The Innocent (32 page)

It was on the feast of Saint Thomas, four days before Christmas, that the new pregnancy of the queen was deemed safe enough to be announced to the court. The king signified his pleasure and satisfaction with Elizabeth by holding a special High Mass with prayers dedicated to the child, and for the safe delivery of the queen. Afterward at supper that night it was decreed that a special tournament would be held at Windsor in the new year to celebrate the coming baby. Edward himself would take part; he, with Hastings and eleven other picked knights, to make up the same mystic number as the Lord and his disciples, would challenge a team of knights to be led by the Earl of Warwick.

There was a moment’s silence before the court applauded, but afterward conversation buzzed with what this could mean. Was this an honor that the king was bestowing on the earl, or was it meant to be a sign of some sort? Whichever team won, there would be much at stake and that would add piquancy to the contest.

Anne, sitting silent with her companions in the shadows at the end of the board during the feast, felt her heart squeeze with fear. She’d never seen a tourney but she’d heard about them. Staged combat was a sport that everyone discussed, but it was dangerous, even with blunted swords, and she was frightened for the king, and the kingdom.

Perhaps it was the strength of the wine that night, perhaps it was the unrelenting tension of being in the king’s presence and the emotional exhaustion she felt, but when Anne slipped into sleep after the feast, black terror stalked her. In the otherworld of night, men hacked each other with swords and axes, sharp blades bit bright steel as blood soaked the ground. The screams of dying horses drenched the air with formless agony and Anne could not look away, she was the center of the conflict, and through it all, through the terrible carnage, there stalked the figure of the Sword-Mother, Aine. Anne was grateful, so grateful, that Aine’s face was turned away, because the Mother’s forearms and breastplate were red with blood, and if she turned and saw…But in the midst of the shouting and screaming, Anne stumbled away unscathed, one thought only in her mind: find Edward, find him before it was too late…

Too late for…what? Suddenly the Sword-Mother was standing in front of her, slowly, so slowly turning her face, turning it toward Anne, and with a breaking heart, the girl saw Edward lying beneath her feet, wounded, bleeding…

Heart hammering, breath burning in her lungs, Anne forced herself to wake. The vast building was silent around her, and black, yet the resonance of terror remained, the overwhelming certainty that Edward was in danger and needed help.

As the beating of her heart settled, Anne knew what she had to do. Quietly, stealthily, she stole away from her bed among the queen’s body servants dropping a shift over her naked body, and wrapping herself in a thick cloak with a hood. In felt slippers she ran soundlessly down to the little Norman chapel used by the court at Windsor. Kneeling at a stall in the dark choir, she began to pray for Edward’s safety in the tourney as tears slipped unheeded down her face.

The chapel was dark but for the light kept burning before the pyx, and the stone walls breathed cold.

Anne shivered, wrapped the thick cloak tighter, and set her mind on God, the Christian God, but it was hard to concentrate on prayer, to reach the Lord, when images of the king’s face, eyes closing as he died, were all she saw. In terror, she squeezed her eyes tight shut, but then something odd happened.

She heard voices whispering.

There were two others with her in the chapel now; men, from the bass tone of their quiet conversation.

She shrank back into the stall, desperate not to be seen, then, when she dared to look again, she saw a flash of gold close to the altar as one of the men threw back the fold of his cloak and turned his face into the light. Her heart lurched. It was the king! Then she saw her mistake. This man was the Duke of Clarence—George, the king’s younger brother—and the other was the Earl of Warwick.

Anne prickled with fear. The earl was standing with his hand on the prince’s shoulder talking to him urgently, and from the scowl on Clarence’s face it was clear the duke did not like what he heard.

From a distance, it was easy to mistake the younger brother for the king—they were both tall and fair—

but close up the resemblance faltered. It was as if, when Clarence was formed, the mold that minted his brother had blurred just slightly. His hair was not so bright, he had bad skin—unlike Edward—and a petulant mouth. He was also easily upset and—a foolish thing at court—showed it.

The gossip said he was hot to marry Isabelle, Warwick’s eldest daughter and a great heiress since the earl had no sons. She was only fourteen and Clarence was older by some seven years, but he’d lusted after her since she was twelve.

