That had not been an end to the abbey’s kindness to them. As pilgrims, they would never have been expected to stay in the women’s dorter for three days, but the weather had shut the clifftop community in on itself and there were no other pilgrim-women currently staying.
With the exception of the one professed nun and two lay sisters whose service was specifically to wait on the women-strangers who came to pray at Saint Hilda’s great abbey, they had the women’s dormitory to themselves, and that was just as well. Anne lived in daily terror that she would be recognised for, as the two women hurried down the stairs and across the abbey garth, Anne could not help remembering how it had been the last time she stayed within this place. She’d been a fugitive then as well.
Nearly two years had passed since that time, but her transformation from a servant girl into a lady of wealth, of quality, had begun here in this place with her friend Jane Shore.
Rags to riches; and now, riches to rags. What was left to her that was important, truly important? She’d lost that proud independence she’d worked for, risked all for, but she did not miss it now. She missed Edward — and their son — with a dull ache that was nearly always there, unsleeping. Perhaps, once she found little Edward again, she should go to the king, as his mistress. Could she do it, would that be best, after all? She would have him, whenever he could give her time, and perhaps, they would have other children, children he would protect — especially from the queen — and most especially little Edward.
Tears filled Anne’s eyes as she saw the pink and rose Christ child, held by his beautiful mother as she and Joan hurried into the darkened church, and to the side aisle where pilgrims were permitted to worship whilst observing the brothers on the other side of the rood screen.
All the power of the king had not been enough to protect her from kidnap in Brugge — how, then, would Edward protect her in England if she came home?
Anne pondered her choices: there were really only two which were practical.
Find someone within the town who was rich enough to buy one of her two remaining gems, and thereafter try for ship’s place to a port on the continent, thence on to Brugge; or, more safely, wait out the winter storms in Whitby, taking lodging with some respectable family, if she could bear it.
But how to transform herself from nun to, say, widow? Would that do to explain her being alone, once Joan went on her way?
A most difficult choice, for each was fraught with risk. But if she wanted to see them again — Deborah, little Edward and his father, she must make up her mind. She must choose, and very soon.
Chapter Fifty-One
Edward and Richard were off on sortie with the members of the king’s riding-court plus one hundred well-armed men of the duke’s own affinity, archers and swordsmen, all decked bravely in the duke’s livery, ‘The White Boar’ badge prominent.
Since Edward had arrived at York, plans had been talked through extensively, and today, the first of them was carefully set in motion by the king and his brother.
Officially, the brothers were on a progress to visit and hunt at one of the Crown’s lodges within easy ride of York.
Unofficially, it was the intention that they should make a good show of military preparedness so that word would travel to the border-country that the king was in residence at his brother’s palace and backed by fighters.
Archbishop George Neville himself had been cajoled to bless the riding party before it set out at dawn on a cutting, frosty morning. He and Richard loftily ignored each other whilst Edward was a charming but implacable conduit between the two — listening patiently to the archbishop before the service as he bemoaned the lack of respect for the church within the barbarian north — no names were mentioned. Edward nodded wisely in agreement as George proffered advice on how to ward off the ills of this changeable season with boar’s fat and salt regularly rubbed into the skin of the chest and throat and smiled genially as he accepted the bishop’s prayers for the queen’s safe delivery of a prince ...
As ever, the king had the larger game of politics in mind. He knew that permitting George Neville to see him amongst his fighters would be the same as sending a personal letter to Earl Warwick. The king meant business, that was the message. And it was a true one.
Now Edward looked magnificent as he sat astride his formidable destrier Mallon, the horse shifting from hoof as the ‘riding party’ assembled in plain view of the townspeople who had gathered to see them off.
There was a great whoop from the crowd as this goodly mass of fighters, or hunters, though they looked more like the former than the latter, started up on their way.
The people of York were proud — and felt a little less uneasy. They too had heard the rumours of the She-wolf of Anjou massing troops in France and hoping to land them in the north before the worst of the winter gales. Many said she would join with her supporters in the border-country and sweep down from Scotland to harry them all.
A butcher, on his way to work in the shambles, summed up the common feeling as they watched Edward and Richard ride out: ‘Hope their hounds bring down a bit of game today; hope they hunt well for all our sakes ...’
It was still early when Bernard arrived at the Abbey to escort Joan down to the dock and thence south to Robin Hod’s bay once more.
Despite all the last-minute entreaties, all the prayers, Anne would not be swayed. Joan had been her kind friend and companion but now the time had come for the nun to return to her convent. Anne had made plans, daring plans, and the fewer who knew what she was about, the safer it would be for them all.
With great reluctance, Joan was persuaded to leave with Bernard, and Anne stood waving at the gate of the stranger-women’s dorter as the couple walked away from the abbey on the road down to the harbour.
Then she was alone. But not friendless.
During her three days at the abbey, Anne had been kind to the smallest, youngest and most harried of the two lay sisters responsible for the cleanliness of the stranger-women’s dorter. The monastery, whilst it provided lodging freely to all pilgrims who asked for it, looked for guest’s donations to contribute to the running of the abbey itself; a building that was ever hungry for repairs since the salt wind took such toll on the fabric.
