Secrets at Court (11 page)

No more than she deserved...

Again, she stretched out her hand. Again, her fingers slid on the slick stone...

And then, she was lifted up, off the stairs, into his arms.

The last few steps, the steps she had struggled to mount, dissolved beneath his feet and suddenly, she was at the top, standing, her stick tucked firmly under her arm once more.

She clutched his sleeve. ‘I did not realise, when I asked, how much I would need you,’ she whispered. More than she wanted to.

‘I will not leave you.’

‘I know you did not intend...’

He shrugged and squeezed her hand before stepping behind her. ‘We are all pilgrims now.’

No time to look around, to study, to remember. Pilgrims at the front fell to their knees. She joined them. Here, too, the stone had yielded to the years of knees. A groove worn by prayer...

The priest started to pray.

She could barely listen. This journey had been a sham, a pretence, an elaborate deception so that she could stay close to Nicholas as her lady had demanded. Why should God help her? She was a living lie. She had used the pilgrimage as a disguise instead of a pious act. There could be no miracle for Anne.

God had decreed her fate years ago.

Yet, as the words swirled over her head, something else surrounded her. Incense. Dizziness. The spirit of the saint himself, his earthly remains here, in front of her. Would it be possible...truly?

And suddenly, all the pretence, the falsehoods, fell away and there was only hope.

The priest stopped before her and held out an empty palm. She handed him the coin that Lady Joan had given her. Then he held the small vial, filled with the holy water of the saint for her to taste.

She wet her lips. Wanted more. Touched his hand and tried to drink.

He snatched it back and pressed his hand on her head to keep it bowed. ‘A drop is enough, if the saint chooses to help you.’

If the saint chooses...

Would he?

All she had to do was lift her leg and take a step.

Chapter Eleven

P
rayers, unceasing, surrounded him, but Nicholas kept his gaze on Anne. Someone cried out, but he did not look to see who, or to wonder whether they shouted in joy or pain.

She knelt, still, the monk’s palm cupping the curve of her head. And he prayed that God might grant her a miracle.

The monk moved on. She lifted her head.

Then, pushing herself up with her good left leg, and the crutch tucked under her right arm, she stood. For a moment, she was still, then she swayed, unsteady.

From his vantage point at the edge of the crowd, Nicholas held his breath as she lifted her lame right leg, pulling up the knee as if ready to step on that poor, useless foot.

She wobbled and he held his breath, holding her with his eyes as if his will alone could lift her to her feet and send her skipping down the stairs toward him.

She shifted her weight, as if she expected the leg to hold her...

And crumpled to the floor.

Before he could reach her, the rest of the pilgrims surged away from the tomb and down the stairs, washing around him like an ebbing wave. He battled his way up, pushing past a monk with an outstretched hand.

Below the glittering shrine that towered over them like a golden coffin, Anne lay silent and unmoving. He crouched beside her, tucked one arm beneath her knees, the other behind her back, and rose, carrying her down the treacherous stairs, away from the traitorous saint who had crushed her hopes.

And like an incoming wave, the next rush of pilgrims came up the stairs.

When Anne finally turned her eyes to his, the tremulous hope was gone, replaced by the familiar flatness of resignation.

‘You can put me down,’ she said, words devoid of life. ‘It is over.’

A moment ago, she had sagged with weariness. Now, as if her spine was a sword, she was Anne again, refusing all pity.

Reluctantly, he put her on her feet and stayed close through the long journey through the nave. This time, she did not lift her head to study the stained glass crowning the door, but kept her eyes on the ground, as if each step must be watched.

Nicholas kept a hand near her waist as they navigated the streets between the Cathedral and the inn, slowly and silently. Her limp was even more pronounced than usual, now that the hope that had kept her upright was gone.

And his vaunted control was as shaky as her legs. All his proud detachment had disappeared. Now, not even his loins held sway. That would have been bad enough.

This was worse. Now his heart was in charge, the most dangerous of organs.

In sight of the inn, she stopped. ‘Can we go somewhere else?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Where would she want to go? How could he relieve her mind of the saint’s failure? ‘There are other cathedrals.’

‘I want nothing of churches.’

He cleared his throat and looked around. What was Canterbury but churches and pilgrims and reminders that her miracle had not come to pass?

I skipped about Canterbury’s outer wall,
she had said. Well, she might not skip, but he would find a way to lift her above it all.

‘Come.’

Haltingly, but without question, she did, as they followed the street, crossed the bridge over the river and reached the West Gate. Many of the stones, placed there by the Romans, were missing now. He had been prepared to argue with the guard, but with the end of the war with France, the city fathers must have decided there were better uses for their funds. The door was open. The stairway, empty.

