The Innocent (6 page)

Unnoticed by the crowd, however, he was holding her tightly under the forearm to give as much support as he could.

But as Anne bent down to gather Lady Margaret’s train she was suddenly conscious that Piers was beside her and, under the pretense of helping her up, had slipped a hand around her waist and quickly cupped one of her breasts, fumbling to find the nipple.

In her shock, Anne stood so abruptly that she knocked into Aveline before Piers could snatch his hand away—and then everything became very confusing. For a moment Aveline stood there, looking from one to the other, and suddenly her face was very pale. Then a wave of warm blood flowed up from Aveline’s breasts into her cheeks as she turned away, snatching the train from Anne’s hands, and mouthing “slut” at the discomforted girl.

Piers laughed and smilingly bowed low to them both. “Mistress Aveline, you look most charming in that pretty dress. And the high color you have, how brilliantly it makes your eyes shine. I salute you!

And Mistress Anne. You should always wear green—it reflects in your eyes.”

Unhurriedly, Piers sauntered away to stand beside his father as Anne tried to make sense of what had just happened. Why was Aveline so upset? Surely she didn’t truly believe she’d encouraged Piers?

“Aveline…I’m sorry, but please believe me, I didn’t—”

“Enough! Setting out to trap your master’s son is the oldest game there is. I can see what you’re doing!”

Aveline stalked away behind their mistress, loftily ignoring the impertinent, laughing looks Piers tossed in her direction. Then Anne’s confusion cleared a little. Aveline and Piers? Was there something between them—something Aveline took seriously, seriously enough to defend? Anne felt submerged in a cold, miserable fog of sadness as she was swept forward by the crowd from Blessing House. Never had she felt more alone and friendless—trapped into playing this game with such truly unfathomable rules.

Chapter Four

The Abbey was barely four hundred yards from Mathew Cuttifer’s front door but this was an occasion for maximum state and in any case he would not have his wife strained by unnecessary walking until he was sure she was entirely recovered. Impatiently he waited for the litter to arrive; it was a cold day and though Margaret was well swaddled up he was desperate that she should not catch cold from the treacherous winter air.

In the crowd of household people behind Mathew and his wife, Piers watched Anne as she waited beside Lady Margaret, her long hair fluttering in the cold wind. He smiled to himself but then realized Aveline had seen him ogle the younger girl. With a gallant gesture he swept off his velvet cap with its brave feather, but Aveline turned her head away disdainfully. Piers snorted—no more games from Aveline, she had seen he had new interests now, so let her take care not to offend him!

Mathew Cuttifer’s great town litter finally made its appearance at the portico of Blessing House. The groomsman leading the horses had found it nearly impossible to bring the vehicle to the door from the courtyard behind the house because of the great press of people jamming the roadway, and he apologized profusely for the delay until a sharp look from his master made him shut his mouth with a snap. The master never liked excuses.

The few hundred yards to the abbey took nearly an hour to accomplish through throngs of people filling the narrow road that led toward King Street and the abbey buildings beyond. Aveline and Anne were some way back now behind the litter, surrounded by most of the kitchen staff and other household maids, all in their very best holiday clothes—many with sprigs of holly pinned to their breasts in honor of the Virgin.

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter had been much decorated and rebuilt over the last one hundred years because the tomb of Saint Edward the Confessor King that lay therein was still, after Canterbury, the most important shrine for pilgrims in the kingdom of England, and successive Abbots had made sure that each king in nearby Westminster Palace was aware of his obligations to extend, beautify, and restore the work of previous devout generations. But while work was always going on, some said that to enter this holy building was to experience a foretaste of paradise. The great colored windows, the painted statues, the gold and silver altar plate, the jeweled vestments—these alone were enough to overwhelm the senses. But when this glittering surface was touched by the voices of the brothers singing praise to God in his house, the soul might sense the very stone walls of the building breathing grace to the air like perfume.

