‘Remember, Lizzy, “He that hath mercy on a poor man lendeth to the Lord”,’ quotes Kat Vaesy at supper, deepening her voice to mimic her estranged husband’s sonorous tone. They laugh. Both know that Fulke Vaesy is probably the least generous man in Christendom.
‘And speaking of having mercy on a poor man,’ Lizzy whispers, glancing to where the pox-faced Quigley is sitting with Deniker and the senior members of Kat’s household at the servants’ table, ‘have you not noticed how Gabriel’s eye has been wandering your way all evening?’
‘Fie! You’re imagining it,’ Kat protests.
‘You could do worse, if you look past his poor face. A perfect countenance isn’t everything. John sometimes looks the saddest man in all England. But underneath–’
‘Nonsense, Lizzy. He’s John’s secretary. I’ve known him for years. He’s a dear man, but too stern for my tastes. I’m surprised you could drag him away from the Nonsuch library to accompany you.’
‘It was John’s idea. He insisted.’
‘And he was right to worry – have you noticed how many more tinkers and vagabonds there are on the roads these days?’
‘Then he made Francis join us, just to be sure.’
‘I can imagine Gabriel putting up a defence of sorts. He has an iron streak beneath that monkish exterior of his,’ says Kat. ‘But Francis? Dear Francis, who recites parables of Our Lord’s love for the poor whenever he gets the chance – and means it, unlike some I could name? What use would he be in a quarrel?’
‘His heart is bold, bless him,’ says Lizzy. ‘He has more courage than you’d give him credit for. I know that for a fact.’
‘You arrived safely, that’s all that matters.’
‘The only excitement we encountered was when we rested the horses at Kingston.’
‘Oh, Lizzy, tell me, please. Excitement here at Cold Oak is when the bees refuse to swarm.’
‘A religious firebrand. He was ranting at travellers passing by the crossroads. You should have heard him! We’ll have to work fast tomorrow – apparently the world is about to end.’
‘That’s the problem with being so close to London. We get a lot of Puritans and Anabaptists on the road. Most are harmless enough.’
‘Not this one, Kat. He seemed quite out of his wits,’ Lizzy says. ‘Kept shouting about how Armageddon was at hand. He looked more like a vagrant than a man of God, mind. I think he was half-starved, poor loon.’
‘I’ll make sure I avoid Kingston in future,’ says Kat with a shudder.
‘He said he was heading for the Cheapside Cross, to warn people of what was in store for the ungodly. His name was Joshua. Joshua Pinchbeak.’
‘You spoke to him?’ says Kat, her eyes widening in horror.
‘Why not?’
‘John would have the night-terrors if he knew.’
‘He said his name was Joshua, and that if I didn’t listen to him, the walls of Jericho would come tumbling down upon my head.’
Kat lays a hand on her friend’s wrist. ‘Then thanks be to God that John made you see sense. Imagine if you’d been alone–’
‘What if this Joshua was right?’
‘Lizzy!’
‘What if the end of days really is near? The times are full of strife and bloodshed. The pestilence may come again. Who knows what God is planning for us?’
‘Let’s pray your friend Joshua was wrong, and Armageddon is still a way off,’ says Kat in the tone of an elder sister. ‘Besides, I’ve work to do; I’m planning more beehives in the orchard this spring.’
Lizzy says, ‘Well, if he’s right, I for one intend to go to my maker in the hope that my sins will be forgiven. And I shall be comforted, I like to believe, by the love of my husband.’ An awful silence while she reflects on what she’s just said. She colours. ‘Oh, Kat, I’m so sorry. How thoughtless I can be sometimes! I really didn’t mean–’
Kat smiles. ‘Don’t reproach yourself, Lizzy. The great anatomist is quite out of my thoughts. Has been for years. When he comes to Cold Oak, I pretend he’s the fellow who takes away the night-soil from the chamber pots.’
It’s a lie, of course. Fulke Vaesy slops around her mind like foul water at the bottom of a drain. Lady Katherine Vaesy is in a quandary. She cannot divorce her husband; the Church will not allow it. And, without money of her own, she cannot leave him. Her father made the contract and she must bear its unyielding terms year after year. Her husband cannot prove the marriage null, and so he too must suffer it – year after year. Thus husband and wife are bound inescapably to each other, bound not by love but by chains of ice. But she does not tell Lizzy Lumley this. She puts on a brave face.
‘And I’m glad for you, Lizzy,’ she says. ‘I truly am. Glad for John, too. You’ve made him happy again.’
Lizzy looks down at her trencher, her meal half-eaten. ‘But I’m not Jane FitzAlan, am I? I’m not the golden first wife. And I haven’t given him children to replace the three darlings he lost.’
Kat shakes her by the arm, gently, so that Gabriel and Francis do not notice. In her mind is the thought that she, too, was once just like this, fearful of inadequacy in the face of almost unbearable infatuation.
‘You must not speak like that, Lizzy. Jane is dead. John loves you – I know it.’
‘Sometimes I wander in the library, when he’s not there. He has so many books on physic that I hope I might find something amongst the pages, some secret knowledge that would give me the gift to read his innermost thoughts, to see deep inside him, to learn if he is happier with me than he was with Jane.’
By the light from the hearth and the candle flame on the table, Kat can see a silver trace of tears against the amber gleam of her friend’s cheek.
‘You have no need to do such a thing, Lizzy,’ she says urgently. ‘You must remember: I saw him married to Jane, and I’ve seen him married to you. Doubting him is a disservice John Lumley does not deserve.’
‘But sometimes I fancy I might learn the answer to why I cannot give him children. There must be a reason, Kat, other than some sin I have committed in the eyes of God.’
‘You’re the most sinless woman I know, Lizzy. Besides, it’s not too late. You’re not an old maid, for mercy’s sake. There’s still time.’
Lizzy wipes away the tears on the sleeve of her kirtle. She smiles bravely. ‘And nor are you, Kat. It would be such a wonderful thing to see you happy again. Dispensing charity to the needy might make you pleasing to God’s sight, but it can’t warm your body on a cold night the way a loving husband can.’
‘That cannot be, Lizzy,’ says Kat.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You must promise me one thing. Promise it as though tomorrow might really be the end of days. Promise me on your immortal soul.’
‘Of course, Kat. I’ll promise you anything,’ Lizzy says, suddenly a little scared by her friend’s intensity.
‘If you ever do find yourself carrying John’s child, do not let Fulke near the lying-in chamber. Even if he tells John it is good physic for him to be there, trust yourself only to the midwife. If you have to crawl out of bed and slam the door in his face yourself – keep him away!’
When Nicholas enters the Jackdaw’s parlour the following morning he finds Bianca balancing a large clay ewer precariously on one shoulder. She’s trying to aim the neck at a wooden washing tub set on the table.
‘I must get this linen clean or it won’t be ready for tonight,’ she says in a practical manner, as if their last conversation had involved not the slightest mention of violent death and mutilation.
‘Here, let me take it,’ he offers, lifting the jug from her. He waits while she crushes soapwort leaves in her palms and then, at her command, begins to pour the hot water into the tub. Then, as she starts to knead the steaming linen, he says in a resigned voice, ‘You’re going to tell me it’s all in my imagination – what I said last night about Jacob Monkton and the little boy Sir Fulke Vaesy dissected. You’re going to tell me I was seeing things – just like Vaesy himself told me.’