CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

July 26, 1528

The Road to Banstead

By late morning Staff had hired a horse barge to ferry them to the south bank of London where they would take the Great Kent Road toward Hever. The shimmering July sun had already sucked the heavy dews from the fields along the river and the heat of the day was upon them.

“The London streets are likely to be deserted,” Staff said to Stephen. Mary and Nancy listened intently. They were afraid that he dared to take them into the very city where the sweat was said to have slain folk in the tens of hundreds this summer. But Staff had claimed it was the quickest and safest route. So Mary relented and held her fears in silence. She could not have stood another bleak night in the palace in the room where Will had died with accusations on his lips.

That morning few farmers worked the fields and tiny vegetable gardens which stretched down to the Thames. Occasional travelers along the footpaths glanced up in interest to see a ferry headed toward the city with four horses and six people, but there was scant traffic on the usually busy river and, in general, nothing stirred. The barge drifted past the turrets of deserted Richmond. Its vacant windows stared like great hollow eyes reflecting the sun, its landing docks, tiltyards and bowling greens silent. They spoke little on the barge as the river pulled it relentlessly toward troubled London.

Then the city loomed up from the field with its solemn church spires and clustered thatched roofs huddled in the beating rays of the noon sun. Staff made them drink the first of the wine and eat the fruit they had brought, for he intended to set a hard pace when they were on the road. Mary tossed her plum pit into the murky Thames and saw it instantly disappear into the depths. She wiped her sticky fingers on her breeks as she had seen Staff do and a smile came to her lips.

“It may seem strange to be in breeks, Mary, but it has advantages, you will see. Besides, I think you and your Nancy both make handsome lads—right, Stephen? And the swords add the right touch. I think you had better get the stray curls up under that cap. It will make for a dusty neck on the road, but I have no intention of attracting rogues or ruffians with wench bait.”

Stephen laughed at his words, but Staff was tight-lipped. Mary noted to her dismay how much Stephen seemed to hang on everything Staff said, to follow him about to serve his every whim. He had never been so puppy-like with his own lord.

“Is there much danger then?” Nancy asked timidly. “Stephen says so.”

“Stephen is wise to be prepared, lass. We shall set a good pace to Banstead, and I warrant no one will bother four quick riding men.”

The once bustling wharfs and quays were deserted and Staff had the bargemen put in at the landing under London Bridge. Houses and shops clung to both sides of it like barnacles, but their mass provided shade as the four led off their horses to dockside and Staff paid the boatmen. They were eager to be away, to leave the cursed city behind, and they shoved off for the upstream row to Hampton as soon as they had their money.

“I cannot say I blame them for their haste,” Stephen said. “I never thought I would be visitin’ plagued London.”

“The sweat is hardly the plague, lad, though it is bad enough. You will no doubt see the crosses on the doors though. Keep a stout heart. We will leave the city behind soon for the free countryside. Besides, I was here one summer in the sweat season and nothing happened to me.”

The servants seemed to treasure this bit of comforting information as they mounted. If Stephen and Nancy are impressed by that, so be it, Mary told herself. It sounded like pure foolhardiness to her. Surely there were a lot of things she would learn about William Stafford that would make it easier not to adore him.

There were abandoned carts in the streets of Southwark as they passed, and pigs rooted and chickens scratched unhampered. The central gutters of the narrow streets were a stench of rotting vegetables and human wastes which steamed in the sun. As they rode swiftly by, huge Southwark Cathedral stood silent sentinel to the devastation. Crude wooden coffins piled for burial in the already-crowded and walled graveyard huddled against the church’s outer walls. Tears bit at Mary’s eyelids at the sight of the stacks of human sorrow. At least they had buried Will right away. Staff was crazy to bring them so near to unburied plague bodies. They would all catch the sweat and be dead before they even reached Hever. There was nothing he could do to her to make her stay with him in some little inn in tiny Banstead. She would insist on riding on with the Carey servants.