Or so it seemed to Anne as she tried to track her mistress and master through the crowd moving up the great nave toward the high altar. Candles bloomed in the darkness and everything she saw that had been made by man to praise God was so beautiful, wreathed in the aromatic smoke from the candles, that her head swam.

In a half-dream, she allowed herself to be carried forward by the mass of people all around her as if she were swimming in a friendly sea. She felt protected even as she was shoved and elbowed about by those looking for the best vantage point to view the Mass, and the king when he arrived.

Then voices began calling, louder and louder, “The king, the king…” Straining to see, Anne was climbing almost before she realized what she was doing. Like a child in an orchard, hand over hand she hoisted herself up a stone structure covered in small statues that made convenient handholds, and found herself a precarious roost. Only when she looked down from the top did she realize she had scaled the elaborate monument of some noble with more money than taste; below her, a number of women shook their heads in scandalized disapproval, though men who’d seen her climb were smiling.

For once, Anne was too excited to feel abashed. From high above the congregation she had a clear view back toward the north door from where the king was expected to enter. Ever since she had come to the city she’d heard about him, though never seen him, but now, below her, the nave was crammed with a slow-moving procession of people heralding his arrival.

The first company to enter the Abbey was comprised of young men, all dressed alike in the royal livery, with the leopards of Anjou and the lilies of France embroidered in gold upon their blue jackets. Their hose had one leg of blue, and one of white, and Anne giggled as she wondered if they were not cold, their jackets were so short. These were men of the royal household, though they did not bear arms since this was a church.

Next came as many officials of the court, at least two hundred of them, chains of office around their necks and long gowns of sober color sweeping the stone floor of the Abbey. Then came the magnates, in town for the coming Christmas Court; grim, weathered-looking men mostly, richly dressed; they were fighters, very few soft bodies among them. And then, finally, the king and his party.

King Edward IV was easy to see because he was so tall—he topped the nearest man to him by half a head at least—and because of the magnificence of his clothing. He wore a black velvet cotehardie embroidered with silver leopards under a flowing black cloak lined with cloth of silver; his long, muscular legs, too, were clothed in black velvet hose, the ribbon of the Knights of the Garter clearly visible below his left knee; but there was only a plain gold circlet around that red-gold head.

He was a young man too, this king, just over twenty-three, and with an open, charming face and sharp white teeth. Candlelight glittered and winked on the jewels he wore as he made his slow progress up the aisle. Clearly he was delighted to be among his people—they pressed so close their breath was his breath. And they loved having him so near; they cheered and stamped and clapped again and again, to the scandal of the court and the priests.

Anne was awed by the wave upon wave of sound that came from the throats of the people; it pierced her body as the stone building rang like an old bell and she found herself calling out the king’s name just as he passed below.

Her voice cut through the all-encompassing deep, male bass of the sound and the king looked up seeking the source and saw an angel above him, an angel dressed in shimmering green, the color of new love. The procession stopped for a moment as their eyes locked. The impact of that glance was palpable and Anne became completely still, her eyes fastened on his as all sound receded…then the moment broke as the king smiled, waved, and walked on among his people toward the high altar.

“Anne. Anne!” The girl was pulled from the dream of the king’s face abruptly. “Look down—here!”

“Deborah!” Her foster mother was right beneath her, wearing her old red cloak and holding up her arms, laughing.

“No, stay there, sweeting. I shall climb up to you.” And she did, the nimble grace of her movements and the strength in her arms belying her age, which could be seen plainly as she slipped back her hood.

“Deborah! I’ve been longing to see you but it’s been hard for me to send messages to you—Aveline watches me all the time and we’ve been so busy.”

“I know that, sweet love—and so here I am! And after the Mass you shall tell me all.”

Below them a collective settling passed through the crowd like wind in a standing field of corn.

Deborah and Anne were too far away from the high altar to hear much, but both women could see that the Abbot of Westminster was surrounded by his monks and acolytes ready to begin the Mass. He turned toward King Edward and held up his hand in blessing before looking back to the altar and the great rood that hung above it. The familiar words began: “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…”

Anne could see her master, and Lady Margaret, kneeling just behind the courtiers who surrounded the king and she was awed by the transfigured expression on her mistress’s face; she looked like a newly born child.

