The Ruins of Lace

by Iris Anthony

  I nearly stumbled in my relief. But I did not turn. It would have been disastrous to seem too eager. That was something I was beginning to remember from my childhood: people always responded not to obvious hunger or to need, but to strength. “What?” I threw a glance at him over my shoulder.

  “Come back, come back. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “I will give you a quarter of the sum now. And the rest when the lace is completed.”

  “And what if you never end up paying for it in full?”

  I smiled. “I am an honorable man. I deal in honorable ways.” I removed some of the coins from my purse and tossed them onto the table.

  De Grote gave me a long look. “Why don’t you tell me where it is you are staying? In case I need to send word to you.” He was looking at me just a bit too benignly.

  “I don’t know exactly. Not yet.”

  “Where are you staying right now?”

  Right now? My best protection during my youth had been that no one knew exactly where to find me…until the night when the village priest did. To keep myself from shuddering, I shrugged, fixing to my face the look of a gentleman who is finished speaking with one deemed inferior. “Nowhere. The place I found has far too many fleas. I plan to move tonight.”

  “Too many fleas? I don’t know that you’ll find any place with less. But there’s an inn on Ramen at the very end. It’s run by a good man. That’s where you should stay.”

  “On Ramen.”

  “Ja. Turns into Stovestraat.”

  I nodded and determined to avoid Ramen in the future. De Grote reminded me too much of the priest of my youth. I didn’t want to be anywhere this man could find me.

  •••

  While I had been inside the shop, the rain had become finer, filtering into a mist. I tugged my hat tighter down around my ears and gathered the tips of my cloak’s collar up toward my chin. Passersby had done the same. Most of them. We walked the streets, wraiths of a kind, made more ghostly by the weather.

  As I passed an alley, a hiss made me turn.

  In that dim and uncertain light, I could not see into it clearly. As I stood there squinting, someone pushed me from behind, causing me to stumble toward the darkness. Obeying my rapidly reviving instincts, I pulled my dagger from my belt. I tried to free myself from the confines of my cloak, but a man had somehow got round me, and he kicked the weapon from my hand.

  It dropped into a puddle as I was assaulted from the front and the back.

  Though I anticipated where every blow would be placed, and though I tried to defend myself against them, I was always too late. My movements were too slow. Eventually, I could only stand there, like some stupid beast, head swaying, peering at my attackers through vision gone red with blood.

  A blow to the gut finally felled me. When I sunk to my knees, gasping for breath, a hand grasped the collar of my cloak, pulling me to standing. Another hand snaked inside my doublet and pulled the purse from my gusset. “De Grote says he’ll take the rest of the money now.”

  De Grote? “But—”

  “Be a good lad, and don’t go crying to the sheriff.”

  One of them bent and fished the dagger from the puddle, pushing it into his belt with a sneer at me. “He’ll like this, De Grote will. He favors fancy things.”

  Bloodied and beaten, I lay there, ear in a puddle, watching as people splashed by out on the street. A mist gathered on my eyelashes and made the world go grey at the edges.

  It took a sniff and a nip from a passing dog to rouse me from my stupor. I waved him off and cried out as pain pricked holes in my vision. The dog gave a bark and then trotted away into the street.

  As I pushed up on an elbow, my shoulder seemed to collapse beneath the weight. I bit off a cry and gingerly rolled to my knees. From there, I slowly gained my feet, pausing now and then to keep hold of my senses.

  Staggering, I groped for my hat, but it looked as if it had been stomped into the mud by a horse and then shit upon for good measure. I left it there in the sludge.

  •••

  When I got to the inn, they would not countenance my presence. The mistress of that place stood, arms crossed over her chest, as I staggered into the hall. “We don’t serve your type here.”

  “You already are.” A swollen lip and slit cheek made tough work of speaking. I licked my lips and tried again. “I’m a guest here. Came last night. Lefort, Alexandre Lefort. I was given a room up the stairs.”

  The mistress pierced me with her narrow-eyed gaze. “Dirc!” She called the name over her shoulder without hardly turning her head.

  A man turned from serving one of the tables.

  “You recognize this scoundrel?”

  He looked me over. “Nee.”

  She tossed the corner of her apron toward me as if she could not be bothered to touch me herself. “Out with you, then.”

  “But I’m the… I’m an heir. To the viscount of Souboscq!”

  They both exploded with laughter. “Viscount! It’s a wonder you even know how to pronounce it. Out with you, now. Be off.”

  “But I—”

  “Out!”

  If I’d had my dagger, I would have dared her to mock me. But if I had pulled it out, I’m sure she would have accused me of stealing it. As I lurched through the hall toward the door, I caught a reflection of my face in the glass hanging on the wall. My cloak sat askew my shoulders. One eye was blacked, and the other had almost swollen shut. There was a gash on my cheek, and muck clung to my hair.

  •••

  I set my cloak straight as I left the inn. Using the pump in the courtyard, I cleaned the dirt from my hair and the blood and filth from my hands and arms, scrubbing at them with my nails. Angry, bulbous welts soon rose on my skin, but I did not care.

