Dark Tides

by Philippa Gregory

  He let her take his arm and was relieved that the nursemaid followed them with the baby, like a chaperone, as they walked towards Horsleydown Fields.

  “I understand now what it is you want from the warehouse,” she said in an intimate whisper.

  He did not like the way she said “the warehouse,” as if they were a commodity that he might order on the wharf, and not the woman and her son that he loved.

  “But Mrs. Reekie is of stone! And she is very ill, you don’t know how very ill. There was a terrible accident. I think at sea. And then for her son Roberto to drown too!”

  He could taste cowardice in his mouth like brine. “A very… tragic… coincidence.”

  “But here is another coincidence,” she said, speaking quickly, her accent getting stronger in her excitement. “You come to the warehouse, wanting a wife and a son—and I come to the warehouse: a widow with a son!”

  “The cases are hardly—”

  “Don’t you see?” she demanded. “The very things that you need: I have here. You hoped that Mrs. Reekie, a widow, had your child, and that she would marry you. But ecco! She denies you. But I have her son’s child, and I am a widow. Do you see?”

  He thought he could see nothing but the enchanting dimple at the side of her mouth where the fashionable black patch set off the creamy pink of her cheek.

  “I must be very stupid…”

  She laughed. “No! No! You are too modest. An Italian man would catch my meaning at once. But I don’t care for Italian men, don’t think that of me! If I had wanted to marry an Italian I had only to stay in Venice where I was much admired. But I need to have a friend in England, a man of property, someone who will introduce me to the people who will buy my antiquities. I need a protector in England, someone to care for me and my son. And my son needs a father, someone to keep us and educate him, bring him up as an English boy.” She looked at him inquiringly. “Now do you see?”

  “Are you proposing that I should help you? And be a father to your boy?” he asked, feeling his face grow hot at her immodesty.

  “Of course!” she said limpidly, as if it were the most obvious of solutions. “You want a son?”

  “I want my own son!” he said, as if it were wrenched from him.

  She beckoned the nursemaid, who stepped forward again and showed the little face, the hands like tiny roses, the face like a flower in the lace cap. “Have this one!” she urged him. “And marry me.”

  JUNE 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

  Ned attended the town meeting about the defense of the country after the Sunday afternoon prayer service, standing at the back alongside the other single men of the town. There were only three of them; the other two were tradesmen: a glazier and a carpenter, invited by the minister and the elders to bring their skills and scrape a living on a half lot. Ned was not called on to speak, though he knew the native people better than any of them, meeting them daily on the river and in the forests, and ferrying them in and out of town. But a friendship with the native peoples was no longer seen as an advantage, it put a question mark over a man’s loyalty; a knowledge of their language was not a useful skill unless it was put at the service of the settlers.

  The messenger from Mr. John Pynchon, son of the founder of Springfield, commander of the militia, deputy to the general council and the greatest man in the valley, brought a stern warning: every town militia must be mustered, drilled, armed, and prepared to defend their own areas. Every town must report what the neighboring savages were doing, if they were friendly or complaining, if they were trading or refusing to service the settlers. There were reports that the leader of the Pokanoket tribe, King Philip, had invited the king of the Niantic people to his fort at Mount Hope. Ned listened as one speaker after another warned of the danger if the old rivalry between the Niantic and Pokanoket were ended, if the Niantic were to join with the disloyal Pokanoket, if they were to refuse land sales to the settlers, to deny trade, to deny service. Once or twice one of the elders glanced towards Ned, one of the few men from Hadley who used the many paths that crisscrossed New England, who met Niantic people on the river and in the forest. Ned kept his head down and said nothing.

  Minister John Russell prayed for calm and careful judgment as the meeting ended and stood at the back of the meetinghouse with the elders to say good-bye to each neighbor. Ned was one of the last out and waited by the minister as he locked the door, pocketed the key, and they walked together to his house. The minister’s wife and children and Mrs. Rose, the housekeeper, followed the men.

