Tidelands

“I’ll always be your girl, but I do love him. And he loves me.”

“He’s said so?”

The girl flushed a dark rose. “Oh, Ma, he’s spoken to his parents. Weeks ago, he spoke to them. He wants to marry me! He asked me last night, Ma. He’s given me his promise.”

“He should’ve spoken to me before he said anything to you. You’re not yet fourteen. I was thinking of meeting his parents and asking for a long betrothal and—”

“He’s been courting me for weeks,” the girl said proudly. “That’s long enough for me to be sure. And I liked him from the first. But anyway, they want a girl who’d bring them some land, who has furniture, her own pewter plates, who’s got an inheritance. Things I’ll never have.”

“We can save up,” Alinor said bravely.

They both looked around the little cottage, the sparse worn goods, the wooden trenchers on the plain cupboard, the table and stools that Alinor had inherited from her mother, the hanging bunches of drying herbs, the treasure box containing the tenancy paper, and the red leather purse, filled with nothing but old tokens.

“We have no savings but dried leaves and faerie gold,” Alys pointed out.

“I could talk to them,” Alinor said.

“My father should go,” Alys said resentfully. “It shouldn’t be you, on your own.”

“I know,” Alinor said. “We’re unlucky in that.”

The two women put on their capes and their wooden pattens and started the walk to church. Behind them on the bank path came Alinor’s brother, Ned, his dog at his heels, and behind him a few farmers with their families from farther inland. The women waited for Ned to catch up, and walked three abreast with him, dropping into single file when the thorns of the path closed in.

“You’ll be happy with the news from Preston, Ned,” Alinor remarked. “It sounds like a great victory.”

“Praise God,” he said. “For if the Scots had got past Cromwell I don’t know where they would’ve stopped. We could have lost all of England to them, and they would have put the king on the throne again. But, God be praised, we won, and they are driven back and the king will know that he has no friends left in the world.”

“A friendless king,” Alinor said wonderingly, as if she were sorry for him.

“He’s never had any friends,” he said harshly. “Only courtiers and paid favorites. Some of the most wicked and vicious men in England in his service.”

Together they paused and looked towards the sea, where the waves were breaking white at the mouth of the harbor.

“Just over there,” Ned said wonderingly. “Think of him, so close, just a few hours of sailing time, on the Isle of Wight. And he must know by now that no one’s coming for him. His son’s fleet can’t land, the Scots are running back to Edinburgh, his wife can’t raise the French for him, the Irish haven’t landed. He’s going to have to beg our pardon and rule with our permission.”

“What if he were to be rescued?” Alinor asked.

“There’s nobody who can rescue him and get him to his son’s ships,” her brother ruled. “There’s not one of them with the courage or the wit to break him out.”

“It’s hopeless for him?” Alinor said, thinking of James Summer, the friend of a friendless king.

“Forlorn,” Ned replied, condemning the king, ignorant of his sister’s thoughts. “He’s a real forlorn hope.”

They climbed over the stile in the church wall and walked in silence along the path past the graves of their parents, their grandparents, and generations of Ferryman. The porch, where Alinor had waited for the ghost of her husband, was filled with bright sheaves of corn, though some of the godly men of the church complained that this was paganism. The old black door of the church stood wide open. Red, Ned’s dog, lay down where he always lay, outside the porch, and lolled out his pink tongue. The villagers went without speaking to their usual places: Ned to stand at the back on the left with the men, behind the prosperous families, Alinor and Alys up the stairs to the gallery with the other poor women. Nobody bowed to the altar, nobody ever crossed themselves anymore.

Sir William and his household entered the church, and all the men doffed their hats and all the women curtseyed, except the very godly one or two who would not bow to a temporal lord. Alinor looked for her son, saw his quick smile, ignored his tutor, whose brown gaze was steadfastly directed downwards on his well-shined boots. The Peacheys entered their pew and Mr. Miller, the church warden, closed the door on them with exaggerated respect. The St. Wilfrid’s minister stepped behind the plain communion table and started the new authorized service with a long extempore prayer, thanking God for giving His forces the victory against the misguided Scots in Lancashire.