“Last night seems real enough to me,” he replied. He was watching her carefully, as though afraid he had misunderstood something. “Do you have regrets?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I would like to relive it. It’s sad that we can’t revisit such moments over and over and instead they are fled and we are left with something else. Where do they go, do you think, such happy moments?”
“That is a question for John,” Noah said. “Perhaps somewhere we are again loving one another for the first time. Only I would prefer to dwell on what might be again, not what is past. I would like to think our love continues.”
Just then Lady took a step that caught Lydde wrong. She winced.
“What’s wrong?” Noah asked.
“Nothing serious,” Lydde said, and readjusted her seat. “I’m a bit tender, that’s all.” She glanced at him. “Someone seems to have been having his way with me last night.”
He actually blushed and had the grace to look sheepish, but when he spoke he sounded not the least contrite. “I must confess, I wanted you badly. And everything that happened between us answered and elevated all my expectations. Being with you last night was a revelation.”
She felt it suddenly hard to breathe. “Was it?” she whispered.
He nodded. “I have imagined loving a woman that way.”
“Last night you said you had some experience of women. Was this so different?”
“It was. It’s true, I am not inexperienced. My brother Robert and I came often to whores in Norchester, and they taught me much.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Is it? You sound like a Puritan.”
She opened her mouth to reply but could think of nothing to say. Noah looked amused.
“At that time it was what young gentlemen did,” he continued. “My father encouraged it. Part of my education. There was a certain house on Wood Street before the war that was famous for procuring fresh girls from the country, so there was much less danger of acquiring the pox. All of the gentlemen of the district sent their sons there. But after a time I came to understand the poor lasses were selling themselves because they had no other means of survival. When they had aged a few years—say, become sixteen or seventeen—and carried more danger of infection, they were sent on to the stews of Bristol or London to make way for new girls. I learned this from my favorite whore, a redheaded lass named Kate. Once I understood, I befriended her and paid her for conversation. I went to her more and more often, and ever after that was all I paid for. Often I bought an entire night with her to spare her the company of other men, and we curled up together upon her bed and talked and slept.” He smiled. “Though now and then, I admit, we still made love from affection. We both knew it would come to naught, but Kate was generous and I loved her in a boy’s way. She taught me much. Poor country girls know more of these matters than ladies do. Before she could be sent away I secretly supplied her with a small dowry, and she was able to wed a local farmer. They live outside Bradway. She has five children and her husband is a Raven’s man.”
“Does her husband know of your tie to her?”
“Of course not.”
“If you have been to whores,” Lydde said, “then why was last night a revelation? You cannot think me particularly forward compared to a whore.”
“Oh, you are much more so!”
“Noah!”
He grinned. “Without doubt, you are. You mustn’t think whores are amorous. With them it is all business, and an onerous one at that. Some of them are good at pretending otherwise unless you look into their eyes. But you!” He shook his head. “Last night was pure joy for you. Your face, my God! And every move I made, you answered. I dreamed it would be so when I carried you back from the monastery on my horse.”
“It was because I was with you.”
“I know,” he said, with such assurance (or bravado, she later suspected) she wanted to smack him. Then he added, “I was not lying when I said I smelled you. The first time I was close to you at Soane’s Croft, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.”
“I used to dream of you at night, though I tried not to.”
“When I shoved you too hard in my office it was all I could do to keep from taking you in my arms.”
“It was all I could do to keep from hitting you,” she said.
He laughed. “In your defense of women, how could you have hit a man who loves women so?”
And she knew in her heart that some men did fear and hate women, but Noah Fallam was not one of them. Still, he was looking and sounding far too satisfied with himself. So she asked, “If you love women so, why are you not married?”
She regretted her light tone at once, for his face turned to stone.
“I am a widower,” he said.
So there had been a wife. She chastised herself for not guessing. A man in his early thirties would likely have been married before. But the fact that she knew nothing of a wife was a reminder of how little she actually knew about him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Her name was Margaret. She died a year ago this past spring, in childbirth.”
