King's Blood (47 page)

She crowned him with oak and ash and the pricking of thorn. That small pain, those beads of blood, completed the sacrifice.

The rest of his consecration was waiting beyond her: hair like molten gold in the last of the light, magic clothing her in shadow and shimmer. She too was crowned with oak and ash and thorn, and her hands were reaching for his as he reached for hers.

There had been grief, pain, bitter choices—stern reminders of what it was to be a king. She was there to remind him of the rest: the strength he was to bring to his kingdom, the light he would shed upon it and the gifts of life and prosperity that he would give to it. And sons, he thought; sons and daughters to carry on the blood, so that neither the royal line nor the kingdom would wither and die.

All of that was in the meeting of hands and the smile that bloomed in both at once. Sorrow would be a long time fading; this day would haunt his dreams. But here was joy, that would always balance sorrow—and long after sorrow was forgotten, it would still be there. She would be there in all his empty places.

“You're not getting the best bargain,” he said to her. “I'm too much my father's son. There are women—children—”

“I know,” she said. “You can't be sure what you're getting with me, either. I haven't been raised as a proper Christian queen. If we lie and say I've been at Wilton, the Church will accuse you of abducting a nun from a convent and violating her vows. If we—”

He stopped her lips with his. “Don't think,” he said. “Or talk. Not tonight. Not until tomorrow.”

She drew breath to protest—he could see it in her eyes. But the pause gave her time to understand. She bowed to what she would, he hoped, see as his good sense.

The light was fading at last. They had shifted out of the world. Time had gone as fluid as water.

Somewhere in the endless stream of it, William lay newly dead. Walter Tirel whirled in a panic of grief, mind and memory all hopelessly confused. Maybe Cecilia moved to help him—or maybe to bind him to silence.

She moved too late. He scrambled up and away from all that impossible strangeness, caught a dangling rein, flung himself into the saddle of Henry's horse. He hardly seemed to notice that his own was standing within reach.

His whole world was terror: that he had been caught in a cacophony of demons, and that—above all—no one would believe what he thought he had seen. His bow, his arrow had killed the king. Maybe he had. Maybe there had been a spell on him, or madness, or delusion. He had no magic and no learning in such things. He could not know.

He did the only thing he could do. He fled—all the way to the sea and back to Normandy, safe in his own castle where he could grieve in peace.

Henry could have stopped him. He made the choice: he let him go. Whether that was good or ill, time would tell. For the moment he was only sure that it was merciful.

Time would wait—would stand still for the completion of this rite. The powers would give him a night, then fold it away and open the world again to the hour before sunset, a king dead, the rest of his hunters finding him at last; then all the alarums and the pomp and the crushing urgency of a kingship that must be taken swiftly and made secure.

This night, of which the mortal world would never know, was the fulfillment of the rite. He took the kingdom in the old way, through the body of the living Goddess. It was hers to give, and she gladly gave it, she who was twice royal, Guardian and queen.

There was no pungency of hawthorn on them tonight. The scent that wreathed about them, dizzying and sweet, was the scent of roses. Her crown bloomed with them, white roses of the Otherworld, that would never fade or die.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him. No words tonight. Nothing at all but earth and air and sky, and the warmth of bodies joined together. Then he was truly king and she was queen; and Britain, at last, was whole.

CHAPTER 52

Anselm came out of morning Mass in a small church in Lyons that he had adopted for his own, still exalted with the beauty of the rite, to find a guest waiting for him in the sacristy. It was a stranger, a man of no particular age or distinction, dressed in anonymous traveling clothes. He bowed to Anselm and clearly looked for a ring to kiss; but that was shut away in a box in Canterbury.

Anselm blessed him, which he seemed to take in good part, and waited for him to provide a name and a purpose.

The name was not forthcoming. The purpose came mercifully quickly. The man drew from his purse a folded parchment with pendant seals, and a small bag, heavy for its size.

