The Herb of Grace (4 page)

Lady Anne jerked as if she had been scratched by a cat's claw.

‘How . . . how did you know?' she gasped. ‘No one . . . knew! Only Jeremy . . . but it was a lie! A lie I told him to try and keep him with me. It did not work. He went anyway, and then when I discovered I was truly having a baby I thought . . . oh, I thought all would be well! Jeremy would come home and we'd have a little darling baby and all would be well . . . but the Bible tells us “the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness”, and so I brought this sorrow down on my own head by my own sin, it is all my fault that Jeremy died and I
lost the baby, all my fault, and I shall never be able to forgive myself, never . . .'

Her words poured out as though some kind of dam had broken in her, and she wept and sobbed as she spoke, rocking back and forth in her chair.

Luka looked longingly at the door. Surprised and sorry, Emilia went and knelt by Lady Anne, putting her arms about her gaunt figure.

‘My lady, do you mean . . . you were with babe? And you lost it?' Martha's voice quavered.

‘Aye, I was. No one knew. I didn't know! I had told him I was, but it was a lie, and he went away anyway. It didn't make him stay.' She caught her breath in a sob. ‘Then when I realised . . . I was so glad, I thought he'd never need to know I had lied to him. But then the news came that he was dead. I fell down, in such pain . . . I knew I was going to lose the baby too . . . it was punishment for my sin . . .'

‘What sin?' Emilia asked.

‘I lied!' Lady Anne said passionately. ‘To my own husband!'

‘It wasn't a lie,' Emilia said. ‘You were with babe. You may not have discovered it yet, it's true, but my Baba says people often know things without realising it.'

‘Revelations tells us that all liars will end in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.' Lady Anne spoke with black certainty.

‘You didn't lie. You told the truth. Your mind may not have known it, but your heart did,' Emilia said. ‘Mothers always know, don't they?'

Lady Anne stared at her for a moment, then began to weep again, a softer, more gentle outburst than the dreadful sobbing of before. ‘So . . . you think . . .'

‘You did nothing wrong,' Martha said, patting her shoulder. ‘It was not your fault your husband died, it was the fault of the war. And it was the shock of hearing of his death that made you lose
the baby. Do you think God would really punish you by taking the life of a little unborn babe? I do not believe it!'

‘Then why did God take Jeremy away?' Lady Anne cried.

‘He died fighting for the Good Old Cause,' Martha said with utter certainty. ‘His death was not in vain.'

‘For the Good Old Cause!' Lady Anne spat. ‘I hate the Good Old Cause! Jeremy should never have left me. There was no need for him to go. Yet he and my brother James were so full of ideals. They thought they were going to fight for a better world, one where kings did not feast while their people were starving, one where people had a say in how they were to be governed. Yet both of them are dead now, and my baby too, and what did they gain? Nothing. Nothing! Cromwell is as great a tyrant as the king ever was, and we are all poorer than ever. Jeremy should never have put the Good
Old Cause ahead of me and the baby. People are more important than ideals!'

‘My lord did what he felt was right,' Martha said awkwardly. ‘Charles Stuart refused to be guided by Parliament. It was a most tyrannical rule, and one which was eroding the true religion. This was not just a war to stop the tyranny of kings, it was a war to prove how the Lord should be worshipped.'

Lady Anne said quietly, ‘Do you think I would not gladly say the Mass if that would bring back Jeremy and my little one, Martha? I know that I shock you, and I am sorry for that. But I cannot help how I feel. So many people dead, one man in every ten, they say, and for what? Is the way we choose to worship our God important enough to tear apart families, and destroy homes, and pull down all that is of value in this world?'

Martha lifted the corner of her apron and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I . . . I'm sorry,' she managed to say. ‘I wish . . .'

‘There is no turning back time,' Lady Anne said. ‘I realise that now.' She scrubbed her face with her handkerchief. ‘Lord knows if I could turn the clock back through weeping and praying, we would still be back in the first days of my honeymoon, before ever the king and Parliament locked horns!'

‘Me too,' Emilia said. ‘We'd be back to before my mumma died, if
I
could turn back time.'

‘Your mother is dead?' Lady Anne gazed at her in pity.