  Clean at last, I went into the stables, intent upon retrieving my horse. But when I moved to take him, the stable hand blocked my way.

  “The likes of you has no business in here.”

  “This horse belongs to me.”

  He began to laugh. “To you! As if you’re some kind of gentleman. You haven’t even got a hat for your head!”

  “I’ve been accosted by a band of rogues.” And my entire body ached damnably. Shouldn’t it be obvious I’d been waylaid?

  “A band of rogues! Maybe that’s what I should tell my wife next time I stop by the tavern on my way home. A band of rogues…”

  “I shall take my horse and be gone from here if you would just move out of the way.”

  “I’ll move just as soon as you pay for its board.”

  I couldn’t. Every coin I’d brought with me had been stolen, and those few things I’d left in the room were as good as gone. But he didn’t have to know that. If I just acted like the gentleman I’d become, I was certain the man would do as I asked. I tried to straighten and square my shoulders, but that piercing pain returned. I winced. “I’ll pay you. Just as soon as I recover what was stolen from me. In the meantime, you can mark the account to the viscount of Souboscq. I promise the debt will be honored.” Just as soon as I could manage it.

  He had been speaking conversationally, but he suddenly lunged toward a stall and took up a pitchfork that was leaning against the door. He brandished it at me. “You can have your horse when you pay for it.”

  “I told you, I’ve been robbed!”

  “Of what? Your fleas? Or your lice? I can believe you’re French, but I never seen a gentleman so pitiful as you. Get out!” He thrust the pitchfork toward me.

  •••

  I left the place, cursing as I went. It was just like the Flemish, those sanctimonious and self-righteous people, to disrespect nobility. In any other country, those ruffians would have been detained and my claims believed. Expecting to find sympathy if not respect of the law
from the city’s officials, I went to the sheriff to file a complaint.

  “De Grote?” He looked at me, brow raised, in seeming amazement. “Arne De Grote?”

  “The very same.”

  “He can’t have.”

  Now it was I who looked at him, brow raised. “He did.”

  “He’s an upright member of the city council, and he’s having a chapel constructed at the church in his wife’s honor.”

  Honor? The man had none!

  “And you say he accosted you?”

  “No. I say he sent his men to accost me. They stole my purse and the coin inside it. A substantial number of them.”

  “I’ll have to know why you were walking the streets with such great wealth.”

  Ah. My reply would require great care. To admit to my reasons would be to identify myself as a smuggler. “I was sent here to conduct business for my cousin, the viscount of Souboscq.”

  “Nothing good can come from a man walking around with a fortune in his purse. Of course you were robbed!”

  “Yes. Of course I was robbed. That’s what I’m saying.” Couldn’t these Flemish understand anything? “I was robbed by Arne De Grote.”

  “That’s impossible. He hardly ever even raises his voice.”

  “What’s impossible is your insisting it’s impossible!”

  “If you’re a gentleman, then show yourself as such.”

  Show myself—!

  “You haven’t even a hat to your head.”

  “It was lost in the fight, and I—”

  “Ah! The fight. So you admit it, then. You picked a fight with some men of Kortrijk, and you can’t stomach the fact that you lost.”

  I took a deep breath, which had the unfortunate effect of causing my ribs great pain. “I came to make a complaint and ask for help in recovering my purse.”

  “Why are you here in Kortrijk?”

  “I am on business for the viscount of Souboscq.”

  “And your business is with…?”

  “Arne De Grote.”

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, hiding his thumbs in his armpits. “I see. You came here to do business with Arne De Grote, and now you accuse him of waylaying you.”

  “Yes!”

  “And why would he do that?”

  “Because…” I realized I had very nearly walked into a trap of my own making. To admit to the sheriff I had contracted with De Grote to smuggle lace out of the country was to turn myself into a criminal. I wondered how many men, just like me, had lost their gold to that man. If I admitted to my reasons, then I might as well have simply handed the lace to the mercenaries who haunted the borders, trying to confiscate it. “Because he is a dishonorable man.”

  “He supplies the armory with gunpowder, he pays for extra masses to be said on behalf of the poor, and he provides the city’s orphanage with food. I would very much like to meet an honorable man!”

  I could see I would find no understanding here, so I nodded and turned to leave.

  “Monsieur Lefort?”

  I paused. “Yes?”

  “I would be very careful around Arne De Grote if I were you.”

  •••

  The boy I was at twelve would not have needed the warning. And he would not have allowed himself to be ambushed in a fight. He would have walked through the streets with his head up, regardless of the rain, so he could see the danger that lay before him. That boy would have noted there was something amiss about men who did not turn up their cloaks against the weather.

  That boy would not have been pummeled as I had been.

  There was nothing of the gentleman left about me now. The man had become the boy once more.

  “Be careful of Arne De Grote.” I was tired of being careful! I had acted with all the restraint and reserve my cousin had taught me, all of the care I once promised God, and it had gotten me nothing. I was without funds, without friends, and without means. I had no lodging, and I had no food.

