The Innocent (47 page)

Simple.

William groaned. It was not that he did not believe the king would pull it off; it was the risk of it, walking directly into the lion’s den. But he comforted himself with the knowledge that surprise would be on their side and Warwick was not nearly so cool in a crisis as the king.

Edward might just do it, and anyway, what did they have to lose? A kingdom?

Chapter Thirty-five

The party of men from Burning Norton, including Giles Raby, Sir Mathew’s son-in-law, had arrived at Saint Hilda’s Abbey. Two men would escort Jane to York where she would meet her husband, Master Shore, while Giles and three more of his followers would take Anne and Deborah back to Sir Mathew’s lands near Rievaulx Abbey in the Wold.

The wait for Giles Raby had been longer than expected because bad weather had set in. The blizzard was so great that snow had even fallen in Whitby, unusual this close to the sea. So when Giles and his men knocked on the abbey’s door they were half-frozen, and even the tough little, shaggy ponies ridden by most of the party needed time to recover before they could begin the journey back.

During the freezing ride across the high fells to Whitby, Giles had become more and more annoyed by the fool’s errand he’d been sent on as he battled the ice-filled winds. It had all sounded so unlikely when he and his wife, Alicia, Sir Mathew’s daughter from his first marriage, had received word they were to make house room for a lady and her servant for the rest of the winter. And at Mathew’s express instruction, they were to tell their neighbors nothing about this guest. Giles had learned to accept Mathew’s demanding ways but the meddling in his decisions where Burning Norton was concerned were the hardest to stomach. Summer had not been good this year and their stock of food for winter would be severely stretched by even two extra mouths. They might be driven to slaughter one of the precious breeding cows they’d been keeping in the byre for spring, as the meat they’d salted at the autumn kill had not been so plentiful as last year.

Unlike the rest of the warlike Rabys, Giles had the instincts of a farmer, not a fighter—and a miser at that. He and Sir Mathew tolerated one another. The older man saw that the younger was more careful with his lands than even he would have been, and was forced to grant grudging approval of Giles’s management of Burning Norton. The younger man was full of new ideas for livestock improvement, and in the five years he’d had the run of the ever-expanding property, he’d managed to breed larger sheep that yielded more of the precious fleece than when a hired reeve had run the manor. It was said that Giles had even managed to persuade the notoriously closemouthed Cistercians at Rievaulx to part with some of their secrets on sheep management, and Burning Norton prospered as a result.

For all that, or perhaps because of it, Giles had few of the knightly graces of his clan and deeply disapproved of women gadding about, least of all in the winter countryside. So it was a grumpy man who sat waiting in the conversation room of the abbey at Whitby. All he wanted was rest and then to be away from this cursed and smelly little town before the weather closed in again. Then Anne was ushered into the freezing room, and most of his surliness melted away when the girl looked up at him and smiled.

Now Giles was one of those rare men who had made a marriage for good and sensible reasons—Alicia had a large dowry and the prospect of land, he was a younger son—and then found that he loved his wife. No one had ever called Alicia beautiful since she favored her father, but this girl was that and more. And the more was interesting.

She entered quietly, dressed in simple dark blue velvet. But he saw that the sleeves were richly tipped with marten fur and there was a delicate filigree chain around her neck. Her hair was covered by a low cap and a fine white veil so that he had no way of seeing what color it was, but the clear eyes that looked at him so honestly were the color of new oak leaves, with glints of blue, and finely shaped.

“Sir Giles, my name is Anne and I am forever in your debt for this cold ride. Sir Mathew has been more than good to me, but you have had much the worst of the strange turn of events that brings me here to you.”

She was almost humble and that cast Giles into confusion. He was unused to court women or court manners—Alicia said they stayed too much on the farm and he had forgotten his ancestry—but the grace and simplicity of this girl might have made even the most seasoned courtier tongue-tied. He hastened over to raise her and was surprised to feel the roughness of her hands; this girl was no exotic bloom unused to hard work. And while that was odd in a lady, he liked her for it.

