Arabella took the pouch from him, and opening it, spilled the gold coins out upon the table, swiftly counting them. “I will also need a bag of silver, and one of coppers as well,” she told the king. She scooped the gold back into its velvet container even as the king, past arguing with her, drew forth two other bags and handed them to her.
“Are younowsatisfied, madame?” he asked her sharply.
Arabella carefully secreted all three pouches upon her person, and looking up at the king, said with a small grin, “I must be certain not to jingle as I hurry through your antechamber cursing you, your grace.”
“Why do I entertain the notion, madame, that that is the part of our little charade that you will enjoy the best?” he said.
“How astute of your grace,” Arabella told him in even tones.
“Our business is concluded, madame,” the king said.
Arabella curtsied at his dismissal and then inquired, “Shall I begin to weep and howl now, Sire?”
Henry Tudor nodded, and then started at the piercing shriek she emitted.
“Ohhhhhh! ‘Tis not fair, your grace! Ohhhhhh! Where shall I go? What shall I do? How shall I feed my poor daughter?” Arabella howled.
“You should have thought of that before you left your husband to come on this fool’s errand, madame. If you are wise, you will return to Scotland and beg your husband to take you back. If he will not, at least if you are fortunate he may care for the child you have in common,” the king said in a loud voice. “You have made your own bed, and now you must lie in it.”
“Never!”Arabella sobbed. “Never will I return to that Scots barbarian! Have mercy, your grace! Have mercy! Give me back Greyfaire!”
“Give a border keep to a woman?” the king’s voice boomed scathingly through the door into the antechamber. “Madame, surely you jest with me. Ah-hah! Hah! Hah! A woman defending a border keep in England’s name? What nonsense! Begone, madame! Begone from me this instant!” The king strode over to his door and flung it wide, sending the several courtiers who had been listening at it scattering across the room. Henry Tudor was hard put not to laugh, which would have undoubtedly caused even more gossip amongst his court, for he was not a man easily given to mirth. “Go back to Scotland where you belong now, madame, and take your brat with you! Greyfaire Keep is no longer yours!Begone!”
Arabella paused long enough in the doorway to allow the roomful of people a good look at the tragic figure she wished to portray. Her pale gold hair glistened in the afternoon light coming through the windows. She looked particularly beautiful, very fragile and painfully vulnerable. Turning once more to look at the king, she shouted willfully, “I will not go back to Scotland!I won’t!You cannot make me!” Then bursting into fulsome tears, she pushed right through the astounded crowd of gentlemen in the king’s antechamber, sobbing piteously and bitterly as she went.
She had to hurry, Arabella thought as she went. She was going to begin laughing if she did not make her exit quickly. Her keen eye had already spotted Sir Jasper Keane across the room, a smug smile of triumph upon his handsome face. She suddenly realized that Jasper Keane was becoming jowly with too-good living. His handsome visage had begun to coarsen, and he would definitely run to fat with age. What had she ever seen in him? What had Rowena ever seen in him?
She was almost to the door on the far side of the room when she remembered, and turning a final time, she half sobbed, half shouted at the king, “Damn you, Henry Tudor! Damn you for the usurping devil you are, and damn you as well, Jasper Keane!” Then she fixed her gaze upon the rest of the chamber and said in clear and poignant tones, “What help is there for any of you here, my lords, when this king whom you have taken to yourselves would rob a helpless woman of her patrimony?” More tears filled her eyes and spilled down her beautiful face, drawing sympathetic signs from several. “What am I to do?” she whispered pathetically. Then turning, she was gone from them.
There!she thought, as she hurried out into the courtyard to find her horse.Thatwould certainly set tongues to wagging! Particularly as she knew Sir Jasper Keane would, in an effort to appear even more important than he actually was, add to the story his own version of the events that brought them to today’s little drama. What a shame women did not go on the stage. She had been quite convincing, she believed. She had even seen a few looks of pity cast her way.
