A Chorus of Innocents (13 page)

“Because then we could not hope to see them, and so I prefer to believe the optimistic view.”

Well that certainly sounded a bit Jesuitical, but it could just be that he had read a lot of books. How on earth did you find out if someone was a Jesuit without actually asking them outright?

“Perhaps I should eat fewer of the sugar plums I like myself.”

“Indeed, my lady. I would recommend it. I would also recommend scrubbing your teeth every night with a good rough toothcloth dipped in salt.”

“I've always done that. Doesn't everyone?”

“Well they should.”

“Did Jamie Burn have bad teeth then?” She knew he didn't. His teeth were white and even and like a horse's.

The man laughed a little and Elizabeth tried hard not to suspect he was laughing at her clumsy attempts to cross-examine him.

“He had one tooth he had broken years before which needed drawing and I drew for him. And then we got talking over brandywine and ended by being friends. He needed to talk to someone who read the kind of books he did. I was able to lend him my favourite book by Thomas Digges, about the heavens and crystal spheres, and we had many good discussions about it and others like Lucretius'
De Rerum Naturae
and of course some of the Hermetic books.”

“What are they?”

“They are books written by Hermes Trismegistus which deal with…er…well with astrology, among other things.”

Elizabeth felt a thrill of suspicion go through her and then damped it down. Astrology was perfectly unexceptionable and didn't the Queen have Dr Dee, her own personal astrologer to cast her horoscope for her? In fact an astrologer was much more respectable than a Papist.

“As Dr Dee does?”

“Yes, indeed, although the good doctor is now more interested in angel magic, which I believe is leading him astray.”

“Astray from what?”

“Why, my lady, from the far more interesting question of what are the crystal spheres made of and is it true, as Copernicus writes, that the Earth goes around the Sun and not the other way about?”

“What?”

Mr Anricks smiled diffidently. “I know, ma'am, it sounds quite insane and so I thought it when I first came across the idea, oh, years ago now. But if you read the account of it in Thomas Digges and think about it, well, it seems less mad the more you think about it, that's all I can say.”

Elizabeth blinked at him. The idea made her feel very queasy, as if the Earth underfoot were not quite as solid as it seemed.

“Well, everyone knows the Earth is round,” she began slowly, “but surely it's at the centre of the universe? How can it not be? And wouldn't we feel it if the Earth were…were moving around the Sun?”

“Perhaps not, if the movement was very smooth. The Earth is enormous, of course, that was measured by Eratosthenes of Cyrene before Christ was born.”

“How did he do that?”

“He was very clever: he measured the exact curve of a row of posts of exactly the same length placed beside the Nile at intervals and from that worked out the curve of the Earth by the Art Geometrica. Some twenty-five thousand miles around.”

“Good…heavens.”

“Quite. If Columbus had heard of Eratosthenes, he would probably never have set out.”

There were so many questions she wanted to ask him. Are you a Papist? Are you a Jesuit? What was it you really talked about with Jamie? Not for the first time, she wished Poppy was there where she should have been instead of nearly forty miles away in England.

They were tapping the third barrel of beer over by the trestle tables and the spit-roasted mutton and beef was being consumed by hungry men who were standing around shouting at each other. Behind her she could hear an argument that was not, for a wonder, about whether a shod horse went better than an unshod one. It was a new one and equally fatuous: Which would win in a fight, a billy goat or a ram? It seemed plans were afoot to find out.

The boys were being congratulated on their singing and munching hunks of mutton themselves, while their parents did the same. Little Jimmy Tait was swaying already with the mild ale he'd drunk. It was mid-afternoon and the party would go on into the night. Now if Robin were here he would be wandering around asking Jock Burn how his horses were and telling stories and he would stand over there, by the untapped barrels and laugh and accept a bet on the idiotic ram versus goat question.