Emilia nodded. ‘My father too.'

‘I'm so sorry,' Lady Anne said.

‘I'm sorry too, but what can I do?' Emilia said. ‘Life has to go on.'

‘Aye,' Lady Anne said, and squared her shoulders, putting away her handkerchief.

Luka, who never knew what to say when people began to weep, had brought in some more firewood, drawn some water and stoked up the
fire. Martha made them all a fresh pot of tea. After she had drunk three cups, Lady Anne was in a much brighter frame of mind.

‘I think . . . I think I would like to go out and sit in the garden this afternoon,' she said. ‘It's been so long since I've felt the sun on my face.'

‘Aye, that's a wonderful idea,' Emilia said.

‘And perhaps you might like to go to church on Sunday,' Martha suggested.

‘But everyone would stare at me . . .' Lady Anne faltered.

‘Go into Guildford and go to church there,' Luka suggested. ‘No one will know who you are. You can see the committee while you are there, and ask them for help. Life would be much easier for you both if you were being paid your widow's pension.'

‘I . . . I don't think I can,' she breathed, shrinking back on herself.

‘Why not?' Luka asked.

‘I couldn't go to Guildford,' Lady Anne repeated, crossing her arms about her body.

‘I could, though,' Martha said. ‘If you'd permit me, my lady. I could lodge an appeal for you.'

Lady Anne hesitated. ‘But I'd be left all alone...'

‘It'd only be for a day,' Martha said eagerly. ‘Think if you should be granted your pension, my lady! We could afford to hire a man to help care for the pigs and the cow, and to till some of the fields. The whole estate is going to rack and ruin, my lady, but if we had a little money . . . why, then we could bring the whole place back to life!'

Lady Anne sat silent a moment, brooding and bitter, then pressed her lips together and nodded her head sharply. ‘Well then,' she said. ‘Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is time for us all to come back to life.'

G
UILDFORD
, S
URREY
, E
NGLAND
17th August 1658

V
ery early the next day, Martha brought a small cart round to the front door.

Emilia and Luka were standing on the front porch, their backpack at their feet. It was neatly packed with some fresh bread, some hard-boiled eggs, a round cheese in wax, and as many apples as they liked, picked up from under the trees in the old orchard. It was all the food Martha could spare, but it seemed like a feast to the children.
The bag was so full Luka could no longer fit in his fiddle, and he carried it cradled in his arm like a baby.

‘I wish you would stay,' Lady Anne said, holding onto the door with both hands. She looked more haggard than ever, as if she had wept all night, but her head was held high and there was a new resoluteness in her face.

‘We can't,' Luka said. ‘We must get onto the New Forest and find our kin.'

‘You can catch one of those newfangled stagecoaches from Guildford,' Martha said. ‘They run from London down to the ports every day now, I've heard. The New Forest is just across the harbour from Southampton. You'd be there tomorrow.'

Tomorrow! Luka and Emilia looked at each other in delight.

‘How much would it cost?' Luka said. He winced when Martha told him. It went against the grain
to pay to travel about the countryside. It would take them days on their own two feet, though.

‘I guess we'll have to bribe the coachman to let us take Rollo on board too,' he said gloomily. ‘I'll have to keep Zizi well hidden!'

‘It's worth it!' Emilia said. ‘We'll have the pigman eating our dust!'

Lady Anne gave her a puzzled glance, but merely said goodbye, giving her a brief, hard hug and muttering thanks in her ear. ‘I hope you find your kin,' she said.

‘I hope you get your money,' Emilia said back.

‘It seems so wrong, a woman petitioning the committee on her own behalf,' Lady Anne said. ‘I was always taught that girls must be meek and obedient, in subjection to their husbands and fathers. I would have been reprimanded most roundly by my father if I had ever spoken out to a man, on any matter, let alone on the affairs of the estate.'

‘I only wish Emilia had been raised that way,' Luka teased. ‘My father always says it is because her father died when she was still so young that Emilia is so wayward.'

