“I did not flirt,” she sobbed, taking a clean cloth from the worktable and soaking it in the pail of water she had carried in that morning. “I never do.”
She knelt on the tiled floor and began wiping up the blood, trying to ignore the pain in her breast. Why was Julian so certain she was to blame? I did not flirt, she repeated to herself. Tis not my fault.
Chapter 4
Talbot Manor, April 1273
Sir John Talbot threw the sheet of vellum with its dangling seal onto the floor by the stone fireplace in the great hall of his manor house and gave a snorting laugh as one of his hunting hounds rose to sniff at it. Six dogs lay by the low fire, gnawing at the bones that were their daily fare. Benches ran along the walls under a series of tapestries depicting hunting scenes with torches set in iron sconces between them, trestles and boards were half-hidden by a larger tapestry by the doors.
He retrieved the vellum and looked at it again. A summons of some kind, the messenger had said, to a Petty Assize. He could make neither head nor tail of the chicken-scratchings on the calfskin, but the seal was that of the King’s Justice. He would have to find a clerk to read the thing to him, or twould wait till his steward Jarrold was finished with his duties or even till Claire returned from getting rid of the imbecile girl she had given birth to. Why couldn’t the King’s Justice teach its messengers to memorize the messages as once was done? He glared at the summons, willing it to disclose its contents. Perhaps he should have learned to read himself, but twasn’t a manly thing, nor a noble one. Twas for clerks and servants, those who could not wield a sword.
He sank into a fleece-covered chair and stared at the set of antlers that hung over the fire, reaching for the cup of wine on the chest next to him. Why would he be summoned to an Assize? Twas that peasant Westcote making trouble for him over the meadow, most likely. Jarrold had said something about Westcote and the Sheriff, something about a writ. Nay, twould not wait, he needed to know what twas about. He slammed the cup onto the chest and stood, peering into the darkness by the arched doorway at the far end of the hall. “Cedric!” he bellowed.
A man emerged from the shadows wearing an undyed woolen tunic and leggings. As he came forward into the torchlight, Sir John could see the scar that bisected his face, running from ear to ear across his nose, the remnant of a whiplash for a long-ago transgression. Cedric shuffled through the deep rushes to a stop four paces from his master and stared at his feet. “Aye, my lord?”
“Fetch me the priest from the village, Father – ”
“Father Robert. Aye, my lord. Am I to give a reason?” His speech whistled as the air escaped through almost toothless gums.
“I need him. Tis reason enough.”
“Aye, my lord.” Cedric turned and shuffled towards the door.
“Don’t dawdle,” said Sir John, reaching to pull a bone from the mouth of the nearest hound. He hurled the bone down the length of the hall, hitting Cedric squarely in the back as the dog bounded after it. “Run!”
◆◆◆
The sun was sinking behind the trees in the west as Edgar Westcote led the bay gelding into the stall at the front of the barn. A lantern hung from a hook in a rafter overhead, and he lit it before pulling the saddle from the horse’s back and unclasping the bridle. The horse was his most prized possession, not built for speed, but reliable and steady. He had bought the gelding for a song when old Piers had thought he was lamed for good. All Market Weighton had laughed at his foolishness, but he’d nursed the horse to health and no one laughed now.
He hung the bridle on its peg, and patted the gelding’s neck. Magda had already brought the milch cow in for the night, and it stood placidly chewing its cud in the larger stall across the barn. The rest of the building loomed almost empty, the sacks of seeds ready for planting, a few bales of hay, the last of the wheat and oats from the fall. They had gotten through the winter well enough, and tomorrow he would plant again. Picking up a clump of straw, he began rubbing the horse down, humming tunelessly to himself.
