The Exiled (33 page)

Her voice was sharp from fear. ‘A rowing boat. There must be one on board. A lighter?’

There had to be one; every galley had to be able to row crew into harbour if the ship itself had to stand off the port, out into the roads.

Wulf’s mind was beginning to work. He had to stall her, she was only a woman. The blade was real enough but she was a tiny thing ... he’d be a real laughing stock if she bested him now.

‘No lighter, mistress. Had to leave it behind for repairs. Ow!’ Anne deliberately slashed the soft flesh of his throat, not deep enough to do much damage, but enough to make blood cascade down onto his jerkin. It was a very sharp knife.

‘I don’t believe you, Wulf. Where is it? Quickly!’

Unwillingly his eyes strayed to the canvas-covered shape lashed below them on the deck. She picked up the slight movement of his head.

‘I see it. Come.’

Anne had no pity because there was no time and as she hurried the bleeding seaman in front of her, prodding him down the stairs as the ship lurched and rolled beneath them, her mind was working fast.

It was a small coracle that Wulf showed her when he peeled the canvas back. Perhaps he was right, perhaps there was no lighter and this was all they had. She had no time to find out. It had one outstanding advantage, though, for it was light, light enough for just one man and a girl to heave over the side, if she could just persuade him to do it.

‘Wulf, I’ve been unfair. And you’ve been kind to me.’

The words stuck in her throat, but still she said them. The man, wounded as he was, looked at her warily.

‘If you help me now, of your own free will, there will be a reward for you. If you do not, I shall curse you, waking and sleeping. Which is it to be?’

She looked at him, unwavering, as she hissed the last words and Wulf dropped his eyes first. He was scared. He’d been scared of her ever since he’d hauled her up on deck earlier today.

‘It’s an easy choice, Wulf. But you’d better think quickly.’

Now she used the soft, soothing voice that Deborah had taught her to use with wild or maimed animals. He reminded her of a dog that had been badly treated; perhaps she could reach him, but the moon was rising, and the cold light caught the edge of the blade in her hand.

Wulf swallowed. The girl might sound calm, but she was holding it against him, poised over his heart in such a way that suggested she could strike quickly.

He found himself nodding, ‘What have you got?’

‘This.’ Anne opened her other hand and held it close to his eyes. The small, flat diamond lay in her palm like a cold star. Involuntarily he moved to take it from her, but the knife touched to the skin above his heart.

‘Be careful, Wulf. You and all your family will wither away if I curse you.’

Ice touched his spine — he believed her.

‘Throw it down into the water.’ She was nodding towards the coracle. ‘Quickly.’ The seaman made up his mind; he’d think of an excuse later, somehow. That diamond would buy him out of this ship, and take him home, get him a farm, even, if he could just ...

‘Do it!’ It was a command as, from the direction of the captain’s cabin, loud, insistent thumps began; the coracle was heaved out of its bonds and thrown into the sea.

Wulf yelled, ‘Give it to me!’

Anne hurled the diamond to the far side of the deck, and in that same moment she jumped after the coracle, bag clutched in one hand, knife in the other, invoking all the Gods that one panicked thought allowed her.

Even though it was early autumn after a warm summer, the water was very cold this far out to sea, and shock nearly made Anne lose hold of the bag when she hit the surface. She dropped the knife as she struggled, trying to keep herself afloat, trying desperately to locate the coracle, but Gaspar’s clothes filled with water and their weight was dragging her down. Shed them now or drown.

She did it. Unclasping the sea cloak — which spread out like a giant lily pad — somehow she kicked her way out of the britches; now she was naked but for the captain’s jerkin. Now there was commotion on the ship behind her as she struggled in the water. Men shouted, waving torches, and Gaspar yelled, ‘Port, port-side! She’s over there, over there!’

A sudden whine: an arrow ploughed the water, perilously near. Her face, they could see her white face!

The sea-cloak was her salvation. She dragged the heavy leading edge over her head and, holding it in place with her teeth as the cloak fanned out behind her, she struck out with her free arm towards the bowl of the coracle, just glimpsed in the dark, resting lightly on the sea. So close, so agonisingly close.

