Raven Queen Read online

  “It seems a grim place. I should not like it.”

  “You have read it?” she asks.

  “Yes. You need not look so surprised.”

  Her cheeks redden. “Why do you not like it?”

  “Nobody is allowed to own their own house and nobody is ever allowed to be idle. There would not be time for walks such as these.”

  “Oh!” Her voice is flat with disappointment. “I have not read as far as that.”

  “Have you read the chapter about thieves? Is that why you saved me that day?”

  “No. I saved you because it is wrong for one human being to kill another.” She hesitates. “Why did you come with me?”

  “I had nowhere else to go, but I stayed because I love you.” She gasps and I want to hold her close enough to count the sunspots on her face.

  A flickering shadow catches my eye and I look up. It is the fledgling raven, smooth beaked and as black as midnight, his feathers faintly gleaming. Beneath him is a rowan bush drooping with berries. The raven leans forward and dangles upside down to pluck them with his beak. He does not wait for them to fall to the ground as some birds do.

  We laugh. Then I raise Jane’s hand to my lips and kiss it and she does not try to stop me. “Do you love me?”

  “I do not know. Do not be angry, Ned. I think with my head, not my heart. It is better that way, and safer. And even if I did, how could we ever be together?”

  “It is possible to change your life,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “It is too late for me. Parents draw the map of life for us and it is not a rough draft that can be rubbed out and done again.” She keeps hold of my hand. “I have lived the life of a princess since the day I was born, Ned. I have worn the finest silks in summer and the warmest velvets in winter; I have always slept on a goose-feather mattress. But it did not bring me what I wanted. I am still trapped.”

  I want to tell her who I am.

  But I cannot because I like holding her.

  For Mary’s birth day, we went to Leicester to buy her a new skylark.

  We travelled the five miles in a horse-drawn litter. Ours was a handsome cart with a silk canopy. I would rather have ridden one of the horses with Ellie because I do not like being close to my mother or to Mary. I could not bear to be close to her bent back. So I sat next to Catherine.

  The sides of the litter were rolled up for it was a fine day. As the litter swayed, I settled against her plump body and closed my eyes.

  What would it be like to be next to Ned? I imagined his hand finding its way to my breasts. I opened my eyes and fanned myself and everybody looked at me, curious.

  As we slowed down to pass over a rut, a woman curtsied to us. She carried a small boy on her hip who cried as the dust gritted his eyes. His mother leaned towards him and I held my breath, waiting for her to slap him. But she kissed the top of his head, then blew gently across his eyes until he stopped crying.

  I turned my head away. I could not bear the look of love that passed between them. My mother noticed, too, because her eyes moistened. I watched her with new interest. For the first time, I wondered what her dreams were or had been. Had she been forced to marry? Had she been disappointed each time she had produced a daughter?

  She had protected Ned that day, the day when we had set the raven free.

  I tried to think of something to say to her, but I could not – and the moment passed.

  We rumbled over the river bridge into Leicester town, making our way to the market at Gallow Tree Gate.

  It horrified me. Not for its noise and stench, but for the skylarks confined in their cages. Alauda. Heavenly stars. The one that Mary chose perched silent and thinly feathered. I shifted from foot to foot, anger rising.

  No bird ever sings when it is suffering. That is what Socrates said.

  As Ellie pulled out her purse, I knelt and opened the doors of its cage and, with a flap of its wings, it flew out, circling and shadowing the street below. Then it spiralled, soaring and singing until it was out of sight.

  “You’ve killed it!” Mary cried. “It will not know how to defend itself from the big birds.”

  I had not thought of that.

  Although we bought another skylark, nobody spoke to me on the way home. And if I am honest, I am ashamed of what I did to Mary that day and I do not think that she ever forgave me.

  How could I have done it?

  They made me hunt. It was my punishment.

  I allowed Ellie to dress me. I allowed myself to be sat upon a horse. I allowed myself to be led to the awakening forest where a late frost had come during the night, curling the new leaves.

