The Wicked and the Just (8 page)

The gathered burgesses abruptly raise a cheer. My father clasps wrists with the gold-shouldered man, then steps into a crowd of burgesses who all clap him on the back or clasp his wrist or both.

Good. It's done.

I rise and shake out my gown. There's a clammy skin of sweat over my whole body. My hair is heavy and damp on my neck.

Something seizes my arm. My father, and he's grinning like a well-fed monk.

“Oh, sweeting, it's set and sealed! I couldn't be happier!”

I could. If a runner brought word that my uncle Roger was dead and we could go home to Edgeley. If I had that dratted gown of finespun on Emmaline's back, which is rightfully mine. If I had a mouthful of wine.

“It was lovely, Papa,” I lie. “Where are the horses?”

My father beams down on me. “It's not over, sweeting. Whenever they swear in a new man, they must check that the town's liberties haven't been encroached upon, so we must walk the boundary stones.”

I look down at my clean blue hem. My vellet hem. My mother's hem.

I am sweatier than a pig in Purgatory.

For all that the privileges of Caernarvon are costing me, they'd best pay off to the hilt.

 

It's hotter than perdition. I have been walking forever. If I were a saint, I'd be a martyr by now. Saint Cecily, scorched to death on a forced march.

I trudge behind my father, step after miserable step. My slippers are ruined beyond salvage, so I labor to keep my hem off the ground. There is less mud out here, but the vellet across my arm feels like a cartload of masonry bricks.

We seem to be walking a circuit around the town walls. We keep passing these bits of quarry-stone poking out of the ground like teeth in an old man's head.

By all that's holy, why must this town be so large?

Someone falls into step at my side. A wineskin appears before me, hovering like some strange trick of a heat-addled mind.

If it is a trick of my mind, it's one that pleases me. He's got hair like a blackbird's wing and a careless smile and the most charming dimple.

My hands are shaking, but I take the wineskin and raise it to my lips. No wine comes out. He laughs and uncorks the bung, then offers it again.

If God Almighty had any mercy at all, He'd let me melt through the desolate wasteland below my feet ere making me face this comely stranger before whom I've just made a fool of myself.

“Thirsty work, this,” he says, “and you seem thirstier than most. Would I had something for you to ride.”

The wine is bitter and warm, but I drink it so I'll not have to look at him, or speak. Then I hand the wineskin quickly back.

My father has noticed my new companion and drops back to take my elbow, which he holds much too tightly. “Edward Mercer. A health to you.”

“Oh, come now,” my wine-saint replies. “You must call me Ned if we're to be neighbors.”

He says it to my father, but he looks right at me.

My father snorts so quietly that I'm certain he's merely clearing dust from his throat.

My wine-saint is still smiling at me. My father would flay me alive should I call a man I'm not wed to by his Christian name, but my father would also not want me to be ill-mannered.

So I smile at the mercer. At Ned.

“And welcome to the privileges, Edgeley. How does it feel to be a friend of the king?”

My father worms his way between Ned and me. My elbow is fiery where the vellet scratches.

“It'll feel better when those privileges begin to take effect. I put down quite a sum on murage just getting my household through the gate.”

“Well, you're free of those tolls now. The king does not wish to burden his friends here with such bothersome details. We'll let the Welsh maintain the walls and roads, right?”

“So there is actually some advantage to being here?” I ask, partly because I'm interested but mostly because Ned will have an excuse to speak to me directly. “It's not just where all the castoffs and vagabonds end up?”

Ned winks at me and my father's hand on my elbow tightens enough to burn. “Why, demoiselle, you couldn't drag me back to York, God's honest truth! I can charge their lot what I like and they must pay, for they're not permitted to trade outside the Caernarvon market. Not even an egg can pass from one neighbor to another without the both of them being dragged into borough court and amerced.”

Saints, but Ned has a shivery smile. I cannot look upon him without feeling all hot and sloshy.

“The sheriff of Caernarvon cannot even peek beneath the canvas on any of my loads, and all it costs me is keeping this place safe, which I'd do anyway;” Ned half draws a short sword at his belt and adds, “There isn't the Welshman born who'd dare touch me.”

My father shifts enough to block Ned and loudly asks how the borough enforces trading restrictions. Ned speaks of chalk and levelookers and county court in a voice smooth and mellow like a summer evening. Even so, listening to them is tedious. Would that they would stop talking about tolls and start talking about something important. Like whether I can have another drink from Ned's wineskin, and when this barbarous death-march will be over.

 

My father is now a burgess of Caernarvon. Friend of the king. The mayor leads the other burgesses through our house in a long, meandering line while bearing a rather heinous-looking mace over his shoulder.

Ned is among them, all leather boots and a finespun woolen mantle. He winks at me and I get a bellyful of shiveries.

My father shows the burgesses his sword and falchion. He shows them the sacks of barley and millet, the salted meat, the bins of peas and turnips.

The mayor approves. My father's stores are sufficient and his weapons sharp. The burgesses give a rousing cheer and my father grins as if he just made peerage or sainthood. They clap him on the back and paw his shoulders and crowd around until I cannot tell him from any of the others.

