The Innocent (38 page)

He even permitted the tinker’s horses to be taken to the stables for a bite to eat. Must be getting soft, he thought. Christmas. That’s what it is.

Deborah was grateful for the time to tidy herself—as best she could—and at least start the process of drying her clothes, though she longed to take them off and do it properly. She was so tired from the long, hard miles that she was beginning to nod in the warmth when Sergeant Cage arrived in a flurry of dark cold from the outside, stamping his feet to get the snow off his rawhide boots. Though Jehanne had told him to expect the woman, he’d never believed the message could travel so fast from London at this time of the year, so he was quite surprised to find Deborah and the tinker sitting in front of the guardhouse fire. Still, they’d made it, and Dame Jehanne had sworn him to silence, so that’s what he was prepared to honor.

Among curious looks he waited patiently for the woman to wrap herself in her slightly less sodden cloak and then held the door open for her to slip through. Having sent the tinker to the stables, he hurried Deborah across the vast inner ward toward the Lieutenant’s Tower and the great mass of the keep, even blacker than the night sky. Beyond that lay the king’s and queen’s apartments, but it was a long, dark, cold walk in driving snow nearing blizzard conditions and the woman looked exhausted. He very much hoped she would not collapse before he found Jehanne.

Luck was with them, however, or else the woman was hardier than she looked. Jehanne was just leaving the queen’s rooms after dressing Elizabeth for the evening festivities when he found her.

Deborah and Jehanne looked at each other for a long moment. And then Jehanne very deliberately crossed herself and sighed. “It’s true then.”

“Yes, it is true.”

“Then, the good Lord keep and guide us.”

Sergeant Cage thought it was a curious greeting between old friends, but he soon banished the thought as he hurried away to a long and busy night in his overcrowded stables. As he left, the door from the queen’s apartments opened and Anne hurried through with a number of the queen’s gowns.

Deborah spoke. “So, child, have you no welcome since I’ve traveled so far to be with you this Christmas?”

“Deborah!” Joy transformed Anne’s face. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here; there is such trouble…the king is—”

Jehanne cut her off, conscious that Sergeant Cage could hear. “Shush now, girl. Take the queen’s dresses to the laundry. See that they are extra careful with the spots on the tissue-of-gold overdress, please. And then you may rejoin us for a Christ-Mass wassail.”

Long habit of obedience meant Anne did as she was told, walking uncertainly away but casting a glance toward the two older women as they glided off into the darkness beyond the queen’s rooms.

The last days had been very difficult for Anne. She knew that there’d been some discussion between the king and queen about her position in Elizabeth’s household. With typical capriciousness, when the king had reported his father-in-law’s request that he be allowed to “borrow” Anne for the remainder of the Christmas season—to cheer the duchess up with the use of some of her unique skills on an aging, once-beautiful face—the queen had refused permission, which annoyed Edward mightily. Elizabeth had forgotten her displeasure with Anne of a day or so ago, because the girl had made a tea for her from orient ginger that eased the more violent symptoms of her morning sickness.

The king fumed but could say nothing. Undeniably, it would be easier for him if the girl were not under the queen’s eye all the time. He found Anne’s presence disturbed him intensely whenever he was in his wife’s chambers, and that was becoming harder and harder to hide. He wanted to look at Anne, touch her, even talk to her. If she were elsewhere he could continue this patient wooing, this long, slow campaign that was as fascinating as the plan for any battle.

Anne herself could hardly breathe when Edward was present. She knew they were both trapped by a force as strong as a river in flood, and it was addictive, this sensation, and dangerous. So far, for the last two days, she’d managed to avoid speaking to the king on any but the most trivial level. But the game was dizzying—it seemed that everywhere she turned, he was there. She could smell him in the very air of the queen’s rooms.

Edward was as conscious of Anne as she was of him. He knew, too, that he’d been very clever with his wager. He had judged, quite rightly, that her infatuation for him was profound, and that it would take a much steadier head than he thought a sixteen-or seventeen-year-old girl such as she might have to resist the charged glances he cast at her, the times he brushed her hand with his as she passed him in his wife’s rooms. Yet the strength of her will, her fight for composure was impressive, and made the game deliciously intense. He’d not been so excited by the thought of what was to come for a very long time.

