Father gives the funds, mindful of his ship and warehouse and how the garrison could plunder them, yet barely concealing his rage that his son is among the renegades. ‘The Cardinal may have had the best of everything,’ he says, ‘but at least he paid for it – mostly.’
After Wardlaw leaves, he tells Bethia it’s too dangerous for her to go into the castle now and forbids it. She nods meekly, but decides she will go regardless – if she can find a way.
The watch in the town is strengthened, and Father doesn’t complain about the cost. He even employs a stout man to guard their beasts in the back yard, which is as well for they are awoken one night by a commotion. Father rushes out, cudgel in hand, while Mother and Bethia, Agnes and Grissel stand shivering in their nightclothes behind the locked back door, holding onto John who is demanding to be let out.
They listen for Father’s knock and also listen for any sounds he may be hurt or even killed. In the event the men are chased away without having captured even one hen. Next morning when she goes to look, yawning after her disturbed night, the garden is a sad mess. Agnes, arms folded and disregarding the rain running down her face, is gazing on the trampled beans, onions, leeks, lettuce, beets and cabbage. Even the physic garden has not escaped, with the new thyme and the coriander seedlings crushed; but there’s one small satisfaction. Agnes points to the hawthorn hedge, planted to protect their orchard. A piece of cloth is caught in the thorns, hanging limply in the rain. Bethia walks along the pathway and spreads it wide. The cloth looks to be part of the sleeve of a doublet.
‘The thorns will likely have torn the skin too,’ says Agnes. ‘I hope it gie’d a good deep rent to the flesh of that wicked varmint.’
The talk at the board is all of the garden and Father’s success in fighting off the thieves until John interrupts telling of Kopernik, a man from Poland who claims the earth moves around the sun. His book, The Commentariolus, has arrived from Antwerp on Father’s ship, and John is much taken by its ideas. She thinks Father should be well pleased, for John’s finally eager to study his Latin by reading Kopernik’s thesis. But Father and John shout at one another until Mother too raises her voice.
‘All this noise and I care not what rotates where, as long as we may have relief from an argument which has a most tedious circularity of its own.’
Bethia watches John gasping like a dying fish at the suggestion that the science is of no moment, while Grissel thumps a trencher in front of him and retreats.
‘Nooo,’ says John and pushes it away.
‘What’s this?’ says Father.
Mother sighs. ‘A potion of ground hedgehog bones for the nocturnal emissions.’
Father stands over him glowering and John, face twisted, takes a sip ‘Well laddie, if you will wet the bed at your age…,’ he says, hurrying out of the room as John retches.
Mother bends to pick up her sewing and Bethia grabs the trencher from John and swaps it with her own.
‘See, it is not so bad once you get used to it,’ says Mother, as John finishes Bethia’s ale.
Bethia winks at John and goes to find Agnes, hoping to arrange the boat trip to the castle, for it has finally stopped raining. Instead she finds Grissel in the yard, her hands deep in a rooster pulling its innards, feathers scattered all around and sticking to her clothes and sweat-soaked face. Grissel says she’ll help find her Uncle Geordie, but it must wait until she’s finished her duties. ‘Or else my mother will leather me.’
Each time she returns, Grissel’s in wilder disarray and redder in the face as she moves from yard to kitchen, keeping the fire embers glowing to spit-roast the fowl.
Elspeth’s at the door but Bethia neither knows nor cares where the painter is when she inquires – probably at his lodgings, for Father refuses to have him board with them, saying a little exposure to the artist goes a long way. ‘But he’ll no doubt return soon, for the portrait is begun,’ she says, assuming Antonio’s absence is what’s causing Elspeth to look dejected.
‘It’s not that. My father says I must marry.’
A shiver runs down Bethia’s spine. ‘But you’re no older than me.’
‘Well take care, no doubt your father has plans for you also.’
‘Do you know who your match is with?’
‘He is speaking to the Wardlaws.’
‘No! Not Fat Norman.’
Elspeth nods.
‘May the Virgin protect you. He was here not long ago – he has a kindly face, but he does smell bad and he is soooo fat.’
‘You give me much comfort.’
She touches Elspeth’s shoulder. ‘I am sorry.’
Elspeth smiles wearily. ‘It doesn’t matter, for I won’t marry him.’ She shakes her head. ‘I won’t. I’d rather a convent.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ Bethia rubs her forehead, ‘I’m not sure I would. Anyway your father has talked of making a match before, has he not, and nothing came of it.’
Elspeth brightens. ‘Yes, and it is unlikely to be successful, for Norman Wardlaw is most wealthy and will look to do better.’
Bethia thinks this is likely true, for it would be a step down for the Wardlaws. Elspeth’s father runs a shop and the family live above it, although she’s the only surviving child and will inherit all. But still her dowry is likely small in comparison to the Wardlaw aspirations.
She hooks her arm through Elspeth’s. ‘Come and see the painter’s allegory of love and peace, which caused so many arguments about how Mother and I were to pose.’
Elspeth chuckles. ‘Did Antonio prevail?’
‘Almost, except Mother refuses to look down fondly upon me. She says it does not display her face to advantage and…’
‘Shows her wrinkles.’
‘Not quite, she says it is not a good position for a woman in her thirties.’
They laugh as they enter the room but Elspeth is quickly absorbed, bending close to study it. ‘Antonio has hid the pox marks on your mother’s face very well. His brushwork is truly masterly.’
Bethia grows bored waiting for the examination to conclude, until John provides a diversion, dancing around the portrait on its stand, pulling faces so horrible that she warns him if the wind changes, his face will stay that way.
‘Where is Master Bellissima anyways,’ he asks, making a grand flourish which mimics the painter so well that both girls burst out laughing. Pleased with himself, John capers more, giving bows until one wild gesture sends the painting, and its easel, flying.
They rush to right it. There’s a shared gasp; the paint is smeared across Mother’s face making her nose, which she’s already sensitive about, look more bulbous.
‘Oh John,’ Bethia says reproachfully.
But John doesn’t care. He knows Father hates the painter and all his pretensions. He doesn’t care that is, until she points out a repair will cost. Then his face grows red at the prospect of another beating and he rubs at Mother’s nose with his sleeve. This is a mistake; the paint smudges further and now Mother’s nose has blurred into her forehead.
Elspeth giggles. It’s a quiet giggle but she knows her friend well. This giggle will become louder and louder until Elspeth is crying with laughter and the whole house and half the street will hear, and become curious. She hustles them both out of the room and down the stairs.
‘Go to your studies, John,’ she says. For once, he doesn’t argue .
She chases Elspeth out into the street, tugging her down the close at the side of the house. Elspeth is breathless from running and laughing, and bends over double, resting one hand against the wall of the house to steady herself.