The Innocent (20 page)

Motioning for the girl to precede them, he took pleasure in watching her walk gracefully up to the house in front of them. Lady Margaret had given her new, fine velvet slippers and she held the skirts of her gown up carefully, so that the hem of the new dress should be preserved as long as possible.

Inside, the house felt gratefully cold after the hot sun as the two men strolled toward the main hall where a small party was waiting for them.

Anne hurried ahead to take her place beside her mistress. Outwardly, at least, all looked well with the three generations of Cuttifers assembled in Mathew’s hall. But Anne could not banish the feeling of dread that was now her constant companion with the family she served.

Since the baby’s birth she’d tried to show Aveline unobtrusive support, but Piers’s wife had become more and more detached from everyday events, as passive and expressionless as a child’s rag doll, and ever more silent. At least Piers had stopped beating her—gossip said there’d been a particularly painful interview between Mathew and his son the day after the baby was born in which Mathew had threatened Piers with a public penance if he continued to abuse Aveline—but Piers had now completely ceased to speak to his wife and showed no affection for little Edward at all.

Thus, as usual, Piers stood silently beside Aveline, while Lady Margaret held the tightly swaddled baby who was sleeping peacefully, a thick wad of dark hair sticking out from the top of his head like little black feathers. For one swift moment, Anne saw Mathew’s face transform with tenderness at the sight of his grandson—she’d heard him say to Margaret that there was a look of his own father in the baby’s face, and she knew he’d loved his own father dearly—but he composed himself as his wife called out to him.

“There you are, Mathew. Master John.” Margaret dipped a small curtsy to their guest. “Melly, you can take Edward now.” And Melly, Anne’s friend newly promoted to the honor of maid to the child, hurried forward, carefully taking the sleeping baby from his grandmother. “See that the nurse does not overfeed him if he wakes. And please make sure he is well swaddled again after he has eaten. We’ll not be very long.”

John Lambert thought it was odd that neither of the child’s parents showed any concern for the baby.

Aveline said nothing at all, she walked off after Margaret beside her husband, eyes down, hands clasped around her missal, pale and contained, followed by Anne.

Master Lambert could see that Aveline appeared to have recovered well from the birth of her son and clearly they’d stopped binding her breasts to suppress the milk—having married Piers, she would, of course, not be expected to feed the child. But Mathew frowned when he saw that the bodice of Aveline’s new, fashionably high-waisted gown had no lacing in the front; he thought this new fashion where women of quality did not feed their children was foolish and dangerous. Who could say whether a hired wet nurse would feed someone else’s baby with the devotion she would give her own child?

He’d given in, though, when Margaret explained it would not be seemly for his daughter-in-law to be judged by the court women to be a milch cow. But he’d insisted that he, with Margaret, should choose the woman who would feed his grandson, since Aveline and Piers showed no interest.

After the quiet of the house, the streets were a babel of sound as the party walked out from the main door. Preceded by servants dressed in new particolored livery of blue, the Holy Virgin’s color, and rose to celebrate the birth, Mathew and John Lambert strolled along with the family behind them. Ahead, Piers’s body servant took pleasure in scattering small handfuls of groats to the crowd from a fine leather purse stamped with the Cuttifer arms. Such generosity brought more and more people out onto the street and soon the party was finding it hard to push through the press of people, all shouting and scrambling in the dust for the tiny coins.

It was just as Mathew wanted it. London, for all its size—it was the greatest city in the kingdom with at least one hundred thousand souls within and without its walls—was a small place in some ways still.

Let his competitors hear of this fine gesture; it would only add to his credit in their eyes. He smiled for a moment at the irony—sometimes throwing money away was good for business.

Finally, the money was exhausted and the crowd let them pass through the gatehouse and into the Abbey grounds, thronged, as they always were, with pilgrims visiting the shrine of Edward the Confessor.

It was close to noon and the light was dazzling, but Mathew’s party had been well prepared for by the Abbot’s people; not for them the tedious wait in the heat at the west door with the herd of common people. As a special mark of favor, they entered the Abbey through the great north door, the one used on state occasions and kept closed between such times.

