Seated at a table, uncomfortably swathed in rich clothing too narrow around his chest that some servant had brought from a royal wardrobe—Robert Stone, he had asked the man’s name, told him the clothes were too tight, made him promise to find or make new ones, noted his name and the speed with which the man bowed and retreated—Henry was talking to too many people. The men from the beach. Anne had said they were important men, they controlled the land on the coasts, and the rivers. Claybrook was among them; Henry could barely look at him, so choked with anger did he feel. But Claybrook’s land included most of the Thames, Anne said. The great river that led out to the east sea. Ridiculously, she even addressed him as “Lord Thames.” Until they could bring him down, he was a man of consequence.
He looked around the table, trying to weigh these men up. Lord Wade, the man who had spoken to him on the beach, he had decided against; the man was sharp, but not sharp enough. He had the wit to know he must be a bastard, but not the wit to hold his tongue until he knew what to make of Henry. The man had spoken to him, demanded to know whose bastard he was, as if he was somebody’s horse. Henry intended to be king, and was quite prepared to fight for it. He had seen deepsmen in the sea circle each other and pose, striking the water to show their strength. But only a stupid man would posture at an opponent he couldn’t beat.
The others? He weighed up their stances, trying to get a sense of them. Samuel Westlake sat silent at the end, his eyes flitting around the group. They all seemed to have multiple names, a quirk Henry felt he could soon tire of. He had accepted as a child that landsmen tended to have two names, one for themselves and one for their family. It made a certain amount of sense; deepsmen didn’t have family names, but you could refer to other tribes by naming their usual haunts. Landsmen’s names were more random, but he’d grown used to it. Now, it seemed, landsmen did sometimes name themselves for their territory—but, insanely, only one man per territory got to do so. There were even two brothers in the room—Greenway, Anne had said—who he was expected to address by different names. Henry was entirely unwilling: the custom was stupid, and more than that, offended him. Why should he address one Greenway man as Severn and the other as Mersey, but none of their families, none of the people who lived by Severn or Mersey waters? No man was a river, or owned a river: land and water were where you lived, not what you were, and it was arrogant to claim a whole rushing body of water for your own. Henry had every intention of ruling England, but that did not make him England, and if he wasn’t doing it, he didn’t see why his subjects should. He was not about to give Robert Claybrook any more titles, that was for sure. It struck Henry, thinking about it, that Allard had never called Claybrook “Lord Thames,” or not in his hearing. But everyone else did, to Claybrook’s face. Claybrook must have been very determined to keep him ignorant of his location.
The whole business was angering, and Henry had stuck to addressing the men by their actual names. He could see it causing a flicker of insult every time he did it, but they could just put up with it. If they didn’t like it but did not protest, it was a secure sign of his dominance.
There was a man from the west, of Wales, called Forder, a man seeming too large in his clothes, restless and watchful, as if ready to charge at any moment. The Greenway brothers disturbed him a little: they looked to each other more than to anyone else. For a moment, Henry’s heart twitched; then he gathered himself. If they could be loyal to each other, they could be loyal to him, if he could persuade them. Do well by each, and the other would follow. Anne had said their best chance was the largest man, a man called Hakebourne. Henry studied him: big, still, watchful. Not making a judgement, holding his nerve. He could use such a man.
There was another man at the table. Narbridge. Lord of Cornwall. It had been in Cornwall his brother was found. This was the man, this tall, loose-limbed man in fine garments, who had handed his brother over to the queen. The man was bright-eyed and alert, paying attention to all in the room, but Henry was having none of him. Anne said he was loyal, but Henry did not wish to know. The man was a burner of bastards, and soon, when he had the crown on his head, Henry and he were going to have a reckoning.
“What is your position on France, my lord?” the man called Forder was saying. He was leaning forward, his shoulders taking up too much room, blocking the other men’s lines of sight. His restlessness was rattling Henry; restless men were either skittish and untrustworthy or aware of some danger coming in, and either way Henry didn’t like it.
“What is France’s position on us?” Henry said. The question had been toned like a trap, as if Forder knew the answer and was waiting to see if Henry got it right.
