The King's Mistress (24 page)

The road led north now, towards King’s Lynn, near the Wash of the North Sea. Every day the sun rose a few minutes later and set a few minutes earlier. Between the condition of the road and who they might meet, it was not only dangerous but virtually impossible to travel in the dark, so each day they covered a little less ground.

On the afternoon of the third day on the road from Peterborough, a tribe of Gypsies passed them by on the road, their carts and caravans accompanied by a scrawny cow and a few sheep. They nodded their greetings to the wanderers, and a little black-eyed girl stared at Jane from the safety of her mother’s arms. Jane thought of the Gypsy lad in the orchard at Bentley. She wondered whether the chance encounter had led her to behave in such a reckless manner with Charles, giving herself to him though she had known she might never see him again.

It had drizzled throughout the day, and as dusk drew on, the heavens opened and cold rain drove down, turning the road into a soup of mud. They struggled on, Jane becoming fearful about whether they would find shelter. They stopped when they came to a place where the narrow road disappeared beneath a flowing stream that crossed it.

“Now what?” Jane asked, looking in dismay at the swirling eddies.

John squatted by the stream’s edge and thrust his staff into the clouded water. When he pulled it out it was wet fully two feet up from the bottom. He glanced to either side and shook his head.

“Here, across the road, is likely to be where the water is shallowest,” he said. “We could follow the stream and look for a better place to ford, but it will be dark soon.”

On the other side of the stream the road wound on into the deepening gloom, the landscape barren of trees or anything that promised shelter.

“Then let’s chance it,” Jane said. “Nothing to be gained by waiting.”

“Take your shoes and stockings off,” John said. “No use getting wetter than we need to.”

They rolled up the bottoms of their breeches, wrapped their shoes and stockings into their blankets, and slung the bundles high across their shoulders. John went first, using his staff to steady himself, and reached a hand back to help Jane. She grasped his hand and stepped into the stream, feeling the shock of the cold as the water swirled around her knees. They made their way slowly, the mud soft and slippery beneath their feet and the rain slanting into their faces.

Suddenly Jane found her feet sliding out from under her. She cried out as she floundered, trying to break her fall with her staff, but she lost her balance and sat, bringing John down with her. He struggled to his feet and helped her up, and they continued step by slow step until they reached the relative solidity of the far side of the stream.

Jane looked down at herself and at John with consternation. They were both soaked up to their necks, their clothes sodden and dripping. Worse, their satchels and blankets were soaked.

“Let’s see the damage and what can be salvaged,” John said.

He opened his bag and pulled out its contents piece by piece. The ship’s biscuit was a soggy mass of crumbs. The raisins and nuts and cheese were wet, but would be edible. The powder for the pistol was useless. John shook his head over the little atlas, its pages stuck together in one wet mass.

“If I try to pull the pages apart now, they’ll only tear. What it really wants is careful blotting.”

He groaned in despair over the tinderbox. The dry fungus inside that was used as a punk to catch the sparks of the flint and steel was spongy with water, and the little bag of straw and sticks he carried as emergency tinder was also soaked.

Jane looked around, fighting down feelings of hopelessness. Night was falling rapidly, they were wet through, they had little food, and now there was no way to build a fire to warm and dry themselves. She felt tears coming on, and struggled to hold them back.

“Come,” John said, helping her to her feet and putting an arm around her shoulders. “Nothing to be done but go on and see what we find. It’s like to keep raining all night; we must get to some shelter.”

Mechanically, shutting down the part of her mind that wanted to simply give up and lie on the muddy road, Jane put her dripping stockings and shoes back on and picked up her sodden satchel, and they went forward.

After an hour of walking that felt like an eternity, the scent of wet wool in her nostrils, the rain driving down, Jane saw a flickering light ahead, and smoke rising.

“Look!” she pointed.

They moved on rapidly and soon the light resolved itself into a campfire beneath a spread of canvas tethered between two wagons, with people squatted around its warmth. It was the Gypsies they had passed earlier. The smell of cooking wafted towards them and Jane’s stomach turned over with hunger.

