The Exiled (16 page)

Embarrassed and angry as they were, the English merchants found it hard to avoid Caxton’s penetrating gaze and so, eventually, in ones and twos, they were carried away — not one of them with a happy face. Caxton relaxed fractionally and breathed a deep sigh as he handed Anne into the last of the litters, intending to walk beside it. She’d purposefully dispensed with her guards today as a visible symbol of her trust in reconciliation with the English merchants.

’Mistress, you cause me great trouble.’

Anne laughed shakily. ‘Ah yes, but our colleagues cause you more. No doubt this little exercise has put you to considerable expense and pain.’

‘Warranted though. To stop a war in the making — if I can.’

‘If you can — that remains the question. There were things that I wished Father Jochen to say at the end of that service — about my desire for co-existence amongst us all; though he was also to say that I thought their behaviour towards the house of Cuttifer was shameful in God’s eyes. But he chose your words. I wonder why that was?’

She was not looking at him as she talked, graciously smiling and waving at those she knew in the street as the litter-men found their way through the city’s market-day crowds.

‘A desire for lasting peace, perhaps. And the fact that the Minstrels Guild wishes to add a new bell to their carillon. I told them the English merchants would be happy to contribute to the cost in return for the blessing I gave him to say. Don’t blame Father Jochen. I said I had your approval. Now I just have to tell our colleagues they’re contributing to the bell — as well as the orphans and widows of this city.’

That made her laugh out loud.

‘Have you forgiven us?’ He was impetuous, looking down into her eyes.

Embarrassed, Anne flicked her glance from his. ‘Yes, I’ve forgiven you. Them?’ she shrugged ‘I’m trying. I know I have to. I will, if they will.’ There was the flicker of a tight smile between them. Caxton sighed.

‘They’re not bad men, but change is difficult for them. They’re bewildered by you.’ As he was also, yet he still felt shame for the actions of his colleagues and he wanted her to know that. ‘The first steps have been taken towards reconciliation, but there is still danger. For us all.’

Then Anne saw him. The man with the crossbow. Standing in an upstairs window of one of the inns which lined the Markt Square, she watched him in one frozen moment aim and then release his quarrel.

She saw the feathered bolt as it came at her; saw the small, dark blur against the light; watched him turn back into the darkness of the room behind, so sure he’d aimed true.

Anne threw herself back to the edge of the litter, but the jolt was like a fist, and then fire, as the steel head of the quarrel sliced into her flesh, nicking bone in its passage into her side.

It was the padding in her sleeves that saved her, plus the missal she’d been holding. The ivory covers of her prayer book were bound with gold wire and set with cabochon jewels; the quarrel was deflected by a small ruby. It gouged into her side beneath her arm, but it did not find her heart, though blood sprang from between her ribs like a fountain.

They were screaming, but Anne heard little. The world was slipping, slipping away into darkness, sliding into a dream. The soft breeze was on her face then — nothing.

I
t hurt badly, jagged and deep, and she screamed herself into the light. Like a child being born.

‘Hush, hush. Over now. Sleep little one ...’ They were the words you said to a child, of course, and perhaps that fitted. She was, after all, very young. Perhaps they would feed her the nice warm milk and she
would
sleep again. She opened her eyes although she didn’t want to. Pain was bad, and stupid. No mind behind pain, it just was.

There they all were, clustered around this vast, black bed. It wasn’t her bed, but she knew the people there. Maud Caxton, for one didn’t like her.

Maud? Anne sat up quickly when William’s wife’s face sharpened focus, but the pain surged up her side again, filling her mouth with blood and hot bile. Vomit burned her throat, but pride closed her teeth. There was no way that Maud would see her retch.

‘Dame Caxton. And Master Caxton,’ yes, he was there too. ‘My thanks for your help.’ The words came out of her own mouth, from between her own teeth, she was certain of that, but where they came
from
was impossible to say. With great relief she saw that Deborah was beside her. Her foster-mother looked very worried, which was foolish for Anne could see the crossbow bolt now, lying in a bowl filled with blood. Probably her own blood. Still, better the thing was out of her. She could sleep now.

