The Rose of York (26 page)

Warwick turned his stricken eyes from his daughter back to his wife. He tried to speak but no words came. He opened his arms wide, a pathetic gesture begging forgiveness. His Countess went into them. Cradling one another, they stood sobbing softly. Anne averted her face. She had never seen her father weep before.

After a time, Warwick held his wife out at arm’s length. “The storm is easing,” he said. “The wind should shift easterly soon. We’ll be in Calais by dawn, God willing.”

“Calais,” her mother whispered reverently, dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes. “Thanks be to Him and to the Blessed Virgin both.”

Aye
, Anne thought,
Calais was salvation
. Calais was refuge, comfort, safety, and blankets, warm water, and potions for Bella. Calais was sleep. Oh, to sleep, to lie still, and close one’s eyes, and drift away into blessed, blessed sleep! Her father had been Captain of Calais since before she was born. They loved him there. His friend, Lord Wenlock, whom he had left in charge of Calais, would give them joyous welcome.

Her father turned to leave. His eye fell on the bucket of slop in the corner. “I’ll send someone for that.”

Anne closed her weary lids. Oh, to sleep, to sleep… A loud knock jolted her out of the languor into which she was sinking. She extracted her hand from Bella, and went to the door. A yellow-toothed, long-haired, half-naked sailor grinned at her. “Coom for the pail, lady,” he said, lisping through gaped teeth. She held her breath, thinking he smelled worse than the waste he’d come to remove. He limped over to the pail, loosened it from its chain, and hoisted it up. He was staggering back to the door when his legs buckled and he dropped his load, seized by a violent spasm. Coughing and heaving for air, he fell against Anne, enfolding her in a stench so vile it knocked the breath from her body. She shrieked, flung him from her, and fled to a corner of the cabin. Her hand shaking, she tore a strip from the cambric shift beneath her gown and wildly, desperately, wiped at her face. She didn’t need a physician to tell her infections and deadly sicknesses lived in bloody phlegm and offal.

The sailor collapsed against Bella’s bunk, clinging to the wooden post like a drowning man and coughing as though his chest would split, while the midwife cowered against the wall and the Countess shielded Bella with her body. The spell subsided at last. The sailor cleared his throat with a rough gurgling sound, forced open the lid on the bucket, and spat out a wad of bloody slime. “Forgive me, m’ladies,” he said, shamefaced. “I did’na mean no harm. A fit it is that comes on me chest at times. Nothing ta concern ye about.” He secured the lid back on. “Aye—I’ll be off, thank ’e, ladies.”’

Anne ran to the door, barred it behind him and leaned against it, trembling. No matter what he said, the man was dying. She prayed she hadn’t caught his fearful condition, whatever it was.

~*~

Throughout the night Anne and her mother kept vigil at Bella’s side. She quieted somewhat and managed to fall into an exhausted sleep, but as the grey light of dawn filtered into the cabin, her pains began anew, with violence. Anne’s heart nearly burst with joy at the welcome cry, “
Land Ahoy!
”

“Bella!” Anne cried. “We’re safe! We’ve reached Calais! All will be well, dear Bella!”

The Countess sank to her knees in prayer to the Blessed Queen of the Sea, the words spilling from her grateful heart.

All at once a thunderous, earth-shattering explosion shattered the tranquillity of the April morning. The vessel shivered. Shouts and clamouring broke out above deck and there was much running to and fro. Someone beat on the door. Bella groaned.

“’Tis nothing, don’t fret child, all’s well. We’re in Calais,” the Countess murmured.

Anne rushed to unbar the door. It was flung back with a resounding bang. George stood at the threshold, his blond curls dishevelled, his rich brocaded azure cote ripped. But it was his expression that made her recoil. His nostrils flared like a lathered stallion’s and his brilliant blue eyes burned with a hatred that twisted his fine features into a demonic mask. He looked like a madman.

“He’ll pay for this!” he roared. “He’ll pay, I swear it!”

The Countess rushed to grab George’s elbow. “Hush, my lord, I pray you—think of Bella!”

Bella tried to rise. “George!” she panted. “Oh, George…”

George’s expression changed to horror at the mass of tangled hair and the two wild eyes glistening in Bella’s yellow face. The eyes were encircled in purple, the lips cracked, and the frail white body with the huge swollen belly was covered with bloody sheets. “Bella,” he murmured. “Oh, my poor Bella…”

Warwick appeared at the door, a dazed expression on his face. The Countess’s hand went to her breast. “My lord, what has happened?”

He stumbled into the room, collapsed on a stool. He looked up at his Countess with blank eyes. “We cannot land. They are shooting at us.”

She shrank back with a cry and reached out for support to the wall. “But Lord Wenlock…” she managed.

“The garrison’s orders are to turn us away. The Merchants of the Staple pay the troops’ wages, and they favour Burgundy. Wenlock has sent us a secret message. Calais is a trap. If we enter, Charles of Burgundy will attack by land, and Edward by sea. We’ve no choice. We must go to France.”

“Bella,” she cried. “Do they know…?”

“They know. Lord Wenlock is sending wine.”

She looked at him dumbfounded.

“’Tis all he can do, lady,” Warwick said. He dropped his head into his hands.

~*~

The baby was a boy, and he was born dead. They wrapped his little body in a shroud and buried him in the sea. It was a beautiful spring day; a soft wind blew and the sky was as clear as if angels had washed it that morning. In the distance stretched Calais with white sandy beaches and a long line of defensive wall studded with gun-holes. The red tiled roofs of merchants’ houses glittered in the sun, reflecting purple shadows onto the Beauchamp Tower and the massive Woolstaplers’ Hall. Across the water, the bells of two church towers tinkled sweetly.

