placed it under her wrap on her right breast. She felt the limp fingers
tense suddenly with knowledge, and then he had moved his head and his lips were over her nipple, pulling at it with the same instinctive search for comfort as the child of their bodies. The old tenderness rose up in her and flared into desire. She put her arms round him and pressed towards him, but it was he who flung back the sheet to uncover
her full nakedness.
It was a stormy night. Despite the intensity of their lovemaking,
neither could sleep and so, clasped stickily together and wanting each
other too much to seek separate coolness, they caressed again and
made love again. There was five months’ celibacy and a nameless dread
of the morning to drive them on. When at last they were dozing in
exhaustion the baby woke, crying with hunger. While Marja fed her,
Richard lay with his arms folded behind his head, watching her through
narrowed eyes. His expression was neutral, too tired for unhappiness
or lust or even interest, although as soon as the child was put down he
would begin once more to rouse her. Yet she thought that one day
soon he would regret this night. His odd code of morality would class
it as a betrayal. Her heart moved in mingled envy and pity for the girl
that he loved: envy that she should be the object of such single-minded
devotion, and pity that she should need it. Marja van Soeters would
always make shift for herself.
Four days after Richard’s visit Anne was taken to Clarence’s closet. He gave a businesslike appearance behind a table covered with scattered papers, but there was also a rosary carved in onyx tossed to one side. His manner was mild and reasonable and he let her sit down before beginning to speak.
‘I hope that the distressing incident of the other morning is all forgotten?’ Anne had learned by now that the only reaction that her brother-in-law noticed was fear, so she made no response. ‘I do feel it deeply myself, that my noble brother should so far forget himself as to commit such an outrage. One as close to God as you, sister, will find it easier to forgive, no doubt. But it has made me consider your future very seriously. Since you have taken this great decision to give yourself to Holy Church it is unthinkable that you should be pestered again in that way. You made yourself very clear to his grace of Gloucester while he was here, but I am afraid of his persistence. He is a stubborn young man. I know him, sister, I know him.’ Clarence leaned back, shaking his head sorrowfully. Anne wondered dully if the performance was for her or for the inevitable brace of gentlemen inside the door. Brisk again, he went on.
‘I have come to the conclusion that there is one way to protect you from the grasping ambition which threatens you. Of course, you will wish to take orders as soon as possible. This has already been set in motion, and when you’ve expressed your preference my influence will smooth the way to any house that you name. But it takes time to arrange admission, and there is the question of dowry ... There will be a delay, which could be dangerous while you’re known to be under my roof. So I’ve found a temporary refuge for you, a place where a fanatical admirer … wouldn’t think of seeking you.
‘Thomas?’ One of the men stepped forward, with coarse badger hair and incongruously thick-set shoulders under his silken sleeves. ‘Sir Thomas will take care of you. There must of course be great caution, so you must go with him, whenever he comes for you, and trust him. There may be a little discomfort, while you wait, but it would be best if you accepted it without complaint. Your sister and your lady mother would I’m sure expect it.’ Through the smile she read the iron threat, and said nothing. ‘Thomas, accompany the Lady Anne back to her chamber. So that you may become acquainted. Go with God, dear sister.’ She would not have been surprised if he had made the sign of the cross over her; it was a common tale that the Devil could assume a holy shape at will.
On the walk back to her apartments Sir Thomas Burdet did not break the silence. Perhaps a jailor who looked like a noble ruffian was better than one of the effete young men who were the Duke’s other companions. She did nothing to prepare for her departure. She had no possessions of her own, besides her clothes, except a missal and an hour-book and her rosary. And there was no attempt to escape from it. Anne had given up struggling. Once God’s will for her had been pitted unsuccessfully against that of the Earl of Warwick; now He seemed to be allied with the power of evil to impose Himself on her. She was no longer surprised. His ways were mysterious beyond her imaginings, and He had left her without choice. The passionate yearnings of her youth, a year ago, had starved to death. It was little enough of herself that she could offer to the service of Holy Church. But it would be quiet in the convent, and the Duke of Clarence would not be there.
