Queen & Country (22 page)

Hew had both the will, and the skill to read, and he was the first who found the piece of paper pinned up to the cross, and took it to his heart. The proclamation said: ‘No Scotsman shall have inter-course with any Englishman, upon pain of life, land and goods, without dispensation of his Majestie the King.'

Chapter 14

Peregrines

Frances, in his absence, did not sit and pine. She resolved to write a letter to her aunt and uncle, seeking their forgiveness for her dereliction, in the tender hope they might be reconciled. For what troubled her more deeply than the lack of Hew, in this far-off place, was the disappointment she had caused her friends. She had left to her family a short scribbled note, which she supposed her uncle would read out, in tones that were querulous, peeved and perplexed, to an incredulous Joan. ‘I am now married to Hew, and have gone to Scotland. I am sorry for the nuisance this will cause to you, in your business with Josef, the Fleming. Your loving' – she had scribbled out the ‘and obedient' which slipped out from the quill without a second thought – ‘Your loving niece, Frances Phillips.' Conscious of the debt that duty owed to them, she had taken nothing with her but some yellowed linen, well-worn past its best, and her mother's wedding ring, the only thing that Frances had that she could call her own.

They were married at a church outside the city walls, where banns were not required, not far from Leadenhall. It was Robert Lachlan who had come across it, in a parish full of whores, with one or two of whom he had been well acquainted. London was the best place in the world, to enter into lawful, but clandestine marriage. Robert had put forth the Tower of London, Newgate or the Fleet, but Frances had not cared to fall as far as those. She hoped to have, at least, a slender veil of decency.

She could not, on the day, put on her finest clothes, and so had slipped away, in her workday drabs. Robert Lachlan, and Hew's
friend, Laurence Tomson, had come along as witnesses. She had been concerned that Laurence would warn Tom, but Hew reassured her that he could be trusted. And afterwards, he had spoken to her words of such encouragement and kindness she had been moved to tears. He had given her a ribbon, and a book of prayers, as a present from his wife. And he had furnished passports for them all.

Now, she climbed the staircase leading to the tower, where paper, pens and ink were kept up in the library. She had been there once, in company with Hew. They had not lingered long. Though Hew did not prohibit her from looking through the shelves, he did not encourage her. ‘Most are dry as dust, law books and the like. If there is something you would read, ask, and I will find it for you.'

Frances did not know where she might begin. Apart from in her song sheets and her uncle's ledgers, she was not well read. There was no music here. But she would not be daunted by a room of books.

She was a little troubled, though, to find the place was occupied. A young man with rumpled red hair sat on a stool by the secretar's desk, taking some notes from a leather bound tract. He looked up to speak. ‘I took you for my little charge. Ye haena seen him, I suppose.'

Frances took a moment to make sense of the Scots. ‘Are you Matthew's schoolmaster?'

‘Gavan Baird.' He smiled at her. ‘And you are a peregrine, I doubt.'

‘A peregrine?'

‘A foreigner. A stranger to these parts. A pilgrim, who has strayed.'

‘I am Frances. Hew Cullan's wife.' The words brought her courage, and strength. She had not said them before.

‘Then I beg your pardon, for I did not ken. Leastways, I had heard that yon master had come hame. I had not kent he brocht a wife wi' him.' He was forward in his manner, stretching out his legs, nothing in the least abashed. He might have owned the place.

‘Matthew is in the garden, with his mother. I wonder that you did not see them as you came. I can send someone down to fetch him, if you like,' Frances said, hoping to impress upon him that she was the owner there, or at least, his wife.

Gavan yawned, and grinned. ‘To speak the truth to you,' he confided then, ‘I should not like, at all. I heard them in the gardens and crept by them here unseen. I came before my time, to steal a quiet moment with your husband's books. You have found me out. I confess my fault.' He did not seem, in any sense, ashamed of his confession. ‘Will your husband mind it, do you think?'