  “You weren’t at prayers earlier today, Ned Ferryman?”

  “No, Minister, many of the Hatfield people like to hear your sermon and I ferried them across the river and home again.”

  “Who’s keeping the ferry for you now?”

  “John Sassamon. He said you had given permission.”

  “Yes. He’s a good man, a Harvard man like me. He brought the message from Mr. Pynchon.”

  “Aye.”

  “Is it all quiet in the town, Ferryman? No natives coming and going on the ferry? No dugouts on the river, no more than usual?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Ned said. “They’re still unhappy about the fish traps.”

  Minister Russell nodded. “Tell them if they bring in fish again, we’ll pay a little extra,” he said. “Let’s get things back to normal. No ill will, no rumors.”

  “You’ll be hard-pressed to silence the town, they’ll be bound to worry about this news of the Pokanoket. I’m surprised Mr. Pynchon sent a public message, it’s sure to frighten people.”

  “Yes, I know. But he had to put us on our guard. I wish people would realize that the Pokanoket, all savages, are given to us as our pupils. We must guide them—not fear them. We should be praying with them, teaching them the word. That’s John Sassamon’s godly work with King Philip. This land has been given to us by God, for us to lead His children out of pagan darkness to salvation. We are to be a light to nations. It’s a mission, Ned. We’re called to do God’s work here.”

  “Amen,” Ned said. John Russell was a fervent puritan minister with enough conviction in congregationalism to move his church into unbroken land; so loyal to the old cause of parliament to hide two of Cromwell’s generals in his cellar and give Ned the job of ferryman and watchman at the gate. “I know it’s God’s will that we are here. It’s just that some of us are careless. The fish traps—”

  John Russell laughed. “Not the fish traps again!” he exclaimed. “As I said—tell the women we will pay extra for fish for the next two weeks. They can’t blame us for traffic on the river; clearing the forests and making timber is good for us all. They should be grateful!”

  The two men arrived at the handsome gate and walked up the path to the front door. “I led the people into the wilderness, to make this new town of saints,” John Russell said honestly. “God called me to find new land for new houses, to lead the children of God out of bondage. It’s His will that has brought us here to make a city on a hill. No savages are going to stand in our way for the price of half a dozen fish traps. No savages are going to threaten us for the sake of half a dozen acres.”

  “Agreed.” Ned tipped his hat; but the minister called to him before he turned to walk back to his house.

  “Come into the kitchen and see Mrs. Rose,” Mr. Russell said, opening his front door and greeting his housekeeper. “She wants to settle up with you. I think we’re in your debt.”

  “It’s nothing,” Ned said, but he followed the housekeeper across the hall and into the kitchen at the back of the house.

  “What price did you want for the trout?” the housekeeper asked, taking off her tall black hat and putting it carefully in a cupboard, straightening the flaps on her white cap.

  Ned thought of the men hidden in the cellar and the cost to the household, secretly borne for nearly six years. “Have them with my thanks,” he said. “And I’ll bring some more asparagus, when it’s ready.”

  She nodded. “Wil
l you take a glass of sassafras beer before you go?”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He stood awkwardly as she went into the cool larder and poured them both a small glass. When she came out, she gestured to the two hard chairs either side of the cold grate. “You can sit,” she said.

  He raised his glass to her and drank. “I shall have this and go,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to the ferry before dark.”

  She hesitated. “I hope you’re safe out there, on the riverside, Mr. Ferryman? Outside the fence?”

  “I’m safe enough. And the fence only stops cows. I’m only as undefended as the rest of the town. You know, I’m not very far out, Mrs. Rose. Perhaps one day you will walk out and visit me. I should like to show you my garden, and the asparagus beds.”

  She darted him the quick fugitive glance of a woman unaccustomed to smiling. “Perhaps I will,” she half promised. “But not while people say the savages are unsafe.”

  “The Pokanoket are miles away, at the coast,” he protested, “and I doubt they are any danger to us at all. I’m just at the end of the lane. You could probably see my roof from your upstairs window.”

