Spring, 1379, Canterbury
Margery did not see it coming, the event that would once again re-order her life. Aurum, her second goldsmithing business, was already prospering, and she'd leased a small cottage on the road from Canterbury to Fordwich. From her recently planted garden she could see the outer curtain of Fordwich Castle and the tower where her grandmother spent most of her time. During the day Margery could hear the noise of sailors and merchants loading and unloading cargo from as far afield as the Low Countries and Italy on Fordwich's nearest quay. At night when her shutters were open she fancied she could detect the whisper of the River Stour which was only a few chains away.
This part of Kent was so quiet and peaceful and lovely with its many orchards and water meadows where cattle, sheep and horses grazed; its hay fields and woods blanketed by delicate flowers she'd never seen before. Though London was an easy three day journey, the local climate was far gentler, the rains softer and the sun unmarred by a persistent haze. Margery had already decided she would spend most of spring and summer in Fordwich, only returning to London full-time when the roads became muddied and rutted and travel uncomfortable. With each visit she found the city dirtier and fouler smelling. The people were ruder, particularly the foreigners, who seemed to be everywhere. Londoners smiled less frequently than she remembered and had a tendency to cheat more when they measured out their products. And the quality of their ale and bread and meat and even ordinary things like cloth, footwear, and candles, had deteriorated.
Margery tried to put a name to her feeling about her new surroundings, but the best she could say was that she felt... contentment. Perhaps it was simply because her cottage was so charming and her frequent visits with her grandmother so delightful, while London, if she allowed herself to think on it—which she pointedly did not—contained too many memories of... him.
Before the Death of 1348, Canterbury had been a city of ten thousand, though so many had been wiped out that only during the day did the current population swell to anything approaching one-third that number. Like ants marching to their food source, pilgrims streamed to Thomas Becket's shrine. The sickest were borne in litters while others were carried or led or hobbled on makeshift crutches or shuffled past precinct gates and then into Canterbury Cathedral itself. But with dusk, the closing of shops and departing tourists, Canterbury became so quiet you could hear the wind sighing through the River Oaks or pushing bits of trash along deserted lanes; the dip of oars as a rowing boat slipped along the Stour; the coughs, moans, and murmurs emanating from pilgrims bedded down inside St. Thomas the Martyr of Eastbridge and other hospitals.
Since Margery visited her grandmother as frequently as Maria's health allowed, she often felt as if she were reliving the area through the older woman's memories. Beyond her cottage was the quay where a seventeen-year-old Maria had met her black-haired, blue-eyed knight, Phillip Rendell, and braved a public scandal in order to wed; Sturry's Leopard's Head which had been sold to St. Augustine's Abbey and which Richard of Sussex had re-purchased thinking to please Maria—and which had triggered a long dead abbot's revenge; King Street where, during the twelve days of Christmas, Maria, little Thomas and the Rendells' other three children would go a'mumming; ice skating with bones tied to their feet on the frozen River Stour; treks to Tancrey Island to purchase its famous honey. And of course, Canterbury Cathedral, like some colossal watchdog, guarding the town houses and manor houses, the woods, fields and St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Chilham and Fordwich Castles, and the forever undulating river.
Margery knew exactly when it happened, when her life yet again veered off its predictable course. It was the week following the annual Cherry Fair. While it was in the middle of the Lenten season, the mood had been festive and with the many fish and related dishes, there had been little feeling of deprivation. Margery had attended all four days, as had her grandmother, whose health had been perfect. Her father and his family had returned from another of the Rendell holdings for the event. Everyone remarked that the cherry blossoms had been unusually lovely; some commented they were more pink than normal and the fragrance more intoxicating. One of the lords of the north, Henry Percy, had even put in an appearance. (Though some wondered what mischief he was up to because King Richard had made Percy Earl of Northumbria in order to keep him far enough removed so that he'd cease meddling in political affairs).
All in all, the consensus was that 1379's Cherry Fair had been another success.
