The Wicked and the Just Read online

  We arrive before a massive gate, and the men guarding it approach my father to parley. My father hands over some silver and they nod us through. Above us, the city walls are as wide as several men lying head to toe. The walls are dark and damp and cold, but thick.

  It would take a lot to get through walls this thick.

  What opens up within the walls does not look like Coventry. There are no townhouses overhanging the roads, blocking out the sun. There are no muddy gutters and middens.

  There are open spaces greening with furze and narrow plots with new-turned furrows waiting for May planting. Unfinished townhouses rise golden like solid honey, and older houses, gleaming white with limewash, sweep up from green plots.

  I can have a garden here. Just like at Edgeley.

  My father looks smug. “More to your liking, sweeting?”

  “It’s not Edgeley. But I suppose it will do. For now.”

  The street we follow veers slightly to the left and ends abruptly with the city wall. We pass one cross-street, then another, ere the guide calls gee and directs us down the endmost street.

  The castle is massive now. I can just see a curve of tower and a tangle of scaffolding when we lurch to a stop.

  “What do you think, sweeting?” My father gestures to a house that rises tall and graceful out of a tidy yard. The bottom part is stone, the top timbered with bright limewashed panels.

  “Is that our house?” Not a mud-and-thatch midden-hole, and certes a hand up from my uncle William’s crowded lodgings in Coventry.

  But by no means is this Edgeley Hall.

  My father smiles. “Welcome home.”

  A thickset woman of middle years answers my father’s knock. She is Mistress Tipley. She and the servant have been caring for the place through the winter, and she thanks the saints that we’ve come through safely.

  Mistress Tipley looks suspiciously like a chatelaine, when I’m to be the lady of this house.

  At least she is speaking English.

  “Sweeting, I must go see the constable,” my father says. “Let him know we’ve arrived and find out what he requires of me. Mistress Tipley will show you the house.”

  My father swings back astride his horse with a faint groan, then bids the guide bring the cart into the rearyard and unload. I’m left in the foyer with Mistress Tipley regarding me as though I’m a child threatening the wall hangings with my damp little hands.

  Being the lady of this house was promised me. I put my chin in the air and tell her, “I can show myself the house. You may go.”

  Her face reddens, but she bobs her head and disappears.

  Abovestairs is a chamber halved by heavy curtains. I claim the half at the rear of the house as my own; my father can have the other. There’s a pallet on the floor, but I sincerely hope my father doesn’t think I’m sleeping on the floor now that we’re here. We can stay at an inn with real beds until the pack train arrives.

  I throw open my window shutters and gasp. The view is stunning. The sun is all but down and the land across the shimmering water is a rich, glowing purple. Boats bob and creak below, tethered to docks that run along the city walls. In our rearyard is a scattering of outbuildings and animal pens and a kitchen garden greening like a meadow.

  If I’m not murdered, this might not turn out so badly after all.

  I trudge belowstairs in search of a place to rest my cart-rattled bones, and I come upon the hall. Salvo is already asleep before the hearth, where a girl about my size is raking the coals. She’s dressed in unbecoming gray wool that has been patched and repatched with tight, careful seams.

  The servant, like as not. And I am the lady of the house. Like my mother once, at Edgeley.

  I wave a hand at the girl and say, “Fetch me some wine.”

  Rather than leaping up and skittering toward the kitchen, the girl regards me so fiercely that my belly seizes up. Her eyes are dark as currants and unblinking as a bird’s.

  I stiffen from jaw to fists. “You will bring the wine. Then you will beg my pardon.”

  The servants at Edgeley would never have dared to so much as raise their eyes to me.

  And this girl is fighting a smirk.

  “I am the lady of this house,” I say in small, bitten-off words, “and you are dismissed from it. As of right now. Be gone!”

  I wait for her to cower and plead, but she merely looks at me as steadily as a saint. At length she returns to raking.

  “Did you not hear me?” I wrench the grate rake from her hand and haul her to her feet. “You will leave at once!”

  The girl’s expression hardens. For a long moment she does naught, neither word nor deed, and I’m about to prod her with the rake when she turns on her heel and marches toward the rear of the house.

