Straw Into Gold

  "As if we haven't had enough visitors these last three days," she shouted. "As if all I have to do is to unbolt and unbar the door to any wretch who comes along and chooses to knock."

  "Isn't it to the wretched that the abbey doors should open?" asked Innes.

  She glared at him. "Boy, there's a warm hearth and a hot rum I've left for your knocking. I'm thinking it a trial and a tribulation to have done so."

  "Mother," I called quickly, when I saw her hands move up to close the portal,"we've traveled through the night and are only looking for a bit of warm fire."

  "A bit of warm fire," she repeated."And some bread to go with it?"

  "Well, yes."

  She nodded. "Some stew perhaps, steaming for all it's worth? Maybe some of my hot rum?"

  "Yes, again."

  "Beggars," she spat, and reached to pull the window shut.

  "Wait!" I shouted."We're not beggars. We've come all the way from Wolverham to see the queen."

  Innes groaned.

  "Ah, the queen," repeated the attendant. "And perhaps you'd wish to see the mother abbess after you've made your royal visit."

  "No," I said.

  "And then you'll be off to bless the Holy Father in Rome?" she asked sweetly.

  "We must see the queen," said Innes urgently. "We've come from the king himself."

  "So a troop of Lord Beryn's Guard claimed only yesterday morning, but she would not see them—and the door stayed closed. So another one, rougher than you've ever seen the likes of, said yesterday evening, but she would not see him—and the door stayed closed. The queen has seen precious few these last eleven years. She'll not be changing her ways simply to see beggars looking for a fire."

  "She might," said Innes, drawing himself up tall. "Tell her that her son is here to see her."

  If the clouds had suddenly turned leaden and dropped with a clang onto the abbey, I could hardly have been more surprised.

  "She will be displeased should you keep me from her," added Innes.

  The attendant slanted her head and peered down at us warily."And where's the proof of this?"

  "The heart has no need of proof. Tell her."

  For a long moment she stared at Innes. "Is there a likeness?" she muttered to herself, and leaning back, she closed the window and was gone.

  "The queen's son?" I asked.

  Innes shrugged. "If she wouldn't open the door to Lord Beryn's Guard, what chance did we have as beggars?"

  "The queen will know that you're not her son."

  "But we'll be in the abbey, face to face. At least we can ask her the riddle."

  "The queen will dismiss us as soon as she sees us."

  "Tousle, you needn't always leap to point out the difficulties. This might be the only way to find the answer to the riddle."

  "Well, then," I said,"you should look the part." I took off the square-linked chain that Da had put around my neck and secured it around Innes's. He put his hand up to feel its cold metal.

  "Does this make me look the part of a prince?"

  "Not much."

  Innes grinned as the door to the abbey swung slowly open and the attendant beckoned us in. She led us across the courtyard, turning now and again to eye us suspiciously, as if we were there to make off with the abbey's treasures. And she must have told others of Innes's claim, for though Holy Sisters glided past with downcast faces, some murmuring prayers, they all turned their faces up at the last moment to catch a glimpse of us.

  Across the courtyard a stand of cherry trees had already started to bud. It seemed impossible for this time of year, yet there they were, their branches supple and starting to swell, as if in that protected corner of the world, the sun shone warmer and the cold winds swirled away. I imagined the scent of them blossomed out, and the shower of soft petals they would yield soon. I kept the thought close when we came to Saint Anne's Chapel and the attendant opened the door for us, then stood aside to let us in—still suspicious.

  I took Innes's elbow and led him into the sweet half darkness of the place. Slants of sunshine colored through the windows, but the sun was still too low for the beams to angle down to the floor. They floated high, a rainbow of light, like a canopy over us. Beneath them the air was heavy with the waxy scent of glowing candles and the spiced tinge of incense.

  At the far end of the chapel a wooden statue of Saint Anne paused above rows and rows of candles, her arms outstretched and open as if to welcome the Holy Child. And beneath her, just rising and smoothing her gown, was the queen.

