The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  As soon as we’re back in my rearyard, she’s tumbling away like a fat wobbly puppy. By turns she’s carefree or intent on tiny things like dew on the greenery or the dregs in the pigling’s trough. She giggles like a drunkard and spins like a whipping top.

  I cannot imagine chasing a baby all day if this is what they’re like, but whenever she runs up and hugs me, a sticky embrace made fierce and swift like an attack, I always hug her back.

  The sky is still a deep sapphire when the row next door starts. There’s a lot of thumping and the clatter of feet and someone shrieking like a lost soul. The Glovers must have risen and found themselves a child short, though how that’s noticeable I know not.

  I tighten my bedrobe. “Come, let’s go find your mama.”

  “Mama,” echoes the baby, and she takes my hand and toddles with me up the greenway, through the gutter, to her door.

  No one answers my knock for several long moments, then a tousle-head boy peers out. He gives a great whoop and throws the door wide.

  “It’s Nessy! Mama! Nessy’s here!”

  Mistress Glover is at the door in moments; she scoops up the baby and squeezes her tight. Even with her great swarm of children, Mistress Glover kisses this small one and pets her hair and coos and embraces her again and again.

  Then Mistress Glover turns her petting on me and hugs me across the shoulders as much as she can with children hanging off both arms and crowding at her skirts. She thanks me up to the heavens for bringing back her lost lamb, who she thought for sure was down the well or in the millpond or beneath the hooves of some beast.

  I peel myself free and smooth my hair. “She was in our rearyard. I live next door.”

  “Oh, dear.” Mistress Glover hoists baby Nessy on her hip. “I hope she didn’t do you any ill.”

  My borage. My tansy, my fennel, eyebright, rue, lady’s mantle, coltsfoot. All gone. A whole year’s worth of herbs, stomped into pulp by small feet.

  But Mistress Glover is regarding me doe-eyed as if I’m a saint and running a hand again and again over Nessy’s thread-thin hair as the child snuggles against her mother’s shoulder, so I grit a smile and say, “No trouble, Mistress Glover. Really.”

  My father presents me with a piece of fine linen. He struts around like a peacock, proud of his largesse.

  “Now you can make a new altar cloth,” he says cheerfully. “A better one.” And he stands there with his chest puffed out waiting for hugs and squeals.

  I don’t want a new altar cloth. I want my old one.

  I hug him and thank him. I cannot muster squeals, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  When he leaves, I pin the linen on my frame. It’s soft and smooth, a clean panel just waiting for saints and holy figures, vine borders and spirals.

  I stare at the linen and my throat chokes up. So I unpin the cloth, fold it carefully, and retrieve my spindle. It’s possible to spin and cry. I’ve done it many times.

  It’s been raining for a solid se’ennight. This place has no seasons. Even summer is winter here.

  Ned Mercer calls just as dinner is ending. His black hair is damp and tousled from the mist, and he asks my father if he might take me on a walk since the weather has finally turned from deluge to heavy gray.

  Gracious, but he is lovely on the eyes.

  And I am wearing a kirtle with two different stains on it.

  My father squares up like a mastiff. “I think not, Mercer. Cecily is very young, and—”

  “Can I go, Papa?” I know my father is thick, but not so thick that he doesn’t notice a comely suitor doing his work for him. “Please? Getting out of the house would do me much good.”

  My father pauses. The war between paternal smothering and scrabbling for position in this backwater is plain in his every line.

  Finally he says, “If you’d have it so. And only because you’d have it so. Mistress Tipley goes with you.”

  Ned inclines his head politely. My father calls Mistress Tipley, and in a moment she appears in the hall in a jingle of keys that rightfully belong at my belt.

  I force down a scowl. A man should never see you scowl till after you’re married. My mother used to say that whenever I was surly, but I rarely saw her so much as frown.

  I kiss my father’s prickly cheek, then Mistress Tipley, Ned, and I squish into the dull gray chill.

  My hands are shaking. I grip my cloak and try to hide the worst stain, a dark gravy patch from breakfast.