He wasn't here. He was far away in the West March and probably thinking of any number of things, none of which were her. Probably he had forgotten all about her as indeed he should. Perhaps his father had found him an heiress to marry and rescue his fortunes. Perhaps he had found another woman to be his ladylove—or at least to bed since the Italian woman who had been all over him in Scotland was now rumoured to be the Earl of Essex' mistress.

She had eaten a trencher of roast mutton and some bread. She had to stay until the cakes were brought out but then she thought she would retire from the fray and try and get an early night. But no, she would have to wait until Lady Hume and Kat went to bed.

Could she start for home now? No. The earliest she could do that was tomorrow when she planned to be up early—though she would have to make allowances for Young Henry's hangover and the hangovers of the cousins. Probably not tomorrow then, or only late tomorrow, she could stay the night at Sir Henry's house in Berwick and hope he hadn't finished whatever he was up to in Scotland so she wouldn't have to deal with him. Then a long run down to Widdrington. If she could take remounts she might be able to do it in one day. It was an awkward distance, about forty miles as the crow flies.

Absentmindedly she drank a bit more of the mild ale she preferred. Two men were taking their doublets and shirts off—why? Ah yes, a ring was forming of cheering men and some of the women, with the boys at the front. Two of the lads were also taking off their jerkins. Cumbrian wrestling. It wasn't really the season for it, but no doubt there was a bet involved, or more likely several.

There was Mr Anricks again, eating some beef and mutton—most of the beef had gone to the senior men of the Burn clan who had large appetites. He was back near her again.

“Lady Widdrington,” he said, “I wonder if I could trouble you to let me into the manse? I lent Jamie a couple of books I'd like to get back.”

Interesting. She smiled brightly. “Of course,” she said, “I'll come with you. I'm not really interested in who can throw someone else into the mud.”

The boys were already at it, gripping each other round the middle and trying to get their legs round between the other's legs and then trying to lift and drop, red in the face and shouting insults. One went over on his back, squirmed and turned so the other one was down on his back. There was ironic cheering and clapping.

She walked with the barber surgeon across to the manse and found that it was indeed locked—wise with the number of reivers in the village but who had the key? She went back to the party and found Lady Hume chatting away to Young Henry about how funerals had been in her youth.

“I have a headache,” she said, which was actually true she realised. “I'd like to lie down. Do you have the key to the manse?”

“No,” said Lady Hume, “I'm sure I gave it to Kat…”

It took a little longer to find Kat who was in a circle of village women singing a long song about spinning while the younger girls danced something energetic. “Oh yes,” she said, “I thought it better to lock the place and Lady Hume usually gives keys to me, now where did I put it…?”

The key ring was a large one and must have been taken from Jamie Burn's body. Elizabeth took it and went over to the manse where she found the tooth-drawer waiting patiently by the wall. She found the key to the kitchen door and they went in, through to the entrance hall, and then into the open study which was exactly the same as it had been.

Mr Anricks looked about him and sighed. “I enjoyed my conversations with the minister,” he said. “We disagreed about religion and never found it a hindrance. He was very strong for the new religion, for Calvinism, which I find…too logical. But we never quarreled over it. Or we did but not personally; we argued about it and ended as good friends as we had started.”

He looked about him at the wall of books and checked some of them, smiled ruefully. “I'm sorry, my lady, but he's double rowed them.” It was true: the shelves were deep and there was a row of books behind the ones you could see. “This could take some time.”

She smiled, took a spill from the desk and went to get a light from the fire in the kitchen. She lit Jamie's thrifty mutton fat rushdip and sat down in Jamie's chair. “That's all right, Mr Anricks. I'll read some of his sermons—they're excellent.”

“Yes, there was an Edinburgh printer interested in them—to publish them, I mean. I advised him to try it, send out some copies of his sermons to printers and see what happened—there are plenty of books of sermons but few that are as pithy as his. I believe none of them are more than an hour long, which is something of a miracle for a Calvinist pastor. If he made any money at it, he could have used it to help poor boys like himself go to university at St Andrews, which he thought was an excellent idea. It might also have got him preferment to another living in addition to this one which would have made his wife's life a little easier with more money, only like the Reverend Gilpin, he didn't approve of having more than one.”

