The rhythm between them was so perfect that as he thrust she rose to meet him. They were helpless in the moment as he drove into her again and again, and she began to moan louder and louder, almost singing as the sense of their separate beings was dissolved and they were connected in a brilliant, fierce, incandescent wave that built and built between them until it crashed and took them both down, down so deeply, into resonant peace. They lay together, silent now, slick with sweat as sweetness flooded their bodies and the sounds of the night gradually returned.
It would have been easy to glide into sleep, and blessed also, but Edward lay with his eyes open, one hand gently caressing Anne’s rounded hip, as the candles guttered in their sconces.
She too was silent, content and determined to hold thought at bay for a brief period more as she savoured his smell and her heart ceased hammering in her chest.
‘I am here for ten days. Then we return to England. I want you to come back with me.’
Anne sat up and looked down on her lover. It was a reflex action to cover herself with the green coverlet. She smiled a little sadly.
‘Edward, you exiled me.’
‘That can be revoked! If I choose.’
‘But listen to me, my love. You know nothing of my life. I have commercial interests here, a business.’
‘And you have our son.’ He said it gently but with purpose. ‘He must meet his father. And if I have no other son ...’
There, it was said. An acknowledgment that their child figured in the succession of England; if he had no other son. Yet Anne knew the queen was pregnant; it had been freely gossiped about as the wedding barges made their way up the canal. Had that only been this morning?
‘Let me see you. We have nothing to hide from one another now, and you are very beautiful.’ Was it strange that she felt no shame? Perhaps she was a child of the devil after all — the priests would certainly tell her so. Anne shrugged to herself; she did not care for priests’ opinions now. Did she?
The king smiled tenderly at her, unaware her thoughts were so far away, but then he frowned as he traced the white line of scar beside her breast which was all that remained of the attack.
‘What is this?’
‘I was attacked. A crossbow. Someone paid to have me killed, and they nearly got their money’s worth.’
There was a moment’s shocked silence and then Edward was furious. It was terrifying. Anne, for the first time, was frightened of what Edward might truly do, might truly be capable of. God, never let them be enemies!
‘Who? Who has done this thing?’
Anne said nothing. There was so much to absorb now, so much to take in and consider; it was not the time for impetuous unburdening.
‘I have made enemies, commercial enemies.’ She was reluctant to say even this; touched his arm to calm him.
‘Anne, do you know who tried to murder you?’
A sudden, discreet knock at the door shocked them both. Edward shouted out, very annoyed, ‘Go away! I am not to be disturbed.’
A timorous voice answered.
‘Sire, a thousand apologies, but it is reported ships have been sighted off Sluis, bearing the queen, your wife’s standard. The Duchess Cicely instructed you should be told.’
Edward’s face hardened as he absorbed this news. He pulled Anne protectively closer, slipping an arm around her waist as he shouted.
‘Does the Duke know?’ There was a momentary silence during which whispers and shuffling could be heard on the other side of the door.
‘We sought to tell Your Majesty first.’ The inference was plain. No one was brave enough, or foolhardy enough, to disturb the duke on his wedding night.
Edward cursed roundly under his breath. ‘God’s very bones ...’ then shouted out, ‘I shall let you know my pleasure shortly. Go away!’
Anne couldn’t help it; at this moment of greatest tension she giggled — and the almost tangible cloud of black fury around Edward began to dissipate. ‘Your pleasure, Lord King? I doubt that’s for discussion or publication.’
Edward smiled down at her, kissed her softly, then sighing, held her unspeaking. Elisabeth Wydeville was close and it was a shattering blow to them both. Anne took the initiative.
‘I will leave, Edward. But you know where I — where we live.’
Edward was angry now, with a deep, controlled sense of purpose. The queen never did anything without a plan and following him to Burgundy, after he had left her as regent, was not only strange, it was dangerous. He would look a fool in the eyes of the European leaders assembled for this wedding. If the King of England could not rely on his wife to support him in his decisions, what could he expect from his subjects?
