The Exiled (5 page)

And it
was
a young court, Westminster, for most of the courtiers, friends and supporters of the king were in their mid- to late twenties, so it chafed to eat without permission to speak, even to one’s neighbour.

Things had changed in the last year and it was much commented on. Once, early in the king’s reign, Westminster had been famous the length of Europe as a brilliant, joyous place to be, and to be seen at. A place of music, and entertainment and jousts — and courtly, and not-so-courtly, love. And the king had always led the dance with or without his queen: the dance that was complex, tantalising and erotic.

Tall, a fearsome jouster, sighed over by half the women in England, Edward seemed a king from out of the legends of Arthur; a king well- matched, moreover, with his glittering queen, Elisabeth Wydeville. The people were happy, for she looked just as a queen should look: a distant gossamer figure, as perfect as the Empress of Heaven and yet, now, there were rumours swirling around the royal couple which disturbed the careful picture. Tonight, the queen’s over-brilliant smile, and her husband’s politely detached expression, added fat to the sulky fire.

‘She’s lost his favour; you can see it.’

‘There’s not anyone else, is there?’

‘Just because we don’t know his fancy, doesn’t mean he hasn’t got some plump doxy tucked away.’

The courtiers might be silent during the evening, but the scullions were gossiping in the kitchens and laughing as the detritus, the slops from the feast, was scraped into bins for the breakfast of the poor at the palace gates tomorrow morning.

‘Well, from the queen’s expression it’ll be a cold bedding if he tries his luck tonight!’

Distant bells woke Edward, groggy, tired and alone, again. As sleep cleared for one last moment he was back with Mallon at the tourney last year, the Valentine’s Day tourney when Anne had ridden away from him on her little donkey. And he had not stopped her.

Behind the curtains of his richly tented bed he sat up abruptly, shaking his head savagely to banish the achingly sad dream, he’d had too many times. It seemed he might never rest properly again unless he could clear this miserable fog of loss once and for all.

William Hastings, his chamberlain and closest friend, heard the king stir as he warmed Edward’s shirt before the fire. The chamberlain was worried, very worried. The king had no current interest in sleeping with the queen — perhaps it was natural after some years of marriage, though worrisome for the kingdom, since they yet had no male heir. Yet neither had he shown favour to the many willing women of the court for more than a year. In such a man as this king, it was unnatural behaviour. The chamberlain cleared his throat deliberately.

‘Yes, William?’ The voice from behind the curtains was weary, truculent. William swallowed his anxiety, spoke up brightly.

‘What, Your Majesty? I did not speak.’

The king sighed impatiently as William drew the bed hangings aside. ‘Yes, you did — I heard you.’

The chamberlain bowed, but allowed himself to look surprised — a risk in the king’s current mood. Unexpectedly, however, Edward suddenly laughed at the raised shoulders, the elaborately astonished expression, and Hastings smothered a sigh of relief. The king threw the covers back with some vigour and climbed down from his bed, naked. Energetically he strode to the fire, yawning and stretching arms and back as William hurried after him, proffering the shirt.

‘Then, my liege, if I spoke, which I deny, what did I say?’

The king snorted. ‘A failing memory — the first sign of age, William! Come now, you told me ...’ The king held up three fingers. ‘One: that I must banish melancholy and look to the future. Two: you reminded me that today is the anniversary of the tourney we staged last year on Saint Valentine’s Day where we most properly thrashed Warwick and his men; and, three: on this anniversary you counselled me, William, most carefully. About my health.’

‘Did I? You astonish me, sire. Was my counsel acceptable to Your Majesty?’

The king nodded as he held up his arms, allowing William to drop the clean linen over his head.

‘Call them in, William, they’ll enjoy what I have to say. About my health, on your prompting.’

Praise be! Edward’s mood had lifted, at last. Energised and optimistic for the first time in many weeks, William strode to the doors of the king’s bedroom and threw them wide into the faces of the courtiers, who waited on the other side for the morning ritual of dressing the king. Hurriedly the tide of yawning men surged through into the Presence.