 

 

T
HE
brat sets me to cleaning her blue gown. Mud clings like stolen goods to a thief's hand.

Off they went, the pair of them. The master and the brat. Back they came clad all about in town privilege.

Knew it would happen. It's why they came here. It's why any of them come here.

But watching them ride upstreet made what happened at Pencoed yesterday and nevermore all in one gasp. Horseback English, a decree from their king, and my first taste of foreign rule went down bitter and clear.

One more burgess. One more friend of the king. One more stone in those purple-banded walls.

The mud has worked into the very weave of the wool. It'll take lye and scrubbing to bring it clean.

 

 

A
S A BURGESS
of Caernarvon, my father has been endowed by the king with some cropland. It's without the walls and comes with Welsh people to till it. It's been sown since March with oats, so all that's left to do is weed and chase away crows. That job is done by a sullen little boy whose only words in English are
bastard, whoreson,
and
rot in Hell.

I go with my father to look at the land. He stands hands on hips and gazes over the greening yardlands as if they're Eden. “Of all the privileges that come with this place, sweeting, land without tenure is the cream.”

“I like Edgeley better,” I say.

“I owed service for Edgeley,” my father replies. “I had to be ready to go armed where my lord bade me at any time, for any reason. This land I hold of the king for twelvepence a year. That's all. It's that simple.”

I still like Edgeley better, but my father is grinning so big as he walks among the rows of plants and ruffles their leaves as he might Salvo's ears that I say naught.

 

Mistress Tipley is hollering at me to help with the brewing. My shutters are closed so I can pretend not to hear. I tiptoe down the stairs, past the hall—where my father would notice me and bid me go help the old crone—and out into the glorious sunshine.

Down the street I stride, dodging puddles and horse apples. It's a fine day for justice, and I cannot wait to taste it.

Now that my father has the privileges, I will have what is due me.

There's the shop, just as I remember it. I've been waiting for this moment for se'ennights. I'll march up, rap at the counter, and demand what's mine. The merchant will be vengeful but pale, but all that's good and right is on my side and he'll reluctantly pull my altar cloth from behind the counter and pause just a moment with sublime regret ere putting it in my deserving hands.

I will tell him how fortunate he is that I am such a good Christian that I will not haul him before Court Baron for theft, and he will gibber in gratitude for his good name. It will be most embarrassing for him, with all of Caernarvon watching.

I cannot wait.

The awning is down, but the sign is different. It's not the merchants' ship. It's a spool of thread and a needle. A tailor's shop.

I freeze in the gutter, my hem in the mud. I check and recheck. Yes, it's the right stall, between the empty building and the house with faded crates full of dead herbs.

An amiable redhead comes to the shop window-counter and asks if he can help me with something.

“Wh-where is the merchant?” I ask. “This used to be a merchant's shop. Where is he?”

The redhead shrugs. “Gone. One too many unlawful trades. The borough revoked his license. His loss is my gain, though.”

I turn on my heel. Muddy road is flashing beneath my feet. My fists are stiff at my sides. I round the corner of Shire Hall and knee an illegally kept pig out of my path, then slam our gate hard enough to echo.

I find my father in the hall and shout, “How could you?”

My father looks up from a bowl of chestnuts, bewildered. “Do what, now?”

“He's gone, he took it with him, and now I'll never get it back, never, and it's your fault, Papa. You're the one who let him go, and I'll never forgive you for it!”

“Sweeting, I—”

“It's all I had left of them! Now I don't even have that much! It's gone forever, just like they are!”

My father puts aside the bowl. “What are you on about?”

“My altar cloth,” I sob, and collapse in a weeping heap at his feet. It's best that I'll never see Alice and Agnes again, for they'll never forgive me this.

There's a muffled groan, then a heavy shape sinks at my side and there's a warm weight over my shoulders. My father has put his arm around me and I fall against him, hugging him and sobbing.

“Forgive me, sweeting,” he says, holding me tight. He smells like leather and dust. I sob harder and hide beneath his arm. “You can make another one, though. A better one.”

Just because a thing is new doesn't make it better.

But I say naught and let him hug me, all pokes of leather and scratchy wool and strong embrace like city walls about my shoulders.

 

After Mass, Emmaline de Coucy invites me on an outing.

She knows a little place where the river pools, where there's shallow water for wading and a good grassy place for rest and food. She played there often as a child, pretending to be queen of the water sprites with her shift hiked up to her knees.

Emmaline leans in close when she tells me this, glancing at her parents sidelong even though my father has snared them in a conversation they seem to be reluctantly tolerating.

There's nothing I want more than to sniff and tell her not for all the damask in Damascus would I pass one more moment in her wretched golden company than I'm forced to.

But the air in the townhouse is like curdled cream and everything smells of sweat, and I'm ever so weary of the square of street that's visible from the workroom window.

So I agree. Emmaline squeals and claps her hands and bids me meet her by the gates as soon as I'm ready.

Back home, Mistress Tipley is clarifying lanolin. There's a massive fire in the rearyard and she's leaning over a potbellied kettle. Her face is as red as the Adversary's backside and she's sweating fit to drown.