William Hastings held the dice of influence in his hand and, as a last throw, he decided to talk with Anne de Bohun. Because he was a good servant of the crown, the interests of England drove his actions. In this it made sense that the marriage of the king should be strengthened and the position of the queen, mother of the king’s legitimate heir, buttressed with the support he could provide at court. Yet Hastings was not without pity or compassion. Or personal feelings. The king was his friend and he truly seemed to love this girl. And William himself actually liked Anne, even admired her.
Perhaps it was possible that the king’s mistress could be managed so that she provided the king with what he needed emotionally, while living in retirement so as not to offend the queen. To find out, he had sent a written summons to Anne de Bohun, conveyed by her servant, the mute. Lunch would be served in the garden of the tower by the waterfall and he would be delighted by her presence.
As he waited for the girl to arrive, William surveyed the work he had caused to be done with satisfaction, even pleasure. He was a busy man, with little time to waste, but he was pleased his orders had been well observed. This place had something unusual. Peace; was that it? Yet to say that the garden of Anne’s bower was a tame and ordered space was to exaggerate. Wisely, William had made a virtue of necessity in this regard, because after such long neglect, and with so little time, a formal garden could not have been created. Better to allow most of the trees to stand and better yet to clear a number of glades and paths between them here and there, as if the garden had grown up in this manner. But flowers could be, and were, brought and transplanted—roses, peonies, gillyflowers, flocks, wallflowers, hollyhocks, all in full bloom, most of them scented—and small ponds created to be filled with exotic fish and fed by the stream that flowed through the garden. Marble benches were robbed from the gardens of Westminster Palace and artfully scattered at the turn of newly created paths and under some of the more noble trees where the vista of the garden was pleasing; anywhere that lovers might be tempted to sit and dally.
The waterfall, too, was a welcome surprise when he’d first found it in the depths of the garden. William had been alone on that first visit and had been drawn by its distant thunder. On that still day, the rushing hurry of its water had a distinct voice, a voice that seemed to call him. Long neglect had made the place a natural-seeming grotto, yet when he’d half-closed his eyes, he’d seen that the stone around the waterfall’s pool had been artfully cut and fitted together.
The water descended from a fissure halfway up the height of a rock wall, where the sun caught rainbows from the sparkling air, a pretty sight. The fissure had the shape of a mouth. Half squinting, William saw that the mouth belonged to an enormous head that bulged outward from the wall. And there were also eyes—though ferns, like green eyelashes, distorted their shapes—and there, a nose. Carved or natural? That face had a strange look. Very ancient somehow and, perhaps, malevolent. A blue butterfly, as brilliant as the sky, had drifted past his face that day, wings moving gently in the languid breeze. The light shifted and he’d seen that the “face” was just a lump of rock, after all, with no particular expression.
To preserve the intriguing mystery of the place, the surrounds of the pool had been carefully and selectively cleared of overgrowth and two handsome benches placed where they would catch dappled sun for much of the day. Now, as he waited for Anne to join him, he saw that one had been draped with a fall of embroidered jewel-red velvet; a piquant note of courtly luxury in this wild place.
Also, displayed on the lawnlike moss beside the waterfall, a small feast had been laid. William’s gut grumbled as he contemplated such extensive bounty. The food was covered by white napkins and silver covers, but tantalizing aromas reminded him that he had not eaten since early this morning, after mass. Perhaps if he were just to sample one of the pike and saffron fritters…
“I did not know about the waterfall, Lord Hastings.”
The chamberlain, startled, snatched his hand back like a guilty child. Behind him, Anne giggled. “Oh, please, do eat, sir. I have kept you long enough and you must be very hungry.”
“Alas, lady, animal nature is stronger even than reason.”
He was glib until he turned and saw her. Then the easy words died. She was dressed in glimmering, lustrous white with her tawny hair loosened and eyes like jeweled adornments in her face, and William Hastings understood Edward’s obsession with Anne de Bohun all over again. The king stood between two women—one fair, one dark. Looking at Anne, William’s decision to choose the queen’s interests above Anne’s wavered. Theirs would be an interesting, and a testing, conversation today. “Whoever built this garden made the waterfall, I believe, though it looks natural at first sight.”
Anne moved toward him out of the shadows of the trees and the sun touched her head with a hazy corona. The dress she wore was simple and yet the embroidery of pearls made it as precious as that worn by an icon; and as her white skirts trailed over the emerald moss it was as if the material, though loomed by human hands, had become another form of light.
Enchanted. Enchanting. Anne de Bohun belonged in this place; she too was an amalgam of the wild and the sophisticated, and it was hard to say such banal words as “Are you hungry?” or “Would you like to sit here, lady?” to a woman who looked like a visitor from Faerie.
“Perhaps you would sit on this bench here, Lady Anne? And allow me to serve you?” William began the conversation, taking the initiative.
“Yes, I should like that. I can’t remember when I had food last.” Anne sat and the folds of her dress flowed over the embroidered velvet of the seat he had chosen for her. Around the pool, trees moved in the slight breeze, dappling her body with shadow and light, shadow and light.
Anne was nervous. William could hear it in her voice and, when she glanced at him, her eyes were wary.
He cleared his throat, a harsh sound. “I thought it best if we spoke together, alone, Lady Anne. Without even the mute. I hope you understand?”
He proffered a silver plate as he spoke. On it was piled food of a variety of kinds: the saffroned pike fritters he so lusted for; minced guineafowl napped in a sauce of pounded currants, cream, and cinnamon; and whole baked gulls’ eggs, shelled and rolled in salt, honey, and so much parsley they seemed entirely green. There was also a heroically large slice of raised pie filled with oysters, choice beef, young lamb, and larks’ flesh bound with eggs, new ale, and peppered onions. “A spoon, lady?”
