Anne of the Fens (7 page)

“When have you ever been hungry in the night? You cannot keep food under my bed. I do not want mice running over me.”

I was beginning to run out of ideas. Lying was hard. “In fact, I did not want to tell you, but it is something Simon told me about. It is a strange Catholic ritual, like Communion. I will get up in the middle of the night and eat the food and then make a wish.”

“That is the silliest thing I have ever heard. You are lying.”

So I told her the truth as we lay in the bed. The rain had stopped, the sky was clear, and a part of the moon was visible through our window. The night was so warm I threw off my coverlet. Patience made sounds of wonder and scolded me for not having told her before. It was good to have someone to talk to about what John looked like and what I had felt.

“But you cannot marry an outlaw.”

Patience is always practical. I had not got so far in my thinking to reach marriage.

“No, and even if I could, he is probably going off to America, and I should never want to do that.”

Patience shuddered. “To give up our castle, our bed so warm we need no covers, to live with bears and wolves and lions.”

Nothing she said could have been better preparation for taking the food to John. I had no intention of curtseying and leaving without a word, but I vowed to keep my distance from a man whom I could never marry.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

I
FELL SOUNDLY
asleep, and would have slept through the twelve o'clock church bell, but Patience heard it and woke me. I put on a rose-colored skirt over my shift. I liked it, though was not my best one, which would look like I was primping.

I heard a rustle as I leaned under the bed to gather my tray. Patience was right, the mice had found the trencher. I could not see how much damage they had done in the night, without a candle, but I picked up the plate and made my way downstairs. This night, I heard nothing in the halls or staircase and I went easily to the secret room.

John had a candle already lit and he was sitting on his bed, dressed this time. He was wearing blue — dark blue trousers over a light blue shift. It made me notice the blue of his eyes all over again. Blue eyes with dark hair are so rare, and especially handsome. I wondered if he had thought of me, as he dressed, the way that I had thought of him when I chose the rose skirt. Most likely he was already dressed, and the blue clothes were all that he had.

I placed the tray upon the oak chest. I did not curtsey but I was prepared to say a few words and leave.

“I told you I should find a way to see you again,” he said. He explained that he had told my father that he lacked a woman's way with food. Father had taken it to heart, as John had intended.

His smile was just as I had remembered, only sweeter. My resolve weakened.

“And you have brought me a much finer dinner than your father did.”

I could see the tray clearly now in the candlelight, and while there were a few suspicious crumbs around the tart, there were no other signs that mice had been there. I decided not to mention mice to John.

He beckoned to the stool, and I found myself sitting on it. Near me on the floor there was a plate with a well-gnawed bone on it.

John was drinking the ale down with a will.

“A day without anything to drink is hard,” I said.

“Indeed. And it is hard to be confined to such a small room with nothing to do but read forbidden books.”

“Have you read anything interesting?”

He told me about Chaucer and the story of the pilgrims. It sounded quite a proper story to me, and I wondered aloud why the book was in this room.

“Hmm.” For a moment John sounded like Father. “Some of the pilgrims, like the wife of Bath, have had adventures that Reverend Cotton would not approve of.”

He would not tell me more.

I asked if he had read any Shakespeare.

“No, perhaps tomorrow.”

I began to tell him the plot of
Romeo and Juliet
. I stopped with a start. I realized first that I might spoil the story for him, and then that I should not be speaking this way with a man I could not marry. I rose and prepared to leave, taking the platter with the gnawed bone. I left the plate I had brought, as he had not finished it.

“Stay.”

It sounded heartfelt, and I wanted to stay, but I forced myself out of the room. I wondered if he was just lonely, or if it was my company in particular that he wanted.

“Tomorrow I will bring more ale,” I promised. I had not thought about how much a person drinks in a day.

As I was shutting the door, I met his eyes and could hardly leave. He said softly as he smiled, “Just bring yourself.”

T
HE MOMENT
I opened the door to our room, Patience said, “Well?”

“I left after a few moments, just as you said I should.”

“But you did talk, I can tell. There is something in your voice.”

As we lay there in the dark I told her everything, how John had spoken to Father, and each thing he had said to me, and I to him, and about his smile.

“Anne, you must not fall in love with him, you must not. He will leave and your heart will break.”

I said I would certainly not fall in love with him. I knew, even as I said it, that I could not promise any such thing. Patience knew it too, I thought, from the way she squeezed my hand in the dark.

I dreamed that night of a white horse that was wild and running through the marshes. He saw me, stopped, and then approached. I held out an apple in my hand, and he came to me without any fear. I got onto his back, and we raced through the fens so fast I could not see the ground beneath me.

When I woke up the next morning, I remembered that one cannot race through the fens on a horse, as it is too wet, and the horse must go extremely slowly, to avoid getting up to its hocks and breaking them with the sudden movements.

“Dreams are dreams,” I said to myself, and got up.

A
FTER BREAKFAST
M
OTHER
set Patience and me the task of re-hemming Sarah and Baby Mercy's skirts, since they had grown out of them. It was laborious, as their skirts were so full and there were so many stitches.

Since the day was fine, we sat outside, to the side of the castle on a small knoll where the grass was thick. A breeze carried the flies away, and we sat upwind of the smell from the moat. Sarah and Baby Mercy stayed with us, and Sarah made merry at our expense.

The day before, Mother had put Sarah to lengthening her own skirts. She had made such a mess of the stitches, and the hem had been so uneven on the first skirt, that Mother had taken it from her. She said that however slovenly Sarah was willing to look, she, her mother, did not want to be seen with such a slothful hog of a daughter. Once again, I thought as I pushed the needle through the heavy linen petticoat, pricking my finger — Sarah had gotten her own way.

