Heaven's Fire (14 page)

The leather curtain opened and Brad stepped through, tying his chausses. He nodded to Corliss. “She’s waiting for you.”

“She’ll have a long wait,” Corliss said, backing up.

“Come on,” Thomas urged, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the bedchamber. “It’s my tuppence! Give her a go!” As an aside to Brad he added, “He’s nervous. It’s his first time.”

“Truly?” Brad laughed and took her other arm.  “You could do worse than lose your virginity to Alfreda. She knows every trick there is.”

“No!” Corliss howled as they drew her into the chamber and toward the bed. The curtains were open. Alfreda reclined against the mountain of pillows, yawning, her breasts still exposed, the skirt of her kirtle raised up above her stout white thighs. She held her hand out and Thomas put the two pennies in it.

“Come to Alfreda, love,” the whore coaxed tiredly, her arms extended.

Thomas and Brad pushed her onto the bed and closed the curtains around her. A ripe scent comprised of cloying perfume and unwashed flesh filled Corliss’s nostrils. Alfreda reached for her. She scrambled backward, turned, and tore the curtains open. “Get her out of here
now
, or I’m telling Rainulf!”

The two young men gaped at her. “He’s serious,” Brad concluded.

“Leave now,” Corliss said, jumping down, “and never bring another woman here, and I’ll keep quiet. Otherwise, Rainulf finds out everything!”

Thomas and Brad exchanged a look, and then Thomas said, “We’d better get going, Alfreda. It seems young Corliss is determined to remain pure and unsullied despite our best efforts to corrupt him.”

“I’m keeping the tuppence,” Alfreda announced as she retied her kirtle.

Thomas sighed. “And welcome to it, my dear.”

When they were finally gone, Corliss whipped the quilts off the bed and stripped the sheets for Luella to wash when she returned. As she struggled to tie them into a bundle, a knock came at the front door. Muttering an oath—something she’d never once done while she still wore kirtles—she kicked the wad of sheets across the bedchamber, then pounded down the stairs and opened the door.

A man stood there—a large man, hunched beneath the satchel on his back, in coarse braies and a short hooded cloak with a pointed cowl pulled down low. With his head partly bowed, and that cowl, his face was lost in shadow, despite the glaring noon sun.

“Yes?” Corliss said testily.

The man nodded slightly without raising his head. “Good-good...” He hesitated, as if struggling with the words. “Good day, m-mistress.”

“Mistress?” Her scalp tightened. “Why do you call me mistress?”

The man stood unmoving for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “Y-you seemed like... th-that is...”

He hadn’t once looked at her. “Raise your head,” she said. “Look how I’m dressed. Do I look like a woman to you?”

The man hesitated, then slowly raised his head—very slowly, as if lifting a heavy burden. As the sunlight played over his features, Corliss stilled a gasp. His broad, fleshy face was deeply pitted, all over, with hundreds of pockmarks—the worst Corliss had ever seen. He looked like one of the grotesques in Mistress Clark’s pattern book—an imaginary creature surely inspired by the ravages of leprosy. In fact, she might have thought this man a victim of that disease rather than the pox had his scars been deeper and more irregular.

She bit her lip, contrition gnawing at her. Had the hair of St. Nicaise not protected her during her own bout with the yellow plague, she could have ended up looking like this man. Beneath his disfigurement, she reminded herself, he was just a man like any other—a peddler, judging from the satchel on his back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been rude. I was out of sorts and I took it out on you.”

She saw surprise in the peddler’s eyes, as if kind words were foreign to him. What must it be like to go through life regarded as less than human? On impulse she asked, “What’s your name?”

He paused. “My r-real name, or”—his expression became grim— “what-what-what” —he shook his head in evident exasperation over his stuttering— “what they c-call me?”

God only knew what vile nickname the people of Oxford had thought up for this poor creature. “Your real name.”

“Rad,” he said presently.

“Rad,” she repeated. “I’m pleased to meet you, Rad. My name is Corliss.” She nodded toward his satchel. “What have you to show me?”

The peddler thumped his big satchel down and opened it, pulling out a large blue cloth, which he spread out on the ground at her feet. On this cloth he arranged a dizzying display of goods, some new and some clearly secondhand: battered pots and pans, fireplace pokers, spoons of all sizes, small bolts of cloth, skeins of colored silk, kid slippers, fur-lined gloves.

A hairbrush caught her eye, and she knelt down to examine it. “Oh, how lovely.” It had stiff boar bristles and a handle of intricately carved ivory.

“It’s n-new,” Rad offered.

“What do you want for the brush and these ribbons? Oh, and this piece of lace.”

He squatted down so they were eye to eye. “Four-p-p-pence for the lot.”

“It’s worth sixpence if it’s worth a penny,” she said. “You’re just being nice to me. What else have you got in that bag of yours?”

“N-nothing as f-fine as that.”

“No?” Leaning over, she peered into the open mouth of the satchel and saw the glint of steel. “Knives, I see. You’ve certainly got a lot.”

“You-you-you n-need knives?” he asked.

“No, Rad, thanks just the same. Perhaps if I had a kitchen of my own, but I’m really just a guest here. Master Fairfax has been kind enough to take me in—”

“What have we here?”

Corliss squinted up to see Rainulf standing over her, silhouetted against the bright sky. He was staring fixedly at the huge collection of knives. She stood and held out the brush for him to admire. “Look—isn’t this pretty?”

He glanced at it briefly, then turned his hard gaze on the peddler, who proceeded to gather up his wares. “How much?” the magister asked, withdrawing his purse.

“S-sixpence,” Rad said without looking up.

“Here.” Rainulf withdrew the coins, but Corliss grabbed his wrist.