‘Long winter nights are bad for us all, gentlemen — they sap the vital spirits, make us dull and listless. I have a remedy to offer.’ His small suite was cheered to see the king so merry as he allowed himself to be dressed by three body servants and his valet, Belham. He’d had the shirt, now he was offered the breeches, the boots, the hunting doublet — and had his teeth cleaned with ground pumice on the ends of pre-chewed hawthorn twigs. ‘Tonight. A feast, a proper one, and a celebration — in honour of Saint Valentine and Saint Cupid.’

One of the slower members of the court, a raffish second cousin of the queen, dared to call out, ‘Saint Cupid, sire? Is there such a saint?’

Hastings laughed. ‘Well, if the king says it, it must be so.’

The dolt persisted, sniggering, ‘But if we learn to pray to him, sire, will we not neglect our duty to the other holy saints since he’s such an effective little fellow?’

The king tolerated the sally, even smiled. ‘Well, Sir Nicholas, I’m pleased to agree with you that he
is
a most energetic saint, does well with intercession for those who honour him determinedly, as does Saint Valentine, of course ... but Saint Cupid does not demand exclusive devotion — that would exhaust even the most devout.’ The men surrounding the king all laughed out loud, they liked seeing the light back in Edward’s eye. ‘Though I for one intend to test his powers since we are old friends. Perhaps we should all pray together, my lords, on our knees tonight, that he sends us his blessing?’

William couldn’t resist it. ‘And the ladies, sire, on their knees too, tonight?’

Guffaws filled the room as the king smiled innocently. ‘We must do all we can to help our sinful sisters to salvation, chamberlain, and if that means assisting them to be especially devoted — to spend more time on their knees — well then, so be it!’

Laughter swept them from the room and out towards the king’s great mews and the stables where the horses waited, saddled and patient in the winter dawn in case the king should need them. And each woman the rowdy group passed wondered why the king looked so happy at last, and why the courtiers around him were so fresh and cheeky, but universally they were glad, especially as word of the planned celebration leaked out. And suddenly Westminster was swept by gossip. The king was hunting. Hinds. He wanted hinds again.

Somehow they kept the gossip from the queen, but she too was pleased to hear about the feast planned for this evening; she saw the banquet in honour of Saint Valentine and Saint Cupid as a blessing. It had been too long; tonight she would rejoice with the king and, later, she would give him pleasure. She would rekindle the lustful spark between them and let it burn.

And that was exactly what each woman under forty in Westminster — and some yet older — thought as well.

F
ar away from Westminster, over the dark seas, the wind had risen steadily through the night and Maxim’s prophecy proved true as the late dawning day struggled to bring light to a world lashed by dark flurries of sleet.

Anne had slept only fitfully after the dream of Edward’s face as, time after time, the wind threw hail against her windows and grotesque dream figures wove in and out of the darkness. Screams, vicious pain, swords and then blood, a pillar of blood which resolved itself into the body of Aveline, buried these two years and more. She’d sat up in her grave clothes and called out Anne’s name, though the pennies were still stuck over her eyes and the living girl was afraid, so afraid that Aveline would take the pennies away and she would see what lay beneath the copper!

She awoke, heart hammering, mouth dry, as little Edward cried in the annex to the solar, hungry to be fed.

Thus, Anne was very pale as she was dressed by Deborah and Jenna whilst, by the fire, the baby was fed by his nurse, Anneke, a stout healthy girl who seemed to have abundant milk both for her ‘nephew’ and her own child, Lily, whom Anne, most unusually, allowed to be kept in the house. Another small scandal to be whispered about by the English merchants’ wives.

Anne had chosen her second-best winter dress this morning — for warmth, but also to remind her neighbours that she was a person of substance, someone not to be slighted easily, without cost.

Two years after Aveline’s death, Anne no longer wore full mourning for her ‘sister’, but most often she still chose sobre colours to wear, perhaps to take something from her youth. The red dress of yesterday was an aberration.

This dress was dark, though elegant. An overskirt of steel-grey velvet was slashed open and caught to a high belt revealing the underskirt of silvered brocade. The trailing hem was edged, like the sleeves, in the thickest white winter fur — rare arctic fox traded by Sir Mathew from the High East and given to Anne as a present.