  She stood, a dark pillar in front of the candles, her hands clasped in front of her, not moving. I could not see her face in the dimness of the place, but in her solemn stillness she bespoke royalty, and I knelt, pulling Innes down with me.

  "Come closer," she said, her voice low, almost husky.

  We did, passing through slices of colored light. Kneeling before her, I could see that she was not young. She had been beautiful, but no longer. She looked like someone who had cried until she found that crying brought no relief, and she had stopped not because the sadness was past, but because the sadness had no remedy.

  "Closer still," she said, and we rose and stood within arm's reach.

  "The boy from Wolverham who would defy a king to ask mercy for others," she said quietly.

  "Yes, Majesty."

  Then she turned to Innes. She lifted her hand and laid it across his face, running her fingertips along the scar that creased through his eyes. She brushed his dark hair back lightly from his forehead.

  "So it is you who claim to be my son." She shook her head. "How I wish it were true. For eleven years I have longed for him, stroked his hair just so in my mind's eye time and time and time again, and sung to him the songs that his nurse taught me to sing while I carried him in my womb." She looked back at Saint Anne behind her. "How many times have I implored the saint to bring my son to me, and how many times has she not brought him."

  "Majesty," began Innes.

  She turned back to us. "And now you come. But how can I tell if you are from the saint or just another temptation? How can I let myself hope, when if this hope too comes to nothing, it will carry away with it all faith entirely?"

  Innes's face wrinkled to a tightness.

  "Majesty," I said, "we have come from Wolverham, from the king, with a riddle to solve."

  "He was ever fond of riddles," she answered, her fingers on Innes's face again. "There is a likeness indeed here. And your hair is the right color."

  "We are to answer the riddle if we are to save the lives of those in rebellion against the Great Lords."

  The queen continued to stroke Innes's face, stroking and stroking. "Where is it you come from?" she asked.

  "Wolverham, Majesty," I answered.

  She nodded her head, but if she had heard, the answer meant little to her.

  "With a riddle," I added.

  But the queen gave no answer. Her fingers stopped, and she stared at Innes, as if trying to pierce her own blindness, as if she would dare to let herself for a moment believe, while knowing that believing was to give her hope its very last chance. She turned back over her shoulder to Saint Anne, now lit brightly by the growing sunlight, then turned again to Innes.

  "How is it that I'm to know?" she asked slowly. "How is it that I'm ever to know?"

  At this, Innes dropped to his knees. "Majesty, forgive us. We never meant to bring hurt, but we would say anything to see you. Anything to answer the riddle."

  The queen dropped her hand from Innes's face, and I waited for the disdainful dismissal she would give us. She had not even heard the riddle, let alone given us an answer, and I imagined the long trek back to Wolverham—if we would make it back to Wolverham—with an unsure answer from the miller.

  But the queen had not dropped her hand because of Innes's plea. Trembling, she reached out and took the square-linked chain with the tips of her fingers. She looked at it with open, puzzled eyes. "How can this be? This is not yours."

  "No,
Majesty."

  "How did you come by it?" she insisted.

  "It is mine," I said.

  She turned to me, and she was trembling. "Yours?"

  "It was given to me, by my da."

  "Not your mother?"

  "I never knew her."

  The queen let the necklace drop against Innes's chest. She took me by the shoulders and pressed her hands against my cheekbones. Her eyes were still large, and now even wild. She looked back and forth from us to Saint Anne, her hand trembling so that it shook like an autumn leaf about to lose its hold. "How can this be?" she said again. "One has the likeness but the other the necklace. I do not know. I do not know. And by all that is holy, I am afraid to hope without proof."

  "The heart has no need of proof," said Innes quietly.

