite from another freezing night camp in open country.

  “I see our hosts expect us. How kind.”

  Another light blinked up ahead, a lantern perhaps, illuminating the outside stairs that led up from the farmyard to the second story. It was clear that the farmstead was expecting visitors, but not those who were about to arrive.

  “Quietly now. Richard? William?”

  Signaling his brother and his chamberlain to take the lead, Edward dropped back into the middle of the train of men. He would not expose Anne to unnecessary risk.

  As they reached the base of the small rise on which the farm stood, the party could see the place was even larger than it had seemed from a distance. Whoever had originally chosen this site had a good eye for a defensive position. The barns that surrounded the farmhouse formed three sides of a quadrangle—the family dwelling made the fourth—and all were massively walled from good stone, not brick. When they looked more carefully in the half light, properly constructed arrow loops could be seen beneath the tiled roof. There was only one way to arrive at the farmer’s living quarters and that was through the iron-banded great door that barred entrance to the farm’s inner yard. And the door itself was positioned in a recess in the walls, with arrow loops looking down into the narrow entranceway.

  Edward hooted like a barn owl. The duke of Gloucester turned back in his saddle when he heard it, and rode fast down the line to his brother.

  “Well, Richard?”

  “It’s very well defended for a farmhouse.”

  Edward glanced over his shoulder at Anne. He was tempted to press on, for in seeking entrance they might be buying into a fight and he could not afford to lose a single man. But he sensed that the girl behind him was exhausted. He could feel that she was straining to hold herself upright in the pillion.

  “Well then, perhaps we should breach those defenses. Gently.”

  Richard looked at his brother, confused. “Gently?”

  Anne spoke so that only the king and his brother could hear. “Let me call on them to open the gate. They’ll be less frightened by a woman’s voice.”

  She was right, but the duke saw the king’s concern. “Brother, it may be the only way if we wish to take this place ‘gently,’” he said. “And sleep undercover tonight.”

  Edward looked around at Anne. “I do not wish to place you in danger.”

  She smiled at him. “I know that, my liege. But I think it must be done. For all our sakes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The householder of Red Farm—so named for the color of the ancient roof tiles on her barns—heard a strange sound, the voice of a woman calling over the clonking of the cow bell attached to the outer gate.

  “Is anybody there? Can you hear me?”

  Dame Philomena was old—she had seen forty-seven winters and summers, each marked as a nick on an ivory stick she kept in her bed chamber. But she was not stupid. What business had a woman outside her gates?

  Unless…

  The owner of Red Farm tried to ignore the wild way her heart was beating. She had aske
d them to light the lantern tonight as they did every night, so there would be a beacon, but she had given up hoping long, long ago.

  But now… yes, there it was again.

  “Hello? I’m very cold, and hungry.”

  A girl’s voice. Could it be?

  “Mark, hurry! The gate. Send to open the gate!”

  But Mark, the reeve who had run the farm for the old woman since the death of her husband, was fearful.

  “Dame, this is dangerous. What woman would be out alone in the night?”

  “Can you hear me?” The girl’s voice was fainter. Exhausted.

  Dame Philomena was certain now. It was her daughter who called. It was Ysabelle!

  “I’m coming, child. I am coming!”

  So much for the protests of Mark and the four or five other workers and servants who had just settled down to eat before the fire. Dame Philomena left them, running for the first time in years, and they did not catch her, though they tried.

  “Ysabelle! I’m coming. Mother’s coming.”

  She reached the gate crying with both tears and laughter, unlocked it, raised the iron bar, and pushed it open. “Oh, child, I have waited and waited. But you are home now, home—”

  But the woman on the other side of the gate was not her lost daughter. Dame Philomena saw that too late as the girl reached up and gently took the wildly swinging lantern from her hand and pushed the door wider.

  “My name is Anne. And I thank you. My friends and I are cold, and beg lodging only for tonight. We will not hurt you.”

