THIRTY-EIGHT

IT WAS A fine day when the court set out to hunt. Anne was glad of that; though nothing made her seasick, some of her courtiers’ stomachs were not so steady, and finding porpoise to hunt would be a long journey out into the rough seas. She stood by the prow, watching as her deepsmen skimmed ahead, diving in and out of the wake like birds.

John came up and stood beside them. Henry was hunched over the side, chirruping down to the deepsmen. Crabs are good to eat, he was saying. I will teach you how to open one. There was a look on his face Anne had seen a lot lately. She had thought, at first, that it was anger, but she was coming to know him better. Now she thought she recognised it: yearning.

“I have not seen a hunt like this since I was small,” John said.

“I know. You told me of it once, do you remember?” Anne said. Henry inclined his head a little, but did not join the conversation.

“I am glad to see the tradition revived.” John smiled. The wind blowing the hair around his face made him look young and clean. “Do you mean to be blooded, your Majesty?”

Anne shook her head. “I hardly need to be baptised to the sea. And I do not wish to be baptised in blood.”

“Baptised?” Henry said, turning his head a little.

“Received into the Holy Spirit,” Anne said. “Holy water is poured, and you are cleansed of sin.”

Henry shook his head and stared back down at the wake. “Holy water,” he muttered, as if to himself.

“Are you resolved on the coronation tomorrow?” John said, ignoring Henry’s mumbling with the air of one used to rising above what couldn’t be helped. “That is, have you resolved the question of Henry protecting the Church? I do not believe the Archbishop is happy about it.”

“How do you know of that?” Anne said.

John shrugged. “I have ears,” he said. “And a tongue to speak with others that have ears.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “An intelligencer,” she said. “We must find more uses for you.”

There was something in her tone that made John look up, the happy expression suddenly gone from his face.

Anne hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Send your father to us,” she said. “We have something he must hear.”

John paused, his face going ashen. Henry looked over his shoulder, seeing his friend stand mute on the deck.

“It is all right,” he said. “We will be politicking.” There was a look of displeasure on his face; Anne heard a lot of concessions in his tone. For a long time Henry had insisted that they do something about Narbridge, the man who had turned in the Cornwall bastard for burning. It had taken a lot of persuasion to get him to abandon that idea. Though he had survived Claybrook’s attempt upon him, better than Erzebet had, he was not at all happy about Anne’s new idea on Claybrook. For a moment, Anne wondered whether he was going to say something more, change his mind, but he only looked back out at the sea. In and out of the gleaming water dived the deepsmen, and he called down to them: Swim well, brothers.

John disappeared, picking his way across the rising and falling deck, to find his father. Anne laid her hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Does it sit so very ill with you?” she said softly.

Henry shrugged. The gesture was an irritable one, but not hostile. “It sits ill. But this is landsman politicking. It is not how I would solve the problem. But if we were to solve it as I would, you would say I was a tyrant. I do not mean to be a tyrant.”

“We can do good in the world,” Anne said.

Henry shrugged again. “You think you will please your God.”

She stroked his shoulder. “I do.”

“That will never matter to me,” Henry said.

Anne did not say anything, but she did not take away her hand.

John appeared with his father. The two of them stood side by side, but there was a distance between them; Anne could see the bright white sky, a slice of light keeping them apart.

“Please, your Majesty,” said John, “do not send me away.”

“We did not intend it,” said Anne.

Henry turned at last. But even as he looked at Claybrook, his eyes wandered over the man’s shoulder, out to the heaving sea.

“Claybrook,” he said, “you are a murderer and a liar, and we will not have you on our shores.”

Claybrook’s face was white, but he tried for a careful smile. “Your Majesty—” he said.

“Do not talk.” Henry’s voice was level, and cut like a flint-edge. “You are a liar, and I am not interested in what you say. We know the truth of you.”

Beside his father, John clasped his hands together, his knuckles paling as he gripped.

“I do not understand my wife,” Henry said. “But she thinks her God wants her to be merciful. If it had been my mother you had killed, I would not have spared you.”