They rode on in silence, Lydde waiting, sensing he would tell her in his own time. Then he said, “It was horrible. She’d had two miscarriages and two stillbirths. The last was a breech birth and the midwives couldn’t turn the baby. She screamed for hours upstairs while I sat below and listened to her torment. Then she died, and the baby with her.”
Lydde rode closer and linked her arm with his, but he gently disengaged from her. “Someone might see us,” he reminded her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And afraid, she thought, though she kept her fear to herself.
“I blamed myself,” he said. “I felt I had killed her. Though I know it is the way of the world.”
“You must have loved her.”
“Everyone loved Margaret,” he said. “How could I not? She was kind and gentle, and loyal as the day was long. But it was not a passionate marriage. We’d known each other since childhood, you see. Our parents were friends and had promised us to one another when we were small. It was simply assumed we would wed, and when I was eighteen and she fifteen, we did. But she was more like a beloved sister in many ways. She was never comfortable with lovemaking. I tried to please her, but she was always…I don’t know…afraid. Perhaps it was because ladies here are taught to be modest. Or, perhaps with someone else…” His voice trailed away and he shrugged. “She would never allow me to see her naked, and she wouldn’t look upon me. She wouldn’t move during lovemaking, would make not a sound except to whimper now and then as though I hurt her. Which I probably did. Nor would she touch me intimately or allow me to touch her.”
Then he turned toward Lydde, a stricken look on his face. “I do not belittle her, please believe that,” he said. “Margaret stood by me when the rest of my family turned away, and at great cost to her happiness. It was no more her fault than mine that our love was more kindred than anything.”
“I believe you,” Lydde said. “I hear nothing but affection and respect in your voice.”
“Good,” he said with relief. “I only wanted you to know why you are so different to me. And to tell you I was faithful to Margaret while we were married. I take the marriage vow quite seriously. After her death, I went to whores again, for a few months. But since I came here and became the Raven, that has been too dangerous, nor should Noah Fallam be seen in a brothel.”
“No wonder you were ready for me,” Lydde said.
“I have burned,” he agreed, “as St. Paul so aptly put it.”
“Sorry, but I just can’t believe what we did was a sin.”
Noah smiled then. “If God loves sinners,” he said, “He must be especially fond of that sin.”
THE landscape north of Norchester turned rugged, long swells of downs cut here and there by hidden hollows—as Lydde would have called them—or coombes, as Noah did. The way rose steadily, then Noah led them through a stone gateway that stood beside th
e road. Here the path narrowed and disappeared into a dense wood, a track that seemed faded and old as time. A hundred yards or so along stood a thatched cottage. They drew up in front of it and Noah dismounted.
“Wait here,” he said. But before he could approach, the cottage door opened and a bent old man emerged, a scowl twisting his deeply lined face.
“Symms,” Noah said. “How are you and your wife?”
Symms was oddly shaped, his upper body that of a substantial man, his legs wizened and bowed. He took his time answering, as though he hoped to make Noah uncomfortable, then said, “The wife does tolerable.”
Noah nodded, seeming to ignore Symms’s hostility. “I require the keys,” he said. “I want to show Coombe Manor to this lad.”
Symms turned his malevolent stare on Lydde. “Why?” he said.
The question seemed rude even to Lydde’s twenty-first-century ears. But Noah refused to be riled.
“I have taken the boy under my wing as I did Simon Cleyes,” he said coolly. “You will remember Simon.”
Symms didn’t reply, and instead turned and went inside, returning with a group of keys hanging on a ring.
“Thank you,” Noah said. “We shall be back later today.”
But his words were lost on Symms, who had retreated inside once more and slammed the door.
“What was that all about?” Lydde asked when they were on their way again.
