by Jason Vail
“That’s already taken care off. Now hurry, before someone comes in.”
“Doing my best.”
He managed to crawl out of the barrel unaided and got down from the cart with more difficulty. The woman hopped down and guided the horse and cart out of the barn.
Walter was leaning against a support beam. He came away from it. “This way, sir.”
They emerged into a yard of what had to be an inn. Walter climbed the back stairs to the first floor. He stopped at the door to one of the chambers and held it open for Stephen, who went inside.
Walter remained outside and shut the door.
Margaret de Thottenham was seated on a stool by the window overlooking the street. She was a vision as always, made even more so by the golden morning light streaming through the window. There was no woman alive who had a face so gentle and sweet and innocent, so inspiring of a man’s need to protect her, those blue eyes so beseeching and often full of amusement, her neck and arms graceful and swanlike. Yet there was also no other woman Stephen knew who was so full of iron, so strong and capable of deception. She settled the book she had been reading on her lap.
“Oh, Stephen,” she said in her musical voice, “Percival hates you so. I had no idea how much.”
“Well, you’re partly the cause of that,” Stephen said.
She dipped her magnificent head in acknowledgement that his statement was partly true. “He was going to let you die in that pit. It would have settled so many issues, the least of which is Elysande’s claim.”
“And how is Elysande? I assume you’ve seen her.”
“I was there when she appealed to Percival about the murder of her husband. I assume that is a lie.”
“Of course, it is a lie.”
“What really happened?”
“That is a tale for another day. What do you want from me this time?”
“Must we talk business now? It has been a long time since we’ve seen each other. We have a lot of catching up to do.” She gestured toward a small table where there was a pitcher and wash bowl. “Do get cleaned up. Gaols are such messy places. I’ve brought you some new clothes as well. Not what you’re used to, but in the current circumstances, I think you need something different.”
With that, Margaret stepped away from the window and reached behind her back to undo the stays of her gown. She pulled it over her head and stood before him in only her shift, which quickly followed the gown to the floor. She was naked.
Stephen stared, transfixed at the sight, as she settled onto the bed.
“Make haste, Stephen,” she said. “It’s getting late. There is a great deal to do and we do not have much time.”
Chapter 7
Stephen would have liked to lie in bed and he almost dozed off, but Margaret rose and gathered her shift and gown. She pulled them over her head one at a time and said, “Help with the stays, will you?”
“No pillow talk, then?” Stephen asked, rising to do as he was bid.
“I am afraid not, as much as I would like to.”
“I thought that was part of my reward.”
“You got your reward when Walter sprang you from gaol.”
“What are you doing with FitzAllan?” The question came out more sharply than Stephen had intended, and he regretted asking it. It made him sound like a jealous fool.
Margaret smiled slightly. “That is not your concern.” But she paused, then said, “It was Nigel’s idea. He doesn’t trust FitzAllan. He thinks FitzAllan will change his allegiance again. I’m to keep an eye on him and see if he is trying to persuade others to do the same. Now, tell me. What did you learn at FitzHerbert’s house? Was it really suicide?”
“I don’t think so. It seems like a murder to me, but there is no real proof. He was on a mission for Montfort to the prince of Wales. It seems unlikely that such a man would kill himself.”
“He was a bit frail emotionally, but I agree with you.” The stays secured, Margaret faced Stephen. “Was anything missing from his possessions?”
“Why do you ask that odd question?”
“Was there a letter not found where it was supposed to be?”
“I was told by the steward that a letter seemed to be missing. What do you know about that?”
“FitzHerbert confided in me after he arrived that he had an important letter. It contained our lord’s proposed terms to the prince.”
“Sounds important.”
“Of course, it is important — supremely important.” Margaret paced to the window and swung back. “I need you to get that letter from whoever stole it, before it falls into the hands of the King’s supporters.”
“Margaret, you know whose side I am on.”