Arabella mounted her horse and rode away from Sheen at a brisk trot, returning to St. Mary’s-in-the-Fields convent, where she gathered her people together. Shepherding them out into the orchards where they would not be overheard, she told them of her interview with the king. FitzWalter was angry.
“King or no, Henry Tudor is wrong to ask such a thing of you, my lady!”
Her men-at-arms murmured their assent, but Arabella held up her hand to still their complaints.
“What other choice have I, FitzWalter? You know there is none if Greyfaire is to be saved from strangers,” she told him.
“What could the king do if we merely returned home and held the keep against him?” FitzWalter demanded.
Arabella shook her head. “I am no traitor, old friend, and neither are any of you. To defy the king would be to commit treason. There is no choice but to do the king’s will. Lona, FitzWalter, I will want you and six of the men to accompany me to France. The rest of you will go home and reassure our people that I have not truly deserted them. You cannot, however, tell them the truth of the matter lest you compromise my value to the king, and he, in a fit of pique, deny me Greyfaire after all. Rowan FitzWalter will continue to be in charge of the defense of Greyfaire. The king, I imagine, will see to the rest, as he is pretending to confiscate the keep from the Greys. Decide among yourselves who is to go, but I will take none who has a wife, save FitzWalter, for we are likely to be gone a full year.”
She moved away, walking through the orchard in an effort to calm her distress over her daughter’s imminent departure. Perhaps she had been wrong to bring Margaret with her to England. Perhaps she should have regained her family’s rights to Greyfaire first, and then returned to Scotland for Margaret. She had stolen Margaret from her father, from her grandparents, from her native land. Now England’s king was taking Margaret’s mother from her. She would be placed in a strange nursery, alone, with people she did not know. What if she cried in the night? Would someone hurry to comfort her, or would they leave Margaret to weep alone and frightened in the dark? Arabella suddenly realized that she was crying, the tears slipping hot and fast down her face. “Oh, Holy Mother,” she whispered, “what have I done?”
“‘Tis a fine time to be asking that, my lady,” Lona said, joining her. “Margaret will be all right. She’s healthy, and like her parents, adventurous. Mark my words, m’lady, she’ll enjoy her time in the royal nursery, and the queen will see there is no unkindness done to her.”
“How do you know it is Margaret I weep for?” Arabella demanded, not a little aggravated to be so transparent.
“Greyfaire is yours again, ‘Bella, so you cannot weep for it, and you only weep for the earl in the night when you think I’m asleep and can’t hear you,” Lona said matter-of-factly. “So ‘tis your child you break your heart over, for you are a good mother, even if you were not the best of wives.”
“What do you mean I was not a good wife?” Arabella demanded, outraged by Lena’s searing honesty. “How dare you speak to me so!”
“‘Tis true you are the Lady of Greyfaire, and I but one of FitzWalter’s lasses,” Lona said quietly, “but the difference in our births has never before lessened our friendship, ‘Bella. I have always spoken plainly to you, and I always will. The earl loves you with his whole heart despite your odd beginnings, but you always put Greyfaire ahead of everything else, including your own heart. I think you a fool for it, and I think even you have begun to question the wisdom of your actions. Your arrogant pride will drive you to France, and God only knows what fate awaits us there. If you could but swallow that pride and return to Scotland, the earl would, I know, pardon you and take you back. Forgive me if I offend you, my lady. You may send me home if you so choose, but I cannot keep silent any longer.”
Arabella stood stock-still as Lena’s words assaulted her. In one sense Lona was right, and Arabella knew it, but on the other hand she was wrong. Lona could not possibly understand the ties that bound her to Greyfaire Keep. “I will not send you home, Lona,” she told her servant and friend quietly. “Though your words wound me, I would not have you mouth lies in an effort to please me. I value your friendship far too much, even if we cannot agree on this matter.”
“Do you love the earl?” Lona said.