“Well, my lord, Prince Louis-Philippe has been expecting to take the throne as consort to Princess Mary,” Forder said. He had an air of impatience, and Henry cut him off.
“This I know,” he said. “If France will keep to their shores, we will have peace with them. It is their choice. Louis-Philippe will not be king. It is for them to decide if they wish to fight it out. That is what I mean. Is there more to your question, Forder?”
The man bristled at the sound of his name, but Henry was not going to concede.
“Will you send ambassadors?” Forder persevered, his tone becoming dryer.
Ambassadors was a word Henry had heard, but he had never seen one. You sent men to speak for you. When they were out of your sight, when you couldn’t correct them, could you trust them to say what you would say? Henry had never seen a landsman speak with the bluntness he required. He could send a letter, perhaps, except he couldn’t write.
The new clothes gripped Henry’s chest. He was too hot. “That will be to discuss with the queen my wife,” he said. He didn’t like this juggling. Maybe Anne would understand it.
“My lord Prince,” said another voice. Hakebourne, the man Anne said she liked. “It is for us to support our God-sent king. We have been granted an Englishman to rule us, and we shall defend God’s gift.”
There were some nods from around the table—the brothers, the two men whose faces were alike, even more so than most landsmen’s.
“God-sent?” Henry said. Nobody had sent him, nobody but Anne. The word God was two crossed sticks, the strange object that Allard had brandished at him, a nasty piece of wood that Allard seemed unaccountably fond of. There were too many unfamiliar things in this conversation already: France, marriage, God. He almost said, I came myself, not because I was sent. I came on my own, and it was hard work to come. He stopped himself. The man’s words were strange, but he seemed to be offering support. “Your loyalty is noticed,” Henry said. “That is good.”
Claybrook sat and watched, and said nothing.
“How soon do you wish the marriage, my lord Prince?” Hakebourne said.
“Soon,” Henry replied. “We must move quickly, yes?” The idea of marriage itself was still a curious one. Anne had fought beside him: she had said she would do anything he wished. They had taken the same side, made a side between the two of them. Exactly what some word, some dance that involved walking into a stone building and answering questions put by some person who had to obey them anyway would do to make that alliance any faster was beyond him. It was an inconvenience. He had always known landsmen had a passion for objects. Now it seemed they had a passion for forms of words as well, things of language as well as things of wood and metal.
It was tiresome and confusing. But they wouldn’t let him be alone with Anne. He had seen her white flesh gleam through the blue water, had seen every inch of her shimmer in the waving light, had seen the drops of brine run from the tips of her hair down her body as they walked on shore, globes of water hanging from the lobes of her ears, glistening in collarbone, gilding her breasts. Though he had not, since childhood, had his hands on a woman, he wanted his hands on Anne. The girl had agreed to him, chosen him; she was his, and the landsmen were keeping her away for reasons that made no sense. If it were one man, he could have fought him; he had fought a deepsman for her already
, and could fight again. But against this barrier of words, this landsman idea that they all seemed to hold, there was nothing he could do except go through the form. It would work, but he didn’t like having to do it.
When I am king, we shall speak plain, Henry said to himself. And there shall be no more tangles of words.
Anne had wanted to tell her grandfather she was getting married. Edward lay clinging to life like a filament of seaweed wearing away, waving in the water, down to its last thread. He could no longer move his arms, but he could still whisper. Anne wanted to ask his blessing, to speak to him at least; this last link to her family’s past.
Nobody else thought it was a good idea. Henry had shrugged, saying she could if she wished but it made little difference to him. Anne had found herself facing a roomful of courtiers all trying their best to dispute her out of it. Their reasons had been various, mostly to do with troubling a dying old man.
Less than a week ago, they would have hung over his bed, ready to pump answers from his wheezing lungs. But that was before Henry had arrived.
Anne looked at Hakebourne, who had said nothing. “What say you, my lord Tay?”
Hakebourne weighed the moment for a second before answering. “We follow you, your Majesty,” he said. It was a careful answer, succinct, blandly loyal. There was just the slightest emphasis on the you.