Twas done now, for good or ill. God help him if the jury ruled against him, but he would no longer do nothing while Sir John Talbot robbed him blind. The meadow that lay past his fields had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before him. Now Sir John had fenced it in, claiming not only the meadow but the sheep that pastured there. Twas robbery plain and simple. If he did nothing, he would never be able to hold his head up again. He watered the gelding and poured out a measure of feed, then checked the horse’s hooves for stones or thorns. With a satisfied grunt, he slapped the gelding lightly on the rump, blew out the lantern, and left the barn. Magda would be waiting in the house to hear the tale, and he hoped she had cooked while she waited. Twas a long ride from York to Market Weighton even in fine weather, and he was hungry.
When he pulled open the farmhouse door, Magda was standing at the kitchen worktable with her back to him, chopping carrots and early greens for pottage. She wasn’t the trim young lass he had married six years ago, but he supposed he wasn’t the strapping youth she’d married either. Farm work was hard on the body, aye, for men and women both. Worse for a woman who suffered miscarriage after miscarriage like Magda had. They’d been robbed of the children who ought to work the land with them; he’d be damned if he’d be robbed of the land as well.
Magda turned at the sound of the door and nodded. “Twill be supper soon, best get washed and ready.”
“Aye,” he said. “Are the chickens at roost?”
“Aye, all is done for the day. What did the clerks in York say?”
“Sir John will be summonsed to appear, as will the men from the village and Father Robert,” said Edgar. He stepped into the kitchen, ducking under the lintel and weaving his way through the clumps of dried herbs hanging from hooks in the rafters beneath the thatch to give her a kiss on the cheek. “If all goes as the clerk said, we must be in York in two days’ time.”
“Then the planting must be finished,” said Magda. “Dafydd and his brothers stopped by this morning and have agreed to come at dawn tomorrow. But Edgar, if tis possible, you must pay them a bit more than last year. They said they decided to work here despite Sir John’s offer of higher pay, for tis what they’ve always done, and you know how Sir John treats those who work for him. But if we cannot make it worth their while, they may not be back come harvest.”
Edgar splashed water on his face and wiped it off with a linen towel, cursing. “Aye, I will try, though I know not where I will find the coin,” he replied. “The writ took most all we had.” He looked speculatively at the bundles of herbs. “Could any of that be sold to an apothecary?” he asked. “Twould bring in a few coins, and you could come with me to York.”
Magda nodded, biting her lower lip. “I could try, though there is little any apothecary could not find elsewhere. If I am ever to make a good profit from my garden or open my own shop as we planned, I will need to find cuttings or seeds for the rarer plants.”
“And that takes coin as well.” Edgar shook his head. “Twill not be quite the journey I had planned. I had thought to eat and sleep in a tavern the day of the Assize. Now we will have to carry our own food to eat, and I’ll find a hedge for us to sleep under out past Micklegate Bar.” He sighed and took his wife’s hands in his. “Twill all be worth it if the jury finds for us.”
Magda’s dark eyes were worried as she leaned forward to kiss him. “Even if they do,” she said, “will we be safe from Sir John? Tis a long way to York and the Sheriff.”
“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “We shall have to watch ourselves, and I will find a way to buy the mastiff from Ned in the village, or borrow him if need be. But if Sir John takes the meadow, twill be the fields next. Tis time someone stood up to him. Tis our land, and I will not give it up.”
Magda nodded. “And I’m proud of you for it. I just wish … I wish he would die. The world would be a better place. I know tis sinful, but tis how I feel.”
Edgar laughed. “Tis what we all wish,” he sai
d, “when we are not wishing for supper.” He eyed the vegetables on the table. “Is there aught ready to eat in the house?”
“Aye, I told you tis almost ready. Sit and rest yourself, and I’ll feed you.”
◆◆◆
Marcus Holt latched the shutters at the front of his shop, then closed and locked the door. Walking behind the counter, he began to put away the clay jars that held the ingredients for the stomach tincture he had mixed for Andrew Dingle. He hoped twould give the man some relief, though the only true cure for what ailed Andrew was less food and fewer cups of ale. He had told the man as much, but Andrew hadn’t wanted to hear it. Then again, if folk lived as they ought, they would have no need of physik, and he would starve.
