Tidelands Page 35

  “Just come for dinner,” Rob urged her. “I’ll come back with you and work the ferry on the evening tide.”

  “Do let’s,” said Alys.

  “Oh, very well,” Alinor said. “But we have to get back to the ferry for high tide this afternoon. You know that Christmas is not a holiday anymore.”

  “It is at the Priory,” Rob whispered to her. “We keep to the old ways. You should see what Mrs. Wheatley has been cooking!”

  Alinor took his arm and they walked side by side after the Peachey household towards the big house, Red trotting behind them, his tail waving like a standard.

  “This’ll be my one and only Christmas at the Priory,” Rob reminded her. “Next year, I’ll be at Chichester.”

  “And I’ll be married,” Alys chimed in from her mother’s other side.

  Alinor, happy to be between her two children, hugged Rob’s arm, took Alys’s hand, and wondered where she would be next year, and if she would be walking to church with James carrying their child.

  THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS, DECEMBER 1648

  James spent his Christmas at The Hague with the advisors to the Prince of Wales, trying to convince them that they should not rely upon the king making an escape to avoid a trial.

  “Why not? It is his wish,” one of the lords said impatiently to James. There were ten of them seated around a big wooden table. Too many, James thought: ten men who would pass on every word of this conversation to their wives, their servants, their mistresses, and their children. They had once ruled a country—they could not resist demonstrating their importance.

  One of them leaned forward. “Once His Majesty believed our enemies might be brought to an agreement. Now we know they are completely false, so he is ready to leave. You have delivered our instructions? Our men are all working together, preparing escape?”

  “It’s not a question of issuing instructions.” James hid his impatience. “I delivered the messages, but the man did not confide in me. He would not trust me, nor anyone. He did not want to work with me or with your other agents. There are not many of them left anymore. In London, all His Majesty’s known friends are watched. Many of them have given up. Only six months ago I met with men who will no longer open their doors to me.”

  “Sir William Peachey?” one of the men queried.

  James glanced towards the door. “I won’t say names,” he said.

  “Well, you know who I mean. Won’t he help? He’s got a neat little port on his lands, hasn’t he?”

  “Nothing more than a quay at high tide,” James said, thinking of the tide mill and Alinor’s cottage that faced it across the mire. “Anyway, he’s done enough.”

  “You have money,” one of the men pointed out to him bitterly. “We have beggared ourselves in raising money. Can’t you hire someone?”

  “I have done what you asked me. I’ve told you where His Majesty is housed and the arrangements for his trial. I gave your gold to the man who said he will attempt a rescue. But I am warning you that he may not succeed. His Majesty is well guarded, and the men who watch him are not for sale. The common soldiers used to respect kingship, but not now. I don’t think they can be bribed. So I don’t know that you can get him away. I beg you to start bargaining with the Cromwell government. That’s the only way we can be sure that His Majesty will be freed.”

  “Freed? By their agreement?” a man said incredulously. “Are you forgetting that he is the King of England? I won’t haggle with criminals!”

  “Bargain with Cromwell?” One of the lords raised a well-plucked eyebrow. “With Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell of Ely?”

  Another man laughed scoffingly. “Where would they imprison him? In the Tower? It’s a royal palace anyway! You’re forgetting this is majesty. The moment they meet him face-to-face they will fall to their knees.”

  James nodded, restraining his temper. “But what if they do not? They could well imprison him. It’s been done before. The newspapers and scandal sheets in London are filled with stories of Henry VI and Edward II, and that they were imprisoned and their thrones taken.”

  “Henry VI!” a man laughed. “Who cares for Henry VI?”

  “If they decide to house him in the Tower, it will be very hard to get him away,” James persisted.

  “For God’s sake!” One of the men jumped up from the table. “Do we need a priest to come and give us a history lesson? You! Summers, or Avery, or whatever is your name, did we ask you to come and disappoint us?”

