Roberta Gellis

by A Personal Devil

  This time the bell did announce the “mayor.” Magdalene welcomed him and produced her apology. “Would you like to sit with me in the common room, or would you prefer to sit in the garden behind the house? It is very pleasant there now.”

  He chose, as Magdalene had expected, the garden where he was less likely to see, or be seen by, anyone he knew. She fetched him a cup of wine and a small plate of cakes, and when she had put it down on the table, snapped her fingers.

  “Aha, you are just the man I wanted to see, and I am delighted to be able to talk to you for a few moments. I could use your advice. Did you not tell me, oh, I cannot remember when but it must be a year since, that you were a master mercer in Norwich?”

  “You have a long memory, Magdalene.” He did not sound pleased about it.

  She laughed lightly. “Not really. I only remembered because a mercer, not a client of this house (that was not true, Josne was a client if not a frequent one, but Magdalene did not mind prevaricating in a good cause and the lie actually protected Josne after all)—approached me to sell me some particularly fine yarn from Norwich. I liked the yarn very well, and the dyes were rich, but I did not like the man. The name he gave was Jokel de Josne—”

  The “Mayor’s” brow wrinkled. “Éoqule de Éosné? From Norwich? My advice is that you should not buy from him lest you have the sheriff at your door seeking for stolen goods. Has he had the impudence to go back to Norwich? I did not think there would be a man in the city who would do business with him.”

  “You mean he is not from Norwich or has been away from there?”

  “Gone from the town for years. He was never actually convicted of any crime, but that was because he fled before evidence could be found. Rumor and complaint followed him and grew until the sheriff was about to examine his premises for stolen goods. He disappeared only the night before the sheriff came. It was said that one of the sheriff’s men was in his pay.”

  “Oh, when was that?”

  “Hmmm. I left the city myself—except for visits—for I married very well in London in the spring of 1130. It was not long after that, perhaps the summer or autumn, that my father wrote to me that Éosné had cleaned out his warehouse and salesroom and disappeared—and taken with him all the goods he had ‘bought’ but not yet paid for and all those he had ‘sold’ and not yet delivered. It was quite a scandal, which is why I remember his name, also because it was French, and we of Norfolk are mostly named in the Danish mode. My father’s letters were full of it for weeks.”

  “Ah, well.” Magdalene shrugged. “It was very fine yarn, and as you know, we do embroidery in this house, but the last thing I desire is to draw the sheriffs attention. I will not deal with the man. Thank you for telling me.”

  “You are a wise woman to seek advice when you are not sure,” the “Mayor” said.

  Magdalene smiled sweetly and did not call him a pompous fool. In fact, she sought his advice on several other small matters, until he had finished his wine and cakes. Then she said Diot had surely had time enough to scrub herself clean and went to fetch her woman, who came from the back door of the house looking fresh and very beautiful and holding out her hand with seeming pleasure.

  Watching discreetly from the kitchen window, Magdalene nodded with satisfaction. Diot seemed even more reliable and eager to please now that she had been told she would not be put out even if Sabina was forced to return to whoring. Of course Diot knew that any infraction of the rules—stealing, deliberately offending a client, speaking about clients to anyone except her “sister” whores—would still result in her expulsion from the Old Priory Guesthouse; however, except for that, Magdalene had told her, her position was assured. She had sat, frozen faced, and then burst into tears, sobbing that it was as if she had died and had come awake in heaven. Magdalene had been somewhat startled. Whoring, even in so good an atmosphere as the Old Priory Guesthouse, was not her idea of heaven.

  When Diot’s door had closed, Magdalene walked down the corridor toward the common room, pausing as a squeal came from behind Ella’s door. Then she heard the girl laughing and protesting that “that tickles,” and she sighed, recalling that Ella’s client not only had a warped sense of humor but was the lunatic who insisted on eating various foods—most of them sticky, like ripe fruit or puddings—off Ella’s body and out of various orifices. Ella enjoyed it, but it did make a mess of her and the bedclothes.

