Tidelands

“Not here. Will you come to the Priory?”

“I don’t dare.”

“Can we go to your cottage?”

“Alys is at home.”

He was silent. “Is there nowhere we can go? You know the woods, the mire, the little pathways?”

“I couldn’t lie with you on the mire.” She gave a little shudder and at once he put his arms around her and drew his cape around her. “Not with the tide high,” she said. “It’d be like drowning. Could we go to the chapel? We could sit in the porch?”

He shook his head. “I have lost my faith, but that would be too much. I couldn’t—forgive me, my love—I can’t.”

“Of course,” she said, and thought what a loose slut he must think her to even suggest it. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“I want you so much I think my heart will stop,” he said. “Anywhere, anywhere!”

“I don’t think there is anywhere for us,” she said quietly, and then she was struck by the words. “Oh, it’s true. D’you see? There’s nowhere for us, not on Sealsea Island, not in all the tidelands, not in the world.”

“There must be!”

“And besides, aren’t we here to say good-bye?”

“I can’t bear to say good-bye to you in this meadow again!”

“Last time you came back, as you had promised,” she reminded him shyly.

“Last time I was ordered to come back. Next time, I will come back a free man. I will come back for you.”

“I don’t think that can ever be.”

“It will. I will be freed of my vows. I will go and see my parents, I will buy back our house in Yorkshire, and I will come for you.”

Her hands twisted in his and she tried to pull away. “You know—”

“No, listen to me. I can confess my sins and be released from the priesthood.” He tightened his grip as she shook her head. “That is my choice. It is what I want.”

“But you were risking your life for your faith! You told me that it came before everything.”

“I did. But that was before Newport. My love, I failed in my mission and I lost my faith. I lost my faith in everything: king and God. I will leave the priesthood whatever happens, and I will never again come to England as a spy. I will not serve the king again—God bless him and may he have better servants than I. I have failed him and I cannot bear to fail again. That part of my life is over.”

“Even so . . .”

“Alinor, I won’t change my mind. I have lost my faith, I have lost everything. I can’t tell you, but there is a darkness where once there was a burning light. The only thing I care about now is you.”

“Oh, my love,” she whispered. “That’s not how to choose a wife.”

“But the thing that you don’t know and that I have just learned—it is good news—you will be free of your husband. I will never say that I saw him. Robert must be silent, too. I’ve told Walter. In six years, if nobody sees him, and nobody tells the parish that they saw him, then your marriage is dissolved as if it never was. He passes for dead and you are a single woman.”

She had not known this. She raised her eyes, clouded with doubt. “Is this true? Really? Can it be true? Six years and I am free?”

“It’s seven years by law, and the first year has nearly passed.”

“This is the law?”

“It is. Sir William told me himself. You will be free, Alinor, I swear it. You will be free to marry me. And I will be free to marry you.”

“We only have to wait six years?”

“Will you wait?” he demanded.

“I’d wait sixty!” She pressed herself against him. “I’d wait six hundred years. But you should not . . .”

He wrapped himself around her, he pressed her back against the rick and, with his mouth on hers for silence, he made her moan with pleasure until his head dropped into the crook of her neck and she heard him gasp: “I swear. I swear it.”

Alys and Alinor rose early, at first light. Alys was determined to look as smart and as clean as a town girl, and the two women took a jug of soapwort tincture, and some lavender oil, and walked up to Ferry-house before sunrise. Red, the dog, bounced to the door to greet them and sniffed the jug.

“You’re up early,” Ned remarked, seated at his kitchen table, a loaf of bread beside him and a mug of ale to hand.

“We’ve come to wash. We’re visiting the Stoneys,” Alinor explained. “Before we go to Chichester market.”

“And why do they deserve a wash?” Ned glanced, smiling, at Alys and saw her deep blush. “Oh, I see. I’ll get the copper out.”

He rose to his feet and went to the scullery for the big iron pot for the Ferry-house monthly laundry. He slid the worn pole through the two carry loops at the top of the pot and he and Alys lifted it onto the kitchen hearth, while Alinor took two buckets and went to the well at the back door. When they’d set it on the little fire she poured bucket after bucket of water into it, going back for more.

“Will you have some breakfast while it heats up?” Ned offered, cutting two slices of bread.

“I couldn’t eat a thing!” Alys said, though she took a slice and ate it while watching the water.

Ned raised an eyebrow at his sister. “Greensickness,” she whispered. “Please God we can agree on a dowry. She’s set her heart on him.”