  James rose too. “I am sorry not to be able to give you better news,” he said, controlling his rising temper. “I volunteered for this work and it is a thankless task. If you dismiss me I will go without another word. All I ask is that you do not speak of me, my name, or those I have worked with.”

  “No, don’t go, don’t go,” the first advisor said. “Don’t be hasty. Don’t take offense. We’re all working, as you are, for His Majesty’s safety. We are safe to name names here. This is our palace; all the servants are loyal. You don’t understand our situation. We’re doing all we can. Just as you suggest, the queen is speaking to all her royal relations, the French king among them; and Prince Charles is calling on all the crowned heads of Europe to protect His Majesty. We’re demanding the freeing of the royal children as well: Princess Elizabeth and Prince Henry. Especially, we have to get the prince out of England.”

  “Both children,” James said stubbornly. “They should never have been left behind. She’s only thirteen and living as a prisoner, trying to care for her little brother. Both children should be restored to their mother.”

  “Only the prince matters. What if they cram the crown on his head and have a puppet king? He can’t be trusted not to take his father’s throne. Really, you should go to Prince Henry and tell him, he’s to refuse any proposal—”

  “He’s eight!” James exclaimed. “Do you think you can give orders to an eight-year-old? What do you expect of a child? He should never have been left in their power.”

  “We’re doing all we can here,” the senior advisor repeated. “And we’re concerned for the children too, of course. First the king’s escape, then theirs. We want you to go and watch for us, report back.”

  “I promised to go, deliver gold, meet with your man, and come back and report to you. I’m bound to do nothing more,” James said coldly.

  There was a brief silence. “I apologize,” the man said who had called him Summers or Avery. “I should not have named you, nor complained of what you have done. Because . . . to tell the truth . . . we’ve got no one else. No one else who can go. We need you to go back.”

  “You’ve not been identified as a spy?” the chief advisor said.

  “No,” James said unwillingly. “I think not.”

  “Then we have to ask it of you. This will be the last time.”

  James looked around the table at the anxious faces, felt the familiar mixture of frustration and despair. “Very well.”

  “Go back to London, and send us news. We have to know where they are keeping him and what they plan to do with him. We will give your reports to the prince himself and he will take them to the King of France. We will plan a rescue based on what you tell us.”

  James bowed his head. “Very well. I’ll go and I’ll report.” He got to his feet.

  The chief advisor stood up, and came round the table to put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, then walked with him to the door. “I’m grateful. You will be rewarded. Prince Charles will know your name and what you are doing for his father.”

  James glanced sideways, his face tight and closed. “I thank you but I’d rather that nobody named me,” he said. “Not while I am in England passing as a Frenchman, or a German, or something else entirely. It’s safer for my mother and father and for our lands, too, if my name is kept secret.”

  “Very well. Report to us. Daily if needs be. And get word to us the moment that you think it is going against him?”

  “Oh, that I can do readily,” James said bitterly. “I
t’s now. It’s going against him now.”

  TIDELANDS, JANUARY 1649

  In the first cold days of January a fox got into the ferry-house barn and savaged three chickens before the anguished clucking of the flock brought Alinor running barefoot in her shift. As she flung the door open a streak of russet brown dashed out past her. One hen was dead on the floor, one beyond saving—Alinor picked her up and wrung her neck—but the third was bruised and bloodstained, and Alinor put her in a basket and took her into the house, washed the teeth marks on her breast, and kept her by the fireside in a basket. The hens were laying poorly in the cold dark days, so Alinor did not miss the income from the few eggs, but it was still a loss to the smallholding. Even if they could have afforded to lose three hens, Alinor would still have been grieved. She knew each bird by name and took pride in their glossy health.

  “I know it’s stupid to weep for a hen, but I can’t forgive that fox,” she said to Alys.

  “Tell the Peachey huntsmen where the earth is,” Alys said. “They’d be glad of a good run and a kill.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t betray an animal to the hunt.”

  Alys laughed. “Then until the resurrection and the life eternal you’ll always be sorrowing for something that’s been killed by something else. I can’t wait to eat her. Are you going to make chicken stew?”

