Anais Timbley - A deadly beauty

Chapter Eight: Loyalty

On someday in the beginning of May 1242...

The then seventeen-year-old Anais and the fourteen-year-old Lucille's lives had changed dramatically since the scroll was delivered to them. Anais would leave the castle early at dawn in order to not being noticed and rushed into the Forest for her fencing training while Lucille started taking her sister's place in gathering intelligence for the Rebellion. In Alan-a-Dale's opinion, Lucille would make a better spy than her elder sister while Anais would make a better assassin than her younger sister.

A morning of a day without training, Anais wandered into the town for refreshing. King Henry had started having affection to his young queen Eleanor in respect of her newly-bloomed beauty, thus making the mistress free to do anything she pleased. However, the sisters couldn't leave the castle yet. There was still a step in Lucille's master strategy which hadn't been accomplished, with a risk of being discovered. In Lucille's eyes, the greatest threat to her plan to now wasn't the King, but his royal advisor; thus a warning must Anais carve into her mind: stay away from Lord Macley, or else the same fate of their parents would come. They had to live, for the predecessors' sakes.

The young countess returned to the Abbey, where she had spent her five years to ease the pain in her heart. She missed the nuns, her adoptive sisters and brothers; and especially the abbess, Mother Maiseline, who had been sixty-four at the moment.

Her brothers and sisters had partially left the Abbey. Some became friars and nuns, some were adopted. Mother Maiseline was in the praying room as usual; and Alan-a-Dale, routinely, had paid a visit.

"Long time no see, dear child. You looks as gorgeous as a bouquet of roses, relatively like your late mother", commented Alan-a-Dale, standing outside the room and waiting. He could see Lady Timbley, the time when she was still a maiden, in the young countess' eyes; yet also a faint silhouette of the former queen, whose destiny had been entrusted onto this young successor.

"Sir...", she spoke, "I am confused..."

"What hath made thou confused, my child?", inquired Sir Allan.

"It seems that I have made a wrong move... What if anyone will see through my mask, what if I displease His Majesty, what if—"

"What if thou dost not trust thyself? Thy fate could have been worse, I say"

Sir Allan cut short before Anais could finish. She bowed her head in despair, uncertainty and low self-esteem. Then the door opened and Mother Maiseline, holding a old marble rosary with a silver crucifix. Seeing Anais had been a courteous, mature lady, especially she had been sacrificing her youth serving for her beloved people, Mother Maiseline could not prevent a tear from blurring her sight.

"Oh, I am sorry. I didn't know thou returned...", greeted Mother Maiseline.

"I have just visited, Mother. I am afeard this will be the last time..."

"The last time? What were thou saying?"

"The King doth not love me like he was before, and Lord Macley has been having a cautious eye on both of us. I am afeard it is not safe for my kind people anymore..."

"That accursèd adviser of the king! His hands hath been stained by noble blood of many, didst Our Lord forgive him yet!", Mother Maiseline gritted under her breath in a brief fury.

For many years Anais seldom saw Mother Maiseline being in such anger. A calm and collected person she was, what had turned a kind abbess into her hatred?

"My child, in circumstances like these, let us put our faith in which we believe in and put our loyalty in whom we deem worthy...", prayed Mother Maiseline, "Believe in your sister and your own's prowess, God have blessing upon you"

"Sister! Sister!", called the rushing voice of Lucille from the hall.

"We are here, child!", responded Sir Allan.

Here came the Shakespeare daughter, one of two sole survivors of the massacre. Now at the gorgeous eighteen, she was a budding flower amongst the old green of Sherwood Forest.

"Calm thy panic, my child. Tell us what maketh thee pale as a ghost", asked the minstrel.

"His Majesty is suspecting Anais for being a traitor. Lord Macley hath been noticing her leaving the castle so frequently he thinks she must have been spying for the Francs!", informed Lucille, panicking.

"I— a traitor?", stuttered Anais, surprised.

Sir Allan sat down a bench, glancing at the rosary and silver crucifix Mother Maiseline was holding, sighed.

"In the world that the King holdeth the utmost power, thy head could have parted from thy neck at any time the King wisheth. Traitor to the King could well mean treason to the kingdom, which bringeth thou to nothing but the scaffold..."

"Sir... What shall I do, sir?!"

"The best way I can tell, thou must sever ties with us, the Revolutionary, to keep thy loyalty to the royal unscathed. Let us remain in silence for a while, for the sake of thee children. Thou shalt not appear having affiliated with us, or else that damnèd advisor wilst accuse thee for treachery and...", suddenly he paused, "...execution is inevitable..."

The first time in her life, she knew her loyalty was going to be tested. Either her loyalty vowed unto the royal or the peasants, and neither choice was better. If she pleaded loyalty to King Henry, she was essentially betraying what her father and his friends had been fighting for; if she stood by the peasants' side, it was obvious "traitor to the crown" was the name she would be given.

"I... understand", replied Anais tearfully, "Farewell... I hope there would be a day I could see you again..."

The former minstrel laid a hand on the shoulder of the daughter of his old friend, whom he always saw as his own child. He wished to protect her— and little Lucille— from the harms which his Revolution path might bring, but this was painful, to be the adversary of the ones whom he regarded as his daughters.

"If there will be a day we see each other again, my child... it will be on the battlefield... With you as the most valued sniper of the Royal and I - the commander of the Rebellion whom you must eliminate...", said the old minstrel, a tone of anguish in his voice.

"I would never pick up the bow... I would never shoot my arrows at you, my sir, my Uncle Alan-a-Dale..."

"Then it would be sword-to-sword, my child..."

He gave a motion gesturing that the encounter was inevitable once a war broke out. He was once a wanted spy in the time of the First Barons' War, thus now being hunted didn't faze the old minstrel at all. Alan-a-Dale's calm expression and thought when talking about falling by his ward's hands reminisced himself of that moment Anaivere Plantagenet kneeled down in front of the block; though he didn't witness, Lord Timbley's niece had told him the whole thing as she went to visit her uncle. Though he said as if unfazed of the inevitable encounter, inside he honestly wished such a day would not come.