The Wicked and the Just (26 page)

Thank all the saints that my father thought to stockpile the oats and barley given him by the millers of Caernarvon as part of his office. Even if he does stand over Mistress Tipley like a mastiff and see that she measures out shares for all four of us for breakfast and supper. If he hadn't thought to keep that grain back, we'd be down at the market paying the price of ten horses for half a quartermeasure of crawling rye.

Or going without.

 

I'm terribly glad that I can use the workroom again. In winter, we were packed into the hall because every other room was so cold that our breath came out in puffs. There are precious few times I can bear my father's feeble attempts at humor and smile politely at his tales of millers attempting to get out of castellaria or Welshmen who hid their handmills to avoid the fine.

“The sacks were in the byre, if you'll believe it! A little, er,
persuading
and he came out with them.” Or, “Thought he could hide the handmill in the dunghill, but that fool surely didn't think I'd throw him in to find it!” And so on. It's tiresome.

But now it's summer and he's hardly ever here. If he's not officering the mills, he's in and out of
honesti
houses or meeting with castle men or putting himself forward for extra turns at Watch and Ward.

Gwinny enters the workroom and stands quietly till I look up from my embroidery frame.

“Mistress Tipley says to come to supper.”

“Very well.” I flex my fingers. They ache like penance, but Saint Joseph is finished and the Holy Child outlined. I stow my needle and stretch.

Gwinny regards me as if I'm on sale at the market but she's not sure of my teeth. Then she brings something out from behind her back and holds it toward me.

It's pink. A most familiar rose pink.

I let the small folded packet fall open. Sure enough, it's the rose wool from my Michaelmas gown, but it's been carefully trimmed into a square and stitched around the edges with tiny, precise stitches to stop the fraying.

A handkerchief. From one of the scraps.

Gwinny lifts her chin. “Taking all of it makes me no better than you.”

I hold the handkerchief close to my chest. At length I whisper, “I'm sorry, too,” but Gwinny has already gone.

 

Saints keep me, the constable of Caernarvon and the justiciar of North Wales are coming to our little house! They will be here for supper and the kitchen is in an absolute uproar, eel sizzling and pots bubbling and fingers flying and Mistress Tipley shrilling.

My father pulls me aside. “Now, sweeting, I need not tell you how important these men are. I'd send a child to her chamber to keep her out of the way, but you are old enough to serve us at table. I know you'll make me proud.”

Not only will I make him proud, I'll prove that I've learned
honesti
craft like the paternoster and therefore never need suffer the goodwill of the lady de Coucy again.

“And it'll give you a chance to be seen.” My father winks. “Both of these men have sons who need wives.”

High-ranking borough officials will expect naught less of a man with ambitions toward
honesti
hood, and my father would have himself seen by these men just as much as he would me.

When the guests arrive at Vespers, the hearth is blazing with fragrant pine. The constable of the castle is called Adam de Whetenhale, and he has the reddest hair of anyone I've ever seen. I already know the justiciar's name, and, very well, I'm glad I know to curtsey.

They sit on either side of my father at the trestle, and he has both men laughing within moments.

I walk like a fine borough lady. I pour wine from the right and cast my gaze down and smile when one of them makes a jest, but not too much because of my crooked teeth. Emmaline could not have done it better.

But they're not even looking at me. They're talking about Sir John de Coucy's
problem,
as they call it.

“We cannot ignore it,” my father warns. “Not with the king's Gascony edict atop the famine and
taxatores
on their way. The Welshry is demanding justice. And the whor—men with blackened faces will see that they get it one way or another.”

The justiciar grins. “They'll get the justice that's coming to them. But Coucy will be tried by a jury of his peers. And that's why we're here.”

Mistress Tipley appears in the rear storage chamber with a tray of fried eel that demolished our savings. I glide over to take it from her, but it's hard to remember to keep my eyes down and not trip over my hem and keep the tray level all at once.

“We need you for Coucy's jury,” the justiciar says to my father. “A fortnight's time. The bailiff's clerk will come for you.”

My father frowns. “I owe no suit at county court.”

“County court, mayhap,” the constable replies, “but not a county jury. God forbid.”

I slide the tray onto the trestle where all three can reach, then step back, hands clasped and head bowed. Surely one of them will tell my father what a charming and lovely daughter he has. They will say what a fine borough lady she is, and how any man would be fortunate to have her to wife.

But they don't. Three daggers spear slices of eel and the men tear in like beasts, swigging wine and spitting out stray bones.

They don't even notice me.

“Coucy is a burgess of Caernarvon, and he'll be tried by his
peers.
” The justiciar smiles like a sated cat. “He could cut down half the Welshry and that right would still be his. Matters little
where
Coucy sits for judgment, for I have every confidence that you lads will hear the oathgivers and come to the right conclusion.”

My father squints thoughtfully for a moment, then grins big as market day. He clasps wrists with both visitors and agrees to serve as a juror. Then the three of them attack their meal once again with relish.

I stand in the hearth corner trembling with rage. I did everything I was taught. Everything, just as an
honesti
lady might. And it gained me naught.

 

 

H
E
was tried by his peers. Fellow burgesses. Englishmen all.