  “I can see the river,” she agreed.

  “Then you can almost see me. I’m on the very edge where the land meets water.”

  “But beyond you is the river and the woods beyond that…” She shuddered. “And they are people of the water and of the trees. You can’t see them in the forests and they are silent on the river. I wouldn’t dare to come until we hear they’ve done with visiting around and complaining of us. They have to submit to our rules.”

  “After harvest, all this talk will die down,” he reassured her. “There’s no need for them to submit to anything. We’ve all sworn to treaties. It’s probably nothing more than the tribes gathering for a celebration, there’s nothing to fear.”

  “I’ll come later in the summer then,” she said. She allowed herself a quick glance at his face, to see that he was still looking at her. “I should like to visit you.”

  JUNE 1670, LONDON

  Tabs had cleared away the dinner things and gone out for her Sunday afternoon off, so the family gathered in the kitchen. Alinor sat in a chair at the hearth where the embers of the Newcastle coal still radiated heat. Sarah stood on a stool to string up fresh herbs to dry. “How long will you leave these, Grandma?”

  “You can see them for yourself next Sunday. They have to be so dry that they don’t rot, and yet not to have lost all their essence. See when you think they are ready.”

  Johnnie came through the door to the yard with a basket of fresh-cut mint. “D’you have room for any more?”

  His sister made a space on the big kitchen table. “I’ll make some more strings. Is this the last of it?”

  “I cut a lot, it was spilling over and choking the eyebright.”

  “I need a bigger garden,” Alinor said. “But there’s no room in the yard. Perhaps we could take a little field over the road?”

  “Who’d dig it?” Sarah demanded. “Johnnie and I are town children. We’ve got soft hands! And we’re only here on Sundays. Ma is too busy and Tabs wouldn’t thank you for more work.”

  “It’s a pity that the skills should be lost. Our family have been herbalists and midwives for generations. And with your uncle Ned sending us herbs from abroad—who knows what he might find, and what properties they might have? Your uncle Rob started as an apprentice to an apothecary.”

  “And we were fishermen,” Johnnie pointed out. “And farmers,” he added, thinking of his own missing father, a Sussex farmer who abandoned his pregnant wife on their wedding day. “And scoundrels,” he added.

  “Some trades are worth forgetting,” Alinor ruled. “We’ve not been so lucky with fathers.”

  “So, what did Sir James want with you?” Sarah asked casually, twisting stems of mint into a posy. “What did he want with us?”

  “He was a friend many years ago,” Alinor said, choosing her words with care. “He wanted to offer us a refuge at his house.”

  “A refuge?” Sarah demanded skeptically. “What sort of refuge?”

  “We couldn’t go,” Johnnie spoke at once with his sister.

  “No, of course not,” Alinor agreed. “It’s in the far north, I’ve never been, though I dreamed of it once…”

  “Did he love you?” The thought struck Sarah and she turned to her grandmother. “Before your accident, did he want to marry you?”

  Alinor answered at once, not pausing for a moment. “Oh no, my dear! And besides, I was married to Alys’s father! It’s such a long time ago—he was Rob’s tutor and very kind to him. And now he thinks to be kind to us. But we could never go. However would we run the business? And I’d never leave you two, and your indentures not up yet. It’s not to be thought of.”

  “He’s thinking of it though,” Johnnie remarked.

  “He’ll think of it no more,” Alinor said with quiet dignity.

  “He’s very particular with Johnnie,” Sarah remarked. “He couldn’t take his eyes off him.”

  “It’d be the resemblance to his uncle Rob,” Alinor replied without hesitation.

  “I thought I looked like Uncle Rob?” Sarah challenged.

  Alys came into the kitchen carrying a tray of things from the parlor. She put them on the sideboard for want of space on the table which was heaped with sweet-scented leaves as Alinor stripped the bottom leaves and Sarah tied them in posies. “Whispering secrets?” she asked lightly.