  Letice’s client must also have come, Magdalene thought, because Sabina was sitting near the hearth, softly strumming her lute, playing a false note now and again as she worked over a new song. Magdalene gathered up the ribbons strewn over the table, stopping to consider one of clear blue and another of green. Both, she thought, laying them aside, would suit Bell’s fair coloring and embroidered would make a good name-day gift for him; the green could be embroidered with his coat of arms, the blue with a hunting scene. The idea of hunting brought to mind the white dogs the client wanted, and she sighed again.

  Well, if it made trouble, she would cross the stream as best she could. No sense worrying now. She refolded the other ribbons into their packet and put them on one of the shelves on the back wall, coming by her stool to pick up her workbasket. Sabina, hearing her footsteps, looked up. Magdalene thought she was paler than she had been, and her lips did not curve gently into their usual almost-smile. Restraining her impulse to sigh again, for Sabina would hear that and want to know why, Magdalene took her sewing basket to the table.

  From it she extracted a thin piece of charcoal with which she marked the smooth boards of the table with a long rectangle, the length and width of the ribbon Ella’s client had chosen. Within this, she sketched eight lean greyhound figures; around them, more carefully, she drew squat, fantastic trees with drooping branches, among which she marked out pear shapes. Her lips twisted. Pears were a favorite of the client when they were in season, probably because they crushed easily into a sweet, wet, mess.

  The sketch had to be corrected several times before she was satisfied, but when she felt she had a graceful, flowing design, she went to the back shelf and brought out a bottle of pale ink. Having pinned the ribbon to the table just below her sketch, she sharpened the quill that had lain beside the bottle and began to copy the picture onto the ribbon. She left the ribbon pinned to the table to dry and fetched Dulcie from the kitchen to scrub the table clean.

  “You went to see Mainard,” Sabina said softly, when Magdalene had seated herself on her own stool and begun to work on an elegant gown facing that the East Chepe mercer had ordered.

  “However did you know?” Magdalene asked.

  “I smelled the shop on you when you came in.” Sabina smiled faintly. “I am very fond of the odor of leather.” She paused, and then went on, even more softly. “I hope you did not….”

  “I told him you missed him. He needed to know that, my love. When you are with him, he does not doubt you, but when he is alone, he thinks of how ugly he is and that you must hate to lie with him and crave other, whole men.”

  “No!” Sabina cried. “I know his face is not like other men’s, but his body…oh, that is perfect, beautiful and strong, so strong. He is like a great wall or a great tree, able to shelter those who need him.” She was silent for a while, her fingers picking minor chords from the lute. “I suppose he is inquiring about another wife….”

  “He said nothing to me about that, but I do not think he will seek a wife so soon. The woman, terrible as she was, is not dead a week, and the manner of her death, being what it was, might raise suspicions. No, I do not think Master Mainard is thinking about a second marriage.”

  Two tears oozed out from under Sabina’s sealed lids. “That means I will have to wait longer. I do not think he would make proposals to a woman while he had his whore living above his shop.” She bit her lip. “I wish he would find someone and be done. If he does not want me, I…I need to know.”

  “He will always want you,” Magdalene said. “It is only you with whom he can be at ease, but i
f he wants sons of his blood to inherit his business…. I am sorry, my love, very sorry, but a whore’s child….”

  “I know that.” Sabina’s voice trembled. “I would not dare to bear children anyway. What if they were born like me, without eyes?”

  Magdalene sighed. It seemed to her that she was doing a lot of sighing this day. “He said he would come soon. When he does, you must convince him—although how, I have no idea—that you do find him beautiful and desirable. He is afraid, because he promised you that he would look aside if you took other men, and now he finds he cannot endure that.”

  “But I haven’t! You know I haven’t. I want only my Mainard. I love his funny face.”

  “Tell him, my love. Tell him over and over. Somehow you must make him believe you—no easy task when everyone, even those who love him, look away.”

