by Vicki Grove
“There, I’ve thrown a fine lasso around ye!” Maddy yipped. Indeed, she’d come up close and tossed a beautiful bandanna of blue silk over Rhia’s head. It settled loose and glimmering around Rhia’s neck, then Maddy pulled the center knot tight at Rhia’s throat. Clutching the trailing ends of it, she made ready to playfully pull her friend toward town.
“Come along, then, captive!” Maddy sang with glee.
As Maddy laughingly jerked her along by the ends of that silk scarf, all Rhiannon could do was steal a last helpless glance over her shoulder at the woman and her babe.
Rhiannon liked not this means of journeying as captive toward market, and liked it less and less as Maddy sped them right recklessly through the narrow gamut of craftsmen’s booths edging the green. Maddy tripped right over the glassmaker’s bellows, in fact, keeping her own balance but very nearly tipping Rhia right onto the red-hot kiln! Rhiannon smelled the singe of some threads of her skirt and it made her some angry. She wished, after that, to become even more angry, as in such a state she might possibly have the moxie to go against headstrong Maddy about Beltane Eve.
Around the potter’s wheel and the cartwright’s shed Maddy zigged and zagged them, never letting that bandanna go slack. She maneuvered them close to a huge pig carcass hanging outside the butcher’s stall. It swayed as Maddy gave it a hard sideways bounce with her muscled shoulder as they passed.
Hard to say how many ox took alarum as Maddy went lunging along past carts and stalls and around all manner of walkers, both on two feet and upon four. “Look sharp!” she’d yell if there was time for such crude warning, though there was usually not. Three small children sitting at innocent play together along the verge of the road bawled in fright as Maddy leapt clean over their heads, her skirts toppling two of them right over into the dust!
“Pay the piper!” Maddy demanded, stopping abruptly when they’d finally got past the houses and craftsmen and near to the center of the busy green.
She turned and teasingly jerked the lasso tighter so’s Rhia near gagged.
“Maddy, have a care!” Rhia squeezed her fingers under the silken knot to jerk it some loose.
“Pay the piper, then!” Maddy smiled so the dimple in her left cheek deepened. “Pay for the ride with your solemn promise to join us in our revels on Beltane! You must!”
Why was it that with all the mischance Maddy had just then exposed Rhia to, still Rhia could not put her foot down to firmly naysay Maddy? When faced by Maddy in such direct fashion, Rhia could not even summon that bright anger she’d planned would help her out when this very promise was required of her.
Alas, the will of a bold girl like Maddy will oft prove too much for a less audacious girl like Rhiannon. All flustered Rhia could think to do was to look down and stall for time by unknotting the bright scarf, but Maddy quickly stopped Rhia’s fumbling fingers, catching them in her own.
“Don’t loosen the scarf, but rather wear it always, Rhiannon! It’s for you, a token sent from Leonard to tell how he longs to meet you as his partner on Beltane Eve! Now, quick, tell me your decision. Shall I meet you on the green at dusk and together we’ll join Frederique’s party at the dragon’s chamber, or shall we come up to your private chapel for our romp? One or the other, say which!”
Rhia’s ears rang. “I . . . I shall meet you down here, near the manor house.”
Maddy hugged her right quick, then danced away backward, blowing a kiss. “Adieu until then, Rhia! That’s what they say in Francia, you know. Adieu! Braid your hair all jaunty like that when you come, and don’t forget to wear Leonard’s scarf! A lady wears a knight’s colors when she would show her true love! Isn’t that romantic? My Fred’s colors are red and gold.”
With a giggle and a blush, Maddy pulled down one corner of her bodice to expose a bit of the red bandanna she safekept there. And then she turned round and was off at a run toward the manor, where she had doubtless been expected some time ago.
Rhiannon was left in her usual state upon being caught up in Maddy’s whirlwind, then tossed from it without warning right back to the ground. On the one hand she felt gloomed by her own endless cowardice around her friend. On the other, she couldn’t quit glancing down at the gorgeous scarf that now swathed her neck. She’d never thought to own such a glorious thing, and had never especially wanted to. But now she did, she found she couldn’t regret its possession.
