by Iris Anthony
“That was not what I meant. What I mean to say is…well, I meant it, but not in the way you understood it.”
“What else was I to have understood by what you said?”
I wished he were not so vexing. “I do not wish to discuss the marriage any longer.”
“But you should have the most to say of anyone, and everyone has been speaking of it for days.”
I returned my attentions to my plate. I was sorry I had let him eat the rest of the food.
“Danes do terrible things.”
“So I have heard. And as I told you, I do not wish to speak of it any longer.”
“Why not?”
“How would you feel if you were betrothed to marry some foreign woman who did such terrible things?”
“I should think I might sleep with one eye open.”
“Yes. And so you must understand how I fear for my life.”
“The archbishop says it’s for the glory of God.”
I might have thought God had enough glory, if I did not know it would put my eternal soul at risk. “It is not he who has to marry, is it? It’s quite easy to tell someone else to go risk their own life while you spend yours shut up in a cathedral.”
“I should think you would feel honored to be so blessed, my lady.”
“But then you are not me, are you?”
He fell silent as he seemed to contemplate my desperate situation. “I suppose you cannot appeal to my lord, the king.”
“Can you suppose I have not already tried? But he says it is a question of honor.”
“But what if you were already married. Then you could not marry the Dane.”
For the first time I did indeed wish I had already married.
“Why could you not marry me instead?”
And to think, I had already made that very suggestion. Had it been only several short weeks before? “You’re hardly of an age, and—”
“I’ve thirteen years already. I don’t think my father would mind.”
Mine would! “We cannot be friends, and I cannot ever marry you. Our fathers are enemies. They would neither of them approve. Besides, if I were to marry someone other than the Dane, it would be Rudolph of Burgundy or the Count of Vermandois.” Though they being nearly the age of my father, I hardly thought them much better than the Dane.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I believe I would.” My father had long talked of both men as matches.
“My oldest sister is to marry the Burgundian, and the other is to marry the count, because you’re to marry the Dane. It’s all working exactly as they planned.”
There was a plan? “Are you certain?” How could there be a plan? My father had been as surprised as I when the archbishop told him I’d been promised in marriage.
He nodded.
“But how do you know?”
“Because I was with them when they were speaking of it.”
They? “Who? Who was it you heard talking? Because my father—”
“My father and the archbishop.”
They had planned it? How could they plan it without my father’s knowledge? “But how would they know what the Danes would—?” I felt my jaw drop as everything became clear. And then I gasped. There was treachery afoot! I’d been offered to the chieftain like some piece of bait. He had not asked for me, he’d been given me. And with me promised to the pagan, the count’s daughters could marry whomever he wished, forging alliances, which for my father were now impossible. The queen’s children would not be ready to marry for years. If any grand unions were to be accomplished before then, my father had need of me in order to do it. Did my father even realize what they’d done? He couldn’t. Otherwise, he would not have allowed it.
“My father says I’m to be a king one day.”
“King!” Could he not be silent for even one moment? “I’d like to see you try.”
“You don’t think I’d be a good one?”
“I think you’ve no chance of becoming one. How would you do it? Your father would have to be king for you to become one. And your father is not the king; my father is.”
“That’s what my mother says.”
“Your mother is right. But why are you telling me these things?”
His gaze dropped from mine. “Because I wish to help you. And because my father doesn’t like it when I ask questions. And besides, your father being the king, I thought you should know.”
“Do you know my knight?”
“The big one? With the face that looks as if it were hewn with an ax?”
“Yes.” That was him. In a man of lesser stature, his rough features would have been considered faults. “Can you tell him I wish to speak to him?”
“Why can you not do it yourself?”
“Because we aren’t speaking.”
“Then how do you plan to talk to him?”
“Can you do it or not?”
His chin lifted. “Of course I can do it, but my father won’t let anyone come up here.”
“You do.”
“I’m not supposed to. But I’ve thirteen years now. I ought to be able to do as I please.”
That’s what I had once thought. I had thought that everyone else ought to do as I pleased as well.
Hugh had left off playing with the ashes to sit on the stool beside mine, interrupting my reverie. “Everyone says you’re not the king’s real daughter.”
I pushed my plate away. “Then everyone lies.”
“You are his real daughter?”
“I was his real daughter before he started having daughters again with the queen.”
His brows folded. “Then why does everyone say—?”
“Because everyone doesn’t know what I do.”
“Even my father says it.”
“And your father hates mine. What else could he be expected to say?” I wished the boy would stop talking. I was trying to think!
“Why would everyone say such a thing if it wasn’t true?”
