It was well into the morning when Isabel woke up. Rose Trapp was sitting on the stool by her window, hunched up in the threadbare brown gown she always wore. She had some sewing in her hands. She wasn't sewing, though, just gazing out. The sky was a promising pale blue, shot with silvery wisps. But Isabel didn't think the old woman was looking at the clouds. She thought she was listening. Isabel could hear loud street talk.
Rose Trapp looked round and saw Isabel's eyes on hers. She looked guilty.
‘Did you have a nice rest, dear?’ she said quickly. ‘You look a bit better, I must say. You were as white as death last night. I was worried. Your sister's here, and the baby. I put them in Mistress Claver's bed last night; I hope that's all right. She's brought a load of linen. Everything's fine. Everyone's fine. Now, you just stay put. I'll run and tell her you're awake. And I'll bring you a bite to eat in a bit.’
Rose Trapp stood up. Why was she gabbling, as if she had something to hide?
Anxiously, Isabel said: ‘What are they saying out there?’ and nodded at the window.
Rose Trapp looked hunted. ‘Don't you worry, dear,’ she wheezed. ‘Everything's fine.’
‘Tell me,’ Isabel said faintly.
‘Oh, just some nonsense … There's always something, isn't there? To be honest, I can't make it out myself,’ Rose Trapp lied unconvincingly.
‘Tell me,’ Isabel said; but she was slipping back into sleep as she spoke.
When she woke up next, Jane was with her. The baby, in her basket, was at Jane's feet. Jane was sewing. But, like Rose Trapp the other time, Jane wasn't paying attention to her work. She'd turned her eyes to the window. She was listening.
‘What are they saying?’ Isabel asked. Her voice seemed loud.
Startled, Jane turned towards her sister. Her eyes softened. ‘Oh … you're awake … and you look so much better … Thank God.’
Then she looked out again, and her sigh of relief turned into a different kind of sigh.
‘It's terrible out there. There's a crowd on the street the whole time. I've stopped going out, especially with the baby. They're so angry. It scares me what they might do …’
Jane caught Isabel's blank stare. She shook her head. ‘Didn't you know?’ she said tenderly. ‘They think the King poisoned the Queen.’
Jane leaned forward and put a hand on the blanket mound made by Isabel's knee. ‘Come and stay with me at Sutton,’ she muttered pleadingly. ‘Please, Isabel. Leave Robert to handle everything here. Let's get out of London. I'm scared.’
She was nodding her head encouragingly; hoping she could make Isabel nod hers back, like a reflection, without even realising Jane was tricking her into happiness.
There was nothing Isabel would have liked more than to be running through a meadow, with buttercups in the grass and her hems sodden with dew. But not yet. She still had to talk to Robert: make sure he understood the need to find new apprenticeships for the four girls; make sure he knew how she wanted the fund for silkwomen to be run.
The King called a meeting at the hall of the Knights of St John at Clerkenwell the next day at noon to address Mayor Stokker and the citizens of London.
The room was packed, and buzzing. There'd never been an occasion like this. There was only one thing King Richard could be going to talk about – his marriage plans.
Jane and Isabel and Robert Lynom squeezed between the liverymen in their furred robes of office and wives in their finest silks. There were apothecaries and armourers and bakers and barbers and basketmakers and blacksmiths and brasiers and brewers and butchers and carpenters and chandlers and cordwainers and curriers and cutlers and dentists and dyers and farriers and fishmongers and girdlers and goldsmiths and loriners and masons and mercers and needlemakers and patternmakers and plasterers and plumbers and poulters and saddlers and salters and skinners and surgeons and upholders and vintners and weavers and wheelwrights and woolmen. There were a few silkwomen too, around the edges of the room: the ones with fathers or husbands whose status guaranteed them entry to this hall; or the few, like Isabel, who were registered as femmes soles, responsible for their debts. They'd tell the others what happened later.
When Dickon walked in, almost alone, with an entourage of three men bobbing anxiously behind, the crowd bowed and bobbed and fell silent.
You couldn't fault his bravery. He was pale, so pale. His lips were tight. But he was composed.
He came straight to the point. ‘Since the death of my beloved wife, Anne, a week ago,’ he said clearly, ‘you, the worshipful citizens of London, have naturally been concerned by an ugly rumour. That I had already chosen as my next wife Elizabeth, the niece of my brother Edward. And that I was hastening the death of the Queen of England to bring this new marriage about.’
There was a rush of indrawn breath. A note of reluctant admiration in the whispering. Who'd have expected the King to talk so straight?
‘I'm here to tell you – that rumour is false,’ Dickon went on.
