The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  IT’S CHRISTMAS. The holly and ivy are up. There’s strong cider waiting when we get back from Mass and the Yule log stretches all the way across the hall, so we must step over it. I can close my eyes and everything is as it should be, all the mingled smells of roast goose and woodsmoke and bitter evergreen, the wind twittering, the crunch of feet in snow, the crackle of fire.

  Then I open my eyes.

  Nothing is right.

  The goose is roasting, but it is Mistress Tipley’s hand on the spit. Not my mother’s.

  Nicholas and Henry are cheerfully drunk on Rhenish and aqua vitae. They are planning to go out mumming later, which will inevitably devolve into misrule. They might even remember to wave to me through the window when they go, and they will come back pink and laughing and full of furtive looks and guffaws and secret jokes that they will tell me are not fit for my ears.

  The holly and ivy are up, as crooked as only drink-addled male hands can make them. My mother would have straightened the greens, primped them, and tied tiny ribbons to the ends.

  My father hasn’t spent a Christmas sober since she died, but this year he is staggering about town visiting houses, bringing a year’s worth of good fortune with his dark hair. He says it’s a civic duty. It’s really just a way for him to get into the homes of the honesti even for a moment.

  The same wind clattering about the eaves blows over her grave far away at Edgeley, and my wretched uncle and his mewling girl-wife will not place a bough of yew on the grassy patch that had all but sunk to ground level when we left for Coventry.

  I am playing draughts with myself on the board my mother gave me the year my first milk-tooth fell out. I make a move, then turn the board and make a countermove.

  There will be frumenty, figs, and all the plum pudding I can eat, but nothing is really quite right.

  My mother was born on this day. She would go about with red ribbons in her hair. We’d play draughts and drink cider and sing ballads while the snow battered against Edgeley’s tight walls and mourned about its door.

  Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her, but on Christmas I wear red ribbons in my hair and commend her soul to God.

  I mend before the fire. Stitch by stitch, trying to put my wardrobe back together.

  Gwinny lies up in my chamber behind shuttered windows and beneath piled bedclothes. Not only is her back in tatters, she’s become feverish.

  Just like my mother.

  It’s no use. Gwinny did her work too well. I can sew most of the cloth back together, but all the seams will show.

  I hold up a bodice. It looks like Gwinny’s back, all crosshatched and frayed.

  All of Edgeley prayed for my mother. Pater noster qui in caelis es. My father on his knees before the high altar for days at a time, unshaven, hollow-cheeked, gray from hunger. Ave Maria gratia plena. Saint Alrida’s bell ringing to beg the saints to intervene on her behalf, day and night, day and night. Miserere mi Deus. Me in the corner with my hair in plaits, curling into a smaller ball and clutching my wooden paternoster while the household tiptoed past.

  I go abovestairs and peek into my chamber. Gwinny lies motionless on my bed. Her back is covered with a fragrant poultice.

  She must have known what I would do. She must have known the punishment would be severe. Nicholas even gave her a chance to explain.

  Justice for those who deserve it.

  Pater noster qui in caelis es.

  Toward the end, they brought me to see her. My mother sweated and twitched beneath a mountain of bedcovers, too weak to do more than let her gaze fall upon me. The room was hot and close and damp. My father knelt at my mother’s side, hands clasped and pressed against his forehead. His lips were moving and his cheeks glistened. My aunt Eleanor wept openly at the foot of the bed. The priest thumbed his beads in the shadows, the hall servants wrung their hands in the corridor, and all of Edgeley prayed.

  Gwinny is alone here. No one to sit vigil by the bed. Mayhap even now someone worries over her, watches the door for her to burst in all surly frowns and blank bird-stares. That poor soul has no notion what became of her, where she might be.

  Mayhap it’s a child.

  I bow my head and pray for Gwinny, as Edgeley prayed for my mother.

  Mistress Tipley insists I help tend Gwinny. She says she has enough to do running the household that she cannot spare much bedside time.

  “I can run the household,” I tell the crone primly, but she just guffaws in that rude way of hers and hands me a rag and bowl.

