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It was a terrible thing, Joan of Kent reflected as the royal barge sailed toward Blackheath, to be both Queen of England and a rebel against the crown. Especially since she hadn't planned to rebel against her husband, much less lead her only surviving son and her brand new daughter-in-law into doing the same thing. But she didn't have much of a choice, nor did Richard. The future King of England and France simply could not huddle behind stone walls while his mother, in direct contravention of military strategy and royal commands, sneaked out of the Tower of London to talk to the commons in Blackheath. Not even if the future king was only fourteen. And Anne—dear, sweet, stubborn Anne—had insisted on accompanying Joan because Richard was going with his mother…and was it not a wife's place to be with her husband? Which, in view of what Joan herself was doing, was a ridiculous argument. She'd thought so herself, and then she'd seen a mischievous gleam in Anne's gray eyes. It had not occurred to her until then that Anne, kind and gentle though she was, might have a wicked sense of humor.So Joan acquiesced. She knew all too well that Ned would have locked all three of them in the deepest oubliette in existence before he would have let his family go haring off to the eastern section of London in the middle of a revolt—but she was also certain that, lacking permission, Anne would either fret herself into a fever or follow them anyway. Best to keep all three of us together from the start. At least that will eliminate one or two dangers.She had convinced three knights to join their party and guard them; she dared not sound out more. Ned was too well-beloved—and, simultaneously, too feared—by England's knights, who regarded him as Brutus of Troy reborn, as King Arthur come again. The more knights who heard of this expedition, the more that would try to stop them. And that must not be. For the sake of the nation, that must not be. When the poor grow too angry and the rich grow too rich, it scarcely takes a spark to set the world ablaze. Aubrey Siward, Brian Moreton and Geoffrey Ferrers would have to be enough.Sir Aubrey had objected to bringing Richard and Anne along, of course. Joan had expected that. The oldest of the three, he was also the most cautious…when he was not on the battlefield, at least. "It's a fearsome risk to take, Your Majesty," he had rumbled, gazing down at her earnestly as they stood in the back of the chapel adjoining the king's bedchamber. Mercifully, both the chapel and the bedchamber were temporarily deserted. "They do say that the rebels are madmen. They've burned the Savoy Palace. They've killed." His eyes went wide at the last, as one who had heard an abomination. A loaf of bread devouring a man could not have been more unnatural."Richard must be there," Joan had said, feeling sick as she said it. "He is their future king, after all. He must learn to treat with those who are his foes in war." Though perhaps not foes in truth. "And it may be that the rebel leaders will speak more readily to His Majesty's son than to his wife."Sir Aubrey had favored Joan with a dubious expression that she read perfectly well. He was prepared for her to be impractically peaceful and to be rescued by her three valiant bodyguards, or to wait, like Patient Griselda, for God to supply a pleasing solution. He was not prepared to deal with Richard, who, when he wished to exercise it, had a will as implacable as stone."Perhaps, then, you should leave the princess here in the Tower," he'd said. "The King of the Romans would be outraged were any ill to befall his sister."Whether Wenceslas IV, King of Bohemia and, by election, King of the Romans would prove vengeful if Anne was hurt or killed was not something Joan had contemplated at length. The prospect of Richard's reaction was far more frightening. He and Anne had scarcely been wed for half a year, and they were still billing and cooing like the most tender of turtledoves. "Anne and Dickon spend nearly all of their time together," she had pointed out patiently, the nickname slipping out before she realized it. "Were anyone to see her and not him, there might well be questions."Anyone. Like a servant. Or Richard's nine-year-old cousin Philippa de Coucy, who spent much of her time at court and hence in the Tower. Or one of the king's innumerable brothers. Or, worst of all, Ned himself. Ned was good at spotting patterns in people's behavior; this skill had helped him turn the tide of more battles than Joan could count. And he'd had many years to learn Joan's patterns of thought. It would be better not to give him too many clues. Barges—even royal barges—were not the swiftest of ships. They might well be intercepted before they docked…or even before they set sail.Sir Aubrey had still looked doubtful, and Joan had scarcely been able to blame him. So many things could go wrong that she didn't dare think of any of them for any length of time, lest fear paralyze her."I trust that the commons have received our message and are willing to meet with us," she said, giving him what she hoped was a suitably imploring look. "Aye, Your Majesty," he said, a flash of disapproval flickering across his face at the word "commons." "Sir Geoffrey's squire came back with the message an hour or so ago. They want to meet at Blackheath tomorrow. On shore.""Then that is what we'll do." Other things still had to be done—speaking to the bargeman and his rowers, making certain that the barge was stocked with food and drink in case negotiations took place on the river instead of on land, asking that at least six thick cloaks be placed in the barge for herself, her family and the guards, and so on—but Joan thought it best to make most of the arrangements herself rather than leaving matters to servants or to the knights. Lifting her left hand gracefully, she dismissed Sir Aubrey.Yet he lingered, shuffling from foot to foot. "Your Majesty? I know that the king asked you to help, but…why are you willing to do this? There are tens of thousands of rebels, yes, but they're only peasants—"Peasants. And artisans. And small merchants. And the poor from various cities. And even priests from impoverished parishes. To call them all serfs and peasants—as most of the courtiers did, as Ned himself did—was a mistake. As to why…Joan found herself thinking of Richard's lessons. She eavesdropped on them now and again, and Richard's tutor, Simon Burley, spoke often of how a good king must not only heed his advisors—presuming that their advice was good—but protect all of his subjects , being not merely just but merciful, and the best possible example of the law that he expected them to follow. She strongly suspected that such talk bored Richard senseless, but nevertheless she hoped that something had stuck with him.To do nothing would be to convince Richard that Burley's words were empty rhetoric and that a king had no obligations that he did not wish to own—a poisonous idea, especially to a young and impressionable prince. For Richard's sake—for the sake of his very soul—she had to act."And the king says that we can beat them all with just a few knights. They're rebelling against their rightful ruler, so…" He shrugged. "They must be cowards, mustn't they?"There were so many things wrong with that piece of circular reasoning that Joan didn't know where to begin. She opened her mouth to tell him so and then slowly closed it.Sir Aubrey didn't even appear to notice. He simply continued speaking as if he were trying to untangle a complex knot. "So…why are you preparing to speak to them as if they were nobles? As if they were the governors and not the governed?" His voice rose plaintively."I would that I did not need to say this," she began, hoping that he would not ask her husband to confirm what she said. "But the king has requested that I speak to the rebels on his behalf and learn what their grievances may be so that he may pardon them for their childish folly without seeming weak." She smiled gently. "Sometimes a woman can honorably perform a task that a warrior cannot. As my mother-in-law knew well."Aubrey looked somewhat less distressed at this, for despite having happened scarcely twoscore years ago, the matter of Queen Philippa and the burghers of Calais was all but legendary. After a siege of nearly a year, Calais had surrendered to Edward III. He had commanded six of the leading citizens to leave Calais with nooses about their necks, holding keys to both city and castle. Six hollow-cheeked, skeletal men garbed in rags—clearly the worse for the endless siege—had done so. Edward III, infuriated by a year's siege, by countless deaths of English soldiers, and by the fact that his enemy the King of France had stayed well away from Calais, had ordered them beheaded. Then Queen Philippa—magnificently beautiful and supposedly pregnant, though Joan had never been able to make the numbers add up properly—had knelt before the king, beseeching him for the burghers' lives. And the king had agreed.Joan remembered Philippa as a stout, managing sort of woman who had initially quite disliked both her and her relationship with Philippa's son Ned. Anything, in short, but the lovely, willowy counterfeit of the Virgin Mary who had knelt at Edward III's feet. As true as a bard's tale. But people believed it. More important, people wanted to believe it. Judging by Aubrey's expression, he certainly did. After all, participating in a latter-day version of the tale couldn't be bad, could it? And she could all but hear him telling himself that everything would end happily. It would spoil the story otherwise.Aubrey, looking considerably more cheerful, bowed gracefully and left to perform the tasks she had requested. Joan sighed, wishing that she could have told him the whole truth and knowing bitterly that she couldn't tell anyone—not her allies or her son or even her beloved Ned—why she had to speak to the commons, despite wishing that doing so wasn't necessary.A vivid vision of events twelve years past filled her mind, a vision of wheat fields and grapevines trampled and crushed beneath iron-shod hooves of destriers, of smoldering ruins of villages, of thousands of blood-drenched corpses, mostly women and children, slaughtered only because they had had the misfortune to dwell in Limoges. She still offered Masses and told her beads for the sake of their souls. Perhaps they had all left Purgatory by now—she could not imagine that any of them had been guilty of much—but she continued to pray because it seemed wrong for them to be forgotten.And who was responsible? Ned. Her Ned, who had been ill and angry and who had seen no reason not to levy a tax on his people to restore the hated Pedro the Cruel to his Castilian throne hundreds of leagues away—an attempt that had already failed. Ned, who thought that all problems could be solved with a sword. Ned, who had been a great war leader and admired by knights and nobles alike, but who, she had feared even then, might well prove to be a very poor king.
