New Blood From Old Bones (4 page)

‘I was too sudden for her. She will like me better when she knows me,' he said, trying to hide his disappointment.

‘She will like you better when you've shaved and put on clean linen,' said his sister dryly.

Will clapped a hand to his bristling chin.

‘I'faith, I had forgot! Well, I can shave my beard sooner than I can change this foul shirt, for the linen I brought with me is all the same. When we came through London, Ned took my shirts to his mother at Blackfriars by the Thames, and I swear she washed them at Puddle Wharf for they came back smelling of mud.'

‘Then I'll gladly find you one of Gib's shirts, for all our sakes. It will be over-large for you, and patched too. But at least it has been washed in sweet water from the Nar.'

‘Not always so sweet,' Will remembered. ‘When we crossed the river,' he told her – making nothing of it, for death is the common end of life – ‘there was a dead body floating downstream of the ford.'

Meg could not take the news so lightly. Her face went suddenly white, and her eyes widened with what looked almost like fear.

‘Whose body?'
she whispered hoarsely.

Her anxiety took Will by surprise. ‘Who knows, with so many folk on the road?' He sought to reassure her. ‘All I saw were rags. Some vagabond, no doubt, drowned from infirmity or too much ale.'

‘In rags, you say …?' Meg recovered her colour and nodded with what seemed to be relief. ‘Well, well,' she murmured, crossing herself. ‘Whoever it is, poor wretch, God ha'mercy on his soul.'

Washed and shaven, and clean-shirted by courtesy of his brother – though without Gilbert's knowledge, for Gib had always disliked him for being fleeter of foot and quicker to draw a bow, as well as for his aptitude for learning – Will rejoined his sister in the parlour.

He had brought with him a small roll of cloth containing his gift to her. Laying aside her sewing, she unrolled the cloth and discovered with evident pleasure a piece of the finest Flemish lace, exquisitely worked.

‘I thought it would make you a cap and cuffs – or a collar, perhaps, as is the fashion in France,' he suggested. ‘I brought another piece for poor Alice.'

They could hear slow steps in the passage outside and presently his brother's wife came into the room, leaning back for balance for she was heavy with child. Her pale protruding eyes, set wide in an unhappy face, gave her the look of a frightened hare.

‘Alice!' said Will kindly, taking her hand and kissing her on the cheek before leading her to a chair. ‘You're just in time for my gift-giving. Here is what I brought you from Antwerp.'

‘For me?' She looked amazed, unaccustomed to receiving gifts from anyone. He urged her to unroll the cloth, and she did it slowly, gasping with delight as she saw the beauty of the lace.

‘Oh, Will!' she said, her cheeks flushing pink. She looked up at him. ‘Oh, Will …' she repeated in a different, despairing tone, and he saw that the shine in her eyes was caused by tears.

‘I brought just the same for Meg,' he said, off-handed with unease. Then, hoping to stop her weeping: ‘I'm very happy for you, Alice, to see you in this condition. And if the child is not a son, I'm sure Gib will be as pleased with a daughter as I am.'

To his astonishment, Alice gave a great sob and stumbled, anguished, from the room. Meg frowned at him, rose hurriedly and followed her.

‘What did I do wrong this time?' Will asked when his sister returned, bemused by his new-found aptitude for reducing the females of his family to tears.

Meg sighed. ‘It was not your fault, you were not to know. Poor Alice cannot bear Gilbert a child. She miscarried three times, and though she gave birth to a son last year he lived but a few hours. Since then, she has walked to Walsingham to pray for help at the shrine of Our Lady. We all had such hope for the child she now carries – but it no longer moves in her womb. We fear it will be still-born.'

Will slapped his head in dismay. ‘By the Mass, I would not for the world have added to her distress! No wonder Gib is unreasonable.'

‘No,' said Meg firmly, ‘there's more to it than that. Gib cares little enough for his wife, and the lack of a child cannot cause such anger in a man. I tell you, Will, he's so far beyond reason that I fear he may be mad. Were it not for poor Alice, I would have taken Betsy and left the castle months ago.'

‘Is my daughter safe here?' he demanded, alarmed.