He picked up the mortar and pestle he had used and carried them into his workroom in the back, where he immersed them in a tub of water. As he scrubbed the bowl with a rough woolen cloth, his thoughts returned to the woman who had come into the shop wanting wolfsbane to kill rats, mousebane she’d called it. At first, he had argued that twas too deadly a poison to use in the city where not only a rat, but another animal or even a small child might find it, but she had been adamant. And then she had wanted to know if it had a taste that would drive the rats from it, whether she should put it in cheese or other food. It had crossed his mind to tell her to taste it herself, but he had refrained, saying only that it must be kept far from her family’s food at all costs. He prayed she had listened.
He looked up at the small jar of wolfsbane on the high shelf where he kept it, marked with the red X to indicate its danger. She had bought nearly all he had, and he would need to replenish his supply. Yet twas not that which made him uneasy, twas something about the woman herself, and he half wished he had refused to sell the poison to her despite the coin he had received. She had been an odd one, fearful and yet too eager, too excited about the rats she planned to kill, so much so that he had wondered if she did not plan to kill something else with it. And she had flinched in an odd way when he put the pouch of poison in her hand, as if she thought he might harm her.
Nay, twas more than that. He was almost certain he knew her from somewhere, though she did not live in the neighborhood and she had never been in his shop. She had kept her head down when speaking as if she did not want him to have a good look at her face. Someone from Market Weighton perhaps, or even a serf run away from Sir John and not wanting to be found. Or did she merely remind of him of someone he knew or had once known? He shook his head, unable to remember. Twould come to him, likely when he least expected it.
He picked up the tallow candle from the worktable and carried it into the shop, where he blew out the expensive wax candles he used for the customers, then climbed the steep stairs to the solar. Twas a long day, and twould be an early morning. He pictured the woman in his mind, the grey dress and white wimple with wisps of brown hair around her face. A good-looking woman, save for the scars around her eye and the slightly misshapen jaw. Something about that face...
◆◆◆
Sheriff Rubert de Bury grunted in irritation as his clerk Cyril dropped a sheet of vellum and a handful of coins onto his writing table with a sour look. He glanced at the vellum and groaned aloud. Twas another Writ of Novel Disseisin, which meant another lord was trying to dispossess his neighbors of their land. Picking it up, he scanned for the names and breathed a sigh of relief. Sir John Talbot owned a good bit of land, twas true, but he was not the sort of great lord who could cause trouble for him in the long run, while Westcote was but a free farmer. Still, twould mean sending bailiffs to inspect the land and empanel jurors, at least two of whom would have to stay to keep the land under the King’s protection till the jury made its decision. Sir John’s manor was over halfway to Hull. Three bailiffs, then, nay four. Twould be dark by the time they rode back, and the roads were unsafe even for armed men.
“Have you sent a summons to Sir John?” he asked.
“Aye, for two days from now,” said Cyril. “Twill be easiest to hear this one with the others.”
“Thank you.” De Bury watched the clerk shuffle from the chamber, closing the door behind him.
De Bury fingered the coins on the tabletop. He could, of course, simply declare the land under the King’s protection, find jurors in York to decide the case, and pocket the coin; twas what most Sheriffs did, aye, and he could get a fine reward from Sir John for ensuring the Assize went as he wanted. The law had become a mockery of itself and no one was trying to stop it, the great and not-so-great lords doing whatever they wished, Sheriffs and even the King’s Justices enriching themselves through corruption, and the poor suffering as they always did. Preachers in the streets warned of God’s judgment and punishment to come; others hinted none too subtly about mob justice. De Bury prayed King Edward would come home from Crusade and reorder his kingdom as he should, control his lords and relieve his people, then shook his head. Twas more likely Edward would worry more about keeping Gascony than ruling England, that was the way of kings.
He picked up the writ and coins and rose. His sour-faced clerk was back at his counter and de Bury would order the bailiffs to – what was the name of the village? – Market Weighton. With luck, he could indeed hold the Petty Assize with the others two days from now.