Southwark was a terrible part of town and she had never seen it so close, for usually traveling parties of noblemen skirted far around its worst haunts. The dingy bawdy houses and taverns which sailors of the merchant vessels and king’s fleet visited were crammed together. No doubt the sweat ate its gluttonous fill here, for people were so packed in that but a few dead would mean destruction for all. Bloody colored crosses stained the dirty wooden doorways here and there. It was like a ghost town with only a few stragglers or faces peering curiously from a second- or third-storey window. Ordinarily, there would be a vast bustling swell of traffic into the city on this highway to the south, but there was almost none. They rode on at a steady clip and their horses’ hoofs echoed off the nearly abandoned streets.

Soon, but not too soon, the city was behind them, hovering above the fields with the hazy sun on it like some giant pall. The gardens and apple and peach orchards of Kent stretched ahead of them. Mary took deep, free breaths now, for she had tried to breathe shallowly with her hand over her mouth in the reaches of the city. Let him smirk at her if he thought she was foolish.

“I am not laughing at you, Mary. I was only thinking you make the best damned looking boy I have ever seen and, unlike some of His Grace’s fine courtiers, I do not usually find young boys at all entrancing.”

She could not help smiling back at him. He had not spoken since they had left the barge and his voice was somehow comforting. “Then I see no need of your spending a day and night with a boy at Banstead,” she threw at him. He raised one rakish eyebrow but turned his face to the road again.

As they got farther out, they passed occasional drover’s carts, farm wains, or painted chars, and Mary relaxed as the scene became more normal. Mother and Semmonet would be pleased to see her despite her tragic news. And little Catherine would squeal and throw herself into her mother’s arms as she always did, even when they had been parted but a little while.

They were nearly to Croydon before their hard taskmaster let them dismount under huge oaks along a stream. “I would love to lie here on the bank and sleep,” Mary said wistfully, stretching her cramped muscles. Her thighs ached terribly and the sword was always in her way. She had never ridden so far astride before. It must take some getting used to and she could tell poor Nancy was suffering as she moved her legs awkwardly and leaned wearily against the trunk of a massive oak.

“Sore, sweet?” Staff asked as he offered her another swig from their wine canteen.

“Not so bad that I shall not make it clear to Hever today, my lord,” she returned tartly. The wine was warm but good on a dust-caked throat.

“If you tried to make it clear to Hever today, lass, you would not walk for a week. As it is, you will be most comfortable resting on your back and not walking about somewhere.”

She turned her head to give him a pointed stare at his gibe, but he was looking away straight-faced and evidently meant nothing by it.

“I am thinking of keeping Nancy and Stephen in Banstead, too. The lad would make it well enough to Edenbridge by night but not the girl.” He rose, evidently not expecting her to have any part of the decision about where her servants stayed or went. It irked her, but she let him help her mount. It would help if Nancy were about if she were forced to stay at Banstead the night with him. That way she could insist the girl sleep with her.

Orchards and wheat fields gave way to patches of beech and elm, and Mary began to sense the look of home. Then the single stands of trees became the deep blue-green forests of the Kent she knew, and she relaxed until her eye caught the weather-beaten sign pointing its ragged finger to the west off the Kent Road—to Banstead, it said. Staff reined in his wheezing stallion and the others halted their horses around him in a tight circle.

“How do you feel, Mistress Nancy?” he inquired jauntily as though they were out for an afternoon’s ride at Greenwich.

“Tired, my lord, and a bit sore. I shall make it, though.”

“Good lass. But since the hour is probably on three, I suggest you and Stephen ride with us to spend the night at Banstead and set out for Hever early on the morrow. Lady Carey and I will probably be there sometime in the next day, or the one after.”

Nancy’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. Had she not seen what he was implying before, the simple wench, thought Mary. Well, at least she understands his meaning now and she will be my ally when we arrive at his precious inn. And now he dared to hint that they would stay more than one day as if he thought she would run off with him when her lord husband was dead only five days!