Anne put one finger to Edward’s lips. ‘No doubt there is a most important reason she is here. We have ten days ...’
‘We have a lifetime, Anne. Yours and mine.’
She said nothing. He had married the queen in haste, that was fate. But Edward and Elisabeth were married; they would stay married — a king did not put aside his queen for love.
And Anne would never become his leman, his official mistress — she was too proud for that.
Nothing had changed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Elisabeth Wydeville had surprised them all. For a woman halfway through her latest pregnancy, she had proved a good sailor, and even though the crossing from England had been unseasonably wild, others of her court had been gutted by seasickness, but she had not.
Much more importantly, she’d got her way and, as she waited in the cathedral at Damme the day after the wedding to receive her husband, her mother-in-law and the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, she had reasons to feel well pleased with herself.
She was nervous about meeting Edward, of course, but that was only to be expected. Soon he would understand, and praise her for the action she had taken. Yes, Elisabeth was sure he would be pleased by her presence, when he came to understand.
Why then, if she was so certain of her actions, did she change her dress three times ahead of the audience with Edward; rising from her unfamiliar quarters in the bishop’s best bedroom well before dawn, to drive her servants and her ladies to near insanity with her constantly changing demands?
Simplicity had seemed best to her, in the end, since she was to play the part of penitent but frightened wife and queen, rushing to her husband’s side with news no one else knew or could be burdened with.
Dressed in white almost as plainly as a nun, she was on her knees before the rood screen in front of the high altar of the cathedral, still decked with the flowers and banners of yesterday’s wedding, when Edward was announced to her.
Only iron control continued to keep the smile on her face when she turned towards him as he stalked up the aisle, face clenched and fierce.
Impulsively Elisabeth, Queen of England, bowed her head and knelt most humbly as he approached.
‘Dearest husband — Lord and King — I have dreadful information. Information that only you can hear, and that only I can give.’
She’d voiced the words in a low but urgent whisper and with eyes still respectfully cast to the floor, hurried on.
‘I would never have dared to disobey your order and desert my post as regent — you know that — but the safety of your kingdom is at risk. And the alliance with Burgundy — there is more, much more than you know at stake here.’ That brought the king up short. Burgundy? ‘I’ve been so frightened since I heard, Edward, you must believe me!’
That gave Edward pause. Especially as the queen looked up at him, beautiful eyes filled with frightened tears.
Unwillingly he asked the question. ‘Therefore, tell me what you fear.’
Elisabeth looked around as if expecting assailants to jump out of the shadows of the side chapels. Edward ground his teeth — if he had not known her well, this was a dazzling display of sincere terror. But he did know her, intimately.
‘Well?’ The tone was freezing.
Elisabeth Wydeville straightened
her back and raised her head proudly. If he was a king, well, she was a queen.
‘Your brother, sire. And Duke Charles. Treachery.’
A slow prickle made its way down Edward’s back.
‘George?’
The queen nodded her head and whispered.
‘Yes. He has brazenly joined with Warwick and this time there is no hiding the fact. And there is a plot against you here, in this dukedom. Duke Charles is not your friend.’
It was a blow to the heart, but the king was conscious of passing time. Outside, in the Cathedral Square, the duke and his new duchess were waiting to welcome Elisabeth to Burgundy. Edward’s mother, Duchess Cicely, had remained at the Prinsenhof, pleading gut-sickness after the feast of the night before. Perhaps it was an insult to the queen, perhaps not.
Automatically the king bowed to his wife and bent down to raise her up, noting in a detached way that she had chosen a dress that hid her pregnancy. He could not deny she looked very beautiful, almost ethereal, washed by a great shaft of rosy light from a window of the cathedral.
‘Come, Duke Charles waits with my sister the duchess. He is delighted you have joined the wedding party, of course. We will speak of this later ...’