“Lady, my house—that is, Sir Mathew’s house—is proud and happy that you will honor us with your company until spring. We get few enough visitors in winter so Alicia, my wife, will be very pleased to have a companion in the solar.” He spoke the word “solar” with cautious pride. It had been shockingly expensive and he’d just had it built at one end of the first-floor hall. It was two stories higher than the animals in the winter byre beneath the dwelling quarters, and since it was placed a little way over to one side at the end of the hall, that had the benefit of greatly lessening the smell from the animals. Now he was glad he’d spent the extra money, so that the stink would not shame them in front of their guests.

Anne was grateful that Giles had asked her no questions and she was thankful for his tact. She had no answers but evasions of the truth, and she hated that.

“Now where is this woman of yours? I brought a pack animal but I may need to hire another if you have very many things…” As if prescient, there was a knock at the door and a moment later Deborah entered in a neat, dark dress and white coif as befitted her new station as attendant to Anne.

Deborah waiting on her had not been of Anne’s choosing. It was something her foster mother had insisted on as part of the remaking of Anne’s identity. Deborah knew that change for Anne was impossible to avoid. Better to embrace, rather than fight, fate; Anne would never be a servant again—

the scrying bowl had shown that much at least—but friends had a role now in helping her become what she should be.

With Jane Shore’s willing help, Deborah had insisted that Anne dress in the new clothes that Sir Mathew had supplied. Every morning of the three days they spent waiting for Giles to arrive, Deborah attended her erstwhile “daughter” as Anne had formerly waited on Lady Margaret.

Jane, however, had not asked questions about Anne’s obvious change in status because she had been sworn to secrecy by her father and Sir Mathew, and being a good-hearted girl with a sense of adventure, she was happy to enjoy the remaking of Anne into the image of a woman of the court. But it was she who had seen that Anne’s greatest strength and distinction, apart from her beauty, was the kindness and simplicity of her manner. There could be no greater ornament to a lady for it said she was her own person—rare in someone so young.

Jane burned to know more, longed to ask questions, but then, when she caught Anne gazing wistfully out to the cold gray sea, something stopped her. Events as strange as these did not happen without good reason, and if her father was concerned in it, and had not told her, would not tell her, there was good reason for a wise person to stay silent and remain in ignorance.

The interview in the abbey between Sir Giles and Anne was short and now the time had come for Jane to go her way to York and for Anne and Deborah to begin the cold ride to Burning Norton. As Anne stood in the lee of the abbey door she was swept by a physical rush of sadness. She and Jane had become close over these last few days and as the two embraced for one last time Jane pressed a present into Anne’s hands. It was a brooch to hold a cloak in place, a large smoky green-blue topaz surrounded by pearls. Anne had seen Jane wear it and had admired its beauty, but it was very valuable.

“It’s much too fine, I cannot take it. Besides, I have nothing to give you.”

“It’s the same color as your eyes, nearly, and when I think of you, I shall see it, this brooch, going with you wherever you travel. Whatever the road.”

There was a bond between them, each girl felt it. It was as if a feather brushed them and then flew away, the sense of it was so light, but…yes, there was a bond.

Giles was impatient to be off and shuffled from foot to foot as Anne waved until her friend was out of sight, heading south to York. Their road was to be a different one; they were away to the west. And so the small party mounted the shaggy, rested ponies, with the exception of Giles on his destrier, and turned their heads for Burning Norton. The animals picked up their hooves daintily on the good road, which lasted less than the distance of an arrow shot once they were away from the abbey, but their heads were high, ears twitching, for they knew that each step they took brought them nearer their own stable.

The weather held for them; there was even a high thin blue in the sky as Anne and Deborah settled themselves to the short, busy gait of their ponies. It was long since any of these rough-haired brown ponies had seen a currycomb, but the bite of the wind made each of the women wish for similar covering. Giles and his men were well dressed for the moors. The knight wore a black cloak lined with wolf fur and his men had sturdy leggings and thick homespun plaid swagged around them. Each one, too, had a bonnet covering his long wild hair.