Aquitaine.
***She might not have even been in a position to say or do anything if, one afternoon not long ago, she had not heard her husband's enraged shouts echoing through Windsor Castle. But she had. And the shouts of Edward IV, still known to courtiers and commons alike as the Black Prince despite having been king for four years, were rarely a good omen. So, both curious and apprehensive, she'd followed the echoes to a chamber where the king and his small council—or at least some of them—were meeting. Several looked surprised when she walked in, but none objected; in fact, one or two looked relieved. The Black Prince, however, didn't even appear to notice her presence. "Ten days this has been going on! Ten days!"Joan curtseyed deeply before him, the skirts of her celestrine houppelande briefly resembling a small, pale blue pond. "What has happened, Your Majesty?"she asked as she rose once more.Motioning in the direction of a bruised and somewhat battered man, the Black Prince spoke in a cold, unforgiving tone that Death himself might have envied. "Tell her, Bampton."Bampton looked, in Joan's opinion, like a bald, bearded infant who was on the verge of wailing petulantly. "In God's name, Your Majesties, I did nothing wrong! I only went to Brentwood to speak to the leaders of various villages about paying their poll taxes. It was only a shilling per person!"Only a shilling. Joan shook her head. Only enough to buy two geese, or three months' worth of oats for one's horses, or twelve tunics for landless serfs. Only the price of an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Only the very minimum that a serf couple have to pay their lord for permission to marry. Not for the first time, she wondered why women were taught to get the full value out of every groat when managing their households while their husbands and stewards seemed to think that commoners' purses were endless waterfalls flowing with shillings, marks and florins."They told you that they could not pay," she said aloud. For that was obvious. There had been two other such taxes this year alone; it would have been miraculous if the common folk had had coin enough for a third. "What happened next?""Not 'could not pay,' Your Majesty." That was her brother-in-law, Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York. "'Would not.' Bampton spoke first to the representative from Fobbing, Thomas Baker, who said that he and his people had paid their taxes and would not pay a jot more. I suspect it was a bit more profane than that"—here he ignored the glares of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who didn't feel that women should know about unpleasantries like foul language—"but that was the gist. Then Bampton tried to arrest Baker—and a fight broke out. Not a fist fight. Bows. Arrows. Cudgels.""Three of my clerks were killed!" Bampton exclaimed."I am sorry," said Joan, meaning it. "I hope that none of the people of Brentwood suffered as well?" Bampton gazed at her for a moment in utter puzzlement. "I believe that three or four died, Your Majesty. What difference does that make?"Joan gripped the edge of the table so tightly that she felt as if both hands might leave impressions in the wood. Queens simply did not strike loyal tax commissioners for being indifferent to the deaths of commoners, even when those deaths—and the smug indifference of a royal official—might well spell disaster for the crown."What else has happened?" she asked as exhaustion seeped into her bones.Too much, as it turned out. Far too much. The county of Essex had arisen, as had those of Suffolk and—this made Joan flinch—Kent. Her son's tutor, Simon Burley, had claimed that a Kentish man named Belling was a serf who'd escaped from his estates and had had him dragged off to Rochester Castle. A mob had gathered and had stormed the town gaol, thinking that Belling was there. When they learned where Belling was really being held, they gathered at the castle gates. There had been so many of them that the guards had surrendered the castle without a fight. And, at this point, one name began to recur in Bampton's story, in hastily scrawled missives from clerks, and in rumors that the other members of the council had heard. Wat Tyler. Wat Tyler and a determined army of what were now thousands had marched on Canterbury and won a victory there. Wat Tyler and his rebels were now on their way to London, and would be here in two or three days."This rebel and his followers will be punished." The Black Prince's grim tone suggested that the word "rebel" was coated with pond scum and leprous sores. "They will learn that they cannot revolt against their king without suffering consequences."Though she could not say she was surprised, Joan felt as if her heart and liver had turned to ice. Aquitaine. It's going to be Aquitaine all over again. Oh, Ned, no.The remainder of the afternoon was, in Joan's opinion, useless. Ned was focused solely on crushing the rebellion with arms and armor, and the council had fallen into line with his way of thinking almost automatically. Joan had no objection to arresting and trying those who had burned homes or slain people—nobles or otherwise—but she could not comprehend being so enraged by rebels as to declare war on her subjects. A farmer could destroy weeds that were choking his wheat by trampling wheat and tares alike, but she thought it a poor bargain—one that would cause the farmer to suffer as much as his plants, if not more so. Crushing weeds into the mud and cutting off the visible portion solved nothing; you had to get at the root.She tried speaking to Ned privately at bedtime, but this, too, was an exercise in futility. The Black Prince was outraged that anyone from his homeland would dare tell his tax collectors to whistle for their coin. "Perhaps," she said, combing her long golden hair, "the commons truly lack the money. They have been taxed thrice this year.""Peasants are never so poor as they make out," the Black Prince growled. "They'll soon back down when they face armored knights and pikemen!""And where will we find men to fight?" Joan retorted, refraining—just barely—from flinging her comb across the room. "The Tower itself has scarcely twelve hundred guards. There are thousands upon thousands of rebels, and they're between us and any armies that our vassals could summon on our behalf. We cannot overwhelm rebels with numbers that we don't have!"And, though she did not like to say so, she could not help but wonder whose side the Tower guards and their leader, Sir Richard Knolle, might be on. Even one or two sympathizers could wreak havoc if they were in key positions…and they could hardly afford to question every man's loyalty now. The guards who were innocent would be insulted beyond measure by such distrust, and rightfully so.But even the unequal number of their forces did not persuade the Black Prince. "You fret too much," he said gently, stroking Joan's cheek. "They may be drunk on ale and rebellion now, but when they're faced with one knight, let along a thousand, their nerve will break.""The rebels didn't break at Rochester Castle, Ned. The guards did." Not that she blamed them one whit for that. Surrendering, rather than battling a maddened mob, was the wisest thing they could have done. The Black Prince, muttering about lack of proper discipline, merely waved this fact away. "The mob will drift off in the next few days—if the peasants have any sense," he added sharply. "If not, I'll have them crushed."As simple as that. Panicked flight—most likely into the waiting arms of local reeves and sheriffs—or deliberate slaughter.Joan, her stomach roiling, lay awake by Ned's side all night, struggling not to picture castle after castle ablaze and echoing with screams while the Thames ran red with dark, thick gouts of blood. ***The next day, on Ned's orders, the royal household, council and servants had moved from Windsor Castle to the well-fortified Tower of London. Joan thought this absurd, but since Ned was determined to remain in the capital and to keep his family safe at the same time, she supposed that it made a modicum of sense. Men set such great store by shows of fearlessness, even when they were afraid. Especially when they were afraid. The day after that—just as all of them were settling into the Tower—the swarm of rebels from Essex, led by a preacher called Jack Straw, arrived at Mile End in East London. And "swarm" was the right word. Messengers returned to the Tower with the news that upwards of sixty thousand peasants, artisans and merchants were camped on Mile End Green. Gulping, Joan felt her gorge rise and tried to choke it back. Sixty thousand. There are nations with fewer people."And more than twenty thousand others are headed this way," a weary, grizzled guardsman added, his voice breaking with what Joan hoped was merely exhaustion. "Wat Tyler and his Kentish men are on the move. They'll be in London by tomorrow—a bit to the south of Blackheath, but close enough.""And at least as many sympathizers already within the city," mumbled a young guard who looked enough like the grizzled one to be his grandson. He abruptly stopped speaking when the older guardsman delivered a sharp elbow to his ribs.Joan watched the faces of those listening. Most, whether clergy or laymen, gazed at Ned with the wet, terrified eyes of horses who had woken to discover that their stable was ablaze and the doors blocked by flame. Bampton seemed on the verge of fainting. Edmund of Langley—along with Richard and Anne—looked bewildered past all reason. Thomas of Gloucester kept grumbling that if he had issued taxes for the Crown this year, none of this ever would have happened, though Joan was gratified to note that no one was paying Thomas the slightest bit of attention. John of Gaunt might have been a stern Biblical prophet who thought that the Lord God should smite the rebels, for was not rebellion against one's superiors the sin of Lucifer? And if John looked like a prophet consumed by fury, then Ned…Ned was the embodiment of God's wrath.Ned motioned to his brothers and advisors. "Gentlemen. To me." And he strode out of the Tower's throne room, followed by John of Gaunt, Thomas of Gloucester, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and assorted guards. Edmund of Langley and John Bampton brought up the rear, with Edmund's right hand clamped, vise-like, on Bampton's left wrist. Only she, Richard, Anne and the three guards she'd suborned were left.It looked like a normal withdrawal to plan strategically. Joan, however, sensed that strategy had little to do with it. "Vengeance" would be closer. She and the commons had just run out of time.She glanced at Richard and Anne. "Follow me," she said quietly, pitching her voice carefully so that any servant or guard that was spying would hear every syllable and yet feel that she was speaking naturally. "It's time to pray."After all, action was also prayer. Or so the saints said.