  Hunters surrounded me. Why do they have to make the forest so ugly, so full of death?

  “Why should living flesh be ripped apart?” I cried.

  “That is the law of the forest,” my mother replied. “The strong feed on the weak.”

  “And the law of life, too!” I said.

  Her eyes softened for a moment. “There is no finer sight than the hunt.”

  “I do not need your cruel world! I have a better one.”

  “And what world is that, Jane?”

  “The one between myself and God. It is far more beautiful than yours.”

  She ignored me. “The King likes hunting. If you are to be his Queen, you need to learn.”

  I turned my horse round. “I want no more of this!” My mother tried to rein me in, but I was too fast for her. I rode back the way I had come. The trees around me rustled and horses came from everywhere, hooves pounding, their breath clouding the air.

  My father was riding straight at me. “You are going the wrong way, daughter,” he bellowed.

  “No!” I cried. “My path is the right one, away from this bloody sport.”

  He reined me in. “This is the sport of kings and soon you will be married to one.” He nodded to his men.

  They lifted me from my horse and sat me in front of my father, looping one of his reins around my waist. Then he whipped his horse and rode.

  Something moved in the trees and I heard the swish of crossbows. This is what I hate about hunting. Death is silent and unseen. A deer staggered in the trees and fell without a sound. At the same time, two hawks circled above it, swooping, rising, swooping again to pluck some poor creature from below. The smell of blood filled the forest. Everywhere I looked, the frost was spotted red.

  I beat my fists against my father’s cloak. “No more! I beg you, sir, no more!”

  He laughed and rode over to the deer, which now lay headless and prickly with arrows. My father leaned over to take the head. As it swung towards me, I was staring into its gentle eyes, watching its twitching mouth, its bleeding neck.

  My father dipped his hand into the head and drew it out bright and bloodied. I did not have time to close my screaming mouth. As he smeared my cheeks, I tasted its blood.

  Then I fainted.

  My footsteps are light and happy as I make my way home from work that evening. Bright rays of sun show me the way and the birdsong almost deafens me.

  At the end of the walled garden is a patch of grass. Already its green is pale with dew. Doctor Aylmer is kneeling there. I hang back, thinking he might be the sort of man who prays as the sun is setting, but I soon see that he is packing away a set of wooden bowls. He beckons me over. I hesitate. I do not know him. I have only seen him preaching in chapel and then only in profile because I sit close to the door.

  “Good evening, Ned. How was your work today?”

  I give a short bow, surprised that he even knows my name. “Good, thank you, sir.”

  “You do not see bowls very often since our good King Henry decided to ban them from all but the rich. He thought the ordinary man should be working, not playing.” He picks up a small white ball and rolls it in his hand. Then he hands it to me. “Put it in on the grass.” I do as he asks and go back to stand by him. “Now take a bowl.”

  I choose one and, before Doctor Aylmer can speak, I toss it towards
the white ball. It flies wide and lands in the flower bed. He laughs, leans forward and gently releases a bowl. It rolls. Then it curves towards the white ball, stopping within a few feet.

  He hands me another bowl. “I always think of the white ball as God, Ned. He just sits there all alone and the rest of us have to find a way to reach him. We are the bowls, biased by what our parents have taught us. We fight each other to get to him, knocking each other out of the way in our desperation. Try again.”

  I release the bowl. It curves and settles between Doctor Aylmer’s bowl and the white ball.

  “A perfect solution!” he shouts. “You have kept me in the game, but you are closer. A true act of compromise. Well done, Master Kyme.” He stares straight into my eyes until my cheeks redden. “I have many friends in Lincoln,” he finishes.

  Kyme. A Catholic name.

  “And have I friends here?” I ask.

  “Yes, Ned. None of this will pass my lips, unless you want it to.”