Anne understood again the desperation that had been driving everyone she knew. If Edward were to refuse his consent, that would leave no king but Philip. Anne had been afraid of Philip, his hard-nailed fingers and clutching paws, his booming voice and lashing arms, but the speed with which he had been sidelined unsettled her.
There was Mary, of course, and her husband. England might have accepted a Frenchman on the throne when there was no alternative, but now it would fight. Anne was trying not to think of Mary, not to imagine her sister’s face. But as the men around the room turned to her and spoke of following her, as if Mary had never existed, she was starting to wonder what she had done.
“Your Majesty,” Samuel said. Even as she thought of her family, Anne noticed the change of address. “His Majesty’s thoughts should be on Heaven now. If you were to pray with him, you would do him better service.”
Anne’s eyes stung. They were talking in public, but it was not like Samuel to so mince his words. Even Samuel thought that the chance of Edward’s refusal, the chance that he might cling, in the end, to his own son rather than to some strange boy come out of the sea to depose him, was not worth the risk.
Even if he did refuse his consent, Anne thought, nobody would listen. It would sigh out in a whisper, and every man in the room would suddenly find his ears had dulled. Could anybody make out what his Majesty had just said? They would fear not; alas, it was impossible to discern.
Henry had walked out of the sea, and England had slipped from her grandfather’s weakened fingers. A bastard who should, by law, have burned—and now a week later, everyone in the world would side with him against their king. That was how fast the world could change.
“I shall pray with him,” Anne said, her voice shaking. “I am sure he will take our prayers to Heaven with him.”
She did not tell Edward she was getting married. She sat on his bed and held his hand, whispering prayers to the Virgin. His fingers were so frail, the webs between them so dry, that she half expected them to crumble in her grip. She sat with him and prayed, offering him nothing but her company. Anne did not want his last moment on earth to be the sight of his loyal subjects turning away from him, deafening their ears to his speech.
After that, it was only a few short days before Henry and Anne found themselves preparing to go into the cathedral and swear marriage.
Anne was attended by maids, trussed into a jewelled dress. Not since her mother’s wedding had she had such finery plated over her skin, and the thought made her heart shiver. Philip, grabbing at her mother’s body, yelling over the music, Mine! Mine!
Philip was not to be at the wedding. She had thought he would, had assumed Samuel would be at his side, calming him, trying to keep him from shouting about wives and clutching at the nearest woman, but Henry had refused. “If the man will make trouble, leave him elsewhere,” he said. “He will not be king; who will object?”
And Henry was right. Edward had nothing to say about the marriage, because nothing had been said to him. Philip could barely speak. Mary was overseas, not to be informed until the marriage had taken place. Anne had a foolish wish to write to her, to tell her the news, to have Mary be part of this great change as she had been part of so many others, but she pressed it back. She had taken the decision when she chose to save Henry. There was no way back, she could only go forward, and it would destroy her to repine. Was it wrong to marry without her family, to cut at a stroke every last tie she had? She could think of no other alternative; the country seemed to wish it. After the first moment of shock when she walked onto the beach with Henry, it was alarming how quickly everyone had taken to the idea of their new king. Anne was there to tether him to England, she thought, this flotsam washed up on their shore. Moor him to the dock before the chance was swept away. But what seemed to be sweeping away instead was the Delameres, carried away on the current, sinking out of sight. She was the last of her kind. If she had not been there to legitimise Henry’s claim to the throne, or if she had not been willing, would she be here now, caked in pearls? Or would she too be drifting out to sea, cut loose from her country?
Erzebet would have blessed the marriage, Anne thought. She would have let Heaven take care of Heaven, and turned her will back to England. Anne had prayed to the Virgin, thought of her mother. But somehow it was hard to pray and think of Erzebet at the same time. That still, grim, fierce-eyed face was a shadow in the glow. It was easy to say decades for Erzebet’s soul, but that resolution, that wolfish, headlong passion to live, that tension and courage and stiff-backed self-sacrifice that Erzebet had shown in every memory of Anne’s life … Perhaps Jesus had looked so on the cross, Anne thought. But then again, perhaps not. Jesus would not have looked so angry. And the mother of God had never worn so hard a glare in any icon Anne had ever seen. Erzebet would not have wept at the foot of the cross. She would not have let her children be sacrificed.
