The Marsh King's Daughter (46 page)
That did make Miriel smile, but it wiped the smug expression from Robert's countenance. 'And old hags are always old hags,' he snapped. 'You can smell them a mile off.'
'There's stinks far worse than old age,' Alice retorted and, wiping her hands on her napkin, took her drink and went to sit by the fire.
'If she doesn't leave tomorrow, I promise I will throw her out,' Robert said through clenched teeth.
Miriel shrugged. 'She does it deliberately, and you always rise to the bait.' She pushed her own trencher aside and rose. 'I'm going to retire, I'm weary.'
He looked at her from beneath his brows and bared his teeth to nibble the last shreds of meat from the bone. 'Aye, bound to be when you've so soon risen from your sick-bed.' He glanced over his shoulder at Alice, then turned back and lowered his voice. 'I wish I could retire with you. It's been too long since I've held your warmth in my arms.' He waved the bone at her as she recoiled in horror. 'Oh, I know it's too soon yet,' he said in an understanding voice. 'It wouldn't be decent or sensible, and I'm a patient man. The Church says a couple should abstain from the carnal act for forty days after a birthing.' From his pouch he produced a small tally stick scored with several notches. 'By my reckoning, this is the eve of the twenty-third day. A little more than two weeks. I can wait.' He gave her a slow, lustful smile, then wiped his lips on his napkin and hitched at his crotch where the thought of bedding with her had plainly caused a reaction. 'Excuse me, wife,' he said. 'I must visit the privy.'
'Glad I'm naught but a stinking old hag and past all that kind of attention,' Alice said from her corner.
Miriel swallowed and, without reply, climbed the stairs to the loft. Once within, she closed the shutters, barred the door, and curled up on the bed, arms crossed, knees bent like a child in the womb.
Sitting at ease in the long barge, his arm around Miriel's shoulders, Robert watched the Boston wharves come up on either bank of the Witham. They passed the messuage plots and manse belonging to the great Crowland Abbey and sailed beneath the bridge that spanned the river and gave access to the market place, St Botolf's Church and the lands belonging to the Gilbertine monks of Malton Priory. The first quay was on the left bank, but the barge-master's destination was the wharves higher on the right bank beyond St Botolf's.
Numerous vessels were moored along the timber-shored river bank, some disgorging their cargo, others being loaded by hand and by crane. Others rolled at anchor in sleepy hiatus between journey's end and journey's beginning. Gulls circled and screamed over the rubbish heaps, or waited their opportunity perched above the cookstalls and taverns. Equally as raucous, the human populace went about its daily business, but without the gulls' saving grace of immaculate flight.
The barge in which Robert and Miriel travelled was laden with bales of cloth: lozenge-woven green and blue for the Norman market, plain tabbys that would be sold in London, and soft, napped scarlet for the Italians. All of it was produced from the wool he procured for Miriel's busy looms. They made a good partnership, a strong one. He reached for her hand and engulfed her narrow fingers within his possessive grip. As far as he was concerned, this journey was a repeat of the one they had made just after their wedding, and, as such, it reaffirmed their relationship with each other.
Since the churching ceremony yesterday which had purified her body from the pollution of childbed and given them leave to have carnal knowledge of each other again, he had scarcely left her side. He could not get enough of her. Even in the supreme moment of pleasure he was greedy for more, could not wait to rise and fill again so that he could repeat his taking, claim her womb for his own and know that she was his equal now that she was barren. Truly they were two halves of a whole.
As they approached the higher quay, Robert saw several cogs lapping at anchor, amongst them Pandora's Daughter. Wudecoc was in port then, but only lately arrived, for the cog bore the signs of a hard sea voyage and her cargo was still aboard. Even now, Wudecoc was likely being told that he no longer had a master - only a mistress, a former whore with no more idea of the shipping trade than a baby had of politics. The business was doomed, but perhaps to seal its fate he could arrange the loss of another vessel. Half smiling at the thought, he looked at Miriel to see if she had registered the presence of the cog, but she was staring straight ahead, her eyes dry and blank. Robert leaned back and relaxed, the smile seams deepening around his eyes.
The barge-master punted beyond the spire and buildings of St Botolf's Church and pulled into a small mooring space on the higher quay close on the wool warehouses of Malton Priory. Another, larger cog, similar to The Pandora in size, was moored along the wharf. Her castle mast rippled with a banner of red silk, appliqued in gold with mythical beasts that from a distance looked remarkably like the royal lions of
Robert pointed out the curiosity to Miriel. 'I wonder who that could be,' he said.
She nodded and looked with a dutiful murmur, but her eyes remained distant, and Robert was filled with the uneasy notion that despite the possessive grip in which he held her, she was inexorably slipping away from him.
Miriel listened to the sound of Robert whistling as he clumped away down the outer stairs of The Ship's loft chamber, and as the sounds faded, uttered a quiet sigh of relief. He was going to meet a prospective client and her time for the rest of the day was preciously her own.
She flapped aside the covers and left the bed with an alacrity caused by distaste at being there in the first place. Reaching for her clothes, she glanced down at her body. Although she had not suckled a child, her breasts were fuller and softer than before her pregnancy, with dark, reddish-brown nipples. Her belly, although taut, had a slight curve which gave the false impression of fecundity, and was marked with tiny silver striations. Robert seemed to find these changes in her body fascinating and had insisted on leaving all the candles burning when he claimed his right. While his eyes remained wide open, avidly absorbing every facet of the act, Miriel had kept hers tightly shut.
