The Uncrowned Queen (39 page)

She hugged the child hard, and then, hand in hand, Deborah and little Edward left the kitchen, singing as they went. “Up the stairs, up the stairs to Bedlingford…”

There was silence in the kitchen now, except for the crackle of the fire. Anne added more wood and poked hard at the ash bed, avoiding the man's eyes.

“He's grown. He'll be a tall man.” Leif did not add, Like his father.

“What's all this?” He gestured around the kitchen; there were roped coffers and piles of possessions stacked in the shadows. “You're leaving the farm?”

Anne half turned away, nodding.

“Why?”

“It is my choice.”

Leif got up and took the poker from Anne's hands. It was the same one that had killed Edward Plantagenet's messenger.

“You don't want to tell me?”

Anne shook her head, tears close to the surface. “We must leave Brugge as soon as possible.”

Leif digested that statement without comment. Then, throwing another log from the autumn trimmings of the orchard onto the fire, he gently turned Anne's head toward his. She could not escape. “I heard the story in town. That's why I came here. Where will you go?”

Anne dropped her gaze from his. “South. Italy, perhaps. We will start again, Deborah and Edward and me.”

The words were brave, but Anne's loneliness touched Leif's heart. He said nothing and it was she who broke the moment, taking the empty bowls from the hearth. Anne returned and sat down beside him on the settle, her eyes far away. Defeated.

He reached over and gently covered both her hands with one of his own. “You don't have to do this alone, Anne.”

She looked up at the giant man with the kind eyes and it was too much. Deep, wrenching sobs tore from her chest. Instinctively, Leif reached for the girl and this time Anne did not resist; she allowed herself to rest against him as he rubbed her back gently, rhythmically. After a time, she gulped herself into silence and leaned against his shoulder, numb.

“Lady, I'm here to take you home. If you'll let me.”

Anne's swollen eyes flew open. “Home?”

Leif nodded. “England. I reclaimed the
Lady Margaret
from the pool of Delft and she's moored at Sluys. The tradesmen who repaired her were honest. You were right.” He smiled gently. There was silence for a moment. Then Anne sat up, worry creasing her brow.

“But how can we sail to England? The war is—”

“About to begin in earnest, I'd say. Talk in Brugge was that Duke Charles will help the king at last. But that won't happen
quickly, so we can beat him back. If you'll trust me to take you there.”

Leif made it all sound so easy. The heartache and confusion were blown away on the fresh wind of common sense. Tears spiked Anne's lashes.

“I told the king that I must choose what was best for us all—little Edward and Deborah and me—and choose I will.” She blinked hard and shook the tears away. “Can you really take us to London?”

The Dane stood up so abruptly he hit his head on the low brass candelabra. “Ow! Never mind! Why do you think Sir Mathew hasn't seen the
Lady Margaret
before now? Yes, of course I can take you home.” Deborah had reentered the kitchen unnoticed and stood in the shadows. She heard the unspoken end to the sentence:
and take you for mine, as well
.

Thor's servant, the servant of war, had returned in another guise to Anne. Her daughter had better be careful or she would unleash a mighty force in her life. No fight between nations, no difference in class could ever be as strong as overwhelming love. The love this man felt for Anne de Bohun.

As the darkest part of winter settled over France there was a monster born in Paris. A two-headed child with three arms, one attached to its chest, and hands that, it was said, resembled the claws of a lobster. It was a bad omen, a very bad omen, and the priests, monks, and bishops all called for national repentance if this work of the Devil was not to be the portent of more horrors to come.

Dread crept through the exhausted, starving kingdom of France—a pale, slow disease compounded of unreason and gathering panic. Louis de Valois could smell it, could almost see the miasma, as even his court became infected.

“I must view this creature. You, too, Brother, and tell me what it means.”

Brother Agonistes raised a tortured face. Not long returned from Brugge, he was kneeling at the foot of the dais in the Presence chamber, three shallow steps below the Chair of Estate in which the king sat. After his long journey south through the iron-cold land, he was thinner than ever, dirtier than ever, and his stench was even worse.
Truly
, thought Louis,
he smells like a nine-day corpse
.

Agonistes breathed like an old, abused mule and his hand shook as it sketched a cross in the air between Louis and himself. “Brother King, I have no special knowledge of what this thing might mean. It is a living creature. They say it sucks well from its
mother's paps and is strong. Perhaps it is God who has sent it to us, rather than Satan.”

Louis clucked his tongue impatiently. “That cannot be. Our Creator does not make monstrous children, for we are made in His sacred image. No, this is a sign. I am certain of it.”

Brother Agonistes shrugged wearily. “The king, my brother, knows more than I can possibly understand, since he is anointed by God.” The man's fingers crept to the rosary slung through his rope belt. He closed his eyes and silently began to tell the beads, now oblivious, it seemed, to the presence of the monarch.

Louis felt no affront, for the behavior of this man was always extraordinary. For a moment the king forgot his fear of the monster in wondering what the monk saw when he prayed so intensely. “You are as devout as ever, Brother Agonistes. But also greatly changed. Are you ill?”

Without speaking, the monk shook his head, the rosary beads clicking through his fingers with relentless rhythm.

“Well then, do you fear death, perhaps, that you mortify yourself so greatly?”

