27

Rebecca knelt on the floor of the small chamber, resting her forehead on the frame of the bed. She was quietly humming a tune to herself—not a tune she had heard anywhere in recent years but notes that seemed to go together in a comforting way: a sort of rhythmic lullaby. At the same time she ran the beads of a rosary through her fingers. The notes of her tune were her prayer.

She heard shouts from the house across the road. A man was hammering against the wood of a door. Men had been coming and going there since last night. They had given up all pretense of it being a plague-infected house; the boards had been removed and the door left open, guarded by one or two soldiers.

She did not stir. It hardly felt like her house now. It was a place in the past, where once she had lived. It had become a place for soldiers, not her. Nor Henry. Mary, mother of God, save him from the men who are searching for him, protect him from them—and from all adversity, suffering, fear, and pain.

She stopped and crossed herself. She had been fortunate, getting back here to Mistress Barker’s house. She had been almost the last person allowed back into the city by the watchmen on the gate. She had been lucky that they had not recognized her in the fading light. She had been even luckier to have found the chronicle in Clarenceux’s house. Most of all she had been lucky that Mistress Barker had welcomed her back into the house. She could have kept the door shut, for fear of being caught, but she had not. She was a kind and loyal friend.

The chronicle lay on the bed. It had been important to get it out of Clarenceux’s house. She had understood that only she could save him and his family. Mistress Harley wanted to do everything her way, but she would not have had the wit to find the chronicle; she was too much taken up with fearing for her daughters. As for old Thomas, he would have waited for orders.

It had been the right thing to do, bringing it here.