North Side of the Tree

by Maggie Prince

  I look into his flushed, angry face, and am horrified. I see suddenly, and all too clearly, what I am doing to him. I kiss him. “I’m sorry, John. I have to do this for Robert, but I wish it did not upset you.”

  I think we are both so surprised by my kiss that for a moment neither of us does anything. Then John takes hold of my face and kisses me back. He says, “I am too jealous of this Scot, Beatrice. I truly can’t bear it.”

  I wrap my arms round him. There have always been nine years and a familiar classroom between us. Now, suddenly, we are just two people alone in a strange room in a strange town. John half-lifts me off the floor.

  The door opens with a clatter against the wall. “Your pie, sir, madam.” The landlady comes in bearing a huge, hot pie. Her husband follows with a dish of buttered parsnips, a plate of pickled cabbage and a steaming jug of mulled wine on a tray. “This’ll warm you up all right.” She puts the pie down carefully on the splintery table. Hot gravy tips out through the three cuts on top of it, then seeps back again. For a moment I feel a mixture of overwhelming hunger and overwhelming desire. Our hosts leave, with solemn expressions on their faces, but immediately on the landing there is laughter and the landlady’s voice exclaiming, “My, but passions run high with yon northerners, and no mistake. I thought earlier as to how he was going to kill her, rather than owt else, judging by that look on his face.” I don’t think Mistress Postlethwaite realises what a carrying voice she has.

  “Nay well, you can’t tell with the clergy. Like as not it’s all the same to them.”

  I look over at John who has gone to sit on the bed. He is trying not to laugh. I sit where he had been sitting on the edge of the table, swinging my foot. I can feel the heat of the pie behind me. From the landing comes the sound of a slap and a shriek.

  “Get off, Matthew Postlethwaite! Whatever’s got into you!”

  John and I start laughing. I take my knife from my belt to cut the pie, and as I do so, I see grains of earth still adhering to it. For a moment my knees feel so weak they threaten to pitch me to the floor, but I wipe the black fragments carefully into my handkerchief, tuck it into my bodice and plunge the knife blade deeply into the pie.

  John comes up behind me. “Why, exactly, are we pretending to be married, Beatrice?”

  I glance over my shoulder. “I need to appear more respectable than I truly am, John.” I lift steaming hunks of pie on to the two wooden plates with my knife and the spoon which has been provided.

  “So I have my uses.”

  I hand him a plate. “Occasionally.”

  “How exactly are you proposing to rescue Robert?” He takes the plate and helps himself to parsnips and cabbage.

  “Bribery. Treason.”

  “I see. And you really think you can get him out of Lancaster Castle? You must love him very much.”

  I pause, leaning on the table with the serving utensils in my fists. “John… anything I do for Robert does not take away from what you and I have. I nearly killed him when I pushed him off the tower, and I must make up for it. Don’t you understand? He’s starving and cold and chained to a wall in a dungeon. Surely you must feel some pity for him.”

  “Of course I do, but there are hundreds of prisoners to pity, and it isn’t just pity as far as you’re concerned, is it?”

  “I don’t know the hundreds, John. I only know Robert. I don’t deny it isn’t just pity. It’s… I don’t know… I feel responsible for him. I helped Cedric mend his arm. We were friends, and we shared danger. He was going back to Scotland to try to stop the raids. It’s a waste, a terrible waste.”

  I cannot add, he haunts me.

  Chapter 15

  Be at the Well Tower at first light, the soldier said. Despite having slept so little last night, I do not expect to sleep much tonight either. Whilst we eat, I tell John what I have been doing. His expression becomes grim. “You’re mad,” he says. “I’m feigning marriage to a madwoman.”

  After the meal we sit by the fire and drink wine. I remove my cap and push my hair back. John throws another log on the fire. He looks exhausted. “I don’t expect I shall sleep,” I tell him. “Please, you have the bed.”

  He shakes his head. “No, you’ll sleep if you try. I’ll wake you before first light.”

  In the end, we both doze uneasily on the chairs. We keep the candles burning so that we can see the mice, which keep making unpredictable dashes across the floor.