This day Margery was walking to Aurum, which was located inside Canterbury's walls, with her stepbrother, Thurold. Halfway to the city's north gate, a large retinue approached.
"Make way," shouted a knight riding in the lead. By the dress of the others it was immediately apparent that they were clerics and that Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, drew near. Pedestrians stepped to the side of the road. Women genuflected while men doffed their hats and also knelt—all save Thurold, who remained defiantly upright.
In passing, Simon Sudbury absently bestowed blessings with sloppily executed signs of the cross. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Sudbury—and his power–covered all the city the way a great bird covered its prey with its wings.
When the archbishop spotted Thurold, he reined in his jennet and considered questioning him. Lent was always a sensitive time, for the preaching friars ratcheted up their chitterings, bordering on heresy, about how Christ had died for all men, which caused some to incorrectly interpret their message. And then there was the business of Maundy Thursday when he and all the other high clergy and royals would ritually wash the feet of the poor, some of those who might even now be genuflecting before him. Mayhap even the malcontent glaring at him, though he was too well dressed to be a candidate. In these uncertain days it was better not to risk stirring the populace, so Sudbury donned his most pious expression and executed a very deliberate sign of the cross, bestowing a personal blessing upon the peasant before moving on.
"John of Gaunt's fool," Thurold muttered, after Sudbury murmured something to the priest riding next to him, who also turned to frown at Thurold. "He'll be the first to have his head chopped off when our time comes," he continued, not realizing how prescient his words would prove to be.
However, it wasn't only Mother Church that stirred enmity among Canterbury's townsfolk. Kent was the county seat, with the sheriff making his home here, and local tradesmen were a recalcitrant lot, mindful of their rights and others' slights. Brawls and quarreling had become so commonplace that a royal commission had been appointed to ferret out "malefactors and disturbers of the peace, citizens and other inhabitants of the city and suburbs, who have assembled in great numbers and stirred up strife, debates and contentions therein, sowing discord."
Margery laced her fingers through Thurold's and squeezed. "'Tis too fine a day to let that ugly old man spoil it. He's not worth a thought."
"Aye," Thurold agreed, with one last baleful look at the passing retinue.
Directly inside Canterbury's north gate was a blacksmith's shop, St. Dunstan's, named after the trade's patron saint. Margery generally walked past St. Dunstan's with nary a glance. Every village, town, castle, and abbey had at least one such establishment, and often several, some specializing in armor, others in household objects, some farmers' implements and still others a mixture of all. This shop was larger than many. Winter or summer the great furnace belched flames while apprentices scurried about or crafted various household instruments, knives and daggers—even fine jewelry—at a trio of long tables.
Today Thurold paused in front of the partition separating the shop from customers while Margery stood off to the side idly watching a lad near the forge squeezing a pair of leather bellows as a blacksmith expertly turned a glowing lump of metal with a huge pair of tongs. Then the blacksmith and a second smithy dragged the enormous lump out of the furnace and onto the floor where they broke off a sizeable chunk. Again using tongs they carefully moved the white-hot iron to a large anvil mounted on a stump.
Mar
gery took sudden note of the second smithy. Unlike his partner, the man did not wear a felt cap to protect himself from wayward sparks, but rather tied his long black hair at the base of his neck with a leather thong. Even his bulky leather apron could not disguise broad shoulders, muscular arms, and legs long enough to set him a head taller than those around him.
"Ah, Fulco," Thurold called and the man, who'd just picked up a large hammer, looked up from the metal and flashed Thurold a grin. He was dark as a Moor, and his teeth appeared particularly white against his skin. His eyes flicked to Margery—eyes black as the charcoal stoking the forge. Then he and the other smith lifted their sledges and began pounding the metal, with Fulco's massive arms showing through the torn seams of his tunic as he worked.
Margery's stomach was doing so much flipping and flopping she might have ingested a live fish. She found it difficult to breathe.
'Tis the heat from the furnace.
She stared. The blacksmiths continued hammering the molten metal in alternating rhythm, "drawing" it out. She didn't know which she found more unsettling, the flexing and extending of those magnificent arms, or that snaking strand of hair that fell across a profile that looked as if it too had been forged from iron. This Fulco person seemed like some creature out of hell... or heaven.
