The Crimson Lady (22 page)

“This feels strange after so many weeks without needing to wear it,” Fiona commented over her shoulder to Braedan, as she adjusted the thick, black wimple over her hair and patted down the sides of her padded gown. “I’d almost forgotten how cumbersome all of this fabric is.”

“And unattractive, too,” Braedan mumbled with an exaggerated grimace, chuckling when she threw her boxwood comb at him in retaliation. “I cannot say that it is a welcome change, lady,” he added, his eyes twinkling as he picked the comb up and walked over to hand it to her again, “though I will admit to being glad that it prevents anyone else from seeing you in your true and quite irresistible form.”

With a scandalized laugh, she shook her head. “Braedan de Cantor, you are incorrigible.”

“So I’ve been told,” he answered, raising his brows and wiggling them, which drew another smile from her.

“Well, sir, since you’re so free with your observations this morn, let me take a look at you and offer up some of my own,” she clipped, stepping back to view him. He struck a less than modest pose, but she ignored his boldness, instead moving around him and examining the rolled-up
braies
and coarse-woven tunic, her finger to
her lips in mock concentration, and her gaze traveling up and down his muscular and finely formed length.

“I trust I meet with your approval, milady,” he murmured, still grinning wryly as he delivered an elaborate bow with a flourish of his hand.

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean
not quite
?” he echoed in feigned dismay. “I am the perfect servant, clad in simple yet durable cloth, sure to be convincing to even the most suspicious of the bawds we will face this day.”

She shook her head. “Nay. One detail is lacking.” Going back to the sack of garments they’d purchased for him in Threadneedle Lane for six pence, she rummaged around in it for a moment, before reaching deep and pulling out something soft and brown in color. It was a hat. A felt toque with a chin strap, no less.

“Oh, no. I am not putting that on, Fiona. A soldier has his limits, you know, even one as tolerant as I am. It is the kind an old man would don!”

“It is the hat of a servant, and all the more useful for being something you would never wear in your true form as a knight,” Fiona retorted, bringing it to him. “Remember, the idea is to be unmemorable to those we question. If anyone does decide to go to Draven with news of two strangers sniffing about, they’ll be hard-pressed to describe us any differently from a hundred other tradeswomen and servants. It will be useful for gathering information about Elizabeth. Think on it that way, instead of as a discomfort.”

This time Braedan rolled his eyes, but he remained still while she fastened the ridiculous hat on his head. Once the chin strap was secure, he shook his head, test
ing its hold, and Fiona laughed aloud, the sound tinkling merrily through the small chamber.

“Ach, Braedan, you look like one of the dancing monkeys the mummers lead through the market on Fair Day when you do that.”

“Aye, well, if you were wearing this—” He stopped, realizing that she was wearing something that felt far more cumbersome than his hat, in the form of her voluminous wimple. Grumbling, he picked up their purse of coin and tied it at his waist, saying, “We might as well get on with it, then. I can see you’re not going to bend in this, and we’ll be here all day prating about it, if I allow it.”

Making a
tsking
sound with her tongue, Fiona swept out the door he held for her, smiling all the way. Her good cheer lasted through the deliciously scented Baker Street, past Milk Street, with its plentiful, mooing cows and far riper aromas, all the way to the river’s edge.

There she stopped with Braedan just behind, surveying the already-thick obstruction of people trying to make their way over London Bridge—the only means, other than crossing the Thames with a hired boatman, to reach Southwark from the city or to come back again. The whole place bustled with activity, the bridge itself clogged with masses of people, a multitude of smells, and noise. It was less than promising, and a fresh reminder of why she’d always found the city and life here to be difficult at best.

“What say you?” she asked Braedan, leaning in to him and speaking more loudly than usual to be heard over the noise of all the people. “Should we hire a boatman to take us across, or should we pay the bridge toll
and brave the crowds? It may be past the noon hour before we reach bank side with that throng to contend with.”

“It’s an even dilemma, I’d say. With one we lose little more than time, but with the other we spend a greater amount of coin that we may need, eventually, in bribing those who can help us find Elizabeth.”

As he’d spoken, Fiona was noting the flow of people, carts, and animals coming from Southwark as well as those crossing into the ward; more than a few of the women, some traveling singly, others in pairs or small groups, walked with their heads covered by the striped hoods required by law, to distinguish them as legal harlots.