It was almost with a sense of relief that Anselm emptied the contents into his hand. It was the ring he had just been thinking of, the archbishop's ring, with its carved amethyst and its weight of significance.

He weighed the letter in his hand, but elected to wait before he opened it. “You have a message, messire?” he asked.

The man bowed again. “I come from the king of the English,” he said. “He bids you return to your duties.”

Anselm drew a slow breath. His hands were not shaking: good. “Truly? William bids me return? How in the world—”

“William of England is dead,” the messenger said. “Henry of England summons you home.”

“Ah,” said Anselm. He felt nothing yet except a certain wry inevitability. “May I ask how William died?”

“By accident, holy father. An arrow in the hunt. They say his sweet friend did it, the count from Poix. He fled as the guilty might, but the king has not pursued him. There's no blame to be laid, says the king, and no punishment to be exacted. He bids you know, holy father, that the same applies to you.”

Anselm's brows rose. “Does it indeed?”

“Indeed,” said the messenger. His chin tilted toward the letter. “It's all in there, holy father. I'm bidden to bring you to England. The escort is waiting. The servants will have finished packing by now. Have you any farewells to make? I can allow you an hour.”

That was clear enough. Anselm had begun to shake, but only a little—and after all he was old, and he was occasionally afflicted with a palsy. “I will take that hour, messire,” he said. “Will you wait for me with the escort?”

The messenger shook his head—regretfully, but that did not deter him. “I'm sorry, holy father. My orders are to stay with you until I bring you safe to the king.”

“Even into the garderobe?” Anselm inquired—but stopped the man before he could answer. “No, no. That was unworthy of any of us. I won't vex your patience too far. Just give me time to get out of these vestments and offer thanks to my host for his hospitality. Will that be permitted?”

The king's messenger bowed. Anselm sighed, but he was well and truly bound by his own oath and promise. He did as he was bidden.

 
Kingship became Henry. Anselm had to admit that. He had an air more of his mother than of his father: more grace, fewer rough edges. And, it had to be said, more magic in him than in both of them together.

It had been a long journey by mortal ways, and hard on old bones. Anselm's escort had done its best for him within the scope of its orders. Nevertheless, Anselm was glad to see an end of it, in the hall of Westminster that Red William had built so vauntingly high.

William had filled it with arrogance and fire. Henry suited it better. He received Anselm with meticulous formality, he in the crown and on the throne, Anselm—not quite by main force—in miter and cope.

The court was there to witness it. Most of the faces were the same, along with the more deplorable excesses of fashion, but the dissolute lolling about of the previous reign had given way with edifying speed to a more becoming dignity. This court's glitter seemed less hectic, its splendor more appropriately royal.

Anselm was beginning to have hopes of this king. He bowed with honest enough reverence. Henry returned the gesture without irony, as far as Anselm could see. “My lord archbishop,” he said. “Welcome home to England.”

“I thank you, Majesty,” Anselm said, “for your welcome and for your most attentive escort. Am I to consider myself further . . . escorted, or shall I now be free of the kingdom?”

“You are the primate of all England,” Henry said with diplomatic blandness. “Your freedom is commensurate with your rank.”

“Indeed,” said Anselm, “Majesty.”

Henry rose and came down from the throne. He took Anselm's elbow, all gentle solicitude. “Ah, my lord archbishop: you're worn out. Come, we'll go somewhere more comfortable. I'll have Cook send one of his tonics—he has a masterful way with herbs.”

Henry's cook was not the only masterful man in this palace. Anselm was on his way out of the hall before he could open his mouth, with the tonic ordered and the court dismissed.

The solar to which Henry half led, half carried him was airy, sunlit, and powerfully warded. Spirits came and went in exuberant freedom, but no ill thing could pass those walls.

Henry saw Anselm to a chair, which he was grateful to take, then took off his crown and laid it on the table under the window. He stood for a moment, rubbing his forehead; when he turned, his smile was crooked. “It's true what they say,” he said, “about the weight of a crown.”

