“How?”
“Burned it.” The man looked back to Honor. His deep voice became a plea. “I ask you, my lady, would I have done all that if I meant you harm?”
Honor was moved. “I am right glad to know you, sir.” She held out her hand to him with a disarming smile. Thornleigh allowed the man to take her hand and kiss it.
“And,” Honor said, “I’d like to help you in return for what you did for us. If you can be ready to leave in the mor—”
Pain flared up her arm as Thornleigh jerked her by the elbow. He pulled her aside.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered roughly. “Even if he’s telling the truth, we don’t need this now. Let me get rid of him.”
“Richard,” she said, “we owe him for keeping that evidence hidden. He saved us from Pelle. He’s proved he’s a friend. Now Pelle’s after him. And I would not let a dog who had bitten me fall into the hands of Pelle, let alone have it happen to a friend. Besides,” she said, so softly it was almost to herself, “we’ve already lost one friend today.”
Thornleigh rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t like it.”
“But would you call him a liar? The facts are too plain.”
Thornleigh only shrugged.
It was enough for Honor. “Richard,” she said fervently, “if you insist, I’ll turn this man away. I’ll not go against your will again. But I truly believe he needs us. Can’t we help?”
Thornleigh, though looking far from convinced, finally said, “I told you I would. I meant it.”
She smiled. “It’s the last time. I promise.”
He nodded.
Honor went back to the petitioner. He was still on his knees. “Master . . .”
“Legge,” he said quickly, gratefully. “Leonard Legge.”
“Master Legge. Come at dawn to the Steelyard wharf. If you don’t mind traveling as our servant,” she smiled, “we’ll get you across to Rotterdam.”
Thornleigh groaned as he came beside her. “At least,” he urged her in a tense whisper, “let me hold him in this house overnight.”
Legge heard this. For a moment the eyes of the two men met and reckoned one another.
Legge’s eyes darted back to Honor. “I beg you, my lady, let me say farewell to my family. God alone knows when I may clap eyes on them again. And my wife’s expecting our sixth any day.”
Honor glanced at Thornleigh. He continued to glare down at Legge. But she could not help thinking: what if it was Richard pleading with some stranger, afraid he would never see his own unborn child? And she could tell that he did not really mistrust Legge any longer; if he did, he would not even consider letting him go. She turned back to Legge and nodded her assent. Thornleigh moved away shaking his head.
Legge grabbed the hem of Honor’s skirt again and sputtered out his thanks. Bridget Sydenham helped the grateful man to his feet and showed him out.
Thornleigh sheathed his sword and took a few steps toward the closed door. “I’m surprised you didn’t hand over to him all our money, too,” he said. “To buy gruel for his dying mother and twenty destitute cousins.”
Honor came up behind him and rested her cheek on his back. “Don’t be angry, my love,” she said. “Brother Frish is lost, but this man we can save. All will be well. I feel it.”
He grunted. “You still take too many risks.”
She drew him around. “But this is the last one.” With her hands on his shoulders she kissed him softly. “Let’s not waste time quarreling. We have only a few hours before dawn.”
Hand in hand, they walked back up to the attic.
They undressed one another and gazed at one another in the moonlight, neither speaking a word. They drank each other in, asking and answering with eyes, hands, mouths, bodies. Their lovemaking had never been so abandoned, so generous, as both of them reveled in pledging a commitment too deep for words to convey.
After, Thornleigh lay naked on his back on the fresh floor straw. His eyes were closed. Honor, naked as well, was on her knees, straddling his hips.
She watched his face, loving him, loving the moment. A gentle rain pattered on the roof, and in the moist air of the spring night the straw around them breathed back a scent of summer meadows. “Go home, and be happy,” Brother Frish had told her. Good advice, she thought. And though Frish was gone, and everything had changed and she could not go home, she knew that as long as she had this man she would be happy anywhere. Should she tell him about the baby now? No. Tomorrow. When they were away from all this, and safely on the water. He was leaving everything behind because of her. She would save this news as a gift to cheer him. A gift that only she could give.
