Treason's Daughter by Antonia Senior Read Free Book Online

don’t know,’ she says simply.
    Suddenly, they are both laughing.
    â€˜Cum-twang!’ says Anne again. ‘Where, in all that is holy, did you hear that?’
    â€˜If I tell, you must swear, on all that is dear to you, that you will keep my secret.’
    â€˜I swear.’
    So Hen tells her about becoming Cesario, about the joy of pulling on her brother’s breeches and sauntering through London. Of seeing the street boys fighting and hollering, of eavesdropping on the watermen, and vaulting walls. Of sitting on a low wall behind an alehouse in Southwark, reeling from its triple strength brew. Of the thrill of nearly being caught when old Mr Birch, slipping furtively out of a Southwark stew, saw her and paused, confused. Of sitting with Sam on the bridge as the sun set over a seething city, dappling the Thames with its blood-red light.
    There is a pause when her tale finishes. The moon shines into the room and she can see her cousin’s outline, the profile of her face and her knees pulled up under the blankets.
    â€˜I won’t tell,’ says Anne solemnly. ‘I promise. My brother and his friends when they swear it, they clasp hands like this.’ She reaches out, palm outstretched, and they clasp hands, thumbs entwined. ‘Now,’ Anne says, ‘I swear it on the blood of my mother, on the heads of my brothers.’
    Hen smiles and squeezes her cousin’s hand.

CHAPTER FOUR
    E DWARD CHALLONER WISHES HE HAD NOT BROUGHT HIS friend to meet the family. The coach rumbles towards his uncle’s house, and already he regrets his diffident suggestion to Will that they might escape their college for a few days. He sits backwards to the direction of travel, watching his father and Will on the opposite seat talk too companionably, too easily.
    His father’s coarseness, his joviality, the way his belly trembles when he laughs at his own jokes – all are too much to be borne. Ned feels the embarrassment so acutely it manifests itself as a physical squirming, a twisting away from the joke, from the innuendo, from whatever jollity his father has dreamt of now.
    Will, the dear fellow, appears not to be showing the distaste he must feel. He is all affability. Yet what must he think? The ripeness of the atmosphere, compared to the austerity of their college life, is too much. Even the shock of switching from Latin to English, with all its possibilities for vulgarity, all its twists and imprecisions, is grating on Ned. Surely it must irritate Will?
    He runs a hand across his pumiced face, feeling for the tender spots where the stone decapitated his pimples. Fewer nowthan last year, perhaps. The travelling covers are down against the late spring rain, and it is unbearably hot in the carriage. He feels the sweat prickling down his back, an itchiness across his whole body. He has visited the house before, and knows the spot where he will swim in the river later, and he thinks on it with joy. Is it sinful, to anticipate pleasure with such relish?
    The rain draws off, and the coachman opens the covers, letting in a delicious lick of cold air as they trundle on. They pull up, at last, and the sound of their approach has brought assorted dogs and children yapping into the driveway. He sees his aunt holding herself stiffly on the steps, and his uncle planting his feet in a wide proprietorial stance. And here is Henrietta, rounding the house, arm in arm with Cousin Anne. There are flowers in their hair, and grass stains on their dresses, and their laughter carries above even the crunch of the wheels on the gravel. Ned knows he should disapprove of their disarray, of their clear frivolity, but he finds an unexpected smile on his face as they run towards the carriage, whooping like children.
    Uncle Robert’s booming cry greets them as they step down from the coach: ‘What news, what news?’
    â€˜Parliament is dissolved, Uncle,’ says Ned, after the introductions. ‘And the