PART ONE
I
Across the Narrow Sea
Putney, 1500
āSo now get up.ā
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.
Blood from the gash on his head ā which was his fatherās first effort ā is trickling across his face. Add to this, his left eye is blinded; but if he squints sideways, with his right eye he can see that the stitching of his fatherās boot is unravelling. The twine has sprung clear of the leather, and a hard knot in it has caught his eyebrow and opened another cut.
āSo now get up!ā Walter is roaring down at him, working out where to kick him next. He lifts his head an inch or two, and moves forward, on his belly, trying to do it without exposing his hands, on which Walter enjoys stamping. āWhat are you, an eel?ā his parent asks. He trots backwards, gathers pace, and aims another kick.
It knocks the last breath out of him; he thinks it may be his last. His forehead returns to the ground; he lies waiting, for Walter to jump on him. The dog, Bella, is barking, shut away in an outhouse. Iāll miss my dog, he thinks. The yard smells of beer and blood. Someone is shouting, down on the riverbank. Nothing hurts, or perhaps itās that everything hurts, because there is no separate pain that he can pick out. But the cold strikes him, just in one place: just through his cheekbone as it rests on the cobbles.
āLook now, look now,ā Walter bellows. He hops on one foot, as if heās dancing. āLook what Iāve done. Burst my boot, kicking your head.ā
Inch by inch. Inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, donāt provoke him. His nose is clotted with blood and he has to open his mouth to breathe. His fatherās momentary distraction at the loss of his good boot allows him the leisure to vomit. āThatās right,ā Walter yells. āSpew everywhere.ā Spew everywhere, on my good cobbles. āCome on, boy, get up. Letās see you get up. By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet.ā
Creeping Christ? he thinks. What does he mean? His head turns sideways, his hair rests in his own vomit, the dog barks, Walter roars, and bells peal out across the water. He feels a sensation of movement, as if the filthy ground has become the Thames. It gives and sways beneath him; he lets out his breath, one great final gasp. Youāve done it this time, a voice tells Walter. But he closes his ears, or God closes them for him. He is pulled downstream, on a deep black tide.
āKat, donāt shout, it hurts me.ā
She bawls for her husband: āMorgan Williams!ā She rotates on the spot, eyes wild, face flushed from the ovenās heat. āTake this tray, body of God, where are you all?ā
He is shivering from head to foot, exactly like Bella did when she fell off the boat that time.
A girl runs in. āThe masterās gone to town.ā
āI know that, fool.ā The sight of her brother had panicked the knowledge out of her. She thrusts the tray at the girl. āIf you leave them where the cats can get at them, Iāll box your ears till you see stars.ā Her hands empty, she clasps them for a moment in violent prayer. āFighting again, or was it your father?ā
Yes, he says, vigorously nodding, making his nose drop gouts of blood: yes, he indicates himself, as if to say, Walter was here. Kat calls for a basin, for water, for water in a basin, for a cloth, for the devil to rise up, right now, and take away Walter his servant. āSit down before you fall down.ā He tries to explain that he has just got up. Out of the yard. It could be an hour ago, it could even be a day, and for all he knows, today might be tomorrow; except that if he had lain there for a day, surely either Walter would have come and killed him, for being in the way, or his wounds would have clotted a bit, and by now he would be hurting all over and almost too stiff to move; from deep experience of Walterās fists and boots, he knows that the second day can be worse than the first. āSit. Donāt talk,ā Kat says.
When the basin comes, she stands over him and works away, dabbing at his closed eye, working in small circles round and round at his hairline. Her breathing is ragged and her free hand rests on his shoulder. She swears under her breath, and sometimes she cries, and rubs the back of his neck, whispering, āThere, hush, there,ā as if it were he who were crying, though he isnāt. He feels as if he is floating, and she is weighting him to earth; he would like to put his arms around her and his face in her apron, and rest there listening to her heartbeat. But he doesnāt want to mess her up, get blood all down the front of her.
