The Kingmaker's Pawn

Chapter One

Isabelle often remembered Anne's birth. The wails from her mother's quarters as Anne was given life and the constant nagging from her father as he stood with her. He was telling her brother would be with them soon. Isabelle was rather excited, a little brother would be most fun to play with. She didn't know what baby siblings were really like, and she remembered the times before when the bundles had come out silent and breathless and red with blood. She had presumed this little sibling would be the same. Isabelle did not stop her fretting, that little girl of five paced with her father, until she finally heard a cry erupt from the babies lungs. A sound she would always endure as Anne lay snivelling beside her in their bed.

Reluctant to turn over Isabelle tried to close her eyes and sleep. The coronation was tomorrow, she didn't want to miss anything. She wanted to see this new queen her father talked so distastefully of. She wanted to know if she was really a commoner like her father said. Yet how could she get the eye of the one they called the most beautiful woman in England if she wore bags beneath her eyes from a sleepless night caused by her baby sister.

"Do be quiet, Annie." Isabelle sighed as she tucked her self tighter within the sheets and forced her eyes shut. For a moment there was silence then she felt a small finger prod her back. "What?" Isabelle snapped yet her voice went no louder than a whisper.

"It's cold," Anne complained, "and I want Lady Mother."

"Well Lady Mother is in her chambers. We cannot interrupt her. And she shall be sleeping as you should be, Annie." Isabelle told her sister. "So sleep."

"But I'm too excited." Anne said giddily and made the bed bounce. Isabelle finally turned to face her younger sister and rolled her eyes.

"Then why are you crying?" Isabelle asked as Anne's grin widened. "If your excited. Why cry?"

"Because I am tired, and my legs are cold." Anne moaned and her grin slipped away. "And I don't like these rooms."

"Well I cannot help the rooms. And if you are cold wrap the sheets around you." Isabelle rolled back to face away from her sister. "Now sleep will you. The queen won't like a crying baby. You'll never be one of her ladies if you cry. Queens don't like girls that act like babies." Anne gulped loudly as she began to weep again, she shook and slowly reach out a small hand and placed it on Isabelle. Isabelle shrugged her sister away, nestling her head into the sheets in the hope Anne might just vanish. Now that would be pleasant.

"I'm not a baby." Anne muttered to herself as she tried to tug some of the sheets from Isabelle who had almost created a nest around herself which excluded her from her sister. Isabelle prepared to give some witty remark to her sister, but she knew it would start of her crying again so she kept quiet.

Isabelle wondered how the queen would behave, if she should flaunt herself as her father said she did at court or be a good queen. If she would kneel before the bishop and accept his blessings, although if god were just he would place a true queen on the throne not a commoner. He would take the crown from her and give it to Bona of Savoy, the woman who Isabel's father had wished for the king to marry.

There was still time, if only the king would listen to her father.

Isabelle let out a grumble and a sigh before slipping into her sleep. Anne fell soon after, holding to one of Isabelle's arm as if it were the last thing she would ever touch.

Even as she slept Isabelle heard Anne's crying. That little pink bundle that emerged from her mothers chambers, squirming. She was bigger than the others, Isabelle remembered her father saying the others were early by many months that Anne had come just right which was why she lived. Isabelle wished it had been another that had lived, Anne moaned too much, she was a child and believed Isabelle was too. Isabelle was almost a woman. She was a woman, her chest was not a child's and she wore dresses tailored for women and beautiful headdresses, little girls did not dress as she did. She was almost so tall at their mother. Yet Anne thought her a little girl, what a fool she was. Isabelle would soon enough be married. At least then she would not have to put up with Anne's moaning.