I, Coriander (17 page)

That was the first time I met Master Gabriel Appleby. I was mighty scared in case anyone saw us talking. Then, much to my surprise, he climbed over the garden wall to see me again. I was near lost for words, but I took what courage I had and told him everything, and the worst of it was that I was sure you were dead. He was so kind, and I just wanted to rest my head on his shoulder. He said he would take me back to Master Thankless’s with him, but I knew my legs would never make it.

Then Master Thankless and the sea captain came to the door.

22

Green Fire

‘T
hat is all I have to say,’ said Hester. ‘I hope my words stand tall and straight and speak the honest truth for me.’

‘Hester, they do more than that,’ I said. ‘They show you are brave and true like your father.’

Hester’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I regret much that I did not speak to your father and tell him the truth,’ she sobbed.

‘He would not have heard you in a thousand years of headless kings,’ I said, ‘for all he could hear was the sound of his own grief.’

Hester’s words stood more than tall and straight. They were like spears that went through me.

My mother was still alive when Rosmore told Maud to marry my father. What part had she played in my mother’s death? My heart sank, for I knew then, as clear as light, that she was after the shadow. I did not know where it was, for the last time I had seen it it had been in the ebony casket, and I knew the study was now empty.

I willed Hester to get better with all speed, so that I could get back to Thames Street.

Winter had passed and spring made its welcome return. The river thawed and flooded the banks on the Southwark side, giving the ferrymen employment after the frozen winter.

It was not only the river that had thawed. The customers who came to the shop were beginning to talk more openly while choosing their fabrics and having their gowns fitted. They even dared to grumble about the closure of the theatres and the banning of Christmas and the maypole. Last spring such talk would have been thought dangerous. I began to hope that maybe now it was safe for my father to come home.

Master Thankless, swept up with the moment, took the Bible from the counter and put it away in a drawer and talked about hanging up his old sign, the one that said
By Appointment to the King
. Other more solemn gentlemen who came to have their black doublets fitted argued that Cromwell was a stronger man and people were very much mistaken if they thought he would not take the crown for himself.

‘Why would we want another king when we have one alive and well and living as poor as a church mouse in Holland?’ said others.

I loved listening to all the talk. As Master Thankless said, there was nothing so good for bringing out the tittle-tattle as the fitting of gowns and doublets. The best gossip was about Arise and Maud, and I enjoyed much hearing how the mighty had fallen.

‘Who would believe that she would let the house get into that state?’

‘I heard all the furniture was gone.’

‘What was she thinking of, I should like to know, letting that crooked preacher live with her?’

‘And when you think of Mistress Eleanor Hobie, such a kind and lovely lady! She helped me with my ague.’

‘And the daughter is sick in bed. No one knows if she’ll walk again.’

Then they would whisper very quietly, ‘And what about Coriander? Can you explain that one to me, my dear?’

And all would end up saying, ‘What would Master Hobie say if he were here?’

Then one bitterly cold night I was woken by Gabriel, who said that he had seen green flames coming from my house. I got dressed with all haste and went down to the shop. From the back window you could clearly see Thames Street, though nothing looked amiss.

‘Forgive me,’ said Gabriel. ‘I should not have alarmed you, though on my life I swear I saw green flames.’

‘I believe you,’ I said, and taking our cloaks we went out into the street. All was deserted. A thin veil of powdery snow lay undisturbed over the cobbles.

‘Who goes there?’ we heard someone call. ‘Is that you, Appleby?’

‘Yes,’ shouted Gabriel as the night watchman came into view.

‘Thought as much,’ he said, holding up his lantern. ‘And who is your companion?’

‘Coriander Hobie.’

‘And what brings you two out on such a night?’

‘I have seen flames coming from Thames Street,’ said Gabriel.

‘I have just come back from there myself. I saw them too,’ said the night watchman. ‘All most strange. But there is no fire, as far as I can tell.’

Snow had started to fall and I began to shiver and my teeth to chatter.

‘Come on with you both,’ said the night watchman kindly. ‘It is too cold to be standing out here talking.’

He took us back to his gatehouse and sat us down in front of a warm fire. ‘I tell you I will be a happy man to see daylight,’ he said, as he handed us two mugs of hot toddy and took once more to looking up and down Bridge Street. ‘I should not say this,’ he went on, ‘but I am mighty pleased to have your company, for this night has fair given me the frights, even set the hairs on the back of my dog to stand upright. Never seen him so affected.’

The dog lay by the fire looking towards the door, while his master told us what he had seen.

The night watchman had just called twelve o’clock when he heard the sound of a carriage coming over the bridge from the Southwark side. He went to have a look, for it was going at quite a lick and the street was slippery on account of the snow.

