In Great Waters (38 page)

John blinked, shook his head nervously. “That was his name, he told me. He said he had spoken with you and you had been kind to him.”

“He was wrong,” Anne said. Her voice was clipped. That did not sound like the sullen, cautious boy she had seen. Surely her careful courtesy could not have made such an impression on him: she had not been kind, merely wary. Diplomatic of the boy to say so, perhaps. You would think a lord would raise a bastard for diplomacy, if nothing else.

“My lady Princess, I can help you. My father can help you. We none of us want to see another burning.

“Do you question the Crown?” Anne’s voice rose. It was one thing for Samuel to tell her, secretly and in a quiet place, that he did not care for fires. It was one thing for her to question, in her heart of hearts, if
she could have watched such a sight. For a passing courtier to make such judgements on her mother’s decision, that hard-won decision that had frozen Erzebet’s face and brought a single embrace when Anne questioned it sideways, was another thing entirely.

“My lady Princess.” John held on to her bridle. “I can help you. Let me help you.”

Anne gathered herself, invoked her mother’s cold face. “Will you tell your father of this?” Because Robert Claybrook could raise an army, march on the capital with a bastard at his side. But he had power as Philip’s keeper, would have more when Edward died; he could be powerful without risking himself in battle. It might be very advantageous for him to hand Henry over. Or to claim him for a cause.

John could ride straight home and tell his father, and then the secret would be out, the property of great men. Could she stop him? She could not stop his tongue, unless she had him placed where no one could hear him. It would be easy enough to do. A story of an assault, an attempted treason; she could lay any word against him. But he would talk, even if she had a headsman silence him, he could talk before the axe fell. Certainly he could talk to his father.

“I believe he can help, my lady Princess.”

Anne shook her head. She would believe a great many things, but not that a man like Claybrook would be motivated by Christian charity to a foundling bastard. A man of the Church, a man of medicine, men with only their own faith to recommend them, might be moved by such abstract concerns, but Claybrook had land, waterways, wealth. He had too much to lose. “Be silent with him,” she said. “Say nothing until I tell you otherwise.”

John hesitated. “He will know if I am absent, my lady Princess. I must say something. And we cannot keep it from him for long. This must be known, sooner or later, whatever is done.”

“Tell him you visit a sick friend,” Anne snapped. “Do not tell me you are unable to lie, Master Courtier.”

A shadow of his old grin passed over John’s face, then he was serious again. “As you command. But as your courtier I know it my duty to advise you, and I advise you to let me tell my father. He can help us.”

“A sick friend,” Anne said. “Or a fever of piety. Or you will find that I can speak too, and my words will be such that you may die of them.”

Henry waited as the night fell. Claybrook knew he was here. He could talk, now, could accuse Claybrook and go with him hand-in-hand to the stake. Not Allard. Allard had been good to him, Henry saw it now. He had tied him up in a locked room and forced questions upon him, but now it had happened again; it could only be that this was how landsmen were. As a landsman, Allard had done his best. He had not made false promises like Claybrook.

But Claybrook was ready to threaten. There would be no choice for him now. Claybrook would have to rally his soldiers at last. There was no safety except on the throne, and no safety for Claybrook unless he could put Henry upon it. He had not planned it so, but now he could force Claybrook’s hand. When John came tomorrow, he would send a message. They marched on the capital, or Henry named his keeper.

T
HERE WERE QUESTIONS
to be asked, answers Anne needed. And the boy was in her grasp. All she had to do was ride back to her grandfather, say a few words. “Bishop Westlake has most vigilantly set spies upon our enemies, and has captured a traitor.” Credit to Samuel, credit to her, and the bastard curtained in flames, swallowed up in heat. It was a fine threat. With such a threat in her hands, Anne could force the name of her mother’s murderer out of him.

John Claybrook was downstairs when she arrived at Samuel’s house. “My lady Princess,” he said, standing up, “my lord the Bishop will not let me see the bastard.”

“No need to rise, Samuel, thank you,” said Anne, as Westlake prepared to pull himself to his feet. “You did well. You are not to see him unless I say so, my lord John.”

John flushed, closed his hand and opened it as he bowed.

“Have you told your father?”

“My lady Princess?”

“Yesterday I told you not to tell your father,” Anne said. “Have you obeyed me?”

The flush deepened. “Yes, my lady Princess. I did as you bid me and told him I had to visit a sick friend.” John shrugged. “He was most Christian about it. He gave me some wine to take him.”

