The Book of the Maidservant (16 page)

“Ask
her,”
Dame Isabel says. “She’s the one who had it last.”

I can feel her pointing at me, but I dare not raise my head. I tense for Petrus’s blows, not knowing where they will fall. I hear him kick a wall and grunt. Then his footsteps recede.

“
Do
something!” Dame Isabel shrieks. Her footsteps follow his, and then I hear her husband going after her.

“There, now, my honey bird,” he says.

Then they are gone. In the silence, I whisper an Ave. And then another and another.

More footsteps. I tense.

Someone crouches in front of me.

Bartilmew.

He unfurls my fist and fills it with bread. Turning his head toward the door and then back to me, he gestures toward his mouth.

I don’t know where he got it. It’s so old and dry that it’s hard to swallow, but I chew until I can get it down.

Bartilmew stands and reaches his hand toward mine. I take it and let him haul me up. Together, we return to the work of cleaning the piles of rotten hay and chicken droppings from the floor.

Slowly, the day passes. Every time I start to think about what will happen to me, I stop myself.

Dame Isabel’s husband comes in with a cooking pot for me to use, now that my mistress has taken the old one. He also brings barley meal, which I cook to perfection—no lumps, no burning, just smooth porridge. Still, it tastes terrible because my mistress took the salt.

As I serve them, I watch Dame Isabel and Petrus nervously, waiting for my punishment for the stolen coin. No one says anything about it, which makes me more nervous. What are they waiting for?

When night comes, I wrap myself in my cloak and try
to sleep. My hood was in the pack that my mistress took. So was my blanket. I shiver in the dark, and my thoughts fly around me like St. Guthlac’s winged demons, tempting me to despair.

How will I ever find my mistress again? How will I get back home? I don’t know how long Dame Isabel will let me stay here, especially since she thinks I was the one who stole the coin. I can’t go with them to the Holy Land—I have no way to pay for my passage on the ship they’ll take. What will I do when they’re gone?

My fears whirl me into a stupor until I finally fall into dark dreams.

Each day I awake afraid. As much as I hate and fear Petrus Tappester, as little love as I hold for Dame Isabel and her husband, I do their bidding as well as I can. My next mistake might be my last in their company.

When Petrus slaps me, I bear it without tears, except when it hurts so much I can’t help it. When Dame Isabel calls me “sullen child” or “wicked girl,” I ignore her words. She’s like a demon, tempting me to anger, but I clench my fists and keep my face as expressionless as I can. If I give in, they could kick me out.

Father Nicholas never calls me names or hits me, but he doesn’t defend me, either. Instead, he pretends not to see or hurries away when the shouting starts. He’s found a church where he spends his time doing I don’t know what. Not studying the Gospels, surely, or wouldn’t he be raising up the weak? Me, I mean?

*  *  *

One cold, sunny day, Petrus goes out in the morning and doesn’t come back in time for the midday meal. I feel lighter than I have for days. After we eat, Dame Isabel and her husband go out to see some of Venice’s sights, and Father Nicholas slips away to his church.

I take the pot out to the nearest canal to wash it and bring it back full of water. The sky is a cold and cloudless blue, as bright and clean as new milk. I set the pot down and watch a seagull hovering on the wind. Down one street, a white sheet drying on a line strung between buildings billows in the breeze like a sail.

In the distance, I can hear someone singing. Another voice joins in. It’s a happy song, whatever they sing, and it makes me think of John Mouse and remember the time we sang together, just for a moment, before the others joined in.

When the voices die out, I pick up my pot again, sloshing water over my boots. I don’t even care.

Back at our hostel, I come through the door, blinking in the gloom. As I set the pot down, I hear something behind me.

“Bartilmew?” I say.

Hands grab me. One clamps over my mouth. A body presses into mine. I feel the cold touch of iron at my neck. My heart pounds in my throat.

“Not a word out of you, girl, or you’ll feel more of this knife,” Petrus says. His words stink of stale wine.

