The Innocent (42 page)

Mary tried to speak but William stopped her mouth with his; she was moaning louder and shivering now as the man thrust harder and deeper, growling like an animal. Not for nothing was William Hastings’s personal heraldic device the manticore, the fabled man-tiger. Anne, her mouth dry and legs suddenly weak, closed the door unnoticed. She put her basket down and turned away.

“So, did you see if my friend Hastings was inside?”

Her heart froze. The king. He was leaning on a wall just in front of her. He’d been watching Anne, knew what she’d seen and heard, for even with the door more securely closed, there was no mistaking the sounds from the room behind it.

“Sir…I…that is, I’m not sure if—”

“If it was him? Surely there could be no mistake. I believe you know Lord Hastings quite well, do you not?” The king sauntered toward her now. And he was not smiling, indeed he looked grim.

Anne thought quickly. “Sir, I am needed in the queen’s rooms. If it was Lord Hastings, I am sure he will be…that is, he should be available to Your Majesty shortly…” She curtsied and cast around for a way past him in the dark, narrow corridor.

But he was too fast for her. Two steps and he had blocked the way she needed to go. “Stay for a moment, Anne. We haven’t spoken for a little while.” He said it softly, caressingly.

“No, sire. There has been so much to do when everyone’s enjoying themselves…” She bit her tongue; the sounds behind the door were becoming louder and more urgent.

He was beside her now and her heart was pounding. “What did you see behind the door, Anne?

Describe to me what you saw.” She blushed deeply and felt, with horror, the heat of the blood mount her neck.

“Nothing, sire. I saw nothing.”

“I don’t believe you, Anne.” She shook her head, desperate not to look into the eyes burning down into hers. “Did you see a man loving a woman? And was she enjoying it too?” He breathed it in her ear but she would not look up, just shook her head, trying to pick the moment to run. But he had grasped her waist with one hand, and was pulling her toward him. She held herself rigid as he buried his face in her neck, kissing her throat passionately, then her mouth, as she tried not to respond.

“I have not forgotten my vow, Anne, and I would never force you.” But his hands made him a liar, for they were busy inside the bodice of her dress and then sliding down, and down. She gasped as his mouth fastened on hers again and he slipped her skirts up, finding the tops of her tightly closed thighs, sliding one finger, just one, between her legs. She could hardly bear the feeling as the heat seemed to concentrate where he was stroking her. Unconsciously, she moaned and he smiled.

“Soft, so soft,” he breathed. “Open your legs, just a little.”

Incapable of rational thought, her thighs parted, and she was aching, yearning, wanting nothing more than to lie on the ground, shameless, and let him to do to her all that Hastings had done with Mary. But in her mind she heard the whisper: “You are the daughter of Henry VI, granddaughter of Henry V…”

“I can’t. It is not possible. Let me go.” She tried to break free.

“I don’t want to, Anne. Let me, ah, just let me…you’ll enjoy it very much, I promise you.” Now his body was pinning hers against the wall and again the aching, melting sweetness of the moment was palpable between them. His hand moved slowly, deliciously, and she felt his fingers slip deeper inside her.

“No.”

He was still. For a moment there was silence and she held her breath, tears starting to prick the insides of her closed lids. She so wanted to please him, but it was not possible—now, or ever. Sadness filled her, such piercing sadness, she wanted to howl like an animal in pain. He sensed it and, sighing, let her go, allowing her skirts to fall back into place.

“Has something changed?” Again there was that prescience between them, as if he could read all her thoughts.

“Your Majesty, sire, it is a long, long story and—”

“And?” He was curious now, and not angry. That in itself was unusual. Most often if he was refused, and God knew that was hardly ever, it made him annoyed, but this girl did something else to him. She made him feel protective, and confused. He was deeply touched by her sadness too—and desperate to understand her tears.

“I cannot tell you.”

“What can it possibly be that you may not tell your sovereign?” He was quite startled by her determination.

