Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер

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      ‘We had to retreat. On Easter Sunday we had to slink away as if we were cowards. And we marched all into the next day until we saw the towers of Chartres in the distance across the open plain.’

      He remembered, though he did not want to remember. That brief moment, a warm, April day, sharp towers pointing to heaven. They had escaped, they could regroup, they could fight again. And then...

      ‘And then, the heavens opened up. Thunder. Rain. Mud. And then the wind snapped from spring to winter as we marched through it. And the rain became sleet and then hail...’ Frozen balls of ice, hurtling toward earth as if God himself were aiming at them. ‘And then the ground froze.’

      Wagons sunk into mud that hardened around them. Tents, saddles, cooking pots were abandoned for there were neither wagons nor horses to carry them. A few supplies came, at last. Too little. Too late. Hungry men and horses hadn’t enough strength to fight the cold.

      And when it was over, the road was lined with the corpses of those he had been charged to feed.

      He pulled his gaze away from the Cathedral and away from the past and met her eyes. ‘That’s what I remember of Chartres. Cathedral towers swathed in sleet, looming over a battlefield of frozen mud. We could have beaten the French, but in the end, God had decreed who would be their King. Or that is what the King decided.’

      A furrow of confusion appeared between Anne’s eyebrows. ‘But we won. We took so many hostages. The French owe us millions of marks.’

      He smiled, a response of habit. He wondered what the Prince had told Lady Joan, for that, of course, was what Lady Joan had told her. ‘Yes, of course. We won. But Edward is still not King of France.’

      ‘And you think he would be if his men had been fed?’

      Did he? Did he take that much blame, or credit? Neither the Prince nor the King had ever said so and yet...

      He wanted no such responsibility again.

      ‘I think,’ he said, standing straight and handing her the stick, ‘that it is time to return to the inn.’

      * * *

      Anne had walked beside him slowly. Once she was again in her room she stretched out on the bed, under the covers, grateful to be alone.

      Her own sorrow, and his, hovered in the air and despair rolled over her, holding her fast against the straw-filled bed. Her leg, angry with disappointment, ached more than usual, ached so much that she let her tears flow, though whether pain or hopelessness was the cause, she did not know.

      Both, it was clear, would be her companions unto death.

      The physicians had spoken of humours and bloodletting, and even, when as a child she had wept at night, of the poppy, but that would only separate her from the world with a hazy layer of silk. It would not change the fact that a twisted foot distorted the rest of the leg.

      Sometimes, rubbing and stretching the tight knots helped.

      Sometimes.

      She reached down and pulled off her garter and her hose, hoping a firm touch would work tonight.

      Her mother had done this, long ago, stretched her toes one from the other, applied pressure to the bottom of her feet, near every night when she was a child. Sometimes her foot worked better afterwards. She might be able to move her foot from side to side or wiggle her toes. Such small things. Things other children did without thinking.

      Her father had never touched the foot. Her father had never touched her at all.

      With her mother’s death, when Anne was fifteen, the strong hands were gone. No one else rubbed or stretched or touched or even wanted to see her foot.

      And she wanted no one to.

      So late at night, when the rest had fallen asleep, she would bend her left leg at the knee, painful in itself, and rub her foot until her hand was tired and cramped. And then, on fortunate nights, she would sleep.

      This was her life. Food, clothing, shelter, work, submission to her lady. And the solitary pain. All the result of an exchange her mother had made to protect her from a fate much worse.

      She flexed her foot, biting her cheeks to fight the pain.

      ‘Anne?’ A knock on the door. Nicholas.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘May I come in?’

      She straightened her legs, smoothed her skirt over them, and pulled up the bedcovers. He must not see her foot, her leg. ‘Yes. Come.’ Blessedly, a woman’s legs were easy to hide.

      Men’s were not, she was reminded, as Nicholas stepped into the room. His long legs, sporting blue hose and exposed by a short tunic, would have drawn her eye even if she had not been jealous of their strength.

      ‘I should not have spoken of France,’ he said. A blunt beginning.

      ‘I should not have asked you to remember,’ she said. Her pain was clearly evident. That of others was not. And if she wanted to keep her secrets, she must respect his.

      He paced a few steps. ‘Are you hungry? Do you need anything?’

      She shook her head. Her foot was not the only part of her that must stay hidden. There was more, something even less visible.

      The part that looked at him and lied.

      * * *

      Nicholas stepped to the edge of the bed, still berating himself for having disclosed things she did not need to know, particularly after she had just had her own hope snatched away. ‘Are you...all right?’ Not admitting, even to himself, that he, too, still hoped for a miracle.

      ‘Again, you have done me a kindness. Not only today, but this...’ She waved a hand at the room.

      He had spent an outrageous sum to ensure she did not have to share her space this night. ‘It is little enough.’ His way of apologising for the saint’s failures.

      ‘I must thank you,’ she said. Her chin was lifted as if she resented having to say the words. ‘For helping me at the shrine.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, finally. Sorry for everything about her life that he could not help. Words he hated to say. It was his job never to have to say them. His job to make all the rough places smooth.

      But even he could not fight God. That had been proven more than once.

      ‘I don’t want your pity.’

      ‘And you’ll not have it.’ Was it her anger that gave her such strength, day after day? ‘It’s not pity I feel.’

      ‘Then what would you call it?’

      He didn’t know. Or didn’t want to. ‘It does not need a name.’ To name it would be dangerous. To name it would be to admit to exactly the weakness he had railed against all his life.

      Silence swelled.

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