THIRTY-SEVEN

HENRY HAD SEEN ships passing out in the open sea, but this was the first time he had been on one. He did not like it. A trip out of the bay had sounded good, but while the air was fresh and salt-sticky around them, the ship itself was horrendous: noise, noise everywhere, drummers banging away below, creaking wood and the slam of sail against caked sail, an unstable platform ready to tip him off his legs at any moment. The deck was crowded thick with pillars and crossbars, ropes and masts every way he looked; there was nowhere on board he could turn his eyes that wasn’t oppressive. If it would not have upset his wife, he would have stripped and leaped off the side, swam his way forward. Henry stared over the side in frustration. When he had first gone back, to fight the English deepsmen, he had been fearful, but he found himself longing to dive now. He had made a place for himself among those deepsmen: he was no longer a weak little boy who could be pushed up a beach. He had shown strength. The deepsmen did not hold grudges against new leaders, not if they were reasonable after the conquest. He had had too little time to play, but he’d been starting to make friends.

Out here, the sea was as featureless from above as from below, stretching out grey in all directions. Beneath the surface, he knew, there would be an endless mesh of sounds, the chatter and roar of the ocean to guide his way. But as long as his ears were above it, that world was closed to him. Instead, it was landsmen’s talk, as ceaseless as the seas, but no pattern of sounds to swim through, no echoes to guide your way. Landsmen’s talk was a net that tangled you, in commitments and lies and promises half-understood. You could move through the sea. When you were in it, it did not hurl you about like this ugly boat.

Seated on the deck of the great ship as it creaked and pitched its way out to sea, he thought of the ships he had seen in his childhood, the ships he had been forbidden to encounter, some of them could have been funeral ships. Deepsmen had no word for cannibal. But they did not, on the whole, eat each other. They would eat the tongue of a dolphin, should they best it in a fight, and sometimes, perhaps, if an intertribal struggle between two great men came to killing, there might be a symbolic bite from the bleeding stump, torn out of a ripped-away jaw. But nothing more.

With landsmen, it seemed, they had no such scruples. But perhaps they had had scruples for him. Or maybe they had just not wished him to be seen.

It mattered little enough. They were going out to sea, to drop off the body of an old man who had held the throne for a long time. The king had balanced people and armies, had held off enemies. Anne seemed to have been fond of him; she sat beside Henry, grey-faced and close-mouthed, her eyes glinting with tears she would not release.

On board the ship were Samuel Westlake and Archbishop Summerscales, muttering about their God over the bundled body. So many garments to wrap a dead man; so many words said to a hulk that could not hear.

Anne had said that they should chant a funeral dirge. It was respect, the landsmen thought, but she had told him the words. They had nothing to do with respect: they were a call to the deepsmen to come and take the body, once the sound of the drums had summoned them close enough to hear. It was sensible to get rid of the corpse, but to call it respect was simply lying again. There were musicians surrounding them, piping out dismal-sounding creaks and groans, crashing their wooden batons out of sight below, and Henry’s ears ached. He had promised they would call the deepsmen, but not until there was a point to it. And until they were far enough out to sea, there was no point.

They had ridden the ship down the Thames. On board were men who owned land in England, great men, as Anne put it. John Claybrook stood there, and on the other side of the ship, looking out at the water, was his father.

Also on board was Philip. Philip was in a litter, kept far away from the body. At times he blinked bewildered eyes at the bundle, asking, “Father?” It was for this purpose that Henry had invited Allard, his scholar father, his first helper, to come and join them.

Allard had been shy of Henry when they met, standing before him in the great hall, his hands pressed together around a worn hat. He was smaller than Henry remembered; taller than Henry, yes, but an older man, thinner, than the master he had seemed all those years ago. It had been an effort to make conversation.

“Are you well?” Henry said.

“I am, I thank your Majesty,” Allard said. Henry had frowned. Allard had given him his name. Now he was frightened to use it.

“And your wife?”

“Well. Well enough. She will thank you for asking.”

She would do no such thing, Henry knew. She had always been terrified of him. Or perhaps just terrified to have him in the house, knowing what he could bring on them. She had thought him a wild animal, and a curse as well, a magnet to the anger of princes. She would be happier to have him away.

“And Markeley and his wife?” The man who had taught him all those weapons, weapons he had never come to use. He had been a part of his life, once. Henry doubted if he would ever see Markeley again.

