6. Andrew

A NDREW Great St Bartholomew's, London, the same day

I N ALL THE HOUSES we had lived in from the time I'd been a lad, the room I liked best was the kitchen.'Twas my mother's fault – she kept a tidy, homely hearth and always sang to please herself while she was working, so the room was ever filled with warmth and music.

And with food.

This narrow table set against the wall between the back stairs and the larder door was where we ate most meals, leaving our dining room above the hall unused.

My mother pushed aside the plate of bread and cheese she'd set between myself and Margaret that I'd barely touched, and handed me a bowl of steaming broth. ‘There,' she said, ‘get that inside ye. I've put herbs in that to make your head ache less.'

I probed the deep brown surface with my spoon. ‘I didn't say I had a headache.'

‘I'm your mother, and ye'll aye be my wee lad,' she said. ‘Ye'll never grow so large that I can't see when something ails ye.' She had lit the evening candles. Their light always made her face look young, and gave her eyes a glint of mischief. ‘And there are not many things that make ye disagreeable.'

‘When was I—?'

Margaret interjected, ‘Ye telt me to hold my whisht.'

I did admit I'd been unfair to ask my sister to keep quiet, even if her talking had been making my head rattle. ‘Aye, well, I'm sorry for that.' She did have every right to be excited. ‘I'm fair proud of ye.'

That earned me her forgiveness. With a smile, my sister said, ‘Mayhap I'll catch the queen's eye as our Jeannie did and find myself a better place at court.'

My mother thought it possible. ‘But mind, that's a blade with two edges. We haven't seen Jeannie at all these past days, the queen's kept her so hard at her work.'

‘I will see her,' said Margaret, ‘in Bath.'

‘Aye, that ye will.' My mother looked at her with fondness. ‘Thoughtless lass to go and chase your fun and leave me here with none but this unpleasant lad to give me conversation.' She was teasing, but her eyes became more serious when she saw my expression. She could read me as though I were a child's book writ in bold lettering. ‘And will ye then be leaving, too?'

I told her, though she knew the answer, ‘Aye. I must away the morn. I ken not for how long.' Neither of them asked where I was bound to, for my father's years in this same service had well trained us all. ‘But Owen will be coming here to stay, to keep ye guarded. And he likes to talk.'

My mother smiled. ‘Indeed.'

‘Owen is coming here?' That broke from Margaret, who looked so distraught that if I'd wondered at her feelings afore this, I knew them now. ‘But surely he will join the rest of us in the queen's household on her progress west to Bath?'

My head hurt when I tried to shake it, so I only moved it slightly. ‘No. He's not like Roger, nor like Jeannie, who do always travel with the queen. He travels at her pleasure, and it pleases her this time to let him bide at home in London.'

Margaret blinked back sudden tears that we were not supposed to see, and stood, excused herself, and left us. When we were younger, she would seek me out when she was sad and weep upon my shoulder, but these days she kept her sorrows private, so I did not try to follow her, for all I would have wished to give her comfort.

It was always a hard lesson to be learned: that service to a royal master oft meant putting your own heart aside.

I looked at my mother, and knew from her keen eyes that she had just strung a new thread between Margaret and Owen. She asked, ‘Is there aught I should ken about, there?'

‘Only that it all ends well.'

She thought a moment, then she nodded. ‘Ye've been Seeing things. I'm sure that has not helped your head. It often tired my father when he used his Gift.'

It usually had no effect upon me, and I said as much. ‘But neither would I count my Sight a gift,' I told her. ‘Not today.'

‘Why? What have ye been Seeing?'

The best course, I had learned, when I had no wish to discuss a subject, was to lead the talk along a different path. ‘I paid the rent last month,' I said, ‘at Lady Day, so it will not come due now till Midsummer. There is money in the kist for that.'

‘Midsummer is a long way off. Ye surely will be home by then?'

‘I cannot say for certain. If ye find yourself in want of funds, tell Owen, and he'll ask my lord Northampton. Ye can draw upon my wages.' Though I tried to keep my voice as normal as I could, my mother was not fooled.

She said, ‘There's danger in whatever they are asking ye to do.'

‘No more than any other mission.' But I did not meet her gaze. If I had hopes of hiding any of my thoughts, I'd rather face the king's most merciless inquisitor than face my mother.

