The Innocent (30 page)

Down by the river the bargemen waited, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingerless gloves. The first faint streaks of watery gray light could be seen in the eastern sky but the dank river mist made for a miserable wait.

There was a sudden stirring in the dark air as Lord Hastings arrived among them, warmly dressed in a fur-lined cloak with a large, flat velvet hat on his head, lappets hanging down to protect his ears from the cold. The bargemen liked their master. He never forgot their service on these cold mornings and was free with groats and, sometimes, pennies—and he knew their names.

Today, though, William was abstracted, barely acknowledged the men on his barge. In the haste to leave he’d not had himself shaved and there was at least a day’s strong black stubble on his face that the torchlight picked out as he jumped down onto the little back deck of the gilded and painted craft.

He looked tired, and for a moment, in the torchlight, it was possible to see the old man he would become in time. Then he yawned mightily and dispelled the illusion—all strong white teeth and red mouth and not one gray hair in his head.

Once settled in the barge, brooding on all he had to do, the journey up the river against the tide was as swift as his men could make it, but even so, it was nearly full light before they docked at the palace water stairs. William was cursing roundly as he ran toward the king’s chamber surrounded by his retinue of trusted palace servants and friends.

Fortunately, the king, though awake, was finding it hard to leave his bed this morning and it wasn’t just because of the sharp winter air that had penetrated even to his private room, the great painted chamber of Henry III. He loved this room—its walls a riot of illustrations from the Old Testament, depictions of Virtues and Vices personified, painted soldiers standing at each side of his great carved bed of state—

but its vast size was hard to warm on these cold mornings, even with a fire roaring in the great chimney breast.

Beside him, buried in the fine sheets and sleeping sweetly, was a girl. He watched her breathing gently and smiled, stretching languorously in memory of last night. She’d been very enjoyable—and eager—

but then, of course, most of them were. He was conscious that shortly his rooms would be crammed with his closest friends, including William, but he was loath to wake her, because after he did he’d probably never see her again. That thought caused a certain slight but enjoyable feeling of sadness.

She’d been a pleasant diversion but it was time to dispense with her services. He wasn’t going to take her to Windsor because, frankly, he was getting bored. He’d let Moss handle telling her.

Edward sighed, and then crossed himself. Sometimes, his enjoyment of women—their company, their smell, their flesh—seemed excessive even to him. Surely the good Lord understood? He’d been chosen as king and had held his throne—the image of Warwick came unbidden—and women relieved the constant tension he felt, the need to dissemble all the time. And most kings did as he did; think, after all, of Solomon, of David. Warriors, thinkers, and lovers, both of them.

“Jane…Jane, sweet. Wake now…they’ll be here soon,” he murmured gently.

The girl beside him mumbled something and stirred. He smiled. She really did look very sweet—

tumbled hair, one round breast exposed among the pure white linen. He felt himself harden. Perhaps there was just enough time; after all, he was the king. Gently he stroked the breast and slid down beside her, under the sheet, matching his body length to hers. “Jane, ah Janey…”

She was awake now, but barely, sleepy eyes half opened as she felt him push her thighs apart. She smiled. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Shush, lie still.”

Now he was in her, covering her body, pushing hard. She relaxed and let him do what he liked, rocking with him, smiling triumphantly—though he didn’t see that—as her thoughts wandered, detached from the man above her. Time to ask for a few favors, mused black-eyed Jane Fuller, and time to get out of that dreadful dorter. And maybe, time to stop working for the queen…

Edward was close, so close—heat building, pleasure burning, the whole world centered on the moment and the movement—as he heard William knocking gently on the door—and that was enough. He came roaring, slamming home into the willing, warm girl beneath him.

Outside the door of the painted chamber, William paused. He smiled slightly to Moss and Davis, the king’s Welsh valet who was stationed outside the door. They’d all heard that sound more than a few times; they knew to wait.

“Moss, a word.” William drew the doctor aside from the small group of men who were waiting to enter the king’s bedroom. “I believe that the king will have private business for you to contract shortly.” He nodded toward the closed door from behind which could now be heard the low murmur of two voices.