“We—are all well, I thank your Majesty.”

Allard had lost. That was how he seemed. His foundling was at the throne, ready to ascend, married to the princess; the whole of England seemed ready to take in the boy he had found picking shells on a long-lost shore. It should have been a triumph for him. But there was an air of defeat about the man. Henry wondered how grieved he had been to see his boy run away.

“You are a man of learning,” Henry said. “I have a study for you. One that might interest you.”

Allard looked at him with a quick bewilderment. “Your Majesty?”

“Enough of ‘your Majesty,’ my name is Henry to you. It should be. You were the one who chose it for me.”

Allard blinked. “Yes … as you wish, Henry.”

Henry paused for a moment. “I am sorry I ran without telling you,” he said in the end. “I could bear no more of Claybrook’s lies. I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”

And Allard looked at him, his face white and his mouth open, as if he had heard an animal speak.

“I—You do not seem to me,” Henry said, groping for words in the gaze of his astonished father, “like a man who cares for courts and politics. I think you took me in because you were—curious. And because you did not wish to see me die. I am right, am I not?”

“I—did not think it—I did not think I could leave you to die on the shore,” Allard said in the end. “And yes. A wild deepsman. Such a thing I had never seen before. We bow before our kings and serve them, but we knew so little of the deeps. It could add so much to our knowledge of ourselves, if we could only study more.”

“What did you learn from me?” Henry said. He was almost smiling. It was as good a reason as any to take someone in. And once Allard had taken him in, he supposed, it was the crown or nothing. What else could one do with a princeling body, with the laws as they were? And if the throne was the only place to send your curious child, what could a small landholder like Allard do if not seek shelter from a greater man like Claybrook? Allard had done what he could, over the years, and Henry had come too far to blame him if it had not worked quite the way they had anticipated.

Allard sighed. “Mostly, that we cannot easily bend others to our will.”

At that, Henry laughed aloud. It was true. Allard had watched him all those years, and he had not made a landsman of him. But neither had he tried to force him beyond his endurance. Henry would not bear a beating, so Allard had not tried it again. He had foregone Latin and languages, reading and writing, all things, Henry saw now, that must have been dear to a scholar’s heart. He had, as far as had been possible, tried to allow Henry to be his natural self.

“I have another study for you,” Henry said. “It should interest you. And it will raise you in honour, if that idea appeals to you. I want you to take on the care of Philip.”

“Philip?” For a moment Allard blinked again, as if not understanding.

“The prince. The sufferer. He cannot stay in court, he is too foolish. He has been too long out of the sea, he is bred out. He must be sent away, somewhere he can be cared for. A nuisance of a man, I think. But it might interest you, yes? To see one child just a day out of the sea, and compare him with a man too long on land? It would be a fine study, indeed. My wife is a lover of learning. I think your studies would find favour.”

It took Allard a moment to recover himself. Henry was offering a proximity to the royal family many men would have killed for. That men had killed for, in the past. Allard had struggled to keep his captive royal alive all those years. He was not an unkind man, he would give Anne no cause to cry over her uncle being mistreated. If she was going to cry over him: Henry had seen how she shrank when Philip was in the room. Allard would take him far away, and Anne could forget about him; she wouldn’t get that look she had when Philip came near. Allard could scratch in his books. It was not what Allard had planned for, but it was the best gift Henry could think to give him.

Allard bowed low. “Thank you, your—Henry. I shall be happy to.”

“I shall send you some more staff, and guards,” Henry said. “You will need help. Perhaps you may wish to dig a lake. Let us know what you need.”

He hesitated.

“Allard,” he said eventually, “they talk a lot here, of God and the Church. You did not talk of it so much. Why is that?”

Allard shook his head, as if in puzzlement. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “But it seemed to upset you. You did not seem to understand. I thought that God would bring you to your own understanding, if He wished. But the Scriptures do not speak of the deepsmen. Perhaps they have another Christ. Or perhaps they do not need one; no scripture speaks of their fall. I thought, perhaps, that God might reveal Himself otherwise to you.”

“There have been other bastards who became kings, have there not?” Henry asked. Allard studied. Allard would know. “What did they do?”

“A few. Very few, though. And I read all I could, everything I could find. What they thought in themselves, I do not know. But I could find no record of any of them being pious.”

