In Great Waters

by Kit Whitfield

  Henry paused for a moment. “I am sorry I ran without telling you,” he said in the end. “I could bear no more of Claybrook’s lies. I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”

  And Allard looked at him, his face white and his mouth open, as if he had heard an animal speak.

  “I—You do not seem to me,” Henry said, groping for words in the gaze of his astonished father, “like a man who cares for courts and politics. I think you took me in because you were—curious. And because you did not wish to see me die. I am right, am I not?”

  “I—did not think it—I did not think I could leave you to die on the shore,” Allard said in the end. “And yes. A wild deepsman. Such a thing I had never seen before. We bow before our kings and serve them, but we knew so little of the deeps. It could add so much to our knowledge of ourselves, if we could only study more.”

  “What did you learn from me?” Henry said. He was almost smiling. It was as good a reason as any to take someone in. And once Allard had taken him in, he supposed, it was the crown or nothing. What else could one do with a princeling body, with the laws as they were? And if the throne was the only place to send your curious child, what could a small landholder like Allard do if not seek shelter from a greater man like Claybrook? Allard had done what he could, over the years, and Henry had come too far to blame him if it had not worked quite the way they had anticipated.

  Allard sighed. “Mostly, that we cannot easily bend others to our will.”

  At that, Henry laughed aloud. It was true. Allard had watched him all those years, and he had not made a landsman of him. But neither had he tried to force him beyond his endurance. Henry would not bear a beating, so Allard had not tried it again. He had foregone Latin and languages, reading and writing, all things, Henry saw now, that must have been dear to a scholar’s heart. He had, as far as had been possible, tried to allow Henry to be his natural self.

  “I have another study for you,” Henry said. “It should interest you. And it will raise you in honour, if that idea appeals to you. I want you to take on the care of Philip.”

  “Philip?” For a moment Allard blinked again, as if not understanding.

  “The prince. The sufferer. He cannot stay in court, he is too foolish. He has been too long out of the sea, he is bred out. He must be sent away, somewhere he can be cared for. A nuisance of a man, I think. But it might interest you, yes? To see one child just a day out of the sea, and compare him with a man too long on land? It would be a fine study, indeed. My wife is a lover of learning. I think your studies would find favour.”

  It took Allard a moment to recover himself. Henry was offering a proximity to the royal family many men would have killed for. That men had killed for, in the past. Allard had struggled to keep his captive royal alive all those years. He was not an unkind man, he would give Anne no cause to cry over her uncle being mistreated. If she was going to cry over him: Henry had seen how she shrank when Philip was in the room. Allard would take him far away, and Anne could forget about him; she wouldn’t get that look she had when Philip came near. Allard could scratch in his books. It was not what Allard had planned for, but it was the best gift Henry could think to give him.

  Allard bowed low. “Thank you, your—Henry. I shall be happy to.”

  “I shall send you some more staff, and guards,” Henry said. “You will need help. Perhaps you may wish to dig a lake. Let us know what you need.”

  He hesitated.

  “Allard,” he said eventually, “they talk a lot here, of God and the Church. You did not talk of it so much. Why is that?”

  Allard shook his head, as if in puzzlement. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “But it seemed to upset you. You did not seem to understand. I thought that God would bring you to your own understanding, if He wished. But the Scriptures do not speak of the deepsmen. Perhaps they have another Christ. Or perhaps they do not need one; no scripture speaks of their fall. I thought, perhaps, that God might reveal Himself otherwise to you.”

  “There have been other bastards who became kings, have there not?” Henry asked. Allard studied. Allard would know. “What did they do?”

  “A few. Very few, though. And I read all I could, everything I could find. What they thought in themselves, I do not know. But I could find no record of any of them being pious.”

  “These half-breed kings talk about God,” Henry said. “My wife talks about it all the time.”

  Allard sighed. “God save the kings. But they have been out of the sea for many generations. I—you always seemed to me a deepsman, Henry. I did not dare to trifle with your soul.”

