Since August, however, the levies, underemployed, had been dwindling away as, man by man, they skulked back to their villages to help with the harvest. That would have to be stopped; it was William’s task now.
The fire flared up and crackled — one last bit of vellum with its flammable ink. Again, that smell of roasting flesh; the acrid smoke energised Edward.
‘Enough! I’m glad it’s come, glad that the wait is behind us. Now we shall do what we know best, you and I. Let the French fear, let Warwick fear; we will catch their spies, and their deaths will be an example for all who follow traitors!’
William, saying nothing, rejoiced. The king had returned and it had taken a French spy to do it.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The Duke of Gloucester was rarely tired. Yes, he was young, but he had the same stamina that sustained his older brother the king and was famous in his family. It was said the Yorks could ride faster, drink deeper and fight longer than mere mortal men. Men laughed uneasily when they repeated the tired old saw: there was an uncomfortable rumour that Plantagenets, and the Yorks were Plantagenets, were descendents of the devil and a mortal woman. Sometimes it was easy to see why.
But increasingly, as the people of York got to know their young duke, Richard, he could do no wrong. He was their good lord. Sensible, evenhanded, slow to anger, mostly, even if he was so young. And not vicious. Other daughters were safe at his court though he was not yet, himself, married; it was even said he had no bastards, not one. Unlike his brother, the king, well-known even this far into the north for his prodigal ways.
Edward’s prodigal ways. Richard was considering them anew as the little boy was presented to him one evening in the great hall of York Castle when he’d returned from a two-day foray out to the Borders and back and was reading, amazed, the letter he’d been handed about the child.
‘Brother, guard this child very well and staunchly, of your love for me. His name is Edward, he is my son and very dear to my heart. More shall follow this, when all is made safe. Edward R’
Short. To the point, though enigmatic, yet it was signed with Edward’s seal — a signet ring that never left his finger and which Richard knew well: it had been their father’s. Yes, the letter certainly came from the king.
‘Have my people served you well, Mistress, in my absence?’
The child and his — what was she, governess? serving woman? — had arrived the day before Richard had returned, and now the boy himself was fidgeting, bored with being made to sit still on Deborah’s lap. The youth sitting in the great chair — Edward’s uncle, the duke — looked the child over from the crown of his head to his small red boots, searching for likeness to his brother.
He was a strong little boy, well set up, well nourished, forward for his age: already keen to explore the strange new world he found himself in. No sign of rickets and all his milk teeth seemed good, as was the quality of his clothes. His confidence, too — being unawed in strange surroundings — marked him out as a child who had been well-loved. How old was he? Ten months? A year? Where had Edward been, more to the point, who had he been with, apart from the queen, something less than two years ago?
‘Edward. That is your name?’ The child looked up and smiled at the duke. Bright, bright blue eyes, corn-silk hair.
Then, quicker than thought, the little boy wriggled out of Deborah’s arms and toddled on uncertain legs towards the duke. Holding up one small, fat hand, he patted Richard’s steel-mailed foot because, it seemed, he liked its sharply pointed shape, admired the spurs. Then he giggled and tottered back to the safety of Deborah’s skirts, where he hid, peeping out mischievously. Everyone in the chamber tried not to smile. Even the duke’s lips were seen to quirk; the child was certainly charming.
Richard nodded slowly. Edward’s son? Yes, that was easy to see, but who was his mother?
‘Where is your mother, child?’
It was a rhetorical question but Deborah dropped a hurried curtsey and dared to speak. ‘Edward’s mother is not with us, sir.’ It was said with an instant prayer to Aine, the mother Goddess herself. ‘Protect her, defend her. Let her live.’ And suddenly a warm rush of feeling swept through her chest, so intense it was hard not to cry out. And an image. She saw Anne, alive! Somewhere within sound of the sea.
Richard looked curiously at the old woman holding the boy’s hand: would she faint? Her face had drained of colour and then flushed red.