  The queen looked once at Innes, then back to me. "The necklace," she said with a gasp, "is my own." Slowly she put an arm around my shaking self. And slowly she reached her other arm out and drew Innes to her. Then she drew us both tighter, tighter, tighter, as if she would take us into her. A great sob filled the chapel, a great and terrible sob that carried with it all the longing and pain of lonely years. She held on to us both as though there were nothing else in the world worth holding on to.

  Innes reached around her and laid his head against her breast. Her hand reached into his hair, and he began to sob.

  And I too yielded. Whether or not I was her son, I could have done nothing but yield. I put my arms around her, as tight as her own, and under the outstretched hands of Saint Anne, we all three wept with the terrible fullness that had seized us. We wept together, letting tears overwhelm us and carry us away like a tide, drowning in our hope and glad of the drowning, afraid to separate because we might find ourselves alive again in a world without a mother, without a son.

  Lord forgive me, Lord forgive me, there was a part of me, and not a tiny part, that wished that Innes were not here, that the queen and I were alone.

  But there was another part, and a bigger one, that grew more and more solid as we stood in that holy place. If I had wished, for a moment, that I was the one who had found his mother, I could also wish that it might be Innes who had found her. Even though it would shatter the bright prism of my own joy, I could still wish it.

  Perhaps our greatest groans are for those things that we wish to give away.

  So we stood in one another's arms as the brilliant light slanted closer and closer around us, until finally it covered us all in ruby and amethyst hues, before moving once again down to the shadows.

  Chapter Eight

  I do not know how long we might have stood there, bathed in that bright slanting light, holding on so tightly that our fingers ached with the strain of it. But the world never does stop, not for joy, not for sorrow. And finally the queen stepped back and laid her hands against our faces. "Have you been happy?" she asked. "Have you both been happy?"

  I nodded. But Innes did not. Gently she laid her forehead against his and seemed to breathe into him. "I have been so alone," he said.

  She nodded. She understood.

  "And you?" Innes asked. "Have you been happy?"

  "Not for a long time. I am not sure that I even remember what it is to be happy."She paused, considering."! comforted myself with the thought that if my son was no longer in my hands, so too was he out of the hands of the Great Lords. But it was only cold comfort."

  "Majesty," said Innes,"I cannot say that I am your son."

  "Nor can I," I said.

  She smiled at us both. "Nor can I say that I am your mother." She dropped her warm palms from our cheeks and grasped our hands. "But here I am, and here you are. And after all, nothing is ever quite by chance."

  The words startled me to silence. I had heard them before.

  "Majesty," asked Innes,"do you know what happened to your son?"

  A long moment passed.

  "I let him be taken," she said finally. "I let him be taken. Taken by a tiny little man with a strange and curious gait, and eyes that popped out like a frog's, and fingers as long as spindles. He riddled me for his name, and when I could not answer his riddle, he carried my son away in a basket." She spoke very quietly now."He was asleep and did not even see me as the little man left." Her hands went to her face, and in the silence she heaved a sob so long, so grieved, that it seemed her soul was flying from her.

  A hand reached out and seized my heart. It began to squeeze.

  And all the while Saint Anne looked down upon us, and the holy candles flickered.

  "Did you hate him?" I asked in a whisper.

  She nodded. "I came to this chapel to practice hate. And there was so much to practice upon. A fool of a father who made an idle boast. A cowardly husband who feared more than he loved. A tiny man who clutched my baby to himself." She looked up at the saint. "But I found something else here too, something I did not expect." She leaned down and whispered."What if it was love that took away my child and banished me from the castle?"

  "It was not love," I said.

  She smiled. "For eleven years I have pondered these things and told no one, except her." She nodded back to Saint Anne."What if it was love? What if my child was taken to protect him from the Great Lords? What if a king, who feared so much that he pushed even happiness away, banished his queen so she too would be safe from them? What if it was love?"

  "Then you could forgive," said Innes.

  She looked at both of us, and again her eyes filled. "Then I could forgive. And perhaps the day might come when there would be even more."