I try to wrench myself away, but the knife bites into my neck, just below my ear. He’s too strong for me.

“Nobody here, just you and me,” he says, pulling me back with him, away from the door.

His fingers mash my lips against my teeth. As he pulls me back, his fingers spread. I bite down, hard.

“Damn you!” He pulls his hand away.

I scream. His hand covers my mouth again, tight and hard.

I struggle, but I can’t get away. The knife starts to cut. Far away I can see a bright blue box, the sky through the door.

He backs toward the stairs, pulling me with him.

I hear a growl, then footsteps.

I stumble, and Petrus jerks me upright, his meaty fingers grasping my neck, crushing it. I can’t breathe.

“Johanna! Run!”

Bartilmew’s voice.

I scratch at Petrus’s arm, trying to wriggle away from him, but the hand on my neck tightens.

“Oof!” Petrus says, and suddenly, I’m free. I scramble out of his grip.

“Go!” Bartilmew bellows.

Tripping over my skirt, I stumble toward the blue box.

I push through the door and over the threshold.

I look back. Bartilmew and Petrus are locked in a fighter’s embrace, the knife raised high.

As I flee, the knife comes down.

B
lindly, I run, a scream stifled in my throat.

Through the alley, down a narrow street, past a church, through the empty marketplace, the stalls closed for the day. Across a bridge, along a narrow canal side path, across another bridge.

I push past a group of boys and break through a man and a woman walking arm in arm. The man shouts, but I keep running.

I run until the sharp pain in my side makes me stop. I lean against a wall, holding my ribs and gasping for air.

When I can breathe again, I touch my neck. The blood on my fingers makes me look down—there’s blood on my cloak, too.

A sound makes me whirl, but it’s nothing, just a man walking past in a hurry. I look around me. I’m in an open area, the largest space I’ve seen in Venice that isn’t the sea.

Two young men stare at me as they go by.

I can’t stay here. I start walking. I walk all afternoon and longer, until the sky turns the brilliant blue of a winter twilight, until a star pierces it, until the blue fades to gray.
I don’t know where I’m going, just that I have to keep walking.

The scent of incense on the breeze tells me a church is nearby. When I find it, I look around furtively before creeping through the door. I don’t think anyone sees me.

A few candles up by the altar are the only light. I stumble through the shadows until I find a corner where I can lower myself to the floor and rest my trembling legs. When I’m sure no one has seen me, I wrap myself tightly in my cloak to wait out the night, wishing I had my hood.

Now that my body has stopped moving, my mind races. Over and over again I see Bartilmew and Petrus, close as two dancers, their arms raised, the knife coming down. Who held it? I couldn’t see.

I close my eyes as tightly as I can and rub them with the heels of my hands to make the image go away, but I can’t stop seeing it.

I should have stayed. I should have helped Bartilmew. What happened to him? Is he all right?

I should pray for him, but no prayer comes. Instead, anger flares inside me. This is all Dame Margery’s fault. How could she leave me all alone in a foreign land? How
could
she?

My breathing slows and a calm takes over me, a quiet, steady flame of anger that fills me.

From far away, the sound of chimes awakens me. I blink in the dim light and listen, trying to understand where I am.

The chimes ring again, and I realize they’re not so far
away after all: Up at the altar, acolytes ring bells as the priests chant Mass. In the dark nave, ghostly figures kneel in prayer. Something catches my eye, making me look up. A sparrow flits through the roofbeams and lands near a stained-glass window. I squint until I can see the image: St. Michael holding his scales.

I rise slowly and make my way through the church. As I get closer to the altar, the smell of incense wafts past me. It catches in my throat and makes my stomach heave.

My hand over my mouth, I run through the nave, out the church doors, across the porch, and down the steps.

Gasping in the cold, misty morning air, I wait until the sick feeling passes. Then I begin walking again. When I come to a well, I drink deeply and scrub at the blood on my neck and cloak.