‘Madame, are you well?’ He nodded for a stool to be brought, but Deborah breathed deep and smilingly refused to sit. ‘All is well, sir, all is well.’ It was odd, that phrase, when he thought about it afterwards, but Duke Richard shook his head impatiently. There was much to accomplish yet tonight, and though there was a story here, he had other more pressing issues to attend to.
He beckoned his steward, Roger de Liversey, forward.
‘Steward, see that Lord Edward here,’ he added the courtesy title, ‘is lodged by my rooms with his guardian,’ he gave Deborah the courtesy title. ‘They are to have two rooms, one to sleep in, one for the day. He is to have his own guardsman at all times, and Mistress?’
Deborah curtsied again. ‘Deborah, Your Grace.’
‘Mistress Deborah, does the child need a wet nurse still?’
Deborah shook her head. ‘No, my lord, he drinks from a beaker now. He was weaned just recently.’ The duke had no need to know that little Edward had refused his wet nurse not long after Anne went missing. Perhaps he sensed the upset in the house; blessed be, he’d still thriven in the days and weeks since, drinking goats milk from his own horn cup.
‘Very well, then you shall have a girl who will work hard and assist with the care of Lord Edward. Perhaps, since it is late, it is time he was in his bed.’
He bowed slightly, from the waist, to Deborah and Edward as they were escorted from the presence hall. He would know more of the mystery, the boy whom his brother acknowledged as his son, later. The child could be important in the struggle he knew was coming to England — especially so if the queen were to give birth to another girl. For now, he would do as he was asked, guard him, and keep him safe. Discreetly.
Now, where was Henry Hardwell and, more importantly, where was the girl who might be a French spy?
Margery’s kindness to Anne and Joan did not end with food and shelter. As the next day seeped in with sullen rain, she heard Anne whispering to Joan that they must be on their way, much to the other woman’s dismay.
‘But, Anne, it’s so foul out there. We shall be soaked.’
‘Indeed you will, ladies — washed away, more like! But this will only last the day; tomorrow, by the time the sun is level with the top of our wall,’ she meant the great cliff behind the village, ‘the rain will stop. You can be on your way with little pain, meantime you can stay here with us. And if you choose it, there will be company. Fish must go to Whitby with my man — you could keep him company when he sets out tomorrow.’
And so it was decided, but neither girl had realised that ‘going to Whitby with Bernard’ meant going on the sea-road: sailing with Margery’s husband in his little fishing smack up the coast to Whitby Harbour.
‘But what about Brendan?’
‘Will you pass this way again, Sisters?’ Uncertainly, Joan and Anne looked at each other.
‘It would depend on which road we take back south, after we have made our oblations to the Saint,’ said Joan.
‘Well then, I’m suggesting we keep your donkey with us here until you return or we receive word from you. If you are not long in Whitby, you could come back with another of the men from this bay perhaps. We take it in turns to take the catch to Whitby, and all the families divide the proceeds when the boats return.’
Joan closed her eyes for a moment. The thought that she might for the moment escape climbing back up the cliff which sat so ominously above Margery and Bernard’s good little house, was an intense, giddying relief. But she’d never been on a boat either. Would that be worse?
‘S
ister Anne, what should we do?’
Anne thought for a moment. Sailing up the coast to Whitby would be much quicker than walking the remaining way, especially in this weather. ‘If Bernard will have us, we would be most grateful. Brendan will like it here. He would be pleased to be useful.’
Anne smiled warmly at their squat little hostess, who beamed in return, exposing healthy red gums and gaps from missing teeth, with unconscious charm.
‘Well, Sisters, it’s settled then. Just one piece of advice when you’re in the boat: try to keep the hems of your robes out of the scuppers or you’ll reek of fish for many a month. Very difficult to get the smell out of wool, they say, though I don’t notice it myself.’
So it was that, next day, Anne and Joan sat huddled together in the prow of the little fishing smack as Bernard pushed away from the sea wall and raised his one, large square sail which the wind took and bellied.