“These half-breed kings talk about God,” Henry said. “My wife talks about it all the time.”

Allard sighed. “God save the kings. But they have been out of the sea for many generations. I—you always seemed to me a deepsman, Henry. I did not dare to trifle with your soul.”

So Allard stood beside Philip’s litter, pouring water with his own hands, and watching the bewildered prince with alert, intelligent eyes. He did not soothe him quite as Westlake had, but Philip was submitting fairly quietly to Allard’s ministrations. He made the occasional protest, and Allard listened with evident interest.

John came over to Henry’s side. He hesitated for a moment before Henry gestured him to sit down.

“Are you all right?” John said.

“Something troubles me,” Henry said.

“What?”

“My wife says that you and she were—friends?”

John’s face reddened. Henry was a little surprised. The question he wanted to ask John was a difficult one, but he would have expected John to go white, if he was nervous.

John made no answer, only inclined his head, gesturing Henry to go on.

“If you were her friend,” Henry said, “why did you not tell her about me?”

The colour faded from John’s face, and he looked at Henry, shrugging. “You would have been burned. You did not want that, did you?”

“No,” said Henry. “But she would have been in danger if we had marched on London. Did you not feel you should warn her?”

John raised his hands in the air, looking helpless. “I have spoken to her of this. I did intend to ask mercy for her, should we succeed.”

“But she was in danger,” Henry persisted. “And you did not warn her. She was your friend.”

“You were my brother,” John said. “I had to do my best.”

Henry’s face closed. He wanted to say more: that people either lied or they didn’t, that politicking was something people did to keep secrets from those they were going to ask to take risks they wouldn’t take themselves; that loyalty should be to people and should be firm, and that you could not be friends with people who were enemies. When it came to the clash between them, you would have to betray someone. There was no point to doing your best; you could do your best and lose, and you’d be every inch as dead as if you hadn’t tried. Or someone else would be. John had been his friend. He had been his wife’s friend, too, but it had been no doing of John’s that Henry and Anne had come together. That, they had managed alone.

He wanted to say something to John, something of the absoluteness of action, how you did something or you didn’t. Being loyal to your best was just another word-thing. But words were John’s province, landsmen’s province, and Henry could not find the right ones to speak. Nothing that would not hurt his friend too harshly.

They sat in silence. The musicians piped away, but nobody spoke. There was no royal chant. The ship was rolling out to sea, past the bay, out into the blue, further than a funeral ship should go, and Anne and Henry sat silent, making no call to the deepsmen.

It was Hakebourne who finally spoke up. “Your Majesty,” he said, addressing Anne. His voice was low, his back turned to the others; wind from the keel was scattering locks of hair around his face. “Are you not going to call for the deepsmen to come?”

“In a while, Lord Tay,” Anne said.

“Your Majesty—”

Anne raised her hand. Cool light shone through the thin webs between her fingers, the unadorned hand of a queen. She turned, facing down into the ship. Spray splashed up behind her, as if she stood with her back to a storm.

“My people,” she said, “we have said nothing, for fear of spies. But as we bury the king my grandfather, we are also here on England’s business.” She stopped, but there was no murmur, no questioning, just a turning of faces in her direction. “I have heard word from my sister Mary. You will know, I think, if your intelligencers are as good as mine, the threat we face if she and her royal husband wish to bid for our throne. We would not have a war with France if we can avoid it; we will not spill English blood wantonly. My royal sister knows of this funeral. She is coming in her own ship, to witness our grandfather committed to the deep. I will speak to her then, and we shall parley. This is our decision.”

There was a silence. When someone spoke, it was Claybrook, speaking finally to Anne, his face smoothly controlled, but his voice sharp with anger beneath. He spoke as to a child, a man utterly out of patience.

“Does it not occur to your Majesty,” he said, “that we are only one ship? That if your royal sister wished to send a navy, she could sink us, unguarded as we are?”

Anne raised an eyebrow; keeping her face calm and hard to read would madden him more. It was the only aggression she could spare. She had hated this man for so long, it was hard to see his face without wanting to slash at it. A quick swing with her sharp nails and she could lay him open. God did not permit hatred, but Anne could only own herself a sinner when faced with this man. Though not, she thought, as great a sinner as he. Not nearly so great.

