She was greatly relieved and looked up at him. ‘I realise I’m in the way. But what is it, anyway, that’s so important? What are you thinking about?’
The pause lengthened. She expected him to avoid her question, but his expression had made her hope he might say something entirely different. Instead, quite quietly he said, ‘As it happens, I am thinking of my king’s life. Or indeed, of his imminent death.’
Chapter Nineteen
They were met at the doorway. The wind was hurtling the garden’s last greenery around in blasts of sleet and bluster. Not a leaf remained, but twigs whirled in flurries while branches lashed a colourless sky. Ralph opened the door and both rubbish and draught rushed inside. ‘You’re back,’ he said.
‘Both of you, thank the Lord,’ Felicia squeaked from behind his shoulder. ‘I wondered if I should ever see either of you again. The tales we have heard!’
‘Lies, no doubt,’ nodded Ralph. ‘Davey’s tales usually are a touch on the exaggerated side, and that’s me being kind.’
‘But it’s all true,’ insisted Tyballis. ‘And Drew took me to market, too. Now we have piles and piles of wonderful things for the Christmas feast, and only one day left to prepare.’
‘Told you,’ sniggered Davey from somewhere invisible beyond the crush. ‘Our Tybbs was taken by the law in full view of the crowd, manhandled, hauled off and slung into gaol. Unfortunately I was, under the particular circumstances, you understand, quite unable to assist. And if it weren’t for our mighty Sir Galahad, she’d still be mouldering there.’
‘So,’ Ralph gazed in wonder at his scuffed and shabby landlord, ‘Davey was right, then? You marched into the sheriff’s chambers and told the bugger what to do with his rotten injustice, or else. Got the lass freed without even a penny in bribes!’
Andrew Cobham strode into his great hall and smiled in faint approval at the massive fire set to blaze in preparation for his return. He tugged off his gloves and threw them to the chair by the hearth. He had not yet spoken. Instead Felicia said, ‘Had I known prayers could work so quickly, and without even a priest or a candle, I’d have taken up my prayers again some years ago.’
Tyballis did not look as fine as she had the day before during her visit to Baron Throckmorton, but she looked a good deal grander than she had in Bread Street Gaol. On Andrew’s orders she had appropriated a dark green gown of worsted with olive velvet trimmings, wide sleeves lined in crimson and edged in beaver, and a hooded cape. In contrast, Andrew Cobham had changed out of his previous magnificence and once again wore his dark grey and dusty velvets, a little torn, a little threadbare and significantly old.
He turned now and faced his lodgers. ‘Stories are for long evenings,’ he said, ‘and mornings for aspiration and preparation. First, you must meet my new tenant. This is Casper Wallop, a recent acquaintance of Tyballis. He will now, I hope, discover the very decent Burgundy that I hid in the cellar, if no one has yet stolen it. I need a drink. Then there are pullets to throttle and pluck, raisins to soak in honey, pie fillings and forcemeat to mix, wine to be spiced and the wassail cup to be brewed. This Christmas feast must serve until Epiphany.’
The conditions of Casper’s most recent accommodation needed no explanation, for he smelled of the gaol. He stank of the particular filth that accumulates amongst those living in close confinement and without either hope or purposeful activity. Everyone present knew that smell. Casper was therefore immediately accepted, and had already been talking to anyone who would listen to him. Disappointed to discover that Felicia was married to a still living husband and burdened with a brood of rollicking brats, he was now reconciled to a lack of female companionship. Hearing his name called, he hurried off, after requesting directions, to discover wine for his eccentric new master, and afterwards to be settled into an upstairs chamber of his own.
Without access to the expensive diversions of the rich and noble, the mystery plays or mummings, jugglers or musicians, the inhabitants of Cobham Hall quickly made their own seasonal entertainments. Felicia, helped by Ellen, her small fingers unhampered by the lack of two on her left hand, wove garlands of ivy sprigged with holly, and spread these around the hall, looping them down from the ceiling beams and over the lintel. Branches of holly still nursing bright berries were stuffed into the empty candle sconces. Ralph nailed cut branches into a square, which Felicia and Tyballis then decorated with mistletoe, the fat white berries contrasting with the red. ‘A kissing bough, indeed. The priest would probably threaten to excommunicate us as pagan sinners if he knew,’ crowed Davey. ‘But where are the women to ravish beneath it? We have only three females, and will need to share them between eight men. What justice is that?’
‘Mamma won’t let you kiss her,’ Ellen pointed out. ‘But I will.’
‘That makes four of you, my dearest,’ said Davey, swirling the child up onto his shoulders.
Casper, a man much interested in the art of intoxication, was in charge of the brewing, and kept himself happily busy, working and tasting.
Slipping into the house late in the day, Elizabeth Ingwood was soaked by storm and marked by three new scratches across her face. Tyballis looked at her in surprise, remembering her own disfiguring scars of not too long ago. Tyballis said, ‘It’s Elizabeth, isn’t it? We’ve seen so little of each other but I’m glad you’re here now. We’re about to have a Christmas to remember.’
‘I’m not staying,’ the girl muttered, turning away. ‘I only came to see Drew. Or Davey, if Drew’s not around.’
‘They are both around,’ Tyballis told her. ‘But please do stay. We’re all preparing for a great feast and it starts tomorrow. Even Drew has promised to celebrate with us, and I’m sure he’d like you to be here.’
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. It accentuated the ragged nail marks over her cheek. ‘Stupid slut,’ she said. ‘It’s not me he’ll want. And besides, I’ve a family of my own, so why should I stay here? I’m no beggar to scrounge my rations or sing for my supper.’
Tyballis paused, then said, ‘My husband used to beat me, too, you know.’
Elizabeth shrugged. ‘I’ve no husband, since no one would have me. It’s my brother with a ready hand.’
‘Brother?’ Tyballis stopped stirring the cauldron. ‘We’re classed as wicked women if we leave our husbands, and the church would send us back to the brutes if they could. But there’s no creed says we must stay with a bully of a brother. Why go back to him? Is he so huge?’
‘Weasely little bugger, he is.’ Elizabeth shrugged again, slumping onto the stool by the fireside, and stretching her legs to the warmth. She was barefoot, and thick mud coated her toes. ‘Two years younger than me, too. But at least the bastard keeps me in work. I’d starve without him. And he protects me from the customers, them that’s drunk or turns nasty. He hits me when he’s pissed, but won’t let no one else.’