The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  “Hey, Papa.” I force my voice even. “Papa, Henry, I think you should see this.”

  My father and Henry cut the ropes in a trice and help the poor lad to his feet. He scowls at them and shakes off their hands, muttering in Welsh.

  “Who did this to you?” my father demands.

  The boy stares mutely, defiantly.

  “It was those whoresons with blackened faces, wasn’t it?” My father mutters another foul swear that unfortunately I don’t quite catch. “Bastards think they can wreak violence on the few of you with half a measure of loyalty, do they? I shall see them punished, mark me.”

  “He will,” I assure the boy. “He helped put all three of those women in the stocks last month, the ones who tried to sneak into the market without paying the toll. And those lads that sank that barge at the Grandison wharf. The bailiffs are still tracking down whoever carved those, er, offensive pictures into the city gates, but my father thinks the Porth Mawr miller knows who did it, so he’s being questioned even now. Whoever it was, though, God help him. I doubt there’ll be much left of him to hang.”

  The boy squints at my father and mutters something that sounds like tooth-dee-din, which I take to mean thank you.

  “Back to your labor, then,” my father says in a gentler tone. “Not your fault, lad. Mind yourself, though. Watchers are hard to come by.”

  The boy stumbles away through the furrows. Just looking at his clotted scalp makes my head throb, but soon the poor lad will have justice. My father will see to it.

  My father needs some sacks of grain moved into the shed. I know just the man for the job.

  I send one of the Glover boys for Griffith, and as always, he comes trudging up Shire Hall as if being led to the gallows. As he passes the house, Griffith looks up at it as if it will eat him bone and toenail, and when he sees me at my father’s window he quickly drops his gaze.

  I flutter my fingers and stare him into the rearyard. He does not look up anymore.

  Gwinny is sweeping my chamber. I can hear the scratch of broomstraws on the floor as I sail down the stairs, tying my cloak and pulling on gloves.

  The cold is searing outside the hall. I bounce on my heels in the storage chamber and rub my hands while my father gives Griffith his instructions. He speaks loud and slow and repeats himself thrice.

  Then my father clumps back inside. He doesn’t see me in the shadows, and I give him plenty of time to settle himself before the hearth with a mug ere I hitch my gown up just enough and stride into the rearyard.

  “G’morn, Griffith,” I say sweetly, even though the cold is crippling and it’s hard not to curl into myself and shudder.

  He freezes, his back to me and a sack on his shoulder. It’s heavy. I can tell by how he’s listing. His whole body slumps like one great sob.

  I smile. “I wonder how your lessons are coming today.”

  Griffith’s gloves have no fingers and he has no cloak, merely a tunic that’s seen more than one winter. His cheeks are already burned red and his ears are twice wrapped in wool, but still his hair tangles out like ribbons.

  “Demoiselle,” he finally says, “would you not rather be in by the fire? This weather is not fit for dogs.”

  It’s rising Tierce. It’s cold enough to freeze the beard off an icon. Yet he stands with a hundredstone weight on his shoulder while his rag-wrapped feet sink ever deeper into mud clods because he dares not answer and dares not ignore.

  “Doubtless no,” I purr. “I have all morning.”

  Griffith grimaces as he shifts beneath the weight. “By your leave, then? Should I get this finished, I can—”

  “Are you looking at me again?”

  He opens his mouth. Closes it. Shakes his head once, curtly.

  I perch on the kitchen stump and get on with my teaching.

  IT’S better when she’s gone. Can pretend this house is Pencoed and it’s my floor to sweep. My linen to hem. My hearth to stoke.

  Pencoed was taken, though. Bastards took everything.

  Wouldn’t have it different. Having now means kneeling then. Kneeling before them, taking their king’s peace.

  Da would not. So English took everything. Even his life.

  Cold. Bone-biting cold. Must sweep for warmth. All the dim corners and forgotten places.

  Must close those rotten shutters.

  Lean out to seize the straps. And see them. Gruffydd and the brat.

  It grieves me to say it, she says with a smile of pure venom, but you’re just not learning anything at all. What would the king say, could he see us now? Mayhap you’ll never learn, no matter how much you study your lessons. Mayhap you’re just not capable of it. I wonder what we’d have to do with you then.