‘Yes, we should let her sleep, that will be best. We shall know very soon if the wound is to suppurate. Then she can be bled to remove the evil humours.’ William Caxton sounded quite calm — he surprised himself.

‘No. There will be no more bleeding. Strength is what she needs, healing!’

Anne did not open her eyes, but she smiled. She knew that tone — Deborah rarely raised her voice, but this was one of those rare times.

There was an astonished intake of breath. That would be Maud, thought Anne contentedly, as her husband hurried to intervene.

‘Maud, we have guests. Guests who are very worried about this dreadful event.’

‘No, they’re not.’ Anne was very matter of fact, but for the people in that room, the private bedchamber of Maud and William Caxton, it was as eerie as if a corpse had spoken.

‘And we should return to them, allowing our Lady Anne to sleep, and recover.’

Anne heard the agitated rustle as Maud snatched up her skirts and left the room with William, barely closing the door before berating him in an angry hiss as their footsteps receded. Only then did Anne open her eyes, and find Deborah. Very gently her foster-mother stroked one of the girl’s hands, trying very hard not to cry.

‘There now — not so bad. It’s happened, the thing we feared ...’

Anne was surprised at the pain of talking, but if she did not breathe very deeply, perhaps it would be easier.

‘We know it’s real now, the threat. Wasn’t just kidnap, before. Stop crying, Deborah. Makes me sad.’

Deborah smiled a watery smile, but dense, black despair was very close. The iron head of the quarrel was rusty and had burrowed deep; the doctor who’d been summoned had poked Anne’s side with filthy fingers, searching for it, and Deborah would have to work fast to undo the infection that would surely follow this ‘treatment’. She might be too late if Jenna did not arrive with her salves very soon.

Downstairs, amongst his fellows, William Caxton was deeply, deeply ashamed. Upstairs in his bedchamber, Anne lay dying — he was convinced of that — and here in his fine hall there was a group of men, his colleagues, God help him, who could not meet his eyes.

They were all superstitious. The admonition and blessing at the chapel of the minstrels had been made in their name. They were all indirectly responsible for the attack on Anne — they had kept vital knowledge from her — and now, perhaps, God would punish them where it would tell the most: their businesses.

‘We must make amends. If she dies, we deserve to be hanged and damned. All of us.’ William was blunt, but none of them spoke in response. He was right and they didn’t know what to say.

Maud Caxton, however, was furious. Once she had seen that her unwilling guests had been given refreshment, her husband had hurried her out of the hall,
their
hall, insisting she must stay in the anteroom, behind closed doors, until he called her again.

She knew what was happening. He was about to do something really foolish, out of guilt. Something which would undoubtedly compromise them and their house just because that wretched Anne de Bohun had nearly got herself killed.

She didn’t like Anne — it was outrageous that she had no sense
at all
of what was appropriate. All she did was upset the men and enrage the women, and justly so. There was a story here, undoubtedly. People didn’t get shot at in broad daylight travelling home from church unless they had done something to merit it.

And now this wretched girl was under her own roof, bleeding all over her good sheets, and likely to stay for some days. Her lily-hearted husband had refused to have Anne removed to her own perfectly good house, such a short distance away, and so
they’d
have to sleep in the children’s dorter tonight. And if the girl died under their roof, they’d never hear the end of it. Truly life was unfair.

‘Life is unfair, my friends, and cruel, but we must face the consequences of our own actions. The girl who is dying in my house out-traded us all. Our greed had caused this calamity for we could, perhaps, have prevented it. If, by great good fortune she lives, I feel I am released from my obligation to our Guild. She must know what we know, and we must protect her from future harm.’

That made them all sit up straighter. Hitherto they’d been lolling on long forms drawn up to trestles loaded with food intended to be a celebratory, reconciliation feast after the service in the Minstrels’ chapel.

‘William, we all respect you. And what has happened today is a crime, a sin against God.’ Hurriedly the merchants crossed themselves as John Fuller, well known for his choler, spoke up for them all. ‘But perhaps it is His own will in action we have seen today. It is unnatural for this woman to trade. She has been struck down, perhaps by His own hand. Did anyone actually see the archer?’

