There was silence as the girl stared at him. Then, knife still in hand, she dropped to the floor, letting go of her crutch and collapsing into a sitting posture with a suddenness that must have been painful. He saw her face flinch for just a second, but she was still out of his reach and he couldn’t get to her. She sat opposite him, a wasteland of skirts all around her, and fingered the blade.
“What would you do,” she said, “if I gave you this knife and told you to take your choice between self-murder and the pyre?”
Henry looked back at her. “I would take it and wait until someone came close enough to fight,” he said.
Her voice was almost interested. “Do you really think there can be an escape for you?”
“I shall not give up my will.”
She nodded, more to herself than to him. “A king does not speak so bluntly, Master Deepsman.”
Henry shrugged. “If I gained the throne, I would have diplomats to speak for me.”
“Is your name truly Henry?”
He hesitated. John must have made a mistake, let it slip, as he had told it to no one. John needed a sharp warning when he next appeared. But it could betray nothing, and it was strange, somehow compelling, to hear this girl speak his name. “In their language,” he said. “Back in the sea, it was something else.”
“What was it?” Her black eyes looked up at him, attentive.
Whistle, he said. It was like speaking a dream, some lost childhood memory that had sunk and resurfaced, changed with the salt water. “But it has been a long time since anyone has called me that.”
Whistle, the girl said. She sighed. “We have only one name, here on the land. But the deepsmen have names, out in the bay. You cannot explain them to a landsman.”
Henry shook his head. “We are not alike, you and I.”
“No indeed.” Her eyes were on him still. “You have seen the depths. The great waters out beyond the bay.”
He shook his head again. “You do not track them by sight. Everything is blue.”
“That I could have known,” she said. “I do know that.”
Henry braced himself. “Why are you talking to me? Where are your threats? You have asked me only one question, and that one was useless.”
She shrugged. “I am poor in kinsmen, Master Deepsman. Whistle. Do you truly know nothing of Erzebet?”
I don’t know, Henry said. “I only heard she died of a fever.”
The girl curled her legs under herself. Her face was glowing in the indoor shade now, a bright, cold blue. It was a sight he had not seen for so long, a colour of home. On that enemy girl, still, there was something beautiful about it. “She was poisoned,” she said. “Someone put poison in her bath and it stripped the skin from her.” He could hear her take a breath, another one, panting like a landsman.
Henry frowned. Had Claybrook not known of this? He had told Henry she died of a fever, and Henry had believed him. Or had he known, what then? Would Claybrook have knocked out the tyrant that stood between him and victory? If he had done so, why hadn’t he raised an army as soon as she was dead? It was a sudden gulf of ignorance, and at its appearance, he felt the fear coming back. He was lost in weeds, sounds bouncing back and no clear echo to guide him.
He raised the bottle, turned it over in his hands. Perhaps some wine would be good for him.
“I saw my mother die,” the girl said, and Henry realised that it was her own mother she was talking about when she spoke of Erzebet. He had known it, he could have told it, but the word mother meant little to him. Erzebet was a tyrant, a bare-toothed killer of his kind, and this girl was something else. The fact that she would be upset at the loss of Erzebet was not something he had considered. It wasn’t the words she used so much as the fact that she said them at all. She did not seem talkative. Erzebet’s death must have meant something to her, for her to speak of it for no purpose, only to hear herself say the words.
“If you call her a tyrant bitch again,” Anne said, “I will cut you.”
“People die,” Henry said. He had seen plenty of people die in the sea. It had not made them his friends. But the girl had a knife, and he did not say that.
The boy was an animal, Anne told herself. No, he was not an animal. He called her mother a tyrant bitch, he spoke of fucking as if it mattered not at all, as if nothing, none of the things that clasped and crushed her, could touch him at all. He was appalling, but he talked to her, he had seen the sea, he was probably telling the truth when he said he had no hand in Erzebet’s death. He just didn’t care about it all.
