The Marsh King's Daughter (23 page)
In Lincoln Annet Fuller stirred the gently simmering mutton ragout, tasted it, and added more wine from the nearby jug. Nigel was dealing with a valuable customer who might be staying to dine and she was justly proud of this particular dish. It might look like an ordinary stew, but its taste was fit for a king - or a wealthy Italian merchant in
Guido of Florence usually sent his agents, but this year he had come in person. He was travelling to the great autumn fair in Nottingham, but visiting other towns on his way.
Annet left the stew to bubble and whisked around the room, giving it an unnecessary tidy. Everything was immaculate, not even a floor rush out of place. The hearth was swept, the napery so white that it gleamed, and the delicate scent of rose pot-pourri was not quite overpowered by the delicious aroma of the ragout.
Whenever Annet was nervous she took to household duties with a vengeance. They needed Master Guido's order. Of late business had been dwindling. Many of her father's former customers had gone elsewhere when he died, and after the scandal of Miriel and St Catherine's, that particular supply of first-grade wool had dried up and Nigel had experienced difficulties replacing it. Damn the girl. Why couldn't she have been a good and dutiful daughter? Just like you, said a voice inside Annet's head, causing her to dust a coffer top with renewed vigour.
'Yes, just like me,' she said aloud, her voice full of bitterness. What would have happened, she wondered, if she
had eloped with the troubadour instead of staying at home? Probably she would have died in a ditch, cold and hungry, but was it any worse than the way she lived now? Miriel had taken her chance, had run away with her soldier of fortune. Annet realised with a sudden flash of clarity that she was angry with her daughter because she was envious. And that was stupid, completely and utterly.
She returned to the stew, her grey eyes filling with tears of frustration. The door banged open and with a guilty leap she spun to face her husband. He was alone and his expression was thunderous.
'Where's Master Guido?' she asked. 'Is he not staying to dine?'
Nigel strode into the room. 'No, he says he has other weavers to see.' He spoke through his teeth.
Annet's stomach lurched. 'Has he committed himself to buying any of our cloth?'
'What do you think?' Nigel snarled. 'Oh, the oily bastard was diplomatic about it, said that he could not come to a decision until he had looked at other workshops, but I know when I'm being given the elbow. If we had stood any chance, he'd have been with me now.'
Annet swallowed. She knew how much hope Nigel had been pinning on Guido's contract.
He strode past her, launching a kick at the cauldron. Annet had to jump to avoid being splashed by the scalding mutton stew.
'But why? He's always bought from us before.'
'Wrong,' Nigel growled. 'His agent has always bought from us before.' Reaching the wall he flung round and paced back across the room. 'You should have seen him. Poking into every corner, examining the raw wool, counting the number of threads to the inch on the cloth with some sort of glass disc.' He spat into the rushes.
Annet winced. 'No one makes better cloth in Lincoln than you. He'll just look at the others and come back to us.'
Nigel grunted and bit on his thumb nail. 'He's going to look in Nottingham too, at the great fair.'
'Well, there's never been anyone to rival you there, either.'
'There is now. Take a look at this.' He pulled a square of wool from his pouch and tossed it at her. 'One of the pack-pony men bought an ell of it from a booth on Leenside. It's a match for our best greyne.'
Annet looked at the red cloth in her hands. It was more than a match for theirs, the weave finer and the wool of a better quality. It was like the cloth they had produced when her father was alive, but she dared not say so to Nigel. 'Then offer him a price he cannot refuse.'
'No,' Nigel snapped. 'I'll not be driven into a corner.'
But he would walk into one of his own accord. Annet sighed inwardly, suddenly feeling very tired. 'Then what will you do?'
He shrugged. 'I'll think of something.'
Her father would have made a decision immediately and driven forward. But Nigel was not her father, his grip was less sure. 'Do you want some ragout?'
He shook his head and, snatching the scrap of cloth from her hands, went to the door. 'I have no appetite.'