And wrongheaded though she knew it was, she also felt a strong prick of curiosity about this Leonard as she trekked back to the churchyard to reclaim the two valuable packs of goods she’d had no choice but to helplessly abandon there when Maddy snatched her into that cavort to town.
But when she reached the grassy lot this side of the churchyard, Rhia’s usual flighty imaginings instantly gave way to a true and solid problem of the first order.
For where she’d left two packs upon the grass, now there was but one.
Chapter 15
Rhiannon sped to the single pack and dropped to her knees to dump its contents onto the grass, praying mightily that nothing was lost, though that was a foolish hope since certainly a pack’s worth of contents had gone missing. There upon the grass spilled the seeds, the wax figures, some combs of the honey, most of the beeswax candles. She missed one of the loaves, a honeycomb, a single wax figure, and two or three candles. Was that all? Rhia could not think, and dropped to sit there upon the grass with her head in her hands, all shame and misery. She snatched at the blue scarf where it draped upon her chest and untied it in a fury, growling in frustration. That gaudy scarf seemed the very cause of her slipup, though a thing will not of itself cause a slipup, and that’s that.
In truth only a person will be the fine cause of a dire slipup. Rhia remembered that in time to stash the scarf into her waist pouch, when she’d meant to tear it to pieces, or almost meant to. Though, honestly, she wouldn’t have. She thought the scarf too fine, that’s how vain and shameful she truly was. Shameful!
“I’m hopeless, and shameful!” She knocked at her forehead with her knuckles.
“How now, Rhia! Hold up!”
Thaddeus was approaching at a lope from the church. Her heart rose to her throat. How much of her churchyard hysterics had he witnessed this time? And how doubly shameful to worry about such a paltry thing as your own humiliation when you’d best worry that you’d just lost your mother’s prized pack!
“I’m shameful and hopeless from all directions and that’s the sum of it,” she whispered again, shaking her head.
Thaddeus dropped to the grass beside her. “What’s the sum of what, Rhia?”
She covered her eyes with her fingers and would not look at him. “I’ve lost my mother’s pack to some sneakthief, Thaddeus. I’m certain Mam will never, ever trust me again, such a hopeless fool am I!”
He said nothing. She waited. He still said nothing.
“Such a fool as I ne’er walked the earth,” she pointed out.
Still, Thaddeus didn’t deny it. Finally, she’d had enough and took her hands from her face so that she might frown at him.
He was quietly fitting the spilled goods back into the single pack, looking some sheepish. “I’m afraid I witnessed the theft and knew it not for what it was, Rhia,” he admitted. “I was at the window, filling the prior’s inkhorn in the good light. I happened to glance outside and saw Jim’s daughter picking it up. I assumed it was her own.”
Rhiannon’s eyes got wide and she shook her head quite firmly. “Jim’s daughter? Thaddeus, Jim has no daughter. On that awful day he came to town with us, Jim said straight out that he should have expected his cot to be taken by Lord Claredemont since his wife was dead and he had no child to take over the week-work he owed as rent.”
Thaddeus narrowed his eyes. “Well, but it seems—”
“And a daughter would surely have come up the trail with him when he was so hurt by that cart! No, you must be mistaken, Thaddeus.”
Thaddeus shrugged. “I’m sure I’m not mistaken, Rhia. Since sh
e arrived yesterday, Jim’s daughter has spent all her time here in the yard, near where their cot used to stand. She may not speak with Jim under his rules of sanctuary, yet she feels that from within the church Jim might catch a glimpse of her and his little grandson and find comfort in the sight. I doubt she knew of his injury last year. She lives at a distance and knew nothing of her mother’s death, which, I’m told, happened some months before Jim was hurt. And for his part, Jim knew not of his grandson, nor that his son-in-law had got a fever last winter and left his young wife widowed. Jim and his family are just now reunited, though the terms are hard and the circumstances sad.”
Rhia concentrated, thinking back to the morning before Jim’s arrest. “I suppose Jim may have said he had no son,” she murmured. “No son to give the lord his week-work! Yes, that is what he said, Thaddeus!”