“Yes, milord,” the girl said. Staff nodded and they turned their horses’ noses toward Banstead two miles to the west.

The village was quaint and charming; Mary had to admit that much. No horrible crosses defiled the doors and people wandered about normally at their daily tasks. A Medieval steeple dominated the view, its darkened stone and slender Gothic spires distinct in the sunlight. Across the central town green which stretched at its feet, a few cattle grazed. The village inn stood out plainly among the clusters of other whitewashed and black timbered walls. The inn curled itself in an L-shape around a garden gone to summer riot of late roses and splotches of blues and golds. “The Golden Gull” the frayed sign read with its proud painting of a wheeling sea gull upon a sky of clearest blue.

She pulled one sore leg over Eden’s lathered neck and let Staff lift her gently to the ground. Her legs nearly buckled on the cobbled courtyard, and they shook as he led her by the elbow to the inn door, which stood silently ajar. The huge common room within was dim. Its trestle table was set for supper, but no fire burned at the hearth and no one scurried to welcome them.

“Whitman!” Staff deposited her on a bench, and Nancy sank wearily beside her, after nearly tripping over her unwieldy sword. Staff went to the steep stairs which disappeared to the second floor. “Whitman, you old sea dog, come out of hiding and now! You have guests, man, paying guests!”

A door slammed in the depths of the house, and feet thudded quickly up the steps from beside the fireplace. A great red-bearded face appeared and Mary’s mouth dropped to see how much the man looked like the king—huge and red and ruddy, but much shorter.

“Stafford, damn yer eyes!” came the explosion and the man pounded Staff on the back rather than bowing as he should have, she thought. “I never thought to see you hove to in these parts. You have not forgotten the coins I owe you for dicin’ with me, is that it? Come to collect yer due?”

“I thought maybe we could settle that once and for all staying in your fine hostelry a night or two, my man. This is Lady Carey and her servants Stephen and Nancy. Can we find anyone in this deserted place to care for us and our horses?”

“A course, my lord, and proud of it.” His deep-set eyes took in the tired party and lit to see such a beauty in men’s clothes as Mary’s long locks spilled from under her linen cap.

“There be fine rooms for all of you upstairs. Will three do, one large and the other two wee ones? There be little business at Banstead, but we do right well for those that come through. A little traveling fair is in town now, but those kind a folk stay out in their own tents. Allow me to show you to yer rooms. My wife, she be back soon after she spends all my money at the fair, eh? We have two little ones, milord. Life is good here since I left the Mary Rose these six years when my sire died an’ left me the Gull.”

They trooped up the stairs, and it was only then that Mary’s eyes took in the elaborate rigged ropes and ship’s tackle along the walls of the room and stairwell. “The Mary Rose you said, Master Whitman? His Grace’s fine ship the Mary Rose? You have been a sailor in the king’s navy then?”

Staff laughed aloud at her deduction, but Whitman’s beaming face was serious. “Aye, milady. For fifteen years I be a sailor for this king and his royal father afore him. We protected the channel on the Mary Rose where I met his lordship on some a his voyages to France. And afore that I sailed on the Golden Gull where, if’n I can say it, I had a much kinder master, eh, milord?”

“We shall tell the lady the whole story after she has rested, Whit.”

“I sailed on the Mary Rose once,” Mary said to them as they paused on the tiny landing from which several crooked doors departed. “I sailed on her with Her Grace, the Princess Mary, when she went to France to wed King Louis. It was a very long time ago.”

Master Whitman regarded her closely. “I was on that voyage, my lady, but I canna’ say I remember you. The princess was the lady for whom the ship was named well enough. You musta’ been a wee child then. But the ship I loved best was the Golden Gull. It stands for freedom you see, an’ not having a cruel and heartless man for a master even if he be handpicked by the king himself, eh?”

Master Whitman did not bat an eye when Staff put Stephen and Nancy in the two tiny rooms and guided Mary into the larger chamber and, after a few words about supper, firmly closed the door. Stephen accepted it, Nancy looked jittery despite her exhaustion, but Master Whitman only twitched at one corner of his bearded mouth. Mary held her tongue until his footsteps died away outside the door.

