Shroud of Shadow (17 page)

Claire was apparently conducting an impromptu inventory of the kitchen supplies, for her eyes were continually flicking back and forth from Martha (who was scurrying from drawer to cupboard to sack to barrel), to the drawers and cupboards and sacks and barrels themselves (which Martha opened and unlatched and held up and lifted so as to display their contents), to the wax tablet she held (which was covered with minute entries denoting what she had ascertained to be in the drawers and cupboards and sacks and barrels as a result of Martha's opening and unlatching and holding up and lifting).

“How much?” Claire's voice was flat, heavy, like a damaged trumpet.

“Fifty pounds, ma'am.”

“Fifty? Are you sure? Let me see.” Claire's eyes abruptly ceased their flicking and screwed themselves into a tight focus as though to seize Martha by the neck and wring the truth from her like water from a sheet. “Looks to me like forty-nine,” she said at last. She made the entry on her tablet, and her eyes resumed flicking. “And that: how much?”

And Martha, who was not a young woman, climbed up on stools and ladders, and went down on hands and knees, and stretched herself on tiptoe in order to fulfill the rain of demands made by Claire and her tablet.

After a minute, though, Claire suddenly became aware of Eudes and his charge. “What's this?” she said, turning as though to examine yet another drawer, cupboard, sack, or barrel. “Why, this must be the new girl!”

Martha, panting, leaned against a counter and wiped her streaming face with her apron. She mustered a weak nod and a weaker smile at Omelda.

“Oh, isn't she the cutest little thing!” Claire was saying, her damaged trumpet of a voice apparently containing an equally damaged dove. “Such a fresh-faced little doll!”

“Madam Claire,” said Eudes, “may I present Omelda. The . . . new girl.”

Claire nodded and cooed for a moment more, and then she stooped suddenly and jutted her fuzzy jaw at Omelda's face. “You may kiss me, Omelda.”

Omelda stared, frightened. Eudes nudged her. She offered a tentative peck to Claire's cheek.

“Oh, how sweet,” said Claire, straightening. “A true child of God. Sweet and innocent, just as she should be.”

“I thought it best that she be kept in the kitchen,” said Eudes, “until she learns a little more about the . . . house.”

“Quite right, dear Eudes,” said Claire. “Such a sweet thing you are, too! Another child of God. How wonderful! I'll just finish up with Martha here, and then Martha (oh, Martha: up straight-away!) will give Omelda her duties.” She smiled. Omelda was suddenly and violently afraid that Claire would demand another kiss.

But Claire swung abruptly away, cleared her throat, and pointed to a large barrel in the corner. Martha was already running for it.

“Pickles! How much?”

Omelda watched, listened, added her own mental voice to the slow singing of the convent choir. But she herself was not singing: she was screaming. Screaming for Natil.

Listen. This is how it happens.

It had been a long day. Days in Furze were usually long, for there had come to be a sense of the interminable in a continuing penury that dictated that coins be inevitably and endlessly counted, hoarded, picked out of a snarl of threads at the lint-filled bottom of an old purse; that dickering in the marketplace be lengthy and desperate (a single penny spelling the difference between a full belly and an ache in the stomach that said that supper had not been quite enough); that there be never enough of anything to go around, and little hope of a change.

And then there was the Inquisition, and that made everything that much longer, for in all the counting and the hoarding and the dickering, every word had to be weighed, uttered carefully, considered judiciously. A stray doubt, an angry retort . . . and one's fate could well be one with that of Fredrick, whose body had been burned in the town square a few days ago, the Church's vengeance pursuing the unabjured heretic even beyond death.

But at the end of this particular long day, although it was not his custom to enter taverns and ask for alcohol, Paul Drego was having a drink before dinner. His day had been longer than usual, much longer, and this was, perhaps, fitting, for as it had been Paul who had originally come up with the idea of converting the Furze economy from subsistence dairy to profitable wool, and as it had been Paul who had first written to the Aldernacht firm a year and a half ago to audaciously propose that a substantial loan might turn out to be a profitable venture, and as it had been Paul who had wheedled, begged, and cajoled his fellow merchants of Furze, dragged them into meetings, preached to them his gospel of economics, forced them to proclaim that this gospel included both the Christians and the Jews of the city, and convinced them to form the wool cooperative, so, now that Jacob Aldernacht himself had arrived that morning with son, guards, servants, and even a few musicians, it was Paul who was personally representing the entire city to a man upon whose good will—and, possibly, whim—rested the future of Furze.