Following her master into the gloom of the mighty building, Anne realized that she had not been into the Abbey since she had first glimpsed the king, and unwillingly she heard again Deborah’s words: “he is too strong for you…” On Deborah’s advice, she’d willed herself to almost forget Edward, yet now, among this huge man-made forest of stone, she looked up to see a vision of Edward’s face, smiling down on her from the center of the great rose window that Henry of Reyns, the long-dead master mason of this place, had made.

Shocked by remembering again the almost blasphemous beauty of the king’s face, she hurried after the party into the Lady Chapel, determined to concentrate on the service of thanksgiving for Aveline’s survival of the birth, and banish all thought of the distant king.

Anne filled her mind with the sight of Aveline, kneeling at the front of the chapel next to Piers, waiting to receive the prayers of the Abbot, but as the old man began intoning the Latin words over the woman’s bowed head, there was a slight commotion behind her, and the priest looked up, frowning at the interruption. In that moment, his expression changed as he saw who had entered the chapel. It was the king, surrounded by a small number of companions.

Quickly, Edward and his party made their way to the front as places were made for them. Mathew insisted on vacating the stall he had been given, but the king would not allow any of the courtiers to take Lady Margaret’s place. The new party were accommodated after some ceremony and the king signed that the service should continue.

As the prayers droned on—the Abbot supplicating God that his servant, Aveline, blessed and supported through her agony by his almighty power, might always find faith to follow the path laid down for a good Christian wife and mother—Anne found it impossible to concentrate because of the king’s presence. Her heart was pounding and she dropped her head so that none of the household women kneeling around her in the congregation would see her consternation. Would he remember her from six months ago? And if he did, what then? She was just a servant, just an anonymous girl, and he was a king who met hundreds of people every day of his life. Helplessly she muttered once more what Deborah had said: “The king has turned away from you…the king is too strong for you…” but she might as well have been reciting the names of the seasons or days of the week, for Deborah’s warning could not touch her now. He was far too close—so close she could smell the amber-gris sprinkled on his clothes…

The prayers stopped and everyone stood up, waiting for Aveline to present an offering to the Abbot as a mark of her gratitude for the safe delivery of her son. Anne stood just in time to see Aveline walk quietly forward and bow to the Abbot over a finely embroidered set of altar linen, the work of her own hands. For Anne, knowing the terror and the misery of Edward’s birth, and what had gone before, it seemed as if the embroidery had been sewn with tears, tears given form by the pearls attached to the edges of the fine blue cloth. Piers stepped forward to stand beside his wife, bowing over his own offering, a fine silver salver for the altar of the Lady Chapel, his face a mask.

Anne suddenly felt very cold, for Piers was standing next to a gruesome effigy, a grinning death’s head on the tomb of a former abbot, meant to remind all who saw it of the transience of life. When Piers turned his head, a trick of the light picked out the skull beneath his skin and he was transformed, in that instant, from a living man to a waxy, walking corpse. It was a vision from Hell moving toward her now, away from the altar, and before she could stop herself she half screamed and tried to hide behind Jassy.

The housekeeper was most surprised. She liked Anne, thought of her as a levelheaded, hardworking girl, and this was unlike her. “Anne! Are you well? What is the matter, child?”

Shaking her head, dismayed by the attention she had attracted, Anne tried to stumble out an excuse as the royal party prepared to leave the chapel, followed by the family.

“The heat, Mistress Jassy, I am sorry…” she whispered. “I don’t know what happened…I just feel so strange.” And dizziness rushed up from her stomach to her head as she swayed on her feet. Jassy tried to hold Anne up as she hurried her to one of the monks’ stalls. To the scandal of the brothers serving the altar, Jassy made Anne sit down and pressed her head onto her knees.

Lady Margaret became aware that something was wrong, but custom meant it was not possible for her to turn away from the king, who, now that the service had concluded, was chatting with Mathew and John Lambert. The talk among the three men turned naturally to babies as Edward complimented Mathew on the successful birth of a new heir for his house. The queen, too, was close to term and was formally about to be confined to her suite of rooms. She would not be seen at court again until after the baby was born and she, too, had been churched in this same Abbey.

