Bone of Contention (8 page)

“Neither!” she snapped. “I do not work here. I am long retired and I have come to collect a woman for my house in London.”

“Retired?” one of the men said, laughed, and reached for her. “Not with a face and body like that.”

Magdalene pulled away as Florete said, “No!” The man bringing in Magdalene’s baggage set it down and reached for his club, which was leaning against the table. Florete’s other man stood up. Magdalene slipped by them and retreated to the back chamber, once more cursing her own beauty.

Fortunately no harm came of the incident, but it demonstrated clearly that she would be deprived of one of the pleasures to which she had looked forward. It would be impossible for her to sit with Florete and gossip about old friends and old clients. She occupied herself with cleaning the bed and the chest while Florete’s man brought a small trestle table down from the attic. When he had set the tabletop over the trestles and moved the stools around it, he went out, casting a single longing glance back at her.

Magdalene cursed and then sighed as she took clean sheets from the bottom of her basket and made the bed by the left-hand wall, hung her gowns from pegs, and moved her undergarments to the chest. She felt a trifle guilty at using the man, but not nearly guilty enough to give him what he wanted. And she had issued fair warning by paying him, she reminded herself.

Before she had finished unpacking, Diccon returned to report that he had given Magdalene’s note to Sir Giles de Milland. Sir Niall Arvagh, her first choice to carry her message to Lord William, was not at the armorer’s house and was not expected at any particular time. Diccon giggled. Sir Niall was out courting a local girl.

Interested, for she liked Sir Niall, who had a quick wit as well as a skilled sword, Magdalene probed for information. Several men had come in together, Diccon said, and when he had asked for Sir Niall and explained he had a message from Mistress Magdalene to be carried to Lord William, Sir Giles had explained why Sir Niall was away and that no time was set for his return.

Diccon had then handed over his message, but he had heard one of the other men make some pointed remarks about Sir Niall’s good luck.

“And that was all you heard?” Magdalene urged.

Diccon looked at the floor and admitted the men had paid no more attention to him and talked among themselves after he had handed over the message. Then he fell silent. Magdalene chuckled. More likely, she thought, Diccon had deliberately hidden himself in a corner to listen, but she was even more interested and produced another farthing. Diccon grinned.

“She’s Loveday of Otmoor,” he said. “That’s what they called her, and said she was an heiress in the king’s ward.”

“Lord bless me,” Magdalene murmured. “What is Niall doing courting an heiress in the king’s ward? Stephen will want her for one of his highborn paupers.”

“Nah,” Diccon stuck in. “She’ve not got enough for that nor’s born high enough.”

Magdalene’s brows shot upward. “Now how do you know that, you little limb of Satan? Out with it! You’ve had two farthings of me, and the next thing you’ll get is a whipping.”

“I was going to tell you,” he said indignantly. “The man said a king’s clerk told Lord William about this Loveday. Another said—I didn’t get his name either—that the clerk was looking for Lord William’s favor and thought the girl would do for one of Lord William’s men since she wasn’t grand enough for the king’s cronies. That man sounded a little sour, and Sir Giles snapped at him. He said the reason Lord William sent Sir Niall was because he remembered Sir Niall came from Murcot, which was not far from Otmoor.”

Now that it was brought to her mind, Magdalene also recalled that Murcot was possibly half a league north of Otmoor, but she was reminded again of William’s acuteness. It was as if he kept the placement of every vill in the kingdom in his mind. Magdalene frowned. She could not call to mind any manor called Otmoor.

“That’s all I heard, honest,” Diccon said.

Magdalene wrinkled her nose at him. “I doubt it,” she replied, but then smiled and asked, “Where do the women get dinner?”

“Cookshop just up the street near the Carfax, but they eat late. Busy time here at dinner hour. Men like a bit extra in their time off.”

“And the cost of a meal?” Magdalene grinned at the boy, who had hesitated. “I’ll be going out myself tomorrow. If you lie to me, I’ll skin you.”

“Two farthings for the ordinary,” he said sullenly.

“Good enough. That sounds right.” She handed him a penny. “Get two dinners and you can have one.”

