The Exiled (29 page)

She’d been so careful all night, since Queen Elisabeth was a guest at the feast, never to look at Edward, but spending the evening talking cheerfully to Anselm Adorno.

He was a stocky, good-looking boy and she knew that he would marry her in a moment if she gave him the least encouragement — an arrangement that would have pleased his family, and the Cuttifers; probably even Deborah.

Anne liked the Adornos. They were sophisticated and clever but welcoming to her, seemingly without the prejudice of her own countrymen towards her flourishing commercial activities. Native Genovese, they’d been in the city of Brugge since the last century and were known for their piety, even having built their own church, the spectacular Jerusalem Chapel, so that they could worship privately as a family together.

And the grey skies of the north had not dimmed the passion and energy they’d brought with them more than eighty years ago. They were so wealthy that Anne was not a commercial threat to them — they’d even talked together of specific joint ventures for the buying and selling of jewels, pooling their resources so that under certain circumstances, they could buy together and get better prices all around.

But Edward had returned and if there’d ever been a moment when Anne’d considered that Anselm might, one day, become a potential husband, that idle thought was blotted out, yesterday — before, during and after the wedding.

Edward was a man, not a boy. He was her match, and he was a king.

But that same king had become increasingly furious during the gift-giving. That, Anne had not known. And he’d become even angrier when she’d left the feast, with special permission from the duke, pleading a headache so blinding it was hard to see.

The headache was real since she’d spent a tension-filled night trying to avoid Edward’s glance and being scrupulous not to look in his direction, not even once, after presenting her gift.

After Anne left, Edward’s anger was tempered by confusion and yes, even hurt. As king, he was completely unaccustomed to a woman who did not do what he wanted. It was taken for granted by him, and his court, that a girl or a woman would come to him should he merely beckon. But tonight Anne had placed herself beyond his reach. Deliberately.

Rationally, he knew it was the way this game must currently be played; he was on the high dais, in the public gaze, with Elisabeth beside him, watched avidly by two courts: his and the duke’s. If he wanted to slake the fever which had returned to his blood — and the hunger to consume, to devour Anne, with the single-minded fervour of a starving man — he must continue to be discreet, continue to wear the bland, distant mask of a king.

He had profound fellow feeling for the lions that had been ridden into the banquet by the English mummers after Anne’s departure; they’d roared hugely, shatteringly loud, to the fear and delight of the crowd. But it was empty sound, without real threat — they were too well controlled by their masters.

Were they too ravenous, as he was? Forced to perform — claws blunted, teeth filed to lessen the damage they might do — these poor emasculated animals were the very mirror of his own state. Elisabeth had him trussed and controlled. She believed she’d tamed him by her presence in Brugge. God! They would talk tonight, together, Elisabeth and he, and by God’s bowels her story had better be good or ...

Duke Charles signalled that his brother-in-law should be poured more wine. For some reason, Edward was angry and becoming angrier by the moment — they knew each other well and he could sense it.

The duke felt queasy suddenly. Should he speak with Edward, ventilate all that William Caxton had told him? Shaking his head to banish the uncomfortable thought, Charles softly caressed his bride’s fingers and she squirmed in her seat. He smiled at her warmly, and privately let her see him slide his tongue over his lips lasciviously, which made her blush. He laughed. Yes, he would enjoy tonight with his bride first and then, perhaps, after Margaret’s performance earlier this evening with Anne and Elisabeth, something useful might be encouraged. He sat straighter and smiled, relieved at the thought: his wife might be a most useful go-between himself and her brother.

The duke was certain of only one thing: Anne held Edward’s heart, and other parts, within her keeping. Now, if what Caxton said was true, she could be an asset, or a liability, in the stratagem that the English queen had set in play between their two countries.

He used to be a rather good chess player — so too was Edward; perhaps tomorrow would put their joint skill to the test?

Meanwhile, Anne, in her bed, tossed and turned — hot then cold, cold then hot — and burned and froze; and in her dreams, she was once more the sacrifice.

