THIRTY-THREE

“YOUR MAJESTY,” Samuel said to Anne, “we face a problem.”

Anne put down the manuscript she was reading. The room she was using had been a place Erzebet was fond of, a library room with illuminated volumes and bundles of letters kept tied together. Anne had taken to going there when she wished for privacy. Her hope, which she did not confide, was that she might find some letters her mother had written, something to tie her to a past, some word of advice. So far, she had found a great deal of theology, some letters to Scotland her mother had written before the war overcame them, and little else. Erzebet’s handwriting, fair for a prince and as legible as a pen directed by webbed fingers was ever likely to be, was sharply familiar to her, and the words stood out. There should be no discord between princes. The royal house was one blood, one kind, Erzebet had said, and there should be union between them. It was commonly said in border disputes. Maybe Erzebet had even believed it at the time. Erzebet had seen her husband lost in the maelstrom of Scotland. Without deepsmen to guard their borders, what could princes be but a pack of dogs snapping and snarling over scraps? Strange to think that the deepsmen, so warlike in themselves, could be the keepers of peace. Nothing united a pack of dogs so fast as the distant wolf’s howl.

Between princes, Erzebet had said. The king of Scotland, King John, had been a cousin of her husband’s. No discord between princes. Not, There should be no discord between family. Once the borders were passed, a cousin became a prince, and a prince was his country. A prince was where he was now, not where he had come from. It endangered a nation’s people to think otherwise.

“Has my lord a dislike of the ceremony?” Anne said, stretching out her hands as best she could. Henry had a limited tolerance for boredom; it was going to take a lifetime of diplomacy to smooth the tension between his finite patience and the time-crusted formalities of court life. “Perhaps we might shorten it. There seems to be a fashion for haste these days.”

Samuel was leaning forward on his cane, both hands gripped over it.

This was so unlike his usual stance that Anne felt a prickle of worry. Usually Samuel stood straight as a guardsman, his stick a careful prop to keep him from listing—but today he hunched forward, as if to keep from falling headlong. The stoop of his back was almost royal.

“Your Majesty.” Samuel hesitated, then swallowed. “He will not swear to uphold the Church.”

Anne frowned. “He will not take the vow?”

Westlake had always looked her in the eye. Used to bowing and scraping, or to tall courtiers staring over her head, it had been one of the things Anne loved him for. Now he was looking at his hands. His knuckles were white over the head of the cane. “He declares he does not know God, nor does he wish to. Your Majesty, the boy is—unregenerate. He will not govern a Christian people, not as a Christian king. He swears he will not hear the word of God.”

As Samuel had begun to speak, Anne had felt a shiver. Thoughts flickered through her mind: her husband turned his back on God, would drag her to Hell. Hell, the separation from God—and Henry embraced it, avowed it. By his own choice, he was carrying Hell around with him. How could he bear his life?

Oddly, it was the word unregenerate that soothed her. She thought of the deepsmen, white ghost-bodies massive in the hazy sea. They did not speak of God. They had no self-consciousness. She thought about Henry, saying the word fuck without a blink, of herself, a stricken scrap of flesh in a crushing gown, calling over the waters of her mother’s funeral: Not safe, don’t eat. Henry had lived among the deepsmen. No one had spoken to him of God.

Anne opened her mouth to ask whether Samuel had spoken to him of the love of God, had tried to open his soul to the bliss of the Holy Spirit. Then she stopped. Of course Samuel had. No righteous priest would act otherwise, faced with such a heathen. But Henry was not much of a listener. Not to things he didn’t understand.

“Does he oppose the Church?” Anne said quietly.

Samuel looked up. His face, weathered and wan, looked at her with a young man’s bright eyes. There was tension there, the hardness of conviction. “No, your Majesty,” he said. “But he says he will have none of it himself. He says …” Samuel stopped for a moment, then took a breath. His shoulders hunched a little further, as if anticipating a blow from above. “He says that if landsmen wish to be fools and fear dead men, that is their concern. But he will none of it himself.”

Anne swallowed. Would God punish her for her husband’s blasphemy? Would he punish her husband? She looked at her hands. Samuel was calling her “your Majesty.” She was a vow away from the throne. Never in her life had she been stronger. She lowered her voice, gently. “God forbade Eve to eat the Apple of Knowledge,” she said. “That is how sin came into the world.” She drew a breath. “Apples do not grow in the sea.”

Samuel looked at her again, a rapid glare that came up quick as a wince. “Your Majesty, you cannot be joking.”