These men were kind enough in contrast to their looks, though, offering to share bannock bread and salted sheep’s cheese from their skin bags. They sang as they rode, high, yearning songs in a language Anne had never heard before. And if she did not understand the words, she understood the feeling: loss of love, loss of home. The keening sound struck to her heart, for it was Edward’s face she saw when they sang, and her throat closed when she thought of all that was unsaid between them which now might never be given voice at all.

In London, Sir Mathew paced up and down his workroom. Recently, whenever he drank the rich wines of Burgundy, his gullet burned all through the night and last night had been such a one. He was tired and out of sorts and worried too.

The Sunday last, he’d finally been present at High Mass in the Abbey Church to see his new chalice used for the first time. But anxiety had clouded the pleasure when he’d been given a private tour of the treasure house where it would rest between uses. He’d been shown the new handsome casket that would contain his cup and the mazer, but, now, at last, he knew the resting place of the letter that might prove the truth of Anne’s birth.

The treasure of the Abbey was kept in the Chapel of the Pyx, which was part of a long, stone-vaulted undercroft beneath the monks’ dormitory, and the prior of the Abbey Church had been delighted to show Mathew the huge store of silver and gold plate, manuscripts, missals, and jewels that were kept there. Gold, Mathew’s gold, opened all doors it seemed; such a simple solution to the problem, in the end.

The Chapel of the Pyx was also where the state regalia was kept—the crown of Saint Stephen, the orb, and Curtana the sword of mercy—and the pyx itself containing the standard gold and silver coins of the realm. Each year, with great ceremony, the “trial of the Pyx” was conducted in which the coinage was taken out and weighed and tested to ensure that none had “clipped” the coins in the intervening year and thus debased their value.

There was also the famous door lined with human skin that led from the chapel out into the chapter house of the brothers. The prior had pointed it out with great pride; it served as a warning to all who thought of stealing the treasure. Mathew had felt every word the venerable prior had spoken about thieves as he pointed to the door with its dusty, shredded covering, but Mathew also glimpsed an oak box in one of the niches formed by the vaulting, on which the words “Henricius VI” had been hammered with gold-topped nails. It was new work, for the wood was still light-colored in contrast to the black oakwood of the ancient coffers around it. Beside it was another, even lighter in hue, with

“Edwardus IV” similarly displayed on its lid.

Feigning great interest in the prior’s words, the merchant had asked questions about all that they saw:

“And so, Reverend Prior, everything in the treasure house has been given to the Abbey?”

“Yes, Sir Mathew, you have joined an honorable host. Many great men of England—yourself now included—have glorified this holy house with gifts. There has been a church here in this place for at least seven hundred years, since the reign of Ethelbert, Saxon King of Kent, and the coming of the blessed Augustine—and it pleases God that our abbey remains a light to the ungodly. You have added to that light.”

Mathew had bowed humbly but he could not suppress the surge of pride that swelled his heart. It had nearly distracted him from the business at hand: the oak chest with Henry VI’s name upon it. “Yet, Prior, I see many locked chests around us here. They must truly contain objects of even greater value.”

“Why yes, Sir Mathew, in some cases. They are the most important of the state papers from a particular reign that are entrusted to us for safekeeping. Some are very ancient…” He pointed to a couple of almost black boxes. “These are from the reign of the blessed founder of our Cathedral Church, the holy Saint Edward; and this is from his successor, and the invader of this realm, the bastard William of Normandy.”

“Ah, so the newer chests I see here?” Mathew had waved in the general direction of the lighter-colored chests in the shadows.

“Papers from the reign of our current King, Edward, and his predecessor, Henry VI.”

The prior had hesitated a moment before saying the last name. A sad expression had shadowed his face as he crossed himself quickly. Silently, the two men contemplated the chest, their thoughts with that poor man; it seemed a small object to contain the sum of one long reign, ended so ignominiously.

Mathew continued to pace his workroom, silently reliving what he’d seen in the dimly lit little chapel.

He’d been delighted to see that the chest with Henry’s name on it was not locked, but he knew it would be difficult to gain access to it again with enough time to sort through its contents. The only way in was through the chapter house vestibule, a busy place in the life of the Abbey at almost any time of the day.