  Bells rang, and the queen looked around the chapel."But we have forgotten the day." She passed her hands over her face once, then again, and together we walked out into a gentle swaddling of sunlight. We stood for a moment by the side of Saint Anne's Chapel, in a sunny spot whose grass had warmed to a green.

  Innes's arms were tight around his chest, as if he were holding himself together, and when I looked at the queen in that first light, I knew that I was not the queen's own son. God in heaven, I was not.

  And oddly enough, the hand that had gripped my heart loosened.

  "What spins out now took its place on the wheel long ago," Da had said. In this guarded spot, near the swelling fruit trees—cherry or peach or whatever they were—I wondered what pattern was being woven for me—what pattern I might weave for me.

  "Majesty," Innes said at last,"shall I return your necklace?"

  "No," she said gently. "It looks all the better on you—though it is no longer mine to give or to take."

  "It is yours," I said to Innes. "The little man told me that I would know when to give it away. So now it is yours."

  "The little man?" the queen asked.

  "The little man with the strange and curious gait, the eyes that pop out like a frog's, and the fingers as long as spindles."

  "The little man told you to give it away?"

  "Yes, Majesty."

  "But how could you have known him?"

  "Majesty, he is my da." She stared at me."Nothing is ever quite by chance," I repeated.

  "You are sure that..."

  "I am, Majesty."

  "Such a strange thing," she murmured, "that he would say that." She looked deeply into me.

  "The necklace, Majesty, belongs to Innes," I said simply.

  And she nodded. She knew. She knew. She knew beyond hope. Everything in her spirit rang its truth. She turned to Innes with a joy august and giddy at the same time, a joy that sounded like the bells of the dawn. She reached out to him, then looked at me. I smiled, and then she filled his hands with her own.

  The sun was now shining fully onto the abbey grounds, and from one of the chapels came the tones of chanted prayers, low and even. I wondered how many days had passed here just like this one, always the same quiet lapping of the hours, one day softly rippling into the next. There must have been a time when the abbey chapels were being built, but now they looked as if their stones had simply emerged from a clearing fog one primeval day, and as if the w
arming sun had drawn the moss and ivy up from the ground to soften and green the edges. Nothing seemed to have changed here for a very long time.

  Except on this day.

  "Majesty," said Innes,"we still have the riddle from the king."

  She smiled, almost laughed, hardly able to keep from picking him up and cradling him to her. Perhaps she did not because she did not have the strong heft of the nurse. Or perhaps she did not because she knew it might hurt me. Perhaps it would have.

  "And what is the riddle?" she asked.

  "What fills a hand fuller than a skein of gold?" Innes recited.

  And then she was no longer laughing. "Is this from the king?"

  "It is."

  She looked at me. "And when he gave it, was he mocking?"

  "No," I said. "There was no mocking in his eyes. There was..."

  "Yes? What was in his eyes?"

  "Majesty, I think he was hoping we might solve the riddle."

  "Perhaps he had hope for even more." She stepped away from us and reached up into the boughs of a cherry tree, pulling a branch down to her. Its buds were filling with the juice of early spring, and she fingered one carefully. "The riddle," she asked,"was it given in the presence of the Great Lords?"

  I nodded.

  "And Lord Beryn. He heard the riddle?"

  "Yes, Majesty."

  "Majesty," asked Innes slowly, "do you know the answer?"

  She looked at him and again took his hands in hers. "Since the day the king sent me from the castle, I have been called back to Wolverham only a handful of days. And on each of those days, the Great Lords have not allowed me to speak to him alone. Never once. They listen to all his words, they watch all he does. But they cannot read his eyes. And reading eyes is something a miller's daughter learns to do if she is to know which of her customers has weighed his grain truly and which not."

  "Majesty," said Innes,"did the king's eyes tell you that he was banishing you from the castle because he loved you?"

  The queen's startled hand went to her heart, and she looked at Innes with puzzlement.

  "Do you know the answer to the riddle?" I asked quietly.