The King's Grey Mare Read Online Free Page A

cleft beard. Tiny drops of sweat broke out on her face; she clenched her hands and wept.
    Anthony came down the steps into the courtyard, an esquire following him, and grasped the waiting horse’s bridle. The sun touched gold from his uncovered head. Elizabeth dared not call, even with the nurse snoring behind her. Instead she threw a rosebud down; it dropped on the horse’s saddle. Anthony looked up at her white face and small, imploring hands.
    ‘Ah, sweet sister,’ he said very softly. ‘God send you good fortune.’
    He rode up to the window; by stretching up he could almost touch her hand. She glanced across the courtyard. Most of the guard had dispersed, but three were dicing on the cobbles outside the mew. Anthony’s esquire wandered over to join them.
    ‘Take me with you,’ she whispered. ‘Take me away!’ Before he could answer, she had nipped up her gown and was sitting on the sun-warmed window ledge. Her feet hung down a yard from the horse’s ears. Anthony’s face looked up, pale and troubled. The cobbles seemed a long way down. She had visions of her skull crushed, every bone in her body smashed to pieces. Yet in that instant she jumped, slid, fell into her brother’s arms. The horse reared in fright at the sudden burden and bolted, hooves ringing on the stones. Anthony struggled to hold her across his saddle-bow, while she began to laugh like a madwoman. They careered through the gate, swerved under the arch and raced across the meadow. Anthony was swearing, calling on the saints. Eventually he brought the horse to a bouncing halt.
    ‘Sweet Jesu!’ he said, rubbing a strained wrist. ‘You could have been killed! What a fool’s game!’
    They were near the water, and her secret place. The shimmering willows seemed to listen as they argued, he shaking his head despairingly, she crying, pleading.
    ‘Take me away,’ she begged. ‘Grant me this one favour, and I will repay you, if it’s the last thing I do in life.’
    ‘Come, sweeting,’ he said, looking suddenly like a frightened child (he was little more). ‘It’s not your death. Sir Hugh is kindly, biddable. I doubt not you’ll have your way with him in the end. Come,’ disentangling himself from her arms, ‘make the best of it.’
    Still she sobbed and besought him.
    ‘Where would I hide you?’ he said uneasily. ‘I … I should get into trouble.’
    She recognized from his last sentence that he was as young, as powerless as she. She dismounted slowly into the reedy grass, her hair awry, her face drawn and miserable.
    ‘Go, then,’ she said dully. ‘I know you would help me if you could.’
    ‘Aye!’ he answered, eager to be off. ‘Saint Catherine keep you; we’ll meet again soon.’
    ‘Farewell,’ she said, turning away.
    He gathered up his reins. ‘Bess, use our father kindly,’ he said. ‘You shamed him sorely last evening.’
    She walked away, hearing the scudding hooves of his departure and his shout of farewell. In utter resignation she descended the moist green slope to where the bank of kingcups made a pillow and the same two trout lay basking under sun-kissed water. She sank down, curving her body beside the shady willows, and let sadness engulf her. Then came the unmistakable feeling that she was not alone. Someone was watching her. A chill enveloped her as she thought of ghosts of the reedland, bogies that changed themselves to water-birds; the Lord of Evil himself, inhabiting, for sport, this lonely, sunlit place. Then the uncomfortable feeling was broken by a calm, a beautiful voice.
    ‘Weep no more, daughter,’ said Jacquetta of Bedford.
    Astonished, Elizabeth saw her mother sitting unattended on the other side of the willow tree. Green-latticed sunlight lapped at her steady profile. For all this rustic departure, she was attired with customary fineness. Her headdress was of silver cloth, stretched over a little pointed horn of starched damask. Small jewels winked in her ears and upon her white bosom.