The Bleeding Land (6 page)

Tom nodded. ‘They called her a whore,’ he said, wide-eyed.

Sir Francis flicked a hand, disregarding that report. ‘Never mind the mob, Thomas, they go where the loudest of them leads and will say anything in the heat. What did the Lords say?’

‘I was talking about the Lords, Father,’ Tom said, glancing from one to the other.

Mun clenched his jaw, feeling something dark and cold pass through him, like a cloud portending a storm.

‘God preserve us,’ Sir Francis said, eyes riveting onto Mun’s, ‘but things are going from bad to worse.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘BUILD UP THE
fire, isaac, it’s getting cold,’ Lady Mary said, taking off her thick wool coat and draping it over a chair. Bess did the same, her face stinging now that she was inside.

‘Yes, m’lady.’ Isaac nodded curtly and limped off to fetch more fuel, leaving them huffing into cupped hands that were red and thrumming with the pain of cold flesh warming. Sir Francis was behind his desk, his quill scratching away busily.

His hand stopped and he looked up at his wife. ‘Everything all right out there? You have had them all working twice as hard as they’d like, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Lady Mary raised an eyebrow at the implied suggestion of her tyranny and Bess felt herself grin.

‘I feel better for knowing that the hedges are mended and the ditches dug clean again,’ her mother replied, her eyes watery from the cold. ‘And I made sure the men kept their limbs moving so as not to have them freeze and fall off.’ She glanced at Bess. ‘I think they were grateful, don’t you, Bess?’

‘It
was
frightfully cold, Father,’ she said, refusing to fully commit to either side. Her father nodded soberly, dipping the quill in the silver ink pot and writing some more.

Despite her father’s teasing, Bess knew he appreciated how much it meant to the servants and groundsmen to see either
him
or Lady Mary out on a bitter day with the rest of them, inspecting the estate and helping where they could.

‘So how is it looking out there?’ Sir Francis asked, frowning at his writing as though displeased with his work. Bess knew he was writing a letter of reply to a copyhold farmer who had asked to extend the duration of his tenure. The man was a good farmer, albeit folk said he was older than Pendle Hill now, and Sir Francis was pleased to offer him another ten years so long as his son and heir agreed to pay the entry fine on the occasion of his father’s death.

‘Bleak,’ her mother said, rubbing life back into her arms. ‘Some of the sheep had got out and wandered almost as far as Gerard’s Wood, but we put most of them back. The boys are rounding up the last of them now.’ Sir Francis nodded, signing the letter with a neat flourish and then scattering sand across it to dry the ink.

Isaac returned with a faggot and knelt by the fire and Sir Francis waited, patiently watching the servant feed the flames, not speaking again until the thin, silver-haired man had left the room.

‘Did you get a chance to speak to him?’ he asked, shuffling through some papers and straightening a pile of books.

Lady Mary glanced at Bess, but Sir Francis wafted her concern away with the letter. ‘She’s his sister, Mary, and likely knows more of it than we do.’

Her mother nodded as though that was true enough, and Bess felt her face flush hotly.

‘It wasn’t that sort of work,’ Lady Mary said, moving towards the fire and holding her hands before the flames, letting the building heat soak through the flesh into the knuckles and joints. ‘I did not get the chance.’

Sir Francis made a hum in the back of his throat and sat back in his chair, leaning on one elbow, thumb and forefinger worrying his neat beard.

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ he said. ‘You know how headstrong
the
boy can be.’ He looked at Bess, his grey eyes softening. ‘Gets that from his mother, of course.’

Mary turned, eyebrows raised as she removed her broad-brimmed hat and the coif beneath, shaking out her long red curls so that they fell past her shoulders. She is still beautiful, Bess thought. ‘Well, we will have to say something soon, for Martha’s sake as well as Tom’s,’ her mother said.

Sir Francis nodded resolutely. ‘I’ll speak with him tomorrow on the way to the village. The pinner has one of our bulls in his pound, so I’m told.’