She ran her fingertips over his belly and watched the muscles tighten in response. She lowered herself so that her nipples grazed his chest and her hair fell in curtains on either side of his face. His hands smoothed down her back and over her spread buttocks and she felt him harden inside her again.
She whispered a taunt into his neck: “Nothing at all?”
He laughed. It had been a joke between them ever since the time when he had said it first. It had been on the evening after they had first made love in the fleece shed. They were standing with the rest of the household in the great hall, everyone noisily dispersing after supper. Honor had caught Thornleigh watching her across the room, and read the desire in his eyes. She had left the hall first.
She had waited for him in her bedchamber, sitting on the edge of the bed. Thornleigh had come in, stood before her and kissed her, then pulled off his doublet so that he stood in shirt and hose. Impatient for him, her hands had gone up to his throat and tugged at his shirt lacings to loosen them, but with the fumbling fingers of inexperience and desire she had only succeeded in tightening the strings into a knot. While he, as impatient as she, had turned his attention to unfastening the knot, her eyes had traveled down his body to the bulge of his erection. Her hand had moved to touch it. He had flinched in surprise. She had drawn back, afraid she had done something wrong, for she new little of the ways of men. “You don’t like it?” she had asked.
He had let out a short bark of a laugh. “I like it! Believe me, I like it.” He had fixed her with a look that was filled as much with tenderness as with desire. “Honor, there’s nothing you can do that I won’t like. Nothing at all.”
Timidly at first, her fingers had touched him again. Her touch became firmer, and she had watched him close his eyes as if in pain. Abandoning his shirt altogether he had fought to unlace his codpiece, and Honor had time to do no more than kick off her shoes before he was on her, and they tumbled together on the bed, eager for one another.
Now, lying in the moonlight, Thornleigh chuckled again at the reminder. He rolled her over onto her back. She looked up into his eyes, their blaze of blue now sea-black in the shadows.
“There’s nothing you can do that I won’t like,” he whispered. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and his face became suddenly grave. “Except leave me.”
“Then,” she said, as tears of love clouded her vision, “There is nothing at all.”
30
London Bridge
Thornleigh’s chestnut stallion trotted down Coleman Street snorting steam into the morning chill, frisky to canter despite the double load it carried. Honor rode pillion, her arms snug around Thornleigh’s waist. No one had followed them. Richard was right, she thought. If anyone had come after her from Cromwell’s, she must have given them the slip. As she nestled against the warmth of his jostling back she felt the fear of the last two days and the sadness for Frish lift from her heart like the morning mist rising above the gabled houses. They were leaving behind everything they knew, but somehow the future did not frighten her. They had each other, there was money enough for the short term—she had tucked most of it into her underskirt—and she had a vague but firm conviction that somehow all would be well.
The cobbles glistened after the rain that had washed the city clean. A cloud of sparrows wheeled above the church
of St. Thomas of Acon, and its lead roofs glinted in the first lemony beams of the sun. Honor smiled. They were less than half a mile from the Steelyard and the waiting barge that would take them out to the German ship.
The stallion’s hooves clattered into Old Jewry as the street awoke. Shutters banged open. Aproned housewives were sweeping thresholds, shooing away the lean, scavenging dogs and the even leaner cripples who had spent the night huddled in dry doorways. Yawning apprentices opened the doors to shops, hefted sacks, rolled barrels. A carter cursed his stalled nag.
Honor and Thornleigh continued down Bucklersbury Street and Budge Row. The strengthening river sounds—lightermen’s shouts and boat whistles—clashed with peeling church bells. The stallion’s nostrils quivered at the fish-pungent air.
On Candlewick Street a farm family was setting up a vegetable stall, and a yellow-haired girl, no more than five it seemed to Honor, left her parents and brothers to scamper after the stallion. Skipping alongside the horse, the child offered up a fistful of violets. Honor took the flowers with a smile and quickly fished out a penny for the small, bobbing palm. The little girl romped back to her family.
Honor tucked the nosegay into her bodice and hugged Thornleigh. In six months, she thought, we’ll have a child of our own. She was bursting to tell him. And they were so near the river now. Through a slit between buildings she even caught a glimpse of the Steelyard’s lifting crane. They turned the corner. Here the crowd was thick. Thames Street and the Steelyard lay dead ahead. Honor could contain the news no longer. “Richard—” She broke off as a rooster flapped in front of the horse.