“This is entirely unsuitable to me. I will bed with my girl since you so obviously intend to sleep here.”

“I think you had better wash your grimy face, sweetheart, and I will get you a bath after we have eaten.”

She stood uncertain as he peeled off his shirt and dug into the saddle sacks he had deposited on the floor. “A dress would feel better than those breeks, I imagine, though you do them justice well enough.” He looked up sharply. “Where do you think you are going?”

She paused with her hand on the door latch. “I told you, I am staying with Nancy.”

“Look, Mary. No more arguing. I am filthy and tired and starved, and so are you.”

Did he mean those words at face value, or something deeper? He faced her across a narrow space, her brown riding dress dangling from his fingers. His hair fell in disarray over his forehead, and his eyes pierced her as always. Her legs trembled as though she were still cantering in rhythmic motion on Eden’s back.

“All right,” she said. “I will stay for now. I know you will not force the widow of your dead friend to do anything she does not wish.” She took the dress from him and turned to pour water from the pewter ewer to wash her face and arms.

         

The food Master Whitman put before them was simple fare, but they devoured it as if it were the finest feast at court. To Mary’s relief, Staff stayed in the hall talking with the Whitmans and Stephen while Nancy helped her bathe in the bed chamber. She had not expected such manners and restraint from him considering the way his eyes caressed her, and she began to relax somewhat. After all, her servants were nearby. She had been with him all day, and he had not attempted to so much as kiss her. Surely he understood her position and would not make it hard for her.

As tiny star points began to pierce the darkening sky, she and Staff stood in the cobbled yard of the inn, stretching their weary limbs. Such starry nights always reminded her of Master da Vinci’s velvet painted ceiling. But even the old man had not had the humming of insects under his close-hanging heaven. Staff stood behind her, not touching her, but she felt his presence like a physical caress. His big body threw a long shadow from the lanterns in the hall across the stones and into the rose bushes. Inside, Nancy chattered to Master Whitman’s wife, Margaret, and Stephen dozed by the low fire.

“Will you walk with me by the pond, Mary?” his voice came quietly in her ear. “There is a little fish pond just behind the inn.”

Despite the fact that she should have told him no, with the stars burning so brightly and the three-quarter moon just rising over the thatched rooftops, she nodded and walked on ahead. The earth smelled fresh, as though it had just rained, and she felt very much at peace with herself despite her burden of guilt. Hever would do this for her too, this calm inside, this deep calm.

The little pond was as still as glass and the patches of oval water lily leaves cradling their pure white blossoms looked like stepping stones across its surface. She leaned pensively against the trunk of a trimmed willow tree. Trimmed, no doubt, to keep the view of the pond from the windows of the inn. The willow arched over them like a protective parasol. Fireflies studded the dark grass along the edge of the water.

“Am I to understand that you mean not to bed with me now that poor Will is gone and you are truly free to do so with a good conscience?” he asked low. The question hung between them and, though she had the proper answer composed in her head, the words would not come. “I will not have you come to detest me the way you did Francois, nor be indifferent as you did with His Grace for his ownership of you. I love you too much despite the way my foolish loins ache for you to be spread beneath me.”

Her pulse started its thump, thump in the silence. She blessed the dark that he could not see her face.

“They were kings, father approved, and it just seemed I never had a choice,” she heard herself say finally. “And Will was suddenly my God-given husband.”

“King-given husband rather,” he put in.

“But, you see, my father has always pushed or pulled me and if he has not, others have. Now I can make my own decisions.”

“I approve, Mary, really. I cannot tell you how desperately I have wanted to hear something like that from you. Only, if it means you will choose to do without me, my first impulse would be to kidnap you for myself and never let you free.” He heaved a stone into the pond, and it skipped four times in the moonlight before it sank.

“Then it would be just like always, with some powerful man making my decisions for me,” she reasoned aloud.

