In Great Waters (52 page)

It had been too long since he had seen John, Henry thought as they met. The sparkle had gone out of him; though the day was blue and bright, John’s skin had a dull look, as if the sky above him was overcast. He looked tired. Anne said she had been speaking to him, had had assurances; John’s friendship with Henry was still a secret the court knew nothing of. “When we are crowned,” Anne had said,
“then whoever helped you will be a patriot, not a traitor. But before then, it will only put them at risk to make them known, in case we lose.” Henry was not thrilled that she seemed to anticipate losing, but he wasn’t about to risk John, just in case she was right.

John met him outside, under a tree, where Henry rested astride his horse—a new beast, faster and more docile than any he’d encountered before. The setting was familiar: they had spent so much of their childhood like this, Henry insisting on staying outside while John put up with the weather. As John rode up, Henry saw him anew: grown tall, strong-limbed, well-favoured. He had something of his father’s good looks, but the cast of his face was different. Claybrook, when showing no feeling, looked smooth, impermeable. John just looked sad.

Henry studied him, unsure what to say. John sat, waiting. His posture was straight, but there was something a little worn about him nonetheless.

“My wife calls your father Lord Thames,” Henry said in the end. “I did not know you had so many names.”

“That is his title,” John said. “He did not wish to tell you. He thought …” A small smile twisted the corner of his mouth; not his old bright grin, but an older-looking expression, wry. “He thought, if you knew London was so close, you might run away.”

Henry sighed. “Do you wish me to say I am sorry?” he said. “I did not tell you so your father could not blame you when I was gone. I grew tired of waiting. I always meant to find you once I had succeeded.”

John shook his head. “I could have helped you.”

“No. I went for the sea, you could not have followed me in. I was caught, and arrested. They would only have killed you. I would not throw away your life.”

“I am sorry about the poison,” John said. His voice was raw. “I swear, I did not know. If I had known, I would never have given it to you.”

Henry gritted his teeth. His brother had handed him a bottle of death. “You trusted your father too much. You should have thought.”

“I do not trust him now,” John said. “I am done with him. I swear, Henry.”

Part of Henry wanted to knock John off his horse, wrestle him to the ground, make sure he had submitted. He could trust a man he had beaten, but this was a surrender of words. For a moment, the temptation overwhelmed him, but he held himself back. His wife had spent a lot of effort making peace with John, and it would only upset her if Henry started hitting him.

“Let us agree not to say sorry,” he said. “I think there are better days ahead.”

“I hope so.” John stared at his horse’s mane for a long moment. Henry waited. This conversation was uncomfortable, and he wished it to move to more enjoyable matters, but he was not sure how to accomplish it.

In the end, John looked up. His smile was a little strained, but he looked more like his old self. “How do you care for marriage?” he said.

“It is better than not,” Henry said. “Women are pleasanter than I had thought.”

John laughed. “That they are,” he said. “I always wished I could smuggle some in for you. It would have caused trouble, but I did try to think of ways. I just never found a blind and mute whore.”

“I have a wife,” Henry said. He found he didn’t want John laughing about Anne. “It is well enough.”

“And how do you care for freedom?” John’s tone was less joking; he looked at Henry, alert and serious.

Henry shook his head. “I do not call this freedom. Just more rooms. Do you know, they wish me to swear to all kinds of nonsense?”

“A king must learn to speak nonsense as though he means it,” John said. “That is what makes a clever king.”

Henry shrugged in disgust. “It is not so in the sea. A leader who speaks nonsense would soon be deposed.”

“We are not in the sea now.”

“No,” Henry said. “We are not.” The words weighed in his throat, as if he had lifted them above the surface and found them heavier than they’d seemed underwater.

After a moment, he swallowed. “You must go,” he said. “I meet
some other men soon.” He almost added,
And where we go, you cannot know
, but he stopped himself. He was supposed to be off on a retreat. John, Anne had said, would assume he was on his way back there if he said nothing, but all of this was too much like lying. He did not wish to say any more: his tongue felt thick with untruth.

“Will I see you soon?” John said.

“Yes. I hope so.”

John stroked his horse’s neck before looking up. “Your wife said you wished to go to the Thames,” he said. “Perhaps we could go when you are back.”

“I would like that,” Henry said. “Truly, I would. I grow tired on the land.”

John nodded, turned his horse and cantered off. Henry sat under his tree, waiting for his men to come join him. The thought of the Thames cheered him, more than anything had for days. But he would do better than the Thames. While his wife was gathering intelligence, Henry would ride down to the coast.

Sneaking around unobserved was harder than he had expected last time, so this time they had brought someone with them: Thomas Hakebourne, lord of the north. Some of Hakebourne’s men were following them, riding together in a party. Henry rode with his cloak up over his face, and horsemen on either side. They went by quiet roads, and they travelled as a band. Should anyone wish to trouble them, they would have more than just Henry to deal with.

After they reached the shore, Henry would go on alone.

“You have not asked me,” Henry said to Hakebourne, “what I mean to do in the sea.”

Hakebourne was a heavy man, but he sat astride his horse with a springing, muscular lightness. “I thought that if your Majesty wished me to know, you would tell me,” he said.