She shuddered and closed her eyes as he slammed out. Not for the first time she wished that she had entered St Catherine's and left Miriel in her place It would probably have suited everyone better. She hooked the cooking pot off the flames and lifted her cloak from the peg in the wall. Usually she would have sent one of the servants out to the market, but the room was poisoned with Nigel's anger and her own anxiety. She needed space to breathe. Calling to one of the women to mind the fire, she collected her willow basket and went out.
The market place was busy. Annet wandered among the booths and stalls like a ghost. She had no idea what provisions they needed because she had not checked. Her only concern had been to escape.
Acquaintances greeted her and she answered them with smiles and the right words, but her eyes were distant, her mind a blank. She didn't want to think because thinking made her realise how trapped she was and induced a choking sensation of panic. As long as she played the role of efficient and well-to-do housewife and believed in it, she was cushioned. When the belief wavered and threatened to dissolve, so did she.
Saffron, they needed more saffron. She paused at a spice-seller's booth to buy some of the dark yellow strands. And some cinnamon sticks too, for simmering with the garden pears. She had no enthusiasm for haggling, but forced herself to do so. It was all part of the role, and besides, if Guido of Florence did not buy, they would need to trim the fat much closer to the lean.
Across from the booth, on the road that climbed towards castle and minster, she became aware of the jangle of tambours and the groan of bagpipes.
'Looks like the sheriff's got himself some entertainment for the night,' remarked the spicer, setting his hands on his hips and grinning.
Slowly Annet turned and her hand shook as she placed the saffron and cinnamon in her basket. A troupe of players was dancing up the road, their costumes a gaudy blend of reds, yellows and blues. Four men, four women and two youngsters. One of the women juggled with batons as she walked. The other swirled brightly coloured ribbons on a stick whilst a child danced around her with the tambour. Annet stared while her hard-built world fragmented around her. The man who led them stepped out with the casual grace of a cat. He was tall and slender. The sleek amber-blond hair had receded and there were deep lines like pen strokes carved into his tanned features. But Annet knew that if he looked her way, his eyes would echo the carefree joy of the music and she would be fourteen years old again.
'Mistress Fuller?'
She did not hear the spicer's voice, nor a moment later his cry of alarm as he reached to grab her and missed. She did not see the cart rumbling towards her as she stepped out into the road. All she saw was a man with sunlight in his eyes and her own dancing feet.
Miriel watched the Italian merchant from the corner of her eye while she poured him wine. Guido of Florence was in
Nottingham to sell red silk cloth dyed in the workshops of Florence, and to buy English twills, worsteds and serges.
Miriel had given the Italian trader a tour of her weaving sheds on Leenside, showing him with justifiable pride the first of their bales of Lincoln cloth, spun from the finest diamond ewe's wool and dyed soft green and rich greyne-red.
'You tempt me sorely, Mistress Woolman,' Guido said, accepting the wine she gave him. There was a twinkle in his black eyes, but he sobered quickly as he caught Gerbert's scowl. 'It is very fine cloth that you have for sale. Indeed, it is as good as any I could buy in Lincoln itself. Of late my supplier there has not been offering me the quality I demand, and your price is competitive.'
'Then what stops you from yielding to your temptation? Eustace the Monk is dead, and your ships can sail without being robbed of their cargo.' Miriel's voice was a trifle breathless, but not owing to his flirting. She was well accustomed to that particular hazard in her business dealings. What did give her a queasy jolt was the fact that Lincoln's main producer of the famous red and green cloth was the house of Edwin Weaver, now in her stepfather's mediocre, if not incompetent, hands.
Guido shrugged expressively. 'I am a businessman. I have to decide whether it is worth my while.'
Miriel pursed her lips and nodded. 'You must do as you see fit for your livelihood, Master Guido, but so must I. I need to know by the morrow's noon if you intend to purchase my cloth, for I do have other buyers waiting.'
She presented Gerbert with his cup of wine and, as she touched his shoulder, gave him a sweet, placatory smile. Essentially she dealt with him as she had dealt with her grandfather. She delighted him with her energy and her youth, she kept him amused with her whims, listened patiently to his ramblings, soothed his aching feet in hot salt water, let him show her off, made him proud.