  “Yes, of course,” Alinor said. “I’m not such a fool as to not eat fresh meat in winter when it’s come our way. But you’re very hard-hearted for poor Mrs. Hoppy.”

  “I’m hungry,” Alys said. “I’m hungry all the time. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Alinor said, noting that her daughter, for the first time in five months, was prepared to share signs of pregnancy. “And I need to piss every moment.”

  The girl laughed. “I wish it was summer,” she said. “I was telling Richard that I wouldn’t mind going out to the midden if it wasn’t so cold.”

  “He knows then?” Alinor asked. “You’ve told him?”

  “I told him as soon as I was sure,” the young woman said. “He’s glad.”

  “Will he tell his mother and father?” Alinor asked nervously, thinking of the formidable woman who would be Alys’s mother-in-law.

  “He’s told them,” Alys said confidently. “And his father is one for the old ways.” She made a disdainful little face. “He jokes about it. He likes a fertile bride. She said that it was good to know that I’d continue the line—he said you only buy a cow in calf.”

  Alinor laughed at Alys’s offended expression. “Well, at least they’ve no objection.”

  “As long as I’ve got my dowry. That’s all she cares about.” She paused. “They said you’re to come and stay with me, when I’m near to my time. You’ll have to be with me, Ma, when I have my baby.”

  “I hope so,” Alinor said slowly. “I pray for it, Alys. I am hoping and praying for us both, all the time.”

  “Why don’t you send a message to this man? Why doesn’t he come and make everything right, if he loves you as you say?”

  “He will come,” Alinor said steadily. “I don’t have to send for him. He will be coming as fast as he can.”

  In the morning, Red, the ferry-house dog, did not get out of his corner and sit on the pier to watch the ferry, as he usually did.

  “And we had a fox,” Alinor scolded him. “Are you getting lazy?”

  The dog looked at her with his ale-brown eyes and turned away. Alinor put her hand on his head. “Oh, no, Red,” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

  He sighed as if he would speak to her. Alinor took his broad head in both hands and looked at him as she would one of her patients.

  “Won’t you wait till Ned comes home?” she whispered.

  He stirred his feathery tail and then turned around three times and lay down. Alinor stroked his soft forehead where his frown wrinkled the fur, and let him stay in his bed.

  Alys pulled the icy rope of the ferry as Alinor crossed the mire at low tide to go to work at the mill. It was bitterly cold, the ground slippery with frost. The sandbanks in the mire were white as snow.

  “Get back in the warm,” Alinor said to her daughter. “And take care on the water.”

  Alys’s face was white with cold, her mittened hands gripping the rope. “I’m fine,” she said. “You mind that you don’t slip.”

  Mrs. Miller arranged the work of the farm and house so that she and her little boy, Peter, and daughter, Jane, stayed indoors in bad weather and sent her maid-of-all-work and Alinor into the cold. Alinor started in the barn where the cows were waiting patiently in their stalls. She took a three-legged stool down from the hook and set it beside the first cow, leaning her forehead against the warm flank, talking quietly to her, as she pulled on the udders, alternating her hands, and the milk hissed into the pail. It was so cold in the barn, the milk steamed and Alinor sniffed the rich creamy smell, longing to drink it. She carried the heavy pail to the dairy, and poured it into a bowl to separate for churning into butter later.

  “I’ll thank you to check the dovecot for eggs.” Mrs. Miller poked her head into the icy dairy. “And after that, you can go home. I won’t need you for anything this afternoon.”

  Alinor pulled her shawl over her head again, took the heavy basket, and went back out into the yard.

  Richard Stoney, shoveling wheat into the dangling pan of the weighbeam in the barn, caught sight of her through the barn door as she was walking carefully across the frozen yard. “I’ll put down some straw so you don’t slip.” He hurried out to her.