“Mmm?” Thornleigh murmured, eyes still front. He was searching among the pedestrians. “You realize,” he said, “if Legge’s not at the wharf we don’t wait for him.”
Honor understood. “Richard,” she blurted, “I’m pregnant.”
Thornleigh jerked the reins. The horse halted abruptly. They were in the middle of the intersection, and foot traffic swirled around them. Thornleigh’s head snapped to the left to look back at her. His profile showed the open mouth and wide eyes of surprise, but Honor could not tell if it sprang from pleasure or dismay. Still looking left, Thornleigh’s eyes lengthened their focus, fixing on something across the intersection. His face hardened. Honor felt his muscles tense.
“Where’d he get a mount like that?” Thornleigh muttered.
Honor followed his gaze. Under the archway of an inn courtyard Legge sat astride a fine-boned, gray Arab—a very expensive horse. He was looking away, preoccupied with edging to one side of the arch to let a cart pass. Then, glancing behind him, Legge jerked his head in a beckoning gesture. Four mounted men, blank-faced like mercenaries and wearing swords, eased their horses forward and stopped, forming a “U” behind him. All five sat watching the street.
“Richard, you were right!” Honor cried under her breath. “What a fool I was to trust him. His master must be behind this. Pelle, and Bishop Nix.”
“No time for that now.” Keeping his eyes glued to Legge’s small company, Thornleigh tugged the reins, making the stallion dance backwards so that more foot traffic flowed between them and Legge.
“Can we go back and circle?” Honor asked. “They might not spot us if we come from the west.”
Thornleigh shook his head, then nodded toward the opposite corner. “Look.”
Across the street another mounted band of three men lay in wait, these with bows slung on their backs. They scanned the crowd like suspicious jailers. There was no way Honor and Thornleigh could enter the Steelyard without passing between these two armed groups.
“But none of them are wearing Nix’s livery,” Honor whispered. “Who in God’s name are they?”
“Swords and bows are livery enough,” Thornleigh muttered. Cautiously, slowly, he turned the stallion. “They haven’t seen us. We’ll go back, then head west for Ludgate, and get out of the city at least.” He quickly checked his sword hilt, then pulled out his dagger and slipped it back to Honor. “I’ll navigate, you handle the armaments aft.” As Honor tucked the dagger into her belt Thornleigh’s hand pressed her knee. “Sorry, my love,” he said, “no sea voyage today.”
He had just lifted his heels to nudge the horse’s flanks when a portly priest hustled out of the crowd and hooked his fingers in the bridle. “Good morning, sir,” he greeted Thornleigh, all smiles. “Is this the way to St. Martin’s? I’m in a muddle, what with—”
“Not now, Father,” Thornleigh said through clenched teeth. He jerked the reins to free the bridle and the priest’s arm flew up. His sleeve flapped over the horse’s eye. Frightened, the horse reared. A woman, seeing her child near the lifted hooves, let out a shriek.
The heads of the men with Legge in the archway snapped in the direction of the cry. The archers’ on the other corner did too. Honor looked back at the archers. Another rider had emerged beside them, a man in a black cloak. Honor felt a fist of fear slam into her stomach. Bastwick. Her eyes met his.
“Hold on!” cried Thornleigh. His heels thwacked the stallion’s ribs. The horse bounded forward.
Honor saw only blurs of colors, heard only a roar of voices as the stallion careened around carts and children on Thames Street, dodged stalls and barking dogs. Men and women lurched out of the way of the horse, then moments later had to shield their eyes from flying mud as Bastwick and his pack pounded after in pursuit.
Thornleigh swerved north, then galloped along a clear stretch of Old Fish Street, down an alley, and into a trashstrewn lane. They were nearing Ludgate Hill. Honor knew he meant to get past the city walls, tear across the open fields, and try to lose Bastwick in the woods beyond.