Standing at the head of his motley little band of poor merchants and even poorer artisans and minor tradesmen, Paul had shaken hands with the rich man, had smiled and bowed and made his welcome and hoped that it was a good enough start for the business. And now it was late afternoon, and now the wives of the cooperative members were readying a good burgher feast in the rickety town hall, and now Paul was tired. Deeply tired. He was also—terribly—doubtful. Doubtful of the enterprise. Doubtful whether he could hold it together long enough to make it work. Doubtful whether, even if he did indeed hold it together, there would be any opportunity for any growth to take place in a town so overshadowed by Siegfried of Madgeburg and the fearful silence of the Inquisition.

“Evening, Paul.”

Paul looked up from his beer, recognized his friend, James, the furrier. With a deep sigh and the cock-eyed smile of a man determined to make the best of a ridiculously bad situation, Paul offered a hand. James took it and settled down on the other side of the table.

“So,” he said. “Ha' do you think it went?”

“So far, so good,” said Paul. He rested an elbow on the table, put his face in his hand. “Dear God, I'm terrified.”

“It all cams down to this one week, dan't it?” James called for a small—a very small—beer of the third quality, paid for it with a penny, received a halfpenny in change.

Of all the members of the cooperative, James was, perhaps, the poorest. Furs and fur garments did not sell well in a town with little enough money to spend upon food. But, with his eye on a better future, James had worked hard for the wool cooperative, and at the same time had managed to scrape up a slim living for himself and his sweetheart by repairing the few old and well-worn fur garments that existed in the town. The occasional meager commissions he received from David a'Freux also had helped, though James freely admitted that they had likely been offered more for David's amusement than because of any real desire to help the local trade.

James tasted his beer and made a face. It was truly wretched stuff, but it was affordable. “It all cams down to tomorrow,” he said, refining his first estimate.

Paul shook his head, drank his own bad beer. “It all cams down to tonight.”

James smiled optimistically. “I've just cam from the church. I prayed to Saint Jude.”

Paul laughed. “Lost causes?”

“I'm just covering my wagers. Yesterday, I lit candles before the Virgin and offered to make a pilgrimage to Chartres if we succeed . . .”

Paul lifted an eyebrow. “Bargaining wi' the Queen of Heaven?”

“Joseph was a poor carpenter,” said James. “I imagine it took a good businesswoman in the kitchen to keep clothes on the Baby Jesus.”

Paul nodded. Votive candles and promised pilgrimages were not exactly his idea of business, but he was a practical man: whatever it took. “I imagine so.”

“And the day before last, I gave money to the poor in memory of Saint Francis.”

“Very good. Very good indeed. You know, I've a'ways been partial to Francis. Though, like old John XXII, I ha' some disagreement with his poverty.”

They both laughed.

Now, please, look over here in the corner, where someone else is having a drink: a laboring man, whose clothes are just as shabby and just as worn as those of any other of his station in Furze. At first glance, indeed, there is nothing remarkable about him. But how does someone so obviously poor afford to drink beer by the full measure? And, now that one oddity has surfaced, here is another: he speaks with no one, but seems, rather, to listen to everything that is said, even if it is said on the far side of a relatively crowded room, even—or perhaps especially—if it is said between Paul and James.

“So,” said James, “I feel good about tonight. I'd be willing to
swear
that Jacob is going to give us the help we need.”

Paul shook his head slowly. “I'm na willing to swear to anything. I think that only God can tell what's going to happen tonight.” He finished his beer. “I'm na overly interested in being rich: if we can get just enough of of this to live decently, I'll be very satisfied.”

“Well,” said James, laughing, “I'll take your share, then.
I'm
interested in being rich.” He laughed again. “And, since I've gone to mass and . . .” He winked. “. . . bribed the necessary Friends in High Places . . .” Another wink. “. . . very high . . .” Wink, wink. “I ha' no doubts.”