“I do not joke,” Anne said. “I will swear to uphold the Church. Samuel, you have been my spiritual father; you know how I love God. We will have a Christian England. But for all the theologians’ talk of the image of God, the perfect body of the king and the Star of the Sea, our lord Jesus Christ came to us as a landsman. When God sent a Flood to cleanse the world of sin, it cannot have been anything but a festival for the deepsmen. If He had wanted to purge sinners in the sea as well as on land, He would have sent a fire, or turned the waters to blood. It has been the landsmen who have felt His scourge when they strayed. Perhaps the deepsmen are unfallen. And my husband is so very like a deepsman in his spirit.”

Samuel took a step towards her. She had never heard him raise his voice, but there was an edge of distress in it now. If he had not always been gentle to her, she would have thought him angry. “You cannot break the covenant between the king and God, your Majesty. Nor change the duty of a king to his people. We cannot be a Christian people with a heathen king. It is blasphemy. We cannot have a heresiarch prince.”

“Henry is no heretic,” Anne said, trying to be calm. “He had no faith to betray. We will be a Christian people: I will protect the Church. I will, Samuel, you know I will. There will be Christian kings hereafter.” How long would it take her to fall pregnant, Anne wondered. Henry would not oppose her telling their children of the love of God, she was sure of it. He seldom denied her anything unless it meant confining himself somehow.

Anne opened her mouth to say what Henry had been saying all along: Would you prefer a French king of England? But something stopped her. She could see in Samuel’s drawn face the difference between a foreigner and a heathen.

“We will have Archbishop Summerscales attend us,” she said. It pained her to say the words. She could see the lines deepen on Samuel’s face as she said them. Samuel would be Archbishop after Summerscales; she had always intended it. But he was not Archbishop now. The coronation would be performed by Summerscales, whatever Samuel had to say about it. And she remembered, all those years ago, hearing Samuel and Summerscales debate in frightened whispers whether her mother was right to burn the bastard of Cornwall. Would you have us rock a broken throne? Summerscales had said. Summerscales had let a child burn, to protect England. To have a queen protect the Church while the king left it alone and refused to turn up to Mass; that, she was sure, Summerscales would swallow. He was a man of the world.

Something inside Anne ached like a tired muscle. It was a heavy loss, to be glad that the Archbishop of Stour was a man of the world, not a man of Heaven. But they had come too far. A little change in the words of the ceremony, that was all it would take. Henry would swear not to oppose the Church; she could ask him for that. Maybe even to “protect” it, or something innocuous like that. His people would be a Christian people, and he would protect them.

Anne thought of something she had seen in Erzebet’s letters, a letter she had not sent. It had been written to her sister, a letter which Anne’s rusty Magyar had taken a moment to translate. When I have grandsons to hold the throne of England, Erzebet had written, all shall be well. Anne was beginning to understand the long game her mother had played, had stretched her every nerve to play. Given English grandsons from her English daughters, Erzebet could have relaxed, seeing the succession moored in safe waters. Till then, the question was to keep her daughters alive. Anne steeled herself. When I have Christian sons, she thought. Claybrook snatched my mother out of the game before she could see it completed. But I will complete it, and the ending shall be good. We have only to hold out.

She wondered whether she should discuss the issue with Henry, or simply draw him to bed and try again to ensure a son to carry the precious Church to safety. Perhaps both. But Summerscales must be dealt with first.

“I am sorry, Samuel,” she said. “But all shall be better than you think. I shall speak to my husband, and you will see. All shall be well.”

Samuel bowed. He did not look at her face.

Anne did speak to Summerscales. She set him to composing a new vow of kingship, one that glossed over the upholding of the Church. The old man’s face was not pleased, but Anne held her head high and asked as calmly as she could, and he did not question her. Instead, he promised to study the matter. He did not say that he would do it, but he would consider it. Anne decided not to push, not yet; he could have a couple of days to compose his conscience. She would repay him in virtue when he did the right thing.

Anne thought of finding Henry to discuss it with him. But after a while, she sent instead for John Claybrook. The message was politely worded, in the way of a request; he would know it for the command it was. We recall you told us once, Anne said, that you liked to row upon the river. We wish you to join us on an excursion and show us your oarsmanship.

After that, it only remained to go down to the river and wait.

John appeared alone, tethering his horse beside Anne’s. The boat awaited him, Anne already sitting in it. Her hand trailed in the water, feeling the lap and dip of the cold waves. She saw John glance quickly around, as if hoping she wouldn’t notice.