Chapter 5
Market Weighton, April 1273
At dawn the next morning Edgar hefted the sacks of grain held over from last year’s harvest for seed and carried them from the barn to distribute to the three men and two women who would help him plant his early wheat, then led the gelding into his wheat field and fastened the heavy plow. A group of small boys stood ready with metal basins and fireplace pokers, which they would bang together to scare away the crows that would inevitably follow the sowers. He had told the workers of the small increase in pay from the year before, and between that and the promise of a day of good weather, they were in a jovial mood. “We will work till sunset,” he said. “If we can finish today, we can plant the oats when I return from York the day after tomorrow.”
“Aye,” said Dafydd, “after you’ve stuck it to Sir John good and proper.” The workers laughed and gave a small cheer. Slinging their sacks over their shoulders, they made their way into the field, chattering and jesting. Edgar guided the horse as the plowshare cut deep into the black dirt to dig the first of the long furrows down the field, the sowers close behind dropping the seeds into the furrow and kicking the raised soil over them. The boys followed, making their infernal racket as the crows circled high overhead, swooping down to be driven away by the noise again and again.
When the sun was high overhead Magda appeared with tankards of water and ale, and Edgar washed the dust from his mouth with water and spat, then took a long swallow of ale. They had made good progress, almost half the field was sown and the afternoon still in front of them. He walked to the well and drew a bucket of water for the gelding, then loosed the plow and checked the horse for chafing from the straps. Magda brought bread and cheese to the sowers, and they sat under the trees and ate, talking quietly. The boys took turns staying in the field, chasing the crows away. After an hour Edgar rose. “Tis time,” he said, and walked back to the plow.
The sun was sinking low into the west and Edgar was guiding the tired gelding down the last of the furrows when a cacophony of horns sounded in the distance. Edgar turned and spat the dust from his mouth, then shaded his eyes to look past the disputed meadow towards Sir John’s land. A pack of dogs broke from the trees that marked the border between the two properties and ran yelping into the meadow as six men on horseback came into view. Three had long bows at their backs; three carried spears of the sort used to hunt wild boar. They halted at the far edge of the meadow and Edgar wiped his sleeve across his face. He turned to continue the plowing with a shake of his head. The fools didn’t seem to know what they were hunting. Perhaps they were simply riding for the joy of not having to work like other men.
When the horns sounded again, he looked up in alarm. The riders had spurr
ed their mounts and were barreling across the meadow, galloping toward the recently constructed fence. Already the dogs had scrambled through the crossbars and were in the planted field, running down the long furrows toward the sowers. Edgar stared in astonishment as the riders leapt the fence and bore down on his field. He shouted to the hunters to halt, but his voice was lost in the baying of hounds and the sound of the horses’ hoofs. The gelding reared and plunged, trying to shake off the plow. With a wild gesture towards his workers to get out of the horses’ way, he ran for safety as the riders thundered into the field.
He watched with mounting fury as the horsemen, with Sir John at their head, wheeled at the end of the field and made their way back towards the meadow, seemingly trying to trample whatever their first pass had missed. When they were gone, the straight plowed furrows were lost in the dust.
Edgar cursed long and loud, then stormed into the field to calm the gelding, hoping the frightened horse had not been hurt by the heavy plow. Magda was right, they would not be safe from Sir John, writ or no. Was it even worth trying to plant his crops? Or would Sir John simply trample the young plants once they grew?
He unfastened the plow and soothed the horse, running his hands over the trembling legs and sighing with relief when he found no injuries. He led the horse slowly from the field, leaving the plow where it stood. The sowers were walking toward him, white-faced and shaking their heads in disbelief. Thank God no one had been ridden down and injured or even killed. But he hadn’t the seed to replant the field; he could only wait and hope at least some of what they had sown grew. Did he dare even go to York? No one would blame him if he did not, not after this. He imagined returning to find his entire farm fenced in, the farmhouse and barn burned, his cow and chickens slaughtered.
[Matthew Cordwainer 03] - The White Rose Page 4