“Perhaps your Majesty might swim to shore,” Claybrook said. “But your faithful subjects are not so lucky.”

This was insolence, dangerous talk. Claybrook must never have expected a girl like Anne to come so far if he was having such difficulty reining his tongue. Anne’s skin was cold in the wind, and she kept her hands at her sides.

Her voice was light, even as her body locked its joints. “I did not say we were unguarded,” she said.

There was another silence. It was broken by, of all people, Samuel Westlake.

“Does your Majesty mean to attack your sister?” he said. In one hand he held an aspergillum, ready to sprinkle holy water on Edward’s wrapped corpse; the other was on his cane. His hands were spread out, a lowered crucifix between them; his body looked thin and fragile. His voice was almost intimate, as if he were asking her a private question in the confessional. So much so that Anne felt a pang of conscience, as if she were again a child seeking comfort from the only man who had been kind to her. She swallowed.

“I do not,” Anne said. “But arrangements have been made. There will be no battle.”

She sat leaned against the prow. The ship rose and fell, lifted itself up and dashed itself back down into the scattering water, and Anne’s horizon staggered.

As she looked over her shoulder, she saw the dark shape of a ship, sailing its way towards them.

“There comes my royal sister now,” she said. “And look.” There were white shapes flashing before the wake, breaking the surface, skimming along with the rushing water like hounds following a hunt. “She has brought her deepsmen with her. We must call our own.”

She glanced at Henry, who was sitting silent on the deck. Will we be safe? she asked him in their own language.

For a moment, he did not respond. Whistle, said Anne. He turned his head and looked at her. Will we be safe?

Her husband stared at her, his face tense. He made a frustrated gesture, half a shrug, half a grab at the air, his hand closing on nothing. Nothing is safe, he said.

Anne swallowed. “I would seek spiritual counsel before this meeting,” she said. “My lord Bishop, may I speak with you alone?”

Privacy was a difficult thing to manage on a boat. Anne had no desire to go below decks; she did not want to lose sight of the coming ship. In the end, the two of them retreated to the stern, Westlake tottering on the swaying deck, his cane slipping and sliding, Anne tugging herself hand-over-hand on the side. Lame creatures, the pair of us, Anne thought. God made the lame walk. Christ blessed the weak. But I do not think we are weak.

It was not very secure, or even very private back here. The wake spread out behind them like a foaming road. But it would have to do. There was nowhere on the ship, in any case, where Henry would not hear them.

Samuel Westlake leaned against a mast and looked at her. Anne balanced herself unsteadily against the side. It was not a secure position, but it hardly mattered. If she fell overboard, she could swim.

There was a silence.

“Do you wish to confess?” Samuel said in the end. His voice was almost entreating.

Anne spoke as quietly as she could, lowering her voice amid the creaks of wood and slap of the sea and the cries of gulls overhead. “I wish you to confess the truth to me, Samuel. I have seen letters. Was it you who told my sister of my marriage?”

The wind blew around Samuel, flapping his clothes like sails, and he stood against the mast like a martyr at the stake. There was a moment where she saw him brace, consider. Then he let his head drop.

“No,” he said. “I did not reply to those letters. But I did not tell you either, when I could have.”

Anne said nothing.

“I have loved you as my child, my lady Princess,” Samuel said. “But I could not help a pagan king to the throne. God would have damned me for it.”

Anne was too cold, too wind-blown for tears. Her skin pulsed in the coarse wind. “I thought you were helping a Christian queen,” she said.

Samuel did not answer. “What is between you and Robert Claybrook?” he said.

So he had seen it, the look on her face. He had seen her knowledge. He had always been a perceptive man, Samuel Westlake. Though she was not prepared to abandon England, Anne felt, for a moment, frightened to her soul at the thought of turning away from the advice of so sharp-eyed a man.

“He is the one who killed my mother,” Anne said. Quietly, so that no other landsman could hear.

“Have you proof of this?” Again, Samuel’s manner was catechising, as if he had not just confessed to keeping information treasonously from her. Even though he had betrayed her by doing so, Anne’s heart could not help a little thump of admiration. It was a fine thing, courage. And the courage to keep doing what you must, even when fate might be closing in on you, was a bravery she had admired from her cradle.

“His son as good as confessed it,” Anne said.

“You have parted son from father?”

