The Queen's Sorrow (10 page)

She did seem to gauge his desperation, though, because she very kindly fetched him an earthenware jug and beaker from which she mimed taking a sip and enacted being taken aback:
sharp
, she was telling him with the backwards jerk of her head, her lips pursed, eyes big with blinks. Then a slow smile: the drinking of this sharp liquid, she was showing, was ultimately pleasurable. Refreshing, she was saying. Thanking her, he accepted the jug and beaker. ‘What is it?’ he asked, although he wasn’t sure that he’d understand her reply.

Something apple, she said.

He’d half-understood. ‘Apple?’

She raised her hand –
Wait
– and disappeared for a few minutes before there came again the rasps of her skirt. Rafael recognised that sound from whenever she was busy around the house. Never footsteps: the soft soles of her shoes were muted on the flagstones. She appeared with something in the palm of her hand: a small, apple-like fruit; like an apple, but much smaller.
Something
apple, she insisted, but it was no word that he recognised. He sipped the juice. Her mimed recoil had been accurate, although she was right about it being refreshing. Sour, was what it was, and he could imagine that some people could develop a taste for it. She was watching him closely, so he made much of his approval.

He also craved olives: the rub of their flesh on his tongue, the challenge of their bitterness. Word among his fellow countrymen was that they could be had, in England, and had been spotted on top tables. His further enquiries, though, were countered with shrugs and mention of markets. He
didn’t know the whereabouts of the nearest market – he was still barely deviating from the one route to and from the river. One day later that same week, he asked Cecily: ‘Is it possible?’ and showed her a handful of coins to establish that the forthcoming request wouldn’t impose on her housekeeping budget (because who knew how expensive they’d be): ‘Olives?’ He’d taken care to learn the word. He’d had to: it bore no relation to the word in his own language. Nevertheless, disappointingly, a fair few attempts were needed before she understood him. She tilted her head to one side and then the other in her efforts to catch it. When she did, though, she was enthused, forgetting herself and chatting on at him without regard for his incomprehension, which amused him. He heard
market
. Then she made as if to push his hand away: she’d buy them. No, no, no, he insisted. What’s more: ‘Can I go?’ he asked her, meaning,
Can I come?
but only knowing
go
. ‘With you?’ He’d surprised himself by asking, but suddenly he’d quite fancied a little expedition in the relative safety of her company, and he could shop for presents to take home for Leonor and Francisco.

So, that’s how they came to be at the door together, one morning in September, both in their near-black cloaks: the bruise-hued, affordable version of black. His was short, Spanish-style; she was attaching little metal hooks to the hem of hers, presumably to keep it above the mud. Baskets were mustered at their feet. She had tried but failed to persuade her son to stay home. That’s what Rafael had heard, as he’d come down the stairs: her tone low, emphatic, but then fractured, as if she were struggling – physically – to extricate herself, and at the same time a cry from the child of protest or desperation.
When Rafael reached the foot of the stairs, the child was there and dressed for coming with them; and Cecily looked shame-faced. Defeated.

Rafael was reminded of Francisco’s latest tactic for protest. It had been a relatively new ruse – of perhaps a couple of weeks – when he’d left. He wondered if Francisco was still doing it: the declaration,
I’ll never be your friend!
And a declaration was definitely what it was: haughty; quite a performance. No wheedling, no anger, but, on the contrary, calculated, calibrated: Francisco throwing down the gauntlet, albeit with a flash of humour in his eyes. And indeed, in all but the most trying of situations Rafael had – secretly – found it funny, although the source of humour wasn’t those knowing eyes but the mouth. The pout of extraordinary proportions, imitated from who knows where and executed without finesse.

He enjoyed walking with them, but it wasn’t for long. At the end of the lane they turned right and ahead, in the distance, was the market. The Chepe, she called it. Cheapside. The sun was cloud-covered behind them, casting no shadow. He was glad he hadn’t braved the trip alone. They were drawn into the crowds, a queue shuffling along the boards over the mud. Passing them were those with better boots or no boots at all to lose, braving the muck, and those on horseback or horse-drawn, their horses tetchy. Stepping surefooted around and through all this were traders bearing trays of wares. And thieves, too, Rafael knew: they’d be around. Cecily had her son by the hand, and Rafael marvelled at their balance. But although Nicholas was doing well, a little boy could only be so adept and Cecily was visibly tense, guiding and supporting him, her basket banging her hip.

