The Innocent (21 page)

Aveline, walking stoically by his side, still felt the impress of his fingers in her palm. Poor Piers, he did not understand. She smiled in pity; her husband couldn’t know that God now had her in his keeping and there was nothing Piers could do about that. It was a beautiful day and for the first time in many months she found herself laughing. The sound of it gave Mathew and Margaret great joy, so that soon the whole company was laughing, too, as they strolled back toward Blessing House. Only Anne did not laugh, but Jassy put that down to the heat…just the heat.

Chapter Fourteen

Evening prayers had come and gone and the late twilight of high summer lingered over the city, lending grace to the squalor of the streets. As darkness fell, lights appeared in the windows of the rich and at the Palace of Westminster, but the rest of the town settled down into the night, the people going to bed with the dusk. Here and there noise and the flicker of torches spilled out from taverns and brothels, but mostly all was quiet in the still-warm, narrow streets.

Anne had spent the afternoon dozing on her palliasse in the solar on the instructions of her mistress.

After they returned from the Abbey, Margaret had made her lie down because she was still feeling strange, and while she had not actually vomited, she had had restless dreams as she lay on the thin straw mattress in the heat of the afternoon.

It seemed that she was running, running from some dark shape that was pursuing her, and no matter how hard she ran there was nothing she could do—the loathsome thing came closer and closer. She could feel its hot breath on her neck, saw its teeth, smelled it, and it smelled like an open plague pit.

And just as she could run no more…

A knock at the solar door woke her and she sat up, sweating and disheveled. A tall, saturnine man stood there in a long purple gown with a flustered Jassy beside him; the good-looking stranger carried a pierced, burnished silver pomander that gave off a sweet smell. Jassy, rather insulted that he plainly thought Blessing House might stink, nonetheless rushed over to the girl on the pallet and pushed the hair back from her eyes, grabbing the sheets and pulling them higher around Anne’s throat. “Here she is, Doctor Moss, though I’m not sure Lady Margaret will want you to talk to the girl without her being present.”

“Mistress Jassy, I have been sent by the king, and though I am happy to see this child, I have little time.

The queen is the center of my thoughts now, as I’m sure you will understand.”

“Oh, yes, of course, sir, the queen…” Jassy guttered to a halt as the doctor strode confidently into the room and over to the pallet. For a moment he stood over Anne and looked at her. Now he understood the king’s odd request to attend a serving girl; she was beautiful. There was something striking about her too—Venus in Scorpio? And Mars also, he was certain of that—it was there in the wide-set eyes, the direct, jeweled glance, the proud, narrow-bridged nose; unusual to find Mars so strongly in a woman. It might not bode well for her future husband, for she would not be a complaisant wife.

Perhaps, too, since Mars ruled the heart, there was a clue here to the fainting fit that had afflicted her.

He would enjoy listening to her chest—if he could remove the housekeeper.

“Tilt your head, child. Good. Now, the other way. Excellent. Now, show me your tongue.”

Doctor Moss was a skilled physician and a student of human nature; he put his success with the capricious ladies of the court down to equal parts of both. But he had a secret weapon that helped him with his female patients: the power of his voice. Early in his career he’d found his patients responded best when he spoke to them soothingly, quietly, warmly. He’d picked up the technique from watching a very good horsemaster in the royal stables. It was all in the way he spoke to the horses, that, and the gentleness of his touch.

Then, in becoming one of the royal physicians—and sometimes, drinking companion to Edward—he had seen that part of the king’s success with women came from his ability to make each woman feel she had his whole attention. It was an unconscious part of his own practice now. Even here, with this serving girl, Moss focused on her as if she were the only being in his universe, the most important patient he had ever had.

“Now, Anne, is it?” The girl nodded, but she was wary of his steady gaze and the gentle pressure of his hands as he felt around the soft skin of her throat and up under her ears. Moss could feel her tense, and was slightly surprised: he’d found that most of his women patients enjoyed his touch and relaxed completely. Clearing his throat a little impatiently, he tried once more to soothe his patient. “Anne, I’m going to ask you to do something for me that may embarrass you a little; however, it is most important that you do as I say. I have the king to report to and he’s most anxious to know how you’re getting on.