Thaddeus looked nervously over his shoulder. He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “The church has ears, Rhia. Later we’ll speak more of this. When will you finish at the market, d’you think?”
“I must reach home before twilight or Mam’ll skin me alive.”
He nodded. “I’ll wait for you on the beach when the afternoon wanes, near where the trail begins. Now, if you will, wave to Jim as you stand. He may well see you from his station upon the frid stool near the altar, where he must stay most hours of his days.”
Rhia cringed imagining the awful cramp a person was bound to get from all those hours sitting upon the church’s short and squat three-legged frid stool. It was purposely made that way for thinking of the Scriptures and your own immortal soul, as you’d never get comfortable enough to go to sleep or otherwise lollygag the time away.
She stood, shouldered the remaining pack, then turned toward the church and waved sadly to Jim, wherever inside those fine but fearsome walls he might be.
Granna’s friends at the ale booth always found a space on their sales table for Rhia or Mam to display the things they had to sell at market, and the only rent those dames required was the gossip from atop the bluff.
“How does that dear little Daisy?” one after another of them asked Rhia that day, and she was glad to report on Daisy’s quick and sunny smile, which clearly showed her soul to be intact, though she’d suffered so very much.
Three or four asked if Daisy’s sister and mother had indeed gone along to God, and Rhia answered with a simple nod, then crossed herself as Granna’s friends did likewise.
Then, without preamble, a right hefty barrel of a lady named Hilda Mopp sat down next to her on the makeshift wood bench behind the table, sagging it but not quite splitting it. “Here’s a message for your granna,” she told Rhia. “Tell Moira that her bunions will be mightily eased if’n she swallows five spiders both morn and eve. That’s five morning and five evening, don’t forget, and it’s to be done for three days running. That’s six dose of spiders altogether. It worked like magic for my cousin Freeda.”
Rhia bit her lip at the thought of spiders eaten alive, though she’d heard of it before. They’d tickle their way down to Granna’s feet and then the easing would come up through the hide of her toes. That’s how spiders were rumored to work, anyhow.
“I’ll tell her for certain, Mistress Mopp,” Rhia said. Then, as Hilda Mopp was known to have her ear always cocked to the business of others, Rhia leaned closer to ask, “And mistress, have you heard tell of how our friend Jim Gatt came to escape to sanctuary?”
Hilda Mopp looked in all directions with her hands clasped beneath her large bosom, then she spoke all stealthy and shifty-eyed, though not so quiet as she might have.
“Well, Guy Dryer’s a simple man. As bailiff that goes some in his favor, and some not. When Jim confessed, Guy had no stomach for a quick execution and let him slip. Now that Jim’s got sanctuary within the church, by law no one can touch him for forty days, though that time will flee quick enough and then Jim’ll hang anyhow, of course.”
Rhiannon’s stomach fell at that last blunt pronouncement, and she was glad to have a band of customers walk up so’s her mind could be put for a bit on her honey and seeds.
When those folk had made their purchases and walked on, Rhia whispered to Mistress Mopp, “Granna would have me find out exactly what was said by the vicar and bailiff at Jim’s confession, and who witnessed it besides those two. She’d also have me find who profits, though none could surely profit by Jim’s confession but the true murderer.”
Hilda Mopp heaved a great, disgusted humph and pulled her chins down so’s they dwelt upon her bosom. She leaned some sideways and said from the corner of her mouth, “Oh, one other profits well enough, and that’s Beornia Gatt, the selfish little hussy. Never a thought for other than herself when she was growing up here, and still never, so far as I can see. Poor Jim always gave her everything she wanted, that little brat. She pretends such grief over that dead husband of her’n. Humph! If grief well-acted is liable to buy her sympathy from the town, then she’ll act grieved, and further I’ve heard that . . .”
Rhiannon had gaped at Mistress Mopp throughout this talk, trying to separate out the tangled threads of Mistress Mopp’s information and opinions. So she was some abashed when something landed with a padded thunk on the table in front of her. Rhia turned around straight, ready to apologize to the customer who’d been neglected, and faced the tall young woman who’d been weeping in the burned lot next the church!