The boy’s eyes brightened. “Ale or wine?” he asked. “I gave you the price with the drink.”

“Ale.”

Magdalene shook her head as Diccon ran off. Likely the meal was only one farthing and the drink a second, but he hoped to get away with giving her the higher price by pretending he thought she would want a drink. It showed his cleverness, however, and Magdalene felt that two farthings was a cheap price to pay for the information she hoped to extract and with no one the wiser about her curiosity.

She obtained her money’s worth, for she invited Diccon to join her while she ate. He was enormously pleased and relieved, which made Magdalene suspect that half or more of his meal might disappear down other gullets if he were caught with it. She began by remarking that Florete had told her how crowded Oxford was and asking if Diccon happened to know who was already in the town.

The knowledge that he was safe and could eat and drink in peace oiled his tongue. He not only knew who was in the town, but by virtue of being used to carry messages, he knew where most of the great lords were lodged. He also knew who among them were friends and who were at odds because of the behavior of the men-at-arms of different meinies to each other. And there were others, he said, who were supposed to be friends—the men would greet each other civilly—but the way they looked at each other told a different story.

He mentioned the earl of Chester, and asked if it were true that Chester ruled like a king on his great palatine estates bordering Wales and cared little for King Stephen. He mentioned the lodgings of meinies of the earls of Surrey and Warwick, Pembroke and Leicester. Magdalene bit her lip; she remembered that the king had told William to send his men home because there was no room for them, but all those earls were relatives by blood or marriage of Waleran de Meulan.

Diccon named others, but they were mostly the king’s own creations and had little weight or influence beyond the king’s will. Absorbed in her anxiety for her friend and protector, she ignored the boy’s light voice until he said, “They’re all asking about the bishops of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely. Seems there’s a house kept empty for them on Castle Street but they haven’t come. Men are betting that they’ll seal themselves into their castles and wait for Robert of Gloucester to come.”

“Who is betting that?” Magdalene asked sharply.

“Oh, Lord Waleran’s men mostly. Surrey’s men bet against them. They said the bishops have to come ‘cause Gloucester ain’t ready yet and they need to look innocent ‘til they join him.”

“But Surrey’s men are just as sure the bishops are in league with Gloucester as Lord Waleran’s men?” She frowned. “Are you making this up, Diccon? Where would you hear such talk?”

“In the common room,” Diccon said indignantly. “They act like me and the girls are deaf. If they have to wait because there are too many for the private rooms or their favorite girls are busy, Florete sells wine and they drink and talk. They could take the common girls, but they don’t.” A look of cunning crossed his face. “Sometimes I wonder if they come to talk to each other more than they come for the women.”

It was certainly not impossible, Magdalene thought. William was clever, but he could not be the only one who realized a whorehouse was a place where men would come in contact and yet not be seen actually visiting each other’s lodgings, or gathering in groups in the street. A whorehouse was a good place to spread rumors, too. And Magdalene did not like either of the rumors. If the king took away the bishops’ offices either for defiance or for some other cause, who would manage the country? Who beside Salisbury and his son and nephews understood the exchequer? The sheriffs were all Salisbury’s appointees. Who else would they obey?

Finally Diccon had no more to tell and Magdalene let him go. She repeated the significant pieces of information to herself to commit them to memory so she could tell William, although she doubted anything would be new to him except that the Soft Nest was being used as a place of meeting. And then she wondered if he knew even that, and had summoned her for that reason.

Even as she arranged what she must say in her mind, she felt uneasy and restless, as if she should be doing something more than sitting in a chair. She looked at her hands, resting idly on the table, conscious that something was missing—and then she burst out laughing and let out an exasperated sigh. In the chaos of getting ready to leave, and with Bell in her bed and taking up all her attention her last night in Southwark, she had forgotten to pack her embroidery.

The windows showed it was still light, and Magdalene was about to go out and buy herself the wherewithal to work when Florete came to the door. Business would be slow for a little while, she told Magdalene, if she were allowed to leave the door open so she could watch the men come and go in the corridor, she would like to stay and talk over old times. Magdalene was only too happy to accommodate her, and the two women exchanged gossip and renewed a friendship dimmed by time and distance.