“Thank you.” Anne accepted the plate with a gracious nod. The chamberlain of England himself was serving her with his own hands, the picture of a gallant knight. Anne knew better; she took a deep breath. The contest for the king—body and soul—was joined.
Hastings returned with his own food a moment later and sat opposite her. “I forgot this.” The chamberlain held out a knife with a short, gilded blade; a pretty thing with no serious edge.
Anne accepted the knife with a slight smile. “A little blunt, I see. Don’t you trust me, Chamberlain?”
William coughed as a piece of fritter lodged in his windpipe. “I always trust beauty, Lady Anne; therefore, of course I trust you.” He was inured to lying.
Anne smiled wistfully, gazing at the waterfall as if it held some special power. “I don’t think I’d be able to if I were you, Lord Chamberlain. Trust me, that is.”
William Hastings was discomforted. Something had shifted in this conversation and he’d lost the advantage. He began to reply through a mouthful of food, but Anne spoke quickly. “But do not fear me either, Lord William. I want nothing that is in your gift.”
Hastings swallowed his pie, conscious of a certain resentment. He enjoyed having power again, but it was tempered by this girl where the king was concerned. That annoyed him. However, today, he had summoned her. “But until I know what you seek, you can’t be sure, can you, lady?”
Anne shook her head. “Trust me in this if you trust me in nothing else, Lord William.” The witty little play on words had an edge.
“Ah, lady, you are deep in a very dangerous game and, like it or not, you need my help if you are to survive.” Hastings allowed Anne to hear compassion, even sorrow, in his reply.
Anne was blunt. “This is not a game of my making and, as such, I have not yet chosen to take part. I exist to the side, not at the center. I have come to London for two purposes only and will not stay long. Should I change my intention, enter the ‘game,’ as you put it, then it is for me and the king to decide my actions and requirements. Not you.”
Now William was offended. “Are you refusing my help, lady?”
Anne put the plate of food down, untouched. “No. But if I take what you offer I do not want to pay for your assistance, Lord William. Allegiance, freely given, freely chosen by friends, can advantage both of us. You, too, may need what I can give you one day, if we are friends.”
She’d called his bluff. Was she suicidally foolish or, perhaps, very clever? He swallowed a snort with his pie. Friends? Men and women were never friends, not in the way that men were friends with each other. How could they be?
“Lady, you speak of choice as if one existed. It does not. I can assure you of that. The queen is—”
“Seeking ascendancy?” Anne nodded. “Yes, I know that. I’ve been told by many people that her influence grows at court, now that her son is born. She will fight hard to keep that. Yet…”
Something hovered in the air between them. The scent of power?
“You must believe that I do have a choice. The king is my friend, as he is yours, but he is my protector also.” She did not say “lover.” “We are bound to each other. I know that I could, perhaps, become a countervailing force to the queen, if I chose to. No, don’t sneer.” She spoke gently at William’s disbelief. “I am telling you the truth. Whatever the king has done in the past, what he and I have is real. And strong. Even stronger now. He loves me. He always will love me.” It was said simply, but Anne was very certain. She lifted her head. “And you are asking me the wrong questions, Lord William.”
The chamberlain watched Anne de Bohun rise to pour more wine for each of them, and decided to be patient. She was brave, yes, but in the end, foolish. The king might love her now, might have loved her in the past, might go on loving her for a time; but the queen was the queen. Edward Plantagenet would never marry this girl, lovely as she was, not even if the current queen died. The king would not make a second foolish marriage just because of the flesh and its attractions; next time he would marry royalty. That left Anne de Bohun with nowhere to go, in the end, but the oblivion of all baseborn mistresses. And there were many forms of oblivion. Some more pleasant than others.
The chamberlain accepted his silver beaker from the girl’s hands and sat back, smiling slightly. “And so, what questions should I ask you, lady?”
Anne heard the patronizing tone in his voice. She knew what he thought of her and of her prospects with the king, yet she smiled because she had certainties, and knowledge, he did not. “Because I have a choice, you should ask me if I want the life he offers me, for I know its price. And you should ask me who I am.”
There was a tone in her voice that flicked doubt into William’s mind. What did she mean, who I am?
Anne looked toward the waterfall and a shadow passed over her face. “And I know this, Lord William. When it comes time to decide my future, I will choose what I want. Not you. And not the king.”
William Hastings returned to his pie, chewing on what the girl had said. There was silence between them and he did not break it. He would not play her game; shortly he would leave Anne de Bohun here in the garden to await the king and he would return to the palace. He had made up his mind.
Anne de Bohun had achieved the impossible: she had made him frightened. She was not just an inconvenient and distracting mistress of the king, she was much more than that. Lady de Bohun had faith in her power over Edward Plantagenet and he had seen that power at work in the king. And, if she came to court, she believed she could pick and choose her allies—and her “friends.”
One day, the king might be forced to choose between his best friend and the woman he loved. He, the chamberlain of England, could not allow the politics of the bed chamber to ruin England as they had before—or to ruin him.
“More wine, Lady Anne?”
The girl shook her head and picked up a little of the food, pretending to eat. They finished the meal in silence and, after a time, William Hastings rose and kissed Anne’s hand before he bowed and walked away. Perhaps the monk was right. Perhaps this girl was a witch, ridiculous as that seemed. Hastings stole one glance back. The enigmatic “god” of the waterfall almost seemed to smile down upon that still white figure in the green glade as if she belonged in his strange domain.
William Hastings shivered. All Christian men had a duty where witches were concerned; the Bible was very clear on that. He would do his duty. She had given him no other choice.