  “No secrets,” Alinor said smoothly. “But Johnnie’ll have to dig out some of the mint. We’ve got too much.”

  * * *

  On Horsleydown, the poor houses gave way to little fields and then to wide green rolling hills, with beechwoods crowning the hills on either side of the road. Carlotta, the nursemaid, dawdled behind the couple who walked, arm in arm, their heads together. Beside a fallen tree Livia hesitated. “May I sit here?”

  “Of course, of course!” James brushed the trunk with the gloves that he held in his hand and spread a silk handkerchief from his pocket. He helped her to sit, and remained standing before her. Carlotta plumped down on the grass and put the baby on her shawl so he could look up at the sky and the crisscrossing birds.

  “You don’t answer me?” Livia spoke lightly, as if she were remarking on the view behind them, the silvery river snaking into the heart of the City hazed with smoke from a thousand hearths. “Few men would hesitate.”

  “Of course,” he hurried. “But my circumstances are peculiar. My long affection for your family, my relationship to Rob… And it is my own son that I want. If they say he is not here, have they sent him away? If Johnnie is truly Mrs. Stoney’s son, what has become of my boy?”

  “But if you find your son—how old would he be now?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “Twenty-one,” he said, knowing at once, without calculating. “Twenty-one this summer. I swore I would find him when he was twenty-one if they did not send for me before.”

  “Allora!” she said, waving away the longing in his voice. “This is very old history! Say you find him and he does not want to come to you? Perhaps he ran away from the warehouse? I know I would! Perhaps he was a bad son and that is why they have forgotten him? Perhaps he has another life of his own, married to a woman you could not countenance, with a disagreeable family? Perhaps they are in want, perhaps he has a dozen ugly bastards? There are many reasons for you not wanting to own him. Many good reasons not to find him.”

  “I never thought—”

  “Of course not! Why should you? Because you were trusting that they would keep and raise your child! But they have not done so! He is not the young man you dreamed of, just as La Suocera is not the loving mamma that I imagined, and the rich wharf with a beautiful house is not as it should be. Are we trapped by our plans? No! I thought they would be wealthy and living in a beautiful London house. I thought they would take me in to a great family and I would be able to sell my antiquities and make my fo
rtune. But no! It is not as Rob told me at all, and I have to change my plans. Just as you do.”

  “You are very…” He could not find the word for her bright determination which was at once so gratingly unfeminine and yet so charmingly bold.

  “Yes I am!” She took his unspoken word as a compliment. “And you too should see that things are not as you have dreamed but that you can make something of them. Isn’t that what this whole city is about? Rebuilding from the ruins? What the new king is like? A restored mistake? Not as you thought; but something can be done with him. Isn’t that what you would call the spirit of the age?”

  “You think the spirit of the age is to seize whatever there is, even if it is not true to your vision?” he asked bitterly. “To give up your ideal for what you can win?”

  She stood and gestured at the view behind her, towards London where she knew there was wealth and opportunity, and decadence too. “Oh yes!” she declared. “If it was exiled: let it return. If it burns down: rebuild it. If it was robbed: restore it. If it is free—let us take it. I shall be an English lady in a beautiful grand house with a thriving business in antiquities, a storehouse in Venice and a gallery in London because I have set my heart on it—one way or another—why not? You should have a wife and a baby son, because that is what you desire. Why should you not restore yourself? Why should you not come into your own again? Why should we not take what we want and go where we are not invited? Why should we not be happy?”

  They walked home together without him giving her an answer, but she was content that she had put a swirl of ideas in his head. At the front door she put her hand on the latch and said carelessly over her shoulder: “Come for me tomorrow, and I will have discovered where your son is. I will tell you.”

  “I’m grateful.” He stumbled on the words. “I would not have you spy on them… but I have to know…”

  She shrugged. “Of course you must.” She smiled. “Good day.”

  She opened the door, waved the nursemaid and the baby inside, and gave him her hand. He bowed over it and she leaned towards him. “But think of me,” she whispered. “Why not?”