As the sun gleams through the haze, I go through a market, where men hawk wares from stalls with bright awnings. Past the market, I come to a wharf, maybe the same one from when we arrived here in Venice. It’s busy with travelers and sailors and merchants, not at all like the wharf in Lynn, with its fishing boats. Still, the smell of pitch and wood and salt makes me think of home. I hoist myself onto a barrel out of the wind and let the sounds swirl around me: wooden ships creaking and groaning, waves slapping against the pilings, gulls screaming, the rumble of carts over wood.

Nearby, I can hear a man saying, “Roma,” and then “Roma” again.

Rome, he must mean. Where my pilgrimage was supposed to take me.

I look up to see a priest talking to a sailor, who nods and gestures toward a ship. “Roma,” the sailor says, nodding.

If I could find my way to the English hospice in Rome, I could wait there for Dame Margery. But how can I ever get there?

The priest calls to a group of nuns behind him, five of them, their habits as black and white as magpies. Two other women stand nearby—maidservants, I think, from their brown wool gowns. They all begin walking to the ship, the maidservants pulling a heavily laden donkey behind them.

I rise, watching them. All at once, I know what I must do. Without allowing myself to think about it, I straighten my cloak and follow them. Up the gangplank they go, the nuns giggling and chattering like a group of milkmaids, while the two servants haul at the donkey’s bridle. My head lowered, my hand shielding my face, I stay close enough that I might be one of them. When the donkey digs in his hooves, I try to look as though I’m helping them with him. No one questions me.

Once over the gangplank, I move away from the nuns, mingling with the other people already on the boat, sailors and passengers. I find an out-of-the-way place at the side where I can look out at the horizon—and where no one will look at my face to see that I don’t belong.

Someone taps my shoulder. A sailor. I’m caught.

The sailor says something, gesturing.

I take a step back, my eyes wide with fear. The sailor rushes into the place where I was standing and whips a
rope around a metal spike. Then he yells to another sailor, who starts hauling on the other end of the rope.

I let out my breath in relief. I’m not caught, just in the way.

I find another place to stand and keep a careful watch any time someone approaches me.

Finally, we sail. Pulling my cloak around me against the cold wind, I watch as Venice recedes across the water. All I see are the red-tiled roofs, then only towers and church spires silhouetted behind me, and finally just a bumpy black line.

Venice is gone. I will never see Bartilmew again. I will never find out what happened to him.

I feel light-headed, hollow with hunger. My anger at Dame Margery bubbles up again and fills the hole in my belly.

When we reach our destination, I follow the nuns off the boat. I don’t know where we are, but I hope it’s the road to Rome. As they make their way through a town, I stay a little behind them. At the pace they walk, it’s easy for me to keep up, and there are plenty of other people out, so I don’t think they notice me.

The road is flat and leads us to another town. Oxcarts and men on horses pass by, and in the distance, I can hear bells before I can see the town gates. I hold back a little as the nuns enter, and then, when I realize the gates are closing, I run, slipping through just in time.

The nuns don’t go very far before they stop in the courtyard of a stone building. I watch from a corner as a
servant bows and ushers them inside. Their maidservants take bags from the donkey’s back, and a boy leads the donkey into a stable.

When the boy comes out again and everyone is gone from view, I cross the street and peer into the courtyard, then duck into the stable.

In the shadows, I can hear a horse nickering and another chewing, but I can’t hear any people. I wait to be sure, then look for an empty stall. When I find one that’s been mucked out recently, I settle in for the night.

My scrip digs into my side and I open it. Could I have left a cheese rind or a crust of bread inside? I dig through my fire-making supplies, my needle and thread, the blue bead I found in Cologne, the pebble my sister gave me, but I find nothing to eat. My fingers touch something metal, and I pull out Cook’s cross, the one she gave me just before I left Lynn. It’s green with corrosion. I rub at it, but it does no good, so I put it back and try not to think about how hungry I am.