The Serpent's Tale

by Ariana Franklin

  Adelia met Gyltha’s eyes again. That was all right, then; Emma put her lover’s killing down to robbers— as, at this stage, it was probably better that she should. There was no point in inflaming her against Wolvercote until there was proof of his culpability. Indeed, he might be innocent. If he hadn’t known of the elopement ... But Fitchet had known.

  “So it was a secret, was it?”

  “Little Priscilla knew, she guessed.” Again, that entrancement at being taken back to the past; the subterfuge had been thrilling. “And Fitchet, he smuggled our letters in and out. And Master Warin, of course, because he had to write the letter to Felin Fach so that Talbot could take seisin of it, but they were all sworn not to tell.” Suddenly, she gripped Adelia’s arm. “Fitchet. He wouldn’t have told the robbers, would he? He couldn’t.”

  Adelia gave a reassurance she didn’t feel; the number of nobodies who’d known about the elopement was accumulating. “No, no. I’m sure not. Who is Master Warin?”

  “Were they waiting for him?” She had her nails into Adelia’s skin. “Did they know he was carrying money? Did they know?”

  Gyltha intervened. “A’course they didn’t.” She pulled Emma’s hand off Adelia’s arm and enfolded it in her own. “Just scum, they was. Roads ain’t safe for anybody.”

  Emma looked wide-eyed at Adelia. “Did he suffer?”

  Here, at least, was firm ground. “No. It was a bolt to the chest. He’d have been thinking of you, and then ... nothing.”

  “Yes.” The girl sank back. “Yes.”

  “Who is Master Warin?” Adelia asked again.

  “But how can I go on without him?”

  We do, Adelia thought. We have to.

  Allie had hitched herself over to replace Ward by pushing him off and settling her bottom on Emma’s boots. She put a pudgy hand on the girl’s knee. Emma stared down at her. “Children,” she said. “We were going to have lots of children.” The desolation was so palpable that for the other two women the firelit room became a leafless winter plain stretching into eternity.

  She’s young, Adelia thought. Spring will come to her again one day perhaps, but never with the same freshness. “Who is Master Warin?”

  Gyltha tutted at her; the girl had begun to shake. Stop it now.

  I can’t. “Emma, who is Master Warin?” “Talbot’s cousin. They were very attached to each other.” The poor lips stretched again. “‘My waitand-see Warin. A careful man, Emma, but never did a ward have such a careful guardian.’”

  “He was Talbot’s guardian? He handled his business affairs?”

  “Oh, don’t worry him with them now. He will be so ... I must see him. No, I can’t ... I can’t face his grief ... I can’t face anything.”

  Emma’s eyelids were half down with the fatigue of agony.

  Gyltha wrapped a blanket round her, led her to the bed, sat her down, and lifted her legs so that she fell back on it. “Go to sleep now.” She returned to Adelia. “And you come wi’ me.”

  They went to the other side of the room to whisper.

  “You reckon Wolvercote done in that girl’s fella?”

  “Possibly, though I’m beginning to think the cousin-cum-guardian had a lot to lose when Talbot came into his estates. If he’s been handling Talbot’s affairs ... It’s starting to look like a conspiracy.”

  “No, it ain’t. It was robbery pure and simple, and the boy got killed in the course of it.”

  “He didn’t. The robbers knew.”

  “No, they bloody didn’t.”

  “Why?” She’d never seen Gyltha like this. “A’cause that poor girl’s going to have to marry Old Wolfie now whether she likes it or don’t, and better if she don’t think it was him as done for her sweetheart.”

  “Of course she won’t have to ...” Adelia squinted at the older woman. “Will she?”

  Gyltha nodded. “More’n like. Them Bloats is set on it. He’s set on it. That’s why her wanted to elope, so’s they couldn’t force her.”

  “They can’t force her. Oh, Gyltha, they can’t.” “You watch ’em. She’s a high-up, and it happens to high-ups.” Gyltha looked toward Heaven and gave thanks that she was common. “Nobody didn’t want me for my money. Never bloody had any.”

