Bone of Contention (10 page)

Although she was a trifle apprehensive about the reaction of the men-at-arms quartered in the alehouse because there was no way of concealing that she came out of the Soft Nest, Magdalene passed its yard without worse than a couple of called invitations. The men-at-arms now lodged there had been warned that they would be evicted if they offended too often and they believed it, since every day more than one captain of other troops came to beg for accommodations.

Once she was away from the Soft Nest, Magdalene strode more confidently into the South Way and walked north. Early as it was, the street was unpleasantly crowded with far too many armed men. Magdalene kept her head down as much as she could while making sure she did not bump into anyone. However, once across the Carfax and into the Cornmarket, the worst press of men-at-arms diminished. At least the large groups marching from the east and west remained on Castle Street. Some armed men mingled with the other shoppers in the market, but they were unthreatening, looking at the goods in the stalls alone or in twos and threes.

Despite its name, a great deal more than grain was sold in the Cornmarket. Almost every variety of shop thrust a stall into the street, and only a few yards from the corner Magdalene found a rough basket that would do to carry her purchases and was not too expensive to leave behind when she returned to London. Not much farther along, a grocer’s shop provided dried fruit and leaf-wrapped flat cakes of candied violets and rosebuds.

Magdalene shook her head over spending far more than when Dulcie made the delicacies, but she had no cook, no kitchen, no garden, and two men with mouths to fill. Still, the expense made her set down a very tempting plaited-grass sack of fresh strawberries she had been examining. They were so perishable, and she had no idea when William would be able to come again. Unfortunately it was too early in the season for any other fresh fruit.

Suppressing temptation, she crossed the road. Cakes came from a baker she remembered, whose shop was still in the same place. The baker exclaimed in surprise when she leaned forward to look at a long loaf of dark bread and her veil drooped and exposed her face. He greeted her with warmth, and wanted to know where she now lived and why she was in Oxford, but there was a compensation. For an old friend, the baker sliced the dark loaf in quarters, the quarters in half, and smeared one side of each quarter liberally with butter.

When he had tucked that carefully into the side of the basket so it would not fall apart, Magdalene stepped out and looked up the street toward the shop of the mercer who had supplied almost all her embroidery materials—and sold her work, too—for most of the years she had been in Oxford. She took about two steps in that direction, then turned sharply about and went back across the road to the grocer. William’s was not the only mouth that could eat strawberries, she had a right to pleasure too. And though she sighed over her folly, with her mouth watering she purchased the berries.

With a mingled sense of guilt and righteous self-indulgence, Magdalene pulled her veil down to pop a strawberry into her mouth, pausing a moment to savor the sweet, sharp taste. Sighing with satisfaction, she set out again for the shop of Master Redding, the mercer.

Two more strawberries, the reddest and softest, were saved from possible decay. Magdalene slowly chewed the second while she examined the broadest ribbons on the mercer’s counter. Having sucked any possible strawberry stain from her fingers, she pointed out two ribbons, one a dusty blue and the other a bright green. Then she turned her attention to the thin hanks of thread hanging from three wooden trees fastened to the counter, she asked the prices, chaffered over them, and, satisfied, began to lift off those she wanted. There was no need to restrain her buying of embroidery yarn, sooner or later she would use every bit.

While the apprentice took her money and folded the thread inside the wide ribbon, which he rolled up tightly and secured with a string, Magdalene returned her attention to the grass bag of strawberries. She was examining the contents carefully, seeking the ripest, when a hand seized her arm. Crying out softly, she gripped her shopping basket even more tightly and tried to pull her veil back across her face while she raised her head to scream for Master Redding to come to her defense. The shout died unborn.

“Sir Niall!” she exclaimed. “You idiot! You frightened me half to death.”

“Why should my taking your arm frighten you?” he asked, and then shook his head impatiently and added, “Never mind that. Come inside.” He urged her around the edge of the counter toward the shop door. “I think you are the answer to all my prayers.”

“I think you are drunk!” she riposted tartly.

Nonetheless, Magdalene let him draw her into the shop. He didn’t look drunk, for one thing, and for another, she was reasonably sure Master Redding would not allow her to be assaulted on his premises.