When Morgan Williams comes in, he is wearing his good town coat. He looks Welsh and pugnacious; itās clear heās heard the news. He stands by Kat, staring down, temporarily out of words; till he says, āSee!ā He makes a fist, and jerks it three times in the air. āThat!ā he says. āThatās what heād get. Walter. Thatās what heād get. From me.ā
āJust stand back,ā Kat advises. āYou donāt want bits of Thomas on your London jacket.ā
No more does he. He backs off. āI wouldnāt care, but look at you, boy. You could cripple the brute in a fair fight.ā
āIt never is a fair fight,ā Kat says. āHe comes up behind you, right, Thomas? With something in his hand.ā
āLooks like a glass bottle, in this case,ā Morgan Williams says.
āWas it a bottle?ā
He shakes his head. His nose bleeds again.
āDonāt do that, brother,ā Kat says. Itās all over her hand; she wipes the blood clots down herself. What a mess, on her apron; he might as well have put his head there after all.
āI donāt suppose you saw?ā Morgan says. āWhat he was wielding, exactly?ā
āThatās the value,ā says Kat, āof an approach from behind ā you sorry loss to the magistratesā bench. Listen, Morgan, shall I tell you about my father? Heāll pick up whateverās to hand. Which is sometimes a bottle, true. Iāve seen him do it to my mother. Even our little Bet, Iāve seen him hit her over the head. Also Iāve not seen him do it, which was worse, and that was because it was me about to be felled.ā
āI wonder what Iāve married into,ā Morgan Williams says.
But really, this is just something Morgan says; some men have a habitual sniffle, some women have a headache, and Morgan has this wonder. The boy doesnāt listen to him; he thinks, if my father did that to my mother, so long dead, then maybe he killed her? No, surely heād have been taken up for it; Putneyās lawless, but you donāt get away with murder. Katās what heās got for a mother: crying for him, rubbing the back of his neck.
He shuts his eyes, to make the left eye equal with the right; he tries to open both. āKat,ā he says, āI have got an eye under there, have I? Because it canāt see anything.ā Yes, yes, yes, she says, while Morgan Williams continues his interrogation of the facts; settles on a hard, moderately heavy, sharp object, but possibly not a broken bottle, otherwise Thomas would have seen its jagged edge, prior to Walter splitting his eyebrow open and aiming to blind him. He hears Morgan forming up this theory and would like to speak about the boot, the knot, the knot in the twine, but the effort of moving his mouth seems disproportionate to the reward. By and large he agrees with Morganās conclusion; he tries to shrug, but it hurts so much, and he feels so crushed and disjointed, that he wonders if his neck is broken.
āAnyway,ā Kat says, āwhat were you doing, Tom, to set him off? He usually wonāt start up till after dark, if itās for no cause at all.ā
āYes,ā Morgan Williams says, āwas there a cause?ā
āYesterday. I was fighting.ā
āYou were fighting yesterday? Who in the holy name were you fighting?ā
āI donāt know.ā The name, along with the reason, has dropped out of his head; but it feels as if, in exiting, it has removed a jagged splinter of bone from his skull. He touches his scalp, carefully. Bottle? Possible.
āOh,ā Kat says, ātheyāre always fighting. Boys. Down by the river.ā
āSo let me be sure I have this right,ā Morgan says. āHe comes home yesterday with his clothes torn and his knuckles skinned, and the old man says, whatās this, been fighting? He waits a day, then hits him with a bottle. Then he knocks him down in the yard, kicks him all over, beats up and down his length with a plank of wood that comes to hand ā¦ ā
āDid he do that?ā
āItās all over the parish! They were lining up on the wharf to tell me, they were shouting at me before the boat tied up. Morgan Williams, listen now, your wifeās father has beaten Thomas and heās crawled dying to his sisterās house, theyāve called the priest ā¦ Did you call the priest?ā
āOh, you Williamses!ā Kat says. āYou think youāre such big people around here. People are lining up to tell you things. But why is that? Itās because you believe anything.ā
āBut itās right!ā Morgan yells. āAs good as right! Eh? If you leave out the priest. And that heās not dead yet.ā
āYouāll make that magistratesā bench for sure,ā Kat says, āwith your close study of the difference between a corpse and my brother.ā
āWhen Iām a magistrate, Iāll have your father in the stocks. Fine him? You canāt fine him enough. Whatās the point of fining a person who will only go and rob or swindle monies to the same value out of some innocent who crosses his path?ā
He moans: tries to do it without intruding.