It was a fresh breeze that found them, and the women barely had time to wave to the small number of fisher-families standing outside Margery’s house, her children amongst them, as the little craft slipped out through the gap in the harbour wall and pointed her nose to the north.
Margery’s prediction was true, for the rain had stopped this morning, after a sodden day and night which the girls passed playing with the children in the tiny spaces of the fisher-house; now the dank wind made Anne and Joan shiver convulsively as cold air fluttered their cloaks and veils.
Bernard helmed his boat from the stern as David, his young apprentice from the village, trimmed up the sail so that it strained tight, gathering the wind. He smiled broadly at Anne.
‘Easy today, Sister. Easy passage. Good driving wind this — we’ll be inside the harbour underneath the abbey before you’ve had time to say “tierce”!’
He had to shout against the crack of the wind in his rigging, and they could only just see his face behind the great mound of fish caught yesterday and stored in wicker kreels on the deck of his boat.
She was named The Porpoise, Bernard’s little fishing smack, and he was justly proud of her. She’d been keeled and built in Robin Hod’s Bay by his own father when Bernard himself had been a tiny boy, and she was the source of his family’s modest prosperity for two generations now.
As he adjusted the tiller of his boat, pointing her nose slightly across the wind to drive her faster, Anne saw Margery’s man turn his head and stare ahead of them, north, and it came lurching back to her. That other sea voyage up this same coast, that other sea voyage to Whitby less than two years since ...
Leif Molnar. He’d been the captain of the Lady Mary. Why were there so many adventurers in her life? Would there ever be a time when she sat and span, as other women did? Grey-haired, respectable? Married, with her children, her legitimate children, around her knees?
She shook her head, sweeping the comforting image away. How could that be when she had to find them both again, Edward, and her son. His son.
‘Oh Anne! Look!’ Ahead of them, where the bow cut through the water, a school of silver fish had divided around the little fishing smack.
‘Herring, Master. They’re running!’
It was the boy, David, who yelled to Bernard against the slap and groan of the rigging, the slipping rush of the water.
‘More’s the pity, boy. More’s the pity.’ There was nothing to be done. The little smack was loaded deep with yesterday’s catch from the whole village. Full to capacity, she had no way of accepting even an extra ounce of the bounty God was offering today.
Regretfully Bernard watched as the silvered mass of fish churned the water, boiling beneath the surface of the waves in the wake of his boat. Here’s hoping he’d find that same great school again; it would stand them all in such good stead for the last of the autumn fishing, before the great gales sealed them down for the long dark months ahead.
But that was the luck of the sea and a capricious God.
Chapter Forty-Eight
It had taken Edward’s riding court four days and most of each night of relentless galloping with five changes of horse to reach the ferry on the banks of the Humber. Once across, they would make York in less than half a day. Ordinarily, in good weather, London to York should only take a troop of horses five days, but they had not had good weather and this had been a testing, brutally fast ride.
Only some sixty chosen men made up the king’s companions, but each man would count in the battle to come: that was what Edward expected, and that is what they would give him. It was for this, the bond they shared, that he had driven them all without pity — none for them, none for himself.
Now, standing beside his sweat-flecked, drooping mount, Edward was detached, being so tired, as he watched men and horses loading onto the punt that would take them across the Humber. Fifteen men, fifteen horses, that was enough in each trip — more was dangerous. He must be careful, exhaustion must not distort his judgement now they were so close.
‘No more than fifteen each time, Geoffrey — tell them.’ One of his riding companions, Geoffrey Luttrell, a long-term member of his affinity — even from Lancastrian Somerset — touched a finger cheerfully to his riding bonnet as he scrambled down the small hillock to the punt’s loading ramp.
‘Only fifteen men and horses at one time; those are orders.’
The king grimaced; he would have to control his impatience, for this crossing would take the time it took. They’d be on the further bank by dawn if the ferryman could be persuaded to punt all night, back and forth across the river. Fortunately the storm they’d ridden through had blown itself out with the evening and the river was calm, under a waning moon. It should be possible. It would be possible.
