Gifts of the Queen Read Free Page B

Henry to pardon Raoul and his men, give them the kiss of peace, and restore to Raoul his lands and titles, all that had been lost.
    Perhaps it was the mists that reminded me, the mists that curled and eddied with each step, or perhaps the creaking of the saddles or the clink of armor as a man turned to talk or laugh, or the jingle of a bridle piece when a horse tossed its head. Or was it the way our shadows loomed and wavered, sometimes large and distorted, against the wall of fog? Or was it simply my listening to one of my squires, Walter the elder, who loved a tune, and was whistling one between his teeth, a song learned of a kitchen wench the night before? Or perhaps the glint and shimmer of the water where the lake opened up between the matted reeds reminded me of the sheen of the lady's gown beneath her rags. I do not know, but will tell you only this: back the memory came, fresh as yesterday, and her words chimed like bells within my head. And all that had happened since my meeting her echoed and echoed in my mind. I thought as I had thought often this past month, what is done is done. God have it so, that all bitterness be finished and enmity and death. And that we come home safe to Sieux.
    But perhaps it was none of these things, only the day itself, unlike any of those other days, a month of them drowned in rain and cold, which, since the start of our journey here, seemed to have dogged us with storms, as if even the weather wished us ill. Today, despite the wet, there had been a feeling in the air, an excitement so intense as almost to give substance to mood, to things intangible, to sounds, waking me from an uneasy sleep. For often now I had the same dream, except it was no dream; it was the true past relived. We were still in Henry's court, and Henry had pardoned Raoul. Take your lands and titles back, Henry had said. I grant you the title of Earl as in your grandfather's time. I restore to you willingly your lands and castle at Sieux — if you take Ann of Cambray as wife. I still heard Henry's laugh; I still saw the open hot looks he cast at me, the hope, perhaps, to bed me first himself. I still felt his tinge of scorn, to make me a jest, a pawn, for a king to play with. But more than that, I still felt the scorn he put on Raoul. Henry could not have made his jest more plain. 'If you would have your lands back, Raoul,' he should have said, and sometimes in my dreams he did, 'marry beneath you, you who could marry where you choose, marry Ann. At my command.'
    It was an order no man of pride or rank could or would obey. But Raoul had. Sometimes I had wondered what would have happened had Raoul refused, Raoul, who when I first knew him, was already betrothed to a French lady of high degree. That Isobelle de Boissert, as she was called, had been heiress of many lands. Why would Earl Raoul marry with Ann of Cambray, whose small castle at the end of the Norman world had no value, was already part of Raoul's own estates, and he already my overlord? But there was one other reason for Raoul to marry me, one Henry did not know, and that, too, a cause to make me start awake. Had Henry known, he would have rather kept us apart and revelled in a greater jest. What he did not know was this (although the Queen who had helped me did): that Raoul had already bedded me, and I was already with child, conceived when Raoul left me, as he thought, to go to his death. This then was another reason for our haste, why since our coming to France we had avoided any place where Henry might have news of us, and why in the dark I relived again and again our wedding night when Raoul had lain with his unsheathed sword in his hand. And why in nightmares, I heard Henry and his men break into our room, to prove for themselves that I was no maid, and this my new husband had already lain with me and given me a child. So, when at today's dawn I started awake, you know what I thought. But it was only the