The Innocent (45 page)

The king was angry with the queen, and Doctor Moss was furious with Jehanne—both for the same reason. Neither had known that Anne had left the court..

Edward found out by accident. He’d attended the queen’s dressing the night before the court removed from Windsor to London, and Rose, with seeming innocence—but a sly glance in the king’s direction—had curtsied to the queen and asked if Anne were to be replaced, for if she were, Rose had a sister.

The queen, concentrating on the set of her veil, had waved her hand impatiently and frowned. She had other things to think of, such as why this pregnancy was progressing so fast, making all her gowns so un-becomingly tight.

The king appeared to take no interest in what was said, but afterward he strode into William Hastings’s chamber, very angry.

William had concerns of his own: his wife was insisting on meeting him in London after the Christmas Court. He smiled ruefully; he had little real excuse to put her off. There was only so much “duty to the king” she was prepared to swallow. As to Anne, he knew she’d gone, and, of course, after the queen’s approval, he’d been forced to agree merely as formality. He hadn’t told the king because he didn’t want Edward distracted from the task at hand. It would take all their efforts to wage the careful, false war they would need to make shortly in the north.

“My leave should have been sought.” Edward’s nostrils were dangerously pinched.

William swallowed a sigh; he knew that tone. “Your Majesty, there was no time to consult you; the queen dismissed the girl because her mother is dying and she left within the hour. Surely it was not Christian of me to deny permission? She will rejoin the court very shortly.”

The king snorted. “That’s not the point. She is my subject, this is my Christmas Court. No one leaves without my permission!”

William changed tack. “I could mention it to the queen, of course, but then, might it not seem strange to her that you are so interested in the fate of one of her maids?”

Edward turned away grumpily, slapping his Russian leather boots with his riding whip. William was right. Any comment about Anne would make the queen even more suspicious. As her pregnancy progressed, she was becoming more and more paranoid about her looks. She was watching him like a hawk, and that was not easy to live with. He’d have to wait until the court was back at Westminster.

The king frowned as he thought of the girl, but there was a strange ache too. So far, of the many women he’d wanted, of the many he’d had—though, technically, not this girl yet—she was the first one he’d cherished. She was brave, born with a will like his. And she seemed to want nothing from him. If so, she was the first—in many ways.

The quick flash of such a cynical thought made him laugh to himself. Whatever it was about Anne that so intrigued him would be most enjoyable to investigate.

He looked down on the cold world outside the walls of the castle. Very well, he would be patient, but when she came again to court, well then, there would be a reckoning and William would need to have a care if the king had been lied to!

Meanwhile, Doctor Moss had also heard from Rose that Anne had left court. Rose had a spiteful streak that he put down to a possible Scorpio and Mercury conjunction with Gemini squared to Capricorn—

perversity and secrecy allied to a coldness of the humors and a fondness for gossip—but he’d found it useful in the past. He paid Rose for information about the queen so that he would seem all-knowing when asked to prescribe for her. But now the doctor was uneasy as well as angry. Like the king, he instinctively felt that something was being hidden from him. He said so to Jehanne.

“This was needless, Dame Jehanne, and would have been much better managed by me, for the king is now very angry since he was not told the girl had left. I did not say I would not help her, only that I wished time to think on it, to consider the best way to present the case so that neither the king nor the queen was disadvantaged in this matter. I was quite ready to speak to the queen and would have told you so, except that I have been so busy.”

“But Doctor Moss, it was urgent that she leave, as you well know.”

The doctor grunted. The old woman did not lie well. “So Anne’s mother was truly like to die?” He was suspicious—and scornful.

That made Jehanne angry. “Yes, Doctor. The poor woman may already be dead.” It was said stoutly.

There! The glove had been thrown down.

Moss looked at her sharply, the stubborn face, the mouth clamped shut. He turned to go as Jehanne and her girls went back to packing the coffers for the journey from Windsor tomorrow. At the door he looked back.

“It would not be wise, Jehanne, if the king found that Anne’s mother should, perhaps, linger on, thus keeping the girl from the court.”

Oh, yes, he’d make sure that Jehanne was kept under pressure until he got Anne back for the king, let there be no doubt in the old woman on that score. It was vital that Anne continue to think of him as her friend, and that he be instrumental in convincing her to become Edward’s leman. She’d do well, he thought, very well for them both, if he played his cards right—and he would not give up that opportunity without a bloody fight.

Jehanne’s heart hammered in her chest. The doctor’s cool tone had a cutting edge to it. He would be a bad enemy, Jehanne knew that, if—when—Anne failed to return.

Anne vomited into a leather bucket in the one tiny, stuffy cabin of the Lady Margaret, Leif Mollnar’s own. Much against her wishes, he’d insisted that the three women stay belowdecks soon after they’d left port.

Leaving the port at Southampton, after Jane Shore had met them at the dock, and setting out into the sea roads on the crisp midday had been a wonderful experience. Cold, sharp air, seabirds calling, the sails humming and slapping as they took the wind, and then a sight that land people never saw, the rocking, limitless horizon and promise of unknown lands beyond it. But the fair day had turned once they were out of the port and the seas were becoming increasingly mountainous as the wind rose.

The crew began to mutter as the good weather changed, so Leif had sent the women down to his cabin, out of sight. Now the wooden walls of the little ship bucked and tipped around them as the small, thick glass window slid beneath the water and they tried to share the one, tiny box bed.

The ship was very short from stem to stern and rode the waves as heavily as an overladen, pregnant packhorse. Her broad beam and the heavy keel meant she didn’t pitch from side to side so much as she bucked up and down, but the unfamiliar movement made all the women in the tiny cabin vomit until they expected to see their hearts and eyes expelled along with all their dinners.