  I gather the shredded linen that no one has any business putting eyes on and stomp up to my chamber. As I drag the stool next to the bed, Gwinny glances over her bare shoulder with a look that’s almost pleasant, but when she sees it’s me and not Mistress Tipley, a hard look falls over her face like a curtain.

  “I see you’ve come to reckon if I’m still alive,” Gwinny says. “Sorry to ruin your game.”

  I gape. “What? No! I didn’t wish you dead!”

  “Deny it, then.”

  “I swear it on the Mass. I never wished you dead. Not once. Not ever.”

  Gwinny eyes me as if I’m on a spicemonger’s scales. At length, she replies, “Right, then. You’ve done your good deed. Now you can go.”

  “I cannot. Mistress Tipley says I must tend you.”

  “I’ve no need for it. Go play lady of the house somewhere else.”

  “I’m trying to show you kindness,” I say in little, bitten-off words, “and you are repaying it with scorn.”

  Gwinny laughs aloud. “God save me from any more English kindness!”

  “I gave you a gown! We shared marchpane and wine at Michaelmas!”

  She regards me levelly. “I spared you from standing at the church door with Edward Mercer.”

  “Exactly! I thought we’d reached . . . well, an understanding.”

  Gwinny snorts. “Oh, I understand. I understand quite well.”

  I frown. “So . . . you’re sorry for what you did?”

  “I asked the master’s pardon. He has given it. He considers the matter closed.”

  “What about my pardon?” I brandish the tattery lengths of linen at her. “How could you do this to me? What have I ever done to you?”

  Gwinny stiffens. “Don’t you mock me.”

  “Or what?” I swallow and swallow to drown the warp in my voice. “What else do I have that you can destroy? Sorry to ruin your game, Gwinny.”

  In slow degrees, she pushes herself onto her elbows, wincing with each small movement. “In truth? You’d know what you’ve done to me?”

  “In truth,” I repeat firmly. “Because I want to hear you admit it before Almighty God. That I did naught. That it was spite and envy that made you do such a terrible thing.”

  Gwinny’s jaw is working and she mutters something in Welsh. At length she sighs. Long, as if she’s picking up something heavy. “If you say it’s so, it must be so.”

  I lean back on the stool. “Good. Then do we have an understanding?”

  She nods. She doesn’t look at me.

  “Here. You stitch these.” I push a handful of linen scraps at her. “Something to pass the time.”

  When she shifts to take the linen, the poultice slides off her shoulder, revealing a long cut the color of day-old meat.

  I did not do that.

  Gwinny’s stitches are tight and careful. Even flat on her belly, she matches me stitch for stitch, and ere it’s time for dinner, we’ve put together most of a shift.

  Mayhap I will forgive her. It’s what my mother would have wanted.

  ***

  My father takes Henry to meet formally with the mayor and the foremost honesti. They are very interested in having a goldsmith in Caernarvon, and there is a newly built townhouse in Palace Street they would have him view. If they find Henry agreeable, he could be living here by this time next year.

  Mayhap I will speak to Emmaline about him.

  Nicholas departs for the Boar’s Head, so once again I�
�m alone, forced to spend another tedious day tending Gwinny. I have an armload of undergarments still in need of repair, but when I get abovestairs I find her asleep. The poultice is gone, and her cuts stand out against her flesh like claw marks from some unholy beast. The whole room still smells of pine and juniper. I stand shivering for many long moments to be sure Gwinny isn’t playacting, but at length I sigh, toss my torn-up shifts on the coffer, and slip through the curtain.

  The house is deadly still. No one will be home till supper.

  I pace the landing like a tethered hound. My footsteps creak and echo. At length, I go into my father’s chamber. There’s his curtained bed and a stool with a tunic thrown haphazardly atop. Beneath the window lies the locked coffer containing my mother’s gown and Heaven only knows what else that once was hers. I kneel before it for a long moment, my fingers tracing the lock.

  Belowstairs, the workroom is cold and empty. My embroidery frame stands like a naked skeleton by shuttered windows that leak slats of thin gray daylight.

  The hall is dim at the corners. The fire crackles and the trestle gleams with each flicker of orange light. Salvo on his pallet snores like a bellows.

  Out in the rearyard, the kitchen windows glow. Mistress Tipley is holed up there, drinking small beer with her feet on the grate and dozing like an aging cat.