There was a murmur of ‘I didn’t’, ‘No, indeed’, ‘Not me ...’

‘God’s will?’ William Caxton’s voice took on a freezing quality. ‘God’s will?! So, John, you believe God himself punished Lady Anne de Bohun for making you personally, and each one of us here, look like a fool? Is that what you think?’

John Fuller looked embarrassed, but he was truculent.

‘The Bible tells us that God moves in strange ways. What that girl does is condemned in the Bible, and well you know it. A woman should be subject to her father or her husband, even her brother if she is not married, and be directed by them.’

William held up the bolt from the crossbow, bloody at its iron head, and in two swift sides had shoved it under John’s nose.

‘So, this is the instrument of God’s will, is it? Do you smell that, John? Blood. The blood of an innocent girl. You know and I know that she is blameless. And we also know who is likely to have done this. If she survives, we will tell her so. Perhaps you believe you are a servant of God, but by his bones I smell sulphur when I stand next to you.’

John Fuller was a bully, but not a courageous man, and he was the first to drop his eyes from those of his furious host, but he felt bitterly resentful for being singled out. Let William Caxton beware, he thought; he is alone in his support of the Devil’s siren who lay upstairs in his own bed.

Fuller was wrong.

Of the twenty or so men who were uncomfortably clustered together in William Caxton’s hall, more than half felt as their host did, and as information about the attack in their own town square flew around Brugge, William was touched to find much support for Anne as he left his house later in the day.

Anne, it seemed, was liked by the Bruggers, more than could be said for many of his own colleagues. As he left his door, two sewers, women who’d worked for Anne, hurried up to him with a basket of spring produce from their own gardens plus precious comb honey and new eggs. They had heard the news and their urgent, genuine concern touched William’s heart. He promised to let Anne know of the special prayers her friends the seamstresses would say, day and night, until she recovered.

Other women too, from all parts of the town, ran out of their houses, from behind their market stalls, from their gardens, as he walked past; Meinheer Memlinc’s housekeeper, fishwomen, spinners, weavers, lace-makers, even the Sisters from the house of the Beguines on the Minnewater — all desperate for news, all pressing little gifts into his hands to give to Anne.

William Caxton reflected soberly as he walked with his new burdens: would he inspire the same compassion, the same concern when he lay dying?

Mathew Cuttifer’s house was orderly and quiet when Master Caxton knocked at the great door. It was opened by Maxim, still pale from shock, but the very silence inside — no sound from little Edward, no sight of any of the staff — made William very sad. ‘Is all well with the affairs of this house, Maxim?’

‘Of course, sir.’ William sensed the dread which stalked the words.

‘The doctor is optimistic, Maxim. He removed the head of the bolt and your mistress was asleep, peacefully, when I left. Deborah and Jenna are both with her. We can only wait now; she is young. And strong, as you know.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Maxim’s response was colourless. He knew, just as William did, how likely it was for a wound to turn poisonous, whatever the age of the victim.

‘Very well. I have been sent by my wife to ask for some of Lady Anne’s things. I have a list. I wanted to come myself.’

Maxim nodded and escorted William into Anne’s workroom, bowing him to a chair beside the small, sputtering fire.

‘And the little boy, Maxim?’

‘He is well-cared for, sir. And blessedly, too young to understand the sorrow of this house. I shall have refreshments brought to you, sir.’

He was gone before William could refuse the offer of food; he could not eat. After today, it felt as if he would never be hungry again, especially when he looked at the Meinheer Memlinc’s masterwork, and the face of the girl who lay dying in his bed.

T
here was an odd smell and a high voice chanting words she thought she knew but could not form as the whole side of her body burned. Fear ran like acid as the cold hands held her down, for she could hear a wild sea rising through the sound of the fire; the smell of wet wood burning was like pain.

There was a man’s face in the smoke, eyes closed. Then they were open: empty black yet bright, like frost on a whetstone, like night sky; but when she saw his open mouth she whimpered, for his teeth were sharp and bloodstained.