Will you help me to make you better?”

Anne looked searchingly into his eyes and found herself nodding, though reluctantly. He was powerfully persuasive, but still, she was embarrassed for a man to touch her so intimately.

Jassy, too, wasn’t easily won over. Now that she saw him work, she thought the doctor just a little too smooth. “How can she help you, Doctor?” It was said with some asperity—she didn’t hold with all this.

“Mistress, I shall need a large necessary pot. You could obtain it for me while I continue to check the patient.”

Jassy stood her ground. “The mistress would want me to ask, sir, what you are checking for.”

The doctor stood up abruptly and escorted the unwilling housekeeper to the door. “Buboes,” he hissed, softly, so that the girl did not hear. “This child has been in contact with the sovereign. It is my duty to make sure she does not have the plague. Now, fetch me a large pot.” He pushed the door open decisively and went back to the girl.

“Now, child, when Mistress Jassy returns you must go into the garderobe for me and make water. Your water will tell me much about your condition. But while we wait for her, please pull up your shift. I shall need to listen to your chest and feel under your arms.”

“I have none of the symptoms of the plague, sir. There are no swellings.”

He was curious. “What made you think of that, girl?”

“Since I was feeling ill and running with sweat, it is logical you would be concerned. But I am quite recovered now, the sleep has made me better. I must have eaten something putrid when I broke my fast this morning—that would have made me want to vomit.”

It piqued him that this girl should tell him his business and he spoke quite sharply. “I am the judge of your state, young woman, and it is my duty as His Majesty’s physician-in-ordinary to be sure that you have nothing that I should feel concerned about on his behalf. Come now, raise your shift.”

Was it his tone or the mention of the king that made Anne do as she was told? Whatever the cause, she pulled up the soft, much-washed calico as modestly as she could, but only so that her side, one arm, and one shoulder were bared.

“Now, lift your arm, if you please.” Beautiful matte, creamlike skin was under his fingers and fine, soft hair in the pit of her arm. She was gracefully made, he thought—his master would enjoy the description

—and she was right, there was no swelling under the skin. He grunted. “The other, if you please.” With elaborate courtesy he turned his back as she rearranged her clothing.

“You may turn around now,” Anne said when she was ready, and he did as he was bid, repeating the search under the other arm. All was clear.

“Very well, when Mistress Jassy returns I shall leave instructions for you to take a tincture I shall make up—after I have checked your water.”

He strolled over to the casement and opened it as the girl pulled her shift back into its proper place.

Beneath him the river slipped by far below and he could make out a few lights on the farther shore. The last wherries were being rowed downstream with late passengers toward the curve of the river that led to the race beneath London Bridge, and close by he could see the dark bulk of the palace with its concentration of lights. He would need to finish here very soon, no matter how beguiling this little patient might be. He could not afford to be long away from the palace with the queen about to drop her royal brat at any time. Where was that damned old woman?

“I understand that Blessing House has a new inhabitant—a grandson for Master Mathew, I believe?”

Little did this girl know the honor she was being done. More usual targets of his polite banter were duchesses or at least ladies no lower than the wives of barons.

“Yes, sir, that is so. Little Edward was born just a few weeks ago and today was his mother’s churching.”

“Ah, so it was there that the king noticed your condition.”

Anne blushed. “He was indeed kind enough to see that I was not well.”

“And here am I to make you better.” Where had the old woman gone? He was running out of things to say. Civilized bantering did not come easily with this girl—she looked at him too directly. If the king did indeed fancy her, he might have heavy weather of it; she wasn’t his most usual type of girl. Perhaps she was just too young and innocent to understand.

For a moment he felt a slight flicker of pity but it passed; the king was always generous. If he took up with this child he’d not be entirely unkind and his favor might make her fortune. Perhaps he’d arrange a useful marriage for her with someone complaisant, an upper servant at the court, for instance, someone with an eye to the main chance…

He shook his head, his thoughts running away with him. Drat the woman, where was she? He drummed his fingers on the sill, forgetting the girl behind him as his mind returned to what he would have to do to keep hold of the queen’s favor. The key, of course, was a successful birth with minimum fuss—yes, minimum fuss and pain, if he could arrange that.

