Taking Wing

“Lullay My Liking”

Isabel has always sensed she is a great disappointment to Aunt Elinor. Everything she does seems to annoy Aunt Elinor. She reads poetry when she should be plying her needle, and invents long, enthralling stories in her head when she is meant to be studying the household accounts. She also runs through the streets like an urchin when she is supposed to glide silently from place to place like a swan.

Aunt Elinor insists she only wishes to discipline Isabel the way her own mother would have. But Isabel knows better. Mother never once sniffed at her as though she were a bad herring, nor told her she must learn to be a lady like Sabine. Yet Aunt Elinor manages to do both several times a day. Of all Father’s children, Isabel is the only one who takes after Mother. She suspects this makes her doubly precious to him, even if it does nothing to soften Aunt Elinor’s opinion of her.

In the parlor, Meg has set out cold meats, cheese, and home-baked bread to break the household’s fast, along with a small jug of beer. Father sits alone at the table, gazing out at the falling snow, his own bread and cheese untouched. He looks tired and strained, as if he, too, lay awake the night before remembering happier Christmases. When he notices Isabel, his face lights up. He wishes his poppet a merry Christmas, kissing her cheek, his beard prickling her skin.

Isabel kneels to receive Father’s blessing, as she does every morning and evening, and wishes him a merry Christmas in return. As a small girl, she used to believe all fathers smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon. Hers, after all, is a spice merchant whose work has carried him as far as the Indies, once for over a year at a stretch.

Holding her at arm’s length, Father remarks that her new kirtle makes her look even more like Mother than ever. Isabel has always known that resemblance is what makes her precious to him. When Aunt Elinor complains of her unladylike ways, Father simply says to let his little kitten have her fancies. He adds that she will be grown soon enough. Isabel used to take his indulgence for granted, but lately it leaves her feeling strangely cheated. She is humored like a favorite pet, and she longs for him to take her seriously instead.

Father senses the change in her mood and asks what ails her. Isabel claims quickly that she is only impatient to see Robert, who will not be home for hours yet. Amused, Father asks what that game was that she, Robert, and Sabine used to play so constantly. Isabel reminds him it was called Samarkand, an imaginary country they knew nothing about beyond how exciting and romantic it sounded.

Laughing, Father recalls how Mother’s best silk wrap always mysteriously went missing whenever they played, along with a suspicious quantity of spices from the kitchen. Those were their goods, Isabel explains merrily, carried over the high seas to Samarkand aboard a fine vessel. It was really their old nurse’s bed, chosen because it pitched about so realistically, like a ship in a storm. Once they reached the mysterious Orient, they traveled home along the Silk Road by pack mule, braving danger to bring silks and spices back for the queen.

Father remembers, still smiling, what an adventurous little girl she was. He also remembers how she used to insist that Robert read to her every night from an old book of travelers’ tales, even though it gave her nightmares. His voice trails off as he says she must miss Robert, especially now. Isabel says softly that she misses him every single day.

Father suggests she surprise Robert at the docks instead of waiting. Master Johnson is sure to release his apprentices early on Christmas Eve. Delighted, Isabel promises Sabine she will help with the Christmas preparations the moment she returns. Sabine, laughing, tells her she can drag in the Yule log. The two of them giggle, since they both know that job takes at least two strong men. The log is chosen every year for its great size. That way it will burn steadily throughout the twelve days of Christmas and bring good fortune to the household.

Isabel notices dark circles under Sabine’s eyes and feels a twinge of guilt at leaving her. But Sabine tucks a stray curl back under Isabel’s cap and insists she go, since everyone knows how she has been missing Robert. For a moment Sabine sounds just like her old self, the sweet-natured sister who once sat up with Isabel all night telling stories when she had the chicken pox and could not sleep for itching. Sabine was only nine then, three years younger than Isabel is now. Still, Isabel sometimes thinks Sabine was born grown up.

Before she leaves, Isabel finds Alice in the kitchen, mending by the fire with a basket of darning at her side. The old nurse’s face is drawn with pain, and Isabel kneels anxiously beside her, worried something is wrong. Alice waves off her concern, saying she is only stiff and cold in her bones now. But she will mend by feel just fine.

Isabel asks what she might buy Meg for Christmas. Alice’s wrinkled face softens at the mention of the season. But she cautions that Meg is poor and cannot read or write, and might not welcome a gift from a girl as fortunate as Isabel. Isabel protests that Meg cares regardless. She also thinks of the fine leather gloves Mother once gave Alice for Christmas, gloves the old nurse still wears with her jingling keys and trim blue dress. Alice relents, advising Isabel gently to leave Meg to make friends in her own time. On her way out, Sabine pinches Isabel’s cheek affectionately, teasing that Father has already told her Isabel is running off to the docks.