Burdet came for her one night after she had retired. He made her put on her plainest gown of mourning and would not let her call Ankarette. His only concession to her modesty was to leave the room while she fumbled with the laces which before had been tied for her. The great house was sleeping as he led her to the stable yard and mounted her behind him on a ready-saddled horse. Passing out of the postern it crossed Anne’s mind that he meant to take her to the river and drop her in. She was not particularly disturbed. It would be a neat solution to everyone’s problems.
Nobody was abroad in the London streets, where the odours of a hot day were still imprisoned under the jutting eaves. Lamps flickered here and there, and gleamed startlingly in the eyes of scavenging cats. The horse’s hoofs, muffled by the layer of refuse, raised no echoes. At the time, it was a hopeless journey into nowhere, but looking back on it Anne remembered the breadth of the deserted streets and the wedge of starlit sky between the gables.
They halted at a narrow gate, and as Burdet knocked softly the chimes of a church clock, close at hand, struck midnight. Anne had time to count all the strokes before the gate was unbarred and they were admitted. In the courtyard of another large house, two people were standing with shuttered lanthorns. A few words were exchanged, then Burdet lifted her off the horse, pushed her towards the strangers, and was gone. One of the figures seized her by the upper arm in an unnecessarily firm grasp and propelled her through an archway. There the lanthorn was lifted and a sudden flood of light was released on to her face. Closing her eyes tightly against the glare, Anne saw nothing of her hosts except that they were both men, and neither of an excessively villainous countenance. Clarence had evidently elected not to kill her yet.
‘She doesn’t look very strong,’ said one in a low voice. ‘She’ll learn,’ said the other laconically. Then shuttering the lanthorn again he addressed Anne. ‘Have you eaten, lass?’
The familiarity of his tone was so foreign to her that she simply answered meekly, ‘Yes, I thank you, sire.’
‘There you are,’ her interrogator said to his companion. ‘Mild as milk. She’ll learn.’ He returned to Anne. ‘Then you must be off to your bed. They’ll wake you at first light. Do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut, and no harm’ll come to you.’ Taking her arm again he marched her down a passage, up some steps, and into a room without a door which was full of snoring and the musty stench of sleepers. A last flash from the lanthorn lit up an empty pallet almost at her feet, and then the strangers too were swallowed by the night.
For some minutes Anne stood where she had been left, too bemused by events for any action. She could not attempt to make sense of them, and soon a deadly weight of weariness began to bear down on her, so that she could think only of the pallet below her. The last thing she was conscious of was the hard little beads of her rosary pressing into her cheek.
Her sleep did not last until dawn. There was a creeping sensation over her thigh, and she came back to awareness of the same unquiet obscurity, with an additional activity centred around her upper legs. Wanting only to sleep again before her brain awoke, she scratched and turned over. But when
she was still again the irritation returned, making its slow deliberate path towards her knee. In sudden revulsion she sat up, throwing off the single blanket and chafing furiously at her thighs beneath her kirtle. A groan came from the darkness to her right and she froze, more apprehensive of disturbing her unknown neighbour than of the visitor in her bed. Although she stayed motionless for some minutes, there was no further response from either. Her head swimming with tiredness, she gingerly lay down again, but it was too late for sleep. She was no stranger to bedbugs. Even in the most well-regulated bedchambers they sometimes appeared, singly; on the terrible voyage to Normandy they had been rife. But to be attacked within hours of entering a house did not say much for its standards. Anne hoped that her proper apartments, when she was transferred there in the morning, would be cleaner.
The woman who roused the dormitory showed her scant respect. The four other occupants had sprung from their pallets at the first stentorian call, and she came to stand over Anne, arms akimbo, blotting out the feeble morning that crept through the doorway.