But as they broke out of Carter Lane below St. Paul’s and cannoned up Creed Lane, minutes from Ludgate, she saw with horror that an oncoming funeral procession choked their route. Thornleigh hauled on the reins. The stallion skidded in the mud, then stopped. Above its bellows-breaths Thornleigh and Honor gazed in desperation at the river of black-draped mourners funneling into the street toward St. Paul’s.
Thornleigh cursed. “To pick this morning of all mornings to be buried.” He had to shout above the clamor of the Jesus bells of St. Paul’s peeling so near that they drowned out all other noise of the street, even the tramping of the mourners.
Thornleigh wheeled the horse around. Honor gasped as she glimpsed Bastwick’s flying black robe. He and his riders were closing the gap.
Thornleigh looked frantically for a way out. To the west, the funeral. To the south, Bastwick. To the east the reverberating fortress of St. Paul’s. He tugged the horse’s head to face north, but there a curious crowd was moving toward them to gape at the magnificent funeral. It would be impossible to make headway through that crush.
“Honor, I’m going to try to shake them off, then race for the bridge. Can you hang on?”
Her tightening grip around his waist was answer enough.
She shut her eyes as they bolted forward again. But suddenly she felt the horse tilt upwards beneath her. She heard a grating from its hooves. Her eyes sprang open. They were bounding up the steps of the cathedral!
At the top, where the huge doors to the nave stood open to welcome the dead man’s cortege, knots of startled priests and lawyers dashed out of the horse’s way. At the foot of the steps Bastwick and his pack, cursing in frustration, were reining in their mounts.
The stallion clanged into the cathedral. Honor felt darkness close in as the sun was blotted out. Gossiping merchants stood mute, and whores hovering at pillars crossed themselves as the apparition crashed up the length of the nave. Dogs crouched and snarled. At the crossing, where the great altar’s gold and silverwork shimmered in candlelight, Thornleigh wheeled to the left, spurring the horse past a jeweled saint whose uplifted arms seemed frozen in horror.
As they barreled straight for a cluster of priests at the open north door Honor shut her eyes again. She heard the priests flutter apart. She felt the sunlight hit her face, felt the horse tilt downwards as the
y catapulted down the steps. By the time she looked again they were crossing the churchyard and tucking through Little Gate, leaving the cathedral’s walled enclosure.
After that, the race east along Cheapside was easy going. The thoroughfare was crowded, but wide enough that the stallion could gallop. They turned south. Honor could see ahead the flags fluttering from the rooftops of London Bridge. Her heart pounded with hope. In minutes, with luck, they would be across, in Southwark. The boundary of London was fixed at the stone posts at the Southwark end of the bridge, and anyone escaping beyond the posts from the authority of the city could easily lose themselves in Southwark’s warren of alleys, cockpits and brothels. She glanced over her shoulder. She saw no closing pack, no Bastwick.
“You’ve done it!” she cried in Thornleigh’s ear. “We’ve lost them!”
Then, dead ahead, Bastwick shot out of a side street. But he was looking toward the bridge, apparently thinking they had passed him. Thornleigh blazed right by him. Honor looked back. Bastwick was whipping his mount after them, bent like galloping Death over the horse’s neck, his black robe streaming. His men poured out of the side street and followed him, Legge in front.
Honor pushed against Thornleigh as if to help force them up to the massive arched entrance of the bridge. It was so close! She could see the last of the rainwater dripping from the saw-toothed bottom of the raised portcullis. But Legge on his fast Arab was tearing up the gap between them. He was almost upon them.
Thornleigh’s stallion thundered onto the wooden timbers of the bridge. Light dimmed as they entered the tunnel-like space formed by the shops that crowded both sides, the upper stories almost touching. The air hummed with the rush of the river churning around the stone supports. An ox cart halfway across the bridge was slowly rumbling toward them.
Thornleigh slowed to zig-zag around pedestrians. Legge sped past them. Suddenly, ahead of them, the ox cart lumbered sideways. It stopped. The beast and wagon, turned in this way, effectively sealed off the bridge. Legge had done it; riding to the ox’s head, he had forced the cart into a blockade. Thornleigh had no choice but to haul the stallion to a stop.
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