Jack was surprised. “I give you twelve pennies a week. I only make twenty-four.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You live alone—you don’t need as much.”
Jack thought this was rather unreasonable. “But a laborer only gets sixpence a week—and some of them have five or six children!”
Aliena looked cross. “Jack, I don’t know how laborers’ wives keep house—I never learned. And I don’t spend anything on myself. But you have dinner here every day. And there’s Richard—”
“Well, what about Richard?” Jack said angrily. “Why doesn’t he support himself?”
“He never has done.”
Jack felt that Aliena and Tommy were enough of a burden for him. “I don’t know that Richard is my responsibility!”
“Well, he’s mine,” she said quietly. “When you took me on you took him too.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that!” he said angrily.
“Don’t be cross.”
It was too late: Jack was already cross. “Richard is twenty-three years old—two years older than I am. How come I’m keeping him? Why should I eat dry bread for breakfast and pay for Richard’s bacon?”
“Anyway, I’m pregnant again.”
“What?”
“I’m having another baby.”
Jack’s anger evaporated. He seized her hand. “That’s wonderful!”
“Are you glad?” she said. “I was afraid you’d be angry.”
“Angry! I’m thrilled! I never knew Tommy when he was tiny—now I’ll find out what I missed.”
“But what about the extra responsibility, and the money?”
“Oh, to hell with the money. I’m just bad-tempered because we have to live apart. We’ve got plenty of money. But another baby! I hope it’s a girl.” He thought of something, and frowned. “But when ... ?”
“It must have been just before Prior Philip made us live apart.”
“Maybe on Halloween.” He grinned. “Do you remember that night? You rode me like a horse—”
“I remember,” she said with a blush.
He gazed at her fondly. “I’d like to do you now.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
They held hands across the table.
Richard came in.
He threw the door open and walked inside, hot and dusty, leading a sweating horse. “I’ve got bad news,” he said, panting.
Aliena picked Tommy up off the floor to get him out of the way of the hooves. Jack said: “What’s happened?”
“We must all get out of Kingsbridge tomorrow,” he said.
“But why?”
