Page 24 of The Queen’s Witch

I had seen Anne angry before, but not like this: a woman so filled by rage that it must find immediate vent, even on a lowly servant, or else fury would tear her apart.

Far below, a figure approached the drawbridge. I could see only the top of his cap and his determined stride. The guard held up his stave in warning, but the man did not slow his pace.

“Answer me!” Anne said.

“My lady, I was not present at that meeting, and so any words I imputed to the cardinal would be only conjecture.”

“And that is the best you can do? You, supposedly a cunning woman?”

The guard and the visitor began to argue, the angry tone of their voices but not their actual words rising three stories to where we stood.

“My conjecture would not be of use to you and—”

“You dare tell me what would be of use to me? You believe it is your place to decide that? You?”

“No, of course not, I only . . . I . . .” I was struck dumb. The man being challenged by the drawbridge guard spun angrily away, and I glimpsed his face. It was Mark Smalacombe.

Anne took a few steps. All at once, my wits returned. I now stood between Anne and the parapet. She could push me over if I were caught unawares. I did not know how far her fury might reach, this woman who dared anger a king.

“I ordered you to answer me! Use the powers you boast of! What did Katherine reply?”

“She said she would not enter a nunnery, because she was the king’s true wife and the Lady Mary his true heir. She said she would not make her daughter a bastard.”

Anne stared at me. She knew, or would have known if in her right mind, that one could easily guess at Katherine’s answer. No divination needed. But either her rage had worn itself out or something in my answer—was it that I had remembered to say “Lady Mary” rather than “Princess Mary”?—had affected her. She said, “Leave me. Now.”

Quickly I moved off the roof and down the stone stairs, but not quickly enough. Behind me, she began to sob.

Emma waited at the bottom of the stairwell, a warhorse tethered by Anne’s command. I said to her, “My lady is in great distress,” and did not stay to see whether she remained where Anne had ordered her or climbed to the roof.

By the time I crossed the moat, Mark had gone. I ran down the track leading to the village and reached him where the forest track met the river. “Mark!”

He turned, and the anger on his face, though more controlled, matched Anne’s. I wanted to rush into his arms. He folded them across his chest.

“Ye are here.”

“How did you know to—”

“Ye left no word for me, Alysoun. I come back from the sea, and yer gone, no word to anyone save Mistress Prentiss that yer gone to stay with kin in Norwich. Ye have no kin in Norwich. Did ye not think of me? Why did ye go? Had a cunning woman ye talked to not told me that ye asked about Hever, I wouldna had any idea where to look for ye!”

“Mark . . .” Where to begin? He would not understand. But he did not give me the chance to explain before closing the distance between us and grabbing my arm.

“Be there another man? Did ye run off to him? Be he here with ye?”

“No, no. There is no one else. Let go, Mark; you hurt me!”

He did not let go. “Then why? Why did ye leave?”

“Grandmother . . . I had to—”

“Yer grandmother be dead! There be nothing more to do for her!”

“In this realm, no. But in the Otherworld—”

“Faaugh! None can go there, and well ye know it!”

His anger silenced me, even as his familiar smell of leather and wool and skin filled me with longing. But he dropped my arm, and with his next words, his voice had gone quiet.

“I knew ye would become a cunning woman when we first promised ourselves to each other. I accepted it, even though I knew it might bring us danger if we left Tydd Saint Stephen. But ’tis not as if ye be, or will ever become, a thrice-braided witch. Yer small magicks be harmless. Now, in turn, ye must accept my headship as yer husband. We will marry now, here, as soon as the banns can be spoken, and then we will travel to London. There be no need for music like mine in Tydd Saint Stephen, and I have no wish to spend all my life on stinking boats. In London, I can prosper with my music, and ye can bear our sons and have no need of the tiny magicks in yer power.”