Bermondsey Abbey, 1495
The abbey is thronged with pilgrims today come to honour the relic of the holy rood. They fill the church with their voices raised in worship. The guesthouse is bursting at the seams and the abbey coffers are filling with gold from the rich and groats from the poor. On such a day as this I keep to my cell. I have no wish to be either a figure of curiosity to the visitors nor a distraction from their prayers.
I have lived here at Bermondsey Abbey for eight years, ever since I lost Francis and Richard after the Battle of Stoke Field. At first, I was here with the Queen Dowager, Elizabeth Woodville, neither of us suited to the contemplative life, both of us locked behind these walls by King Henry VII because we were dangerous women. She was the unwanted mother of the Yorkist Queen, I the penniless widow of a Yorkist traitor. We were like two cats in a barrel, each other’s torment and punishment, yet I missed her when she died.
I think about Francis every day. Each day I wonder where he is and what has happened to him and to Richard. I never expected him to come back for me. Ginevra told me, all those years ago, that the power of the relic does not work in that way. It cannot be bent to man’s will. So I pray for them; and of course I hope, secretly, because hope is always the last thing to die.
It is hot for September and I long to be out in the fresh air but only when I hear the bell for vespers and the monks’ voices raised in chant do I slip outside into the cool of the evening to catch the last light in the gardens.
The grass in the orchard is cool beneath my feet. I walk slowly under the trees, the fruit heavy above my head, a tiny sliver of new moon captured in the branches. It reminds me of the day that Francis first brought Richard Plantagenet to me at Minster Lovell. Except that then the sun was bright and hot and there was still hope of restoration, no matter how battered and tarnished it was.
I do not see the figure in the corner of the cloisters until I am almost upon him. It is a pilgrim in jerkin and hood, a tall man and well made, loitering it seems with no particular purpose. The skin on the back of my neck prickles because along with the holy, the pilgrimage will always bring criminals to prey on virtuous men. This could be one such. When he reaches out to me, I draw back in alarm.
‘Anne,’ he says. ‘At last. I have been waiting for you.’
My heart leaps, for I recognise his voice. I am the one who has been waiting, it seems for ever. It is impossible and yet here he is.
‘Francis?’ My whisper is so faint I am surprised he can hear, but he does, and puts back his hood to reveal himself in the faint moonlight.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, stupidly. I feel confused, angry at the risk he is taking, disbelieving that he could be here at all. My mind is in utter turmoil. Is he real, or is he no more than a figment of my imagination, conjured up by longing? How can it be him?
‘I have come for you,’ he says, as though it is that simple. ‘Did you think I would not come back?’
I stare at him in stupefaction, wondering if I had misunderstood all along, if he and Richard have only been in hiding, not far, far away in another time, another place.
‘How can this be?’ I say. ‘Do you have the pendant – the lodestar?’
He shakes his head. ‘The lodestar is with Richard,’ he said. ‘He sent me back, just as you sent him and me away before.’
‘Then we cannot get back to him!’ I am babbling, confused. ‘Where is he? You should not have left him alone and unprotected—’ I stumble over my words, unable to understand.
Francis laughs. ‘Richard is a grown man now,’ he says. ‘He is ready to make his own way.’ He stops and for a second, I see sadness slide across his face. ‘We shall not see him again,’ he says, ‘but I know all will be well with him. He will be safe. I wish you could have seen him again, Anne, just once. He is a fine man. You would be proud of him, as I am.’ He cups my cheek in his gloved hand. ‘I will tell you everything when I may, but for now I am in haste for us to be away…’ He puts his hands lightly on my waist. ‘Must I abduct my own wife from a monastery?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I do believe you must.’ I recognise his touch. My body leans into his. He feels the same, smells the same, and suddenly I am dizzy with love for him, my heart soaring. ‘Take me away,’ I say recklessly. ‘I do not care where we go or what happens, Francis. I have so missed you.’
He grabs my hand and we run to the stables. There is a horse there, very fine, tied up and waiting. One of the abbey servants, an ostler, looks at us curiously but I ignore him, heady with joy. Let him raise the alarm. They will not catch us. This I know.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask, as Francis tosses me up into the saddle and settles behind me. ‘Do you have a plan?’
‘Of course I do,’ he says. He sounds offended that I would doubt it. He urges the horse to a canter and we shoot out of the stables like an arrow, like a sword into the heart of light. Behind us the abbey bells ring out a peal, as though in celebration.
‘You may remember from long ago,’ Francis says in my ear as we gather speed, ‘that your family had a castle, a place granted by the King of Scots to your father when he was a fugitive from the Crown?’
‘I remember,’ I say. ‘The Red Castel at Lunan.’
‘We go there,’ Francis says. ‘We go to Scotland.’ His arms tighten about my waist. ‘If God is willing,’ he says, his body hard and strong against mine, ‘then we will raise a family there. And if he does not so bless us, we will still have each other as we were always meant to do.’
I lean back against him. For all the speed and the danger, it feels safe.
‘The one thing about the lodestar,’ Francis says, and I hear the warmth in his voice, ‘is that it was always intended to be a compass. It guides a man to his one true north. That was what I thought of, Anne, when I came back to find you.’
The buildings of Bermondsey fall back, the hunched shadow of the abbey recedes against the night sky and the sound of the bells fade. The road is straight and empty and we ride for the North.