I MADE MY WAY DOWN THE steps. When I came into the tavern room I received a further shock. The tables had been smashed. Benches were split. The serving counter was overturned. The tankards in which the ale and wine were served lay tumbled about. Many were broken.
Midst the ruins sat Widow Daventry. She was slumped and weeping. Her linen cap lay on the floor. Her hair, undone, hung down over her broad back. Her smock was torn.
Afraid to make my presence known, I stood motionless on the threshold of the room, trying to grasp what had happened. I must have made a sound, for the woman started and shifted her bulk around. She saw me and quickly turned away. But it was enough for me to see the bruises on her face, her red-rimmed eyes, her hollow mouth from which trickled a spike of blood. She gulped for air, and her crying ceased.
When I went and stood by her side, she lifted her head, looked at me, and raised a hand, once, twice, as if to pump up words. None came. It was as if she had been emptied of all life.
“Good Widow,” I stammered, “what … happened here?”
“Soldiers,” she lisped faintly. “From the palace. They’re searching for you.”
“Will they return?”
“Perhaps,” she said wearily.
Though I quickly decided not to tell her I had been in the house, I hardly knew what to say. “If … they find me,” I asked, hoping she would give me a different answer, “what will they do?”
“Kill you,” she said. Groaning with the effort, she came to her feet and surveyed the wreckage with a dazed look. When she spied her cap upon the floor, she picked it up and poked her fingers through its rents.
“Do you know why?” I said.
Disgusted, she tossed the cap away. “Best ask Bear.”
“Bear’s … been taken,” I said.
She swung around. “By whom?”
“The soldiers.”
“When?”
Diminished as she already was, my news reduced her even more. Clumsily, she righted a bench and sat down heavily. Her own weight seemed too much for her. “Tell me what happened.”
I told her all.
She listened intently, muttering sacred prayers along with profanities below her breath.
When I’d done, she said, “May Jesus protect him,” and made the sign of the cross. Then her shaking fingers sought her rosary beads.
I said, “What will happen to him?”
“A loving God will grant a speedy death,” she said, squeezing her hands together. Tears began to run down her sunken cheeks again. With a hasty, agitated gesture, she wiped them away.
I stood there awkwardly, hardly able to breath. I said, “I heard John Ball cry out that he was betrayed.”
The woman spat upon the floor. “Beware all men who confuse their righteousness with the will of God. They probably don’t even know that Ball was here. It’s you they want. I warned Bear.”
She went back to gazing about the wreckage as if still unable to believe what she saw.
“Widow,” I said, “what should I do?”
At first she didn’t answer. Then she said, “You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. For you and me. They’ll try to get Bear to say where you are. But even if they make him reveal where you are, since they already searched this place and didn’t find you, they may not believe him. In any case, Bear will try not to say anything to harm you. He cares too much for you.”
Then she added, “But even the strongest can be broken by torture.”
“Torture!” I cried.
“Tonight, after curfew,” she went on, “you must escape from town. In the meanwhile don’t even come into this room. Stay upstairs. Did Bear show you where to hide?”
I nodded.
“Go on then. That’s where you need to be.”
I climbed the steps and returned to the room. After slipping inside the tiny hiding space, I closed myself in, welcoming the darkness as the only safe companion to my despair. So much bad had happened, and all because of me.