Edward Plantagenet and his host, Louis de Gruuthuse, rode out in the crisp November days in search of stag. They were in a private chase, given to Louis, as governor of the Lowlands, for his entertainment and which had once been part of the giant hunting preserve of the Counts of Holland. But Edward was distracted.
“Something’s not right. I know it. Why haven’t we heard from Charles? It’s been ten days or more. Enough time for my messages to reach him, and for us to have had a return. This freeze will have made the tracks firm.”
Edward’s horse shied under him, nervous at some imagined shape in the bushes as the two men waited for the hounds to raise the quarry.
“Alas, Your Majesty, I thought I had provided you with a better mount!” Louis was annoyed, his concern genuine. The king had been given a bangtailed grey stallion with a deep chest and long delicate legs. The horse was built more for speed than weight-carrying capacity. Perhaps that had been the wrong choice.
“No, he’s a fine animal. Good heart, I suspect—just a little young and flighty. He’ll settle when I shake some energy out of his legs.”
Louis patted the polished neck of his own horse, a stately bay, which stood calmly waiting for the call to advance. “Perhaps I may suggest you take my animal, Lord King, and allow me to ‘shake out his legs’ for you myself. It is the least I can do.”
“No, Louis. I can manage him. And I appreciate, very much, you offering me such fine entertainment, but my men are restless and so am I. Time disappears as the weather worsens. Why has Charles not sent us word of his intentions?”
Deep in the chase the halloo began and the sieur de Gruuthuse was spared the need for replying as both horses, champing, dancing from foot to foot, took all their riders’ strength to hold them.
“Come, sire, there may be news when we return to my halls. For now…” The chase was arduous and unexpectedly long, and, in the end, unsatisfying. The stag, an excellent animal with at least twelve points to its antlers, disappeared into a stream, outrunning the hounds and the court party surrounding Edward and his host. The king felt responsible for the loss, for he had led the riders and at one point his flighty mount had become distracted by the noise of the hounds and balked at the jumping of a log, causing confusion among those who followed. And in that moment the stag escaped.
It was an especially sharp blow—he’d always had success before at the chase—and Edward was privately dismayed, though he laughed it off at the feast that night.
“Ah, Louis, my cunning at the hunt must have suffered after all the alarms of the last weeks. Your red monarch lives to fight another round with your hounds—and I take that to be an excellent omen for my own case!” Louis de Gruuthuse laughed along with the rest at the high table in the Ridderzaal, but secretly he dreaded the close of the feast. He had finally received dispatches—dispatches he was yet to share with the king. Drink deep, and deeper yet, he told himself, and perhaps it would give him courage for what was to come.
Edward sauntered toward the fire in Louis’s private quarters, joining his brother, Richard of Gloucester, and William Hastings as they warmed their backs, beakers of honeyed wine in their hands. It was a cold night, with the first real snow of the season falling silently outside the thick glass of the casements. Edward, accepting more wine from his host, kicked at the great log on the hearth. As if to answer such impertinence, a gust of wind sent sparks and smuts belching into the room from the chimney’s throat. The king turned away from the fireplace, wiping soot from his eyes.
“Damn it, Louis. Does no one understand how to build a chimney in this country? Everything smokes!”
“I heartily agree with you, sire! There are never such good builders of fireplaces here as you have in your country. I brought an Englishman to Brugge to make all mine for me in my new house.”
“And may we stand before our own fire in the great hall of Westminster before Advent is done, brother!”
Edward swung to face his younger brother, smiling. “Admirable sentiment, Richard. Excellent aim! Come, Louis, let us drink to that. London and the greatest Yule log any of us has ever seen!”
“Amen, Your Majesty. Amen to that!”
A hearty swallow and robust belches from all four men, followed by laughter, made all things seem possible for the moment. Only the moment, however, for, as the laughter died, Louis strolled forward and extended a roll of vellum to the king.
“I think you should see this, my lord. It arrived earlier this evening, while we ate. I have read it.”
