by Sally Watson
Bracken shrugged. “Oh, we will just send someone ahead to find out what the danger is, and come back and tell us.”
Sure enough, Neco and another man set off ahead of the caravan, and when they returned, the Gypsies had a conference in the field beside the river. James and Lark tactfully waited by themselves behind the yellow wagon, James more uneasy than he liked to admit. Then Sheba and Psammis came over to them.
“An army of Scots is headed this way from Chester,” said Psammis. “It is said that General Cromwell and an even larger army is following them, and when they catch up there will surely be a great battle. This is no place for us, and we will turn and go into Wales, perhaps, or to the east. What of you? Will you stay with us?”
James’s lips tightened as he considered this. But he really had no choice. “Thank you,” he said, “but I must go on to Shrewsbury.” And he smiled a little wryly at Lark, hoping he wasn’t leading her straight into a battle instead of to the safety of his friends.
Lark, who would have followed him into a fiery furnace, smiled back trustfully, and they both turned into their respective wagon homes to change back into Puritan clothing.
The tribe gathered to wish them well and put some good-luck spells upon them. Bracken complained bitterly about losing his new playmate, and Neco winked at Lark wickedly and then had to grab the enraged Willow’s wrists. James thanked Psammis and Sheba as if they had been royalty—which, among their own people, they were, in a way.
“If I can ever repay you—” he began.
“You are our friend, Friend of Frondo,” said Psammis sonorously. “Let you repay by helping another Gypsy in trouble if you can, no matter if he has broken every law in England—which,” he added with a chuckle, “will probably be the case.”
“I won’t even stop to ask,” promised James.
As they started to walk away, Lark saw the stolid small figure of Berry, still hunched sphinx-like in the back of the yellow wagon, regarding them solemnly. It occurred to her that she had not yet heard the child speak a word. Impulsively she called “Goodbye, Berry,” and waved.
Berry considered her for a moment, her mouth pulled into a mere button of pink. Then, just as Lark had given up, she raised a chubby brown hand and gravely wiggled the short fingers—exactly twice. Then she relapsed once more into a statue of a child. Lark grinned.
They walked along toward the hill town of Shrewsbury, their feet feeling very strange in shoes. James was silent, and it was clear that his thoughts were not particularly pleasant. Lark watched him anxiously from under her long lashes.
“James,” she ventured at last, “do you think Psammis was right about the armies and Cromwell?”
“Probably,” said James gloomily.
“And there is going to be a big battle soon?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said James, even more gloomily.
Lark peered at him sideways. “You’re afraid the Roundheads will win, aren’t you?”
James nodded, and Lark was plunged instantly into depression. For James was extremely wise, and if he thought Cromwell would win, then it would probably happen. James saw her face and tried to cheer her up. “Perhaps not,” he added, not very convincingly.
“Would it be my fault if it happens?” asked Lark in a very small voice, and James stared at her with astonishment.
“How could it be your fault?” he demanded.
“I mean, if I’m the one who delayed you, and something bad happened because you weren’t in time to do whatever it is you have to do,” explained Lark disconsolately.
James frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked severely.
Lark turned appealing round eyes to his. “I’m awfully sorry,” she pleaded, “but I can’t help knowing. I tried not to, but you can’t un-know a thing if you know it.”
With a rueful sigh, James realized that he really shouldn’t have expected her not to guess something. “Well,” he asked gently, “what is it that you do know, Lark?”
“Not very much,” said Lark, relieved that he wasn’t angry. “Only I know you’re doing something for the king, and I think you’re supposed to do it in Shrewsbury, and you’re worried for fear you’ll be too late. And if something awful happened because I made you late, I just couldn’t bear it.”