  So Allard stood beside Philip’s litter, pouring water with his own hands, and watching the bewildered prince with alert, intelligent eyes. He did not soothe him quite as Westlake had, but Philip was submitting fairly quietly to Allard’s ministrations. He made the occasional protest, and Allard listened with evident interest.

  John came over to Henry’s side. He hesitated for a moment before Henry gestured him to sit down.

  “Are you all right?” John said.

  “Something troubles me,” Henry said.

  “What?”

  “My wife says that you and she were—friends?”

  John’s face reddened. Henry was a little surprised. The question he wanted to ask John was a difficult one, but he would have expected John to go white, if he was nervous.

  John made no answer, only inclined his head, gesturing Henry to go on.

  “If you were her friend,” Henry said, “why did you not tell her about me?”

  The colour faded from John’s face, and he looked at Henry, shrugging. “You would have been burned. You did not want that, did you?”

  “No,” said Henry. “But she would have been in danger if we had marched on London. Did you not feel you should warn her?”

  John raised his hands in the air, looking helpless. “I have spoken to her of this. I did intend to ask mercy for her, should we succeed.”

  “But she was in danger,” Henry persisted. “And you did not warn her. She was your friend.”

  “You were my brother,” John said. “I had to do my best.”

  Henry’s face closed. He wanted to say more: that people either lied or they didn’t, that politicking was something people did to keep secrets from those they were going to ask to take risks they wouldn’t take themselves; that loyalty should be to people and should be firm, and that you could not be friends with people who were enemies. When it came to the clash between them, you would have to betray someone. There was no point to doing your best; you could do your best and lose, and you’d be every inch as dead as if you hadn’t tried. Or someone else would be. John had been his friend. He had been his wife’s friend, too, but it had been no doing of John’s that Henry and Anne had come together. That, they had managed alone.

  He wanted to say something to John, something of the absoluteness of action, how you did something or you didn’t. Being loyal to your best was just another word-thing. But words were John’s province, landsmen’s province, and Henry could not find the right ones to speak. Nothing that would not hurt his friend too harshly.

  They sat in silence. The musicians piped away, but nobody spoke. There was no royal chant. The ship was rolling out to sea, past the bay, out into the blue, further than a funeral ship should go, and Anne and Henry sat silent, making no call to the deepsmen.

  It was Hakebourne who finally spoke up. “Your Majesty,” he said, addressing Anne. His voice was low, his back turned to the others; wind from the keel was scattering locks of hair around his face. “Are you not going to call for the deepsmen to come?”

  “In a while, Lord Tay,” Anne said.

  “Your Majesty—”

  Anne raised her hand. Cool light shone through the thin webs between her fingers, the unadorned hand of a queen. She turned, facing down into the ship. Spray splashed up behind her, as if she stood with her back to a storm.

  “My people,” she said, “we have said nothing, for fe
ar of spies. But as we bury the king my grandfather, we are also here on England’s business.” She stopped, but there was no murmur, no questioning, just a turning of faces in her direction. “I have heard word from my sister Mary. You will know, I think, if your intelligencers are as good as mine, the threat we face if she and her royal husband wish to bid for our throne. We would not have a war with France if we can avoid it; we will not spill English blood wantonly. My royal sister knows of this funeral. She is coming in her own ship, to witness our grandfather committed to the deep. I will speak to her then, and we shall parley. This is our decision.”

  There was a silence. When someone spoke, it was Claybrook, speaking finally to Anne, his face smoothly controlled, but his voice sharp with anger beneath. He spoke as to a child, a man utterly out of patience.

  “Does it not occur to your Majesty,” he said, “that we are only one ship? That if your royal sister wished to send a navy, she could sink us, unguarded as we are?”

