The Wicked and the Just Read online

  The ax comes down hard, the blade half-buried in the chopping block. It takes Griffith nearly an Ave to work it free. Once he does, he looses a long breath and begins his rhythm anew.

  “There must be some mistake,” he finally mutters. “I’ve no idea what you’re speaking of.”

  “Oh, I think you do. You’re always looking at me. Now, let’s see here. What could the reason possibly be?”

  Griffith’s expression darkens. He grips and regrips the ax, but when he speaks, his voice is quiet and level. “I must get on with my task, demoiselle. By your leave.”

  “Mayhap you look at me because you think I’m comely.” I twitch the hem of my gown as if I’m going to lift it.

  A look of panic crosses his face and he swipes a chunk of wood, heaves the ax onto his shoulder, brings it down fiercely. Another piece, then another, as though all the demons in Hell are driving him like a mule.

  “Do you?” I brush his shoulder with my handkerchief and he leaps as if stung. “You’d best answer.”

  “I . . . cannot . . .”

  “So you think I’m plain.” I make my voice all warpy like I’ve been weeping and throw in a stifled little sob for good measure. “I think I’ll run into the house crying. My father will doubtless wish to know what’s amiss. And he’ll look into the yard to see what could possibly—”

  “Oh, Christ, no!” Griffith sinks the ax into the chopping block and drops to his knees at my feet. “Demoiselle, please! I beg your pardon! Forgive me!”

  I look down on him, right in the eye. And I smile. “Again.”

  Griffith closes his eyes, there in the mud on his knees.

  Where he belongs.

  “I beg your pardon.” His voice is raspy, uneven. “Forgive me.”

  “Much better.” It occurs to me to pat his head as though he’s Salvo, but instead I angle my hand down in the free dog command. “Right, then, on with your task.”

  It takes Griffith most of the day to cut the wood. He cannot regain his rhythm. He’s too busy glancing at the back door as if it’s the gallows.

  ***

  Ned comes to supper. My father is warming to him, for he tells highly amusing stories and always brings a pottle of very good hippocras.

  Tonight Ned has a good tale of a Welshman who thought to avoid paying market penny by means of trickery. The Welshman wanted to sell goats outside the borough market, so he had a handful of reeds that he sold for the price of a goat, and if you bought his reed you’d get the goat for nothing.

  As the bailiffs fell upon the Welshman, he protested that it was quite legal to sell reeds without license. It did not avail him, though. The Welshman’s goats were distrained and he sits in the gatehouse awaiting gaol delivery, accused of defrauding the borough.

  Tonight, along with his customary wine, Ned brings us a goat. She’s in the rearyard tethered to the pig byre. Soon we’ll have cheese every day, and mayhap some extra to sell at the market.

  I sit at Ned’s right. Beneath the trestle he leans his leg against mine.

  I am warm to my core.

  Then Gwinny tips a platter of custard in Ned’s lap. He leaps to his feet and curses like a wharfside ganger. My father nearly bursts his belt laughing.

  “Gwinny!” I gasp for words. “What—how could—?”

  I’m still stammering like an addlebrain when Gwinny serenely topples a mug of wine into Ned’s boots and flicks gravy onto his surcote as she wipes up the spill.

  Ned makes curt apologies to my father and leaves in a huff. He doesn’t even glance at me on his way out.

  If I wasn’t unmarriageable ere this, I certes am now. And it’s all Gwinny’s fault, the clumsy lackwit.

  She will pay for this.

  Despite Mistress Tipley’s feeble protests, I set Gwinny to shoveling the privy, scrubbing pots with lye, scraping hair from skins. While she’s at her labor, I follow her from chamber to kitchen to hall, shouting how she ruined me and how she’ll never get a moment’s peace in my house and how fortunate she is that I cannot give her any worse than she’s already getting. Gwinny leaves every day pale and wrung out, limping, hands bleeding.

  It’s naught she doesn’t deserve. And she’d best get used to it, for I’ll be cold in my grave ere I forgive her this.

  Aline and Evilbeth are leaving Caernarvon. Emmaline begs me to come over and see them off with her.