  Gruffydd is red and sick and scuffing the icy ground and not looking at her and it’s her, it’s the brat, she’s the one plaguing Gruffydd and it’s worse again than he ever let on and God help me I’ll kill her dead and go to the gallows and not a vile English soul in this Godforsaken town will hire Gruffydd’s labor again and Mam will starve and freeze and die.

  Lean against the wall. Gasping.

  He was ready to kill them all with his toy spear when they came to seize Pencoed and Mam threw a blanket over us and told us to make no noise, not a sound, and I held my hand over his mouth and gripped him still while he fought to get free and things crashed beyond the wool and Mam wept and men shouted and I whispered over and over for him not to be afraid, that all would end up well.

  Liar.

  Rock away from the wall. Storm to the garment rod. Gowns hang there. Shifts. Hose and slippers and ribbons and surcotes.

  Rose gown is on top. The one I put a thousand-thousand stitches into till my eyes hurt, and with no thanks. No notice of my bleeding fingers.

  Seize that rag by the collar and rip. It tears in two with a satisfying groan and I laugh and sob and kill it some more, till it’s dead in pieces on the floor. Sleeves like slain birds. Wrought hem like a gallows noose.

  Throw its corpse down. Pick up the yellow gown and tear.

  The lot of them should burn.

  SOMETHING’S HAPPENING in the house. There’s clunking and banging and the strangest other sound. Groaning?

  Mayhap Ned has returned to try his luck against my father’s rage.

  Griffith is all but in tears. I’ve only permitted him to move three sacks. And I could easily stretch this work out all day. Whether I will or not I haven’t decided. I sweetly promise to return as soon as I’m able and I swish all hips into the house.

  The hall is quiet. My father is nowhere in sight, but Nicholas dozes before the fire in the big master’s chair he’s dragged from the trestle. Salvo sleeps on his feet.

  The strange noise is clearer in the hall. It’s not a groaning sound at all. It’s a ripping sound.

  Something is being torn abovestairs.

  I take the stairs two at a time. At the curtain, I stop cold.

  I cannot be seeing true.

  There is clothing everywhere.

  No. No, there are pieces of clothing everywhere. My garment rod is empty and there are skirts across the bed and sleeves on the floor and a leg of hose dangling from the shutter and scattered about are scraps that might have once been ties or hems or girdle lacings.

  Gwinny stands in the middle of the wreckage, panting as if winded from a sprint. Her fists are stiff at her sides and both clutch handfuls of wool scraps. She looks poised to attack, like a mad dog or a boar.

  Christ and all the saints but she will pay! And not just at Court Baron.

  I seize her wrist and haul her from the room as hard as I can. She bangs an elbow on the doorframe and cries out.

  “After all I’ve done for you, too!” I leap the last two stairs and heave her toward the hall. “My father will be furious and you will be cartwhipped.”

  Nicholas blearily rocks into a sitting position and Salvo creaks aloft his gray head.

  I throw Gwinny before Nicholas and howl, “I’ve had all I can bear from thi
s servant my father won’t let me get rid of. I’d have her punished for ruining my garments!”

  Nicholas blinks and rubs his eyes. “I’m sure there’s naught wrong with your foolish gowns.”

  “She tore them all!” I lash a finger at Gwinny as if dealing the mark of Cain. “Every last thing I own is in ribbons!”

  Gwinny says naught. Her eyes are red, as if it is she who’s been wronged and betrayed.

  Nicholas frowns and stretches. “This is something your father should—”

  “My father isn’t here!” I glare at him with all my hating. “Are you not a man? Punish her!”

  “Wait here,” Nicholas says grimly, and he goes abovestairs. When he returns, his face is terrible. He towers over Gwinny and demands, “What would make you do such a thing?”

  Gwinny looks at me long and level, then turns her eyes to the floor.

  “Cart. Whipped.” I snap each word as I cannot Gwinny’s neck. “She has devils in her.”

  Nicholas’s face is black as sin. He takes Gwinny by the elbow and roughly tows her out the rearyard door.

