Jesus, is that what You would wish me to do? Comply and submit and allow myself to be married off to someone who makes my stomach churn and my skin crawl? Jesus submitted to a terrible fate for the good of mankind, but Evangeline could not see any good that could come from marrying Lord Shiveley. Except that it would please King Richard.
“Now, my dear.” Muriel carefully laid the letter down on a shelf. “I know you think you do not wish to marry Lord Shiveley, but consider some other good things this will bring to you. You will win the king’s favor. Your husband may truly love you, and you may get children from the union. Indeed, there are many benefits that will come.”
“How can any of that be worth marrying someone I cannot abide? And you know what people say about his first wife.” Evangeline spun away from her. Muriel would refuse to listen or understand how Evangeline felt.
“That is only idle gossip. No one pays attention to such talk. And it will be far better if you simply accept that you have no choice and try to make the best of it. What else can you do?”
“What else can I do?” Evangeline’s voice rose in near-hysterical tones. “Accept that I have no choice?” Sobs choked off further speech as she kept her back to Muriel. Muriel would think she was selfish not to do as the king asked, and Muriel would stop loving her if she thought she was selfish. But it hurt so much to think of losing any chance of contentment and throwing herself away on Lord Shiveley.
“I shall leave you alone for a while.” Muriel turned and her footsteps receded to the door. Then she seemed to hesitate and said, “I am truly sorry, Evangeline. But God will sustain you.” The door clicked open, then shut again.
If she were like other women, she would let the king use her as a gift, a favor, a pawn. But she would do something no other noble ladies that she knew of ever did. She would refuse to marry Lord Shiveley. If necessary, she would run away, take on another identity, lose herself in the English countryside. She had imagined it many times, had thought long and hard about the different ways she might escape.
All her life Evangeline had lived in various royal residences—mostly at Berkhamsted Castle—wherever the king sent her to live. The king was so afraid she might be kidnapped and held for ransom he had ordered her to stay inside the walls, only allowed to venture out occasionally when she had guards nearby. Most people in England probably did not even know the Duke of Clarence had a second child or that her name was Evangeline.
When the king visited, he and other special guests would accompany her on a hunt in the adjacent deer park or a walk around the gardens. She obeyed, accepting that she was not the master of her own fate. Evangeline had rarely done anything courageous or unexpected.
Tonight was a good time for a change, to see if she was brave enough to carry out her fantasy of running away.
Westley le Wyse thanked the servant girl for the water.
Above him in the castle window, a young red-haired woman was staring down at him. Was she the one who had been singing just moments before? He had been listening, rapt and still, to that voice, the one singing a rustic ballad with such refinement and grace, until it suddenly went silent. As soon as their eyes met, she disappeared from the window, almost as if someone had snatched her back.
He only glimpsed her, but he got the impression she was not a servant by her clothing and hair, and that she was quite lovely. The rumor was that the king had a ward living at Berkhamsted Castle, a young woman with an ethereally beautiful voice. Some said she was the illegitimate daughter of the king’s dead uncle, Lionel of Antwerp, which meant she was the granddaughter of King Edward. But she might be only a myth. Legends often were created from some tidbit of gossip.
“Did you hear the news?”
He shifted around to face the servant girl who lingered in the bailey with her bucket of water.
“King Richard is coming to Berkhamsted Castle tonight.”
That would be a sight. Even Westley’s father had never seen the king.
“We are all busy with preparations for the king and his retinue. What provisions did you and your men bring for us?” The girl was standing on tiptoe, trying to see over his shoulder.
“Wheat flour, oats, malt, and some large cheeses.”
It had been a good year for several crops in Glynval and the surrounding land. Westley had come to Berkhamsted Castle with his father’s servants to sell their excess.
“This is my little sister.” The servant girl indicated the golden-haired child playing behind her. “I have to watch her today since my mother is sick.”
The little girl looked to be about six years old. She was squealing and grunting as she leapt and spun about, trying to catch a bright-yellow butterfly that fluttered just out of her reach.
A horse’s angry neigh drew Westley’s attention to the other end of the bailey.
“Steady,” said a man holding the horse’s bridle. Its neigh grew into a high-pitched screech. The horse leapt straight up, snatching the bridle out of the man’s hands. The horse’s hooves touched the ground and the animal bolted forward. The cart knocked the man to the ground as it jolted past him.