“That is Loveday of Otmoor,” Niall said, drawing Magdalene toward the far end of the counter in the shop where a young woman with a worried expression was conversing with Master Redding, the mercer.

Magdalene stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at Niall. “You fool!” she whispered, turning away. “You do not introduce whores to—”
Loveday of Otmoor?
she thought.
Where have I heard that name?
And then it came back to her, Diccon saying that Sir Niall was courting an heiress named Loveday of Otmoor. Her eyes widened. “You do not introduce whores to young ladies you are courting with hopes to marry!” she muttered fiercely, pulling free of Niall’s hold.

“Where did you hear that?” he asked, looking stunned.

Magdalene had retreated to the other end of the shop and Niall had followed her. “Go away!” she urged. “I don’t think she’s noticed me. Pretend you don’t know me!”

“No, listen to me. Loveday will be safer with you than being alone on her manor, and I can’t stay…” He drew a deep breath. “You don’t know what’s happened.”

At that moment it became too late to escape notice. Loveday left the mercer and came across to where Niall and Magdalene stood. For the moment, although she glanced at her, she did not acknowledge Magdalene. She looked up appealingly at Niall.

“Edmee is gone to London. Master Redding was afraid to keep her here with the streets full of armed men, not to mention that he expects his house to be forced to quarter some of them either today or tomorrow. He said I could have stayed here, except for that, but I wouldn’t want to stay unless Edmee were in the house with me.”

Then the mercer joined them. “Ah,” he said, “so you’ve found a chaperone for Loveday, I see. Why don’t you all go up to my solar where you can talk this out in comfort. I’m sure you’ll find some satisfactory arrangement.”

He at least did not seem to have recognized her. Magdalene started to shake her head, but Loveday was already thanking Master Redding and Niall had taken her arm again and was steering her toward the steep stair that rose along the wall not far from them. Magdalene despaired of trying to be diplomatic and sparing Niall Loveday’s anger, and when the girl came up the stair and walked across the room to join them on the benches near the hearth, she dropped her veil.

“Mistress Loveday, I don’t know what is in Niall’s mind, but I am no fit chaperone for any decent young woman. My name is Magdalene la Bâtarde, and I am a whoremistress. Now I am sure Niall does not seek to sell you to me, not that I have ever bought a young woman who was not already in the trade—”

“At least you will not try to marry me and seize my property,” Loveday said bitterly.

“You believe Niall is trying to seize your property?” Magdalene’s voice was high with surprise. “Then why are you with him? I think he would be a good husband, but I suppose he
would
wish to manage the manor—”

“No, I would not,” Niall said. “Loveday does that far better than I could. Likely I would stay with Lord William for a few years more and then, if we could find suitable grazing, I think I’d like to raise horses. My father would sell us some decent mares, and let us use his stud.”

“That’s a very good idea, Niall,” Loveday said enthusiastically. “About the horses I mean. I’m not sure I’d like you to risk yourself in Lord William’s service, though.”

Magdalene put her free hand to her forehead. “Are you both mad? What am I doing here? Did you bring me up here to give you a good character, Niall? That you know me at all is already a mark against you, in proving you unchaste.” She looked at Loveday. “What kind of character can a whoremistress give? I can tell you he doesn’t try to beat my women and that he is kind even to the childish girl who often makes others impatient. He is cheerful when he has to wait…”

Niall’s fair Irish complexion was now bright red, and Loveday was laughing. “Actually, that is a very good recommendation,” she said. “Considering his profession, I never thought Niall would be a celibate saint.” Then the laughter faded from her face and she shuddered. “I have reason to know that there are worse men than Niall Arvagh.”

“You aren’t here to give me a good character,” Niall said. “Loveday needs a safe house in which to hide.”

“Safe house?” Magdalene echoed. “A whorehouse?” And then seeing Niall and Loveday exchange glances and nod, she asked “What is so dreadful that hiding in a whorehouse would be considered safe in comparison?”

