The Illuminator (12 page)

These days, John came home at sunset too tired even to eat and sought his comfort in a flagon of ale. But Agnes didn't begrudge him, even though it
hurt to see her once gentle John loutish and bitter. She had betrayed him for her mistress. Had it not been for her loyalty to Lady Kathryn, her John would be a free man today, working for the dignity of a wage, instead of as a lackey to the likes of Simpson. It hardly seemed fair that she should complain now about her lot, so she determined to say no more about the extra work.

But extra work or not, it didn't take the illuminator long to charm his way into her good graces. After two weeks, she had to admit that Finn's pleasant demeanor and undemanding ways offset the burden of the added chores. She even looked forward to the mid-afternoon break that had become his habit. She had learned to like his wit. He wasn't Norman French like her mistress, or even Danish like Sir Roderick, but Welsh impudence was more to be tolerated than Saxon brutishness. And she admired a man of learning.

“Might you have a glass of ale or even a sip of perry for a poor scrivener, Agnes?” he'd said that first afternoon when he came into her kitchen. He loomed large in the doorway, shutting out the light.

She looked up from the meat she was grinding to a paste, not happy with the interruption, and grunted as she poured him a tankard of pear wine.

To her surprise he settled on the high stool next to her, and resting his elbows and his cup on the chopping block where she worked, began to talk. “You're making mortrewes, I'll wager. My grandmother used to make that. She was a fine cook. Your food reminds me of hers.” He motioned toward the mixture of bread crumbs and meat that she was kneading to a flattened ball. “Do you roll it in ginger and sugar? And saffron? I remember hers was the color of saffron.”

Agnes frowned, begrudging her answer. “Sugar's too costly. Most times I use honey. The secret to good mortrewes is in the texture. It has to be boiled to the right stiffness. But don't ye need to be getting back to yer own work, and leave me to mine?”

“I left young Colin and Rose mixing colors. He asked if he could be my apprentice, said since his brother was heir and he didn't want to be dependent, he'd like to have a trade. I told him I wasn't a guild master, so I couldn't take an apprentice, but that he could watch and learn. Rose can be a hard little taskmaster. She'll teach him.”

Agnes pummeled the concoction. “And Master Colin's a quick learner. You can trust yer daughter'll be safe with him. Now, if 'twere the other one, Alfred, ye might shouldn't leave them alone, if ye get my meaning.”

“Colin is harmless. The abbey will probably claim him one day, and Rose enjoys his company.” Frowning, he rapped his knuckles on the tabletop and looked off into the middle distance. “I worry that she's lonely. Lately, I've noticed a restlessness about her. She was such a sweet, contented child. Colin plays his lute, and they sing. They talk about music and colors, faraway places. Sometimes their chatter distracts me so, I have to shoo them out just to work in peace. But thanks for the warning. I'll be vigilant lest young Alfred finds the time from the tasks his mother has set him to steal what isn't his.”

He took a long drink from the cup. “Excellent perry, Agnes. Do you ferment the juice in barrels?”

“Oaken,” she said.

“Ah, that's what gives it this delicious, woodsy undertaste.”

Agnes had smiled in spite of herself.

After that day, she found herself looking forward to the illuminator's visits. She always had his mug of perry—even though they were near to the bottom of the barrel and this year's pear harvest a month away—and sometimes a sweet cake, besides. She enjoyed chatting with him and allowed him to pump her for information. But always within limits. Peasant though she might be, she had lived long enough to be aware of the perfidy of the times in which she lived, and knew a wagging tongue could bring down great and low alike.

They were sitting at the chopping block, Finn coddling his tankard of perry as Agnes plucked a brace of geese for roasting on the turnspit. Cool winds from the North Sea chased the July heat that had collected in the room. Peat smoke from the perpetual fire on the stone hearth mixed with the smell of pottage in the great iron pot that Agnes kept continually simmering with beef bones, barley, and leeks. She always had a bowl of broth and an oatcake to offer a hungry villein or beggar, whoever came to her door.

“Blackingham is a fair-sized manor, and I've heard that Sir Roderick had friends at court, was even a friend of the duke of Lancaster,” he said.

“Aye. I suppose you could say that. John of Gaunt visited here once. He and Sir Roderick went hunting with that hawk-nosed sheriff. A big headache fer me was that, I can tell ye. Nothing would do for the duke but a roast peacock. I nearly wore myself into my grave a baking and a roasting and then putting them fancy feathers back on that bird, all trifling like.”

“And Lady Kathryn? Is she loyal to the duke now that her husband is dead?” Finn asked.

Agnes shrugged, realizing that she was wading in dangerous waters, but she was enjoying Finn's company and knew as long as she answered his questions, he would linger. She answered carefully.

“Lady Kathryn is loyal to her sons. And to Blackingham. She fears the dukes and their struggle for control over the young king.”

“Lancaster seems to have won that struggle. They say he's in complete control of young King Richard. I met John of Gaunt once. Rather liked him—though I didn't have to cook a peacock for him.” He grinned that sideways grin that Agnes found disarming. “But he's cunning, I'll give him that, the way he's using the preacher, John Wycliffe, to drive a wedge between Church and king. Rich and poor alike are tired of the Church's taxes.”

“Aye. Greedy Lancaster's in control, all right. Time being. 'Tis him we have to thank for that wretched poll tax. Mark my words, Illuminator, poor folk will not stomach this tax. You can only push so far, even a peasant has his breaking point. Ye'd be ill advised to hitch yer wagon too soon. Young Richard's other uncle”—she groped for the name—“Gloucester, should not be discounted. Tides change. Wise men don't get washed out to sea.”