The doctor nodded, face carefully neutral; he was used to these little tasks, was glad they made him useful to the king. “What shall we say to the queen?”

“I shall tell you shortly.”

Both men turned as one of the great doors to the king’s chamber was thrown open and the king himself stood there, smiling broadly, draped in a fine, furred velvet cloak but plainly naked underneath.

“William! Good morning to you.”

“And you, Your Majesty.” William bowed low before Edward, noting the healthy, glowing look, the clear eyes, as did all those with him. He grimaced slightly; how did the king sustain himself on so little sleep and so much wine? And so much sex. Youth, he thought wearily for a moment. Youth.

“Well now, enter, enter…” The king was impatient to begin the day, and the courtiers flocked into the great room as Filke, the king’s Flemish barber, offered hot scented water and curds of soft soap made with the best fat and almond kernel oil, for shaving.

William saw that the rumpled bed was empty. He was one of the very few who knew about the door behind the large modern arras that portrayed the labors of Hercules—a door he’d often used himself.

As the king sat for the barber in the light from the three large casements—and William held the shirt to warm by the fire—gossip was quietly exchanged between them out of the hearing of the others.

Edward loved picking over the bones of people’s lives and not just because he enjoyed the peccadilloes of his courtiers. It was a vital source of information about the shifting alliances around his person that both he and William, his closest friend, valued greatly.

“So, William, tell me. My esteemed mother-in-law, Duchess Jacquetta: what rumors today?”

William was careful to speak softly and lightly in reply: they were on dangerous ground here and both men knew it. “The duchess has a new confessor, sire, but I’m afraid it won’t do any good.”

“Who is he?”

“A Dominican, I believe. A most holy man, it is said. Father Bruno. French, I understand.”

“So, smokescreen of holiness, is that it?”

Cautiously, William allowed himself to nod as he proffered the shirt to the king now that the barber had finished and was bowing himself out of the room. Both men knew that recent court gossip about the queen’s unpopular, grasping mother talked up her supposed connection with the black arts.

“And my father-in-law? What of him?”

“Lord Rivers is ill, sire, he’s asked to be excused Mass this morning. Something he ate, I believe.”

Edward laughed, unexpectedly harshly. Like all the court, he had been astonished by the plague of Wydevilles that had descended after his marriage to the queen, and Hastings kept him informed of the rumblings of discontent about their high-handed behavior. But Edward was confident he could control the queen, and through Elizabeth, her rapacious relatives. Hastings was much less optimistic than the king. He had great respect for Elizabeth’s powers of persuasion, so clearly linked to the beauty of her body and face. These were formidable weapons for any man to fight when the queen wanted something. Besides, the king was notorious for getting others to do his emotional dirty work. A decisive general, a good administrator of his kingdom—as he was beginning to prove himself—yet he hated the mire and complexity of intimate human relationships. What he wanted were friends, laughter, and music; loud voices, reproaches, and tears filled him with unease such that, when women cried, he walked away and Hastings picked up the pieces.

The queen understood the king well, far too well, and, where her family was concerned, she exploited his impatience and discomfort about emotion. She made it easy for him to say yes when she asked him for favors—she never clamored or begged—and she rewarded him with sex. The sorts of games they played together were unlike those of any of his other lovers, for she played his body like a viol—

delicately and well. He’d always returned, thus far. William sighed. Women!

“Ah, women.” Edward breathed the word reverently.

William was startled and then saw that the king was looking out of the window as Davis dressed him.

Down below them on the river was an open wherry, and sitting in the stern, a young woman and her serving girl were being rowed upstream. The hood of her cloak had slipped back and they could see her pretty face, veiling fluttering in the damp wind.

The king grinned at his friend. “Ah, William, so many plump little coneys. So little time, eh? Now, to work. What are the plans for Windsor?”

