“Speeches? What do I have to say?”
“The usual oaths of kingship,” Westlake said. His tone was neutral, polite. “To uphold the law and the Church, to protect your people.”
“The church?” Henry said. Protecting his people sounded fine, but churches were buildings, and there was more than one of them. “Why do I have to uphold a church?”
“The Church,” Westlake said. “To keep the laws of God, and to help your people do the same.”
He would rather have asked his wife, but Henry decided that this conversation could not go further without clarification. “You keep talking about God,” he said. “Explain this to me.”
The man’s face did not change very much. Eyes flicked to Henry’s face, lines around Westlake’s mouth slackened a little. He stared at Henry, not moving forwards or backwards. “Has no one spoken to you of God, my son?”
“My son, is it now?” Henry said, annoyed that a straight question was being met with such a frozen reaction. “If I ask to know something, it is because I do not know it already. If you will not tell me, I will have to ask someone else.”
“My lord, were you ever baptised?” Westlake said. He seemed to be gathering himself for something.
“What is baptised?”
Westlake paused for a moment, cast his eyes up in thought, then turned back to Henry. “Did someone pour water over your head and put salt on your mouth while saying a form of words, perhaps when you were a child?”
“I ate salt for myself,” Henry said. “Do you mean being bathed?”
Westlake shook his head. “You have had no religious education, my son,” he said. His tone was not harsh, but his eyes were dark, the pupils in them wide. Though he wasn’t fidgeting, the man had an air of unease. “May I ask you a question?”
“Ask,” Henry said. He saw no point in asking permission to ask something else; by the time permission had been asked, they could already have got to the question.
“In the sea,” Westlake said, “do the deepsmen ever speak of God? A creator? A saviour?”
Henry thought of the sea, the endless motion, the hunger and search for food, the ears attuned for predators, the changing light and crackling, clicking sounds of fish. He wished he was there now, instead of in this tiresome conversation. “Deepsmen do not chatter like landsmen do,” he said. “They speak to the point.”
Westlake looked down at his hands, clasped over the head of his cane. After a moment, he drew a breath. “It is given to us to convert the heathen,” he said. “My son, I must take up your day and ask you to listen to me. I have much to explain to you.”
Henry did not understand the word “heathen,” but he was not pleased at the thought of sitting all day in this building listening to Westlake lecture him. With all his soul, he wished he could get off his bench, crawl out into the rain, be outside with the wet air pattering against his skin. The memory of the fight returned to him, that desperate, direct clash of arm against arm. It was dangerous, but it was clear, and it made no demands on him beyond his own survival. But the landsmen referred to this subject so often, it was becoming uncomfortably clear that he had better find out what they were talking about. “Go on,” he said. The rain sighed outside the windows, and Henry sat back, bracing himself for a frustrating day.
An hour later, Henry was horrified.
He wanted to talk to Anne about it, but he felt too much concern to begin: these landsmen words his wife was always muttering turned out, on explanation, to be worse than “marriage,” worse than “coronation,” worse than all the ceremonies and formalities and bundled-up words the landsmen spent their lives pondering. The landsmen weren’t just strange. They were stupid, bone-deep stupid. They were mad.
Allard had explained to Henry, or tried to, some story about how a landsman named Jesus had died because of bad things he had done. That was as far as Henry had understood. Now it seemed that this dead landsman, who had planned his life so ill he had ended up nailed to a stake instead of burned at one, was speaking for someone else, this God that everyone kept talking about. That this Jesus had risen from the dead a few days later, Henry believed no more than he believed that Angelica had naturally walked out of the canals speaking perfect Italian after a lifetime in the sea, no more than he believed that he himself had been sent by some invisible creature after a lifetime in the waves worrying about the England he’d never seen. He had emerged telling the landsmen that story, and even they must know it wasn’t true, not if they thought about it. But they didn’t seem to want to. They kept referring it back to God. Landsmen believed stories, most particularly stories that suggested that someone who appeared at the right time was sent by some thing, some thought-thing or word-thing that they’d never met, instead of just being a clever person who had thought about how to make a memorable entrance.
