In Great Waters (33 page)

Samuel’s leg was easier, but there was something in the stillness of his hands that made Anne anxious. Philip was on the pew opposite hers, she was out of his reach, and Samuel was good at calming him down before the word “wife” occurred to him. The dread that he would grab at her did not retreat, but it calmed, just a little, when Samuel stood between them. Samuel’s face was impassive as ever, but Anne could still feel it. He was tense about something.

Robert Claybrook bowed, backed away to his own seat. His face was as stiff as an icon.

As Philip subsided, Westlake rose again, ready to resume his place. He walked past Anne, a little slower than usual; slower than she knew he was capable of. As he passed her, he did not turn his head, but he spoke in a whisper that only her ears could ever have caught.

“My lady Princess, I must speak with you alone.”

Anne lingered after the service was over, hands blamelessly folded and eyes closed, trailing a rosary over her fingers. No one would disturb the Princess at prayer. The congregation filed out, and Anne waited, whispering under her breath. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death …”

It was some time before she heard Westlake’s approach. She finished her decade and laid down her beads. “What is it, Samuel?” she said. “Have you any news of my mother?”

“News of my mother” was how she referred to Erzebet’s death and the questions it had created; it was the only way she could describe it. There had been too little news. Samuel had sent men to make discreet enquiries of apothecaries, but no poison had been found capable of creating such devastation, no one remembered selling any. He had
sent spies and asked questions, to no avail. The thought of an answer made Anne’s hands tremble a little, and she folded them carefully in her lap.

Westlake shook his head. “No, my lady Princess. It is another matter.”

He stopped, and Anne looked at him in bewilderment. Self-contained Samuel, her grave confessor, was shaking.

“What is it, Samuel?” she repeated. “If something troubles you, be assured of my aid.”

Samuel swallowed. “My lady Princess,” he said. “I have news that I must trust to someone. I do not know what to do. Can I trust your silence?”

“Of course.” Anne reached out and put an anxious hand on his arm. “What is it?”

Samuel cleared his throat. “I must explain something to you, my lady Princess. You know—you do know, I am certain, that a bastard was executed this year.”

Anne nodded. Erzebet’s static face and oblique lectures on the need for a prince to be strong. That empty day when everyone was gone and no one would tell her where.

“There were rumours, my lady Princess … No one likes a burning.” Westlake rubbed his face. It was a strange gesture for him, freer than usual. Anne had never seen him sit so loosely, as if he were not observed, as if he were alone. “It was a hard business, the burning of a child. And there were rumours afterwards.”

“Rumours?”

Samuel nodded. “The burning took place on Robert Claybrook’s land, not far from here. His priest is a man from the North, John Bridgeman, a good man—a cousin of mine, my lady Princess. We went into the Church together, though he never rose so high as to come to court. But the people of his parish, they were afraid. They swore they had seen a ghost there.”

“A ghost?” Anne shook her head in nervous bewilderment. Bad omens meant disaster for England, the wrath of God, even. God wanted his people to be merciful. Samuel had been right all along, and
Erzebet—Erzebet had been wrong. They should not have burned a child.

“The child’s soul, they said, seated on horseback, the child grown into a man. I did not—well, vengeance is the Lord’s, and he judges as he chooses. His ways are not known to us. But the rumour troubled me, my lady Princess. So I asked my cousin to spare me a favour. Some of his parishioners are soldiers, good men, trustworthy. They had not liked the burning either.” Samuel rubbed his face again, raising a little colour in the cheeks. “I asked my cousin, and he asked them. They kept a watch on my lord Claybrook’s land. They did not tell their master they did so.”

Anne blinked. This was a great betrayal of their lord, even if a bishop had asked it. They must have hated the burning. It must have been terrible indeed.

