King's Blood (48 page)

“And to the king who loves her,” said Edgar.

 
When Mathilda returned to the Isle after the royal sacrifice, she had thought she would not be able to bear the separation from Henry. But there was so much to do in the healing of Britain, so many gates to shut and wounds to heal and wards to sustain within the walls of air, that she stumbled out of bed before dawn and fell over long after sunset. He was always there inside her, both memory and living presence, but her days were full to bursting. She hardly had time to yearn after him.

Summer passed into a mellow autumn. The harvest was not so stunted after all; farmers reckoned it a miracle, and so it was. England would eat this winter, though not extravagantly.

On the Day of the Dead, the gates of the Otherworld opened as they had in the old time. Even Etaine confessed to a deep unease. But the Hunt that traversed the sky was the true Hunt, terrible in its own right, but clean of either blight or corruption.

Her father was riding with it, side by side with Red William. It was fair enough vengeance, she supposed, even though the victim welcomed his fate. She could imagine them making common cause, two kings who had known the same world and died on its behalf.

She found that thought oddly comforting. It was a wild night, but no more than it should be. When before dawn the gate closed, the Hunt was all on the other side, in its due and proper order.

 
They were all hollow-eyed come morning. It was a bright day and warm, hinting more of summer than of winter. Mathilda stumbled out blearily for her turn in the kitchens, but when she turned in that direction, Etaine was standing in her way. “It's time,” the Lady said.

Mathilda stood blinking stupidly. “Time? What—”

“Time to go,” said Etaine.

Slowly light dawned. “Go? To—”

“To your king,” Etaine said.

That brought Mathilda fully awake. “Now? Today?”

“In three days,” said Etaine. “You've much to do before you go.”

Indeed. Time that had been so slow was suddenly too swift to see. Mathilda had to stop, breathe deep, focus.

She was all too aware of Etaine's amusement. Let her laugh. Mathilda was a bride preparing for her wedding. She was entitled to her share of confusion.

CHAPTER 53

On the morning that she was to depart from the Isle, Mathilda bathed for the last time in the lake. The water was cold but bracing; it cleansed her spirit as well as her body.

When she emerged into air that was warmer by far than the water, so that curls of mist danced upon it, she found her old clothes gone. Cecilia was standing on the shore with Etaine. The mantle that Cecilia carried was deep blue, and the gown in Etaine's hands was white.

Mathilda stopped short. She had no need to say what was in her mind. They knew.

“You are initiate many times over,” Cecilia said.

Etaine nodded. “Guardian and queen—how can you not be Lady as well? You found your own way to it, but there's no denying that you did it. We're sending you out in full armor, with all the powers and protections that belong to us.”

“You'll be needing them all,” said Cecilia. “You love him, and that's well; and he's besotted with you. But he's not an easy man, and it's not an easy kingdom.”

“Nor am I,” Mathilda said. “I'll give as good as I get.”

“So you will,” Cecilia said with the flicker of a smile.

 
Mathilda had spoken boldly, and she had been dreaming of this for long and long. She ached for her beloved, her husband and her king.

But as she mounted the horse that was waiting for her and set out on the straight track, she began to wonder if she really was made to be a queen. All her life had been spent in houses of consecrated women. She was meant to live in sacred solitude; to serve and be obedient to God or the gods. She had no arts or skills that befit a queen.

She said nothing of this to the Ladies who rode with her—all of them but a very few who must stay to guard the Isle. She knew too well what they would say. They believed that she was born for this. So had she, until it was almost upon her. Now she was far from certain.

 
Henry was as restless as a leopard in a cage, and rather more chancy as to temper. He was well aware that people walked wide of him, but he could not seem to do anything about it.

The preparations for the wedding were well in train. He had given all the orders and approved all the plans. He would have done more, but his subjects made it all too clear that he was in the way. Therefore he had far more leisure to brood than he would have expected, and much too much time to dream of her.