Henry grinned. He was back outside, the air rushing past him, fresh scents on the wind and freedom of movement. Already he was feeling better. “Well done,” he said.

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Hakebourne looked at Henry for a moment; it was a studying gaze, thoughtful. He did not look mistrustful.

“My wife says you are loyal,” Henry said, “and you have been good to me. But there are more spies than I thought. If I do not tell you, no one can overhear.”

“As you say, your Majesty.” It was a neutral phrase, but Hake-bourne’s tone was agreeable.

“Hakebourne?” Henry did not slacken his pace, but turned to look more closely at the man. The movement of their horses made Hakebourne bob a little in Henry’s vision, but Henry focused his eyes, trying to see straight. Hakebourne seemed less rattled than the rest of them at being addressed by his real name. “Is it true that you would not have land if the Delameres had not given it to you? That your brother has the land you were born on?”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Hakebourne answered without hesitation, plainly.

“So you needed my wife’s mother.” The thought of Erzebet rankled bitterly with Henry, but if he tried, he could push her into the past, not think of her too much. She was a fighter, Erzebet. It was his misfortune she had been fighting against him.

“I am grateful to your Majesties,” Hakebourne said. It was the careful kind of phrase Henry associated with Claybrook, but there was no bow, no smile to disguise it. Henry was liking Hakebourne more as he spoke to him; it was a sensible man who weighed his words.

“So you were there during the war with Scotland,” Henry said.

“It was a bloody battle,” Hakebourne said. “I hope we shall not see such fighting again.”

“Why did you go? You had no lands to protect.” Henry was wondering whether Hakebourne saw advancement in such an opportunity, and if he had, whether he would admit it.

Hakebourne adjusted his reins, as if gathering something invisible between his hands. “England is my land, your Majesty,” he said.

Henry thought about it for a moment. The word,
England
, was said over and over by these people. What did it mean? A line on a map between one place and another, a line you could step over and find
yourself unchanged. Battles for territory were understandable, but Hakebourne had fought for a piece of land he was not using.

“Did you fight with him?” he asked the man to his right. “What is your name?”

“John Green, your Majesty. I fought.” The man had a scar across his chin, a deep rivet that suggested a dented bone beneath.

“You gained no lands for it. Did you fight for England?”

“Yes, your Majesty. As I do now.”

“You do not want a French king?”

“No, your Majesty.” Green’s face was firm, his
no
immediate.

“What do you want, Green? Kings aside,” said Henry. “What would make you happy?”

Green’s face was puzzled, momentarily.

“I would wish my people to be happy,” Henry said. “How can they be happy if I do not know what to give them?”

“Most people want enough to eat,” said Green. “And no oppression from landlords. They want to work the land in peace. But they do not want a foreign king bearing down his ways upon them.”

“Do you agree, Hakebourne?” Henry said.

“Yes, your Majesty.” Hakebourne nodded, and there was a general look of assent on the faces around him. “But that is the people. What courtiers want, if I may say, is often more complicated.”

“Yes,” Henry said. “It is easy to become complicated when you are not hungry.”

He thought about it, working the land. He did not know what it involved, exactly, but he knew what it must mean. The black soil of England, so dense compared with sand under the sea. Burying tools in it, burying your hands in it, pushing aside heavy earth to pull out things to eat. Henry wondered how he would have liked life as a peasant. It would at least have been simple. And if it was hungry, he had been used to that, once. The deepsmen were not like these lords who spent so much time doing service to them.

I should speak to more people
, Henry thought.
But if I did, would they say anything other than “Yes, your Majesty”? And if they wanted things, other than food, food that I do not know how to grow, that I could
not hunt down for a whole country, how would I understand them? The people of England want an English king. They want me. And I do not even much care what England is
.

“We shall not have a war,” he said aloud. “I shall see to it.” He had seen the notch in Green’s face, and he did not want to see more of them if he could help it. But as he rode, he could not help but look forward to the sea. Tense though he was, much though he was risking by this new dive into the Channel, it would be a release from conversation, from the burden of landsmen’s words and ideas that he did not care for at all.

Too many solid walls had encased Henry within his life, but the sea was solid too. He saw that as he swam off into the cold. There was no seeing what was coming at you; instead of walls, there was a vibrant blank, beyond which, nothing was visible. The sea was a living fog. But you could hear. There was no hiding a sound behind a wall. Every sound in the world carried straight to you. There was little ambush. Few places to hide.

No chance of ambush, in fact, unless you were quiet.

It was a long journey he was on, and he was making it alone. As Henry swam off and the sea floor disappeared below him, the void enveloped him and he felt himself relax. His muscles strained at the effort of swimming, but the sensation wasn’t entirely bad. It was more the feeling of scratching an itch, gulping down water when you were thirsty, a physical cry of relief at doing something you had put off too long. At the same time, his back was unbending. It was only as he stretched out in the water that he realised it. Since he had come out into the world and met all those landsmen, he had been unable to crawl. He had had to totter from place to place on his weak legs, leaning on what he could. His spine was beginning to curve. As he reached out, pulling stroke after stroke to drive himself forward, sharp pains crackled through his shoulder blades, but he kept swimming. He had been beginning to cripple up. He needed to move.