The Wicked and the Just (5 page)

Sir John nods. “You're most welcome to Caernarvon.”

“Thanks to the goodwill of
honesti
like yourself.”

“Well, don't think it comes cheap,” Sir John replies to the wall behind my father's head. “You'll take the oath as soon as we can convene. By quarter-day at the latest.”

My father blinks. “B-but that's midsummer.”

“So it is. Sooner the better, eh?”

A woman and a girl come through the doorway after Sir John. The girl is about my size and has hair that flutters about her waist. It's the color of sunlit flax.

My hair is plaited. It's the color of wet sand.

I hate this girl already.

She is called Emmaline. When I'm presented, she smiles at me, and I mark that her teeth are more crooked than mine. This pleases me.

At table, I'm seated next to Emmaline, so we must share a cup of wine. I manage to refrain from spitting in it since my father is watching me like an unpaid gaoler.

We're served stuffed pigling and gingerbread. Gingerbread! I eat two whole pieces and I'm reaching for a third when my father kicks me under the table. I reluctantly pull my hand into my lap.

While the apron girl is clearing away the pewter and horn, Emmaline asks her mother, “May I show Cecily my embroidery?”

“Of course you may,” says the harridan, so I'm obliged to follow Emmaline abovestairs.

The walls of Emmaline's chamber are tinted a delicate shade of orange. There's a cushioned windowseat and a brazier that smells faintly of sandalwood. A small table stands near the bed, and on it are a brass bowl and ewer, some vials, a scattering of combs, and a bronze looking glass.

At my house, I sleep on the floor.

Emmaline goes to an embroidery frame beneath the window and unpins a length of linen. “I'm working this veil for my brother's wife. Do you think she'll like it?”

She's holding out the linen, hopeful as a dog with a stick, so I take it carefully in both hands and pretend to care. The stem stitches look loose, like gallows-rope, so I sneak a quick peek at the back. The knots are a mess, all tangled and lumpy.

I grin outright. I can do better work with my feet in the dark.

“I spent all winter on it,” Emmaline says proudly. “My brother and his wife live in Shrewsbury, but they're coming to visit this summer.”

“Ugh, why?”

Emmaline looks puzzled. “Why not?”

I gesture around. “Who would set foot in this town if they could avoid it?”

“You mean Caernarvon?” Emmaline cocks her head. “But it's a lovely place! You've come in spring, true enough, and it's a bit gray now, but come summer you'll fall in love with it.”

“What about . . .” I grimace. “The people. Who live out there. Without the walls.”

“The Welsh?” Emmaline smiles as if we're sharing a secret. “Don't be troubled by them. Most newcomers find them odd at first, but once you know them, they're charming. They have the most beautiful children, and you should hear them sing.”

Somehow I doubt that Emmaline has ever been within spitting distance of a Welsh person, much less been saddled with an ill-mannered one as a servant.

The apron girl appears at the top of the stairs bearing a tray loaded with honey wafers.

Honey wafers
and
gingerbread. Sir John ought to change his name to Croesus de Coucy.

Emmaline sits on the bed and holds out the plate of wafers. I take a big handful and cram them in my mouth without anyone to say me nay, while Emmaline's happy chatter about the Eden that is Caernarvon flows over me like rain over feathers.

 

I have a bellyache. Emmaline's company must have upset my digestion. I retire to the floor of my plain, cold, untinted bedchamber with a cool cloth over my eyes and a mug of weak small beer infused with chamomile.

I'm better by supper, and I grumble belowstairs to eat sparling and cabbage with antler spoons.

Up the street, Emmaline is eating honey wafers and wasting gold thread on that excuse for a veil.

“So,” says my father, “a nice surprise at dinner today.”

I sniff and stab at my sparling.

“You're always complaining how much you miss Alice and Agnes. I thought you'd welcome the company of another young female.”

“That girl isn't Agnes or Alice.”

My father lowers his meat-knife. “You will be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy. Her family built this borough. Sir John was one of the first Englishmen here.”

I wrinkle my nose at my trencher.

“Cecily.” My father's voice has an edge I shrink from.

