The Rogue's Princess (23 page)

Faith reached out a pleading hand to their father. ‘Please, let Mercy think awhile – give her space to pray and seek guidance on this matter.’

Mercy brushed a sleeve across her eyes to blot her tears. ‘Nay, sister, I am afraid I cannot change my mind. Kit needs me.’

Faith swallowed then nodded. ‘Aye, I see that. I’ll get your things for you.’

Edwin stepped forward. ‘Come, sister, I’ll take you to our aunt’s. She’ll take you in until this storm passes.’

‘No.’ John Hart brought his hand down on the table, making the crockery jump. ‘If she leaves, she leaves alone and with nothing, as I said she would. I will not let her actions make me a liar. If she leaves, she is no longer your sister. No longer a Hart.’

‘But, Father!’ protested Edwin.

‘John, I forbid it!’ cried Grandmother.

John Hart turned on his son in a fury, discounting the old woman’s words entirely. ‘Do you think I want to treat the child of my heart like this, Edwin? Can’t you see what this man is doing to her? If he thinks we’ll relent and pave his way with riches, he’ll never let her go. We must cut off the sinner until she realizes her error and repents. It is the only way.’

Mercy had known in one part of her mind that this moment would come, but she had still been hoping against hope that her father would yield. But, no, he was not bending. By his own reasoning, he could not.

‘Very well, I will go alone and as you said.’ She knelt to take off her shoes.

‘What are you doing?’ gasped Faith. ‘Stop!’

‘Father said barefoot, so I go without the shoes he provided for me. I pray you excuse me taking these clothes. I will send them back as soon as I have obtained others for myself.’

Mercy’s heart almost shattered when she straightened up and saw a tear run down her father’s cheek.

‘You mustn’t worry,’ she addressed the room in general, knowing if she met anyone’s eyes, she would crumble. She had to be strong – for Kit’s sake. ‘I’ll be able to provide for my needs. I’ll send word when I know where I am staying.’

‘Oh, Mercy,’ wailed Grandmother.

‘You’re not going to our aunt?’ whispered Faith, now also crying. ‘Please – you must! You don’t know what it’s like out there. Go to Aunt Rose – she’ll take you in.’

‘I can’t. Don’t ask me to explain.’ Mercy took her cloak from the peg by the door and wrapped it around herself. ‘God be with you.’

Opening the door, she stepped out into the street. Oh God. It banged behind her with a terrible finality.

The stone of the alley was rough beneath her stocking-clad feet. Setting her shoulders back, she walked determinedly the ten yards to the shoemakers and entered.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ she asked the shopkeeper. ‘Do you have any shoes ready to wear? I’m this size.’ She displayed her unshod foot to the astonished man.

He quickly regained his poise. ‘Aye, Mistress Hart, I’ve a pair that was never collected by the one who ordered them. You can have those.’ He took a fine pair of red leather shoes from the window.

Mercy thought they would be the sort Kit would favour, though too garish for her tastes. She slipped her toes into them. They were a good enough fit. ‘Thank you, I’ll take them.’

‘Shall I put them on your father’s account, Mistress Hart?’

Mercy felt a lump in her throat. ‘Nay, Master Hudson, I’ll pay for them now. And I’m no longer Mistress Hart.’

He clucked his tongue. ‘What business is this? You’ve not fallen out with your family, have you, young lady? You’re not the first to do so – all over in an afternoon usually.’

She had no desire to parade her woes in front of their neighbours. ‘Thank you for the shoes, sir.’ She put a handful of coins on his worktable. ‘Is this enough?’

‘Aye, enough.’ He patted her on the arm. ‘Never you fear, your family will have you back if you beg your father’s pardon. He’s a fair man.’

She smiled at him through her tears. ‘Yes, he’s a fair man,’ she agreed. But sometimes there were two kinds of fairness and they did not reconcile. ‘Good day, Master Hudson.’

She left the shop, the heels of her new red shoes clicking on the pavement as she headed towards Southwark.

16

Two days after Mercy’s visit, Kit’s accusers finally appeared. He’d had nothing to do in the interim but pace his, admittedly much better, cell, wondering what was keeping her from a second visit and when he was going to hear what charges were levelled against him.

The interrogators occupied the warden’s office, three men in sober black, minor court officials from the looks of them – Kit did not qualify for the attention of the Queen’s ministers. They sat behind the table. Kit was left standing with his hands chained behind his back. The warden stood guard at the door – the only other person trusted to participate in this most secret of proceedings.