He had only to close his eyes to see her naked, that beautiful skin touched by the light of the fire in his chamber, that mouth so ready to receive his own…What he wanted most was to take her somewhere, alone, out of the court’s eye, for he was hot to touch her, to kiss her, just to look at her. She knew that, and he knew that, and soon she would not be strong enough to deny it.

For now, though, after seeing Deborah so briefly, Anne fled down to the kitchens of the queen’s quarters to where the laundresses plied their sweaty trade even in winter, though only for Elizabeth.

The rest of the world waited for spring to wash and dry all the dirty clothes of winter.

Anne particularly liked Mary, the laundress who managed to work cheerfully with Rose even when she was difficult. Today she was boiling up yet another copper vessel of spring water as she shredded fine lye soap with which to wash the queen’s woolen clothes. Mary had an excellent instinct for the right water heat for such expensive garments: too hot and the material felted and shrank; too cold and the grease didn’t come out, nor enough of the sweat smell, which, though most people hardly noticed it, was something the queen was very particular about. Of course, many of the fine brocaded and furred clothes could not be washed at all but had to be dealt with in other ways, and that was why a skilled laundress could enjoy a long and profitable career at court.

“Three tonight, Mary. One velvet, one brocade, and one broad-cloth. The queen wants to wear the blue velvet the day after next. Can you clean it in time, do you think?”

Silently, Mary held out her hands for the gown and then looked at it under the light of a wall sconce.

There were deep sweat rings under the arms and spots of grease on the bodice, quite a lot of it from last night’s supper, even though the queen had such dainty airs.

“Well, I’ll have to, won’t I? Stinks a bit when you smell it up close.” Mary sniffed the seams under the sleeves of the gown and then she laughed. “Your face! Queen’s just like us, got a body same as you and me. Eats, sleeps, shits, pisses—don’t forget it. Anyway, you know that better than most, I’d reckon, seeing you dress her…Want a Christmas wassail with me?”

Generously, Mary held up a stoneware jug. Pressed into the baked clay were the arms of William Hastings. “Little present; sent by a friend of mine.” Anne recognized the badge and wondered where Mary had got the jar from but she didn’t have time to linger, much as she’d have liked to.

“Have to get back up to the queen’s rooms, but I’ll see you tonight, after vespers. We’ll have our wassail then?” Impulsively, she gave Mary a hug. The laundress had a big heart and was unfailingly generous to Anne. Once, at considerable risk to her position, she’d stuck up for her to Jehanne when Rose had blamed Anne for scorching one of the queen’s gowns as it was being smoothed by hot, flat irons on the stone laundry bench. And all because she liked Anne’s face, or that’s what she said afterward when the shouting had died down.

Now Anne hurried from the laundry back toward Jehanne’s room through the vast, nearly empty spaces of the queen’s suite. Silently she thanked Jehanne for bringing Deborah to court, but yet, one part of her shrank from the conversation they would surely have. She knew that, after telling the story, Deborah would insist she leave the court and the king’s influence, and she was so deep in anguished thought, she nearly ran past the door to Jehanne’s tiny chamber.

The two women inside were sitting huddled together on the box bed and Jehanne had a small, exquisite pair of scissors in her hands as Anne entered.

“Come sit beside me here, child. Deborah and I were discussing the past—and how we met.”

Anne was perplexed. “You know each other?”

Looks were exchanged by the two other women and no answer was given. “What do you know of your mother and father, child?” Jehanne asked.

Anne caught Deborah’s glance; she, too, looked worried and that frightened the girl. “Only that my mother died when I was born and my father was very sick and could not look after me in his house.

Deborah took me in and then she became my mother.”

The two women looked at each other; Jehanne crossed herself and seemed to summon courage. “Anne, your father is alive.”

The girl’s face lit up but the older woman held up her hand for a moment. “He’s alive but…” She swallowed, seemed to have trouble catching her breath. “Anne, your father is King Henry, the old king that was, the sixth of that name. And you are the granddaughter of great King Harry, his father. He who beat the French at Agincourt.”