This is justice, they tell us. English justice.

Out in county court, away from stone and mortar, he should be judged by a jury of Welshmen.

But the Crown looks away.

English returns to Caernarvon in smug horseback triumph. He killed a man in cold blood and the verdict is Not Proven. Twelve of his peers see to it.

 

 

 

 

M
ICHAELMAS
dawns clear and blue, the kind of fierce autumn sky that promises endless summer. I lean on my window frame, shutters thrown wide, and breathe the thick, briny wind.

Today is the fair. Today is jugglers and trained marmosets and pasties hot from carts and ribbons and carole-dancing in the street. It's Michaelmas!

As I reach for the shutters, I smell something strange. A dark haze is rising over Anglesey, smearing the blue.

It's almost like smoke.

First the crop failure, now a fire. Anglesey must have done something to anger the Almighty. God willing, next year will be better.

My father is much more sober this Michaelmas. He eats his porridge in measured mouthfuls while staring at the hearth. There are fresh scars on his forearms. He's still on his first mug of ale.

“Papa,” I purr, sliding into my place at his right hand. “May I go to the fair?”

“If you stay within the walls, sweeting. Take Gwinny and be careful. The countryside is still hot.”

“Could I have fivepence to spend?”

He makes a show of choking on his ale. “Fivepence? Surely. Let me just pull that out of my purple and ermine tunic!”

I fold my arms and huff big. Good old pinchpenny Papa. “How about three?”

“Two, you little spendthrift,” he says, tugging my plait. “Honestly, you'll have to marry an earl. Only blooded men will be able to keep you.”

“Give me his hand and point us toward the church door,” I reply, and my father laughs aloud. He pulls out his purse and hands me the pennies. I kiss my father's bristly cheek, then Gwinny and I are out the door and into the whistling, singing, stomping, and shouting.

This fair seems smaller than last year's. Not nearly as many sheep on tethers, or skeins of wool. The prices are higher, too. A stall in front of the Glovers' wants a half a penny for a single honey cake!

Surely there are better prices. I have but twopence and I want to stretch them. With Gwinny in tow, I thread through Shire Hall Street and move down High.

Someone screams.

Man or woman, I cannot tell. It came from the gates, though, and I strain on tiptoe for a glimpse. Betimes the Watch will hack off a cutpurse's ear while the wronged man watches, or they'll thrash a minstrel for singing in the street.

No such fortune. All I can see are hooded heads, bobbing and plodding and swaying.

I tug Gwinny's sleeve. “Come, let's go see what the excitement is!”

Gwinny stands like a sighted hare.

“It'll be fun!” I hop and crane, but I can see naught. “We surely don't want to miss out.”

“Madog,” she whispers.

A boy flashes past me. At least I think it's a boy. He was running too fast to be certain. Then another boy, then a woman dragging a child by the wrist, then men.

There's a rumble like thunder far away, yet the sky is so blue it hurts the eye.

And there's screaming and shouting and the shing-shing of metal and the dull thud of blades in flesh, like a hallful of people eating meat with daggers in both hands.

I turn.

High Street is rushing toward me in a massive wave. Men, women, children, dogs, goats. They thrash and tumble and scrabble away from—

Welshmen. Welshmen who chase them like animals, cut them down with sword and spear and falchion and dagger, leap over the corpses and hack at whatever's moving.

They're running past me, men and women and boys and dogs bumping me shoulder and elbow, and I cannot move.

Gwinny will help me. She'll intercede with the butchers, tell them I'm to be spared, that I gave her a gown and kept her fed and found her brother a job of work.

But Gwinny is not at my elbow. Or up the street. Or anywhere.

A Welshman shoulders in a door not an armslength from me. He plows inside with several fellows on his heels. Things crash and there's screaming. And then sobbing. And then silence.

I must get home. My father will protect me. He has a big sword and a falchion and he'll hold the door against them.

I fly up High Street, straight through the gutter. Already it's full of blood.

A Welshmen startles as I wick past and he stabs his spear at me. Two brutes peel off and pursue me at a dogtrot.

Christ, no.

I stumble over a limp arm and hit the gutter face first. I come up mired with mud and blood and it reeks and purple stars dazzle my eyes and my mouth waters and I vomit my porridge and cream.

Footfalls behind me. I heave myself up, retching, swiping at the mess gobbeting my gown. The arm I fell over hangs limply in the gutter.

It belongs to one of the Glover lads. His belly is cut open and his guts are sliding out.

And I'm off, away from feet crunching mud and rock, away from the Glover boy, and crossing myself with every other step, falling over my hem and gagging at the smell of myself and dodging bodies and getting home so my father can pet my hair and keep me safe.

The racket is hellish and everything smells like burning. I round the corner of Shire Hall. Smoke pours from the windows of the Tutburys' house on the corner. The screaming comes from everywhere at once like the sound of some unholy choir. Ahead I can see our house, and I pray to every saint who's listening that it's not afire.

It's not. God is merciful to sinners.

I try the door, weeping and weak in the legs, but it doesn't budge. Not a margin. And the two brutes are rounding the gate and four more are following, all of them ragged and raweyed and brandishing blood-smeared weapons and looking right at me.