The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  I grab two wedges of cheese and another tart. I’ve not even put my feet in the water and this whiny little mouse would drag us back to the sweltering town merely because she fears her own shadow.

  William takes her hand kindly. “I should never have allowed you to come. The fault is mine. But Belvero and Whetenhale would never spare me to bear you home to Warwick, or even to our lodgings in Shrewsbury. The part of the fifteenth we collected back at Easter was barely adequate, so the October sum must make up for it.”

  “I’m weary to death of hearing of this fool tax!” Aline shakes off William’s hand and folds her arms like an ill-mannered child.

  I’m weary to death of hearing her fool voice, but I’ll not be rude about it.

  William selects the biggest apple tart, gently untangles Aline’s arms, and tucks the pastry into her hand. Her surly pout cracks, then she cuts her eyes to him and takes a bite. He grins and plants a smacking kiss on her cheek.

  If we were still at Edgeley, there would be ten kind, comely souls like William lined up outside the door, every man of them begging for the chance to become the heir to a well-run manor like Edgeley.

  But we’re not at Edgeley.

  I shove the last of a tart into my mouth and tromp down to the river. I kick off my shoes and pull up my hem just the smallest bit. The ground is cold and moist, the water deliciously freezing. Like balm against my sweaty feet.

  I take out my handkerchief and peer into the creek for fish, just as I used to do on the bank of Edgeley Run.

  When I risk a glance behind me, William and Aline are feeding one another tidbits and Evilbeth has taken out her spindle. Emmaline stands apart, gazing toward the angry purple mountains that rise sheer and stark to the south, one hand gently stroking the broad leaf of some bushy plant.

  I’ve seen that look ere this. My father has it as he strolls town and castlery, whistling just as cheerfully as he did walking Edgeley’s yardlands.

  It’s midafternoon when we pack up to leave. At least, they do. I’m still in the stream shallows with a wet hem. The trees dapple shade on my hands and bone-cold water ripples around my ankles and I never want to go back to the dank rotting town, never.

  “Come, Cecily!” Emmaline calls as she hands the hamper to her maid. Her feet are rubbed pink, without even a line of mud beneath her toenails to betray her.

  Evilbeth rolls her eyes and mutters to Aline, who grins.

  God save me from being a shrewish harridan when I’m grown.

  I look around one last time, drinking in the graceful limbs and the gentle murmur of water over stones. I never thought to memorize Edgeley Run like this. I never knew it would be needful.

  I’m glad to know this place is here.

  The others are already disappearing among the trees and I hurry to catch up. William strides at the fore, Emmaline is a few paces behind him, and then come Evilbeth and Aline, with the maids trudging at the rear. I whisk past the maids, then push past the two shrews. I’ve just shouldered past Emmaline when the bushes shudder.

  Men rise out of the brush like ghosts, at least a dozen, on both sides of the deer track.

  Behind me, a girl screams.

  William drops a hand to his sword.

  But ere he can draw it, the men pelt him with rubbish. Rotting turnips, handfuls of mud, horse apples, all flying in a stinking wave from every side, splattering, smearing, whacking, and thumping. The men jeer and shout in tongue-pull as they throw.

  William holds both arms over his face to ward off the barrage. He’s cursing like a drunken carter.

  A handful of muck splatters my gown just above the knee. Slimy green and brown, God knows what.

  “You miserable misbegotten brutes!” My voice is shrill and brittle. “I will see you all hang for this!”

  But the men have already vanished, leaving naught but waving branches and a vile midden stink.

  William straightens, lowers his arms. His tunic is motley with chunks and smears of refuse. Something pulpy caught him upside the head and clings in gobbets in his hair. He looks like a mad leper thrice-spurned by God.

  Emmaline rushes to his side and makes to seize his shoulder, then pulls away. She looks a little greensick. “William! Are you sound?”

  He skins off his hood and wrings murky liquid from it. “It’ll avail them not a bit. Not one bit.”

  I turn to William and bare my teeth like an animal. “Hang them. Hang them all.”

  He uses his hood to wipe rotting muck from his arms and chest. “I regret your gown, demoiselle. That was not meant for you.”