She took a deep breath, and started to climb.

‘Anne, let me—’

‘No.’ She stopped him with a glance, stubborn and immovable. ‘You will not be here to help me next time.’

And he bit back a response, knowing she was right. Behind her, he chafed at her slow progress, knowing he could have reached the top and returned before she completed the climb.

But when they reached the top and she drew a breath of air, he wanted to cheer with a strange sense of pride. She turned her back on the city and looked west, where streaks of orange clouds signalled the day’s end. ‘Is London in this direction?’

He nodded. ‘And Windsor beyond.’

She turned to her left. ‘And there? What lies over there?’

He assessed the sun. ‘Dover. The Channel.’ France. Spain. Italy.

She swung her arm in the other direction. ‘And that way?’ It was a game to her, pointing to all the places she would never see without her lady’s leave. ‘What would I find?’

He tried to remember the lay of the land. ‘More water.’ A day’s travel, or less, to the north, south, and east. Close enough that he could smell the temptation of salt air. ‘Almost any direction except to the west.’

He leaned against the wall next to her and looked back over the city. The Cathedral, inescapable, rose before him. ‘You can see the towers clearly from here.’ He tested his eyes, trying to capture a memory. The stone glowed copper in the reflected light of the sun. Yes, that he would remember.

Anne, looking away from the town, refused to turn.

Even though they were only a few feet above the street, the city looked different from here. The people were smaller, less distinct, as if they were no different one from the other as they sought shelter at day’s end. How could God, high as He was, tell them apart? Even the saints were far above the earth. What had made them think St Thomas might look down and notice Anne of Stamford on her knees, begging for his attention?

And when God and the saints did glance toward the earth, it seemed solely to rain destruction from the heavens. As it did that day in France...

‘I do remember something,’ he said, quietly. ‘About France.’

She turned, lips parted expectantly. Her hair, burnished by the same light that touched the church, glowed with the gold of a noble coin. ‘Tell me.’

He swallowed. Suddenly, he wanted to forget the story of war. He wanted to sweep Anne close and take her lips again.

‘It is not a comforting story.’ He should think of something else. Something to give her hope or laughter.

Yet her wide mouth curved into a smile. ‘Even a sad memory can comfort.’

Could it? What would she remember of him, when he was gone?

‘This one does not.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

And because she asked, and because he had not spoken of it since it happened, he did. ‘We had besieged Paris and held high ground. The French would not come out to fight, but neither would they accept our terms for a treaty. And our men were hungry.’

Hungry because he had failed. The good grain he had found for them was gone. He had planned new supply lines, ordered vegetables and salted fish, grain and wine, all to arrive via ship. And to ensure there would be food, even if all did not arrive as scheduled, those left at Honfleur were to forage the countryside and send the results to Edward’s army.

But the ships foundered or were attacked. The raiders sent barely enough for the King to eat and nothing at all for the horses.

‘What happened then?’ she said, softly, as if she knew he remembered all too clearly now.

‘We had to retreat. On Easter Sunday we had to slink away as if we were cowards. And we marched all into the next day until we saw the towers of Chartres in the distance across the open plain.’

He remembered, though he did not want to remember. That brief moment, a warm, April day, sharp towers pointing to heaven. They had escaped, they could regroup, they could fight again. And then...

‘And then, the heavens opened up. Thunder. Rain. Mud. And then the wind snapped from spring to winter as we marched through it. And the rain became sleet and then hail...’ Frozen balls of ice, hurtling toward earth as if God himself were aiming at them. ‘And then the ground froze.’

Wagons sunk into mud that hardened around them. Tents, saddles, cooking pots were abandoned for there were neither wagons nor horses to carry them. A few supplies came, at last. Too little. Too late. Hungry men and horses hadn’t enough strength to fight the cold.

And when it was over, the road was lined with the corpses of those he had been charged to feed.

He pulled his gaze away from the Cathedral and away from the past and met her eyes. ‘That’s what I remember of Chartres. Cathedral towers swathed in sleet, looming over a battlefield of frozen mud. We could have beaten the French, but in the end, God had decreed who would be their King. Or that is what the King decided.’

A furrow of confusion appeared between Anne’s eyebrows. ‘But we won. We took so many hostages. The French owe us millions of marks.’

He smiled, a response of habit. He wondered what the Prince had told Lady Joan, for that, of course, was what Lady Joan had told her. ‘Yes, of course. We won. But Edward is still not King of France.’

‘And you think he would be if his men had been fed?’