James experienced a wave of tenderness as he looked down at her—brave and loyal little comrade that she was! “If it hadn’t been for you, back at the Blue Dolphin, I might not have got here at all,” he pointed out logically. “So you see, you’ve been far more a help than a handicap. Anyway,” he added a little wryly, “what I’m doing isn’t in the least all that important. In fact, I dare say I shan’t be of any use now, at all, with the armies this far south. But you see, I said I’d be there, so I must. There may be some message I can still take somewhere—or something.”
Lark sighed with relief and closed her mouth firmly so as not to ask any more questions that she shouldn’t. James smiled down at her. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, because I do,” he said. “It’s partly for your own safety that I don’t tell you more, and partly because these aren’t my secrets to tell.”
James trusted her! Lark sighed and cherished the words all the rest of the way to Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury was a walled town on a hill, with a castle at the main gate that was clearly occupied by Roundhead soldiers. Lark breathed deeply, ducked her head like a shy child, and clung to James as they walked through the gate and up the steep curve of the cobbled street.
At the top of the hill, James turned to the left with an air of knowing exactly where he was going, and led the way to a fine, high, timbered inn with casement windows in front jutting over an oaken balcony. Above the balcony swung a sign which proclaimed it the Word-of-God Inn, but it seemed clear that this name was a fairly recent afterthought. For in front of the balcony swung a fine big dragon, beautifully carved, and painted a now-faded but impressive red. At least Lark thought it was a dragon, although it might possibly have been a griffin. At any rate, its claws were lifted fiercely and there was a most ferocious fanged head at the end of the long curved neck.
“Doll’s husband was a frightfully stern Puritan when he was alive,” murmured James, who noticed Lark staring at the dragon. “So everyone assumes that Doll feels the same way. But she has always been secretly on the Royalist side, and it’s very useful, especially with the inn’s reputation. It’s the last place anyone would suspect.”
He opened the heavy door and led the way in, finding his way directly down the long hallway and to another door, out of which came a glow of light and the murmur of voices. Lark stared in past the leanness of James. It was the kitchen, heart and core of this inn, where food was cooked, and people not wealthy enough to dine privately upstairs sat around and ate.
It was a huge room, with a scrubbed table in the center of the stone-flagged floor. There were pewter mugs and blue-and-white plates set for supper, and several men sitting in high-backed settees along the wall and on both sides of the enormous stone arch which held the fireplace. The fire blazed cheerfully on the raised stone hearth; and on racks above and on both sides hung long steel spits, brass skimmers and ladles, skillets, pans, and tongs. The mantel shelf was a neat clutter of candle stands, skewers, pewter plates, salt box, tinder box, and even flour dredgers and smoothing irons. Lark reflected that both James’s and her collars, though freshly washed just a day ago in a stream, could stand a touch of the smoothing iron.
The five or six men, all in Puritan dress, glanced up more or less casually at the new guests, and an extremely plump woman—apparently the cook—turned from her task of frying bacon in a large shallow pan. Her round cheeks glowed with the warmth of the fire, and no one could have imagined a more good-natured, motherly, simple-hearted sort of creature.
“New guests,” she called. “Come in, m’dears, come in.”
But James was busy playing his role. He looked around dubiously and spoke up with his old Yorkshire voice. “Be this a gradely and godly inn where happe
n ah can bring ma wee sister?”
“Bless your heart, it is that!” exclaimed the cook, turning the bacon over to the chambermaid and coming toward them. “As fine as you’ll find in the whole of Shropshire, and none staying here but fine godly folk who will never offend her innocent ears with an untoward word. Sit down, sit down, and supper will be ready soon.”
She turned back to her work—but not before Lark had caught an unmistakable look between her and James. So this, then, was Doll, and surely no one ever looked less capable of playing a double role! Lark relaxed and enjoyed her meal.
It was not too long after supper that the guests began drifting out, bound for the large common room which held a number of beds for those who could not afford private rooms. Doll kept bustling around with fussy kindness and chitter-chatter as long as any of the other guests were still there. James, she announced, could have a pallet here in the kitchen where it was warm, nice lad that he was, and his sweet sister would sleep snugly and safely up with Doll in her own bedroom, so she should.
