‘Philip!’ I dismounted and walked towards him, hand outstretched, but I had to speak to him again and shake him by the arm before I could rouse him.
He blinked rapidly several times, as though trying to get his bearings and his thoughts in order, before he suddenly forced a smile and responded, ‘Roger!’
His voice, thank heaven, hadn’t altered. It still had that rasping quality that made it sound like an old file being dragged across iron.
I tightened my grip on his arm. ‘Philip, I’m so sorry. . so very sorry-’ I stumbled, but he cut me short, shaking off my hand and moving slightly away from me.
‘Yes,’ he said abruptly, and again, ‘yes.’ Then, as though conscious of discourtesy, he added, with a catch in his throat, ‘I understand. I know what you want to say. But don’t, that’s all. It’s over. Done with. Finished.’
The most eloquent prose could not have affected me more profoundly and I found myself struggling to suppress my tears. I had to take several deep breaths before I had my emotions under control and could lead the way back to where John Bradshaw and Eloise were waiting, amidst all the bustle, the comings and goings of a busy inn and a new day.
‘Ready?’ John Bradshaw spoke briskly. ‘I only want to spend one night on the road, so we’ve some hard riding to do before dusk. The days are getting shorter, so we’d best be on our way. Roger, ride ahead with Mistress Gray, or Mistress Chapman, as we’d better get used to calling her. Lamprey, behind, with me! From now on, we’re master and mistress, man and groom. Try to remember it, all three of you.’
Eloise gave him her most winning smile. Philip and I said nothing.
It was not the cheeriest of journeys. Once the noise of London was left behind, we were enveloped in the peculiar soundlessness of a winter’s day. Birds wheeled silently overhead, while a sullen wind had begun stripping the trees. The people we passed were disinclined to talk — they were too cold or too busy — and John Bradshaw pressed us forward, discouraging any friendly overtures that might have been made by either side. We did stop once for a draught of cider at a cider press, but the man who served us could do nothing but moan dismally about the poor apple harvest, a result of the terrible weather that had gripped the country for the past eighteen months, causing misery and famine throughout the length and breadth of the land.
It was little better at the wayside inn where we ate a dinner of bread and cheese and drank yet more cider — Kent, like my native Somerset, being apple country, where the orchards foamed and frothed in springtime, but were now struggling to produce a decent crop of fruit. The landscape also yielded a view of oast houses, but hops, we learned had also been disastrously affected by the recent weather. In the woods and forest, we passed a number of swineherds watching while the animals they tended foraged for beech nuts and acorns among the roots of the trees, but they, too, were taciturn and meagre of speech. All but one did nothing more than grunt a reply to our greetings, and that one merely recommended us to watch out for armed robber bands and to have our cudgels at the ready.
‘Food’s scarce. They’m desperate men, masters. And lady,’ he added, catching sight of Eloise.
We thanked him and rode on, the blown branches of the trees rattling like angry skeletons. Every now and then a watery sun broke through a growing pall of cloud, but by early afternoon, when we stopped to let the horses drink at a little stream, a dark, rough, brown streak of troubled water, we were all chilled to the marrow. Eloise asked me to look in her left-hand saddlebag for a pair of gloves she had brought with her, but John Bradshaw forestalled me.
‘I’m the servant, mistress,’ he reminded her. ‘You must remember to ask me to perform these services.’
He seemed to take longer than I thought strictly necessary to find the gloves — a fine leather, lined with that thin, cochineal-dyed wool known as scarlet — and I wondered if he had snatched the opportunity to look swiftly through some of her belongings. Perhaps, like me, he was growing uneasy about the costliness of quite a few of her possessions.
By the time we reached Rochester on the River Medway, the great castle, set on its high chalk cliff, dominating the town, it was almost dark, and the four of us were cold, saddle-sore, ravenous and so bone-weary that we could barely speak. I don’t recollect the name of the inn we stayed at — I was too tired even to notice it — but it was in the shadow of the cathedral and offered Eloise and myself some excellent fare. There was a particularly fine pigeon pie, as I remember, which at any other time would have had me calling for more, but I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to eat it. (Eloise informed me the following day that I had also swallowed two portions of fruit syllabub, but I had no memory of them.) When the pair of us were finally shown to our bedchamber by an obsequious landlord, where our saddlebags had already been bestowed, we were both too exhausted even to notice the embarrassment of our first night together in the same room, let alone the hideous awkwardness of sharing a bed. I must have stripped, because in the morning I was wearing only my shirt, and so must she in order to don her night-rail, but neither of us could recall anything about it. It was only when we opened our eyes in the morning, and stared into one another’s faces, that we realized our fictional life as man and wife had actually begun.
‘Well,’ Eloise said, dragging herself into a sitting position and hugging her raised knees, ‘that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ She stretched and almost immediately groaned. ‘Dear heaven, I feel as though I’ve been kicked all over by a mule.’ She frowned. ‘Why? It wasn’t like this when we were travelling to Scotland.’
I, too, sat up. ‘It was a much longer journey but not at such a determined pace. Bradshaw is set on getting us to Dover by tonight. He’s afraid the weather’s going to turn nasty and the autumn gales make sailing impossible for days, maybe even weeks. I understand that most people doing the ride from London to Dover also stop a night at Canterbury, but he’ll make us do the rest of the journey today, if he possibly can.’ I eased my body against the pillows. ‘I know what you mean.’
She giggled suddenly. ‘You do appreciate that we’re now the master and mistress, and can therefore order the going as we please?’ she asked. ‘If we say that we’re not prepared to set forward until after dinner, and say it loudly in the presence of the landlord and other guests, there is nothing our “servant” can do about it. Shall we try it? It would be interesting to watch his face.’
I smiled but shook my head. ‘I somehow don’t think that John Bradshaw’s a man to trifle with,’ I advised, ‘and I wouldn’t attempt it if I were you.’ I got out of bed, carefully pulling my rumpled shirt down around my knees for propriety’s sake. ‘I’m going downstairs to the pump in the yard, but I’ll ask in the kitchen for some hot water to be sent up. Don’t use it all. I need to shave.’
I slid between the bed curtains, closing them again behind me, and pulled on the brown hose that I had worn yesterday, then, wrapping myself in my cloak, went down to the yard, passing on my message to a pot boy whom I encountered at the bottom of the stairs. By the time I returned to the bedchamber, shivering and blue-knuckled, Eloise was in her under-shift, washing her face and neck before proceeding to her hands and arms. She indicated the gently steaming pitcher to one side of the bowl. ‘There’s your shaving water.’