The Exiled (38 page)

‘For you, Reverend Mother, for all your kindness to me, God wants you to take this.’ Anne pressed the star sapphire into Elinor’s hands and refused to hear Elinor’s pious objections as she hurried to dress in the clean postulant’s habit she’d been given; nun’s clothing might offer some protection at least, on their journey. Her hands shook as she pulled the scratchy wool over her head, but there was no time to waste; Elinor accepted the gift. Anne was even slightly amused when she remembered the vision she’d had at Duchess Margaret’s wedding: this nun’s habit was a means of escape, not entrapment. Surely fate wove its thread strangely, for nothing was as it seemed.

Once Anne was dressed and equipped with an old pair of rawhide boots with nailed soles, Elinor, Anne and Joan hurried to the convent’s lean-to stable which huddled against the wall downwind from the chapel and the major convent buildings.

‘Here, you must take Brendan.’ Elinor hauled the donkey away from his manger — he put up a mild protest since he lived to eat, but the abbess was implacable.

Since the gift of the sapphire, the offer to take the donkey was given with less regret than it might have been, for Brendan, named after the blessed saint, was a great favourite amongst the sisters.

‘Are you sure, Reverend Mother?’

The abbess nodded nervously, though she wasn’t at all certain. God had not mentioned the donkey to her, he was the convent’s only beast of burden. Brendan’s loan had been her idea, hers alone. She hoped God approved.

‘You will travel faster. Now ... you must hurry.’

Quite why she felt such dread, such urgency, was not clear since God had not laid down a clear timeframe for her to follow, but Anne knew why, even if Elinor didn’t. Danger loomed over this little huddle of buildings like a darkening sky. It was tangible as the smell of fire, and the strength of the stench made her quiver, nauseated. It was the first prescience she’d experienced since her near-drowning and it hit her with an almost physical blow of certainty.

Urgently she turned to Elinor. ‘Reverend Mother, you must bar the great door very stoutly. Then put the wagon across the portal to block it after we’ve gone, and all the heavy furniture you can find to strengthen the barrier. They will come tomorrow. You must be ready.’

Mother Elinor accepted Anne’s words unquestioningly though she was puzzled; however, accept them she did, and for that, later, she was most grateful.

For now, leading Brendan, the two young women slipped away through the side gate in the wall which led out towards the marshes beside the river. Beyond, in the far, far distance, lay the sea, a misted, grey line between land and sky.

Mother Elinor thought she was the only one to see Anne and Joan leave. She was wrong — Aelwin, hidden out of sight behind the dung heap heard what was said, saw them go.

She had valuable information now, tradeable information. And she knew it.

Y
ork had always been a good place from which to defend the north — a good staging place, and as such it had been inhabited for well over fifteen hundred years since the Romans and before.

Not too far or near the broad River Humber, the city had become a natural crossing point from west to east and, more importantly, from south to north and back again.

The owner of vast properties all over England, Commissioner of Array for Nine Counties on behalf of the king, his older brother, and most often in residence at Westminster, Richard, the young Duke of Gloucester, nonetheless held the north for Edward. Though still a youth and inexperienced, he was beginning to be well liked, well respected by his people as one of the few, fair magnates in the lawless counties towards the Scots borders.

Richard took his crushing responsibilities seriously and that made him seem much older, more careworn, than his years — a blessing since he was much depended on by Edward.

Today, as the evening drew down, there was more than an unseasonable chill in the air. The trees in the fields around the city were turning colour rapidly as a cold wind from the east tore leaves from the branches, and Richard pulled the new marten-fur cloak tight up to the throat as he strode back from the stables. He was worried, and the weariness from days of riding was only just kept at bay by the knowledge of all he had to accomplish before he saw his bed this night.

After swift and bloody action in a recent sortie as far north as Durham — pitiless, some said he’d been — he was feeling a little better about the simmering rebellion towards the borders, but he was not pleased by the knowledge of who it was who’d stirred up the lowland Scots to come raiding whilst the king was away for their sister’s wedding: Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick — the man who’d taken him into his own castle at Middleham and taught him to be a soldier and a courtier.

