Page 71 of By the Sword
Nell placed her hand on Kate’s in empathy. ‘Perhaps if we pray?’ she suggested.
Kate nodded and they clasped each other’s hands in silent prayer. Catholic or Protestant, it made no difference. It seemed such a small, ineffectual gesture but it brought some measure of comfort.
Anxious to distract herself, Kate picked up the rosary beads, weighing them in her hands. ‘I know nothing about the Catholic faith,’ she admitted.
Nell allowed herself to smile. ‘Except that we should be banished or burned?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No, I believe everyone has a right to practice whatever faith they profess,’ she said.
‘Well that’s very liberal-minded of you, Kate, but you belong to a perfect world that does not exist.’ Nell could not conceal the trace of bitterness in her voice. ‘Did you know the Thorntons maintained their Catholicism until Sir Francis’ grandfather considered it politically expedient to be otherwise?’
‘Ah, the first baronet,’ mused Kate, who had become well schooled in the Thornton family history. ‘Darling of Queen Bess. Maybe he grew weary of concealing the priests?’
Nell’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Do you know about the priest holes?’
Kate nodded. ‘Tom made it his business to find them. He showed me four of them. Is that a sufficient number for one priest?’
The priest holes, Kate had discovered, were ingenious but uncomfortable hiding places. Two of them were barely large enough for Tom. One, from the closet in what had been Sir Francis’ room and was now Tom’s room, formed part of the kitchen chimney and must have got rather warm for the poor priest. As he faced a fiercer fire if he was discovered, the discomfort must have been worth it. However the fourth, in the room she used as a study, seemed to be slightly larger and better concealed than the others; it would certainly fit a grown man with more ease and a modicum of comfort. She wondered with a shiver whether her sudden thought of the priest holes presaged a need for them.
The guns boomed again. The cold memories clawed at her heart, and tears welled in her eyes. She turned away from Nell to hide her distress. The memory of Richard’s broken body had now become intrinsically tied up with the present, and in her imagination, she now saw Jonathan, dead or dying, among the carnage of the battlefield. Unlike Nell, she knew the cost of a battle and the terrible injuries that could kill a man.
Even as darkness fell, the echo of the guns still came faintly through the open casements.
As the women sat for their supper, Nell, ever optimistic, said, ‘Perhaps there is victory?’
‘If there is it will not be the King’s.’
‘Is that what Jonathan thought?’ Nell asked, and Kate nodded.
Nell sighed. ‘I did hope…I have prayed that there may be a chance…’ Her voice choked on the words.
Kate took her friend’s hand. ‘No, Nell, this was the very last chance they had and it was such a slender one. There will be no King on the throne of England tonight.’
Nell stood up. ‘I think I will see to Ann,’ she said, her voice catching as tears trickled down her cheek.
Kate went in search of Tom, whom she had last seen working on his lessons in the library. She found him in his room, the same chamber that had been his grandfather’s. All trace of its previous occupant had been replaced by Tom’s childish muddle. Like Nell he sat by the open window, leaning on the sill, his chin on his folded arms.
‘That’s guns, isn’t it, Mother?’ he asked rhetorically.
She nodded and he looked up at her
‘Will they be all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, trying to keep her voice calm and neutral. ‘Their fate is in God’s hands. Come, it’s time for bed.’
Even after the rest of the household was in bed, Kate retired to the study. She told herself that she would know if Jonathan were dead, that she would sense it, but her ruthless logic dismissed that notion as folly. She had not ‘known’ about Richard. Why would it be any different now?
To distract herself, she turned to study the figures for the harvest, but the numbers wavered and tears blurred her eyes. She dried her tears like a child on the sleeves of her dress and forced herself back to the books.
Through the open window, the silence of the night was broken by the distant, unmistakable beat of horses’ hoof beats on the Kidderminster road. She sprang to the window, as the hooves skittered on the gravel of the forecourt.
Her heart jumped at the sound of men’s voices and she stood unable to move, facing the study door, following the sound of heavy boots on the stairs and the corridor. She held her breath as the door opened, expelling it in a choking sob as Jonathanstood framed in the doorway, unshaven and dirty, his buff coat streaked and stained. The unmistakable smell of powder and sweat drifted across the few feet of floor that stood between them.
She fell into his arms, pressing her face against the leather of his coat, her fingers meshing in his dark hair, damp with sweat from the hard day’s work. They kissed with desperation and relief.
Jonathan pulled away from her. ‘My darling girl, I’ve no time,’ he said. ‘The King and some of his men are in the kitchen.’
She stared at him. ‘The King? The KING? Jonathan, you fool. Why bring him here? This will be the first house they will search.’