A latent shudder swept through her, drawing Braedan’s attention.

“What is it?” he asked, looking at her in concern.

“Nothing.” She forced a smile. “Let’s save the coin and walk the bridge. That’s my choice, as long as you don’t object.”

He nodded, seeming content with the decision as they made their way toward the entrance to the heavily traveled bridge. Fiona tried to seem unconcerned as they made their way through the crowd, passing those who were moving more slowly, including a squabbling couple and a man with his cart tipped on a broken wheel, but she found it difficult to tear her gaze from those ray-patterned hoods bobbing through the crowd. Her mind burned with an image she had found fair success in suppressing these many years. She saw herself as a very young girl, standing just outside the mouth of the stone archway here on a clear summer morn, waiting for her
mother to make her way home after a night spent working in the
stewes
.

She’d not known, then, what it was that took Mama away whenever it was dark; she’d only known how happy she felt when she came home, and so she’d chosen that morning to meet her at the bridge and share her walk back to the hovel they rented above a little shop at Cheapside on Ironmonger Lane, with its ever-present stench of hot metal and the clanging of hammers.

The crowd was less boisterous so early in the morning, and she’d been able to spot her mother in the throng, her russet hair with its straight part shining in the sun as she trudged, facedown, out of the opening at London end. She’d been ready to run to her, excited to tell her of the pence she’d found near the butchers’ shops the evening before, which would mean fresh bread and perhaps a bit of cheese to break their fast instead of the dry crust that served as their usual fare. But before she could reach her, a man dressed in fine clothes had reached out and grabbed her mother by the arm, shouting angrily and pointing at her hair.

Fiona had stopped short before being forced to run after the man, who had begun to drag her mother down into the street. By the end of that terrible day Fiona had learned that the man was a London official; her mother had been brought before the Mayor’s Court and condemned to pay a shilling eight pence or serve three days in the
thews
for failure to wear the hood that was required of her as a common woman and harlot of Southwark.

That sum of coin was unthinkable, considering their destitute situation, and so Fiona’s mother had been
forced to endure the punishment of the
thews
, led up and secured on that pillory with other women like her to be jeered at by all who passed by, her crimes read aloud for their entertainment. Fiona had stood in the shadows for each of the three days, watching her mother’s ignominy with fists clenched and silent tears sliding down her cheeks.

And her life had never been the same again.

“Should we be making inquiries at any of the shops or houses on the bridge itself?” Braedan leaned in to ask her, pulling her from the painful memory with his question.

She looked around herself, feeling a little dazed to realize they’d traversed nearly half the span already. “Nay,” she answered, trying to concentrate on the task before them. “We need not question anyone until we reach the Borough. That is where most of the inns and sanctioned brothels we’re looking for are to be found.”

Braedan slowed, studying her with that same, knowing gaze as before they’d entered the bridge. “Perhaps we should stop for a bit,” he said, taking her elbow. “You’re looking pale, of a sudden.”

“I’m fine,” she said, touching his hand and calling up a smile as she willed herself to shake off the difficult memories. “It is just warmer in these garments than I remembered, that is all.”

“Then perhaps you should rest. The sun burns hot today.”

“Nay. We should keep going so that we can reach the first of the alehouses we’ll need to visit by the noon meal,” she answered, sidestepping an overturned basket of cabbages and the red-faced woman who was angrily gathering them back up.

“Which will we seek out first?”

“The Unicorn, I think. It is a large establishment, and when I lived at Chepston, the brewster there also rented some rooms nightly to the women Draven supplied her. After that we can try the Maid’s Head and the Lion.”

“It sounds as if we’ll be busy.”

“Aye. It will be enough to keep us occupied for the day.”

She glanced sideways at him as they continued on, reminded again of his strength in both body and heart; even in servant’s garb he seemed a force to contend with, the whole of his attractiveness increased, for her, in knowing the tender care he offered as well. She tried to draw on that feeling to keep the rising panic that their imminent approach to the
stewes
was inspiring in her. On the day she’d fled this place for good more than four years ago, she’d vowed never to return. But her world had changed since then. Braedan had come into it, first as a thorn in her side and then, through the enigmatic workings of their hearts, as the man she loved enough to face the demons of her past. She would be strong through this. Aye, for Braedan’s sake, and the sake of his foster sister.

