In Great Waters (45 page)

“What is your position on France, my lord?” the man called Forder was saying. He was leaning forward, his shoulders taking up too much room, blocking the other men’s lines of sight. His restlessness was rattling Henry; restless men were either skittish and untrustworthy
or aware of some danger coming in, and either way Henry didn’t like it.

“What is France’s position on us?” Henry said. The question had been toned like a trap, as if Forder knew the answer and was waiting to see if Henry got it right.

“Well, my lord, Prince Louis-Philippe has been expecting to take the throne as consort to Princess Mary,” Forder said. He had an air of impatience, and Henry cut him off.

“This I know,” he said. “If France will keep to their shores, we will have peace with them. It is their choice. Louis-Philippe will not be king. It is for them to decide if they wish to fight it out. That is what I mean. Is there more to your question, Forder?”

The man bristled at the sound of his name, but Henry was not going to concede.

“Will you send ambassadors?” Forder persevered, his tone becoming dryer.

Ambassadors
was a word Henry had heard, but he had never seen one. You sent men to speak for you. When they were out of your sight, when you couldn’t correct them, could you trust them to say what you would say? Henry had never seen a landsman speak with the bluntness he required. He could send a letter, perhaps, except he couldn’t write.

The new clothes gripped Henry’s chest. He was too hot. “That will be to discuss with the queen my wife,” he said. He didn’t like this juggling. Maybe Anne would understand it.

“My lord Prince,” said another voice. Hakebourne, the man Anne said she liked. “It is for us to support our God-sent king. We have been granted an Englishman to rule us, and we shall defend God’s gift.”

There were some nods from around the table—the brothers, the two men whose faces were alike, even more so than most landsmen’s.

“God-sent?” Henry said. Nobody had sent him, nobody but Anne. The word
God
was two crossed sticks, the strange object that Allard had brandished at him, a nasty piece of wood that Allard seemed unaccountably fond of. There were too many unfamiliar things in this conversation already: France, marriage, God. He almost
said,
I came myself, not because I was sent. I came on my own, and it was hard work to come
. He stopped himself. The man’s words were strange, but he seemed to be offering support. “Your loyalty is noticed,” Henry said. “That is good.”

Claybrook sat and watched, and said nothing.

“How soon do you wish the marriage, my lord Prince?” Hakebourne said.

“Soon,” Henry replied. “We must move quickly, yes?” The idea of marriage itself was still a curious one. Anne had fought beside him: she had said she would do anything he wished. They had taken the same side, made a side between the two of them. Exactly what some word, some dance that involved walking into a stone building and answering questions put by some person who had to obey them anyway would do to make that alliance any faster was beyond him. It was an inconvenience. He had always known landsmen had a passion for objects. Now it seemed they had a passion for forms of words as well, things of language as well as things of wood and metal.

It was tiresome and confusing. But they wouldn’t let him be alone with Anne. He had seen her white flesh gleam through the blue water, had seen every inch of her shimmer in the waving light, had seen the drops of brine run from the tips of her hair down her body as they walked on shore, globes of water hanging from the lobes of her ears, glistening in collarbone, gilding her breasts. Though he had not, since childhood, had his hands on a woman, he wanted his hands on Anne. The girl had agreed to him, chosen him; she was his, and the landsmen were keeping her away for reasons that made no sense. If it were one man, he could have fought him; he had fought a deepsman for her already, and could fight again. But against this barrier of words, this landsman idea that they all seemed to hold, there was nothing he could do except go through the form. It would work, but he didn’t like having to do it.

When I am king, we shall speak plain
, Henry said to himself.
And there shall be no more tangles of words
.

Anne had wanted to tell her grandfather she was getting married. Edward lay clinging to life like a filament of seaweed wearing away, waving in the water, down to its last thread. He could no longer move his arms, but he could still whisper. Anne wanted to ask his blessing, to speak to him at least; this last link to her family’s past.

Nobody else thought it was a good idea. Henry had shrugged, saying she could if she wished but it made little difference to him. Anne had found herself facing a roomful of courtiers all trying their best to dispute her out of it. Their reasons had been various, mostly to do with troubling a dying old man.

Less than a week ago, they would have hung over his bed, ready to pump answers from his wheezing lungs. But that was before Henry had arrived.

Anne looked at Hakebourne, who had said nothing. “What say you, my lord Tay?”

Hakebourne weighed the moment for a second before answering. “We follow you, your Majesty,” he said. It was a careful answer, succinct, blandly loyal. There was just the slightest emphasis on the
you
.

Anne understood again the desperation that had been driving everyone she knew. If Edward were to refuse his consent, that would leave no king but Philip. Anne had been afraid of Philip, his hard-nailed fingers and clutching paws, his booming voice and lashing arms, but the speed with which he had been sidelined unsettled her.

There was Mary, of course, and her husband. England might have accepted a Frenchman on the throne when there was no alternative, but now it would fight. Anne was trying not to think of Mary, not to imagine her sister’s face. But as the men around the room turned to her and spoke of following her, as if Mary had never existed, she was starting to wonder what she had done.