‘Christopher Turner?’ the gentleman sitting in the centre asked, not giving any of their names or titles.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You are a player employed for some years at the Theatre?’

‘Yes, sir, since 1580.’

‘Is it true that you are the illegitimate son of the late Earl of Dorset?’

Thus far everything was public knowledge. ‘Yes, sir. He maintained me until his death. Since then I have earned my own
way.’ Kit didn’t want to make a heavy point about the division from his family in case it was taken as protesting too much.

‘On what terms stand you with your father’s family?’

Kit gave a shrug. ‘No terms. We do not move in the same circles.’

This answer was taken as lacking respect. At a signal from the man on the right, the warden thumped Kit in the stomach. He hunched forward, struggling to regain his breath. At least the terms of this engagement were now clear.

‘Know you one Thomas Saxon?’

‘Yes, sir, he is also employed at the Theatre.’

‘You are friends?’

‘I go drinking with him.’ He noticed the finger of the man on the right move. ‘Sir,’ he hastily added.

‘What about Anthony Babington, Robert Gage and Charles Pilney?’

‘I’ve had a drink with them a time or two, nothing more. Babington’s a windy fellow, speaks little sense and I can’t stand him, but still he’s not shy to get in the ale.’ Kit braced himself, knowing the tack he had decided to take was going to earn him some more thumps. He gave the gentlemen a smug smile. ‘Can’t be helped in my line of work. Fame on stage means all sorts of folk want to be seen with you. What can I do? My public loves me.’

This bit of boasting earned him close acquaintance with the rushes and a kick to the kidneys. Kit breathed through his nose, mastering the pain, sweat dripping off his brow. They waited for him to stagger to his feet, making no comment about the rough treatment that he was receiving before their eyes.

‘Do you follow the Catholic heresies, Turner?’ snapped the man on the left, who until this point had been silent.

Kit gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Nay, sir. My local priest will tell you I’m not the most pious of men, certainly no time for heresies, far too serious a matter for a gadfly like me. I struggle to get to church on the Sabbath.’

The warden went for the face this time, putting his fist in Kit’s blaspheming mouth. He spat the blood from his split lip, hoping he hadn’t swallowed any teeth. Running his tongue along his jaw, Kit was relieved to find them all present and accounted for.

‘You do not take matters of faith seriously?’ asked the third man coldly.

How much longer was this going to go on? ‘I’ll take them much more seriously from here on,’ Kit promised ironically, watching the warden’s fist for signs of where the next blow would fall.

It was a kick to the back of the knees, forcing him down on the floor. The warden administered more blessings to his guest until the second man signalled him to step back. Kit couldn’t get up. All he could do was lie with his face pressed to the floor, praying this would end.

‘Do you wish to change any of your answers, Turner?’ asked the first man.

Kit shook his head.

‘You know not your legitimate family. You go drinking with Saxon and the others, but that is all. You are not interested in religious matters.’

That about summed it up. ‘Those are my answers.’

The three men rose. ‘Thank you, warden. We’ll return three nights from hence to see the prisoners.’

Kit now knew the other man had to be Saxon as Mercy had said all his family was safe. He wondered if Saxon was holding up under the same treatment. Likely not: Tom had always been a bit of a coward and would sell his grandmother to get free of trouble. That didn’t bode well for Kit, but neither could he guess what lies the man was spinning about him as he truly had no idea what Babington and his crew had been about. The only course for him – one he had to stick to whatever the wind – was to be the idle player more interested in his box-office appeal than politics.

‘Return him to his cell. Keep him separate from the other prisoners,’ the chief interrogator instructed.

And with that the men swept out of the gaol.

The warden hauled him up by the back of his grubby doublet and clicked his tongue. ‘My, my, you don’t look so pretty now. Mayhap your lady will prefer me; what you think?’

Kit thought he could burn in hell. ‘Shog off.’

The gaoler punched him in the stomach and dragged him back to his cell, leaving him on the floor. ‘Aye, man, your public just loves you.’ He banged the door closed and strode off laughing.