“What they mean to say is my father never married my mother.”
He colored. “Why not?”
“She ran away before he could.” I had to tell my father what I had just discovered. But how could I leave the palace without being seen?
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did she run away?”
Because she hadn’t wanted me. Wasn’t that clear? “I have no idea.”
“Well, I don’t mind that you’re not the king’s real daughter. I think you’re very beautiful.” Now he was blushing even more.
It was vexing how easily he went from being a boy to being a man. I never seemed to know to whom I was speaking. “You are very kind, but that cannot help me. I’m still to be married to the Dane.”
We sat there some, the both of us thinking, chins in our fists.
He stirred. “If I were king, I would not make you marry him.”
I gave him a sidelong glance. “Thank you.”
“I would give one of my sisters to him instead.”
“I do not think she would thank you as well as I.”
“No. But she’s sour and mean. She’s not like you.”
Truly, I needed to think, and he did not look as if he would soon be departing. “Will someone not soon be missing you?”
“No. They’re all with the Danes.”
“I thought the Danes went back home to plow their fields.”
“They may have. But they’re here now. They’re encamped outside the city. My mother says it’s blasphemy, but my father doesn’t seem to mind.”
“They’re here? In Rouen?”
***
Truly, I had to tell my father all Hugh had told me. Had he known the count colluded with the pagans, he would not have been so quick to agree t
o the treaty. Andulf would not help me, of that I was certain. He was too concerned with obeying my father to understand sometimes the only way to honor a command was to break it. If I went to him with my news, I feared he would only tell me Saint Catherine must have knowledge of this treachery, and God in His heaven as well, and why could I not just wait for the return of relic the way I had been told to in the first place? And then he would most probably watch me even more closely.
Hugh was right: the only way to avoid marrying the Dane was to marry someone else first. Someone of my own choosing, a marriage that would be irrevocable and unimpeachable. What I needed was an abbey where I could marry myself to God.
If I were going to leave—and now I was certain I had to—then I would have to manage it on my own. But how could I find a way out of this place, which had only one entrance and exit? And that, always guarded?
I asked Hugh the very next day.
His brows rose in alarm when I spoke of escape. “But, you want to leave? I might never see you again!”
“Never is a very definite word.”
“Then when?”
“When what?”
“When would I see you again?”
“I could not say.” Never, if I had my way.
“I can rescue you. As I have said before, you have only to marry me.”
Was ever anything more vexing than a boy who considered himself a man? “And who would marry us? The archbishop? The same man who has been plotting with your father?”
“No.”
“And neither would any of the priests dare to do what he will not.”
“We could…we could run away!”
“And how would your father reward you for scuttling all his plans?”
From the look on his face, I imagined his only reward would be a very great punishment. The memory of that bruise was still stamped upon his cheek. And there was a mark now on his forearm as well.
“I truly don’t see why you cannot marry me.”
Now he was pouting! What I would have done for such a luxury. But there was no time. “Because both our fathers would disapprove. And if we do not have consent, we have nothing.”
“When I am king, then I shall forbid people to force their children into marriage. Especially their daughters.”
“Hugh.”
He looked up into my eyes.
“If you’re going to be a king one day, then you must always keep your promises. And do you remember? You said once you wished to help me.”
He dropped to one knee and took up my hand in his. “I will. And I promise I will always love you.” Having said the words, he pressed a reverent kiss onto my palm.
There was a sort of certainty to his words that made me think he meant them. But that was foolish. “Love is tiresome and tricky, and no one ever says what they mean about it.”
His chin tipped up with a stubborn tilt. “I do. I said it, and I meant it.” He blushed, the flames licking the tips of his ears. “What do you want me to do?”
“Is there any way through these palace walls other than the gate?”
He shook his head.
“None at all?”
His gaze slid away from mine. “No.”
There was. There had to be. I decided to ask my question in a different way. “If you were trying to leave without using a gate, how would you do it?”
His gaze tried to meet mine, but dropped away at the last moment.
“Hugh? Please.”
“You truly will not marry me?”
“I cannot. But you were clever when you said I ought to marry to keep from being wed to the Dane. I am going to take the veil as a nun.”
“A nun?” He said the words with great doubt. “Where?”
“At Chelles. To the north. They will not refuse me there. But first I have to escape from here.”
He sighed as his shoulders drooped. “You could disguise yourself and pass by the guards.”
I was shaking my head before he had even finished. “The guards might not recognize me, but my knight probably would.”
“We could create some sort of distraction that would make them all look the other way.”
“But I would not want to count on the chance that they would.”