“Very well. I will be pleasant.”

“She would make you a very good friend,” my father says as he tears off another piece of bread. “Invited to an
honesti
home within a fortnight of arriving—I barely believe such fortune. The saints are looking out for us, sweeting, to bring us into the graces of the town's elite. To say naught of my taking the oath by midsummer, when I thought Martinmas at the earliest. Almost six months early! It's most fortunate, and we must make of it what we can.”

My father can make what he wants of this place. It'll be all I can do to run this house and keep my gowns in good repair and not get murdered until we can go home to Edgeley Hall.

 

God is merciful to sinners! The pack train just arrived! And at its head is Nicholas, my elder cousin.

“Cesspit!” he crows, hopping down from his palfrey and throwing his arms about me. He smells like horse and sweat and sweaty horse, but I hug him hard. It's Nicholas, the lopeared oaf who puts horse apples in my shoes and hides my hairpins, but my throat is choked up as if I've swallowed too big a bite of pie.

“I could really use a mug of your strongest,” Nicholas says, clasping my father's wrist, “but first let's set this lot to their labor.” He gestures to a group of ragged men hovering like locusts at the corner of the house among the crowd of laden mules. “I hired them without the walls. Will they understand a word I say?”

My father shrugs. “Usually there's one or two who will.”

“Very well.” Nicholas bawls at them, as if they're hard of hearing. “Unload the mules. Put things where my lord of Edgeley”—Nicholas claps my father's shoulder—“bids you. A penny per man when you've finished.”

One of the laborers steps forward and speaks in tongue-pull to the others. I freeze right there in the yard with Nicholas's arm still about my waist.

It's
him.
The one who
looks
at me.

Of course he'd be a Welshman. I should have marked him by his stabley manners and his scruffy gray tunic that's laced all crooked, revealing far too much in the way of dirty collarbone.

I ought to bid Nicholas knock his front teeth in, just on principle.

But Nicholas is already halfway inside, telling my father of the journey and the river crossings and an inn in Chester where the girls did some shocking things. I turn and follow ere
he
has a chance to look at me.

My father sits at the trestle table with Nicholas and laughs and brags and hears the news, so it's my task to tell the laborers what goes where. In my own house and with two armed men present, the laborers wouldn't dare try to murder me. But I'm on my guard nonetheless.

I don't look at the men. I look at what each is bearing, then point with sweeping gestures and use small words so mayhap they'll understand. Hall. Kitchen. Abovestairs. Workroom. They nod and duck out and do as they're told. Like dogs.

Dogs do not murder.

The laborers heave and haul and tote from midmorning well into the afternoon. They sweat like oxen and they're twice as filthy, but by sunset our little house actually looks like a house. There are cooking pots and fireplace tongs and linens and saints be praised, my bed is finally here and strung together.

As soon as one of the men brings up my coffer, I carefully lay our altar cloth within, next to a bunch of dried flowers from Edgeley's garden and my mother's handkerchief, the one she pressed to my bleeding palm when I tried to imitate her slicing bread on a trestle I could barely see over.

When the mules are unloaded, the laborers look and smell like an army of pigs. One poor wretch has jammed his thumb so badly it's turning purple. They line up in the gutter while
he
hovers at the front door, waiting to be paid. Like as not he's looking at me even now, but I'm stringing my embroidery frame in the workroom and ignoring him for the beast he is.

And I can ignore pretty well.

Apparently my father can, too, for it's quite a while ere he groans up from the trestle and clumps outside while pouring coins into his hand. He sifts through them, then drops a halfpenny far above each sweaty palm. By the time my father gets to the one who
looks,
there's a lot of grumbling down the filthy line.

“Beg pardon.” His English is singsonged by the tongue-pull. “A penny was promised us for this work.”

“You were promised nothing of the sort,” my father replies. “Half a penny is more than you deserve, so get gone lest you'd have the Watch on your backsides.”

I come to the window in time to see a shadow of rage move across the boy's stubbly jaw. Half a penny might be more than they deserve, but I'd be wroth too were I denied what was promised me.

