Tidelands

“My dear, all that stands between me and the parish is a yard of lace,” the woman confided. “You’re too beautiful to know what it is to be a poor woman and a burden on your neighbors. But within a week of me selling nothing they won’t open their doors to me for fear that I’ll beg a loaf of bread, or a quart of milk, though they have a whole herd of cows. Within a month they’re wondering if they can move me on to another parish. They ask after my children, and why I don’t go and visit them. They hope to force me to be a burden on them. It’s a bitter thing to grow old and poor. Pray that God spares you.”

“Amen,” whispered Alinor.

The lace maker turned to Alys’s shocked face. “Believe me! They can take against you in a moment. One cross word, and then they call for the witchfinder, and name you as a witch so as to be rid of you once and for all! It’s a crime to be poor in this county; it’s a sin to be old. It’s never good to be a woman.”

Alinor felt a cold shiver down her back at the words. “I have only three shillings for lace,” she said hastily. “I am sorry for your troubles.”

“I’ll sell you two yards for three shillings,” the old woman said. “And you will oblige me if you buy from me again.”

She took the ribbon of lace and folded it gently, over and over, and tied it with a thread of pink silk. “Fine work,” she said. “Two weeks’ work and I get three shillings for it. Pray God that you are never left on your own and have to earn your own living. It’s a hard world for a woman alone.”

“Amen,” Alinor said again. “I know it.”

They walked away from the stall. “Miserable old thing!” Alys said carelessly. She looked more closely at her mother. “Don’t listen to her! You earn well enough. You’re nothing like her. With your herbs and the midwife business, and now your boat, and the fishing. And you have the work you do at the mill, and your own work in the garden and at Ferry-house. If they have you back to the Priory to work in their stillroom they’ll pay well. And soon I shall be a rich young farmer’s wife and Rob’ll be an apothecary. We’ll both send money home to you!”

“And she earns well enough with her lace for now,” Alinor said. “But what about the week when she’s too old to work anymore? You saw her hands—what happens when she can’t bend her fingers? What happens the week that she falls sick? What does she eat then? Where does she get her firewood then? From her neighbors, as she said, and they’ll turn against her just for asking.”

She had to raise her voice against the gathering swell of noise and the two of them looked around to see what was causing people to shout and heckle. It was a young royalist supporter, standing defiantly on the steps of the Market Cross, with a rowdy crowd gathered around him.

“We will have peace and the king back on his throne by Christmas!” he shouted.

“Then we’ll have war again by Easter!” someone rejoined. “Because your king is a liar!”

There was a cheer and a laugh, but most of the crowd wanted to hear what the young royalist would say.

“Let’s go,” Alinor said nervously, as Alys dawdled to listen.

“The parliament men know that they have to agree with the king, and they are going to the Isle of Wight to meet with him,” the young man declared. “He will not be coerced, he will be returned to his throne.”

“Free ale for all!”

“They will demand that he give up the royal militia and accept the rights of the New Model Army.” The young man paused impressively. “He will never agree to this. They will demand a church without bishops. You know what comes of that!” Again, he glared at the crowd. “Where is the Bishop of Chichester today?”

“Slough,” someone said helpfully. “Did you want him? Because he ran away as fast as his feet could carry him.”

Grandly, the young man ignored the heckler. “This is the church of Henry VIII,” he declaimed over the laughter. “The church of Queen Elizabeth. Their true heir, King Charles, will never abandon it. He will restore the House of Lords, the bishops . . .”

“Don’t forget the Bishop of Rome!” someone shouted from the back. “Because the queen obeys him rather than her husband!”

“Come on,” Alinor said to her daughter. “There’ll be fighting soon.”

“Our king will never agree to these demands!” The young man raised his voice, as the two women hurried away. “They cannot force him and we should defend his right to be king. We should say to our member of parliament . . .”

“Can they really force the king to give everything up?” Alys asked her mother as they went down South Street towards the road to Sealsea Island.

“I don’t know,” Alinor replied. “I suppose so. Since he’s in their keeping. But perhaps you can’t keep a king in prison.”

“My uncle says the king should be tried for treason. For starting the war again and calling in the Scots. That was treason against the people of England.”

“Easy to say,” Alinor observed, “but other people say that a king cannot be wrong, since he is the king.”

“Who thinks that?”

Alinor thought of the man she loved. “Some people say it.”