  Ned moves easily at my side, graceful as a wolfhound. He’s speaking of the weather. I’m glad for it, since my throat is stoppered firmly and I couldn’t speak to save my neck.

  Mistress Tipley huffs and pants to keep up. Already she has fallen a stride behind. I take big steps to match Ned’s pace even though I’m almost trotting.

  Ned walks me past his townhouse, a brilliantly ochered structure across from the church. Through the window, I see a workroom much like my own, only this one is tinted a strong and living green. There’s a big trestle table, and seated there is a well-groomed apprentice busily sorting skeins of silky-looking yarn.

  The whole room smells like ginger and wool.

  I could very much get used to it.

  I’m fussing with some transplanted seedlings in my garden when Mistress Glover appears at the fence.

  “Have you seen Nessy?” she asks.

  “Sorry, no.” And thank goodness for that.

  But then I notice that her eyes are wild and her face is as pale as her wimple.

  “I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” Mistress Glover whispers. “And she likes your house, so I thought . . .”

  I rise and dust off my hands. “She’s not here. Are you sure she’s not just hiding from you? Playing a trick?”

  Mistress Glover shakes her head. “Nessy is too small for tricks. Besides, I’ve searched the house from top to bottom. The lads have been up and down the street. No one has so much as seen her.”

  “She has to be somewhere nearby,” I say soothingly, but my stomach is full of odd little pangs. “Let me ask my father if I can help you look.”

  Not only does my father give permission, he joins the search himself. “She could not have gotten without the walls on her own.”

  My father underestimates Nessy’s ability to get places she isn’t supposed to be.

  But by sundown, we’ve knocked on every door and searched every empty lot and outbuilding. Mistress Glover is all but raving and Master Glover quietly sits on the threshold drinking claret. There’s nary a sign of a lost baby anywhere in Caernarvon. It’s as though she’s vanished from God’s green earth.

  Nessy Glover is still missing. Hue and cry has been raised, but a formal search of the town by the constable himself and both bailiffs has turned up nothing.

  Today they’re dredging the castle ditch and both millponds.

  The town is so tense, I nearly forego supervising Mistress Tipley’s marketing. Men mutter in doorways and women don’t tarry long at the well. Even children move about quietly. No frantic patter of feet and no shouting in street or yard. I breathe easier when we’re safely home.

  I search our rearyard for the fifth time, Salvo limping at my heels. Mayhap an impish golden head will pop out from behind the rain barrel, chortling nonsense baby words and oblivious to the panic she’s caused.

  No luck.

  Around midday, Ned turns up on my doorstep. I’ve been changing the linen and my hair is in a state. I start frantically smoothing stray tendrils behind my ears, but he says, “I beg your pardon, demoiselle, but today I’ve come for your father. We must question the Welshry.” He’s slapping a sturdy blackthorn cudgel against his palm.

  “But why?” I’m still fighting my hair into some kind of order and covertly biting my lips to redden them. “My father says Nessy couldn’t have gotten without the walls.”

  “Unless one of those—people—abducted her,” Ned replies with a tight, forced smile. “So we must, er, question them.”

  God only knows
why anyone would want to steal a baby, troublesome creatures that they are. But I don’t tell Ned this. Instead I bid him Godspeed and try to enjoy the back of him when I see him and my father off.

  Caernarvon is still as a graveyard. Usually the streets are bustling and the gate is crowded, but the serjeants have closed the murage trestle and only burgesses may pass.

  I know not what else to do, so I take a loaf of sweet bread to Mistress Glover’s house. One of her sons silently shows me to the hall. The whole room is packed with women and the trestle is loaded with stews, cakes, and even a haunch of mutton studded with cloves. Mistress Glover sits ashen and dry-eyed at the hearth, her flock of sun-browned children arrayed like quiet dolls at her feet.

  I stay as long as I can bear, then escape home.

  My father isn’t back from questioning the Welshry till long past curfew. I’m dozing before the banked hearth, but I leap up to hear the news when I hear him banging down the corridor.

  Just one look at him and my heart sinks. They’ve not found her. Not even a trace.