‘Perhaps you ought to ask him,' Frances said. In truth, she did not know. Though Hew appeared, at times, so careless of his wealth and comforts it astonished her, the contents of the library were closest to his heart. Whenever, in London, he had squirrelled some spare shillings, he had spent them at the booksellers, huddled round St Pauls. He had brought a stack of books back home from the Netherlands, salvaged from the wars, where other men preferred their spoils in silver or in gold. In the latter months, when his credit was assured, he had made them into parcels and had shipped them here; the crates were waiting still, for him to come and open them. The library, she understood, was linked to his father and his dead friend Nicholas, who had kept the books; the crownar, Sir Andrew Wood, had broken in upon it, desecrating memories that were bittersweet, and muddled still, for Hew.

‘Are there no books at the university?' she put to Gavan Baird. For she had been told he was a student there.

‘Not of this sort. Or they are locked away, and I am not to be trusted wi' them,' he answered, honestly.

‘Why would they not trust you with them?' She looked for a sign that he was careless with the books; the young man was dishevelled, and his red hair was long. His shirt cuffs and ruff were a little worn and grubby, but his hands looked clean.

‘The master does not like me, for I talk too much. There are books in this library banned by the statutes. Your man has been abroad, and likely does not know.'

‘What books are those? Written by Jesuits?' Frances was alarmed. Many of the books on the shelves were in Latin, and could have any core of dark and sly intent.

‘Not Jesuits,' Gavan smiled. ‘Though the old man was a papist, and there are, I maun confess, some stirring sorts of tracts. Those in themselves kept quiet here will not do much harm, though at this time . . . when the wind blaws right, it may tak but a spark to light a fire. I do not count those. It is imperative to read what your enemy puts out, the better for to understand and countermand their thoughts. To come about their compass with a searching mind. Do you not think?'

Frances was not sure; her thoughts had turned to Hew, and what danger he was in, if wittingly or not, he disobeyed the law.

‘I meant rather, books which in some degree, offend the king, though they are in step wi' the true religion, and are well regarded by the Kirk. Do not look dismayed, mistress, there is no crime here, in the sight of God. The pity is, since my little charge is moving to the town, I no more shall have the pleasure of this library, which has been a joy to me, you cannot understand, and that besides the value of the rare forbidden books. You have no bairns, I suppose?' Gavan asked.

Frances shook her head. ‘We are not married long.' Her hand flew, unconsciously, down to her lap. And he inquired, shrewdly, ‘How many months?'

‘Sir, I am not . . .'

‘You misunderstand me. When were you wed?'

‘Not long after Christmastide.'

‘Aye? Whereabouts?'

‘At the Holy Trinity.'

‘Here, in the town?' The tutor sounded sceptical.

‘In Minories in London. At St Botulph's, without.' They called it, too, the chapel of St Clare. But Frances did not like to think of that.

‘Without what?' The humour in his voice did not reach his eyes. He was watching her, thoughtful.

‘It means without the . . .'

Gavan cut across her as she started to explain. ‘You do not need to say it. Never mind. And you keep my secret, I will keep yours.'

‘What secret?' Frances asked.

‘That I have made free with your guid man's books.'

That was not what she had meant. But Gavan changed the subject. ‘Was there something you looked for? Did you want a book?'

‘Pen and paper,' she admitted. ‘For I came to write a letter.' She was astonished at the confidence with which he shared the library, as if it was his own. He took up the key and unlocked the lettroun, setting out before her paper, pens and ink, powder and penknife, sand and sealing wax. Staring at the page, of finest French paper, she found she could not write, could not shape her thoughts, which were complex and troubling, with Gavan in the room.

He noticed her confusion, offering his help. ‘I cannot pretend to a ladies' touch, though I have written letters for my sisters to their friends; for one, to her betrothed.'

Frances coloured deeply at the word, ‘betrothed', and hoped he did not see into the trouble in her heart.

‘Though I cannot speak as to the sentiment, if you will but dare to say the words, you will find in me the perfect scribe. I can assure you, mistress. Hardly any blots,' he smiled at her, encouraging.

‘I thank you, sir. I do not need your help. I am well able to write.' It came out sharper than she meant, for he took it for offence.

‘Your pardon, mistress, pray, excuse my ignorance. It is not common, in this land, that a woman kens to write, and no shame in a wife, howsoever she may read, that she should use a scribe, to set down her meaning in a practised hand. Perhaps it is different in England, where there is a queen. Perhaps, where you come from, all women can write.'

