The Knot
An extraordinarily evocative story of obsession, love and secrets, THE KNOT holds at its heart the struggle of one man: Henry Lyte. Spanning twelve years, 1565-1578, Henry struggles with his life’s work, the translation of a Herbal which lists, for the first time, every herb, against the backdrop of his heart’s desire, the creation of a perfect, beautiful garden at the heart of which lies the Knot.After the tragic death of his much-loved first wife Anys, Henry falls in love again and brings Frances home to Lytes Cary. She struggles to come to terms with life in the remote rural setting of the Levels in Somerset, and feels the threat of the watery landscape despite Henry’s efforts to show her how the landscape he loves can bring her happiness. Henry’s father is not happy about his second marriage however, and the tensions within the family grow.Just as Henry finds a precarious equilibrium, in his intellectual and emotional lives, this sense of balance is shattered by his father’s unexpected death and the unleashed malevolence of Henry’s step-mother, Joan Young, begins.
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JANE BORODALE
The Knot
Dedication
For my grandmothers, who both had green fingers
Epigraph
The good and vertuous Physition, whose purpose is rather the health of many, than the wealthe of himselfe, will not (I hope) mislike this my enterprise, which to this purpose specially tendeth, that even the meanest of my Countrymen, (whose skill is not so profound, that they can fetch this knowledge out of strange tongues, nor their abilitie so wealthy, as to entertaine a learned Physition) may yet in time of their necessitie have some helps in their owne, or their neighbors fields and
gardens at home.
henry lyte, A Niewe Herball
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
THE FIRST PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
THE SECOND PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Chapter XVII.
Chapter XVIII.
THE THIRD PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Chapter XVII.
THE FOURTH PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
THE FIFTH PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
THE SIXTH PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
THE SEVENTH PART
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
THE EIGHTH PART
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Also by Jane Borodale
Copyright
THE FIRST PART
The Place
1565
Chapter I.
Of BORAGE. Which endureth the winter like to the common Buglosse. The stalke is rough and rude, of the height of a foote and halfe, parting it selfe at the top into divers small branches, bearing faire and pleasant flowers in fashion like starres of colour blewe or Azure and sometimes white.
TWO HOURS OF DIGGING, and Henry Lyte still feels that unrecognizable discomfort.
Like a slight tipping, washing inside him, a darkish fluid lapping at his inner edges as though in a dusk, yet when he turns to it; nothing, nothing. Perhaps he is about to be unwell. Perhaps the Rhenish wine last night at supper was old or tainted, or he had too much of it.
A man of nearly thirty-six with all his health should not be troubled by sudden, unspecifiable maladies. Being at work on the garden out in the fresh air should be enough of a wholesome antidote to sitting hunched and bookish in his study, over his new, impossible manuscript that is going so slowly. There is satisfaction to be had from being outside instead, slicing and turning the light brown, clayish soil, breaking it into the kind of finer ground he needs for planting. The day has been good for October, bursts of rain giving way to bright sunshine, yet still it is not enough to distract Henry Lyte from being so ill at ease. He decides that as he can’t place the sensation, nor what provoked it, he will try to ignore whatever it is. Probably nerves, he thinks. It is not every day that a man is due to ride up to London to collect his new wife. His second wife, and they have been married for three months already, but she has not been to Lytes Cary yet. Within the week her postponed marital life and duties with Henry are to begin. He leans on his spade and considers the hulk of the manor house, the sky to the north dark behind, and wonders what she will make of it.
Lytes Cary Manor is made of limestone, a modest huddle of yellow gables and chimneys embedded comfortably on a mild slope of arable land where the Polden hills begin to rise up out of the damp flatness of the floodplain that is the Somerset Levels. The estate itself spreads down onto the damp moor in several places, but most of it sits on higher ground over a knoll in the crook of a bend in the river Cary, as far as Broadmead and Sowey’s Fields, then out onto the lower, uncertain ground of Carey Moor. Lytes Cary stands on the very brink of the Levels, and in winter these marshy acres to the south-west are inundated with shallow salty water from the sea and can be traversed only by boat. The Mendip hills are high and blue in the distance to the north, to the far south-west are the Quantocks, and to the near west, at about seven leagues off lies Bridgwater Bay, with its bustling port and the wide murky sea that stretches to Wales.
About the house sit diverse barns, the malthouse and dovehouse, and tenants’ cottages, many put up in his father’s time. Henry can still remember improvements being made to the house when he was a boy. The adjacent manor of Tuck’s Cary is almost uninhabited, just a handful of tenants, since Henry’s brother Bartholomew died of a pleurisy four years ago. There is also a hop yard, two windmills and several withy beds.