Aunt Elinor appears in the doorway to see her off, reminding her not to forget her pomander, which dangles from her own belt like an ornament. Isabel cannot resist teasing back, in her best dramatic actor’s voice, that contagion is no laughing matter. Aunt Elinor sniffs, unamused, that she is an impertinent child. Ever since she was a girl, when thousands lost their lives to a terrible outbreak, Aunt Elinor has lived in dread of the plague’s return. Even though no cases have been reported for years, her dread remains. Isabel privately suspects that if it were up to Aunt Elinor, she would never be allowed out of the house at all.

Pulling her hood close, Isabel sets off along the cobbled streets, her boots crunching through fresh snow, her breath flying out ahead of her in frosty plumes. The sun has turned Cheapside into something out of a fairy tale, every rooftop and gargoyle sparkling under fallen snow. Street sellers, jugglers, and musicians all compete for the coins of passersby. A crowd gathers to watch a fire-eater, his hair matted with filth, his chest bare despite the cold, plunge a blazing torch again and again into his mouth. Isabel watches in horror and fascination as coins rattle into his cap. Nearby, one old woman makes a sign against the evil eye.

Isabel hurries on past stalls selling roasted apples glossy with honey and gingerbread shaped like stars. Then she spots a peddler with a tray of sugar animals hung around his neck. She buys a small pink sugar sow with a litter of tiny piglets for Meg. The man wraps them carefully in gold tissue, declaring happily that even the queen loves sugar.

By the time the twisting streets bring Isabel down to the waterfront, she can see the spires of Southwark rising across the river. Aunt Elinor calls it a wild, lawless place, full of playhouses, unsavory taverns, gambling dens, and bear gardens. That only makes Isabel long more to see it for herself, especially the playhouse where Meg’s brother works. She envies Meg the chance to see a play whenever she has a day off. Passing workshops loud with sawing and hammering, Isabel’s fingers and toes go numb with cold by the time she reaches Master Johnson’s house.

Robert comes racing toward her with a sprig of bay tucked in his cap, calling her his little mouse and declaring she has grown so tall. When she protests that she has not grown an inch, he simply swings her off her feet until she shrieks with laughter. Arm in arm, they start for home.

Robert asks after the family. Isabel admits everything feels dull without him, that she would rather hear his news than share her own. He launches happily into an account of his new life, working Master Johnson into nearly every other sentence, just as he did when he came home at Michaelmas. Watching his long legs outpace her own, Isabel feels a twinge of jealousy. As children playing at spice traders, she and Robert were equals. But he is a man now, part of the real world of docks and shipbuilding that she can never enter.

Robert leads her a different way, wanting to show her something. Mid-complaint about Aunt Elinor comparing her unfavorably to Sabine, Isabel is cut off when Robert points across the choppy water, his voice full of wonder. Dipping and curtsying before them is the finest ship Isabel has ever seen, her name painted in gold and sapphire letters along her side, The Rosalind. A lump rises in Isabel’s throat when Robert explains that the ship belongs to Master Johnson. She understands, without being told, that these are the very masts and sails that will soon carry Robert away.

Robert explains that Master Johnson calls this a golden age for Englishmen, one in which courage and the wits God gave them can win the wonders of the world, like apples waiting to be picked. With a pang, Isabel asks if he is bound for the Indies like Father once was, sooner than she had realized. Robert reassures her, arm around her shoulders, that they will not set sail until after the New Year.

Bravely, Isabel teases that he will finally see the oliphants and cockodrills and strange headless men they used to read about together. Robert insists, though, that he is only going to buy spices for Master Johnson, not discover new lands. When she calls his bluff, he admits sheepishly that he cannot wait to go. Their teasing dissolves into a play fight, Robert snatching her hood as she chases him, laughing. Sensing she is still sad underneath it all, he cheers her the rest of the way home with tales of a fearsome pirate queen who once sailed the waters of the Americas, insisting even their own queen admires her.

By the time they reach home, both are pink-cheeked from their long walk in the snow. Robert is scandalized to find no one has yet brought in the Yule log. He and Father grunt and wrestle the huge, ivy-wrapped log through the door and onto the hearth. Father ceremoniously lights it with a piece of wood saved specially from last year’s log.

As the flames crackle and catch, sending a shower of blue sparks up the chimney, baby Hope claps her hands and cries out “Pretty, pretty,” her very first words. The whole family kisses and praises her. Hope looks astonished, as if she cannot understand what all the fuss is about.

Afterward, they roast chestnuts and drink mulled wine by the fire. Isabel takes down Father’s lute to play “Lullay My Liking,” her favorite carol, with everyone joining in, even Aunt Elinor. They sing “The Cherry Tree Carol” next, which is Father’s favorite. Then Hope grows drowsy and climbs onto Isabel’s lap to sleep.

Meg lays their best pewter and fine Venetian glass for a simple Christmas Eve supper of salt fish, winter greens, and good bread from Joan’s kitchen, followed by a bowl of golden frumenty glittering with sugar. The true feasting waits for tomorrow. Sabine and Isabel carry Hope upstairs and tuck her into the middle of their own bed before diving under the icy covers themselves, squeaking at the cold sheets. Sabine kisses Isabel’s cheek, whispers a merry Christmas, and snuffs out the candle.