Secrets at Court. Blythe Gifford

But Lady Joan, of all people, knew what must be done and how important a witness would be.

      The Prince took her candle and set them both on the trestle that served as an altar. Wavering flames cast shadows upwards on their faces, throwing the Prince’s nose and cheekbones into sharp relief and softening her lady’s rounded smile. Then they clasped hands, fingers tight, one on top of the other’s.

      ‘I, Edward, take thee, Joan, to be my wedded wife.’

      Anne swallowed, speechless. Surely God must want her to speak, to prevent this sacrilege?

      ‘Thee to love and keep, as a man ought to love his wife...’

      She freed her voice. ‘You mustn’t. You cannot! The King, you are too close...’

      The Prince’s scowl stopped her speech. They knew the truth better than she. They shared a royal grandfather, a connection too close for the church to allow this marriage.

      ‘All will be as it must,’ Lady Joan said. ‘As soon as we have said the vows, we will send a petition to the Pope. He will set aside the impediment and then we will be wed in the church.’

      ‘But...’ Anne let the objections fade. The Countess believed it would be as easy as that. Logic, reason, all for naught. Lady Joan would do as she pleased and the world would accommodate her.

      It had ever been thus.

      The Prince withdrew his frown and faced his bride again. ‘...and thereto, I plight thee my troth.’

      As if he knew exactly the words to say.

      Ah, but her lady knew. Lady Joan knew exactly what must be done to make such a marriage valid.

      Now, she heard her lady’s voice, the soft, seductive tone Anne knew too well. ‘I, Joan, take thee, Edward, to be my wedded husband...’

      Intentions stated, clearly. Too late to protest now.

      The chill of the midnight chapel sank into her bones. She would be the one. She would be the one who held the truth of Lady Joan’s clandestine marriage.

      Again.

      Within sight of the English coast—four months later

      The waters of the channel pitched and rolled less than usual this day, if Nicholas’s stomach was any judge. The tide was with them. He would be ashore by midday and at Windsor Castle before week’s end, his duty discharged.

      Free of responsibility.

      He was weary of his duty. A moment unheeded and the horses you held in reserve would go lame, victuals would be lost, or hail would fall out of a spring sky, destroying food, armour, men and the decisive victory the King had sought for twenty years.

      ‘Sir?’

      He turned from seeking the shoreline to look at his squire, Eustace. The boy had hardened on this journey.

      He was not the only one. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Your things are packed. All is ready.’

      There was a question at the end of the sentence. ‘Except?’

      ‘Except your horse.’

      He sighed. Horses were meant for land, not water.

      Without a word, he left the sharp, bracing air of the deck and descended to the cramped, smelly bowels of the ship.

      No wonder the horse was ill. If he had been confined to this cesspool, he would be, too.

      The horse’s head hung low, nearly touching the floor. Unable to throw out the contents of his belly as a man would do, the poor beast could only stand, miserable, shedding tears and sweat like rain.

      Nicholas stroked his neck and the animal, barely able to lift his head, seemed to open his eyes and blink in gratitude.

      No. He would not ride this horse today. The final miles of this journey stretched before him, as difficult as all the rest had been.

      But the Edwards, both King and Prince, would have no patience for excuses. Princes and popes need only speak a thing for it to happen, expecting mere mortals such as Nicholas Lovayne to create the needed miracles.

      And time after time, he did. He made certain there was always an alternate route, always another choice, always one more way the goal might be reached, never exhausting the possibilities until the deed was done.

      There was pride in that.

      But his other horse had succumbed on this journey, so he would find another way.

      Leaving his squire to unload, Nicholas disembarked and was greeted by the warden of the Cinque Ports. He, too, had ridden with the Prince in France, though Nicholas did not know him well. It did not matter. Men who had shared a war all knew each other. A horse would be provided.

      ‘What news in my absence?’ Nicholas asked. It had taken near six weeks to travel to Avignon and back. Time enough for three intrigues and more to swirl about the court. He must prepare for this as he would prepare for a battle, knowing how the ground lay and where the troops massed.

      ‘Pestilence still stalks the land.’

      More than ten years since the last time. He had thought, they all had, that God’s punishment was behind them.

      ‘The King. Is he at Windsor?’

      The warden shook his head. ‘He’s closed the courts, suspended the business of the exchequer so men do not need to travel and fled to the New Forest.’

      The New Forest. A longer ride, then. Pray God he’d find no pestilence along the way.

      ‘How fares Prince Edward?’

      The warden shrugged. ‘He is a Prince, not a King. With the war over, he has little to do but cavort with his friends and with the Virgin of Kent.’

      Nicholas shot him a sharp look. Few were brave enough to speak so pointedly about Edward’s intended.

      ‘And you?’ The warden looked at him with open curiosity. ‘Was your journey successful?’

      Did the entire country know why he’d been sent? Well, he would not speak of it to anyone until he had seen the Prince. The besotted Prince who, instead of making an alliance with a bride from Spain or the Low Countries, had thrown it all away for love of a woman forbidden to him by the laws of the church and common sense.

      ‘I can only say,’ he spoke carefully, ‘that it will not go well with me if it did not.’

      For Prince Edward had expected him to obtain the Pope’s blessing of a folly too foolish to be forgiven.

      And Nicholas was a man who did not suffer fools. Even royal ones.

      A lodge in the New Forest—a few days later

      After all these years, Anne sometimes tried to run, as she did in dreams. Run as other women her age might, happily chasing their children, playing peek and hide.

      Instead, her gait was an awkward, rolling thing. Even when she walked, she rose and sank as if she were a drunken sailor on a tottering ship. The walking stick, a third leg to compensate for the useless second one, only made things more difficult. Sometimes, she tripped over her lame foot and could not withhold her curses, and when she fell, she had learned that rolling would soften the blow.

      She had stumbled when the King’s ambassador arrived, but fortunately out of his sight and hearing. Tall and straight, he swung off his horse and strode into the keep, his very ease mocking her.

      Poor, foolish Anne. Still longing for a body other than the one she had been born with.

      She paused before her lady’s chamber, gasping for breath, then pushed open the door without knocking for permission.

      Even that rude entry could not disturb Lady Joan’s perpetual smile. Anne’s news, however, would. ‘The emissary. He has returned.’

      The