“Yes, that’s not a bad idea.” Seward applied the poultice to his hand and bound clean linen over it. “You called out a name when you were dreaming: Juana. Was she your thief?” Laurence nodded. “So you have not yet forgotten her.”
“I have, and I haven’t,” Laurence answered honestly. “It makes me ashamed, that I should be capable of forgetting.”
V.
They had outpaced the Englishman’s servant as they started to cross the Pyrenees, and Laurence felt confident that it would be impossible for him to track them through the dense pine forest. Even they themselves had trouble keeping their bearings.
After some hours they came across a clearing where the ferny undergrowth had been cut to cover a humble shelter built of sticks. Juana jumped down from her horse to poke about inside and emerged flourishing a child’s toy crudely carved out of wood. “The people left their belongings here, Monsieur! Maybe they were chased out.”
They set off once more, and had not gone far when they heard the rushing of a stream ahead, and encountered a path that they followed for about a mile until the sound became clearer. “Look, Monsieur, a patrin!” she cried, and dismounted again to pick something from a bush. It was a small bunch of reeds tied together with a cunning knot. “I’m sure they were Roma who made that hut. They left the patrin as their mark, for other travellers to find.”
They rode on, Laurence ahead. As they were approaching the banks of the stream, his horse whinnied and reared, almost throwing him off. On the ground before him lay what had startled it: the body of a child, swollen and pulsing with maggots. He turned about quickly, to prevent Juana from following. “Some dead animal,” he said, for he did not want to upset her with the truth. “Let’s avoid it, for the sake of the horses.”
They left the path to break through the undergrowth, and reached a point at which the stream broadened into a deep pool, reflecting back the pure blue of the sky. They were both thirsty, and she rushed to kneel and scoop up mouthfuls of water. He was about to drink also when a cloud momentarily obscured the sun, and he could see down into the pool. There were two shapes below, a man and a woman tied together and swaying in the slight current, their bodies trapped by underwater reeds. The woman’s long hair swirled about her head like a plume of seaweed, the sole thing about either of them that had not become hideous in death.
Juana was about to return her hand for more water when he snatched her away. “That water’s not clean.” And he pointed to the bloated, decomposing bodies. “You should make yourself sick,” he urged. “Stick your finger down your throat.”
But she continued to stare downwards, as if she had not heard him. “They were the people from the camp,” she whispered. “They were murdered by the gadje, as was my own family.”
They moved on at once, but after a short interval, as Laurence glanced behind him, he noticed that she was riding so slowly that he had to rein in for her to catch up. The sun gradually began to dip in the sky, and as twilight came, he had no idea where they were. When he looked back for Juana again, she was crumpled over her horse’s neck, her head sagging on her chest as though someone had shot her, both arms about her waist. She allowed him to help her from the saddle and pry them away. Her dress strained where it usually hung loose, her stomach distended as if she were pregnant. Shaken by a dreadful convulsion, she clapped a hand over her mouth, and vomit streamed through her fingers. Choking it up, she fell on the ground, but when he tried to assist her she fought him off, crawling to the side of a tree to drag up her skirts and squat. He retreated and turned aside. Modest as she was about her bodily functions, she would hate him to witness this indignity.
When he came back later, she was lying motionless on the ground. As he picked her up she did not respond, eyes closed, her mouth encrusted with earth and vomit, her breathing laboured. He carried her over to their belongings, made her a bed with what covers they had and wiped the mess from her face. Then she stirred and spoke to him deliriously in her own language; and in Spanish, she muttered, “Don’t mark my grave. It is bad luck. Promise you won’t mark my grave.”
“I promise you won’t die,” he said, though he knew how near she was, and the thought of burying her in the forest appalled him, as he imagined her body dug up and torn apart by wild creatures.
Listening to her ragged panting and the sounds of the forest, he tried to stay awake for her, to be companion to her last moments, if need be. Yet he must have drowsed, for when he woke the sun was high above the treetops. Juana lay still in his arms, her eyes shut. He cursed out loud, sick with guilt; then his despair lifted as he felt the air from her nostrils, and the cooler temperature of her skin. She was asleep.
