wife, and father the future heir to Ravensden himself.' She was furious now, and my mother furious was a sight to behold. 'But Tristram will always indulge himself first, then play his little games. So like his father, in all things. Thank God that he was the younger son, and thank God that is the way of it in the next generation, too. All the responsibility and sense of duty with the elder—'
' Enough, mother! Enough of diplomacy, too; time for the broadside. 'Responsibility? Duty? You dare talk of those things, when you tell Cornelia to enter a convent? Oh, you'll gladly set aside my responsibility and duty to my wife to suit your own purposes. You chide my uncle for playing games, when you play them with the lives of everyone in this family?'
'You will not speak to me in this way. I have told you before, you will not —'
I was angry now, the rage blazing inside me like a burning magazine. 'Oh yes, mother. You have told me before. You told me when I questioned you about the early days of the late king's reign, in Lord Buckingham's time, when my father was away at the French wars—' elusive hints of secrets buried deeply over thirty years before were an unexpected legacy of my voyage aboard the Jupiter— 'What else passed in those times, mother? What else?
I saw something in her eyes...
It was gone in an instant, and the narrow, suspicious slits returned. 'Get out,' she hissed. 'Get back to your barren wife.'
'Better a barren wife than a whore for a countess,' I snapped as I turned away from her and strode from the room.
It was only when I stood outside, in the dark, damp corridor, that I realised two things. First, she had insulted Cornelia, but she had done no more than speak the truth; whereas I had made the fatal mistake of not distinguishing between the once and future Countesses of Ravensden. As I heard my mother's sobbing begin, I also knew what I had seen in her eyes when I demanded the truth of all that she had known and done at the court of the first King Charles.
It was fear.
***
I sat in a small private room of the old George Inn, just up from the river bridge in Bedford. It stank. As in all towns, the common sewer flowed down the High Street just outside, but in Bedford, it met the river's own distinctive stench right outside the entrance to the George. Moreover, the stables at the back were particularly close to the main body of the inn, and the innkeeper apologised for the presence of a noxious herd of unruly Irish horses with violent diarrhoea, en route for the royal races at Newmarket. Yet by the end of a second jug of good Bordeaux, the George seemed like a very paradise on earth, especially as it did not contain either my mother (still distraught) or my wife (attempting vainly to calm my mother).
My thoughts raced this way and that, although the wine progressively slowed and dulled them. I had been insufferably rude; of course I had. If my mother knew great secrets of state, well then, so be it. We are all entitled to our secrets, and besides, hers had to be of so very long ago; what possible relevance could they have, especially when the only matter of the moment was that of the unnatural marriage proposed for my brother?
I was beginning to contemplate the relative merits of a third jug of Bordeaux against riding unsteadily back to the abbey when a Barcock—Paul, I think, or it might have been Peter—entered my small, stinking world at the George Inn, and handed me a letter that had been delivered at Ravensden by a royal courier but an hour before. I thanked him in the vaguely profuse way of the drunk, and opened the letter. It was a script I knew well—clear, precise, a little pompous—and the message, too, was redolent of its author: just a little more long-winded than it needed to be.
Sir,
His Majesty having summoned me to attend him at Newmarket upon some concerns relating to the present state and occasions of the navy, His Majesty has seen fit to instruct me to inform you that he
' Enough, mother! Enough of diplomacy, too; time for the broadside. 'Responsibility? Duty? You dare talk of those things, when you tell Cornelia to enter a convent? Oh, you'll gladly set aside my responsibility and duty to my wife to suit your own purposes. You chide my uncle for playing games, when you play them with the lives of everyone in this family?'
'You will not speak to me in this way. I have told you before, you will not —'
I was angry now, the rage blazing inside me like a burning magazine. 'Oh yes, mother. You have told me before. You told me when I questioned you about the early days of the late king's reign, in Lord Buckingham's time, when my father was away at the French wars—' elusive hints of secrets buried deeply over thirty years before were an unexpected legacy of my voyage aboard the Jupiter— 'What else passed in those times, mother? What else?
I saw something in her eyes...
It was gone in an instant, and the narrow, suspicious slits returned. 'Get out,' she hissed. 'Get back to your barren wife.'
'Better a barren wife than a whore for a countess,' I snapped as I turned away from her and strode from the room.
It was only when I stood outside, in the dark, damp corridor, that I realised two things. First, she had insulted Cornelia, but she had done no more than speak the truth; whereas I had made the fatal mistake of not distinguishing between the once and future Countesses of Ravensden. As I heard my mother's sobbing begin, I also knew what I had seen in her eyes when I demanded the truth of all that she had known and done at the court of the first King Charles.
It was fear.
***
I sat in a small private room of the old George Inn, just up from the river bridge in Bedford. It stank. As in all towns, the common sewer flowed down the High Street just outside, but in Bedford, it met the river's own distinctive stench right outside the entrance to the George. Moreover, the stables at the back were particularly close to the main body of the inn, and the innkeeper apologised for the presence of a noxious herd of unruly Irish horses with violent diarrhoea, en route for the royal races at Newmarket. Yet by the end of a second jug of good Bordeaux, the George seemed like a very paradise on earth, especially as it did not contain either my mother (still distraught) or my wife (attempting vainly to calm my mother).
My thoughts raced this way and that, although the wine progressively slowed and dulled them. I had been insufferably rude; of course I had. If my mother knew great secrets of state, well then, so be it. We are all entitled to our secrets, and besides, hers had to be of so very long ago; what possible relevance could they have, especially when the only matter of the moment was that of the unnatural marriage proposed for my brother?
I was beginning to contemplate the relative merits of a third jug of Bordeaux against riding unsteadily back to the abbey when a Barcock—Paul, I think, or it might have been Peter—entered my small, stinking world at the George Inn, and handed me a letter that had been delivered at Ravensden by a royal courier but an hour before. I thanked him in the vaguely profuse way of the drunk, and opened the letter. It was a script I knew well—clear, precise, a little pompous—and the message, too, was redolent of its author: just a little more long-winded than it needed to be.
Sir,
His Majesty having summoned me to attend him at Newmarket upon some concerns relating to the present state and occasions of the navy, His Majesty has seen fit to instruct me to inform you that he
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