“I know. I know, damn it!” He turned to her and pulled her gently away from the willow tree. “But the difference, my Mary, is that I love you, and I believe you truly love me. Do you deny it?”

“No,” she drawled slowly as memories mingled with the griefs she had felt without him at Plashy and the joys she had felt so often with him. “I think I do love you, Staff, but, you see...well, my life has been so confused, and I have been so unhappy with Will and His Grace and so, maybe I...”

He gave her a rough shake and she stopped speaking. “I asked you once if you loved Will and you said ‘I think I do.’ I told you then that if you think you do, you do not. Do you remember? I do not want you to ‘think’ you love me. I will have you and your love, lass, and you will know it is love or I might just as well marry at the king’s whim or bed some court lady who catches my moment’s fancy.”

Tears came to her eyes, and the tiny hurt grew that always came when he spoke of bedding others. The grip of his hard hands hurt her arms. She smothered the desire to tell him how much she loved him.

“I know it has all been a shock to you, Mary, and I trust you to reason it out, if you can keep out of your father’s clutches long enough. But since you are a little muddleheaded now, and since we have always had to seize our moments together as we found them, I will tell you how it is going to be between us while we are here.”

She stared at his white shirt open at the neck. It seemed to glow in the dark as did the lilies, fireflies and stars.

“I will not force you to submit in bed if you do not choose to. But you must know a man in love wants more than that from you. We will have this night and tomorrow morning together after Stephen and Nancy set out. And then I will take you safe to Hever as I promised. But until then, we are close, and there can be much healing in that. Come on.”

“Where?”

“I thought we could take a row in that little fishing skiff over there,” he said, pulling her toward the bank of the pond. “It will be a gentle ride after four hours in the saddle.”

She traipsed after him holding his hand. There was a flat-bottomed boat shoved high on the bank. He pushed it backward into the water and held her elbow while she lifted her skirts and stepped in. As soon as she was seated on one of the two rough boards which served for seats, he shoved off and the boat rocked under his weight. He rowed several strokes and let the oars hang at the side in their wooden locks. The pond was so small that the boat floated nearly in the middle of it, adrift among the lilies on the silent surface. The boat was short and their knees touched, his long legs spread and his feet under her seat on either side of her skirts.

“It is a beautiful night,” she ventured in the quiet between them. “Drifting at night on a pond—it seems unreal.”

“Yes, sweetheart.” He sighed. “Can you imagine having all the time in the world here without the king calling?” His voice drifted off as though he regretted his words.

She remembered how Will had thought His Grace was calling before he died. Did the king dominate all of their lives so much then? She felt suddenly terrified that they would never be free from him.

“This little boat must be a far cry from the Mary Rose or the Golden Gull for John Whitman,” she said eventually. “Does he miss the sea very much, Staff?”

“He misses the beauty and freedom of it, but he had a hard master, one he could not tolerate on the Mary Rose, and when he saw his chance for a life he could control, he took it. He may never see the channel or the ocean again and not be so very poorly off for it.”

He stretched his arms and leaned forward on his knees, and that brought his face much too close.

“May we pick some lilies?” She turned her head to the side. “They are easy to spot even in the dark.”

“Yes. They are.” He wheeled the boat about to bring them closer to a small floating carpet of them, and she reached gingerly for a stem.

“Oh, they are slippery and they go down forever,” she observed as she yanked one free and lifted it, dripping, over the side of the boat. “It does not smell, see?” She extended it toward him, but he did not even try to sniff at it. He only closed his hand around her wet wrist, pulled her farther toward him and leaned over to meet her lips with his. The kiss was tender and warm. She felt balanced in space with him, floating in a trembling moment which she dared not lose. The kiss deepened and his other hand stroked the slant of her cheek and moved softly through her loose hair. When he pulled back, she stared into his eyes lit by moonlight. She thought she saw his lips tremble, but it must have been reflections from the water.

