by Tim Holden
Tiniker squirmed in her seat. She knew she loved Alfred but refused to admit it to herself. Fearful she would fall for him, or betray him, or lose him. She had to stay strong for Margreet.
‘Pretty thing like you, it’s a wonder he manages to walk around the house without his horn showing. By the time you leave at night, I fancy his hose look more like a tent.’
Tiniker giggled.
She’d never heard a woman of Alice’s age talk openly about matters of the flesh. Surely older people didn’t…? Tiniker had always imagined that after a certain age people must stop naughty thoughts and deeds.
‘He still has one good arm.’
Alice let out a laugh. ‘Oh dear, that’s the first time I’ve laughed in days.’ The comb snagged, pulling with it Tiniker’s hair. She yelped. ‘You’ll be making more noises like that if Alfred has his way with you!’ Alice laughed.
‘Stop!’ Tiniker’s cheeks went a deeper shade of red.
She started to giggle.
She let out a small fart by accident, and their laughter grew. Alice tried to reply with a joke but ran out of air before she could get her words out. Tiniker covered her face with her hands, as Alice bent double, finding only more laughter when she fought for words. The two of them descended into fits of giggles. For a brief moment, all the pent-up worry of recent weeks was released. Neither was sure what exactly it was they were laughing at, or why it was so funny, but they enjoyed it all the same. Alice leant on the bed, laughter shaking her body. Tiniker laid back resting on top of Alice. It was several moments before they composed themselves.
‘I’d like to kiss him,’ confessed Tiniker, ‘but I don’t trust myself.’
‘You’ll know when the moment’s right,’ said Alice. She cleared her throat. ‘Don’t let him have his way with you though. Once boys his age have had what they want they’ll vanish quicker than a Catholic’s morals, and you’ll be left with a baby.’
Tiniker nodded.
‘You don’t want to end up outcast, Tiniker,’ warned Alice, her tone becoming serious. ‘Do it properly. Wait till he proposes.’
Tiniker went quiet, staring at her knees.
A moment passed with only the raindrops as accompaniment.
‘A penny for your thoughts?’ asked Alice.
Tiniker startled, returned from her daydream.
‘I’m worried Alfred won’t survive the fighting to come.’
‘He won’t be doing any fighting with that injured arm of his.’
‘Something tells me harm’s going to come to him.’
Alice went quiet. Only the sound of the raindrops.
‘Why don’t I plait your hair?’
Tiniker nodded. ‘Sure.’
A silence passed. Tiniker closed her eyes as Alice pulled her hair back. She sensed Alice needed to talk and unburden herself of her own fears. Now was the time to ask the question that had been at the back of her mind all afternoon. She threw caution to the wind. ‘What will Robert do?’
Alice sighed. ‘After today’s news, he’s as flat as a pancake.’
The door opened. William stepped into the candlelight of the room, and Tiniker cursed his arrival.
‘That’s a gay sound I haven’t heard much of recently.’ He closed the door behind him.
‘Just us being silly,’ said Alice. ‘How’s Robert?’
‘Not good.’ William moved past them and sat himself at the head of the bed. ‘He’s talking about conceding defeat.’
Alice gasped.
‘He’s talking about riding to London tomorrow and handing himself in.’
‘He’ll be hung.’
‘I know. He thinks it’s the only thing he can do to stop the loss of more lives. What he doesn’t realise is that once word spreads, he’ll be lynched by our own side for betraying them. He wouldn’t make it off the heath.’
Tiniker stayed quiet.
‘What word is there from London?’
‘Only God knows for sure. Word is there are troops gathered, but they have no orders. The fighting has finished in Cornwall, so maybe they have simply returned. Now we’re at war with France, maybe the soldiers are required to guard against invasion. This morning, I even heard a rumour that Dudley had deposed Protector Seymour! Frankly, I don’t know what to believe.’
‘What should Robert do?’ asked Alice.
‘Search me. Our best hope might be to negotiate a pardon for everybody, but he’s in no condition to even manage that at the moment. We’ve got to find a way to pick him up, otherwise, well,’ he paused, ‘no, we have to get him back on his feet and leading.’ His knee clicked as he strained to get back on his feet.