A pleasant smile fixed itself to Edward’s face as he took the document from Louis’s fingers. He turned toward the fire and bent down to milk light from the flames.
The other three were silent, apparently unconcerned, though Richard stole a glance at his brother’s face. Edward’s expression did not change in the few seconds it took to read what was written. Once finished, he dropped the parchment onto the fire, silently watching the skin curl up and turn black as the letters were consumed. Then he looked at his host, his eyes deep holes in his face, unfathomable. “Fair words from Charles, Louis. But nothing of substance. Would you agree?”
Louis de Gruuthuse shrugged, most uncomfortable. There were soothing things he could say, but they would not be the truth. “Your Majesty, you must give my master a little more time. As you know, he is placed in a most difficult situation. The French king has his army knocking at the very doors of Burgundy and—”
“Time!” Now Edward allowed a little of what he was feeling to be seen on his face. “Time, dear Louis, is what I do not have. And Charles knows it! He is foolish if he thinks that the king of France will skulk away. That will happen only if I retake England. If Margaret and Warwick consolidate their power, then Burgundy is lost. Louis will pick off Charles’s territory province by province, and he will not have England to take up his cause.”
Privately Louis de Gruuthuse agreed with his guest, but now was not the time to speak such truth. It was his duty to play the game the way his master, the duke of Burgundy, wished it to be played. Carefully. “Why will your master not allow me to come to him in Brugge?”
Louis smiled gently. “Ah, sire, I suspect he worries for your safety with the French about the country everywhere. You would be a rich prize indeed.” And then, seeing the king’s skeptical expression, his hard eyes, Louis sighed and spoke the truth. “Perhaps, also, he does not wish to be overwhelmed. You are a difficult man to oppose in the flesh.”
Edward snorted and bared his teeth for a moment, an imitation of a smile, then dropped his shoulders and turned back to look into the flames. “Well, we are no further forward, but no further back either. Nothing is lost. There is still some hope in this for our cause.” There was silence, except for the crackle of the fire as the last scrap of the parchment flamed and turned to a thread of smoke.
“Does it please Your Majesty to rest?” Louis de Gruuthuse bowed as he spoke.
The deep respect he offered was small solace to Edward for now he must give heart to his men. It was an easier task in battle—a reflex operation to swing a sword or an axe in response to years of training; the fear snuffed out in action. No time to wonder what was right, only time to act. This slow game of politics was different. This was thought above physical strength and a truer test of who he was in many ways. And so Edward raised his head and smiled warmly at his host, a real smile this time. “Certainly it does, dear friend,” he said, yawning, and linked his arm through that of Louis de Gruuthuse. “You know, Louis, this will make a great tale in the telling when you visit us in London,” he went on. “How the king went to bed one night and, in the morning, woke with the solution to his little problem.” Edward laughed, and his genuine lightness of tone drew relieved chuckles from his brother Richard and William, his closest friend. Their spirits lifted. There would be a way; there was always a way.
But later that night, alone in the great bed, Edward lay with eyes open in the darkness and his mind turned and churned on the fair, safe words from his brother-in-law. Could the man not see the danger if he allowed Edward to swing on the gibbet of chance? Or did he not want to see? And was his sister, the duchess, true to her family’s cause, or had her great love for her husband distorted her loyalty to her original home? Edward frowned as he remembered the wedding so little time ago, his sister’s hand trembling as he’d placed it in that of her new husband after the nuptial mass at Damme.
And Anne. His Anne. Why did he still yearn to see her, to touch her, when so much else was at risk?
Perhaps the itch of the flesh was a useful distraction and his dreams of her, the clear heat of his thoughts when he remembered her face and her body, was God’s kind way of giving him relief from the endless tension of his days. Blasphemous thought! The priests would be shocked if he confessed such things. But still, could it be so?
Yes. God was merciful, for Edward’s last images before deep sleep took him were of Anne—laughing, reaching out a hand to touch him, kissing his mouth—rather than the harrowing specters of loss and disgrace that had haunted these last days.