But he wasn’t unkind, at bottom. Even his enemies would only label him as rather unusually single-minded. He thought that perhaps that was what had drawn him to Ursula. She too knew what she wanted and set out to get it; she would be an ornament to him as his wife. And if the Queen didn’t want to acknowledge her, as he had heard was often the case with bishop’s wives, well, Ursula was difficult to ignore.
‘The river is so lovely,’ Ursula remarked, thinking that the silence had gone on long enough.
‘It most certainly is,’ he replied, with a dip of the head. ‘But not, perhaps, so lovely as in Bath.’
Ursula Hynde was ever so slightly deaf in one ear. She was therefore shocked to hear a man of the cloth allude to bathing and blushed accordingly. ‘Why, sir,’ she said, ‘I bathe when called for, to be sure.’
Steane was nonplussed for a moment, then caught up with the side-turning the conversation had taken. ‘No, dear sweet one,’ he said, racking up his volume a notch. ‘Bath. Aquae Sulis. The town of Bath. Where I shall be bishop, along with Wells, of course.’ He smiled benignly at her.
‘Oh.’ She let the disappointment show. ‘Not Winchester?’
‘No, goodness me, no,’ he said, squeezing her arm. ‘Very unhealthy. Damp. And such low-life living around the Buttercross there. No, no, Bath is much better for you, dearest.’
She looked up at him. He really wasn’t too bad looking and not too old either, compared with some. She smiled. ‘How kind you are, Benjamin,’ she said, and patted his hand as it just managed to emerge from under her left breast. ‘I think we’re going to be very happy.’
‘I’m glad you think that,’ he said. ‘I think we will be very suited. I hope that I can live up to the standard set by your first husband.’ He felt her tense. ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said. ‘Have I upset you?’
Trailing behind them, Anne grimaced. Oh, no, the stupid fool had mentioned husband number one. Now they were in for hours of weeping, if she was any judge. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a kerchief which she handed silently to her mistress, who blew her nose into it in a not altogether bridely way. Startled mallards flew up from the reeds.
‘May we sit down somewhere, Benjamin?’ the woman asked. ‘I feel a little faint.’
He looked around and saw a felled tree at the edge of the path and led her to it, thoughtfully spreading the hem of his gown for her to sit on. He perched alongside her, tensing his legs to keep the trunk level as it took her weight. ‘Rest here,’ he said. ‘What is it, dear heart? You must tell me; after all, in three days, we will be man and wife.’ He felt a small chill go down his back.
She blew her nose again and cleared her throat. ‘My first husband was a prince among men,’ she began. ‘Older than me, of course, much older, but very gentle and courteous. He didn’t . . . trouble me.’ She blushed and looked down.
Steane patted her hand, in some relief. He hadn’t planned to trouble her too much either. ‘There, there,’ he murmured, in his best pastoral voice.
‘We had a beautiful home, while we waited for him to come into his inheritance at Madingley. He looked after his father’s affairs in Cambridge and London. He used to bring me presents when he had been away, jewels and books. He brought me a parrot once.’ She gave a resounding sniff and smiled through her tears at Steane. Her reminiscences had made her look younger and he almost loved her then.
‘And then . . . ?’
‘He died.’ She could hardly choke out the words. ‘He had been out all day hunting. When he came in, he said he was feeling tired and would go to bed. I sat by the fire with my maidservants and we sewed and chatted. Laughed.’ She seemed to be reciting a long-learned piece, which had no relation to her, and yet it was the story of the beginning of many lonely years. ‘Then, his manservant came running in. He said . . . he said his master was taken very ill. I ran to him. He was writhing on the bed. He reached out for me but, as I stepped forward, he took a huge breath in.’ She stopped and even the maidservant, who had heard this many times before, had tears in her eyes. ‘It was his last. He died.’ Then, reputation or not, Ursula Hynde leant against the shoulder of the Bishop of Bath and Wells-to-be and wept, for all those lonely nights, now hopefully almost at an end.
And Benjamin Steane put his arm round his wife-to-be and wiped a stealthy tear away with his free hand. He had no idea whether he could be a good husband. But this fat, annoying, bossy woman had somehow just made him want to do his best to be just that.
TWELVE
Constable Fludd heard them before he saw them. Shouts and whoops and clarion calls told dozing Cambridge that a troupe had come to town. They threw up dust as they rattled through Trumpington, their great carts groaning behind the heavy plod of the oxen. Dogs ran by them, barking and yelping and small boys and girls ran with them, laughing and calling to the spotty youths in their dresses and the jesters in their greasepaint.
There had been rumours for days that a theatre troupe was on its way. It was supposed to come for the Sturbridge Fair, but a horseman had arrived to tell the Mayor that a number of the chorus had gone down with something nasty they’d picked up in Chelmsford and, not to worry, it wasn’t the plague. It wasn’t even contagious. It just put actors off their stride and could the Mayor be patient for a few days more.
The truth was that the Mayor could have been patient for ever. The man was not only torn between Town and Gown, he was harangued on a daily basis by the Puritan persuasion, who wanted him to shut the taverns and take the pews out of the churches. A troupe of travelling players was the last straw. On the other hand, plays brought crowds and crowds brought money. The Mayor’s message to his Constable was that the company could come and the company could perform, providing their paperwork was in order.
‘I shall need to see your papers,’ Fludd told the player king as he swung down from the leading wagon. Behind him the seamstresses called and whistled. Some of them didn’t seem to know one end of a needle from another. The drums beat incessantly with a rhythmic, hypnotic pulse and each deafening clarion blast was matched by shouts and general hysteria.
‘Lord Strange’s Men?’ Fludd checked, having seen the seal on the parchment.
‘And they don’t come any stranger!’ The man nudged him in the ribs. ‘Ned Sledd, sir, at your service,’ he said, and he bowed low, doffing his plumed cap so that it swept the ground. Fludd looked at the man’s finery, the velvet and brocade, the silk and satin. He was breaking all the Sumptuary Laws rolled into one; the man was better dressed than the Chancellor of the University.
‘Where are we to perform?’ Sledd wanted to know.
‘Parker’s Piece,’ the Constable told him. ‘You can park your wagons nearby.’
‘Excellent.’ Sledd patted his arm and took his papers back. ‘You won’t mind if my people canvas the town?’
‘Er . . . ?’
‘Walk the streets, man. Advertise. It’s all about bums on seats, you know. Or feet on the ground for the poor buggers. Still -’ he breathed in the warm midday air – ‘it’ll be an honour for them, eh? To stand for an hour or two to watch The Fair Maid of Kent? I don’t suppose you get much real theatre this far north, do you?’
Fludd was stung. He’d lived in Cambridge all his life and here was a strolling player talking down to him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have the May Day festivities – and the colleges perform their own stuff.’