Anne of the Fens Read online

  I told myself not to be fanciful, put the candle on the floor, and knelt before the chest. The lid was heavy. I struggled, using my weight to push it up. The lid hit the stone wall with a bang, and I saw revealed perhaps twenty books.

  Here was the treasure! I began to pull them out, holding them close to the candle so I could read the titles. The Decameron, The Poems of Sappho, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Horace’s Odes, a slim book called Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and a few other thin books that I knew could not be what I wanted.

  There were only a few left, on the bottom. I took the largest, bound in brown leather. The First Folio: Works of Wm Shakespeare, flickered in gold on the front.

  I put the book on the bed and lay next to it, holding the candle in one hand. It was too awkward, so I closed the trunk, placed Shakespeare on it, and put the candle on the trunk as well. By pulling the stool up to the trunk, I could read. I had no thought of bringing the book away. I could barely carry it and there was no place I could hide it.

  There were many plays. I found Romeo and Juliet and discovered the place where I had left off, at the fair. Soon I was totally absorbed. When I got to the ending tears streamed down my face. I was happy.

  Then I went back to the beginning, which I had missed as well, and read about Romeo, and how he had loved another before he met Juliet. It was cool in the room, and I hugged my knees under my long shift to keep warm. Just as I got to the place where they were meeting at the dance, I glanced up and realized it was getting light outside.

  I wanted so much to know what would happen at the dance. It reminded me of the young man at the fair.

  Reluctantly, I closed the book. I replaced all the books in the chest, pulled the door shut, and made my way back, the fabric of the tapestry scratching against my face. The return in the partial light was easier than my dark journey down. When I got to the room, Patience was asleep, and I tried not to disturb her, but the instant I sat on our straw mattress to swing my legs up she was wide awake. I told her everything, about the secret room and the play, and by the time I had finished there was scarcely any point in going to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN WE GOT up, it was time for morning prayers. Because the whole town was grieving for the Earl, we went across the way to the village church, instead of our usual services in the castle chapel.

  We made a procession with the Earl’s sister, Lady Arbella, and her husband leading the way; then Lady Elizabeth, the Earl’s mother, escorted by one of her other sons who had arrived in the night after hearing the news; then the Earl’s wife and children; and then Father and Mother and Simon. Finally, Sarah and Patience and Baby Mercy and I came, and behind us the personal servants to the Earl and his family.

  We walked along the moat. The smell was terrible, in spite of the two channels cut into it to carry the waste water away. The channels were very narrow, only about a foot and a half wide, too narrow to allow intruders access to the castle by boat. My brother Sam, however, had used the channels a year or two ago, to escape from the castle when he wanted to go out at night and knew our parents would not let him. He would wait until dark, drop from his room on a rope tied to the window, and go to his tiny punt, hidden under the weeds near the outdoor kitchen.

  Sam and a friend from the village used to take the boat through the fens. He had told me that he could get to the River Bain, and then to the Witham, which runs all the way to Boston, though it required a lot of poling through weeds. There was a tavern on the river that he and Charles favored over the one at the castle village. If they became rowdy, Father would have less chance of hearing about it. I thought of all this when I saw the corner of the punt peeking out from the weeds. I wondered whether Sam had heard the news about the Earl, at college, and if he would come home.

  We walked through the castle yard and over the moat on the drawbridge into the outer yards of the castle village — past the stables, the carriage house, the housing for the guards, and some abandoned buildings from earlier times.

  Then we were in the village proper, where the tenant farmers had their huts. We went by the tavern, the blacksmith, the ironmonger, and Davey’s bakery where I sometimes went for a roll. The smell of baking bread and the scent of some early wild roses helped to mask the smell of the moat.

  As I entered the church with Sarah’s hand in mine, I looked up and saw a spot of rat-brown color from the corner of my eye. I turned to see, standing at some distance, the beggar man from the fair. He was with the villagers hanging about the tavern. I had not thought of him in days, but there he was. I stopped dead in my tracks, Sarah stumbled and pulled my arm, and I almost fell. When I looked again the beggar was gone. Sarah called me a niggle-headed puppy, but my mind was in another place.

  The service was mournful. We sang two sad hymns, and the Reverend spoke about how, in the end, God sets everything right. I wondered. If God is so just and powerful, how did it happen that the Earl would be taken from his family, leaving us in grief? I offered up a prayer from my heart for the Earl, his family, and us all. I watched a bat as it swirled through the dark part of the belfry. When the minister was finished, the Earl’s family left first, then my father, then Simon, and then I pushed in front of the others, leaving Sarah to fend for herself. I looked around for the beggar man and could not find him. I thought I saw a flash of brown round the tavern, but that was all.

  Rufus, a small boy with bright-red hair, a son of one of the tenants, came forward and said something to my father that I could not hear. Father’s voice was gruff. He turned to Simon, who followed Rufus behind the tavern.

  I tried to follow, but Mother spoke sharply to me, and I had to come back. We returned to the castle and climbed the stairs to breakfast. After some time Simon appeared, went to Father at the head of the table, leaned over, and spoke into his ear. I could hear only one word, “man,” which told me nothing. Father pushed his plate away and rose abruptly. Without saying a word, the two of them left the rest of us sitting there.