The valet finished dressing his master, and the group of men in the bedchamber, taking a signal from William, fell in behind the king as he left the room to go to Mass. As they walked out into the king’s general reception rooms, William drew Moss aside and slipped a small leather pouch into his hands, a pouch that clinked, and an exquisite, tiny enameled box. “Jane Fuller. The pouch is for her.”

The doctor nodded.

“See she leaves the court before we go to Windsor.”

Moss bowed his head. The king would see that Jane was well looked after. Most likely she would be sent north to York, the king’s family stronghold. A dowry and marriage would be arranged for her, perhaps to a prosperous brewer or merchant, and Moss could feel by the weight of the purse in his hand that Hastings had provided money for her trousseau. All that remained now was to let the girl know her good fortune.

The doctor sighed. It was never easy. William clapped him on the shoulder with a certain sympathy.

“Come to me after you’re done. There is much to speak of. And by the way, the box is for the queen, a gift from the king. Please take it to Her Majesty without delay.”

Chapter Twenty-one

It had taken Anne a number of weeks to make sense of the Palace of Westminster’s huge maze of bewildering passages and chambers and find within it landmarks she could recognize when she got lost.

But though the vast building began to feel more familiar, the protocol within the court continued to be a severe trial and she lived with dread every day: dread that she would say or do the wrong thing and find herself banished from the palace and the life of the queen and, if she was honest, the king.

Court life intrigued her, and as she learned who was ascendant and who was in decline within the circle of royal favor, she found herself thinking about the real nature of all these mighty people and how she could find a secure place among them.

The queen was the hardest to read—one minute warm, laughing, and friendly; the next, an icy tyrant who would act on a whim, a whim that could unleash a cataclysm upon the life of the person concerned.

Fortunately, at the moment, Elizabeth was extremely pleased with Anne. So pleased, that within two weeks of her arrival at court the queen had caused the girl to be moved out of the dorter she shared with the other body servants—to the great relief of Rose, Dorcas, and Lily; to Evelyn’s sorrow, and to Jane’s intense jealousy—into a tiny room all of her own, barely a cupboard, next to the queen’s own suite of rooms.

The reason for this unheard-of favor had been the glorious living gold that Anne had restored to Elizabeth Wydeville’s hair. She’d made a wash with lemon juice and then applied a hot paste of fine, white clay. The clay was from a rare seam in the heavy red London earth that brickmakers near the castle had found; Anne had heard of it by chance, tested it, and found that it, too, had bleaching properties when mixed with almond oil and the urine of a lactating woman.

Everyone at court commented on how radiant the queen now looked, and how she and the king were more in love than ever.

Today, so as to make herself particularly attractive to the king, Elizabeth had spent fully an hour sitting in the deep brass tub placed by the fire in her robing room, as her servants filled and refilled it with hot milk. Anne, Dorcas, and Evelyn had run back and forth to the kitchens in relays with heavy copper cans, until at last the queen was satisfied that the milk really had increased the smoothness of her skin.

Now her servants were rushing to dress her in time to join Edward at Mass.

Anne stood waiting quietly with a basket of ivory hairpins as she watched Jane brush the queen’s hair.

Jane was smiling pleasantly enough as she went about her task quickly and methodically, sectioning Elizabeth’s hair and being careful to brush with long, steady strokes from the roots to the ends. But in her heart Jane was thinking how much she hated this woman and how little the queen knew of what her husband really liked, when Doctor Moss was announced with a message from the king.

“Jehanne, see what he wants. Jane! You’re ripping my scalp!”

The queen was testy and Dame Jehanne saw the flush mount up Jane’s neck as she herself hurried away to obey Elizabeth. Jehanne was convinced the queen was breeding again. There’d been no bloodied rags to remove from the garderobe for two months now, and the flightiness of her moods suggested it too. But of course, she was careful to keep her suspicions to herself. It would be dangerous to speculate until the pregnancy was confirmed.

In the outer receiving chamber, Doctor Moss was sauntering up and down as he waited for the summons, the only outward sign of his impatience the slapping of one pigskin glove on the other from time to time.