‘Agnes keeps her out of his way, never fear. Well, you must judge him for yourself at supper. But say nothing to provoke him, I beg you, and do not rise to his provocation, for I dread the consequence of any quarrel. He can be violent in his anger—'

Meg broke off, for there was a commotion outside in the yard. One of the carts was returning from the fields, with a heavy rumbling of wheels, the guiding shouts of the carter and the clop of great hooves on stone. Now there came the clatter of a ridden horse, and the resounding bellow of a man's voice raised in fury.

There was a quick tap on the parlour door. It opened without pause and the anxious face of a young serving woman appeared round it. ‘Madam, the master is home!' she gabbled, and disappeared as quickly as she had come.

Dame Meg raised her eyebrows at her brother. ‘So we hear,' she said, putting aside her sewing.

The front door banged open and a roaring noise resounded through the house as Gilbert Ackland flung anger at anyone who crossed his path. ‘I must fetch poor Alice,' said Meg. ‘He never speaks to her at meals, but he demands her presence. Go in and try to quieten him, Will – but for all our sakes, do not quarrel.'

Will returned to the hall and found its peacefulness gone with the sunlight. Spurred on by the uproar from the passage the servants scurried about, covering the long table with a linen cloth, setting out knives, spoons, pewter plates and Dame Meg‘s second-best horn drinking cups with the silver rims, and bringing bread and salt, a large cheese and a dish of green walnuts. Basins of warm water and towels were set out for hand-washing. A gangling boy lit tallow candles against the gloom of early evening, and hastily kicked the log on the hearth into flame. Woken from their slumbers by a shower of sparks, the old hound and the cats vacated the front of the fire of their own accord and slunk off elsewhere, out of the way of trouble.

Trouble appeared almost immediately, in the person of Gilbert Ackland. His massive presence, as he strode into the hall with a couple of baleful hounds at heel, overshadowed the room like a thundercloud.

‘Ale!' he shouted as he came. ‘God's death, must a man die of thirst before he is served? Ale, do you hear!' And the boy cried a desperate ‘Anon, anon, sir,' as he ran to the buttery.

Gilbert took up a glowering stand in front of the chimney place, his doublet stained, his legs in their darned hose as solid as tree trunks, his boots clogged with mire. He was shorter than his younger brother, but thickly black-bearded and with the neck and shoulders of an ox.

The boy hurried back with a flagon, and his master seized it in both hands and drank deep. Will had been waiting quietly in the shadows, but now he moved forward. As Gilbert lowered the flagon to take breath, Will walked up to him with an outstretched hand.

‘Brother,' he said. ‘I hope I see you well?'

Gilbert ignored his hand, and looked him over darkly. ‘Not as well as you, brother!' he said with a sneer. ‘Coming here in your foreign finery to mock me …'

‘Neither foreign nor fine,' Will assured him, with truth for he had left the best of his clothes, with his books, at the room he was to share at Gray's Inn when he returned to his studies. ‘I'll wager,' he added, opening his doublet to show proof, ‘that my shirt is no better than your own.'

Gilbert snorted, unwilling to forgo his grievance. ‘No doubt you have brought a retinue, to be housed and fed at my expense?'

‘A servant and two horses,' said Will calmly, refusing to be provoked. ‘And never fear, I shall pay all the cost of our visit.'

‘
Now
you speak of paying! What of your daughter, hey? You leave the child in my charge for four whole years, without contributing so much as a groat—'

‘Not so, Gilbert!' said his sister firmly as she brought his downcast wife into the hall. ‘You know full well that Betsy is in
my
charge, at her mother's dying wish.
And
that Will has set aside the income from her mother's dowry for her support.'

She helped Alice to her place as the titular mistress of the house, the chair at the foot of the table. Meg herself remained standing with her hands on the back of the chair, one of her own pieces of furniture.

‘But you are master here, Gib,' she went on, humouring him. ‘It shall be as you wish. If Will's child is to leave, then so be it. You must remember, though,' she added, ‘that if Betsy goes I shall go too – and take all my goods with me. I think you will miss our contribution to the comfort and expenses of your household.'

Gilbert shuffled the rushes with his boots. ‘Not so hasty, Meg,' he muttered. ‘I did but tease my brother …'

‘Then have done. Will, say the grace for us.'