"Where is that man from?" Margery managed to ask her stepbrother.
"Who, Fulco the Smithy? 'ere, there and everywhere."
Seeing the look on her face, Thurold grinned. "Ye might close your mouth, Stick Legs. 'ave ye not seen a blacksmith afore?"
"Not like him," she wanted to say. She found it impossible to tear her eyes away. "I've not noticed him around."
"Fulco ne'er stays long in one place. His skills be in great demand so 'e's welcome at any castle. 'e originally hails from near Bury St. Edmunds."
Margery's eyebrows shot up. That was in the vicinity of their birthplace. "Jesus wept," she whispered. "If there'd been men like him about I might never have left Ravennesfield."
Thurold looked at her in surprise for his stepsister never so boldly commented on men. He couldn't remember her commenting on a man in that fashion, period. Not even him.
"I just meant he seems young to be so skilled," she hurriedly continued. She was sure her cheeks must be as red as if she were standing on top of the forge itself.
A pair of Augustinian monks who'd purchased hinges for a church door left the stall. The monks passed in front of them, breaking Margery's view.
"Fulco is one of us, you know," Thurold said. An odd remark for of course a blacksmith would be a commoner and not nobly born.
A farmer carrying a ploughshare stepped up to the partition.
Margery continued watching Fulco the Smithy work his iron. She knew that blacksmithing required infinite patience, pounding, returning to the fire, more pounding. Hour after hour, Fulco and his partner would alternately swing their hammers, slowly molding and shaping the mass until, if too soft from the smelter for weapons or chain mail, it would be turned into more prosaic implements from arrows and nails and undertakers' tools to torture devices.
"Dame Margery, good day give you our Lord."
John Calawe, mayor of Fordwich, smiled at her.
Spell shattered, she replied in kind and after exchanging pleasantries about the bounty of mouse-tails blooming so early in the year near the River Stour, she said to Thurold, "Let's be gone. We're due at the shop."
Margery risked a last glance at Fulco's great biceps, his dark face and black hair, his profile silhouetted by the flames of the forge, and something primal stirred within her. Even after she turned away, she felt the pull of him, as if his eyes might be on her when there was no falter of the ringing hammers, no indication that he'd even taken notice of her other than that initial glance. Silently vowing she would find a different route to Aurum, she stepped onto the street.
She would never again pass by St. Dunstan's.
She would never again allow herself to be disturbed by the presence of this Fulco the Smithy.
* * *
For the next month Margery walked past St. Dunstan's every day. At least every day that the blacksmithing shop was open, for with the Easter season there were more holy days and days of celebration. It became routine—in the morning on her way to Aurum and near dusk when she returned to her cottage. Throughout holy week and Easter Sunday, she even attended mass at Canterbury Cathedral rather than St. Mary the Virgin at Fordwich, hoping to spot Fulco among the massive crowds. When the shop was closed and she didn't see him she felt such an odd restlessness, even something of a panic, which she didn't understand. For when St. Dunstan's was open and she stopped, she didn't linger long enough to more than glimpse Fulco, or to attract attention to her presence. So she assured herself. Should anyone ask, she was simply satisfying her curiosity, for black and gold and silver smithing had much in common.
Or so she she'd explained to her maid, Cicily, who generally accompanied her on her sojourns.
"Research," she said, as if she must clarify the matter to her notoriously stolid maid. "Comparing techniques."
After all, blacksmiths worked "black" metals like iron while goldsmiths and silversmiths worked "white," but they were all metalworkers, weren't they? And other parts of their crafts were similar. A blacksmith's tools might be on a grander scale but to forge a suit of armor or chain mail required as much skill as creating chalices and broaches and reliquaries.
'Tis innocent. Harmless. At Aurum she had regular customers. Will, the innkeeper from the Chequer of the Hope, come round daily just to chat. Her behavior wasn't really that extraordinary.