  Anne raised an eyebrow; keeping her face calm and hard to read would madden him more. It was the only aggression she could spare. She had hated this man for so long, it was hard to see his face without wanting to slash at it. A quick swing with her sharp nails and she could lay him open. God did not permit hatred, but Anne could only own herself a sinner when faced with this man. Though not, she thought, as great a sinner as he. Not nearly so great.

  “Perhaps your Majesty might swim to shore,” Claybrook said. “But your faithful subjects are not so lucky.”

  This was insolence, dangerous talk. Claybrook must never have expected a girl like Anne to come so far if he was having such difficulty reining his tongue. Anne’s skin was cold in the wind, and she kept her hands at her sides.

  Her voice was light, even as her body locked its joints. “I did not say we were unguarded,” she said.

  There was another silence. It was broken by, of all people, Samuel Westlake.

  “Does your Majesty mean to attack your sister?” he said. In one hand he held an aspergillum, ready to sprinkle holy water on Edward’s wrapped corpse; the other was on his cane. His hands were spread out, a lowered crucifix between them; his body looked thin and fragile. His voice was almost intimate, as if he were asking her a private question in the confessional. So much so that Anne felt a pang of conscience, as if she were again a child seeking comfort from the only man who had been kind to her. She swallowed.

  “I do not,” Anne said. “But arrangements have been made. There will be no battle.”

  She sat leaned against the prow. The ship rose and fell, lifted itself up and dashed itself back down into the scattering water, and Anne’s horizon staggered.

  As she looked over her shoulder, she saw the dark shape of a ship, sailing its way towards them.

  “There comes my royal sister now,” she said. “And look.” There were white shapes flashing before the wake, breaking the surface, skimming along with the rushing water like hounds following a hunt. “She has brought her deepsmen with her. We must call our own.”

  She glanced at Henry, who was sitting silent on the deck. Will we be safe? she asked him in their own language.

  For a moment, he did not respond. Whistle, said Anne. He turned his head and looked at her. Will we be safe?

  Her husband stared at her, his face tense. He made a frustrated gesture, half a shrug, half a grab at the air, his hand closing on nothing. Nothing is safe, he said.

  Anne swallowed. “I would seek spiritual counsel before this meeting,” she said. “My lord Bishop, may I speak with you alone?”

  Privacy was a difficult thing to manage on a boat. Anne had no desire to go below decks; she did not want to lose sight of the coming ship. In the end, the two of them retreated to the stern, Westlake tottering on the swaying deck, his cane slipping and sliding, Anne tugging herself hand-over-hand on the side. Lame creatures, the pair of us, Anne thought. God made the lame walk. Christ blessed the weak. But I do not think we are weak.

  It was not very secure, or even very private back here. The wake spread out behind them like a foaming road. But it would have to do. There was nowhere on the ship, in any case, where Henry would not hear them.

  Samuel Westlake leaned against a mast and looked at her. Anne balanced herself unsteadily against the side. It was not a secure position, but it hardly mattered. If she fell overboard, she could swim.

  There was a silence.

  “Do you wish to confess?” Samuel said in the end. His voice was almost entreating.

  Anne spoke as quietly as she could, lowering her voice amid the creaks of wood and slap of the sea and the cries of gulls overhead. “I wish you to confess the truth to me, Samuel. I have seen letters. Was it you who told my sister of my marriage?”

  The wind blew around Samuel, flapping his clothes like sails, and he stood against the mast like a martyr at the stake. There was a moment where she saw him brace, consider. Then he let his head drop.

  “No,” he said. “I did not reply to those letters. But I did not tell you either, when I could have.”

  Anne said nothing.

  “I have loved you as my child, my lady Princess,” Samuel said. “But I could not help a pagan king to the throne. God would have damned me for it.”

  Anne was too cold, too wind-blown for tears. Her skin pulsed in the coarse wind. “I thought you were helping a Christian queen,” she said.

  Samuel did not answer. “What is between you and Robert Claybrook?” he said.

  So he had seen it, the look on her face. He had seen her knowledge. He had always been a perceptive man, Samuel Westlake. Though she was not prepared to abandon England, Anne felt, for a moment, frightened to her soul at the thought of turning away from the advice of so sharp-eyed a man.

