The Innocent (28 page)

“Not now, Anne. We wait for the king.” Blushing a bright, hot red, Anne scrambled back to her feet just in time to hear the hard brass bray from the four trumpeters who had marched into the hall, dressed in the king’s formal livery, which bore the leopards of Anjou and the lilies of France.

All sound in the hall ceased as the court waited decorously in silence for the entrance of Edward and Elizabeth. Hearing another blast from the trumpeters, Anne looked up quickly toward the high dais and was scorched by what she saw. All that Deborah had said to her was gone in a fireflash—Edward filled her eyes. Forcing herself to look down, she fought to suppress the fever of yearning as the gathering slid to its knees in the rushes.

Edward’s night-blue velvet jerkin was slashed to reveal the lining of white cloth of gold, and on his shoulders lay the golden collar of double S links from which hung an enormous misshapen pearl, curiously like a woman’s headless torso. Long, hard-muscled legs were tightly sheathed in hose of a plum color and under his left knee was the garter of the knightly order founded by Edward III. On his head there was a light crown studded with topaz, crystal, and rubies.

Elizabeth Wydeville’s magnificence was yet greater than her husband’s. Though she had a naturally high forehead, her blond hair had been plucked back so that her brow shone, round and high and pearllike. Under her small crown, silver netted cauls, dotted with diamonds and amethysts and lined with rich purple velvet, completely hid her hair. Daringly, the neckline of the bodice of her tissue-of-silver overgown plunged deeply between her breasts and was caught to her high belt by another amethyst the size of a bantam’s egg, calling attention to the pure white of the skin of her breasts, shoulders, and neck. And the purple velvet underskirt of her gown formed a long train that was carried by the daughters of six earls as she and Edward processed toward the high table through the kneeling crowd.

She looks like the queen of Heaven, thought Anne, deeply humbled. And she is his wife.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” whispered Evelyn beside her. Anne nodded silently.

“Pity she’s such a bitch,” Jane sneered. “She’ll never keep him, he likes warmer flesh…”

Anne turned and looked at her companion in astonishment. It was as if the other girl had spat upon the image of the Mother of God.

Evelyn, amused by Anne’s expression, patted her on the hand. “Oh, don’t listen. She just thinks the king fancies her. Delusions!”

“But how…” Anne was about to screw up her courage and ask Evelyn why Jane thought such things, when she was forcibly interrupted by a heavy hand thumping down on to her shoulder and a snort of rage.

“That’s mine! And that!”

Someone was tugging at the velvet cap, which, in a reflex action, Anne tried to hold to her head as the pins holding it to her scalp ripped at her hair.

“Dame Jehanne, she’s wearing my dress and my hat!” It was Rose, late and even more unfriendly than she was at their first meeting.

“Rose, you’re late! Stop that! Anne had to wear something and yours was the only clean spare dress.

Hurry now, kneel. Really!” snapped Jehanne in an angry whisper. “Some days managing you bunch of girls is worse than trying to be the keeper of the king’s lions at the Tower.”

“But madam.” Rose was close to angry tears.

“Enough, Rose! Anne, who is your new colleague, will be provided for in the next day or so. For now I expect you will be gracious enough to share what you have with her. Now, that is enough. Kneel!”

The cutting look and fierce undertone finally silenced the mutinous Rose as she crowded in beside Jane, who laughed slightly, making her angier still. She shot a poisonous glance at Anne just as a signal from the Lord Chamberlain, William Hastings, gave permission for the court to sit. Instantly the hall swarmed with servitors as the first dishes were brought out. However, though the singing boys above their heads wove melody through the air like incense, no conversation resumed. Anne had not realized that court meals were customarily eaten in silence.

Evelyn guessed at her confusion and dared to whisper, “Ha, this is nothing. Sometimes, if the queen feasts without the king, we all have to kneel without speaking while she eats, right through the whole meal, even the duchesses—even the king’s own sister, the Lady Margaret. At least we’re being allowed to sit today. You watch, the king will get sick of this. He likes good cheer.”

