The Wicked and the Just (13 page)

 

 

R
HYS
Ddu of Trecastell has still not been released from the gatehouse. It's hard to know whether to curse or cheer. Fewer men deserve hanging more.

But the gallows on the market common cannot tell felon from hero. They both hang the same and end up just as dead, especially when the hand on the rope does not change.

 

Know not when I first notice. Watched burgess land no longer opens up with endless nodding furrows of oats and barley. The crops are shriveled now, poor things, sodden and pulpy and twisted, as if the Adversary himself whispered in their little ears. Field after field. The ravens circle overhead, searching in vain for a stray kernel or grain. Betimes a priest walks among the furrows, flicking holy water and begging the Virgin to have mercy and intercede with the Almighty to lift the damp.

They'll still have to bring the harvest in. Some of it must be salvageable.

Gruffydd waits for me at the wood-edge long after twilight, thumbs hooked over his rope-belt, kicking dust.

Fall into step beside him. “They'll be hiring for harvest work any day now. You'll be at the front of the queue, right?”

He nods. His cheekbones stand out like fence rails.

English fret and mutter. The master spends days at a time at his stolen land, comes back pale and drawn like a corpse. The barges pole in from Môn with fewer sacks every day, and they pass the common wharves that stand idle to tie up at the Havering wharf, the Whetenhale wharf, the Grandison wharf. Grain that lands on private wharves, burgess wharves, might as well not even be.

And still Gruffydd meets me when day is dying slowly over the stone-and-mortar eyesore. Every day. Bite my tongue and bite my tongue until finally I demand, “You stood aside, didn't you? For one of those blasted toady—”

“They're not hiring for harvest work.”

Stop. Close my mouth. Stammer, “Wh-what?”

“No harvest work.” He gestures helplessly at the pulpy fields, the crumbly, damp furrows. “I'll try the wharves. The burgesses import most of their grain from Môn anyway.”

Gape at him. “The wharves? Jesus wept, we haven't the silver for a bribe that big! Especially not when there's no harvest!”

Gruffydd hitches a shoulder. “Have you a better idea?”

Burn them. Burn every last damn one of them.

Let out a long breath, then dredge up a smirk. “At least we'll get to watch the bastards starve.”

Gruffydd squints at the horizon. “If anyone starves in the Principality, it won't be them.”

“We don't need their wretched barley. There's the cow. Milk and butter and cheese.”

“For now.” He smiles sadly. “Until the taxmen come. Then back she'll go to Pencoed. Or mayhap Plas Newydd. All the old estates are filling up with distrained beasts.”

The old estates.
Your
estate, Gruffydd. And men like you.

“We'll buy her out of lien ere winter.” Say it forcefully, as if force will make it so.

“Dafydd had a horse distrained against tenpence at the Easter collection,” Gruffydd replies. “When he went to redeem it, Whetenhale told him fifteen.”

Roll my eyes. “But that's Dafydd. He may as well brand himself and spare them the trouble.”

“Go ask Fanwra down the vale how much they demand for her cow. Or Maelgwn ap Tudur, or Llywelyn ab Owain, or—”

Fling a gesture, and Gruffydd falls silent.

“Very well,” he says at length, “if we cannot afford a workboon for the wharves, I'll . . . I'll find something. I just . . . I cannot bear to take work from any man with little ones to feed.”

Da went out. Da never came back. Little ones learn to feed themselves. Little ones learn to
fight.

“We need the silver, too.” Speak quietly, because he means it. “We have Mam.”

Gruffydd nods. “I'll find something.”

Little ones look after the littler ones.

Take my brother's arm. It's warm and rough and dusty, his elbow bound with a ragged, blood-smeared cloth. He places his hand over mine for a long moment ere he pulls away.

 

 

M
Y FATHER
has learned about the outing Emmaline de Coucy invited me on after Mass. He leaps around my workroom like a mad fool, crowing with joy. Right before the big windows for all the neighbors to see.

My father can be such a trial betimes.

“And you'll invite her here, of course,” he says. “You mustn't slight her by not returning the courtesy. You'll invite her, along with her cousin and sister-by-marriage and—”

“What? No!” My whorl clatters to the floor. “Please don't make me!”

My father frowns. He's going to insist because they're the Coucys. I cast about for something with half a chance of staying his hand.

“The linen is stained, the walls are plain white, the floor wants a scrubbing with sand, and there isn't a candle in the place.” Square in the pride. “What would I even serve them? I would shame you, Papa, offering turnip broth and blackberry wine to daughters of the
honesti
.”

My father folds his arms. “Honey, for wafers. And a mazer of good wine. But the walls stay white and we'll keep using pine knots and you can help Mistress Tipley scrub the floor and wash the linen.”

Splendid. They'll take one look around this miserable hole and mutter how presumptuous the
novi
are, placing themselves beside those who built the borough. Emmaline's coming would be bad enough. Aline and Evilbeth will split their girdles laughing, and their maids will snicker in chorus like chantry.

Oh, thimbles—the maids!

They'll know I lied about having a maid the moment they arrive, regardless of whatever perjury I come up with. And they'll laugh till they cry ere ensuring that every soul in this town knows of my airs.

Gwinny shuffles into the workroom with the broom. Her gray smock is stained with God knows what and tattery at the hem. She smells like goat.