It had been four days since she’d last seen Kit, but it had taken her as long to find a place to stay; until then she had no kitchen, however small, to make her bribes and she guessed only home-cooked food would do for the warder. On the first night with no offers of a roof forthcoming from any of the congregation she approached, she’d had to take a flea-infested room in a tavern on the Bermondsey Road. She’d been too scared to
leave it to go in search of pie ingredients, let alone venture into the kitchen to ask to bake it. The next night had been the same. On the third night, her luck had changed: curiously, Reverend Field had intervened on her behalf – lingering guilt perhaps for the poor behaviour of his son, whom he had sent packing back to Antwerp. She now had a room just round the corner from the prison, lodging with Goodman Dodds and his wife, the poorest couple in the congregation. Dodds was a nightsoil collector and his spouse took in washing; they were thankful for the additional source of income if grudging of their guest. Their two daughters, Humiliation and Deliverance, shared their chamber with Mercy, but had obviously been told not to talk to her. They acted as if she were a ghost they couldn’t see. Mercy was very lonely and not a little depressed in spirit to find herself so reviled by people who had once sought her company.

The Dodds were not rich enough to have their own oven so Mercy took her chicken pies to the baker. She’d made three: one for the Dodds, one for the gaoler and one, she hoped, for Kit. Leaving the first offering in the Dodds’s kitchen under cover so the rats wouldn’t get it before they returned, she hurried to Marshalsea.

Mercy waited nervously outside the prison for the warder to answer her knock.

‘Ah, Mistress Cherry Pie, back again.’ The gaoler’s eyes flicked to the basket. ‘What’ve you got in there?’

She raised the corner of the cloth to tempt him. ‘Chicken.’

‘Made by your own fair hands?’

‘Of course.’

He beckoned her into the office, dropping the latch as he
closed the door behind her. ‘I’m afraid your Master Turner is a bit out of sorts today.’ He pulled a long face. ‘I pray it isn’t the fever.’

‘The fever?’ she gasped. ‘How bad is he?’

The gaoler helped himself to the pie, then spotted a second underneath. ‘This for him?’

‘Aye, but should I call a doctor?’

‘Nay, my dear, they kill more often than they cure. Give him a day or two and we’ll see if he’s on the mend.’ He could see that she had no intention of quitting the subject until she had more reassurance. ‘I don’t think he’s that ill. He’ll doubtless feel much better for eating this pie of yours.’ He took the second from the basket. Mercy knew with sinking heart that Kit wasn’t going to see a crumb of it. ‘You know, sweetheart, you don’t want to go wasting your time on fellows like that player.’ He stuck his thumbs in his belt. ‘No good they are. You need a real man to care for you. Fine girl with your looks and a cook to boot –’ he gestured to the pies – ‘you won’t have to search far to find such a one.’ He gave her a wink. ‘What about it, eh?’ He smacked his thick lips, eyes on her breasts rather than her disgusted expression.

‘Stanton, Stanton, what you doing in there?’ screeched a woman, rattling the door.

‘By the Lord of Ludgate, ’tis the wife.’ He scuttled to the door and flung it open. ‘What brings you here, woman?’

A small firebrand of a female strode into the place, starched ruff framing a thin face, her grey eyes latching on to each object like a butcher’s hook. ‘I’ve brought you your dinner, you clay-brained guts, you! What’s she doing here?’

‘Visiting a prisoner, Mary. See, she’s brought him his
dinner.’ He gestured to the pies like a street conjuror producing a brace of doves from under his cloak.

The woman sniffed, not fooled by her goodman’s expression of innocence. ‘Can’t you leave the drabs alone, Stanton, for five minutes?’

Mercy saw a way to get the pies to Kit at least, if not obtain leave to visit him herself. She bobbed a curtsy to the woman. ‘My betrothed is in the next cell along, mistress, but your goodman said he’s sick. Would you be so very kind and see that he gets the attention he requires – good food, a doctor if needs be? I’ll pay you well for your pains.’ She flourished two shillings from her pouch.

The woman perked up at the appearance of money, revising her opinion about Mercy in an instant. A woman with that kind of coin at her disposal would have the sense not to dangle after her husband. ‘I can do that for you, mistress.’ She bit the coins then pocketed them with a sniff. ‘Run along. You don’t look like the normal sort that comes round here. I counsel you to stay well away. Place is full of rogues and villains.’ She thumped her husband in the belly.

‘Thank you, mistress.’ Mercy bobbed another curtsy and made a quick escape. The woman’s advice was sound; Mercy’s problem was that she had no choice but return to this place. But if she couldn’t even see Kit, what was the point?