  My father is muddy to the knees and his forearms are badly scraped. He tosses a blackthorn cudgel into a corner and curtly bids me go to bed.

  Dim, but growing louder every moment, is a clacking of clappers and the echoey thudding of drums. I make it to High Street in time to see a scruffy Welshman being rattle-and-drummed toward the castle by a crowd of raging townspeople. The bailiffs ride grim-faced and the Welshman must stagger behind them since he’s tethered by the wrists to their horses, but he’s hollering his innocence with every stumbling step.

  At supper, my father is in high spirits and answers my question ere I can even ask it.

  “Black Reese of Trecastell,” my father tells me. “A vile brute of a highwayman who haunts the king’s road to Chester, but he’ll hang for the abduction and like as not murder of Nessy Glover.”

  “Like as not?” I ask hopefully. “They haven’t found her body yet?”

  My father shakes his head and pours himself a mug of undiluted wine. “Black Reese swears he’s never laid eyes on the girl, but the bailiffs have him in the darkest hole in Caernarvon. He’ll confess soon enough.”

  “Do you suppose he really did it?”

  My father shrugs. “No reason he wouldn’t.”

  I chew my bread thoughtfully. “If he did abduct her, what does he gain by denying it? Would he not instead demand a ransom?”

  My father bangs his mug down. “Jesu, Cecily, the burgesses are doing the whole castlery a favor by sending this cur to meet his Maker.”

  “But isn’t it unlawful to—”

  “Enough! The man is guilty of something!”

  I nod slowly because I know better than to challenge that tone, but if Black Reese is to be hanged for something, it should at least be a crime he’s actually committed.

  THE priest’s boy comes to the door. He asks if I know of anyone in the vale who is missing a baby.

  Long past sundown. On my feet all day. Wrung out like a rag. But the word stills my hand on the kettle.

  “Baby?”

  The servant nods. “Girl-baby. Two milk-teeth on top. She doesn’t say a word, so they don’t know her name. Yellow curly hair. Like a little angel, they say.”

  “They?”

  “A herdsman out in Llanrug found her. Cadwallon ap Goronwy. His wife is called Gwladys. No one they know recognizes the little lass. They’ve no idea what to do. They’re too old to raise another.” The boy shakes his head. “Poor little thing. Her mam and da must be frantic.”

  Girl-baby. Curly yellow hair. Like a little angel.

  It cannot be. It’s too far. And without the walls.

  It has to be. Her mam and da are frantic.

  Release a long breath. “The baby belongs within the walls. She’s an honesti baby.”

  The boy crosses himself, babbles a string of oaths. “Christ help us. What’ll I tell the herdsman?”

  “Tell him . . .” Grit my teeth. No way out but through. “Tell him to bring the baby to the Saturday market and hand her over to the gatemen.”

  The boy gapes. “I’ll not! You’re mad!”

  “English will praise the Almighty to find the baby alive.” Press a hand to my eyes. “Besides, would it be better for English to find the baby at Cadwallon’s steading? They’ll go croft to croft soon enough.”

  The boy shudders, reluctantly nods, takes his leave.

  By dying firelight, look down at Mam curled like a stringy corpse beneath her blankets. Honesti mother had better thank God on her knees for the safe return of her child. It’s a lot more than some mothers get.

  MY FATHER has been given an office of charge. He says it’s almost unheard of that a burgess so new to the privileges is entrusted with responsibility in the borough government, and he does his mad capering dance the length and breadth of my workroom before all the neighbors of Shire Hall Street.

  I would we had better shutters.

  He is now Officer of the Town Mills. He is charged to regularly visit the two mills, the one on the Cadnant and the one at Porth Mawr. He’s to survey the grindstones and ensure that the millers take no more than their due and that the quality of the flour is acceptable. The Officer of the Town Mills is also required to regularly ride through both the castlery and the Welshry to ensure that no man has a handmill, and if any man is grinding his own grain, to bring him before borough court for amercement.

  My father is very proud of his office of charge. We have a haunch of mutton and sage wine to celebrate. His office will give him something to do and keep him out of trouble. And hopefully out of my workroom, too.