Again she asked me, ‘What have ye been Seeing?'

Even my shrug set my head throbbing. ‘Naught that affects ye directly. And naught I can change.'

She accepted that fact. She knew better than I how our lives were already cast, having been raised in the Isles where foretellings were not only common, but where her own family were likely to make them.

I looked like my grandfather, she had once told me. And, like him, I'd had to learn my size and strength could not turn events from their course. A stronger will than mine had set their wheels in motion, and would not be stopped.

My mother did not press the matter. Taking up my empty bowl and Margaret's trencher, she carried them across to the bench beneath the window where she kept the tub of washing-water. With her back to me, she asked, ‘Did I see that Westaway lass leaving the stables?'

‘Aye.'

‘And is there aught I should ken about there ?'

‘No.' Decidedly not , I'd have added, except with my mother, least said was the best, else she'd not let the matter lie. She would keep—

‘'Tis a shame,' she said, ‘for she's a bonny lass.'

It was a fact, and did not need me to confirm it. When we'd come to live at St Bartholomew's, I had been half bewitched at my first sight of her. In fairness, it was not her face alone, although her face was pretty. Nor was it her hair, so nearly black that, with her large, brown eyes, it made her look a little foreign, as though she, like me, did not belong within the Close. It was, more simply, everything – the way she moved, the way she laughed, the way the sunlight touched her when she turned her head. I saw these from a distance.

Then I offered her my hand in help, she shunned it, and my senses cleared.

And now I knew a bonny lass could have a cold and careless heart. I knew her laughter could be swiftly turned to words that cut a man. I bore the marks as proof.

‘And she is clever,' said my mother. ‘Did ye ken she reads and writes as well as does her father? Her Aunt Agnes telt me that. Imagine.'Tis a rare and fine accomplishment.'

Again, a point of fact. I would have let it pass without reply, had not something occurred to me. ‘How often do ye talk to Agnes Westaway?'

‘Often enough.'

‘Ye're friends?'

‘We're friendly, aye.' She glanced at me over her shoulder. ‘Is that not allowed?' She was teasing again, but whatever she read in my face made her instantly sober. ‘What's wrong, Andrew?'

‘Nothing.' But that was a lie.

She would know that it was, but I could not explain. Could not tell her that something about this new mission unsettled me, nor that the man I was sent to arrest might be innocent and being played for political purpose, nor that I constantly heard Roger's voice in my ear saying, ‘It strikes me wrong.'

More than that, I could not tell my mother of the vision I'd had not an hour ago, when Phoebe had stood in defence of her father and argued that she could come north with him.

‘ I'll be responsible for him,' she'd offered. ‘I'll care for him.'

I should have said there and then such a thing was impossible, but at that moment the stable had wavered and blurred and become a straight road under skies chased with swift-running clouds. I'd been riding at a walking pace among companions – one was cloaked, and one was Laurence Westaway, who looked at me and, smiling, said, ‘Did I not say you were worried for nothing?' while past him, across the wide slope of an unknown field, I saw riders on horseback approaching at speed.

And then someone had moved at my back, pressing close from their position on the pillion, behind my saddle. Hands – a woman's hands – had gripped my waist, and Phoebe Westaway had asked, ‘Can we outrun them?'

I had Seen no more than that.

My visions lasted only briefly, she'd have likely noticed nothing when it happened, and indeed she showed no sign of any change when I returned to an awareness of her standing with me in the stables.

Granted, she had asked me ‘Please,' which was itself remarkable, and I might have remarked upon it more had I not been sorting through what I'd just witnessed and what it all meant. I'd told her I would think on it, when I knew there was nothing that required thought. The things I Saw were destined, they were set, and they could not be changed.

She and her father would be coming with me, whether I wished it or not.

I said to my mother, ‘Ye should ask Agnes Westaway if she would like to come stay with ye here at the house while I'm away. It would give ye both company while Owen's off at his work.'

My mother turned fully from the window bench, her eyes too keen to be fooled. ‘Andrew,' she asked me a third time, ‘what have ye been Seeing?'

Leaning back, I passed a weary hand across my eyes, and told her. ‘Trouble.'