“Please, sire, I must go to the queen…”

Behind them the door to the laundry opened and William Hastings, flushed and disheveled, saw the king. “Your Majesty…sire, I had no idea…”

“Apparently not. I was told you were doing your washing.” The king’s tone was dry but he smiled, and William laughed. That moment was enough for Anne to drop a quick curtsy to both of them, dart through the door to deposit the queen’s clothes with a startled Mary—languorously dressing herself—

and then leave through the laundry’s other door, before the king had a chance to stop her.

As she ran back toward the queen’s rooms, Anne asked herself if she was stupid to feel that Edward and she had a special connection. Their thoughts seemed so close at times and she dreamed of a sharing of their minds, not just their bodies, though God knew, images of their coupling filled many of her waking and her sleeping thoughts. Could it be he felt some of the same pain she felt when she ran from him? It seemed such an agonizing waste that they could not fall naturally into one another’s arms. In another time, if he had not been married, who she was could have been their strength, not their weakness…

At the door of the queen’s rooms she paused, breathing hard, and carefully tucked tendrils of hair back up beneath her cap, smoothing her gown with trembling hands. She should just have time to lay out a choice of clothes for this afternoon’s festivities before the queen arrived with her ladies. But her trip down to the laundry had taken more time than she’d allowed, and she was dismayed to find the queen already in her rooms being undressed. Anne braced herself for a tongue-lashing, and did her best to enter inconspicuously.

“So, you are recovered from the ague?” It was the queen, but much to Anne’s relief, she sounded merely faintly curious, not testy.

The girl ducked a hasty curtsy. “I was delayed a little with the laundress, Your Majesty.” An unbidden flash of the king’s face, bending down to kiss her, the feel of his hand on her breast, almost made her gasp as she said the words.

“Then why are you blushing, girl? You are sure it was the laundress who delayed you, no one else?”

The queen was suspicious now as Jehanne hurried over to pour her a distracting beaker of hot, spiced wine.

It was Evelyn who saved the need for another answer; she was presenting a gown of blue cloth of gold for Elizabeth to inspect. The queen had decided that on each of the twelve days of Christmas, she and her ladies would dress according to a theme. Today it was to be the twelve labors of Hercules and she was to be Hera, wife of Zeus, the goddess who had invented the punishment of the mighty hero. Since the Virgin Mary, the queen of Heaven, wore blue, it seemed fitting that Hera’s dress should be blue also. And since Zeus’s chief weapon was a thunderbolt, Jehanne had designed a headdress for Hera surmounted by golden thunderbolts.

While helping the queen into the glittering new dress, Jehanne seized the moment, since she had completely lost faith in Doctor Moss, who by his absence had plainly decided against helping Anne.

“Your Majesty, I have a Christmas boon to ask.”

Elizabeth, looking at herself in her convex silver mirror as she watched Evelyn carefully rub paste of cochineal onto her already high cheekbones, was distracted. “Very well, speak on, Jehanne.”

“Anne, come here.” Jehanne nodded to the girl standing quietly, waiting her turn to help lace the queen into her new dress. “Your Majesty, this girl’s mother is very ill. I ask leave that she be permitted to visit her for a few days.”

The queen frowned and briefly glanced at Anne, before returning her attention to the mirror. It was inconvenient to release her, but then she remembered her growing annoyance with the girl over the last few weeks—and her suspicions regarding the king. Perhaps sending Anne away at this time, when she herself was pregnant and finding sex a burden, was an excellent idea.

“Very well.” It was said carelessly, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “And I command that after you have visited your mother and done what is needful, you return to Westminster. You may help to prepare our quarters against the removal of the court back to London. Instruct her, Jehanne.”

And, from Elizabeth’s point of view, the matter was settled and Anne banished from her mind. But for Anne, the die had been cast. She would leave, and she would not tell the king.

Chapter Thirty

To leave the warmth and the light of the castle behind was desolation for Anne as she set out with her companions on the following sullen gray afternoon.

It had been a very busy twenty-four hours as the queen had insisted Anne leave only after replenishing Elizabeth’s stock of unquents and the special hair bleach only Anne could make.