With a grimace at the memory, Miriel drew her chemise over her head and picked up her gown. As she freed her hair and shook it out, Elfwen tapped on the door and cautiously entered the room. Miriel knew that the young woman had been waiting below in the main room for Robert to leave. The girl was long accustomed to his morning routine, and knew when to stay away.
'The green dress, mistress?' she said and with cheerful efficiency took a gown of fine sage-coloured wool from the travelling coffer. She shook out the perfuming shreds of cinnamon bark and gathered up the yards of fabric in the full skirt so that she could drop the garment gently over Miriel's head. Will yapped around their feet, playing his usual game of grasping the hem in his teeth and tugging until Elfwen's foot shovelled him off and Miriel clapped her hands at him.
'I saw Master Wudecoc in the courtyard,' Elfwen added as she laced the back of the gown, her fingers working a brisk criss-cross of the green cords. 'He'll be hoping to see you or the master.'
Miriel inhaled sharply, and not because of Elfwen's lacing.
Martin Wudecoc was the closest link with Nicholas that she had. Perhaps he would know what had happened to the Empress; perhaps he could explain how Nicholas and his entire crew had come to die when they were such experienced sailors and their vessel one of the finest to sail in northern waters.
Her fingers were clumsy as she pinned her wimple and fastened the neck of her gown with a silver brooch.
'Mistress, are you all right?' Elfwen asked in concern. 'You're whiter than me mam's best sheet.'
Miriel gave her maid the travesty of a smile. 'No,' she said, 'I doubt I will ever be all right again in this world, but I cope. That is all any of us can do if we want to survive.' Straightening her shoulders, she drew a deep breath and went down the outer stairs, through the passage and into the tavern's main room.
Martin Wudecoc stood near the great hearth contemplating the flames as they helter-skeltered up the chimney's throat and vanished. His hands were clasped behind his back and his wind-burned features wore an expression of weariness and deep melancholy.
The sight of him filled Miriel with a flood of pain and grief too great to be dammed. As he turned towards her, she uttered his name in a breaking voice and ran into his arms. The salt tang of his tunic and beard filled her nostrils. He didn't smell exactly like Nicholas, but there was an echo and she clung to it with the desperation of a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a spar of wood in a tossing ocean.
With the aplomb that had earned him his place as Nicholas's most senior master, Martin did not push her away, but held her fast as if he was accustomed to such occurrences.
'My wife gave me the tidings as soon as I stepped ashore,' he said. 'We are all in deep mourning.'
'It can't be true.' Miriel raised her head from the comfort of his breast and searched his eyes. 'Nicholas would never have been caught out by fire.'
Gently Martin held her away. 'Nevertheless, it seems to be what happened. From what I have been told, the burned-out shell of the Empress was towed into St Peter Port on the night after it happened by a passing fisher craft. They searched the water for survivors, but there were none. My source is reliable; you can speak to him yourself if you want.'
Miriel wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Martin's gaze was shrewd and perceptive and it was too late for discretion. 'I would like that,' she said, recovering some of her composure. 'My husband only gave me the bare bones of the tale, and I was in no state to understand them at the time.' She signalled the hovering landlord to bring a flagon and sat down at the trestle against the fireplace.
'I love him,' she said as Martin seated himself across from her and poured the wine into two cups. It was Gascon, red as blood and strong. She shook her head. 'I could have had him once if I had listened to my heart and ignored my reason.'
'Yes, I know,' Martin said. 'I have heard the story from Nicholas's wife. She insisted that I seek you out and tell you what I know.'
Miriel's heart lurched with jealous pain. 'Magdalene - she is here in Boston?' She lifted her cup and took a long drink.
'She's staying with us during her confinement,' Martin said, looking at her, then away. 'Two nights ago she was safely delivered of a son. He has been christened Nicholas in memory and honour of his father.'
Miriel swallowed another mouthful of wine, forcing it downwards against the rising bile in her throat. She was disgusted with herself to feel a jealousy so strong that it was almost hatred. 'I bore a son too,' she said, the words pitched low, but filled with molten intensity. 'They christened him in the womb before they killed him and Robert said that they should call him Nicholas.'
That shook Martin's composure. She watched him blench and felt a small surge of satisfaction, followed by remorse. 'We were lovers,' she said wearily. 'Robert found out when I quickened with child. Nicholas never knew. When he married Magdalene, I shunned all contact.' She looked at him, her eyes quenched of light. 'Now it is too late to make amends or say all the things that lie heavily on my heart. What was between us is stretched like an unfinished piece of cloth on the loom with half the colours missing, and now it will never be completed.'
Martin cleared his throat. 'I am sorry,' he said.
Miriel laughed bleakly and finished her wine. 'So am I.' Abruptly she rose to her feet, knowing that if she sat there any longer, one cup of wine would not be enough. 'Take me to your source. Let me speak to him.'
Martin's eyes flickered. 'What about your husband?'
'He is gone for the entire day at least.' She pulled a face. 'Until tonight, my time is my own.'
Martin took her down to the quayside where the barge had moored yesterday. Everywhere there was vigorous activity. The process of loading and unloading, embarking and mooring, filled the morning with noise and colour. Miriel stepped over coils of rope and around cartloads of lead awaiting transport down the coast. The crane was busy this morning offloading great tree-trunks of Scandinavian timber from nef to barge.
