We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (37 page)

I ran, and Bridget blocked my path. She leaned against the well, her face livid with sullen grief. There was a ferocity about her that I had not seen. She caught my wrist, thrust her other hand amid my fallen hair just as if she knew the thoughts that wept and sang within me. She forced me against the well—its hard lip cut into my breast. Knowing her mad, I suffered the pressure of her hand upon the nape of my neck, and wondered if I too were mad, and Adelysia, likewise the whole world, and bent my eyes where she would have me look.

‘The black deeps’, she said, in a lover’s voice. ‘See! See the just doom that awaits us all!’

A pretty little frog was climbing the side of the well. Transparent, slimy and green, its frail heart beat fast as it inched upward with splayed, lucent feet through the moss and delicate weed that lined its circular tomb. Tenderly it clawed for the heights. It wavered and fell with a splash into the rank, dark water. Scum closed over its head. I am the frog, I thought, this cursed, unhappy place my well.

‘There is no mercy,’ said Bridget amorously. Her grip slackened. She leaned far over the well’s side.

‘Forty years.’ So soft she whispered. ‘Forty years, yet He betrays me.’

‘You account His existence, then,’ I said timorously.

‘Nay!’ she cried. ‘There is no God!’

I wrenched from her and ran on, blind, with her behind me, calling; and I went like a hare, terror-stricken, running from her, and above all, from my own thoughts of the time that would never come again, however much I wished it, full of fear. I felt a grasping hand, struck back into a soft side, a body too soft for Bridget, and Adelysia caught me in her arms, I would have none of her. Cruel that I was, yet caring, I turned away.

‘Scourge me,’ she begged. ‘I am afraid. Scourge me.’

She proffered the little knout, its threads sadly worn. She thrust it into my hands that were full of the good Yorkshire earth, the soil that he loved, and how should I chastise her? But she ripped the habit from shoulders all mottled by lust’s purple flower, a cruel lover, the young chaplain, I thought, staring at the bright marks of his mouth. She fell forward on her knees.

‘Scourge me,’ she whispered. ‘God has given me up!’

From the tower the bell clamoured darkly, with a new, furious insistence, and in one of the tall elms a covey of rooks was holding court. The bare twigs shook under their weight. They were very quiet, but now and then one cried menacingly and the others lifted great black wings in assent. One bird sat alone, its plumage folded like a cloak. The criminal, on whom the others now passed sentence. While Adelysia knelt bowed-headed and the bell for Sext plunged and boomed about us, I watched, and the feathered Parliament broke into raucous accusation. On ugly, ponderous legs they advanced through the branches. Shrouded in its black cloak, the offender waited motionless for death. Completely alone, it did not even attempt to fly. Its eyes would be the first target for a score of beaks. It seemed a terrible thing, which was strange, for I had seen it all before, this cruel justice, this one against many. The scourge lay idle at my feet.

I turned, lifted Adelysia, dragged her dress together, wondering sadly why she came to me above all other, I that was not even professed. Seeing her poor little face all swollen and blubbered with tears, I cried over the roaring bell:

‘Throw your whip away. Come to church, Adelysia.’

Like a blind woman Adelysia went with me, to that place where most of her waking hours were spent, in quiet, cruciform penitence, or kneeling alone daily in her stall while old Dame Brygge snored and the nuns chattered and played. I soothed her as we went, planning her support. We reached the porch and, turning to give her a last encouraging word before we entered, I saw her face white as milk, her eyes staring into the dark nave as if they beheld the terrors of Purgatory. I started to pull her gently in through the door.

In a strangled voice she said: ‘I cannot. His House is closed to me, from this day on. Ah, Jesu! did I not tell you I was damned for ever?’

I had no time to reason with her, though I called her name desperately, but she was gone too quickly, running faster this time, disappearing through the grove of rowan trees behind the church. I saw her head bobbing between the gravestones, saw her stumble, rise, run on, till she was lost to my sight amid the fringe of the forest. I would have gone after her but Joan came to meet me, bursting like an egg with mischief. The church was full. For once the whole community was gathered, and for no holy purpose either. Joan pointed down the aisle. A delighted smirk carved itself on her face. Beneath a gilt canopy knelt the Prioress, so seldom seen in church. Face covered discreetly in her hands, with taut, straight back, she gave no heed to the hubbub that boiled and hissed behind her under the vaulted roof. There was a stranger in the church. A tall, lean, sickle-nosed man, who genuflected briskly in the nave, then marched back to kneel straightly against a pillar not far from us. On his garment shone the quarterings of the episcopal see of York. The Archbishop’s emissary, I thought, whoever the Archbishop may be in this precarious time, and gaped. Behind me came a shuffling commotion and I was rudely thrust against Dame Joan. The fat priest entered, cherry red. His hands trembled beneath the holy plate he carried so that the soiled linen which covered the chalice quivered and blew. Behind him strode the chaplain, hair like a new coin, seemingly unperturbed. Had he known what I had witnessed, he might not have spoken with such sweet authority.