A man might come back after three days’ hiding; it was not impossible. But the landsmen seemed to think he’d come back again, some day when the world ended—a thought that, in itself, was inconceivable. Creatures died; the world was what creatures died in. A broken back or a gouged throat created not a shiver of notice in the world, in anything except the dying creature. The world was what happened before you were born and kept happening after you died; there was no need for some dead landsman to come back and have everyone living die at the same time and tear up the world while he was at it. Everyone would die anyway if they waited. It seemed to Henry that the landsmen were confused, that they hadn’t seen enough dead things to know how easily the water kept flowing after a death, that however much you dreaded the end nothing stopped the tides. And no landsman could destroy the world anyway, however clever he was at dodging in and out of seeming dead. The world was too big, and landsmen too little. And if anything were to have an effect on the world, it would not be a landsman. There were too many other kinds of creatures in the world, speaking ones and mute ones, clever and stupid. The landsmen did not have the final say over existence.
But it seemed, listening to Westlake speak, that they thought they did. The world, the hard dazzle of sound and sensation, colour and motion that had overwhelmed Henry since the moment he entered it, was not real to them. They thought it was something else, just a picture, an angelica created by some other mind they couldn’t see or touch. They were all ideas without sense.
It struck Henry, listening to Westlake tell his stories, that the nastiness of the landsmen’s possessions, the straight lines and enclosing roofs and binding clothing, could be explained by this. They didn’t notice them. They looked at clothes and thought of ceremonies; they looked at buildings and thought of their owners. Always the ideas, and never the things themselves. They couldn’t feel what was up against their skin: the world, thriving and struggling and vitally, irrefutably real.
The thought made him forgive Allard for a lot, unexpectedly; for the tiresome Latin and scratching pen, the horrible clothes he’d forced on Henry’s limbs and the words he’d forced into his mind. He had thought he was doing Henry a favour; he’d had no idea how false his gifts really were.
But this did not mean Henry was going to swear to uphold this landsmen’s God. Bad people lied, and he was not going to be one of them. He had learned English and how to dress himself, had learned to hold a conversation and not let the vividness of the world distract him. But life was notice, attention, the real world and the living body moving through it. This Henry knew, with every fibre of his self, and he was not about to forswear it.
THIRTY-THREE
“YOUR MAJESTY,” Samuel said to Anne, “we face a problem.”
Anne put down the manuscript she was reading. The room she was using had been a place Erzebet was fond of, a library room with illuminated volumes and bundles of letters kept tied together. Anne had taken to going there when she wished for privacy. Her hope, which she did not confide, was that she might find some letters her mother had written, something to tie her to a past, some word of advice. So far, she had found a great deal of theology, some lette
rs to Scotland her mother had written before the war overcame them, and little else. Erzebet’s handwriting, fair for a prince and as legible as a pen directed by webbed fingers was ever likely to be, was sharply familiar to her, and the words stood out. There should be no discord between princes. The royal house was one blood, one kind, Erzebet had said, and there should be union between them. It was commonly said in border disputes. Maybe Erzebet had even believed it at the time. Erzebet had seen her husband lost in the maelstrom of Scotland. Without deepsmen to guard their borders, what could princes be but a pack of dogs snapping and snarling over scraps? Strange to think that the deepsmen, so warlike in themselves, could be the keepers of peace. Nothing united a pack of dogs so fast as the distant wolf’s howl.
Between princes, Erzebet had said. The king of Scotland, King John, had been a cousin of her husband’s. No discord between princes. Not, There should be no discord between family. Once the borders were passed, a cousin became a prince, and a prince was his country. A prince was where he was now, not where he had come from. It endangered a nation’s people to think otherwise.
