The peace of the malthouse steadied her as she took up the barley rake, the handle smooth with decades of use. The low-ceilinged room was warm compared with the wintry chill outside, scented with the sweet smell of barley. The barleycorns were in a steeply shoveled pile, warming through and starting to split. Ned had left a bucket of clean water from the ferry-house dipping pond, out of the way of the overnight frost. She raked the barleycorns flat on the floor and stirred them round, mixing them together. Once they were spread out, she took a brush made from broom twigs and sprinkled them thoroughly with the water, raked them round again, and then took the blunt wide shovel, and piled them back into a heap. There was no way of telling that each seed was bursting with life, but she knew that the miracle of life was here in hundreds and thousands, in millions. Life in secret, a spark so small that it could live in every single barley seed, so powerful that it would split the seed and grow. She leaned on the handle of the shovel and thought that here she was: turning barley, picking herbs, attending a new-born baby, with the miracle of life like a candle flame, hidden inside her; and far away, somewhere, perhaps on the Isle of Wight, perhaps at his college in France, James was thinking of her, coming to her, with the miracle of his passion inside him.
Once she had not known if he was a man to keep his word, if he would come back to her. But now she trusted him; she knew that he would come. And when he came, she would tell him that she was with child, that life was urgently growing inside her. She would not deny him again, she would go with him to his home in the faraway county of Yorkshire, to London, to France, to wherever he wished.
She leaned the malt shovel against the wall, pushed at the door, and swung it open as if she might see the sail of his boat. Before her, the tide was coming in, the seagulls crying over the splashing waves. The water was radiantly blue, the hushing well a familiar distant whisper, the wintry sun hard and bright. Alinor thought that anything in this world was possible: the king might escape, James might regain his home, he would come for her and she would have his child. Why not, in this new world where anything could happen?
“I want to talk,” Alinor said to her daughter, ending days of unhappy silence. They were preparing the little cottage for the night, shoveling the red embers of the fire under the earthenware pot guard, shooing the hens into their corner, undressing to their linen shifts and lastly tamping out the rushlights. The foul scent of tallow smoke breathed around the little room like rancid bacon. The cottage was gloomy, lit by bars of moonlight shining through the shutters.
“At last,” Alys said irritably. “I wondered how long it’d take before you spoke. D’you have any idea what you’re going to do?”
Alinor bowed her head. “Alys, all I can say is that I’m sorry. But I do have hopes.”
The young woman sat heavily on the bed. “Name one.”
“The father of my baby is a good man. He asked me to marry him, and when I can, I will.”
“You can’t, you’re married to my da.”
“I can say he’s dead, and six years from now I’ll be free to marry. It’s in the law. When a man has been missing for seven years.”
“Say he’s dead?” Alys was shocked. “Name our da as a dead man?”
“It’s not ill-wishing!” Alinor exclaimed.
“It is! That’s exactly what it is. You’ll tell everyone he’s dead—what? Drowned?—and name yourself as a widow?”
“Alys, your da’s never coming back,” Alinor said quietly. “He told Rob, he met him at Newport. He’s never coming home.”
“What? Rob saw him?”
“Your da ran from him, and missed the next meeting. He didn’t want to be found. He told the tutor that he wasn’t coming back.”
“And nobody told me?”
“No . . . You remember? You didn’t want to know. You wanted to go to the Stoneys’ farm without a lie in your mouth.”
“My da isn’t coming back? Ever?”
“No. He says not.”
Alys put her hand over her eyes. “Just like that? And nobody told me?”
“I’m sorry, Alys.” Alinor spread her work-worn hands. “There’s been so much—” She broke off when she saw her daughter was fiercely rubbing her eyes with her shawl. “I’m very sorry, Alys. He wasn’t a good father to you or to Rob. He wasn’t a good husband. He’s not a good man. You said you didn’t care. You said you didn’t want to know.” She paused. “Are you crying for him?”
The girl showed her a sulky face rubbed dry of any tears. “Not at all.”
Alinor pressed on. “So, you see, I don’t have to wait forever for him to come home.”
“Looks like you didn’t wait at all,” Alys said spitefully.
Alinor bowed her head against the accusation. “But in six years’ time I can marry the father of my child.”
“Who says you can do this?”
“It’s the law.”
“Who says so?”
Alinor’s eyes dropped from her daughter’s demanding glare. “Rob’s tutor told me so.”
“Does everyone know about this but me? Does Uncle Ned?”
“No! Only the tutor, because he met your da with Rob at Newport.”