  She turned to him, the shawl over her head stiff with frost from her frozen breath. “You can’t,” she said shortly. “They never straw the yard. Only if the cows are coming out.”

  “So the cows don’t fall, but you can!” he exclaimed. “Let me give you my arm then.”

  She shook her head. “She’ll be watching from the window. Let me do my work, Richard. I won’t freeze and I won’t fall.”

  “You’re never going up the ladder!”

  Before Alinor could answer, the farmhouse kitchen door opened and Mrs. Miller shouted into the yard, “Richard Stoney, are you weighing grain or taking a stroll?”

  “Go on,” said Alinor. “Back to work.”

  “Can I come to Ferry-house on my way home? Is Alys well today?” he whispered urgently, as he raised a hand to acknowledge Mrs. Miller.

  “She’s well. Of course you can come!” Alinor called, as she walked on towards the dovecot. Inside the circular tower she reached under her sheepskin jacket and rolled up the waistband of her skirt so it was hitched above her knees and she would not stumble on the hem as she went up the ladder.

  She put her hands on the rung and looked upwards at the dovecot interior wall. It seemed like a long way up, and the ladder was old and rickety, but she could see a dove sitting on a nest. Alinor moved the ladder to the nesting dove, checked that it was firmly placed, hitched her basket on her arm, and started to climb. Each rung was freezing cold to the touch and slippery with frost. Up and up she went, step by step, not looking down, and paying no attention to the ominous creaking of the old wood. In some part of her mind she thought that a fall and a miscarriage would solve all her problems. Then she smiled to herself as she saw that at the thought of losing her baby she at once took a stronger grip on the ladder, and put her feet carefully on the rungs. She was as committed to her own life, and to the life of her child, as she had been that first cold morning when she had sworn that she would not be a victim of sorrows, but would bring this baby into the world and win a place for it.

  There was a dove nesting in the pigeonhole; she did not move as Alinor climbed up within reach. Gently, Alinor put her hand under the warm soft breast. “I’m sorry, Goody Dove,” she said quietly. “But I am sent to get these. You lay more for yourself.”

  Ignoring the bird’s indignant pecks to her cold hands, she lifted all the eggs but one from the nest, and put them carefully in the basket. They were small white eggs, warm from the mother’
s breast feathers. Alinor climbed carefully down the ladder and looked upwards to see if another bird was nesting. Four times she moved the ladder and went up and down for eggs, and then she walked carefully back to the house with a dozen eggs in her basket. Mrs. Miller opened the door to her and managed a thin smile.

  “I’d have thought you’d have sent Alys to do the work on a cold day like this,” she said. “Too grand for dove eggs now, is she? Now that she’s planning to marry so well? Playing the lady?”

  “Oh, no,” Alinor said pleasantly. “But she’s still keeping the ferry for Ned.”

  “Who’s going to cross in this cold weather? I hear the river has frozen in London and they’re walking from one side to another. You won’t get any fees if that happens here!”

  “It feels cold enough to freeze,” Alinor agreed. “And the freshwater in the rife is frozen hard; but the tide still comes in.”

  “And Ned still not home? I’m surprised he has the time and the money to go jauntering off to London.”

  “It matters so much to him.”

  “None of his business,” Mrs. Miller said sourly.

  Alinor smiled. “Certainly, none of mine,” she said.

  Mrs. Miller recovered a little good humor, unpacking the eggs from the basket and putting them in the crock. “Aye, I suppose so. You don’t take an interest in it?”

  “I’m interested,” Alinor said carefully. “But I don’t take sides.”

  “There’s not many that don’t think the king should be punished for his sins,” Mrs. Miller declared. “Making war on his own people! And the taxes! Would you like two eggs for your dinner?”

  “Thank you,” Alinor replied, thinking that now there was no handsome stranger and noble party from the Priory, Mrs. Miller had reverted to being an envious roundhead. “Thank you very much for the eggs,” she said.

  When she got to the rife, walking companionably with a Sealsea Island farmer’s wife, the ferry was waiting for her.