***Joan led the small procession down an endless length of staircases to the base of St. Thomas' Tower and down a steep incline of stone steps, at the bottom of which the royal barge was moored. The water-gate through which the barge would sail had been known for some time as "Traitor's Gate", as it was through that gate that noble and royal prisoners passed on their way to imprisonment in the Tower. The palace had plenty of room and was designed to be impregnable, so why not use part of it as a prison?She looked at the implacable iron gate and shivered, hoping that its name was not an omen. It probably took very little time for Joan, Richard, Anne and their knights to get on board, or for the waterman of the barge to command his assistants to pull the levers and chains that would lift the portcullis just beyond the gate and allow the gate itself to swing outward, but to Joan it felt like eternity. She strove not to do anything that would make her seem frustrated or nervous; either would be as good as an admission that the king had not sanctioned this.But at last they were on their way, the waterman calling directions to the oarsmen and the royal family sitting within a cabin that Joan thought resembled an oversized version of a luxurious litter for the sick.Richard peered from the curtained window at the river and the city beyond. The sunshine lit his blond curls and illuminated his cream and cloth-of-gold raiment, making him look as if he were lit from within. Anne was more simply attired in a light red gown of the shade called "lustie-gallant", which brought out the pink in her cheeks and the brightness of her eyes. Its cuffs, neck and hem were embroidered with the badges of both Richard and Anne, white harts and green sprigs of rosemary. If Anne's wavy brown hair had been down and wreathed with flowers instead of plaited tightly and bound on either side of her head, Joan would have thought that she was an excited maiden about to gather blossoms for Maytime.As for Joan, she had bid her maid dress her in the simplest garb that a queen could reasonably wear: a shimmering overgown of gris cindre, or ash gray, delicately embroidered with trios of golden lions encircled by silver-white ostrich plumes, and an undergown of vermeil. Not her favorite color combination, but the bright red undergown might conceal wounds, at least for a time. Brown would have been a more practical shade for the overgown, especially if any maddened commons started throwing mud…but she'd never favored the color. There was no point in pining after something that she didn't own. "So many," Anne whispered, gazing out of her window toward Blackheath. Joan, sitting opposite her, risked a peek outside as well.People. People as far as the eye could see. The heath on which the commons were camped was at least a mile or two from the docks, but people were all but overflowing into the Thames. Some were covered in dust from the road; others—probably those who had gone too close to the river—were sodden. Most stared at the barge as it drew ever nearer to the docks, as if they were unable to believe that anyone was planning to moor a boat here on this day of all days.A man who was somewhat better dressed than most—his short fitted blue-and-white arming-coat was whole and well-cut, though unadorned, and his sturdy leather boots suggested that he was someone in authority, though not a noble—waded through the crowd, pushing as many of the commons out of his way as he could. A murmur that seemed to be brimming with rage arose in his wake. Joan didn't think that he'd even noticed."Your Majesties!" he shouted in badly accented French as the barge drew near the dock. "I'm Thomas Walworth, mayor of London! You cannot land here! It isn't safe!"Joan waited until the barge was all but scraping against the dock. Then she selected one of the cloaks she'd requested—a thick one of the light buff hue called "isabelle"—and emerged from the cabin, followed by Sir Aubrey (who seemed to have appointed himself her personal guard). Then she addressed Walworth from the deck. "We asked to meet with the leaders of the commons several days past, Sir Thomas." Mayors of London were often knights, and even if he was not, she doubted that he would be insulted by her thinking that he was. "Have matters changed? Does no one wish to speak their grievances to us face to face?"Joan heard the rage-filled murmur shift into a sigh. Disbelief? Astonishment? She had no way of knowing. But she smiled gently at the hapless mayor, knowing that she had just given him no choice at all.Walworth, completely flummoxed, gaped at her, but only for a moment. "You can't land and meet with the reb—with their leaders! There's nowhere to meet! There's no room!"This did not surprise Joan. The masses of people crowding the shore had told her this much. But taking one look at the crowd and shrinking back would have told the angry commoners before her that she was repulsed by their very presence and was eager to break the promises that she'd made in order to get away from them. The fact that there were elements of truth in this would not have made matters one whit better. Sometimes you had to show willingness—even if it was the last thing in the world that you wanted to do."Are you certain?" she called out, thinking that little in life could be more certain. Of course there was no pavilion for a political meeting. These poor wretches barely had places to lie down and sleep, from what she could tell, and the stink of waste from what must have been overflowing middens in an area not normally host to tens of thousands of people could only be making things worse.The mayor nodded.Joan turned to Richard and Anne. "What say you? Shall we meet their leaders in the cabin?" There was certainly enough room, the cabin having been designed to hold, simultaneously, several members of royalty, five or six ladies-in-waiting and/or king's companions, various servants and assorted guards. Richard looked appalled, though whether at the poverty or the dirtiness of the commons, Joan couldn't have said. For a moment, she was afraid that his expression alone would ruin everything.Anne, however, settled the question. Wrapping a thick cloak of rich peacock blue about her, she gazed at the commons and her eyes filled with tears. And when she spoke, she spoke in English—slow, careful, strongly accented English, but English nevertheless. "We must have them on board. They have come a long way to speak to us."As whispers on the riverbank passed Anne's words from person to person, Richard gazed at her tenderly and then nodded. Joan suspected that Richard would cut off his own arms if it would please Anne.She turned to Sir Aubrey, speaking first in French and then, pitching her voice so that it could be heard on the shore, in English. "Would you be so kind as to tell the mayor that there has been a change of plan, and that, if it is not too inconvenient, we would be pleased to meet Master Tyler, Master Ball and Master Straw on board today?"***Tyler, Ball and Straw arrived perhaps an hour later, and judging by their sweatiness and their breathlessness, they had run most of the way. Jack Straw looked like his name—if it was his name. Jackstraws being a game, Joan was more than a little dubious. He was of medium height, sallow and thin with a tonsure of unruly yellow hair that bore a strong resemblance to straw and hay, and he was clad in a brown cassock that had definitely seen better days. A crudely carved wooden cross hung about his neck on a strip of knotted leather.John Ball was the shortest and stockiest of the three. He possessed an outsized chest that suggested he'd worked for a smith at some point in his youth, a surprisingly natty black beard, and, she learned when he offered apologies for not having arrived sooner, a deep, rich, carrying voice that mummers and minstrels might envy. He wore a black woolen cassock--the only thing reminding Joan that he was a priest as well.Of the three of them, Wat Tyler was the most visibly ill at ease. Joan noticed him studying the knights, the windows in the cabin, and the door as if he was assessing how to escape. He was no taller than Straw—in fact, Joan thought that he might have been a few inches shorter, though as solidly built as any of the knights—but he gave the impression of being tall. Even Richard, who was tall whether he was standing or sitting, tilted his head to look up at Tyler, despite their heads being roughly on the same level.An awkward moment or two passed as the royal family, the knights and the leaders of the commons stared at each other. Then Joan spoke. In English."I want to assure