  I sputter. I stammer. I stomp and kick the brush. I’ve sworn enough curses to earn a hundred Aves at my next confession. And I have to bite my tongue to keep from earning a hundred more.

  “They’re getting bolder,” William says with a grim laugh. “Last time it was just words, and words these days are enough to get a Welshman amerced.”

  A splatter of muck on sky-blue linen. Stains mocking fuller’s earth already, and my father as miserly as a miller in debt. I shake my skirts and a shower of filth tumbles down. “A curse on every Welshman ever born. God be praised they’re not permitted within the walls. Caernarvon is almost tolerable without any Welshmen in it.”

  “We will go house to house to collect this tax, hafod to hafod if need be.” William draws his sword and nods us down the path. “No man wants to pay his taxes, but the Welsh must put their share forward, same as the rest of the realm.”

  We walk in silence for some time. William’s bootsteps squish. Evilbeth and Aline creep like cats and leap at the smallest sound. Even Emmaline walks on her brother’s very heels. William grips his sword till his knuckles whiten.

  “I warned you,” Aline snivels. “It’s not safe anywhere in this dreadful place.”

  “It’s not common for them to harry a taxator,” William says over his shoulder, “but it’s not unheard of. It’s getting worse, though.”

  “You’re a taxator?” I ask. “When did his Grace the king call another tax?”

  William snorts. “This is the tax of the fifteenth that was called two years ago, demoiselle. Wales is not easy to tax. But his Grace the king will not give up. He beggared himself bringing the Welsh to heel. High time they repaid it.”

  “My father won’t be happy to hear from you,” I tell William. “He was on his knees with his paternoster for blasphemy for a whole se’ennight the last time he was assessed.”

  “Your father has naught to worry about,” William replies. “Burgesses in the Principality are never subject to taxation.”

  “They’re not? Not ever?”

  “Heavens, no!” William laughs. “Nor are they required to pay a penny in tolls, not even market tolls.”

  I’ve passed that trestle on the mill bridge dozens of times, dozens of Saturday markets, and skimmed past the Welsh lined up for leagues with their grubby coins and wads of butter and baskets of eggs.

  They must want to trade at the market pretty badly to stand in line for so long and part with their goods to pay tolls.

  William insists on seeing me to my door. Aline is one massive scowl and Evilbeth is drawn tighter than a bowstring. Emmaline squeezes my arm and thanks me for coming.

  “We shall have to meet again,” Emmaline says cheerfully, as if William is not covered in filth and the rest of us skittish as colts. “When your maid has recovered, you’ll come to my house and we’ll spin.”

  Yes. My maid. My nonexistent maid.

  I try to seem pleased at the prospect as I hurry toward my door. When I look over my shoulder, I catch Evilbeth’s cruel, knowing smile.

  POOR girl is almost dry. She lows as I milk her, but there’s naught to be done for the heat that parches the soil.

  There’s even less to be done for Crown measures and market penny, and God help you should you seek redress. Fanwra from down the vale may never recover from that month on the gatehouse floor.

  Almost a bucket of milk. Mayhap it will be enough. Silver in their pal
ms and mayhap they’ll leave us our cow. Part is better than naught. Even taxmen must know that.

  Bucket in my hand sways like a hanged man as I set off toward that eyesore on the strait. Handle digs into my palm, gritty.

  Take the long way. Fewer Watchers. And with any fortune, Dafydd will be waiting on the other path, the one the timber gangers use.

  Saturday, and the roads are full of dusty feet and baskets on backs. Fall into step with them. Say naught. None of us do. Plod toward the castle. Toward the swarm of souls without the walls on the market common.

  Horseback English ride, pressing horseflesh through the queue. Step away from hooves and heels. They watch, not us but our goods. They watch our hands to make sure naught passes between us. If we trade away from the walls, they’re denied their share of our sweat.

  If we trade away from the walls, they amerce us and take more.

  English at the trestle looks me up and down. “Lastage, and market penny.”

  “Half measure milk instead?” My words in their tongue are purposefully stumbling, purposefully broken. It’s never good to let them know what you know.

