Roberta Gellis (3 page)

There was a torch burning to the right of the door, and the resinous, smoky smell battled with the miasma of stale sweat, stale sex, old vomit, and overused bodies. Worse, the torch cast enough light to expose the thin,
filthy pallet near the back wall. A crumpled blanket lay in a heap on it; what color either had been was impossible to guess—both were dark gray and shiny with filth now—but Bell could see a darting movement here and there on pallet and blanket that showed how many six-legged pests inhabited the bed.

Although he closed the door, Bell did not move farther into the room. “Well, Diot,” he said, “what was the cause of that altercation?”

“He’ll say I stole from him. It isn’t true. He wanted to use me without payment. I had given him his tithe when I came. If he wants more, he must pay just like any other.”

Bell let his breath out, only realizing then that he had been holding it. The voice was lovely and the speech as good clear French as was spoken in the household of any nobleman of England.

“
Perhaps
you should not have been quite so forceful,” he remarked, smiling. “Men do not readily forgive having their nuts cracked. I do not think this stew will be a safe place for you to work.” He saw her nostrils flare, her lips tighten; the sheen of tears that dimmed her green eyes.

“Then I will go elsewhere. There are stews enough in Southwark.”

The words were bold, but there was the faintest unsteadiness in the voice. Bell smiled more broadly when he took in her increased anxiety. Likely she had stood up for her “rights” in other places and been cast out; this was not one of the more desirable houses. He shook his head.

“I do not think so. I think you have already made yourself unwelcome in too many places. I think you had better come away with me. I know of a very special house where you might do well and be happy.”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “I will take my chances in the ditches and alleys before I go to such a place. At least I will die quick and clean in the streets.”

Bell laughed aloud. “Not that kind of special. This is a place that serves only the rich, and the woman who keeps the place does not allow her whores to be mistreated. She might be willing to accept you as a replacement for one of her women who has gone to live with a client. You are very beautiful, and you speak a fine French. Do you speak English too?”

“You want me to speak English while we couple?” she asked in that language. “Good enough. I will not even charge you extra for it.”

Bell shuddered visibly. “Couple in this place? It is worse than a sty. I would sooner be celibate forever. Well, Diot, will you come with me? I swear you will be safe and free to leave if Magdalene will not accept you.”

When she did not answer, he opened the door and went out, loosening his knife from its scabbard as he came into the main room. Leaning on each of the baths, watching the door, the whoremaster’s brutes were waiting. Diot must have peered out of the door behind him and seen them too.

“Wait,” she called. “I am coming.”

Master Mainard Saddler raised his eyes and his knife from his work at the same moment. His lifted head exposed a monstrous countenance. One third of his face, from mid-forehead to just below the right jaw, was raised and puckered, a shiny deep red blotched with purple. The dreadful birthmark ran right up over almost half his scalp and, where it lay, he was bald. That made the luxuriant growth of russet curls on the rest of his head look like a travesty of a wig set askew. His nose was oddly flattened, with too-wide nostrils, and his mouth was horribly distorted, a harelip having been inexpertly sewn together in infancy.

The very thin man in a tattered tunic who had spoken his name did not flinch away from the raised knife or Master Mainard’s face and knew he need not be afraid although Mainard was a good foot taller and half a man of hard, solid muscle wider than he. He looked only at Mainard’s one beautiful feature, a pair of meltingly warm brown eyes.

“Mistress Bertrild wants you home,” he said.

The voice could have reflected the arrogance of the words, but it did not. There was only resignation in it. Master Mainard nodded and drew an oiled cloth over the piece of leather into which he had been carving an elaborate and very beautiful design. He did not answer directly but looked across at his journeyman who was using a very strong, sharp, wickedly hooked knife to cut the seat of a saddle from thick, stiff horsehide.

“Codi, see what is left from your dinner and give it to Jean to eat on his way home.” He looked back at the servant, who had murmured thanks with real gratitude. “Tell your mistress that I will come as soon as I have put away my tools,” he said, and began to clean the knife with which
he had been working.

