Tidelands Read online

  He muttered the final prayer in Latin: “Abide with us, O Lord,” and heard Sir William whisper the response: “For it is toward evening and the day is far spent.”

  “As the watchmen look for the morning . . .”

  “So do we look for Thee, O Christ.”

  “Come with the dawning of the day . . .”

  “And make Thyself known in the breaking of bread.”

  James had a sensation under his ribs, which he thought must be his heart breaking, just as Christ’s heart broke on the cross. He had given up the woman he loved for the king that he must save, and he had failed to save him and learned to doubt her. He would never see his king again; he would never see her. He would leave her in poverty and the king in imprisonment. He was only twenty-two and he had failed in everything his duty and his heart had prompted him to do. “God forgive me,” he said, and without another word, sank to the floor as his knees buckled beneath him, and he lost consciousness.

  They sent Stuart the footman to fetch Alinor, three miles round by road, as he did not know the tracks across the harbor and was fearful of the tide coming in and drowning him, and of the ghosts of drowned men swimming after him. But when he hammered on the door of the cottage he found Alinor and Rob in the half-light of the smoldering fire, hours after good Christians should have been in bed. He recoiled in fear at the sight of the wisewoman, waking in the dark hours, with her son beside her.

  “Not abed?” he asked fearfully. “Up all night?”

  Alinor rose. “Is someone sick?”

  “It’s the tutor,” he replied. “Sir William said to come at once.”

  Rob handed Alinor her physic basket, already stocked with oils and herbs, pulled on his cap and jacket, and led the way across the mire to the Priory, by shore and bank and hidden path, lit by the half-moon gleaming on the rising water. They were at the Priory sea meadow as the moon came from behind a bank of cloud to make the eastern waters of the harbor shine, and they crossed the kitchen garden in the eerie light.

  The chapel was closed and quiet, all the gold and candles hidden away by Mr. Tudeley and his lordship. They had dragged James back into the library, stripped him of his stole, and left him on the rug before the fire, fearful of lifting him up the stairs.

  “Did he say anything before he fainted?” Alinor could not look at him, so deathly pale; sprawled on the hearthrug, just as he had sprawled in her net shed, when he had slept beneath her roof and she had thought him as beautiful as a fallen angel.

  “He said, ‘God forgive me,’ ” Sir William said. “But he could not be possessed by devils. He is a godly man and he was in . . . in a state of grace.”

  One swift glance from her gray eyes told him that she understood what he and the exhausted priest were doing at midnight. “Did he complain of fever or chills?” she asked, putting her warm rough hand on his cold sweating face.

  “Yes, and he was weary,” Sir William said. “And melancholy.”

  She had a very good idea why he was tired and sad. “May I use the goods from your stillroom?”

  “Of course. Take whatever you need. You know what’s there. But, Mrs. Reekie: you don’t think it is the plague?”

  It was the one question that Alinor dreaded, worse than whether a baby might be breech or malformed. If it was the plague it was almost certain to be fatal for everyone in the room, for half the household, for most of the village. Their death sentence had already been written and could not be recalled. There was nothing she could do against plague. She was likely to be the first to die. That was how it was. Everyone knew it.

  “I can’t tell,” she said. “Not till I search his body for the marks.”

  “But could it be?” Sir William demanded. He had retreated behind his chair. “He was at Newport. Dear God, he took my son, Walter, to Newport and to Cowes.”

  “And mine,” Alinor reminded him.

  “They could have met with anyone. He could have taken the plague from a ship. They could all three have taken it. They came home by ship to Portsmouth.”

  “I’ll need to examine him,” she repeated, hiding her own dread. “I can’t say yet.”

  Sir William would not take the risk of the man staying in his house another moment. “Get him carried over to the stables.” He turned to Mr. Tudeley. “Carry him on the rug so he’s not hurt. Leave the rug there. We’ll lock him in to be on the safe side until we know.” He turned to Alinor. “Mrs. Reekie, I have to ask you, will you go in with him and nurse him till he is well?”

  “I can’t,” Alinor said flatly. “I have a son and daughter of my own. I will examine him, but if he has the signs I can’t be shut in with him. I’ve never been a plague nurse.”

  “I beg you,” he said. “I will pay you well, very well. Go in with him now and examine him. If he has it—God forbid that he has it—I will get a plague nurse from Chichester to come and be locked up with him and you shall come out, before she arrives, before we declare it, and go to your own cottage and not stir until it is over. If he does not have it I will still pay you three shillings a day to nurse him until he is better.”

  She hesitated.

  “You don’t want him to be put into his bed in the boys’ room,” he reminded her. “Not with your son and mine. Better for us all, if you nurse him in the stable loft.”

  She looked at James’s white face, at the fall of his dark curling hair, his black eyelashes lying on his pale cheek, the darkening of his chin and upper lip that marked him as no angel but a mortal man. She saw the rapid rise and fall of his chest and how the cold sweat darkened the curls on his forehead. She knew she could not bear to leave him. She could not bear to hand him over to the rough care of a strange woman.

  “Ten shillings.” His lordship raised his bid for the safety of his household. “Ten shillings a day, till the plague nurse comes. Every day.”

  “I’ll do it,” she decided. “Rob can fetch what I need from your stillroom, but then he must stay away.”

  The rooms above the stable, hastily vacated by the grooms, were light and airy with dappled windows not of glass but of thin cut horn set at each end into the eaves. Down below, the hunters stirred and snorted in their stalls and the room smelled comfortingly, of clean straw and hay and the warm oaty smell of horses. Stuart and two of the grooms lugged James, still wrapped in the hearthrug, up the ladder and laid him on the bed.

  “I’ll send over food,” Mr. Tudeley said, keeping his distance, halfway down the ladder. “You can pull it up on the rope.”

  “And a bucket of hot water for washing and a pitcher of cold water. A big jug of small ale and some little dishes for mixing. I’ll need fresh bread, cheeses, and meat for when he wakes, and at noon someone must bring breakfast,” Alinor instructed. “I’ll need a pail for a chamber pot, and strewing herbs.”

  “Of course, he’ll be served as an honored guest, and you too, Mrs. Reekie,” Mr. Tudeley said. “Shall your boy come and sleep here with you?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “He’ll stay in the house with Master Walter. I’ll sit up tonight with Mr. Summer and if he is well tomorrow, God willing, he can come back to the house and I will go to my own home. This is just for a night.”

  “You will tell us at once,” the steward said nervously. He would not mention the word “plague.”

  “I’ll tell you the moment that any marks show, and you’ll call another nurse and I’ll hand over to her,” Alinor assured him.

  “I’ll send over everything,” Mr. Tudeley promised, then descended the ladder and closed the hatch behind him. Alinor waited a moment and then went over and bolted it from her side, so that no one could come up the stairs unexpectedly. She and James were quite alone.

  She went to where they had left him, limp as a corpse in the rug, and she unfolded him, as if she were unwrapping a precious parcel. As the carpet fell away, he sighed and seemed to gasp for air. Alinor lifted his head and shoulders a little and slid a bolster behind his head. He seemed to breathe easier and a little col