  Mistress Tipley and I are heading home with the day’s bread when we hear an earsplitting shriek near the gate. I fling the bread at Mistress Tipley and fly toward the clamor.

  Just within the gate is Mistress Glover—hugging Nessy!

  Townspeople crowd around, cheering, blessing the baby, patting both Glovers as they hug and squeeze their errant child. I can barely see Nessy through the welter of arms and bodies, but her cheeks are pink and she’s squealing merrily just as I remember.

  I grin big as market day. God is merciful to sinners.

  Nearby, three serjeants form a well-armed ring around an elderly couple, who cringe and glance about uncertainly. One of the serjeants clears his throat and says, “Master Glover?”

  Mistress Glover looks up over Nessy’s blond head. Her eyes are streaming and cold like a wolf’s. “They’ll hang with Black Reese.”

  I frown. If Nessy is safe, surely the burgesses will let Black Reese go.

  The old woman says something in Welsh angled like a question. Her voice is a panicky stutter. The old man chimes in with a protest, calm but desperate. But the serjeants pay them no mind and jerk them toward the gatehouse.

  Nessy appeared in my rearyard and tore up my garden. No one marched me off to be hanged when I brought her home.

  I press close to Mistress Glover. “Mayhap we should ask them how they came to have Nessy.”

  “They took my Nessy,” Mistress Glover growls. “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand.”

  “Look at her,” I insist. “Nessy has been gone a fortnight and there’s not a scratch on her. It wouldn’t be right to hang them with no cause. What if they helped Nessy?”

  Mistress Glover looks down at her pink, healthy child for a long moment, then nods reluctantly. The elderly couple are manhandled before her and both begin a frantic chatter in Welsh.

  “Speak properly!” Mistress Glover shrieks, and both of them cringe and fall silent and gesture with gnarled hands.

  “I don’t think they can,” I say into the quiet that’s descended.

  “Then they hang!”

  Mistress Tipley pushes to my elbow and bobs her head to Mistress Glover. “They’re saying they found the baby eating turnips in their garden. They live all the way out in Llanrug and none of their neighbors recognized her. They had no idea she belonged within the walls or they would have brought he
r sooner. They beg you to show mercy.”

  I stare openmouthed at Mistress Tipley. She can understand Welsh!

  “Nessy looks well fed,” Mistress Tipley adds, “and look how clean her face and feet are.”

  Mistress Glover scrubs at her wet cheeks. “Oh, you lot deal with them!” And she turns on her heel and bustles up High Street with Nessy peeking over her shoulder.

  I turn a pleading gaze on Master Glover while Mistress Tipley glowers at him, hands on hips, and at length he bids the serjeants to release the couple. The two poor souls lean on each other, faint with relief, then fly through the city gate as if the Adversary is seeking them.

  If it had been my baby returned hale and plump, all but back from the dead, I would have at least thanked the people who fed and tended her.

  Even if they were Welsh.

  IT’S all over the Welshry. Gwladys and Cadwallon of Llanrug were as good as dead, accosted at the city gate with the baby they’d been wringing their hands over. The baby they’d been tending with the last of their milk and borrowed oatbread.

  The honesti baby that castle English have been threshing the Welshry to find.

  Gwladys and Cadwallon of Llanrug were as good as dead, sent to their fate by naught less than my foolish belief that English would celebrate the baby’s safe return more than they’d demand vengeance for her disappearance.

  But Gwladys and Cadwallon were spared because of an English girl who spoke for them brassy as you please right before castle English who would have strung them up then and there.

  Mayhap they helped Nessy, she said. It wouldn’t be right to hang them without cause.

  And castle English stayed their hands.

  They’re saying it was the brat. My brat. Brattily Bratly of Shire Hall Street.

  Gwladys and Cadwallon live. Their home intact. Limbs aright. Not even a bruise. For no other reason than the kindness of the brat.

  Wait for her to crow and preen. But all she does is wrap a honey cake and bid me take it to the honesti baby next door.