Elisabeth suppressed a smile. How like the king it was to buy time to think. But she had unsettled him, she could tell.
Charles, however, was wary rather than delighted, though he was intrigued to know why the Queen of England had suddenly elected to join her husband in celebration of his marriage. If this woman truly was a witch, would she have the power to see he knew her secret, knew about Lady Anne?
His new duchess was hard-pressed to look welcoming also; and for a moment Charles was alarmed by the mulish frown which transformed that flowerlike face so briefly. There was a sudden glimpse of a formidable woman beneath the skin of the girl-bride. But then he shook the concern away in welcoming his sister-in-law. He had wanted a wife of spirit; all would be well if she consented to learn from his teaching.
And as he bowed to Elisabeth Wydeville, he could not avoid the thought: what a very handsome family they were — and this queen particularly so. If he had not been so well pleased with Margaret, and so suspicious of Elisabeth’s motives, Edward’s wife might have proved an interesting target for pursuit; but then he patted Margaret’s hand fondly. It was far too early in this marriage to be thinking of another woman, a friend’s wife too, when she was the partner of his partner in a most important alliance.
And his new wife was undeniably delectable, as he had found, for they sorted very well together, he and she, last night. It was not often as easy with a virgin.
Briefly, he cast Margaret a warm glance as she sat waiting for him in their great carriage, a glance which distracted her from sulking and made her smile through blushes. The duke’s belly shifted with the memory of how pleasant it had been overcoming his new wife’s natural modesty when the wedding guests had finally been chased from the bridal chamber. And there was another night to come very soon, and another ... Yes, he would enjoy teaching this one to lose all vestige of shyness, very slowly and very, very thoroughly. It would be pleasant relief from this new anxiety he could not quite suppress.
Yet Charles was the perfect host as he kissed Elisabeth’s hand. Curtseying deeply in reply, the Queen of England rose to find a handsome man, a fox-like man, who somehow managed to make each compliment both graceful, funny and knowing.
Transferring her hand from her husband’s arm to the duke’s, she let him conduct her proudly to where his bride was seated in her own throne on a great wheeled chariot. It gave Elisabeth considerable pleasure to see that Margaret, because of precedence — a reigning queen would always outrank a duchess — was forced to stand and curtsey to her unexpected guest.
Elisabeth sighed happily. It would be a difficult interview with the king later, but incontestably, there was disturbing evidence from the north, evidence gathered by men she paid — and she had been right to come. And now that she was here, well, she was determined to enjoy the rest of the wedding celebrations. In her rightful place, at their centre.
Not so Anne de Bohun. In twenty-four hours her world had been completely rearranged and it was spinning.
She had returned very late to her own bed, and though deeply weary, had slept little.
A hot, early summer dawn had not improved matters for there were things to be faced which would not go away. At least it felt a little easier in the light of day.
She did not doubt the strength of her feelings for Edward, nor his for her, but as she sat in the kitchen feeding breakfast to little Edward as the house came awake, Anne, try as she might, could not see the way ahead, especially now that Elisabeth Wydeville was in Brugge.
Wearily she closed her eyes, fingers to throbbing temples. She had drunk very little last night, and eaten less. Somehow, the sight of Edward at the high table had robbed her of appetite ... now it felt as if she would never hunger, or thirst, again.
Deborah watched her foster-daughter with concern as, covertly, she stirred powdered wormwood and sanicle in a cup of honeyed sage tea which she was preparing for the girl. Perhaps the herbs would help her foster-daughter in the days to come. Wormwood might moderate desire, the sanicle would help with the profound wound to Anne’s heart — her love for Edward — and sage might bring wisdom where the king was concerned: only might: Deborah was a realist.
It would be little enough to stem the floodtide of emotion on which Anne was swimming.
Of course the celebration of the wedding and the first great banquet last night were only the beginning of ten days of hectic events which would be piled one on top of another, culminating in a tournament to commemorate the marriage.