Her mother wanted her to live, Anne reminded herself. God would take her; God took souls up to Heaven. And Erzebet had understood, as nobody else had, the vital importance, in a prince, of practicality. Her mother’s spectral blessing was all she could take down the aisle. As she climbed into her litter to be carried up to the altar, Anne gazed ahead, her face still, grasping after God in her heart. That heart was beating in fear and doubt, but God would protect her. Erzebet would have done it. Anne was going to marry Henry and secure the crown of England, and there was an end on it.
Henry sat before the altar, waiting for Anne to be carried up to him. This church was a building he had little liking for. The ceiling was curved, columns rising on all sides; larger than the rooms of his childhood, it was at least spacious. But the windows were coloured glass, blue and green, impossible to see through. It was a cave, this room, a cave with a concealed entrance; though he was too old for such delusions, he still found himself short of breath, as if frightened he would run out of air because he couldn’t see the sky. Rows of landsmen stared at him; making him uncomfortable. The urge to tell them all to do something was strong; if he could command them, then their stares would be fair enough, but he was expected to stay quiet in this stupid place because of this stupid ceremony. This, Henry decided, was the last time he would go through such a ritual.
The cross on the wall was getting on his nerves. A great looming anchor of a thing, its rigid angles casting a shadow behind it, with a grotesque corpse-statue pinned to it; Henry was uncomfortable being too near it. The corpse was only painted wood, but it still seemed corrupting to him, unclean. Here on the land, meat rotted quickly and lay where you left it. It was dirty to leave bodies lying around.
Musicians were play
ing all around him. He remembered such sounds from the day of the burning. If he strained to hear, he could pick out some vague echoes, like a voice speaking through cloth, but the words were nonsense. John had said, so long ago, that the music was supposed to speak of good news, of love, of majesty. All he could pick up were random phrases: There’s good eating here; Do you want to fuck?; Do what I say. If you talked to the landsmen face to face they seemed capable of reason, but put them in charge of things, of objects and language and sounds and they became idiots.
He wished he could talk to John.
Anne settled at the altar, prepared herself for the ceremony. She wished that Samuel could have conducted it, but the Archbishop of Stour, Summerscales, held precedence. When I am Queen, Anne thought, I will see to it that Samuel is the next Archbishop.
Music played around them, speaking of love and good fortune. Though she had little faith left in the musicians, knew by now how difficult it was to bend the deepsmen’s language to court formalities, she still wondered whether she was right to hope. Perhaps life would go forward from here. With sons, England would no longer be gasping air in a sealed cave. Perhaps Henry would love her.
What she felt for Henry, she did not ask herself. He was a chance, a knife to slice through a tangle of weeds. Anne lowered her head in prayer, reached out for the love of God, asked him to sustain her. She could do this.
The girl beside him was spattered with jewels, so many it looked as if she’d rolled in them. Her body was invisible in the garments, her bowed legs encased in an ornate skirt, her arms crusted in silver thread, her chest plated in fabric; even her hair was bridled and haltered in jewels. It struck Henry that after today, he could take her off into a room alone and pull the clothes away.
Everything about Anne suddenly seemed overwhelmingly female: the high pitch of her voice, the littleness of her hands, the small body and soft face and strange, plaintive expressions. What was he supposed to do with a woman? When he had first seen a landswoman, Allard’s wife, he could think of nothing to do but scratch her face. She hadn’t liked it, but he’d had no other ideas. Now, when he had an idea, what to do with this girl? The tears that had so intrigued him with Mistress Allard now felt like a threat, a demand for something he couldn’t supply. Even armoured as she was, the girl seemed maddeningly, gallingly desirable—but that face of hers showed no expression, she kept closing her eyes and moving her lips for no reason he could make out, and, torn between watching the lips move and fretting at the pointlessness of someone speaking to themselves, he found himself growing angry with her. What was she thinking? He didn’t know what he wanted from her, and she wasn’t telling him. In that moment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to caress her body, or grab it and shake some answers out of it. He could not be the subject of some fragile girl’s whims.
In Great Waters Page 30