May Day was passed with much celebration in the village. The days were getting longer at last and there was a flush of warmth in the air. Branches of flowering hawthorn were twined around the gate and porch of the small Norman church, and bees droned noisily as they plunged into the wilting blossoms, emerging with legs burdened with pollen. Perhaps this year, after all, would be fruitful?
It was a good omen for the future that Anne had prevailed on the monks at Appleforth, the former owners of Wincanton the Less, to send them a priest each Sunday until a permanent occupant for their church could be arranged. Anne had discovered she held “the living” of the parish in her gift as lady of this manor, but it would take time to select the right person, and she made it clear to the monks she would not have someone imposed on the village without her agreement. Meanwhile, the brothers were deeply shocked by the realization that the parish had been so neglected since the previous priest’s death. There was much irregularity in need of correction: several couples were openly living together without benefit of churching, and there’d been children born outside marriage also.
So it was on this May morning that nearly all the villagers walked in procession to the porch of the sturdy, squat-towered church, led by three young couples, two carrying babies. And there, huddled beneath the low porch, the men among the three couples recited vows of marriage on behalf of their wives-to-be, carefully echoing the words of the priest as he intoned them. The babies were held close to the bodies of their mothers so that they could be made legitimate at the same time as their parents were declared legally married.
Anne smiled wistfully at their happiness. Would her son ever know his father, as these children would? She shook her head, trying to banish unwelcome thoughts, and her glance caught Deborah’s. Her foster mother leaned toward her daughter and, as the priest pronounced a final blessing, scattered May blossom petals into Anne’s hair, just as the villagers were doing for the newly married couples.
“Your turn will come, sweet child. This will be a good year, for us and for all here. I feel it.”
Tears glinted for a moment among Anne’s long lashes. Leaning down, she kissed her son and gave him the petals she’d so carefully hoarded. “There, Edward, you can throw mine.” Her son hopped forward and joyfully threw the flowers with all the force in his small body, shouting, “Bless you! Bless you!”
The villagers cast warm smiles in their direction as Edward ran back to Anne’s side. “And bless you too, child. And you, Lady Anne. Our May queen, you are.”
May queen? Anne was suddenly breathless with fear as a black fog descended and the church, the laughing people, the running children, disappeared.
Screaming, all she heard was screaming, and there was a red fog all about her. A fog in which she saw and heard the flash and clang of swords. Horrified, she looked down. Her dress was soaked with blood almost to the height of her knees. Men’s faces loomed at her, black mouths screaming, eyes slashed from their heads. Soon she would be engulfed, soon she would be swallowed by this horror, this rolling cloud of death and terror and pain.
One word. There was only one word among the screaming. A name, a name she had never heard before in her life. Tooksberry. Was that it? Turksbury? Tewkesbury. That was the name. And then she saw him and gasped. Edward, surrounded by men nearly as tall as he was, and though his face was covered in blood, she recognized him: he wore a gold diadem around the steel of his helmet and he was braying like a stallion, screaming like an eagle, as his axe rose and fell, rose and fell, with a terrible, remorseless rhythm. She would not look, she would not look as he bore down upon the boy, the stripling who screamed out in French, rallying his supporters, “I am the prince of Wales, to me, to me!”
“Did he kill the boy? Ah no, please God, no!” Anne swam toward consciousness, so deeply distressed that tears ran from her closed eyes. She smelled rosewater but that made it worse; rosewater and the wet, iron smell of blood were a nauseating combination. She struggled to sit, but didn’t have the strength. Cool hands soothed her, pressed her gently back against the bolster. With a sigh, Anne surrendered, her eyelids fluttering as Deborah held a wrung-out linen rag to her temples.
“It was the heat, Dame Meggan, after this long winter,” Deborah whispered to her companion. “She’ll be fine now.”
Meggan was not convinced. She whispered back, “Looked more like a fit to me.”
Anne lay still, apparently asleep once more. Deborah put one finger to her lips. “Come with me, Meggan. There are fresh curds you can take back to the marriage blessing—for the priest, from my mistress. We should let Lady Anne sleep.”
Anne, hearing their voices recede, struggled to sit up—and regretted it. The room swung and spun around as if she’d drunk too much new beer.
Tewkesbury. That was the name she’d heard. A real name. What did it mean?
Death, that’s what it meant, assuredly. Death.