‘I’ll leave you ladies to your business.’
William closed the door behind him. Tiniker heard Alice sniff.
‘Alice? Are you okay?’
The plaiting stopped. Alice sat down behind her, and the bed trembled beneath her. Tiniker turned and hugged Alice whose body shook in Tiniker’s arms. Emotions, which had been simmering below the surface for days, began to overspill.
‘You’re the only person who’s asked.’ Alice’s voice was shaking, ‘Not even Robert has given a thought to me.’
Tiniker rubbed Alice’s back.
‘I have to be strong for him. He’s got enough to worry about with having to reassure me,’ said Alice straightening her back and wiping her nose with her sleeve. ‘Pray with me?’
They knelt either side of the bed, their hands joined in the middle, heads bowed as they closed their eyes. Tiniker’s mind and heart fought like cat and dog as her loyalties collided. She didn’t hear a word of Alice’s prayer, too busy wrestling with her conscience.
*
As night fell, the silhouette of the cathedral spire faded against the darkness of the sky. Fulke pulled his new jacket tight around his body to keep out the chill. He winced as it sent pain through his ribs. He ducked out of the rain and took shelter under Steward’s porch. A long yawn seeped from his tired and aching body. It was too early to be found asleep at his post, but he was determined to get some rest tonight. This evening there was not so much as a cat to be seen on the streets, as the rain had done his work for him. Fulke had always imagined every night in a city would be noisy, but tonight was still. He rested his back against Steward’s door.
Fulke had agreed to guard Steward’s property at night so the deputy mayor could sleep soundly. The arrangement suited Fulke. He wanted to remain on Kett’s payroll, but events in the city now exceeded his ability to dispense any semblance of order on his own. Not that he’d admit it to Kett.
Fulke didn’t like the deputy mayor, but he understood how the man’s mind worked. He was the sort that would see himself right. Fulke respected Steward’s brand of self-interest. Steward was influential, so Fulke had decided to stay close to him. His sort paid well to keep their dirty work at arm’s length.
As he relaxed, Fulke’s mind drifted back to Wymondham. Beating up the constable seemed like a lifetime ago. Not in his wildest fantasies could he have expected things to go as well as they had. But there would come a time when this rebellion would finish, and life would return to normal. He felt a satisfaction in knowing that he had started and lived through something that would be talked about for years to come. He’d beaten up gentleman, extorted their cash and imprisoned them. He’d gotten and spent more money in the past month than he had in the previous year. He eaten and drunken like a prince, bedded his share of strumpets and still had money to spare. He’d set fire to fair portion of the city, killed a good many soldiers and murdered a member of the aristocracy.
He grinned at the memory of that.
Once word had spread of Sheffield’s death, there had been a right hoo-ha. He’d overheard rebels saying it was good to have the boot on the other foot for once and put the frighteners up the aristocracy. Others however, feared that Sheffield’s death would bring with it reprisals and that Kett’s demands would not be granted. There had been a lot of talk of a bounty for the man who killed
Sheffield. Fortunately for Fulke, only Alfred had seen, and he knew better than to open his mouth.
The furore had caused Fulke to think for the first time that he would do well do keep in favour of powerful men. The events of the past month had given him a taste for life and more means than he’d ever had before. When he’d started, he had nothing to lose. Now he found himself feeling a little different. He had enough money to bribe constable Morris for roughing him up in Wymondham, he had ingratiated himself with Kett and Steward, but neither would be enough to keep him from coming into harm’s way for what he’d done to Sheffield. It wasn’t that he was scared of dying, but dying in a fight, or better still a battle was infinitely preferable to a noose of a mere common criminal’s death. That wasn’t good enough for Fulke: the man who killed aristocrats.
The rain stopped. A break in the clouds let a silvery glow of moonlight shimmer against the wet. The rain ceasing threatened to bring people out and disturb his rest.
Kett’s curfew was routinely ignored. The gangs that nightly roamed the streets were a greater deterrent than Kett’s laws.
