The Innocent by Posie Graeme-evans Read Free Book Online Page B

enough to defend? Anne felt submerged in a cold, miserable fog of sadness as she was swept forward by the crowd from Blessing House. Never had she felt more alone and friendless—trapped into playing this game with such truly unfathomable rules.

Chapter Four

    The Abbey was barely four hundred yards from Mathew Cuttifer’s front door but this was an occasion for maximum state and in any case he would not have his wife strained by unnecessary walking until he was sure she was entirely recovered. Impatiently he waited for the litter to arrive; it was a cold day and though Margaret was well swaddled up he was desperate that she should not catch cold from the treacherous winter air.
    In the crowd of household people behind Mathew and his wife, Piers watched Anne as she waited beside Lady Margaret, her long hair fluttering in the cold wind. He smiled to himself but then realized Aveline had seen him ogle the younger girl. With a gallant gesture he swept off his velvet cap with its brave feather, but Aveline turned her head away disdainfully. Piers snorted—no more games from Aveline, she had seen he had new interests now, so let her take care not to offend him!
    Mathew Cuttifer’s great town litter finally made its appearance at the portico of Blessing House. The groomsman leading the horses had found it nearly impossible to bring the vehicle to the door from the courtyard behind the house because of the great press of people jamming the roadway, and he apologized profusely for the delay until a sharp look from his master made him shut his mouth with a snap. The master never liked excuses.
    The few hundred yards to the abbey took nearly an hour to accomplish through throngs of people filling the narrow road that led toward King Street and the abbey buildings beyond. Aveline and Anne were some way back now behind the litter, surrounded by most of the kitchen staff and other household maids, all in their very best holiday clothes—many with sprigs of holly pinned to their breasts in honor of the Virgin.
    The Abbey Church of Saint Peter had been much decorated and rebuilt over the last one hundred years because the tomb of Saint Edward the Confessor King that lay therein was still, after Canterbury, the most important shrine for pilgrims in the kingdom of England, and successive Abbots had made sure that each king in nearby Westminster Palace was aware of his obligations to extend, beautify, and restore the work of previous devout generations. But while work was always going on, some said that to enter this holy building was to experience a foretaste of paradise. The great colored windows, the painted statues, the gold and silver altar plate, the jeweled vestments—these alone were enough to overwhelm the senses. But when this glittering surface was touched by the voices of the brothers singing praise to God in his house, the soul might sense the very stone walls of the building breathing grace to the air like perfume.
    Or so it seemed to Anne as she tried to track her mistress and master through the crowd moving up the great nave toward the high altar. Candles bloomed in the darkness and everything she saw that had been made by man to praise God was so beautiful, wreathed in the aromatic smoke from the candles, that her head swam.
    In a half-dream, she allowed herself to be carried forward by the mass of people all around her as if she were swimming in a friendly sea. She felt protected even as she was shoved and elbowed about by those looking for the best vantage point to view the Mass, and the king when he arrived.
    Then voices began calling, louder and louder, “The king, the king…” Straining to see, Anne was climbing almost before she realized what she was doing. Like a child in an orchard, hand over hand she hoisted herself up a stone structure covered in small statues that made convenient handholds, and found herself a precarious roost. Only when she looked down from the top did she realize she had scaled the