Moreover, Florete confirmed everything that Diccon had told Magdalene. “What will happen?” she asked anxiously. “I have good arrangements with the sheriff’s men in Oxford and with the bishop’s people too. Is everything going to be changed? Will I have to pay double bribes?”

“I don’t know,” Magdalene confessed. “I only know that William is worried, which is why he sent for me. My bishop is safe—he is the king’s brother and the papal legate, too.” She sighed. “All I can say is that if too much trouble overtakes you, come to me in Southwark. There is room for a house like this one—not so pricey as mine, but decent and well managed.”

“Thank you, love,” Florete said, getting up. “I hope it never comes to that, but I will remember.”

* * * *

The afternoon shadows were long now and clients who wanted to be finished before Vespers were coming in. After dusk there would be another busy time, as those men who planned to stay the night arrived. Florete returned to her post at the entrance, and Magdalene went about placing torchettes in the holders on the wall. She took one of the night candles from the stick near the bed on the right-hand wall and set it on the table, reminding herself to ask Florete for a branch of candle holders when there were fewer men around. She would need the light if she bought embroidery materials the next morning. For now she sighed with boredom and wished that William had gotten her message and would be able to come.

That wish was granted. The bells of St. Friedesweide were just ringing for Vespers when William of Ypres came striding into the Soft Nest, never stopping at Florete’s table, and bellowing, “Heyla Chickie, where are you?”

Florete signaled urgently to her men to sit still as six men in helmets and boiled leather armor followed their master through the door, but she sighed with relief when Magdalene flung open the door to the back room and ran forward into William’s bearlike embrace.

“Perfect!” he exclaimed, peering cautiously into her chamber, then pushing her back into the room and slamming the door behind him with his heel.

“I’m so glad you approve,” she replied, voice laced with irony, “since I haven’t the faintest idea where else to go.”

He gave her a rib-bending, affectionate hug that squeezed the breath out of her, then put her away from him to smile down at her. “I was worried about where you would find a place,” he said in a more moderate tone. “I even thought of emptying out that house you used to rent, but the way things are, I couldn’t have done it quietly. There would have been howls of protest. It would have become known that I took the house, and I’m not sure everyone would have believed that I would go to so much effort only for a favorite whore.”

“Then God must favor you, because it was sheer luck that Florete was afraid to rent this room to anyone. She thought she would end up with a troop of men-at-arms in there who would make merry with her whores and pay nothing.”

He laughed. “Likely she was right.” But then his smile disappeared, and she noticed the gray in his hair, the new lines on his face, the gray tone under the weather-beaten brown of his skin, and how he blinked his eyes, as if to clear them.

“You look tired, love,” she said. “Come, sit down.” And she led the way to the chair. “Shall I send the boy out to get some wine and food? I have had no chance yet to buy in stores.”

He sank into the chair, put his elbows on the table, and rested his head in his hands. “Don’t bother. I have
another
meeting for the evening meal.” He sighed. “My spirit is tired, Magdalene, not my body. God knows, I’ve done little enough but stand around in the Court making stupid noises.”

“Is there something I need to know to mind my tongue, William?” she asked anxiously.

He shook his head helplessly. “I don’t even know if there is something I need to know,” he growled.

“Will this help?” she asked, and repeated what Diccon had told her about the wagering between Waleran’s men and Surrey’s.

“In the common room of a whorehouse,” William said softly, lifting his head. “I knew what they were saying, of course. Waleran has been whispering his warnings in the king’s ear since we all arrived and the king was kind enough—” his lips twisted “—to pass those warnings to me, since doubtless I would be the one who would have to winkle the bishops out of their castles. But I am a little surprised that the suspicions were common knowledge in the town and among the common men-at-arms. So his men are deliberately spreading the doubts to all. But why?”

Magdalene ignored a question she knew was not for her, but she shivered. “William, what will happen to the realm if Salisbury and his son and nephews are turned out of office?”