The Innocent (27 page)

Now Anne knelt before Mathew and Margaret and formally kissed their hands. “For all that you have done for me, for all your kindness, I shall always be grateful.”

Then at a signal from Margaret, Jassy raised the girl to her feet and Anne left Blessing House. One last look back as she passed through the great front door, and she saw them both as distantly as effigies of Mary and Jesus in the great Abbey.

The door closed behind her as she was swung up onto the back of the sturdy cob being held by a man-at-arms arrayed in the queen’s colors of murrey and black. There were two other soldiers to provide a guard for her on the short ride to the palace, and one of them, a sergeant, picked up her coffer and placed it behind her in the saddle. “Shove up, lass, don’t fancy carrying this to Westminster.”

He groaned extravagantly at the weight of her possessions and grinned at her engagingly. He knew he wasn’t bad-looking even though he’d lost one of his front teeth recently in a fight. He quite fancied his chances with this new and tasty bit of girl flesh in the queen’s household. But he changed his mind when she spoke.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, sir. I was not aware that my things were so heavy.”

Her accent was refined, faintly French, and she looked at him with such seriousness that for a moment he wondered if they’d been told wrong. This girl couldn’t be a servant, could she? More like a poor relation. He smartened up rapidly, fearing he’d given offense. “Lady, er, nar, I…that is to say, it’s not really heavy. I was joking…Men! Stand up there. I’ll take that.” The sergeant wrenched the reins out of the other man’s hands and prepared to lead the horse, and its rider, himself, through the throng toward the palace.

The other two guards smirked at each other as they fell in before and behind the horse, but they marched smartly and with some self-importance through the crowded streets, calling out to make space for their passage. Sergeant John-at-Hey had got it wrong, hadn’t he? This was no juicy little doxy—this was a lady. And wouldn’t they enjoy telling the story tonight at the Wheel and Dragon, the inn the queen’s men favored just nearby in Chepeside?

There was much bustle at the palace when the little party arrived in the outer ward. The king was just returning with a group of magnates, and the queen and her ladies, from a month in the country at Windsor, where they’d been hunting in the brisk autumn weather. The vast courtyard was a seething mass of horses, men, dogs, and servants running back and forth as the king and his party dismounted from their ride. While his squire, Loren, held the head of his destrier, Edward slipped down easily and strode over to the queen’s curtained litter, ceremoniously handing the queen onto the cobbles.

Anne’s breath caught in her throat when she saw him, but then her eyes widened even more when she saw the queen. Elizabeth Wydeville was smiling glintingly up into her husband’s eyes. This radiant woman with the white skin, the slender body, and the stem-like waist could not be the same creature as the red-faced bloated mass she remembered in the great bed on the night of Princess Elizabeth’s birth.

She was as beautiful as everyone said she was.

“Yes, a miracle, is it not? Witchcraft, some say.” Doctor Moss had silently joined Anne and she jumped when he spoke. Now, she watched awed as the brilliant royal party ascended the wide stone steps that gave up into the great hall of the palace. “Nonsense, of course. But you had something to do with it, I’ll be bound. Or rather, the teas you made did. And that woman has discipline, I’ll give her that. She’s eaten like a bird since the birth, and now she has you. Look what you did for her skin.”

Anne frowned. “Sir, I feel so…” Moss looked down at her and smiled slightly at the anxious look on her face as she continued. “I know so little. It may be that the queen believes I have abilities that I do not have and I may disappoint her…”

“Now child, you will serve the queen and I will help you. I believe you know more than you think you do—and it’s just a question of learning to please her.” Which would not be easy, as he knew. “And then, well…who knows?”

At the top of the stairs the royal party paused for a moment as the king made a joke. Elizabeth Wydeville’s bright laughter floated through the still cold air, but a sudden whinny from the king’s destrier competed for Edward’s attention, and he glanced toward the source of the noise in the courtyard below.

Catching the king’s eye as he looked down, Doctor Moss swept off his flat velvet hat with its trailing liripipe, and prompted by a businesslike poke in the ribs, Anne dropped down into a curtsy.

The king grinned and waved cordially at his friend as he turned back to the queen: “There’s Doctor Moss, my dear, and he’s brought the girl from Mathew Cuttifer’s that you asked for. Now, let us eat—and quickly.”