  “I’m going to weep and weep,” she explains in a quavery voice. She clutches a handkerchief with stitches so uneven I can see them a league away.

  I can think of no sight more welcome than that of those two vexing shrews growing smaller on the horizon, so I agree.

  There’s a knot of riders before the Coucy townhouse, but Aline and Evilbeth have not yet mounted. They stand with Emmaline shoulder to shoulder, their foreheads pressed together, clutching one another’s forearms.

  Promising, like as not, to be friends forever, no matter how far away they are.

  Finally, reluctantly, they pull apart.

  “Godspeed,” I say civilly, nodding to Aline and Evilbeth. It’s surprisingly easy to be pleasant now that they’re leaving.

  “I’m going to miss you both so much,” Emmaline chokes out.

  “You’ll see us this time next year,” Evilbeth replies. “Remember? For my wedding?”

  Emmaline sniffles. “I suppose. In the meantime, Cecily will keep me from missing you.”

  Evilbeth cackles. “You certes won’t have to worry about her getting married out from under you.”

  I glare at her ere I can stop myself, but Evilbeth only barks out a harsh laugh. She must have heard about Ned.

  Rot that Gwinny, anyway.

  Evilbeth and Aline mount their horses and ride with William and his companions out of Caernarvon. Tears stream down Emmaline’s face and she dabs at them with her dreadfully stitched handkerchief. Even though I’ve never been happier to see anyone leaving, Emmaline’s tears are making my own eyes sting.

  So I say, “Would you come to my house, Emmaline? I must comb fleeces, but you could help.”

  Emmaline brightens, but the lady de Coucy pulls her toward the gilded Coucy townhouse and says stiffly, “Emmaline is occupied. You mustn’t presume on people like that. Go on, now.”

  I’m burning to ask the lady de Coucy if a good woman of Caernarvon refuses comfort to a friend who’s obviously in need of it.

  But that wouldn’t be well-mannered or attentive, so I stomp all the way to the townhouse, thanking God Almighty and all the saints that these customs will be easy to forget once I’m back home at Edgeley Hall.

  On Saturday, while I’m supervising Mistress Tipley’s marketing, I catch sight of Ned’s russet cloak whipping into an alleyway. Mayhap I can salvage his attention. Mayhap all is not lost. I duck in behind him to beg his pardon for Gwinny’s unforgivable behavior.

  And I freeze.

  Ned has a girl pinned to the wall and she’s weeping something in Welsh while he scrabbles with the folds of her gown.

  He looks fierce and terrible. Not at all fair to look upon.

  I back out of the alley and walk home so fast my legs tangle in my skirts and I stumble unattractively. The hall is empty save for Salvo curled on his pallet near the hearth. I sink next to him and run my fingers through his warm gray hair, and he whuffles in his sleep.

  Salvo came to Edgeley with my mother when she wed my father, and the hound did not like her out of his sight. My father says Salvo had to be tied in the hall for the first month of their marriage, so sure the poor beast was that his mistress was in mortal danger behind the bedcurtains.

  My father is better than he could be, but my mother could not have known that when she stood with him at the church door.

  But now I know something about Edward Mercer. And I’m too clever and brave to let it stand.

  The linen my father gave me lies folded over my embroidery frame. Betimes I take it out and pin it, but then I only stare at the smooth, creamy expanse.

  I keep waiting for m
y father to ask when I’m going to embroider something on it, but he seems to have forgotten he ever gave it to me.

  Mistress Tipley comes into the hall. “Edward Mercer is here to see Cecily. He’d take her riding.”

  My father looks up over the knife he’s sharpening. He’s smiling, wary but interested.

  There’s naught like justice well served.

  I make a greensick shudder. “Tell him to be gone. After what he did, I’ll have no part of him ever again.”

  My father lowers his knife. His whole face goes granite. “What did he do?”

  Mistress Tipley’s eyes are wide. “Naught, my lord, I swear it. I’ve been with them every moment.”

  “Please don’t make me speak of it.” I cast my eyes down, pitch my voice calm with just a hint of disgust. “The mere thought of him turns my stomach.”