Weeeesh. Another arrow. Then another. Desperately, Anne kicked and thrashed, trying for rhythm: trying to picture how her childhood friends, the village boys, had swum in the millpond in summer. She remembered they’d made their arms and legs work together, why couldn’t she?

Wheesh-shaaaah. That was further away! They couldn’t see her in the dark, and suddenly Anne was moving her free arm and legs rhythmically, no longer floudering — much better, learning fast. That or die — no other choice.

The cries from the boat were fainter as Anne realised she was being carried by something: a sea current was moving her on quite strongly, carrying her away from the boat but no sooner had she formed the thought than she found herself within arm’s length of the coracle. One last desperate flounder and she caught hold of it; now she just had to get in without swamping the strange little craft.

Her body was close to the end of its resources, but the feel of the rough hide covering the wickerwork frame of the dish-like boat, if boat it could be called, summoned her last shreds of resilience. Somehow Anne managed to heave the achingly heavy sea cloak over the side — she knew she would need some sort of covering in the open sea — followed by the skin bag which had been her salvation. Then with both arms free, she tried to roll herself over the lip of the coracle.

But the thing was very light and as she tipped it down towards her, to clamber aboard, the sea rushed in, threatening to drown both her and the little craft.

Then she knew despair, nearly gave up. She was cold and weak; it would be easy, so easy, to drift away, to sleep.

‘Anne,’ the voice was a breath, ‘Anne ... you will not die here.’

Dreams and visions are a comfort as death beckons; Deborah had told her that — often she’d been the last to attend a dying villager, at home in the forest of Anne’s childhood. She’d told Anne many of the strange things people saw and heard as the body sank towards its last, long home. Was this a sweet phantom voice, one which would ease her own passing into the realm she had glimpsed before?

‘Anne!’ the voice had changed. It was urgent, commanding, harsh. The Sword Mother’s voice. Obediently the girl opened her eyes to find the coracle had righted itself and she was still holding on with one hand. This time when she tried to roll over the side as slowly and carefully as she could, the little craft rolled with her on the swell and then Anne was lying in its centre, beside the skin bag and the sodden sea cloak. There was water in the bottom of the boat as well — that had been the extra weight which kept the coracle from tipping this time.

Thus for a time, as the current carried the little craft along, Anne lay in the lathed bottom of the coracle and watched the stars pass by overhead. She had no means of directing her boat: no oars, no paddles, and no strength left in her arms. She wasn’t uncomfortable any more — though she knew she was wet — for the water she was lying in became as warm as her body.

After a time, as the moon dipped below the western horizon, she slept ...

T
he embarkation of the English court was slow, but to the watching crowd in Sluis, packed in behind the red silk ropes which cordoned off the wharf, it was as good as an Easter pageant. Slow was good therefore, slow was satisfying: it gave you more time to look at the clothes properly — and compare the English court women against the Burgundian ladies, when they finally deigned to arrive.

First, after the early dawn, came the animals, helped on board with much swearing and yawning from the ostlers — the sumpter mules of the prelates, the palfreys of the ladies and the very expensive destriers of the great English nobles; then an endless, sweating mass of liveried men-servants loaded boxes, chests, rolls of carpet, hangings, trappings, pictures, even furniture, aboard the King of England’s fleet.

It was a hot day — one of the last of this autumn, said sage heads — and as the morning wore away, the crowd’s patience diminished. The women were especially restless — they’d come to see the wedding clothes on the backs of the court parties, most particularly their new duchess and the fabled Queen of England. Were were they all? They’d miss the tide soon ...

In Brugge, Edward, haunted, was pacing — up and down, up and down — waiting, desperately hoping, to hear more from Father Giorgio before the iron machine of protocol forced him to leave the city, to return to England.

Even now, more than three days since Anne’s disappearance, an endless, nauseating cycle of certainty, uncertainty, certainty, uncertainty distorted every thought, every action: each moment, each emotion raised the stakes and brought terrifying spectres in its wake. Trust was gone, belief was gone, hope was fading — and suspicion filled the yawning void.