The court party strolled inside after the king and queen, leaving the courtyard deserted except for Anne and Doctor Moss. A wave of loneliness came over the girl and she felt like crying. The doctor, who was not insensitive, saw her distress and patted her shoulder gently.

“Come now. I shall deliver you to the serving ladies’ dorter where you will find Dame Jehanne. She has charge of the queen’s body servants. She’ll know what to do with you.”

Chapter Nineteen

Anne’s first day in the palace began in a confused blur from the moment Doctor Moss brought her to the dorter of the queen’s body servants and abandoned her there.

Timidly, she knocked at the door, which was hurled open with some violence.

“What?” A red-faced, strong-bodied girl of about her own age glared at her fiercely. “Yes? Speak, girl.”

“That will be quite enough, Rose.” An old woman appeared behind the angry girl and spoke to her sharply: “Be about your business. The queen will be waiting.”

Muttering something dark, Rose pushed past Anne and hurried away. The older woman shook her head, clearly annoyed, and then turned her attention to the girl standing before her. “Yes? And who are you?”

Something odd happened as Anne dropped into a curtsy: the stern expression of the imposing lady shifted momentarily to uncertainty before it was recaptured.

“Get up, girl, there is no need to curtsy to me. Tell me your name. Quickly now.”

Anne gulped with nerves: everyone seemed so unfriendly. “My name is Anne, if it please you, Lady. I have come to be a body servant to the queen and I am to ask for Dame Jehanne.”

The old woman said nothing, but slowly, very slowly, walked around her, even tipping her face up so she could see it more clearly. Then, shaking her head briskly as if to banish some unwelcome or confusing thought, she grabbed Anne by the wrist and pulled her inside the room.

“Very well. Come in, come in quickly. I am Dame Jehanne and we’ve been expecting you this hour past. They took their time sending you from Blessing House, I’ll say that! Now, there is no time to dally. Where will we put you?”

The little room seemed entirely full of women getting dressed—and smelled strongly of sweat and burned hair from the curling tongs because the one little window was firmly closed. Five pallet beds jostled for space between the coffers that held the women’s clothes, and now Anne was to be added to the chaos.

“There, put it down over there.” Dame Jehanne nodded to the man-at-arms who was carrying Anne’s small coffer, and much abashed to be in a room full of women, the overgrown boy did as he was told.

“Oaf!” The tone was not forgiving and the expression of the girl who’d snapped at him was even less so. The boy had managed to stand on the hem of her dress, and even though she was a little thing, barely up to his chest, she had eyes so dark as to look black in the gloom of this chamber and they flashed at him nastily.

“Sorry.” The soldier plumped the coffer down and backed out as fast as he could, though not before Anne handed him a groat for his pains, which he’d not expected. He blushed and smiled and then was gone.

“Now, girls. Girls! Listen to me.” The noise of four girls squabbling stopped dead—it was as if a whip had cracked. “This is Anne, she’s come to join us in waiting on the queen. She will sleep here in the dorter.” A collective groan. “Well, it can’t be helped, we shall just have to make room.”

“How?” said someone sotto voce.

“By tidying this place!” Dame Jehanne looked piercingly at the girl with the dark eyes. “You especially, Jane, your things are everywhere I look. And I expect that you’ll make Anne welcome, she will make our load lighter. Now, finish dressing, there is very little time before dinner. When I return, I want you all neat and presentable—and this room made straight!” Dame Jehanne bustled out with a small nod to her newest charge, and Anne stood at a loss for a moment.

But then one of the others took pity. “Anne is your name?” Anne nodded shyly. “Well, Anne, we shall have to do something about that.” She was pointing to the ink-black dress that Lady Margaret had given Anne after Piers’s murder. “The queen expects us in livery unless the court is in mourning for someone important. We’ll have to lend you something.”

“That is very kind.”

“I am Evelyn,” the girl said as she picked her way over to the wall where a number of dark red dresses hung from pegs. “And this is Lily and Dorcas.” A girl with her forehead plucked fashionably bare nodded to her, as did her friend whom she was helping to dress. “And, finally—”

“Jane.” It was said as a challenge. The dark-eyed girl who had screamed at the boy was daring Anne to forget her name.

“Yes. Jane, I was coming to you.”