you," she said, "that no harm will be done to you or yours either here or after you leave." She repeated herself in French, gazing sternly at the knights. They appeared both flabbergasted and offended. The rebels are turning the world upside down, their expressions said. What kind of world would it be if the common people thought that they had rights? Wouldn't it be better to cut the heads from this snake now and just let the rebellion die?"No harm," she repeated, speaking once again in English and then in French. "This can't end unless we trust each other. And we certainly won't trust each other if we have to worry about who is going to execute whom. So let us speak as…peers." Not equals, no. But Joan had known a proud yeoman or two during her girlhood in Kent. Father Straw, Father Ball and roof tiler Wat might not be much different from yeomen. "And let us not worry about manners, either. It would be absurd to expect you to know the complexities of palace courtesy and even more ridiculous to be offended by the lack of it. Would that be a fair beginning?"The three commoners glanced at each other in evident bewilderment. Then slowly, hesitantly, they nodded."Now," she said, steepling her fingers and sighing. Evidently she would need to repeat everything for the duration of this meeting. French was the language of the royal court, and these men spoke English. Ball and Straw might know enough Latin to say a Mass, but whether they knew enough to converse in it was open to question. And it was certain that none of the three spoke German or Bohemian.No wonder there's so much unrest. The ruled and the rulers can barely speak to each other. "This will have to go slowly." She fumbled for the words. "I am the only one here who can converse for any length in English. And it has been some time since I've used it. So I will have to say everything twice. And if you or we do not understand a certain word or phrase the other says, we will stop there and figure out what was meant. We have to understand each other. All right?" Astonishment and hope dawned in their eyes. Evidently the thought that the queen was willing to work to understand them was quite new to them. Joan felt a tight, burning knot in her stomach, as if an ember had suddenly materialized there. Something as elementary as negotiations that everyone could understand should not have been a surprise to half of the people at the table.Taking a deep breath, she motioned the commoners to seat themselves on the benches generally reserved for kings' companions or ladies-in-waiting. She ignored the shock on the faces of the knights and her son. Standing for a long time was exhausting even when you were doing so on land. These men had walked dozens of miles in a very brief time; their legs undoubtedly ached. And now they were on the river, which shifted with each ripple, current and tide. To force them to stand for hours under those circumstances would be slow torture. Cruelty seemed a poor way to begin this conversation.And the only alternative was to bid them kneel for hours on end. Which, for aching joints, would have been just as cruel. Besides, she'd never seen a peace talk where one of the parties knelt to the other. The beaten knelt. The subjugated. Those who'd been forced to surrender. Standing on royal dignity and insisting that no one sit in their presence would have sent precisely the wrong message.
I'll explain it to them later…though I shouldn't have to.
She looked at them earnestly. "So. Good masters. What do you want?"There was a pause. Then Tyler and Ball spoke at almost the same time. "Fairness.""Justice."***Of course, "fairness" and "justice" meant different things to different people, so Joan asked both of them what they meant, nodding toward Straw to let him know that he was welcome to speak up as well. They had surprisingly concrete ideas. Ball was of the firm opinion that treating commoners more harshly than aristocrats for breaking the same law was idiotic. "If a rich man doesn't pay his taxes, the king doesn't send tax collectors"—he made the word sound as if it were covered in pond scum—" to his castle to strip him of all that he owns. He's simply spoken to about his debt, and then he sells off lumber from his forests or grain from his fields or somesuch, pays what he can, and there's an end to it. But when the poor can't pay, collectors take the clothes from your back and the teeth from your mouth. And then the collectors are angry the next year when you've not got double the wealth they stole from you!""Stolen?" Richard said, baffled. "But…everyone pays. And with the poll tax, everyone pays the same."Once Joan had translated this, Wat Tyler shook his head. "No, Your Highness. Nothing like the same. For what's a shilling to you? Summat to toss at a beggar, belike. But for me, it's three months' wages, and I need it to carry me through the winter when I'm not working. There's little tilin' that can be done in ice and snow."Now, havin' to pay out three months' wages once a year would be a hardship. But this year, there were three poll taxes. How's a man to survive on three months' wages for a year without starving?"Joan watched a vast array of expressions cross Richard's face as he came to understand Tyler's words. Richard dearly loved to have bushels of coin to spend on his pleasures, which, at the moment, were his beloved Anne, his friend Robert de Vere, and the most fashionable of attire. She was fairly sure that it had never occurred to him until now where the money came from.And his next words proved her right. "But…but that isn't fair!"Wat Tyler gazed at him stonily. "Very little is, Your Highness."John Ball interrupted him, saying that part of the problem was that the tax rolls were largely false. "There would have been more of us," he explained, "but between pestilences and His Majesty's endless wars—apologies, Your Majesty—many of those who were once taxpayers once are no more than food for worms. Tax collectors don't always notice who's died. They see names on their rolls and expect them to be there.""And some don't care." That was Jack Straw. "There're some tax collectors what add whole families to the tax rolls. Gives 'em an excuse to demand more from us when a village or town is short what's owed."Joan winced."But how do they expect you to live?" Richard all but wailed. Joan couldn't blame him for being shocked. Even she had thought that the system in place was fairer than this, and she wasn't a stubborn fourteen-year-old who had been raised on tales of kingly heroism and royal chivalry."Tax collectors think that we live on air," said Ball with a snort. "Like an alchemist's salamander.""When they let us live at all," growled Tyler, a grim shadow sweeping across his face.Richard shook his head as if trying to clear it. "But why would they do that? If they want you to keep producing coin for the kingdom, why would they dog you until there's nothing in your purses but air?""Because," Tyler said, once Joan had translated this, "it's easier for the rich to rob the poor than the poor to rob the rich. And robbers don't think of the victims' good."Joan sensed rather than saw Sir Aubrey take a step forward, his hand on his sword hilt. She waved him back.A moment later he was by her side and whispering in her ear. "But Your Majesty, there's no reason to endure this insolence! Let me deal with them right now, and the rebellion will be over!"Wishing fervently that there was a way to strip fools of knighthood, Joan gazed at him in shock, unable to speak. When her voice finally returned, she turned to the three commoners. "Your pardon. I must speak to our guards right this minute." And she motioned Sir Brian and Sir Geoffrey to draw near her seat as well. Once they had done so, she spoke in a tone that, even to her ears, seemed composed of icicles and glaciers. "If any, some or all of you attack, harm, maim or slay any of these men for what you deem pride or insolence, let alone rebellion, be assured that you will incur the lasting displeasure of the Queen of England and France. We are here to find out why the people are so outraged—it is the only way to prevent the Throne and its subjects from going to war. We assured their leaders of their safety; they came aboard in good faith. And now you would force us to become liars? Committing murder during peace talks will not prevent civil war! It will make things worse! Do you not grasp this, you fools?"Silence. The three knights stared at her in varying degrees of stunned disbelief. Queens aren't supposed to favor peasants and artisans over knights, their expressions said. And certainly not rebels. Rebels are on a level with witches and heretics. What ails the woman?Richard also looked stunned—but as if he had been unexpectedly impressed. If Joan had been able to stop glaring at the three idiots, she would have smiled slightly. Anne……was not in her seat. Instead, while Joan had been delivering a lecture on good government, she had walked over to the commoners and was now standing in front of Wat Tyler."Maman is angry," she said in her slow, careful English. "I am sorry. Our men are—they do not trust. They fear.""Why?" Tyler said, scrambling to his feet. Apparently, sitting across the room from the royal family during peace talks was not quite the same as remaining seated when a princess came to speak to him personally.Anne picked out each word with care. "Because…because you make them think. Everything was…steady and solid. Like rock. And then you and your friends speak of how bad the world is for you. How it is kept bad. And now it is like a windstorm in their heads. Everything is blown hither and yon. Nothing is the same."Joan watched as each of the knights nodded or bowed his head slightly. Anne's words had evidently touched them in a way that her own wrath had not. This did not make her feel any easier about them. Confusion was all very well, but it wasn't an excuse for breaking your word—or forcing someone else to break theirs. And the notion of attacking someone simply because they unsettled you was contemptible.Wat Tyler stared at Anne for a moment and then smiled thinly. "Might be better if nothing was the same. We're sore in need of a change."Anne gazed at him gravely, nodded, and then turned to go back to her seat…just as if she didn't see Richard standing up, his face tense and grayish-white. Joan could tell that it had occurred to Richard, if not to Anne, that if any of these men wanted to avenge themselves on the royal family, a swift dagger beneath Anne's ribs while the guards were on the opposite side of the room would be the way to do it.She had barely gone three steps when Tyler spoke up again. The words sounded as if they'd been pulled from him with a boathook. "You remind me of my daughter, you know. Emma, her name was. She was about your age when a tax collector took her from me. He took first her maidenhead and then her life." A pause. "And he's still free."Anne, Joan noticed, looked appalled but not in the least surprised. She simply walked back, took Tyler's large, callused hand, and held it tightly until he let go.