She heard her son before she saw him: wild giggles and gleeful shouts.
‘Edward? Edward? Oh, there you are. Hello, Father!’
Father Giorgio was staggering around, arms out, blindfolded, doing his best to catch the laughing child as he dived in and out of the priest’s legs. Then the boy saw Anne and ran towards her, his few words chasing each other. ‘Wissy, wissy, baw, baw!’
Laughing, Anne picked up the brightly painted pig-skin bladder stuffed with rags and threw it to her son who overreached himself trying to catch it, and tumbled into the new grass beneath the blossoming trees.
Laughing, Anne joined him, and mother and son rolled together, over and over, as Father Giorgio, strolled towards them, removing his blindfold.
‘And so, Mistress Anne. You found it?’
Anne spat blossom petals from her mouth, tickling the little boy who squealed joyfully.
She nodded ‘Yes, Father. A house of my own.’
The priest sat beside her in the grass, frowning slightly. ‘You are sure then that this is right?’
His friend looked at him, smiling. ‘I shall have a house and a farm and a physic garden for Deborah, Father Giorgio. I’ve missed, oh so much, having somewhere that I belong, properly belong — my own home. Edward will have space and green fields to play in, and none of the noise, the stink of this city.’
‘And you, what will you have, my child?’
Anne looked up at the spring sky, fingered the scar on her throat. ‘I will have peace; and the knowledge that I am not the sacrifice.’
The priest looked at her curiously.
‘The triple death, Father. Have you heard of it?’
The worldly Italian shrugged uneasily. ‘No, my child, I have not.’ The intensity of her glance unsettled him. Suddenly the day was still, very quiet. Even the little boy lay quietly in Anne’s lap, suddenly drowsy.
‘In the old times, the old world, sometimes they made a sacrifice of someone for the good of the tribe, or the village. Or if the people were afraid.’
The priest, sophisticated though he was, felt the hair on his neck move as Anne spoke, almost chanting.
‘First they hung them, then cut the throat whilst the sacrifice still lived,’ she touched her neck gently where the faint silver line of the scar caught the spring light, ‘then they drowned them, or buried them, underfoot at the crossroads.’
She smiled at him, but her eyes were very far away.
‘Sometimes, I have felt as if I were that sacrifice, Father. As if I must die, so that others could live.’ The boy stirred in his sleep, muttering something. ‘But now, I know that is not true.’
The priest, discomforted, jumped up to break the mood, vigorously brushing white petals from his finely woven habit.
‘Anne, sweet child, you’ve been upset by all that has happened to you — which I understand, we all do. But to speak of such things, on such a lovely day, when you are just beginning the next great adventure of your life ...’
He leant down to help her with the sleeping child.
‘Now all I need for you is a husband — a dear man who understands you and all your strange little ways.’ He was determined to make light of what she had said, and because he was her friend, such a good friend, she made it easy for him.
‘Of course! And he should be rich, and handsome, and sing as well as you do!’
Delighted she had responded, the priest led Anne back into the house, carolling, in English, ‘The Nut Brown Maid’, Anne joining in, descant, on the chorus. But as they reached the door which led into the house, Anne said, ‘Did you know, by the way, that Elisabeth Wydeville has had another daughter?’
Startled, the priest held open the door, his look asking the question.
‘Well now, that changes everything.’
‘Again.’ Anne smiled as she cradled her sleeping son, stepping into the shadows of the doorway, leaving the warm light behind. The door closed, but ahead of her the great door to the street itself was wide open, allowing the brightness of spring into Mathew Cuttifer’s hall, into her heart.
There were leaves on the trees again, and they were green, emerald green.
The Exiled Page 41