‘No. It is not different.' She could not tell if he was teasing her or not.

‘Then
you
must be different,' he said.

‘My uncle had me taught, that I might be a help to him. His business is cloth. I wrote his letters, and kept his accounts.'

‘He must miss you, very much.'

‘He wished that I should marry. It was his resolve.'

So much was true. And untrue, Frances thought. To her dismay,
she felt the prick of tears. She must not let the young man see them drop. He had the kind cleric's heart, and that was rare enough. To discourage him, she said. ‘I will write the letters later in my chamber. Will there be a post?'

‘A post?'

‘Someone I can send them by?'

‘If you bring them by me I can take them to the town. Where are they directed?'

‘To my family, in London.'

‘That is harder, then.' He was thoughtful for a moment. ‘I can find out, if you like, how a letter can be sent to London, in this straitened time. Perhaps there is someone at the college who will know. You could ask Professor Locke.'

Frances said, ‘I could,' doubtful in her heart. She gathered up the paper, penknife, pens and ink, to take back to her chamber, where she might start again with it, in a braver mind. She had no will to write a letter, difficult and painful, which might not be sent. What means had she of sending it? She did not have the courage in her to apply to Giles.

Gavan simply nodded, picking up his book. ‘Good luck with your letter, then. I will be here the morn again, if you want some help.'

Meg was in the garden, the children by her side. Matthew lay flat on his tummy in the soil. ‘Look at this ant. He is carrying a leaf.'

‘Your schoolmaster is here,' Frances said.

The small boy shook his head. ‘It is not time for that.'

‘It is almost time.' Meg grasped his waist and pulled him up again. ‘Go and wash your hands. Ask Master Gavan what the Latin is, for an ant and a leaf.'

‘I know those words already,' Matthew said. ‘Mind you do not crush him, with your babby feet,' he warned his little sister, as he scuttled off.

Meg smiled at Frances. ‘So, you have met our master Gavan Baird. What did you think of him?'

‘He seemed a little . . . forward,' Frances said. ‘Is he to be trusted?'

Meg said, ‘I should think so, else he would not be here. Giles took a great deal of care with his appointment. He asked the archbishop, Patrick Adamson – who is chancellor also of the university – and the reformer, Andrew Melville, who is principal of St Mary's, to recommend a man from the bursars in that college, to read Latin with his son. He asked them both for a list of those who were most disciplined, earnest and devout, and fixed upon the cause of the true religion, to inform his choice. Their lists did not agree, for those men are at odds. There was one man, alone, was warned against by both, because he had a light and undermining playfulness, and a lively wit, that neither of them thought becoming in a minister. That was Gavan Baird, and so, the one we picked.'

Frances was perplexed, at reasoning so perverse. She began a question, and then bit her tongue. For in this foreign place, where almost all she met with baffled in its turn, she no longer knew what ought to count as strange.

Hew woke to the dawn at his West Bow inn, and dressed in mourning clothes, which were set out at his bedside, solemn as a shroud. There were dark ribbons too, for dressing up his horse, and a little pot of blacking, to be smeared upon his spurs, lest they should cause offence by glinting in the sun. It seemed to him so impudent and naked a hypocrisy he blushed to put them on. What might have brought his deep unease about the Scots queen's death, outwardly expressed, a small sense of relief, relapsed in him instead to a muddy slough of guilt.

Word had come from court that the king would receive him later in the day. He breakfasted on beer, so brooding and morose that the serving lass wished him good luck for his funeral. And it might as well have been his own.

He settled his account, and came out to the stable yard to saddle up his horse. There he came across a mercer and his boy talking with the innkeeper.

‘I do not understand,' the mercer said.

He was the sort of man who dealt in haberdashery, who kept a little shop, in a burgh market place, and travelled to buy goods for it, once or twice a year. The young lad by his side stood buckled under sacks full of trinkets from the krames, and slung across his shoulders were a dozen pots and pans, tied up on a rope. Backpacks and saddlebags littered the ground.