She dared not look at the sorcerer’s face in her dream, but he was moving closer, closer than he’d ever been.

With a jolt she woke, heart thumping painfully. Anything, anything was better than facing those empty eyes.

Sitting up against the bolster, she was glad of the light breeze from her open casement. It dried the sweat on her naked body, the sweat which came from terror.

She needed guidance if she was to walk unscathed through the dangerous maze her life had become — and find the way to the other side.

‘Sword Mother? Sword Mother?’ She did not voice the words but they cannoned around her mind. If only she could still her ragged breathing and sink deep to summon up the presence who’d spoken through her before. But nothing came, nothing, even though she lit the candle, made the blood sacrifice and the invocation. Finally, truly exhausted and with headache returning, Anne gave up.

‘Oh, Sword Mother, Sword Mother. Why give me the visions if I see so little of my own fate?’

She whispered the words, despairing. And Jenna, despairing also, heard them as she lay, eyes open to the night in the breathless annex to the solar.

D
awn came reluctantly to Brugge as suddenly cold and violent air flowed into the city on a north wind.

The trees in the heber shivered as the light straggled up. It was only August — the world couldn’t be turning from high summer to winter overnight, could it?

Deborah woke suddenly as the wind banged a shutter back against the walls of the house. She was anxious, breathing as if she’d been running, but from what? Darkness. It had had a form. And eyes.

Shuddering, the old woman groped under the straw-filled mattress of her box bed to find the little drawstring bag she kept there. It was still dark inside the annex to the solar and Jenna and the boy were fast asleep, but she knew what she wanted by feeling for it. When she was frightened she needed the touch of her sacred things: carved rune stones given to her by her own mother during long apprenticeship into ancient knowledge. Stones that were frowned on in this world ruled by Christ. But still, they were things which had power; power to protect, power to speak when the people she lived amongst would do neither of these things for themselves.

Deborah had been worried for days now, dread her constant companion. Edward was the cause, and Elisabeth. And Anne. Tomorrow the English Court would embark for home and that should have been a cause for rejoicing.

If only this house could pass unscathed through this last day, all might yet be well, but over this last week, every night, covertly, she’d read the runestones and they’d said the same thing.

Seven times over seven days and nights, she’d thrown the stones and seven times Nauthiz, Isa and Hagalaz had rolled apart from the others: the runes of cold which personified the three fateful sisters, weavers of all lives, great and small.

So it was again, today.

Nauthiz, ‘the teacher’, brought hard lessons that must be learned, sometimes at bitter cost, yet the rune also offered some small hope that strength of character might bring luck in beckoning adversity with the help of true friends.

Hagalaz said storm, fierce winds, bad weather: an uncontrollable blast of cold winter fury. Chaos inextricably connected with past events — gale-brought havoc that no power, no person, could avoid, coupled with great impending danger.

And Isa, the ice rune, the cold, iron rune against which there was no defence, for its power was the implacable strength of winter. Winter cannot be resisted, it must be endured; short days, long nights can bring patience — patience and hope, for the cold season can be tolerated knowing that light and warmth will return with the spring.

The message was always the same: bad times coming, lessons to be learnt which could not be escaped from — and the need for courage.

But Anne could not hear Deborah, would not hear her; too caught up in the game of chance, the dance of flesh, Anne refused sight and hearing if it intruded too far into her rapture with the king. All the world contrived to keep them apart yet he, and she, found ways to savour each other in dangerous, snatched moments — moments which fed the ravenous fire between them.

Deborah shuddered.

The great storm was close, so close. She could feel it, even smell ice on the north wind this morning. Yet, remove the king, remove the queen and perhaps the danger might be averted?

Dawn light was seeping as the shadows of the night receded and the old woman sighed. Foolish to deny or avoid understanding when it was given. She, Deborah, had these tools for a purpose and it was her right and her duty to use them in the service of others. And Anne was the centre of her duty
and
her care.

Very well, she was resolved. Today Anne would hear what had to be said because today she would be given no choice.