‘Geoffrey!’ Below him, the man looked up, face a white disc in the silvery light. ‘For the ferryman. We thank him and value his service.’ The small skin bag arced down into Geoffrey’s waiting hands, the definite chink of coins clearly heard as he caught it.
One more night and half a day tomorrow, and they would be in York.
Edward yawned mightily and eased his neck, letting his head relax from side to side. He could feel the sinews in his shoulders and his arms, they were tight from all the riding. He’d have to warm and loosen them if he was to be any good with a sword in his hand when the time came.
At least all the hard riding, the willing horse beneath him, the sky above him and the utter pressing need as time slipped by, day after day, had dulled and distanced his fears for Anne.
He’d hear nothing more before he’d left London, but now, as he waited for his turn on board the punt, time slowed, time stopped, and she walked back into his mind. He frowned, only half awake. There was another woman there as well.
Then he saw them both, two faces side by side: Anne and Elisabeth; one dark, one glitteringly fair. They held out their arms to him, unlikely sisters, but when Anne smiled, a radiant smile, the queen turned away and he saw again, with a lurch, her proud pregnant belly.
He was shackled to Elisabeth and perhaps she carried an heir to the kingdom within her body. Only perhaps; and then he saw that Anne was holding little Edward, undoubtedly his son ... but she was walking away from him, away into shadow, into darkness!
‘Holla, Your Majesty!’ Edward was startled from his odd half-dream, and straightened his aching back as his weary eyes opened. ‘Yes, Geoffrey?’
‘We are ready for you now, sire.’
Edward gathered up his reins and encouraged the mount down the slope with his knees, to where the punt was tied, waiting for him, sullen black water lapping at its sides.
At the water’s edge, Edward slipped down from the horse’s back and led the nervous animal up the ramp to stand close beside the other nine horses and their riders. Geoffrey called out, almost cheerfully, ‘Cast off, boatman. We have the king safe.’
Safe? There was no safety. Anywhere. Edward crossed himself. All he asked was that they be in time for Richard, or the urgent need for an heir, legitimate or otherwise, would have passed since there’d be
no throne for him to occupy.
‘Help me through what I must now do, dear Lord, for the good of us all in my kingdom.’ Edward was not devout, but his prayer was fervent. ‘And God, if it be your will, let me not die before I meet with Anne once more. Please let that not be.’
He was only a mortal king but perhaps the god of Solomon, of David would understand his need, and forgive his frailty.
For God was also Love, was he not?
The Porpoise slipped around the southern arm of Whitby’s sea wall, running before the sudden storm as the evening blew into dark. But the tide was on the turn and the boat was difficult to steer as tidewater tried to run the harbour mouth, fighting the fearsome wind. Thus, two mighty forces came against each other in a great cloud of spume, leaving the two women in the prow of the little smack soaked and frozen. At last, however, the vessel caught a sudden gust in its sail and was driven with a grinding crunch into the dock.
Deftly, ignoring the solid rain which had replaced the wind, David and Bernard rapidly worked to lash The Porpoise to the sizable iron rings set in the dockwall, fearful that, at any minute, another buffet might force the boat away, back towards the harbour mouth.
Huddled together, Anne and Joan tried to wipe the rain from their eyes, both tense as the dock heaved in and out of vision above them.
At last it was done. Now the women must climb the swaying rope ladder which Bernard and David had already scrambled up to get to the quay. The rings alone would not hold The Porpoise in this wind — she must be secured to stone bollards fore and aft as well.
‘Come now, Sisters, just hold tight and don’t look down as you climb.’
Anne gulped and she caught Joan eyeing her fearfully.
She smiled with a confidence she did not feel. ‘You go first — I’ll be behind to catch you.’
It was shouted above the howl of the returning gale as she helped Joan to her feet and placed her hands on the slimy ropes above her head.
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