But the instant the last guest left the kitchen, Doll became brisk and businesslike. She even looked, suddenly, less plump than solid as she turned and studied James severely. “Who’s the child?” she demanded, jerking her chin at Lark. “This isn’t a game we’re playing, James Trelawney!”
Her voice was low, even though they were in the arched section, close by the fireplace, and no one could have heard from outside. But low though her voice was, it was sharp. Lark flushed and dropped her chin, and made a mental note of James’s last name. It was nice. Trelawney. Lark Trelawney would sound well, too.
James’s chin jerked upward. “She’s to be trusted,” he said curtly. “In fact, it was her wits got me out of a very nasty mess. Don’t think you can judge people by their size or age, Doll!”
Doll turned and looked hard at Lark, who felt that she had to defend James’s judgment. “Anyhow, he hasn’t told me anything,” she pleaded. “I didn’t even know his last name until you said it just now, and he doesn’t know mine, either. We only know we’re both on the same side . . . but I expect I’d better go to bed or something now, so you can talk,” she added humbly.
Doll went on staring at her for a moment longer, and Lark was surprised all over again at how different she looked now. Then the massive shoulders shrugged. “Well, I suppose it’s no matter now, anyway,” she observed, turning back to James. “There’s no need any longer for the kind of work you’ve been doing. It’s not messengers will be needed now, but soldiers.”
Lark didn’t hear any more, because something located somewhere under her ribs began behaving most alarmingly. She felt choked and blind and deaf, and altogether dreadful, and she had a sudden long-ago memory of how very odd and still her mother’s face had been when Father went off to the wars.
James leaped to his feet. “Lark, are you ill?” he demanded in a great worry. “Did I make you walk too far? You should have told me if you didn’t feel up to it; there wasn’t all that much hurry!” Doll looked extremely disapproving of that last statement, but James didn’t notice. “Doll, do something, please! You can see she isn’t feeling well.”
“Nonsense!” Doll put a broad hand on Lark’s forehead. “Not a trace of fever, so it can’t be serious. Stop fussing, James!” And she hustled the unprotesting Lark upstairs to her own chamber and a small pallet in the far corner, tucked her in, and told her to go right to sleep.
Lark nodded meekly, and then proceeded to lie awake for hours, seeing James being killed or wounded on a battlefield. For the first time in her life, she wished that King Charles II would go a long way away and never come back again.
10
The Quarrel
Lark awoke in the morning and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling for a moment, knowing vaguely that there was misery ready to pounce as soon as she remembered where she was. She tried not to think at all, but of course that just made her remember, after all, and the misery pounced.
James was going off to get himself killed in battle!
She looked around. Doll’s bed was empty, and the gray light from the casement showed that it was well after dawn. She got up and dressed, thinking wretchedly about James. How like a man, she decided crossly. They would drop anything to go off and fight. And fighting, Lark suddenly discovered with great clarity, was the silliest thing ever invented! It never changed anyone’s mind at all; and it didn’t in the least prove who was right, but merely who was stronger; and all it did do was to kill people and make things worse than they were before the fighting started.
There had been fighting in England ever since Lark could remember. Father had been lamed, and Uncle Robert and two cousins killed, and her family driven from their home, and Lark herself snatched from her family. All of this had been part of life, and she had never very much questioned it, because it was the way things were. Now she began to ask if it was the way things should be, and it took her no time at all to decide that it wasn’t. And if this was the way men insisted on running things, then Uncle Jeremiah must be quite wrong about masculine superiority, and perhaps women should take over for a while.
By the time she had got this far, a little awed by her own daring, she had also finished dressing and gone down the steep stairs. She entered the warm kitchen in a state of indignation which helped to blot out her misery, and she looked around. The room was empty except for a merry fire and Doll, who was cleaning up and scrubbing tables.
“Where’s James?” demanded Lark, standing still.