“My lord husband is not with us,” Anne said.

John looked up at her then, ducked his head. “Yes, your Majesty.”

Anne smiled as well as she could. “I have often wished to travel the river in a small boat,” she said. “Great excursions are a fine thing, but it would be pleasant to see the river from lower down. I am pleased you can join me, my lord.”

John bowed his head again. All her life, Anne remembered his face being merry, amused, amiable. There was no smile on it now. He could hardly have aged in the short weeks since she last saw him, carrying his bottle of poison, but there was a slackness to his expression, like a hanging limb, as if, unable to smile, he didn’t know what to do with his face.

“It is a great pleasure to see you again, my—your Majesty,” John said.

Anne extended a hand as he walked towards the boat. John hesitated for a moment, then took it, making the boat jolt and sway as he set foot aboard. His hand was hotter than Henry’s.

Anne sat in the boat and waited.

“Do you wish to go upstream or down, your Majesty?” John braced himself between the oars. Small though she was, Anne could have handled them, she reflected; if it came to a trial of strength between the two of them, she would have the deepsman’s vigour on her side. But he was a subject, and could do the rowing. She would sit and watch him toil.

“Upstream,” Anne said. “Let us have the current with you when we return. You will be tired then, I think. That takes us towards your father’s land, I believe?”

“Indeed.” John turned his head aside to study the oars, handles of wood he would have to negotiate by grip and heft, not by sight. He leaned back, and began to row. The oars split the surface cleanly, a flower of water exploding upwards with each dip. The boat moved, dragging through the water slowly for the first few moments, then settling into its momentum, moving forward with a steady flow. John’s arms rotated, his body moving to and fro with each pull, as if he swam backwards through air.

“You row well,” Anne said. Muddy banks and draggled grass slipped past them; overhanging trees dipped their frazzled heads in the water.

“Thank you, your Majesty.” John’s voice, though a little breathless now, sounded stronger, as if the effort of exercise gave him some cover for his nerves.

There were no listening ears; only the dark banks drifting away from them. Time enough, Anne thought, to speak openly.

“My husband misses your company, I think,” she said.

John looked up. His face, a little flushed from rowing, was hesitant.

“He has spoken of you,” Anne said, seeing his predicament. John didn’t know how much Henry had said about his childhood. Married to him or not, Anne was still the Delamere that Henry’s protectors had sought to overthrow; she might easily resent John’s conspiracy. As far as John knew, this might even be an assassination, a lure away from prying eyes into some land of secretive punishment for his treason. Anne decided to leave him in uncertainty about her intentions for just a while longer. Just to see what he would do.

“Has he, your Majesty?” John trailed off, huffing as if the oars were heavy.

“He tells me you were playmates as boys,” Anne continued. “He holds great love for you, I think. I would say he trusts you above any man.”

An avenue of willows overhung them, drooping narrow branches into the water. There was nothing to see either side but long twigs bowing weak-stemmed under their own weight.

“He will regret that he could not join us,” Anne said, as if John was not silent, emotion struggling on his face. “He has asked and asked that we should swim in the Thames together. He longs for it.”

John stopped rowing, and the boat rocked in the water. “I did not know there was poison in the wine,” he said. There was a raw edge to his voice, as if there was a hand around his throat.

Anne said nothing, raised an eyebrow. The suddenness with which John had broken out startled her; she sat very still, as if watching a deer she didn’t want to alarm into flight.

John rocked the oars on the edge of the boat. Out of the water, the paddles beat in the air like flags. “My father gave me wine to take,” he said hoarsely. “I wished to see Henry, to know if he was all right. And to know if he was going to name us. I did not think he would, but if he was tortured I did not want to end on the pyre. Henry—Henry and I watched the burning in Cornwall. I was so afraid I thought I would be sick, the whole time, but Henry just rode beside me, he insisted that he would go to it. He fears nothing, Henry. He just rides it down. I did not know what to do if he was captured. I just wished to see him. And—and my father gave me some wine to take. He told me to speak to Henry, to find out what was happening so that we could make plans. He always knew that—Henry cared for me more than for him. Henry hates my father, I think. I tried to tell him—I wished to tell him, he handled Henry all wrong, but what could I say? My father said Henry might speak to me, he would not speak to him.”

The boat was turning in the current, its nose floating round towards the bank, but John did not put his oars in the water to check it.