“What do you think?” John asked. “Shall we ask if we can buy supper and a place at the fire?”

“Yes,” Jane said without hesitation.

She could not stand the thought of spending the next day or two in wet clothes and shoes, and with the exhaustion they both already suffered, she knew they were ripe for falling ill.

John flung his cape back over his shoulders so that the butt of his pistol peeked out from the front of his coat, and they made their way to the Gypsies’ camp. The group eyed them as they came into the circle of firelight.

“Greetings!” John called out.

There were four or five women, ranging from a young mother with a baby at her breast to a withered crone, a dozen children tumbling and playing, and five or six men seated near the fire. Jane saw with a start that one of these was the lad who she had seen in the orchard at Bentley on her birthday.

“We’ve had a misfortune, as you can see,” John said, gesturing at their clothes and satchels. “Wet clean through, with our food and tinder ruined.” He held up a small coin. “We’d be grateful for supper and the chance to warm ourselves and dry our clothes.”

The men squatting by the fire glanced at one another, and after a muttered conference, the eldest of them nodded and held out his hand.

“Welcome, then.”

John gave him the coin, and the Gypsies rearranged themselves to make room for the strangers, offering up stools so they would not have to sit on the ground. Jane draped her cloak over a wagon wheel, removed her shoes, and peeled off her wet stockings. She hesitated before pulling off her coat and hat, but it couldn’t be helped, for they would never dry when they were on her. She went back to the fireside in her breeches and shirt, and laid her wet things close to the fire before seating herself next to John. It must be obvious that she was a woman, and she felt the men’s eyes on her, but no one made any comment.

One of the women brought them tin plates of stew with chunks of bread, and Jane ate ravenously.

“Where are you bound?” one of the older men asked, his accent sounding musical to Jane’s ears.

“King’s Lynn,” John said. “Not too far. And you?”

“Where the road takes us.” The Gypsy grinned, the orange light of the fire and shadow playing across his face. “Perhaps further north.”

Jane noticed that the Gypsy lad was looking at her curiously from across the fire. She smiled in a way that she hoped was friendly without being too inviting.

The rain had fallen off now, the drops a mere patter on the canvas overhead. A bottle of something was produced, and Jane accepted a cup of amber liquid that seemed to be some kind of brandy.

One of the men fetched a little guitar from one of the caravans and began to play, singing as he strummed. It was a mournful tune, and though Jane couldn’t understand the words, it seemed to be a song of loss, perhaps of love, perhaps of death. She thought about Charles and wondered where he might be, praying, as she did so often, that he might be safe.

The women took the children off to bed in the wagons, and the fire burned lower. The rain had stopped, and stars were winking in the blue-black spaces between the clouds. The young Gypsy disappeared, returning a few minutes later with blankets, which he laid out beside the fire. He examined the blankets that John had hung up and turned them, holding them up to show that they were already drier than they had been.

John was speaking to the man on his other side, and the young Gypsy came and sat beside Jane.

“I remember you, lady,” he said, his voice low and his eyes glowing.

Jane blushed but met his eyes.

“I remember you, too.”

“You are a long way from home. And you would have the world think you are a boy. Are you in danger?”

Jane nodded. “Yes. We had to leave home, my brother and I.”

“Ah, your brother.” The answer seemed to please him and he nodded, staring into the fire. “Then he will care for you, keep you safe.”

“Yes,” Jane said. For she knew that whatever came, John would protect her, though it might put his own safety at risk.

“Thank you for the food and the fire,” she whispered. “It would have been a miserable night without your kindness.”

The young man shrugged. “Perhaps you would have done the same for me.”

“Yes,” Jane said. “I would. And if I am ever able to go home again, you are welcome at Bentley. In fact, even if I am not there, you go to the door and say that Jane and Colonel John bid them give you what you need, and that you may stay on the land as long as you like.”