‘Good sisters, I pray, be silent for the Mass,’ he said, and somewhere from the choir came coarse female laughter, followed by the jaybird’s shriek.

‘Does he think to quell them at this late hour?’ There was such delight in Joan’s voice that I looked at her amazed. Her eyes were fixed upon the Prioress.

‘
Introibo in altare Dei
,’ sang the priest, at half his customary speed. His little brutish eye rolled sideways as he struggled to see if the Archbishop’s man were watching him.

‘He brought all manner of news,’ Joan muttered as we stood side by side. ‘All about the two dreadful battles we heard rumoured, and how the King was exiled abroad, came back, and killed Warwick at Barnet. And there were more doings at a place called Gups Hill, where Warwick’s youngest was borne screaming from a nunnery by one of the King’s brothers.’

Anne Neville. I had not thought of her in years, nor of the tender way he spoke of her once, calling her ‘little Anne’. Would he, could he, tear her screaming from Sanctuary?

‘’Twas the Duke of Clarence,’ breathed Joan. ‘Then she disappeared from the sight of man. By St Loy, I wager Madame would gladly be in her place ‘

The Prioress was still kneeling, while the Mass progressed. I could see she was not wearing her pearl and gold rosary, but a plain one of arbutus wood.

‘
Quia tu es Deus fortitudo mea, dum affligit me inimicus
?’ chattered the priest, making nonsense of the whole phrase. Not for his life could he amend old, bad habits.

‘What did the Prioress say when the emissary arrived?’ I murmured.

‘She came forth with the words of Job,’ chuckled Dame Joan. ‘Gave a shriek and fell into her chair, saying: “That which I feared most is come upon me!”’

She started to laugh again, so mockingly that there was something distasteful in it, even to me, who had no love for the Prioress.

‘
Spera in Deo, quoniam adhuc confitebor illi
...’ Wait for God’s help. Was that what she did, kneeling so waxen straight? And did Adelysia, alone in the cold forest? And did I?

It must be admitted, the Prioress remained splendidly calm. Though, standing quite close to her in the porch after Mass, I saw she could not meet the eyes of the Archbishop’s man. Neither could Juliana, for a different reason. She stood behind her mistress, lids cast down, stroking the beads at her waist. Once only did she look up, to reveal a glance of triumph so burning it made Dame Joan’s glee seem like indifference.

‘
Pax vobiscum
,’ said the hook-nosed man. It sounded like a curse.

‘I fear my lord’s visit is ill-timed,’ the Prioress said demurely. ‘Our household books have yet to be reckoned for last quarter and I vow! a thousand things!’

Beneath a habit of unusually coarse, poor stuff, her spine shivered and twitched like a flea-maddened dog. Now and then her thumb and finger made an involuntary groping movement as if dying to scratch, and at times a spasm of agony fleeted across her fair pale face.

‘I have no plans to stay, Holy Mother,’ said the Archbishop’s man coolly. He looked about, missing not a thing. His sharp curved nostrils dilated. He could see, smell, taste, count, forecast, without visible effort. I knew, watching him, that he could tell the altar lacked its full complement of silver plate; that a latten alloy had been substituted in the T-bar of the gold crucifix, that there was a large hole in the side-chapel and daws nesting in the tower. He knew our number without seeming to reckon, knew our ages, the state of our health, even what we had eaten that day. He knew that Edyth was lame and defective. With those fearsome eyes, he might even know about Adelysia, though the chaplain stood meekly, hands in prayer, earning my hate.

‘I am for London,’ he said, after a moment’s disquieting scrutiny. ‘My lords have arranged to visit your house at St Valentine. Prepare to house ten of them. You may then render a full account. Can that be a dog barking?’ he said, with an air of absolute repugnance. ‘My lord dislikes dogs. Expect the visitation in one month. God be with you.’

