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Authors: J. Anderson Coats

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BOOK: The Wicked and the Just
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I come into the rearyard to get my shoes from the stoop, and the old cow aims the stirring paddle at me.

“Here, stir this. I must get more firewood, and the lanolin will burn if it's not tended.”

My father has gone to Watch and Ward. He'll not be back till sundown. I breeze past her toward the greenway as if she's speaking Welsh.

Mistress Tipley hisses like a cat. “You don't think to leave, do you? There are fleeces to roll and wool to comb. They must be ready for the Saint Margaret's market.”

I'm already up the greenway and almost in the street when I hear her holler for Gwinny to come take the paddle, and by then it's too late. She'll never find me in the crowd.

Emmaline waits at the gate. A knot of people I don't recognize stand with her. The man has Emmaline's flax-colored hair. The women are veiled, but one has a sharp face like a wolfhound, and she curls her lip at me and smirks.

“Oh, Cecily, I hope you don't mind,” Emmaline says. “My brother and his wife and our cousin would come with us. And our maids, of course. It's too nice out to keep the servants inside all day.”

The maids are elegant girls in plain wimples who stand like statues at a proper distance, hands folded, chins tucked. They hold baskets that smell faintly of bread.

“Do you not have a maid?” Emmaline asks, peering over both my shoulders. “We can wait for her.”

“Her?” snickers the wolfhound. “A
novi
with a maid? Hardly.”

“Now, cousin, don't be unkind,” Emmaline says cheerfully to the wolfhound. “Cecily cannot help it if she's new to the Principality. Not everyone has the good fortune to grow up here.”

I breathe deep and harness all my hating. I'm to be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy, and that means not taking her wretched cousin down a peg.

“As a matter of fact, I do have a maid,” I reply, just short of haughtily. “She's poorly today. I bade her stay abed.”

Emmaline is all concern. “Summer chills are the worst. We'll pray for her health. Shall we go, then?”

I nod. Best get it over with. I trudge like a penitent a pace behind them, just in front of the maids.

Without the walls, big spans of green open up. Naught but plots of summer-bright crops stretching out for leagues, all endowed to burgesses. Emmaline directs us across the mill bridge and tells us to follow the river.

Emmaline's brother is called William, and he is tall and long-limbed with a friendly, crooked smile. He inclines his head politely and asks, “How do you find Caernarvon?”

“We found it same as anyone, I reckon,” I reply, a little bewildered. “The road from Chester that runs along the water.”

The wolfhound snorts. “Lackwit. Any fool knows how you
find
it. He means how do you
like
it?”

My whole face is hot and scorchy. I would give anything short of my immortal soul to reply to this viper as she deserves, but I'm to be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy.

I turn away from Emmaline's wretched cousin. To William I choke, “Fine. I like it fine.”

William smiles lazily and paws my shoulder like a mother cat. “Don't mind Elizabeth. She's living proof that girls should never learn to read.”

William's wife is called Aline. She narrows her eyes at me and then makes a show of taking William's elbow. Then she glances at Cousin Evilbeth and they trade cruel smiles.

“We're almost there.” Emmaline points at a dark smudge ahead. “Look, where those willows are thick.”

I hurry ahead of the others. Aline says something to Evilbeth as I brush past, and they both giggle.

Let the hens cackle. I would put my feet in the water.

It's shady beneath the willows, dapply-cool. The river moves slowly here and murmurs over round rocks. Even the air feels lighter, and there's a breeze.

All at once I'm back at Edgeley, splashing in the creek that turned the mill-wheel and held tiny silver fish that girls could catch in their handkerchiefs if they had patience enough.

It's just like home.

Then I see them.

Across the stream, half a dozen ragged men in homespun are gathered close like sheep in a storm, their heads bent together.

I freeze.

They're deep in conversation. I cannot hear any words over the stream's murmur, but their lips are moving.

“Hey!” William leaps past me like a roebuck, his short sword drawn and brandished. “I'll see the lot of you in the stocks for a se'ennight!”

One of the men shouts something in tongue-pull and they scatter in six directions. William is knee-deep in the stream when they're all out of sight.