Could they be true —
how
could they be true? — the rumours that Father Giorgio had brought him? Elisabeth, his queen, behind the attempt on Anne’s life? Edward squeezed his eyes closed, tried to focus on the pain in his head as a means of clarity, but images of the recent heated interview he’d conducted with William Caxton, Governor of the Guild of Merchant Adventurers in Brugge, kept intruding.

Giorgio had led Edward to William — tipped off by Maxim, who’d heard more than he should have of conversations between Anne and the merchant. Poor, grieving Caxton — he was distraught about Anne also — had shown Edward the note, the supposed proof of his wife’s involvement in the attack on Anne; but ciphers, even if this one were real, which he doubted,
had
to doubt, could be made to say anything. Anything!

Elisabeth was his queen,
anointed by God
, and she was his wife. He could accept a wife’s jealousy of a husband’s affair, but to plot his lover’s murder? And, for him to believe it on the basis of such flimsy ‘evidence’ as he’d been shown? No! Not possible.

And, even supposing Caxton
was
right, where was the link from the attempted assassination to Anne’s disappearance?

Nothing made sense!

And, of course, when he’d questioned his wife — as he’d had to — he’d been met with outraged, furious denial and tears — gales, storms of tears. He’d felt like a fool, and worse, because he could prove
nothing
.

He blamed himself, of course. In the delirium of his affair with Anne the need to find her enemies had taken a distant second place to living in the moment. He had her, she had him; she was safe with him in Brugge — and they’d find the culprit later. He was the king; if it was his wish, it would be done!

Too late, too late now.

Thus, exhausted, Edward paced up and down, up and down, trying to think his way through the tangle. By order, he was alone in Duke Charles’ working-closet at the Prinsenhof as he waited for Giorgio, yet he heard the scuffles, the whispers, outside the door. They were all there: his valet, his body servants, courtiers — even his wife’s servants — all waiting for his order that the court should join the barges and journey down the Zwijn to the ships waiting at Sluis.

Distantly he heard noon ring out from the Markt belfry. Time was his enemy and the bells were pleased to tell him so. The tide, remember the tide, that’s what the bells said.

He heard the door behind him swing open and barked.

‘Leave me! How many times must I ...’

Charles of Burgundy cleared his throat.

‘Come, brother-in-law, the fleet will not sail today if you delay further.’

Edward shrugged, desperation and exhaustion burning his eyes. He’d not slept since Anne’s disappearance.

‘Another day, just one more day, Charles. We may hear more? I’m waiting for news even now.’

The duke was troubled — he had some sympathy for the king’s tortured state over Anne de Bohun because he liked and admired her too. Perhaps a light touch would help.

‘But, brother, there is not food enough to feed you all — no, not even for one more day!’ Charles laughed, of course, intending the words should be ironic, but there was truth in them. The cost of entertaining the English court for the ten days of the wedding had been enormous, added to by the unexpected extra days they’d since spent in Brugge. All because Anne de Bohun had disappeared.

‘Come, sire, your people are impatient to be away home.’ Charles spoke plainly, bracingly. It was not for a duke to tell a king his duty, but he was older than Edward and a soldier. And if the English delayed any longer, it would be most unfortunate for he, Charles, had many problems to address, not least the wily French king once more circling Burgundy’s territory. He could not afford the distraction of pleasure any longer. Unconsciously he sighed. Soon he would have to leave his young bride to go on campaign; yes, he understood how hard it was to leave a woman behind.

‘Edward? Shall I give them the order?’ He was sad to see his friend in such a tortured state. And they
were
friends still, just, though both knew, without acknowledgment on either side, that their relationship had been much compromised by the mischief manufactured by Elisabeth Wydeville — and the disappearance of this girl.

Edward was silent, staring out of the window as if he’d heard nothing. Charles grimaced — and then brightened as the idea came to him. When the English court had left he would compose a most careful and confidential letter to Edward setting out clearly, once and for all, assurances as to the health of the Zwijn and the strength of the Burgundian economy. And he would also redouble his already considerable efforts to find Anne. ‘Come brother, leave us to find Lady de Bohun — we seek her diligently and so shall continue.’