“Robert Claybrook is a wicked man,” Anne said. “He was the one keeping Henry hidden. He placed his son between his friend and his country. John shall be safe, we shall raise him up. He is safer away from such a father.”

“My lady Princess,” Samuel said. His voice was urgent. It was what he had always called her. Anne did not feel insulted that he did not say your Majesty. It was almost comforting to be addressed in the familiar way. “God commands against vengeance.”

“But man must have justice,” Anne said. “My mother would have said that.”

The ship rolled, and Samuel grabbed at the mast behind his back for support. “Your mother’s justice is not something you should follow,” he said.

“I would not burn a child,” Anne said. “Why else would I have married Henry?” Hearing herself say the words, she remembered that Henry could undoubtedly hear her say them too. It was not tactful. She cursed herself inwardly; now she would have to make amends.

“And what will you do with Claybrook?” Westlake said. “If you would follow your mother? Burn him? Poison him?”

“Poison him? My mother was no poisoner.”

Gulls screamed overhead, and Westlake looked at her in desperate anger. “You know that is not so, my lady Princess.”

“I know no such thing.” Anne found she was gripping her skirt; embroidery pressed into her palms.

“I did not ask you to talk of it,” Samuel said. His face was as grave as ever, but his voice, quiet enough for privacy, was as raw as Anne’s. “You could not have stopped it. And you tried to make amends. I thought you were a good girl. But now you are striking for the throne any way you can. I have seen where that leads. I fear for England, my lady Princess, I truly do.”

“What are you talking about?” Anne’s voice began to rise, and she checked it. Across the deck came Henry’s voice: Are you all right? Do you need me?

Stay where you are, Whistle, she said. “I want to hear this. What do you talk of, Samuel? I would have you tell me now.”

Samuel glared at her, his face tinged red by the wind. “You cannot have known nothing of it,” he said. “I cannot believe that.”

“Samuel, tell me now, or I will call my husband,” Anne said. Her voice was sharp, but underneath it she was frantic. Even if Henry came over, she had no idea what she would ask him to do, but she could not stand here another moment on her weak legs while Samuel talked of God only knew what sin on her conscience.

“You must have known it was your mother who poisoned me,” Samuel said. “I survived, by the grace of God, and the care of Master Shingleton. And the medicine you sent me. But you must have known it was her.”

Anne’s lips cracked, dry as ash. All around her, the groaning timbers and whipping winds made a reckless commotion; there was no silence, no stillness to absorb the words she had heard. The horizon lurched, and the boat ploughed on its way towards her sister.

“You cannot be serious,” Anne said in the end. Her voice came out papery, as if a dead wasp’s nest rattled in her throat.

Samuel raised a thin hand. “Before God, I am.”

“W-why?” It was all Anne could do to speak the syllable.

Samuel bent a look on her, frustration mixed with doubt. She had never seen his face so unguarded. “I wrote to her before the burning,” he said. “I pleaded with her for the life of the child. And she sent me to bless the bonfire, myself, not the Archbishop or one of my brother clerics. She sent me. She said if I was so concerned for the child, I should be the one to bless his passage into Heaven. I thought that was enough for her, I thought that was how she had made her point. But it was not. There was poison in my food. Your mother decided she could not spare a man of God in England who would speak up against her authority.”

Anne stood on the rocking deck, speechless.

“If you say it was my lord Claybrook who murdered your mother, that is a sin upon his soul,” Samuel said. “But he saved my life by doing it, my lady Princess. Your mother died before she could make another attempt. If he was hiding a bastard, I can well believe that he would be frightened. Your mother was a fearsome woman.”

Anne had never in her life minded the cold, had loved it as a memory of the sea on her skin, but now she was shivering. She grasped frantically at the remains of her thoughts, trying to see some way clear. “My mother was a Christian,” she said. “Why should you fear a pagan king more than her?”

Samuel’s eyes were pinched at the corners, as if holding back tears. “You were willing to overturn the Church to place him on the throne, to secure it,” he said. “Against the laws of God. It was not him I feared, my lady Princess. It was you.”

“Samuel, I love the Church. I would not have let any pagan king overset it.”

“As long as a pagan king is on the land, we cannot have unity,” Samuel said. “If the king himself does not honour God, what will become of us all? Frenchness breeds out in a generation, but heresy grows, my lady Princess. I did not want to see the Church fractured in a deepsman’s hands.”