Did he? Did he take that much blame, or credit? Neither the Prince nor the King had ever said so and yet...

He wanted no such responsibility again.

‘I think,’ he said, standing straight and handing her the stick, ‘that it is time to return to the inn.’

* * *

Anne had walked beside him slowly. Once she was again in her room she stretched out on the bed, under the covers, grateful to be alone.

Her own sorrow, and his, hovered in the air and despair rolled over her, holding her fast against the straw-filled bed. Her leg, angry with disappointment, ached more than usual, ached so much that she let her tears flow, though whether pain or hopelessness was the cause, she did not know.

Both, it was clear, would be her companions unto death.

The physicians had spoken of humours and bloodletting, and even, when as a child she had wept at night, of the poppy, but that would only separate her from the world with a hazy layer of silk. It would not change the fact that a twisted foot distorted the rest of the leg.

Sometimes, rubbing and stretching the tight knots helped.

Sometimes.

She reached down and pulled off her garter and her hose, hoping a firm touch would work tonight.

Her mother had done this, long ago, stretched her toes one from the other, applied pressure to the bottom of her feet, near every night when she was a child. Sometimes her foot worked better afterwards. She might be able to move her foot from side to side or wiggle her toes. Such small things. Things other children did without thinking.

Her father had never touched the foot. Her father had never touched her at all.

With her mother’s death, when Anne was fifteen, the strong hands were gone. No one else rubbed or stretched or touched or even wanted to see her foot.

And she wanted no one to.

So late at night, when the rest had fallen asleep, she would bend her left leg at the knee, painful in itself, and rub her foot until her hand was tired and cramped. And then, on fortunate nights, she would sleep.

This was her life. Food, clothing, shelter, work, submission to her lady. And the solitary pain. All the result of an exchange her mother had made to protect her from a fate much worse.

She flexed her foot, biting her cheeks to fight the pain.

‘Anne?’ A knock on the door. Nicholas.

‘Yes?’

‘May I come in?’

She straightened her legs, smoothed her skirt over them, and pulled up the bedcovers. He must not see her foot, her leg. ‘Yes. Come.’ Blessedly, a woman’s legs were easy to hide.

Men’s were not, she was reminded, as Nicholas stepped into the room. His long legs, sporting blue hose and exposed by a short tunic, would have drawn her eye even if she had not been jealous of their strength.

‘I should not have spoken of France,’ he said. A blunt beginning.

‘I should not have asked you to remember,’ she said. Her pain was clearly evident. That of others was not. And if she wanted to keep her secrets, she must respect his.

He paced a few steps. ‘Are you hungry? Do you need anything?’

She shook her head. Her foot was not the only part of her that must stay hidden. There was more, something even less visible.

The part that looked at him and lied.

* * *

Nicholas stepped to the edge of the bed, still berating himself for having disclosed things she did not need to know, particularly after she had just had her own hope snatched away. ‘Are you...all right?’ Not admitting, even to himself, that he, too, still hoped for a miracle.

‘Again, you have done me a kindness. Not only today, but this...’ She waved a hand at the room.

He had spent an outrageous sum to ensure she did not have to share her space this night. ‘It is little enough.’ His way of apologising for the saint’s failures.

‘I must thank you,’ she said. Her chin was lifted as if she resented having to say the words. ‘For helping me at the shrine.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, finally. Sorry for everything about her life that he could not help. Words he hated to say. It was his job never to have to say them. His job to make all the rough places smooth.

But even he could not fight God. That had been proven more than once.

‘I don’t want your pity.’

‘And you’ll not have it.’ Was it her anger that gave her such strength, day after day? ‘It’s not pity I feel.’

‘Then what would you call it?’

He didn’t know. Or didn’t want to. ‘It does not need a name.’ To name it would be dangerous. To name it would be to admit to exactly the weakness he had railed against all his life.

Silence swelled.

He should move. He should leave. She was well, or as well as she could be. There was no reason for him to stay.

Yet his feet remained rooted to the floor.

She sighed, finally, and waved a hand, inviting him to sit. He perched on the edge of the narrow bed and without thinking, he glanced down at her legs, hidden by sheets and skirt.

‘No,’ she said abruptly, her smile broken. ‘There is no change. It is as it has always been.’

He knew that. ‘But sometimes, the healing comes later.’ So he’d been told. And so believed the hundreds of pilgrims who came and never left, waiting, hoping, that their cure would come.

‘Do you seek to comfort me?’

‘I thought, perhaps...’ What had he thought? Attempting to give her hope, he had raised his own. He knew better. He knew that he must depend on himself, and not on God.