  Sabina bit her lips, but her face looked more intent now than sad and after a while she began to sing again. Magdalene embroidered steadily, not thinking about how Sabina could convince Mainard she found him beautiful but wondering how a whore could convince any man she would be faithful. She thought of the terrible instruments of torture, the iron chastity belts some men who went on crusade had inflicted on their wives…and still were not convinced of their purity.

  Magdalene chuckled softly. They had doubted with good reason. Any woman who did not find a way to remove such a shackle was mad. One could not even relieve one’s bladder and bowels without smearing the belt and oneself with filth. In an attempt to be sure the spaces provided for such relief did not permit other usage, they were far too small. Her husband had shown her such a device, one his grandmother had worn, and spoken of the peace of mind a woman’s patience could bring her man.

  Even if he had not expected her to welcome the idea, he had been shocked at her response. Perhaps he had thought she would weep and plead with him not to force her to wear such a thing, promising to be faithful. Perhaps he had even thought she might accept it. Certainly he had not expected her to laugh and say she imagined there were locksmiths enough to make a duplicate key, perhaps many duplicate keys to assuage the insult of having her honor questioned. Brogan had hit her, but he had not mentioned chastity belts again.

  As she opened her embroidery frame to move the work up some inches, Magdalene frowned. Why in the world was she thinking about chastity belts and a man dead many years? She felt a slight warmth in her cheeks as she rethreaded her needle with cherry-red silk and took the tiny double stitch that would fix the thread. Bell. Thinking about Mainard had brought Bell to her mind. And Bell’s jealousy had made her remember Brogan.

  Although her eyes were fixed on the pattern she was embroidering, she was hardly conscious of the needle setting the stitches to outline a rose. Never. Never would any man again have the right to demand she be faithful! But she could not hold back a little silent giggle when she remembered Bell’s swift riposte to her suggestion that he was going to stay at Saint Albans to be purified. She shook her head. The greatest danger she faced in dealing with Bell was not his beautiful body or his handsome face but that he was so much fun.

  Chapter Fifteen

  25 MAY

  OLD PRIORY GUESTHOUSE

  “When will soon be?” Sabina asked pathetically, interrupting Magdalene’s thoughts.

  “I do not know, love,” Magdalene soothed. “Remember that it is not only because he is afraid you will have changed toward him that Master Mainard does not come but because Bertrild’s death has caused him to be all behind in his work. Monday they did no work at all and Tuesday, although he sent Codi and the boys back to the shop, I fear they did nothing or did nothing well enough to be called work. Likely he spent most of Wednesday undoing the disasters they had created. And even today, I suspect little was accomplished.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow? Oh, no! Tomorrow I have an appointment to sing at a birthday dinner. Oh, what shall I do? If he should come and I not be here…what will he believe?”

  “That you were singing at a birthday dinner,” Magdalene said dryly. “How could you be so stupid as to lie about a matter so easily proven. Sabina, if he will not believe what you say—and what Haesel says—you must not go back to him.”

  “Oh, I must! I must! I care so much for him.” She wiped away a few more tears and then smiled tremulously. “But I did not mean that he would be angry, only that he might think I was avoiding him. Perhaps I had better send a message to Mistress Saylor that I am ill and cannot come.”

  “Do not be so silly. This is a new client, and you must not disappoint her. Mainard will not come at dinnertime anyway. That would break up his day too much.”

  “But he often came at dinnertime. We mostly ate our meals together.”

  “Sabina! Your brains are rattled loose. It is one thing for him to walk up a flight of stairs and eat a meal that Haesel fetched and then walk down again. It is quite another to walk almost a mile from his shop, across the bridge, and then here and have to walk back again.”

  Sabina drooped. “Yes. I suppose I am being silly. And he might not come tomorrow…. But if he should come tomorrow or any other day and I not be here, I could not tell him how much I care for him. He might go away and…and fear to come back.”