Anne told her new friend that she’d been instructed by her mother house to leave a large donation for the abbey, but needed, first, to find a money-changer who could discreetly change some of the large coins she had been given by her ‘convent’ for smaller ones.
Little Sister Agatha knew of only one money-changer, or rather, a family of them. They were Jews who had grown wealthy brokering wool for local growers yet were quite liked by the townspeople of Whitby — an unusual thing for the outsiders they’d always been.
‘Would it not look odd if a nun were to visit the house of Jews, though, Sister? They were the enemies of Christ.’ Agatha was genuinely worried for Anne.
Anne pretended to think for a moment. ‘Well, perhaps it would, but I could not ask anyone else to complete this task.’
If Agatha had been older, a little more experienced in the world, perhaps she might have questioned why Anne was not given smaller money in the first place. However, though she was an honest girl, she was quite naïve; and she was pleased with herself when she came up with a solution to Anne’s problem.
‘I have something for you! Wait here!’
It only took the nun a few moments to whisk out of Anne’s cell and return carrying a dark blue dress and a long, forest-green winter cloak. Both were old, and the cloak was patched, but having been fashioned from good cloth that had been well treated over its long life, they were in respectable condition.
‘These were left here when the lady who owned them died,’ Agatha hurried on, seeing Anne’s uncertain look. ‘No, really, she was a lovely lady and the Lord took her to him from inside the abbey itself; she just keeled over in front of the rood screen one day while she was praying. The abbot says it was a good death, a holy death, and her family
didn’t want the clothes when they came to get the body. I’m sure she’d have wanted them put to a good, Christian use?’
The little speech was breathlessly delivered but the idea was bold, even a little shocking. A postulant dressing in worldly clothes so that she could do business with a Jew?
Anne nodded, impressed. Never underestimate a church mouse. ‘A very clever, and serviceable idea, Sister. I am grateful to you. Very grateful, and so is my mother house.’
The ‘church mouse’ blushed with pleasure. It was rare in her comfortless life to receive a compliment. Smiling quickly, she left pretty Sister Anne to her own devices, hurrying away as she remembered the numberless chores assigned to her by Sister-superior.
Anne’s heart hammered as she stripped off the black postulant’s habit and the trailing white veil, shaking out her hair with relief as the hot, constricting wimple came off her head. Then, trying not to hurry, she slipped the dead pilgrim’s prickly wool dress over her naked body — shivering as she felt the coarse weave against her skin — and strained to lace the back without help, no easy task.
Agatha, ever resourceful, had thought to supply Anne with a long sacking apron as well, to help gather the dress in a little since it was the garment of a much larger woman. The combined voluminous folds were a blessing since the two garments, plus the cloak, would be thick enough to keep Anne warm in the bleak weather — an important consideration as she walked down the long hill from the abbey to the town.
Finally Anne was ready, with the green cloak swaddled closely around her, hair pulled back out of sight inside the hood which now shadowed her face.
The extra material in the dress and apron made Anne look stouter than she would ever be, and the basket that Agatha had lent completed the picture. To the world she would look like any other respectable good-wife intent on this morning’s marketing. Even the lay-brother at the abbey’s great gate was fooled when he was asked to let ‘Agatha’s aunt’ out so she could go down to the town. The man saw nothing amiss in the stout little woman who kept her head modestly bent, so he waved Sister Agatha’s ‘aunt’ through cheerfully enough, being careful, however, not to speak to her directly lest he pollute himself by exchanging words with one of Eve’s sisters.
And so, on a clearing late autumn morning, Anne walked down towards the town of Whitby intent on one thing: changing at least one of her remaining gems into money, money that would buy her a passage to France, and thence, to Brugge.
Keeping her head down as she walked, she exchanged greetings with no one and was careful to draw to one side of the narrow road with the hood of her cloak covering her face as a party of armed, mail-wearing men cantered past towards the abbey buildings, driving their horses at a great pace for such a slippery, rain-mired road.
Anne would not have recognised Henry Hardwell if she saw him, but if she’d looked up, she would have remembered Simon the Reeve, having known his face from the baron’s visit to the convent.
But she kept her eyes on the road and the men ignored her. They were after a young girl posing as a novice. Local housewives were of no interest, no interest at all.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Whitby market was very busy as Anne sauntered between the stalls, seeming to carefully inspect the dried cod, the barrels of salt herring, the flitches of bacon and the woollen cloth on sale against the coming winter.
People in the north took full advantage of anything which resembled a fine day at any time of the year, so even if it was cool, with a biting wind off the sea, all of Whitby had things to sell and things to buy, and they were telling everyone and his wife all about it at the tops of their lungs.
But Anne needed information and was uncertain where to find it. Agatha had told her that Master Cohen was to be found in Silver Lane, but her directions had proved confusing. She’d said that Silver Lane ran off Conduit Street, itself a small alley behind the quarter where animals were butchered, close to the market square.