***The day wore on, the legal and financial issues becoming ever thornier. They paused for a small midday meal which the commoners regarded as an impossible feast. There was one ugly moment when Tyler took a mouthful of wine, tasted it, and then spat it. The knights thought, or claimed to think, that Tyler had been spitting to express contempt for her, her son and his wife, which deserved lethal punishment."It's simple," Joan said with exaggerated patience, translating for the commoners' benefit. "If a man wants to taste the flavor of a wine but doesn't want to get drunk, he'll take a mouthful, enjoy the flavor, and then spit it out. It's not typical court etiquette, no, but it's not rude." Except in the opinion of fools, she added mentally. But since I've called you 'fools' once today, I don't think that I should do so again. You might resent it. And me .They did not actually get done for the day until a red glow through the windows told them that the summer sun was setting. This meant nothing to the commoners, of course, and Richard and Anne seemed more surprised than upset, but Joan could see the same thought echoing in the knights' eyes that she was certain was in her own: The king must be beside himself with fury.And so, after bidding Tyler, Ball and Straw farewell and letting them go ashore to their people—the joyous, reassured roar from the crowd told Joan that this decision, at least, had been wise—the royal family and their knights sailed back to the Tower. Like so many unpleasant things in life, the trip back seemed to go on for all eternity…and yet also took no time at all."Your Majesty?" a guard at the base of St. Thomas' Tower gasped as Joan and her party disembarked. "Where have you been? The king has soldiers scouring the city for you—""Soldiers! Why?"The guard almost seemed to wilt before her. "Because you vanished, Majesty. You and the prince and princess. And three knights with you. He shouted for hours about the knights betraying him and kidnapping his family."Sir Geoffrey buried his head in his hands. Sir Brian glared like a truculent bulldog. Sir Aubrey looked as if he believed it, but didn't want to.Joan rubbed her temples. "And where did he think that we'd been taken?" As if she couldn't guess.The guard blinked. "Why, to the rebels, of course. He swore that he'd have a thousand of them slain for every drop of blood you'd spilled."A wave of sick dizziness swept over Joan. "You mean that he sent out as many Tower guards as he could to slaughter unarmed peasants because he assumed that our own knights had committed a crime?""Er…he believes that they are all in it together, Your Majesty." Taking a deep breath, Joan addressed the guard one last time. "Where is the king now? The Throne Room?"The guard nodded. Joan turned to the knights. "Gentlemen, I am sorry. Even in my nightmares I never dreamed that the king would react like this. Please stay out of sight until I can calm him down." Assuming that's even possible. "Richard. Anne.""We're coming with you," Richard said, his voice cracking, and Anne nodded. "He won't believe that we're all safe until he sees us."Sighing, Joan nodded. "Very well. But run up the stairs to the top of the Tower as fast as you can. We haven't much time." No time, she thought grimly, hitching up the skirts of her overgown and undergown and striding up the narrow stone stairs as swiftly as she could. I've no time at all.***When the three of them finally reached the hallway at the top of the tower, Joan could hear Ned bellowing from the Throne Room. "God's wounds! Have none of the wretches admitted to knowing to who's holding her? Do they need harsher persuasion? I can give them that!"There was no point in being subtle. Given the mood Ned was in, she would be lucky to get his attention by dropping two-ton anvils on his head. She glanced about for the person she needed and found him just inside the entrance to the location currently being used as a throne room. An unguarded entrance. Ned was not the sort to stint on protecting his courtiers or himself—hence moving the Throne Room, which normally would have been on the main floor, to the highest point of the topmost tower during a rebellion—but normally there would have been alert and well-armed guards outside the entryway. Instead, there were none. Ned must have sent them on to Blackheath and Mile End. Given the number of guards at the base of the Tower, this alone told Joan how thinly spread their forces were.Slipping a coin from the purse at her waist, she strode toward the entrance and tapped the arm of Peter Lavelock, one of the King's trumpeters. His eyes grew wide at the sight of her, and she saw his lips move, but the din in the Throne Room was so great that she could not make out a word. The only person that she could hear clearly was Ned.She pointed to the trumpet, then to herself, putting on the most exaggeratedly imploring look that she could manage. Lavelock grinned and nodded, positioning himself in the very center of the entryway. A moment later, he blew an elaborate and triumphant fanfare that would have done justice to the Pope. It made Joan's ears ring, but it did silence the din in the Throne Room. It even silenced Ned."I'm here, husband," Joan announced in a clear, carrying voice, tossing the coin to Lavelock—who had more than earned it—before sweeping through the entryway gracefully and dramatically. The echo of footsteps behind her told her that her son and daughter-in-law had entered as well. "Right here, as are Richard and Anne. I hardly think that you need 'persuade' anyone to tell you of this."Silence filled the room as Ned gaped at her. Recognizing that she had scant seconds before Ned exploded into incoherent fury once more, Joan swiftly made her way to his side. "I think that we should talk privately, don't you?" she continued softly, guiding him toward the entryway. "You must be nearly hoarse from all that shouting." Talking to him softly in a soothing tone, she managed to maneuver him into his bedchamber. She got him about halfway to his bed before he grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her. "Where were you? What happened? How did you escape?""There was no need for me to escape," Joan said, striving for patience. "I wasn't a prisoner.""Not a—! Where in God's name were you, then?!"There was nothing to do but brazen it out. "On the Thames in a royal barge, meeting with the leaders of the commons. Richard and Anne were with me. I brought along three of our good knights for protection—not that we needed them, as it turned out.""Meeting with the…do you mean the rebels?" Joan heard the door creak open followed by two sets of footsteps and a bolt sliding into place. So Richard and his wife were here. Good. Having two more witnesses would help."If you like," she said, making a show of indifference. "As they have little interest in rebellion and merely want the Crown to tax them in a way that does not deprive them seventy-five percent of their coin in one year, tax rolls not filled with the names of those imaginary or long dead, and the law to be a bit more balanced, I can't call them that."Richard stepped forward, swallowing a bit. This surprised Joan. Ned in a martial mood could be unsettling even to the most experienced generals, and Richard, while he could be brave enough if challenged, was no warrior. "It was like listening to Simon Burley tutoring me about the importance of good government. About responsibility and how the law is supposed to work." He sounded pensive. "Only most of it was in English. I had to wait for Maman to translate everything."Anne took his hand and smiled. "We should learn more English, you and I," she said in German-accented French.Ned, Joan noted, looked rather like a bewildered lion—minus a mane. "They talked about government and law? And it made sense?"Richard nodded. "It wasn't fun. A lot of it was boring. But eventually even the boring bits fit together. I think that if more people understood why it was happening, they wouldn't be so angry."Joan had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. Oh, Richard. Do you realize what you just told your father?If Richard realized, he gave no indication. He simply explained to his father about the relative worth of a shilling when it took three months to earn one and the allegations of corruption, both among tax collectors and the system itself. After a few examples, Ned held up his hand. "I don't think I've ever heard you be so serious before." He gazed seriously at his son. "Why do you care?""Well," Richard said, shrugging, "I will be king one day. I'd like not to be hated. And sitting down and talking to their leaders and eating with them—""What?!""