They were only fancies, mortal dreams and not true visions. She had been closed to him since he rode away to bury his brother and be crowned king. He was beginning to wonder if she would come to him at all—if it had all been delusion, or if the woman who came to him would be some other princess altogether.

That was foolishness and he knew it, but for all his many women, he had never taken one as his queen before. Surely he could be forgiven for fretting like any common bridegroom.

 
In the days before the feast of St. Martin, rumors began to surface in the city. There was a great riding out of the west, they said: white Ladies and knights in strange armor, glimpsed by moonlight or met on the old roads in the deep hours of the night. The Old Things were coming to the king in London, bringing his queen.

But those were only whispers. Honest Christian men professed that the Scots king had gone to Wilton Abbey to fetch his sister. He would come back with her by St. Martin's Day, or so they said. Then there would be a wedding in Westminster, and a queen to share the throne.

Both tales were true, in their fashion. Edgar had gone to meet his sister; but she was not coming from Wilton, and Henry would have been surprised if she had not come with the Ladies who had raised and protected her for so long.

It was a delicate dance, this balancing of the old world and the new. Nor was it only the old gods and the Christian God, or the world of magic and the altogether mortal world. It was Saxon and Norman, too, old invader and new. Somehow, with Mathilda's help, he had to make them all one.

 
On Martinmas morning, in the clear gold light of autumn that had not yet given way to the grey of winter, she came riding down the westward road. Her knights were knights of Scotland and of England, Normandy and Brittany; and if any was of other than mortal blood, the sunlight concealed him. Her ladies were all clad in white or grey, but they worked no visible magic as they rode. They seemed as mortal as they could be.

To the people who crowded along the roadside, magic or lack thereof meant little. They were full of her: her beauty, her grace, her lineage. “Alfred's daughter,” they called her, crying out to her in Saxon, weeping and laughing when she answered them in the same language.

 
Henry waited for her outside the abbey at Westminster, standing in front of the door as a bridegroom was expected to do. His procession through the city had been brief and adequately celebrated, but he had not even tried to compare with the arrival of his queen.

If he had had his way, he would have galloped off to find her, then escaped to another world altogether, where they could be man and woman alone, with no kingdom to weigh them down. But he was too hardheaded for that. He wanted this kingdom and he wanted this queen. There was no other way to get her.

So he waited, following her progress by the sound of the people's cheering: a long, rolling wave that drew ever so slowly closer.

“They're all in love with her,” Anselm said.

The archbishop was more or less resigned to his fate. Today he seemed almost cheerful. It must be a great comfort to his dourly Christian heart, to be making an honest man of an infamous sinner.

“Am I allowed to love her, too?” Henry inquired.

“It is your duty,” said Anselm.

Henry shot him a glance. He did not seem to be mocking his king. “I should hope to be more than dutiful,” Henry said.

Anselm let that pass by, which was just as well. Henry was in no mood for a sermon.

She was closer now. He could make out words in the roar of the crowd: her name, her new one that he had given her and she had chosen to take, and snatches of blessings and prayers for her joy and prosperity.

There was still power in these conquered Saxons. Yet now it was transformed. Where it had been grey and choking nothingness, now it was like a wave of light. The magic of Britain had woven with it and made it all new.

She had done it, with her bright magic and her warm heart. He could feel her now, riding slowly toward him. It was like a part of his soul come home.

Only sheer raw will kept him from bolting toward her. This was her day and her glory. He would only muddle it.

Just a little longer. His breath came hard and quick. A trickle of sweat ran down his back, under the shirt of finest linen and the cotte of cloth of gold. The crown was heavier than ever on his brow.

He endured it as he endured the lack of her: with gritted teeth and tight-strained patience.

 
At last, as the sun inched toward noon, she came in sight, far down the road. The crowd's roar shook the stones under his feet.