“They’re my things. I’ll pay for them.” She retrieved the sixpence from her pouch and gave it to Rad, who stowed it away without looking at her.

“Be on your way,” Rainulf told the peddler.

Corliss glared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Arms crossed, he watched Rad pack up his things and shamble down the road.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.

“I might ask the same of you.” He frowned at her purchases. “Ribbons? Laces? A lady’s hairbrush? Do you
want
to be found out?” He stepped through the doorway and stormed up the stairs.

He’s right
. She ran her fingers over the carved ivory, the dainty strands of silk. She’d been indiscreet. What would he say if she knew Rad had called her “mistress?” She pondered the situation as she slowly climbed the stairs to the main hall. He may have been right about the ribbons and such, but still he’d been unforgivably rude to Rad. She would never have expected such discourtesy from Rainulf Fairfax. Perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she thought.

Rainulf stood at a window and gazed out at the rolling pastures beyond the north wall of Oxford. He heard Corliss come upstairs and go into her bedchamber, presumably to put away her new things. Presently she came out again.

“You had no right to talk to Rad that way,” she said. “He meant no harm. He’s just a peddler trying to make a living.”

“How do you know?” he challenged, turning to face her. She stood there in her tunic and chausses, with her feet apart and her hands fisted at her sides, ready to take on the world. She looked amazingly like the young man she pretended to be. Only Rainulf knew otherwise—and Father Gregory, of course, to whom he confided everything. And now, perhaps, this Rad.

“Really, Rainulf. First it’s shadowy figures in alleyways. And now, every person I befriend becomes suspect—”

“You have no business befriending people like that peddler.”

“Why? Because of how he looks? I can’t believe you, of all people, would judge a man on the basis of—”

“You should know me better than that, Corliss. His appearance means naught to me. And it
should
mean naught to you, but in fact, you seem to assume some innate goodness in him
because
of his misfortune. Life isn’t always like that. People who’ve suffered can be evil, too. Certain kinds of suffering can even bring out wickedness in those of weak character.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Rainulf. The man is harmless.”

“No one of that size is harmless.”

“He’s simple-minded... I think.”

“But you don’t know for sure.” He strode over to her and grabbed her upper arms. “All you really know is that Sir Roger has sent someone to find you. Someone who will not only return you to Cuxham, but do serious harm to you in the process. You ought to have more sense than to expose yourself to strangers this way. You’re making yourself too visible, Corliss. You lark about on your own, in all precincts and at all hours. This morning Father Gregory told me he saw you last night with a group of scholars outside St. Mary’s, listening to that hothead, Victor, gripe about the townspeople.”

She wrested out of his grip and rubbed her arms. “I thought he pointed out some genuine concerns.”

Rainulf grunted. “Pointing out concerns is easy. Doing the right thing about them is hard. Victor invites trouble. I think he may actually want to die. They tell me he used to be quite the ruthless mercenary—completely bloodthirsty. Perhaps he thinks he’s sinned so badly that he must atone with his own death.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Perhaps. Nevertheless, you mustn’t fall in with his crowd, Corliss—or any crowd. You mustn’t go out at night so much, or talk to strangers, or trust anyone. One of these days someone may take a good hard look at you and realize you’re not what you seem.”

She smiled dismissively. “No one pays any attention to me. I’m just another adolescent boy roaming around Oxford—one of hundreds. Don’t you understand? For the first time in my life, I’m free to go where I please and do what I want, and no one tries to stop me—except you.”

He dragged his hands through his hair. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

She raised her chin. “You just don’t want to lose the chancellorship, and you’re afraid that’s what will happen if people find out you’re living with a—”

“It’s not just that, Corliss. I’m worried about you. If anything happened to you...” He sighed heavily. “I’m going to have to forbid you to continue exposing yourself to danger in this manner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t permit you out after dark anymore.”

Outrage flared in her wide brown eyes. “
What?
”

He tried to gentle his voice. “Not unless I’m with you. And you’ll have to limit your movements and associations—”

“You can’t be serious.” She gaped at him, her face a mask of disbelief. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

“Corliss...” He reached for her, but she backed away from him.

“I can’t believe you’re saying these things to me. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“Corliss!”

“I didn’t come to Oxford to be told what to do and when to do it, where to go and who to talk to.”

“It’s for your own good, Corliss.”

“I thought you were different,” she said, her voice quavering. “But you’re like every other man I’ve ever known. You think you have the right to tell me what to do, just because of what hangs between your legs. You know, when you come right down to it, you’re little better than Roger Foliot.”

“Corliss...”

She swept past him and into her bedchamber, tugging the leather curtain closed behind her.

He listened outside the chamber for several minutes. She was moving about in there. “Corliss?”

No answer. He parted the curtain. Her satchel lay open on the unmade bed. Within it he saw her clothes and the
Biblia Pauperum
. She picked her comb up off the washstand and tossed it on top, then buckled it and slung it over her shoulder.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she said, calmer now. “But I can’t live the way you want me to live. Not anymore. I’ll come back for my paints and inks and things as soon as I find my own place.”

She tried to walk past him, but he blocked her way. “You can’t afford a decent place, Corliss—not yet, anyway.”

“I’d rather live in the most dismal rented room, and be free, than to stay here.”

“I thought...” A strand of hair hung in her eyes; he brushed it aside and saw her bite her lip. Very quietly he said, “I thought you liked it here.”

“I love it here,” she replied softly. “I never thought I’d live in such a grand house. And you’ve been...” She looked down. “You’ve been very kind. But if the only way I can live here is to give up my freedom, I’m no better off than a bird in a cage. A very grand cage, to be sure, but a cage nonetheless. Good-bye, Rainulf.”