Chapter Thirty-Three Of Body Small, Of Power Regal #2
Elizabeth raised her head. She ran her small fingers across Anne’s neck, across her scar, exploring her mother’s flesh, which was her flesh. “Mama,” she said, “they told me you’d died, but I knew they were wrong. I knew you’d come back for me.”
“Oh, my darling girl,” Anne said. “Of course. Of course. I love you. I love you so much. I am here for you now, but I cannot stay long.”
The child shook her head, frowning. “No, Mama,” she said. “Stay.”
“I cannot, my love,” Anne replied, knowing that she could not be here when Elizabeth’s attendants entered in the morning, when Cromwell arrived with his allies to take the child back to London, to anoint her the next queen. She could not be seen with Elizabeth. She could not taint her reputation.
But she could stay for a little while. She carried the child back to her bed and crawled in with her. Elizabeth snuggled up next to her, thinking she had won the argument, that she had persuaded her mother not to go.
“Tell me a story, Mama,” she said, looking up at Anne, smiling. Her eyelids were heavy, her blinks long. She’d always been a deep sleeper.
Anne held Elizabeth in her arms. Her Lilibet. She stroked her hair. Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“Once,” began Anne, “there was a beautiful princess, named Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth nodded her approval. Like all children, she enjoyed stories in which she starred.
“And she was kind and good and smart, and everybody loved her,” Anne continued. “But”—for now it was time to introduce the villain—“she was held captive by an evil king, who’d banished her mother and locked Elizabeth in a tower.”
Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered open. “I do not like the evil king,” she muttered.
“Nobody did,” Anne replied. “He kept a dungeon full of slimy toads and snakes, and when he spoke, his breath reeked, and he had many wives and treated them all badly.”
“Oh no! Did that make Elizabeth the snake princess?” Elizabeth asked, her tone worried.
“No, my dear,” Anne replied, “for we do not have to walk in the footsteps of our parents.”
Elizabeth sighed in relief and closed her eyes again, snuggling back into her mother.
“The king declared that he would never let Elizabeth be queen, that he would marry woman after woman until one of them gave birth to a son, and he kept Elizabeth locked in her tower for safekeeping, where she was very lonely and cried all day long.”
“I do not like this king,” Elizabeth repeated into her mother’s chest, half asleep.
“But the princess’s mother was resourceful and wise,” Anne continued, for now it was time for the heroine to enter.
“Though she had been banished to the swamps to the north”—Anne paused, thinking fondly of the fenlands—“she endeared herself to the fairy folk who lived there by giving them gifts and listening to their troubles.”
“Oh, fairies!” muttered Elizabeth. “How terrible! But good she was kind to them. Maybe they will help her.”
“Yes,” Anne said, amazed, even in this moment, at her daughter’s intelligence, at her understanding of cause and effect, and of the outcomes of kindness and goodwill.
“The fairy folk showed favor to the banished queen and turned her into a mighty falcon.” At the mention of the word falcon, Anne’s skin tingled.
Elizabeth nodded again. “Mmm-hmmm,” she said.
“And the queen flew back to the palace, and with her mighty talons she pulled out the heart of the evil king, who died at her feet.”
Half asleep, Elizabeth shuddered at the brutality. “Her power is so big!” she said.
“Yes,” Anne agreed. “The queen, as a falcon, flew to the tower and set the princess free, and the princess became queen, and ruled with kindness and wisdom and courage, keeping the welfare of her people first in her heart, and she never married, for she did not trust men, and did not want to give her power away.”
“But wasn’t she lonely?” asked Elizabeth.
“No,” Anne replied, “for she had her counselors, and her ladies, and her maids, and also the queens of other nations to write letters to.”
“And her mother,” Elizabeth said, eyes still closed.
“No,” Anne said, holding back tears. “Her mother could not stay, for the people would not understand how she had become a falcon, and would think her a witch, and think the princess a witch.”