  KNOW what’s coming. Not afraid. Keep my eyes down, though. No need to make it worse.

  The cold is blistering. Fingers stiffen in instants. Wind makes a mask of my face.

  Oh, Christ. Gruffydd is by the shed, something on his shoulder. Catch his eye and shake my head. He must not step into this. The brat cannot know this matters to him.

  Put both hands on the kitchen wall. Not afraid.

  Brace.

  A stripe of fire across my back. Curl my fingers against the wattles. Dig nails in.

  A second blow over the first and I cry out. A third. Salted daggers carve from shoulder to backside, curling beneath my arms, nipping ribs. Christ help me, I’m dying on my knees in the snow while leather sings and my back opens and my throat goes raw and little ones look after littler ones no matter what the cost.

  IT’S OVER ere I know it. Gwinny is sobbing in a heap in the snow. Mistress Tipley flies out of the kitchen, her sleeves still rolled to the elbow, and she falls to her knees at Gwinny’s side.

  “Happy?” Nicholas asks me curtly. He turns on his heel and strides into the house.

  Griffith stands in the shed’s doorway, gripping the frame as if it’s the neck of something deadly. He starts toward Gwinny, then hesitates, cuts his eyes to me.

  I will not be trifled with. That’s the lesson he must study over all the rest.

  I follow Nicholas into the house, but I don’t stop in the hall. I don’t even acknowledge his shaky voice offering me a drink of undiluted wine. I stomp abovestairs, grinding my toes against every step.

  There are rags all over my chamber. Rags, where once I had gowns.

  I kneel, collect a few scraps of rose wool. These stitches were strong, too. Tiny and doubled-up. Some of my best work, and like as not Gwinny’s too. Now the edges are frayed and tangled. They’ll not even be stitched back together in this state.

  I close my eyes.

  Later today I will show this mess to my father and he will shrug unhelpfully and give me the usual nonsense about how every penny he has will go to keeping us in bread this winter and there’s no coin to spare for frivolities—that’s how he’ll put it, frivolities, as if my whole life isn’t in tatters—and what’s wrong with the gown I’m wearing, anyway?

  Later today I’ll have to go to the Coucy house. The lady de Coucy will eye my ragged cuffs and explain to me for the better part of an afternoon why ragged cuffs will mark me a novi and no good lady of Caernarvon should be seen outside wearing clothing in ill repair and I’d know that if I paid half a mind to her but apparently I’m too ignorant to even listen properly.

  I gave Gwinny a gown. We saw justice done to a filthy swine of a levelooker who abused his position of power in the borough. She even helped me fend off the unwanted advances of a known scoundrel who sought to take advantage of my youth and gentle nature.

  And this—this!—is how I’m repaid.

  Gwinny will curse the hour she wronged Cecily d’Edgeley.

  I don’t give Mistress Tipley the chance to give her a soft task, tucked away in some warm corner of the kitchen. I call Gwinny abovestairs to clean this mess.

  It seems forever ere there’s a dragging on the stairs, then Gwinny appears at the curtain. She’s the color of new cheese and she moves like a stiff puppet on strings.

  “Pick it up.” I kick a crumpled sleeve at her. “Pick it all up, damn you. Every last scrap.”

  Gwinny does not bend over to retrieve the wool. Instead she crouches and feels about till she gets it in hand. Then she rises like a water bird, her teeth gritted and her breath in gasps.

  “All I had.” I swallow and swallow but my voice is still warpy. “All I had that was mine. And only mine. And now I have naught. Because of you.”

  Gwinny leans heavily against the wall and falters, then she makes a garbled sound and collapses to the floor.

  I jab her shoulder with my toe. “Get up, you lazy thing, else I’ll give you such a cartwhipping that your grandchildren will feel it. You’re fooling no one with this display of—”

  “Merciful God Almighty!” Mistress Tipley crosses the room in three big strides and shoves me away from Gwinny.

  I hit the wall hard, then rock away sputtering, “How dare you?”

  The old cow glares up at me like a serpent from Gwinny’s side. “How dare you, you wicked girl? Now help me get her on the bed.”