‘Speak to me about what, Father?’ Tom said, striding into the parlour and up to the fire, where he stood by his mother, warming his hands. His cheeks were red and the long, thick fair hair that was visible was unkempt, tousled by the icy wind and the ride.

‘Did you recover them all?’ Sir Francis asked.

Tom frowned. ‘Yes, they’re all accounted for.’ He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, glancing at Bess and their mother, then back to their father. ‘Now what is it you want to talk to me about?’

Sir Francis looked at Mary, who gave a slight nod, then he pushed back his chair and stood, walking over creaking boards to the window. He stood looking out at the bleak day, hands clenched behind his back.

‘It is about Martha, Tom,’ he began, and Bess wished she had left the room but it was too late now.

‘I gathered that much, Father,’ Tom said, rubbing chapped hands together. ‘What about her?’

‘There is no easy way to say this, Thomas, so I shall be direct.’ Tom glanced at his mother again, but she kept her eyes on the leaping flames. ‘You are not to court Martha Green, nor will you see her any more.’

‘Father?’ Tom half laughed though the smile never reached his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Tom, but you must not visit her,’ Sir Francis said.

‘But we are betrothed! We will marry next spring.’

‘Betrothed!’ Sir Francis blurted, glancing at Bess for any sign that she had known this. She avoided his eye. ‘And you have her father’s consent?’ he asked Tom. ‘For you do not have ours!’

‘Not yet,’ Tom admitted, ‘but I intend to call on Minister Green soon.’ He turned to their mother now, leaning into her line of sight. ‘What is this, Mother? Tell me what is going on.’

‘Listen to your father, Thomas,’ she said flatly.

Bess felt tears in her eyes but determined not to let them spill onto her cheeks. Tom had made her swear to keep the secret, but now she felt a terrible guilt for indulging the young couple’s conspiracy, enjoying it even, when she ought perhaps to have guided Tom with foresight. Was that not her responsibility as the elder sister?

Tom took several steps towards Sir Francis. ‘Martha and I are betrothed and will marry,’ he said, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat through the air.

Sir Francis shook his head. ‘You must call it off. And you must do it soon.’ He turned away from the window, fixing his eyes on his younger son’s.

‘Why? What has happened?’ Tom asked, arms extended, hands reaching for an explanation.

‘You know very well what is going on out there!’ Sir Francis barked, nodding back towards the window. ‘Anyone suspected of being a papist fears for his life. Men are beaten in the streets.’

‘Did you know that some poor man was strung up last week in Ormskirk?’ Lady Mary put in, her green eyes imploring her son to understand the danger he was in. ‘They dragged him from his horse and hanged him from a tree near the market cross.’

‘And all because he had the same name as a known Catholic from Bretherton nine miles away,’ Sir Francis added, shaking his head at the madness of it all. ‘No one is safe.’

‘But Martha is no Catholic!’ Tom said, hat and empty palm
turned
to the oak-panelled ceiling. The fire cracked and popped as the flames ate into the hazel’s knots.

‘And her father?’ Sir Francis asked, one grey eyebrow cocked.

‘George is a Protestant, Father, you know that! He’s a minister, damn it, not some crypto-Catholic!’

‘Can you be so sure?’ their mother asked, Tom’s curse having etched a line across her brow. ‘The papists have learned to hide their . . . persuasion.’ She touched Tom’s arm but he pulled away.

‘Of course I’m sure, Mother,’ he said.

‘That is not the point,’ Sir Francis said. He closed his eyes and with both hands scrubbed his face as though wishing to start again, beginning with himself. ‘The mob does not seek proof! For them the whisper of doubt is a rallying call. They’ll beat the drums and light fires and remind each other of the Gunpowder Treason.’ He dipped his chin, glaring at Tom. ‘Men have long memories, Thomas.’

Tom looked at Bess, eyes pleading with her to take his side.

‘If Tom warns Minister Green then perhaps he can make some public statement,’ she heard herself say, ‘give a display of his faith so that the people know he is no papist.’

Tom nodded, clutching at the idea, and looked back to their father who walked to his desk and pressed both palms down on it.

‘I hear the man refuses to answer these accusations in public?’ he asked Tom. ‘Well?’

