The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  “What of Mistress Tipley? Why can she market freely?”

  My father takes a heaping bite. “She cannot, unless she buys for this house. This house has privileges that we don’t. Not yet, anyway.”

  I spear a turnip cube with my meat-knife. Foolish town rules. Foolish townspeople.

  “So you must mind yourself better, at least till I’m admitted to the privileges. You’re damn lucky the bailiff believed your tale of misadventure.”

  “I knew not, Papa. I truly didn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t, sweeting. Just as I know you truly did not expect me to pay fifteen shillings a yard for finespun.”

  I groan. “Very well. Let me put on a sackcloth smock and roll around in the midden.”

  My father laughs aloud.

  “It’s not funny! They’ll all be watching. Do you not want me to look like a burgess’s daughter?”

  My father closes his mouth abruptly. Hitting him square in the pride rarely fails. I want to remind him that my favorite color is green, but I dare not risk his changing his mind. At length he licks his lips and mutters, “Mayhap . . . mayhap you might wear her vellet gown.”

  I gasp. “You’re jesting.”

  “I’m serious as the grave.”

  My mother kept the gown wrapped in lavender-sprinkled linen and took it out every quarter-day to brush it and flick it with holy water. It’s as close to indigo as the likes of us dare get, brought all the way from some southern place near the Pope’s front courtyard. It must have cost a small fortune.

  I’ve not seen it since she died.

  “Th-thank you, Papa.”

  My father grunts and turns back to his meat.

  She’d let me touch it only after I scrubbed my hands twice in the ewer and dried them on clean linen. The gown looked vast lying on the bed, yards and yards of sleek cloth, and it was softer even than newborn lambs or kittens.

  I’d beg my mother to put it on and show me how it looked, but she’d just shake her head and smile and wrap it back up, laying it reverently in the coffer, as if it belonged to a saint.

  CANNOT get without the walls quickly enough. Step lively till the gray stone beast is all but gone among the trees.

  Through the doorway curtain, shoulder first. It’s stifling in the windowless steading. There’s a fire. Gruffydd is feeding it sticks.

  My little brother has fresh bruises across his forearms and his feet are black as soot.

  Little. Gruffydd hasn’t been littler than me in years. But he’s still my little brother, even if I must look up at him.

  Didn’t expect him till Sunday. He said he’d been hired to cart stone for a se’ennight, and the lads would be staying at the quarry to save the walk. The quarry is heavy work, but at least the wages are certain. Not like standing idle without the walls waiting to be hired by burgesses to do donkey-work for a pittance.

  Move to hug him, but he holds me off with a simple embrace about the shoulders. Gruffydd says I should not touch him, for he’s always covered in road dust and town filth, but even when he’s just out of the river he puts me off.

  “Hey, Gwen.” He presses a hand to his lower back and grimaces. “Please tell me there’s supper.”

  “No quarry, I take it.” Pull out the bread the chatelaine gave me, the stale round I’ve been saving since midday. Mouth waters, but I tear off a piece for Mam and hand him the rest. “You look like Hell’s own castoff.”

  Gruffydd grins at me lopsided as he wolfs down the bread. “You too.”

  “What happened with the quarry?”

  “Burgesses.”

  Tear the bread into pieces for Mam. “Bastards all.”

  He shrugs. “I take what they give me. They’re the ones with the coin.”

  “They hired that lapdog Tudur Sais again, didn’t they? And you said naught and let them.”

  “What would you have me do?” Gruffydd asks wearily. “Raise Cain? End up like Maelgwn ab Owain? His youngest finally died. She didn’t weigh much more than a hearthcat at the end.”

  Kneel, check Mam. Her breathing is steady. Stay knelt, even when there’s naught more to check.

  At length, Gruffydd says, “I saw Dafydd on the wharves. He asked after you.”

  “We are not speaking of Dafydd now.” Shoot to my feet, glaring. “We’re speaking of how you must not let the likes of that slavish hound Tudur Sais take all the best work, especially when that work was already promised to you!”

  Gruffydd smiles sadly. “I know not what you did, but Dafydd is absolutely besotted with you.”

