The Wicked and the Just (6 page)

“Yes, yes, I'll go fetch it,” Nicholas grumbles. “Where is it?”

“Folded in the coffer in my chamber. Nicholas, you are simply the most—”

But he's striding up the street like his cloak is afire. One little favor and he's worked himself into a lather.

In less than two Credos, Nicholas is back with a familiar packet that he slaps hard into my belly. I ignore him and unfurl the altar cloth like a grand banner. The merchant makes an approving little noise and puts out a hand.

I hesitate.

The linen is soft as a mare's flank. The saints are peaceful all in a line. Alice and Agnes would never speak to me again if they knew.

I push it into his hands all at once. “Take care with it. It's dear to me.”

The merchant folds the altar cloth into a tidy square. “This'll be enough to hold the wool. You'll get it back when I've been paid in full. Your father will return on the morrow to pay?”

“Oh, indeed, my lord,” I reply. “Mayhap even today. The sooner, the better.”

But as the merchant begins to unfurl the wool for measuring, a tall cock of a man slides up to the market counter and smiles all teeth at Nicholas.

“You are a foreigner,” the cock-man says to my cousin.

Nicholas frowns. “What do you mean?”

“And trading on a Wednesday. Amerced a penny.” The cock-man holds out his palm.

Nicholas squares up. “I made no trade.”

The merchant draws back, clutching his bolt of finespun. “I knew not, Pluver. I swear I didn't.”

“I made the trade.” I step before Nicholas and glare a brace of daggers at this wretch Pluver. “My father is Robert d'Edgeley, and I will see you cartwhipped for your baseless threat against my kinsman, you filthy swine.”

“Robert d'Edgeley.” Pluver squints thoughtfully. “Newly of Shire Hall Street. Not yet admitted to the privileges and still a foreigner. That makes you a foreigner, too.” He holds out his hand. “A penny.”

“I've no idea what you mean,” I reply through my teeth, “but I'll not give you a single blasted thing merely at your word.”

The merchant has withdrawn and stored the bolt of finespun out of sight.

“You are a foreigner trading on a day that is not Saturday, the recognized market day in Caernarvon,” Pluver explains, as if I'm a halfwit. “You are amerced a penny for this trespass. In my hand, or it'll be Court Baron before the bailiff.”

I sneer. “I'm not a foreigner. I market every day with Mistress Tipley and she said we owe no market tolls. She said only the Welsh must pay tolls.”

Pluver seizes my wrist and it stings like sin. Nicholas starts toward Pluver, but the brute says, “One hand on me and I'll haul you in for assault, lad, and then you're waiting on his Grace the king's itinerant justice. Six months at best.”

The filthy swine drags me through alleys and greenways. My hem is a mess and my wrist afire. If anyone ought to be hauled before Court Baron, it's Pluver. We go up and over and up to a tall timber building in the shadow of the castle. It's the Justice Court and no more than ten doors from my own.

Nicholas is my shadow till we arrive, then he mutters something about bringing my father and disappears like an angry ghost.

Justice Court is lit by braziers and two big windows with ornate shutters. There are lecterns and rustling clerks and the moldy smell of damp parchment. I'm sat on a bench and told to keep still. The bailiff barks at me whenever I so much as shift.

My backside is sore. I could do with a cup of wine.

My father arrives, Nicholas on his heels. I leap up and move to throw my arms about my father, but he curtly bids me sit and pulls Pluver and the bailiff into the corner. They mutter like conspirators.

I sit. My father will demand they apologize for the rough way they treated me. For putting hands on me right in the street like they might some red-handed felon.

It's several Aves ere my father returns with the bailiff and Pluver. I rise, brush dirt from my gown, and prepare to receive my apology with grace and dignity.

“. . . appreciate your discretion and understanding in this matter,” my father is saying to the bailiff. “You have my word it'll not happen again.”

I smooth my hair and glare at Pluver.

“As soon as your daughter has begged my pardon,” Pluver says to my father, “she can be quit of this place. Doubtless you of all men have no desire to see the inside of Justice Court right now.”

Nicholas will explain. He'll tell my father how I was goaded into defending him and ill-served as a result.

But Nicholas won't even look at me. His back is turned. Like everyone else's.

“Papa, I—”

My father squeezes my elbow and fixes me with such a look that I grit my teeth and mutter to my toes, “Begging your pardon, my lord.”

The words taste of sulfur.

Pluver has agreed to forgive the amercement for trading on an unlawful day since no trade was actually made, but I am being amerced a half-penny for calling an official of the borough a filthy swine. It's been entered into the
rotuli
and everything, and I will be required to present myself at Court Baron to answer for it.

Now in the sight of God and Crown, I'm a slanderer. I will die an old maid surrounded by twenty cats.

My father steers me out of Justice Court by the elbow and propels me up Shire Hall Street. “What were you thinking? Haven't you the sense God gave a goat?”

“Papa, I—”

“Do you realize the weight of this matter? How will this look to the
honesti
who vouch for my good name before mayor and community?”

“It's not my fault!”

“And whose fault is it?” My father is turning purple. It's most unflattering. “Christ, Cecily, that levelooker was ready to bring
Nicholas
in! Nicholas, who taxed the goodwill of his lord to safely bring our belongings all the way out here!”

I pull my arm free. He's hurting me. “How was I to know? How could you let them treat me like one of the Welsh? Amercing me for
trading.
”

“That half-penny is coming out of your clothing allowance, Cecily, and going right to alms for the poor. And you'll stay in the house a solid se'ennight.”

“That's fine!” I shout back. “Because I don't want to even look upon you for
twice
that long!”

I'm in my chamber ere I recall that the wretched merchant still has my altar cloth.
Our
altar cloth. And God only knows how I'll get it back now.