What would it be like, to be so unburdened? He had no courts to please, no country to care for, no deepsmen to manage with nothing but quick hands and shut eyes. Men did not bear down on his body; he kept his own space, pretended nothing, no concern he did not feel, no loyalties he did not owe. Even with a gyve on his wrist, he spoke his mind.
She had wanted to cut him, for being so unconcerned with all that mattered to her, for being so distant, so far from home, so isolated. But he was not Philip, she told herself, he was not a deepsman from the bay.
“Do you mean to tell me who hid you all these years?” she asked him. Somebody must have. He cared nothing for her family, but he must have one of his own.
Henry looked at her. “Do you wish the truth?”
“I do.”
He cocked his head. “My—father will notice I am gone, and he will seek for me. If he cannot save me, I may name him to save myself. But I will wait until you push me to that point.”
Anne swallowed. She had tried, she had tried hard to be good all those years. This casual casting-off of his family should have been horrifying. But at the same time, some part of her ran out to meet it, like a figure glimpsed in the distance. The freedom of disloyalty, the safety of solitude. When duties penned you in on all sides, ingratitude could save your life.
“Do you think you could withstand it if I had you put to the question?” she said. If he could think only of himself, so could she. If he was free to owe nothing to anyone, it freed her to owe nothing to him. He did not ask to be a stone around her neck. Something was running through her at the boy’s self-centredness, something she did not expect: an answering pulse of relief.
Henry seemed to consider the question seriously. “I think so,” he said. “Could you withstand it?”
Anne shivered against her will. “If it were easy to withstand, it would not be useful,” she said. “But it would not be me suffering, it would be you.”
“True.” Henry did not smile, did not make it a joke. He simply conceded the point.
“If your father saves you, it will be the worse for me,” Anne said. “Is he your real father?”
“I doubt it,” Henry said. “And perhaps it would be the worse. But if you mean to kill me now, you will have to come close to me to do it. And if you meant to burn me, I believe you would not have hesitated. It is not a thing one can do if one wavers.”
“If one does it with one’s own hands,” Anne said slowly. “But to give an order and have you burned where I cannot see you would not be so difficult.”
He seemed to have no answer to that. Instead he grimaced, and pulled the top off his bottle of wine. It sat in his hand, dark and clean.
“Do you mean to drink that?” Anne asked suddenly.
Henry frowned at her. “Why not? It can hardly matter if I am drunk here.”
People drank wine without checking it all the time, of course. Most people did not have to fear poison. “Do you know who brought it to you?”
Henry shrugged. “The man called John. He said it was a gift.”
Anne nodded. “From his father. Most Christian of him.” The scent of alcohol rose from the bottle, heavy and choking.
A Christian gesture. But Claybrook was not a Christian man.
An English bastard, full-grown, was a serious threat to the throne. People might accept a princess’s marriage to a foreign prince, but an English, clean-blooded, rational bastard to set on the throne
—if he could hold it for a few years, he could hold it for ever. Every royal house in Europe would be courting his alliance. And bastard though he was, he was English. Many people would rather have a new English master than an old French one.
Perhaps Claybrook was being wise, playing both ends of the game. Waiting. Making no move on the outcome, sitting on the edge of a battlefield until he saw which side was carrying the day. A gift of wine, a simple enough gesture. And yet …
His son John had come round to talk to Samuel. John had never shown an interest in Samuel in his life.
They were a present family, the Claybrooks.
The memory of him came to her, hard and cold, of Claybrook standing before the door of her mother’s room. Erzebet’s screams had blinded her, blotted out all other impressions. Her ears had always been sharper than her eyes. But Claybrook had been there. Claybrook, who might have been anywhere else in the country, was on hand that day.
Claybrook could have wandered into Erzebet’s bath chamber if he wished, added something to the salt. But Anne thought of the pyre. The heat, the ultimate, fatal threat. Samuel had found no poisons that answered the case. What else could have scorched Erzebet’s skin? Anne had dismissed the idea of boiling water, for who could have wrestled her strong mother into a steaming bath? No one, no landsman, if Erzebet had her wits about her.
But Erzebet sleepy, Erzebet drugged from a harmless cup of wine sent to her through some uninformed servant …
Claybrook was a tall man, long of arm. He could easily have lifted her mother. If there had been something in her wine.