  If Gruffydd knew what I did with Dafydd, he’d beat him senseless instead of playing errand boy.

  Turn away. “Doesn’t matter what I did. I’ll not marry him. That’s the end of it.”

  Gruffydd flings a hand. “Because of me? I’m not a child, Gwenhwyfar! I can look after myself.”

  Today’s quarry incident would suggest otherwise.

  “Saints, how many times must I say it? To you, to Margaret, to Dafydd himself? Must I carve it into my forehead? The answer is no!”

  Gruffydd shakes his head. “And Marared is so kind to you. She says naught when you arrive late at the townhouse. Slips you food. Stands up to the master, if what I hear is true.”

  “Margaret. That’s what she calls herself within the walls.” Snort, roll my eyes. “If Margaret Tipley chooses to be kind to me, it should be because I work hard and do as she bids me. Not because she used to plait Mam’s hair, and certes not because she’d see me wed to the only son of her dearest friend.”

  “It’s because she’d see the burgesses humbled and made to follow the law,” Gruffydd says. “And she’ll always be Marared to me.”

  “She cannot be, not in there. Not as a burgess running-dog. And she’s in no hurry to leave.”

  “I’ll not throw stones at anyone for how they made their way when the English came,” Gruffydd replies quietly, “nor how they must live now.”

  Only so many times I’ll suffer this discussion.

  Hold up my coin cross-side out. Gruffydd takes the hint and pries up the hearthstone. There’s a moldy scrap of wool beneath. He unwraps it carefully on his palm. Together we count. Five. There are five silver pennies all together.

  “It’s not enough,” he murmurs. “They’ll take something.”

  “May God strike them down.” Can barely speak for choking.

  “They can distrain what they like should we not pay,” Gruffydd says. “Damn taxmen will be here any day now.”

  Rub my eyes. Head hurts. Smoke rises like a shroud, silts me down.

  My little brother’s hands are cut up and sown with splinters. They hang limp at his sides like some lord’s kill.

  He should be wearing rings. Sitting at the dais of Pencoed and riding the land his by right. He is not, though, and he’ll not be. Not now. Not ever.

  NICHOLAS IS LEAVING for Wallingford. I drag my feet while walking him to the door. “You’ll come back soon, will you not?”

  “If I can, lass, but my lord has little business here.”

  I study my felt shoes and swallow hard. The house is so much fuller with him in it, belches, bootsteps, and all.

  Nicholas smiles suddenly, lighting up like a Candlemas altar. “I nearly forgot to tell you the joyous news, Cesspool. Alice de Baswell is wedding Adam Baker at Lammas. Your Alice! The mousy little thing got herself a husband, can you believe?”

  She’ll have flowers in her hair and her mother will make her the loveliest gown and away she’ll go with her comely new husband and I’ll miss the whole thing. The ceremony at the church door and the bride ale and the bedding revels. Alice, who sings like an angel and taught me to cheat at tables.

  And here’s me, adrift in the wilderness without half a yardland in dowry and waiting for the Crusader sun to finish off my uncle so I can go home.

  Nicholas is still grinning like a halfwit, as if he’s paid me some sort of favor, so I make myself smile. “Godspeed.” I squeeze his forearm. “Ride safe.”


  He yanks my plait with one hand and unties my apron with the other. Then he winks and he’s out the door, down Shire Hall Street. Ere long he’s just one of the crowd, and I lean against the doorframe watching all the strangers go by.

  An affeerer for borough court comes to the house to remind my father that I’m due in Court Baron for my offense against the levelooker Pluver.

  My father stabs me with a quick glare and tells the affeerer that we’ll be there.

  It’s cruel for my father to throw that incident back at me. It’s dustier than Adam.

  When the affeerer is gone, I slam down my spindle and huff. My father pulls out a whetstone and his meat-knife, so I huff again, louder.

  Finally he gets the hint. My father is truly not the brightest-eyed dog in the pack. He sighs and asks, “What is it, sweeting?”

  “If I’m to be dragged into court and humiliated, I’d have some justice for my own loss.”

  “And what would that be?” He shings the blade down the stone and doesn’t even look at me.

