Beloved Enemy (51 page)

S
NOW COATED THE ROOF
of the White Tower, blanketed London Bridge, shrouded Billingsgate and the steeple of St. Botolph’s. A chill wind blew gusts of wood smoke from the bonfires smoldering along the Thames embankment. Across the ice-covered river in Bermondsey, Bellebelle, holding her three-year-old son Geoffrey by the hand, trudged down the frozen road that led to her cottage. Suddenly Geoffrey stopped.

“Be something the matter, Son?”

“Look, Maman,” Geoffrey said, pointing excitedly. Her gaze followed the direction of his finger.

A group of boys, shinbones of horses tied to their feet, iron-shod wooden poles in their hands, were skating on the glazed surface of the river.

“You’d like to be doing that, wouldn’t you, lad?”

Geoffrey nodded vigorously, his eyes shining.

Bellebelle squeezed his hand. “One day you will. When you be older I’ll find someone to teach you.”

They continued on their way. A curve in the road took them out of sight of the river. Here the road followed a gentle incline then wound through fields on one side and a dark woodland on the other. The village they lived in was on the outskirts of Bermondsey, considered part of Bermondsey, but in fact lay in the next parish. Sometimes of a Sunday, like today, Bellebelle would take Geoffrey walking by the river just to catch sight of London on the other side. How she missed it; more than she had ever believed possible.

Bellebelle had just passed the house of her nearest neighbor when something hard suddenly hit her in the small of the back. She staggered, lost her footing, and slipped to the ground. Behind her she could hear muffled laughter. Turning, she caught sight of two boys, snowballs in hand, leering at her from the garden fronting their cottage. Geoffrey picked up a stone by the side of the road and started running toward the boys.

“Geoffrey, no!”

Terrified, for there were two of them, both bigger than her son, Bellebelle scrambled to her feet, more shaken than bruised from her fall, and ran after him.

“Son!”

He ignored her, drew back his arm, and threw the stone. It landed on the shoulder of one of the boys, who immediately set up a howl. Good for Geoffrey! Bellebelle could not resist a rush of intense satisfaction which turned to outraged disbelief when she spied the grinning face of the boys’ mother peeping out the cottage door.

“Whore,” the woman said, and spat at Bellebelle through rotting teeth.

“Why don’t you leave us alone!” Bellebelle cried. “What harm we ever done you?”

“King’s cunt! King’s cunt!” the boys taunted in unison before scuttling inside the cottage and slamming the door.

Geoffrey picked up several other stones and threw them, one after the other, at the closed door.

“Leave off that now.” Bellebelle grabbed the resistant Geoffrey by the wrist and, pulling him after her, began to run, her feet slipping on the icy path.

“Why do they always call you cunt or whore?” asked Geoffrey in a tight voice, looking up at her with Henry’s stormy gray eyes. “What does that mean? Why does everyone hate us?”

“You not be old enough to understand.”

“You always say that. When will I be old enough? I’m going to tell Father. He’ll make them stop.”

“You are to say nothing to anyone. T’wont do no good and might make things worse. Henry’s got his realm to worry about, he don’t need our troubles as well. Just leave it be.”

Bellebelle’s heart ached for young Geoffrey. Never, she wanted to say, not if you live an entire lifetime will you ever be old enough to understand the hurt some folks like to cause others. Ever since she could remember she had been the butt of taunts and jeers. It had been hard to bear when she was a child, but then she had had her mother and the company of the other whores to help share the pain. At twenty-three—or whatever she was—being treated like a—what was the word? yes, pariah, was still hurtful but now she had to face it alone, and protect Geoffrey as well.

This family, and many others in the village, either shunned or tormented her in small, mean ways, such as throwing snowballs or calling her names. They didn’t dare do more than that, knowing she was under the king’s protection. Although it had been all of four years since she left Gropecuntlane to become Henry’s mistress, sometimes Bellebelle wondered how much had really changed. She still felt helpless, not daring to fight back for fear of causing trouble. She only wished with all her heart there was just one person she could talk to.

