Tidelands

“You’re like a cat agauwed of water,” he complained, pulling his shirt over his head. “And you should be like a ship’s cat that learns to keep itself dry but can go to sea.”

“I’m sorry,” Alinor repeated. “But I stink of whey.”

Ned went round the house to the rife, Red at his heels, and Alinor could not resist trailing after him to see the traveler. She saw a saddle horse on the far side, and a man standing beside it. Alinor’s hand went to her belly, her other hand felt her speeding heart. But even as she breathed James’s name, she saw it was not him. It was an itinerant preacher in a shabby cloak, with a weary old horse that James would never ride—a godly man come to encourage the puritans of Sealsea Island. Silently, she turned and went back to the dairy. She did not allow herself to feel disappointment. She knew he would come when he could. She trusted him to come to her.

DOUAI, FRANCE, DECEMBER 1648

James’s parents were leaving the guesthouse at Douai. Their horses, waiting outside in the damp cold of early December, stamped their feet and blew out clouds of breath on the freezing air. Lady Avery came out of the house, wrapped in a traveling cloak with a fur-lined hood, and her son helped her up the steps of the mounting block and onto her steady horse. She was riding sidesaddle, and she arranged her green wool riding habit so it fell over her leather boots. He climbed up on the block himself, so that they were level, head-to-head and she could hear his penitent whisper.

“I beg you to forgive me, Lady Mother,” he said, but she would not even meet his eyes. She turned her head away and stroked her horse’s mane. “I cannot withdraw from this woman. She holds my heart. She truly does. I am going back to see her and I will marry her when she is free. I beg that you forgive me, and let me bring her to you as your daughter.”

She turned her face to him and he could see from her pale pinched face and red eyelids that she had endured a sleepless night. “I shall pray for you and for me,” was all she said. “But I did not bring you into the world, and give you to the Holy Church for you to bed a fishwife.”

He bowed his head for her blessing and he barely felt the light touch of her hand on his thick hair.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I am promised to her.”

“You are promised to the Church,” she said flatly. “You are promised to be obedient to me and your father, and we forbid this.”

“I shall write to you,” he offered.

“Not if you write of her,” she said steadily.

The door of the abbey guesthouse opened and Sir Roger came out quickly, his thick cloak heavy on his shoulders. Dr. Sean hurried behind him, a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Something’s happened,” Sir Roger said shortly to his son. “Changes everything.” He stepped to his wife’s horse, took hold of her bridle, and said quietly to her: “We can’t leave now. Get down and come in.”

“Is it the king?” she asked, dismounting at once.

He nodded, but his dark look warned her that it was not news of a successful escape from the Isle of Wight that Dr. Sean held in his hand. At once, without another word, she gave her hand to James, stepped down from the mounting block, and they hurried inside.

“What now?” she demanded as Dr. Sean closed the door behind the four of them.

“The army has taken over parliament,” he said. “I have this from one of our spies in London. One of the most radical wicked colonels captured the door of the House of Commons with his regiment, and only admitted those members of parliament who are sworn to Cromwell, bought and sold, wholly his. Such a house will never make an agreement with His Majesty. The true members are thrown out, the army has captured the House of Commons.”

Lady Avery turned to her husband. “Is this to force an agreement on the king?”

“God knows what wickedness they plan!” Dr. Sean exclaimed.

Sir Roger nodded. “My dear, we’d better get back to court. The queen and the Prince of Wales won’t allow the king to fall into the hands of the army. This is worse than when he ran away from Hampton Court. Then the army had him, but at least parliament could defend him. Now there is no one to speak for him. Nothing like this has ever happened in the world before. A parliament to rule a king? It’s like the end of days.”

“It might be worse. They may be thinking of a trial,” James warned.

His father turned on him. “A trial? What d’you mean?”

“When I was in Sussex I met a man, a veteran from Cromwell’s army, who said that the radicals among them, levelers and men of that sort, believed that the king should answer to them for making war.”

“It can’t be done!” his father said, frowning. “How would men like that ever bring a charge against a king?”

“Who was this man?” his mother demanded acutely. “One of her friends?”

James flushed with shame.