Tidelands

Alinor and Alys walked back to Ferry-house along the bank of the harbor with Ned following behind them, accompanied by people walking part of the way, to ask for more details of the trial and execution. Ned answered everyone patiently. His own sense of pride in having been a witness to great events made him glad to tell his story over and over again. Nothing had ever been heard like it in the tidelands. Nothing like it had ever been heard in England. It was the end of one sort of world and the start of another.

The sea was coming in, so the people from the mainland, who had earlier walked across the frozen wadeway to church, now wanted the ferry across the rife, and Alys let Ned take the fees and pull the ferry across.

“D’you remember how to do it?” she taunted him. “Haven’t your hands gone too soft for the rope?”

“I swear I’d forgotten how cold it is,” he replied.

He came into the house blowing on his fingers and stood by the fire as Alinor raked the embers and put on a big log of driftwood.

“Before I went away,” he said quietly so that Alys, upstairs in the bedroom, would not hear, “you said that you would need my help and you would tell me when I returned.”

Alinor did not know what she should say. Clearly, she must speak to James. They would decide together what to do, and how the news should be announced.

“It’s Alys,” she said. “She’s with child.”

Ned was not shocked. In the country, especially in areas as remote as the tidelands, many couples married in the old way: a promise to marry, and then a long time of courtship and lovemaking while finding a house or saving for marriage. Many brides carried a big belly on their wedding day. Some had a child or even two walking behind them to the altar.

“Did they promise to each other before God? They hand-fasted and prayed together? It’s a godly union? She’s not been light or wanton? He didn’t force her?”

“Oh, no,” Alinor assured him. “They’re sure of each other, fully betrothed. And he’s given her a ring. It’s the dowry that they’re waiting on. That’s my worry. The parents insist on it. That’s why we’ve been scraping around in such a rush.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Alys wants to have the baby in the Stoney farmhouse that he’s to inherit. She’d like him to be born into the family, with his father’s name.”

“I’m sorry I’ve not come home any richer,” Ned said. “It’s a place of terrible expense, London. But she’s had the fees from the ferry. She can add it up and tell us if she’s short. I’ll come with you to Stoney Farm tomorrow and talk with them, if you need me. And didn’t young Richard promise his inheritance?”

“Yes. I’d rather we didn’t take it, but, she says Richard will see us right.”

Ned chuckled. “Lord! That girl! She’s borrowing her dowry from her betrothed?”

“It’s the only way she’d find it. They asked for a fortune. We’ve earned all we can. He’s making up the difference. She’s determined that the wedding goes ahead next Sunday.”

He smiled. “Well, it’s good that we have a new life coming into the new world that we’re making. If it’s a boy she could call him ‘Oliver’ for old Noll!”

“She could,” Alinor agreed, thinking that James would never allow it.

“D’you like living in your old home again?”

“Of course,” Alinor confirmed. “But if you ever find a wife you want to bring back here, I’ll be happy to go back to my cottage. Or somewhere else.”

He laughed at her. “Not I. And anyway, where else would you go?”

Alinor smiled. “Oh, I don’t know.”

James thought that the easiest way to see Alinor would be to walk back with Rob after dinner on the hidden tracks through the harbor, as the sky darkened to the early dusk of winter. He said that he needed herbs against the return of his fever.

“She won’t sell herbs on a Sunday,” Rob reminded him.

“I can tell her what I need, and she can bring them to the Priory when she is passing,” James invented.

Overhead, above the thick gray clouds, he could hear the flocks of winter geese coming in to roost on the shingle beds out in the harbor, and once, the unearthly creaking noise of swans’ wings. It was too dark to see anything but the track beneath their feet and the occasional glimpse of a slim moon between the raveled clouds. Rob went sure-footed on the well-known twisting paths but James had to follow him carefully. He could not even see the route that the boy was taking.

“And your mother is well?” he asked, trying to keep up.

“Winter’s always hard on the mire,” Rob answered. “And Alys had to work on the ferry every day, even on the coldest days, and my mother was afraid every moment that she was out on the rife. When I went over to take a turn it was even worse for her. She’s terrified of deep water. But she’s well enough. It’s more comfortable living in the ferry-house, than in the old cottage.”

“They’re in the ferry-house? Why did they move from the cottage?”