This first day, however, Anne had previously arranged to sponsor the staging of an archery competition — a nice irony that, for all that the weapon for the contest was a longbow. It was to be shot this very afternoon in water meadows outside the town’s gates and even now word was circulating throughout the city as details of the competition began to be made public.
In Deborah’s view Anne could not have thought of anything more likely to be popular amongst the people of Brugge — and more likely to enrage the merchants of the English trading community, since the duke himself had agreed, on behalf of Margaret, that his bride would present the major prize — an English Angel of each year of her age.
And no doubt, no doubt at all, Anne would see Edward there again — and now his wife, if rumour was true.
Deborah added extra honey to the tea she was brewing — something sweet was certainly needed, for today would be a difficult day, for all of them ...
Duke Charles remembered the contest, belatedly, as his party rode back from Damme. The flurry of the queen’s arrival had distracted him, and his new duchess, but now he formally invited Edward, Elisabeth and all the members of the English court to the archery butts in the water meadow beside the Zwijn to witness the championship.
Edward, of course, swiftly agreed that he would be pleased to attend, and suggested his people should participate in the competition as an honour to the duke, Duchess Margaret and the people of Brugge. English prowess with the longbow was, after all, a matter of pride to him and his countrymen.
‘But what merchant could have the resources to give such a handsome prize, Duke Charles? He must be truly a man of enormous wealth.’ It was the queen who spoke, astonished when she heard how great the purse was to be.
The duke smiled a slightly chilly smile.
‘The “he” is a “she” ma’am. And remarkable for that fact. Perhaps you did not know, but we have a lady who trades as a merchant in this city with my permission: a very beautiful, unmarried English lady. Sadly, someone tried to assassinate her recently — commercial rivals, we believe. An ironic comment on her power and influence, it seems to me.’ The courtiers gasped — it was bold to joke about such things. And Edward too was shocked though rigid training kept his face impassive.
The queen had become very s
till as the duke continued. ‘Some think this lady’s life a scandal, but I consider her to be a marvel of nature: a woman with the skills of a man. And the courage.’
‘You astonish me, Duke Charles. A man-like woman — how unusual.’ The queen’s tone was detached, only faintly interested, but the duke was observant for he had seen the queen’s lightly clasped hands clench convulsively as he told his story. Duke Charles smiled at Elisabeth charmingly and shrugged.
‘“Man-like” would not be used by many to describe this lady. She is very lovely to look upon, as I said.’
Edward, his face a polite mask, turned to Duke Charles.
‘Perhaps the duke will tell us the name of his unusual merchant?’
‘Lady Anne de Bohun. She has lived quietly amongst us for a time at the house of her guardian, Sir Mathew Cuttifer, a prominent English mercer here, but I believe she was originally from the west of your own country.’
Edward smiled charmingly at his wife.
‘Anne de Bohun. Elisabeth, you’re so much better at this than I am. Do we know her? Has anyone of that name ever been at court?’
The queen smiled innocently in reply.
‘No. But perhaps Your Majesty might have met the lady at another time and been unaware it was she?’
The court party was fascinated. Clearly there was subtext to the king and queen’s exchange, though their faces remained so politely disengaged they might have been discussing the weather.
‘If Your Majesties will consent to accompanying the duchess and me this afternoon, you will see for yourselves. We will not need to stay so very long, just time enough to judge the winners and for my dearest wife to award the prize. It will greatly please my subjects, and yours, I feel sure, for us all to be seen at the butts.’
And so it had been arranged. A message was sent to Anne from Duke Charles that confirmed the presence of himself and the duchess at the prize-giving, to be accompanied by the English king and queen.
And Anne, once she had seen little Edward well fed and sent away with Jenna to dress especially well for the day ahead, asked Maxim and Ivan to join her for a final discussion of the events to come.
The Exiled Page 19
