Time's Echo (7 page)

‘I am betrothed to John Wightman. Look!’ She flaps the pair of gloves she is carrying. ‘My betrothal gift,’ she says proudly.

‘That is good news indeed, Alice,’ I say.

Alice leans closer. ‘And we’ve done it,’ she whispers.

I am half-shocked, half-envious. I have never even kissed a boy. Mistress Beckwith keeps her servants close, but I am afraid that the real reason I have never been courted is because I am dark
and thin and sallow-skinned, and my eyes are odd. What man is ever going to want me, with my fierce brows and my flat bosom and my strange eyes? It’s not even as if I have a dowry.

Still, I would like to know what it is like to be courted, to be wanted. I would like someone to make me smile the cat-that’s-got-the-cream smile that Alice is wearing. Too often these
days I can feel my blood pumping, and something restless and dark quivering deep in my belly. The thought of kissing, of
doing it
, kicks my pulse up a notch. I don’t like to admit
it, even to myself, but the truth is that I am envious of Alice.

We are pushing our way through the crowded market, dodging the puddles as best we may. The chamberlains still haven’t mended the paving, in spite of the pains laid on them in the wardmote
court, and there are deep ruts where the countrymen’s carts have stuck, while the cobbles are covered in mud and vegetable scraps and fish scales and sodden straw and dung.

The stallholders are shouting enticements over the sounds of the peddlers crying their trinkets and the clucking of chickens in their wicker cages. Beggars skulk on the edges of the market,
plucking at gowns and calling for charity. A boy weaves past us, balancing a tray on top of his head, and the smell that drifts from it makes me sniff appreciatively. ‘Hot pies! Hot
pies!’ he cries, but you can hardly hear him in the hubbub of conversation. It is always like this on market days.

There is so much noise that no one is going to overhear us, but I lower my voice anyway. ‘What is it like?’ I ask Alice, because I want to know and there is no one else I can ask.
Elizabeth would have told me, if she had known. ‘You know . . . doing it?’

‘It’s all right,’ she says carelessly. ‘Hurts a bit at first, but it gets better.’ Her lips curve as she thinks about it. ‘A lot better. And it keeps John
happy.’

I would like to ask more, but don’t want Alice to know how ignorant I am. ‘And when will you be wed?’ I ask instead.

‘Soon. My family have given their consent, so now it’s just a dowry to be agreed. It is time you had a sweetheart too, Hawise,’ Alice says, her smile sharp as pins. ‘You
must be, what, twenty?’

‘I am nineteen,’ I say stiffly, turning my basket out of the way of a wheezing goodwife.

‘I hear that you have an admirer,’ she says with a sly look.

‘I? No!’

She arches her brows at me. ‘Don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed?’

Infuriatingly, she stops then to admire some ribbons on a peddler’s tray. I know she is just doing it to tease and I am tempted to ignore her, but I am intrigued, I admit it.

‘Noticed what, Alice?’

‘Mistress Rogers has new lodgers. They say Mr Phillips is a notary from London. He has business with my Lord President, no less.’

I gape at her. My Lord Mayor and his brethren are pleased to think they rule this city, but we all know that they have to do whatever the Council of the North tells them. The Lord President is
here in place of the Queen herself, and there is no one in York who dare say him nay.

A notary who has dealings with the Council of the North, let alone my Lord President . . .

‘And he has noticed
me
?’

‘Not Mr Phillips!’ Alice rolls her eyes. ‘His assistant!’

‘But I don’t know any assistant.’

‘Well, it seems he knows
you
. He asked Anthony Pusker who you were, after church. I can’t believe you didn’t see him, Hawise. It’s not as if there are that many
new faces in the congregation!’

She is fingering the ribbons, pretending to consider buying a blue one. ‘A farthing to you, pretty lady,’ cajoles the peddler, but Alice is more interested in my reaction, which is
clearly exactly what she wanted.

‘Anthony told him you were in service with the Beckwiths. I’m surprised he hasn’t found an excuse to meet you. He is a clean and sober man by all accounts, and he will be a
notary.’ She purses her lips, totting up his prospective worth in her head. ‘You could do worse.’

I am dumbfounded. ‘But why would he be interested in
me
?’

Alice surveys me critically. ‘You’re dark,’ she agrees, ‘but there’s something about you, all the same. Haven’t you seen the way men watch you?’