  •••

  I slept that night in an alley protected by overhanging buildings and then quit the city the next day. I had no doubt my attempts at begging had been thwarted by the way I looked. No one seemed to believe me the gentleman I claimed to be. Perhaps in the countryside, the peasants would be more discerning. Perhaps they would look beyond my wounds and the shabby state of my clothes and would offer the food and lodging I sought.

  Two weeks.

  Then I could collect my lace, show myself to De Grote, and make him abide by the terms of our agreement. I would retrieve my father’s dagger, by means just or foul. And I would also regain my horse.

  As I walked along, shoulders to my ears, back bent against the wind and rain, I imagined doing those very things. In truth, it gave me much more satisfaction to imagine forcing De Grote to give up what he’d stolen than it did to imagine he would surrender them without a fight.

  My path lay in the direction of Lendelmolen. As night fell, I came upon one of those windmills that stood sentry along a canal. Its silhouette loomed in the falling night. Slipping in through the unlocked door, I hoped to find a bag of grain from which to skim a handful or two, but it seemed I was in the wrong countryside. The mill dealt in water, not grain.

  Stepping out, securing the door behind me, I struck on through the night. Hunger soon drove me to the doorstep of another windmill. This one belonged to a miller, though there were no bags of grain from which to pilfer. I chased the mice from the milling machine and scraped together the meal that dusted the floorboards. Then I lowered myself to the floor, taking great pains not to disturb my injured shoulder. There, I settled in to sleep.

  Throughout the night, the giant sails creaked, and the gears groaned. In the darkness around me, vermin scratched and scurried. It put me in mind of the nights I had passed in the forests of Béarn. Here, at least, I was not being rained upon. And the mush and grit in my mouth reminded me, when I was wont to complain, that I had eaten.

  •••

  I was awakened before dawn by the sails. They strained against their moorings, the wind battering the canvas. The entire structure moaned and seemed to sway as if pleading for release. There was no use trying to sleep and no value in nursing an empty stomach. I took to the road, stepping into the mist, listening to the gulls splash about in the water. I reached the next town at first light.

  There was no work, no sympathy, no food for me there, according to the owner of the tavern. I left to save him the trouble of tossing me out, stumbling through the door and then down the road. The next town ought not to have been too much farther, but with each step I took on those miry clay roads, I seemed to slip two steps backward. If I did not find both food and shelter, an insistent voice within me told me I would soon die. I hadn’t the strength to argue with it, but neither could I acquiesce. Lisette’s life depended upon the delivery of the lace. And so did the viscount’s fate.

  So when I heard a cart splashing in and out of the puddles I had just trudged through, I turned to face it. And when the man driving the oxen hailed me, I did not move. I would force this man to be my savior.

  “Hey—get off the way.” He waved toward the side of the road.

  “I need…” I needed everything.

  He halted his mud-streaked cart several paces from me. “You look like you’ve found trouble, friend.”

  Trouble had found me. I gripped my elbow, trying to keep my shoulder from moving, hoping to spare myself that piercing pain. “I need food. I’m willing to work for it.”

  He tipped up his hat and took a look at me. “What are you good at, then?”

  Good at? “Stealing things. And being stolen from.”

  A rumble of hearty laughter erupted from him. “At least you’re honest. For a thief.” He looked me over and then nodded. “So what’
s to assure me you’re not set on stealing from me?”

  “I’m reformed.”

  He gave me a long look beneath his brow. “I doubt it.”

  I gave him an even longer look. And then I decided to tell the truth. “I’m here on business. Only the man I’m to do that business with robbed me.”

  He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he listened to me speak. “This business you’re conducting…?”

  “Is none of yours.”

  He held up his hands as if to fend off a blow. “No need to take offense. Where are you headed?”

  “Lendelmolen.” Eventually.

  “I’m going past. Toward the sea.”

  I didn’t care if he was headed to Spain, as long as he wouldn’t leave me stranded on the road. “I shall be done with my business in two weeks’ time and headed home…” No. Not home. Souboscq was home to some other man now. It would never be my home again. “Until then, however…?” He would either help me or he would not.

  “I have a farm, and I could use some help repairing a dike, though I won’t pay you for it.”

  I hadn’t hoped for payment. “Bed? And board?”

  “If you earn it. Reginhard Deroeck never cheated any man.”

  “I’ll earn it.”

  “But first—” He reached out and clapped one of his hands to my shoulder.

  I nearly fainted from the pain.

  His other hand grabbed my elbow, and then he gave a sharp tug to my arm. With his grunt, my scream, and a loud popping sound, my shoulder came right. “I suppose I should thank you…” I lost consciousness to the sound of his belly-shaking laughter.

  •••

  I awakened in the cart and found myself sharing the space with a cage of chickens and a pile of turnips. When we lurched to a stop, the man Reginhard helped me to standing. Then he pulled me over to a small hut from which ushered a spindly thread of smoke and the tantalizing smell of what I hoped would be supper.

  He pushed open the door to reveal the homely scene of a family lit by a glowing fire. Two small children played with a top at one end of the sole room while two other older children aided a woman cooking at the fire.