  The words washed over Dame Philomena, meaning less than nothing. Her heart broke; she felt it, as a bone might suddenly give way against impossible pressure, and she could not breathe. This was not her child.

  The lantern, the light to show Ysabelle the way home, had conjured up another girl from the darkness. A stranger surrounded by armed, mounted men.

  “Mark!” the old lady called.

  But the reeve was a pragmatist. When he’d seen his mistress run to the gate and unbar it, he’d hung back, wary. And then he’d seen the girl and all her followers. What could four or five farm servants do against these men? Pulling off his hooded cap, he knelt in the muck of the yard as the men rode through the open gate and past him in an armored mass, iron-shod hooves clicking busily on the iced cobbles. But he’d kept hold of his knife from supper. He hid it quickly. Best these men not see it; they might think he’d offer resistance. He wouldn’t. None of them would. Perhaps they’d escape with their lives that way. He bowed his head even lower until it touched the cold ground.

  At the great gate of the farm, Anne was very distressed. The woman who had let them in was sobbing so pitifully she could not catch her breath. She had fallen to her knees and would have beaten her head on the cobbles if Anne had let her.

  “Dame? Lady? We will not hurt you.”

  The king gestured toward the house and the barns, and his brother peeled off with four or five men, swords drawn, to carefully inspect each of the buildings for hidden assailants, unlikely as that might seem. Edward slipped down from his horse, trusting it to stay where he left it, and hurried back to Anne who was saying, over and over again, “There, lady, there. All is well, all is well, I promise.” Anne was nearly crying herself, so great was the woman’s sorrow. Edward was alarmed and confused. This was very strange. The woman was not frightened of them; she was wild with grief and heedless of anything or anyone.

  “Come, lady, it is cold. Let me help you.”

  The king bent down and, as gently as he could, pulled the woman to her feet. She was limp and heavy as a sack of barley. Between them, Anne and Edward carried Dame Philomena past her terrified reeve, who was now on his feet and babbling at the unexpected visitors in a language none of them could understand. He managed to indicate that they should take her up the outside stairs into the main hall.

  William Hastings was there before them, and had rounded up the few men and one woman who had been eating there. The servants were now gathered in a corner, large-eyed and silent as they watched Edward’s men scour the building for any further inhabitants.

  Among the efficient pandemonium, Anne dragged a settle over to the fire. “My lord? Bring her here.”

  Edward Plantagenet, feeling very awkward—one did not usually assist the owners of places that were raided, much less dry their tears—attempted to sound confident and kind at the same time. He hoped it would stop the wretched woman weeping. “Here lady, here is your fire. A good one!” He looked at Anne helplessly as he deposited the sobbing woman on the settle, where, leached by emotion, she collapsed like a lump of punched-down dough. Anne saw what was needed and sat beside her, one arm around her shoulders, offering the hem of her shift to staunch the tears that fell as thick as blood.

  Edward, relieved, hurried over to Hastings. He’d always been uncomfortable around crying women. “Any more of them, William?” Hastings was not especially concerned by the farm workers, or the reeve, who’d just been hurried into the hall by one of the archers and deposited among his fellows. He was more worried that the extent of the farm buildings might mean other workers could be lurking, having gone to bed early when the light went from the sky.

  “We’ll know soon enough, liege.” He cast a quizzical glance at their reluctant hostess. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Edward shrugged. “Well, I don’t suppose she’s happy we’ve arrived, but it does seem an extravagant response.”

  William nodded. He would swear that not one of the men had laid a finger on the old woman. In fact, she’d received nothing but kindness from them. He shook his head. What was the world coming to? It was Anne’s idea to come here. She’d caused all this chaos. It made him uneasy.

  “What orders, sire?”

  Edward responded promptly. “Bar the gate again. Now. And then I think we should set them”—he nodded at the farm workers, who huddled together, terrified of his glance—“to cooking. Hot food. Now there’s a thought!”