A shoal of grinning faces watched him cross the yard. James Mustarde, in dung-spattered smock, held his horse for him. Madame Brygge, who had not heard a word, rambled behind me of a son long dead. He too had been stern and tall. I felt for Kate’s little hand, but she was yawning on a hassock, completely hidden behind the deep stall. She rose and came to stand by me, looking up artlessly at the Prioress. I watched the trembling of Dame Johanna’s back, and identified the cause at last. She was wearing a hair shirt for the first time in her life, and her tender skin rebelled.

‘One month,’ said Juliana, vituperatively calm, and provocative. ‘I, for one, will be ashamed. For surely my lords will see how our house is in disrepair!’

The Prioress answered quietly. Her eyes were fixed on a point somewhere near my knee. What was it at which she stared to such hard purpose?’

‘It can yet be mended,’ she said.

She would use any means, I knew it. So I became instantly, mortally afraid, seeing her eyes fixed so, guessing her mind.

She was looking at Katherine.

Old Madame Brygge spoke but rarely, but when she did, her words were a falling flood, not to be dammed. Naught could quell the mumbling drone of her talk. Being deaf, she demanded no answer but was content to roam, shrunken face champing, amid the debris of lost years.

‘When I was a young maid,’ she maundered amiably, ‘I travelled much. I was in Rouen to see them burn La Pucelle. Heretic to the last, she had impudence enough to ask for Christ’s Cross at the stake. I stood near young King Harry and his uncles; he, the lily, wept, and vomited from the stench of her flesh roasting. She was a witch, I trow. For I miscarried of a child soon after I returned to England. They have that power, know it well. And they can also hinder a conception, for all the man be lusty. Yea, the Witch Woman of Orleans, they called her. She lost me a fine daughter.’ She wagged her head, and chewed a fold of her wimple.

‘Yea, gag yourself,’ muttered Joan, entering the misericord in time to catch half of her speech. ‘Some there were that called her a saint.’ Madame Brygge said ‘Eh?’ and cupped her ear.

‘
Pardieu
! What’s the use?’ cried Joan. But she was in a savage good-humour, bred of the Prioress’s impending disgrace. She could think of little else, single-minded as I, who was aware only that the Prioress had something ill in mind that concerned Katherine, and that Katherine had a cough, had been coughing for the past two nights. That cursed, damp chamber, I thought in fury; pray God the Archbishop’s deputation include my foul quarters in their search. Kate leaned on my knee, her face fever-tinged, her eyes moving curiously from Joan to Dame Brygge, while Edyth, kneeling, coaxed her with a spoonful of elderflower wine.

‘A child of my first husband I lost,’ continued Madame Brygge. ‘He that was killed at Agincourt. One of the few, poor sweeting. Nay,’ she added, her muddled wits clearing. ‘That can’t be. ’Twas by my second. His name was Thomas, too. True Thomas.’ Her hand shot out and jerked the spoon away from Edyth. She tasted the potion, shook her head. ‘You should give the infant tincture of elecampane. ’Tis stronger for the chest than this rot. Tall, yellow, daisy-flower...’

‘In February?’ I snapped, grabbing the spoon back.

‘And then I married Brygge,’ she mumbled. ‘A Merchant of the Staple. Niggardly Ned. Each morning he’d have me sew the lips of his purse up tight, so he shouldn’t be tempted to spend. For all his airs, I had to tend my own kitchen with but two wenches. Mean as a muckworm, he, though he was looked up to in the City. Never a night’s rest had I. He’d rise and run down to count his money at all hours. Ha! he died of the flux, too close to call an apothecary.’

Katherine was flushed. She would do better in bed, I thought wildly, if only the bed were warm, the floor dry. Holy Jesu, what would her father say, to see her thus? It was not as if I could not write, a fair clerkly hand at that. I toyed with the sweet thought of a letter to him.

‘So all his virgin gold came to me,’ cackled the old dame. ‘He was saving it for his age; now it soothes mine. Ha! I can sleep all day here. And here I stay!’

She had almost the determination of fear; fear that the old order might change, and her easy, snoring life be swept away. Then Katherine coughed again, and again.

‘Joan, what other remedies have you?’

Joan was still wrapped in her world of vengeance.

‘Certes, you should have heard Juliana,’ she bragged. ‘So cold and clean. “Nay, I can’t aid you, Madame,” she said. “And why should Madame need my aid?” Cat and mouse, in truth.’