—it made our subjects real. Not just pictures on vellum of peasants harvesting grain or chopping wood. Not mindless animals shaped like us. Real people." A pause. "I suppose it sounds incredibly obvious. Maman understood ages before I did. Otherwise she wouldn't have arranged for the talks in the first place.""Maman was magnificent," added Anne, her eyes bright. "It was like something out of a song."Joan could not refrain from rolling her eyes at this. "Oh, really. What song?""The one about Dagmar of Bohemia." Anne looked from Joan to Ned. "Didn't you ever hear it?""No," said Richard. "What's it about?""Well…Dagmar was born a princess of Bohemia. She married King Valdemar of Denmark. The custom was that a new bride could ask her husband for anything on her wedding day and he had to grant it."Ned snorted. "I imagine that was abused.""Oh, yes. Some people were horribly greedy." Anne waved her left hand as if brushing away all memory of the greedy ones. "But not Dagmar. She went to her husband at dawn on her wedding day and said, 'I pray that the plow tax be forgiven the peasant, and those who have been laid in irons for rising against it be set free.' "And of course Valdemar agreed. That very hour, he sent out messengers to every corner of his kingdom, telling his people that the hated tax was dead and that a queen who cared for them was on the throne. And in every town and village, the peasants praised her. Oh, how did it go?" She hummed a scrap of a lilting tune in a minor key, and then began singing softly:"She came without burden, she came with peace
She came the good peasant to cheer.
"Today was like that. At least…that's what I saw in the faces of the people on Blackheath." Anne smiled radiantly, as if the greatest of favors had been conferred upon her. "I never thought I'd actually get to meet Dagmar."Ned gazed at her with a growing expression of dismay. "And I sent soldiers out. I'll need to call them off. Send a messenger with orders, perhaps.""That won't work," Richard said, shaking his head. "Not all of the soldiers can read, and even if the messenger finds one who can—why would that matter? They're angry and scared and their blood is up. And they think that they're avenging attacks on Maman and Anne and me. A message won't stop them. " He looked directly into his father's eyes. "But you could, Papa. They would listen to you. " The next two words crept out reluctantly. "And me.""You want to come with me?""No, I don't want to!" Richard snapped. "But I have to, don't I? The Tower guards think that all three of us have been kidnapped or killed. If I'm present and alive, that ends that excuse." He shrugged. "The guards know us well. It's not as if they would mistake us for anyone else.""It's black night out there. They won't know us from ants.""They'll know your voice, Papa," Anne said in a coaxing tone. "They heard it earlier today, after all."Joan watched as Ned wrestled with the idea of riding directly into peril at night—which was fairly an invitation to attack—in order to prevent a worse disaster. Wrestling with an angel would likely be no easier. At last he set his jaw. "All right. Richard and I will go—but not you two.""Since my kidnapping and death are one of the motives for an attack," said Joan quietly but not at all demurely, "I think it essential that I be there. Besides, I can speak to the commoners more easily than you can." Ned, she knew, understood nothing of English but the crude, curse-laden slang that army infantrymen sometimes spoke.Ned glared at her. "We are talking about riding headlong into a war!""No. We're talking about riding off to prevent one."In Joan's opinion, Ned was beginning to look a bit wild-eyed. "At least leave Anne here where she'll be safe!"Anne adjusted her blue cloak. "But the soldiers think I've been snatched away, too. And Master Tyler is out there. I think he liked me a little. I don't want him to believe that I'm dead. That's not right."Joan glanced at Ned, this time not quite able to suppress a slight grin. "If you want to prevent a massacre—and quite possibly a war—you'll need all of us. And the knights that came with us, because they were present at the negotiations. They know what happened."Ned flung up his hands, but for the first time tonight, Joan thought that she saw a gleam of grateful humor in his blue eyes. "Merciless, all of you! Utterly merciless! All right, I concede. We'll go out and risk our necks to stop a war."And murder being done, Joan mentally added."And tomorrow…tomorrow, if all goes well, I will send a messenger out to all of the commoners in the land, starting with those at Blackheath and Mile End. You two…" He nodded at Richard and Anne. "Go to the barge and wait there. The queen and I will be there eventually.""Eventually?" Joan said sharply as Richard and Anne headed off toward the long, long flight of stairs they'd just climbed. "Ned, we need to go now!""We also need to tell the court what is happening. Otherwise, I have no doubt that my brothers will make similarly bad decisions."Joan ground her teeth. She knew that he was right. She just hated having to take the time to explain."It won't take that long," he said softly, extending his hand to her. "I daresay that I can put it to the court in a sentence or two. Though they won't like it. Be prepared; it will be like arguing with lightning."She placed her slim hand in his large one. "After the day I've had and the night still in store? That sounds positively relaxing." They walked back into the Throne Room, seemingly unruffled. Once there, Ned quelled the noise and outrage with a single bellowed, "Quiet!""My queen, the prince and the princess have brought me new information about the rebels," he said once the sound in the room had settled down to a low buzz. "Information which, I confess, surprised me. We go now to stop the guards that I sent out after the rebels believing that my family was captured or dead. But before I go, I tell you all that the Crown's quarrel with them is at an end.A susurration of murmured sounds and exclamations filled the room, but only one anguished cry of "Why?"—Joan thought that it might have been Ned's youngest brother, Thomas of Woodstock—was clear.Ned looked thoughtful for a moment. "Because," he said at last, "my queen has prayed that the poll tax be forgiven the peasant, and that those who would have been executed for rising against it be set free."***Getting out of the Throne Room was difficult; the courtiers were in no mood to listen to sweet reason, and Joan, at least, wanted to reach Blackheath before anything irrevocably horrible happened. Nor did she want someone to change Ned's mind. At last she could bear it no longer. "We thank you for your numerous prayers for our safety," she said, her voice ringing out above the babble, "and gladly would we discuss your concerns, but it has been a long day, and all of us are weary." Out of the corner of her eye she noticed more than a few people nodding emphatically. "And alas, we"—her glance encompassed her family—"have much to discuss privily, and little time in which to do it. So I pray that you will do two things that we cannot this night—eat and rest. The dawn is coming, and we have much to do ere then." She gave the courtiers a sympathetic (and, she hoped, reassuring) smile and held her breath.They did not all leave at once—Thomas and John, two of her husband's brothers, were among the loudest and most opinionated—but they did leave. Some even took her suggestion and asked the servants to bring a small repast to their rooms before falling asleep. Ned took advantage of this, whispering instructions to a young footman who nodded and then sped away. But at last they were all gone. Joan breathed a sigh of relief.Ned led the way, not to the base of St. Thomas' Tower but to the Tower's main courtyard where fresh horses, the royal physician and two assistants, and twelve knights—including Sir Aubrey, Sir Geoffrey and Sir Brian—were waiting. What message the footman had passed on to those three, Joan didn't know, but it must have reassured them, as they met the king's eyes without guilt, shame or fear.Several knights suggested that the royal family don armor, even Joan and Anne, but Joan dismissed that out of hand. "It would take hours to find suitable armor that fit, especially helmets that could accommodate these." She touched a braided bun on the side of her head. And more time to put it on, and still more time to clamber on a horse wearing it. I thank you for the thought, but we have no time for this. No time at all." The ride from the Tower was agony, for the city was as empty of light and warmth as the Devil's heart, and, as they drew nearer to Blackheath, the cobbles under their horses' hooves felt almost slippery to Joan. More than once, she feared that one of the horses would put its foot into a gaping hole that none of the riders could see, break its leg and fall to the street, crushing its rider beneath its shrieking, flailing body. She prayed that Richard, Anne and Ned avoid this fate, at least, because if anything happened to his new bride, Richard would go mad, and if anything happened to his beloved son, Ned might go mad.And if anything happens to Ned, the entire court will go mad. She was certain that she wouldn't be able to prevent civil war then.When their party finally found the guards that Ned had sent to harry the commoners, it was less a meeting than a collision. They had just turned down a narrow street not far from Blackheath when they heard the clash of swords and curses shouted in French some twenty feet away. And someone was