Emilia scowled. It always made her very cross when people said such things. She could see no reason why she should be subjected to the rule of a man just because she was a girl. It was the law of the land, though, that women could not own property or have any say in what happened to them in the world. Before a girl was married, she must be utterly obedient to her father's will, even if he decided to wed her to a humpbacked, squint-eyed, bald-headed, gout-ridden old tyrant. Once married, she belonged to her husband and had no money or rights of her own. Even if he whipped her every day, she had no hope of escape, and if she fought back and killed him, even by accident, she would be burnt alive at the stake – for this was considered not murder but treason.

Although the Rom in general lived by their own laws, they were no easier on girls than the
gorgios
. They, too, arranged marriages for their daughters, and once married, girls left their own families and lived with their husband's tribe, subject to the will of that tribe's leader. They could only hope for kindness and sympathy from their new tribe. Emilia thought of her sister Beatrice, who had met her husband-to-be for the first time at their betrothal feast, and had been so relieved that he was at least young and handsome, and seemed kind enough. Many times Emilia had wished that she was a boy, even though this would have meant she was kept from the secrets of the
drabardi
, for fortune-telling and spell-casting was an occupation only for women.

‘I envy Emilia her freedom,' Lady Anne said, turning to smile shyly at Emilia as if guessing her thoughts. ‘As a girl I would have loved to have gone exploring in the woods with Jeremy and my
brothers, but I was always made to stay at home and sew my sampler.'

‘I would have climbed out the window and followed them,' Emilia said hotly.

‘I would have been whipped if I had dared,' Lady Anne said. ‘Besides, it is a little difficult to climb out a window and run through the woods in a farthingale, which is what we used to wear when I was a child. I remember the hoops of some women were so wide, they had to go through doors sideways!'

‘Thank the Lord we are more sensible now,' Martha put in, smoothing down her heavy, dark skirt.

‘I liked my breeches,' Emilia said rebelliously. ‘I wish you hadn't burnt them!'

Martha flung up her hands in horror. ‘Oh, but it offends every propriety, that a girl should pretend to be a boy, and dress herself in men's clothing. I was quite horrified when I realised that you were a girl.'

‘My Dado told us that so many women followed the king's army, disguised as men, that he threatened the most terrible punishments to anyone who was caught,' Luka said mischievously. ‘Some were the wives or sweethearts of the soldiers, of course, but apparently lots were girls who just wanted to fight.'

‘The Lord preserve us!' Martha said.

The children laughed, and climbed up into the cart. Rollo jumped up beside them, his tail wagging, and Luka gave a piercing whistle. Zizi came swinging through the trees, her paws full of stolen apricots, another bulging in her cheek. She leapt up on to his shoulder and passed some down to Luka, who took them with solemn thanks.

‘Goodbye, Lady Anne!' Emilia cried. ‘I hope we see you again.'

‘Goodbye, my dear,' she called back, and let go of the door to run forward a few steps, smiling and waving.

They waved back, as Martha clicked to the pony and the cart began to move off. In a moment the dark tunnel of overgrown shrubs enclosed them, and the house was out of sight. Luka and Emilia lay back in the cart, staring up at the light-dappled leaves and eating apricots. It was good to feel the miles unrolling beneath the cart's wheels.

As they came closer to Guildford, the land grew more settled, with many farms and villages rising up to the rolling hills of the Downs. Luka and Emilia felt nervous about going into the town, for they still feared Coldham would be on their trail. There was no other choice, though, if they wished to catch the stagecoach, and so Luka tucked Zizi up inside his coat and did his best to look neat and proper.

The cart clattered up a cobblestone street, with tall buildings leaning overhead. Even though it was still only early, the town was already busy, with coaches and carts crowding the streets, and people
hurrying everywhere, wooden pattens on their feet to protect their shoes from the puddles.

Martha drew the cart up before a large white building with a sign of an angel hanging overhead. ‘This is the biggest inn in town,' she said. ‘The coach to Southampton will stop here, for sure.'

‘Thanks!' said Luka, gathering up his violin and the backpack.

Martha twisted round to look at them. ‘God go with you, my dears,' she said. ‘Truly it was Providence that brought you to us.'

Emilia kissed her wrinkled cheek then they jumped down from the back of the cart, Rollo leaping after them. They watched as the cart squeezed its way through a gap between a dray loaded with barrels and a boy with a handcart full of chickens, and disappeared down the road.