  I watch my father carefully over my mending. Sure enough, his face is darkening to that dangerous shade of plum and his fists are flexing like a plowboy’s. He rises, rams the knife into its scabbard, and storms from the hall. I jumble my linen into a wad and hurry to the workroom window to get a good view.

  By the time I crack open the shutter, Ned is already in the middle of Shire Hall Street, flat on his back in a shin-deep patch of mud. My father advances, wroth as a sunburned hog, with fists at his sides while Ned scrabbles back on his elbows.

  I wonder if Ned will still like clever girls in an Ave.

  My father hauls him up by the collar and bawls, “You worthless cur, don’t you ever get within a stone’s throw of my daughter again unless you want more of the same!”

  “Wait—I know not—”

  “If you value your manhood, stay off my doorstep! Now be gone!”

  The front door clatters. I slam the shutter home and dash headlong for the hall. By the time my father huffs back to the hearth, I’m on the bench with my mending, all big eyes and curious frowns.

  “Whatever happened, Papa?”

  “Naught, sweeting,” he gruffs. “He’ll not bother you any longer. Should have known better. But it’s done now.”

  I narrow my eyes and smile to myself.

  Gwinny slides into the hall and begins to sweep. She is smiling narrow-eyed like me.

  I think of the girl in the alley, tear-streaked, mud-hemmed, sobbing in Welsh.

  Mayhap Gwinny is just as happy as I am to see Ned get his justice right in the middle of Shire Hall Street.

  Mayhap what she did at supper was not an accident.

  Later, when she’s clearing up the bread and cheese, I seize her sleeve. “You knew about Edward Mercer, didn’t you?”

  She swipes some crumbs into her palm. “How could you not? He’s infamous.”

  My stomach rolls.

  “I’m glad you spilled all those things on him,” I say firmly. “And I . . . regret that you were punished for it.”

  Gwinny stacks trenchers without looking at me. “Well worth it. Justice for those who deserve it.”

  Like Levelooker Pluver.

  And there is naught like justice well served.

  “I’d take back your punishment if I could,” I tell her, and I mean every word.

  She flings crumbs into the fire, stoops to give a stray crust to Salvo.

  “Gwinny?” I take a breath. “Thank you.”

  Gwinny swivels, regards me as if I just offered her an ell of brocade. At length she nods, reluctant, as if she’s heard something she never wanted to hear.

  GRUFFYDD brings some bread. Gnarly. Half moldy. He won’t say where it came from. Have learned not to ask.

  Most of the wretched bread soaks in hot water for Mam. Cold saps the life from her. It takes more to keep her going in winter. More food. More fire. More cheer and old tales from nursery. More lies.

  What’s left we eat, Gruffydd and I. We crouch near the fire across from Mam. We do not speak. We say it’s because we might disturb her. It’s really because we don’t want to speak of what’s left to speak of.

  Crown measures.

  Men like Tudur Sais.

  Pencoed’s English lord.

  When Gruffydd lifts his bread to take a bite, I mark the red crescents around his fingernails.

  His fingers are bleeding. They have not bled in years. Not since his first few se’ennights of hard labor when we all wept in our sleep.

  Seize his hand, hold it firm when he struggles to withdraw. Peer close. The skin around his fingernails is torn bloody. He’s biting every finger till it bleeds.

  This is not from labor.

  He pulls his hand back. “Let it lie. I’ll not speak of it.”

  “It’s the wharves, isn’t it?”

  Gruffydd bites a finger.

  Mutter a swear. “Walk past those Chester merchants twice and they think they own you. They might as well, since the Crown turns a blind eye to—”

  “I should have paid the boon and worked the wharves! Then I wouldn’t . . .” Gruffydd scrubs a hand over his face. “I have work. For now, anyway.” He laughs mirthlessly.

  Eye him. “Beg pardon?”

  “It should have been simple work. And it was, until the daughter of the house decided on some sport.” He swallows hard. “I did naught wrong. But it won’t matter, will it?”

  Christ help us.

  “Thank your saint, she tells me. My father has all kinds of work that needs doing, and you’re just the man for the job.” Gruffydd laughs again, hollow. “It’s only a matter of time ere someone comes into the rearyard. All he’ll see is a burgess’s daughter alone with a Welshman, and she knows it well.”