“My lady Princess, I thought it might be a ghost. But I thought it might be a man of flesh, also. I—I do not care for burnings. My lady Princess, I was there, blessing the flames, praying for those people’s souls. I hope I shall live and die an Englishman and loyal to your Majesties, but I wish never again to see such a sight.” The colour stayed in his cheeks, and his voice rose. Anne swallowed. The sight of Samuel angry was so strange, so unfamiliar, that she drew back a little, frightened. “But I could not stand by if there was another bastard in the land.”

Distracted as Anne was, the word took a moment to filter through. “A—another bastard? Do you think it could be?”

Samuel turned to her. She could see his pupils, wide and black, filling his eyes. “My life is in your hands, my lady Princess,” he said. “The soldiers found him. I have him locked in my house.”

B
OOK
F
OUR
DISCOVERY

H
ENRY COULD REMEMBER
the first time he saw a building, a great towering rock of straight-sided stones, Allard’s arms wrapped around him and the jolting steps leading to a square, oppressive room, bound hands and rank food and nothing to do but bite his sticks and worry at the walls. The sensation of ropes around his wrists filled him with a childish terror, a panic so stark that as the soldiers tied him to his saddle, the trees of the forest stiffened around him, forming bars, an enclosing canopy of leaves trapping him, and he leaned up on his saddle as if to swim up through them, break the green surface and draw breath in the white, clear air above. But as he yearned upwards towards the green, a man came and placed a sack over his head, and Henry heard the coarse-woven hemp rustle in his ears with the sound of a crackling fire.

It was a long ride, a harsh one. At nightfall the soldiers stopped to rest their horses and built a fire to warm themselves; one of them pulled up Henry’s hood and offered him some meat. Henry saw the man’s face, blue eyes and sallow skin, but gave no answer, instead baring his teeth and snapping at him. The soldier dropped the hood with a jump and left him sitting there, saying only, “We had better tie his legs.” So Henry slept bound hand and foot, the open air parting around him, sounds on all sides of rustling leaves and shrilling birds and the scampering of
small-footed mice, all within his hearing and out of his reach and no help to him now.

Blindfolded, he was brought to a house and bundled inside. Henry fought the arms carrying him and, outnumbered as he was, gained nothing for his struggles but a sudden drop to the floor, cracking his head, followed by a swift recapture and a march up some narrow stairs, his body swinging in a helpless pendulum between his stretched arms and legs.

A door creaked, they entered a room, and the soldiers dropped him and left him. Henry scrambled up immediately, pressed his bound hands against his covered face to bring the sackcloth to his sharp teeth and began chewing. His mouth filled with grit and threads, but he persisted, teeth and jaws aching with haste, until he had a hole in the sack wide enough to let the ropes through, biting until they too parted, leaving him free to untangle his head and unbind his feet, ready to fight.

But as the hours went by, he found that his speed had been wasted. He sat in an oak-floored room, whitewashed walls and beams overhead and nothing to see through the narrow window but a green lawn, and nobody in sight. It was a full day before anyone came to the door.

The creak of the hinges flooded Henry with terror; his mind flashed full of soldiers, strong numerous men ready to drag him to the stake. Mixed with the fear was a desperate anger, fury at the
waste
of it, all those years preparing himself, learning how to use weapons, bracing himself for a conflict that would never come. Sixteen years, sea and land. Even in the ocean, he could have lived another decade before some predator took him, maybe two or even three, a lowering mouth and sharp teeth and a swift severing of his life. Not this. Not blazing red flames and hundreds of strangers crowding round while he screamed his life out on the pyre.

The door opened, and no soldiers came through it; only a man with a pale face and lame leg, leaning his weight on a stick, a stool under his arm. There was a moment of hope at the sight, that perhaps this man might be something like him if he had to walk on a cane, that he might help Henry rather than burn him—but then the anger settled back, gripping his muscles tight against the bones. Henry recognised his face. This was the man who had stood before the bonfire, had stood in the shuddering heat and muttered Latin while the little boy burned. The man was here for his life.

Henry retreated, bared his teeth. If he only had his axe, he could deal with this man.

The man stood over him, tilted his head for a second. “Do you have a name?” he said.