‘And who are you, mistress, to be a slug-a-bed when your betters are already scouring pots? Up, child, at once. I’ll have no laziness here.’ Too stunned to wonder why, she scrambled to her feet and tried to smooth down the badly crumpled linen of her gown. ‘None of those airs, now,’ said the ogress. ‘You’ll have an apron later - and a cap to keep back all that hair’ – it was straggling in a tangled mass over Anne’s shoulders, not having been brushed and plaited the night before. The woman pushed Anne before her down the steps, and then took her by the arm back into the courtyard. It was a fair-sized space, now bustling with ostlers leading horses and lads on errands. In the centre, by the pump, a cluster of people, in servant’s garb waited to wash; Anne was placed among them. ‘This is a respectable house,’ declared her guide. ‘We’ll have washing night and morning, if you please.’ And instead of the gentle laving of hands and face from a silver bowl held by an attendant, Anne’s head was thrust under the full jet of water and so were her arms.
Soaked to the elbow, and with rat’s-tails of hair dripping inside her collar, she was hauled off to the kitchen. As she tied on the apron and pushed her damp hair under a cap, both starched but threadbare with use, the woman made a speech to her and her four sleepingcompanions and a skeletal boy who proved to be the turnspit.
‘This is not what you’re used to, I dare say. But beggars can’t be choosers. Just remember that you take your orders from me, and you’ll live well enough. What do they call you?’
‘Anne Nev−’
‘First names are enough. I want to know no more. Well, Nan, off with you to your work. Petronilla, show her where to put the ashes when she’s cleaned out the grates.’ The youngest of the four, a girl of about Anne’s age, stayed while the woman and the others dispersed. With an air of faint boredom, she indicated the two wide hearths, carpeted with the dead embers of last night’s cooking-fires.
‘There’s the shovel, and there’s the bucket,’ she said, with a strong London accent that made her almost unintelligible. ‘When it’s full I’ll tell you where to tip it.’ Anne stared down at her task, not believing yet that she was really expected to perform it. There was some mistake. She had been taken for someone else. Sir Thomas Burdet had falsely brought her to the wrong house. Since Petronilla seemed more approachable than any of the adults, she made an attempt to clarify the situation.
‘When shall I see the master of the house?’ she asked timidly as the girl turned to leave her.
‘When shall you see the master?’ Petronilla was heavily sarcastic. ‘In two years’ time, if you work well, you may be serving at table in the great hall. Until then you’ll have to wait. Master Twynyho doesn’t visit the kitchens very often.’ And she flounced off to her own duties, which due to Anne’s advent were now slightly elevated. Master Twynyho. So it was not the wrong house. He must be some relation of Ankarette’s, and no doubt all would be set right as soon as he learned that his secret guest had been misplaced in his kitchens. Meanwhile there was not much she could do except as she was told. Short of making a scene, which she dreaded, she could see no way of reaching him before he reached her.
Within twenty minutes she was trembling with fatigue and halfchoked from inhaling wood-ash. The white apron and her newly washed face and hands were coated with a fine grey film, and the bucket was no more than two-thirds full. When Petronilla came back, more as a foreman than a helper, Anne staggered to her feet and said, ‘I don’t think I can do any more.’
All the good nature in the other girl’s face was replaced by contempt. ‘Can’t do any more? You’ve only just begun! And there’s the pots to be scoured after that, and the floor to be scrubbed before cooking begins. I’ll have to be telling Old Mary that you’re still trying to play the lady if you don’t get on. She doesn’t like slackers.’ Having effectively crushed the new girl, Petronilla went smugly away.
She finished at last, although in carrying the third full bucket out to the ash heap in the yard every muscle in her arm and back shrieked in protest, and Old Mary had some sharp words to say about the length of time it had taken her. There was a blessed interlude then, when the kitchen staff gathered round the trestle table and broke their fast with bread and ale and a generous slice of cold mutton. Nobody spoke to Anne despite the shrill babble of conversation, but she was too glad of the respite to be much concerned. If only Master Twynyho would send for her.
But he did not, and the work continued, as Petronilla had promised, scouring, scrubbing, and then, as the cooking of dinner commenced, the emptying of more buckets and their filling at the well with water. The morning was already hot, and with the two hearths ablaze, and cauldrons and joints of meat seething and sizzling, the temperature inside the kitchen was most unpleasant. Had it not been for the rising agony in her shoulders, Anne might have appreciated the few steps through the coolness of the shadows at the edge of the courtyard, and even the comparatively fresh warmth of the sunshine. The heat and the activity rose to a pitch simultaneously as dinner was served, and Anne, pushed sweating into a corner out of the way, looked on in bewilderment as she observed the ritual for the first time from the other end. By the time she was given her own portion her hunger had gone. All that was left was the conviction that soon Ankarette’s kinsman would lift her out of this slavery and take her to a room where she could be alone and cool and sleep.