Her baby was balanced upon her hip. He sucked two sticky fingers, and along the front of his smock were drippings of honey. In one chubby hand he clutched a small mass of what looked like Granna’s sweet rye bread, and under the other arm he held the missing wax effigy, cuddling it as though it were a playtoy.
“I brought your carrier back to you,” the woman said in a flat, unfriendly voice. Her chin was atremble, though she had a proud lift to it. “You’ll find three pence inside it. I’ve got cabbages, and if they sell, I’ll pay most of the rest of what I owe you today. If they don’t sell, I’ll pay the first moment I ever can.”
Rhia looked down and saw her lost pack upon the table, flat and empty. When she looked back up, the woman was already striding away, her shoulders high and her long hair swinging. She called back over her shoulder, “You asked if you could help me, but I mighta known your offer would prove as hollow as all else seems now in Woethersly!”
Mistress Mopp clucked her tongue. “Did I not tell you? All sass, that Beornia Gatt. You should not lend to her, Rhiannon dear, as she says she’ll repay but is not to be . . .”
Rhiannon’s forehead fell to her hands. “I fear she heard what you said about her,” she told Mistress Mopp with a great sigh of regret. “I did offer her help, and meant it.”
“And for my part, I hope she did indeed hear my words,” the mistress replied quite huffily. “And I also wager she’ll hear more good earfuls e’er she walks the crowd! For it wasn’t just my boy, Arnold, had his heart broke by her, but many another as well. Arnold might not be a looker, but he’s not so dull-headed as some hereabouts, and further I believe that—”
“Mistress?” Rhia interrupted, having heard as much of this as she could stand. “I still don’t understand why you’d say Beornia Gatt profits from Jim’s confession.”
Hilda Mopp snorted. “Well, if a murderer dies denying his guilt, he loses all right to what’s been his in life, now, don’t he? Yet if he dies having confessed, he may at the vicar’s pleasure keep what’s his and so pass it to his children. Beornia will inherit all Jim owns, now that he’s confessed to the crime.”
Rhia knew that was the law, yet since Jim owned nothing, it didn’t seem to apply. She might have asked Mistress Mopp for a bit of clarification on that score, but Mistress Mopp was hefting herself up off the bench, surely eager to discuss with more important folk than Rhia this chance encounter she’d had with the infamous hussy, Beornia Gatt.
And Rhia, to be honest, had no wish to slow her in her leaving.
Besides, a great commotion had just begun at the edge of the green, a
nd now was progressing down the street that fronted the ale booth. All chatter and dealings stopped cold as folk turned to see what caused the ruckus.
A gang of running boys, it was, fair barreling along, careening like drunkards, kicking up the dust, scattering the geese and confounding the nearby folk as well.
“Make way! Make way and be quick about it!” those six gangly lads demanded of all, waving their long arms as if they were stuffed dolls come alive to scare the crows. They even whacked some folk in the face with their gawky, flapping hands. “Make way for Lord Claredemont’s party to pass! Clear this street, you common lot, so’s your betters may ride through unhindered!”
Paid way-clearers these boys were, then, and doing a fabulous job of it, as when else might they make such a nuisance of themselves and not be given over to the bailiff?
And then came the riders. Rhia recognized those same young squires that she, Granna, Jim, and Daisy had watched taking the creek. The galloping mounts brushed by and upset one of the market tables so the potter’s wares were toppled. Dust and broken shards flew everywhere. Small children screamed and clutched their mothers’ skirts, yet the horsemen rode the harder, heedless as mounted demons bringing on the apocalypse.
A little girl, confounded by the dust and noise, walked right into the path of a horse, and the rider of it, never swerving, instead used his whip to flick her away. The small girl’s mother snatched her up in the very nick of time or she’d have surely been trampled, but her arm flamed red from the bite of the whip.
Then, in the time it might take for a jug to be filled with ale from the barrel tap, the gang had passed on. The crowd was quiet in their wake, somewhat stupefied. After a few moments, the small girl bawled with her pain and several women came unfrozen and hurried close to see to her hurt. The roiling sounds of market slowly started up again.
Rhia found her remaining two small rye loaves to be so filthed with dust that they’d not be edible by humans. Furious, she stood and threw them, hard, to the geese.