  “Silver,” says trestle English. “Or be gone.”

  Could bribe him. Others do. A heaping Crown measure, and the need for silver is suddenly weaker. But betimes the “gift” disappears and still they demand silver.

  Slam the coins down before him. The whole trestle shudders. Horseback English turn, poised like wolfhounds. Trestle English narrows his eyes as he slides the coins into his palm.

  Brace for the blow, standing to like a foot soldier. Some take special pleasure if you beg or cower.

  But trestle English merely reaches across to chalk me, to keep the levelookers off. Mustn’t flinch. Not a hairsbreadth. The milk will spill, and part is better than naught.

  He chalks me across my tit, cups it, squeezes, smiles. Stand to. Not a hairsbreadth. Stare through him.

  Eyes are stinging. Must be the dust.

  Sway past the trestle, into the market beneath the walls. Find the other dairy girls, chalked over the tits same as me, the cheeses and butter and endless buckets of milk already ripening in the sun.

  Flies in my milk. Scoop them out, cover my pail with what’s left of my cloak.

  And he comes through the crowd, damn him, golden and glowing like a war-band chief. My penance for a lapse in judgment I’d have back at any price.

  Pull my hood over my eyes and slump, but it’s for naught. Dafydd is already heading toward the dairy row.

  “They charged me double toll again,” he says cheerfully. “You can be sure it’ll go in my next petition to the king. I’ll tell him, ‘Your Grace, not only is it unlawful, but I’ll be obliged to court my beloved in my smallclothes.’”

  He means to make me smile, so I try for courtesy’s sake. But the walls cut a harsh shadow across the market, even at midday.

  Dafydd kneels, pretends to examine the milk. “If they’re resorting to such petty tricks, the nerve I hit is raw. My petition will eventually be granted. They cannot keep me out forever.”

  It isn’t. It won’t. They can.

  “Caernarvon won’t change unless we make it change,” he whispers. “There’s naught in the king’s law that says a Welshman cannot take a burgage. All this ill is just the burgesses guarding their privileges. Changing anything takes strength, and I know no one stronger than you. I need you.”

  Choke on a sound, an animal sound. All the strength in the world did naught for Da. “Changing anything takes sacrifice, and that’s a luxury I cannot afford.”

  “When we’re successful, you’ll be able to afford all the luxuries to hand, and some you just dream up.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” Dafydd lifts my chin with two fingers. “I love you. I want you as my wife.”

  Flinch. Remember despite myself. His gentle hand sliding up the small of my back, his warm breath against my neck.

  Look down. My knees dig into sun-baked dust. A chalk gash over my tit.

  Shake my head, curt, like a fist to the jaw.

  “Why not?”

  Two pennies poorer and naught to show, horseback English watch my hands, and above us all rise those purple-banded walls that can be seen for leagues.

  He must notice how my eyes slice over the market, for he sobers and says, “It just wants one crack, Gwenhwyfar. Just one crack and then time will do its work.”

  It does want a crack. One dealt with knives and fists and red, raw anger. One dealt with the gallows in plain view. English understand naught else.

  Pull my hood over my eyes, stare into the milk. Dafydd takes the hint and rocks to his feet. “Right, then, I’m off. But you’ll see me again. I don’t give up easy, you know.” His voice softens. “Not for the things that matter.”

  Linen shuffles, and he’s gone. Risk a glance after him. Hate him for that square of shoulders, that proud, lovely stride.

  This is why, Dafydd. Because you’re a fool.

  They come at night. Man-shaped shadows, sleek like wolves and faceless in the dark. By morning, something English will be in ashes or hamstrung or torn to pieces or just plain gone. They’ve come for Peredur’s son, and Gruffydd ap Peredur goes to the door to give them his regrets.

  “This is not the way.” Gruffydd glances over his shoulder at Mam and me. “Too much risk and naught to gain.”

  “Your father thought otherwise.” The voice without the door is harsh, disparaging.

  “Aye,” Gruffydd replies, equally cold. “Look what it got him.”