‘I have not seen so grand a carriage for a long time,’ said the night watchman. ‘It was pulled by four mighty handsome midnight black horses, and the coachmen wore red.’

‘Where did it go?’ I asked, feeling a chill run down my spine.

‘That’s what makes me think it must be the Devil,’ said the night watchman. ‘It vanished, didn’t it, as it got towards the City end of the bridge. God be my witness, for I do not tell a lie, it did not leave one mark in the snow, nothing to show it had ever passed. Now my missus, she’s one for believing in the fairies and all sorts, but not me. I have no time for that nonsense, though I tell you truly I can make not head nor tail of what I saw.’

With a beating heart I asked, ‘Did the carriage come back again?’

‘No,’ said the night watchman.

‘Did you see anything else?’ asked Gabriel.

‘A raven. That is what I saw, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘A monstrous great black raven flew after the carriage. It made my flesh creep. What do you make of that?’

What I made of it I could not tell him, for I felt too alarmed by all he had said.

‘Strange indeed,’ said Gabriel.

We were just saying our farewells when a constable appeared at the door. He too seemed most agitated.

‘Did you see green flames coming from Thames Street?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ said the night watchman, ‘and so did young Appleby.’

‘All most odd,’ said the constable. ‘I just came back from there, though I could see no sign of any fire. The neighbours said they had seen green flames, and a black carriage standing outside the house.’

‘Did you see the carriage?’ asked Gabriel.

‘No,’ said the constable, ‘and I do not think there ever was a carriage, for there were no wheel marks in the snow.’

We left the night watchman and the constable talking, and made our way back to the tailor’s shop. As we turned the door handle, I fair jumped out of my skin to hear the squawk of a bird. I turned round to see the raven fly away out over the river. Never had I felt more fear than I did then, for I knew, and had known the minute the night watchman had told us about the carriage, that its passenger was none other than Queen Rosmore, in search of the shadow.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Gabriel. ‘You look pale. Were you frightened?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It is just tiredness.’ And went back to my bed, though I did not sleep again. Instead I lay awake wondering what to do and knowing that time was running out. I had to get back to my house on Thames Street, but how?

I remembered my father saying that the river is never the same, that it is always changing, each tide bringing in the new, sucking out the old, though on the surface nothing seems altered. So it was with me. Just when I felt at my lowest ebb, when I knew not what to do, everything changed once more. For into Master Thankless’s shop came Danes.

A
nd so the fourth part of my tale is told, and with it another candle goes out.

PART FIVE

23

Confessions

O
n the evening of Danes’s return, Master Thankless sent Nell out to buy one of Mistress Garnet’s venison pies.

‘Only the best, mind you,’ he said.

‘There is no need to go to all this trouble,’ said Danes.

‘Nonsense,’ said Master Thankless cheerfully, putting up the shutters and closing the door on the day’s business. ‘Today is a day for celebration, for you have come home to us.’

I could not let Danes out of my sight, worried that if I did she might disappear again. Master Thankless, seeing how anxious I was to talk to her alone, said, ‘Coriander, make yourself useful and show Mistress Danes to her chamber.’

I took her upstairs and we sat by the window overlooking the river.

‘What a beauty you are,’ she said. ‘You look so like your mother. Oh, my sparrow, it has been the longest and thinnest of times. I near lost heart that I would ever see you again.’

‘Where have you been?’ I asked.

Danes shook her head. ‘I went to France, then to the Netherlands, in search of your father. Alas, I never found him, but not for the lack of trying. Finally, I stumbled on Master and Mistress Bedwell. They offered to help, though when all is said and done there was little they could do, for they too were afraid to go back to London. By then I felt I had wasted too much time and all that concerned me was getting back here again. Travel, as you know, is not easy. Now, I have said enough. Just let us leave it be.’ She sighed and took my face in her hands. ‘More to the point, my little sparrow, where did you fly off to?’

Checking that we were alone, I whispered what I knew and for the first time in this world said the names that I had been keeping locked away in my heart. I told her about Medlar, about Tycho, Queen Rosmore, and Cronus. I told her about King Nablus and Unwin, the summer palace and the wedding. I told her of the liquid mirror and the shadow.

She shuddered. ‘I hate to think what would have happened to you if there had been no Medlar.’

‘Do you know anything about my mother’s past?’ I asked.

Danes turned away and looked out of the window. Then she said very quietly, as if the words came not from her but from the breeze, ‘I once saw her shadow.’

I felt the weather in me change, the heavy clouds lifting and breath filling my body once again.

When Danes told me what had happened three months before my mother died, it was as if a candle had been brought into a dark room, and I knew then, with a shock, that that must have been the time Rosmore first visited Maud.