Tidelands

Obediently, Alinor turned her face to the sideboard where the Millers’ well-polished pewter and one trencher of silver was proudly displayed. Behind her she could hear the noise of Mrs. Miller going to the drawer in the big wooden kitchen table, pulling it out and taking out her purse, and her “tut” of irritation as she found that she did not have enough money to hand.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Just wait a minute.”

“No hurry,” Alinor said pleasantly, her thoughts far away from Mrs. Miller’s purse, conscious only of the heat of her lips and the ache in her body and her longing for James.

“Just a moment,” Mrs. Miller said again, but now she was immediately behind Alinor, her voice strange and echoing. Startled, Alinor’s head jerked up and she clearly saw, in the silver trencher, the miller’s wife standing on the hearthstone, behind the glowing embers, pulling a red leather purse from a hole in the brickwork chimney. The woman turned with sooty fingers, and met Alinor’s eyes, flinching at her reflected gaze. Obviously, Alinor had seen her hiding place. Alinor looked down and heard the scrape of the brick sliding back into place.

“You can turn round now,” she said, flustered. “Jane’s dowry. I’m short in my own purse. I’ll just borrow from Jane’s dowry.”

“Of course,” said Alinor coolly, turning and looking at the floor, not the fireplace.

“It’s my own money,” the woman said awkwardly. “It’s me that put it by for her. Surely I can borrow from my own daughter’s dowry, since I put it by for her since she was a baby?”

“I understand,” said Alinor. “And I didn’t see.”

“It’s the same purse that your mother got from the pedlar. We bought them together, years ago. Red leather.”

“I didn’t know,” Alinor said. “I didn’t see.”

“I know you didn’t,” Mrs. Miller lied. “And I wouldn’t mind if you did. I can’t bring myself to keep it at the goldsmith’s. I like it where I can see it. Now and then I top it up. Always have done. Of course, I don’t mind you knowing where it’s kept. Haven’t I known you since you were a little girl? Didn’t your own mother attend my birth?”

“She did,” Alinor agreed.

Mrs. Miller pressed three silver shillings into Alinor’s hand. “There. If you see some fine lace, not too fussy, for a collar and a pinny, you can pay up to three shillings for it.”

The coins were hot from being stored behind the fire. Alinor thought that anyone who touched them would have guessed their hiding place at once. But she said lightly: “I’ll look for lace for you, and bring it tomorrow afternoon.”

“Very good,” Mrs. Miller said. “Alys can help you pick the herbs now and then go home with you if you want. I don’t need her for anything else today.”

“Thank you,” Alinor said, and went to fetch her daughter to come to the herb garden and pick comfrey and basil for Mrs. Miller.

In his bedroom at the Priory, James was packing a clean shirt and clean hose in a saddlebag with his Bible and a purse of gold coins, all that was left from the queen’s money to buy her husband’s freedom. Sir William was standing by the window and looking down into the orchard below.

“You can leave your sacred things here,” he said. “I’ll keep them safe for you, until you return to claim them.”

“Thank you,” James said. “If I don’t come back, you can be sure that another priest will.” He tried to smile. “My replacement. I pray that he does better than I.”

“Don’t take it so hard,” Sir William said. “You did what you were asked to do. You reached him with a good plan and a waiting ship. You didn’t miscarry. You didn’t steal the gold, you didn’t betray him. Half the people he employs would have sold him to our enemies. If he had wished it, he would be free now, and you would be the savior of the kingdom.”

“Yes,” James said. “But he did not wish it, and I am very far from the savior of the kingdom. I am a Nobody. Worse than that, I am a Nobody with no home and no family and no faith. No king either.”

“Ah! You take things hard when you’re a young man. But listen to me: you’ll recover. You’re not even well yet, just up from your sickbed. When you get back to France, tell the Fathers that you need some time. Rest for a while, eat well, and only then tell them about your doubts. It all looks better when you’re well. Trust me. It all looks different when you’ve had a good sleep and a good meal. These are hard times for us all. We have to get through them one step at a time. Sometimes we fall back, sometimes we press forward. But we keep going. You’ll keep going.”

James straightened up from tightening the straps on his bag and looked at Sir William. Even the lord of the manor, a cheerful thoughtless man, was struck by the bleakness of his pale young face.

“I wish I could believe it, but I feel as if everything that I know, and everything that I am, has been knocked out of me. And all I can pray is to be allowed to do something else and live another life entirely.”