“He will not permit the marriage.”

“Why not?” The duke almost stamped his feet, and Anne could see him clearly as he turned to stare angrily off into darkness—as if his brother might be lurking in the shadows ready to challenge him.

Warwick shrugged, eloquently. Not for him to speculate, that shrug said.

“I see his game. He’s frightened of me!” Clarence had a penetrating voice and Warwick looked around nervously, worried they would be overheard.

“Frightened?” the earl queried.

“Warwick, how can you be so dense? Edward, my precious brother, knows he’s none so secure on this throne. Everyone hates the queen even if she is pregnant again. But if I were to wed Isabelle, why, the whole of the north would be ours. I’d be a real threat, wouldn’t I? You’ve put one brother on this throne

—why not the other?”

Warwick mumbled something in reply, something Anne could not catch, but she saw his face—for a moment it flashed with something like triumph. “Wishful thinking, I fear, Your Grace. Still, it’s true that the people are murmuring again. Lawlessness is on the rise. Men say your brother spends much time in the bed of the queen.”

The duke snorted. “And plentiful others.”

Anne flinched, unwilling to hear what so many people took for fact.

Again the earl shrugged smoothly and changed the subject. “However, the case is that the country needs governing and our king seems tardy learning the art of good governance.”

“And the cursed Wydevilles are a plague of locusts consuming the substance of this kingdom.

Warwick, I will not bear it.”

“We shall need to move carefully, Your Grace. Gently and slowly. However, by some means I shall contrive, you shall have Isabelle. That is my promise.”

As the two men moved away together out of the chapel, the earl’s words hung in the cold night air like smoke. Anne stayed where she was in the dark, all thought of prayer banished, until she was sure the two men were gone, and then she slipped out the way she had come, her mind even more troubled than when she had arrived.

Anne was abstracted as she approached the little room she shared with the others, until she cannoned into someone dressed in a fine velvet dressing gown. Edward. He was leaving the queen’s bed, tousled and sleepy, to go back to his own quarters, holding a candle to light his way. Her anguished dreams were suddenly made flesh, and before she could stop herself she signed the cross, tears in her eyes, as if to keep him safe. Then it came to her; he was real, this was no dream, and she snatched her hand back, hoping that in the confusion of the moment, he’d not seen. Shakily, she bobbed a panicked curtsy, then tried to hurry toward the dorter, and safety, when he put out a lazy arm to stop her.

“Well, now…it’s dark, and very late. Or rather, very early. What have we here? Anne, returning from a tryst?”

“No, sire!” Anne was glad he could not see her clearly in the darkened passageway—she felt the blood heat her face and neck.

He was amused. “Oh? What, then?” Anne was silent. “Very enigmatic, sweet child.” The hand he’d put out to stop her flight was resting gently on her shoulder now, and he moved a step closer, his body between her and the door of the dorter. He spoke softly, as he would to a hawk unsettled in the mews.

The girl shivered, unwittingly closed her eyes and swallowed. He smiled, moved nearer, smoothly pulled her closer so that she stood against him as he stroked her back. “So, where have you been, hmm?

So late?”

For a moment, Anne was lulled by his words and relaxed against the broad chest, the pleasure of his touch running through her body; wanting, oh, wanting so much that he would lean down and…But then, in a flash, as one of his hands slipped inside her cloak and slid down to her waist, pulling her tighter against him, she realized she had to stop what was happening. “No…” It was agony to whisper the word when she so wanted him to go on, but she found the strength, though her throat nearly closed with the effort of saying it.

“No?” he murmured. But he stilled his hand, which had found its way to a breast and was stroking it, so gently, so lightly. “So be it—if you make me a promise.” He dropped his hand. Quickly she pulled the cloak around her and nodded.

“Tomorrow, when I ask it of you, you will tell me the truth.”

“What truth, sire?”

“The truth of where you’ve been tonight. On your honor.” He smiled down at her. “Good night, Anne.”

And then he stooped down, pulled her to him, and kissed her on the mouth. She was overwhelmed, beyond conscious thought; her mouth opened under his and for one dark, sweet moment, as he held her so tightly, the world snuffed out. There was only this man, this girl. Then he let her go.