As soon as Codi had handed Jean a packet done up in a clean rag, the servant left the workroom and went out of the shop, nearly trotting. Mainard quickly finished wiping the knife and tucked it away into an iron-banded box that stood under the table. Having closed the box and slipped a lock through the hasp, he also went into the shop, but he did not go out of the door. Instead, he climbed the steep stair, which was guarded on its open side by a new-looking railing.

At the door at the top of the stair, he paused and called, “Sabina.”

“Come in,” a sweet voice replied at once.

He opened the door, stepped inside, and caught his breath, then uttered a low chuckle. She had been with him almost a month; he saw her at least once a day, often three or four times—as often as he could find an excuse to go up to her chamber—but he still was not accustomed to the delighted smile with which she greeted him or to her beauty. He looked at the mass of dark hair, the deep red-brown of a well-polished chestnut falling to her hips in deep waves, at the oval face with its short slightly broad nose and wide, deep-rose mouth. Even the closed, sunken eyes, their dark lashes lying on her creamy skin, added to the beauty by giving an air of mystery to her smiling face.

“Haesel,” he said, addressing the girl child who was wrapping up a heel of a loaf of bread to put on one of the shelves to the left of the hearth.
“Do not bother to save what is left of our meal. Take it over to the church and give it to whoever is feeding the beggars there. Here is a penny. Buy some pottage and half a roasted chicken and a sweet—less sweet and more food,” he told her, shaking a finger at her, “for your evening meal.”

The child grinned at him,
took the penny, and pushed it through the opening in her gown into the pocket tied around her waist. If she had been afraid of his ugliness when he first took her from the churchyard where she had been left when her parents abandoned her, she was accustomed to it now and was as lively and saucy as any well-fed child of ten should be. She promptly dumped odds and ends of meat, the soaked trenchers off which they had eaten, some rinds of cheese, and the broken remains of a pasty into a basket, and skipped out of the room.

When the door closed behind her, Sabina said, “You will not have the evening meal with us, my love?”

“Are you bored and lonely, Sabina?” he asked.

A sweet smile made her face even more beautiful, and she held out her hand. He hurried forward and took it. “I am always lonely when you are not with me, Mainard.”

He sighed heavily. “That was what I feared. You are accustomed to the company of the other women of the Old Priory Guesthouse. There is no one to talk to here—”

“Oh, you silly man.” Her laughter was sweet and low, an invitation to intimacy. “Can you not recognize a compliment when you hear one? It is your company I crave, love, not that of my ‘sisters,’ fond as I am of them. I am not bored or lonely. I have songs to make up and Haesel to teach. You chose well, when you chose her. She is very clever and already speaks a little French.”

He kissed her hand and then, when she raised her head invitingly, her lips.

She clung for a moment, then said hesitantly, “Would it be easier for you, dearling, if I went back? At
first I thought your wife would not care since she did not want you, but now I know she is angry at my being here….”

“Don’t!” Mainard fell to his knees and buried his face in her lap. “Do not leave me!” He drew a sobbing breath. “If you want other men, have them. I will look the other way. Only do not leave me.”

She bent over him, kissing his hair and the bald, purple scalp. When she did that, he gasped and shivered. “I will never leave you of my own will, Mainard. I do not want or need other men. You give me such joy that I do not believe I will ever desire another man. I did not ask for my own sake, beloved. I served in a common brothel for years. You know that. I do not care what people shout at me or throw at me or even for blows. I only care that I maybe making your life harder.” She kissed him again. “It is hard enough already, I know.”

“No longer.” He looked up at her almost as if he were worshipping at a shrine. “Every day is a joy to me now. I wake up each morning knowing you are here, that I may see you and speak to you whenever I wish. She can say what she likes to me now. I am a man again, which you gave back to me, and I know my own worth. It is for you that I fear.”