  Mother had to tell me to finish the bread and cheese on my plate.

  WHEN WE WERE excused, I immediately went down to the library for my lessons. Simon was nowhere to be found. Since Raleigh’s History was gone, I found a book of verse and sat there turning the pages, seeing nothing. Finally Simon appeared, looking distracted.

  “What is happening?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Simon said.

  “Something is going on.”

  No matter what I said, Simon would tell me nothing. Finally he said, “Stop asking.”

  I hated when Simon acted as a father. It was all right when I was a child, but now I felt I should be treated like an equal. I wanted to leave the room, slamming the door, but I did not dare.

  I sat and stared angrily at my book. Why wouldn’t he tell me?

  Later in the afternoon I helped Mother stuff a pillow with goose feathers. It was a rare, sunny day without a cloud, and we sat outside. It was hot, and I had bits of feather sticking to all of my clothes and hair. I felt as if I were stewing like a capon. Then I remembered that I had just found a secret room and read a secret play. I did not need my family to include me, in order to find excitement. I could go back to the room that very night and read the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, which I had missed.

  I was tired from the night before, but I was also tired of worrying about my health. I would just do it. I finished stitching up the pillow, and as Simon walked by, I threw it at him. He jumped, then tossed it back to me. Mother told me to be more ladylike.

  That night, when Patience and I went to bed, I did not tell her of my plans. I stayed awake for a bit and felt myself dozing off. Wake up at two! Wake up at two! I said to myself.

  I WOKE WHEN the church clock struck two. I was pleased with myself, although I don’t know how I did it.

  I got out of bed silently, took our unlit candle, and retraced the journey I had made the night before, which seemed easier this night. As I walked down the dark halls, I thought I heard som
eone behind me. I hid behind the closest tapestry, stifling a cough from the dust. It sounded like footsteps in the large room and then the noise stopped. After a bit I told myself I had imagined it, or that it was only mice.

  I emerged from the tapestry and walked slowly in the dark along the wall to the stairs. Then I went down to the fireplace, found a candle burning again, and lit my own. Once there was light, I saw the rabbit ears. I pulled the tapestry back from the walls and stepped under. When I reached the door I paused for a moment, feeling proud, then pushed the door open with a dramatic shove. It banged on the wall behind.

  There was a loud noise, a sort of curse, something on the bed moved, and I was thrust against the wall with a large hand choking my neck and a knife raised over my head. Angry eyes, dark blue, stared into mine for an instant till I dropped the candle.

  I heard a laugh. My neck was released, and I sank to the floor, sitting with my back against the wall. My knees were too weak to stand.

  “Only a girl.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I would rather know who you are.”

  He had somehow caught my candle, which thankfully had not gone out. He held it above my head as he studied me.

  “I am Anne Dudley, daughter of Thomas Dudley.”

  I tried to sound dignified, but it was hard to be dignified sitting on the floor in my shift, my voice breaking from the tension.

  He was also in his shift. I had never been so close to a man, before, with so few clothes between us. The smell of his body, when he had shoved me against the wall, was like garden herbs in the sun, and made me feel dizzy.

  He was a young man, in his early twenties. He had obviously been asleep, and his long, dark hair was all askew. He had not shaved in several days. I had never seen a man so handsome.

  “Well, sit down on my stool.”

  The hand that pulled me from the floor was strong and hard. I settled myself on the stool, pulling my shift down over my legs as far as it would go. I felt his eye upon me and knew I was blushing. He put the candle on the floor and sat on his bed among the rumpled blankets. His shift was short, and I could see a great deal of his muscular legs with their dark hair.

  “You have not told me who you are.”

  He did not reply for a moment.

  “It could be dangerous to know me,” he said then.

  “I already know you.”

  I was not quite sure what I meant but the feeling of his hand, as he had pulled me up, and the sweet smell of his body...

  He smiled, and even in the dim light his face changed entirely, from fierce, hard lines to something softer.

  “I am John Holland.”

  “Oh.” I knew the name. “You are the Earl’s Steward for his home at Sempringham.”

  We had stayed at Sempringham some years ago, before Father had moved the family to Boston. It was one of the Earl’s properties, the ruins of an old monastery, with two lovely houses built around it. Mother much preferred Sempringham to the castle. When Father was not available, the Earl hired John Holland as his Steward.

  “What are you doing here in this secret room? Are you the secret my father and Simon have been whispering about?”

  He nodded. “Probably. I’m hiding from the Sheriff.”

  He explained that it was he who had written the tract, circulated everywhere, about how no one should pay an unlawful tax. It was the paper posted in the market last Sunday. When the King had sent out the warrant for the Earl, he had also made out a warrant for John.

  “So you think no one should pay the tax?”

  He got up from the bed and began to pace up and down in the little room, swinging his arms. If the King had been there he should have had a bloody nose, I was sure.