  Lancaster is a noisy place at night. There is shouting and banging, and it grows louder as the long hours go by. My courage falters at some point during the dark hours after midnight, and I wonder if I am indeed mad, to be trying to manipulate the power of the law. I watch John sleeping, his head lolling sideways, and if the floor had not been alive with vermin, I would have knelt by him, and rested my head on his knee, for I feel greatly in need of comfort.

  The noise in the streets suddenly becomes closer and louder still. It sounds to be just down Market Street. John wakes. “What’s happening?” he asks. The fire has reddened one side of his face, and he has kicked off his shoes in his sleep. I feel a painful tenderness towards him.

  “I don’t know.” Despite the vermin, I go and kneel amongst the muddy rushes by his feet. He strokes my hair.

  “Mad Mistress Becker, I could live very well like this.”

  I ignore a mouse that runs lightly over my ankles, and turn my head so that John’s hand touches my mouth. “John, I do love you.” I turn his hand over and kiss the palm. He leans towards me.

  Something is wrong, though. There is the sound of heavy feet on the stairs, and voices coming from the gallery outside our room. At the same moment, loud, rough voices in the street start shouting orders. Fists hammer on doors below us. John and I jump to our feet. As we do so, the door of our chamber crashes open and the innkeeper stands there, holding a candle, barring our way, his nightshirt tucked into his breeches. “’Tis the military,” he pants, staring at me. “They’re searching for a Scottish spy. A woman.”

  His wife appears behind him. “You’re daft, Matthew. This lady here’s a parson’s wife.”

  “This is ridiculous.” John steps forward.

  The landlord continues, “They’re searching all the houses, and soon they’ll be here.” He never shifts his gaze from me.

  John takes hold of my arm. “Really, landlord, whatever is it to do with us? You surely don’t imagine that this lady is a Scottish spy?” He gives an airy laugh.

  “There, I told you so.” Mistress Postlethwaite steps forward into the room, vaster than ever in her nightclothes.

  “Nevertheless,” John continues, “we are much disturbed by the rowdiness of Lancaster at night, so we shall be on our way, since it has become impossible to sleep.”

  “Indeed. Very wise.” Master Postlethwaite stands back from the doorway and points over the gallery rail towards the stables. “I’ve put a hayloft ladder down from the gallery, for your convenience. It will save you the trouble of going through the inn. Across the far side of the yard, to the right of the stables, runs a ginnel. It teks you through to Chennell Lane, where I’ve fastened your horses and cart. The military have searched along there already. Best get on now.”

  John takes a bag of coins from his belt. “How much do we owe you, Master Postlethwaite?”

  The innkeeper puts up his hands in refusal. “Nay sir, I’ll tek it out of what your wife gave me. That’s more than enough.” He turns to me. “I’d not be doing this, mind, if I truly thought you were a Scottish spy. I’ll vouchsafe from what you’ve said to me, and what you said to yon captain, that it weren’t treason on your mind, so that’s why I’m helping you. There’s a fair fever against Scots just now. It clouds folk’s sense.”

  “I thank you for your kindness, sir.” I clasp his hand briefly. “My husband was not involved in this matter at all.” To emphasise this I say to John, “I’m sorry.”

  Mistress Postlethwaite gapes at me. “You mean… you are the Scottish spy?”

  I
shake my head impatiently. “Don’t be ridiculous, madam. Do I look like a Scottish spy? It’s just that some people – mistakenly – might have reason to think me so, because of my desire to avoid a miscarriage of justice.” I gather up my possessions and move towards the door. “John, we’d better go.”

  The landlord holds the door open for us. “I’ll help you both on to the ladder.”

  “There’s no need for us to escape down ladders,” John answers coldly. “We will leave by the front door. If we meet the soldiers, we will talk to them.”

  The landlord grimaces in alarm. “You’ll not reason with them, sir. They’ll tek her in, and it’ll mean trouble for the George too. That captain hasn’t put two and two together yet. He was well cupshotten when your lady here was talking about releasing Scots, but once he sees her, it’ll likely all come back to him. Best get going, sir.”