Leif Mollnar made sure that his ship was tightly set to weather the storm, but he wanted a report on how his valuable passengers were faring, so he caught the eye of his mate Simon the Breton and shouted above the roar of the waves, “Simon! See how the women are faring. They’ll need help in this blow.” Both men could feel the boat flexing under the weight of the running seas, but neither was especially worried—she was a stout ship, the Lady Margaret, and they’d seen dirtier weather many times before. Besides, the strong wind blowing from the south was still pushing them at a good pace northward.

Reluctantly, Simon made his way toward the cabin along the deck, scooping up two buckets of seawater and a brush that was used for scrubbing in calmer weather. Then, timing the moment, he wrenched open the cabin door so that the pitch of the boat carried him into the cabin, his buckets balanced so that not one drop was spilled.

Anne roused herself from the half-hallucinations brought on by dehydration and tried to help Simon wash the cabin down, but she was thrown from wall to wall as she attempted to stand on shaking legs.

At last, however, the cabin was restored to order with everything that had been flying loose lashed down. Anne felt better, and while her clothes were damp with seawater where she’d tried to sponge the vomit off, at least the smell had lessened.

She’d also given fresh water to Jane and Deborah, and both now lay quiet on the bed together. It had been easy for Anne to like Jane, who had greeted her like an old friend on the dock, and now, out of kindness, she’d managed to help her companion remove her expensive traveling dress. It would be much easier later to clean linen of vomit than Flanders velvet. Deborah, too, was looking a little better now.

Soon the boat was tossing less in calmer seas, but the little cabin was disgustingly stuffy. Deborah insisted that Anne go up on deck. As a young woman, Deborah had traveled by sea once as far as the Wash, on her way to Norwich, and knew that to see the waves, rather than just feel their effect, helped conquer the seasickness.

Jane had dropped into an uneasy sleep, but Anne was troubled to leave them both. Deborah would have none of it.

“Come now, we’ve been mewed up for too long. Clean air will do you much good. We’ll be fine here.

Most of all, I want sleep.” She yawned deeply, and Anne relented. Furling her heavy cloak around her, Anne stumbled out of the cabin, onto the deck with a welcome feeling of release. It was close to dark, and away to the west, over the land, the sun was going down in a cloud of bloody glory. Out to sea, the first stars shone, piercing the darkness of the east like small, sharp fragments of crystal. Unseen in her dark cloak, she climbed the ladderlike stairs to the poop, beginning to pace her body to the roll of the ship. At the cog’s wheel, Leif Mollnar was snuffling the wind like a dog.

“Captain?” She knew he would not want her on his bridge, but out in the open in sight of the pitching sea, her head had begun to clear. It was exhilarating to be up so high, rushing over the wild, wide water as the boat talked to the sea like a living thing.

Leif didn’t hear her at first—the wind saw to that. So she approached closer and tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Captain?”

He leaped in shock and for a moment almost lost the wheel at the sight of this pale-faced figure wrapped in darkness. Wild thoughts of water spirits resolved themselves into the form and face of the younger of the serving girls, and then he frowned. He’d given strict orders that the women, all the women, were to stay below. Now here was this girl standing on his poop deck as if she had the right to it, smiling and asking him about the stars and how he steered by them at night. She sounded so interested in all that he was doing that he told her, grudgingly, how he found his way. Before long he was even offering to show her the astrolabe he kept in his cabin, and the unforced way she asked him questions almost made him believe she wanted to learn.

And he saw that she was indeed very pretty, now that the wind had whipped life back into her face, but then his promise to the crew returned to him and he asked her to go back below. Anne understood, but before she left, asked if Deborah and Jane might have a little time in the air when they woke, since she herself was feeling so much better.

Leif had been around women in ports since he was ten, but never did he remember a girl looking up at him so candidly, so trustingly as this one did right now. Breath tightened in his throat and he had the strangest urge to reach out his hand and touch her gently on the mouth. He could even drop his head and kiss her if he was quick and she did not move. But then he remembered where they were. Such things court disaster; the sea was always jealous. And the girl had asked him something that was very hard to grant.

“Go back below. We’ll see closer to port.” Uncertainty made the words sound harsher than he’d wanted, and embarrassed for being so open and friendly, Anne dropped her head. Truly men were puzzling creatures. She had almost been sure that the captain liked her, and now he looked at her as if she were an errant member of his crew who needed flogging.

Out of habit she bobbed a wobbly curtsy to him and left him to his task. Then one quick look back, and her heart lurched. With eyes half closed against the salt wind, in the darkness, all she saw was a tall blond man, muffled to the eyes in his waxed sea cloak. From his height, he could have been Edward, should have been Edward—if only the fate had been kinder. She yearned to shout aloud the name of the man she loved, for maybe, in his palace far away, he would hear it on the wind from the sea and think of her.

Leif Mollnar watched regretfully as Anne swayed away across the deck to the ladder and the last light went from the sky. Yes, this was a troubling voyage; shifting wool fleece and made-cloth was easier than a cargo of women…

At the end of the next day, Leif Mollnar kept his promise to Anne for, as the Lady Margaret made her way into Whitby’s deep harbor, the captain asked the women—all three—up to the deck to see them come into port. As a seaman he’d always liked Whitby; it was a neat, small town with stout, well-made houses cluttering the hillsides around the serviceable stone wharf, while above, on the great black cliff, Saint Hilda’s gray abbey perched.

Whitby was a fishing port, and the reek of fish guts seemed to seep out of the town buildings even in winter. All seamen knew rotting fish and kelp was a healthful smell, though those who did not come from the north always found that first whiff from the docks an assault. Anne and her companions were no different. Hardly had they got down the slippery plank to the shore and taken their first breath on land than the smell hit them.