No. There's no way.

My other choice is to stand humiliated before the sly and blackhearted daughters of the
honesti.

All Gwinny has to do is hoodwink them for a single afternoon, but she must look the part.

I hurry abovestairs and rummage through my coffer till I find a moss-green kirtle given me last New Years by Alice's mother. The wretched gown bunches strangely beneath the arms and the color makes me look like a sick frog, but the cut is stylish and there are no patches and it doesn't smell of goat.

Even now, Saint Peter is recording this act of charity to my credit in his book.

I skip into the workroom waving the kirtle like a battle standard. “Gwinny!”

She sweeps around Salvo, long and even, and chuffs dirt out of the corner.

“Gwinny. Gwin-ny!”

She pulls the mound of debris into a pile, then looks me right in the eye as if we're the same.

Just as that mannerless wretch of a laborer did, the one who unloaded the pack train and
looked
at me right in my own yard. The one I cowed in the street. The one who'll not soon look at me again, should he have wit enough to study his lessons.

I wind my fists into my apron and make myself smile. “You're a fortunate girl, Gwinny. I'm giving you this gown.”

Her brows dip. Her lashes flutter. And then she smirks. She actually smirks, the ill-bred hound!

At length she lowers her chin and the look is gone, replaced by the drum-tight mouth and blank birdlike eyes.

“You'll get your penny same as always.” I hold out the folds of pond-colored wool. “This isn't payment. It's a gift.”

Gwinny eyes first the garment, then me. She reaches hesitantly for the gown. I thrust the lot into her arms and beam.

“Good girl. Now put it on and let's see how it looks.”

Once on Gwinny's back, the gown falls in graceful folds to the floor and the cuffs hang just over her wrists. And by all the saints if the color doesn't make her eyes glow like fishponds just after the weirsman's brush.

“There!” I clap my hands and grin. “Splendid. Oh, saints, mayhap this'll work. You hardly look Welsh at all!”

Gwinny stiffens as if she got a cold-water drench. She skins the gown off, leaves it in a pile on the floor, and puts on her gray smock once more. Then she goes back to sweeping.

I scoop up the kirtle and fling it at Gwinny. “Put that on! How dare you insult me so basely? Spurning a gift, a gift that's worth what you earn in a year.”

Gwinny makes no move to catch the gown. It hits her shoulder and slides to the floor. She toes the folds of wool and closes her eyes for a long moment.

Then she retrieves it, strips off her filthy smock, and slides into the new garment slowly, as though it's a shroud.

“Good.” I fold my arms. “For shame, Gwinny. Treating me this way when I seek to help you.”

She collects her old goaty smock, folds it, and places it near the rear storage chamber.

“That new gown will be on your back tomorrow,” I tell her, “and the next day, and the day after that.”

She nods without looking at me and retrieves the broom.

I mutter a rapid prayer to any saint listening. Please let the
honesti
girls be fooled. Otherwise I will have to move house again or take up residence in the cellar.

Mayhap they won't come. Mayhap they won't want to be seen with a
novi.
Mayhap Emmaline's father will forbid her. Mayhap William will forbid Aline.

If God Almighty has any mercy, none of them will come.

 

They all come. They bring their embroidery. Now we're sitting here in stifling silence while I try to think of things to say to daughters of the
honesti,
two of whom keep smirking and snorting and snickering whenever they glance my way.

Even their maids brought needlework. Margery and Maudie and May. The three maids sit in a row like little poppets on a bench dragged in from the hall. They sew shifts for their mistresses while my “maid” stands in the shadows like an effigy, smelling vaguely of straw.

Please don't let Gwinny ruin this. All she has to do is be still.

We've already spoken of the beastly weather. The way heat clings to floorplanks and leaves skin damp and sticky. We've spoken of William, Emmaline's father, my father, and Evilbeth's betrothed.

Now it's quiet. Sickly quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you stare at your needle and try to ignore the hair prickling at the back of your neck.

I clear my throat. I cannot stand it. “So . . . what are you all doing for Michaelmas Eve?”

Emmaline frowns. “Well, what else is there but—?”

“Nothing,” Evilbeth cuts in. “That is, naught but silent prayer and contemplation. And fasting. We fast and pray to honor the saint. Alone.”

“But, Bet, you've forgotten the bonfire!” Emmaline wriggles and grins like a child on her year-day. “Oh, you'll love it, Cecily, there's naught else like it all year! There'll be cider and music and dancing, and if you're brave, you can put chestnuts in the fire and divine who your future husband will be!”

“As if that's likely,” Aline mutters, squinting at a stitch.

Evilbeth glares at Emmaline, but Emmaline doesn't notice because she's toying with her half-finished veil and gazing dreamily into the hearthfire as if it's Michaelmas already.

I dredge up a smile. “That sounds lovely. At Edgeley, we'd crack nuts in the church. We could do that here.”

“We could,” Evilbeth drawls, “if we were
novi
and didn't know any better.”

“I fancy a honey wafer.” I leap to my feet and throw my linen blindly onto the bench. There's a tiny metal sound like my needle coming loose, but I pay no heed. “We have them all the time, so I'm sure there's a big pile in the kitchen. Gwinny!”

She shambles out of the shadows, tripping over her hem. She looks worse than usual, stains on her new gown and big dark rings around her eyes.