  “I am sick of it all, Doctor Aylmer. You know that my uncle was married to Anne Askew. She took up the new faith and was burned for it because she went too far for the times.”

  He tugs his ear. “We do not know how this game of religion will end, Ned. We make up the rules. We put on the right clothes to play. We punish others for breaking the rules. Yes, it is a game of great skill.”

  I sit down on the grass and he looks down at my hands clasped across my chest. “I know how your hand came to be burned, Ned, but next time you may not escape the flames so lightly.” He hesitates. “And I have seen the way you look at Jane. You should tell her. Secrets are always dangerous.”

  “Tell her what? That I have been brought up to be a Catholic priest.”

  “That you are a Catholic. You are not a priest yet.”

  “She did not tell me that she was going to marry the King.”

  “Jane has been brought up and educated to marry well, just as you have been brought up for the priesthood. You are both trapped.” He sighs. “She has not experienced the world as you have, Ned. She has learned all she knows from books. She still sees everything in black and white.”

  “I shall not let God keep me from her!”

  “Then tell her.”

  “I do not want to lose her.”

  He touches my arm briefly. “She is not yours to lose, Ned.”

  Above us, the sky darkens and the air is as still as it always is in those minutes before the sun slips below the horizon. The clock on the house chimes and Doctor Aylmer turns to go.

  I stumble after him. The sun flashes brightly for a second. Then I am plunged into night.

  Now I thought about Ned all the time: how kind he was; how green his eyes were; how my heartbeat quickened when he put his arms around me. Sometimes I had to close my eyes to shut out the disapproving faces of my parents. Social rank. England reeked with it. Every gesture, every word, every item of clothing was designed to demonstrate it. I was a princess, groomed to meet princes and kings. I was steeped in the blue blood of royalty.

  I threw off these thoughts. Doctor Aylmer had taught me that all men are created equal. And Ned had captivated my mind as well as my heart. Happiness gripped me and made me breathless.

  In the evenings, I stayed at the window hoping to see him return from the forest. If I stood on tiptoe, I could see the gate from the park to the walled garden. From there, he would come to the bakehouse.

  One evening, Ellie brought Doctor Aylmer to my bedchamber.

  “See for yourself, John!” she grumbled.

  “She is only looking out of the window, Mistress Ellen. There is a fine view of the forest.”

  Ellie clucked her tongue. “The forest! That’s your fault.”

  He laughed. “My fault?”

  “Yes. She can see God in the chapel.”

  “Still afraid of the wolves, Mistress Ellen?”

  I heard her take in a deep breath. “There’s only one wolf out there, and he’s in sheep’s clothing.”

  I listened to them, their words bouncing to and fro like a ball. They sounded like my parents. I turned round and glared at them. “That is enough! Ellie!” I said. “If you have something to say, let us hear it now.”

  “Well...I...I want to...”

  Doctor Aylmer cut in. “She wants to know if you have feelings for Ned?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is to be expected,” he said. “You saved him from a dreadful death. He will always have a special place in your heart. But...” My body tensed. “You know nothing about him, Jane,” he finished.

  “I do not care where he has come from or where he is going, Doctor Aylmer. I trust him.”

  “And what about his hand?” Ellie asked. “Why doesn’t he talk about it? There’s something strange about his scar. When I took him my comfrey ointment, he wouldn’t let me see. He just took the pot and thanked me.”

  I did not reply. She tried again, but this time she touched a raw nerve. “Ask him how he prays to his God.”

  “Why should I?”

  “He always sits by the chapel door with his eyes closed, that’s why.”

  I looked at Doctor Aylmer for support. “He is passionate about prayer. That is good, is it not?”

  He nodded.

  My skin prickled and I looked out of the window. Ned was passing through the gate. I would have called to him if Ellie had not reminded me: my parents might be away, but over two hundred people live and work at Bradgate Hall, most of whom would think nothing of tittle-tattling to my parents in the hope of finding future favour with them.

