Tidelands Read online

  There was little chance, James thought, that his mother, Lady Avery, would join such a court, to serve an uncrowned king. His father would never compete for office or duties with corrupt adventurers, and if they were not appointed by the king in exile, why would they stay in exile? They would come home, James thought. They must come home to Northallerton in Yorkshire and James would be able to return with them to his own fields, to his childhood home, and feel the cold winds blow off the moors again, and hear the cry of the peewit as it tumbled, spade-winged, in the clear sky.

  He would present Alinor to his parents as the woman that he loved and intended to marry, and surely they would allow him to live with her, in a new house that he would build, perhaps in the fields below the great house: perhaps a small house, a manor house, set in a walled garden for her herbs, with a fruit orchard. He would present her to the village and the parish as his wife, acknowledging that they could not yet be legally married, but calling her his betrothed, and demanding for her the respect that an Avery commanded in the manor of Northside. And he was certain that, though people would gossip behind their hands, though his mother would disapprove, in a world of such momentous change in which everything was turned upside down, and a middling farmer from Cambridgeshire was running the country, the fact that the future Lady Avery was not yet married to the son and heir would quickly become old news.

  All he had to do, James thought as the road wound over the height of the South Downs, so pale and gray and misty in the bitterly cold morning, was convince Alinor to leave her little fisherman’s cottage, her beloved daughter and her adored son, and come north with him. Confidently, James thought he could do that. She could bring her daughter and son, if she wanted, if that was the price of her coming. Or they could visit. Or anything, James thought passionately, any condition she wanted to make. If she would only come to him.

  TIDELANDS, FEBRUARY 1649

  Ned, Rob, Alinor, and Alys walked along the bank at the side of the harbor, past Alinor’s old cottage and net shed, through the quickthorn tunnel, dropping down to the shingle beach, bending their heads beneath the low boughs of the overhanging oak tree, then climbing up the rough steps cut out of the sea wall to the footpath to the church. The rumbling of the millstones across the mire and the rush of the millrace water sounded loud on the cold air, and Alinor glanced back as if she feared that the waters were rising up after them. Ned helped the two women over the stile into the churchyard and they went silently in single file along the path that wound through the gravestones. Ned and Alinor paused before the plain stone that marked their parents’ burial site.

  “I wish he could have lived to see this day,” Ned said of his father. “He would never have believed it possible.”

  Alinor bowed her head in silence. “I miss her,” was all she said.

  The four of them turned and went into church, Alys and Alinor going up the stairs to the wooden gallery where the workingwomen of the parish stood in silence, Ned and Rob stood at the left of the nave where the men of the parish waited bare-headed for the Peachey household to enter and Sir William to take his seat. Only when the nobility arrived would the service to God take place. Ned muttered to Rob that nothing would ever change in the tidelands, no matter what took place elsewhere.

  There was only one chair: his lordship’s, placed before the chancel steps like a throne. Walter was in Cambridge, and there were no guests at the Priory to sit in the Priory pews. The household stood behind the empty seats. Alinor, looking down from the gallery on his lordship’s beautiful dark felted hat trimmed with a dark feather and a silver pin, as he processed slowly into church, wondered if he missed his son, or if he had heard anything from his son’s former tutor. She knew that she could never ask him, nor anyone of his household. She tightened her thick winter shawl over her round belly, and watched the minister step towards the lectern, bow low to his lordship, and begin.

  The service—the new service, as designed by the parliament and delivered by the Church that obeyed them—went through the usual prayers and readings. But when it came to the sermon the minister looked at the men at the back of the church and said, “Edward Ferryman, are you there?”

  “Present!” Ned replied with the promptness of an old soldier at roll call.

  “Would you tell us what you have witnessed in London, so that we may all know what has befallen the king who betrayed his people?”

  The men either side of Ned parted to make him a path to the chancel steps. He came cautiously forward.

  “I was not party to any councils or explanations,” he said. “I can only tell you what I saw.”

  “The view of an honest man. The report of an honest man is all we want from you,” the minister assured him, and some of the more godly parishioners said: “Amen.”

  Alinor found she was holding her hands tightly under the shelter of her shawl. She did not know what Sir William would make of Ned’s report; she did not know if Ned might, with this encouragement, overstep the line of deference. Rob glanced upwards over his shoulder, to the gallery where his mother stood, and she knew he would be thinking the same thing. His apprenticeship in Chichester did not start till the next day. His chance could be blighted before it had even begun.

  Ned walked to the minister and then turned to the people in the church. He bowed slightly to Sir William, who gestured that he should speak.

  “King Charles was put on trial for eight days,” he said. “I was present from first till last. I was there on the first day in Westminster Hall, when they brought him in.”

  Alinor saw Sir William shift slightly in his seat.

  “There were more than sixty judges sitting to hear how the king answered the accusation of tyranny and betrayal of the people,” Ned went on.

  The door at the back of the church opened for a latecomer, but no one turned at the gust of cold air. The congregation was completely attentive to Ned’s story.