After some hours, her eyes opened and she gazed up at him. “You are crying, Monsieur,” she whispered, in a ghost of her normal voice.
It was then that he realised he had come to care for her far too much. She had manipulated him and lied to him; and she had only offered herself to him once, in shame, and out of sheer desperation. If they stayed together, she would just use him again. They must part as soon as she was strong enough to travel on her own.
The next day she seemed much better, but she was in a filthy state. He took her to the riverbank and against her protests washed her thoroughly. She wept and hid her face from him as his hand slipped between her legs, where the worst of the dirt clung; and he was embarrassed also, because in touching her, he had been aroused.
The journey out of the forest exhausted her. On the following day near evening, as they reached the town of Pamplona, he discovered that no amount of money would persuade an innkeeper to admit her. Plague had been spoken of in the countryside, he was informed, and everyone knew that gypsies spread the disease. One sole hope remained: the Sisters of Mercy at the convent might be persuaded to shelter her in their hospice.
When she understood that he was about to leave her there, Juana grabbed on to him with all her strength, shrieking as though possessed. He had to surrender her baggage to the Mother Superior hoping that it would not be inspected, for he had tucked the purse full of gold inside. “How like animals they are, these gypsies,” the Mother Superior commented. “No dignity. Yet God made us all, did He not, and His purpose is mysterious to the sinful minds of men.” Juana was wrestled off him by a couple of stout nuns and dragged away, screaming his name. And so, he reflected, it was done.
He should have left Pamplona, but he ended up wandering about town until he came to a large hostelry where he took a room and slept late, waking thick in the head as though he had been drunk the night before. At a nearby stewhouse he bought a bath and sat in the steaming water, trying to convince himself that it was all for the best, for Juana as for him; and while he was dressing, a woman proposed to him the usual service. He thought this might afford him some relief, though when they were finished, he felt even gloomier. At a tavern, he tried to get drunk.
Back in his chamber in the early hours of morning, as he lay sprawled on the bed, he was disturbed by a knock at the door. “Monsieur, how could you abandon me to those bitches?” Juana cried, sweeping in. She was clad in a voluminous nun’s robe, and from beneath it, like a conjuror, she produced the purse. “The Mother Superior had hidden it in her cupboard, but I broke the lock and took it out when she was at prayers!”
She tossed it on the bed, bent down to grasp the hem of the habit and stripped it off. More slowly she unfastened the dress below it, and removed that also. In her thin shift, she approached him, took his hands and placed them on her breasts, then ran them over her belly to her groin.
“Juana, what do you want?” he said, as wary of her advances as he had been in Paris. But this time she was bolder, and he was in no mood to resist.
She said nothing, kissing him, her teeth bruising his lips. Then she ripped apart the front of his breeches. He was achingly hard, and when he drew her to him and entered her, she was moist and open.
“Why did you do it?” he asked later, as they lay side by side on the bed.
/> “You were waiting for me,” she replied evasively. “And I knew you would choose the nicest inn. You still had plenty of money, although I had the gold.” She grabbed a handful of coins from the purse and set them in a neat line from her throat to the rise of her pubic bone. “Am I not handsome, dressed so?” And seizing his hand, she buried it between her legs, at which he gave in to her again, like a man tumbling wilfully over a precipice.
In the weeks that ensued, there was no question of them separating: he did not suggest it, nor did she, and she seemed as eager for him as he was for her. The more he had her, the hungrier for her he became, though she was neither skilled nor adventurous as a lover. He was so intoxicated with her that he scarcely noticed her asking after her tribe in every village they passed. She must have learnt something, for she insisted that they travel yet further southwards, to Granada.
