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where I had left off, at the fair. Soon I was totally absorbed. When I got to the ending tears streamed down my face. I was happy.
    Then I went back to the beginning, which I had missed as well, and read about Romeo, and how he had loved another before he met Juliet. It was cool in the room, and I hugged my knees under my long shift to keep warm. Just as I got to the place where they were meeting at the dance, I glanced up and realized it was getting light outside.
    I wanted so much to know what would happen at the dance. It reminded me of the young man at the fair.
    Reluctantly, I closed the book. I replaced all the books in the chest, pulled the door shut, and made my way back, the fabric of the tapestry scratching against my face. The return in the partial light was easier than my dark journey down. When I got to the room, Patience was asleep, and I tried not to disturb her, but the instant I sat on our straw mattress to swing my legs up she was wide awake. I told her everything, about the secret room and the play, and by the time I had finished there was scarcely any point in going to sleep.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    W HEN WE GOT up, it was time for morning prayers. Because the whole town was grieving for the Earl, we went across the way to the village church, instead of our usual services in the castle chapel.
    We made a procession with the Earl’s sister, Lady Arbella, and her husband leading the way; then Lady Elizabeth, the Earl’s mother, escorted by one of her other sons who had arrived in the night after hearing the news; then the Earl’s wife and children; and then Father and Mother and Simon. Finally, Sarah and Patience and Baby Mercy and I came, and behind us the personal servants to the Earl and his family.
    We walked along the moat. The smell was terrible, in spite of the two channels cut into it to carry the waste water away. The channels were very narrow, only about a foot and a half wide, too narrow to allow intruders access to the castle by boat. My brother Sam, however, had used the channels a year or two ago, to escape from the castle when he wanted to go out at night and knew our parents would not let him. He would wait until dark, drop from his room on a rope tied to the window, and go to his tiny punt, hidden under the weeds near the outdoor kitchen.
    Sam and a friend from the village used to take the boat through the fens. He had told me that he could get to the River Bain, and then to the Witham, which runs all the way to Boston, though it required a lot of poling through weeds. There was a tavern on the river that he and Charles favored over the one at the castle village. If they became rowdy, Father would have less chance of hearing about it. I thought of all this when I saw the corner of the punt peeking out from the weeds. I wondered whether Sam had heard the news about the Earl, at college, and if he would come home.
    We walked through the castle yard and over the moat on the drawbridge into the outer yards of the castle village — past the stables, the carriage house, the housing for the guards, and some abandoned buildings from earlier times.
    Then we were in the village proper, where the tenant farmers had their huts. We went by the tavern, the blacksmith, the ironmonger, and Davey’s bakery where I sometimes went for a roll. The smell of baking bread and the scent of some early wild roses helped to mask the smell of the moat.
    As I entered the church with Sarah’s hand in mine, I looked up and saw a spot of rat-brown color from the corner of my eye. I turned to see, standing at some distance, the beggar man from the fair. He was with the villagers hanging about the tavern. I had not thought of him in days, but there he was. I stopped dead in my tracks, Sarah stumbled and pulled my arm, and I almost fell. When I looked again the beggar was gone. Sarah called me a niggle-headed puppy, but my mind was in another place.
    The service was mournful. We sang two sad hymns, and the