‘What men? How?’ I stutter. ‘How do they look?’

‘You know . . . with heat in their eyes. No, not today,’ she adds to the peddler, dropping the ribbon back on the tray and turning away.

‘Two for a farthing!’ he calls after her desperately, but Alice just waves a dismissive hand. ‘I’ll let John buy me a ribbon at the fair. Come on, Hawise.’

With Hap still at my heels, I trail after her. I’m not sure why. I think I am too astounded by the vision of myself as someone men notice. Is it possible? I think of Mr Beckwith’s
guests. Sometimes, when I serve at table, I catch their eyes and they always look quickly away. Their cheeks grow ruddy and my master snaps at me to leave them. I have never seen any heat in their
eyes. Alice is mistaken, I am sure of it.

But I long to believe that she is right.

We are skirting the edge of the market, past the countrywomen who squat by their baskets filled with lumpy beans and onions, with carrots and fresh green peapods. It has been a poor summer so
far, but at last there are fresh salad herbs and spinach and cucumbers to buy again. My mistress has sent me to buy eggs, but she has a fondness for strawberries, and I hesitate when I see some.
The countrywoman sees me looking and immediately holds out a strawberry for me to try.

‘Fresh and very sweet, Mistress,’ she promises. Her fingers are stained red with the juice, and there are splatters like blood on her apron, but when she catches sight of Hap by my
side, she curls her lip back with a hiss and crosses herself.

I am not going to buy her strawberries now. I am about to tell her how ignorant she is, when a furious shouting and snarling erupts over the cacophony of the market place and, not sorry to have
the excuse to leave her, I turn.

‘What is it?’ says Alice.

‘Let’s find out.’

I take a step, but then hesitate. I have the same feeling I had when Alice startled me at the entrance to the market. It is almost as if I’m not properly here, as if I am looking at myself
from afar and there is a voice in my head shouting, ‘No!’

I shake the feeling aside. Too much cheese when I broke my fast this morning. ‘Hap, stay close,’ I say, snapping my fingers.

‘You’re one as would push to see a hole in the calsey,’ my mistress always says, and adds darkly, ‘one of these days you’ll fall down it, if you’re not
careful.’

But I’m not alone. A dense crowd has already gathered, and Alice and I have to hold our baskets in front of us as we squeeze our way through. Hap is pressed into my skirts. He
doesn’t like it when folk stand too close. There are too many opportunities for kicking, and I bend to pick him up. He’s a small dog, and it’s easy to tuck him under my arm.

When we duck at last under the jostling arms, we find ourselves on the edge of a circle that has formed around two men. I see Miles Fell holding back his snarling mastiff, while Nicholas Ellis,
a tailor, is hopping up and down, one hand to his bloody leg and the other clenched into a furious fist.

‘You whoreson!’ Ellis is shouting. ‘You lumpish, Hell-hated knave! I will have you arrested, yes – and that toad-spotted dog of yours too. Do you know how much I paid for
this hose? I’ll see you whipped out of the city at the cart’s arse!’

Opinion in the crowd is divided. Nobody likes Fell. He is a miller, and surly as they come, with dark, heavy features and slovenly habits. Mr Beckwith is always trying to get him to repair the
calsey at Castle Mills, but the road is as bad as ever, and all my master gets in return is a mouthful of abuse. That bitch of his is as bad-tempered as her master too. Even I cross to the other
side of the causeway to avoid walking past her.

She is big even for a mastiff, and when she snarls she looks remarkably like her master. Her bite must have been painful, but Nick Ellis seems more concerned about his hose.

‘Peacock!’ my master snorts contemptuously whenever Ellis’s name is mentioned, but I think he is more like a cat, picking his way carefully along the street and shuddering at
dung heaps. He is always complaining about the blocked gutters that ooze onto the footway and spoil his shoes.

Beside me, two apprentices are jeering, calling out insults and encouragement indiscriminately to both men. The miller has such a savage hold on his dog that she is like to choke, but he is
spewing curses back at Nicholas Ellis and doesn’t notice.

‘That dog should be muzzled,’ Nick shouts over him, trying to get the crowd on his side now. ‘The city passed an ordinance. You all know that. Where are the constables? Those
mangy louts are never around when you need them!’