  “The merchant kept the altar cloth I gave him for surety,” I reply indignantly. “That’s thievery.”

  My father snorts. “Sweeting, I’m more worried about our future right now than about a strip of linen you embroidered. We’ll discuss it after Court Baron. I want no trouble with the law here. Especially not ere I’ve taken the oath.”

  “But Papa, they’ll—”

  “Look at it this way, sweeting,” my father cuts in. “A burgess of Caernarvon has a better chance than a foreigner of getting your whatsit back. Does he not?”

  It’s very annoying when he has a point. I’ve no liking for his thinking he might be right too often. But I say naught, kiss his prickly cheek, and pick up my spindle, because I want my altar cloth back more than I want to be right.

  Court Baron is held in the churchyard. My father holds my elbow firmly as if I’ll flee. He’s in a foul humor. It’s as if he’s the one who was provoked into slandering a borough official, who was roughly treated and spoken to unkindly by small-minded brutes.

  There’s a big crowd around the portal of Saint Mary’s down at the end of Church Street. At the top of the steps is a trestle, and sitting at it are two men. One I recognize as the bailiff from Justice Court. The other is as sun-browned as the guide who brought us here, and looks like a mouthful of vinegar.

  I stand beneath a yew tree for a gasp of shade.

  They start calling plaints.

  Oath-breaking, amerced a penny. A dog tore up someone’s curtilage garden, amerced twopence. The master, not the dog. Someone’s pig wandering the streets. I can feel my hair growing.

  A beardy burgess all in graceful saffron is called up for breaking a contract, but he isn’t two moments before the trestle ere the bailiff intones, “Trespass forgiven, no amercement.”

  “By God, there will be!” A Welshman leaps from the crowd and lashes a finger at the beardy burgess. “This man sold me sheep with the murrain and passed them off as healthy! I demand justice!”

  My father’s hand tightens on my elbow.

  I stand on tiptoe and crane my neck. Mayhap there will be a scandalous brawl right here in God’s yard.

  No luck. Serjeants fall on the Welshman, seize his arms, and force him still.

  The bailiff points at him. “Amerced twopence for slander.”

  The Welshman is turning an interesting shade of red. “You’ll regret it, by your beards. You’ll regret your every last act sooner than you realize.”

  “Serjeants, put him out.” The bailiff flicks his fingers. “Without the walls. Where he belongs.”

  The serjeants drag the Welshman out in a flurry of elbows and scraping of heels that seems awfully harsh for a man merely seeking justice.

  And my turn is coming.

  When I’m finally called, my father pushes me forward with a firm hand between my shoulder blades. I have to walk through the big mob of scofflaws like I’m one of them.

  I stand before the bailiff and the sourpuss. I clasp my hands and push my lip out the smallest bit like I’m innocent as a babe. Poor Cecily, motherless little lamb, victim of a woeful misunderstanding.

  My father is yammering about the respect he has for borough government and how he would rather die than break one of its laws out of malice and his firm commitment to attaining the privileges to defend laws such as this one and his close friendship with honesti like Sir John de Coucy.

  Poor little Cecily. Let her keep her halfpenny. She has learned her lesson.

  The bailiff sits up straighter. “What did you say men called you?”

  “Edgeley, my lord. Robert d’Edgeley.”

  Even the sourpuss is alert now, and he and the bailiff tilt their heads together and mutter.

  “Of Shire Hall Street? Down from Justice Court? White timbered house?”

  “Yes, my lord.” My father seems confused. But that’s nothing new.

  The bailiff mutters something to the clerk, then announces, “The borough forgives Cecily d’Edgeley her amercement. In light of your taking the privileges, Edgeley, and staying in that house. Is that clear?”

  My father nods, but he still seems bewildered. “Thank you, my lord.”

  The bailiff smiles at me. “Go on, now, lass.”

  I twitch my hem and take my father’s elbow merrily. Poor motherless Cecily has hoodwinked the fools at borough court!

  There’s a distinct murmur in tongue-pull as the clerk scritches something on the rotuli, but the serjeants clear their throats and fidget with their knife-hilts and the churchyard falls quiet so the borough can finish handing out justice.