Tom glanced at their mother, then shrugged. ‘I have heard him say that he believes men should be free to worship God as they choose, so long as they obey their king and do no harm by it.’

Sir Francis slumped back into his chair, shaking his head. ‘Then he is as good as finished,’ he sighed. The fire’s ill-tempered crack and spit filled the room. The yellow light it gave off seemed brighter and more zealous now, as though it fought the encroaching darkness of the West Lancashire dusk
seeping
through Shear House. ‘You will break it off with the girl,’ Sir Francis said in an even, measured voice. ‘And we shall keep our heads above this rising water.’

Bess saw Tom’s teeth clench, a rampart against the words that threatened to break through. Then he turned and left the room, and Bess, rather than look at her parents, watched the flames grow fiercer.

As he emerged from sleep’s fog, Mun was suddenly aware that Crab had been barking for what seemed a long while. The coals were grey, only their hearts yet glowing with life and heat. Three of the clock? Four? He swung his legs out from the linens and sat on the edge of the bed, gathering his wits and letting his ears sift through the muted sounds coming from downstairs. Thumping at the front door. A woman’s voice? Or a young boy’s perhaps. Isaac growling at Crab to hush, the Irish wolfhound taking no heed, its deep chest issuing rolling snarls between each salvo of barks. Mun stood and took his breeches from the chair beside his bed, pulling them on just as the bedroom door creaked open and his sister’s head appeared round its edge.

‘Somebody is here,’ Bess hissed, her golden hair burnished by the dying fire’s glow. ‘Isaac is fetching Father.’

He shrugged his nightshirt back down so that it reached almost to his knees, and grabbed his sword belt, the blade snug in its scabbard.

‘Well, let us go and see who is calling on us in the middle of the night,’ he said, striding barefoot through the dark.

Bess followed him along the oak-panelled corridor past portraits of long-dead relations, the floorboards squeaking and moaning, then down the stairs. The entrance hallway was a sea of pitch black enveloping a halo of light in which stood Tom, the candle lamp in his hand flickering weakly in a draught, barely holding the darkness at bay. Crab sat obediently at his heel, grey fur ruffling in the breeze.

‘What’s going on?’ Mun asked, coming to stand beside his brother and seeing another face in the shadows.

Tom held up his candle to illuminate a young boy’s tear-streaked face. ‘This is Jacob Green, Martha’s brother,’ he said.

Air from the bitter night still swirled through the hallway like an unwelcome guest, causing Mun to shudder.

‘You are trembling, you poor boy,’ Bess said, ‘you must be freezing to death. Did you walk all the way here?’

Jacob shook his head, from which tufts of copper-coloured hair, the same shade as his countless freckles, stuck up messily. ‘My horse is tethered, Miss Rivers,’ he said, gesturing beyond Shear House’s iron-bound double doors. His breathing was still ragged from hard riding. And crying, Mun thought.

‘What has happened, lad?’ Mun turned to see his father halfway down the stairs, fingers wrapped round a brass chamber stick whose candle guttered as he came, his other hand rubbing tired eyes. His mother followed, one hand sweeping down the polished banister, red hair spilled across her shoulders.

‘Tell them what you just told me, Jacob,’ Tom said, handing the candle lamp to Mun and striding off.

‘Where are you going?’ Mun asked.

‘To get dressed,’ Tom called, bounding up the stairs past their parents.

‘Well, young Jacob?’ Sir Francis said. ‘What in the Devil’s name has happened that you would hammer on my door at this hour?’ Isaac shuffled around the hallway lighting candles, so that by their blooming light nightshirts, tousled hair and untidy beards were revealed. So too were the fresh tears welling in the boy’s eyes.

‘Men broke into our house,’ Jacob said. ‘They attacked Father. They said he is a secret Catholic. That he must answer for his crime.’

‘Crime?’ Bess said, shooting Mun a worried look.

‘All priests who have disobeyed the royal proclamation to
leave
the country are to be arrested,’ Sir Francis said, frowning. ‘The King is trying to appease the mob.’