At The King's Command

Lady Gwenyth tittered behind her hand.

Juliana watched the tall, tawny-haired lord. He did not move a muscle, yet she sensed that he was torn. His craggy face was a mask of sheer dislike—whether of her or the king, she could not tell. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

Stephen expelled his breath, wondering how he should answer. Knowing that any response would be the wrong one.

Murmurs of laughter rippled from the crowd. As far as they were concerned, this was a farce put on for their entertainment. In spite of himself, Stephen had to admire the way Juliana bore up under the humiliating mirth of the king and his court. Henry’s black-eyed glare had taken down fiercer adversaries than an addlepated gypsy girl, yet she returned his stare with unflinching ferocity.

Almost as if she viewed herself as his equal.

All of Stephen’s instincts urged him to send the girl on her way, back to her coarse gypsy people. Then he committed a grave error. He looked into her eyes.

What a world of torment and yearning he saw there, in the flickering green depths. He thought of the husky, exotic cadences of her voice, the curiously accented words. Your Majesty, I am the victim of a terrible injustice. He told himself it should not matter; he had no business to concern himself with the troubles of an unwashed half-mad gypsy.

And yet a voice rose inside him—alien, yet wholly from the depths of his heart. “Sire, the choice should be hers.”

“Nay,” cried Henry, and his tone raised a prickle of suspicion on the back of Stephen’s neck. “The choice is mine. If we let the wench wander free, she’ll doubtless revert to her thieving ways. This girl, wild as she is, must wed.”

A chill touched the base of Stephen’s spine. In his mind he heard the echo of the king’s command: Let me hear that you will wed—if not Lady Gwenyth, then another.

Henry was angry at losing the wager. He had ruined a handful of maidens and his patience was wearing thin. Stephen knew, with a leaden sinking in his gut, that the king had found a new way to indulge his malice.

“You, my lord, will marry the wench,” Henry proclaimed.

Two

While the courtiers gasped in scandalized disbelief, and Lord Wimberleigh seemed to turn to stone, Juliana folded her arms to contain the frenzied beating of her heart.

“I cannot marry him,” she said in a rush. She tried to suppress her accent, but when she was nervous it became more pronounced. “He—he is beneath me.”

Uproarious laughter filled the air, and the sound stung like a glowing brand.

“Have you heard nothing I have said?” she shouted. “I am a princess. My father was a Romanov—”

“And mine is the Holy Roman Emperor,” said Cromwell, his thin mouth pinched with dry humor.

Sir Bodely nudged her, none too gently. “Show a bit of gratitude, wench. The king just saved you from the gibbet.”

She fell silent and still. Marriage to an English lord? But that would mean abandoning the goal that had driven her for five harsh years. It would mean putting aside her plan to return to Novgorod and to punish the assassins who had murdered her family.

King Henry brayed with laughter. “I did nothing of the sort, my good Bodely. I simply left the choice to Wimberleigh. And he chose to let her live.”

“So I did,” came Wimberleigh’s quiet answer. He stood close to her, his presence as threatening as a rain-heavy storm cloud. His light hair swirled about his face, and she noticed tiny fans of tension bracketing his eyes. “But I think we’ll both soon find, sweet gypsy, that some things are worse than death.”

She stiffened her spine in response to the chill that suddenly touched it. She tore her gaze from Wimberleigh. There was something disturbing about him, a ruthlessness perhaps, and deep in his eyes lurked a glint of raw panic. A dread that matched her own.

“A charming observation, Wimberleigh.” King Henry wore a jovial smile that Juliana instinctively mistrusted. Of all the men in England, only this king came close to the splendor she had known every day of her life in Novgorod. The dark raisin eyes darted from her to the baron. “This is an apt way for you to fulfill your vow to me, my lord. You promised to take a wife, yet insisted on a chaste woman. Why not the Egyptian princess, then?”

A fresh wave of laughter burst from the courtiers.

As Stephen watched the small bedraggled captive, she did a most amazing thing. Her dirt-smudged chin rose. Her narrow shoulders squared, and her hands balled into fists at her sides.

It was that stern pride, so incongruous in a girl in tattered skirts and matted hair, that caused Stephen to betray himself.

Summoning his massive frame to its full height, he glared the courtiers into silence. Even as he did so, he cursed himself for a fool. He shouldn’t ache for her. He shouldn’t defend her.

“Sire,” she said, her voice composed, yet still lyrically rhythmic, “it is a great compliment that you find me suitable for so lofty a lord, but I cannot marry this stranger.”

“Will it be the gibbet, instead?” the king asked, a cold smile on his face.

Though she did not move a muscle, she turned pale. Only Stephen stood close enough to see the pulse leap at her temple. He wanted to turn away, to shield his eyes from her. He did not want to see her courage or her desperation. He did not want to pity her or—may God forgive him—admire her.

He felt like a blind man in a thorny maze, unable to find a way out. Henry had aged rapidly and badly. He had grown as volatile and unpredictable as the Channel winds. Yet his craving for revenge was as sharp as ever.

“My lord of Wimberleigh,” Henry shouted in his most blustery I-am-the-king voice, “I have offered you true English beauties—ladies of breeding and wealth. You have refused them all. A gypsy wench is no better than you deserve. The de Laceys were ever a mongrel lot anyway.”

More laughter erupted. Yet some of the mirth began to sound forced. When the king lashed out with cruel insults, all feared the razor edge of his choler turned next upon themselves.

Thomas Cromwell cleared his throat. “Sire, for a nobleman to wed a common gyp—”

“Be silent, you spindle-shanked little titmouse,” King Henry thundered at Lord Privy Seal. “Better men than Wimberleigh have wed women of low station.”

Anne Boleyn, Stephen thought darkly. The woman who had shaken the monarchy to its foundations had been naught but the daughter of an ambitious tenant farmer.

Cromwell flinched, but with his usual aplomb, he said, “Perhaps, then, ’tis a matter for the clergy to debate.”

“My dear Cromwell, leave the canon lawyers to me.” Henry turned to Stephen. “Your choice is clear. Marry the wench, or see her hanged for thieving.”

“She’ll need cleaning up,” Stephen blurted. “And it will take her months to learn the new catechism. Then perhaps—”

“Nay, bring a cleric!” Dismissing Stephen’s attempt at stalling, King Henry gave a regal wave of his hand. “To hell with banns and betrothal arrangements. We’ll see them wed now.”

Evening mantled the knot garden outside the chapel. Like a flock of gulls after a fishing boat, the courtiers moved off in the wake of the king. Hushed whispers hissed through the fragrant night air, seductive and yet somehow accusing.

Feeling numb and emotionless, Juliana stopped beneath an arbor and fingered a long, spiny yew leaf. Its rough edges abraded her fingertip. She had no idea what to say to this stranger. A king’s caprice had made him her husband.

Stephen de Lacey turned to her. Stephen. Only during the hasty, almost clandestine ceremony had she learned his given name, learned it when she had been obliged to pledge a lifelong vow to this tall, unsmiling English lord.

Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.

She wondered if the cleric’s awesome words still rang in his ears as they did in hers.

He stood between two shadowy hawthorn hedges. The breeze ruffled his gold-flecked hair, and for a moment the thick waves rippled as if disturbed by the fingers of an invisible lover. He had the most extraordinary face she had ever seen, and the play of light and shadow only made it more so. His eyes caught an errant gleam of waning light, and she saw it again: the pain, the panic. The stark, lurking fear.

“Is he always this cruel?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “The king, you mean?” He spoke in low tones, though his deeply resonant voice carried.

Juliana nodded. “Who else maneuvers lives like chess pieces?”