  “The king did not speak as they read the charges, and when he did speak he refused to plead guilty or not guilty.”

  “Why?” someone called out. “Why would he not speak up?”

  “He spoke,” Ned specified. “He spoke. But he would not plead.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Ned admitted. “It was a lawyer’s argument.”

  There was a quiet rumble of disapproval. “But why didn’t they let the king answer?”

  “It was he that would not speak to them. They called witnesses against him, in a smaller room, but he did not even attend. Men who had seen him on the battlefield taking arms against his own people. They had many witnesses for that. I saw it myself.”

  “May I speak?”

  Everyone in the body of the church turned to the doorway to see the latecomer, but he was standing beneath the public gallery and neither Alinor nor Alys could see who it was.

  “I, too, was at the trial. I, too, have come directly from London.”

  Alinor recognized his voice at once, cramming her fist against her mouth so she did not cry out, biting her fingers against the sudden wave of faintness.

  “Who is it?” Alys nudged her mother.

  “I don’t know,” Alinor whispered.

  He walked up the central nave of the church, the collar of his dark traveling cape set square on his shoulders, the hem of it brushing the tops of his polished riding boots. Alinor, looking down from the gallery, could see only his hat, and when he doffed it, his dark curly head. She could see nothing but his assured stride to the chancel steps and the swirl of his expensive cape.

  “Is that you? Mr. Summer?” the minister asked.

  James bowed to Sir William and then stood before the minister. “It is I, James Summer, tutor to Sir William’s son, Walter. I was in London for business, and I attended the trial of the king. Now I am here for a brief visit to Sir William. I should be happy to tell you what I understood and add my witness to that of Edward Ferryman’s.”

  The preacher made a gesture, inviting James
to bear witness. James turned towards the congregation and nodded at Ned. For the first time Alinor saw his face. He was pale. His determined expression made him look older than when she had seen him last, drunk with desire, recklessly in love. She put her hand on her belly and felt the child stir as if he knew his father had come for him.

  “It is just as Edward Ferryman says,” James confirmed. “The king would not plead for two reasons. He said that the court was not legally created: there has never been a court commissioned by parliament. There have only been courts commissioned by kings. And he said that no court could try a king who was ordained by God.” James paused. “Legally, I think his argument was good. But it would mean that no king could ever be tried by his people; and the parliament and the judges were convinced that the king should answer.”

  “He’d made war on us,” Ned interrupted. “And when he promised peace he broke his promise. He brought the Scots down on us, and he was planning to bring the Irish against us. What d’you think his wife, his papist wife, is doing in Paris, if not trying to persuade the French to invade us? What d’you think his son is doing in The Hague but meeting with our enemies? All enemies of Englishmen! Tell me this: if he was at war with Englishmen, allied to our enemies, commanding our enemies, how was he our king?”

  There was a murmur in the church supporting Ned. Everyone had suffered during the wars, many had lost fathers, brothers, and sons who followed Sir William to the disaster at Marston Moor.

  “I think it is a tragedy,” James said frankly. “I think he was ill-advised from the beginning, but I wish, at the end, that he would have pleaded guilty and gone into exile.”

  “Aye, but would he have stayed in exile?” Ned demanded hotly. “He was in prison for years, and he wouldn’t stay in prison.”

  James bowed his head and then looked up to meet Ned’s furious gaze. “Perhaps not,” he said calmly. “But I know that he lost good men, when he lost the loyalty of men like you.”

  “Nothing to do with me!” Ned shrugged off the compliment. “It’s nothing to do with what you think of me, or what you think of him. It’s wrong for a king to be a tyrant to his people and we have stopped him. From this day on there will never be a tyrant ruling Englishmen. We will be free.”

  James nodded and said nothing. Sir William shifted in his chair and bowed his head, as if in thought.

  “Did he make a godly end?” the minister asked.

  Ned glanced at James, but answered for both of them. “Aye, he did. There were thousands watching in the street outside the palace, and they told us that he spent the night in prayer. He stepped out bravely enough, put his head on the block, and signaled that he was ready. The public executioner beheaded him with one blow.”

  There was a sigh all around the church. Somewhere in the gallery a woman was weeping.

  “God will judge him now,” James said. “And that is a court to which we all must come.”

  “Amen,” the minister said. “And now I have to call the banns for a marriage for the third and final time.”

  The two men, Alinor’s brother and her lover, turned without looking at each other again and Ned took up his place at the back of the church among the workingmen, and James stood beside Sir William’s chair.

  “I publish the banns for the marriage of Alys Reekie, spinster of this parish, and Richard Stoney, bachelor of Sidlesham,” the minister said.

  Alinor felt Alys’s hand come into hers, and she squeezed it and found a smile for her daughter.

  “This is the third and final time of asking.”

  There was a little ripple of interest and pleasure from the congregation, and young Richard Stoney, attending St. Wilfrid’s to hear his banns called, craned around and looked up into the women’s gallery and winked at Alys.

  “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it.”

  “Does anyone ever stand up and declare an impediment?” Alys whispered to her mother.