“You owe me a favor, Stephen.” She crossed the room and laid her hands on his chest. “Come join us, Stephen! Your fortune can be made with us, not with the King! You are nothing but a little man to him and Edward, to be used as they will, and tossed aside afterward. We can make you great. I can make you great.”
“Next you’ll say that you’ll find a way to get me a pardon from this murder business.”
Margaret smiled. “That shouldn’t be hard. Finding that letter will be worth a pardon from someone.”
Stephen looked to a stool in the corner, where a folded brown shirt, green stockings, and battered red felt hat lay. He fetched them and put them on. They were a peasant’s simple clothes, but at least there was a good belt with a quality dagger hanging from it. It was good to have that dagger at his hip. He always felt naked without one.
“I can’t promise you that I will pursue this letter. It may be of interest to me, but only insofar as it has anything to do with FitzHerbert’s death.”
“You are pigheaded. Men and their honor.” She smiled. “If you find the letter, you will give it to me?”
“We will have to see.”
He could tell she was suppressing the urge to stamp her foot.
“All right then,” Margaret said. “No promises. Do you have a place of refuge in town?”
“There’s a house in Jews Street. It belongs to a man named Theo Tennet.”
“I imagine that you’ll want Gilbert’s help. I shall direct him there, then. And I imagine you could use expense money.” Margaret fetched a purse from her leather bag and held it out to Stephen.
“You can’t buy me this way.”
“I’m not trying to. But perhaps you might, at some point, feel grateful for my help and be willing to do me a turn in repayment.”
“My lady.” Stephen took the money. He regretted it, but put it in his belt pouch nonetheless. Perhaps it was his desperation that made him weak. He touched the edge of his hat as a peasant would do.
And he went out.
Stephen left the door open. Walter came in and shut it. Margaret was looking out the window and did not turn at his entrance.
“He won’t give you the letter if he finds it, will he, my lady,” Walter said.
“No,” Margaret said, her back to him so he could not see her face. “He won’t.”
“Did you expect him to?”
“No, not at all. But now he knows how important it is and what might be done with it.”
“Do you think that was wise?”
“Of course, it wasn’t wise. It was the most foolish thing I’ve ever done.”
She swept by Walter toward the stairway to the ground floor. “Come,” she said, “we must get some shopping done before we go back to the castle. Otherwise, FitzAllan might suspect something is up.”
Chapter 8
Stephen emerged into the street. He paused to get his bearings. The inn, under the sign of a black lion, was three houses down from the Wye Bridge, a good place for an inn. He chuckled humorlessly that such a thought entered his head. He had been around Gilbert too long.
He felt his courage ebbing. His bold front to Margaret had been a charade. The truth was, he was exhausted, frightened and full of doubt. He was an outlaw now. The smart thing was to run for it, leave
the country. But he could not move in that direction, or any other.
He felt eyes on him, although they belonged to none of the people in the street, who hurried by consumed by their own affairs. He was nothing to them, just another blockage that had to be stepped around.
He glanced at the window overhead. Margaret was looking down at him. He felt another pang of desire for her. He wished she felt the same. But she was all about getting what she wanted. He knew this. I am a fool, he thought.
He hurried up the street and soon passed out of her sight.
Stephen’s feet led him to the end of Bridge Street, where Saint Nicholas’ Church, a magnificent stone edifice sat like an island in the middle of the street. His feet knew to turn left toward Plow Lane, a narrower, lesser passage than Wrotethale and Brode Streets to the right, where wandering bailiffs were likely to be found who might recognize him. The broad brim of his felt hat, which he pulled low, gave him no comfort it would hide him from close inspection.
Plow Lane ran north and ended at Behynderthewall Lane. This forced Stephen’s feet to make another decision: right or left? The feet went right, although he looked yearningly to the left, for in that direction lay Eign Gate and beyond the countryside.