He was hardly aware of it. She rode on a white horse, shining in the sun. Her gown was of white samite shot with silver, and her mantle was of cloth of silver. Pearls and silver were woven in her hair, and on her brow was a crescent moon. The light of her was almost more than his eyes could bear.

She had not seen him yet: she was bowing to the people, listening to their voices. He would not have been at all surprised if she was trying to remember every face out of all those thousands.

At last she raised her eyes to meet his. He gasped as if at a blow. Her smile came near to felling him.

There was nothing of cold intent in it. She was simply and purely glad to see him standing there, waiting with patience gone threadbare.

Her mount danced, tossing its long white mane. Its eye caught Henry's and glinted. It was not a horse's eye at all, or anything mortal.

Her puca was still serving her, and fiercely, too. Henry had a brief vision of the mortal horse that had been meant to carry the queen to her wedding. It had survived the encounter, was even sound enough to carry the Lady Etaine, but the puca had made it very clear, very quickly, that the queen was not to greet her king on the back of any common animal.

Henry could not help but smile. The puca had yet some distance to go, but Henry had had enough of waiting. He left the abbey's door at last and ran to meet his lady—and never mind what anyone thought of such impulsiveness in a king.

 
Mathilda had endured the long processional because she must—and because, once she had begun it, the people's joy carried her onward. They were pleased with her, even more than pleased. They loved that she was so obviously Saxon, and yet so clearly meant to wed the Norman king. They knew her deep in their hearts, without even knowing what they knew.

They were hers, her people. She had to give them their due, no matter how eager she might be to see her beloved again.

And yet, at the end, there he was, running toward her like a reckless boy, with his crown glittering and his heavy crimson mantle abandoned on the abbey's step. She had never seen him in such splendor; but she would always know him. His face was still his, his strong square hands reaching up to lift her from the puca's back, his grey eyes no longer quite so cool as she remembered but still blessedly his.

There was a rite to celebrate, a wedding and a Mass and a coronation, but all the rite she needed was here, face-to-face under the sky, before the court and the commons of England. The folk of air had come to bless it, and the Old Things were flickering in shadows, waiting for the day to pass. They would come out after the sun had set, to dance under the moon.

They stood with her hands on his shoulders and his at her waist, as if to begin their own dance. He was grinning like a fool. She supposed that she was, too.

There was nothing for it but to kiss him. It seemed he was of the same mind. People were screaming, shouting, cheering, but they were far away.

“I gather they approve of us,” Henry said.

“It does appear so,” said Mathilda.

“It would be unfortunate if they didn't.”

“Very,” she said.

Then of course she had to kiss him again, which led to another kiss, and would have led to something else—but her gown was like armor, and his cotte was no better; and there was the matter of several thousand people watching.

“Promise me something,” she said.

“Anything,” said the man whom other men called the most coldly calculating and least impetuous of old William's sons.

Mathilda, of course, knew better. “Promise that no matter how heavy the crown may be or how crowded the cares of the kingdom, there will always be time for this.”

“By my heart I swear it,” he said, “and by the love I bear you.”

“You are my heart,” she said, “and my beloved.”

He kissed her hands, with great restraint. Anselm was waiting with yet more words, and they were beautiful words and holy; but these were all the vows they needed, or would ever need.

Her eyes met his, and found a glint of irony there, and perfect understanding. Side by side in royal dignity—much to the delight and manifest amusement of their people, both mortal and otherwise—they presented themselves for the Church's blessing.

AUTHOR' S NOTE

The story of King William II of England, called by historians William Rufus, is pure gold for the historical fantasist. There is already a core of legend around the king's death in the New Forest, but the rest falls into place with remarkable ease. I knew I had my story when I discovered in the course of research that the Scots princess Edith, later renamed Mathilda, who was to become King Henry I's queen, spent her childhood in the abbey at Wilton—some seven miles from Salisbury. The proximity of so powerful a magical site suggested the direction and focus of the rest.