Virgin Widow. Anne O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ weakness. Her eye fixed me to the spot, where I stood frozen as the priest touched the unresponsive face with holy water from the little vial. Isabel watched glassy-eyed as her daughter was washed and wrapped and finally given into my reluctant care in my role as messenger.

      ‘Take the babe to the Earl,’ the Countess instructed, touching the waxen features with fingers that were unsteady. ‘He will know what to do.’

      Such a small weight. The child lay in my arms as if she slept toil-worn from the excesses of the event, the skin on her eyelids translucent. Her fingernails were perfect too, but too weak to cling to life. How could I not weep as I carried the burden on to the deck? To my father, my mother had said. Not to the Duke of Clarence.

      I stood before them where they waited for me, as if I were offering a precious gift.

      ‘Is it a boy?’ Clarence asked.

      ‘No. A girl. And she is dead. We called her Anne. She has been baptised.’ I knew my tone was blunt and unfeeling, but I dared do no other. Nor dared I look at him. Too many feelings crowded in, not least my hatred for this man who cared nothing for my sister other than the inheritance that came with her name. The power of her Neville family connections that would buy him support and, as was his ambition, the throne of England. If I had allowed it I would have sunk down to the rough decking and howled my hurt and disillusion, like one of my father’s hounds.

      ‘Perhaps next time it will be a boy.’ Clarence turned away, disappointed, uninterested. He did not ask about Isabel’s condition.

      My father saw my distress. With a brusque gesture that held his own grief in check, he pulled me and the sad bundle close into his arms. ‘Isabel?’

      ‘She is tired and weak. I don’t think she understands.’

      ‘We must thank God for your mother’s skills. Without her we might have lost Isabel too.’ He lifted the child from me with great care. ‘Go back. Tell your mother. I will send the child’s body to Calais with Captain Jessop here.’ I became aware that the Captain had returned and was awaiting instructions. ‘I will ask that she be buried with all honour at the castle. She is very small and barely drew breath, but she is ours with Neville blood in her veins. Wenlock will see to it.’

      I nodded, too weary to do or to think anything else.

      ‘Tell her…tell your mother…I was wrong. I should never have put to sea.’

      ‘I don’t think it mattered, sir.’ I rubbed my eyes and cheeks on my sleeve. ‘If any should take the blame it should be the Yorkists. King Edward who drove us on with fear of capture. King Edward is to blame.’

       And Richard, my Richard, who has stayed loyal to his eldest brother and is now my enemy whether I wish it or not.

      I gave the bundle into the Earl’s keeping, and left before I could see it carried over the side.

      There began for us a long and distressing voyage west along the coast from Calais. The winds and tides did us no favours and there was an uneasy pall of death over the ship. Isabel regained her strength, enough to sit in her chair or walk a few steps on deck, but not her spirits. Clarence did not endear himself. He remained brashly insensitive, rarely asking about her, rarely seeking her company, too concerned with the instability of his own future now that he was branded traitor to his brother. The Earl and Countess held discussions deep into the night. I knew it was about our future plans, where we would go now that Calais was barred to us. We could not return to England unless we had an army at our back—that much I understood. All my father’s wealth was not sufficient to fund such an enterprise. If we returned to cast ourselves on King Edward’s mercy, we would all be locked up. Without doubt heads would roll. The line between my father’s brows grew deeper as his options narrowed. Not yet knowing what they were, still I realised that they were distasteful to the Earl and to the Countess. As for Clarence, he did not care, as long as there was a golden crown for him at the end.

      I spent much time on deck, leaning on the side of the vessel to look back over the grey water that would separate me from all I had known, the security of my home at Middleham, my privileged life. And from Richard, who filled my thoughts even when I tried to banish him. Windblown and dishevelled, damp skirts clinging to my knees, I was as silent and sullen as the weather. Until the Countess took me to task and sent me off to keep my sister company.

      ‘Go and talk to Isabel. And if she wishes to talk to you about the child she has lost, do so. For her husband surely does not.’

      Her less-than-subtle criticism of despicable Clarence spurred me on. Without argument, I allowed Isabel to weep out her loss on my shoulder and told her that surely everything could be made right once we had found a landing. I hated my empty words, but Isabel seemed to find some solace there.

      Sometimes it seemed to me that we would never find a safe haven.

      The Earl made his decision. On the first day of May, when the sun actually broke through the clouds and shone down on our wretched vessel, we reached our goal and anchored off the port of Honfleur in the mouth of the great river that flowed before us into the depths of France. Standing at the Earl’s side, I watched as the land drew closer, as the sun glinted on the angled wings of the wheeling gulls. For the first time in days my spirits rose from the depths.

      ‘The Seine,’ my father explained, but I already knew.

      ‘Do we land here? Do we stay in Honfleur?’ I was fairly sure of the answer. There was really only one destination possible for our party.

      ‘No. We go on to Paris.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Why, indeed, my percipient daughter. It’s a question I ask myself in the dark hours.’ The Earl laughed softly, but it held an edge that grated on my nerves. ‘It has been an unpalatable decision to make.’

      So much I knew. Although I might anticipate the wealth and the luxury of the French Court—I had never been there, only heard of its sumptuous magnificence under the open-handed rule of King Louis XI—my father was not taking us there for the comforts of the feather beds and the culinary delight of roast peacock served on gold plate. We had all of that and more in our own home in London, Warwick Inn, where foreign ambassadors were sent to us to be impressed.

      ‘What choice do we have but to go to the French Court unless we wish to roam the seas for ever?’ he asked of no one, certainly not expecting an answer from me. ‘We are going to throw in our lot with Louis.’

      ‘Will he help us?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      A brutally honest answer. But why wouldn’t he? I knew my father had worked tirelessly for an alliance between King Edward and Louis. That Louis had always had a strong regard for the Earl, addressing him as my dear cousin Warwick despite the lack of shared blood.

      ‘Can you not persuade him?’

      It caused the Earl to glance down at me, his preoccupation tinged with amusement. He smiled. ‘Yes, perhaps I can. I think he will help us, simply because it is in his French Majesty’s nature to find some personal gain for himself in doing so. I can accept that. Don’t we all snatch at our own desires out of the miseries of others? But…there’ll be some hard bargaining. I wager I’ll not like the result.’ He took a deep breath as he must, before he could tolerate his decision. I thought he might choke on the necessity of it. ‘Beggars can’t choose where СКАЧАТЬ