‘You were crying,’ he explained gently, though she thought she heard him laughing. ‘And your voice is neither perfectly clear nor at all sensible. On the other hand, your guess about the king was inspired. Now, shall I put you to bed?’
‘That would be even more improper,’ she said, voice muffled as she leaned back, accepting the comfortable security of his embrace. ‘Even though,’ she added politely, ‘you do look very nice in those clothes.’
Now he was certainly laughing. ‘Most kind,’ he murmured. ‘Drink a little more and I might become almost attractive.’
‘Um,’ said Tyballis, and fell asleep against his shoulder.
Chapter Fourteen
Someone was banging on the door. It seemed as though the banging was on the back of her head. Opening her eyes hurt, but she struggled up and put her mind back together. It was cold, dawn was oozing in pink streamers through her window and she was in bed, tucked under new woollen blankets she had never seen before, but safely back in her own chamber. She seemed to be wearing nothing at all and her beautiful clothes of the previous day were neatly folded on top of her coffer across the room. She had a splitting headache and someone appeared to be trying to break through her door. She shouted, ‘Go away,’ which made her head hurt even more, but the banging stopped abruptly so she turned over, curled once again into the feathered warmth and went back to sleep.
It was late when she got up and her head was still hurting. Of yesterday’s interesting daytime, she remembered it all but she had only a clouded and contradictory recollection of the evening. Where memory transposed, certain small instances and the doubts they awakened bothered her extremely. Finding herself quite naked beneath her bedcovers also troubled her, since getting to bed at all seemed to have happened without her conscious co-operation. She decided she needed both food and answers, and wanted very much to speak to Andrew Cobham. So she dressed in her old gown and tiptoed downstairs.
Daylight, though dull and cloud swept, had brightened each long window and Tyballis immediately saw someone standing in the half shadows at the bottom of the steps. He was watching her and waiting. It was not Andrew Cobham and she had never seen him before in her life.
The young man did not speak until she came down beside him. Then he said quietly, ‘Mistress Blessop? If it is you, since you so entirely fit the description I was given, I carry a message from Mister Cobham. Will you come into the hall, mistress, where we can speak in warmth and privacy?’
The suggestion of warmth was always pleasant but Tyballis shook her head. ‘I don’t know you, sir. Where is Mister Cobham?’
‘That is part of the message,’ said the young man. The fire in the hall blazed unwatched and unheeded, and here Tyballis eventually followed the unknown messenger. He stood while she sat by the hearth, and cleared his throat. ‘I am Luke Parris,’ he said, ‘and we have not met before, but I also live here and lodge in the attic chambers. I do not – socialise much – with the other tenants, but Mister Cobham knows me well. I must apologise, mistress, both for waking you earlier this morning, and for refusing your invitation to dinner in the past.’
‘Oh,’ said Tyballis. ‘You’re him.’
The young man smiled suddenly. ‘The mad monk. Yes. That’s me,’ Luke said. ‘Andrew – Mister Cobham – left London at dawn and will be gone for some days. He has taken a carrier to Wales, and particularly wished me to tell you he must travel to Ludlow, as if it might mean something to you. He told me nothing else, except that he thanks you for your help and your company and will return when he can. And,’ Luke reached to the small purse hanging at his belt, ‘he asked me to give you this.’
Tyballis received the full leather weight in her palm. She was surprised, and guessed the sum contained was a large one. Then something occurred to her, and her fragments of disconnected memory suggested another kind of payment for another kind of service entirely. She blushed, and tied the purse strings to her belt in a hurry. She asked, ‘He explained nothing else?’
‘Nothing, mistress.’
‘And did he,’ she continued, ‘ask that this information – this message – be kept secret from the others?’
Luke smiled. ‘Mister Cobham said only that you would know his wishes.’
‘Mister Parris, you said you recognised me from his description.’ Tyballis kept her face down. ‘What exactly was – if you don’t mind – that description?’
Luke frowned. ‘The very words, mistress? Small and slim with large blue eyes, a pointed chin, and the expression of a startled and much bullied child.’
‘Oh.’ She thanked him and scurried back to her room, relieved to see no one else on the way. Then she lit her own little fire and sank down beside the hearth to untie the purse strings. Ten coins rolled across the boards and settled with a rattle and clank amongst the rushes. There was considerably more than she had guessed, for each coin was a florin. Only once had she ever seen a florin before, and now she owned ten of them. A sense of absolute unreality overwhelmed her and she sat quite still for sometime, finally heaping the gold into two identical little piles on the floor in front of her. When someone again banged on her door, she threw her money back into the purse in such a rush that she felt quite guilty, as if it was stolen. It then occurred to her that it probably was. She tumbled the purse into her coffer, snapped shut the lid on money and clothes, and hurried to her door.
‘You, mistress,’ said Davey Lyttle, ‘have been talking to that Godless pederast from upstairs. I warn you, he’s the worst of us. Trust no one and none of us in particular, darling, but that heathen least of all.’
‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ Tyballis said. ‘And Luke only gave me a message from Drew. That’s all. He says Drew’s gone away for a few days.’
‘Happens regularly,’ nodded Davey. ‘Nothing new in that. In the meantime, I was wondering if you had any food on the boil. I’ve a hunger big enough to use as a dye tub, and a gut as empty as Jon Spiers’ ambitions.’
‘I have eggs,’ remembered Tyballis. ‘And I was thinking of exploring Drew’s kitchen for stale bread or cheese. And there is – at least there was – a haunch of salted bacon hanging from the beams in the pantry.’
‘That’s it then,’ grinned Davey, reaching for her hand. ‘Bring your eggs, girl, and we shall raid Drew’s domain. But quietly now. I’ve no wish to alert the others.’
Tyballis hesitated. ‘But if the others are hungry –’
‘My dear child, they are all permanently hungry,’ Davey told her. ‘But if we share, there will not be enough for us. It’s a feast I need, not a damp morsel.’
‘I shall cook enough for us and the children too,’ Tyballis objected, ‘and the others can help themselves after we’ve finished.’
‘What you set out for the children will instead be eaten by their father,’ Davey pointed out. ‘And whatever is left over, might feed a lucky mouse if it hurries. Now,’ he led the way downstairs, ‘where did our lord and master say he was going? And why, in particular, did he send his message to you? I see I shall have to watch you more closely from now on.’
His teasing was too close to her own discomforting doubts. ‘If you want my eggs and my cooking skills,’ she told him, ‘you can mind your own business.’ It was later when they sat together on either side of the benched kitchen table that Tyballis asked, with apparently casual disinterest, ‘By the way, Davey. You’re a man of experience and must know the lie of the land. Ludlow, I believe, is in the Welsh Marches. I’ve heard of a grand castle there. Does the king visit?’