Anne lifted her eyes to her father’s face, bleak with sorrow, and to her mother, standing silent and immobile as a waxen image. She turned away, overwhelmed by a raw, primitive grief. She didn’t look at George, who stood beside her, but she heard his words.

“Edward,” he hissed between his teeth, “you’ll pay. I vow it on our father’s soul.”

He reeked of wine.

~*~

All was quiet in the little cabin as they sailed to France. Even the seas, Anne thought, staring out the window whose wooden shutters stood open to the warm breeze. She let her gaze rest on Bella. Her sister lay on her bunk, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, as she had during the past four days since the babe’s death. Beside her knelt the Countess, a drab figure in darkest grey, lips moving in silent prayer, fingers busily working her rosary beads.

Anne looked at the shining blue sea. She had no interest in France, which was the future, and she didn’t allow herself to think of England, which was the past.

The waves are so gentle
, she thought.
Like a blue silk banner blowing in the breeze
. She felt strangely calm. Maybe one day she’d be able to sleep.

~ * * * ~

“‘Yea, lord’ she said, ‘Thy hopes are mine,’
and saying that, she choked,
And sharply turned about to hide her face.”

On May Day the passengers aboard the
Mary Grace
awakened to glorious sunshine and cries of
Land Ahoy!
The Countess looked up from her rosary, and Bella turned her head, but the sound came to Anne only dimly, as though it travelled across a vast distance. She rose to prepare for landing, barely conscious that she moved at all and oblivious to the church bells along the river banks clanging the commencement of the festival of love.

Louis of France had arranged a warm reception in Honfleur, a sunny town with half-timbered houses and cobbled streets where the scent of lime blossoms perfumed the air. The streets were filled with people celebrating the spring. Minstrels played merry tunes and pretty girls danced around the gilded Maypole. Wine flowed, and mummers and men on stilts tried to make them laugh. But the wine made Anne’s head ache, the glaring sunlight hurt her eyes, and the song and laughter that echoed long into the night kept her awake.

From Honfleur they were conducted through Bayeux to an abbey in Caen. Set in flowery meadows that sloped to the River Orne, and surrounded by blossoming apple trees, the limestone abbey was serene, the cloistered gardens fragrant with violets and roses. At night the nightingale’s song mingled with the tinkling of the fountain, and in the early morning the cooing of turtledoves filled the dewy air. Punctually at Prime, Laud, Vespers, and Matins, church bells tolled and voices sang praises to Heaven. The soothing chants spread balm over Anne’s dark, sleepless nights. For the first time since leaving home, she found a measure of peace.

Soon after their arrival, they were joined by Warwick’s cousin, the daring Bastard of Fauconberg, bastard son of the Kingmaker’s uncle, the Earl of Kent. There was much jubilation since Fauconberg, an admiral of Edward’s fleet, had brought many of Edward’s ships, and also several Burgundian vessels he’d seized on the high seas. Sorely in need of money, Warwick accepted the plunder gratefully.

Many conferences followed behind closed doors.

In June, Warwick and George journeyed to Amboise expressly to meet the King of France. In their absence, the Countess spent much of the day in the chapel, and Bella remained secluded in her room. Anne strolled the gardens, perused books in the vaulted library, and helped the nuns make an apple drink they called “cider.” Often she assisted with their charitable deeds— feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, sewing for the poor. The nuns were kind and called her “
petite angel
.” She welcomed their friendship, which helped allay her loneliness, and she was reluctant to leave them, even at Compline, when they prayed in the gloomy pillared crypt of the abbey church of La Trinite.

Nearly five hundred years had passed since William the Conqueror’s wife Mathilde built the abbey in hope of saving her soul after committing the godless sin of marrying her cousin without a dispensation. Anne found herself drawn to Mathilde’s stark black marble slab tomb in the chancel. Wondering what had driven the queen to take such a risk, she would murmur prayers for her soul.

On June 11, her fifteenth birthday, Anne sat quietly by the window in the empty warming room, watching the nuns pass below in the open arcaded court. The foliage glittered in the afternoon sunlight; squirrels chased one another across the emerald grass; and birds bathed in the fountains and twittered in the trees. Almost from the day she was born the world had proved a dread place, but in this house of God, she’d found refuge. When her father returned from Amboise, she would request permission to take her vows. If she couldn’t have Richard, then she would have God.

Gratitude warmed her heart at the thought of her father.

Marrying her to Richard had been his dream, too. Memories flooded her. She saw herself as a child, running to him in joyous welcome, and she saw him bending down, opening his arms wide to receive her, his face lighting with pleasure. He’d always had a smile for her softer than for anyone else. If there were one surety in this world, it was her father’s love. He understood. He had always understood.

She gazed at the River Orne, where a cluster of colourful sails dipped gently beneath an azure sky. A life of meditation might bring her contentment once she learned to forget Richard. These weeks of prayer had served to heighten the healing detachment that had first come to her aboard the
Mary Grace
, a detachment that shielded her from the arrows of Fortune as effectively as fine Milan armour shielded a knight from the arrows of war. No longer did a melancholy melody rip her heart with the sharpness of a knife’s blade. No longer did gargoyles terrorise her dreams. Now all she remembered when she awoke was blessed blackness.

Nothing will touch me ever again
, she thought, absently twisting Richard’s ring around her finger. The knowledge comforted her.

~*~

On Midsummer Eve, near the end of June, Warwick and George returned from Amboise. With them came Fauconberg, and Anne’s uncle by marriage, the Earl of Oxford. In the solar at Caen Castle, where they had gathered for the reunion, Anne stood by her mother’s chair on a Saracen carpet in the middle of the room. Her father had a smile on his lips; Oxford and Fauconberg seemed pleased, but George was in a foul mood.