And for myself
.

The thought came unbidden, shoring up her resolve and helping her to keep placing her feet in front of each other though it brought her ever closer to the hellish memories of her past. Draven had stolen her innocence, but he hadn’t been able to break her spirit. Not completely. She had lost herself for a while in the stifling prison of his possession, that much was true, but it had not been as hopeless as it had seemed. She’d found some of her strength again, in large part thanks to Braedan’s
acceptance of her. Thanks to his love. And with it came the fierce desire finally to thwart Draven and his evil…to face her fears in ways that had never seemed possible before.

All that she needed now was the strength of will to do it.

B
raedan stood in the alley behind the Bell and Cock in the heat of late afternoon four days later, watching Fiona’s animated discussion with the inn’s alewife. Unsavory scents rose all around him both from refuse and the old thatching that was piled in heaps, as it was behind every building he’d seen in this liberty, but he tried to ignore the stench. The questioning going on right now was too important. If this was the woman Fiona had sought, then she might well hold some answers to Elizabeth’s whereabouts.

At the moment their quarry looked supremely agitated, whether from her exertions within doors or from the conversation Fiona was trying to have with her, Braedan couldn’t tell; the woman’s face was ruddy, and some of her hair had escaped her tightly fitted cloth cap to hang in limp, damp strands down her cheeks. She kept
gesturing as she spoke, her gaze darting suspiciously toward him.

He stepped back into the shadows a little more, trying to prevent her from gaining a clear view of him. He’d heard Fiona tell her that he was her servant, but there was no need to arouse further suspicion. The woman’s wariness about him was surprising; they had visited upwards of a dozen alehouses and more than a few brothels since their arrival in London, and none of the others with whom they’d spoken had reacted so skittishly. They’d been alternately apathetic or curious, some of them even seeming eager to help her in finding a runaway apprentice—thinking, no doubt, that a payment of gratitude might be involved from a shopkeeper who was willing to search so diligently for her lost property. But by and large, they’d only garnered a few clues.

The best of those had landed them here.

He bowed his head deferentially and backed up a step to let Fiona pass by him when she finally finished the conversation and left the alehouse door. It was a show for the benefit of the alewife, who kept gazing after them for another long moment, her expression sharp and her posture rigid. Then, pursing her lips together, she grumbled under her breath and shook her head with a scowl before ducking back into the building and slamming the door shut behind her.

Braedan hurried to catch up to Fiona, pausing with her when they’d reached a safe distance to talk unobserved. “What did you learn, then?” he asked, trying to keep his sense of hopefulness contained; it was as likely as false a lead as the others had been.

Fiona remained silent, her brows knit together and her tawny eyes clouded with worry. When she still didn’t
answer after a moment more, he asked again, “Well, did she have information about Elizabeth or not? Tell me, Fiona.”

“Aye, she knew something,” Fiona answered softly, still staring with consternation at the ground before them. She finally turned her gaze upon Braedan. “She gave me the location of a brothel on Cokkeslane, claiming that a young woman matching Elizabeth’s description and circumstances was known to work from some rooms there as recently as a fortnight past.”

“Let’s go, then,” Braedan said, taking her arm and beginning to tug her the remainder of the way down the alley so that they could look for the house she’d mentioned. But she resisted, pulling back to keep them at a standstill.

“Nay, Braedan—wait—”

“What is it?” he asked impatiently.

“I just feel like something is not right about all of this.”

Braedan frowned. He’d noticed an increasing sense of anxiety from her, more so since they’d decided two days ago to take rooms on this side of the Thames for the sake of ease in their search—but he also knew she’d never risk someone else’s welfare without good cause. “Why should we hold back, lady? It is the first truly solid information about Elizabeth we’ve had so far.”

“That is my concern. The alewife surrendered it too easily.” Fiona was still frowning, and now she shook her head, making the folds of her wimple flap like crow’s wings. “Afterward, when I tried to press a few of the coins we’d brought for the purpose into her palm, she would not take them.”

“Perhaps she wanted to do a good deed without recompense.”

“Not this woman. I knew of her during my years in the
stewes
, though I’d never spoken to her myself before; her name is Margery Kempe, and she was known for her talent in gathering profit. She would never turn down free coin.” She gazed at Braedan again, her eyes intense upon him. “It was strange…almost as if she knew what I was going to ask before I asked it.”