He shrugged. “You are the princess…”
“I am.”
“It seems like that ought to be worth something.”
“It should be.”
“What if you said you were going to see the Danes?”
“But I don’t want to see them.” I’d be happy if I never saw them again in my life.
“My father and his men go to their camp all the time. What if you just rode up to the guard and said that’s where you were going?”
“Then my knight would insist upon going with me.”
“Not if he were indisposed.”
“Someone would have to go with me. They would not let me go alone.”
“I would go with you.”
“But I still don’t understand what you would do with my knight.”
“Just leave all of that to me.”
***
Knowing how to descend Hugh’s stair outside the tower was not the same as doing it. Not even when Hugh went first to aid me. As I dangled from the window’s ledge by my fingers, I knew my first regrets.
But then Hugh’s hand seized my ankle. “Just here, my lady.” He placed it on one of his wooden pegs. It was only thanks to his guidance I reached the ground at all. And then we still had to take care of Andulf.
“Are you sure this will work, Hugh?”
“Of course it will work.”
“But how do you know?”
“Because the only thing he cares about is you. He stands at the bottom of the stairs all day and then sleeps there through the night.”
He did? When he could have slept in comfort with the count’s men?
Hugh reached the end of his stairs, dropping to the ground, and walked toward the courtyard. “Remember: listen for my whistle, and then come around and join me.”
***
For a small boy, he did quick work. It was not long before I heard him signal, and then I walked from the shadow of the tower to join him in the courtyard. “It worked?”
He nodded. “I told him my father had need of you, and could he get you to come down. It was easy. I followed him up and then barred him in.”
I glanced back over my shoulder at the tower from which drifted his muffled shouts, and I prayed no one would hear his cries.
We went to the stables, where Hugh demanded our horses be saddled, and then we rode right out of the gate. It was just as he had foreseen. No one stopped us. No one gave us even a second glance.
Hugh went with me through the city’s gates and then out along the way for a while, until I persuaded him that I really must begin to ride in earnest.
He passed me a small pouch of food. “I wish—” He bit his words off as the apple in his throat convulsed. “I wish you would kiss me before you go. I should like to know what it feels like, to be kissed by a princess.”
I had never kissed anyone before, no one besides my half sisters, but he had been my friend, and he was helping me to escape. If he wanted a kiss in return for his efforts, then why should I not give him one? “All right then.” I guided my horse toward his. “Lean this way.”
“I—I have never—I have never kissed a lady before.”
“It’s probably the same as kissing one of your sisters.”
“I’ve never kissed them before either.”
I could not afford to sit and listen to him dither. Seizing his hand, I pulled him toward me, and then I pressed my lips to his.
“I shall never forget you, my lady.”
***
My horse had been spoiled by its time in the coun
t’s stables. It took me some dozen miles, but then refused to go any farther. And when I kicked my heels into its sides, it simply flipped its tail at me.
“I swear by the saints, if you do not move, I shall see you butchered!”
It only stepped off the road to forage.
I pulled on the reins, but the obstinate beast only winked at me and then dipped its head to take another mouthful of food.
How long would it take for the count’s men to discover Andulf?
I tried the reins once more with a similar result. Sliding from its back, I took up my pouch, girded up my loins and started off along the road by foot.
***
It was my habit of looking back over my shoulder that saved me. I saw the riders long before they reached me. A cloud of billowing dust marked their coming. Moving from the road, I took shelter among a stand of bushes, kneeling to hide myself among their changing leaves.
The count’s pennon flicked in the air above their heads, announcing their allegiance. As they galloped past me going east, the thunder of the horses’ hooves kept cadence with my heart.
Soon, I would turn north. As long as the count’s men kept going east, they would not find me. I had almost decided they were well and truly gone when another set of hooves sounded upon the road. I hid myself once more. Pushing back my hood, I lifted my head just high enough to see past the bushes’ limbs. It was Andulf. And he was leading my wretched horse.
CHAPTER 25
As they came abreast of me, the damnable creature suddenly balked and then stiffened its legs, refusing to be led any farther. When Andulf stopped and gave the horse some rein, it came wandering down toward my bushes to graze.
I might have shooed him away, but I feared such a gesture would betray me.
The knight squinted into the bushes where I was hiding, and then his lips screwed up into what I took to be an especially painful smile. “Would you care to come out, my lady?”
I did not answer.
“The next time you decide to take cover, you might think to hide your golden tresses as well.”
I drew my hood up over my plaits, though it was too late now to do anything about them.
“I have your horse.”
“Little good it will do you.” Little good it had done me.
“Are you coming out?”