Anne had taken a long time to wake.

Finally sleeping last night, she’d descended very deep into a red world: a voluptuous place filled with sighs and heat where half-glimpsed naked bodies coupled together, endlessly twining and writhing. She’d been reluctant to leave it because Edward was there with her, and he had been the source of the sighs, the melting kisses. There was no night, no day, as sleeping and waking blended into one, long, heated half-life filled with the most exquisite, unslaked, unslakeable hunger. Hunger for him. And, in loving Edward, accepting him, the empty-eyed night demon had been banished from her dreams; passion had vanquished him. She was free!

Now, as the light rose, Anne opened her eyes and stretched, delighting in her senses as sight came, smell came, touch came. Every surface in her bed was sensuous: silk, velvet, fur, ah, fur.

How glad she was that, finally, she’d not withstood Edward’s wooing. How foolish her fear seemed now. He was the king, he could protect her from everything, anything; for though she’d asked for help from the Sword Mother, nothing had come to her, nothing. Better then to turn to mortal power — the power this man had over her, and around her; binding her, protecting ...

And, when she’d faced it, how wonderful her capitulation to him had become. Each stolen night she drowned in surrender. She was exhausted, but still not sated with him, nor he with her. Let others sleep, the darkness was a gift — and they’d made such good use of it.

And, if she closed her eyes, she could see him as she’d seen him not even three hours before. Naked, lying with her and inside her on a great cape lined with black fur. He’d thrown it down so that she’d not feel the stone floor on her bare skin and be chilled.

Ah, but he’d chilled her: like ice, like fire, as, slowly and carefully, he’d undressed her, kissed her, running his hands so lightly over her skin that she had shivered as if freezing. Shaking so deeply that she could only centre by sliding him hot and deep and hard into her body, by kissing him so that warmth flowed from mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue as he had rocked her, rocked her and she straddled him and the itch between them both became deeper and hotter and hotter and ...

‘Good morning, mistress.’

Anne was annoyed; Deborah’s voice had cut through the reverie and forced her into the present.

‘I was not fully awake, Deborah.’

‘Will you wash, mistress?’ Her foster-mother’s voice was brisk.

Anne knew that tone — it reached back into childhood when the winter dawn came late and she didn’t want to get up in the dark. Duty. Obligation. Right now.

Anne closed her eyes defiantly. ‘Yes. I will wash. But when I call you.’ She knew she sounded sulky, but all the rest of her life revolved around work and duty to others. Could she not just enjoy, if only for this one last time, lying in her bed with the luxurious sense of other possibilities in life? Being with the man you loved, for one? Dreaming of a future with him?

‘That is inconsiderate, Anne. Jenna has laboured up the stairs to bring you this hot water and she has much to do.’

That ‘Anne’ was significant. Deborah was always entirely scrupulous to avoid personal address between them, especially in front of other members of the household.

Anne sighed and, very reluctantly, opened her eyes. It took a moment to register she and Deborah were actually alone, though two large brass cans of hot water were gently steaming on the blue tiles in front of her fireplace.

‘Where is the baby? And Jenna?’

‘They’re both in the kitchen, where I sent them.’ It was an unspoken accusation — Anne was failing in her duty to her son, too caught up by passion to notice. Deborah’s face was implacable as she waited for Anne to get out of the bed.

Anne said nothing. She would not acknowledge she’d lost the contest of wills, though she shivered as she slipped naked out of the warm bed.

Silently Deborah held out the robe and Anne, just as silently, wrapped it around her as Deborah poured hot water into a washing bowl for her.

‘We will need to inspect the winter clothes for moth damage, I suspect, and make them ready for wearing. We’re in for an early autumn.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. Mathew would want us to check and see who needs last winter’s livery replacing. There will be idle seamstresses in Brugge now and their rates’ll be lower too since the wedding is nearly done ...’

Nearly done. The words echoed. Neither said anything for a moment as Anne wiped the soft curds of soap from her body with a linen cloth.