  I go back to the workroom and throw the shutters open. A wall of crippling cold air drafts in, but so does a block of daylight, pale but steady. I pin my father’s length of linen to my frame, take out my charcoal stick, and begin to sketch.

  “Get down here!” My father, bawling like a boar. It’s most unflattering. “That was Sext just then! You should be at the Coucys!”

  I fold a half-stitched shift. Then I unfold it, smooth out wrinkles that aren’t there, and fold it again. “Coming!”

  “You’ll regret it should you make me come up there!”

  To my undergarments I mutter, “As if you’ll get off your arse before that fire.” Then, louder, “I said I was coming!”

  I stand on tiptoe to drape the shift across the garment rod. “You deaf old badger.”

  Gwinny props herself on her elbows and watches me fidget and fuss with the shift. Mistress Tipley says it’ll only be another few days ere she’s well enough to get out of my bed and resume her duties.

  “Do I look ill to you?” I ask Gwinny. “I could pinch my cheeks to redden them. And I can hoarse up my voice.”

  Gwinny shakes her head.

  “Ahhh, you’re right. He’d make me go even if it meant dragging myself from my deathbed. Anything to nuzzle up to those rotten honesti.”

  “You—don’t want to go?” Gwinny sounds surprised.

  “By all the saints, no!” I step into my felt slippers because I’ll get an earful should I arrive barefoot. “I’d rather muck every pig-keep in Caernarvon.”

  Gwinny regards me with a mule-skinner’s measuring gaze. “She’ll make you one of them. Townhouse lady, servants all around.”

  “It’s what my father wants.” I scuff my heel. “He’d see me one of them.”

  Gwinny draws back, frowning.

  “Cecily! Now!”

  I tuck stray threads under my cuffs. I may not know my lord from your Grace, but I was raised with enough courtesy not to mention someone’s ragged cuffs or call her father a ham-handed oaf.

  Bootsteps creak on stairs.

  I grab my cloak and fly for the door. My father glares me a warning as I hurry past.

  On my way down Shire Hall Street, I drag my feet. I count chuckholes. I watch shiny green flies buzz over horse apples. For one sweet stone’s throw, fifty-four steps if I make them small and Lady de Coucy–sanctioned, I can do what I will.

  AFTER she’s gone, shift—ow—margin—ow—by margin—ow—till I’m facing her coffer, her garment pole, the tiny shuttered window.

  The brat will be gone till Nones, and she’ll return in the foulest humor. The master will lecture her on how her ill temper is imprudent since it may offend her benefactor. He would have his privileges go straight to the bone, not merely lie skin-deep. He is novi, but men like him rarely stay novi for long.

  Were it anyone but the brat, I might pity her.

  Till Nones, then, peace.

  Awakened by a shuff-shuff far away. The chamber is bitterly cold, even with the hall brazier brought up by Margaret. The sun’s slant is narrower now, like a child’s slice of pie. Not much peace left. Close my eyes. Flatten my hands beneath my chest for warmth.

  Shuff-shuff. Shuff-shuff.

  That had best not be what I think it is.

  Grit to my feet. Handswidth by handswidth. Glide to the window as if my spine is kindling.

  Gruffydd is threshing barley in the shed. Shuff-shuff as the flail comes down, sings across the floorboards, snaps up.

  And she’ll be home any moment now.

  Too risky to shout. Cannot whistle. Work my fingers around the edge of the shutter and bang it against the house until Gruffydd pauses, glances around, then looks up. He grins like a sunrise, waves the flail.

  Belowstairs, the front door slams and the brat’s shrill voice rings out for the master.

  Cringe my arm up in tiny jagged bursts, jab a thumb at the rearyard door.

  Gruffydd frowns, makes a bewildered gesture.

  Belowstairs, the master calls the brat into the hall. He bids her look in on me ere she starts her spinning or sewing or what-have-you, and listen for the laborer in the rearyard to be finished so the master can pay him.

  Fling one last helpless finger at the rearyard door as Gruffydd steps out of the shed and shrugs expansively.

  The stairs begin to creak, footfall by footfall.