Doll looked at the small sour face, and it was amazing how even her three chins seemed made of hard muscle rather than soft and gentle fat. “He’s across town somewhere looking for a friend,” said Doll. “There’s food keeping warm on the shelf in the fireplace.”
Lark wasn’t very hungry, but Doll’s firmness caused her to walk over and fill a plate with bread and butter and bacon. She sat down at the nearest table and fiddled with it. Doll finished scrubbing one table and moved to another. “Do you know what leeches are?” she asked suddenly.
Lark blinked. Indeed she knew what leeches were. Horrid black slug-like things that clung to a person and sucked his blood. Doctors sometimes used them if they felt that a patient had an excess of blood in some spot or other.
“Do you?” persisted Doll.
Lark frowned. “Yes,” she said darkly. “Nasty things.”
“Nasty clinging things that suck the strength out of a man,” added Doll. “Don’t you be one, girl.” She turned back to her scrubbing with an air of inviting Lark to think it over.
Lark stared at the broad back resentfully and declined the invitation. She knew without even a second thought that she did not care for the implications and she was not going to have anything to do with them. She pushed her plate away, partly because she didn’t even want to eat Doll’s food.
“Best eat up,” advised Doll, going back to the hearth and beginning to polish copper pans. “I want you to help me. My chambermaid’s run away home, scared of a battle, and if you’re going to stay with me, you might as well be useful.”
Lark had no intention of staying with her, but she did not say so. She picked up a piece of bread and nibbled. “When will James be back?”
“When he’s ready,” said Doll curtly. “You don’t own him, you know. Come along, now, if you’ve finished, and lend a hand.”
Lark obeyed sullenly, feeling that she had been tricked. She had thought James was going to introduce her to nice people—or better still, stay with her himself.
“You can go up and dust and straighten the private rooms,” Doll told her. “Here’s a cloth. We’ve not many guests these days, what with two armies heading this way. You can assume that anyone staying here is a Parliament officer or sympathizer, and act accordingly.”
Lark sniffed indignantly as she took the cloth. A person would think her a mere babe who had never fooled a Roundhead in her life! She stalked from the room, deciding that when women began running matters, Doll should not be allowe
d to help. She never did learn that Doll had heard all about her from James that morning, and was paying her a high compliment in trusting her into Roundhead chambers at all.
Upstairs Lark worked doggedly but with such vigor that it was a mercy there was nothing fragile around, or she would certainly have broken it. How quickly things could change! Yesterday there had been a happy if rather vague future ahead in which she and James would live happily ever after. It had never even faintly occurred to her that he might go off to war.
Lark snuffled and rubbed the back of her hand across her face, leaving a smudge. She had never doubted that she and James belonged to each other, for always and always. To be sure, he was not fully aware of this yet, because his mind was occupied with urgent matters, and because he thought of Lark as just a little girl. But he would come round to it. Already Lark had noticed that she seemed to be getting a little older in his thoughts, and she had decided that by her fourteenth birthday—which was an impressive age—he would be seeing her altogether as a Young Lady.
Blinking, she dusted the same side of the room all over again, thinking of her dream. It was such a beautiful dream! It showed James as the Captain of their ship, which was Life, of course, always knowing what to do, and explaining things, and steering the ship ever so skillfully—with Lark watching and admiring and helping, and every now and again just giving the tiller a quiet little nudge when James wasn’t particularly noticing, in order to be sure he was steering the ship where she wanted to go.
She finished dusting the last casement, opened it a crack, and stuck her face into the fine drizzle outside to cool it. She was beginning to feel very angry at James. He had let her think they were going to do everything she wanted—or very nearly—and that he was fond of her. But apparently he was even fonder of King Charles. Lark was even angrier at King Charles than she was at James. He had been very nice and kind years ago when he was just gangling, long-faced Prince Charles who came to see them and tease her sister and get into mischief with her brother. Apparently he had changed for the worse since those days.