Crossing the river Ebro at Logroño, they headed over the mountains into Castille towards Guadalajara, and then down to the barren plains of La Mancha, where the temperature soared and they gladly shed much of their worn clothing. The heat was a balm to him, and soon they started to resemble each other, burnt to the same dark colour in their faded rags. He had the impression that they were disappearing into the landscape, the hours passing seamlessly from day to night, and day again. He lost track of the month, unable to remember if it was late in May or early June. Then the cold returned, as they made the hard trip over the Sienna Morena, after which, with much relief, they descended into warmer climes, where the sun became powerful once more.
One day, while watering their horses at the banks of the Guadalquivir, they spied a great coach in the distance thundering towards them surrounded by clouds of dust. The only other human presence they had witnessed for some time had been the occasional peasant and his donkey, so this seemed to them a remarkable sight. The vehicle was drawn by four white Andalusians with shining manes, and the soldiers riding postillion were armed.
“They must be wealthy people,” Juana commented. “The brigands in these parts will be after them.”
“I hope they don’t shoot us first,” Laurence said apprehensively.
The coach slowed before them and a man peered out. His complexion was jaundiced and he was sweating beneath his plumed hat. To some passenger within he muttered, “Gypsies, my dear!”
A woman’s face now appeared at the coach window, her hair in ornate curls about her temples, her cheeks flushed, rich jewels dangling from her ears. “Mira, Don Fernando,” she said, “they are half-naked, like beasts of the field!” At this, Laurence saw Juana tugging up the front of her dress and folding her arms over her chest, to hide the mild curve of her breasts. He himself was without a shirt and felt unpleasantly exposed.
“Ask them,” Don Fernando said to one of his soldiers, who growled sharply, “Which way to Jaén?”
The woman, meanwhile, continued her inspection of Laurence and Juana. “How unfair, that such precious white teeth should be gifted them!”
“If your skin were as black as theirs, your teeth would shine as bright. You,” Don Fernando said, beckoning to them, “open your mouths wider for the lady. Show us these pearls that nature has wasted on swine.”
Laurence nudged Juana’s elbow; she was bristling visibly at the taunt. “Keep calm,” he whispered.
“Open your mouth, girl!” the soldier yelled at her, jumping down and brandishing a whip.
She gave him a haughty glare, her mouth clammed shut. Predicting trouble, Laurence stepped in front of her and addressed the occupants of the coach in his most correct Castilian. “Excuse me, but if you desire the road to Jaén, you missed it some way back, at the crossroads. You should take the right-hand path.”
“Madre de Díos! Where did you learn to speak like that?” the woman demanded. “Were you a servant in Madrid?”
“That’s a musket wound on his side,” Don Fernando said, pointing. “He’s too tall for a gypsy, and his eyes are too strange a hue. What are you, you scoundrel, a half-breed Moor? A deserter from the army?”
“No, sir,” Laurence said, impressed by the accuracy of his last guess.
“Does the girl tell fortunes?” the woman inquired.
“I’m afraid not,” Laurence replied.
“Then open her mouth for us, boy,” said Don Fernando. “Show us her teeth.” When Laurence did not move, he said to the soldier, “Give her a lick of the whip.”
They were silent save for the snorting and stomping of the horses in harness, then the soldier swung his arm back. Laurence anticipated the whip’s trajectory, and caught the leather tongue as it cracked down.
“By the devil’s arse, let go, you son of a bitch!” cried the soldier, attempting to free the whip, to which Laurence hung on, though it stung his palm and fingers.
“They are worse than beasts,” announced Don Fernando. “And I don’t like the look of this rogue. It could be a trap, and he may have friends ahead.” He waved at the driver. “Let’s be off!” Laurence released the whip and the soldier went back to his horse, uttering more curses. And the coach wheeled about and rattled off.
Juana flopped down on the ground as though her legs could no longer support her. “Monsieur,” she said, “why did you put yourself at risk for me again?”
“Because I would do anything for you,” he blurted out.
“Then never desert me!”
He fell on his knees in the dirt beside her, unable to credit what he had just heard. “When you find your people, you won’t need me any more,” he said, willing her to contradict him.