And it seemed Evelyn was right, for shortly the king murmured something to the queen, and when she responded, smiling, Lord Hastings to the king’s right in turn spoke to Duchess Jacquetta, the queen’s mother. Soon conversation flowed up and down the body of the hall. It was a long banquet, and as course followed course more than two hours flowed past, and for all that time, Anne did her best to avoid looking at the king while she tried to grasp the customs of the court from the chatter of the girls around her.

“Dorcas, it’s your turn to do the personal linen. You know it is!”

“God’s blood, it is not. I am Her Majesty’s silk woman: I clean the silk only. I do not touch body linen!”

“You’ll wash what I say you wash, my girl. Since when have you become so high-stomached that the queen’s undergarments are not good enough for you to handle?”

Jehanne fixed Dorcas with a look, and the girl subsided, muttering, “It’s not fair,” under her breath.

Evelyn just shrugged and cut herself another large slice of oyster pie “Here, Anne. Try this, it’s really very good. You will need your strength, we work hard, believe me. After all, we’re not the lady servants.”

Dame Jehanne, picking up on the conversation, agreed: “You will be expected by me, Anne, and the queen, to work diligently and well. It is a sacred trust to be about the person of the queen. I shall watch you closely.”

It was not said unkindly but Anne was worried. She wasn’t afraid of long hours and many tasks because she’d been well trained, but she was frightened of doing the wrong thing through ignorance.

“Settling in, is she, mistress?” Doctor Moss’s calm voice interrupted Anne’s thoughts.

The openness of the girl’s smile shamed him for a moment. He knew it was gratitude for a familiar face that made her look up at him so happily, but, he reflected, if she ever smiled at him, or any man, with true, loving intent, well, the great world, or his master, might give her anything, anything at all.

“She will do soon enough, I’m sure, Doctor Moss.” It was said with a certain cool asperity. Dame Jehanne did not like Doctor Moss. The feeling was mutual. What she saw was a man who had risen too fast, was too well dressed for his station; a man who was morally ambiguous for all his graceful ways and warm eyes. And he looked down on a sharp-faced old woman who hid her wiry gray hair behind a nunlike coif and knew far too much about the court and everyone in it. They each had their sphere of influence but the difference between them was that he wanted more, much more.

At court, it was said that Dame Jehanne had been a favored servant of Henry VI and his queen, the French she-wolf, Margaret of Anjou. She knew the secrets of two kings and, now, two queens, for, most unusually, after Edward had won his throne she’d been kept on at court when so many other of the Lancastrian faction and their servants had been banished. But after a period spent waiting on Cicely, Duchess of York, the king’s mother, Jehanne had been handed on to the new queen.

Perhaps it was not so surprising when one thought on it. Elizabeth had been the widow of an obscure Lancastrian knight; perhaps it was natural she should want someone from the old regime about her, one who knew court ways. But while Moss’s standing with the queen was high at the moment because his was the credit of saving her life, and that of the queen’s daughter, the Lady Elizabeth, this old woman still had a disproportionate amount of influence on the queen, in his opinion.

But perhaps her time is passing, he thought as he rubbed his hands happily inside his sleeves. And this girl might be the key, if she pleased the queen—and the king. He’d make sure he received the credit as her sponsor, but these things were to be done carefully and discreetly. “Mistress Anne, with Lady Jehanne’s kind permission, I have been asked to present you to the queen.”

Jehanne frowned. He’d added the honorific to flatter her but what he was proposing was unusual. Of course she’d expected to take Anne to meet the queen in her chambers after the dinner, when Elizabeth retired to change for the afternoon. But this child was not gentry, after all—not someone’s daughter to be presented by an influential sponsor—so it was odd she should meet the queen in public as if she were. “And who has asked this, Doctor Moss?”

“Lord Hastings, madam. However, I believe the queen desires it.” The queen knew nothing, of course; it was the king who had arranged this meeting today, with Moss’s connivance. Moss was pleased that Anne looked so appealing in the mulberry-colored dress—a tricky color, that, for most women to wear…

“Very well. Anne, please go with Doctor Moss, and when you make your curtsy to the queen, remember to speak only if she speaks to you and keep your eyes lowered unless she commands otherwise.”