  It did happen. Because it hadn’t happened to Adelia, she hadn’t thought of it. Her foster parents, that liberal couple, had allowed her to pursue her profession, but around her in Salerno, young, well-born female acquaintances had been married off to their father’s choice though they cried against it, part of a parental plan for the family’s advancement. It was that or continual beating. Or the streets. Or a convent.

  “She could choose to become a nun, I suppose.”

  “She’s their only child,” Gyltha said. “Master Bloat don’t want a nun, he wants a lady in the family—better for business.” She sighed. “My auntie was cook to the De Pringhams and their poor little Alys was married off screamin’ to Baron Coton, bald old bugger that he was.”

  “You have to say yes. The Church says it’s not legal otherwise.”

  “Hunh. I never heard as little Alys said yes.”

  “But Wolvercote’s a bully and an idiot. You know he is.”

  “So?”

  Adelia stared into Emma’s future. “She could appeal to the queen. Eleanor knows what it is to have an unhappy marriage; she managed to get a divorce from Louis.”

  “Oh, yes,” Gyltha said, raising her eyes. “The queen’s sure to go against the fella as is fighting her battle for her. Sure to.” She patted Adelia’s shoulder. “It won’t be so bad for young Em, really ...”

  “Not bad?”

  “She’ll have babies, that’s what she wants, ain’t it? Anyways, I don’t reckon she’ll have to put up with un for long. Not when King Henry gets hold of un. Wolvercote’s a traitor, and Henry’ll have his tripes.” Gyltha inclined her head to consider the case. “Might not be bad at all, really.”

  “I thought you were sorry for her.”

  “I am, but I’m facing what she’s facing. Bit o’ luck she’ll be widowed afore the year’s out, then she’ll have his baby and his lands ... Yes, I reckon it might turn out roses.”

  “Gyltha.” Adelia drew back from a practicality unsuspected even of this practical woman. “That’s foul.”

  “That’s business,” Gyltha said. “That’s what high-ups’ marriage is, ain’t it?” Jacques was kept busy that day, bringing messages to the women in the guesthouse. The first was from the prioress: “To Mistress Adelia, greetings from Sister Havis, and to say that the girl Bertha will be interred in the nuns’ own graveyard.”

  “Christian burial. Thought you’d be pleased,” Gyltha said, watching Adelia’s reaction. “What you wanted, ain’t it?”

  “It is. I’m glad.” The prioress had ended her investigation and managed to persuade the abbess that Bertha had not died by her own hand.

  But Jacques hadn’t finished. He said dutifully, “And I was to warn you, mistress, you’re to remember the Devil walks the abbey.”

  There lay the sting. The nuns’ agreement that a killer was loose in Godstow made his presence more real and added to its darkness.

  Later still that morning, the messenger turned up again. “To Mistress Adelia, greetings from Mother Edyve, and will she return Mistress Emma to the cloister? To keep the peace, she says.”

  “Whose peace?” Gyltha demanded. “I suppose them Bloats is complaining.”

  “So is the Lord Wolvercote,” said Jacques. He grimaced, wrinkling his eyes and showing his teeth as one reluctant to deliver more bad news. “He’s saying ... well, he’s saying ...”

  “What?”

  The messenger blew out his breath. “It’s being said as how Mistress Adelia has put a spell on Mistress Emma and is turning her against her lawful husband-to-be.” Gyltha stepped in. “You can tell that godless arse-headed bastard from me ...”

  A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Emma was already wrapping herself in her cloak. “There’s been trou
ble enough,” she said.

  And was gone down the steps before any of them could move.

  Inside the abbey, the various factions trapped within its walls fractured like frozen glass. A darkness fell over Godstow that had nothing to do with the dimming winter light.

  In protest against its occupation, the nuns disappeared into their own quadrangles, taking their meals from the infirmary kitchen, their exercise in the cloister.

  The presence of two bands of mercenaries began to cause trouble. Schwyz’s were the more experienced, a cohesive group that had fought in wars all over Europe and considered Wolvercote’s men mere country ruffians hired for the rebellion—as, indeed, many of them were.

  But the Wolvercoters had smarter livery, better arms, and a leader who was in charge—anyway, there were more of them; they bowed to nobody.

  Schwyz’s men set up a still in the forge and got drunk; Wolvercote’s raided the convent cellar and got drunk. Afterward, inevitably, they fought one another.

