In Great Waters (57 page)

Is your man here?
It was the answer she most needed to know. She did not want to hurt anyone, but the issue was Louis-Philippe. This man she had never met. She needed to know where he was.

A voice came ringing out of the depths. You could not say that it had a French accent; it spoke in their common mother tongue with the same ease that Anne and Mary had. But there was a cadence to it that was unfamiliar: not the English staccato chant, not Henry’s hinterland bark; something was different about it. It was a strong voice, though. Fine lungs and a sound body behind it.
I am here
, it said.

The phrase,
I am here
, was spoken with a challenge. There were different inflections for certain statements, narrow and precise variations. Louis-Philippe was speaking with the lilt of a leader.

Anne could not, for a moment, answer.
Are you all right, sister?
she said.

There was a lull, and Mary’s voice came back. The sound was thin. She sounded as if she was struggling for words to adequately express the foolishness of Anne’s question.
I am more all right than you are
.

Sister
, Anne said.
I do not wish to fight
.

There was another hush. Anne could not see her sister’s face in the void, and Mary would not swim close enough to see her.

Your man is bad
, Mary said.
You have made a mistake
.

Not bad
, Anne said.
Not a stranger
.

You have not backed me up
, Mary said. Her voice was rising shrill and pained, echoing across the miles. The deepsmen had no word for
betray
.

Louis-Philippe’s voice cut in again, calling out a challenge. He called it to Henry, and Henry answered. Around them, a swirl of deepsmen rose, a spiralling army, circling the four of them in silent, grey-skinned ranks.

Deepsmen saw things tribally, Henry knew. But the deepsmen of France were his own tribe. So too, now, were the deepsmen of England. They recognised a victory by strength. You saw it sometimes: new faces joined, old faces left. There were no borders in the sea, no imaginary lines down solid earth. You could move with the tide.

It was not, therefore, a matter of landsmen’s law that the deepsmen from the shores of France and England must be, now and for ever, rivals. It was a matter of habit, of custom.

And, given the right push, customs could change.

This was what the landsmen forgot: that while they thought so much of the deepsmen, of their salt-blooded kings and their guardians on the shores, most of the time the deepsmen were thinking of other things. They had no farms and crops to bring them food after they had schemed all day; it was hunt or die, all the time, continually. They paid loyalty to their visiting lords because they needed alliances and truces; they took an interest in their own territory because it was good to keep a place that was safe from your enemies.

But let them agree that another tribe was not the enemy, and a peace treaty could be sealed in the time it would take a landsmen to cut a pen.

His deepsmen had known Louis-Philippe since Louis-Philippe was a child, that much was clear. But he had not roamed with them. Henry’s ties of blood, Whistle’s ties, simply went deeper. Louis-Philippe was a good enough ally, but Whistle was one of their own.

So as Louis-Philippe called out a challenge, deepsmen rose. And Louis-Philippe bounced his voice in Whistle’s direction, saying,
Enemy
.

Anne and Whistle had not called the deepsmen from England; there had been no need. They had known, because Whistle had told them, what to anticipate. They had followed the boat silently from beneath.

And as the deepsmen of France rose at Louis-Philippe’s voice, they did not mass upon Whistle. They swam forward, past Louis-Philippe, going out to greet their new friends. Deepsmen whirled round each other, diving and dancing, following each other in twisting, joyous patterns; holding hands, embracing, play-chasing each other through the water. There were no calls
of Enemy, Fight, Challenge
. Instead, the water was filled with greetings.
Happy to see you again. We shall not fight. Would you like to be my friend?

Great beams of light sliced through the choppy waves, glinting and flashing on grey skin as the deepsmen swam in and out, somersaulting and clasping hands. Deepsmen were fierce, but given a chance not to fight, to spare injuries and lives, given a chance to have peace instead of wasting blood, they were glad to take it. Deepsmen were fierce, but they weren’t foolish.

Anne hovered in the water, watching the soldiers of the deep gambol around one another. She reached out, for a moment, and took Whistle’s hand. He clasped it, feeling the narrow bones, the fine webs. She was emotional, his wife, but she could be pleased after all.

Sister
, he heard her say,
we will not fight. The tribes will not fight, and I do not want to fight you
.

The sister was too far away for them to see her face clearly, but he heard a rising note in her voice.
What have you done? Have you taken away my tribe?

I love you
, Anne said.
I do not want to fight. I have made peace. Make peace with me
.

I am a stranger
, came the girl’s voice out of the dark.
I left my tribe. I wanted to come home. You have harmed me
.

Anne did not let go of his hand.
I know
, she said.
You need not be a stranger. Be my sister and I will be yours. I am sorry
.

The girl’s voice came again, loud and high.
You have harmed me!

I have harmed you
, said Anne.
I have not been your friend. I want to be your friend now. I am sorry
.

What his wife was apologising for, Whistle didn’t know; it had better not be for marrying him. He had counted on her to be happy about that. But her hand still gripped his in the silence.