Stomach tight, with knees that barely held her up, Anne stumbled after Doctor Moss as he sauntered toward the high table on the dais. The king sat under an embroidered cloth of honor and he was her lodestone; closer and closer she came, the sound of her blood hammering so loudly it seemed those she passed must hear. But then she was there, in front of the line of opulently dressed men and women behind the high table. And all she could do was sink to the rushes on her knees, head lowered, veil pulled forward to hide her face.

Richard Wydeville, the king’s father-in-law, was bored and annoyed. Somehow, he’d been placed several seats away from the king. His wife, Duchess Jacquetta, was seated next to William Hastings, the man who every day seemed more and more inimical to his family’s interest. And unfortunately, while he brooded, he’d eaten and drunk far too well: he could feel it. His beautiful tight new jerkin of fur-edged brocade was straining at the pearl buttons round his middle, which, he had to admit, was feeling increasingly soft these days. If he wanted to keep his famous looks, he knew he’d have to be more attentive to fast days, but tension always made him hungry. He needed diversion; that would stop him eating.

Then something odd happened. A servant girl was being presented to the queen, his daughter. He frowned. It was an unusual breach of protocol. And then he saw the expression on Edward’s face and frowned deeper still. For all that he tried to hide it, the king was very interested in this girl. Too interested.

Ever alert to the way the winds were blowing at court—because the future of his vast, expensive family depended on the queen’s keeping the king’s favor—Richard Wydeville looked coldly at the girl kneeling before them. She seemed innocent enough, head bowed like a little nun, but that was no guide.

The most notorious doxies were good at that. Then, at a signal from the queen, the girl raised her face and got to her feet. Wydeville sucked his teeth. Very appealing, this child. Very. He’d have to warn Lizabet—he corrected himself—warn the queen.

But his daughter hardly registered the humanity of the girl standing in front of her, though she was surprised that Moss had asked to present her. All she cared about was if Anne could make simples and creams to help banish the few, the very few, lines that had made a first faint appearance on her face.

She’d seen them this morning in the pitiless eastern light of dawn as she was being bathed and her servants had held up her great mirror—silver, covered by precious Murano glass—so that she could inspect the skin of her face and neck.

Something cold had brushed against her heart. She’d had three children—her luck could not hold forever. She’d have to work hard, very hard, if she was to retain a succulent body, sweet enough to keep the king in her bed. Of course she’d heard rumors of the women he’d had during the last part of her pregnancy, but perhaps they were only rumors. That’s what her women said they were, just gossip.

And she knew his passion for her was still hot, really hot; she shivered still when he touched her and that delighted him, she knew. Elizabeth looked consideringly at the girl before her, waiting with downcast eyes, to be spoken to. “Step closer, Anne. So, Doctor Moss, this is your competitor.”

The doctor laughed heartily, though Wydeville, ever the cool observer, saw a watchful look flit over the man’s face. “Your Grace, that is why I recommended her to you. Anne has never been formally trained and, of course, women never will be, but I count her as a colleague in some ways. Her knowledge of herbs and simples is, as I believe you know, remarkable. She will serve you well.”

With the queen’s attention caught as she talked with Doctor Moss, the king allowed his eyes to roam over the girl’s body and he was amused by the blush that spread over her face and neck and down into her bodice. Even though she was looking at the queen, he knew that Anne could feel his look because, unwillingly, for just a moment she’d flicked her eyes at him and he’d smiled, just a little. She nearly smiled back but caught herself, and in horrified confusion looked earnestly at her feet again as the queen continued to talk to the doctor. Edward laughed out loud, enjoying his little game, and the queen, reflexively, laughed as well, as did the whole royal table, happy, as usual, to oblige the king. Then the king became impatient for there were other things to think about: there was just time to go to the mews to inspect one of his favorite gerfalcons, who was ailing, before he had to receive an emissary from Burgundy. The girl could wait for later, there was time now she lived in the palace.

“My dear, perhaps…?” Edward caught the attention of the queen and she waved dismissal to Anne and Moss. Carefully the doctor backed away, bowing, and Anne did the best she could to follow, terrified that she would catch her heels in the gown or the rushes and fall like a fool. But she kept her feet and soon the sense of exposure she had felt standing before the high table evaporated as the trumpeters blew once more, the singing finished, and the royal couple departed the hall. The meal was finished.