  John frowns. “I can assure you, Master Postlethwaite, that this matter is better confronted. It will easily be resolved by a straightforward discussion with this captain you mentioned. The prospect of galloping out of Lancaster at dead of night with the militia after us is not an idea that appeals to me vastly.”

  I put my hand on John’s arm. “John, I am going by the ladder. You may please yourself. It will soon be first light, and I have business to attend to. There is no reason for you to be involved.” I turn to the landlady. “Forgive me for my rudeness, madam. I meant no offence.”

  Mistress Postlethwaite inclines her head, her mouth still hanging open. I step out of the room on to the dark landing, and stop. The narrow space is crowded with soldiers. We are too late.

  “Got her!”

  “You were right, sarge!”

  Hands reach out. In the dimness, more armed figures dressed in red and brown come rushing along the gallery, on heavy feet now, the need for stealth gone. Loud voices burst out all around me. I reel back, crashing into John and the landlord who had emerged behind me. The soldiers all seem to be shouting at once. I cannot tell in the darkness if any of them are the two whom I tried to bribe.

  “What’s this, madam?”

  “Going somewhere at this time of night?”

  I find my arms roughly held. There is a scuffle behind me, and John’s furious voice. “Let her go at once!”

  “Steady on there, parson. That’s no way for a man of the cloth to behave. If that’s what you truly are.”

  “We’ve got her, sir,” an unseen soldier shouts, somewhere along the landing.

  So this is it. This is the end. I wonder if they will imprison me with Robert. A brief, ghastly joy blazes amid the terror. Then I hear a high wailing from along the landing where the last soldier shouted, and I find my arms released.

  “Here she is, sir. This is the one.”

  A candle flares. The captain appears at the far end of the gallery. The men’s pushing and shouting turn to a hushed shuffling. In the flickering light I see a woman being dragged from a room along the landing. She is thin, her clothes plain, a woman twice my age. Tinderboxes click and more candles blaze. The woman’s eyes fix momentarily on mine. Then she is bundled away.

  “Who…?”

  There is no answer to my question. The woman does not wail again. Slowly the commotion dies away into the street, and only the captain remains.

  “Begging your pardon, madame. Sorry to have disturbed you. Our informant said upstairs at the George, and naturally, when my men saw you leaving at this hour of the night, well, it was just a case of mistaken identity. No harm done, I trust? Then I’ll say good morrow to you, ladies, sirs.” He bows to me and to the landlady who has come to stand next to me, salutes John and the landlord, then strides away along the gallery and down the stairs.

  For several seconds none of us speaks, then Master Postlethwaite says in a shaky voice, “I’ll get us all some ypocras.”

  An hour later, in the squelching blackness of the stable yard, I climb on to the cart and John once more mounts Meadowsweet. “The sooner we’re home the better,” he says in a cool voice. He has been chilly towards me ever since my threat to leave on my own. He turns in the saddle. “I trust you no longer intend to wait at the castle, considering what we have just been through, and the levels of security there will be?”

  I gather up the reins. “Do we really have to go all through this again, John? Do I have to keep justifying what I am doing over and over again to you? Truly, I am weary of it. I do not require your assistance or your escort. Please go home.” I flick the reins across Universe’s back and send us moving out of the yard. I know that John is probably right, and that there is little point in keeping my appointment with the second soldier now. This will not have been a night for freeing Scots. My alternative arrangement with the innkeeper will undoubtedly have to be called into action. Nevertheless, because miracles sometimes do happen, I turn up the hill towards the castle.

  Great torches burn at the castle gates and along the battlements, lighting up the walls as if in a masque. Soldiers are patrolling to and fro, but no one pays any attention to us, a respectably clad woman traveller heading towards the church in the darkness before dawn, with a member of the clergy as her escort. John rides behind me in silence as we proceed round the back of the castle to the dark church and sanctuary house. Down the hill to the west are green flickers of iridiscence from the marsh, where the river makes a sharp curve. To the east, beyond the Well Tower, the first lightening of the sky outfaces the false brassiness of the torches. We stop. There is no one waiting for us here.