But he only grunts something in tongue-pull to his mangy fellows and they troop down Shire Hall Street in a cloud of sweaty dust.

At supper, we celebrate with a haunch of mutton with sage. The trestle is set properly with linens and pewterware. I sleep like a babe in arms in my own bed.

God is indeed merciful to sinners.

 

Nicholas is here two whole days ere he works up the courage to lay out the terrible news. My thieving uncle Roger has posted banns. He will marry a girl half his age at midsummer. Which means there could be an heir to Edgeley Hall by next Easter.

I could be stuck here forever. And there'd be naught to do for it.

I wonder just how much penance I would have to do for praying her barren.

 

My father is taking his burgess oath ere the month is out. I have nothing to wear.

There's the green kirtle that was small on me last year, which hovers around my calves as though I'm a ratty little waif. I may as well brand
UNMARRIAGEABLE
on my brow. The yellow surcote has a gravy stain in the lap that no amount of fuller's earth can remove, and the alkanet kirtle is barely fit for rags.

My father cannot think I'll stand before the whole town wearing one of these excuses for a garment.

As soon as I've finished supervising Mistress Tipley doing the marketing, I go down the road to the common stable just within the walls. My cousin is there, brushing his palfrey.

“Nicholas.” I lean prettily on the stall. “You love me, do you not?”

“I do, Cesspit. You're my favorite cousin.”

I'm also his only cousin, but that's a tired jest. “How much do you love me?”

Nicholas combs the horse's flank with long, chuffing strokes. “Not enough to do whatever it is you want of me.”

“I only need someone big and strong to escort me around this filthy place.”

“And?”

“And . . .” I make my voice small and sweet. “And lend me the price of a new gown.”

Nicholas pops up over the horse's rump. “Hellfire, Cesspool, do I look like a man with the price of a gown?”

“All right,” I grumble. “Be mean and pinch your pennies. But come with me. Please? You're going to miss me sorely.”

He groans and tosses the comb onto a ledge, mumbling something unflattering about women. I let his remark fall, though. Doubtless he secretly likes ferrying me around. I must look fair upon his arm, and if Fortune favors him, people will mistake me for his sweetheart.

We head up High Street and turn on Castle, where I spot a swinging sign bearing a faded ship. At the counter is a falcon-faced graybeard measuring cloth nose to fingertips. He looks up as we approach.

“G'morn, my lord. Have you come for wool?”

“Something suitable for a gown,” I jump in, ere Nicholas can ruin things. “For a special occasion.”

The merchant glances at Nicholas, who nods. Then the merchant turns to me and holds out the wool he's been measuring. “There's this, just back from the fuller. A good tight weave.”

It's just minnet. I frown. “What else have you?”

“This ochre is fair.” The merchant brings out a scrap.

I pet it and it's like sand. “Surely you've something better.”

The merchant glances again at Nicholas. My cousin shrugs. Then the merchant holds up a finger and disappears into the shop. In a moment he's back with the most beautiful bolt of finespun I've ever seen. It's the color of fresh blood and as soft to the touch as a lapdog. I pet it and pet it. I cannot take my hands off it.

“How much?” I ask.

“Fifteen shillings a yard.”

I blink. Even Nicholas looks a little stunned. Horses can cost less. “W-well, I'll take it. My father will come with me on the morrow to settle up.”

“Beg pardon, demoiselle, but without some kind of surety, I cannot hold the wool for you. I could sell it to half a dozen buyers by the morrow. It's right off the boat from Flanders.”

I must have this wool.

“Nicholas, what do you have of value?”

“Sorry, Cesspile, all I've got is gold plate,” my wretch cousin snipes in a most flippant way.

I must have this wool.

The merchant holds the bolt close to his heart like an only son. Nicholas folds his arms and leans on the window frame as if this is boring somehow.

I swallow hard. “How about an altar cloth? All stitched in gold thread? It has two dozen saints. Took a whole year to make.”

The merchant shrugs. “I'd have to see it.”

“Nicholas, my dearest cousin, the kindest and most selfless Christian ever to—”