  “No,” Alinor replied. “Who would try to make a bigamous marriage on Sealsea Island where everyone knows everyone else’s business?”

  “The marriage will take place next Sunday,” the minister declared.

  As they left the church Alinor knew that she must go and pay her respects to Sir William and meet James before the curious gaze of the entire congregation. With Alys and Rob on either side of her, and Ned following reluctantly behind, she walked across the frosty grass and curtseyed to her landlord, keeping her eyes fixed on his expressionless face.

  “Mrs. Reekie.” He nodded at her and at Ned, but had a smile for Rob. “How now, Robert?”

  “I’m well, sir. Going to Chichester tomorrow.”

  “All arranged, is it?” Sir William looked over his shoulder to Mr. Tudeley.

  “Yes, the boy’s expected, and I will go myself to pay his fee tomorrow, when his mother signs his articles.”

  “We’re very grateful,” Alinor said.

  “And here’s your patient. D’you think he’s looking well?”

  Alinor dropped a curtsey to James and finally turned towards him. She felt physically shocked by the warmth of his smile and the intensity of his gaze. She felt frozen as if she could not step towards him and fall into his arms, nor could she run away. She swallowed, but she could not speak. She felt his baby heavy in her belly and could not believe that he did not know that he had fathered the child that she carried. She wrapped her shawl closely about her as if to shield her swelling belly, and said, “I’m glad to see you look so well, Mr. Summer.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Reekie,” he said. “I am glad to see you again. And how is my pupil?”

  Rob grinned. “Keeping up my Latin,” he said. “Sir William lets me borrow books from his library. Have you seen Walter, sir?”

  “He’s very grand now that he’s at Cambridge,” James laughed. “But I hope to visit him after term starts.”

  “And you’re to be married?” His lordship nodded at Alys. “Young man from Sidlesham parish?”

  Alys turned and beckoned to Richard, and he came up and made a respectful bow to Sir William. Alinor noticed the carefully graded deference: Richard Stoney was the son of a freeholder, not a Peachey tenant, and he would never forget the difference.

  “Wish you happy,” Sir William said without much interest. He nodded to Mr. Tudeley to give Alys a shilling, and then turned back to Rob: “You can come for dinner.” Pointedly he did not extend the invitation to Alinor or Alys, who were out of favor as the women in the household of a roundhead. Clearly, he was not going to even acknowledge Ned, who stood to one side, hat in hand, stubbornly not bowing.

  “Thank you,” Rob said easily. “And I will write to you, sir, when I start work at Chichester.”

  His lordship nodded and turned away, ignoring Ned. James glanced back for one look at Alinor, and then followed his lordship, while the congregation, released from deference, crowded around Ned to ask him more about the trial, about the execution, and about the parliament, and what about London itself, now that it was a royal city without a king anymore?

  Alinor and Alys walked back to Ferry-house along the bank of the harbor with Ned following behind them, accompanied by people walking part of the way, to ask for more details of the trial and execution. Ned answered everyone patiently. His own sense of pride in having been a witness to great events made him glad to tell his story over and over again. Nothing had ever been heard like it in the tidelands. Nothing like it had ever been heard in England. It was the end of one sort of world and the start of another.

  The sea was coming in, so the people from the mainland, who had earlier walked across the frozen wadeway to church, now wanted the ferry across the rife, and Alys let Ned take the fees and pull the ferry across.

  “D’you remember how to do it?” she taunted him. “Haven’t your hands gone too soft for the rope?”

  “I swear I’d forgotten how cold it is,” he replied.

  He came
into the house blowing on his fingers and stood by the fire as Alinor raked the embers and put on a big log of driftwood.

  “Before I went away,” he said quietly so that Alys, upstairs in the bedroom, would not hear, “you said that you would need my help and you would tell me when I returned.”

  Alinor did not know what she should say. Clearly, she must speak to James. They would decide together what to do, and how the news should be announced.

  “It’s Alys,” she said. “She’s with child.”

  Ned was not shocked. In the country, especially in areas as remote as the tidelands, many couples married in the old way: a promise to marry, and then a long time of courtship and lovemaking while finding a house or saving for marriage. Many brides carried a big belly on their wedding day. Some had a child or even two walking behind them to the altar.

  “Did they promise to each other before God? They hand-fasted and prayed together? It’s a godly union? She’s not been light or wanton? He didn’t force her?”

  “Oh, no,” Alinor assured him. “They’re sure of each other, fully betrothed. And he’s given her a ring. It’s the dowry that they’re waiting on. That’s my worry. The parents insist on it. That’s why we’ve been scraping around in such a rush.”

  “Why the hurry?”

  “Alys wants to have the baby in the Stoney farmhouse that he’s to inherit. She’d like him to be born into the family, with his father’s name.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve not come home any richer,” Ned said. “It’s a place of terrible expense, London. But she’s had the fees from the ferry. She can add it up and tell us if she’s short. I’ll come with you to Stoney Farm tomorrow and talk with them, if you need me. And didn’t young Richard promise his inheritance?”