  Ordinarily Magdalene would have scoffed, but recalling Mainard’s pain she thought Sabina might be right. “You have a point, love. He is so unsure and suffers so much…. Yes. I will tell you what we can do. You can make a list of all of your singing appointments for the next week and the places you will be, and Tom Watchman or Ella and Diot can bring him the note. Oh, and I will write that you beg him to come any other time or to tell you if he wishes you to cancel any of the appointments because you are very eager to be with him.”

  “Yes, yes. That would be wonderful. Now, let me see. Tomorrow I must go to—

  “Wait, love. Let me fetch a pen and ink.”

  The list was made easily enough, although the directions for each place took some time. Sabina insisted on giving those in case Mainard wanted to be sure where she was. The letter explaining why she sent him the list and urging him to come to her took a great deal longer. Sabina was afraid to press too hard, lest Mainard think her bold or that she wished to impose her will on him, but she wanted to press hard enough for him to feel the sincerity of her longing.

  She was just about satisfied with what Magdalene had written for her when Diot showed “Mayor” out the way he had come in. Sabina took her letter and her lute and retired to her chamber because the next set of clients would be coming soon. Letice, clinging and stroking, led her man out into the common room rather than down the back corridor a few moments later. He stopped beside Magdalene to admire her embroidery and to make a special appointment with Letice for Tuesday morning the next week. Magdalene did not often accept morning appointments, but he explained he would he sailing for France on the afternoon tide that day and wished to take a pleasant memory along.

  The bell had pealed to announce Diot’s second client before Ella and her messy eater staggered to the bathroom, giggling all the way. Magdalene shook her head. It was a harmless lunacy compared with some of the things men thought whores should be willing to do, but she could understand why his wife would not permit it—if he had ever mentioned it to her. Dulcie came from the kitchen to strip the bed and replace all the linens. Of course, they charged the client two farthings extra for the washing, but it was a nuisance.

  Letice’s second man came, a pale, frail clerk who slunk in from the back gate, having entered through the priory. Magdalene knew he made Letice anxious, but he would have no other woman. Magdalene could not decide whether, like the new sacristan of the priory, he had chosen Letice because she was not Christian or because of her exotic looks. But he had an almost abnormal desire for her. In fact, what made Letice anxious was that she was terrified he would die in his violent convulsions of mingled ecstasy and guilt. Magdalene heard him begin to whimper even before the door closed.

  The bell pealed again, and Magdalene hissed between he
r teeth as she put her embroidery aside and got up to answer. That would be Ella’s second client, and she and her fruit squasher were not yet out of the bath. She ran down the corridor and quietly tapped on the door of the bathing room. That would be a reminder to Ella not to encourage another passage at arms in the tub, which she would likely do if the man had the strength. Then she went out and opened the gate.

  Her breath almost caught in her throat when she saw who was there. She had forgotten it was his day. He had canceled his regular appointments on Monday and Tuesday but kept the one on Thursday. How fortunate that Ella was busy! She would be able to talk to him, perhaps in the guise of urging him to come more frequently to test his reaction to Bertrild’s death.

  “Come in, do,” she said in English, remembering that Lintun Mercer was not really fluent in French.

  She stepped back from the gate and gestured him toward the house. “I am very sorry that Ella is not here to greet you herself,” she continued as they walked toward the door. “She will be ready in just a few moments, but we had an accident with some dessert from dinner, which she took into her room. Dulcie had to change all the sheets, and Ella had to take a bath. She is sometimes silly—

  “Sometimes!” Mercer said, laughing as they entered. “The girl’s an idiot! What did she do, take the pudding into bed and fall asleep on it?”

  Although Magdalene bristled internally at the contempt with which Mercer spoke of Ella, who was childlike but within that not stupid, she only smiled and said, “Something very like. You know how timid she is. She was eating and a loud noise startled her. She dropped the pudding and in her attempts to clean it up, it got smeared all over. Sit down at the table, and I will fetch you some wine and cakes.”