  I’m looking for a place to hang the rake when the girl returns with Mistress Tipley, and the crone is bristling like a sopping cat. “Gwenhwyfar is going nowhere. Now give her the grate rake and let her get on with her work.”

  “She’s ill-mannered,” I reply, “and unfit for this house.”

  “What’s unfit for this house?” my father asks as he plods into the hall and tugs at his gloves.

  “Her.” I level a finger at the girl as she studies her bare feet.

  My father runs a hand through his hair. “Cecily, please. We’re all weary. Let it lie.”

  I sharpen my voice. “I’ll not have her in this house.”

  My father sighs. “If it’ll make you feel better, sweeting, mayhap—”

  “My lord, begging your pardon,” Mistress Tipley cuts in, “but if you dismiss Gwenhwyfar, you may as well dismiss me, too.”

  I turn on my father like a whipcrack. “She’s lying! She cannot leave!”

  Mistress Tipley draws herself up straight. “I’ve breathed town air much longer than a year and a day, so I can come and go as I see fit. I’m here for wages, and with the borough’s leave. If this arrangement doesn’t suit you, my lord, I’ll gather my things and be gone by first light on the morrow.”

  My father blinks. “Christ, no. Mistress Tipley, please. Let’s not be rash. Of course Gwen—Gwinny—of course this servant shall stay. And so shall you. And no more”—my father gives me a warning look—“will be said of it.”

  The girl, Gwinny, slices a triumphant look at me as Mistress Tipley hands her the tool. Then she kneels once again and begins to rake around Salvo in long, taunting strokes.

  I sulk on the bottom step of the stairs. I will see that crone Tipley on the street by midsummer. Her and her precious Gwinny. No one makes a fool of Cecily d’Edgeley and gets away clear.

  A KNIGHT and his daughter, she said. No mistress.

  More fool I, to have thanked God for small blessings too early.

  No mistress, and new English might be bearable. No sniping. No accusations of familiarity with the master.

  No insistence that I live in this town. In this house.

  But what I get is worse again, and from a girl no older than I who stands there hands on hips, eyes narrow, brazen as a cold-water drench. As if this is her house already. Her grate to be raked. Hers from splinter to beam.

  Wait for the master to slap her senseless. But he does not.

  Expected a lot of things from new English. Did not expect to be ruled by a brat.

  Long winter days, and I should have known better than to grow accustomed to the blessing of stillness. To grow to love the way quiet could fill space. To close my eyes one too many times and think mayhap new English would never arrive, mayhap this place could stay waiting forever.

  Now it’s spring, English are here, and I could kill the brat a hundred different ways.

  Could strangle her with one of her foolish ribbons. Dump hemlock in her breakfast porridge. Push her down the stairs. Would be no different than killing a rat.

  She is English.

  The lot of them should burn.

  MY FATHER refuses to get us into an inn. When I presented a clear and thoughtful argument, his eyes bulged as i
f I had spit at the king. Then he said blather-blather-“silver” and blather-blather-“ruinous” and ended the discussion. It appears that cushioning his beloved daughter’s poor bruised body is not worth a few measly pennies, so I must sleep on the floor. On the pallet. With all the fleas.

  I want my bed.

  My father says the pack train like as not won’t arrive for another fortnight. If it’s not waylaid.

  Even in Coventry I slept in a bed.

  I must have been more tired than I thought, for I awaken to Prime ringing. Mayhap they are Christian here.

  There’s a bucket of washing water in the corner. I splash some on my face, brush and plait my hair, then slide on my gown. It takes hardly any time to ready yourself when there’s no one to hide your shift or tease you about your shiny forehead.

  My tread echoes in the chamber. In this morning light, the space spreads out like sown fields. No elbows to bump. No feet to trip over. It’s just me.

  Agnes talked too much and Alice couldn’t keep a secret to save her soul from Purgatory, but it’s all I can do to swallow down my tears. I take out our altar cloth and sit for a long time on the floor, tracing every stitch with my fingers.