“Has my lord a dislike of the ceremony?” Anne said, stretching out her hands as best she could. Henry had a limited tolerance for boredom; it was going to take a lifetime of diplomacy to smooth the tension between his finite patience and the time-crusted formalities of court life. “Perhaps we might shorten it. There seems to be a fashion for haste these days.”
Samuel was leaning forward on his cane, both hands gripped over it.
This was so unlike his usual stance that Anne felt a prickle of worry. Usually Samuel stood straight as a guardsman, his stick a careful prop to keep him from listing—but today he hunched forward, as if to keep from falling headlong. The stoop of his back was almost royal.
“Your Majesty.” Samuel hesitated, then swallowed. “He will not swear to uphold the Church.”
Anne frowned. “He will not take the vow?”
Westlake had always looked her in the eye. Used to bowing and scraping, or to tall courtiers staring over her head, it had been one of the things Anne loved him for. Now he was looking at his hands. His knuckles were white over the head of the cane. “He declares he does not know God, nor does he wish to. Your Majesty, the boy is—unregenerate. He will not govern a Christian people, not as a Christian king. He swears he will not hear the word of God.”
As Samuel had begun to speak, Anne had felt a shiver. Thoughts flickered through her mind: her husband turned his back on God, would drag her to Hell. Hell, the separation from God—and Henry embraced it, avowed it. By his own choice, he was carrying Hell around with him. How could he bear his life?
Oddly, it was the word unregenerate that soothed her. She thought of the deepsmen, white ghost-bodies massive in the hazy sea. They did not speak of God. They had no self-consciousness. She thought about Henry, saying the word fuck without a blink, of herself, a stricken scrap of flesh in a crushing gown, calling over the waters of her mother’s funeral: Not safe, don’t eat. Henry had lived among the deepsmen. No one had spoken to him of God.
Anne opened her mouth to ask whether Samuel had spoken to him of the love of God, had tried to open his soul to the bliss of the Holy Spirit. Then she stopped. Of course Samuel had. No righteous priest would act otherwise, faced with such a heathen. But Henry was not much of a listener. Not to things he didn’t understand.
“Does he oppose the Church?” Anne said quietly.
Samuel looked up. His face, weathered and wan, looked at her with a young man’s bright eyes. There was tension there, the hardness of conviction. “No, your Majesty,” he said. “But he says he will have none of it himself. He says …” Samuel stopped for a moment, then took a breath. His shoulders hunched a little further, as if anticipating a blow from above. “He says that if landsmen wish to be fools and fear dead men, that is their concern. But he will none of it himself.”
Anne swallowed. Would God punish her for her husband’s blasphemy? Would he punish her husband? She looked at her hands. Samuel was calling her “your Majesty.” She was a vow away from the throne. Never in her life had she been stronger. She lowered her voice, gently. “God forbade Eve to eat the Apple of Knowledge,” she said. “That is how sin came into the world.” She drew a breath. “Apples do not grow in the sea.”
Samuel looked at her again, a rapid glare that came up quick as a wince. “Your Majesty, you cannot be joking.”
“I do not joke,” Anne said. “I will swear to uphold the Church. Samuel, you have been my spiritual father; you know how I love God. We will have a Christian England. But for all the theologians’ talk of the image of God, the perfect body of the king and the Star of the Sea, our lord Jesus Christ came to us as a landsman. When God sent a Flood to cleanse the world of sin, it cannot have been anything but a festival for the deepsmen. If He had wanted to purge sinners in the sea as well as on land, He would have sent a fire, or turned the waters to blood. It has been the landsmen who have felt His scourge when they strayed. Perhaps the deepsmen are unfallen. And my husband is so very like a deepsman in his spirit.”
Samuel took a step towards her. She had never heard him raise his voice, but there was an edge of distress in it now. If he had not always been gentle to her, she would have thought him angry. “You cannot break the covenant between the king and God, your Majesty. Nor change the duty of a king to his people. We cannot be a Christian people with a heathen king. It is blasphemy. We cannot have a heresiarch prince.”