There were butchers’ and fishmongers’ stalls, which had Rafael reeling, alongside enticing bakers’ stalls. Cecily favoured a particular baker, buying two loaves. There was a spice stall at which Rafael would’ve lingered if he’d had the chance. Next to it, no less pungent but less pleasant, were rounds of cheese and small blocks of butter. In some of the blocks were flecks of leaves, perhaps herbs. Cecily stopped and they endured some buffeting from the ongoing crowd until they established a footing and she could request one of the blocks, free of leaves. Salted butter, Rafael suspected: he’d only had salted butter in England and, despite rarely having butter at home in Spain, was missing fresh. Cecily bought no cheese, which didn’t bother Rafael. He found cows’ milk cheese bland, compared to the sheeps’ or goats’ cheese that he ate at home.

Then came sacks of grains to step around, and barrels of wine, malmsey and sack from Spain; then crates of apples and buckets of flowers and herbs placed to catch the eye of Londoners with no gardens of their own. A potions stall was proving popular, causing a bottleneck. Further on came stalls of cloth and carpets. Leather, too, and rolls of ribbon, coils of rope. Rafael glimpsed a small table devoted to quills, and glanced away from one that bristled with birch rods. A girl edged past him with a tray on which were rolling a lot of tiny bells, presumably for hawks. Then he spotted a little boy – around the same age as Nicholas – with a gingerbread man: a well-dressed boy, being led by one hand, and, in his free hand was his prize, at which he gazed, captivated. Rafael wondered how anyone – however new to the world, however small and unknowing – could be in thrall to such a clumsy depiction of
a figure: head, pair of eyes, arms, legs. Yet it did the trick, always did, never failed. Who hadn’t once been vulnerable to the charm of a gingerbread man?

Nicholas, too, had spotted the boy and his gingerbread man, and Rafael was struck by the hunger in his stare. Not so much a physical hunger as a yearning to be bestowed upon. To be granted something special – and a frippery, no less – for himself and himself alone: for the decisions as to what to eat (head, first, or legs?) and when (all now, or save some for later?) to be all his own.

But there was Cecily’s tightening of her grip on her son, too, Rafael noted: her making clear that there’d be no dalliance with any gingerbread man on this busy, provision-buying trip. No time for it, nor money, probably, either. And there was more than that, Rafael guessed: the concern that if she gave in on this one occasion, Nicholas would expect her to do so in future. As a parent, Rafael understood. Of course he did. What took him completely by surprise was that his heart went out to that surly little boy.

And he had the freedom of not being Nicholas’s parent: he could enjoy that freedom. Moreover, he was a visitor, a guest, so he
should
bestow. It all made sense. This was something he could do. He halted Nicholas with a hand on his shoulder; and, as he’d intended, Cecily sensed the sudden resistance and faltered, too. Turning from them, he pressed his way to the nearby confectionary stall where, while being served, he kept his talk to a minimum – a mumbled thank you – and the baker, busy, didn’t look twice. So, he’d managed that, and now there remained only Cecily’s possible disapproval to face. If she did disapprove, he’d understand – and apologise – but he’d
beg for her understanding in turn:
See his little face, Cecily
, and
Let me, just this once
.

If she was disapproving when he returned, she had the grace not to make anything of it, giving him only that anxious, reproachful look which said,
You shouldn’t have
, but which he took to be no more than dutiful. She was careful to enthuse for Nicholas, ‘Look at that! Isn’t that lovely!’ but then prompted him, ‘What do you say?’

Rafael hadn’t foreseen that. Should have, perhaps, but hadn’t.

‘Say thank you.’

Rafael was conscious of his smile dying on his face, his heart scrabbling in his throat. This – Nicholas under duress to speak to him – wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t why he’d bought him the gingerbread man, although no doubt this was how Nicholas would now see it. Rafael shook his head, but Cecily wasn’t looking.

‘Say thank you to Mr Prado.’

The boy looked up from the gingerbread man and, wide-eyed, regarded Rafael. He looked trapped. His mother was losing her patience. ‘Nicholas!’