“You—you are wrong,” Anne said. She could think of no answer, but everything in her cried this out. “I would have preserved the Church. I will. God does not want us to make war. I have only ever acted to save lives, Samuel. Will you say that lives are of no account?”

Samuel leaned against the mast, hands behind his back. “Your mother would have said the same thing,” he said. “I knew her. I do not say lives are of no account. But I do not think you have reckoned the price well.”

I should go in the water, Henry’s voice came across the deck. It is time. Stop talking about dead landsmen and come and help me.

Dead landsmen. That was how Henry spoke of Christ. Anne unclasped her hands from their wooden support, began the unsteady journey back to the prow. It seemed a long time before she reached the others. Samuel stood in the stern, watching her go. He made no attempt to follow her.

And Mary was in the water.

Anne and Henry stripped and prepared to dive off the end of the boat. This was not how a funeral was supposed to be conducted, but no one was going to argue with them. Henry’s eyes lingered on Anne as she bared her skin to the air, but Anne could not feel any response. Samuel’s news had struck her like a wave, and she was soaked in it. She could think only of her mother.

I have always wanted this, Anne told herself as she dived. I have never been out past the bay. Now, for the first time, I am seeing the real ocean.

But the sea was dark and obscure, a blank vista in every direction. Clouded light and shadows below, no different from a bay. Sounds carried, the shore of England quieter and France louder, the calls of deepsmen in the water and the bat-clicks of fish, but Anne looked at her own grey legs, light wavering over them from above, and saw nothing but her own flesh. No answers in the water.

Mother, she thought. Erzebet’s face, tense and proud, raising her chin as the bruises on her body were laid open to all eyes. Erzebet sleeking forward through the water, hurling herself towards the deepsmen she had to appease, with only her own strength and endurance to do so. Erzebet cradling a child, Anne, her own daughter, sending maids out of the room and crooning, Safe, my baby, safe. Erzebet kissing Anne for asking whether or not princes should spare their enemies, and making no answer to the question.

Anne had waited all her life for her mother’s love. She had had it all along, she thought now. But she had waited more for her mother’s heart, to know what thoughts Erzebet was keeping behind that still face. As the deepsmen started to gather, as calls began to echo from the south in response to Henry’s calls, Anne thought she knew.

It was fear.

It was so easy to say it: This has to be done for the greater good. This has to be done to protect those I love. To spend your life watching the faces around you, trying to anticipate, trying to protect, to conceal yourself and find out others, to compromise and bargain away pieces of yourself, waiting for the moment when the promise to the baby in your arms would one day be true. Erzebet had seen her uncle’s skull crack under a blazing crown. Anne had seen her uncle thrash and bellow, helpless as a stunned bull, had seen her mother scream and bleed, had seen her sister, her only sister, sent away to a stranger. Always, always saying to herself: One day I shall be secure. One day, we shall be safe.

In the stillness of a chapel, Anne could feel God in her heart. But she never felt further from the light of Heaven than when she said to herself the same sentence she had been saying, heart-deep, since she could first remember: One day, not today, but one day, I shall be safe.

Anne had not been willing to see a man burned. But she had not been ruling very long. And there was a long time yet before she could reach that point. She was still only fourteen.

She had waited to be loved all her life. And in waiting, what would she become?

Somewhere, Mary was waiting. It had been months since she had seen her sister’s face, but she would not see it here in the water. Diving down, Anne remembered the first years of her life: Erzebet’s here-and-gone attention and Mary elsewhere, unmentioned by anyone. Why had Erzebet not told her that she had a sister?

The thought of being angry with her mother was terrifying, something she could not face; Anne fought down the thought as hard as she could: My mother should have told me I had a sister. It was not the thought for this moment, could do no good at all. But Anne remembered sitting at Erzebet’s funeral, how Mary had reached for her hand while Anne sat rigid with her eyes straight ahead.

There was no turning back. It was the best chance England stood, to hazard a clean-blooded king, it was right for the country. But Anne swam through the dark water, thinking of how she had waited and waited for her mother’s notice, had strained her eyes past Mary to find it, when all the time, Mary had been waiting for hers.

Henry’s calls were being answered. The voices of the English deepsmen were drawing nearer. In the darkness of her own mind, Anne said to herself what she had said so many times before: I must attend to business now, I have not time to think of this. But would she ever have time?

