Page 61 of By the Sword
As summer drifted into a fine, hot August, Jacob Howell sought Kate out to discuss the matter of the harvest with her. The crops were ready and it seemed foolish not to make the most of the fine weather. To Nell’s horror, Kate insisted that every member of the household assist with the harvest.
‘Kate, I simply can’t,’ Nell protested. ‘It will ruin my hands.’
Kate had no sympathy to spare. ‘I’m sorry, Nell,’ she said. ‘Everyone is to help, and that includes us. There are simply not enough hands for this task.’
Dressed in an old gown and a wide-brimmed straw hat, Nell made a grudging appearance the next morning. She scowled at the summer sun, already fierce and promising a warm day.
‘This will be death to my complexion,’ she complained. ‘Are you sure I can’t help with the food?’
‘No,’ said Kate. ‘That is a job for the old and infirm. We need every able-bodied person out here if we are to get the harvest in while the weather is fine.’
As she trailed after the rest of the party, Nell’s appearance at the first field created some amusement among the tenants and villagers who had gathered to help. Nell smiled as graciously as she could, and casting a last despairing look at Kate’s implacable face, she followed the reapers into the field, their allocated task being the gathering of the straw into stooks.
After two days of handling the coarse straw, Kate’s hands were raw and her face and arms pink from the sun. On the third day, they had reached the fields closest to the hall and as the sun moved toward midday, Kate straightened and eased her aching back, grateful for the sight of the party coming from the direction of the hall with baskets of food and jugs of cold ale.
Nell subsided to the ground in the shade of a tree, fanning her face with her hat. Kate handed her a beaker of ale and a hunk of bread and cheese and sat down beside her.
Young Sam Barlow stood a little way off, chatting to Master Knowles’ pretty daughter. He broke off and turned to Kate, his eyes wide.
‘Troopers, Mistress. Yon.’
His announcement provoked a murmur of disquiet from the other tenants and workers. Troopers were an unpleasant memory from the past and meant only one thing: trouble.
Kate stood up and squinted into the sun. Sam’s sharp eyes were not wrong. A body of about fifteen horsemen was riding up the lane towards the house, the sun glinting off breastplates and helmets.
Nell came up beside her, her face puckered with concern. ‘Is it Price?’ she asked.
Kate shook her head. ‘They’re not parliament troops.’ She squinted into the sun. ‘I’ve never seen such a raggle-taggle collection of horsemen.’
She drew a sharp breath as she recognised a familiar grey horse at the head of the troop.
‘Nell,’ she said ‘I think it may be Jonathan.’
The small band of mounted troops stopped in the forecourt to the house, and old Joseph came out of the gateway to meet them.
Jonathan leaned down from his horse to talk to the steward. Joseph pointed toward the fields and Jonathan straightened, and he and another rider broke away, cantering toward the field where the two women waited.
Beneath her sunburn, Nell paled. ‘Oh no. It’s Giles.’ She looked at Kate and held out her dusty skirts and ruined hands. ‘Oh, Kate, how could you? This is not how I imagined greeting my husband after four years,’ she wailed.
But Kate had eyes only for one man and she didn’t care how she looked.
Conscious of the eyes on her, she walked forward to greet the riders, Nell trailing in her wake. As they drew closer she could see both men were dressed in well-worn buff coats and red sashes. Jonathan wore the familiar, low-crowned hat pulled well down as always. His companion sported a more fashionable tall crowned hat with a jaunty red feather beneath which his light brown hair curled to his shoulder.
Jonathan drew rein and Kate placed her hand lightly on Amber’s bridle. A cheer went up from the tenantry behind her and Jonathan’s name was called as people came forward to greet him.
‘Sir Jonathan,’ Kate said, conscious of being the centre of attention, ‘what brings you to Seven Ways?’
Jonathan bowed from the saddle. He looked tired and thin, but she caught the familiar sparkle in his eye. Her heart leapt in response.
‘Mistress Ashley, please pardon this intrusion,’ he said. ‘We were hoping for some provisions and a bed for the night for some weary soldiers.’
She looked across to the troopers, waiting patiently in the hot sun on the forecourt. She indicated the building they called Long Barn, which had once been the original manor house but was now used to store the hay and was resident to nothing more than bats, rats and owls.
‘Tell your men they can rest in the barn. With plenty of new hay, they should be able to make themselves comfortable.’
‘Thank you,’ Jonathan said. ‘It will only be for tonight, you have my word.’
Disappointment tugged at her. Only one night? Another snatched moment in time?