“I should have warned you,” Noah said. “Symms despises me. He has been the caretaker at Coombe Manor for thirty years. Symms it was who caught Simon’s father poaching and turned him over to be hanged. He took it as a personal insult when I befriended Mother Cleyes and her family. And to Symms, I am the renegade son of his beloved late master and the usurper of my older brother’s estate. It is family history I shall soon explain. For now, Symms is angry because I do not collect rent from my tenants. My brother’s tenants, Symms would say. And it’s true, Robert doesn’t like it. We correspond twice a year, Robert and I. But since he fought for the losing side in the war and has now fled to America, he has no authority here. I am the younger brother, but for the immediate future I am master of Coombe Manor. And I will not keep our tenants in poverty.”
“Does it make such a difference to forgive their rent?”
“It does to them. For the first time in their lives they can put away money. Some have been able to leave the land and strike out on their own. The Bland family has moved to London and set up a business trafficking in hides from Virginia. The Wood family—and this especially infuriated Robert—has gone to Virginia and purchased a farm near my brother’s estate there. The poor tenants, suddenly neighbors on an equal footing.” Noah smiled. “Robert’s wife Elizabeth was especially put out. It seems she encounters Mother Wood on a regular basis and the woman has the gall to bid her good day without curtsying.”
“Horrors,” Lydde said. “But what about your brother? Are you making it difficult for him to survive?”
“Robert made his escape with a goodly portion of our father’s gold. He has purchased an estate on the James River.” He shook his head. “No, my brother and his family lack for nothing that America can provide.”
“And you?”
“I am not a wealthy man. I have set aside a sum to take to America if need be, enough to establish myself. I live on part of the stipend I receive as lieutenant major-general and save the rest. When my brother returns, as he hopes to do when Cromwell’s government falls, he shall have all and I shall have nothing. It is the lot of younger brothers. So, dear Lydde, if you decide to marry me, it should not be for my money.”
The house materialized before them, or, more accurately, below them, for Coombe Manor was named for its situation in the bottom of a bowl of land so deep that the chimney pots were on a level with the upper road. It was a pretty house of red brick, built by Noah’s grandfather in 1576, a jumble of towers and diamond-glazed windows with lacy iron casements. They stopped on the grassy expanse that fronted the house.
“Is anyone around?” Lydde asked.
Noah shook his head. “The house is closed and there have been no servants for seven years now.”
They sat on their horses for a moment looking at one another. Then Noah dismounted and reached up to Lydde, let her slide off Lady into his arms. He held her close, knocking her hat off as he did, and cradled the back of her head with his right hand.
“I have not wanted to come here,” he said, “or go back into that house. But I will, with you beside me.”
He removed his own hat and stuffed it in his saddlebag, then turned the horses out to graze in the tall grass. As he unlocked the front door and led her into the great hall, he continued to hold her close, as though she were a shield. His face betrayed no emotion, as though he willed himself to feel nothing. They stood before a rank of portraits that ran the length of the hall.
“Five generations of Fallams,” said Noah, “and these last are my father and mother and brother.”
Noah and his brother took after different parents. Robert Fallam was sturdy like his father, William, with dark hair and a beard. He seemed also—could a formal portrait reveal this?—duller than his younger brother. Catherine, the mother, was a pretty woman, with the light brown hair and dark eyes that were so striking in Noah.
They stood gazing up at the larger-than-life faces, Noah’s fingers pressing too hard against her ribs.
“You are not there,” Lydde observed.
“No,” he said. “I am not there.”
Then he began to tell her of his life.
NOAH adored his older brother Robert when they were boys. Robert could run faster, sat a horse better, was the superior shot. When they fought, Robert always won. But something changed as they grew older. When a gang of boys gathered for an adventure, it was Noah they looked to for leadership. Robert seemed not to notice or care. He could still beat Noah at wrestling or a foot race, and that was what counted.