Anne shook her head, the words skating through her brain. What were they talking about? “The old king is a madman. It’s said he tried to eat his mattress once!” Anne was incredulous. She was a peasant, a servant, how could she be anything else?

“No, he was never mad. It’s just that affairs of state taxed him and he would…retire—in his mind. It was always worse in winter and his wife, the French queen, was scornful of him. He is a gentle and confused man. To be a king is not easy. I used to wait upon the old queen, Margaret. She was clever and hard, and very beautiful. Not for nothing do they call her the she-wolf of Anjou. Your mother also waited on her, as a gentlewoman.”

“What do you mean? Who was my mother?”

Jehanne sighed, memory arcing back more than sixteen years. “Her name was Alyce de Bohun. She was the only daughter of Gervaise de Bohun: your grandfather was a baron, part of the Duke of Somerset’s affinity. He had lands in the West Country but he did not survive the French wars. Out of gratitude for his service, the duke brought your mother to court, to be a lady-in-waiting to the queen.

She was not much more than fifteen when you were born.”

Slowly the implications of all she was hearing began to seep into Anne’s mind. And the questions began. “My…father? Why has he never tried to see me?”

“He does not know that you exist. Margaret—the queen—saw to that. She tried to have your mother murdered on the night you were born. That was how we met, Deborah and I. She took us both in, and saved you, hid you, after your mother died.”

That silenced Anne. At present Margaret of Anjou was skulking back in France, still looking for an opportunity to lead an army back to Britain to reclaim her husband’s throne from Edward. Margaret had never been loved by the English people, because she was French and high-handed from the beginning of her marriage to Henry—but principally because she was barren, or so it had seemed.

“Before you were conceived, the queen took no heed of your father, but your mother became his friend

—perhaps his only true friend—in a friendless world. She was gentle and liked to play chess; they would play together by the hour. At the time the old queen was pleased the king was distracted—it gave her more power—but then the king fell in love with your mother and she with him. You were the result and that pregnancy proved that the problem of conceiving lay with the queen, not the king.”

“So I am a bastard. And my mother was a slut.” Anne’s tone was flat and hard. Perhaps she was like her mother, perhaps that explained her behavior with the king. And to be a bastard alone in the great world was a worse slur than being a servant or a peasant.

Jehanne spoke gently. “Your mother was not a whore. She was a child adrift and unsupported at court, in love for the first time in her life with a man who was kind to her. That is how the king came to be your father. Your father is a very pious man, he was never known for loose living. He adored your mother and felt safe with her.”

“Who else knows—about my father?” Anne was calm, perhaps from shock.

“Margaret, the old queen. Some of her affinity would know, and the Beauforts perhaps. But none of them know you are alive. When your mother was sent away from court so that you could be born at the king’s hunting lodge, Margaret’s men went after her. They had orders to kill you both. You see, even a bastard child of the king could give the people someone to rally around, because they hated the French queen so much. Because your father was gentle and chivalrous, she took advantage of him and surrounded him with evil councilors who leached the country dry. The people saw that. Until she had her own son, three or more years after you were born, she did not feel safe as queen of this country.”

Jehanne had been around courts all her life, and as she remembered the battles and the gossip from so long ago, it all rushed into her mind as fresh as yesterday. She remembered the queen’s terrible fury when she’d heard about Alyce becoming pregnant by the king, and how, for once in his life, the king had stood up to his wife, protecting the girl as best he could, keeping her hidden from the queen’s wrath. But not well enough, not when she thought about the dreadful journey they had both endured all those winters ago, and the girl’s tragic death in the forest after the baby had been born. When news was brought to court that both mother and child had died after an ambush, relations between Margaret and her husband had become more and more difficult. It was after Alyce’s death that the king began his long decline into deep melancholy as the fits of profound sadness came and went.

Three years later, the queen gave birth to a son of her own, but the king could not be brought to recognize the boy as his heir. Finally, he was persuaded to agree that the baby was his child, but piously attributed his birth to the Holy Ghost since he and the queen had been so long estranged.