Deborah touched the girl’s hand and smiled as Anne turned back to her. “God be thanked for the help you have been able to give to this woman.”

“Amen to that,” whispered the girl, but then she shivered. Which God did Deborah mean—the Christ on the rood before them, or the older ones from their other life in the forest?

Chapter Five

The frenzy in the kitchen at Blessing House had reached storm proportions. Maître Gilles was red in the face and hoarse from shouting at the staff. Even Corpus had not escaped duty; he was chopping the heads off live squirming lampreys with vicious determination and at great speed. He’d already experienced a kick in the behind and did not wish for another one.

The great receiving hall was not much better than the kitchen—men and maidservants collided with one another as Jassy did her best to be heard through the din of people desperate to finish preparations for the king’s visit. So many fresh rushes had been spread that the level of the floor had risen by a full foot, and still Melly worked like one possessed to spread more.

The housekeeper had a sinking feeling that she had forgotten something vital and bitterly regretted that she hadn’t managed to tear her staff away from the Abbey as soon as the Mass had ended. Really! The way some of those kitchen girls had gawped at the court suite, one would have thought they’d never seen men’s codpieces before. Still, the master and the king would shortly be upon them—and heaven help her staff if they had not finished what she’d set them to do: there would be a reckoning later!

Outside the Abbey, the day had turned bitterly cold as a good part of the crowd emerged, breath smoking in the freezing air, all bent on the same thing: the alms giving that would shortly take place outside the sanctuary.

Twelve shivering old men, beggars clad in rags, were lined up in the charge of a red-nosed monk, waiting for their benefactor, Master Mathew Cuttifer. They had been swept up off the streets at random the previous evening by some of the burlier lay brothers of the Abbey, given a meal and a bed for the night, and dragged out here this morning to receive this unexpected blessing. They were all quite prepared to be grateful, but to a man they wished someone would get on with it, for they’d been waiting this last hour in a rising wind from the river that cut to the bone.

A ragged cheer made its way around the throng and all heads turned to look back toward the doors of the Abbey. The king was on his way, and craning to see, the old men were gratified by the sight of their sovereign walking slowly toward them surrounded by members of his suite. Accompanying him was a man in the place of honor on his right hand: their benefactor, Mathew Cuttifer, mercer and an increasingly important unofficial banker at court.

Mathew’s throat was painfully swollen with pride and his breath was short with nerves. If only his mother and father—God rest them—could have been here to see him on this day. How far he had brought them all from his grandparents’ tannery, now to be walking on the right-hand side of his king, about to conduct that same sovereign to his own house!

Six paces behind him, Margaret walked beside Lady Daphne Rivers—a pretty, finely dressed woman, a distant cousin of the new queen. They had been acquaintances for years but until this day Margaret had always been snubbed by Lady Rivers in company, perhaps as punishment for marrying beneath her family’s status. How things changed when the winds of fortune set fair in one’s direction! Now Daphne walked too close beside her and addressed little whispered asides as if they had always been the closest of friends, pressing her to come to court during the coming Christ-Mass wassail and bring the members of her family with her…

Margaret said as little as possible but her heart was hammering. Privately, she was delighted by the dignified but transparent happiness of her husband and this very public change in his status. He deserved this favor and she blessed Edward for offering it to him, though a corner of her heart was troubled; this king was said to be crafty for all his golden splendor. It was rumored that he never did anything but for advantage, and that thought made her worry even while she, too, was swept up by the glory of this day.

This new king was so different from the last, the luckless Henry VI, whom he had usurped. Edward seemed so open, so pleased to be part of the lives of his people, so happy to be accessible, whereas Henry, by the end of his rule, was so dominated by his hated French wife that he was a virtual recluse, isolated from the people of his country.