“The day before yesterday,” Loveday began, slightly pale now, “a man came to the gate of Noke Manor and asked for me. We have been keeping the gates closed because of the influx of men-at-arms in the area, but one man… I suppose we should have kept him out, but he was wearing a lord’s house badge. He wasn’t one of the ragged hangers-on—”

“He was wearing Waleran de Meulan’s house badge,” Niall interrupted indignantly. “Of course, Loveday didn’t know that when the steward let him in.” His face reddened again, but this time with anger. “That clerk that came to William with the news about Loveday and went out with a gold piece for thanks…the treasonous bastard, he must have gone to Waleran first.”

Loveday put a hand on his arm, and he subsided. “When I came down to the common room from the solar, this…creature…seized my hand and said we were to be married by order of Lord Waleran de Meulan. He was looking around the common room, at the plates on the wardrobe and the tankards. He never even looked at me beyond one glance. At first I was too frightened to speak, but I managed to pull my hand away and get behind a bench. Once I was free of him, I remembered why I was not married already. I told him that I was the king’s ward and that only the king himself could order me to take a husband.”

Niall began to mutter something, but Loveday held up her hand and he fell silent.

“For one moment the man looked taken aback, but then he laughed and said it
was
the king’s order, that the king’s clerk had come to Lord Waleran and bidden him find a husband for me.”

“That treacherous clerk!” Niall burst out.

Magdalene frowned. “I know the clerk said that Loveday was not sufficiently highborn or rich enough to make a marriage prize for one of Stephen’s own poor noblemen—”

“Thanks be to God!” Loveday exclaimed. “One of those would strip Noke and Otmoor
bare in a year to pay for his fine clothing and his gambling.”

“I agree,” Magdalene said, still frowning, “but I am very surprised indeed that Waleran should send a common man-at-arms. I should have thought he would have chosen, as did William, one of his captains, who would be a knight and of decent if not noble family.”

“Apparently I was not worth so much consideration.” Loveday’s voice was stiff and ice-cold. “But it became an advantage. Because I saw that he did not truly have any knowledge of what being a king’s ward meant, I gathered my wits and told him I would take no man’s word on a matter so important to me as my marriage. I said I must see the order in writing with the king’s seal before I would agree. He was angry, but my steward was there and he left, saying I was a fool to resist and start off on the wrong foot with him, that he would come back with the order.” She shuddered. “I would rather die, I thought, than have him. He stank!”

“I do not always smell fresh as a flower,” Niall said tentatively, touching her cheek.

Magdalene thought he probably did smell somewhat of flowers that day. He was clearly scrubbed clean and newly shaven, his hair washed…but not combed? And then she noticed that his sleeve was cut and so was his tunic, as if someone had attacked him with a knife, and the knuckles on the hand he had raised to touch Loveday were skinned and swollen.

“No,” Loveday said to him, smiling, “nor did my father smell like flowers nor my brothers. Like them you smell of horses and honest sweat.” Her eyes came back to Magdalene and her voice sharpened. “That animal smelled of stale beer and wine and piss and vomit.” She shuddered again. “I was not certain what I would do if he did come back with the order. First I thought I would not let him in, but what good would that do? I thought the king would send many men to force me. So then I decided to let him in and look at the order. If it really was from the king… I would have the steward and the menservants from the house kill him!”

Magdalene fought back a grin and said, “Better that than a life—a short one, I suspect—as his wife. But I hope you bethought you of how to hide what you had done.”

Loveday sighed. “It did not come to that, but almost. He came with a document, but it was not an order from the king and it bore nothing beside the signatures of two witnesses. There was no seal. It was a betrothal agreement yielding all that was mine to him without any safeguard for me. It already bore my signature—” she snorted contempt “—an X with the words “Loveday of Otmoor, her mark’ beside it. The fool did not even know I could read and write.”

“Can you?” Magdalene asked, surprised. It was an unlikely skill for a woman.

“Yes, father taught me after mother died. He traveled a lot and he wanted to know in detail about what was happening and in particular how the priest was behaving. There had been trouble years before with a dishonest priest. Not this priest. He is new here but a very good man. I don’t know what that other priest did, but father never forgot and he did not want me to be dependent on the priest to write my letters. I find it very useful.”