  “My bed? I don’t think so.”

  “Fine, is it?” Mistress Tipley mutters to Gwinny as she tugs and wriggles Gwinny’s gown over her head. “You most certainly are not.”

  Gwinny makes no sound as Mistress Tipley pulls off her garments. She lies on her side facing the wall. Her hair spills like a matted hide around bony gray shoulders.

  “Come here, girl,” Mistress Tipley snarls at me, “and see what you wrought.”

  I don’t have to come. I can see from here.

  Gwinny’s back is covered with a grid of cuts. Most are a fingernail’s depth with edges that curl apart like long, gaping mouths. Where the worst cuts cross, the skin is peeling away in a limp triangle. Her whole back is a deep, angry red, smeary with blood and striped across with angry purple jags.

  “No,” I finally whisper. “I—I didn’t do this.”

  “You most certainly did. Now help me get her into bed.”

  I hesitate. And hesitate. Then I pick up Gwinny’s feet. They’re freezing cold and rough like stones. Mistress Tipley gingerly hoists Gwinny beneath the armpits and we shudder her onto my bed, where she lies like a wet sack.

  On my clean linen.

  Gwinny moans something in Welsh. Mistress Tipley pets her ragged hair and dabs a rag wetted in my washwater against the cuts on her back. Blood fills the cleaves and stripes down her back, staining the linen.

  I did not do this.

  Gwinny would be fine had she not wantonly destroyed my property.

  I stomp belowstairs and into the hall, and my father bids me a spry good morrow when I take my place at table before a trencher of maslin. Henry grunts a greeting through a mouthful of food, but Nicholas is nowhere in sight.

  My father prattles about his foolish office between bites, how the millers are desperate cheats who’ll do anything to avoid borough court and how Welshmen do any number of clever things to hide their handmills when they hear he’s nearby, which just shows how well he’s extending borough justice to the Welshry.

  My father must not know yet.

  I eat quickly, then excuse myself. He’ll find out soon enough, and my father in a temper is pure wrothfulness, not justice.

  I go to the workroom and sit before my embroidery frame. I pin and repin the length of linen my father gave me, then I unwrap my skeins of Christmas floss and try to imagine where to begin, what image to make.

  It’s no use. I give up on the linen and retrieve my spindle from beneath a wadded cloak in need of mending.

  I tease out some wool, let
the whorl drop. The fibers twist on themselves, and in a while I have a strand of yarn the length of my hand.

  In the time it took me to make this strand, Gwinny tore apart every gown I owned.

  I throw the wool and spindle across the room with a howl and hate Gwinny and her whole family and weep and hurl the half-mended cloak at the wall for good measure.

  Someone will hear me and come. My father, or mayhap one of my lackwit cousins. They’ll come to the workroom door with brows furrowed and ask what the matter is, and I’ll weep and mourn my loss and they’ll see justice done.

  The moments stretch like year-old honey. Laughter from the hall, the clatter of crockery. No one comes.

  My father does not throw Gwinny into the gutter when he learns what she has wrought. He does not even devolve into ranting. Because while I’m sulking in the workroom, Mistress Tipley plies him with claret and spins a fairy story about spats between girls, how easy it would be to overreact to something this silly, how things like gowns can be repaired, how he has a reputation in the borough to consider.

  So he merely whistles low when I shake handfuls of rags in his face, and he jokes that he ought to hire Gwinny as one of his mill enforcers. He laughs aloud when I demand that he take Gwinny to Court Baron for recompense for my wardrobe, and he chides Nicholas for whipping a maidservant so hard. When I’m ready to boil over, my father gives that rotten Gwinny a clean-struck penny for her troubles. The hospitality of his hearth, he says, is hers till she recovers fully.

  In the same breath, my father tells me I’m stuck with my one remaining gown unless I grow two handswidths during the winter, and even then he might just bid Mistress Tipley give me something of hers. Then he tells me to stop my caterwauling and mend my underclothes because no one has any business putting eyes on them anyway.

  I’m in my workroom now. I cannot wait till tomorrow, when Griffith will be here to mend the byre fence and study his lessons.