The Last Boleyn(103)

Staff left some coins in the church box, and they strolled into the sunlight leaving the curious priest behind in his exquisite little chapel. The traveling fair on the green was pitifully meager after the grand ones she had seen at Greenwich and even near Hever. They walked among the shoddy booths, and she did not object when Staff’s hand rode familiarly on her waist or touched her hair. She continued to look over her shoulder for her disapproving father or bitter Will. The freedom of being where no one knew them was awkward and heady at the same time.

They watched a morality play put on with puppets and drifted past the fortune telling booths. “Would you like yours read, sweet, or do you prefer to make your own now?” he asked.

“Yes, I do prefer to make my own now, Staff.”

He smiled broadly. “That is fine. Only, keep in mind that I prefer the same. Take that and how I feel about you into consideration when you make decisions, Mary Bullen.”

She scarcely looked at the piles of scarves and trinkets the hawkers had spread upon their littered tables, but Staff bent and pulled a shiny hair net from among the heap of colors. “A golden snare,” he said as he dangled it in the sunlight, making its thin woven links glitter and gleam.

“I will take it, man, for the lady’s hair,” he said, handing the eager fellow a coin.

They began to stroll back, slowly, going nowhere in particular. “However free you think you are, Mary, remember this when we are apart. I like to think that I am free too, but I am not. You have ensnared my heart as surely as this net will catch the wayward tendrils of your golden hair.”

She looked at him and tears filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and no other words would come. She fingered the net carefully. It was very fine. How had it ended up at that wretched little country fair? What story had it to tell of its earlier owner? She wanted to share her thoughts and feelings, but she was afraid to trust her voice.

His hand went around her waist as they entered the cobbled yard of the inn. He leaned briefly against her and kissed her cheek. “Come, my golden Mary. We are off to Hever Castle,” he said. They stepped into the dimness of the hall beneath the frayed inn sign.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


July 27, 1528


The Road to Hever

The pace they set to Hever was not the rapid, pounding one of yesterday. They had only a three-hour ride. They chatted and pointed things out to each other along the way. Staff was clearly loath to have it end and to lose her again. She accepted that fact willingly—happily. She had asked him to stay the night at Hever before he set off for the court at Eltham. Of course, he would have to stay the night, she reasoned, for it would be dark soon after dinner and the roads would be totally unsafe. And then after dinner, she would ask him to please visit little Harry at Hatfield and to explain the loss of his father, of the father he had not seen for weeks and would never see again.

Mary felt better rested and her head clearer than it had been since Will had died, maybe the best she had felt since the whole court had vacated Hampton and left her there with Will. Although the day was hot, the forest path and lanes were cool in their deep shade. Except for the cleared fields surrounding little Oxted just ahead, they would be out of the burning sun until they reached the gentle valley and water meadows of the Eden—all the way home.

They did not stop to rest at Oxted, a feudal hamlet almost untouched by modern times. Skinny hunt hounds lay in the shade of the few houses switching flies with their tails, and few people were abroad.

“I wonder if they even know here who is king or about such things as the bad feelings toward the French since the Cloth of Gold?” she said to Staff over the clatter of their horses’ cantering hoofs.

“I doubt it, lass. They are still grateful in these parts that the War of Roses had not caused devastation to their fields. Is this on your father’s title rights yet?”

“No. Not until five miles past here. There is a clear marker on the forest road.”

“Of course, there would be. If this land were in fealty to Lord Thomas Bullen, it would say so clearly somewhere.” They laughed together at all his comment implied, and left the scattered clearings of Oxted far behind.

Mary was unfamiliar with this stretch to Hever for, whenever she had traveled, they had kept to the main road and not ridden southeast from out-of-the-way Banstead. She had been on this route, but she hardly remembered it at all. The forest was thick here and there was a damp chill in the air. More than once, startled deer feeding near the lane raised their liquid brown eyes in fear and darted from their sight. And then, around a small dip in the road it all happened suddenly. There were three tree trunks across their path, and although Staff’s stallion Sanctuary took the first two in one great vault and easily leapt the other, Mary’s Eden jerked, shied and nearly threw her over her arched neck. Staff wheeled about and, when he saw Mary was still ahorse, drew his sword noisily. Instantly, the narrow space exploded with many horses and men, and Mary heard herself scream in frightened surprise. No, there were only three men and two horses. Staff slashed at one lout holding a terrible broad sword against his one thin-bladed one. The man on foot grabbed for her reins and she screamed again as Eden reared, knocking him back.

The man dashed forward and yanked at Eden’s bridle before Mary could turn the mare, and the horse’s head bent low. It was then she remembered she wore a sword and that she was supposed to be a lad, but with her foolish screaming they would know she was no fighter now. As she tried to draw the sword, the burly bearded man with eyes and hair as black as coal grabbed for her waist to drag her from the horse. Mary scratched out at his face with her nails and shuddered in terror as she felt them dig into his eyes and face. He cursed and loosed her to cover his eyes in pain.