“Do you want a few more slippery, unscented lilies, then?” he asked. “We shall give them to Mistress Whitman and call it a night. I think we are both exhausted.”

She pulled two more from their watery beds. They went into The Golden Gull’s deserted common hall and tiptoed quietly upstairs to their room.

When he turned her back to him and began to unlace her as he had often done before lovemaking, she did not protest. She seemed to be better protected from his power while she kept her quiet calm, but the kiss of a few minutes ago still lingered on her lips. She stepped out of the dress, shivering as she did so, but he had turned away, stripped off his shirt, and poured himself a goblet of wine from the table.

“Wine, Mary?”

“No, thank you.”

He tilted back his head and downed it. The bed covers had already been turned back for them. Nancy or Mistress Whitman? They were all thinking of her sleeping with him tonight; they would all believe it of her. But if she could only get through the night without throwing herself into his arms, maybe her sinful failure to be a good wife to Will could be forgiven. She would beg him not to touch her if he broke his word.

He blew out the cresset lamp, but the room seemed almost flooded by daylight. His boots hit the floor, and he padded over to the bed and lifted the covers. “Will you sleep next to the wall? I have no intention of lying on the hard floor nor of bedding with Stephen. Do not be afraid. There is plenty of room. You do not wish me to touch you, so I will not.”

She stared up at him. So easily accomplished? Then she hated herself for wishing he would force her. She got in, quickly pulling her chemise down to cover her knees while he watched, seemingly impassive. When he got in, the bed sagged and she almost spilled toward him.

“Goodnight, my love,” he said. “When you are in your bed safe and alone at Hever, I hope you will not have to curse these wasted hours as much as I shall and do. But if you need the time untouched, so be it.”

They lay there in the awkward silence, weary, quietly breathing. Her limbs began to ache anew from being tensed up on the narrow strip of mattress where she held herself rigidly away from him. The moonlight from the window traced its print across the bed onto the wall and still she did not doze though his deep breathing told her that he was asleep at last. Her rampant thoughts would not let her relax. The memories that tortured her were not of Will or his accusing words in his delirium, but of the passions she had felt with Staff and the hours she had treasured in bed with him, in his arms, anywhere, the past six months. An unfulfilled fire burned low and torturing in the pit of her stomach. She had only to touch him, to say his name, and awaken him, she knew, and all this terrible agony would be over. But she would never be free then, free to know that she loved him and could control her own life. The rectangle of moonlight continued its relentless path up the wall next to her. Watching it through her tears in the quiet of the inn, she fell asleep.

Staff was gone when she woke in the morning, and she was sprawled on her stomach half on his side of the mattress. She sat up, immediately wondering if she had moved this far over when he was still abed. No, surely that would have awakened her. Sunlight flooded the room making the moonlight of last night a pale memory. She quickly dressed and went to find Nancy to tie her laces. The door to the girl’s room stood ajar as did that where Stephen had slept. They could not be on the road already!

“Yer friends are gone an hour already, my lady,” came Mistress Whitman’s voice from Stephen’s room. Mary peeked around the door to see her making one of the two narrow beds in the room. “’Tis best they be early on their way, for the bands of thieves around Oxted prey on later travelers. May I help you dress, then? Your lord be having breakfast with my John. They be always talking old times on the Mary Rose, though I know yer lord was not a sailor. Sailors are very easy to spot in a crowd.” She laughed sweetly as she finished the laces.

“He is not my lord,” Mary thought to say, but she only thanked the kind woman and descended the narrow steps holding to the ship’s rigging with its intricate knots they had strung for a makeshift banister.

Staff’s eyes lit to see her. He was in a good enough mood and did not seem to hold the past night against her. Ashamed of her ravenous appetite, she nevertheless ate hot porridge, stuffed partridge and fruit, and washed it all down with ale. That amused John Whitman, and he joked that she ate like a seaman who has just come back to land. She was surprised to learn that it was nearly mid morning and scolded Staff for not waking her earlier.

“Why did you let me sleep so late?” she asked again as they went for a walk toward the heart of the little village.