‘Please, no,’ Rafael implored Cecily, but it sounded like nothing, just a politeness. Was she trying to make a point? Rafael didn’t think so. Her manner was blithe, suggesting that she was accustomed to conversation from her son and had forgotten or never noticed – was it possible? – that he didn’t talk to Rafael or even in his presence.

‘Nicholas! Please! Say thank you to Mr Prado!’

No
, Rafael found himself willing him:
Keep your silence
. And then a jolt, a realisation that he’d been wanting this since he’d
arrived: for the boy to be cornered, humbled, made to acknowledge him. Yes, he had. He, a grown man. He flushed with shame. ‘Please, Cecily, no,’ and his hand was on her arm. And it worked, she stopped, albeit with a huff of indignation and, at Nicholas, a look of fury.

She stalked off, and Rafael followed her to a stall of dates, dried figs and olives. The olives were still in brine, they’d not been put into oil, but they’d be better than nothing so he bought some. He was contemplating buying some dates and figs for Cecily, dried though they were. At the neighbouring stall, she was asking for some oatmeal. Taking the paper cone of oatmeal from the stallholder, she turned around, expectant, and asked, ‘Where’s Nicholas?’ Rafael did the same; turned around to look and even to ask someone behind him, although there was no one he could ask. He turned right around, twice, his gaze sweeping both close up and further away. No Nicholas. How could there be no Nicholas? There’d be a simple explanation for his momentary disappearance. They just weren’t looking in the right place. Cecily, though, was already demanding of everyone: ‘Where’s Nicholas?’ No one was answering, of course. A couple of people shuffled to one side, making way, self-conscious, unsure what was being asked of them. She began shouting Nicholas’s name: no more questions for bystanders but a direct appeal to her missing son. Dismay and disbelief flared inside Rafael, even anger.
You
wouldn’t dare, would you? You wouldn’t dare run off. Not here. Here,
of all places
.

He heard himself shouting, too, but what he heard was his accent. He was hearing himself as others heard him, and he saw them looking. They were turning around not because of
the commotion over a lost child but to trace the source of the accent. A liability to Cecily, he was: people were looking at him rather than looking for her boy. His anger switched to them:
stupid
people, stupid
English
. Then Cecily’s eyes were briefly on his and he saw the terror in them and knew it as if it were his own. One of them would have to stay in case Nicholas returned. ‘You stay here,’ he said to her, even though he knew it would be agony for her, that her instinct was to go, to search. But he couldn’t have said,
I’ll stay, you go
; he couldn’t have said that. He’d spoken first, and there was nothing else he could have said. She began to object but he shouted her down – ‘
For Nicholas
’ – and span away before she could stop him, shouldering his way into the crowd, checking with a glance every stall, every alleyway. It was his fault: yes, his fault, for having given Nicholas the gingerbread man. Rafael hollered his name over people’s heads, and did it defiantly, making the most of it because the boy couldn’t fail to be struck by the accent, to recognise it, to look up, to give himself up.

How could anyone ever get anywhere in this crowd, let alone get lost? A four-year-old boy couldn’t have gone far. But, then, the opposite was just as true: a lost person would never be found in all this. And suddenly, ridiculously, Rafael’s fear was for himself, turning on him, rearing up and making a strike back at him, because what if Cecily hadn’t listened? What if she didn’t stay, but abandoned her post at the grain stall to go after her son? Face it: that was where she was going to go, after her son. And then he, Rafael, would be lost. She’d find her son and go home, relieved, while Rafael was here among the wily traders and the beggars, unable ever to find
his way back to the house. That was what he felt, even though he knew it was mad. He was mere streets away and he could ask, even if it was in fractured English, or he could head down to the river and find his way home from there.

Ridiculous
, he told himself.
Focus
, he ordered himself, but everything was in his way: baskets and boxes and barrels, boots and the hems of cloaks, dogs, horses’ haunches.
Focus, focus
. He was failing at this. He was failing a little boy who’d be terrified. He was hopeless on the boards, tottering along, and he didn’t know the lie of the land, didn’t know where Cheapside led, didn’t know which alleys were dead-ends. And couldn’t ask anyone anything. He should never have charged off, acting the big man. Cecily would have been swifter and sharper.