The Lady and the Poet by Maeve Haran Read Free Book Online Page B

in the Tower that all those men whose skulls were on spikes would have spent their last days. I shuddered at the thought.
    It took us the best part of an hour to get across the bridge which measured but a third of a mile. We continued our passage down Fish Street and Bread Street, passing round the back of St Paul’s Cathedral, its spire still missing since it was struck by lightning many years ago. I craned my neck to see Paul’s Cross next to the great church, where the famous sermons were preached to crowds of thousands. From there we passed through Ludgate and across the Fleet Bridge into Fleet Street, still so thronged with street sellers calling their wares, sightseers come to see the cathedral or worship there, and more gangs of children, that our passage was slow indeed.
    Halfway along Fleet Street the crowds eased and the carrier was able to pull the cart to a stop to let the horses drink from the conduit there.
    ‘Listen, mistress,’ the carrier held a finger to his lips, ‘it is three of the clock.’
    From inside the fountain, which was carved with a statue of St Christopher standing atop a band of stone angels, all carrying bells, there came the sound of a clicking and a whirring and to my delight sweet-sounding bells began to gently chime a hymn. As if the fountain were the key that turned a lock, all of a sudden from all around us church bells began to toll so loudly it was like being trapped inside a belltower.
    ‘You’ll get used to that, mistress,’ confided the carrier. ‘In London we ring bells for everything, the hour, when someone is married, or dying, and then again when they’re dead. There’s a different toll for whether it’s man, woman or child if you know how to listen for it.’
    ‘How sad. Are deaths so common in London even when the plague is not rife?’ I knew the plague struck often, badly enough to fill the graveyards to overflowing not five years since.
    ‘Death’s an everyday thing here, mistress.’ He glanced back at Ludgate to where, high above the ground, a metal cage hung, and in it was the rotting torso of a body being picked at by crows. I had to look away before I retched. ‘Though they do say a man’s lucky here to live to five and thirty.’ He clearly deemed this some manner of achievement.
    ‘That’s enough from you, sirrah!’ my father admonished. ‘You would do well to learn to keep your tales to yourself instead of scaring young women with them. The only people who are punished are felons and traitors to Her Majesty.’
    ‘I’m sorry, your worship.’ The man climbed back onto his cart. ‘My wife says I do babble on.’
    ‘Don’t listen to my father,’ I whispered, guiding my horse so that it was alongside the cart. ‘You have made my journey much the livelier.’
    The carrier winked.
    ‘See, Ann,’ my father commanded, looking unusually pleased with himself as we processed up the Strand with its busy shops on one side, where the mud gave way to paving stones under foot. ‘York House is where your aunt is living now.’ He pointed to a small and unassuming door, but I could see that the house it led to was large indeed, no doubt with a fine river frontage. ‘My sister Elizabeth has just wed its tenant, Sir Thomas Egerton, the Keeper of the Great Seal, one of the most important men in all of England.’
    ‘But she is five and forty!’ I blurted before I had the sense to button my lip. I loved my aunt well but somehow, after Bett’s wedding, the thought of my aunt as a new bride seemed most unnatural.
    ‘What has age to do with it?’ My father was descending from his horse and handing the reins to a liveried groom. ‘She is no blushing maiden but she had a good fortune from her husband Sir John Wolley. Sir Thomas Egerton is a widower who needs a wife to organize his household. He offered her position and status. It is a good bargain for both.’
    And, without waiting for any comment from me on the sensible justification for such a marriage,