Elizabeth said, “That is very sad.” She slipped her thumb into her mouth and sucked it.
“Yes,” Anne said, wiping the tears from her face. “It is, but the princess knew that her mother loved her, and would always love her, and would be watching over her, even if she could not be right there.”
By now the child had drifted off to sleep. Anne held her, and kissed the top of her head, which was warm and damp with child sweat and smelled like rising dough, wholesome and yeasty. “I shall always love you, my dearest Elizabeth,” she whispered.
—
How much time passed? Maybe an hour, maybe two.
Anne cradled the child, who slept in her arms, until the darkness began to recede with the first light of dawn, and the morning birds trilled, and she heard, in the distance, the clopping of horses’ hooves and the turning of carriage wheels, which drew closer and closer to Hatfield Palace, eventually coming right up the drive to the manor and stopping outside it.
She heard carriage doors opening and closing, and many voices.
Cromwell’s, louder than them all, boomed out, “Good morrow, Lady Bryan.” The good lady must have been awakened, too, and come outside to greet the entourage.
“My apologies for the intrusion at this early hour, but we must collect the Princess Elizabeth.”
“Do you mean the Lady Elizabeth, good sir?” Lady Bryan asked. “For we have been instructed to call her thus since her mother’s death.”
“No, good lady,” Cromwell replied. “The king has died.”
“Oh!” said Lady Bryan. “Sweet Mary in heaven, what has happened?”
“He has been murdered at Whitehall. The Princess Elizabeth”—he said it again; how thrilling it was for Anne to hear her daughter properly called—“shall become the next queen of England. I have come to bring her to Westminster, for her coronation, then to Hampton Court. You may accompany her, of course, as her matron of honor.”
“Yes, my lord,” Lady Bryan replied. Anne could hear an edge of excitement in her voice.
She knew the woman loved her daughter. She felt safe leaving Elizabeth in her care, and in the guidance of Cromwell, shrewd as he was, to have already gathered support, to be already at Elizabeth’s doorstep, to have already arranged for her coronation and ascension.
He would usher her to power. Anne was sure of it.
She kissed the child, who slumbered still, one more time, and quietly, slowly, crept out of bed, so as not to wake her.
She could not be here when Elizabeth’s door was opened.
Anne once again felt hot and itchy, but this time her transformation was rapid and painless.
She hopped to the windowsill, the falcon once more, cast one look back at Elizabeth, her beautiful daughter, her love, her queen, her purpose—it had all been worth it—and flew out the open window.
—
At first, Anne did not know where to go.
She soared above Hatfield, above Cromwell and his men, above the big chests full of Elizabeth’s belongings being carried out to the carriages.
She soared out over the countryside, swooping and diving in the early morning light.
The sun rose over the eastern horizon, and its rise was magnificent.
From her vantage point Anne could see the orange streaks it cast through the morning mist extend across the sky, over the land, and out over the North Sea, which, flying eastward as she was, she could also see, cold and sparkling and stretching out before her like a sheet of beaten silver.
So many ships had crossed those waters, so many men, sailing from island to island, from peninsula to peninsula, conquering and raiding, thinking they owned the world.
Anne flew out over the sea. She swooped and glided.
She dove low and, with her talons, pierced a small fish she’d seen from high above—that wonderfully crisp vision!
—and swallowed it whole. It felt good in her belly and so she caught and ate another. She felt satisfied, and free.
She followed the coastline north. She’d known where she was going long before she knew it. She’d always been headed here.
To a pucker in the coastline, a crooking inward, a river that broke into other rivers, that flooded the land, that bred fish and flowers and waterfowl, where a special people lived.
She was veering inland now, above an island in the fens, and she could see a small house, and in front of the house, Alice, in her nightshift running with her children—were they playing a game of chase?
—and laughing, in the early morning light.
Anne swooped low. She could feel the legs that would carry her to Alice resting inside her talons.
She would be safe here. She would be loved. And she would love, in return.