Mr Anricks found a set of steps, took the other rushdip and started methodically at the far left top corner of the wall. Elizabeth took one of the italic sheets and found she was distracted by all the books. So many books. Who would have them now? Perhaps the next pastor who got the living, although it was likely he would have other parishes and would probably never come to Wendron. And the boys would forget how to read and become farmers as their fathers had been before.

It was all such a waste. She started to read the top sermon, just to have something to do as she had left her workbag in Widdrington and so couldn't get on with the new shirt for Young Henry. She could hear Jamie's voice as he gave it, the Scots even and musical but the voice deep enough to hold attention. It was about giving praise to God: how it was necessary and comfortable for the spirit to praise God, not because God needed flattery, no, but because it made us feel better. We should praise God always, both when we liked our life and when we hated it. She found herself held and warmed by it, as if he was preaching to her personally.

“Ma'am,” came a diffident voice.

“Yes Mr Anricks?”

“Do you know if the minister kept his books anywhere else? I've found one that I lent him but there's another I can't find.”

“No, I don't. But we can look.”

They did, in the three spare bedrooms, dark and cold and two of them unfurnished, one with just a small bed with a half-tester and a truckle for the servant. Anricks smiled at it.

“I used to stay there when I came to visit. It was very comfortable. Much better than a bench at the alehouse.”

“So did I, Mr Anricks, when I came to visit my friend Poppy. I'll see if I can convince Lady Hume to let you stay in it tonight—I doubt you'll get any sleep at all at the alehouse.”

“Well,” said Anricks, “I've slept in worse places, but yes, that would be very kind of you.”

“I can't promise anything until I've spoken to Lady Hume,” she warned and he ducked his head.

At the end of it he looked baffled. “I can't imagine he sold it, maybe he lent it to someone else. It's a pity, it was an old friend of mine.”

“The book?”

“Yes. Ah well. Never mind, the Almighty giveth and He taketh away, blessed is the name of the Lord.”

He smiled at her and she smiled back, somehow liking him despite being near convinced he was in fact a Jesuit. So they had disputed on religion in a civilized way? Jamie was strong for the new religion as she was herself, which meant Anricks must be a Catholic, surely?

She kept her promise and spoke to Lady Hume who was sitting on a barrel clapping to the music from a fiddle and a couple of shawms while the couples swung each other round and jigged. From the look of her she'd had plenty of beer and some aqua vitae from Kat's flask.

Everyone was red-faced and shouting. The cakes had come out and were sitting on the table for the bread, their elaborate marchpane covers shining in the torchlight. Lady Hume took a sharp knife and sliced it all up deftly and everyone got a bit, with the little children getting quite a lot of the marchpane. Mr Anricks nibbled a bit of the cake and smiled when Elizabeth accused him of keeping an eye on who winced when they ate the marchpane as they would be customers for his pliers.

“Have you tried luring the toothworms out with some marchpane?” she asked, and he smiled and admitted that he hadn't but it was a good idea. She introduced him to Lady Hume who looked him up and down and asked him point blank if he was a Papist spy like the last tooth-drawer in these parts.

“No, my lady,” he answered, “I'm not, but I don't expect you to believe me. Everyone hates tooth-drawers.”

“Nor a Jesuit?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I'm not nearly intelligent enough.”

“I willna have ye bothering God in Latin.”

“I never speak to God in Latin, my lady.”

As there were three women in the main bedroom to keep propriety and the spare bedroom was at the other end of the landing, Lady Hume graciously gave her permission for him to stay the night there, only a little spoiled by hiccups. Cousin William and Lord Hughie came by then, to pay their respects before they rode home. Lady Hume hugged the young lord tight for a moment, unexplained tears making her eyes glitter. The boy took it well, though you could see he was relieved to be away when he mounted up with a steed-leap that nearly took him over the horse's back and down on the other side. He laughed at that, patted the horse for staying still for him and followed after Cousin William.