The monk's eyes flew open and he glared at the king. “Yes, I fear death. As you should also. Sin is the stinking, loathsome burden we both carry. Lust has been my downfall in the past and now, with the sight of that woman in Brugge, the memory of it has reared up once more to besmirch me. That woman
you
sent me to, brother.” Agonistes sounded almost reproachful. Louis was so astonished by the monk's presumption that he forgot to speak, as the monk continued. “And yet, brother, it pleased you and the Lord to bestow this task upon me, therefore I am grateful for the privations given to me in this matter. I hope they are pleasing in the Lord's sight, and yours also, brother King. And the woman will have been burned by now—if that was God's will.” He crossed himself solemnly.

Automatically, Louis mimicked the action.

“And you, brother, you, too, must put away the sins of this Earth if you are to govern your kingdom for God, and in his name. Pride in this war will bring you down, for it is the vice of kings and the greatest sin of all. Pray with me now that we may both be cleansed.”

Opened to their widest extent, the monk's eyes were bleak pools of emptiness. Louis felt consumed by the horror of eternity they contained. Suddenly, Agonistes collapsed onto his belly, hauling himself toward the king as if he were a worm or a slug, or some other loathsome crawling thing. Louis reared back, panicked, as the man arrived at the dais, where he tugged insistently at the hem of the king's gown and seemed about to climb up his legs, hand over filthy hand.

“Grant me the solace of joint prayer on the matter of the monster, I beseech you. Only then may I be of greater use to you, and the kingdom of France, in uncovering the Lord's intentions for this creature.” Stifled by the stench wafting upward, Louis covered his mouth and nose with one hand and waved urgently for the guard to escort Agonistes from his presence. Instantly, the monk was engulfed by a tide of armed men and half dragged, half shoved from the king's sight. Louis shuddered with relief yet he remained convinced that the monk conveyed God's thoughts directly to him, the Lord's own mortal deputy on Earth. Sometimes, however, the stench of the man encouraged a certain confusion in his mind. Why must holiness equate with dirt? The Bible did not speak of the Lord being filthy. What if Agonistes were not a sanctified messenger at all, merely a madman?

The arrival of more guards interrupted the king's musings. They had a gaunt black crow in their midst: Olivier le Dain. The escort surged away and the Presence chamber doors swung closed. Bowing, le Dain advanced toward the king cautiously until he stood at the foot of the dais.

“Well?” The king sounded testy. That was dangerous.

Le Dain gulped. “We have found it, Your Majesty.” Unnerved by a basilisk glare, le Dain sank quickly to his knees.

“And?”

“It has been brought here, to the palace. Its mother also.”

“Very well.” Louis waved a hand and le Dain took this for an instruction. On his feet again, he backed the entire length of the room at speed, bowing so deeply from time to time that the crown of his head touched the floor. An amused smile stretched the wizened muscles of the king's face as he watched le Dain scuttle away. He rarely smiled, certainly not at le Dain.

The barber gagged back the vomit of fear. That terrible smile! Hastily he jerked one of the great doors open as if it weighed no more than a gauze curtain. “Bring them!” The barber bellowed the order and was comforted by the fear on the faces of the courtiers in the anteroom. Reflected power, like reflected light, could still sear the eyes of the unwary.

A muttering began within the crowd and the clotted mass of court functionaries parted in one smooth movement to allow passage to a small frightened girl carrying a large basket.

The courtiers closed in behind her as she walked forward among a guard of men much taller than herself. She was decently clad in a woolen high-waisted gown and her head was covered in the white linen coif of a married woman. As she was brought closer to le Dain, he saw she was not quite as young as she had seemed at a distance; rather she was sixteen or seventeen, though very small for her age. This was the mother of the monster.

“Let me see it.” Le Dain sounded as remote as the king—imitation of his master was a learned knack from his early days at court—and the girl visibly paled. With trembling hands she placed the basket on the floor and drew back the small blanket covering its contents. For a moment, le Dain was confused. These were two healthy babies that he saw, lying side by side, still somehow asleep among the racket, and breathing peacefully. But then the young mother gently drew the covering down and the full horror was exposed.

Eager courtiers pressed forward to see what lay in the basket. “Keep them back!” the barber shouted to the guards, who instantly responded, lowering their pikes.

Was it le Dain's harsh tone, or the outraged protests from some of the greatest grandees in the kingdom, that woke the thing in the basket? It began to wail like any other hungry child, and those who caught a glimpse of the basket's contents told how, miraculously, each of its two faces was as beautiful as an angel's, with curling black hair and eyes bluer than a summer lake.

“Enough,” le Dain ordered. “Cover this… thing. The king is waiting.” The mother bent to the basket and tenderly replaced the covering, whispering half words, as every mother does to her child,
as she raised it from the floor. Le Dain noticed dark patches had spread across the bodice of her dress. The child's crying had caused the girl's milk to let down. Unwanted, unexpected, le Dain experienced a rush of pity. “Here.” He held out his hand, indicating he would carry the basket. For a moment defiance flared in the girl's blue eyes—these, at least, she had successfully bequeathed to her child—but then fear chased hopelessness across her face. Bowing her head, she surrendered the basket as her child—or children—screamed inside.