“Bastards,” he mutters as he wades out. He slams his sword into its scabbard and squishes up the bank.

I crane my neck, but naught remains of the men save swaying branches and trampled mud.

I hurry to catch up with William. “I agree with you. Welshmen should all be put in the stocks.”

He shrugs, but his face is still dark. “Men who follow the law ought to be left to their business. Those who break it must pay.”

“Standing on a riverbank is unlawful?” My father certes does not want to see the inside of Justice Court again.

“It is for Welshmen,” William replies grimly, “should they gather in groups. Twice over, should they be armed. As that lot was.”

All at once the world seems very large, away from the castle and town walls and armed sentries who incline their heads.

Emmaline does not seem shaken. She even hums as she spreads a blanket where the grass is dry and bids the maids set out pasties and apple tarts and slices of cold meat and cheese. Piles and piles of everything, straight from the kitchens of Croesus de Coucy.

I drop to my knees and pick up two pasties and a tart. Evilbeth puffs out her cheeks like a pig. I take a third pasty and stick my tongue out at her ere I can stop myself.

Aline is still standing, her arms cinched tight as a girdle. “It's not safe here. Let's go back.”

“They're gone, love,” William tells her. “Half a league from here by now. Welshmen want no part of the law, believe me.”

“They were here,” Aline insists. “They might come back.”

William eats a pasty in two bites. “Not today.”

“You don't know that. Who can know what they're capable of?”

If Gwinny is any indication, the Welsh are quite capable of airing linen and laying fires and scooping dog leavings onto the midden.

“Come now, Aline,” Emmaline says. “Surely you've seen Welshmen ere this. You've been staying in Shrewsbury for months.”

William sighs. “Really, love, Em's right. You may as well fear the cattle.”

“You're cruel to mock me.” Aline wrings her hands in her sleeves. “Both of you. I would go home. Not just Shrewsbury, either. Home to England.”

I grab two wedges of cheese and another tart. I've not even put my feet in the water and this whiny little mouse would drag us back to the sweltering town merely because she fears her own shadow.

William takes her hand kindly. “I should never have allowed you to come. The fault is mine. But Belvero and Whetenhale would never spare me to bear you home to Warwick, or even to our lodgings in Shrewsbury. The part of the fifteenth we collected back at Easter was barely adequate, so the October sum must make up for it.”

“I'm weary to death of hearing of this fool tax!” Aline shakes off William's hand and folds her arms like an ill-mannered child.

I'm weary to death of hearing her fool voice, but I'll not be rude about it.

William selects the biggest apple tart, gently untangles Aline's arms, and tucks the pastry into her hand. Her surly pout cracks, then she cuts her eyes to him and takes a bite. He grins and plants a smacking kiss on her cheek.

If we were still at Edgeley, there would be ten kind, comely souls like William lined up outside the door, every man of them begging for the chance to become the heir to a well-run manor like Edgeley.

But we're not at Edgeley.

I shove the last of a tart into my mouth and tromp down to the river. I kick off my shoes and pull up my hem just the smallest bit. The ground is cold and moist, the water deliciously freezing. Like balm against my sweaty feet.

I take out my handkerchief and peer into the creek for fish, just as I used to do on the bank of Edgeley Run.

When I risk a glance behind me, William and Aline are feeding one another tidbits and Evilbeth has taken out her spindle. Emmaline stands apart, gazing toward the angry purple mountains that rise sheer and stark to the south, one hand gently stroking the broad leaf of some bushy plant.

I've seen that look ere this. My father has it as he strolls town and castlery, whistling just as cheerfully as he did walking Edgeley's yardlands.

 

It's midafternoon when we pack up to leave. At least, they do. I'm still in the stream shallows with a wet hem. The trees dapple shade on my hands and bone-cold water ripples around my ankles and I never want to go back to the dank rotting town, never.

“Come, Cecily!” Emmaline calls as she hands the hamper to her maid. Her feet are rubbed pink, without even a line of mud beneath her toenails to betray her.

Evilbeth rolls her eyes and mutters to Aline, who grins.

