Prophecy by S.J. Parris

Author:S.J. Parris
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780385531313
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-03T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

MORTLAKE, SOUTHWEST LONDON.

1ST OCTOBER, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1583

Out on the river, I find a moment of calm to unravel my tangled thoughts for the first time in what seems like days. The rain clouds have hastened the dusk, and I sit in the prow of the little wherry wrapped in my cloak and a curtain of thin drizzle, lulled by the rhythm of the oars, looking out at the lights winking from windows of the riverside buildings. I have been fortunate in finding one of the few boatmen who doesn’t feel the need to fill the journey with idle chatter; his lantern sways on its hook as he pulls against the tide and in the absence of voices, my thoughts return again to Marie’s behaviour this morning. My refusing her, with the best of intentions, has left me at her mercy, should she decide to make trouble for me. Perhaps it would have been easier to offer her some encouragement, allow her some small measure of what she wanted. In that moment of closeness, when she had leaned in to kiss me, my body had remembered what it was to be touched. It was some months since I had kissed a woman, and that had not ended well. What I had told Marie was true—my years in the Dominican order had at least taught me to master desire, to subdue the stubborn cravings of the body. But no amount of self-discipline can blot out loneliness from the heart. The life I have chosen—or had forced upon me, I am never sure which—offers little opportunity for intimacy of any kind. A writer, especially a writer in exile, must learn to be self-contained, to be content within his own mind, and for the most part I am so. But there is always, somewhere inside, however muted, the dull ache of a longing that I sometimes fear will be a lifelong companion. If I were a different man, I might have had no qualms about Marie; a man like Douglas, I imagine, would not think twice about taking any woman who offered herself. But apart from my loyalty to Castelnau, there is a coldness in Marie that instinctively repels me, even while her obvious attractions draw me in. Inevitably, my thoughts drift back to Sophia Underhill, the last woman I had held in my arms, the one whose mind and beauty had pierced my careful defences only a few months ago. I wonder where she is now and whether she has found some happiness.

Usually when my thoughts tend along this path, I can rein them back by setting my mind to work through the ordered paces of my memory wheel. This evening the images all metamorphose into a picture of Marie’s lips; as a remedy, it is not especially effective.

As a result, I arrive in Mortlake as soaked in melancholy as in drizzle. Dusk has fallen and along the riverbank the shapes of dwellings and trees grow indistinct, blurred by rain against a grey sky.

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