The Tudor Triangle

Chapter 21 The Abyss

Saturday 14th September, 1560

Dunstable

The next thing she knew, she became aware of the dawn light. Her eyes flickered open but shut immediately as the brightness hit them.   There was an awful stench and she heard the sound of feet. Who was there? Remembering the night before, her heartbeat quickened with fear. She tried to sit up but her stomach cramped in protest at the sudden movement.

Someone was mopping her face with cool water. She opened her eyes again.

Thank God. It was Tom. She gratefully drifted back into a hazy sleep.

A few hours later and she could focus properly. Tom was crouched down, washing the floor from where she had been sick.  Her sore stomach churned at the thought. He turned to her and she saw a deep cut above his eye. The sight of congealed blood was shocking, proof of last night's horror.

"Tom, I am so ..."

He held up his hand for silence.

"Thank you," her tired eyes filled easily at his unwarranted generosity.  Images of the terror of last night came flashing into her mind. She could still smell the man's foul breath upon her, feel his hands pinning her to the wall and the horror of feeling so helpless.

"Are they gone?" Her eyes darted around the room.

"I'd imagine they are," said Tom simply.

Katherine then remembered the strange sight of Tom pounding the mans face, red lifeblood covering his fist.  She could see he had torn off some fabric and wrapped it around his hand, which was bruised and still bloody.

Tom saw her looking at it and stood up. 

"I am sorry for it," he said, rubbing the hand. "It is my cross to bear. I will carry it as our Lord carried his. I have not strayed in anger like that for twenty years or more. The last time was with the Abbot of St Mary's." Tom's words spilled out quickly, to Katherine he sounded angry and looked agitated.  He paced up and down as he talked. It was at odds with the slowpaced man of yesterday.

 Tom shook his head. "I could not believe he was just going to leave without a fight to save his own fat skin. I flew at him, I could have killed him, I would have..." As his voice trailed off he sat down on a stool, it was as if he wore a cloak of sorrow. His shoulders hunched forward.

Katherine listened, astounded that gentle Tom hid such innate anger. She had heard of Thomas Rowland, the last Abingdon Abbot who had ended his days comfortably in Cumnor. Even Mrs Forster had once remarked he had been 'the King's creature, never Gods.' No wonder Tom had resented the man who had dissolved his beloved Abbey so readily, to secure his own future. Men like Tom France had been turfed out with nothing, she thought.

"My temper has been my curse since birth. My vanity allowed me to think I had it conquered and then...last night."

"But Tom, you had good cause, you were just protecting me." 

"No. I could have just hauled him off you.  I wanted to hit him and then... I didn't want to stop."

Katherine could not argue with that, she could see he had been out of control. Her head pounded, it was the vagabonds who were to blame, wasn't it?  Confused images floated into the head, then one of her drinking would not go away. She had drank too much, for the first time in her life she had given into a terrible weakness.  How could she have been so stupid? She knew the damage it could do to a person, her father's violence was ingrained upon her. Yet still, she deliberately drank on. If she had not been such a foolish girl none of it would have happened.