And
his stupid brother George — once more the catspaw for Warwick’s ambition; he was in on the plot, nothing more certain.

Unconsciously Richard sighed again, more deeply, as he strode on. The two of them, George and Warwick — what stark sadness that they’d become hornets with poisoned stings, attacking ever more fiercely, however hard one tried to clean their buzzing, heaving nests.

He was near his lodgings now. He would eat, then he had urgent dispatches to write about the situation hereabouts, which must be encoded for the king’s benefit before they were sent south.

‘My Lord?’ A figure stepped out of the shadows and Richard just managed not to break stride, or jump in shock as reflex brought sword out of scabbard in one sliced-off second. Fear made him furious.

‘Guard! Guard! To me, to me!’

The duke was ringed by men two heartbeats on, all with drawn swords, white-boar badge clear in the torchlight, as Richard pressed his own blade against the man’s unprotected throat.

Terrified, the child — guttering light from a guard’s torch showed the duke that he was dealing with a boy barely into his teens — tried to fling himself to the ground to embrace the duke’s legs.

‘Mercy, mercy, please God.’

In that small moment of chaos, the duke detachedly noted that his heart was hammering in his chest. As always. Battles he’d fought in, sorties he’d led — even so young as he was — and it all made no wit of difference because to relax was death. And there were many who wanted him, and his brother the king, dead.

‘Enough.’ Richard re-sheathed his sword as he waved his men away. Fearfully the boy looked up from his position on the cobbles.

‘What do you want?’ The duke’s face was impassive.

Terror had done two things to Michael of Holmpton: it had deprived him of speech and it had made him piss his breeches, and he dearly hoped the men would not see the wet he’d made. But one of them began to laugh and pointed: steam was rising from between his legs into the cold night air.

‘Well?’ The duke’s hard tone choked life out of the laughter.

Shaming tears burned Michael’s eyes, though he did not let them fall. ‘I have papers, Your Grace. From Bishop Hardwell. Urgent papers.’

The duke grunted and signalled one of his men to take the flat leather pouch the boy was offering as he stood, semi-crouched, trying to cover the dark stain spreading from his groin.

‘Take him to the kitchen. Food, he’ll have had a cold ride. And a bed.’

The duke held out his hand for the pouch and was already turning away to more pressing business when the boy dared to speak again in a wavering voice.

‘My master asked me to wait, Your Grace.’

The duke turned back, perplexed. ‘Wait?’

‘Yes, my Lord. Wait for an answer, then I’m to ride back tonight.’

The duke just shook his head and nodding at one of his men, stalked on towards his own private quarters in one of the towers of the inner ward.

‘Come on, lad. I’ll take you to the kitchen. And find you some breeches.’ It wasn’t unkindly meant — Pikeman William Fuller wasn’t much older than Michael himself, but Michael had had enough humiliation for one day and found a bit of truculence. He didn’t work for Henry Hardwell for nothing.

‘Take your hand away, oaf. I must have an answer and ride back tonight.’

William Fuller sighed. Why was it that country lads were so above themselves these days? No manners at all. With a well-placed blow he swatted the side of Michael’s head, not so hard as to knock him out, but hard enough to lift him off his feet.

‘Listen lunk-head, if the duke says you’re to go to the kitchen, that’s where you go. Now, are you coming or d’you want to freeze your balls off out here when the piss ices over?’

Sulkily the boy got to his feet and, nursing his ringing head, stumbled after Pikeman Fuller until they both disappeared into the bowels of the building under the great hall.

The duke himself was having his wet and muddy riding boots pulled off in the privacy of his own sleeping chamber. He was weary, bone weary, but his working table, lying in the shadows, had a visible pile of work on it and now this. Urgent, the boy had said. Everything was urgent and all he wanted to do was just close his eyes, even for a moment ...

‘Next foot, Your Grace.’ Snapping his eyes open, Richard raised his other boot to his valet as he ripped the wax sealing the back of the vellum document he’d been handed in the inner courtyard.

There was just enough light from the fire and one branch of candles to read the first few words, with difficulty, since the writing was crudely made. Richard grunted in surprise.