He bent his head.
‘Benedictus benedicat, per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen.'

‘Amen. Now sit down both of you, and let us eat our supper.'

Still glowering, Gilbert took his place at the head of the table. Will sat opposite Meg, and greeted Alice in a tone that he hoped would make amends for his earlier clumsiness. She was pale except for a swollen redness about her lowered eyelids, and she made no reply apart from a quiver of a smile. Her husband took no more notice of her than he did of the flies that pestered round the food.

The church enjoined that on the eve of a Sunday or a saint's day, everyone should fast by abstaining from eating meat. But Gilbert took little heed of church law and insisted on being served his favourite dish, a hot mutton pie, with boiled cabbage well sprinkled with vinegar and pepper. The other dishes were a pottage of herbs, baked cod, a salad of endive cut small and salted, apples roasted with honey and cloves, and almond tarts.

Alice ate almost nothing, and drank only a few sips of watered wine. Every now and then she pressed her napkin to her mouth while her thin shoulders were shaken by a suppressed sob. Gilbert sat under a dark cloud of anger, silent only because he was stuffing his cheeks with food.

Meg glanced across the table at her younger brother and shrugged her helplessness. Then, drawing breath, she asked, ‘What news from London, Will?'

From the concern in her voice, this was no idle question. He could guess what news she wanted, for it was spoken of openly, and with anger, in London. But he had learned more on his travels than it was wise to reveal, except in secrecy; for who knew who might hear?

‘Touching what?' he asked lightly.

‘Why, her grace Queen Katherine! We have heard it said that the King intends to put her aside – to divorce her. Can this be true?'

‘I fear so.'

Meg drew herself up, flushed with indignation. ‘Then I think it foul shame.'

‘Have a care what you say on matters touching the King,' cautioned Will. ‘It's safest never to speak against him.'

Meg rejected caution. ‘I would say so to King Henry himself, if he were here!' she retorted, her eyes flashing. ‘I think it foul shame, to put aside a gracious and charitable lady who has been a good wife to him these twenty years. Will, he
cannot
. Why should he want it?'

‘King Henry needs an heir, that is why.'

‘He already has one – the Princess Mary, his daughter by Queen Katherine.'

‘A female heir must have a future husband,' Will pointed out. ‘If the Princess were to marry an English nobleman, the country would be rent by division and civil strife, as it was before Henry Tudor won the crown. And should she marry a foreign prince, we risk the domination of his country. The King needs a male heir to secure the safety of the realm.'

His sister stared at him, hot with indignation. ‘Then you are in favour of King Henry putting aside his wife, and taking another in order to get a boy? Shame on you, Will Ackland!'

‘No,' said Will. ‘You asked me why the King proposes it, and I have told you. But I like it no more than you do.'

‘
You
do not like it?' Gilbert Ackland raised his face from his food and spluttered contempt through his greasy beard. ‘What's it to you, brother? I am King Henry's man in this. I say he is right
as a man
to put away his wife if she cannot bear him an heir. God's blood, if a man can have no satisfaction from his wife, then he's entitled to seek it from another!'

The sight of Alice's white cheeks, glistening in the candlelight as her tears coursed dumbly down, stirred Will to anger. Glaring at Gilbert, he clenched his fists and was about to spring up when he received a sharp kick on the shin, a reminder from Meg not to allow himself to be provoked.

‘Come, Alice,' she said, rising from the table serenely as befitted a widowed gentlewoman. ‘Let us go to the parlour and see how we shall make use of Will's lace.'

As he waited for them to leave, Will let out his pent-up breath and unclenched his fists. Five years ago – or at any earlier time in his life – he would have given his brother a bloody nose for less than this. Though Gib always had weight and strength on his side in their many brawls, Will had had the advantage of greater agility, a longer reach and a cooler head.

He was confident that he could still out-ride and out-shoot his brother, but he knew that his wounds had made him less agile. Besides, as the father of a young daughter, and very nearly a barrister, he should be past brawling. There was nothing he could gain for his sister-in-law by striking her husband, much as Gib deserved it. Better by far to take Meg's advice, keep the peace, and find out what – apart from Alice's inability to give him a child – was rousing Gilbert to such fury.