“You needed it, Mary, and besides, I had the distinct impression that it would have availed me nothing to have wakened you while I was still there.”

She blushed, but laughed a bit when she saw he was teasing. She found it hard to believe that this passionate, often impatient man whose bed she had so hotly shared could have the restraint to leave her untouched as he had done. She was not certain if she were relieved or hurt.

The double doors to the little Gothic church stood open, incongruously bordered by a blacksmith’s shop on one side and the village stocks on the other. The graveyard stretched away to the side with its crooked turfy stones pointing to the sky in imitation of the tall spires so close overhead.

“May we go in, Staff? I would light a candle and pray a little while.”

He nodded and they both entered, awed to silence by the perfection of this little jewel set in the center of the crude town. Stained glass windows threw their myriad colors on the floor and the crucifix was studded with heavy semiprecious stones. Mary lit a candle, knelt at the confession rail and was amazed that Staff knelt beside her, his elbow touching hers. She prayed fervently for Will’s soul, for herself and for her son so far away. Who would tell him gently of his father’s death, and comfort him if he cried? Then the thought came to her. Perhaps on his way back to Eltham, Staff would stop at Hatfield. But dare she ask for favors when she gave none? When she finally turned her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, he was staring at her and a priest stood behind them.

“We are pleased to have strangers here to worship,” he said low. “Perhaps there is a special need? I did not see your horses.” His crooked smile lit his face.

“We are staying at the inn, father. We are en route to Edenbridge and stopped to see my old friend, Master Whitman.”

“Ah, yes. Not many travel the east-west road anymore. This chapel was once a pilgrim center for those on the road to Canterbury, but no more, no more. The times have changed. Bands of robbers dare to plague our roads to the south. I fear that the summer curse on London and these parts is God’s judgment on us all.”

Mary was grateful he did not ask their names or their destination in Edenbridge. If he assumed they were married, all the better. She would be ashamed to tell a man of the church otherwise. No doubt he would ask Master Whitman about them afterward, and then he would pray for their sins. If only he knew her husband was but five days dead of the sweat, he would think she were on the road to hell indeed.

Staff left some coins in the church box, and they strolled into the sunlight leaving the curious priest behind in his exquisite little chapel. The traveling fair on the green was pitifully meager after the grand ones she had seen at Greenwich and even near Hever. They walked among the shoddy booths, and she did not object when Staff’s hand rode familiarly on her waist or touched her hair. She continued to look over her shoulder for her disapproving father or bitter Will. The freedom of being where no one knew them was awkward and heady at the same time.

They watched a morality play put on with puppets and drifted past the fortune telling booths. “Would you like yours read, sweet, or do you prefer to make your own now?” he asked.

“Yes, I do prefer to make my own now, Staff.”

He smiled broadly. “That is fine. Only, keep in mind that I prefer the same. Take that and how I feel about you into consideration when you make decisions, Mary Bullen.”

She scarcely looked at the piles of scarves and trinkets the hawkers had spread upon their littered tables, but Staff bent and pulled a shiny hair net from among the heap of colors. “A golden snare,” he said as he dangled it in the sunlight, making its thin woven links glitter and gleam.

“I will take it, man, for the lady’s hair,” he said, handing the eager fellow a coin.

They began to stroll back, slowly, going nowhere in particular. “However free you think you are, Mary, remember this when we are apart. I like to think that I am free too, but I am not. You have ensnared my heart as surely as this net will catch the wayward tendrils of your golden hair.”

She looked at him and tears filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and no other words would come. She fingered the net carefully. It was very fine. How had it ended up at that wretched little country fair? What story had it to tell of its earlier owner? She wanted to share her thoughts and feelings, but she was afraid to trust her voice.

His hand went around her waist as they entered the cobbled yard of the inn. He leaned briefly against her and kissed her cheek. “Come, my golden Mary. We are off to Hever Castle,” he said. They stepped into the dimness of the hall beneath the frayed inn sign.