So why, at the end of the Easter celebrations and with the renewal of regular routines, had she taken to walking the route alone? Her actions grew ever more inexplicable to herself, so how could she hope to explain them to others?
Besides, she rationalized, I do not need to justify myself to anyone.
However, even as she found herself hurrying impatiently until her first glimpse of Canterbury's north gate, she would pray, Sweet Blessed Virgin, protect me from my wicked thoughts, and force herself to slow as suited a proper matron. Sometimes she would order herself to walk past St. Dunstan's—very sedately of course–without even turning her head.
Only to have her body disobey.
She told herself that it didn't matter, that as engrossed as Fulco seemed to be in his work, he wouldn't notice whether she passed or stopped. Furthermore, he wouldn't care. Sometimes he glanced at her but more often he remained focused on whatever task was set before him. She wasn't used to being ignored, but there it was. She was no longer young and, though she could not well judge the blacksmith's age, he might be a decade her junior.
If he considers me at all, she told herself, 'tis as an old woman. Which doesn't matter. Even old women can look.
Sometimes when Margery paused, Fulco would be bent over a table repairing or creating chain mail or hammering and shaping a broadsword on a smaller anvil. She'd once found him fitting armor for the lord of Chilham Castle, an enormous—and expensive—undertaking. A suit of armor could cost the equivalent of three years of a skilled laborer's wages.
But hadn't Thurold said that Fulco was the best of his kind? And perhaps such a time consuming process would keep him longer in Canterbury, for her stepbrother had also remarked that Fulco never tarried long. Was that the reason Margery continued her daily vigil? Knowing that the time would come when she would peer into St. Dunstan's and find him gone?
Most often Fulco and his partner would be at opposite ends of the big anvil, as they'd been that first day, working their iron. (Had she passed his partner on the lane she would have been unable to recognize him. No one in the shop beyond Fulco even registered in her consciousness). Fulco seemed to delight in this particular activity, in the endless rise and fall of his great hammer. Or at least she imagined that he did for his blows never faltered but rained down with rhythmic precision. Beyond that, she didn't give much thought to the smithy as an actual person. S
he wasn't curious about his past, his hopes and dreams, whether he was mean or kind, crafty or naïve, married or a widower. She looked upon him simply as a darkly beautiful object to be admired. And, oh, how she wished she could touch and stroke that object.
Before Fulco, Margery often spent the day at her cottage or at her grandmother's rather than Aurum. She might even travel to London for an accounting of business at the Shop of the Unicorn. After Fulco, her world had narrowed to the dusty road and her moments in front of St. Dunstan's. The rest faded to the times between.
What was it about him? Even a glance made her knees go weak with desire. Why? If she could put it into words, she might be able to make sense of it but she could not. It wasn't just his striking looks. There was something primitive, untamed about him. As if he'd arisen from the core of the earth in the manner of molten fire. Hell fire. For hell was located deep within the earth's bowels and she'd always imagined Satan as a huge, black, overpowering beast with fiery eyes that could lure the most saintly from the path of righteousness.
Which seemed an apt description of Fulco.
Mayhap you are a demon. For you've surely taken possession of me.
At night, Margery found it impossible to sleep. Her upstairs bedroom had one large window but when clouds covered the moon it was so dark she couldn't see the chest beside her bed or her hand when she raised it—and she imagined conjuring Fulco the Smithy out of that velvet blackness. If only she knew a spell that would bring him to her and send him away at her convenience. How long would it take to slake this particular thirst or would she simply burn hotter for him? She'd never been stirred by another man save Matthew Hart, and that had been such a tangled mess of emotions. Not so with Fulco the Smithy, whom she'd never even spoken to. She could boil it all down to one word: lust.
She didn't seek to know him any way but carnally, and in that way she imagined his rough hands on her, his massive arms crushing her, the feel of that iron body atop her as he claimed her for his own. The darkness was crowded with images of them in wanton positions doing wanton things that sometimes seemed so tantalizingly real her phantom lover might have resided in the room with her.
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