As they grew older, their differences became even more apparent. Robert loved company, and enjoyed the rounds of social visits the country gentry made throughout the year, moving from great house to great house for balls, masquerades, hunts, festive dinners. His conversations were all of horses and dogs and neighborhood gossip. Noah could hardly bear these social gatherings and found them more and more onerous as he grew older. He was bored by the empty formality and bland conversation at parties, but when the subject turned to politics he must keep his mouth shut or risk angering his conservative neighbors. He often slipped out as soon as was polite to walk the grounds of whatever estate they might be visiting, and in summer when the light lingered and the air was warm, he carried a book and fishing pole with him. The other young people joked about him behind his back.
William Fallam let it be known he was disappointed in his younger son. He was a supporter of the absolute monarchy and he ruled his own family on the principle of the divine right of fathers. His punishments were harsh enough that Robert and Noah, different though they were and much as they wrangled, learned to hide one another’s misdeeds for the sake of brotherly affection. Noah had at an early age ceased to share his thoughts with his father, who then came to see his youngest as an awkward, shy lad with little to recommend him. Too bookish, William Fallam thought, a future cleric of the more tedious sort.
At age fifteen, Noah was expected to attend Oxford with Robert, as had Fallams before them. Noah decided on Cambridge instead. At first his father refused to send him, but Noah stood his ground despite a series of beatings. In the end, William Fallam relented at Robert’s urging and reluctantly saw his stubborn son off to what was in his mind a second-rate haven for the discontented (though perhaps, he admitted, therefore adequate enough for a younger son). While Robert Fallam lived the life of a gentleman and leisurely sometime scholar at Oxford, Noah immersed himself in politics, theology, and the new learning at Emmanuel College. He pondered the radical notions of Copernicus and Galileo while studying the night sky with a telescope, despite warn
ings from some of his fellows that the instrument might be designed and manipulated by Satan to lead man to perdition. He pored over mathematical formulas, disputed late into the night over predestination (which he came at last to reject, though most, not only Puritans but also many Anglicans like his father, held to it), the true interpretation of scripture, and the claims of conscience. He took holy orders, though he was not certain if he would be able to obtain a living in a parish due to his radical leanings. Then he returned home to wed his childhood friend Margaret Exton. It was a marriage her father and mother would soon come to bitterly regret.
An anonymous pamphlet appeared in London, to great scandal. The Kingdom of God Glimpsed In Albion, it was boldly titled. It had been appropriately banned, but was circulating nonetheless, copies churned out in their hundreds by the underground printing presses. A copy of the pamphlet had reached even into Norchester and must be moving throughout the kingdom, stirring up anarchy in its wake.
“The rogue who wrote this piece of filth,” William Fallam proclaimed over dinner, “will be clapped in jail when he is caught, and a good thing if he should rot there. We are too lenient with these troublemakers.”
The dinner was a festive occasion, the third anniversary of Robert’s wedding to his wife Elizabeth, in attendance with Noah and Margaret and both sets of in-laws. Robert and the two young women looked bored at the serious turn the conversation had taken, while Noah studiously cut the slice of boiled beef on his plate.
“What does this dreadful pamphlet contain?” asked Henry Exton, Noah’s father-in-law. “Is it against the King? Have you seen it?”
“I have,” said William Fallam. “A copy came into my hands this morning. It is worse than against the King, it is heretical and treasonous. I read it, and then I set it afire.”
“Oh, dear,” said Catherine Fallam, hoping her husband would not go off on a tirade. “Must we hear of it over dinner?”
“I do hesitate to pollute young ears with such foulness,” he replied. “But the young people should know what sort of threat we face. The pamphlet calls the King a tyrant, but claims Parliament is equally tyrannical. The only just government, it declares, is one in which all participate. Not only men of property, mind you, but all men. All should be educated, as if one could imagine the butcher and the shepherd together spouting Latin. Oh, and there should be a sharing of goods from rich to poor. The tract goes on to rail against the supposed mistreatment of Red Indians and African heathens, and calls them equal in the eyes of God to an Englishman.”
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