  Turn from the window. Lurch toward the bed. Must get clear ere she makes it up here, catches me looking.

  Because then she will puzzle it out.

  And Gruffydd will get worse again by tenscore at her hands.

  Shuff-shuff. He’s back to flailing. Shuff-shuff. The master has all kinds of work. Shuff-shuff. Say them nay and reap the whirlwind.

  By the time the stairs fall silent, I’m on the bed facing the wall. Feigning sleep despite the agony spreading through my back. And praying to any saint who’s listening.

  Shuff-shuff. Go pick up your spinning. Your sewing. Shuff-shuff. For Christ’s sake, leave him be.

  The stairs begin to creak again, growing softer as she descends. She tells the master she’s going to check on the laborer’s progress.

  Oh, little one. I tried.

  Shuff—

  How dare you look at me like that? Her voice is a whipcrack, like leather against tender skin. You’ll study your lessons or you’ll be very sorry.

  Grip the brat’s bed linens. Bury my face in them, so I cannot hear her bait my brother. Press tighter, so no one can hear me weep.

  MY FATHER storms into the house bareheaded and reeking of smoke. His tunic is singed and his face is blackened with what seems to be soot. As he grumbles through the hall, what he mutters is not fit for my ears, so I try to catch every black word of it.

  “Water,” he growls over his shoulder as he clumps abovestairs. “Hot.”

  Charming. I get Mistress Tipley to haul up a basin of steaming water.

  At suppertime, my father huffs into the hall wearing a clean tunic and surcote. His face and hands are pinkscrubbed, but he still smells faintly of smoke.

  I don’t tell him this. Instead I pour him some ale and ask, “Do you think it might rain?”

  “Hope not. There’s to be a hanging.”

  Just my fortune. Finally something interesting happens, and I haven’t a thing to wear.

  My father has a faint ring of purple shadowing his right eye. He obviously did not scrub his face as thoroughly as he thought.

  The gallows stands on the market common, and it’ll be nearly impossible to get a good view. All of Caernarvon has turned out to see two poor devils hang.

  On the mill bridge, there’s a man in a trencher-shaped helm wearing
a white tunic crossed in red. He rests one hand on the pommel of the sword displayed plainly at his hip. At the end of the bridge, I can see two more men in white tunics, and another few near the gallows. It’s easy to spot them because people skirt them like they’ve got the pox.

  Even the castle garrison have come to watch the hanging. I’m pleased the king saw fit to grant them leave.

  In Coventry they hanged a thief once, and the crowd bawled loud enough to deafen a post. But this hanging is curiously silent. There’s no baying and howling, despite the size of the crowd. Every soul in the Welshry must be on the market common.

  I draw closer to my father.

  When we reach the end of the mill bridge, two men-at-arms fall into step on either side of us. My father opens his mouth, but one of them shakes his head curtly.

  “Save your breath. Captain’s orders.”

  My father cuts his eyes over the crowd. “Surely they wouldn’t dare. Not in the very shadow of the walls.”

  The man-at-arms shrugs. “Best not to tempt them. Besides, it’s not just you, is it?” And he tips his chin toward me.

  My father grunts something like agreement, and now the crowds part for us as the men-at-arms lead us to the foot of the gallows, to the place usually reserved for victims of the condemned.

  I brought some rotten cabbage from the shed wrapped in old sackcloth, but now I’m not sure I want to throw it. Not up here. Not in front of every soul in the Welshry. Not even with men-at-arms at my elbows.

  There’s a crunch of wheels on dirt as the condemned are rolled toward the green on a cart. I hop and weave, but it’s no use. All I can see are two dirty hoods.

  I let the cabbage roll off my fingertips and stomp it into the mud.

  “What did they do, Papa?” I ask, wiping my hands on the sackcloth.

  My father does not answer, but one of the men-at-arms mutters, “Crimes against the borough, demoiselle. Don’t worry, though. You’re perfectly safe.”

  He says this as he grips and regrips his sword-hilt and runs his eyes over the crowd.

  The cart heaves to a halt before the gallows. The condemned stumble out and drag themselves up the steps, closely flanked by more men-at-arms. Both prisoners’ faces are streaked with soot, as if they escaped a house fire on the breath of God.