“Your Majesty,” Samuel said. Even as she thought of her family, Anne noticed the change of address. “His Majesty’s thoughts should be on Heaven now. If you were to pray with him, you would do him better service.”

Anne’s eyes stung. They were talking in public, but it was not like
Samuel to so mince his words. Even Samuel thought that the chance of Edward’s refusal, the chance that he might cling, in the end, to his own son rather than to some strange boy come out of the sea to depose him, was not worth the risk.

Even if he did refuse his consent, Anne thought, nobody would listen. It would sigh out in a whisper, and every man in the room would suddenly find his ears had dulled. Could anybody make out what his Majesty had just said? They would fear not; alas, it was impossible to discern.

Henry had walked out of the sea, and England had slipped from her grandfather’s weakened fingers. A bastard who should, by law, have burned—and now a week later, everyone in the world would side with him against their king. That was how fast the world could change.

“I shall pray with him,” Anne said, her voice shaking. “I am sure he will take our prayers to Heaven with him.”

She did not tell Edward she was getting married. She sat on his bed and held his hand, whispering prayers to the Virgin. His fingers were so frail, the webs between them so dry, that she half expected them to crumble in her grip. She sat with him and prayed, offering him nothing but her company. Anne did not want his last moment on earth to be the sight of his loyal subjects turning away from him, deafening their ears to his speech.

After that, it was only a few short days before Henry and Anne found themselves preparing to go into the cathedral and swear marriage.

Anne was attended by maids, trussed into a jewelled dress. Not since her mother’s wedding had she had such finery plated over her skin, and the thought made her heart shiver. Philip, grabbing at her mother’s body, yelling over the music,
Mine! Mine!

Philip was not to be at the wedding. She had thought he would, had assumed Samuel would be at his side, calming him, trying to keep him from shouting about wives and clutching at the nearest woman,
but Henry had refused. “If the man will make trouble, leave him elsewhere,” he said. “He will not be king; who will object?”

And Henry was right. Edward had nothing to say about the marriage, because nothing had been said to him. Philip could barely speak. Mary was overseas, not to be informed until the marriage had taken place. Anne had a foolish wish to write to her, to tell her the news, to have Mary be part of this great change as she had been part of so many others, but she pressed it back. She had taken the decision when she chose to save Henry. There was no way back, she could only go forward, and it would destroy her to repine. Was it wrong to marry without her family, to cut at a stroke every last tie she had? She could think of no other alternative; the country seemed to wish it. After the first moment of shock when she walked onto the beach with Henry, it was alarming how quickly everyone had taken to the idea of their new king. Anne was there to tether him to England, she thought, this flotsam washed up on their shore. Moor him to the dock before the chance was swept away. But what seemed to be sweeping away instead was the Delameres, carried away on the current, sinking out of sight. She was the last of her kind. If she had not been there to legitimise Henry’s claim to the throne, or if she had not been willing, would she be here now, caked in pearls? Or would she too be drifting out to sea, cut loose from her country?

Erzebet would have blessed the marriage, Anne thought. She would have let Heaven take care of Heaven, and turned her will back to England. Anne had prayed to the Virgin, thought of her mother. But somehow it was hard to pray and think of Erzebet at the same time. That still, grim, fierce-eyed face was a shadow in the glow. It was easy to say decades for Erzebet’s soul, but that resolution, that wolfish, headlong passion to live, that tension and courage and stiff-backed self-sacrifice that Erzebet had shown in every memory of Anne’s life … Perhaps Jesus had looked so on the cross, Anne thought. But then again, perhaps not. Jesus would not have looked so angry. And the mother of God had never worn so hard a glare in any icon Anne had ever seen. Erzebet would not have wept at the foot of the cross. She would not have let her children be sacrificed.

Her mother wanted her to live, Anne reminded herself. God would take her; God took souls up to Heaven. And Erzebet had understood, as nobody else had, the vital importance, in a prince, of practicality. Her mother’s spectral blessing was all she could take down the aisle. As she climbed into her litter to be carried up to the altar, Anne gazed ahead, her face still, grasping after God in her heart. That heart was beating in fear and doubt, but God would protect her. Erzebet would have done it. Anne was going to marry Henry and secure the crown of England, and there was an end on it.

Henry sat before the altar, waiting for Anne to be carried up to him. This church was a building he had little liking for. The ceiling was curved, columns rising on all sides; larger than the rooms of his childhood, it was at least spacious. But the windows were coloured glass, blue and green, impossible to see through. It was a cave, this room, a cave with a concealed entrance; though he was too old for such delusions, he still found himself short of breath, as if frightened he would run out of air because he couldn’t see the sky. Rows of landsmen stared at him; making him uncomfortable. The urge to tell them all to do something was strong; if he could command them, then their stares would be fair enough, but he was expected to stay quiet in this stupid place because of this stupid ceremony. This, Henry decided, was the last time he would go through such a ritual.