Jane scowled at Evelyn and rudely turned her back, crushing geranium petals and rubbing them onto her lips to heighten their color while peering at herself in a small precious square of burnished silver to see the effect.

Evelyn decided to ignore Jane as she went through the hanging dresses looking for one that might fit Anne. “What about this one? Length looks about right.” She was correct but the size was clearly made for someone much bigger.

“That’s Rose’s. She won’t like it.” Dorcas had spoken up, engagingly giggly.

“Oh, well, at least it’s clean,” said Evelyn cheerfully. “Hurry up, Anne, the old bitch’ll be back soon and there’ll be hell and damnation if we’re not ready.”

Willing hands helped Anne strip off her black, high-waisted gown and then dropped the red dress with the queen’s badge embroidered on it over her head. The dress was far too big on her slender body but Evelyn pulled the waist in by binding a wide black belt high under Anne’s breasts, and since the gown was made of quite fine wool it draped becomingly. The simple coif she was wearing was removed and her thick gleaming hair combed out and pulled back tightly.

“Headdress?” Evelyn was freely looting the others’ possessions again. “Ah, this now—this will look very well.” She’d found a low-crowned hennin made from stiffened ruby-red velvet plus a fine gauze veil to attach to it—both out of Rose’s coffer.

Dorcas snatched them from her. “Here. You’re never any good at this.” Carefully, the girl placed the hat on Anne’s head and arranged the veiling so that it draped around her shoulders and fell down the back of the gown nearly to the floor.

“She looks far too fine—for a servant. Careful she doesn’t make the queen jealous.” Jane was looking critically at Anne.

“Don’t pay any attention to her.” Evelyn stroked her new friend’s arm gently. “Indeed, though, you do look very nice.”

“Do I?” Anne was startled by the kindness in Evelyn’s voice and the admiration she saw on her face.

Dame Jehanne hurried back into the room. “Now girls, Rose has just about finished with the queen and so she’ll meet us down in the great hall. Hurry, hurry.” She clapped her hands sharply.

Obediently, the girls formed up in pairs, but Anne, not sure what was expected, stood uncertainly to one side.

“Come, child, join me—here.” Jehanne beckoned Anne to stand beside her. “Remember now, no unseemly gawking at the men, and no exchange of light comments. Is that clear, Jane?”

Jane scowled and did not answer. “Jane, I was addressing you. What do you say?” The authority in Jehanne’s voice was unmistakable.

The girl sketched a curtsy. “Indeed, mistress, I am sorry you think I would.”

Jehanne made a little snorting sound but was satisfied that Jane understood her meaning. “Very well.

Now, quickly, girls.” She led the small flock out of the dorter and into the endless flow of courtiers and servants who were crowding to the great hall of the palace for dinner, since it was late in the morning.

As they were the queen’s actual body servants, as opposed to the ladies who waited on her but whose chief role was to be amusing companions, Jehanne led the small band of girls to their position at the board well below the queen’s highborn servitors, yet above the minor court functionaries who did not work directly in the king’s or queen’s chambers. There were appreciative glances and comments from the milling throng of men-at-arms and even some gentlemen as they passed into the great open space of the hall.

Anne was daunted. At Blessing House she’d become used to seeing members of the court and she was no longer frightened of crowds, but this gathering and the noise it generated was intimidating. They seemed like a great hive of bees, buzzing hungrily before they gorged and swarmed. Everywhere she looked there was flashing, moving color. The clothes of the courtiers were magnificent, the men often gaudier than the women; rich tapestries lined the walls and beckoned to be looked at more closely, while the glittering gold and silver plate arrayed behind the dais where the king and queen would sit were the most costly she’d ever seen. Indeed, Edward had his own great golden salt in the shape of a castle besieged by giants. And there was music, too: above the hall, in a gallery, a choir of singing boys accompanied by a small orchestra of viols, sackbuts, and tabors sang with piercing sweetness a French lay of the Green Knight and his fair beloved, lost forever.

Anne wanted to stand and listen. A shiver ran down her spine and her eyes filled with tears at the sweet sadness of the words, but a sharp tug on her sleeve called her back. Jehanne pointed silently and Anne hurried to obey. The group now stood beside the long bench they would sit on to eat their dinner and Anne sat down quickly; Jane laughed contemptuously but stopped dead when she caught Jehanne’s eye.