screaming for help. In English. Not that that mattered. The panicked horror in the wailing voice made translation unnecessary."I know those voices," muttered Sir Geoffrey. "They're knights. That's Sir Stephen Rossignol and Sir Martin Soret. What are they—No! Your Majesty, stay back!"Ned paid no attention, riding toward Rossignol and Soret as if that would solve everything. Joan sighed. "Sir Aubrey. Sir Geoffrey. To me, please." And she spurred her own horse forward.It only took her a moment or two to reach them, but by the time that she did, things were already going wrong. Well…more wrong. Nothing that had started with beating some poor wretch's knees, elbows and ribs with the flats of swords could possibly be termed "right."At least the knights—and Joan snorted at the word—had stopped attacking the commoner as Ned rode forward. That didn't make things any better, however; Rossignol either didn't recognize Ned outside of a regal setting or simply didn't care whether or not he was insulting the king. Joan strongly suspected it was the former. A king who was frantic about the safety and survival of his queen wouldn't be in the middle of London haranguing a knight for beating a rebel. It didn't make sense.But while she could pardon Rossignol for not believing that Ned was, well, Ned, she couldn't pardon him for beating a man. Or for doing what he was doing now—spinning a long, involved tale about how he and Soret had seen the battered fellow on the street with several other men, one clearly rich, who had been speaking about having carried the queen off to Northumberland, maybe even Scotland, and if they just questioned this man for a while longer, they'd surely be able to discover where she was imprisoned—"And here I could have sworn that the queen spent the day on a barge on the Thames," Sir Geoffrey interrupted. "I had no idea that barges could fly to Northumberland in less than a day, did you, Aubrey?""I had no idea that anyone could kidnap the queen," Sir Aubrey retorted. "I wouldn't wager on the safety of anyone who tried." Joan wasn't certain whether this was a compliment or not, but she knew an entrance line when she heard one. "Oh, you flatter me," she said, laughing. "Good evening, Sir Stephen…and Sir Martin. I am delighted to make your acquaintance and I do thank you for the entertaining fable—I shall have to relay it to Master Chaucer! He loves stories. But as you can see, I'm quite well and in no need of rescuing." She called out to the physician, who was a little ways behind her. "Master Rogier! Would you and your assistants please come forward? You have a patient—and one in sad shape."***Reluctantly, Joan had to admit afterwards that Ned appearing to countermand his earlier ill-thought-out orders, not to mention the fact that "the three royals the rebels captured and killed" were very much alive and well, had less impact than the sardonic comments of the knights who'd been on the barge and the presence of the royal physician. Despite most of the knights Ned had dispatched knowing his face and voice as well as their own, almost all had difficulty believing that Ned, Richard, Anne and herself were who they said they were."It's like seeing a diamond out of its proper setting," Master Rogier, the physician, explained. "In a ring or necklace, it's obvious it's a jewel. But lying in the mud on a city street? Of course you'd take it for mere glass."Of the commoners who had been attacked by Ned's knights, eight had been hurt. No head injuries, and no one who'd been gut-stabbed. And, so far as Joan knew, no rapes. Master Rogier had tended all eight, ultimately asking a shopkeeper at dawn if he might borrow the man's cart to convey the injured to the infirmary of St. Katharine's by the Tower. He'd returned the cart, too.It could have been worse, Joan knew. It could have been so much worse.That didn't make her feel one whit better.Joan and her party stayed out all night and well into the morning, gathering up the knights and guards as Ned sent increasingly blistering messages to the council in the Tower. They saw no riots and no hostile mobs, and no more theft or whoring than was usual for London. What they did see were endless numbers of commoners who were, by turns, angry, sorrowful, heartsick with despair, and numb. By the time the last of the knights had joined their party and it was time to turn back to the Tower, Ned's expression had hardened into that of an archangel ready to smite the world, Anne's eyes were swollen and red, Richard had withdrawn into himself, and Joan was nearly asleep on her horse.To the end of her days, she only dimly recalled dismounting her steed once she arrived back at the Tower. She never did recall climbing the stairs to her room, only teetering over to the bed and collapsing onto it for the next fourteen hours.***The next two weeks or so were a perfect storm of work. Ned was battling with the members of both Parliament and his council over the poll tax, most of whom felt that it was perfectly reasonable and that the poor were simply making a fuss over nothing. At least some of the opposition stopped when Ned, irked beyond measure at his youngest brother's fussing that three shillings was more than just, informed Thomas that if this was the case, he could live on three months' income for the next year and see how easy he found it.Richard's frustration at being unable to speak to or understand his future subjects led to an explosion in which he half-asked for and half-demanded an additional tutor; it never occurred to him that Simon Burley might be replaced. Ned refused, but he gave Richard leave to study English with Anne's tutor, Gilbert Wodbynd. That seemed to be going unexpectedly well, for Richard was fairly flogging himself to learn faster.Joan made it a point to personally hire an army of bright, inquisitive clerks with sharp eyes and sharper minds. Once they were hired, she commanded them to attack the current tax rolls, verifying the existence of each village, person and groat while finding the traps and treachery and outright lies.It was really astonishing how quickly the clerks found evidence of deceit and corruption. Joan was gratified; those who wanted to believe that the commoners were rebelling for no reason and that she was being both naïve and sentimental had a hard time arguing against solid proof. Many of them didn't like it—they would have found it much more pleasant to believe that those complaining were whimpering parasites and that the world was a just and merciful place—but most accepted the proof, albeit grudgingly.But she was also bitterly ashamed. The lies and embezzlement hadn't been especially well-hidden, but everyone had missed it. For years. Everyone. Including her.And, of course, the commoners were growing ever more restive. Not that Joan could blame them. Following up an airing of grievances with the attitude of "if we just pretend nothing is wrong, maybe they'll go away" made Joan want to bang a few heads together. And she didn't dare indulge that feeling, because Ned was closer to eruption than she was. Changing his mind about the commoners hadn't changed his basic approach; he still preferred to deal with every problem as if it were a major battle in a vicious war.Joan did her best to balance things out. She smiled at political foes, soothed ruffled tempers, listened to what she knew was utter nonsense in hopes of slipping a fact or two into some otherwise closed minds, paid St. Katharine's by the Tower for the care of the eight injured commoners, surreptitiously sent food and blankets and clothing to their brethren who were in the worst state, and generally tried to seem sweetly innocuous while moving mountains.Then, on the twenty-sixth of June, the king announced that he had summoned Jack Straw, John Ball and Wat Tyler to the Tower three days hence, on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul."I'll be amazed," Joan told Ned privately, "if they don't flee to Wales or Ireland at the news. Why would they answer such a summons—especially after the attacks?""For the same reason that they believed in the message from a queen who asked for the most public secret meeting imaginable," Ned replied. "Because while the notion may seem unlikely, even foolhardy, they cannot afford to pass up the chance that someone may be listening."This did not exactly inspire confidence. The sad truth was that though the three had done no damage, led no attacks and slain none of their fellow subjects, marching to London had been a revolt in itself. Under law, they were traitors…and at least some members of the court deemed that unforgivable."Joan." Ned placed a large hand on her own slim one. "I mean to pardon them.""Pardon them?" Joan stared at him. "Why?""Because—as you and your clerks have been at pains to point out—they were right. They broke the law, but they were right. The tax was wrong, the collectors were wrong and the Crown itself was wrong. And if you hadn't intervened, I would have slain every last protester at Blackheath and Mile End for saying that. I probably would have been acclaimed a wise and strong king for that…though that, too, would have been a lie."He smiled blearily. "But a king cannot lightly say that he was wrong. Pardoning these men for breaking the letter of the law is the best I can do. And, at the same time, it lets the more…resistant…members of the court know that they have no justification for executing any of these men for treason—and that the Crown is watching." And, of course, it also pardoned her. If Tyler and his friends hadn't been traitors, then she hadn't been wrong to slip out and speak to them. And Ned hadn't been wrong to listen. Circular logic, but it would probably satisfy most people.So why did Ned's practical political decision make her feel so out of sorts?