  William Hastings grinned, showing white, sound teeth in a brown face—one of his most attractive features. “Certainly, sire. I think we can arrange that. Malken!”

  One of the archers, who’d been deputized to watch the dame’s servants, hurried over to the chamberlain and saluted. William ordered, “Food! They will cook it. Fast! You’re to watch them. And find ale for the men.”

  Edward, standing quiet among all the bustle around him, looked across to where Anne sat murmuring words of comfort to Dame Philomena. His heart lurched; he actually felt it move inside his ribs. All the women he’d had, the few he’d thought he loved, and none did this to him but Anne. His yearning for her—a hunger only just kept under control, a physical appetite—stirred and stretched. She looked up, caught his glance, and flushed, turning her head away.

  He smiled. Tonight they would have time alone together, he’d see to that. And then they would find out, husband or not, what remained between them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Margaret of Burgundy was cold. Nights in November in the Lowlands were often cursed with fog, dank and soup-thick, especially in the cities where the smoke from wood fires deepened the frigid murk. Parts of the night chamber were warm, it was true, but these were the areas nearest the fire, which had been well laid and fed to a roar in the deep fireplace. But in the shadowed depths of the great room the air was like iced bone, and although the glowing braziers dotted around the huge chamber looked cheerful, they made little real difference to the temperature.

  “Hurry! My lord duke will join me shortly and I wish to be done with this.”

  Margaret was referring to the elaborate preparations that her women insisted on before she went to her bed. First her hair must be loosened and brushed one hundred times from root to tip with a horsehair brush before it was rebraided for the night. Then her face and hands and feet must be washed with scented warm water. The warmth was notional; the contents of the washing bowl were frequently as cold as well-water by the time it arrived from the
distant kitchens.

  Lastly, the duchess vigorously cleansed her teeth using her own fingers. Pumice, ground to a flour-like fineness, was mixed to a paste with sweet almond oil and lemon juice—rare and very expensive at this time of year—and rubbed onto her teeth and gums. Margaret spat the grit out of the window when she’d finished, and rinsed her mouth with rosewater.

  And now, tonight, there was something new. Something Margaret had only recently agreed to because she was wearied by the nagging of her women. Margaret had slept naked all her life, like everyone else, until this point. One wore a dressing gown for modesty among kindred and in front of servants as one was dressed in the morning, however, the current rage was for light silk sleeping gowns fashioned from yards and yards of semi-transparent fabric. This new fad had swept north from the courts of Italy and taken hold among those desperate for the latest fashions, no matter how unsuitable such garments were to the frozen winter-world of Burgundy.

  In Perugia, Venice, Florence, or Rome, how perfect such a garment would be for warm summer nights. And how alluring. So far the duchess had resisted this new and, to her eyes, idiotic trend, but tonight she had given in to the entreaties of her women. As they cajoled her into a delicate sleeping gown made from corn-colored silk voile, sprigged with tiny green, white, and blue flowers, the duchess could only reflect how silly a thing it was, if pretty, and how signally it was failing to keep her warm. Further, how could one expect to sleep swaddled in such a length of material? Surely it would tangle around her legs and ride up if her sleep was restless?

  “Ah, madame, you look entirely charming. The duke will be ravished. Ravished!”

  “Will he? Step aside that he may see for himself.”

  None of them had seen or heard Charles of Burgundy saunter into his wife’s room. He clapped his hands and the women scattered, laughing, into the shadows. They knew they should leave, but each was hungry to see how the duke reacted when he saw his wife. They were not disappointed.

  “Well, now…” He stopped just inside the wavering pool of radiance created by the candles in the brass candelabra above their heads. Margaret was unaware as she turned toward him, smiling, that the light from the fire made the sleeping robe all but transparent. The duke sucked in a breath. “Yes. A very pretty effect. Very pleasing.” His voice was a tone or two lower than normal. Almost a growl. Margaret’s spine prickled and she found she was trembling slightly.