God save me from being a shrewish harridan when I'm grown.

I look around one last time, drinking in the graceful limbs and the gentle murmur of water over stones. I never thought to memorize Edgeley Run like this. I never knew it would be needful.

I'm glad to know this place is here.

The others are already disappearing among the trees and I hurry to catch up. William strides at the fore, Emmaline is a few paces behind him, and then come Evilbeth and Aline, with the maids trudging at the rear. I whisk past the maids, then push past the two shrews. I've just shouldered past Emmaline when the bushes shudder.

Men rise out of the brush like ghosts, at least a dozen, on both sides of the deer track.

Behind me, a girl screams.

William drops a hand to his sword.

But ere he can draw it, the men pelt him with rubbish. Rotting turnips, handfuls of mud, horse apples, all flying in a stinking wave from every side, splattering, smearing, whacking, and thumping. The men jeer and shout in tongue-pull as they throw.

William holds both arms over his face to ward off the barrage. He's cursing like a drunken carter.

A handful of muck splatters my gown just above the knee. Slimy green and brown, God knows what.

“You miserable misbegotten
brutes!
” My voice is shrill and brittle. “I will see you all
hang
for this!”

But the men have already vanished, leaving naught but waving branches and a vile midden stink.

William straightens, lowers his arms. His tunic is motley with chunks and smears of refuse. Something pulpy caught him upside the head and clings in gobbets in his hair. He looks like a mad leper thrice-spurned by God.

Emmaline rushes to his side and makes to seize his shoulder, then pulls away. She looks a little greensick. “William! Are you sound?”

He skins off his hood and wrings murky liquid from it. “It'll avail them not a bit. Not one bit.”

I turn to William and bare my teeth like an animal. “Hang them. Hang them all.”

He uses his hood to wipe rotting muck from his arms and chest. “I regret your gown, demoiselle. That was not meant for you.”

I sputter. I stammer. I stomp and kick the brush. I've sworn enough curses to earn a hundred Aves at my next confession. And I have to bite my tongue to keep from earning a hundred more.

“They're getting bolder,” William says with a grim laugh. “Last time it was just words, and words these days are enough to get a Welshman amerced.”

A splatter of muck on sky-blue linen. Stains mocking fuller's earth already, and my father as miserly as a miller in debt. I shake my skirts and a shower of filth tumbles down. “A curse on every Welshman ever born. God be praised they're not permitted within the walls. Caernarvon is almost tolerable without any Welshmen in it.”

“We will go house to house to collect this tax,
hafod
to
hafod
if need be.” William draws his sword and nods us down the path. “No man wants to pay his taxes, but the Welsh must put their share forward, same as the rest of the realm.”

We walk in silence for some time. William's bootsteps squish. Evilbeth and Aline creep like cats and leap at the smallest sound. Even Emmaline walks on her brother's very heels. William grips his sword till his knuckles whiten.

“I warned you,” Aline snivels. “It's not safe anywhere in this dreadful place.”

“It's not common for them to harry a
taxator,
” William says over his shoulder, “but it's not unheard of. It's getting worse, though.”

“You're a
taxator?
” I ask. “When did his Grace the king call another tax?”

William snorts. “This is the tax of the fifteenth that was called two years ago, demoiselle. Wales is not easy to tax. But his Grace the king will not give up. He beggared himself bringing the Welsh to heel. High time they repaid it.”

“My father won't be happy to hear from you,” I tell William. “He was on his knees with his paternoster for blasphemy for a whole se'ennight the last time he was assessed.”

“Your father has naught to worry about,” William replies. “Burgesses in the Principality are never subject to taxation.”

“They're not? Not ever?”

“Heavens, no!” William laughs. “Nor are they required to pay a penny in tolls, not even market tolls.”

I've passed that trestle on the mill bridge dozens of times, dozens of Saturday markets, and skimmed past the Welsh lined up for leagues with their grubby coins and wads of butter and baskets of eggs.

They must want to trade at the market pretty badly to stand in line for so long and part with their goods to pay tolls.

BOOK: The Wicked and the Just
3.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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