We have formed a big circle around them as if watching a show, but I’m losing interest. ‘I’m going,’ I say to Alice, but that’s when my gaze snags on the young man
across from me. He is so neat in comparison to his neighbours that I am surprised I haven’t noticed him before. He has glossy, chestnut-coloured hair, a tidy beard and eyes so intense that,
when they meet mine, my heart seems to stumble.

‘That’s him!’ Alice pinches my arm. ‘Mr Phillips’s assistant!’

I look back at him, and he smiles as if he knows we are talking about him. Still I can’t help glancing over my shoulder to see if it is really me he is smiling at, but everyone else is
watching Miles Fell, who is running out of curses and turning away like a sulky bear. When I look back, I suppose
Me?
must be written across my face, because his smile broadens and he
nods.

Alice nudges me. ‘See?’

A young man has smiled at me. It is nothing. For most girls – girls like Alice – it would mean nothing at all, but I feel flushed and elated and apprehensive all at the same
time.

Miles Fell lumbers towards us, still cursing, followed by his shambling dog, and we all fall back hastily to clear a path for them both. Few folk are brave enough to make him walk round them,
even when he is in the best of moods.

There is a sense of anticlimax. The fight many were hoping for hasn’t materialized, and the crowd disperses as quickly as it gathered, back to buying and selling and trading gossip and
insults. Nicholas Ellis is left to limp off alone, muttering about speaking to my Lord Mayor.

The notary’s assistant has drifted off with the others, it seems, and I turn, disappointed, only to find that Alice has vanished and he is standing right there. He smiles at my expression
and sweeps off his hat to bow, as if I were the Queen’s Majesty herself.

‘Francis Bewley, at your service, Mistress . . . ?’ He darts a beseeching look up at me. Close to, he is less handsome than he seemed at first, but there is a sleekness to him that
fits with his southern accent. He has a very red mouth, small, plump hands and those strange, intense eyes are like the Ouse on a bright day, reflecting back the light so that it is impossible to
tell what colour they are.

I know I should lower my gaze and walk away. I know how important my reputation is. I know that however much people seem busy about their own affairs, there will be someone watching me. There
will be a woman who will tell her gossip, who will tell
her
gossip, who will tell Mistress Beckwith that I stood in the middle of Thursday Market and was bold with a stranger.

But I cannot help myself. How can I walk away when a handsome young man is bowing before me, when his eyes are fixed on mine and he doesn’t seem to have noticed that I am dark and plain?
How can I not smile back at him? I forget that if Alice is right, he is dissembling and already knows my name.

‘Hawise Aske,’ I admit. I follow his gaze as it drops to the dog in my arms. ‘And this is Hap.’

To my surprise, Hap’s ears are fattened and I can feel his entire body vibrating with a low growl. It’s not like him. Normally he is the most sweet-tempered of dogs.

I set my basket on the ground and lay my free hand reassuringly on his head. ‘Quiet, Hap,’ I say. ‘Friend.’

Sensing someone at my shoulder, I turned to see two women, strangely dressed, watching me with a concerned expression.

‘Are you lost, dear?’

‘Lost?’ I said blankly. Why should I be lost in Thursday Market?

‘You’ve just been standing in the middle of the pavement, staring.’

I looked slowly around me. The stalls had vanished. There were no carts laden with cabbages, no women crouching by their baskets of fruit, no jabbering throng of people, laughing and gossiping
and bargaining. My eyes dropped to my hand. No small dog, growling softly.

And no Francis Bewley. In his place stood two elderly women pulling shopping trolleys behind them.

I was blocking their way. The realization was a slap, jarring me into the present, and I drew an unsteady breath as I remembered where I was.
Who
I was.

‘Sorry. I . . . I was just . . . ’ I couldn’t think of an excuse to explain my odd behaviour until I remembered Alice and her accusing expression. ‘. . . just
daydreaming,’ I said as I stepped aside and they trundled their trolleys past me.

My mind scrabbled with the shock of the abrupt return to reality, and my heart was banging painfully under my ribs. I felt sick and very frightened as I crossed the square and cut through the
narrow alleyways that riddled the city centre, too preoccupied by what had happened to think about how I knew the way.

I wasn’t mad. I
wasn’t
. I held onto the thought of Drew Dyer, who had treated me as if I were perfectly normal. He had said that I should eat, I remembered, but all I could
find near Monk Bar were charity shops. I didn’t want to go back to the market—