“I do,” she said, her voice very low.
“Do you swear to be neither lustful nor violent in future?”
“I do.”
“And obey God, and your husband, who was set by God Himself above you to be your master and guide?”
Almost, they heard her sigh at the weary drudgery that he would exact. “I do.”
“Then you must stand here, inside the church till sunset, when the church wardens will come to release you. Stand barefoot and shamed, as your candle burns down, while anyone may come to reproach you, but you may not reply or speak any word. Look into your heart, sister, and do not offend God or your neighbors again.”
The minister turned to the congregation, spread his arms, and gabbled the bidding prayer. The woman stood before him, facing the neighbors who had denounced her, her face set and bitter, the light trembling in her hand, while somewhere in the church her husband, who had beaten her, and the man who had taken her behind the hedge shuffled their feet and waited for when they might leave.
After church Sir William paused in the churchyard as his tenants came up and bowed or curtseyed. Alinor and Alys followed Ned to pay their respects and Sir William waved Rob to step aside to kneel for his mother’s blessing and rise up for her kiss on his forehead. Alinor was pale and distracted, thinking of the woman, named as an adulteress left to do penance barefoot in the church behind them, wearing only her shift, holding her candle in a shaking hand. Alinor was well aware of the power of the Millers and the community when they moved as one, and she knew that they moved as the mood took them, against whoever they despised, and a woman could not speak for herself.
“We’re going to go sailing!” Rob announced to his mother. “Across the sea.”
She could not stop herself looking towards James, but she turned her eyes quickly on the steward, Mr. Tudeley.
“Sailing?”
“Mr. Summer is taking the boys for a visit to the island next week,” he announced. “Sailing to the Isle of Wight.”
“Oh.” Alinor turned back to her son, who was bobbing with excitement.
“We’re going first to Newport,” Rob exulted. “We’ll stay the night. Maybe two nights.”
“But why?” Alinor asked. “What for?”
“Geography,” Rob said grandly. “And mapmaking. Mr. Summer says we might even see the king! Wouldn’t that be a sight to see? Sir William knows him, but Walter has never been presented. We can’t speak to him, of course. But we might see him in the streets. Mr. Summer says that he walks out.”
“I thought he was at the castle at Carisbrooke,” Alinor remarked, fixing her gaze on her son’s bright face and looking neither at her brother nor at James Summer, knowing that both of them were listening intently. “I thought he was imprisoned.”
“His Majesty is being released to a private house at Newport, to meet the gentlemen from parliament and reach agreement with them,” Mr. Tudeley told her.
“And we’ll probably see him!” Rob added.
“I’d rather you didn’t go,” Alinor said urgently, putting her arm around Rob’s shoulders and turning him away from the circle around Sir William. “You know, your uncle Ned won’t like it at all!”
“I have to go with Walter,” Rob pointed out. “I’m his companion. I have to accompany him!”
“Yes, but—”
“And it’s not as if the king’s still at war. He’s in Newport to meet with the men from parliament. It’s all at peace now. They’re meeting him at Newport to make peace and he’ll be released. I’d like to see him, now it’s all over. Think of me, seeing the King of England!”
“I’d still rather you didn’t,” Alinor repeated.
Rob was suddenly attentive. He looked up at her pale face. “Why? What’s the matter? Is it the sight, Mam?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just that . . .”
“What?”
“Oh, poor Mrs. Whiting, and having to stand before the church . . .”
“That’s got nothing to do with us,” he rightly said.
“I know her, and yet I said nothing in her defense,” she said.
“There was nothing to say.” Alys came up quietly to the two of them. “Everyone would have turned on you, and on the three of us, if you’d spoken up for her. And besides, she did go behind the hedge. I saw her.”
“Yes, but—”
“How’s this got anything to do with me going to the Isle of Wight?” Rob demanded.
“It hasn’t!” Alinor owned. “You know how I feel, Rob . . . it’s just—”
“Is it the sea?” he guessed. “The deep water?”
“The sea,” she said, grasping at the word as if her fear of the ocean could explain the sense of dread that she felt at her son going to Newport to see the defeated king. Going to Newport in the company of his tutor—the king’s spy.
TIDELANDS, SEPTEMBER 1648
James Summer, Rob, and Walter took ship from the mill quay in a coastal trader bound for the Isle of Wight, Southampton, and westerly. Richard Stoney, Alys, and a couple of the mill girls watched them go. Rob waved as extravagantly as if he were leaving for the Americas and might never return as the two-masted ketch went slowly down the deep channel, with the crew on either side watching for sandbars and shouting the depth.
James went to starboard to look for the little cottage perched on the harbor bank, as ramshackle as if it had been washed there by a high tide. The door was standing open and he wondered if Alinor was watching the ship from the dark interior. He guessed that she was unhappy at Rob sailing to the island, but she had not asked him not to take the boy. She had not spoken to him at all. Not even after church when she made her curtsey to Sir William and rose up to find James’s brown eyes on her face. She had behaved—just as he had prayed that she would—with icy discretion. She had withdrawn from him as if she had never known him, as if she had never held him, as if she had never opened her lips to his demanding mouth. He had prayed to be released, and she had let him go at once, as if she had never whispered that she wanted to be with him, that she wanted to be with him alone. Even as she curtseyed to him, she looked beyond and away from him. He would have thought that he was nothing to her, that he had never been anything to her. He would have thought that he was unseen.
And of course, as soon as she withdrew from him, he wanted to catch her hand, to say her name, to make that gray gaze turn back to him. As the poorest tenant on the estate, a woman that he had stooped to notice, she should have been alert for the least sign of his forgiveness. But it was as if he were invisible to her. He had to stand at Sir William’s shoulder and let this woman, this nobody, walk away from him as if he were nothing.
Now, as the sails of the ship caught the wind and the craft moved a little forward, he looked for the poor cottage that was her home, which she had opened to him as a refuge when he had nowhere else to go. He could see a trail of smoke from the chimney, he saw that the door stood open, he could even see a movement in the dark interior: the glimpse of her white cap. Then, as he watched, she came out of the doorway and stood on the cracked stone of her front step so that he could see her. She raised her hand, her scarred worn hand, to shade her eyes. He could hardly believe it: but she was looking for him. She saw him; she saw the ship that was taking her beloved son into danger, using him as a shield against inquiry, as an alibi in the incredible treason that he was about to commit. He thought she must be ill-wishing him, as he did the one thing that she must dread—taking Rob into deep waters. But then he saw her raise her hand to his ship, in a blessing, as any sailor’s wife would wave to a sail and whisper, “Godspeed! Come safe home!” He saw her stand, watching him. It was unmistakable. She loved him, she had a love deeper and wider than his, for she forgave him for his stupidity and his unkindness, and she was wishing him Godspeed on a journey, even though he was serving the king and taking her boy across the deeps.