Paul smiled. James's laughter was welcome, but it did nothing to dismiss even a single particle of the fatigue he felt. “All right,” he said quietly.

James's laughter and winks stopped. He leaned toward Paul. “You do?”

“What?”

“Have doubts.”

Paul considered having his cup refilled, shrugged and did not. A half penny was a half penny, and he had a family. “I doubt e'erything these days, James.”

“E'erything?”

Paul heard the unspoken query. “E'erything.”

James looked plainly hurt. “What about God?”

Paul shrugged, thinking of a man named Fredrick he had known once, thinking of many others. “I think—”

James shook his head suddenly, put a hand on Paul's arm. “Dan say it.”

“All right. I wan.”

“It's too frightful. Paul . . . I din't realize . . .”

Paul shrugged. “We just do the best we can, James.”

James was genuinely concerned. “”Have you talked to anyone about this?”

“Talk? Do you think I'm mad?”

“I mean, to a priest. In confession. They're there to help.”

“And to burn and torture?”

James looked plainly uncomfortable. “I . . . I know.” He squirmed a little. “My faith is important to me, Paul. I think it's important to everyone. Dan doubt God just because of a few . . .” He was plainly aware that he had backed himself into a verbal corner. “. . . well, you know.”

Paul chuckled tiredly. “Yes. I know.”

“The Inquisition is doing the work of God.” James sounded more certain, Paul was sure, the more uncertain he became. “There are souls in heaven right now because of the Inquisition. Are you saying that's na saintly?”

Paul opened his mouth, considered, shut it again. After a time: “I dan really know what I'm saying.” The church bells began to chime. Vespers. “Cam on. It's time for dinner. Let's just leave it at that.”

Leaving it at that, though, appears to be quite enough; for the laboring man, the one with the full measure of beer, the one who listens, rises as they rise. But where Paul and James, arm in arm, make their way towards the town hall, the listener goes another way, his feet carrying him rapidly toward the house of God.

And that is how it happens.

***

Jacob Aldernacht did not need a speck of his son Josef's mania for music to know that Natil certainly could play the harp. Although the woman had only met her fellow musicians two days before—and in the case of the pick-up group that Furze had gotten together for this banquet, that very afternoon—she joined effortlessly into the ensemble. She obviously knew her instrument, and she obviously knew her tunes; and though Jacob understood nothing about music—nor did he care to—he smiled as the shawm went
blat
and the vielle went
squeak-squeak
and the harp went
ding-dong
and the cornetto went
honk
in time to the nattering drums, congratulating himself on yet another fine addition to his hoard.

But it was the hoard, he knew, that was the problem, for the faces about him at the table—smiling faces, cordial faces—were smiling and cordial only because he was Jacob Aldernacht, a potential source of gold and silver. Had he been a poor friar, or a leper, or simply a run-of-the-mill beggar, he doubted that the faces would have been so smiling, so cordial . . . or so much in evidence. Oh, to be sure, he might still have received food and even a few coins from the Furzers, since the poverty of the town had made its folk very conscious of the plight of those more unfortunate than they; but the town hall would never have been thrown open, the food would never have been so plentiful, and certainly he would never have been offered so many hands and toasts.

“To Mister Jacob Aldernacht: our friend!”

A little premature, perhaps, but Jacob drank their wretched wine. It was all part of the little game they were playing, a game not unlike Francis's sham charity or the feigned and ironic filial devotion of Edvard and Norman that did nothing to disguise their contempt for their father.

“To Mister Jacob Aldernacht: the greatest man in Adria!”

This was a little better, though
in Europe
might have been more appropriate. Still, Jacob considered, Furze was poor: perhaps their imaginations had been stunted along with their purses.

“To Mister Jacob Aldernacht: a prince, a true prince!”

No, this would not do at all, and therefore, before the applause could rise, Jacob stood up. The room fell silent. Those at the table paused with their hands up and about to clap, or with cups half raised.

Jacob was silent. He let them worry. This is the way it was done.