  VELLET is heavy. It’s like wearing a hundred soaking cloaks.

  But my mother put this gown on once. She rustled it over her head and tightened the lacing.

  This gown seemed as vast as Heaven once. But when I slide it on, it extends a mere fingerlength beyond my wrists and pools just slightly on the floor. Some places are bulgy. Others hang in folds. But mostly it fits.

  Then I try to walk, and I catch my toe in the hem and fall into the wall.

  I wager a whole shilling my mother never fell into any walls.

  My father is waiting in the hall. When I appear in the doorway, he gapes at me like a landed eel. “Glory, when did you grow such? Were you not playing dolls last month?”

  I laugh and tug my hem. “Papa, don’t be daft!”

  “By God, but you are her image.” He mutters it, hoarse, as if she left us yesterday and his knees are raw from vigil.

  I hold my breath and will him to say more. Anything. To tell me her favorite flowers. Whether she liked sweets. What she might have thought of this place, of what he goes to do today.

  “Well, we’d best be off,” my father finally says, and yet again all my willing comes to naught.

  Even though the castle is a stone’s throw from our door, my father has hired horses so that we might arrive as befits our new station. We ride up Castle Street toward the King’s Gate, and we’re just crossing the weed-choked castle ditch when my mouth falls open.

  The castle wall that faces the town is not made of the same purple-banded stone as the town walls or the rest of the castle. It’s made of sturdy wooden palisades limewashed and stained to ape the stone. The wall still rises so sheer and high it hurts my neck to look at the top, but I held Caernarvon to be a great massive pillar of stone, solid as an anvil and mighty as a saint’s resolve.

  The castle is not as it seems.

  The sentries at the King’s Gate nod us through. Inside, the purple-banded parts form a meandering, drunken shell that’s still webbed with scaffolding and awash in mud.

  Edgeley and its greening yardlands are a world away, like something from a nursery story.

  My father dismounts before a wooden hall that’s ochered a deep red, and I do likewise. It’s not made of purple-banded stone, but at least it makes no pretense of being something it’s not.

  A man with a falcon-sharp face and a heavy gold chain abo
ut his shoulders beckons my father to the front of the hall. My father squeezes my elbow and departs, so I slump on a bench and cinch my arms over my belly. No one sits next to me. As other burgesses take seats, I catch sight of Emmaline de Coucy and her parents across the aisle.

  Emmaline is wearing a gown of the red Flanders finespun that nearly got Nicholas amerced and landed me unjustly in Court Baron. She lifts a cheerful hand when she sees me.

  I face forward.

  Even petting my mother’s vellet does not cheer me. Seeing that finespun on Emmaline’s back puts me in mind of my stolen altar cloth, which puts me in mind of Alice and Agnes and how far away they are. How far away Edgeley is.

  My father places his hand on a wood-bound book held out by the gold-shouldered man and swears to maintain the privileges of Caernarvon and conduct the town’s business thoroughly and a lot of other things I pay little heed to because I’m too busy wishing the castle were more like it should be and wondering who’s noticing me since I’m wearing my mother’s gown and hating Emmaline for her sleek, effortless plaits while mine look hagstirred from the buffeting wind off the strait.

  The gathered burgesses abruptly raise a cheer. My father clasps wrists with the gold-shouldered man, then steps into a crowd of burgesses who all clap him on the back or clasp his wrist or both.

  Good. It’s done.

  I rise and shake out my gown. There’s a clammy skin of sweat over my whole body. My hair is heavy and damp on my neck.

  Something seizes my arm. My father, and he’s grinning like a well-fed monk.

  “Oh, sweeting, it’s set and sealed! I couldn’t be happier!”

  I could. If a runner brought word that my uncle Roger was dead and we could go home to Edgeley. If I had that dratted gown of finespun on Emmaline’s back, which is rightfully mine. If I had a mouthful of wine.

  “It was lovely, Papa,” I lie. “Where are the horses?”

  My father beams down on me. “It’s not over, sweeting. Whenever they swear in a new man, they must check that the town’s liberties haven’t been encroached upon, so we must walk the boundary stones.”