Strangely, when Sarah wins, she is seldom contrite. Instead, it seems to spur her on to new feats of disobedience and willfulness. She was merciless that day, running up to pull my hair when I was not watching, untying Patience's sash on her skirt over and over like a kitten, and pushing Baby Mercy into the mud at the bottom of the knoll so that she cried and had to have her clothes changed. What was most irksome was that because she and Baby Mercy were there, Patience and I could not talk about what was on our minds, or at least on my mind.

As we sat there in the sun, Patience had to re-thread and she dropped her needle. Cursing herself as a stupid hedgepig, she felt around in the grass and then stood up to go back into the castle for another. Sarah and Mercy decided to go in with her, leaving me a moment's peace.

After Patience had gone, I saw Marianne running away from the basement entrance to the castle, flushed and out of breath. When I beckoned to her, she stopped running and walked toward me. I asked her what had happened, and she held back a sob.

“Sit for a minute, then.”

She flung herself on the grass beside me and told her story. She had encountered Erik, the guardhouse keeper, in the basement where she had been sent to get a pomander for Arbella. Erik had cornered Marianne and tried to kiss her, and only by a quick movement had she managed to slip by him and get away. Once up the basement stairs, she had simply run.

“Just because I am a servant-girl does not mean my morals are loose. This happens so often.”

I was angry and said she must tell Arbella. She said she had, but there was little Arbella could do for her except tell her to threaten the men. And now that the Earl was gone, she had even less authority.

“Part of the problem is that you are beautiful.”

She waved her hand impatiently. “Beauty is not helping me find a husband. There are only local clods from the village with whom I would always be hungry.” She paused then continued shyly, looking down at the grass as she ran her fingers through it. “Sometimes I dream,” she said. She told me about the Earl's visitors and how she had met a lord's valet she fancied.

I told her that to me her dreams sounded as if they could come true.

“But what happens when a man finds out I am Catholic?”

I had no answer. We sat there in silence, her fair face mournful. And then I thought of something.

“Simon! He would not care if you are Catholic. He has just shown me a paper he has written about tolerance.”

Her face lit up and she sat up suddenly, her knees bent and showing more of her ankles under the long skirt than was proper. “He would be lovely. He is handsome, and kind, and rich and ... don't you fancy him yourself?”

I smiled a little sadly. “I am not blind. I have also noticed that he is handsome, and he has always been kind to me. I have tried many times to capture his fancy, but he never responds. I guess he is too old for me. His ideas are old. He is always talking about politics and history, and often it is boring. He is the teacher, and I am the student.”

I told her what happened if I mentioned romance or love to Simon, like about King Charles and his romantic journey, and how he accused me of being a silly, sentimental girl. She laughed.

“You are wrong on one count,” I said. “He is not rich.”

“In my world he is rich.”

I thought she was saying that I did not understand her position, and she was probably right.

“He is above my station, but if you introduced me in the right way it might be possible.”

Patience was returning, and Marianne stood up.

“Yes, Simon values intelligence, and I can tell him you are not only beautiful but also intelligent.”

She smiled and walked away.

P
ATIENCE AND
I sewed and talked and enjoyed the blue sky and puffy clouds and tried to keep Sarah from tormenting Mercy. It was time for the evening meal before I knew.

There was a lovely soup of early summer squash flavored with dill seed, and a mash of peas, and a joint of venison, which we all attacked with a will.

Father, once again, was missing from the table. At the end of the meal two servants came to carry the food away, so like the night before I took a large empty platter and began to pile it high.

“Who is that for?” asked Sarah. She spoke loud enough that all looked up from the table at me.

“Speak when you are spoken to,” I said absently, as I continued to pile mashed peas on the plate. “It is for Father.”

“Is not.”

I looked up from the peas to see that Sarah was no longer sitting at her place next to mine at the table, but standing up and pointing at me.

“She is lying, Mother. I know she is. She is supposed to be so good, she and Patience, but she is lying. Last night she said the food was for Father and she carried it to her room, and in the morning it was gone!”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I looked at Patience, and she too was speechless. Finally Mother came to my rescue.

“Sarah, you graceless child, hold your tongue. What your sister does is no concern of yours. Mind your own Godless behavior — telling tales, speaking to hurt another — or you shall be in deeper trouble than you already are.”

I took a deep breath and finished filling the plate as fast as I could. I poured ale into the largest tankard at the table, and placed a bowl of soup on the trencher. Balancing the trencher in one hand and holding the tankard in the other, I sped out of the room before Sarah could say anything more.

I took the food and again hid it under my bed. I paced up and down the little room, from the bed to the oak chest to the window to the bed. Two servants had been present when Sarah shouted her accusations. They would talk. Then there were the footsteps I had heard the night before last when I had gone to the secret room. What if someone had been watching?

It could have been Sarah but it could also have been servants. If it were known that John was in the house, the Sheriff's men would come to look for him. They would find the secret room if they looked under the tapestries.

I did not love him, no I did not, so why was my heart beating so fast? I wanted to see him, that was all. Midnight would come, but it seemed it would take forever.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

F
INALLY MIDNIGHT CAME
. Once again, I thought I heard someone move as I started down the stairs, but I waited for a minute and then there was quiet. I had a hard time balancing the wooden trencher in the dark — the night before I had not brought soup. I tripped on the uneven stone stairs that Mother was always complaining about, and the platter slipped from my grip. I managed to catch it before it landed on the stairs, but soup spilled all over everything, including me. My green skirt and my arms were wet. I had rubbed rose petals against my forehead and my neck and wrists. Now I would smell of summer squash, not roses.

I opened the door to the secret room to see John standing. He had heard me coming. The room carried his own scent, not of flowers or soup, but just his body.