“Do not drink this,” Anne said, clutching the wine away from Whistle. It was a danger to her, to lean in and out, but she was fast and he was not expecting it, and the bottle was in her hand and out of his reach again before he could stop her. “Do not.”
“Why not?” His voice rose, close to a shout; Anne could hear the hoarseness, the strain, under the threat.
“I do not …” Anne turned, struggled for balance. “I wish to test something.”
She went to the door, called for Samuel.
“Tell no one of this,” she said as he came up the stairs, one step at a time. “Do not tell John Claybrook. I wish to send a message to Robin Maydestone at the stables. Tell him I wish for a dog to be sent. He will have dogs, yes? An old dog, one that is sick or turned savage, one that he does not care for.” She thought of Maydestone’s gentle hands on the horses’ flanks, the way he crooned to them. “Not one he loves,” she added. “Warn him he will not see it again.”
“Yes, my lady Princess.” Samuel’s face was bewildered, and he hesitated for an explanation.
“Go swiftly,” Anne snapped. “Take it from him, bring it at once.”
The door closed behind her, and Anne sat down again, leaning against it, careless of her rich skirt crumpling on the floor. Henry sat across from her, his eyes never leaving her face.
“What do you want with a dog?” he said.
“I want to test the wine,” Anne replied. The situation chilled her to the bone, but she almost laughed. “I can tell you are a prince by hope, not by connection,” she said. “If you have never had a wine taster.”
“Do not laugh at me.”
Anne laughed again, her eyes stinging. “I do not trust my lord Claybrook’s wine.”
“Are you going to cry?” Henry said. He sounded less alarmed than interested.
Anne swallowed, shook her head.
Henry said nothing, and neither did she. They waited together for the dog to be brought.
It was a long wait before Samuel returned. “He is downstairs,” he said quietly. “He wished to bring it himself, and I could not dissuade him.”
Anne gave Samuel a sharp frown. “That was ill done, Samuel. I would have thought you could have found something to say that would make him stay.”
Westlake shook his head. “The man is not a fool, my lady Princess. He is fond of you and wished to see you. He would quickly grow suspicious if I argued.”
Anne shook her head. “I must go downstairs,” she said to Whistle. “Do I need to threaten you to make you stay silent?”
Henry looked at her, ignoring Samuel. “You have already done so,” he said. “I wish to see what you mean with this dog.”
Anne and Samuel struggled down the stairs together, to meet with Maydestone, who stood in the door. Under his arm was a hound, scraggly-limbed and sticky-eyed, white hairs clustering on its muzzle like the greying of an old man. He bowed, and the dog whimpered as he shifted his grip. “My lady Princess, the dog you commanded,” he said. Anne remembered the day by the river, the day Maydestone had helped her back onto her horse, and the memory of kindness was so strong that she almost reached her arms up to him, to be carried away, taken to her chamber and tucked in somewhere safe. She pulled herself up.
“I thank you, Master Maydestone,” she said. He bowed again. His eyes flicked behind her, to the room, innocuous enough in appearance. Not plotting, not scheming, but curiosity, no doubt. That was to be expected.
“Master Maydestone, you have done me good service, as ever,” Anne said, getting in the way of his vision. “I shall remember this.” There was a silver bracelet encircling her wrist, and she slipped it off, weighing it in her hand a moment before passing it to him.
“My lady …” Maydestone’s hand dropped a little, as if the bracelet was heavier than it should be. Surprise stretched over his face, almost dismay at the size of the gift.
“Say nothing of this to anyone,” Anne said firmly. Maydestone’s expression relaxed. A bracelet was no price for a used-up old dog, still whining and pawing its feet against the air, tucked under Maydestone’s arm—but for a dog and for silence, that was a different matter. That was understandable.
“As you command, my lady Princess,” he said, bowing again. He set the dog down. For just a moment, he tousled its ears; then he straightened up and shooed it into the room. It walked a few steps, unhurried, then lay down, splaying out emaciated legs behind it.