“You think it to be some kind of trap, then?”

“I cannot say. She’s sending us to Cokkeslane, which is a difficult area, to be sure. The information could be honest, but then again, there could be another reason—or a specific person—behind her offering of it as well.”

He cursed softly. “Draven…”

“I admit it doesn’t seem likely that he could know we are here, and yet…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced back over her shoulder in the direction from which they’d come.

She’d been under a great deal of strain the past few days, Braedan knew, and he felt a renewed swell of concern. Staying in Southwark had been difficult for her, and searching the
stewes,
agonizing. He couldn’t imagine what she must feel like to be here. He only knew how
he
would feel if he was being forced to confront his past at Saint-Jean-d’Acre all over again. To have to relive the hell of that time and place. And yet Fiona was doing that right now, revisiting circumstances that were likely more wrenching, even, than what he’d known on those battlefields.

She needed a rest from it, if only for a few hours. Some of what had to be done next could be done by him alone, and in light of what she suspected of the alewife, it was probably best for him to investigate it himself first anyway.

“Come,” he said, gently, placing his hand on the small of her back. “What say you we go back to our rooms at the Tabard and sup? It’s getting late, and it would be wise to rest for a while, I think.”

“But what of Cokkeslane?” she asked in surprise.

“I don’t think we should seek out the place right now; as you said, it might be a snare for us. If Draven is behind it, he would be expecting us to go there immediately. And if nothing is amiss with the information, then a few more hours won’t matter.”

“A few more hours?” She pulled away now with certainty to keep them standing in the alley and away from the main thoroughfare. “Are you intending to go back and search
tonight
? It would be madness, Braedan. Plumped-up widow’s weeds or nay, if I am walking the streets of Southwark after dark, I will be construed as a harlot who may be purchased for the night.”

“You won’t be on the streets tonight; I’ll be going back alone.”

She made a sound of exasperation. “It is hardly less dangerous for you! You know it’s against the law to be out past city curfew. You’ll have to take up residence in the brothel for the night or risk arrest if you’re caught out and about.”

“I know how to keep to the shadows,” he reassured her. “I didn’t survive all those years in foreign lands with strange customs and unforgiving laws by dashing about blindly, you know.” He touched her face and gave her a gentle smile. “I do cherish your worry for me, Fiona, but in truth I will be fine. It’s better that I look into this myself anyway. If it is a trap, it will be easier for me to find my way out of it alone than for both of us to need escape
it. My worry for you would prove most distracting, I fear.”

She didn’t look completely convinced, but she was wavering. Hoping to offer the final bit of argument that would bring her into agreement with him, he added, “You must admit, I will have a better chance of finding Elizabeth tonight than if we went right now; the women who work in the
stewes
are forbidden by law to live in the rooms they rent each night, are they not? If Elizabeth is indeed connected to that Cokkeslane house, as the alewife told you, then she or anyone who might know of her wouldn’t likely be found there until after dark.”

Fiona frowned, but after a pause was forced to nod reluctantly. “I suppose you’re right about that part of it.”

“It’s settled, then; we’ll go back to the Tabard to eat and rest,” he said firmly, putting his hand to her back again and guiding her out toward the main road. As they came into sight of other people, he stepped back, maintaining a suitable yet protective distance between them, as befit a tradeswoman and her servingman.

Soon enough they neared the inn. But before reaching the entrance, Braedan pulled off his cap and stuffed it into his tunic, donning a short cape he pulled from the pack he’d been carrying with them, to initiate his second role as Fiona’s husband, as needed whenever they were at the inn. When they entered the Tabard’s main chamber, he paid no heed to her soft protests and used some of their coin to order a bath and some food sent up to them. But she seemed grateful to let him lead the way to their chamber after; it was a modest room, though clean and a welcome haven from the hubbub of the streets.

“Here. Let me help you with that,” he said, as she twisted her arms behind herself trying to reach the laces
of her widow’s garments. His fingers worked with efficient speed to undo all of the ties and unfasten the bulky cushions she’d strapped to herself beneath the kirtle, as she unwound the fabric of the wimple from her chin and lifted the entire headdress from her hair. In a few moments she was clad in nothing more than her shift, and she made a groaning sound of relief as she stretched.