Therefore, it was well after the dinner hour, and Elizabeth had dressed and had left her rooms to join the king in receiving Christmas visitors from the court of Burgundy, that Jehanne hustled Anne away to the dorter to pack up the little coffer brought from Blessing House that contained her few possessions.

Then, as the court gathered to watch a bearbaiting in honor of the foreign visitors, Jehanne and Deborah hurried the girl to the stables and into Sergeant Cage’s capable hands.

A delicate chestnut mare and a small gray lady’s palfrey, brightly tricked out with a red leather bridle and saddle, were waiting for them. Jehanne’s eyebrows went up anxiously as she saw the costliness of the trappings and the superior quality of the horses. “Whose are these animals, Sergeant?”

The man laughed. “Never fear, mistress, you’ll do their owner a favor riding them to London; they both need the exercise and won’t be missed.”

Sergeant Cage had solved two problems by a stroke. One of the queen’s ladies wanted several of her horses, including the palfrey, taken back to London in advance of the court, since she would be traveling back with the queen and had no need of them. Cage was quite happy for Lizotte and Minette to be ridden to the capital just as well as led. And the two women could join John Slaughter, the man whose job it was to lead the lady’s two other horses to London. They’d be protected on the journey by the royal badges on John’s uniform.

The little party needed to make the most of the low afternoon light and so the departure from the castle took place in a bustle that left Anne no time to think. She was bundled up onto the pony’s back and the cold reins thrust into her hands as Jehanne swaddled her tightly in a thick traveling cloak.

“Anne, keep your hood up as much as you can and please let John Slaughter talk for you both in public places. There’ll not be much movement on the roads in this weather but you must be careful, both of you.”

Deborah smiled with a calm she did not feel as she hauled herself up onto Lizotte’s narrow back. “John here will see us all safe to London, won’t you, John?”

John grinned cheerfully, innocently displaying nearly empty gums except for one remaining great front tooth. He’d been expecting a cold, boring ride to London. At least now he’d have someone to talk to.

Anne shivered under her cloak as the little party slipped out of the king’s gate on their way to London.

She was not yet cold, but she was trying to imagine what the king would say when he found she had left the castle. Her heart and body ached for him with a warm, burning pain, though she scolded herself severely for even acknowledging the feeling, as, mentally, she tried to rearrange what she felt for Edward.

Men, and especially the king, were different from women—she knew that. It was possible for them to love or lust for several women at once, as she’d seen plentiful times at court. She had to get on with her life, come to terms with her strange destiny, and walk away from the entanglements of the flesh, since that interfered with her capacity for sensible action. Perhaps she would never see the king again and perhaps that was best, though if it were so, why did her heart squeeze so painfully at that thought?

Resolutely, she murmured a prayer for strength as they passed beyond the bounds of the village, touching her crucifix but asking that the Sword-Mother guide their steps, and her life as well…

The afternoon wore on and the day grew colder and colder as the travelers headed south. Their destination was a village about halfway between Windsor and London in which there was a Convent of Poor Clares. The women would be able to lodge for the night in one of the order’s guest cells, while John could sleep at an inn in the village with the horses, for males of any kind, including the animals, would not be allowed in the nunnery grounds.

Fortunately, the fierce cold had frozen the mush of the roads, so riding was easier than it might have been, but the journey was trying for all that. There was a cutting wind from the east, and it took Anne some time to adapt to Minette’s short gait. The little horse liked trotting and it helped them make good speed, but the constant jolting of those small hooves on the iron-hard ground hour after hour began to test Anne’s patience.

Time passed and the insubstantial daylight of the short, bleak afternoon began to fade with no sign of friendly lights ahead. John Slaughter was doing his best to hide his concern from the two women. He’d ridden this road many times and knew it well, but the delay in leaving the castle and a slower pace than he’d expected meant they were not as far along as he’d hoped. His greatest concern was the stretch of dense forest they would have to pass through before they reached the nunnery and its surrounding village. It was the haunt of brigands in summer. Winter was different, weather like this drove most of them inside.

John was nervous, though, and didn’t take his task lightly, especially now he had two women to look out for. It worried him that Anne looked like a lady seated on that expensive-looking little horse.