Anne could sense the doctor’s impatience and she was daunted. What would he tell the king when he returned to Westminster? Then she chided herself heartily. The king was married. She had no business at all having personal thoughts about him in any way. He had been extraordinarily kind to her, sending his own personal physician, but that was all, and…That was odd, of course, when she thought about it.

Why would he be so kind to her? She’d seen him at the feast, all those months ago, and he’d shocked her with his warmth, but also, when she remembered it, his cruelty to Corpus, yet now—Her thoughts were cut off as Jassy returned at speed, brandishing a large salt-glazed chamber pot.

“Here, child, do as the doctor says.” And pressing the vessel into Anne’s shrinking hands, the no-nonsense housekeeper pulled the girl out of the bed, draped one of the bedcoverings around her, and pushed her toward the garderobe. Poor Anne, in an agony of embarrassment, cast a piteous look in Jassy’s direction but it did no good.

“Go on! For goodness sake, Anne, as if I didn’t have enough to do!”

So the girl stumbled into the cloaca, pulling the door to behind her, leaving the housekeeper and the doctor eyeing each other uneasily. In the absence of her mistress, it fell to Jassy to maintain the honor of the house.

“So, Doctor, may I offer you a little refreshment when you have done here?”

“You are most kind. However, I shall need to return to the palace as quickly as can be arranged.”

“Then I shall send someone with you, to light your way back to Westminster.”

The doctor bowed in thanks. The words dried up between them as they waited for Anne to reappear.

She seemed to be taking her time. Casting around desperately for another topic of conversation, the doctor thought of the new baby.

“You will be pleased to know that the girl has no symptoms of the plague or sweating sickness. It appears to me that she must have eaten something putrid, perhaps at breakfast.” The housekeeper bridled at such a suggestion in the house she ran; the doctor saw it too late and hurried on. “So that is a relief in a house with a new child. Tell me, was it an easy birth, Mistress Jassy? I understand you played a major role in easing the mother’s pains?”

It was a guess, but a good one. In a large house such as this, the housekeeper would more than likely have been present at the birth of a grandchild of the owner. But Jassy was not so easily patronized.

“No, sir, it was not an easy birth.” It was said with a distinct snap. “And indeed, my mistress thought we would lose them both but for a draft that Anne prepared that seemed to bring deep sleep to our young mistress.”

“A draft? What sort of draft?” Against his inclinations, the doctor’s interest was provoked.

“I do not know, sir. From her upbringing, Anne has extensive knowledge of herbs and tisanes. Last year Lady Margaret had the wasting sickness and we thought she would die, but Anne cured her with tonics and teas that she brewed, and certain strengthening foods she prepared also.”

The doctor’s rather fixed smile only just covered his incredulity. Jassy saw the look and folded her lips stubbornly. “As real as I’m standing here, she did it. And what’s more, she made a salve that helped little Edward into this world. Without it we were despairing that his mother’s womb would ever open to let the child out.”

They both heard the door from the cloaca scrape, and poor embarrassed Anne put her head around it.

She had the pot covered by a cloth and, scarlet-faced, held it out to the doctor. Doctor Moss gave her a dazzling smile and like some magician at a market fair whipped the covering off and gave the contents of the pot a hearty deep sniff.

The women’s faces were something to behold—the doctor laughed heartily at their disgust. “Come, ladies, there is nothing to offend you here. Rarely have I smelled waters of the body so clear and fresh.

Young lady, I believe your diagnosis was correct.” Anne looked at him startled.

“Yes, yes. I believe I am in the presence of another professional, a lady physician.” He laughed even more heartily. “Still, it is the truth. You have correctly said that nothing ails you and indeed I agree. The king will be delighted when I tell him. And now”—with a long stride he crossed to the window and threw the contents of the pot out into the night—“I must be on my way. I hope our paths cross again.”