Because it's as if something is missing. As if this isn't properly over yet. As if it could start all over again.
The dissatisfaction clung to her for the better part of a week—like fog clinging to the seashore—until one afternoon when she heard Richard and Anne speaking in a deserted corner of the Tower courtyard. Anne, who was seated on a bench and holding a large book, was drilling Richard in his English pronunciation, and Richard, who was pacing about like a caged leopard, was having trouble. At last he broke off, frustrated."You still have forty-two words to go.""I know." Richard stared at his hands. "Do you know, one of my uncles told me today that trying to learn more than a few scraps of English for ceremonies and such was a waste of time? He made me feel that this"—he tapped the book—"was just a child's game unbefitting a future king."Anne glanced up at the summer sky and spoke with care. "I would have liked to have been able to speak with ease to the three goodmen, wouldn't you? That doesn't sound childish to me. And even if there's not another revolt"—Anne tapped the bench to ward off evil—"you'll find some use for English. I'm sure of that."Richard sighed. "I wish that I could do more, that's all. Papa fights with Parliament and plans to pardon the leaders of the commoners. Maman hires clerks and calms down anyone who might be offended by what the clerks find. You not only sew shirts every day for the poor, which sounds like the dullest thing on the planet, but you inspire half the women at court to join you and you smile when you do it."Joan couldn't tell from a distance, but she had a feeling that Anne's eyes were sparkling with mischief. "I'd be happy to teach you how to sew as well.""Gah!""No ambition to be a tailor?" Anne teased before turning serious once more. "You will find something that will help our subjects, Richard. I don't know what, but you will.""Maybe even English.""Maybe." She motioned to him to bend down. He did, and Anne kissed his nose.Richard smiled tenderly at her. Then, looking as if a thought had struck him, he sat down beside her. "Would you promise me something?""What?""Swear to me that you will always give me your honest opinion—even if I don't like it. Please." He gazed down, working the toe of his right shoe in a semi-circle against the courtyard's flagstones. "I'd hate it if you had to work around me like Maman did with Papa."Anne bit her lip. "Will you listen? Even if you don't like what I think?""Of course! I swear it—as your husband, your prince and your future king." "That's easy to say…""No," Richard replied. "It's not. Not if you mean it. And I mean it." A pause, and then a slightly embarrassed note crept into his voice. "Besides…I'd be very silly if I thought you were worth marrying but not worth listening to, wouldn't I?"Turning pink—with pleasure, Joan thought—Anne asked one more question. "Will you want your Maman's advice, too?""Probably, if she gives it. Maman's very clever. She'd be a good advisor, actually. But you'd come first, not just because you're my wife but because you understand people. And you care." He ran a hand through his blond curls. "I think that I could do worse than to listen to a wise and loving woman. Especially," he added, glancing at the book in her hands, "one who's already my teacher. So. Will you promise? I will if you will."Anne beamed at him. "I promise."As Richard swept Anne into a rapturous hug, Joan felt the leaden unease that had been burdening her for days seep away. Things were still a long way from perfect, but at least her son was willing to admit that others knew and understood things he did not, and that they were worth listening to. This reassured her beyond measure.After all, the revolt had begun because those who did not know or understand had refused to listen.***
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Dagmar of Bohemia was a real person, though most of what we know about her is filtered through songs and stories praising her saintliness that were written in the time of her wildly unpopular successor, Berengaria of Portugal. Dagmar was a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, the family that ruled in Bohemia and Moravia from the ninth century until 1306. Born Margaret, the oldest daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia and his wife Adelheid of Meissen, she married King Valdemar II of Denmark (also called Valdemar the Victorious) in 1205 at the age of eighteen or nineteen, taking the name "Dagmar." According to legend, she did ask for two boons on her wedding day—for the plow tax to be abolished and for Valdemar to free and be reconciled with an imprisoned enemy. The king granted the first but not the second, saying that if he granted it, she would be widowed within the year. (Regrettably, he did eventually give in on this score, and it caused no end of trouble.) Dagmar died on 24 May 1212 while giving birth to her second son, who didn't survive.Some later works, apparently searching for a name similar to Dagmar, say that Dagmar's original name was "Dragomir." However, "Dragomir" is a male name. The feminine form would have been Drahomíra. (And as I said, we know that her original name was Margaret.)The lyrics quoted and "I pray that the plow tax be forgiven the peasant, and those laid in irons for rising against it be set free" are from Jacob A. Riis's Hero Tales of the Far North.***The story of young, lovely and very pregnant Queen Philippa kneeling before Edward III to save the lives of six prominent citizens is extremely dubious. Since it originates with writer Jean Froissart, who was dedicated to Philippa and who made himself her poet and biographer, and given the numerous flaws Joan cited in the story, it's probable that this is Plantagenet propaganda. But it was popular and widespread propaganda. Most people in England (and certain areas of what is now France) would have known the story…and liked it.***The actual Peasants' Revolt did not go very well. The events that triggered it happened as I've written—ridiculous numbers of taxes, corruption in the system, etc.—but the commoners' loathing for fourteen-year-old Richard's advisors (many of whom were his uncles) complicated matters. Among occurrences that happened in real life but not in this story:* Richard, confronting a large mass of commoners and naming himself their leader.* The commoners burning John of Gaunt's home in London, the Savoy Palace.* Tyler's manner of "tasting" wine being a genuine offense to the Crown—one that killed off negotiations right there.* Richard and the advisors meeting with the rebel leaders, promising sweeping changes, and then going back on their word.* The rebel leaders being executed as traitors.No one seems to have tried to listen to what the commoners had to say, despite their complaints being more than reasonable. I decided that in this AU, someone would listen…and that would make all the difference. SOURCES: Campsie, Philippa. "The Story Behind the Sculpture." Parisian Fields: Exploring Paris One Blog at a Time. Wordpress.com, 27 Nov. 2011. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. "Dagmar of Bohemia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, last edited 5 Dec. 2014. Web. 19 Dec. 2014. Gilbert, Rosalie. "Dyestuffs, Dyeing and Colour Names." Rosalie's Medieval Woman. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.Milone, Kim. "The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381." Loyola University Student Historical Journal, Vol. 18, Spring-Fall 1987. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. "Palace Secrets (Historical Royal Palaces: Tower of London." Historic Royal Palaces. Historic Royal Palaces.org.uk, 2014. Web. 17 Dec. 2014. Riis, Jacob A. "King Valdemar, and the Story of the Dannebrog." Hero Tales of the Far North. Published New York, 1921, Project Gutenberg, 31 May 2004. Web. 19 Dec. 2014. Strohm, Paul. "Chapter 5 -- Queens as Intercessors." Hochon's Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts. , Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1992. 95-117. Print.