  Somewhere in the rafters is Da’s spear. Slid there to wait by some comrade lost to memory while Da still hung from the walls. But Gruffydd does not look up. He meets the gaze of the hooded shadow and does not flinch or beg pardon when he tells the men to go with God, that for everyone’s sake they were never here.

  Gruffydd’s tread is heavy as he makes his way fireside and collapses on his pallet.

  Lie back on my own pallet as the fire sputters its last orange breath. Mam next to me sleeps as if she’s dead already. Stare hard into the thatch, trying to make out some stray wink of steel. Just so I know it’s still there.

  BEASTLY-HOT AIR drafts through my shutters. I’m in bed wide awake. My bare skin is damp, my bedclothes are damp, and Gwinny’s going to have to air the linen again today because I’m sick to bleeding death of this sticky-foul cling of damp cloth.

  I rise and open the shutters. The sky is a most lovely shade of deep blue. It was never this blue at Edgeley.

  The house is silent. There are no thumpings in the rearyard, so no one has risen to prime the kitchen fire. It must be very early.

  I should just go back to bed. But then I’ll have to lie in mucky-damp linen.

  I struggle into a shift and put on my bedrobe. I pad belowstairs into a hall that’s much cooler than my chamber. By the rear door, there are two buckets full of water. Just as there should be.

  Gwinny may be difficult, but at least she’s a decent enough servant.

  The rearyard is deliciously cool. Salvo sleeps against the kitchen wall, sprawled like a dogskin rug. I check his water pan, then lift my leaky watering bucket off its peg, dip it into the bigger bucket, and swing it dripping toward my garden.

  That’s when I see the child.

  The little urchin is wearing naught but a sleeveless shift and she’s standing smack amid my neat rows of herbs. Her fat fists are crammed with bright blue borage.

  “Yook,” the herb-trampler tells me, “fow-ers.”

  My garden is pulverized. Stalks crushed, smashed, pulped, uprooted. Chunky little footprints criss and cross through the disaster, and in case there is some doubt as to who the culprit might be, this little thing is filthy knees and elbows and—saints preserve me—mouth.

  The urchin smiles. She holds out the crushed borage, dirt dangling from the roots.

  “You must be one of those tenscore Glover creatures from next door,” I mutter. “Your rotten brothers throw mud at my l
aundry.”

  She smiles and opens her hand. Mangled borage falls at her filthy feet.

  “You need to go home. Go away. Shoo. Back where you belong.” So I can see what can be salvaged of this mess.

  I point to the greenway that leads to the street out front, but the child makes no move to obey. Instead she stomps her stubby feet in what’s left of my tansy.

  God save me ere I have any babies. They are grabby, clingy little beasts who steal your figure and always want a ribbon or a wooden sword. And who sometimes make you die bearing them.

  “Come with me, then.” I rise and unstick my shift from my backside, then head down the greenway. The child doesn’t follow. She’s uprooting fennel and flinging it and chortling.

  I consider dragging her by the wrist, but then she’d squawk and bring not only the house but all of Shire Hall Street to gape and snicker at me in my sweaty underthings when I haven’t even washed my face or put a comb to my hair.

  Cringing, I hoist the urchin up, one hand beneath each armpit, and hold her at arm’s length. She doesn’t protest. In fact, she giggles as if we’re playing some game. I stagger through the greenway into the Glovers’ dooryard, lower her gritty little feet onto the hearthstone, dust off my hands, and head up the path.

  There’s a pattering and she’s right behind me, treading on my heels, grabbing at my bedrobe.

  “No. You stay here.” I shoo her back to the hearthstone as if she’s a halfwit baby Salvo. “Stay. You stay.”

  She sucks in a big sobby breath and lets it out as a throaty whine that steadily grows in volume.

  The sky is still a deep night-blue and all the buildings are black. Caernarvon is utterly still, like we’re the only souls within.

  She is really quite small. Too small to know better than to throw mud at laundry.

  “Very well.” I hold out a hand and she leaps at it. I am the most selfless Christian in all of Christendom. “Let’s go back to my house. What are you called?”

  The child doesn’t answer. She’s obviously not the sharpest little knife in the Glovers’ brace.