Adrian stared back at his uncle. “Because my cousin’s wife is worried, sir, as she has every right to be, and is hoping I will find him for her. I had naturally assumed you would know where he is, and more importantly, whether or not he is ill.”
“Wretched boy was ill. And,” the earl muttered, scratching his head, “he had the damned temerity to come here when barely recovered. I sent him off, tail between his legs. The queen hardly cold in her tomb, and my own son threatens to bring the pestilence into the very confines of the palace. I myself could have been infected. I didn’t ask the fool his plans nor where he was staying. Not with me, that I can promise.”
“At the Strand House, perhaps?”
“Go ask your Uncle Jerrid,” grumbled the earl. “I’ve no interest in it. The boy’s alive, that’s all I need to know. Like I said – I sent him off properly crestfallen, and asked no further questions. Didn’t answer any, either, nor will I yours.”
“It is hard to imagine Nicholas crestfallen,” sighed Adrian. “He is a difficult man to crush. Even ill, I can hear him laughing at his own expected demise.”
“Wretched boy,” snorted the boy’s father. “Takes after his fool of a mother.”
“You’re planning a move yourself, uncle? Back north?” Adrian looked pointedly around at the piled clutter, the folded shirts and twists of silken hose prepared for transport.
“Royal business. Spain next week. We have a king without a son, nor any wife to provide another. It’s marriage we need to promote, now the funeral is over.”
“Spain? I heard the negotiations were with Portugal?”
The earl frowned, scratching absently inside the open neck of his shirt. “They were. They are. I expected – but Brampton’s already gone to Portugal. Well – better him than me since he speaks the language.”
“Since he’s Portuguese.”
“Well, there you are then,” muttered the earl. “But the king wants a bride to combine the York and Lancastrian bloodlines. Stop any future jealousies or new hostilities. He’s battle weary, and has had enough of death. So Brampton’s off to Portugal, and I’ll be talking to the royal house of Castile.”
“She’s very young,” remembered Adrian.
“The Infanta Isabel – yes. All the better for breeding. A good match if I can pull it off. The Portuguese female is a good deal older, which might be a handicap. After all, the king needs an heir, not just a handsome wench in his bed.”
Adrian straightened his back. There was no place to sit, and the chairs were heaped with packing bags. “But the Portuguese are particularly keen, I’ve heard. They’re offering the cousin Manuel for the old king’s eldest daughter as a dual arrangement.”
The earl paused, frowning. “You surprise me, m’boy. Know a good deal more than I’d have expected of a northerner. But yes. The king promised her a fine match back when her wretched mother let her out of Sanctuary, so the chit needs a husband and she’s keen. They dream of romance, these silly young females, eager for a man between their legs. But this time it’s simple politics. The Portuguese want in, offering a double bargain so Castile will be pushed out.”
“So instead you’ll do your best to push Castile in and keep Lisbon out instead?”
The earl eyed his nephew with vague surprise. “You certainly know a lot about something not yet known to many,” he said sharply. “D’you come here to find young Nicholas, or to sound me out about the king’s marriage negotiations?”
“Marriage? Monarchs?” Adrian smiled, narrow eyed. “I don’t give a cock’s feather for either, nor do I understand the joy of intrigue, uncle. I prefer straight speaking to kissing the feet of foreign diplomats.” He turned, grasping the door handle. “So good luck with your flattery and lies. I’m off to do my family duty and find Nicholas for his wife.”
The village lanes, pebbled in limestone, wound like trails of melt water from the hills beyond. Each led to the village square where the local stalls were packing up. Without a licence for a foreign market but too far to walk for Gloucester, the farmers brought their radishes, parsnips and cabbages every Saturday while the baker brought his ready milled flour, and weighed it in front of his customers where it could be seen he added neither grit nor sawdust to cheat them. The village stocks, empty as always, stood at a distance.
The butcher already had his shop facing the big hollow yew tree, but he sent his lad to set up a stall on the green where he sold chitterlings, glossy washed tripe, and sheep’s intestines ready stuffed. The old widow from across the wooded slopes brought the bundled faggots she had collected, tied in red twine, for though Wychwood was no forest at all, there were trees ready enough to drop their branches in the winter winds slashing sharp through the valleys. Behind the stalls, the goose boy stood eyeing the swineherd’s son, while the geese, feet tarred black and feathers all aquiver with fury, eyed the scrawny little pigs, mother red eyed as she kept her squealing piglets barricaded safe behind her bulk. The swineherd’s son held his stick raised and his feet firm planted, ever protective, while the barefoot goose boy was glaring and pugnacious.
It was a warm morning but the wind was gusty and the low clouds threatened rain. There was the smell of fresh cut grass in the air and the perfumes of new baked bread, custards, lilac blossoms, egg crusted pastry and the last of the previous year’s apples roasted and dipped in honey. Then a scatter of old dry straw flew up from beneath the butcher’s stall, with a tang of stale spilled offal.
Avice wore pattens to protect her shoes, but Emeline wore bright new leather boots with a lining of rabbit, the trimming peeping at her ankles. Avice linked her arm through her sister’s, her eyes bright and ardent with envy, resolutely fixed on Emeline’s feet. Emeline said, “I know what you’re looking at, Avice. But there have to be some advantages in being married, you know.” The sudden sunshine lit the trimmings on her hood, gilding the lemon velvet. She patted her sister’s small ungloved fingers. “But if Nicholas is safe, and comes back to me strong and shining, then I shall buy you a pair of boots too, and old Tom Thompson in Leather Alley will make them for you.”
The tooth puller, looking up with misgivings at the dark rolling clouds suddenly obscuring the sun, quickly wiped the blood from his hands and his pliers onto his apron as he slung his stool over his shoulder and set off for the tavern with the morning’s tenpence jangling in his purse. Stalls thumped as their owners folded them up for the day, striped canvas flapping in the breezes. The little pink sow trotted quickly off behind her master, tiny hoofs clicking on the pebbles as she guided her brood, unable to count far enough to notice the lack of two precious piglets sold for Brother Alfred’s cauldron. Then the clouds closed as a last sunbeam slanted through, sparkling across the grass as each stallholder and each hurrying customer set off for home in time for their midday dinner.
The wind blew Emeline’s hood from her head and she pulled it back and tugged it low, her hand flat on top of her head. Laughing, the sisters ran up the lane as the rain began to pelt, huge sloppy drops on their skirts and shoulders and bouncing up beside their feet, the dust turning quickly to mud. “Hurry,” shouted Avice, “or our pies will be sodden.”
“We should have eaten them right away.”
“Eating while walking – and in front of the market folk? In public, with gravy on our chins, and even licking our fingers? How positively shocking. Papa would be horrified.”
Avice giggled and Emeline shouted back, “Then thank all the saints that Papa is still far, far away in London, and will not be back for at least another week.”