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.She wanted to shout at him, to jolt him out of his detachment.In my game, he is not a pawn, but a man.He likes singing bawdy songs, and drinking Rhenish wine.He likes snow, and summer picnics.He loves my brothers and me, and he keeps a portrait of my mother in a locket.He is not fucking moulded from ivory, for you to tip over at your whim.Then they led her father away, and she heard him shout: ‘Be brave, my pudding.And look after your brothers.’She nodded, holding on to Sam’s hand, willing herself not to cry until he was gone.She cries now, alone in the garden.A light smattering of tears: she has exhausted her well of sobs.Her throat is permanently dry, and her head aches.And still no word from Ned.Ned – a Judas? Please God, no.But why does he not write, at least?Time passes.She knows this by the lengthening shadows and the gathering chill in the air.Perhaps she sleeps.Perhaps she just sits, trying to hear the world turning.Sam flops down beside her on the bench.She leans into him.He is so alive, Sam.So warm and pulsing.She fancies she can feel the strength of his heart through his skin.She feels like she is drowning, and the pressure of his skin on hers is all that keeps her from slipping under the waves.She closes her eyes, imagining herself as a river corpse, floating down the Thames to be caught and buffeted by the eddies at London Bridge.What a release it would be.She imagines surrendering herself to the waves, the ecstasy of it.Sam is silent.The trial has robbed him of his exuberance.He is a quieter, soberer boy.She can see Ned in him now, where once there was only wonder at the boys being related at all.‘Well,’ he says heavily.‘It was as we thought.Waller grovelled, bowed and scraped.His tongue was so far lodged up Pym’s arse you could see it poking out the man’s navel.’‘And?’‘The word is that it has worked.It helps that his cousin is John Hampden, the darling of the House, and now martyr.You heard, Hen, that Hampden was killed by Prince Rupert’s men at Chalgrove just weeks ago.Waller wears his dead cousin’s shroud as armour.Waller is back to the Tower.But it is reckoned that is only a stop-gap, and a fat fine will see him free.’‘Can we not muster a fat fine for Father?’‘Too late.The council has condemned him, and besides, I heard more talk at Westminster today.’‘Well?’His voice is harsh and distant.‘Pym is preparing a new oath.One to be sworn by all in Parliament.It will demand allegiance to the reforms, and vilify crypto-royalists.’‘Those who are not with us must be against us? So there will be no place for moderates?’‘No.Those who refuse to vow will be forced out, to join the king, perhaps.Those who would have liked to play pig in the middle will be forced to align themselves with Pym and his people.Once committed, they cannot row backwards.’Hen digests the news.‘It’s as Oliver Chettle warned us.Pym is using this plot for a political surge.’‘Indeed.So someone has to remain guilty.And if it is not Waller.’They sit in silence for a while, Hen fighting to master her anger.Then, at last, it comes, as she knew it would.‘I must go, Hen,’ he says.‘To Oxford.’‘Not to Essex’s army then.’He grunts.‘You joke.Parliament is to kill our father.We all have our scales, Hen.Ned weighed Father’s liberty against his conscience.I must use my own measures.Tip the Church, altar rails, Parliament’s prerogatives, ship money and the king’s weaknesses in one side.Add anything else you like: Catholic plots, evil counsellors and meddling queens.Tip it all in, and place our father’s murdered body on the other side of the scales, and see which sinks fastest.No.To Oxford, Hen, to throw myself on the king’s side.And one day, I shall stand in Westminster and stick daggers in the bastards’ yellow bellies.’Hen nods.‘Will you not stay until after?’‘After? No.I want to go now.Get stuck in.I want a sword, a pike, a musket.Anything.I want it, so wholly, so completely, that I’m sorry, Hen, but you cannot stop me.I ask only your blessing.’‘That you have, of course, Sam.’‘And you?’‘Someone has to look after Grandmother.How I envy you, Sam.To do something.To fight.What utter bliss.What joy.’He finds a rare smile.‘They should raise a regiment of women, Hen, and set you at its head.’‘If only that were possible,’ she says fiercely.She pauses for a space, before giving her greatest fear a voice.‘What if you meet Ned? In battle, I mean.’‘How likely is it? Besides, when he turned Judas, he set all this in motion.’‘But what if he did not? What if he is playing Peter, not Judas? Coward, not knave.’Sam snorts.‘Hen, they came for Father first, before the others.They knew too much.About him, about us.If not Ned, then who? What happened, do you think, when he weighed his father against his God? Him and his poxed conscience.’She sinks a little further into his shoulder.‘I must go to visit Father.When will you leave?’‘At daybreak.’On the way to visit her father, Hen stops at the butcher’s shop.Inside, a woman in her early thirties is cheerfully wielding a cleaver.She lifts it deftly and thwacks it down onto the wooden bench as if she’s enjoying it immensely.Hen watches, unseen.There is something comforting about watching this woman, with her capable hands and her sense of purpose.She stacks the portions she’s been hacking neatly, and swings the leg round at right angles.She lifts the cleaver but then, as she’s about to start the downward stroke, she notices Hen, stopping the swinging action with a lurch.‘Oh, miss,’ she says.‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.’‘Never mind.I was watching.’‘Cutting for pies, miss, begging your pardon.I like ’em all the same size, see.’‘Yes,’ says Hen.She walks forward.‘Miss Challoner, ain’t it?’ the woman asks.‘Yes.Sorry, I…’‘It’s all right, miss.I’ve seen you in church.’‘Oh [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]