“It feels so good to be free of all that padding,” she said, running her fingers through her plaits to loosen her hair as well. It spilled over her shoulders like a fall of dark fire, her sweet vanilla fragrance wafting from those luxurious tresses as she turned to face him. “Ah, Braedan, how did you know?” Her voice was soft and broken, and she gazed up at him with a look of such poignant vulnerability that it set something to twisting inside of him. “How do you always know just what I need and when I need it—even before I do?”

He couldn’t answer her at first for the feelings unleashed in him then, and so he simply held out his arms to her. She curled into his embrace, and he stroked her hair, cradling her against his chest as he murmured endearments. His eyes stung as he held her close, feeling her hitched breathing and realizing, suddenly, just how much these days back in the
stewes
were wearing down that extraordinary resilience of hers. It had to end and soon, that much was clear; he didn’t know how much more of it she would be able to stand. Pray God he would find an end to it tonight, by finding Elizabeth.

And if he didn’t, he thought, leading Fiona to the bed to rest until her bath arrived, he would end it himself by arranging for one of Will’s men to meet them outside the city when they convened to take action against Draven and bring her back to the settlement until the entire, ugly
mess was finished. She would have to agree to go, for his sake if not for her own.

He would make her agree to it, he decided, stretching out behind her on the bed and pulling her into his arms to press a kiss to the back of her neck. Because he loved her too much not to.

Fiona watched the door latch shut behind Braedan some hours later, feeling the heaviness that had been lingering in her heart these past days swell anew. Being with him here tonight had helped for a while, the tender hours they’d spent since returning to this chamber like a balm to soothe her soul. They’d supped and then bathed together, his touch on her so gentle, so loving that she’d wanted to weep with the joy of it. But she hadn’t; she’d simply soaked in the warmth of his body pressed close to hers in the little tub, stroking the cloth with its scented soap over him as he’d done to her until they were both beyond thinking anymore.

Then they had made love, more sweetly than ever before, until, exhausted and replete, they’d slept for a while. It had been a beautiful sharing of their bodies and their hearts, but even then, as she’d drifted off into restless slumber, she couldn’t stop thinking that it had felt different, somehow. As if they’d been touched by sadness.

Like a farewell…

Then, with a murmured caution to keep the door bolted while he was away, he’d gone to investigate the alewife’s story of the brothel on Cokkeslane.

He was right, she knew, about the wisdom in traveling alone to seek out Elizabeth, yet she worried about
him nonetheless. If Draven was lying in wait, it would be disastrous, though Braedan had assured her that he would be prepared for that possibility. He’d go carefully and never leave himself without a route of escape, he’d said, kissing her face and giving her an encouraging smile just before he’d gotten up to dress.

She had to trust him to take care of himself as he’d promised, she decided, pushing herself up from the bed. She had to do something—anything—to pass the time until he returned. At the least she could tidy up and make herself presentable.

After washing up a bit with fresh water poured from the pitcher and basin, she eyed with a grimace the pads and heavy, black gown and wimple that comprised her embroidress’s costume. She just didn’t think she could bear putting them on again this night.

It had actually surprised her how much she’d come to despise that disguise, considering that she’d donned it every day for three years with hardly a thought. It had to be Braedan’s involvement in her life, she decided; somehow the idea of pretending to be someone she wasn’t was no longer as tolerable as it had been before. Braedan had seen her for who she truly was, and he had loved her anyway, with all of her failings and sins out in the open; after experiencing a remarkable gift of that kind, it was almost unbearable to go backward again. She wasn’t sure, even, if she’d ever be able to go back to her old role as shopkeeper after all this was over. Every time she thought about it she felt nothing but sickness at knowing she would likely be without Braedan, then. Swallowing the pain, she set the clothes aside.

It wasn’t necessary to wear the padded garments
again until the morn anyway, she reasoned. She chose instead one of the simple kirtles from the garments she’d brought with her from Will’s settlement. Then she set about straightening the bedding and lugging the tub to the window to pour out the old bathwater into the gutter below. When that was finished, not much was left to be done but to clean up the scraps left from their evening repast. It was much too warm to need a fire, and so when all had finally been set to right, she sank down on the carved wooden chair near the hearth and stared into the empty grate, trying not to think of Braedan, Draven, or the darkness that seemed to be circling her heart, squeezing out the light a little more with each day she lingered in the
stewes
.