One such gang had forced Fulke to see the limitations of his own force. The night after Cooper’s trial, when Kett sent the local archer to prison, Fulke had been approached by a young boy who claimed to have discovered a wealthy man beaten and left for dead in a back alley. Sensing opportunity, Fulke had followed the boy and true to his word, a man lay folded like a baby in the dirt. As Fulke bent down to get a better look in the darkness, the victim jumped up and accosted him. As the boy made good his escape, the narrow alleyway filled from both ends with men. Fulke gave his best account of himself but was soon overpowered and left for dead like the man he’d come to rescue. Kick after kick had rained down on him until he lay still. After they had finished beating him, they pissed on him, telling him this was the price he paid for messing with John Cooper.
In his current bruised condition, guarding Steward’s door served as the ideal way to stay out of danger whilst remaining on the payroll.
He rubbed his eyes, alert to movement in the shadows across the street. His senses fired, as he strained to see a small figure in a hood and cloak run across the street towards him. As the figure bounded up the steps, Fulke raised his arms to protect himself from collision.
A shrill scream rang out.
It was a woman.
‘Watch where you’re going,’ he said as he held her frozen body at arms’ length. ‘Calm,’ he said, sensing the woman’s agitation at being surprised in the dark.
He pulled back her hood, and she let out another scream. ‘It’s you!’ She kicked his shin.
Fulke shouted and buckled as she aggravated a wound from earlier. She wriggled out of his hands and stepped back on to the street. When he saw her blonde hair in the moonlight, he realised it was Alfred’s girl.
‘What are you doing here?’ she barked. ‘You frightened the life out of me, you dirty rapist.’
‘What are you doing here?’ replied Fulke.
‘If you touch me, I’ll scream so loud your ears will bleed,’ threatened the foreign girl.
‘Pretty little thing when you’re angry, aren’t you?’ taunted Fulke. ‘Wonder you haven’t broken my leg.’
‘Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.’ She flashed a small blade from beneath her cloak. There was a steely menace in her voice that convinced Fulke she meant it. ‘I should have killed you last time when…’
The front door jerked open.
‘What in God’s name is all this noise?’ demanded Steward peering out from behind a candlestick.
‘You have a visitor,’ said Fulke.
‘And you have a rapist at your door,’ said Tiniker stepping forward.
Steward recognised Tiniker.
‘You’d better come in.’
Tiniker pointed her knife at as she went up the steps backwards and into Steward’s house, making sure to close the door behind her. Her hands were trembling as she stuffed her knife in her belt then turned to face Steward behind her.
‘What the hell is that man doing at your door?’ she barked.
Steward was taken aback by her reaction. He squinted. ‘Hello, Tiniker, welcome,’ he said. ‘Come through. Let me pour you some wine.’
Tiniker followed him into the house and took the tankard he offered her. Her hand was still shaking. The wine was soothing.
‘That man at your door tried to rape me.’
‘Well, better he’s occupied at my door than free to roam the streets, don’t you think?’
‘Well, if you judge a man by his companions then I can’t say much for you.’
Steward’s eyes narrowed.
‘If you want my information, you’ll have to guarantee my safety,’ she said, shaking off her hood.
‘I’ll walk you back myself.’ Steward gave his word.
Tiniker pulled out the bench and sat down. Steward did the same. The kitchen was large enough to prepare a banquet in. The embers of a fire smouldered in the hearth under an empty spit for roasting meat. She could make out sacks of food against the wall, and barrels in the corner.
‘I see why you need a guard,’ she remarked.
‘Enough about my companions. What about yours? Mr Kett?’ said Steward.
‘He’s done for.’
‘What is he planning?’
‘No, that’s just it, he’s done for.’
‘He’s surrendering?’
‘He wants to. He’s lost his nerve. He wants to back down.’
Steward smiled. ‘Good. The sooner his fetid head’s parted from his body, the sooner we can get back to our lives.’
‘And you’ll be happy, will you?’ she challenged him. ‘When a good man has been killed for standing up for his beliefs to improve other men’s lots?’
Steward snorted, ‘Come on!’