‘Now for the stagecoach!' Luka said, and turned to look up at the inn. Even at this early hour of the morning, the taproom was crowded
and a babel of voices drifted out through the doors along with a haze of blue smoke.

The two children went shyly in through a wide arched gateway to a bustling courtyard. A large coach was being pulled out of the carriage house, and the coachman was overseeing the disposal of the luggage on the roof. He was a big, beefy man with a red face and a heavy cape, and he was complaining loudly about the noise he had had to endure overnight.

Emilia hung back against the wall as Luka went to enquire about the time of departure from the ostlers. They were busy and impatient, but one shouted over his shoulder that the coach to Southampton would be leaving soon, and they could purchase a ticket from the public bar. Leaving Emilia outside with Rollo, Luka pushed open the swing door and went inside to the dark, smoky, crowded taproom. Although it was only early, men stood everywhere drinking and
smoking, and there was a roar of conversation. Luka listened closely, for he knew that the doings of the great men of the land had dire consequences for even the lowliest.

All the talk was of the death of Cromwell's daughter, Betty Claypole, and the Lord Protector's dreadful grief.

‘Tell us, is it true Old Ironsides fears foul play?' one man asked, lowering his mug of ale. ‘I heard he thinks his daughter was poisoned, and him too.'

‘The Lord Protector has been threatened with many assassination plots this past year,' a shrivelled-up stick of a man in a lawyer's gown said. ‘It is not surprising that he fears this latest bout of illness may have an unnatural source, particularly given its proximity to the death of his beloved daughter.'

‘If you ask me, it's all a set-up,' the man replied. ‘They just want us to fear for Old Ironsides' life, so we'll keep on paying taxes for all his soldiers.'

‘I assure you the threat is very real,' the lawyer replied stiffly. ‘I have had reports of a Royalist plot being uncovered this very week. One of Charles Stuart's right-hand men has been travelling incognito about the country, trying to raise another rebellion. We are lucky the plot was unmasked in time!'

‘I've heard that the King of Scots has his army drawn up at the waterside in France, ready to be shipped for England,' the innkeeper said, drawing another mug of ale.

‘Rubbish!' another said with a grin and a wink. ‘That young gentleman is too busy dancing and flirting at the French court to worry about us. I've heard he has a bevy of mistresses, each one more beautiful than the last.'

‘If you ask me, Old Crummy is a worse tyrant than the king ever was,' one drunk young man cried loudly. His friends tried to shush him, but he banged his tankard on the table, and said, ‘At least
when we had a king we were allowed a bit of fun! Bring back the maypoles, I say! And the morris dancers. What harm is there in a bit of dancing?'

He suddenly surged to his feet, raising high his glass. ‘I say, let's drink to His Majesty over the water! At least he's not a spoilsport!'

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Everyone looked away, putting their cups down in fear that they should be suspected of sharing in the treasonous toast. The drunk young man drained his cup to the dregs, though, and then banged loudly on the table for more, while his frightened friends tried to pull him back down into his seat.

In the sudden lull Luka had at last been able to wriggle up to the bar and ask for two tickets to Southampton. He was very glad to get back outside, because Zizi was growing tired of being buttoned up inside his jacket, and had begun to wriggle and complain. He held his coat close with
one hand, and went to stand with Emilia, who was watching the horses being backed into the traces.

Passengers had begun to come out of the inn, some looking sleepy and bleary-eyed, others well refreshed by their breakfast of bacon and ale in the taproom. Some were arguing with the coachman about having to ride up on the top. When Luka saw where they had to sit, on top of all the luggage with their legs dangling over the side, he was very glad he had taken Lady Anne's advice and paid the extra for an inside seat.

‘Better take Rollo for a bit of a walk,' Emilia said. ‘Once we get on that coach we won't be getting off for a while, and we don't want him whizzing all over our feet.'

‘Good idea.' Luka whistled to Rollo. They went round the back to a smaller courtyard, crammed with old boxes and empty ale barrels. While Rollo cocked his leg against a post, Luka let Zizi out of his coat for a little scamper around. She was glad to be free and leapt around the courtyard like a mad thing, gibbering loudly and knocking boxes flying.