Another fifteen minutes brought her to the small stone-and-wood house Henry had had built for her two years ago. Surrounded by a stone wall, it lay on a croft of land just off the road, backed by a stretch of thick woods. Along with the house there were sheds, a vegetable garden, and animal pens; outside the croft lay a stone well Henry had dug for her. The gate was ajar and she scurried through the small flower garden, the earth stiff as oak in this freezing month of February. She pushed open the door and with a sigh of relief shut it firmly behind her.

Geoffrey pulled off his wool cap and cloak then ran off to warm himself by the hearth. The huge gray wolfhound that had been sleeping by the fire rose, yawned, and stretched his back legs. Belle-belle closed her eyes for a moment, leaned against the stout wood of the door, and drew a deep shuddering breath. She was home; the dangers of the outside world could not touch her in the warmth and safety of this refuge Henry had provided for Geoffrey and her. “Light the candles,” Bellebelle said, “there’s a good lad.” Geoffrey obediently lit the three-branched pewter candlestick that stood on the oak chest near the door. The hall burst into light. Even after two years Bellebelle could hardly believe that this house belonged to her. Her gaze passed wonderingly over the hall, which also served as kitchen, stopped at the narrow staircase that led up to the bower, moved on to the thick walls hung with heavy linen cloth dyed blue, and decorated in red and green around the borders. From the wooden beams of the low ceiling bunches of herbs had been hung to dry. The room was filled with the combined smell of savory, basil, and rosemary.

A loud banging sound hurt her ears. Bellebelle turned to see Geoffrey standing in front of the fireplace where an iron pot hung from a rack over the burning logs. He had taken an iron poker and was beating first on the pot, then the black cauldron and kettle that stood on trivets before the hearth.

“What’s got into you?” Bellebelle ran over to him. “You’ll make me deaf, lad. Leave off that noise now.”

“I hate them,” Geoffrey cried. “I hate everyone in this village.” He started kicking the spit and skewer leaning against the chimney.

Bellebelle pulled Geoffrey tightly against her. “Hush now. I know,” she said softly. “I know how you feel. But hating don’t make the pain go away none. Don’t be letting the other folk bother you so much.”

“I want to knock them down and kick them and beat at them.” Tears of frustration blurred his eyes.

Bellebelle rocked him back and forth, her eyes on the stone chimney built into the wall, one of the very few in all of Bermondsey, remembering how proud of it she had once been. Until the day the alewife, a stout red-faced woman who brewed and sold ale in the village, had shouted at her that it was plain indecent that the king’s slut should have a chimney while respectable, God-fearing women did without. Now every time she looked at it she felt a surge of guilt. A fine one to preach at Geoffrey, she was.

“Why can’t I tell Father? Why?”

“I told you why. Now, go play with the chess set your father give you,” Bellebelle said, kissing the top of his head.

“Will it always be like this?”

“Of course not,” she said, wishing she could believe her own words. “One day soon we’ll—we’ll live somewheres else and folk’ll like us. You’ll see.”

“Why can’t it be now!”

“Because it can’t. You must learn to live with the way things be.” She tilted Geoffrey’s chin up and stared down into his tear-bright eyes. “You mustn’t have no wishbone where your backbone ought to be, Son. Always remember that.”

She released him and watched while he ran off to fetch the chess set.

Like her son, Bellebelle was miserable in the village but didn’t see how she could ever bring herself to leave her home. Henry, who complained the space was so small he could not breathe, had no sooner seen this house completed than he wanted to build her another, grander one, but Bellebelle had told him that, for her, this house was grander than any palace.

Now she took off the cloak lined with ginger fox fur that Henry had given her last Christmas, and hung it carefully on the wooden pole protruding from the wall. She walked back to the hearth. This evening they were having for their supper the remains of a stewed partridge, cooked with onions, cabbage, and parsley. Bellebelle took the long-handled spoon Geoffrey had left on the floor and stirred the bubbling mixture in the iron pot.

When she had first moved to the village, a year after giving birth to Geoffrey in the lodging near St.-Martin-le-Grand in London, Bellebelle had not known the first thing about how to care for her new house. She had almost ruined the garden by pulling out all the vegetables and leaving the weeds, then forgetting to water the flowers in the hot weather. The animals terrified her; even the prize wolfhound Henry gave her made her uneasy. She had been convinced the hens would attack and feared to collect their eggs. The first time she tried to milk the nanny goat Henry had brought her, the beast kicked over the bucket and butted Bellebelle in the stomach. She had run screaming into the house. Henry had laughed ’til he cried.

