Seeds of Time

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Although she was a decent rider, the journey to Kenilworth was indeed arduous for Meg. 100 miles on horseback? She wasn’t sure her thighs would ever meet again. If that was not enough indignity, once at the castle she then had to endure a rowboat ride across the mere, to get to his retreat, named the Plesance on the Marsh. Here he had total privacy, he told her, for while it was a banqueting house, the difficulty in reaching it ensured solitude from all those but the expressly invited.

It was a two storey, four sided, wattle and daub building, with a central garden, and she loved it on sight.

Hal had readied a work room for her and as promised, it was furnished with apothecary apparatus which she could use to conduct experiments and manufacture drugs, for while she was not a chemist, she was sure she could learn to make a few helpful things. One of the first things she did was to begin growing cultures of penicillin. After two weeks, the mould could be filtered out and the liquid suspension that the mould had grown on could be dried into a powder.

She was also trying to produce gunpowder, which was ridiculously easy to make, requiring only sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre. It could then be fashioned into grenades or petards, which might be useful in his war with France. She also recalled Greek fire, which was some kind of oily gunpower made with pitch (she thought) and useful for burning villages to the ground since it clung to whatever structures it hit and being an oil fire, couldn’t be put out with water. She was sure that with enough time, she could fashion something similar, and for the hundredth time since she arrived here, she wished she’d studied chemistry rather than biology.

Considering that Hal could no longer use marriage to Catherine to make a treaty with France, she felt that helping him in some small way, was the least she could do.

She did worry that her intervention might change things though. Luckily, she could remember few details of his battles to be able to tell him anything which might alter his actions on the day, but everyone knew of his victory at the Battle of Agincourt. Was it possible that in trying to help, she could do something that might negate that victory?

She would vow not to tell him of the gun powder until after he returned from his first foray into France, so that she could be sure he would be successful.

Then the next moment she would argue herself out of that resolve, since his victory might be even easier with grenades, and what if just by knowing him, she had already somehow changed how he might behave on the battlefield?

She left her lab, as she called it (although it paled in comparison to her old university laboratory) in the afternoons to meet with Hal and today they walked in the grounds for a while.

“How dost thou like Pleasance?” he asked as they strolled arm in arm around one of the diamond moats. Given how remote this place was, Hal felt free to be open in his affection with her, so they didn’t have to hide their relationship for while there were servants here, he knew they could be trusted.

“It’s beautiful,” she said and in the warm June sun, it was one of the prettiest places she had ever seen.

“And thy homesickness?”

“Is easing,” she assured him, resting her head on his shoulder. “As much as I miss my time, everything there was so rushed. I had literally every labour saving device you could ask for, from a dishwasher, to a phone, email, a car, yet I was always rushing, never enough time in the day to get everything done. Here, as much as the difficulties frustrate me sometimes, I’ve had to learn to relax, and I think I like it.”

“I’m glad.” He smiled. “Thou hast seemed happier since we arrived here.”

“I think the lab had something to do with it,” she admitted. “It’s nice to be able to do something useful.”