āThere, there, there,ā Kat whispers.
āIād say the magistrates have had their bellyful,ā Morgan says. āIf heās not watering his ale, heās running illegal beasts on the common, if heās not despoiling the common heās assaulting an officer of the peace, if heās not drunk heās dead drunk, and if heās not dead before his time thereās no justice in this world.ā
āFinished?ā Kat says. She turns back to him. āTom, youād better stay with us now. Morgan Williams, what do you say? Heāll be good to do the heavy work, when heās healed up. He can do the figures for you, he can add and ā¦ whatās the other thing? All right, donāt laugh at me, how much time do you think I had for learning figures, with a father like that? If I can write my name, itās because Tom here taught me.ā
āHe wonāt,ā he says. āLike it.ā He can only manage like this: short, simple, declarative sentences.
āLike? He should be ashamed,ā Morgan says.
Kat says, āShame was left out when God made my dad.ā
He says, āBecause. Just a mile away. He can easily.ā
āCome after you? Just let him.ā Morgan demonstrates his fist again: his little nervy Welsh punch.
* * *
After Kat had finished swabbing him and Morgan Williams had ceased boasting and reconstructing the assault, he lay up for an hour or two, to recover from it. During this time, Walter came to the door, with some of his acquaintance, and there was a certain amount of shouting and kicking of doors, though it came to him in a muffled way and he thought he might have dreamed it. The question in his mind now is, what am I going to do, I canāt stay in Putney. Partly this is because his memory is coming back, for the day before yesterday and the earlier fight, and he thinks there might have been a knife in it somewhere; and whoever it was stuck in, it wasnāt him, so was it by him? All this is unclear in his mind. What is clear is his thought about Walter: Iāve had enough of this. If he gets after me again Iām going to kill him, and if I kill him theyāll hang me, and if theyāre going to hang me I want a better reason.
Below, the rise and fall of their voices. He canāt pick out every word. Morgan says heās burnt his boats. Kat is repenting of her first offer, a post as pot-boy, general factotum and chucker-out; because, Morganās saying, āWalter will always be coming round here, wonāt he? And āWhereās Tom, send him home, who paid the bloody priest to teach him to read and write, I did, and youāre reaping the bloody benefit now, you leek-eating cunt.āā
He comes downstairs. Morgan says cheerily, āYouāre looking well, considering.ā
The truth is about Morgan Williams ā and he doesnāt like him any the less for it ā the truth is, this idea he has that one day heāll beat up his father-in-law, itās solely in his mind. In fact, heās frightened of Walter, like a good many people in Putney ā and, for that matter, Mortlake and Wimbledon.
He says, āIām on my way, then.ā
Kat says, āYou have to stay tonight. You know the second day is the worst.ā
āWhoās he going to hit when Iām gone?ā
āNot our affair,ā Kat says. āBet is married and got out of it, thank God.ā
Morgan Williams says, āIf Walter was my father, I tell you, Iād take to the road.ā He waits. āAs it happens, weāve gathered some ready money.ā
A pause.
āIāll pay you back.ā
Morgan says, laughing, relieved, āAnd how will you do that, Tom?ā
He doesnāt know. Breathing is difficult, but that doesnāt mean anything, itās only because of the clotting inside his nose. It doesnāt seem to be broken; he touches it, speculatively, and Kat says, careful, this is a clean apron. Sheās smiling a pained smile, she doesnāt want him to go, and yet sheās not going to contradict Morgan Williams, is she? The Williamses are big people, in Putney, in Wimbledon. Morgan dotes on her; he reminds her sheās got girls to do the baking and mind the brewing, why doesnāt she sit upstairs sewing like a lady, and praying for his success when he goes off to London to do a few deals in his town coat? Twice a day she could sweep through the Pegasus in a good dress and set in order anything thatās wrong: thatās his idea. And though as far as he can see she works as hard as ever she did when she was a child, he can see how she might like it, that Morgan would exhort her to sit down and be a lady.
āIāll pay you back,ā he says. āI might go and be a soldier. I could send you a fraction of my pay and I might get loot.ā
Morgan says, āBut there isnāt a war.ā
āThereāll be one somewhere,ā Kat says.
āOr I could be a shipās boy. But, you know, Bella ā do you t...