Henry thought only for a moment as he said that sentence. Would he have spared a man who killed his mother? She had pushed him out of his home into this dry, word-twisted world, where people schemed and murdered behind closed doors, and cared about nonsense, and fettered him hand and mind. His mother had not been with the tribe of France; it had been a long time ago she drove him out. Very probably she was dead by now. He would never see her again, could never ask, even if he could have put it into deepsman’s words. But he understood, nonetheless. She had pushed him away because he was a burden who would slow the tribe down. She had tried to keep him alive, and it had been growing impossible for her. In the sea, you did not bow to idiots, did not fetter yourself with words. That look he had seen on his wife’s face when her uncle was present was not something he had ever seen in the sea. There was fear, yes, but there were no insane obligations. You did not deny your endless, passionate desire to live. You fought for life, and you lived the best you could, and you sloughed off burdens that would drown you. He was not a burden now. His mother had not abandoned him to a shark, after all, had not held him under. Maybe, when she chased him up that beach, she was hoping he could be cared for. He did not like the landsmen’s care, did not want it. But really, why else was he angry with her, except that she had made him leave her?

“Your Majesty, I—”

“Be quiet,” Henry said. “I do not love this God of my wife’s, and if you try my patience, I will push you over the side. I have a job for you, Claybrook. You may take it, or you may face a trial.”

“For murder?” That was John. He did not leave his father’s side, but neither did he lean away as the ship rocked.

“For spying,” Anne said. Her voice was not sharp, but it was firm. “My sister and I are allies now. She has given me the names of her intelligencers. It was from you, my lord Thames, that she heard of our marriage. And while you did not cause a war by the news, we have our own efforts to thank for that, not yours. The penalties for treason are severe, and we have seen too many burnings in this country already.”

“We have a job,” Henry said “We are not going to burn bastards. We still mean to stop sailors from fucking deepsmen women, but if a bastard is found, he will be under our protection. We will find means for him. If the deepsmen will not care for him while he is small, we shall. They shall be cousins of the king. All bastards. We will have an army. And you will spy for them.”

“My—your Majesty, I—” Claybrook’s face was still, but his hands were shaking; there were small twitches at the corners of his eyes and mouth, like a smooth pond with deep currents just rippling the surface.

Henry made an impatient gesture. “I do not expect you to go in the water. And I certainly do not expect you to fuck a deepsman girl and try to put yourself in power that way, Claybrook; the deepsmen will kill you if you try. You will stay out of the water. But you will remain on your ship, you will sail, and watch the water, and if you see a child with cloven legs, you will send word. The deepsmen will know your ship. If they wish to hand the child over, they will bring him up to you. Do not think you can hide him; the captain of the ship is a friend of ours.” The young man was, in fact, Thomas Hakebourne’s second son Robert: Hakebourne had approved the plan thoroughly and volunteered his boy. He was glad, he said, to see a good purpose for younger sons. He meant Robert, Henry supposed, but perhaps he meant deepsmen children as well.

“You will bring children to shore, and the captain will arrange passage for them. Your land contains the Thames; a ship will meet you where the Thames meets the sea, and the children will go up it. Your land joins my father Allard’s, after all. He is to oversee the bastard children. Along with you, John,” Henry said, turning to his friend. “You have stewardship of your father’s estate while he is at sea. We take it all from him, now, for good. And Claybrook,” turning back to the older man, who stood grey and frozen on the deck, “you will be at sea all your life.”

A halloo rose from below the keel: the deepsmen had spotted prey. Henry turned, his expression animated for the first time that day. “Will you come?” he said to Anne.

Anne hesitated. “In a while,” she said. Henry’s face fell a little, and she laid her hand on his arm. “I will come,” she said. “But you are the real hunter. John, oversee the small boats so the court can join the hunt. You are a man of fortune now. My lord Thames.”

John looked for a long moment at his father. Then he bowed. “Yes, your Majesty,” he said. “Thank you, your Majesty.”

