4. Andrew

A NDREW Fleet Street, London, the same day

M ARGARET HAD NOT PAUSED for breath. Most evenings on our rides home she was far too weary from her work in the queen's kitchen to do more than comment now and then on something we were passing, but she seemed determined now to talk the length of Fleet Street without stopping.

‘… and I'm sure I stood there staring, but what else was I to do? I couldn't help it, I was that astonished. I always thought Cook hated me, for she gave every sign of it, but when she got the order that she was to go along to Bath, she said she could not do it without me, because I was her right hand. Her right hand, Andrew!' Margaret rode behind me on the pillion affixed to the back of my saddle so I could not see her face, but I could hear her pride.

I made the sort of sound I'd learned was all she needed from me to confirm that I was listening, and Margaret carried on explaining every minor point of her good fortune.

I was happy for her. Both my sisters worked hard and deserved such recognition. And to have them both included in Queen Anna's entourage as the queen made her progress soon to Bath, to take the waters, would be fortunate for me . Far better that my sisters be together, under Roger's watchful eye.

My mother would have Owen. And we did have some good neighbours.

Phoebe Westaway aside, her aunt was kind, as was her father. Laurence Westaway, in fact, had been one of the first men in the Close to pay us his condolences the week my father died.

‘If you need anything,' he'd told my mother. ‘Anything at all.'

I knew he'd aid her if she asked, while I was gone.

At first I thought it was because I had his face in mind that I imagined now, as we approached Fleet Bridge, that one man walking in amongst the others near us looked like him. He had the same slow, measured walk. The same slope to his shoulders.

It was not till we drew level with him and he stepped aside to give us room upon the road that I saw it was Laurence Westaway. I greeted him, and he looked up.

His face looked pale, and weary, but he found a pleasant smile.

‘Why, Logan! Mistress Margaret. You are heartily well met. Well met, indeed.' He swept his hat off in his gallant way for Margaret, but the action seemed to throw him off his balance, and he stumbled. And then, to my horror, fell.

Dismounting, I was first to reach his side. He'd landed with his face half turned towards the ground. His eyes had closed. I told those who had gathered, ‘Leave him. Give him air.'

As they withdrew, the scene that I was looking at began to blur and alter. Laurence Westaway no longer wore his ordinary clothing. He lay shrouded in a winding sheet, as though he'd been prepared for his own burial. It had been knotted at his feet, but did not fully reach his head – it stopped below his shoulders. Then it vanished altogether and he lay there as afore.

His eyes came open. Blinked. And focused. ‘Logan?'

‘Aye.'

I saw him realize what had happened. Saw the shame.

And Margaret must have seen it, too. She thought more quickly. Pointing to a stone near where I crouched, she said, ‘I swear that is the same stone that made Brutus cast his shoe this morning. It is wreaking havoc, tripping everybody up.'

‘You're very kind,' he told her, ‘but'twas not a stone.' He levered himself upright so that he was seated on the ground, still with my hand to hold him steady at his back. ‘It was the heat,' he said. ‘I will recover once I've rested here awhile.'

‘Ye cannot stay here in the road,' I said. ‘Nor will I leave ye here to walk. I'll see ye safely home.'

Margaret, again, was quick to think. She knew I would let Phoebe's father take my place on Brutus. Meaning Margaret could not ride. A woman riding pillion behind a man, sitting sideways on the horse, held onto both the handle at the back edge of the pillion and to the man himself – or to the belt he wore, designed for just that purpose. If the horse baulked, or changed gait, or lost its footing, she depended on the strength of the man's seat to keep her in her own. And it was plain to see that Laurence Westaway was not in a condition to keep anyone protected.

Margaret did not wait for me to help her to dismount, but slipped down neatly from her seat upon the pillion. ‘I have a mind to walk.' Her tone was cheerful. ‘Will it trouble ye if I go on ahead a little, Andrew?'

I shook my head. ‘Just keep where ye can call me if ye need me.'

‘Come, help me stand,' said Westaway, and watching Margaret leave us he remarked, ‘Your sister is a gracious girl. She knows that no man likes to let a woman see his weakness.'

‘Aye, she's spent a lifetime watching me hide mine, no doubt that's why.' I wasn't sure he had recovered well enough to hoist himself into the saddle, even if I gave him a leg up, but near the bridge there was a block of stone that would do as a mounting block, so I manoeuvred us towards it, being mindful of the watching eyes of people passing on the road, and those who might be peering from the windows of the houses that surrounded us, and any who might be below in boats upon the murky waters of what once had been the River Fleet until long years of use and mud and filth had so reduced it to the less grand name of the Fleet Ditch.

A man as proud as Westaway would never wish to have his weakness seen by anyone at all, and after the indignity he had just suffered in the street, the least that I could do was let him mount my horse unaided.

Once in the saddle, he looked sturdier, if still too pale. This would have worried me far less had I not had the vision of him wrapped within his winding sheet.