  The nights became dreadful. Godstow’s people and guests cowered in their rooms, listening to the fighting in the alleys, dreading a crashed-in door and the entry of liquored mercenaries with robbery or rape on their minds.

  In an effort to protect their property and women, they formed a militia of their own. Mansur, Walt, Oswald, and Jacques, like dutiful men, joined it in patrolling—but the result was that, more often than not, the nightly brawls became tripartite affairs.

  An attempt by the chaplain, Father Egbert, to minister to the flock the nuns had deserted ended when, during Sunday-evening communion, Schwyz shouted at Wolvercote, “Are you going to discipline your men, or do I do it for you?” and a fight broke out between their adherents that spread even to the Lady Chapel, smashing lamps, a lectern, and several heads. One of Wolvercote’s men lost an eye.

  It was as if the world had frozen and would not turn, allowing no other weather to reach a beleaguered Oxfordshire than a bright sun by day and stars that filled the sky at night, neither bringing any relief from the cold.

  Every morning, Adelia pushed open the shutters briefly to allow air into their room and searched the view for ... what? Henry Plantagenet and his army? Rowley?

  But Rowley was dead.

  There had been more snow. It was impossible to distinguish river from land. There was no human life out there, hardly any animal life.

  Crisscross patterns like stitching showed that birds, frantic with thirst, had hopped around in the early dawn to fill their beaks with snow, but where were they? Sheltering in the trees that stood like iron sentinels across the river, perhaps. Could they withstand this assault? Where were the deer? Did fish swim beneath that ice?

  Watching a solitary crow flap its way across the blue sky, Adelia wondered whether it saw a dead, pristine world in which Godstow was the only circle of life. As she stared at it, the crow folded its wings and fell to earth, a small, untidy black casualty in the whiteness.

  If the nights weren’t bad enough, Godstow’s days became morbid with the hit-hit of picks hacking out graves in the frozen earth while the church bell tolled and tolled for the dead as if it had lost the capacity to ring for anything else.

  Adelia was keeping to the guesthouse as much as possible; the looks from people she encountered if she went out and their tendency to cross themselves and make the sign of the evil eye as they passed her were intimidating. But there were some funerals she had to attend.

  Talbot of Kidlington’s, for one. The nuns reappeared for that. A little man at the front of the congregation, who Adelia supposed was the cousin, Master Warin, wept all through it, but Adelia, skulking at the back, saw only Emma, white and dry-eyed, in the choir, her hand clasped tightly in little Sister Priscilla’s.

  A funeral for Bertha. This was held at night and in the privacy of the abbess’s chapel, attended by the convent chapter, the milkmaid, Jacques, and Adelia, who’d folded Bertha’s hands around a broken chain and a silver cross before the plain, pine coffin was interred in the nuns’ own graveyard.

  A funeral for Giorgio, the Sicilian. No nuns this time, but most of the Schwyz mercenaries were there, and Schwyz himself. Mansur, Walt, and Jacques came, as they had to Talbot’s. So did Adelia. She’d begged a reluctant Sister Havis for Giorgio to be treated as a Christian, arguing that they knew no harm of him apart from his profession. Due to her, the Sicilian was lowered into a cold Christian grave with the blessing of Saint Agnes.

  There was no word of thanks from his friend Cross. He left the graveyard after the interment without speaking, though later three pairs of beautifully fashioned bone skates complete with straps were left outside Adelia’s door.

  A funeral for two Wolvercote villagers who’d succumbed to pneumonia. Sister Jennet and her nurses attended, though Lord Wolvercote did not.

  A funeral for the two hanged men. Nobody except the officiating priest was present, though those bodies, too, each went into a churchyard grave.

  His duty done, Father Egbert closed the church and, like the nuns, retired to an inner sanctum. He would not, he said, hold regular services when any mercenary was likely to be in the congregation; the advent of Christ’s birth was not to be despoiled by a load of feuding heathens who wouldn’t recognize the Dove of Peace if it shat on their heads. Which he hoped it would.

  It was a sentence on the whole community. No Christmas?

