Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [45]
All at once pieces fell into place in my mind, like tumblers clicking into a lock. The queen’s readiness to believe that I could cross over, in the face of Lord Robert’s amused disbelief. Maggie’s horror that time in the kitchen when I asked where Soulvine Moor lay. Mistress Conyers, telling me to avoid the notice of the queen . . . But I knew that there were no witches. I alone knew this with certainty. I had crossed over to the country of the Dead, had talked to the Dead, had even talked to old women burned as witches. They had not been that. But common people believed in witches, and were terrified of them, and an army was made of common soldiers. No one was more superstitious than a soldier—I had seen it again and again at faires. And I knew all too well that a statement need have very little truth in it to be believed.
I said slowly, “Agents of the old queen have put about rumors that Queen Caroline is a witch. Haven’t they? Among the army, and in the countryside. Queen Eleanor has fanned the flames of gossip and fear against her own daughter, in order to keep her crown.”
“How should I know?” Maggie whispered. “But the army is as close to the old queen as feathers on a chicken.”
Now I understood why Queen Caroline had so few petitioners. Such hatred and maneuvering between mother and child! My own mother in her lavender gown, so tender and caring in the few memories I had of her . . .
“Maggie, what’s on Soulvine Moor?”
But, despite all she had already said, there were places Maggie would not go. She stared at me mutely, and all at once I realized that the hand holding mine had turned icy and her teeth chattered.
“You’re freezing! I’m sorry, come back into the kitchen. I cannot thank you enough for all your help.” I led her back inside. “Just one thing more—what is a milady posset?”
Maggie stopped just before the closed door to the kitchen. She flung my hand back at me and screeched, all at once careless of listeners, “A milady posset? Is that what you went to Mother Chilton for? A milady posset?”
“I—”
“For whom? Look at me when I speak to you—for whom?”
“I can’t say.”
“I’ll bet you can’t! And to think I trusted you—that I even thought—a milady posset! You’re a filthy animal!”
“Maggie, don’t—”
“Don’t tell me what to do! And get out of my sight! A milady posset!”
She flung open the door and darted through to the kitchen, slamming it behind us. Before she could run off, I grabbed her by the shoulder. “What is it for? What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know! Who was she, some whore brought in for you, that you stupidly believed was clean and now take pity on? Were you the only one who had her? And to think I helped you!” Maggie tore herself free of my grasp and ran out of the kitchen, leaving her bread half kneaded on the table.
And I understood.
Lady Cecilia had the crawls. She had bedded with someone, and he had given it to her. Men could carry the disease but did not fall ill of it. Women did. Untreated, the crawls could even make it impossible for women to ever bear children. Bawdy jests overheard at country faires had told me that girls greatly feared the crawls, which turned them red and itching in their . . .
Cecilia. My shining lady.
Who was he?
In the larder I changed back to my court clothing. I stole a kitchen lantern, lit it, and made my way back through the labyrinth of courtyards, scarcely seeing them. Anger and hatred burned in me. For him, who had taken her. For her, who had played me for the fool I was. All the while I adored her, worshipped her, would have given my life for one kiss from her, Cecilia had been lying with one of the courtiers, perhaps allowing herself to be won in a game like Lady Jane. . . .
No. The truth came to me so suddenly that I stopped cold beside a winter-empty planting bed, my feet as rooted to the ground as the tree whose bare branches arched above. It was not some random Lord Tom or Sir Harry. If it had been, Cecilia would have