Today Deborah had plaited Anne’s heavy, glossy hair into a coronet and fastened a slender wrought-gold chain around her throat from which hung a filigree cross. As Deborah covered her hair with a stiffened gauze veil secured with silver pins, Anne touched the tiny jewels, the pearls and garnets, which formed the body of the cross; each one was a memory distilled. The cross had been a present from the Cuttifers when she’d left their house, still a servant, to go the court of Edward and his queen. It had been a surprise, this gift — something a parent might expect to give a child when leaving home, rather than a token from an employer to a servant.

To feel the cool gold as it warmed on her skin was to see Blessing House again, the Cuttifer’s dwelling and place of business, and Anne’s first London home; and it was to smell the new rushes of the receiving hall, the good bread baking in the vast kitchen and the sweet, applewood fire in Lady Margaret’s solar on a winter’s day ...

Anne was brought back to the present as her own fire sputtered and cracked, and Deborah finally stood back and surveyed her handiwork, walking around Anne so that she could see her foster-daughter from every angle.

Anne’s colouring was flattered by the rich fabric of the dress, and her body was graced by its simple cut, the smoke-grey velvet a lustrous contrast to the unlined, ivory column of her throat. Anne’s beauty was a joyous thing, but today it made Deborah frightened. Was she tempting fate, adorning this girl so richly — as richly as an idol of Mary dressed for Easter?

Anne smiled a little shakily at the earnest look on her foster-mother’s face. ‘Lamb to the slaughter? Or lion?’ Deborah smiled too. She accepted the closeness of their minds, though it could still be unnerving sometimes.

‘Lion, mistress. Never lamb.’

Anne kissed Deborah and for one moment the two women clung to each other.

‘Do you know what the day is, Deborah?’ It was a whisper for her foster-mother to hear, just a whisper.

‘Yes. The Feast of Saint Valentine.’

They both remembered. It was the anniversary of the day that Anne had turned her back on Edward at the Saint Valentine’s Day tournament — and ridden into exile.

Anne closed her eyes to blink away sudden tears.

‘Your nephew feeds well today, mistress.’ Placid Anneke burped the baby on her shoulder then put him back to her other vast breast, touching Edward’s cheek so that he renewed his hearty sucking.

Anne forced herself to smile. She should be grateful for his appetite, yet her own breasts still tingled when she watched him feed.

‘A blessing, Anneke. He’s doing very well — my sister would be so happy.’ Hard to lie, but it must be done. ‘I am ready, Deborah. Would you see to the litter? We shall be late.’

It had been a deliberate decision to take Sir Mathew’s litter to the cathedral church of St Donaas. She had decided to visit the cathedral because it was there she would meet many of Mathew’s trading colleagues and their families.

Due to the freezing weather, attendance at the service was expected to be down, but to get to the cathedral she would have to cross the market square and she had asked the household to join her, to give thanks at the mass for her survival. They would form something of a little procession and news would spread that she was alive and safe, when the townspeople saw her.

People in the city would make what they liked of such a display. However, she intended that they see her confident, and well-guarded too. Somehow she had to maintain that façade until Sir Mathew arrived in Brugge. He would know what she should do then. Please God, let that be so ...

Thus, into the frigid day trudged Sir Mathew’s Brugge household, leaving only the cook and his staff in the house preparing the meal to be eaten on their return. Anne had asked Maxim to ensure that everyone dress in their livery of scarlet and grey, to make a brave show on this gloomy morning, and she had instructed that the curtains of the litter be fastened back so that the townspeople would know it was she who was inside.

Marching at the head of her small procession was Maxim, carrying his steward’s staff of office. He was followed by four men — outdoor servants from the stable, the byre and the gardens — who carried her litter while beside her stalked Ivan, slung about with a sword, two daggers and wearing a steel cuirass adorned with glittering brass. Around his neck was the gold chain she had given him last night and he was scowling as he walked, swinging his fierce glance from side to side as if daring shadows to produce more abductors and assassins.

Behind the litter walked the women of the household and the remaining men led by Deborah, dressed plainly, but in good English broad cloth. Each of those who followed her was warmly clothed and well shod and they were healthy: no frail, rickety bodies, very few missing teeth. They made a satisfying display as servants of a rich, well-ordered household. It showed as they walked proudly, heads held high, across the vast square in front of the enormous belfry tower on top of its Cloth Hall.