The first time I had Seen a man like that, when I was but a lad, my mother reassured me it was commonplace for those like me, who had the Sight. ‘'Tis how God shows ye someone's life is coming to its end,' she'd said. Then, ‘How high had it climbed, the sheet? His knees? His shoulders?'

‘Just below his waist.'

‘Well, then,' she'd said, ‘he has a good while yet. When it has reached his neck, ye'll ken his time is very close and can be counted then in days.'

I'd watched that man over the next months with a feeling of foreboding.'Tis a curse to see what other men cannot, and be unable to give warning of events that are to come. I knew that, had I tried, I'd have been brought up on charges of sorcery, and so I held my tongue and watched the white linen rise higher round the man until at last it reached his neck. And then I counted. Five days, that was all, until they laid him finally in his grave.

He'd been the first I'd Seen. There had been others since. Strangers, more often than not. Some much closer. When I'd Seen the winding sheet first start to rise on my father's legs, I'd thought my heart would crack open and stay that way, broken forever.

Five years had gathered up its pieces into something like its former shape.

But now I knew the summer would be difficult, for I liked Laurence Westaway.

He said, ‘I have not ridden in a long while. Not since the last time we worked together, you and I. Where did we go then? Into Kent, was it not?'

‘Down to Margate, aye.' I took care shortening his stirrups, since his legs were not so long as mine.

He took the reins in hand and told me, ‘Scotland is a fair ways farther than that, but I am ready for the journey.'

My hands stopped their work on the stirrup until I reminded them not to reveal when a piece of news caught me off guard. Cautiously, I continued to buckle the strap, and said, ‘Scotland?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry, Logan. Did my lord Northampton not tell you? I'm to be your scrivener for this… shall we say this latest venture? And we'd best not say much more than that,' he warned me, ‘for here comes your sister.'

Margaret was indeed returning. She did not like to walk these streets alone, so I had not expected her to wish to keep ahead of us for long, but clearly she had seen that I had Westaway now safely seated in the saddle and that he was talking normally, so she had judged this to be a good moment to rejoin us.

‘'Tis far too dull, to keep to my own company,' was her excuse. ‘There is no one to talk to.'

So on we walked, the three of us, with Margaret at the other side of Brutus, and her lively talk kept Westaway well entertained, and gave me space to think.

The trip to Edinburgh and back could take a month if all went well, and more than that if it did not. And it was not an easy road. It would be taxing for a younger man, and Laurence Westaway was not young. His death was near, his health was failing, and his last days should not be spent labouring so far from home. It troubled me.

I stayed in silent thought until we came into the Close. And when we reached our house and Margaret took her leave of us and Westaway would have dismounted, I said, ‘Nay, I've brought ye this far. Let me take ye to your door.'

The green was deserted except for the long shadows cast by the sun dying low in the west. The sound of Brutus's great hooves would doubtless make some of our neighbours look out of their windows, but there were none close enough to overhear a quiet conversation. I had a scant few minutes now to speak, or not at all.

I could be clumsy with my words. I tried to choose these ones with care. ‘Sir, I'm not certain it is wise for ye to make this journey up to Scotland.'

Turning sharply to look down at me, he said, with a strong edge of desperation, ‘But I must.' Then he collected himself, and more calmly added, ‘I do also have my orders, Logan. Like you, I must go where I am sent.'

‘My lord Northampton is a reasonable man,' I said. ‘I think he trusts my judgement, and if I explain the matter of your health—'

‘That won't be necessary.'

‘Aye, it is,' I said. ‘I've no wish to offend ye, but we both ken it was not the heat that made ye fall. Ye need to rest, not ride the length of Britain.'

He looked stricken. ‘'Tis essential that I do this, Logan, for my daughter's happiness.'

A strange response, for surely she could have no stake in our affairs, but such a fall as Westaway had suffered sometimes left the mind confused. I said, ‘I think she would be happier to have ye with her.'

We had reached his house. Brutus stood as still as any statue to let Westaway dismount, as though he knew the older man was yet unsteady in his movements. I stood by, but being mindful of his pride did not rush in to aid where I had not been asked.

Still, it was plain to see that even that small effort left him drained.

I told him, gently, ‘Bide at home, be with the ones who love ye. I will find another scrivener.'

And I would have left it there. But as my hand closed round Brutus's bridle, the door of the house opened and Phoebe Westaway stood on the threshold, her face flushed from running downstairs, eyes afire.

If a glance could have killed a man, I'd have been slain on the spot.

That one glance was all she spared me, then she raced straight for her father.

‘What's happened?' she asked him.

‘Nothing of importance. I am fine,' he reassured her.

She did not seem reassured. She wheeled on me. ‘Why aren't you helping him? You see he is unwell.'

Her father answered forcefully, ‘I tell you I am well!'

It was the first time I had heard him use that tone of voice to her, although in truth I knew he spoke those words to both of us. He straightened, and with slow, deliberate steps brushed past his daughter and went into the house.

Phoebe tried again to slay me with a look, and once again she failed.

I said, ‘It would appear he does not need my help.'

And, taking up my horse's reins, I left her standing, speechless, on her doorstep.