‘He should never have presumed upon you.’
Elspeth’s eyes are brimming like an overfull glass.
Over her shoulder, Bethia sees Father is watching them. He tips his head to her, and bends once more to slide his curling stone. She sees Elspeth’s father is here too, standing to the right of Father and so well wrapped up she hadn’t recognised him.
Elspeth brushes the tears away. ‘The wife came seeking him. I did not know who she was… at first. I saw them meeting, from my window. She was pleading with Antonio, a child holding onto her skirts. He passed her some coins and returned to our room: to me.’ She gulps and a sob escapes her. ‘Antonio claimed she was his sister. I wanted to believe him, but the doubts gnawed at me like a flesh-eating sore.’ She spreads her ungloved hands wide, fingers stiff and white with cold. ‘If she was his sister why would he send her and the child away when they were in need? Why would he not bring them to us?’
Bethia nods.
‘He said it was because we were not married; he could not expose the child to a state of sin. I wanted to believe him, I so wanted to believe him.’
‘But you could not, because he had told you there was no impediment to the marriage – and yet he had not wed you.’
It is Elspeth’s turn to nod. ‘The next day I followed him, although the streets of Antwerp are so overfull of people it was not easy. She was waiting for him by a hostelry near the docks. I saw him pick up the child and toss her in the air, and she called him Papa.’ Elspeth hangs her head. ‘I am ashamed to tell you that, if it had not been for the child, I may have stayed with him, wife or no.’
Bethia lays her fingertips on Elspeth’s. ‘It is as well you did not, for if he could leave one wife and child, he would as easily leave another.’
Elspeth picks at her shawl then looks Bethia full in the face. ‘I think he truly loved me. He begged me to stay; would not let me from his sight.’
Bethia wants to shake her – but what would be the use. ‘How did you escape him?’
‘Everyone has to sleep, and I stole the key and crept out then. I went to the docks and Mainard’s father was there and he helped me, once I explained who I was.’
Bethia jerks as though a cart wheel has run over her. ‘Did you see…’
Elspeth shakes her head. ‘Antwerp is a place of such size you cannot imagine. It was only by chance I saw Master de Lange, and I left the next day. The crossing was very bad, indeed I thought, and hoped, it would be my end.’
Bethia bites at her lip. ‘What will happen to you now?’
‘My parents say I am for a nunnery,’ Elspeth says through chattering teeth. ‘There are worse things, I suppose. I would still rather the nunnery than marriage to Fat Norman, although,’ she nudges Bethia, ‘I hear he has found himself a new bride.’
‘Do not speak of it.’ She grinds her teeth; there was perhaps another chance here when Mainard might have contacted her – and again he did not. She is as weak as Elspeth with her false hopes. She vows from this moment she will give him up.
‘I am sorry, my friend. Neither of us have the future we hoped for, although,’ Elspeth smiles for the first time, ‘they may let me paint and perhaps make designs for altar clothes in the convent, for my style is much improved under Antonio’s tutelage.’
‘How can you bear to speak his name after what he’s done?’
‘I would rather have had a few months of happiness with Antonio than years of misery with Norman Wardlaw. You too must make your choice, Bethia.’
‘There is no choice; I have no man to run away with – and it is not a wise path, as you have shown. I must do as my father bids, for the sake of our family.’
Elspeth grips her arm in sympathy.
The game is finishing and John returns blue-tinged and chittering from where he’s been smashing ice by the burn, and sets off at a run for home.
‘You will come and see me, Bethia, before I go? You will not desert me?’
Father is walking towards them, with Master Niven following behind.
‘Of course I’ll come and see you,’ she says, although she doubts it’ll be easy, for Elspeth is tainted goods now.
Father nods to Elspeth and holds out his arm for Bethia to take.
‘You knew Elspeth would be here,’ she says as they walk, the frozen grass crackling beneath their feet.
‘Aye, I agreed with Niven you might meet one last time.’ He stops walking and turns to face her. ‘Elspeth was allowed too much liberty and lost her way. Think on her fate and obey me, my lass, for I know what is best for you.’
Bethia looks down.
‘Are you listening?’
She nods slowly.
‘Come it is too cold to stand.’ He tucks her arm in his once more and they walk in silence. As they draw close to home he says, ‘You will not meet with Elspeth Niven again.’ He squeezes her upper arm, pinching the soft flesh. ‘Give me your word.’
‘But Father…’
‘Your word.’
‘I promise,’ she says, tucking her other hand behind her back, crossing her fingers and sending up a prayer to the blessed Virgin.
But some weeks later, when she finally escapes Father’s watchful eye, and creeps out to Elspeth’s home, Elspeth is already gone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
John Knox
Bethia and her family are at Holy Trinity to hear the preacher, John Knox. Father says he doesn’t know what the guilds were thinking to invite this reformer to speak in their kirk, but she’s curious to see this man of whom she’s heard more and more talk, especially of how like he is to George Wishart. She hopes he’s more inspiring than their usual priest, also come from the castle, John Rough. She studies Knox, head tilted, as she sits in their pew. He may be like Wishart in faith but he’s not a bonny man to look upon with stocky build, long nose and protruding lower lip.
Knox says he’s been prevailed upon to preach and, although ’tis said he cried noisily and then spent several days in the sanctuary of his room to consider his calling, he clearly embraces his role as a religious leader. He lacks Wishart’s humility, and the dull Rough’s honesty, and she doubts him.
He stands in the pulpit raised above the crowd so all can see, and talks and talks and talks. She has never known a man who has so much to say and with such belief in the rightness of his words. He lifts his arms often, waving them expansively, the dark patches of sweat beneath his oxters spreading across his voluminous robes, his long beard waggling when he turns his head. The occasional shafts of sunlight piercing the windows, illuminate the spray of spittle flying from his mouth as his voice thunders, ever louder, reaching to the rafters above. She can see this priest truly believes he is a channel through which the voice of God may be heard on Earth. And yet he claims again and again that no mortal man can be head of the Church.
‘The Pope,’ he shouts, leaning over the pulpit, ‘is an Antichrist, hear me all, an Antichrist and can never be a member of Christ’s mythical body.’
She’s not sure what he means; what she does know is that she’s listening to heresy. She wonders that the Lord does not strike Knox down, but if he keeps preaching sedition the Queen’s troops most certainly will – and it won’t be a quick strike, it’ll be another slow burning.
She herself doesn’t know what to think. This exhortation is not what’s supposed to happen in her church. True, on feast days, she has heard a sermon, but it’s usually a story from the bible to illuminate her life and not such unforgiving doctrine. Where is the Mass, the slow meditative rhythm of the Latin, the comfort of a familiar, and much shorter, service? She jumps; it’s as though Knox has seen inside her head. He begins to instruct on a new order in which Mass no longer has a place.