Whistle spoke again, this time to Louis-Philippe. The man had no deepsman’s name, nothing that could be pronounced underwater, and to even attempt his land name would be to swallow a lungful of brine, but he directed himself as well as he could in Louis-Philippe’s direction.
Sister’s man
, he said.
Do you want to be king?

What?
The reply came sharp and clear. The man had a fine voice, Whistle thought. He could deal with such a voice.

Let us be friends
, Whistle said.
Make peace with us. Make peace, and my tribe will be better friends with you than with your brother. You will be king
.

Do not fight
. That was Anne’s voice, cutting across him.
Do not fight your brother, or we will not support you. But make peace with him and with us
.

That was a refinement Whistle had not thought about, and, considering how hysterical landsmen were about titles, would take a lot of talking in France to resolve: Louis-Philippe trying to take the kingship from his brother without fighting him for it. But then again, Louis-Philippe had lived on land all his life. Perhaps he could find a way. Whistle was not eager for more battles or enmities anyway; they only led to burnings, and hiding yourself away.

Let us be friends, brother
, Whistle said to Louis-Philippe in the dark.
I am offering you something good. Take it
.

There was a long silence, filled only with the chirrups of fish. Then Louis-Philippe’s voice came back.
I will take it
, he said. And Anne’s hand relaxed in Whistle’s grip, and she lay down upon the sea, stretching out her limbs in victory.

Surface
, she said, swimming up to the top. Whistle did not need to breathe yet, so he let her go. There was a pause, the dark shape of her legs bobbing in the bright waves above. Then there was a crash: a
shape falling through the water, long and wrapped. The tribe, both tribes, swam up to grab it.

Edward’s body, Henry thought. The old king, now a victory feast, sealing a new treaty. His people could have it. They were dragging it down now, unravelling the bindings with their sharp nails; scraps of cloth floated all around them, like leaves in a gust, drifting slowly down.

The four of them. Whistle, Anne, Mary and Louis-Philippe, all stayed where they were. This was not a feast for any of them. They swam together, slower than the deepsmen had, but together nonetheless, reaching out in the murk to see the faces of their new allies.

B
OOK
E
IGHT
DEPARTURE

I
T WAS A
fine day when the court set out to hunt. Anne was glad of that; though nothing made her seasick, some of her courtiers’ stomachs were not so steady, and finding porpoise to hunt would be a long journey out into the rough seas. She stood by the prow, watching as her deepsmen skimmed ahead, diving in and out of the wake like birds.

John came up and stood beside them. Henry was hunched over the side, chirruping down to the deepsmen.
Crabs are good to eat
, he was saying.
I will teach you how to open one
. There was a look on his face Anne had seen a lot lately. She had thought, at first, that it was anger, but she was coming to know him better. Now she thought she recognised it: yearning.

“I have not seen a hunt like this since I was small,” John said.

“I know. You told me of it once, do you remember?” Anne said. Henry inclined his head a little, but did not join the conversation.

“I am glad to see the tradition revived.” John smiled. The wind blowing the hair around his face made him look young and clean. “Do you mean to be blooded, your Majesty?”

Anne shook her head. “I hardly need to be baptised to the sea. And I do not wish to be baptised in blood.”

“Baptised?” Henry said, turning his head a little.

“Received into the Holy Spirit,” Anne said. “Holy water is poured, and you are cleansed of sin.”

Henry shook his head and stared back down at the wake. “Holy water,” he muttered, as if to himself.

“Are you resolved on the coronation tomorrow?” John said, ignoring Henry’s mumbling with the air of one used to rising above what couldn’t be helped. “That is, have you resolved the question of Henry protecting the Church? I do not believe the Archbishop is happy about it.”

“How do you know of that?” Anne said.

John shrugged. “I have ears,” he said. “And a tongue to speak with others that have ears.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “An intelligencer,” she said. “We must find more uses for you.”

There was something in her tone that made John look up, the happy expression suddenly gone from his face.

Anne hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Send your father to us,” she said. “We have something he must hear.”

John paused, his face going ashen. Henry looked over his shoulder, seeing his friend stand mute on the deck.

“It is all right,” he said. “We will be politicking.” There was a look of displeasure on his face; Anne heard a lot of concessions in his tone. For a long time Henry had insisted that they do something about Narbridge, the man who had turned in the Cornwall bastard for burning. It had taken a lot of persuasion to get him to abandon that idea. Though he had survived Claybrook’s attempt upon him, better than Erzebet had, he was not at all happy about Anne’s new idea on Claybrook. For a moment, Anne wondered whether he was going to say something more, change his mind, but he only looked back out at the sea. In and out of the gleaming water dived the deepsmen, and he called down to them:
Swim well, brothers
.

John disappeared, picking his way across the rising and falling deck, to find his father. Anne laid her hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Does it sit so very ill with you?” she said softly.

Henry shrugged. The gesture was an irritable one, but not hostile. “It sits ill. But this is landsman politicking. It is not how I would solve
the problem. But if we were to solve it as I would, you would say I was a tyrant. I do not mean to be a tyrant.”