Sabina shook her head. “It is nothing to me. I know what I am also. If you and only you come to my bed, I am no whore. I am your woman, as good and chaste as any married wife.” A frown formed between her high-arched brows. “Except, and I am very sorry for it, that I cannot sew your clothes or cook your meals—”

Mainard laughed aloud. “Neither does Bertrild. Nor did she ever, and never regretted it.” He got to his feet but bent to kiss her once more. “You will not be insulted again, beloved. I swear it. I have spoken to the justiciar and the sheriff, and the Watch are warned—and well paid—to guard you. If I can come back before the shop closes, I will, and eat with you. We can always send out to the cookshop for another dish if what Haesel brings back is not enough.”

“If you can—” She held out her arms, and he bent and touched her so she could embrace him. “I will be waiting. Whenever you can come to me, I will be waiting. God bless you, Mainard.”

She kissed his cheek and let him go. He looked toward the door. “Where is that little devil? You treat her too gently, Sabina. She is doubtless playing games in the Chepe. I do not like to leave you alone….”

“Why not?” Now she laughed. “I have my staff and I promise not to fall into the fire or do anything else silly. I can always call for Codi or the boys if I need help. Go. She will be even angrier if you are slow in arriving.”

Although Mainard knew it would make no difference at all if he had flown directly home the moment he heard Bertrild’s message, he did not say so to Sabina. When he had first married Bertrild, he had done everything within his power to please her. She had not been willing to live above the shop, so he had bought a fine house on Lime Street and allowed her to furnish it all anew. She was noble born, she told
him, and could not cook and clean like other merchants’ wives; so he had allowed her to buy four slaves, whom she mistreated shamefully. She had always acted as if she were doing him a favor by taking what he gave, and when he could give no more, she turned on him.

It was better for Sabina to believe that Bertrild would be less unpleasant if he arrived quickly. She, sweet soul that she was, would fret herself less, he thought, as he strode east past Perekin FitzRevery’s mercery. He bought much of the fabric he used for decoration and padding from Master FitzRevery, and he raised a hand to the man, who was standing in the door of his shop. FitzRevery also raised a hand and took a half-step forward, as if he would have liked to speak.

Ordinarily Mainard would have stopped gladly; FitzRevery was a good friend and had done him the greatest favor any man ever had. He had told Mainard there was a meeting of the guild involved in building the new stone bridge across the Thames, but either by his mistaken directions or Mainard’s misunderstanding, Mainard had ended up in the Old Priory Guesthouse. By then, Bertrild’s cruelty had rendered him virtually impotent, and he was backing out faster than he had come in, when Sabina had come forward and taken his hand.

He had realized that she was blind, that she could not see the horror of his face, and just for the need to talk to someone who would not have to look away he went with her. In half an hour she had restored him, and he stayed the night, proving himself a full man over and over. And when he had apologized for taking advantage, she had laughed and urged him on, calling him…“beautiful”…as she stroked his broad shoulders, his heavily muscled arms, and his strong thighs.

There was no favor FitzRevery could not ask in return, although he said it had all been a mistake. This time, however, Mainard did not respond, thinking what FitzRevery had to say could not be important or he would have come to Mainard’s shop to talk, so he just hurried down the street. He was not hurrying to pacify his wife, but because he hoped to hear what she had to say and still have time to claim he had work to finish or a client to see so he could return to Sabina.

His long legs took him swiftly across the mouth of Fish Street and eventually to a goldsmith’s heavily barred window, from which a golden flash caught his eye. Mainard hesitated, tempted to go in and buy a new trinket for Sabina; she got so deliciously angry with him when he brought her jewelry—and frequently made him promise to return the piece, which he never did. Then his twisted mouth thinned. Not on his way to Lime Street. If Bertrild sensed he had anything of value on him, she would begin to scream for possession.

The thought of her sent an odd hot/cold sensation up Mainard’s back, a double kind of hatred which he had never experienced before. His hands clenched, and he backed away from the goldsmith’s door, setting off again at an even faster pace. Thus, he was a little breathless when he walked in the door of the Lime Street house, and Bertrild sniffed with disdain. Knowing that she was contemptuous because she believed he had hurried to appease her, Mainard grinned as broadly as he could. Bertrild shuddered.