At the top of Brode Street a lane opened in the rank of houses. It was little more than an alley, hardly wide enough for two men to pass without bumping into each other. His feet turned down the alley, which deposited him at All Saints Church by the foot of Wydemarsh Street, where the marketplace began and ran to the east toward Saint Peter’s Church.
Stephen hesitated here, worried about the possibility of town bailiffs, for the guildhall lay only a short distance away to the right. Who knew who might be watching from its windows.
Mouth dry, Stephen hurried into Wydemarsh Street. It wasn’t far now to the gate and relative freedom. He was breathing hard.
But then Malieres Street gaped to the right and his feet rushed down it. Halfway, it changed its name to Jews Street, on account of the Jews who had once lived here. They were long gone now, but the name remained.
At last he reached a modest timber and wattle house. A blonde woman, her hair braided as befitted a married woman and stuffed under her wimple with only a few strands showing, was sweeping off the porch of the house. Her face had the same strong jaw with a crease on the chin sported by a friend of his named Harry, formerly known as Harry the beggar, but now a man of means and a career in woodcarving. Once or twice Stephen had even recently heard him referred to as Harry the Carver, although as far as he knew nobody had yet called Harry that to his face. Memories were long in Ludlow and it was likely to be some time before Harry’s troubled and lowly past was forgotten.
Stephen wanted to speak to her but his voice had stopped working.
The woman glanced up at him standing at her stoop. Her lips started to form words, probably, what the hell you staring at? Or, what do you want?
But recognition dawned in her pretty blue eyes and her mouth formed a startled O.
Then she grasped Stephen’s shirt front and pulled him into the house.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” the woman exclaimed as she shut the door and threw down the bar.
“Looking for a place to hide,” Stephen managed.
“And your first thought was of us. I’m flattered.”
The first thing Sarah Tennet did after she deposited Stephen on a bench in the hall was summon her boys, who had been playing in a pile of dirt in the back yard.
She lined the boys up before Stephen and said, “You remember Sir Stephen?”
The oldest boy, Mike, and the second one, Harry, who were eight and six, nodded, their brown hair shaking about their heads. The youngest, Ralph, who was two, nodded, too, although it seemed doubtful he was doing more than copying his elders.
“Sure do!” Mike said. “Why are you dressed funny?”
“Well,” Sarah said, “you’ll not say a word that he’s back. If you do, I’ll tan the hide off you.” To emphasize her seriousness, Sarah had armed herself with a switch which she snapped at the boys’ back legs, not hard but enough to get their attention.
“You were in gaol, weren’t you?” Mike asked. “Dad said so.”
“And you escaped,” Harry said with wonder. “How’d you manage that?”
“Nobody’s supposed to know,” Stephen said. “That’s what you’ve got to keep quiet about. Can you do it?”
“Sure!” both boys said.
“I hope so,” Sarah said. “By cause if anyone finds out he’s here, they’ll have the skin off your dad’s back. Not to mention mine. You don’t want to be orphans, do you? Think about all the bad things that happen to them.”
This brought serious expressions to the boys’ faces more readily than the prospect of a switching.
“You can count on us,” Mike declared.
“All right, then. You go play. But mind you, not a word.”
Stephen buried his face in his palms. “Do you think they’ll obey?”
Sarah shrugged. “They’ve kept quiet about their dad’s work.”
“He’s back at it?” Stephen was surprised to hear this. Sarah’s husband, Theo, had been a burglar, supposedly reformed and law abiding now except for one job Stephen and Theo had pulled off together.
“He never really quit. It’s one way we make ends meet when things get tight.” Her face grew angry. “Like that horse we got somehow. I can’t imagine how Theo came by that.”
Stephen had given Theo a horse as payment for helping him recover a valuable object from the depths of Hereford castle. He said, “I hope it brought enough that you don’t have to worry about money for a while.”
“There is that. He hasn’t been in any mischief since that business of yours. He thinks we don’t know, but we do.” She sat on the bench opposite Stephen, and put down a half round of cheese and a half loaf of bread. “I can’t help but worry, though. You never know what the future holds.”