‘A spy? What?’ Unthinkingly he sat up, unbalancing the valet who sat down suddenly, taking the second boot with him to the floor.

Unconsciously, unpretentiously, the duke reached down a hand to help his startled servant up to his feet again.

‘Warrington, I want that boy up here.’

The valet de chamber was a man of some dignity and, normally, he’d have taken a little time, silently, to allow the duke to register he’d been thoughtless, but Richard’s tone put that thought from him. The duke was worried about something.

‘Certainly, Your Grace. Immediately. If I may just enquire ...?’

‘Yes?’ The duke was sounding quite dangerous tonight, which made Warrington nervous.

‘The boy, Your Grace? Which boy?’

A
nne and Joan spent their first night away from the convent in a barley-rick and, as they burrowed down into the barley straw, they were both grateful for the beauty and peace of the evening, for the stars, for the rising moon.

It had been a good but tiring day.

After taking it in turns to ride Brendan, Anne and Joan had made considerable progress through a sullen afternoon, bearing east as far as they could, and then north beside the coast.

Keeping to sheep roads rather than cart-ways, they’d made sure to avoid all habitation, skirting homesteads and villages, yet trying to stay within sight and sound of the sea: the sea would be their guide. Follow the coast and they’d find their way to Whitby, eventually.

Anne tired easily after all her privations, so towards evening, Joan had insisted Anne ride as she, Joan, walked. The nun, once she was over the strangeness, the height of the limitless sky, was enjoying herself greatly. She wasn’t even afraid — and if that wasn’t a miracle, then she didn’t understand the workings of God at all.

Now, they both lay on the top of their chosen rick, having eaten a small meal and fed Brendan as much barley straw as he would take (Joan crossed herself and asked the Lord’s permission first because this was stealing another’s property) whilst they talked quietly and watched the moon rise out of the sea. It was close to full tonight. If they needed to walk at night over the next days, they’d have excellent light.

‘Good night, Anne. I hope you sleep well.’

‘Good night, sweet Joan. I shall, knowing you’re here.’

Very soon, even, gentle breathing told the nun her companion was sleeping. Joan herself planned to say her prayers just as she would have at the convent and, as quietly as she could, she sang vespers.

Very soon though, she too was deeply asleep, wrapped in her cloak and covered deep in straw.

She’d never had a softer, warmer bed. ‘Perhaps this is heaven’ was her last blasphemous thought before sleep claimed her.

Triumph was a good feeling, a warm feeling. Especially since this little triumph was a demonstration to his father, the baron, that old must finally give way to young.

Or so thought Henry Hardwell as he ripped open and read the dispatch from Duke Richard at dawn the next day.

Michael of Holmpton stood, wet and shivering before his master, Bishop Hardwell, dripping onto the flags of the hall, so tired his legs would barely hold him up, yet filled with pride. Not everyone could say they’d ridden to York and back within an afternoon and a night, could they? Now, if he could just have something to eat, and just a little sleep.

‘Michael, find Simon. Now!’

Michael’s dreams of glory and reward from a generous master were gone like smoke on a windy day. The look in Henry’s eye said a kick in the backside was all the reward he’d be having unless he did as he was bid.

Simon was at the manor’s mill — berating the miller on the suspicion of doing private business on the side out of the Hardwell family’s property — when the filthy boy found him.

Poor Michael, this time all he got was a clip around the ear for keeping his weary horse out of the stable, but at least Simon said he could get breakfast from the kitchen.

The reeve found his master’s son in the manor’s hall, pacing back and forth, back and forth, a fixed, frightening smile on his face — or rather his teeth, thought Simon. A nasty piece, Henry Hardwell, but an energetic man. Simon would go far with Henry, as opposed to his spendthrift father, who did not know the value of a good servant when he had one.

‘Read this! Tell me I’m right!’ Henry couldn’t read very well, but he’d seen enough to get the sense of the duke’s reply. Simon held the parchment up to the light of one of the east-facing windows in Stephen Hardwell’s hall and rapidly scanned it. Finally, he nodded.

‘You’ve won, Sir Henry. The duke wants the girl brought to York.’ He smiled. ‘I would say that the use of the word “spy” was what did the trick.’