Hubbub. He didn't mind. He knew how to talk to a crowd. He nodded and waited out the noise. Then he gestured for quiet with downturned hands.
‘I am not – have never been – could never be – glad of my wife's death,’ the King said. He crossed himself.
Most of the audience crossed themselves too. The man in black velvet before them was so pale; so clearly in grief.
‘And,’ he paused, to be sure there was complete silence, ‘I have never – intended – to marry – my niece.’
Liar, Isabel thought savagely. But she was unsettled to hear more than a few satisfied grunts from around her.
‘He's got guts, that's for sure,’ a man in the crowd said behind her as the merchants began pushing for the door. ‘But I still say he killed her.’
Isabel kept quiet. She was hugging one last memory of Dickon to herself.
She'd felt numb at the sight of him, or she'd thought she had. No shock, no pain; just a coldness in her heart. She told herself: he's a stranger to me; always has been. Still, she hadn't been able to stop herself catching his eye as he looked around the hall before leaving. She'd held his gaze until he'd turned away. But she'd seen the acknowledgement of defeat in his face. He'd lost. He'd lied, and he knew she knew. That was enough. She wanted to get away.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, turning to Jane. ‘Let's leave London tomorrow.’
She was packing. She was wondering at the foggy emptiness inside her. It took her a while even to notice the scuffle at the door. Then Will Caxton burst into her room. She realised he'd just torn past Rose Trapp, ignoring her agonised cry of, ‘Here, you can't just burst in! On a lady! She's not even dressed proper!’ She looked down in mild surprise – it was true, she was only in her kirtle; she'd been going to change gowns. Will was gulping in air as if he'd ridden at a gallop, or run, all the way from the Red Pale. He rushed straight to Isabel's side and began shaking her shoulders. He was indescribably dirty. There was earth and ash caked into his nails and eyes and clothes. His last few sandy hairs were rumpled up. His caved-in face was red and sweaty. There was a wild gleam in his eye.
‘Will!’ she exclaimed, dropping the linen she'd been packing into her trunk. She didn't understand. If he was too excited even to notice the impropriety of his behaviour, he couldn't have come to make his peace with her.
‘I came myself …’ he panted. ‘fetch you … import ant … take you back … hurry now.’
She stared.
His impatience was making him stutter. ‘Goffredo, they've found Goffredo,’ he finally got out. She was rushing into her gown even before he said: ‘A-a-a-alive.’
But Goffredo was only just alive. They'd found him that morning in the collapsed cellar of the silk house. The ruins had shifted overnight; the cellar roof had caved in, leaving an open pit. When the print workers looked down to see if there was anything they could salvage, they saw feet in the pit. A beam had fallen over Goffredo's legs.
He was unconscious. Only his hands were burned, but his legs were smashed and he'd been down there for more than a week. They put him on a plank and carried him to the tavern. Hamo called in a surgeon and a priest.
The surgeon had cut away his clothes and washed him and splinted his legs by the time Isabel and Will half-fell off their horse and dashed inside. The priest was muttering the last rites over a knobbly mound in white.
Hamo, standing in a corner, watching, looked sombre when he saw Will and Isabel. ‘The surgeon's coming back with a poultice,’ he muttered. ‘But …’ He shook his head.
The terrible burning hope in Will's eyes flickered. Goffredo was his last friend from the old days. He let air slowly out of his lungs, with a piteous noise he didn't seem aware of.
He knelt next to the priest. ‘Thirty years I've known you,’ Isabel could hear Will mutter; a prayer as fervent as any priest's Latin. ‘Thirty years.’ There were tears on his cheeks.
Isabel knelt next to him. They were in Dickon's room, she noticed, without minding.
She leaned forward and looked into Goffredo's gashed, bruised mash of a face. There was nowhere she could safely touch that bloody mask. She started muttering her own prayers, too, but she didn't think he'd survive the night. She was saying goodbye.
‘You should go,’ Hamo said quietly. ‘Your people are waiting. There's nothing to hope for here.’
She nodded.
Will looked up from beside the bed. Blindly, he nodded too. He'd thought this rescue would turn out well; but it wasn't going to. She thought: He doesn't want me here, watching Goffredo die.
‘He'll let you know,’ Hamo said, ‘when …’
His face said: When there's a burial to come back for.
She nodded. She couldn't speak.
She knelt by Goffredo once more. She wouldn't have another chance. ‘I used to think this room was the colour of happiness,’ she whispered, wishing she could at least touch his oozing hands. ‘But it was the wrong kind of happiness. I wish I'd chosen yours.’