“Looks like war.”
“We’ll stay out of it and let the rich people kill each other, and the poor fools who follow them.” She reached for the ale pitcher and refilled Stephen’s cup. “Harry sent me a letter.”
Stephen was shocked. “He did?”
“Paid to have it delivered himself. He told me how you set him up in the woodcarving business. I want to thank you for what you’ve done for him. After his accident, when he lost his legs, I thought he was done for. It’s the only reason I’ve allowed you in the house.”
“I’ll try not to bring doom upon you head.”
“See that you don’t.”
Stephen lifted his head from the table.
“Hey, sleepy-head,” Sarah said from the back doorway, where she was carding wool. “Feeling better?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “A lot, actually.” He could not remember putting his head down to sleep. The last thing he recalled was resting his face in his hands while trying to think of what to do next. Now several hours had passed. Gilbert had not yet come, and it was getting late if he planned to question Nick the gate warden.
He stood up, and headed toward the front door.
“You’re leaving?” Sarah asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you be back?”
“When I’ve finished my business.”
“Go out the back. There’s an alley across the yards that opens into Bye Street. Use that when you return.”
The alley Sarah had spoken off was a narrow slit of a thing barely wide enough for a grown man to fit through. The houses bordering the alley were large and well kept, rising three stories above the ground, the garden on the left quite large and elaborate, having not only cabbage, peas, and onions, but also a profusion of herbs.
The alley opened onto Bye Street about fifty or sixty yards from Bye Gate. As Stephen looked about to get his bearings, the reason for the herb garden became apparent. An apothecary’s sign loomed above his head to the left, and a woman was at the front window asking after som
ething that would help her sleep.
Stephen went around the woman and her maid toward Bye Gate. The maid cast him a disdainful glance as he pulled the brim of his felt hat down so that the guards at the gate would not get a good look at his face. Although there was no reason to suppose he would be recognized by anyone, he felt as though he had a sign pinned to his back announcing his identity.
However, he got around the corner into Old Street without anyone seeing that sign and walked up to Grope Lane, which was about a hundred-fifty yards from the gate.
He asked the first person he met in Grope Lane, a woman carrying a bundle of laundry wrapped in a sheet on her back, where Nick the gate ward lived.
“What could ya possibly want him for?” the woman asked.
“I owe him money,” Stephen said.
The woman looked him up and down as though she didn’t believe this. “You’ll find him fifth house from the wall on the right.”
Grope Street was known for its whores, taverns and gambling dens, so there was bound to be a bailiff or two about to put a stop to any fights or disturbances that broke out. It was early, and the real drinking and gambling didn’t commence until the patrons got off work at the end of the day. Still, a bailiff emerged from a tavern with four tables set out in the street. The bailiff goosed a whore sitting at a table, identifiable by her yellow wimple. She slapped the offending hand away, with a sharp, “Off with ya, ya pocksy lout!”
“I’ll see ya tonight, Ellie,” the bailiff leered.
“Be sure you bring a penny. No more free stuff for you!”
The bailiff turned away from Ellie, gave Stephen the up-and-down, assessing his capacity for trouble, then strolled off toward Bye Street. Stephen sighed with relief at not being recognized.
At that moment, the woman Peg whom Stephen had seen in the yard of the FitzHerbert house emerged from a house across from the tavern. She strode across the street to Ellie without the help of her knobby stick, and plopped onto the bench. When he had last seen her in the yard of FitzHerbert’s house, she had worn a plain brown gown that was soiled and ragged at the hem, patched here and there, a natty wimple and rumpled apron. Peg’s attire today was far different: something a woman of the gentry might wear, a round little hat with a spotlessly clean and white silk veil that wrapped around her face and concealed her wrinkled neck, a flowing overgown that was embroidered with hunt scenes, and a long sleeved undergown of red silk. It all must have cost a pretty penny.