  A shriek went up, loudest of all from the Bloats; they’d come to see their girl married at the Yule feast. And their girl, thanks to malefic influence from a woman no better than she should be, was now saying she didn’t want to marry at all. This wasn’t what they paid their tithes for.

  One voice, however, was raised above theirs. With more effect. Sister Bullard, the cellaress, was, materially, the most important person in the abbey and the one who’d become the most sorely tried. Even with the convent’s new militia trying to protect it, her great barn of a cellar suffered nightly raids on its ale tuns, wine vats, and foodstuff.

  Worried that the entire convent would soon be unable to feed itself, she turned to the only earthly authority left to her—the Queen of England.

  Eleanor had been staying to her own apartments, paying little attention to anything except the effort to keep herself amused. Finding the rest of the abbey tedious, she had ignored its troubles. However, marooned as she was on the island of Godstow for the duration of the snow, she had to listen to Sister Bullard telling her that she faced discord and starvation.

  The queen woke up.

  Lord Wolvercote and Master Schwyz were summoned to her rooms in the abbess’s house, where it was pointed out to them that only under her banner could they attract allies—and she had no intention of leading rabble, which, at the moment, was what they and their men were becoming.

  Rules were laid down. Church services would resume—to be attended only by the sober. Wolvercote’s men must cross the bridge each night to sleep at their lord’s manor in the village, leaving only six of their number behind to join Schwyz’s men in enforcing the curfew.

  No more raids on the cellar by either side—any mercenary doing so, or found fighting, was to be publicly flogged.

  Of the two culprits, Lord Wolvercote should have come out of the meeting better; Schwyz, after all, was being paid for his services, whereas Wolvercote was rendering his for free. But the Abbot of Eynsham was also present, and, as well as being a friend to Schwyz, he had the cleverer and more persuasive tongue.

  It was noted by those who saw Lord Wolvercote emerge from the queen’s presence that he was snarling. “A’cause he don’t get young Emma, neither,” Gyltha reported. “Not yet, at any rate.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Certain sure,” Gyltha said. “The girl’s been pleading with Mother Edyve, and she’s asked for Eleanor’s protection. The which the queen says old Wolfie ought to wait.”

  Again, this had come from the convent kitchen, where Gyltha’s friend Polly had helped the royal servants carry refreshment to the meeting between t
he queen and the mercenary leaders. Polly had learned many things, one of them being that the queen had complied with Mother Edyve’s request for Emma’s marriage to Wolvercote to be delayed indefinitely, “until the young woman has recovered from the affliction to her spirits that now attends them.”

  Polly reported that “his Wolfie lordship weren’t best pleased.”

  Adelia, relieved, didn’t think the Bloats would be, either. But by now, everybody knew what the affliction was that attended Emma’s spirits and, according to Gyltha, there was general sympathy for her, much of which sprang from the equally general dislike for Wolvercote.

  There was more good news from the kitchen. With order restored, Eleanor had, apparently, announced that the church was to be reopened, services resumed, and, when it came, Christ’s Mass to be celebrated with a feast.

  “Proper old English one, too,” Gyltha said, a pagan gleam in her eye. “Caroling, feastin’, mummers, Yule log, and all the trimmin’s. They’re killin’ the geese and hangin’ them this very minute.”

  It was typical of Eleanor, Adelia thought, that having saved the convent’s store of food and drink, she now imperiled it. Feasting the entire community would be an enormous and expensive undertaking. On the other hand, the queen’s orders had been necessary and perceptive; they might well defuse a situation that was becoming intolerable.

  And if a feast could introduce gaiety into Godstow, by God, it needed it.

  With the resurgence of Eleanor’s energy came an invitation. “To Mistress Adelia, a sum-mons from her gracious lady, Queen Eleanor.” Jacques brought it.

  “You running errands for royalty now?” Gyltha asked at the door. The messenger had found brighter clothes from somewhere, curled hair hid his ears, and his perfume reached Adelia, who was across the room.

  He’d also found a new dignity. “Mistress, I am so favored. And now I must go to the Lord Mansur. He, too, is summoned.”

  Gyltha watched him go. “Aping they courtiers,” she said with disapproval. “Our Rowley’ll kick his arse for him when he comes back.”

  “Rowley’s not coming back,” Adelia said.