  But the lady of the house cannot sit and mope. I rise, hide the altar cloth beneath my pallet, and head belowstairs. In the hall, there’s bread on the trestle table and I fall on it like a hungry raven. Mistress Tipley bustles in, adjusting her wimple. She picks up the market basket near the door.

  The lady of the house does the marketing.

  I must sort out a way to get rid of Mistress Tipley.

  “I’m coming with you,” I inform her.

  She blinks rapidly. “Demoiselle, you must be tired after your—”

  “I’m coming with you.” I look her in the eye till she huffs.

  “Very well,” Mistress Tipley replies, “but we must leave now.”

  I lead her into the street, where women lug buckets of water and men sweep refuse into the gutter.

  And I remember where I am.

  I will be murdered as sure as God hates sin. Some big hairy Welshman will beat me to death with my own market basket. I shouldn’t even be here; I should be at Edgeley Hall throwing sticks for Salvo’s grandpuppies and stitching my bridal linen.

  But the passing townsfolk do not lurk or creep or even menace. Most greet Mistress Tipley. In English.

  The last place I expected to hear the English tongue is this back-end of Christendom’s midden.

  We have been walking forever. Mistress Tipley is either lost or daft, or possibly both. I match her pace and say, “Surely we must be at the market common by now.”

  “It’s not a market day,” the old cow tells me. “We’re just going on the rounds.”

  “But how can you market on a day that isn’t market day?”

  Mistress Tipley sighs. “It’s a privilege, demoiselle. Hurry, I’m busy today.”

  Charming. Next she’ll be telling me the mayor is a heathen Turk and wine flows through the gutters and this place isn’t in fact full of cutthroats and barbarians.

  We stop at the bakery. The baker is just lowering his stall-front into a counter and propping up the awning when Mistress Tipley trundles up. The smell of bread is divine.

  She pulls out a linen-wrapped parcel and slides it across the counter. The baker counts five wads of bread dough and places the parcel beneath the counter, then he withdraws four cross-stamped rounds from a shelf behind him.

  “Half a penny, mistress.” In English. Like any of my neighbors at Edgeley.

  Mistress Tipley arranges the bread in her basket and pays the baker.

  “Why only four?” I ask. “You gave him five loaves. Why do we not get five in return?”

  “Castellaria,” Mistress Tipley replies as she herds me into the street. “Everyone must contribute to support the castle garrison.”

  I cannot think of men I want better fed than those of the castle garrison.

  Mistress Tipley bustles up the street like a hen. She does not seem to worry about being murdered.

  At the coster’s counter, Mistress Tipley buys a pan of onions. The coster weighs the pan and says, “That’s a penny, mistress.”

  No one is speaking Welsh. I haven’t heard a word of tongue-pull since our ill-humored guide took his leave.

  I ask the spicer where he’s from.

  “King’s Lynn, demoiselle.” He hands a small packet of pepper to Mistress Tipley.

  “You’re an Englishman, then.”

  The spicer chuckles. “Of course I am! Where else would I come from?”

  “Er.” I gesture around. “Wales?”

  The spicer roars laughter as if I’ve made the most uproarious jest ever in the annals of jesting. “Wales! Oh, saints, listen to the little maid! Did you fall off the turnip cart this morning, or are you laughing in your sleeve?”

  I clench my fists. It’s a decent guess, as we’re in the thick of Wales. But for some reason it’s high amusement to mock poor Cecily who asked an honest question and expected an honest answer.

  Mistress Tipley swallows her rude laughter and pulls me up the street. I’m itching to ask what’s so funny, but I will not give her the satisfaction of mocking my ignorance, too.

  We’re heading toward the house when I see him again. The lad from the docks who seems to think it proper to look upon me squarely. And as he drives past on a rubble cart, one sturdy bare foot resting easily on the foreboard, sure enough, he does it again. He looks right at me, and this time he smiles.

  Mannerless vermin like him would be cartwhipped at Edgeley.

  Not soon enough, we get back to the townhouse. I follow Mistress Tipley down the greenway to a rearyard that’s frightfully mucky. But it’s my duty to know it well, so I pace it off while holding my hem out of the mud.