When he discovered she could not sew, embroider, weave, make simples, or brew herbs to heal, he was dumbfounded. Bellebelle could not tell him that all she was able to do was please men, cure certain ailments of a female’s private parts, or prevent babies—the last never wholly successful, her son being ample evidence of that.

Since all her meals in Southwark and Gropecuntlane had been fetched from a nearby cookshop, she had been, as Henry put it, hopeless in the kitchen—almost burning down the house in an effort to light a fire in the hearth and trying to grill a rabbit without first skinning it. Henry had promptly ordered the steward of his Saxon manor house in Bermondsey to hire a local couple to help her several times a sennight. The woman cooked, laundered, tended the garden and animals, and helped with the inside chores while her husband split the logs, did the rough work outside, and brought in the food. This left Bellebelle with little to do and often she thought she’d go witless if she didn’t find something to occupy her.

Henry seemed amused rather than offended by her clumsiness and ignorance.

“God’s eyes, what a terrible wife you’d make someone, Belle,” he told her. “Now Eleanor, who was brought up in the most luxurious surroundings, with hordes of servants at her beck and call, can do anything and everything women are meant to do, and what most men can do besides—not that I’d ever tell her so. It’s not easy living up to such a paragon, let me tell you.”

At her look of dismay, Henry had grabbed her by the waist and swung her up into his arms with a resounding kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Not to fret. You survived by hawking your wares around the streets and there’s not many of us who could do that. Anyway, poppet, you’re the perfect
maîtresse
—restful, serene, always willing to listen and to please—” He winked at her.

Bellebelle was not really offended when he compared her to Eleanor. It was only fitting that the woman she worshipped above all others would be able to do everything perfectly. But how she wished her early life had been different; how much better she would feel about herself if she could do the things ordinary women did so easily.

Bellebelle did not like the couple who still came each sennight, and wanted to be rid of them, but she could not bring herself to tell Henry. What reason could she give? They did their work well enough, but were taciturn and sullen, speaking only when spoken to. It was from these two, Bellebelle guessed—although she had no proof—that talk about Henry and herself must have spread to the village. It struck her as being wicked that those who took Henry’s bounty should serve him so ill by gossiping behind his back.

Bellebelle never told Henry how the villagers treated her—the men eyeing her with hot glances, the women jeering and spiteful, the folk who ran the market stalls looking down their noses at her—and he was never there long enough to see for himself. Sometimes she would not see him for months on end. When he did come, he grew restless after a few days and was soon off again. Their times together were so brief and precious, he had been so good to her, she hated to spoil them with complaints.

Mustn’t grumble. She was safe, no longer had to whore to earn her bread, and had Geoffrey to love and care for. When she felt the aching loneliness, badly missing the company of the whores, the jolly banter, even the excitement of the tavern, she had only to think of the mindless drudgery of her life at Gropecuntlane to be reminded that she was blessed, the most fortunate whore in all England.

From time to time Bellebelle felt tempted to tell Henry the truth about her past but somehow she never could find the right words to explain why she’d lied to him. It had been a small thing to start with, but over the years she had buried the truth beneath a blanket of half-lies. Sometimes she herself couldn’t remember what was true and what she’d made up.

She took two earthenware plates from the stack on a wooden bench beside the hearth, filled them with stew, and set them on the trestle table. Next she fetched a clay jug of ale, two wooden cups, a straw basket of oat cakes, and two bone-handled knives.

“Time to eat, Geoffrey,” Bellebelle said, pulling up two wooden stools.

He nodded and came to the table, three of the heavy chessmen clutched in his arms. Although only three, Geoffrey was well advanced for his years and Henry was already starting to teach him the game. One day he had appeared with a board of inlaid wood covered with gilt-and-silver squares and the ivory chessmen. When Bellebelle asked him where it came from, Henry had told her it belonged to his mother whose first husband, an emperor, had given it to her when she was not much older than Geoffrey. The boy played for hours with the king and queen in ceremonial robes, the knight fighting a dragon, and, his favorite, the bishop with his miter.