Chapter Nineteen #4
‘But did ye see the monkey? Like a little old man he was! Never seen the like.’
‘Ah, he were nothing more than a child dressed up I reckon.’
‘A child with a tail? Get away with ya!’
They laughed then sat down, backs against the boat. Linnet held her breath, she didn’t want to be found here.
‘And that singer – what he was singing about, eh?’
They talked for a while about what they could do to the women they knew, laughing about their friend who was too shy to do a thing.
‘Should have bought him one of the ballad sheets – that’d learn him what he needs to do!’
‘Did ye hear the singer saying it were a woman scribe who’d drawn them up for him? Bet she were blushing by the end of it.’
Linnet nearly sat upright but the size of the boat stopped her just in time. How stupid she’d been. Now this would be part of his performing, a woman scribe writing these filthy words. If Guy heard of it, he’d know she’d been nearby.
The men walked off and Linnet lay there, in the dark of the boat, confused and trapped, with no clear path ahead of her.
Isabelle was whining again, asking for food before they left the town, dragging her heels, coughing a little too. This adventure was proving a bit too tiring perhaps. They passed by the tavern and Linnet asked for some stale bread.
They were finishing it when a voice called out.
‘Scribe lady!’ She’d not given the singer her name. She wasn’t sure why, maybe just out of learnt caution.
‘You bound for Berwick? Want to travel with me? I could use a scribe and a pretty one at that.’ That last was courtesy, not especially sincere.
‘Bring your daughter too, of course.’
Isabelle opened her mouth and Linnet pinched her.
‘No, we’re going south now. My girl and me, we’re off to find my aunt and bide with her a while.’
‘Pity, well if we chance upon each other again, I’ll take more of your sheets. I did well out of those yesterday.’
She had sown a seed. In case Guy was asking, he’d hear about a female scribe, yes, but one with a daughter too old to be his, and one going south.
They went out on the south road, before circling round by the sea and turning back up to Lindisfarne again.
‘You tells a lot of lies, Linnet.’
‘Well sometimes you have to, to keep safe.’
The child nodded. That was common sense to her.
The walk was long but they made good time and arrived at Seahouses before dark where one of the island fishermen was visiting a friend.
He offered to take them back up the coast to the Priory next day on his boat, tides not right now, and his friend had room, so they stayed.
The talk was all of the Inspector. He appeared to have settled in to the Priory and made himself very much at ease over the last few weeks, as if it were now his home.
‘He’s got sores on his bum, can’t ride, so will be staying a while. He’s putting Prior Richard’s nose out of joint. That novice, he’s been causing all kinds of strife too, allus wanting to know what all the Brothers are up to, reporting back to his master na doubt.’
The fishermen were like the rest of the islanders, always ready to gossip about the monks who thought they owned the whole isle.
Linnet asked more questions, wondering what had been happening while they’d been away nigh on a week. Apparently the Inspector was giving talks every evening in the Chapter House. Most of the monks were attending but those that didn’t had to explain their absence the next day.
‘And Prior Richard is letting that happen?’ She had always thought of him as a strong leader of the monks, using discipline lightly, only where needed.
‘He’s in a black humour, for certain. Always in his parlour doing something with herbs and that.
Some say it’s the deaths there’s bin. A drowning, poor Brother Maykin and the stones, and a self-killing in short order is bad luck, isn’t it?
And he’s been looking for you, missy.’ He poked Isabelle.
‘Didn’t know you was travelling with Linnet here, did he? And away nearly a week!’
Isabelle wasn’t paying a lot of attention. She was looking out the door, whistling lightly, hoping for Pol to hear her, Linnet realised.
The boat ride the next day was smooth. The Priory rose up from the gentle hills of the island like a commanding voice, if one dwarfed by the rocky outcrop behind it.
Linnet admired the shape of the island, that long spit of land and the curves about it.
Even in winter there were evergreen grasses on it, mosses and shiny stones, birds and the rabbits from the coney.
Isabelle bounced about in the boat, delighted to be coming home.
She felt a pang of envy. Even though Isabelle was alone amongst the islanders, she belonged to them, and to the Abbey and the fields, to the island itself.
Sometimes Linnet felt her journeys had added things to her – like the words on a parchment roll.
Sometimes she felt like she’d lost parts of her everywhere she’d been, a drop of blood from a blister here, a fragment of shoe left on the road there, people who could have been friends.