  The kitchen takes up a good portion of the yard and houses a massive cookfire and several trestle tables. Alongside the mud-splattered kitchen wall is a small roost for hens, and a pig keep. A pigling trots to the pen’s rail and grunts hopefully as I near. I haven’t any scraps for him, but I scratch his back with a stick of kindling. Next to the lovely garden are a shed and a covered space where two barrels sit empty. The yard ends abruptly at the city wall, which rises like a shield stuck in earth.

  Standing in the yard between house and wall is like being folded into your father’s embrace after losing at chess or delivering a particularly harrowing confession.

  I never thought I’d like walls so much, not after looking over Edgeley’s rolling yardlands.

  But Caernarvon is not Edgeley. It can never hope to be. So I’m glad for the walls that stand between me and all that is without.

  We go to Mass. I wear my second-best kirtle and my cloak trimmed in fur, despite the sun roasting me like a Michaelmas goose.

  Though my father has not yet taken the oath, the burgesses welcome him into their midst with back-slaps and bellowed greetings and extended wrists. Their wives cluck over me, and I duck my chin and flutter my lashes in case they have comely sons who might pay me favor.

  They are English, to the smallest babe.

  I’m beginning to wonder if there are any Welsh at all in Caernarvon.

  When I lead Mistress Tipley out to do the marketing after Saturday Mass, she does not turn onto Palace Street toward the baker’s shop. Instead she plows up the big main street toward the city gate. I suffer walking at her elbow and ask, “Are you lost? Palace is behind us.”

  “Today is market day,” Mistress Tipley says, “and the market proper is held without the walls on the common, so we must go there.”

  Market day, at least, makes sense. Unlike so many other things here.

  When we reach the city gate, a massive trestle bars the way through the dark arch. A straggling queue stretches along the walls and curves out of sight. There’s no space to get past the trestle save a single gap near the wall, and that space is blocked by a big serjeant bearing a long knife.

  Two men sit at the trestle. One gu
ards a wooden box with thick hinges and a sturdy lock. They, too, have knife-hilts clearly pushing back their cloaks.

  Mistress Tipley nudges me from behind. “Come. We’re not required to pay murage.”

  She approaches the serjeant and taps his elbow. He steps aside, nodding politely. Ere I can speak, she seizes my sleeve and drags me forward, wrinkling my plum-colored gown.

  “This is the daughter of the Edgeley house,” Mistress Tipley tells the serjeant. “You will be seeing her as well.”

  Edgeley House. I must admit it has a music to it.

  The serjeant inclines his head to me, then pushes aside the first few men in line so that the old cow and I might pass. The men mutter in tongue-pull.

  I stand very still. Surely they’ll not murder me while an armed serjeant stands within a knife-slash.

  The Welshmen don’t even look at me. To a man they push their hoods back and study their bare feet while Mistress Tipley brushes past them, towing me by the sleeve.

  Outside the gate, the Welsh appear like worms in cheese. The bridge and fields are crammed with them. Tongue-pull and singsong English ring all around like birdcalls. You can’t turn around without roughening your elbow on homespun.

  Mistress Tipley plows through the Welsh so briskly that it’s all I can do to follow. The poor wretches plod like oxen, even the children, as if this is a quarter-day and not a market day when all the shopkeepers have their awnings out and ribbons on their poles and criers are hawking everything from meat pies to smoked fish.

  There’s a worn path leading past the castle, and a long queue of Welsh people stretches beyond the gatehouse and the wharves. They’re bearing boxes and crates, packs and satchels, animals on tethers and wheelbarrows piled with graying vegetables.

  They must be from the countryside.

  Mistress Tipley does not join the queue. She strides purposefully to the front amid a flurry of elbows and shoves. I hurry to catch up.

  The queue is held up by a trestle that bars the mill bridge, much like the one beneath the castle gate. Three men sit at the trestle. One has a strongbox. Another has an array of eggs, spun fibers, fish, apples, and cheeses in baskets both on the trestle and at his feet. Several armed serjeants stand in the only gap.