‘You are a cynical bastard,’ said Tiniker releasing her grip on her tankard.
‘Young girl, don’t come into my house, accept my hospitality and have the front to sit in judgement on me.’
She couldn’t afford to lose his support, but it rankled that he should take such pleasure in Robert’s downfall. If he had seen Alice in tears less than an hour ago, he might think differently.
‘Maybe you have spent too much time with the Ketts?’ Steward traced the watermark on the table left by his tankard with his finger. ‘Perhaps you can’t be relied on anymore.’
‘Mr Steward, sir. I don’t wish to upset you, as you I know I am reliant on you for my protection and survival, but having spent time with the Ketts, I have found them to be good people whose only intention is to overturn the injustices that they see.’
‘When you walked here tonight, you walked over the graves of Englishmen, through a city partially destroyed by fire, and on a night when gangs of men roam free to exert their will on any who should be unfortunate enough to cross their paths. You sit in a house stripped bare of its contents, and indeed, have lost your own father.’ Their eyes met. ‘There is one man responsible for all of this: Robert Kett. You’d do well to remember that.’
Tiniker ground her teeth and searched for a response.
‘Whatever has happened, I can tell you that his intentions were honourable.’
‘I judge a man by his actions, and a more dangerous man than Robert Kett, I have yet to encounter. The sooner he’s strung up, the better,’ Steward wasn’t budging.
Mr Kett deserved better than the treatment Steward wished on him. Tiniker took another sip. The wine warmed her, ridding her body of the night’s chill.
‘Well, I have told you what I know. He will back down. No more violence is necessary. What will you do?’
‘I’ll let London know. What they do is up to them.’
‘Have you no feelings?’
‘For Kett and his troublesome followers? Kill the lot of them for all I care.’
‘Will you make no attempt to…’
‘Kett threatened to have me imprisoned. I couldn’t care less what fate befa
lls him, and if he’s worried for his own neck then he’d be well advised to consider that before he raises hell next time.’
‘His wife told me he never intended for this to happen.’
Steward topped up her wine. It warmed her body as she drank. Steward loosened his collar and licked his lips. ‘Just how much are you prepared to do to help save Kett?’
Tiniker met his gaze and placed her hand on her hip. ‘Mr Steward, I have a knife in my belt, and if you so much as lay one finger on me, I’ll have no hesitation in using it.’
Steward grinned as she stood up.
‘Thank you for the wine. My business here is done. Now if you’ll be good enough to walk me home.’
*
Robert woke up after the best night’s sleep he could remember having in a long time. Alice lay in slumber next to him, her breathing slow. Robert’s mind was normally busiest in the morning, but today it felt blank, devoid of inspiration, sunk in the mire of his misfortunes. But, oddly, his mood was not as black as the day before. He ignored this small sign of progress, preferring to hold onto the dismay of recent days. If he admitted to himself he felt better, he would embroil himself in the challenges he faced, and if the events of the past month had taught him anything, it was that his actions only led to bigger problems.
For now, his body knew, even if his mind did not, it was safest to stay beaten. He needed to pee but didn’t want to wake Alice. Instead, he turned his thoughts to their children. He still referred to them as children even though they had long since become men and women. His daughter Jane was now the concern of another man. It had been years since he last saw her, a source of some vexation, but he had convinced himself he didn’t want to interfere in her life and be a nuisance father. She would be busy raising her own children, and he’d left her husband with enough money to survive several winters.
He’d pushed his boys out to find their own paths. A tannery was no place for bright young men, and he didn’t wish the hardships of his own life on them. His eldest, William had ventured to London. The youngest, George, had always dreamed of a life on the high seas. Perhaps he would succumb to the lure of the new world. Whatever they all did, wherever God placed them, Robert was grateful they were not with him. He wondered if they’d heard their father’s name mentioned in the taverns and inns. Would he be a hero or a villain; would the name Kett be a hindrance to them now or would they dine out on their father’s deeds? Robert had always hoped his eldest William might return to Norfolk and inherit the family land, but today he closed his eyes and offered the Lord his thanks for keeping them out of Norfolk.