Anne found the butchers and poulterers easily enough, for even on a cold day the stink was impossible to avoid, but Conduit Street she just could not locate in the maze of little alleys filled with shouting men and herds of terrified beasts.
Time was pressing and she had no choice; she must ask directions.
Anne grimaced in sympathy as she passed a small mob of bullocks calves, backed up and blocking the street in wide-eyed confusion as they smelt blood from the slaughter yards, and stopped by the first shop she came to. It was a poulterers stall and the trestle-board in front of the open shop-front was piled high with plucked bird carcasses of all kinds: chickens, ducks and geese, plus the smaller corpses of lark, linnet, blackbird, plover and many water birds she could not name — waders with long legs somehow pathetic in death.
‘Yes? What can we give you today, mistress? We have wonderful fresh chickens, well fed, see? Fine and yellow from last summer’s corn. Plump, really plump. Or duck? Goose? No need for lard when you cook these birds. Then we have teal, and wood-pigeon, doves by the brace and the sweet flesh of song birds.’
It was hard to stop the girl — the poulterer’s daughter — in her sing-song patter, so Anne smiled, said nothing, and waited for her to stop.
‘Lark, linnet, starling, blackbird. Or there’s black gull, and I can even get you pheasant, if you want something a bit special — legally obtained, of course. We have rights to a certain quantity which we buy from the monks’ game preserves.’
The girl guttered to a halt, perplexed and a bit annoyed. Market day was busy, they did their best trading of the whole week; she didn’t have time for a customer who didn’t know what she wanted.
‘Thank you. It all sounds excellent, but what I really need is direction. I’m trying to find someone.’
‘So, did she buy?’ The poulterer’s daughter shook her head as she watched the woman in the green cloak walk away. ‘No, Father, she didn’t.’
The poulterer frowned and his daughter was immediately defensive. ‘I did my best — she was just a looker and a toucher. Wanted to know the way to Silver Lane. Yes, Mistress Rafe, what can I do you for? I mean, do for you?’ Customer and shop attendant laughed, they knew each other well, and with this good-wife, money certainly would change hands to everyone’s advantage.
But the poulterer watched the woman in the green cloak for a moment as she disappeared up the street outside his shop. Silver Lane? Only one reason to go to Silver Lane — the money-changer, the Jew, lived there. No good ever came from money lenders or changers. Or Jews for that matter. Christ knew that.
Impatient with his idle thoughts, the poulterer turned his attention to reaching down a brace of the birds from the carcass-curtain above his daughter’s head. ‘What about a nice, fat duck, Mistress Rafe? Nothing like a juicy bit of duck at the end of the day, that’s what I always say.’
The noise from the market receded as Anne turned a corner beneath the overhung first floor of a large half-timbered house. There were no signs, nothing to say she’d found Silver Lane, but it was a dark, dead-end street and very narrow: black and white houses crowded tightly together, tops almost touching — that had been part of the poultry-girl’s directions.
And there, at the very end of the short street, was the façade of a house, again black and white, but it looked secretive somehow; that too was how the Jew’s house had been described.
Anne stopped hesitantly. Should she knock on a door and ask someone else if this was the place, just to be sure? But then above the blackened front door of the house at the end of the street, Anne just made out a faded chequer-painted board hanging from an iron bracket on which was a crude depiction of gold and silver coins and, above them, a scale.
She had come to the right place, this was the money-changer’s house.
Nervously she clenched the fingers of her right hand tighter around the two remaining gems. If she was clever and careful, perhaps they could bring her old life back; her son, and Deborah. But not Edward, not the king. She dearly hoped they would me
et again, just once — let that be, Sword Mother, of your pity — but her path lay away from his. She knew it now, could not avoid that knowledge. She ached, she ached deeply when she thought of life, years and years to come, without Edward, but she must find the strength she had found before when she’d left England, an exile.
Sacrifice. Perhaps these stones were the last sacrifice? Perhaps she had not yet paid enough and must be left with nothing?
Then an odd thing happened: the jewels shifted within her folded palm — they moved. As if they were alive.
Startled, she opened her hand. The last diamond, with its companion ruby, tumbled out and lay on the street where some stray gleam of light from the sky above caught the clarity in both stones amongst the dirt: one bloody, one clear as water. Anne dropped to her knees, scuffling desperately to retrieve the gems. Then she felt a hand drop to her shoulder.
‘These are very fine, very fine indeed. Let me help you.’
Anne scooped up her treasures with one hand, eyes wide with fear. The man stepped back quickly.
‘Hola! I will not hurt you.’
Anne’s heart was pounding, but then, slowly, she relaxed. No, he would not hurt her. He had kind, dark brown eyes and was respectably dressed in a well-made ankle-length woollen gown of a pleasing dense black. Snowy linen, beautifully goffered, formed a high, fluted collar under his chin and peeped through beneath the front fastenings of his robe. He could have been a well-dressed court functionary except for the curls dangling from his forehead and — and his skull cap. That marked him.
The Exiled Page 34