“Tomorrow.” And he was gone. And she was left alone to find her bed, mind spinning, body shivering from fear, love, dread, and cold.

Chapter Twenty-three

The next morning dawned freezing and wet. It was as if the earth mourned, the sleet of frozen tears hitting the windows in the royal apartments of Windsor like pebbles.

The queen had slept badly after the king’s visit, so she’d been pleased with nothing this morning, and then, just as they’d finally got her fully clothed, she’d rushed to the garderobe to vomit but had got there too late and sprayed green bile down the front of one of her favorite gowns. Then it had been frenzy as all five of the girls, and her gentlewomen servitors, cannoned into one another as they tried to find something else Elizabeth would agree to wear.

So it was a miracle that the queen had arrived at Mass on time, and now, after the court had gone out hunting—the queen with a green face but determined not to give in—the servants sat companionably together at mending and embroidering in the queen’s smaller solar. Anne was brooding and tense.

“Anne! Pay attention to your work. You’ve not set a stitch for ten minutes—what can you be thinking about?”

Embarrassed, Anne tried with all her will to banish the memory of Edward’s body against hers, the hard muscles in his arms, the softness of his mouth on hers, as she went on with repairing the lacing holes in one of the queen’s dresses. Morning had made that moment distant, surreal, something that might never have happened, except that it had. And it was wrapped around by the fog of treason, the things she had heard in the chapel, her anguished fears. Agitated, she automatically plunged the needle into the material, misjudged, and rammed it into her finger on the other side. She yelped and blood seeped onto the expensive yellow velvet.

“Now see! Foolish girl! Give it to me, quickly, quickly. We must not let the stain set.” Jehanne snatched up the gown and ran into the garderobe with it, followed by Anne sucking her finger, anxious to make amends. “Fuller’s earth: the special white. Quickly now! Oh, we have no old urine! Cold water then, quickly…”

Carefully and quickly, Jehanne dampened the area of the cloth that had blood on it, and then, making a thin paste of the finely ground white clay, pressed it on to the blot. “There now, it needs to be left alone to dry. And then we can brush it out and perhaps…only perhaps, mind…it will take the stain with it.”

Anne nodded dumbly and then sat down abruptly on a coffer, the strength in her legs draining away.

Jehanne looked at her sharply. “Very well. What is it?”

Anne felt defeated. Where should she begin? she wondered, even as she spoke. “Last night. That is, I was in the chapel and they were there. I was so frightened, for the king, and then he, well…he…” Anne stumbled to a halt but her face said it all. Fear and confusion and…something else. Jehanne’s eyebrows went up. Something serious had gone on.

Jehanne helped Anne to her feet and led the unresisting girl out through the solar as she issued orders to Evelyn. “Evelyn, Anne is not well. I’m taking her to the dorter to give her some physic. You will be my deputy here, and when you have finished your current tasks, we must prepare warm, dry clothes for the queen. Rose, come and find me immediately if you hear the hunt returning. They surely can’t stay out long in this.”

She led the girl out of the room and closed the door on the cosy warmth. The passage outside was icy as a bitter wind chased itself through a badly shuttered window; it was colder inside the building than out.

When they reached the corner tower near the queen’s rooms where the dorter was, Jehanne wrenched the door open, and for once, Anne was glad it was so small. There was even a brazier with a few coals still burning, so the room was not entirely frigid. Jehanne struck flint and lit the wick of two small oil lights that struggled to make an impression on the winter gloom.

“Now, Anne, I can see something is bothering you. Let me just find the tonic Doctor Moss gave me for the winter ills. You need something to give you heart, I can see that. Now, where is it…”

Anne watched as the old woman bustled about, wondering how she would find the words to voice what she knew. And realizing that if she confided in Jehanne about the king, she would be prevented from being close to him ever again. She closed her eyes. That thought was too much to bear.

“Here it is.” With a triumphant flourish, the old woman produced a small stoppered clay bottle and pulled out the rag plug. “Here now, just two swallows.” It was an effort for Anne to sip the bitter fluid from the little bottle. “So, now. Tell me.”