  It is very cold. We wait a long time, not speaking. I gain the impression that John is wordless with fury. I have nothing left to say. It grows colder still. I suddenly notice in amazement that John has brought a small firearm with him. It is hanging next to his saddlebag. It is far smaller than anything of the sort which I have ever seen before, light enough to be fired held in two hands, and beautifully inlaid with bone and ivory. There is a matching decorated horn flask for gunpowder, attached to a strap. I gesture at it. “That is a fine looking thing.”

  John jumps, as if waking from a dream. “Oh… I thought that if we travelled back late yesterday we might need it. It’s a matchlock. It works like that old hagbut you have over at the tower. Unfortunately, I am not very deft at reloading it, so after one shot at a highway robber we should probably both be dead.”

  I laugh. For a moment, just for a brief flash, the desolation lifts. John stares at me. As far as reloading is concerned, I know that I could do it quickly and accurately myself, if the need arose, but now is not the moment to say so. A more immediate concern is the prospect of him shooting his foot off, since the matchlock is hanging barrel downwards beside his leg. Under the pretext of admiring it, I climb down from the cart and move the firearm to the back of his saddlebag. I look up and catch an expression of pity on his face. With a suffocating sense of defeat, I realise then the extent to which I have failed. Dawn is fully up. The morning dew is collapsing in silver rivulets on the harness metal. No one has come and no one is coming. It is time to give up and leave. I climb back on to the cart and gather up the reins.

  We set off back the way we came. At the gatehouse the guards have changed, and I realise with a jolt that the first soldier is once again standing by the gates, with a new companion. His expression is prim and dutiful. I stare at him and am swamped with rage. He is standing to attention, and apart from a flicker of the eyelids, shows no sign of recognition when I rein in and climb down from the cart.

  “Where is he?” I go and stand in front of him. I can hear John dismounting behind me.

  “Whatever are you talking about, madam?” The soldier’s eyes slide away from mine. His companion glances across curiously.

  “Where is your friend of yesterday? He and I have business to finish.”

  John takes hold of my arm. “Get back on the cart, Beatrice.”

  I pull away from him. The first soldier, looking more confident, shrugs. “Can’t rightly understand what you’re talking about, lady.”


  I want to grab him by the doublet and shake him. “Answer me, clod-head! I am not here to play riddles with you!”

  His companion edges towards us, sensing violence, then stops, and I see to my astonishment that John has come to stand next to me, holding the matchlock, and appears to be innocently polishing its ivory inlay with his sleeve.

  “Well?” I demand. “I wish to know what happened.”

  “He were drunk,” the first soldier mutters sulkily. “He got drunk and violent afore the sergeant even went off duty. So were half the night-duty guards. Legless they were. He took ’em for a right poulticing at the Naked Taylor. Sarge locked ’em all up and had him flogged.”

  “Thank you.” I turn away. John holds out his hand and helps me back on to the cart.

  We ride out of Lancaster, travelling fast with the day brightening on our right. Half way we stop to eat the bread and cheese which Mistress Postlethwaite packed for us. “I’ll speak to the Vicar of Lancaster and see if he can get in to see the Scots,” says John. “I’ll have a word with the bishop too. But frankly, don’t be hopeful, for it is all most unlikely to help.”

  If we had thought about it, we might have realised it would be more sensible to arrive back separately. We were not to know that the parsonage would be full of people, all aware of our overnight absence, and witnessing our return together. Widow Brissenden, as so often, is our first indication of trouble brewing. She greets us halfway across the green with dramatic shrieks of relief. It seems, having extracted the information from Mother Bain, that she felt it her duty to tell the whole village that both the parson and his lodger were inexplicably absent overnight. She is now organising a search party.

  “I tried to stop her,” says Mother Bain later, when we have sent the smirking villagers on their way. “I knew there was naught ill, but once she had the idea in her head, she wouldn’t be told…”

  There is a rapping at the door whilst she is speaking, and without waiting for someone to answer it, my mother strides in.