Whistle, she said, surface with me. She could hardly see Henry in the black depths, but she heard, after a pause, the reply.

All right. Surface.

And the two of them pushed their heads above water.

“What do you want?” Henry said. “We have not much time.”

Anne reached out, wrapped her hand around his shoulder. “Do not hurt my sister,” she said. “Promise me.”

Henry shook his head. He did not like having his ears out of the water like this; unable to listen properly, any predator might be closing in on him, and all his instincts jangled. “Why do you trouble me with this now?”

“Promise me.” Anne’s fingers clutched him, and her nails pressed against his skin. He reached up and took her wrist. It was small in his hand, narrow and delicate. She was floating up and down as the wind blew, and Henry reached out, laid his hand on her waist. In the privacy of darkness, intimacies were easy.

“If she fights me, I must defend myself,” he said. He was trying not to sound angry. His wife seemed to be upset about something again. Henry felt some compunction about that; he did not like to see her unhappy—but she was unhappy a lot, quickly upset. It was no way to survive an active life, getting so distressed so easily.

“She will not, you—she is smaller than you, much smaller. Promise you will not hurt her.”

Henry sighed. This was no time to wrangle, and if she wanted it, she could have his promise. He had committed himself to be loyal to her. “If you wish. Now we must get on.”

His hand squeezed her waist, briefly, and then he was under the surface with a flick.

Anne hesitated. At the level of her eyes, the waves stretched out: great ripples, miles across, little swells that would rise and crash down on the beaches. She could see for miles, here in the daylight.

Then she plunged her head back into the darkness.

Sister, she called. Come to me. Sister. Where are you?

Mary’s voice answered. I am here.

Is your man here? It was the answer she most needed to know. She did not want to hurt anyone, but the issue was Louis-Philippe. This man she had never met. She needed to know where he was.

A voice came ringing out of the depths. You could not say that it had a French accent; it spoke in their common mother tongue with the same ease that Anne and Mary had. But there was a cadence to it that was unfamiliar: not the English staccato chant, not Henry’s hinterland bark; something was different about it. It was a strong voice, though. Fine lungs and a sound body behind it. I am here, it said.

The phrase, I am here, was spoken with a challenge. There were different inflections for certain statements, narrow and precise variations. Louis-Philippe was speaking with the lilt of a leader.

Anne could not, for a moment, answer. Are you all right, sister? she said.

There was a lull, and Mary’s voice came back. The sound was thin. She sounded as if she was struggling for words to adequately express the foolishness of Anne’s question. I am more all right than you are.

Sister, Anne said. I do not wish to fight.

There was another hush. Anne could not see her sister’s face in the void, and Mary would not swim close enough to see her.

Your man is bad, Mary said. You have made a mistake.

Not bad, Anne said. Not a stranger.

You have not backed me up, Mary said. Her voice was rising shrill and pained, echoing across the miles. The deepsmen had no word for betray.

Louis-Philippe’s voice cut in again, calling out a challenge. He called it to Henry, and Henry answered. Around them, a swirl of deepsmen rose, a spiralling army, circling the four of them in silent, grey-skinned ranks.

Deepsmen saw things tribally, Henry knew. But the deepsmen of France were his own tribe. So too, now, were the deepsmen of England. They recognised a victory by strength. You saw it sometimes: new faces joined, old faces left. There were no borders in the sea, no imaginary lines down solid earth. You could move with the tide.

It was not, therefore, a matter of landsmen’s law that the deepsmen from the shores of France and England must be, now and for ever, rivals. It was a matter of habit, of custom.

And, given the right push, customs could change.

This was what the landsmen forgot: that while they thought so much of the deepsmen, of their salt-blooded kings and their guardians on the shores, most of the time the deepsmen were thinking of other things. They had no farms and crops to bring them food after they had schemed all day; it was hunt or die, all the time, continually. They paid loyalty to their visiting lords because they needed alliances and truces; they took an interest in their own territory because it was good to keep a place that was safe from your enemies.

But let them agree that another tribe was not the enemy, and a peace treaty could be sealed in the time it would take a landsmen to cut a pen.

His deepsmen had known Louis-Philippe since Louis-Philippe was a child, that much was clear. But he had not roamed with them. Henry’s ties of blood, Whistle’s ties, simply went deeper. Louis-Philippe was a good enough ally, but Whistle was one of their own.

