The Bridled Tongue by Catherine Meyrick

Author:Catherine Meyrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Witchcraft accusations, Witch trials, 16th century, Elizabethan England, Elizabethan Romance, Tudor England, Tudor Romance, Love story, Arranged marriage, Sisters, Spanish Armada, Gossip, Slander
Publisher: Courante Publishing
Published: 2020-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

July 1588

A cart carrying stores from London brought news of bands of apprentices training in the streets and of merchants preparing for battle. The carter said that in every village he had passed through, men and women stood ready for what may come when the great Spanish fleet, outnumbering the English two to one, finally attacked.

Alyce began each day with a prayer and ended it with the same prayer: for Thomas and for all those on the sea and on land defending their country. She knew she should accept God’s will, whatever it may be, but she could not. Instead, she prayed, fervent and unceasing, for her husband’s return—safe and whole.

As she rode past the village green where Haines oversaw the drilling of the husbandmen and farmers of Ashthorpe, she thought of Norwich’s Strangers who had arrived from the Low Countries when she was a girl and their tales of slaughter and brutality at the hands of the Spanish. She barely comprehended the barbarities they had suffered. Her hand slid to the dagger hanging from her girdle, hidden in the folds of her skirt, and prayed she would never need it.

July drew towards its close and the able-bodied men of the manor, together with those of Sir Philip’s, set out for London to join the army of the Earl of Leicester at Tilbury. They were men Alyce knew by name, men whose families were part of the daily round at Ashthorpe. The minds and hearts of every person left behind stretched after them in fervent prayer.

Then, as July became August, winds and storms raged on the sea and the great fleet of the King of Spain, the greatest ever assembled, was defeated by the English naval forces, and the Protestant wind sent by God blew the ships away. They were saved. All across England bells rang out, bonfires crackled and fireworks flared.

By the end of August, the men had returned safe, not a shot fired. They told how they had seen the Queen, a goddess in silver and white riding her magnificent white horse. She had spoken to them, words meant for each and every one, a memory to stay with them all their days. They had seen London, marched through its streets cheered by its masses. In the village decked out with pennants, it was no different. They crowded into the Ashthorpe’s church and thanked God for their deliverance. The bells pealed, the men come home let off their muskets in salute, the music played and there was dancing and celebration.

~

Alyce took the casting bottle from her cabinet and sprinkled lavender water on her wrists, rubbing them together. She traced her finger over the engraved pattern on the silver mounting of the bottle of yellow-green glass and thought of Thomas. He had given her the bottle when he had arrived home last December. She placed it back on the cabinet, picked up his miniature lying there and went to the window, where the light was brighter. She had

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