  I took hold of Ellie’s hands and danced around my bedchamber with her. “Oh, Ellie, I feel as light as a bird! I am so happy!”

  Doctor Aylmer chuckled. But Ellie frowned. “Remember, where flowers blossom, so do weeds,” she said. “This will only end in tears.”

  “Let it!” I cried. “But for now, I am happy.”

  But the shadows fell when I was alone.

  I watched the sun slip away. Ellie was right. She usually was. I could have asked him. I should have asked him. But in truth, I did not want to hear his answer.

  Love made me happy.

  I did not realize at the time how much I was changing. Ellie told me later that everybody had noticed. My face glowed, I knew. I tried to hide it in my father’s presence for his eyes rested on me as if to say, “Yes, she is no great beauty but she is becoming a woman.” Ellie said he was pleased because everyone could see that his oldest daughter was ripe for marriage.

  Ned never mentioned the King again. We met by the pool whenever we could. We no longer talked about the King, or the old faith or the new faith. We watched the sun rise and sometimes watched it set. Sometimes, we just watched each other, as if we were caught in a single ray of light. We made up rhymes and riddles. We were in heaven on earth, until a hunting horn or the shriek of a raven roused us.

  There were other times when we saw each other in public and each Sunday in the chapel. Although I sat in the family pew at the front, my body told me when Ned was there – a tingling across my skin, a trembling in my heart – and I would glance over my shoulder to find his eyes on me. Catherine noticed because she nudged me and giggled and I wondered if she thought Ned was looking at her.

  If her eyes lingered on him too long, I saw him with fresh eyes – broad-shouldered from chopping, face the colour of honey, green eyes flecked with brown.

  When I glimpsed him from the window of my bedchamber, I knew that he had seen me watching him by the way he swung his axe and put a spring in his step.

  “I have been watching for you all day,” I would confess when I was with him.

  “And I you,” he would reply.

  “Do you wish I was not a princess?”

  “Do you wish I was not a woodman?”

  Then we would fall silent.

  I have not spoken to Jane for a week.

  I kick the oven hard. “Who is he?” I ask Alice. I am soaked to the skin, drying myself in the bakehouse.


  “A student from Germany, Jack says. He’s going to study at Oxford after the summer. He speaks to Lady Jane in a language I ain’t ever heard. He’s a nice young man.”

  Jealousy shoots through me, hotter than the oven. Germany. The hotbed of Protestantism. No wonder she has no time for me. I kick the oven again.

  “What do you and Lady Jane talk about in the forest, then?” Alice asks. “Heaven help you if her father finds out.” She leans towards me, whispering, “They say he—” She screams. Jack is suddenly there, swinging two dead mice in front of her face, caught from the kitchen traps.

  He glares at me. I leave them and as I hurry away, I hear the sound of lips kissing skin.

  The days become fiery. At night, when the sky pales instead of darkening, birds cast their shadows against its golden streaks.

  Jane’s parents have planned a farewell celebration for their visitor. No expense has been spared. I gaze across the deer park dotted with garlanded canopies and flags. In the distance, archery boards turn their faces to the sun. Acrobats somersault across the stream and fire-eaters flame the already hot air.

  I am helping to hand out the wine. Jane is sitting next to John Ulmis, flushing with excitement. “I have read everything Doctor Bullinger has written,” she is saying: “‘As the sun shines in heaven but is still present on earth with its light and heat, so Christ sits in heaven and is still present on earth in the hearts of all true believers.’ I know I shall never meet him, never hear him preach, but his letters have made my life bearable.”

  I cough loudly but they do not notice me and I sip wine from each of the goblets in front of me.

  “He is the most devout man I have ever met,” John Ulmis replies. “His house in Zurich is always open to those in need. He and his wife give money, food and clothing to the poor. Many Protestants in exile find their way to his door and they are never turned away.” His voice is light, like a child’s, and his words accented like a person who usually speaks German.