“Good advice, Agnes. I'll try to remember it.” He picked through the strongest quills among the feathers, testing their strength against the tips of his long fingers. “Is Lady Kathryn loyal to the pope, then? Come to think of it, I notice a conspicuous lack of prayers in her daily rituals—not that I'm complaining, you understand. I just assumed Lady Kathryn's sympathies lay with reform.”

Agnes pointed at the illuminator with a pin feather she had just plucked from the denuded fowl.

“Milady is devout, Illuminator. Don't ye go carrying tales to the abbot. Her devotions are private, and she's paid enough to the bishop to pray even that rogue of a husband of hers out of purgatory. Ye remember the dead priest, the one the sheriff found in the woods? Well, he used to be hanging around here regular-like, tormenting milady with veiled threats, always asking for money. He 'bout bled her dry.”

She thought she saw a flicker of surprise cross the illuminator's face and felt a moment's pang that she might have said too much. She reached for a
cleaver and brought the blade down sharply on the neck bones of the bird, first one, then the other.

Finn scooped them onto the flat blade of his knife and added them to the simmering broth on the hearth. “And what about you, Agnes? What do you think about John Wycliffe and his idea that Holy Church has no right to tax what belongs to the king?”

“Me? You're asking me what I think!”

“You're a wise woman. You must have an opinion.”

“Aye. And if I do, I'll be keeping it to myself. How do I know you're not a spy for the bishop? Yer doing monk's work. The proper place fer it would be the abbey. It could just be an excuse to spy. Ye might be a viper in our very bosom.”

She'd said it half in jest. But still, what did she really know about this stranger who had shown up the same day the bishop's legate was found murdered? Maybe she'd already said too much.

“If I were a mind to spy, it would not be for that green bird Henry Despenser. Youth and unseemly ambition can be a dangerous combination.”

Agnes approved of that opinion. She'd seen the bishop last year, when she went to Norwich with John to deliver the fleeces to the wool buyers from Flanders. Bishop Despenser had been supervising repairs on the Yare River bridge. The huge wool cart with its load of fleeces had been detained for an hour while he harangued the stone workers. She had resented his arrogance and the way he flaunted his ermine robes.

Finn drained the last sip of his wine and rose to leave.

“Since you've reminded me of my work, Agnes, I'd best get back to it. Rose will come looking for her father any minute now.”

But Rose didn't come looking for her father. She was much too happily engaged.

“I'll teach you how to play the lute,” Colin had promised her the week before as they cleaned her father's brushes.

“That would be wonderful. I could surprise my father. He likes me to learn new things.” She straightened Finn's manuscripts out of habit. Her father held neatness next to godliness.

“Well, if you want to surprise him, we shouldn't do it here.” Colin's voice has music in it even when he isn't singing, she thought. Sometimes she had to remind herself to concentrate on his words. “Do you think you could get away long enough?” he asked.

She pondered the question, fingering the pearl-encrusted cross at her throat. She liked touching the intricate filigreed work, the smooth pearls—it was her very favorite ornament. Touching it helped her think. “Father quits painting every afternoon when the light shifts. He goes into the garden to sketch the next day's work before the daylight fails. Or, if it's too rainy or cold to sit in the garden, he goes for a walk. I'll just tell him I'm going to work on my embroidery with Lady Kathryn.”

A frown wrinkled Colin's high, smooth brow. “Rose, I wouldn't want to deceive him. I much admire your father.” He straightened an ink pot, touched the stack of manuscript pages, traced the outline of the gilded cross in the center of the mulberry carpet pages—the endpapers that were overlaid with an intricate knotwork of black and amber. “What if he found out?”

“Then we'd tell him the truth, you silly goose, and all would be forgiven.” She loved the way his shining cap of pale hair hung just above his jaw line, like a smooth silken curtain. “He wouldn't blame you. He'd be thrilled. You know how my father loves your lute. Haven't you noticed how much better he works when you play?”

His frown vanished. “I think I know a place where we could meet and nobody would see or hear us. The wool house. Nobody ever goes there except at shearing time, and then just to pack the fleeces.”

The afternoon sun was warm, the air fat and lazy like the dog that lay beside the path, when Rose opened the door on the eighth day and slipped inside. Every day for a week, in the late afternoon, Rose had met Colin in the wool room. She sat on the clean-swept floorboards made smooth with years of lanolin from the fleeces, with her legs folded under her. Sometimes, Colin sat behind her with his arms around her, his fingers guiding hers on the strings. Sometimes, he sat across from her, instructing her with painstaking care how to pluck the strings. And during these lessons she learned more than how to hold the lute. This youth, with his gentle manner and silken blond hair,
stirred feelings in her that she had not known before. His breath on her neck, the touch of his hand pressing hers made her heart race. Sometimes she grew so light-headed she couldn't think.

The first thing she noticed today was the heavy, pungent odor of wool, not the usual lingering scent of lanolin that had soaked into the floor but a much stronger, more immediate, smell. She saw that the bare floor was littered with freshly clipped fleeces at about the same time she heard the voices. She was so taken aback that someone else was in their secret place that she instinctively shrank into the shadows for fear of being seen. At first she thought she must have imagined it; the room appeared to be empty except for the fleeces. Then she heard it again: voices, groans and giggles. They were coming from behind the large wool sack strung up on the rafters, waiting to be filled. She listened, her nervous fingers caressing the cross pendant for reassurance, feet pegged to the floor by the whispered words.