“I shall always need you. This I swear by God, by the Virgin, by my very soul.” Taking his hand, she kissed his palm, where the whip had left a vivid welt. “No one can part us, as long as I have life in my body.”
He should have laughed off her declaration, or said nothing and remained sceptical. But instead, like an idiot, he let himself believe her.
VI.
Lord Falkland’s manservant greeted Laurence as always, with a brief inclination of his head. Tickled by his pomposity, Laurence asked, “What’s your name?”
“Stephens, sir,” he said, raising his eyebrows, as if it were an impertinent question. “His lordship is not in his chambers. He is taking some air.” Through the window he indicated a courtyard bordered with rose bushes where a short figure was pacing about.
“Thank you, Stephens,” Laurence said. “Do you ever smile?”
“I have not had cause for it lately, sir.”
“Hmm. And how is his lordship?”
“With all due respect, sir, you would do better to ask him yourself.”
“I shall,” Laurence told him, and went to join the Secretary of State.
“Mr. Beaumont,” Falkland said rather curtly, as he approached, “I thank you for your message yesterday, and I am sorry that I was too occupied to see you then.” Since he offered no explanation, Laurence let this pass. “How much did you reveal to my wife?”
“As little as I could. She was worried about you and what took you to Oxford.”
“Yes, yes, I can understand why,” Falkland murmured, running a hand over his face; he was grey with fatigue and his hand trembled.
“If I were you, I’d be honest with her, but that’s just my opinion. What do I know about wives.” Laurence frowned at him. “Are you well, my lord?”
“I am merely tired. I have not slept since I left Great Tew. What … what news do you have for me?” Falkland said next, under his breath.
“I’ll bring Captain Milne to you on Christmas Eve.”
“Where?” Falkland’s eyes now darted about, as though Milne might spring out from around some corner to surprise them.
“In Christ Church, at eleven o’clock. It should be busy at that time with the midnight service. You must go alone to the Lady Chapel and kneel down as though praying. If you don’t see me within the half hour, leave. If there should be any change of plan, I’ll let you know before then, or Is – Mistress Savage will.”
�
�Can we depend upon her?”
“At this point, we haven’t much choice,” Laurence said, more irritably than he had intended.
“As I’ve said to you before, I’m not used to intrigue. Far more your province than mine.”
“Oh, one more thing, my lord,” Laurence added, in a low voice. “I meant to tell you when we spoke at the wedding, but if you recall, our conversation was somewhat abruptly curtailed. I went to London in November to look for Radcliff, who was missing from his regiment after Edgehill. I suspected that he’d been taken there as a hostage. I was wrong. He was at Pembroke’s house all the while.”
Falkland blinked at him. “My God! So you’ve known since November that Pembroke is master of the conspiracy.”
“Yes. And I don’t care about your negotiations. I want to bring in Radcliff next week. We can interrogate him together.”
Falkland nodded; he appeared dazed. “As you think fit, Mr. Beaumont,” he said.
VII.
Tom looked down at Mary as she lay pale and weak in their bed, and then at his mother. He wanted to rage out loud at the injustice of it: his child was lost.
“You have not yet begun to endure what is a woman’s lot,” Lady Beaumont was telling Mary. “Now bid your husband goodbye, and no more tears.”
“You won’t be away too long?” Mary begged of him.
“Promise I won’t,” he said, and touched her cheek with his lips.
“Thomas,” said Lady Beaumont, as they descended the stairs, “admit that you think the sight of your face after the fight provoked her to miscarry.”
Tom fingered his bruises, less swollen for three days of remedies from the still room. “Why else would it happen?” he responded bitterly.
“She told me she had the pains earlier and was bleeding before she went to bed that night.”
Tom said nothing. He still held Laurence responsible.
When they entered the hall, they found Lord Beaumont with Elizabeth, Ormiston, and Sir Robert Stratton, who had prolonged his stay on the excuse of a bad cold.
The Best of Men Page 41
