Anais Timbley - A deadly beauty

Chapter Six: Lady Adelaide and Maid Oliva

"Mother, please give me an advice... Whatever it is... I don't know what to do either...", said Anais, buried her face in her hands. The abbess looked at the girl with somewhat a regretful sight. And didn't say anything, she stepped out of the rosary room. Alan-a-Dale and Lucille were waiting outside.

"Does that child make you recall of something, Mother Maiseline?", grinned Alan-a-Dale.

"Terrible memories, sir", replied Mother Maiseline while trying to avoid the minstrel's eyes.

"Mother...", cried Lucille, "What shall us do?"

"Follow what your conscience says", Mother Maiseline just said simply that.

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The following day's morning...

Anais dressed herself in a golden-rimmed, trumpet-sleeved jade gown and a hooded cloak over her golden brown braids tied in a bun. When the sisters saw Anais that morning, they wondered if the abbess could find some resemblances; nevertheless, it was the very gown which had been worn by the late monarch when she was around Anais's age.

In the strategy what was planned by the grandniece of the Master-spy, first step, was relied on Anais; or her beauty, to be exact. She would act as an under-spy from inside the Royal, gather intelligences for Lucille to draw the next steps. Now, they were heading to the castle.

"Who knows the child of the Maiden will be a brilliant strategist? And who knows Queen Anaivere would have a successor?", Alan monologued said when the sisters left the Abbey. "Only the time will tell..."

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Nottingham Castle....

"I am afraid I cannot annul the marriage, Your Majesty. There are..."

"Thou art the Archbishop, and I desire an annulment for our marriage!", the King slammed the desk, and looked furiously at the poor Archbishop of Canterbury, who had just been ordered for audience. Yes, the King would like to divorce with his fourteen-year-old queen Eleanor of Provence. However, the Archbishop didn't agree with that and refused to annul their marriage.

"Her Majesty is utterly loyal to you, and she is a French noblewoman. This is a political treaty which keeps the French from battling with England. Think of it thoroughly again, Your Majesty; that is the decision which decides the fate of the whole kingdom!", cried the Archbishop.

"His Excellency is right, Your Majesty! You cannot risk the peace of our kingdom by a mere wish to marry a lady whom you had just first sighted!", claimed the Bishop of Nottingham, who had just arrived a moment ago.

"Thee also? It is indeed that Eleanor is a good and loyal lady, however I do not love her; just like I hated my Grandmother and her worthless will!", argued King Henry. "Yet I respected my Grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, even I did not see her in person; nevertheless, who she bequeathed her title and the duchy of Aquitaine for? A Plantagenet whom she chose to be my Father's heir apparent before I was born, that cursed Rose of Eden and her legacy!"

Right when King Henry almost vented his anger at the Clergies, a guard disrupted by coming in and informed him that his lady had come with her maid. He ordered the guard to let her in, and the Clergies to step aside.

Anais and Lucille were led to the chamber where King Henry was waiting; or arguing with the Clergies, the King looked surely like he was completely seduced by that lady.

"You are here, my Aphrodite", claimed the King in joy, "my fiancée".

Anais and Lucille both curtseyed before the monarch and the Clergies. The Archbishop took a glance at her and then decidedly claimed:

"We cannot annul your marriage with Her Majesty for this woman you love!"

"His Holiness will not please if a war is started by an annulled marriage which against the Heaven's sake!", added the Bishop.

Knowing that he could not offend the Church, he agreed not to have his marriage with Queen Eleanor annulled; but instead he ordered Anais and Lucille to be allowed to move into the castle, as his mistress. And now, the Clergies had no way to object the King's order; by the way, it was considered normal if a king could have mistresses beside his officially queen.

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Anais and Lucille were led by a guard ordered by King Henry to a bedchamber in the north tower. He said that King Henry had had this chamber prepared specially for Lady Adelaide when she came. And Lady Adelaide was here, and her Maid Oliva.

The guard then informed them about the times for meals and prayer, and left right after. Lucille silently smirked as her strategy's first step had been accomplished well, and Anais wandered around the chamber to get used with it in the first time. Suddenly, she noticed something. An old longbow was left in the empty wardrobe along with some as old arrows. The longbow looked alike to the longbow she found with the rapier in the chest under her bed, but smaller, fit for the hands of a six or seven-year-old. Furthermore, Lucille also spotted an old locket on the vanity, which bore the name Sylvia Walther.

"Sister, is this thing familiar to you?", asked Lucille while showing Anais the locket.

Anais glanced at it for a moment then gasped in surprise.

"Sylvia Walther is my mother's maiden name!", claimed Anais and grabbed the locket from Lucille's hand.

"So she was once a royalty?", Lucille asked with curiosity.

"No, Uncle William once told me she was the Queen's lady-in-waiting"

"My mother once stated that she was formerly a late queen's maid before she got married"

"Was the queen our mother served Queen Isabella of Angoulême?"

"I don't know. She never directly mentioned about Queen Isabella, but she did connote the queen as 'Lady Renata'. I didn't think Queen Isabella was once called by the name Renata"

"Anaivere Renata Plantagenet, is it not?"

Lucille stopped for a moment, then her eyes brigtened. "Who did you say?", asked she.

"Seemingly, I once heard Uncle Alan-a-Dale mentioned about that name when he talked with Mother Maiseline. But I have no idea about who Anaivere Renata Plantagenet is", replied Anais.

"Plantagenet, thus that person must be a royalty", added Lucille.

"I have no idea. But if your mother did mention her as Lady Renata, then that person would rather be a nobility than a royalty"

"We have no idea"

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Anais and Lucille had blended in the Royal as the King's mistress and her maid, whose identities were known as "Lady Adelaide" and "Maid Oliva". What was the next step in Lucille Shakespeare's plan?