The washing up occupied most of the afternoon, pewter dishes and tankards, trenchers and ladles in endless piles and then the cooking pans again. She was still wading elbow-deep in grease when a small commotion behind her made her glance over her shoulder in fear that she had done something wrong. At the far end of the long chamber a group of men were standing in the doorway, and one was pointing something out to another, portly and well-dressed in a long russet gown. The old sensation of eyes on her came back to Anne and she turned round, hands dripping unnoticed down her apron. Even at a distance she identified one of the lanthorn-bearers from last night, and she knew that her hour of release was here. Starting forward in relief, her rising spirit was caught on the wing by an iron grip on her wrist. ‘And where are you going?’ It was the ogress they called Old Mary. ‘That is Master Twynyho. I must go to him.’
‘Indeed you must not. Do you think he has time to spare for chits like you?’
‘But he’s come to look for me.... You must tell him I’m here.... He’s going away!’ Having apparently seen what he came to see, the master of the house was moving slowly from the doorway. The only way to attract his attention now was to cry out, to make him come back for her and do her justice. She opened her mouth and drew a breath, and then the cry died in her. All the dreadful consequences of such a breach of the peace - the immediate reaction of the woman who held her prisoner, the inevitable wrath of the Duke of Clarence, the repercussions on Isabel and her mother - rose before her and stifled her defiance. For the second time in a month she was silent when she should have spoken, and Francis Twynyho r
eturned to his negotiations with a dealer in Castile soap from Seville, satisfied that the Lancastrian orphan his patron had sent to him was usefully employed in his household as the Duke had requested.
Anne did not expect another chance. She finished the washing up and other labours assigned to her without consciousness of what she was doing, and when she was dismissed in the evening she found her way to the dormitory and lay on her pallet until sleep took her. Experience had not given her a great fund of optimism to draw on. The machinations of her brother-in-law were clear to her now: he had never intended to let her take holy orders, but just to shuffle her out of the way, into a place where nobody would recognise her, and nobody would think of searching for her - if indeed anyone wished to. And she would simply be forgotten. She no longer questioned George’s malignancy towards her; it had been a fact of her life for too long. He had deceived God as well as her. With a kind of kindred feeling towards a fellow victim, she resolved vaguely to say her rosary. ... as soon as she was not so tired.
With the exception of Sundays and holy days, when she was herded with the servants of a dozen households at the rear of the church of St James de Garlickehithe, the beads remained untouched. In church she could not concentrate, distracted by the proximity of a mass of stinking, wriggling, alien creatures whose language she could barely comprehend, and in whose world she existed on sufferance as an interloper.
They did not like her. This came to her slowly, because for the first weeks she was so much obsessed by the sheer muscular effort needed to drive her through a day’s work that there was no room to observe anything outside herself. Beyond the ashes, and the slops, and the scrubbing brush the other inhabitants of the kitchen hovered as slightly hostile presences, only materialising when she had left a task unfinished or not well enough done to please the sharp eye of Old Mary. She took her scoldings indifferently, for she could do no better than she had done; she could walk no faster, carry no heavier loads, scour the flagstones no cleaner. And it was because of her indifference that they were against her. If she had kicked against her treatment, complained loudly of the drudgery foisted on her, they would have understood; it had happened to them, even to Old Mary, who once upon a time had been young Mary. If she had wept occasionally, into the ashes, or her hard pillow, they would have sympathised; almost all they knew of her was that she was a gentleman’s orphan. And they were prepared to be kind to her and take her with them to Bartholomew Fair after supper was out of the way on a sultry evening in August. But there was never a protest, never a tear, never a smile or an attempt to make friends. Only the white empty face and the dogged application to her work.
The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1) Page 20