“I thank you, lady.” He bowed his head, then took her hand and kissed it. “I wish you sweet rest and safe travels, if our paths do not cross again.”

A
WEEK AFTER
J
OHN
and J
ANE
HAD LEFT
P
ETERBOROUGH, THE
heavy grey-stone gate leading into the walled town of King’s Lynn rose ahead. The town itself lay on the east bank of the River Great Ouse, which flowed northward another mile or so towards the North Sea, but Jane could smell the salt of the water and the brackish odour of the fens.

“I’m thinking we might risk an inn,” John said. “There’s not much between here and Norwich. It’s likely our last chance for a hot meal unless I shoot something to cook. And tomorrow’s Sunday. We could make it a real day of rest.”

“Yes,” Jane said. Her body ached everywhere, her feet were burning in her stockings, now stiff with dirt, and she felt as if she would never be comfortable again. “Do you think we look the sort of people who can afford to pay for a hot bath?”

John smiled. “Perhaps we’ll chance it.”

They found an inn off the market square, and judged that the extravagance of a hot bath would make them conspicuous enough without the additional luxury of separate rooms, so John sat in the taproom while Jane waited in their little chamber for the tub and buckets of hot water to be brought up.

Alone and with the door barred, she stripped off her clothes. She had not been naked since they left Bentley, and she was dismayed at the greyish cast of her skin and how dirty the water became when she lowered herself into it. She stirred the tub with her hand and the hot water lapping against her skin felt as though it was washing away the hardships of the past weeks. On Monday they would be on their way once more, with the loneliest part of the journey ahead of them. But no need to let that spoil tonight.

She scrubbed herself with the rough cloth and soap, luxuriating as the itch of sweat and dirt left her skin. She let her hands linger on her breasts and belly. She was not sure she could see any difference, but she was almost certain now that she was with child. Charles’s child. What would he think? What would he say? Would he be glad of the news as a distraction from his cares, and welcome her? And what if he did not? She pushed the thought away, bringing to mind instead the picture of his face so close to hers during those magic nights when they had journeyed together, his eyes shining at her in the dark, his hands warm and urgent on her skin.

When she had bathed, she put on the cleaner of her two shirts and washed the other in the tub. She had washed them as well as she could in turn every week or so when there was water to be had, hanging the washed shirt to dry overnight, and carrying it tied about her if it was not fully dry by the time they left in the morning. She had two pairs of heavy stockings but had not washed them, as she needed the extra layer of protection between her feet and the unyielding leather of her shoes. They were nearly stiff with dirt, and she took the opportunity to wash them now, grimacing at how rapidly the water turned nearly black.

Jane had just hung up her shirt and stockings to dry when John came upstairs from the taproom, his face grim.

“What is it?” Jane asked. “Soldiers?”

Perhaps they had been mistaken to think that she would be less likely to be hunted on this remote north coast of the country.

“No.” John sat heavily on the bed. “I was talking to some sailors just come into port. They spoke of another ship yesterday that had heard from a fishing vessel come from the south that the king was drowned on his way to France.”

Jane stared at him and then staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of her, and John caught her and steadied her.

“Aye, it’s terrible news,” he said.

She sank onto the bed.

“But how can they be sure? We’ve heard so many rumours.”

“That’s true,” John said. “But they say the news came from a Channel boat, who had heard it from other vessels down that way. The officers believed it, though there’s been no official word.”

The initial shock was wearing off and Jane began to sob. Charles. She could bring him to mind so clearly, feel his weight on top of her, smell the scent of him, hear his voice. It wasn’t possible that he could be gone, that after all they had gone through to save him, he could be lost from mere drowning.

Jane felt she couldn’t get her breath. She was shaking and her sobs had turned to racking gasps for air as she curled into herself on the bed.

“Jane!” John cried in alarm, brushing her hair off her face. “Breathe deep and slow if you can.”

She tried but felt herself slipping into a void of terror and despair. John held her to him and stroked her head.

“I know what grief you must feel, having travelled with him as you did. My God, what grief to the whole country.”