“Most Christian,” Anne said without warmth. “Where is it?”

“The Bishop brought it upstairs for Henry.”

“I am surprised,” said Anne. “Deepsmen do not like wine.”

“He—is no deepsman, my lady Princess …” John’s face was confused.

“No,” Anne said. “But he is no king either.”

Samuel was waiting for her, but she brushed him aside. “I will speak with him alone today.” Anne headed for the stairs, Samuel limping anxious attendance.

“My lady—”

“I can call you if there is trouble,” Anne said with some bitterness. “That door does not keep in noise very well.”

Samuel bowed. “Your forgiveness, my lady Princess. I am sorry.”

“It cannot be helped,” Anne said. “Did he thank you for the wine?”

“No, my lady Princess,” Samuel sighed. “He barely speaks to me at all.”

“I will have him speak to me,” Anne said, and went up the stairs.

The bottle of wine was resting between Henry’s hands as Anne came in. They had tied one of his legs to a bolt in the wall, and one of his wrists was shackled to it; he could sit up, but not reach the door. The bottle clinked against the fetters as he weighed it. It was a gift from Claybrook, it had to be: John had no cellar of his own. The thought of such a cheap peace-offering made Henry want to smash it, but he restrained himself. Perhaps he would drink it first. Claybrook could give him more later, and he would. Henry would see to that.

The girl stood in the doorway. Henry could still not get over the femaleness of her; land women had been a rare enough sight in his own life, but they had been tall creatures, entirely foreign. This girl, down on his own height, smaller even, with her webbed hands and bent legs, was an aberration. Though he had never seen that blueness
of skin on members of his own tribe, he had seen it on others occasionally: tribesmen from colder waters, further to the north where the waters were dark in winter even during the day, tribesmen with strong arms and great lungs, who could dive deep. Meetings with them had been fraught at best: he remembered the displays, brandishing of rocks and shows of strength, the men of each tribe breaking for the surface and leaping high in the air, higher than their competitors; cries to carry across the fathoms:
I am strong. Do not trifle with me
. Deepsmen did not draw imaginary lines to separate themselves; they judged on territory and kin, and unfamiliar faces were occasions for challenge. He remembered, distantly, the insults and shrieks when unfamiliar tribes came within earshot of each other:
Weakling. Ship-follower. Stranger
. Not “my son,” not the lame man’s weird courtesies. You did not pretend, in the sea, to be kin when you weren’t, and this girl was no kin to him. Even her dialect, when she spoke their shared language, was not the one he had grown up with; he understood it, but the groan and shrill of her voice fell in alien patterns on his ears. She was a foreigner, this girl. So many years had he spent looking at landsmen that her face, featured like a deepsman’s with her small sharp teeth and black-set eyes, seemed grotesquely alien. He would have liked to defeat her, somehow, beat her down in a fight or make her obey him, to stop her face from troubling him any further. He wanted to eat her tongue.

She came in, hunch-backed and grim, and stood before him. Out of the sleeve of her dress, she drew a knife.

“I wish to know,” she said, “what you know of the death of Princess Erzebet.”

Henry stared up at her, saying nothing.

The girl twitched her knife before him. “You are to answer me,” she said, and there was a fierceness in her voice that made Henry see bared teeth, sharp claws, the sea breaking its currents around her feet. “Tell me what you know, or I shall send you to the pyre today. And I will hurt you before I send you.” She opened her mouth as if to say more, then closed it again. Henry gripped the fetters. If she had said more, he might have thought she was bluffing, working herself up, but she said only what she meant. She meant what she said.

“If you come near me I will fight you,” Henry said. He was not going to show fear to this woman, not for anything. “And I am stronger, and if I hurt you before you hurt me you will suffer.”

She looked at him for a moment, then opened her palm, dropped the knife. It quivered in the floorboards, point piercing the wood. “I can throw,” she said. “Can you catch?”

Henry reached forward in a lunge, the fetters yanking against him as he made for her.

“That was a noise the men will have heard,” the girl said. “I can have them shackle your other arm. I have only to give the word.”

She could, and he would be bound and helpless with her knife before him. Henry wrenched his chains again, sick and unsurprised. He would have begun the threats sooner if he were in her position.

“I have—handled deepsmen.” The girl’s voice was low in her throat, a hoarse throb that cut the air. “And I can manage you, Master Deepsman. You are in my land, and it is me you must answer to.” She reached down and plucked the knife from the floor, wobbling on her staff but steady-eyed. He could see the tension in her fingers.