The girl looked up, as if she heard something. I followed her gaze down the road to a column of soldiers on horseback. Two knights rode at the head of the train, followed by perhaps a dozen others. They rode under my oak tree and paused their horses on the bridge.
“Look at that,” said the heavier of the two knights, nodding toward the girl. I heard his voice as if it were in my own head. “Pretty little thing.”
“Have her,” said the other. I knew the voice immediately, and with it I saw the face for who it was. Lear, younger, stronger, not nearly so grey, but Lear as sure as I’d ever seen him. The hawk nose, the crystal-blue eyes. It was him.
“No,” said the younger man. “We need to make York by nightfall. We’ve no time to find an inn.”
“Come here, girl,” called Lear.
The girl came up the bank to the road, keeping her eyes to the ground.
“Here!” barked Lear. The girl hurried across the bridge until she stood only a few feet from him.
“Do you know who I am, girl?”
“A gentleman, sir.”
“A gentleman? I am your king, girl. I am Lear.”
The girl fell to her knees and stopped breathing.
“This is Canus, Duke of York, Prince of Wales, son of King Bladud, brother to King Lear, and he would have you.”
“No, Lear,” said the brother. “This is madness.”
The girl was trembling now.
“You are brother to the king and you may have whom you want, when you want,” said Lear. He climbed off his horse. “Stand up, girl.”
The girl did, but stiffly, as if she were bracing for a blow. Lear took her chin in his hand and lifted it. “You are a pretty thing. She’s a pretty thing, Canus, and she is mine. I give her to you.”
The king’s brother’s eyes were wide and there was hunger there, but he said, “No, we haven’t time—”
“Now!” boomed Lear. “You’ll have her now!”
With that Lear grabbed the front of the girl’s frock and ripped it, exposing her breasts. When she tried to cover up he pulled her arms away. Then he held her and barked commands while his brother raped her on the wide stone rail of the bridge. When Canus had finished and fell breathless between her legs, Lear shouldered him aside then lifted the girl by the waist and threw her over the rail into the river.
“Clean yourself!” he shouted. Then he patted his brother’s shoulder. “There, she’ll not haunt your dreams tonight. All subjects are property of the king, and mine to give, Canus. You may have any woman you want except one.”
They mounted their horses and rode away. Lear hadn’t even looked to see if she could swim.
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry out. All during the attack on the girl I felt as if I’d been lashed to the tree. Now I watched her crawl naked from the river, her clothes in tatters behind her, and she curled into a ball on the riverbank and sobbed.
Suddenly I was whisked out of the tree, like a feather on an errant wind, and I settled on the roof of a two-story house in a village. It was market day, and everyone was out, going from cart to cart, table to table, bargaining for meat and vegetables, pottery and tools.
A girl stumbled down the street, a pretty little thing, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with a tiny babe in arms. She stopped at every booth and showed them the babe, then the villagers would reward her with rude laughter and send her to the next booth.
“He’s a prince,” she said. “His father was a prince.”
“Go away, girl. You’re mad. No wonder no one will have you, tart.”
“But he’s a prince.”
“He looks to be a drowned puppy, lass. You’ll be lucky if he lives the week out.”
From one end of the village to the other she was laughed at and scorned. One woman, who must have been the girl’s mother, simply turned away and hid her face in shame.
I floated overhead as the girl ran to the edge of town, across the bridge where she’d been raped, and up to a compound of stone buildings, one with a great soaring steeple. A church. She made her way to the wide double door, and there, she lay her baby on the steps. I recognized those doors, I’d seen them a thousand times. This was the entrance to the abbey at Dog Snogging. The girl ran away and I watched, as a few minutes later, the doors opened and a broad-shouldered nun bent and picked up the tiny, squalling baby. Mother Basil had found him.
Suddenly I was at the river again, and the girl, that pretty little thing, stood on the wide stone rail of the bridge, crossed herself, and leapt in. She did not swim. The green water settled over her.