The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(24)
“Hmmm,” Anabel mused. She had thought herself prepared for this business of suitors, approaching the matter as she did everything in her life—with study and preparation. But meeting Jehan de Simier and hearing stories of his friendship with the Duc d’Anjou had been a something of a jolt to her sensibilities. A reminder that this matter of political suitors would end in the most personal of ways—in the marriage bed.
Anabel shivered this morning as she thought of the more intimate matters of taking a husband…and beneath the shivers, a memory of hazel eyes locked on hers across a chamber smoky with tension and threatened violence.
She shook her head and picked up the package. “What’s this?”
“For luck.”
It was a book, old and fragile in its binding. De Libero Arbitrio—On Free Will—by Erasmus. “An original edition from 1524,” Pippa told her. “Lucie had Dr. Dee find it for you. Seems fitting for your future.”
Anabel hugged her friend, wishing for a moment they were no more than friends, that there wasn’t an entire kingdom holding its breath behind these doors waiting for her.
But the regret lasted only a moment. She would never give up her rights and responsibilities. Not for anyone.
Pippa handed her the sealed letter, raised and uneven as though enclosing something besides paper.
“Words of lavish praise?” Anabel asked. “Wise counsel for my new formal position?”
“I don’t know. It’s not from me.”
Pippa said nothing else. She didn’t have to. Anabel broke the anonymous seal and opened the pages. Out fell an oval badge, made to hang on a bracelet or ribbon around the neck. The white enamel was branded with a dark green panther in rampant position.
A panther for Anabel, Pippa had declared—more than ten years ago, wasn’t it? A summer at Wynfield Mote as a child, at ease with the Courtenay children as she was never at ease elsewhere. Fierce but loving.
The three of them—and it was nearly always the three of them, as though Anabel were as much part of the twins as they were of each other—were assigning heraldic symbols to one another. Pippa chose Anabel’s. Then Kit had chosen—what else?—an owl for his eerily wise sister. And then it was Anabel’s turn to anoint Kit.
A raven, she pronounced, having spent time studying the meanings of various birds. She’d thought at first a cock, for what boy didn’t want to be known for courage and readiness to fight? But then she’d come upon the raven. One who makes his own fate, and is ever constant by nature. Anabel was clever for nine years old, but mostly she just liked how it sounded.
Only half aware of Pippa silently next to her, Anabel picked up the sheet on which Kit had written in his surprisingly neat strokes.
A panther for fierceness, green for hope. May you have all that you have ever hoped for, Princess. Your raven stands ever constant at your command.
For one moment she let herself be tugged by memory—then fiercely shoved it back. Clearly Kit was not constant at her command, or he would be here today.
She dropped the badge and letter on the bed and shoved her way free of the covers. “Time to begin,” she announced.
The day unfolded in a series of perfectly planned and executed moments. Anabel knew the power of symbols and the importance of ritual to a kingdom’s people, and was somewhat surprised at her own peaks of emotion during their display. Draped in a mantle of crimson, long hair flowing loose down the back, she knelt before the Queen of England (the mother in Elizabeth held firmly in the background at this moment) and received the Honours of the Principality of Wales.
The gold ring for duty, the golden rod for good government, and the sword that symbolized justice. Then the coronet to herald her new, officially invested rank. It was old, by far the oldest item among the Honours. The Talaith Llywelyn had belonged to the last native Welsh prince; after Llewelyn’s death in battle in 1284, Edward I had brought his crown to London and kept it with the other royal jewels and regalia. The iron coronet was of a curious design, more like a cap than a crown, the gold plating Edward had given it burnished and roughened by centuries, so that dark iron drew the eye beneath the old gold. It was heavy, but Anabel could swear it was not the weight of the iron she felt, but the very weight of her future as Elizabeth placed the coronet on her head.
Then, for just a moment, it was simply her mother looking at her with pride and complete and utter understanding. No one on earth could understand like Elizabeth the weight of ruling as a woman, and Anabel felt that there were only the two of them present as she spoke the formal words of fealty. “I, Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales, do become your liege of life and limb and of earthly worship, and faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks.”
Speeches to the crowd followed, including Anabel’s, delivered in flawless Welsh. No nerves at all, for she had prepared meticulously for all the moments of this day.
Except for those few that pulled at her heart. Such as when her mother, before the feast that evening, presented her with a locket ring of the same design she herself wore. The impossibly tiny miniatures in the clasped oval on Elizabeth’s thin gold band were of Elizabeth and her mother, Anne Boleyn. Now, she presented Anabel with images of the two of them. Anabel blinked, surprised by gratitude and love, and her mother moved smoothly on so that the moment did not become uncomfortably emotional.
Then there were the embraces and whispered words of pride from Minuette Courtenay. Anabel could never think of her as Lady Exeter, however formally she might address her in public, and next to her mother there was no woman whose good opinion she cared more for in this world. Dominic did not embrace her, nor whisper. Instead, he said clearly, “Even more than your mother’s, I am yours to command, Your Highness.”