“Henry is no heretic,” Anne said, trying to be calm. “He had no faith to betray. We will be a Christian people: I will protect the Church. I will, Samuel, you know I will. There will be Christian kings hereafter.” How long would it take her to fall pregnant, Anne wondered. Henry would not oppose her telling their children of the love of God, she was sure of it. He seldom denied her anything unless it meant confining himself somehow.
Anne opened her mouth to say what Henry had been saying all along: Would you prefer a French king of England? But something stopped her. She could see in Samuel’s drawn face the difference between a foreigner and a heathen.
“We will have Archbishop Summerscales attend us,” she said. It pained her to say the words. She could see the lines deepen on Samuel’s face as she said them. Samuel would be Archbishop after Summerscales; she had always intended it. But he was not Archbishop now. The coronation would be performed by Summerscales, whatever Samuel had to say about it. And she remembered, all those years ago, hearing Samuel and Summerscales debate in frightened whispers whether her mother was right to burn the bastard of Cornwall. Would you have us rock a broken throne? Summerscales had said. Summerscales had let a child burn, to protect England. To have a queen protect the Church while the king left it alone and refused to turn up to Mass; that, she was sure, Summerscales would swallow. He was a man of the world.
Something inside Anne ached like a tired muscle. It was a heavy loss, to be glad that the Archbishop of Stour was a man of the world, not a man of Heaven. But they had come too far. A little change in the words of the ceremony, that was all it would take. Henry would swear not to oppose the Church; she could ask him for that. Maybe even to “protect” it, or something innocuous like that. His people would be a Christian people, and he would protect them.
Anne thought of something she had seen in Erzebet’s letters, a letter she had not sent. It had been written to her sister, a letter which Anne’s rusty Magyar had taken a moment to translate. When I have grandsons to hold the throne of England, Erzebet had written, all shall be well. Anne was beginning to understand the long game her mother had played, had stretched her every nerve to play. Given English grandsons from her English daughters, Erzebet could have relaxed, seeing the succession moored in safe waters. Till then, the question was to keep her daughters alive. Anne steeled herself. When I have Christian sons, she thought. Claybrook snatched my mother out of the game before she could see it completed. But I will complete it, and the ending shall be good. We have only to hold out
.
She wondered whether she should discuss the issue with Henry, or simply draw him to bed and try again to ensure a son to carry the precious Church to safety. Perhaps both. But Summerscales must be dealt with first.
“I am sorry, Samuel,” she said. “But all shall be better than you think. I shall speak to my husband, and you will see. All shall be well.”
Samuel bowed. He did not look at her face.
Anne did speak to Summerscales. She set him to composing a new vow of kingship, one that glossed over the upholding of the Church. The old man’s face was not pleased, but Anne held her head high and asked as calmly as she could, and he did not question her. Instead, he promised to study the matter. He did not say that he would do it, but he would consider it. Anne decided not to push, not yet; he could have a couple of days to compose his conscience. She would repay him in virtue when he did the right thing.
Anne thought of finding Henry to discuss it with him. But after a while, she sent instead for John Claybrook. The message was politely worded, in the way of a request; he would know it for the command it was. We recall you told us once, Anne said, that you liked to row upon the river. We wish you to join us on an excursion and show us your oarsmanship.
After that, it only remained to go down to the river and wait.
John appeared alone, tethering his horse beside Anne’s. The boat awaited him, Anne already sitting in it. Her hand trailed in the water, feeling the lap and dip of the cold waves. She saw John glance quickly around, as if hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“My lord husband is not with us,” Anne said.
John looked up at her then, ducked his head. “Yes, your Majesty.”
Anne smiled as well as she could. “I have often wished to travel the river in a small boat,” she said. “Great excursions are a fine thing, but it would be pleasant to see the river from lower down. I am pleased you can join me, my lord.”
In Great Waters Page 32