Was God pleased with her day’s work? Anne wondered. Would Erzebet have been? She thought of her mother’s fierce, still face, the terrible patience of a frightened woman. Even after Samuel’s revelation, she could not, in her heart, let go of that longing for her mother: Erzebet’s resolve, her courage, the bruised body she laid down in service to her country. God commanded forgiveness, but whether it was her right to forgive Erzebet for sins she had committed against others, Anne did not know. She could not, for all that, press the love out of her memory. Erzebet might have thought her weak, or taking too much of a chance, leaving Claybrook alive. But Erzebet’s thoroughness had driven Claybrook himself to a bath of scalding water. That murder Anne could not, in her heart, forgive. But she could hold her hand. Fear led only to fear, and the frightened lashed out. Anne could only trust her heart to God, and pray that her mercy would not cause suffering later.

But then, she would be Queen, and could keep her eyes open all the time. Be merciful, and watch. That was the best she could plan for. It was time for a surcease of fear.

Samuel Westlake was not going into the boats; he had enough strength, apart from his leg, to handle a harpoon as well as any, but he was not by nature a huntsman. She went and sat beside him. He glanced up from his viewing of the departing boats as she did, and waited for her to speak.

“You heard what we promised Claybrook, I suppose,” she said. He had sat a respectful distance away, but his ears were sharp for a landsman’s. Very little escaped him.

Samuel nodded, slowly. “I heard, your Majesty.”

“Do you forgive me, Samuel?” she said.

“For what, your Majesty?”

Anne shook her head, trying to resolve her thoughts. “For my ignorance of my mother, I suppose. Because I cannot stop feeling a daughter’s love for her. For marrying a pagan and still believing I love God. Is that pride, Samuel?”

Samuel drew a long breath in. “Perhaps,” he said. “But it is better to love God, even in pride or sin, than not to love God at all.”

“A prince must act,” Anne said. “We cannot always choose the best course. But I mean to try, Samuel. I will try to be merciful. If that leads to danger, I will face it. But I will not be the first to create danger in my kingdom. I will try to rule well.”

Samuel sighed. “It is not my place to forgive you for ignorance,” he said. “I believe you, now, that you tried to act for the best. But your husband, your Majesty. I—cannot sit with a pagan ruling the Church.”

“Henry does not want the Church,” Anne said. “I do not think he even wants the land.”

“Your Majesty?”

Anne shook her head. “We shall see,” she said. “All I can ask you is this: if I try to rule as God wills it, will you help me, Samuel?”

Samuel reached out and took her hand. “I am your man, your Majesty,” he said. “I cannot act against my conscience, I cannot act against God. But I only desire your good, and England’s. As far as God wills it.”

Anne let her hand lie in his. “I cannot ask for more,” she said. “I would not wish to.”

Over the side of the boat, there were great plumes of spray rising. Porpoises were breaking the surface, great gleaming bodies rising out of the water, slick as metal in the light, diving in and out of the landsmen’s harpoons as the deepsmen drove them up from below. It seemed a shame, Anne thought, to destroy such graceful creatures. Henry said that they and the deepsmen were enemies, that they would eat deepsmen children if they could catch them, but they were lovely nonetheless.

She had better join in the hunt. Stripping off privately, Anne dived over the side. The water closed around her, sharp and cold, deafening in its commotion as deepsmen called hunting cries from all sides, porpoises screeched, harpoons and bodies crashed through the surface with the sound of shattering glass. Anne could hear the calls: Follow me! Go round eastwards! I am below! Forward! And in amongst them, Henry’s voice, calling as loud as any: Drive them up, drive them up!

Anne hung in the chaos of bubbles and white water, churned air fizzing upon her skin. Her husband dived and called with his people, ringing clear and strong amongst them.

She knew, in that moment, what she had known for some time in her heart. Henry, Whistle, her husband, was a deepsman. He had found his people, and he was not coming back.

Anne let out a great sigh of air, watching the bubbles rise to the surface above her. They shimmered in the water like scales, like silver, driving hard and beautiful towards the light.