  “That puny, lily-livered, paper-faced, boil-brained piece of suet, to go against the people of this country, disbanding the Parliament, declaring a war for his own pride, a Catholic in Church of England clothes. No right-thinking Englishman will pay this tax!”

  I could see why the King wanted to lock him up.

  “And do you know a beggar in a rat-brown cloak?” I thought I should change the subject.

  “What do you know of him, young woman?”

  He was standing over me.

  My knees were still weak, and my heart still beating faster than it should.

  “I know little.” My voice quavered again, and I stopped and spoke more firmly. “I saw him at the fair, and I saw him today, and I wondered why he was so far from Boston. He frightens me.”

  “Hmph. That one goes everywhere.”

  “What shall you do?”

  “Go to Holland.”

  “Like the pilgrims,” I said.

  He nodded. “And maybe someday I shall go to the New World. Like them.”

  “There is nothing there, no towns, no houses, nothing, only endless wilderness, and heathen Indians and wild animals waiting to kill you.” I could not imagine a worse fate.

  He smiled and his face relaxed again. “I prefer to think of it as an adventure.”

  He was not so much older than I, surely younger than Simon. My heart stirred, perhaps at the idea of the adventure, or perhaps only at his blue eyes.

  “How long shall you be here?” I hoped it would be long.

  “Till a boat arrives in Boston that is going to Holland and will take me.”

  “That could be tomorrow or next month,” I said.

  “Should you like me to stay longer?”

  This time, he not only smiled, he smiled at me. I felt myself blush again. I stood up from the stool and said I must go back to my room.

  “What shall I tell your father about your visit?”

  I began to beg him, speaking of my father’s temper, until I saw he was teasing me.

  “What brought you here?”

  I wondered what he would think of me, a girl who wanted to read lewd books, but I told him about Romeo and Juliet, and he laughed.

  “Have you found the books, also?” I asked.

  He nodded and pointed to The Canterbury Tales lying beside the bed.

  “I will think of something to say to your father so that we shall meet again,” he said as I left.

  I made my way back up the stairs to my room, so many different feelings running through me. I fell down beside Patience, wanting to wake her so I could talk to her, and wanting her to stay asleep so that I could hug my excitement to myself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I WAS TEMPTED to tell Patience in the morning, but I did not. I had never felt so drawn to a man before. I had not even seen many men, outside of tenant farmers and fishermen who, for the most part, never bathed, and had no learning, and nothing to talk about except turnips and eels. John had been reading Chaucer, and his body was clean. That was only the beginning of who he was.

  I was impatient to see him again and waited all day for something to happen. I walked to the Church and tried to still my unholy thoughts. The rest of the day I spent in the library, looking off into space. I kept reliving moments, especially what John had said about a scheme so we could meet again. Perhaps he had not meant it, or perhaps he had failed.

  I went to bed sadly, knowing that I could sneak off to the secret room again on my own, and wondering what John would think; probably that I was too forward. As I was taking off my outer clothes, Patience already in the bed, there was a knock on our door. I peered around it so only my head could be seen. It was Seymour, a tall, thin servant, who told me to go to my father’s office at once. I threw my skirts back over my shift and ran down the stairs, my hands damp from the exertion and from excitement.

  FATHER SAT BEHIND his table and looked stern. “Hmm. There is something I wish to tell you. Something I wish you to do, in fact. But it is also a matter of which you cannot speak to anyone, not to Patience or Sarah or even your mother.”

  He was looking down at the table and he kept rubbing his nose.

  “Mother does not know?”

  “Mother knows.”

 
The silence that followed told me that Mother did not approve.

  “Does Simon know?”

  “Simon knows. He is the only other one, and it must stay that way.”

  I swore secrecy, but Father still said nothing of what was happening, although he continued to talk about the need for secrecy, with a great many “Hmm’s” and rubbings of his nose.

  “What is the secret, Father?” I finally asked outright.

  “We have a guest.” Silence.

  “A guest,” I prompted.

  And then finally he told me about John, although not so much as John himself had said the night before. He did say that John was wanted by the King for treason, and that it was extremely important to keep his presence a secret because we could all be arrested for treason for keeping him. “He is a hothead, but we both oppose the King’s tax.”

  I asked what he meant, and he said only that our guest could be impulsive. At the end, he said he was telling me because someone needed to bring food to the guest.

  “Tonight I carried him a tray, and all the servants I met on the stair looked at me strangely. You could carry food without anyone thinking it odd.”

  At that moment I was glad to be a girl.

  “I made up a story to tell Cook, which I am certain she did not believe. Also John, that is his name, thought my choice of food somewhat odd.”

  “What did you bring, Father?”

  “A joint of meat and a raisin tart.”

  “Nothing to drink and no bread nor vegetables?”

  Father reddened a little. “What does it matter? From now on, you can do it. Start tomorrow night. Just once a day, that will be enough; people should not see you come and go. You must wait till midnight tomorrow to carry the tray in. Get the tray from Cook, saying it is for Patience, who is ill. And tell Patience she must stay out of Cook’s way.”

  “What can I tell Patience? She will want to know why.”

  “Whatever you like, but not the truth.”