His leavetaking of the Prince was brief and included Lady Joan. The two emerged from their chamber, finally, beaming, with barely a thought or a glance to spare for anyone besides each other.
‘You’ll be back to us before Yuletide, then?’ the Prince asked, when Nicholas had explained his journey.
Nicholas nodded. ‘Well before.’ A month to get there and back, perhaps more, though as autumn stretched toward winter, travel would grow treacherous.
‘Then you will celebrate with us,’ the Prince said, with the smile of a man ready to establish a home. ‘At Berkhamsted.’
Joan stepped forward, putting her fingers on Nicholas’s sleeve. An intimate little gesture, though it somehow seemed planned.
When had he become so doubtful of a woman everyone else called beautiful and good? At the same time he had allowed himself to become emotional about Anne?
‘Thank you,’ Joan began, her voice pitched low, ‘for offering to take good care of my Anne. I think...after all these years...she is just weary. She needs a rest.’
The words would have made sense, had he not known Anne as he did. She never rested. Her fingers worked, even when her legs did not. And when she did rest, her eyes were busy, drinking in every bit of what surrounded her, so that she could relive it later.
And he wondered whether he had underestimated Lady Joan. Originally, he had thought her slightly empty-headed. Lovely, but without the capacity to understand and manage complexities. Now, he was not certain.
He inclined his head, acknowledging her care. ‘I am certain you will miss her, my lady.’
‘Of course. We have been close for so many years.’
‘So I understand. When will she be coming back?’
‘Oh, not until she wants to. I will not pressure her.’
Nothing suspicious in that answer, nor in her smile. Yet there was one way to test the truth of her. The risk was that she would be even more angry at Anne. But if he were right... ‘Since Flanders, wasn’t it?’
Her eyes became like daggers. ‘Flanders?’
‘When she was but a babe. You must have cared for her when her mother was busy with the Queen’s children. Her mother was close to you, as well, wasn’t she?’
The least bit of panic touched her eyes. ‘Ah, did Anne tell you that?’
A warning. Enough for him to protect Anne. ‘I can’t remember. Perhaps it was something the Queen mentioned when I was preparing to visit His Holiness.’
‘Well, all that is behind us now, isn’t it?’ She dusted his sleeve, as if there had been a speck of dirt on it.
As easily as she was dusting Anne out of her life.
Lady Joan turned back to the Prince. ‘If Nicholas is taking her north, you will not need to send any of your men, will you?’
The Prince looked to Nicholas, who smiled.
‘I’m certain that my squire and her maid will be enough,’ he said, fiercely glad that Anne would have someone on this journey who cared about her.
* * *
So in the fullness of a cool, sunny, October day, Anne, firmly attached to her gentle jennet, rode north beside Nicholas, followed by Eustace and Agatha.
She tried to inhale the vision so that she could remember it always. The piercing blue sky. Leaves of wild red and gold and brown. The air, sweet on her cheeks. The horse, warm and solid beneath her. None of this would she know again.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘To ride?’
She nodded. It was not easy. It would never be easy. But the trip to Canterbury had built her muscles and her skills. And it would be the last time she would see any of this. For that, it was worth any pain.
For that, and to steal these final, precious days with Nicholas.
The King had given them leave to stay at his palaces on their way, so the end of the first day’s travel seemed little different than when she journeyed with the court, except that she did not spend her waking hours with an eye out for what the Lady Joan might want.
As a result, she noticed that Nicholas’s squire and Agatha seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time within touching distance of each other. And when it was time for bed, Agatha appeared with rumpled hair and short of breath, a look Anne now recognised.
‘Agatha,’ she began, ‘you know that Eustace will be a knight soon.’
The girl nodded. ‘Within the year, he hopes. As soon as he and Sir Nicholas join the Great Company and he can prove himself...’ Her words faded and she bit her lip, knowing she had revealed too much.
My fault. Anne winced. Keeping not only Nicholas but his squire from their glory. And putting a simple young girl’s heart in harm’s way. ‘And you also know,’ she said, ‘that a knight will never wed a serving girl.’
‘Wed?’ She cocked her head. ‘I never thought so.’
Now Anne felt as if she were the simple one, thinking that a man’s kiss would mean more than momentary pleasure. This girl had learned a lesson Anne had not. ‘So you don’t expect...’
Agatha did not wait for her to find the word. ‘I don’t let tomorrow’s trouble sour today.’
And hadn’t Anne done exactly that? She had taught Nicholas to see, to create something to remember, yet she had let her fears prevent her from relishing the days she had left.
That would change.
* * *
So she asked him, the next morning, as the open road stretched before them, what cathedral they would see. She had travelled with the court, but had only a misty notion of place and direction. Only that Holystone would be far, far away.
‘Which one?’ Nicholas smiled. ‘Ely, Lincoln, York, Durham? All of them!’
Laughter rolled through her, like a thunderstorm passing by in spring. ‘All of them?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we would be travelling until Yuletide.’ She would not have minded that. She would not have minded travelling beside him for ever. She let the moment, and the wish, fade. ‘You have postponed your life for me long enough. One. We will pick one cathedral.’
He did not argue, but she wasn’t certain he agreed. ‘Ely is the first one. We will see Ely.’
And she thought there was one more memory she would take from this journey.
* * *
They could not help but see Ely Cathedral, Nicholas thought, as they approached the town a few days later.
The Cathedral shimmered in the distance near half a day before they arrived. The land was flat here and the Cathedral’s tower taller than the trees on the horizon, almost like a ship, sailing over the marshy fens.
They had travelled slowly. Nicholas had wanted to be certain they had lodgings each night so Anne would not have to sleep outdoors. She had complained of nothing, protesting that she could sleep anywhere, but there was another reason that he had not shared with her.
It kept her more safely away from him.
Kisses were one thing. But he wanted more than that now. Things he must not have.
There was no castle near Ely, so he arranged for lodgings, making sure that Anne could sleep alone, and left Eustace and Agatha to unload so he and Anne could explore the church while there were no services.
They entered the great doors and paused, looking down the great nave.
‘How