He bowed and exited, and Goodie Grisham grabbed the door to keep it open. The three women crowded into the frame to stare at the carriage before it started away. The curtains parted only a shy distance, so that the occupant could see the shop but not be seen.
Margaret spat on the ground and turned her back. Goodie pulled the pair back into the shop as she shut the door, her face cold and resolute. Henry had had his women, rumors said, but this one was a bold card, playing for the crown when the suffering queen was still wearing it.
“No righteous woman will stand this insult to our sex,” Goodie Grisham said. “Old wives are still good wives. Anne thinks she can steal the crown just because she’s young. She’s young. Oh, but she’ll get hers in the end. She’ll be old like me, and let’s see how she holds onto her man. Oh, yes, she’ll get hers.”
Margaret was nodding and smiling, and Rose smiled back to agree. She tried not to reflect on what she knew was true: That all over the city husbands with money looked for young girls in need, girls who walked the streets hoping to sell the only thing they owned. Whether the wives at home were good had nothing to do with it. Plagues, droughts, and unending death made the gentleness of youth a precious commodity, and the men paid well. Youth was a seasonal item, like a ripe fruit, that must be sold and for the highest dollar, before the cold winter of age.
“Your father, he’s going to run these types out,” Goodie continued. “I’ve heard she reads all the banned books, even Hutchins. Stirs the blood, it does. Stirs the blood. She has all the blessings of God and country and spits in the cup she shares with us all. Someone needs to teach her some true religion.”
Margaret ended the conversation. “Goodie Grisham, could you please show us the suitable fabrics so we may choose and be on our way? You know how my father is if I am not back before the sun quits the day.”
The words sent Goodie Grisham spinning off in a whirlwind of smiles and commentary, unfolding fabrics all along the tables and calling up the tailors to wait upon them. Rose chose the fabric with the unicorns that had first caught her eye.
“Unicorns mean God’s fortune and blessing.”
Margaret chose another design, a swirling brocade.
“Very good, ladies. Now, I may need an extra week on these, as I’ve had a girl run off on me.”
Agreeing to this, and saying their good-byes (hearing Goodie Grisham’s twice), they were back in the litter and moving through the streets again.
“The heat was extraordinary, was it not?” Margaret was waiting for Rose to step down from the litter and enter the house with her. “A crock of cool wine will taste so good!”
Rose nodded, too tired to pretend to be excited about wine, or fabric, or anything else.
Still, Margaret persisted. “I know I’m going to drink my weight of it when we sit for supper.”
Rose smiled and followed her into the house, so grateful to be home. The thought caught her, and she sighed with pleasure.
Margaret hurried off to change for supper and called for a servant to fetch a drink for them both, as the day had been hot. Something about the day set at an odd angle in Rose’s heart. Perhaps it was the Yeoman, the goodness she perceived in him, although he had spoken not one word and she had done nothing but dishonour his master. Perhaps it was the fever that infected Margaret the longer that Goodwife Grisham prattled. Rose bit her lip, pondering, until she was interrupted by Margaret calling to her.
“Come, Rose! Let us be refreshed!”
The room was tar black when she awoke, disturbed again by some movement in the room she sensed rather than heard. She caught her breath and strained to detect what it might have been, but the room was silent.
Too quiet, in fact, and Rose lifted herself up off her mattress to peek at Margaret’s bed. It was empty.
Rose jumped up and ran to the door. She still had her shoes on and grabbed the robe she had left by the door. She had been waiting for this moment for weeks.
Easing down the hall and through the house, she made light, quick steps to the door that led into the garden. As she stepped from the dark house into the night, she saw the moon above her shrouded in a cloud, like an old man’s milky eye. She shuddered and turned to look round when she saw, far ahead on the path towards the gates, Margaret on horseback, her hair flying behind her, the horse making good time on the soft path.
Rose ran to the stables, her mind working through all the possibilities she had imagined, setting them in order before her as she saddled her horse with great speed. Margaret’s secret was out there, and tonight Rose would know it.
Her face went pale with long lines deepening on her forehead, like fingernails of fear scraping across her skin. When Rose rode closer, and Margaret recognised her, the fear turned into something else—a tired, cold anger … a fire with the heat gone out of it but unwilling to be swept away.
Rose pulled her horse alongside and said nothing. Margaret stared straight ahead.
“Did you think the wine would guarantee my sleep?” Rose asked. “Did you think you could slip away from under my watch?”