“I thank you,” Anne said, and closed the door.
Henry heard the voices downstairs. The girl would return. She had threatened him, she had warned him. He no longer knew what to feel about her, except a desire to keep talking. If they kept talking, perhaps he might know what he felt.
She came in awkwardly, carrying a wretched-looking dog. He made no move to grab her as she shuffled over the floor, within his reach.
“Help me feed the dog this wine,” she said. “I cannot do it alone.”
The dog whimpered, scratching a little at the floor, and suddenly Henry’s heart quickened. This was a fox to catch, a creature to hunt. He leaned forward, rolling onto his hands and knees, and crept across the floor, silent as a bird, drawing nearer and nearer. The dog laid its head down between its paws, rheumy eyes closing, huffing a little sigh—and then Henry was on it, wrenching it up off the ground.
Anne was beside him quickly, the wine in her hand. “Pull its head back,” she said, “and open its mouth.”
Henry grabbed the dog’s jaws, forced them open. There in its mouth was the tongue, grey-pink and ready for his grasp—but this was not a killing hunt, he must leave it alone. Already the girl was pouring wine down the dog’s throat. The beast coughed and struggled, its throat convulsing against Henry’s wrist, and Henry gripped harder. The wine trickled down, an unsteady stream, splashing and thinning, foaming pink as it mingled with the dog’s spit.
Anne set the goblet down. “Very well,” she said. “Now we wait.”
It was not a long wait. To Anne, it was no surprise, not really, as the dog thrashed and twitched, paddling at its belly with its hind paws, whimpering out its life on the cold stone floor. Henry sat frozen.
Anne swallowed. “We may not have much time,” she said. “But I would have you tell me what you know of Robert Claybrook.”
Henry looked at her, this girl who poisoned a dog with the wine meant for him. Anger choked him until he could wish for nothing mo
re than a rock to smash her skull. This girl, this black-eyed, blue-faced freak of a girl who had saved him and killed the dog, with wine from the man for whose favour he had waited all his life.
He almost reached to slap her away. It was the sight of water gathering in her eyes that stopped him. What was he to do with a creature so incomprehensible?
“I think you should tell me,” Anne said. “I think—I believe we may have an enemy in common.”
BOOK FIVE
CONQUEST
TWENTY-EIGHT
KING EDWARD’S HEALTH failed with a suddenness that surprised even the most ambitious of courtiers. Princess Mary was still in France, her courtship with Louis-Philippe mired in treaties and diplomacy. Prince Philip was in his chamber, attended as always by Privy Sponges, staring into space and saying little. Princess Anne had been missing all day, and nobody knew where she was. By the time she returned to the palace, unblushing and oddly silent, Edward was already lying in his bed, speech struck away from him.
As Anne sat by his bedside, ambassadors were already being assembled to make the journey across the Channel. Mary would have to come home with a husband. Philip could sit on the throne, make a suffering king, but it would not hold. Mary must come home bringing the new heir to the throne, the French king of England. Otherwise England would flounder and sink. Philip was a broken rudder, and the country needed more.
Air dragged in and out of Edward’s thin body, a long pause between each breath. His arms tried to lift up, point and give directions, even though his shaking hand could not have held a pen and his dry eyes creased in puzzlement as he tried to make out the words people said to him. He was going back to the sea, back to his deepsman’s blood, English a complexity beyond him, every breath a quest, a fragile body clinging to life moment to moment. He was so weak, Anne thought, watching his thin arms fall back onto the covers. In the sea, he would have drowned.
A few weeks and Mary would bring a husband home. She was perhaps in his company right now, a stranger unable to console her. Anne found herself longing for her sister. Though matters had been tense between them, Mary had been present at every grief of Anne’s life, at William’s death, Erzebet’s marriage, Erzebet’s end. She had been older than Anne and far above her, or she had been ignorant of the truth and frustrating, but she had been there. Now she was away, and Anne felt a sense of dislocation. Without Mary there, the grief had an air of unreality, a nightmarish absence she could not quite manage.
In Great Waters Page 27