Her nocturnal duty, for which she had no experience to fall back upon, was not particularly pleasant, but she had her ruses. Oiled by her third cup of wine, Alice Leen had become most informative and eloquent. Accordingly Miriel
was able to keep Gerbert at hand's if not arm's length in bed, and as they had grown more familiar with each other, his old man's ardour had dwindled to a pale flame seldom kindled.
Guido drank his wine and made a sound of appreciation for its quality. 'Madonna, I let you know in the morning, before the hour of prime,' he announced, setting his cup on the oak sideboard.
Miriel nodded. 'Would it be asking too much to know the name of your weaver in Lincoln?'
Looking amused, he told her, and Miriel let out a little breath, her colour high.
'I see by your face that you are acquainted with him, madonna?'
'I know of his household, yes.'
'It is so sad about his wife, no?'
Miriel's spine turned to ice. She had to lock her knees to stay on her feet. 'His wife?' she said hollowly.
'She walk out in front of a loaded cart and she die in the street,' said the Italian with an expressive gesture. 'No reason. He very upset.'
Miriel clenched her hands in her gown, her fingernails biting half-moons in her palm while she struggled to keep the expression of a sympathetic stranger on her face.
'That is sad news indeed,' Gerbert rescued her, heaving his bulk from the chair. 'We will pray for him and the repose of his dear wife's soul when next we attend mass. And now you must excuse us. My health has not been good recently and I am swift to tire.'
'But of course.' Guido of Florence rose smoothly to his feet, and if he was surprised by the abruptness of the end to the meeting, he was too good a diplomat to show it. 'I will return in the morning, madonna.' He bowed to Miriel, and then to Gerbert.
Miriel saw him to the door and his servant summoned. Her lips stretched in a smile and she murmured courtesies that she was not later to recall. And when he was gone, she turned back into the room and eased herself down on the bench against the wall like an old woman.
'My mother,' she said, and pressed her hand against her lips.
Gerbert poured fresh wine into his cup and brought it to her. 'I'm sorry, lass.' Clumsily he patted her rigid shoulder. 'It must be doubly hard to bear such news when it comes in casual gossip from the lips of a stranger.'
Miriel lowered her hand to her lap and clasped it inside her other one, making a tight double fist that matched the knot of misery in her abdomen. 'I thought I hated her,' she said in a small voice, 'and now that she's dead, it's too late to discover that I don't.'
Gerbert plumped down beside her, his weight creaking the bench, and reached out his arm to pull her into his bulk. 'You have a good cry if you want,' he said, his hand patting her back like a mother with a baby. 'Better out than in.'
'But I don't want,' she said, blinking fiercely. 'What will it avail me?' She jumped to her feet, freeing herself from his grip, seeking self-containment like a cat. 'All the tears in the world will not bring her back to life, nor make amends.'
'Nay, but they may give you ease,' Gerbert said with gentle sadness. 'When my Sybil died, I wept fit to fill a bucket, and felt the better for it. Light candles, say prayers, God will hear.'
Miriel made a small sound and shook her head. She had prayed for God to visit a murrain on her stepfather, and so he had, but at a price whose payment had returned to haunt her. 'God hears only too well,' she said.
Guido of Florence bought all the cloth that Miriel's looms could produce and sent his agents back for more. Throwing herself into her trade with a vengeance, Miriel toiled from before dawn until after dusk, substituting hard work for grief, regret and guilt. She had the excuse of Nottingham's October fair to keep her busy. Traders came from all parts of the country to the gathering and if Miriel had been busy before, now she was frantic with the effort of producing enough cloth to sell at her booth. All the Bridlesmith children who were competent were employed in spinning yarn. Old Alice emerged from her retirement to help and Miriel worked until long after candle-light. Night after night, Gerbert came down to the sheds and fetched her home to supper where she would almost fall asleep over her dish. Clucking to himself, shaking his head, Gerbert would help her up to bed and tuck her in tenderly like a child. He understood what drove her, but after the fair, it would have to stop. He wanted a wife and a companion, not this haunted creature goaded by her past to prove herself when nothing needed proving.