“You bear it well,” Anselm said.

“Do I?” Henry sat across from him.

The tonic arrived in a goblet of clear glass; Henry waited while Anselm sipped it. It was surprisingly good, made with herbs steeped in milk and honey; it soothed his stomach, which had been griping him since he crossed the Channel.

When Anselm had drunk the last of it and the servant had taken the cup away, Henry said, “I'm not going to apologize for snatching a sick old man out of his comfortable retirement. Canterbury needs its archbishop. You may loathe the office, but it is yours. I'll give you your council and your reform of the Church. You in return will spare me the edge of your sermons. Pursue your moral crusade as you please, but leave me and mine out of it. Do you understand me?”

“Very well, Majesty,” Anselm said. He was blinking like a startled rabbit: embarrassing, rather, but he could not help himself. “I will confess, sire, that I am not accustomed to being reprimanded as if I were a recalcitrant schoolboy.”

“Are you not?” said Henry. “We freed you from the magic that was such a burden. You knew there was a price. Now you pay it. You pay it well and in full, and God will reward you.”

“And you? What will you do to me?”

“Nothing,” said Henry. “Serve Mother Church to the best of your ability, stay out of my way, and we'll get on well together. I have only one favor to ask.”

“Within the bounds of the Church's law, I will grant it,” Anselm said.

Henry grinned suddenly—looking half his age. He was good, Anselm thought. He could keep a man off balance even better than his father had. “Oh, it's all perfectly legal. I'm taking a queen, my lord archbishop. I want you to officiate at the wedding.”

“Gladly,” said Anselm without hesitation. “May I ask who is the fortunate lady?”

“That is being negotiated,” Henry said.

Anselm considered what more he could say: the legions of bastards, the women in every city that Henry had lived in. He chose not to say it. This king was no more amenable to sermons than his father or brothers had been. Instead he said, “I shall pray that the lady, whoever she is, will be worthy of her office—and that you will be worthy of her.”

“We will be,” Henry said. “Believe me, we will.”

 
Edgar King of Scots came roaring into London in the teeth of a northern gale. Henry had been closeted with the clerks until his brains were dribbling out his ears. He was more than glad to leave the march of crabbed figures across endless pages to indulge in a bit of kingly pageantry.

Edgar was patient enough, all things considered, but after the feast and the wine and the entertainment, he leaned toward Henry and said, “All right, out with it. What were you thinking, sending envoys to negotiate a marriage for my sister? Didn't you think that would be better done face-to-face?”

Henry shrugged. “I'm new to the game. Be patient.”

“You were old to it when you were born,” Edgar said. “I would be delighted to see my sister as queen of England, and well you know it. You also know that she's been God knows where for God knows how long. I certainly don't.”

“I do,” said Henry.

Edgar's face lit with eagerness. “You found her?”

Henry nodded.

“Where? Where is she?”

“Safe,” said Henry, “and free of a nun's vows.”

“You've seen her.”

“I love her,” Henry said bluntly. “Our good archbishop no doubt will call that a mortal sin, but there it is. Can you stand to give her to a man who can't sleep for thinking of her, and curses every day that he's apart from her?”

Edgar gaped. Then he grinned. “Now there's a damnation I can understand. Of course you can have her. There's no man I'd rather give her to.”

“Would you say the same if I were still a mere count?”

“Would she?”

Henry was startled into laughter. “You do know her.”

“I'm her brother,” Edgar said. “So—where is she? When is the wedding?”

“Martinmas,” Henry said.

Edgar narrowed his eyes. Then he nodded. “Time enough to bring the kingdom together, but not so much time as to fall into the dead of winter. That will be finishing the harvest in a grand and royal fashion.” He paused. Henry watched him consider asking the first question again, then reconsider.

Wise man. There was still wine in the jar; Henry divided it between them, then lifted his cup. “To the queen of England,” he said.