  Fist up both hands. “Quit. Don’t go back.”

  Gruffydd doesn’t reply. We both know why.

  “There’s other work. There has to be.”

  “Not if I say one of them nay. Especially not if I say her nay.”

  Sink back on my heels.

  Mam’s low, throaty breathing seems very loud.

  Slide next to Gruffydd and put an arm about his shoulder. My little brother buries his head in my neck and his whole body shudders with a muffled sob.

  He wept when they came for Pencoed. He wept when Mam stopped knowing who we are. He wept every night of that first month when he stood without the walls in the shadow of Da’s swaying corpse, waiting for work.

  I squint into the rafters until a telltale wink of steel looks back.

  A FORTNIGHT ere Christmas, Nicholas comes roaring up before the house. He’s brought a packet of royal missives for the mayor of Caernarvon, and he’s permitted to remain until Epiphany.

  There’s a young man with him, and it’s several moments ere I recognize my younger cousin. Henry actually looks like a man, furry across the cheeks and broad through the shoulders. Not the hare-toothed oaf with tousled hair and dirt beneath his nails who told one too many landlord’s-daughter jokes.

  I embrace them both twice and bring each a mug of hot cider while my father bids them come near the fire to tell the news.

  “Mother’s piles are acting up again,” says Nicholas, as if my aunt Eleanor would like this information made public. “The miller’s wife bore twins and had to swear her fidelity on the gospels. Agnes got married. I reckon there’s some hope yet for you to unload this minx of yours, Uncle Robert. Someone saw the Adversary in the wheat field. Oh, and Father’s brand-new bay mare went lame. I warned him not to buy from that . . .”

  Agnes got married.

  I slip out of the hall and drift into my workroom even though it’s withering cold, and I sink down before my empty embroidery frame.

  They’re both wives now. When they’d merely been far away, they seemed within reach. Now that they’re married, they’re gone for good, no matter what we promised.

  Bootsteps behind me. Nicholas clumps into the workroom and shudders dramatically. “Brrr! Why do you not come by the fire, Cesspool?”

  “That’s all right. I like it here.”

  Nicholas kneels at my elbow and studies my empty frame. “She’s happy, you know. Agnes. Alice, too.
They live just around the corner from each other. In and out of each other’s kitchens all day.”

  Just like a man to say the wrong thing and not know it’s the wrong thing.

  But Nicholas seems to realize something is amiss. “Mayhap this will cheer you.”

  He offers a small parcel of grubby linen. Within are skeins of embroidery thread. A whole fistful, every color I could want. Even gold and silver. Good thread, too, not that coarseweave that bloodies your fingers. I squeal and clap and throw my arms about him.

  “I know you were deprived of an altar cloth,” Nicholas says with a smile. “Nothing could replace that, of course. But this will help you with another one.”

  Nicholas pulls plaits and laughs too loud and blames farts on Salvo, but he’ll be here to hang the holly and ivy and light candles and offer me his elbow when we walk to Christ’s Mass.

  Henry has come to see Caernarvon. Nicholas has told him of the liberties and privileges given to burgesses, and Henry is weary of waiting for the chance to become a master goldsmith in the Coventry guild.

  My father decides to show Henry the sights. After a little pleading on my part, my father relents and permits me to join them. We pass the Justice Court, the Boar’s Head, and the murage trestle, my father rattling on about no tolls and cheap labor, until at last we find ourselves without the walls at the endowed cropland.

  Henry stands openmouthed at the neat furrows of icy clods. “All this is yours?”

  “Twelvepence a year,” my father says. “No service owed. Held by simple burghal tenure.”

  Henry whistles low, shakes his head.

  From somewhere nearby I hear a small noise I cannot place, so I move into the furrows and seek it. It sounds like a lost puppy, mournful and urgent. Mayhap my father would allow me to keep it. Salvo might enjoy a little company.

  I top a small rise and stop short. Lying in the dirt, bound wrist and ankle, is the boy whose task it is to ward away crows. There’s a filthy gag in his mouth and he struggles against his bonds. His hair has been so harshly shorn that his scalp is half torn away. Even his eyebrows are gone.