So as Louis-Philippe called out a challenge, deepsmen rose. And Louis-Philippe bounced his voice in Whistle’s direction, saying, Enemy.

Anne and Whistle had not called the deepsmen from England; there had been no need. They had known, because Whistle had told them, what to anticipate. They had followed the boat silently from beneath.

And as the deepsmen of France rose at Louis-Philippe’s voice, they did not mass upon Whistle. They swam forward, past Louis-Philippe, going out to greet their new friends. Deepsmen whirled round each other, diving and dancing, following each other in twisting, joyous patterns; holding hands, embracing, play-chasing each other through the water. There were no calls of Enemy, Fight, Challenge. Instead, the water was filled with greetings. Happy to see you again. We shall not fight. Would you like to be my friend?

Great beams of light sliced through the choppy waves, glinting and flashing on grey skin as the deepsmen swam in and out, somersaulting and clasping hands. Deepsmen were fierce, but given a chance not to fight, to spare injuries and lives, given a chance to have peace instead of wasting blood, they were glad to take it. Deepsmen were fierce, but they weren’t foolish.

Anne hovered in the water, watching the soldiers of the deep gambol around one another. She reached out, for a moment, and took Whistle’s hand. He clasped it, feeling the narrow bones, the fine webs. She was emotional, his wife, but she could be pleased after all.

Sister, he heard her say, we will not fight. The tribes will not fight, and I do not want to fight you.

The sister was too far away for them to see her face clearly, but he heard a rising note in her voice. What have you done? Have you taken away my tribe?

I love you, Anne said. I do not want to fight. I have made peace. Make peace with me.

I am a stranger, came the girl’s voice out of the dark. I left my tribe. I wanted to come home. You have harmed me.

Anne did not let go of his hand. I know, she said. You need not be a stranger. Be my sister and I will be yours. I am sorry.

The girl’s voice came again, loud and high. You have harmed me!

I have harmed you, said Anne. I have not been your friend. I want to be your friend now. I am sorry.

What his wife was apologising for, Whistle didn’t know; it had better not be for marrying him. He had counted on her to be happy about that. But her hand still gripped his in the silence.

Whistle spoke again, this time to Louis-Philippe. The man had no deepsman’s name, nothing that could be pronounced underwater, and to even attempt his land name would be to swallow a lungful of brine, but he directed himself as well as he could in Louis-Philippe’s direction. Sister’s man, he said. Do you want to be king?

What? The reply came sharp and clear. The man had a fine voice, Whistle thought. He could deal with such a voice.

Let us be friends, Whistle said. Make peace with us. Make peace, and my tribe will be better friends with you than with your brother. You will be king.

Do not fight. That was Anne’s voice, cutting across him. Do not fight your brother, or we will not support you. But make peace with him and with us.

That was a refinement Whistle had not thought about, and, considering how hysterical landsmen were about titles, would take a lot of talking in France to resolve: Louis-Philippe trying to take the kingship from his brother without fighting him for it. But then again, Louis-Philippe had lived on land all his life. Perhaps he could find a way. Whistle was not eager for more battles or enmities anyway; they only led to burnings, and hiding yourself away.

Let us be friends, brother, Whistle said to Louis-Philippe in the dark. I am offering you something good. Take it.

There was a long silence, filled only with the chirrups of fish. Then Louis-Philippe’s voice came back. I will take it, he said. And Anne’s hand relaxed in Whistle’s grip, and she lay down upon the sea, stretching out her limbs in victory.

Surface, she said, swimming up to the top. Whistle did not need to breathe yet, so he let her go. There was a pause, the dark shape of her legs bobbing in the bright waves above. Then there was a crash: a shape falling through the water, long and wrapped. The tribe, both tribes, swam up to grab it.

Edward’s body, Henry thought. The old king, now a victory feast, sealing a new treaty. His people could have it. They were dragging it down now, unravelling the bindings with their sharp nails; scraps of cloth floated all around them, like leaves in a gust, drifting slowly down.

The four of them. Whistle, Anne, Mary and Louis-Philippe, all stayed where they were. This was not a feast for any of them. They swam together, slower than the deepsmen had, but together nonetheless, reaching out in the murk to see the faces of their new allies.