  “He is the one who killed my mother,” Anne said. Quietly, so that no other landsman could hear.

  “Have you proof of this?” Again, Samuel’s manner was catechising, as if he had not just confessed to keeping information treasonously from her. Even though he had betrayed her by doing so, Anne’s heart could not help a little thump of admiration. It was a fine thing, courage. And the courage to keep doing what you must, even when fate might be closing in on you, was a bravery she had admired from her cradle.

  “His son as good as confessed it,” Anne said.

  “You have parted son from father?”

  “Robert Claybrook is a wicked man,” Anne said. “He was the one keeping Henry hidden. He placed his son between his friend and his country. John shall be safe, we shall raise him up. He is safer away from such a father.”

  “My lady Princess,” Samuel said. His voice was urgent. It was what he had always called her. Anne did not feel insulted that he did not say your Majesty. It was almost comforting to be addressed in the familiar way. “God commands against vengeance.”

  “But man must have justice,” Anne said. “My mother would have said that.”

  The ship rolled, and Samuel grabbed at the mast behind his back for support. “Your mother’s justice is not something you should follow,” he said.

  “I would not burn a child,” Anne said. “Why else would I have married Henry?” Hearing herself say the words, she remembered that Henry could undoubtedly hear her say them too. It was not tactful. She cursed herself inwardly; now she would have to make amends.

  “And what will you do with Claybrook?” Westlake said. “If you would follow your mother? Burn him? Poison him?”

  “Poison him? My mother was no poisoner.”

  Gulls screamed overhead, and Westlake looked at her in desperate anger. “You know that is not so, my lady Princess.”

  “I know no such thing.” Anne found she was gripping her skirt; embroidery pressed into her palms.

  “I did not ask you to talk of it,” Samuel said. His face was as grave as ever, but his voice, quiet enough for privacy, was as raw as Anne’s. “You could not have stopped it. And you tried to make amends. I thought you were a good girl. But now you are striking for the throne any way
you can. I have seen where that leads. I fear for England, my lady Princess, I truly do.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anne’s voice began to rise, and she checked it. Across the deck came Henry’s voice: Are you all right? Do you need me?

  Stay where you are, Whistle, she said. “I want to hear this. What do you talk of, Samuel? I would have you tell me now.”

  Samuel glared at her, his face tinged red by the wind. “You cannot have known nothing of it,” he said. “I cannot believe that.”

  “Samuel, tell me now, or I will call my husband,” Anne said. Her voice was sharp, but underneath it she was frantic. Even if Henry came over, she had no idea what she would ask him to do, but she could not stand here another moment on her weak legs while Samuel talked of God only knew what sin on her conscience.

  “You must have known it was your mother who poisoned me,” Samuel said. “I survived, by the grace of God, and the care of Master Shingleton. And the medicine you sent me. But you must have known it was her.”

  Anne’s lips cracked, dry as ash. All around her, the groaning timbers and whipping winds made a reckless commotion; there was no silence, no stillness to absorb the words she had heard. The horizon lurched, and the boat ploughed on its way towards her sister.

  “You cannot be serious,” Anne said in the end. Her voice came out papery, as if a dead wasp’s nest rattled in her throat.

  Samuel raised a thin hand. “Before God, I am.”

  “W-why?” It was all Anne could do to speak the syllable.

  Samuel bent a look on her, frustration mixed with doubt. She had never seen his face so unguarded. “I wrote to her before the burning,” he said. “I pleaded with her for the life of the child. And she sent me to bless the bonfire, myself, not the Archbishop or one of my brother clerics. She sent me. She said if I was so concerned for the child, I should be the one to bless his passage into Heaven. I thought that was enough for her, I thought that was how she had made her point. But it was not. There was poison in my food. Your mother decided she could not spare a man of God in England who would speak up against her authority.”