“I went home and told my father that Bishop Westlake did not seem ready to turn Henry in, that we might have some time in hand. And he said—he told me …” John’s face convulsed. “When he was counsellor to his Majesty Philip, my father felt sure he could direct the state. But when his Majesty turned more to the Bishop, my father was angry, he said things were slipping away from us. Then he said that Henry was our best chance, that one iron in the fire was going cold and we should pull out the other one.” John spoke faster and faster. “But Henry ran away before he could do anything, and then he turned up in Bishop Westlake’s house, and—my lady, your Majesty, you must believe me, I had no hand in it. I never wished it. Henry has been my brother all my life. My father always told me, when I was a child, one day he and I might come out into the open, that Henry would be a greater king than—he told me about his Majesty Philip, too, but I did not—It did not seem …” The oars creaked on the sides of the boat as they turned in John’s frantic hands. “My father is a subtle man,” John said, drawing breath. “But when you are with Henry, subtlety does not seem to mean much. I never wished him harm, your Majesty. I will swear it on a Bible.”

Anne sat in the stern of the boat, one hand sheltering the other. Her voice was quiet. “What harm did you wish to us?”

John looked at her again. There were frightened tears in the corners of his eyes. “None to you, your Majesty, I swear it. Henry—I did not know what would become of you, of you all. I—I feared for England with your royal father lost. It was only after that my father would meet him—but—I—I was a child, when Henry was found. I heard my father talk of him, talk of him for years before I met him. I only thought I would meet him, that he would be my brother. Your Majesty—I knew that if Henry rose, there would be war. But I always meant to speak for you. You have been kind to me, in the past. Henry listens to me. I always meant to ask him to spare you.”

He had not mentioned Mary. Anne’s heart was pounding through her chest, but her face felt a long way away from it, cool in the damp air of the river. She could not give way to feeling now, not when this man was pleading before her. “You have lived a long time with—incompatible ideas, I think,” she said.

John blinked his eyes. “I swear to you, your Majesty, I only ever thought for the best. I prayed for the best, I prayed that God would see us through this. I—am no match for my father’s subtlety. I have tried to be his loyal son and Henry’s loyal friend, and I wished to be a loyal subject to England.”

To England, Anne noted. Not to you. “I fear the time has come when you must choose between them,” she said.

John had smiled at her, chatted with her, when she had been a sad, scared little girl. It cut at her heart, to think how many secrets there were behind those smiles. She thought of John, a child confronted with a strange new brother, a conspiring father, a freakish heir to the throne. What would she have wished him to do? What would she have done?

God tell us to forgive, Anne thought. But in her mind was Erzebet, screaming in a shroud of blood.

“I shall be loyal to you,” John was saying. “Henry has always been first in my heart, your Majesty. I—I wish to serve you so that my loyalties may reconcile. But I miss Henry, I shall be his loyal servant. Please, let me see him so I may tell him so.”

“What,” asked Anne, “do you know of the death of my mother?”

Wood creaked on wood, and John looked at her, wet-eyed and white-faced. “Your Majesty …”

Anne clenched her teeth together. “Do not tell me you were out of your father’s counsels,” she said. “Or that he did not tell you what he had done, after the doing of it. I can have you racked. Henry will not like it, but he does not like liars either. Do you wish to place yourself between me and him? Tell me what you know of my mother.”

The boat rocked. John looked away, dropped an oar in the water and gave a pull, turning the prow upstream again. His voice was very low. “He told me nothing,” he said. “Only that she died of a fever. But he did not speak of it much, and that was uncommon. He speaks a great deal of the doings of court, and how they may play out, how we can best anticipate possible advantages. He did not speak much of his plans after her death. He said—he said before she died, that—that we could ill afford a queen who burned bastards and punished those who opposed the burnings. He said once, it was a mercy that she was no longer with us. And after that, he did not speak of it again.”

Anne swallowed. “I do not believe you,” she said.

“I will swear it on a Bible, your Majesty.”

“If you would murder your queen, you would forswear yourself on a Bible.”

“I did not know.”

“You were no child then,” Anne said. “You were almost a man. My lord Claybrook must wish for a son to follow in his ways.”

“I was almost a man whose father did not trust him,” John said. He spoke with desperate haste. “Henry trusted me. My father wanted me to follow him, yes. But he did not trust me not to tell Henry.”