Now Edward’s attention was caught as he stood in the chapel doorway with his host. A girl was walking toward him from inside the chapel, supported by an older woman, a girl he knew he had seen before, since he rarely forgot a face—a valuable talent for a king to possess. He had a flash of the banquet on Mathew Cuttifer’s name day: this was the charming serving maid whose hand had trembled as she’d poured his wine…She’d done something remarkable, he seemed to remember. Yes, she’d cured Lady Margaret of the wasting sickness. Now she was wan herself, almost transparent in the light from the great rose window.

“Lady Margaret, it seems your little maid yonder—the doctor, is she not?—is not well. Perhaps she has need of your ministrations.” It was said discreetly to his hostess but, being the words of the king, the entire party hung on what he said and, as one, they turned to watch Jassy who was supporting Anne as she walked unsteadily toward them.

“Your Majesty is very kind to notice,” Margaret replied and saw that Anne was indeed alarmingly pale and only just able to stand.

“Lady Margaret, I shall detain you no longer.” Edward signaled to his companions and after stooping to kiss Lady Margaret’s hand and that of her daughter-in-law—very cold, Edward noted, and her eyes were quite dead—turned away as if to go. But then he stopped and in one quick step was beside Anne.

“Feeling wretched, sweeting?”

Poor Anne, if only the stone floor could open and swallow her, her head was swimming as she stood there. With Jassy’s help she dropped into a curtsy but was terrified of vomiting all over the king’s embroidered shoes.

“No, sire. The sun perhaps…”

“Ah, yes, the sun in splendor!” It was said lightly by Lord William Hastings, Edward’s chamberlain and one of his favorites. Stifled laughter rippled around the king—it was a clever pun on the fact that the king’s badge was a sun with rays of splendor flashing out all around. Here was one more maiden dazzled by the light, just one more to add to an ever-lengthening list. The king frowned, he was not pleased by the joke. The laughter died abruptly.

“I shall send my doctor, Master Moss, to your maid, Master Cuttifer.” The king strode away, courtiers hurrying after him, leaving Mathew and Margaret and the Blessing House party startled.

“Was he serious, husband?”

Mathew shrugged, bemused. “He was just being gallant.”

John Lambert was wrestling with the green worm of envy. The relationship between the king and Mathew Cuttifer would bear watching. It might be wise to cultivate his own strong links with those in Blessing House if that was the way the wind blew now. Why would Edward bother with a servant? It was excessive. He looked measuringly at the girl—and then thought he understood. Lady Margaret was talking to her now, and as Anne raised her head into the light he saw what the king had seen—a face of surpassing delicacy now that the last of the childlike roundness had gone—and something else.

Strength. And even more oddly, she reminded him of someone, someone he’d known well in the dim past…Suddenly startled, Lambert shook his head at the impossibility of the resemblance. Just some trick of the odd light in the Abbey, surely?

“What’s that, Lambert, did you say something?”

“Nothing, Mathew. I said nothing…” But as he looked more searchingly at Anne, waiting quietly now in the shadows next to the nave, he was very greatly perplexed. Such likeness was uncanny—the two of them could have been twins…if they had not been separated by so many years. But such things did not happen. Could not happen. Perhaps he’d been struck by the power of the sun as well…

Detached, Aveline stood beside Piers as the fuss over Anne gradually quieted. She was at peace now, for God had spoken to her in the chapel. All her life, it had pleased the Lord to bring her suffering and now she knew why. On the night of her son’s birth, Satan had stood beside her bed, ready to claim her soul, but the Lord had not allowed it—he had permitted her to live and Edward, her son, as well, and she was grateful for the mercy he had shown. She startled her husband by placing her hand in his, and as he turned to her in surprise, she smiled at him for the first time in many a long month. Her hand was very cold, and hoping he would not be observed, he dropped it as soon as he could, refusing to respond to the overture. But Aveline continued to smile, something that discomforted her husband very much and stirred his resentment. If Aveline thought Edward’s birth was going to change their relationship she was much mistaken; as far as he was concerned, she was his wife in name only. While she lived she would pay for the humiliation their marriage had brought him, no matter what his father had to say on the matter. He was her husband, and he had the right, the church said he did.