His voice cracked a little, as if I had indeed just lifted a spell and his words were still rusty.
‘Why?’ I told myself that this adventure was exactly what I had secretly hoped for when I set off down the mysterious, twisting path. All the same, I suddenly wished that Trey were there. ‘Where do you want me to go?’
He held out his hand to me.
I considered the urgency in his voice and gesture. But he was not threatening me. On the contrary, his words and reaching hand were a plea, not an order.
‘Are you an enchanted prince?’ I knew from Mrs Hay how the story went. He needed a kiss from me to set him free from a curse, but if he explained beforehand, he would stay cursed forever.
I looked at his mouth. I had never kissed a man, only my dogs and monkey and horses. Until this moment, I had not thought I would ever want to. To my surprise, I could imagine kissing him. My chest felt thick and full, making it hard to breathe.
I closed my eyes. It would be impossible to kiss a man while looking at him.
‘Please come, your grace!’
I opened my eyes. With his uncertain eyes and fierce words, he now reminded me of Baby Charles playing at being a soldier, though he was taller and far more handsome than my puny five-year-old brother.
I saw now that his hand shook. Now I detected the reek of ordinary human fear, stronger than the sharp tang of leaf mould and comfortable smells of dog and horse on my own clothes. Unease stirred.
He wasn’t doing it right. This no longer felt like the story I’d been imagining. With a thud, I dropped back into my everyday self. He was not an enchanted prince, and I was far too old to believe such things. A flush of shame began to creep up past the top of my bodice.
I smiled coolly, as I had learned from watching my present guardian’s wife, Lady Harington. He was most likely nothing more than an importuning courtier. Even at my age, when the tender pebbles on my chest were just beginning to swell into breasts, petitioners pursued me, imagining that I might at least put in a good word for them with my father or mother, or older brother, even when I was locked away here at Combe.
The young man did not smile back.
But then, people were often too overwhelmed to smile back at royalty, even young female royalty.
I eyed the silver buttons on his doublet and the fine Brussels lace edging his collar. In truth, he didn’t look like one of the usual awe-struck. More like one of those well-born Englishmen who sniggered behind their hands at my father and the ‘barbarian Scots’. A gentleman, in any case, importuning or not.
‘I beg you!’ he said.
‘Are you a footpad?’ I asked, to punish him because I had imagined foolish things, and thought of kissing him. ‘My purse is empty, but my amethyst buttons might be worth taking.’
He looked so startled and indignant that I almost smiled at him again.
The lace on his collar was vibrating against his coat.
But then, many people trembled before my father. Some even trembled before me, young as I was and only a girl. But such people were not often gentleman like this one.
Suddenly, I heard my father’s voice in my head, ‘Trust nae man.’ Then with that little flick of cruel disdain, ‘Nae woman neither.’
Beyond the beech saplings and arching bramble framing the young man, the forest track was deserted. Suddenly, I felt very young and alone. I had gone too far. My screams would not carry back against the wind to my attendants on the riverbank.
‘Where must I go with you?’ I asked.
‘Please trust me, your grace. I take you to some true friends.’
‘What do you and these friends want with me?’
He shook his head.
‘I won’t come unless you give me a good reason.’
We stared at each other again.
‘You must be queen,’ he said desperately.
I did not like that ‘must’. ‘Very likely, in time,’ I agreed cautiously. That had always been my eventual fate. ‘But of which country?’
He looked away. A branch creaked in the silence.
‘Where am I to be queen?’ I repeated. My voice sounded reedy and caught in my throat.
‘England.’ He spoke so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear.
‘Queen of England?’ My heart lurched into a gallop like a startled deer. A giant foot seemed to step on my ribcage. ‘England already has a king! And a queen!’ I took a step back. ‘My father is king! My brother Henry will be king after him!’
He set his hand on his sword.
I was alone in the forest…the king’s oldest daughter…alone in the forest with an armed, unknown man, who wanted to…I wasn’t yet sure what he intended, but it was not good…fool! Fool! Should have seen the danger at once…not magic deer or enchanted princes.
I took another step back. I could not believe how this scene had turned. Mrs Hay had also told me tales of politics and treason, and they were true. Those who laughed at my father’s fears were fools. Demons pursued our family everywhere. This young man, with his urgent voice and smell of fear was one of the demons.
I looked around, as if someone might come to my rescue. No ladies, no grooms, no guardian. No instructions what to do next. Not even Trey!
‘When am I to become queen? What do you mean to do?’
Henry! I could never become queen while my father and older brother Henry were alive! This young man spoke treason and meant to harm my brother, Henry.
Treason. A word with a huge sharp beak that bit off people’s heads. It had bitten off my grandmother’s head. It could bite off my head.
I might die, I suddenly thought. For the very first time, I understood that my life could end. I would die. Now…one day…or very soon.
My wits scattered. My eyes blurred. I had never before in my life felt such fear. A dark, cold hollowness at my centre grew larger and larger until the thin shell of my being seemed about to crack. I wanted to sit down on the track. To imagine this scene away and make it back into a story.
But he stood there waiting, reaching out to take me. And there was no one to help me but myself.
‘I won’t come,’ I said.
‘You must.’
I slid my hand down to my dirk, hanging at my belt. But, though sharp enough, it was only a short-bladed, jewelled woman’s toy.
‘Don’t make me call the others,’ he begged. ‘I swear I won’t harm you.’
He drew his sword and stepped closer.
I wanted to scream at him. ‘You may have killed me already.’ I kept my voice steady. ‘…killed me without touching me!’ Did he think I didn’t know my own family’s history?
I knew I could not outrun him but my body would no longer stand still. I turned and ran.
My skirts jounced up and down, swayed out of control, knocked into my legs. Though dressed for riding in a soft-hooped farthingale, I was still too wide, too heavy, too ornamented, too stiffened and pinned together.
I snagged on bushes, tore free. I heard his breathing close behind. A weight hauled at my skirt. I yanked free of his grasp. Felt a fumble at my sleeve. Then his hand clamped tightly around my upper arm.
His face was distorted, no longer handsome nor amiable. No going back for him now, not after laying hands on me. Not after those words. No going back for me, neither. With my free hand, I tried to hit him, to claw at his face, lost my balance. We fell together into a tangle of