Anne sat silent for a moment. John sounded sincere. That didn’t mean he was telling the truth, but if he was lying, he was lying too well to see through. His lies must have been weighing very heavily on his conscience if he would spit them out on such little provocation. Perhaps, under pressure, John lacked a talent for secrets.

“You have tried to please too many people,” Anne said slowly. “I do not know if I can trust you not to tell your father of this conversation as soon as we reach land.”

John shook his head. “I will not. I swear, your Majesty.”

“You say so now.” Anne looked into the water, the surface slick with reflections over the dark weeds below. “But you did not ask how I know of your father’s hand in my mother’s end. I had only guessed it before. Now I know for certain.”

John shook his head again. He said nothing.

He had seemed so much older than her, only a few years ago, Anne thought. Time had passed by, too fast to grasp. “Your father will not survive this,” Anne said. “We are not safe on the throne yet. There is more to do before England is secured. We cannot have such a man as your father, with all his irons in the fire. You will have to choose.”

Here in the boat, she thought, it would not be a difficult choice. John would swear to them; he might even mean it. But if his father had hold of him again, could he be trusted?

“It would help,” Anne said carefully, “if you would give us some earnest against your father. If you have information you can lay. Henry loves you; he wishes you to have your father’s lands and waterways. I do not wish to confiscate them, not if you will be a loyal servant. But you are not to go home, my lord John. As of this moment, you are to consider yourself under guard. If you leave the court, if you go to your father, or speak to him alone, I shall know the choice you have made.”

Anne’s heart hurt. Too many men today that she’d had to set down. Samuel put aside for the Archbishop, John pulled apart from his father. Was it going to end, this restless division of side from side? Would there be a day when everyone could stand together?

John raised his hand to swear. “I am your man, your Majesty. Yours, and King Henry’s.” He looked her straight in the eye, but his hand shook in the air.

“Henry is not king yet,” Anne said. “You must be his man before he is king, his man from this moment onwards, and no one else’s. Do not equivocate, my lord John. We cannot afford it.”

John’s hand stayed in the air. His five fingers hung loose, like an autumn leaf curling up at the edges. “From this moment onwards, I am your Majesty’s man, and my brother Henry’s.”

Anne drew a cold breath. This was winning, she thought. It was not as fine a sensation as she would have guessed, considering all the effort men put into gaining it.

“Your Majesty, I must plead for my father,” John said. His voice cracked a little. “I am your loyal man, but I must ask you for mercy.”

Anne didn’t want to hear him beg, didn’t want to see him cry. Erzebet had died skinless, Claybrook had raised a bastard to overthrow her. Too many people had bled. But how could she fault a son for loving his father?

There was nothing for it but the truth. “We have not yet decided what to do about your father,” she said. Her tone was thin, the lapping of the water almost as loud as her voice. “We shall remember what you asked. We can make no promises. That is all I can give you today.”

John bowed his head. “Yes, your Majesty.”

There was a long silence. John did not look at her face; instead, he reached for the oars, pushed the little boat off from the bank where it had drifted. He glanced at her, but Anne was staring into the cloudy water, and gave him no directions. John hesitated, then he started rowing the boat back downstream.

“My lord husband will not swear to uphold the Church,” Anne said after a while.

John looked up from his oars.

Anne shrugged with a lightness she did not feel. It was too painful to wrangle over a man’s life, and there were pressing issues still to decide. She could not let this day go without more planning. “You are his brother,” she said. “Perhaps you have some suggestions.”

John pulled the oars, shaking his head. “Henry does not much concern himself with things he cannot see,” he said.

“Did it ever trouble you, having a heathen for a brother?”

John frowned, his face anxious and puzzled. “We were boys together,” he said. “We—we played together. There were other things to discuss.”

John was not a holy man, Anne thought. If asked to choose between man and God, which way would he turn? But if it came to that, for all her prayers and her conviction, she herself did not know how to reconcile serving God and England. Too often, the two seemed to call for different things. How would God judge her now, sitting in a boat and telling a man his father was lost? She must have opinions about John if she was to make decisions, but she could not sit in judgement of him.

“It will go hard with the country if he will not swear to some form of it,” she said. “Will you help me to persuade him, when the Archbishop comes back with a more acceptable ceremony?”

The look on John’s face was of deep, passionate relief. Anne had said she would let him see Henry. The two brothers could talk to one another again. John could be their friend. It was going to be a longer struggle than she hoped, but if they were careful, they had at least that on their side. It was a blessing to be given thanks for. Anne was tired of enmity.