 

I cannot bear to stay housebound for a whole se'ennight, so at cockcrow I busy myself with things that will put my father in a kind and favorable mood. I air all his linen and replace the birdlime flea-traps in his chamber. I make a whole pottle of the sage wine he favors, then I brush all the snarls out of Salvo's tail.

When my father comes in for supper, the trestle is perfectly laid. The pewterware shines. The pottage is still steaming. There's even a bunch of violets tied with twine arranged on the broadcloth.

For a while, the only sounds are chewing and the snick of meat-knives. I wait till my father has emptied his mug and poured himself another. Then I clear my throat.

“I regret that Nicholas almost got amerced. I'll ask his pardon when he's back from the Boar's Head.”

My father snorts quietly. “What in God's name were you even trying to do, you silly creature?”

“My garments are a mess. I thought to get some decent wool to make a gown for your burgess oath-taking.” I give him Salvo-eyes. “I would hate to reflect poorly on you.”

“What a sacrifice for you,” my wretched father drawls.

I stab at my supper. If he would mock me, I'll not speak to him for a fortnight this time.

“Sweeting.” My father lowers his meat-knife. “Until I take the oath, we're foreigners. It may seem difficult to believe, good English that we are, but until I have the privileges we're legally no better than the Welsh.”

“What of Mistress Tipley? Why can she market freely?”

My father takes a heaping bite. “She cannot, unless she buys for this house. This house has privileges that we don't. Not yet, anyway.”

I spear a turnip cube with my meat-knife. Foolish town rules. Foolish townspeople.

“So you must mind yourself better, at least till I'm admitted to the privileges. You're damn lucky the bailiff believed your tale of misadventure.”

“I knew not, Papa. I truly didn't.”

“I know you didn't, sweeting. Just as I know you truly did not expect me to pay fifteen shillings a yard for finespun.”

I groan. “Very well. Let me put on a sackcloth smock and roll around in the midden.”

My father laughs aloud.

“It's not funny! They'll all be watching. Do you not want me to look like a burgess's daughter?”

My father closes his mouth abruptly. Hitting him square in the pride rarely fails. I want to remind him that my favorite color is green, but I dare not risk his changing his mind. At length he licks his lips and mutters, “Mayhap . . . mayhap you might wear her vellet gown.”

I gasp. “You're jesting.”

“I'm serious as the grave.”

My mother kept the gown wrapped in lavender-sprinkled linen and took it out every quarter-day to brush it and flick it with holy water. It's as close to indigo as the likes of us dare get, brought all the way from some southern place near the Pope's front courtyard. It must have cost a small fortune.

I've not seen it since she died.

“Th-thank you, Papa.”

My father grunts and turns back to his meat.

She'd let me touch it only after I scrubbed my hands twice in the ewer and dried them on clean linen. The gown looked vast lying on the bed, yards and yards of sleek cloth, and it was softer even than newborn lambs or kittens.

I'd beg my mother to put it on and show me how it looked, but she'd just shake her head and smile and wrap it back up, laying it reverently in the coffer, as if it belonged to a saint.

 

 

C
ANNOT
get without the walls quickly enough. Step lively till the gray stone beast is all but gone among the trees.

Through the doorway curtain, shoulder first. It's stifling in the windowless steading. There's a fire. Gruffydd is feeding it sticks.

My little brother has fresh bruises across his forearms and his feet are black as soot.

Little. Gruffydd hasn't been littler than me in years. But he's still my little brother, even if I must look up at him.

Didn't expect him till Sunday. He said he'd been hired to cart stone for a se'ennight, and the lads would be staying at the quarry to save the walk. The quarry is heavy work, but at least the wages are certain. Not like standing idle without the walls waiting to be hired by burgesses to do donkey-work for a pittance.

Move to hug him, but he holds me off with a simple embrace about the shoulders. Gruffydd says I should not touch him, for he's always covered in road dust and town filth, but even when he's just out of the river he puts me off.

“Hey, Gwen.” He presses a hand to his lower back and grimaces. “Please tell me there's supper.”

“No quarry, I take it.” Pull out the bread the chatelaine gave me, the stale round I've been saving since midday. Mouth waters, but I tear off a piece for Mam and hand him the rest. “You look like Hell's own castoff.”

Gruffydd grins at me lopsided as he wolfs down the bread. “You too.”

“What happened with the quarry?”

“Burgesses.”

Tear the bread into pieces for Mam. “Bastards all.”

He shrugs. “I take what they give me. They're the ones with the coin.”

“They hired that lapdog Tudur Sais again, didn't they? And you said naught and let them.”

“What would you have me do?” Gruffydd asks wearily. “Raise Cain? End up like Maelgwn ab Owain? His youngest finally died. She didn't weigh much more than a hearthcat at the end.”

Kneel, check Mam. Her breathing is steady. Stay knelt, even when there's naught more to check.

At length, Gruffydd says, “I saw Dafydd on the wharves. He asked after you.”

“We are not speaking of Dafydd now.” Shoot to my feet, glaring. “We're speaking of how you must not let the likes of that slavish hound Tudur Sais take all the best work, especially when that work was already promised to you!”

Gruffydd smiles sadly. “I know not what you did, but Dafydd is absolutely besotted with you.”

If Gruffydd knew what I did with Dafydd, he'd beat him senseless instead of playing errand boy.

Turn away. “Doesn't matter what I did. I'll not marry him. That's the end of it.”

Gruffydd flings a hand. “Because of me? I'm not a child, Gwenhwyfar! I can look after myself.”

Today's quarry incident would suggest otherwise.

“Saints, how many times must I say it? To you, to Margaret, to Dafydd himself? Must I carve it into my forehead? The answer is no!”