“Ho, Petrus, how about some of that barley bread?” John Mouse calls out. “Where did you stash it?”
Petrus turns and stomps away from me.
I take a shaky breath and lower my pack from my shoulders, rooting through it for our bread and cheese. When I set some beside Dame Margery, she barely notices.
There’s no place to sit that’s not mud. I squat and chew the hard loaf.
“We’ll make Cologne today,” the merchant says to nobody in particular. “By nightfall, maybe. Guards at the gate, you know—they won’t let those mercenaries in, I don’t figure.”
“But they’ll let us in, surely,” Dame Isabel says.
“Oh, aye. Give ’em the sign”—he crosses himself—“so they’ll know you’re pilgrims, and they’ll let you in.”
“Foreigners who don’t even speak English, sounds like,” Petrus says.
Thomas lifts his eyebrows. “Their German’s not too bad, though,” he says, and looks at John Mouse, who grins and shakes his head.
The merchant ignores this exchange. “There’s a hospice run by Englishmen in Cologne. But I’ll be staying at the merchant guild’s own place.”
“And we’ll be in the student quarters,” John Mouse says.
“We’ll stay more than a night, then?” Dame Isabel’s husband asks.
“Two or three days, I should think,” Father Nicholas says.
“Since when do you make all the decisions?” Petrus Tappester says.
I watch a flock of birds winging their way south and try to ignore the bickering. At least Petrus—and his devil—have forgotten about me cutting off my mistress’s gag.
* * *
It begins drizzling again the moment we shoulder our packs. My cloak is soaked through, and its edge is heavy with mud. I have to keep reminding myself of the English hospice ahead.
We trudge through the afternoon. As we do, the path widens and we begin to see people on it. We pass through a hamlet and make our way around a flock of geese. In the distance, we can see towers, black against the sky.
“Cologne!” Thomas calls out, then says something in Latin to John Mouse, who laughs.
The two of them break into song. I can’t understand the words: Latin again. But I recognize the tone. Hearing them, my heart begins to lift. Tonight we’ll have a dry place to sleep with no need to worry about mercenaries.
They end a verse and laugh, then, looking at each other as they draw in their breaths, start a new one. John Mouse’s voice is clear and steady. I could listen to it all day. Thomas’s voice is strong, but it doesn’t stir something inside me the way John’s does.
Dame Isabel is listening, too. I watch her watching John Mouse. When he glances toward her, her face grows red. He looks away, at Thomas, and the two begin singing with increased vigor.
When they finish the song, John Mouse trails a little behind Thomas. I sidle up to him. “What was it about? That song?”
He grins and looks down at me. “Ah, the little serving maid. Why do you think we sing in Latin? Our song might shock your chaste ears—or those of your mistress.”
“But what was it about?” Surely a song so full of joy can’t be bad.
John Mouse looks at me sideways as he thinks up a translation. “It’s something like this,” he says, and begins singing. “To drink and wench and play at dice / Seem to me no such mighty sins.” The words don’t fit the tune very well, but I don’t mind as long as he is singing to me. He is singing to me! My fear of the soldiers and of Petrus Tappester is truly gone now.
“Never did a man I know / Go to hell for a game,” he sings. He hums a measure and then sings again, “And to heaven will no man go / Because he aped a holy show.”
These aren’t the kinds of songs I’m accustomed to. “Stop!” I say. “My mistress might hear you.”
He grins again. “You asked.”
My cheeks grow hot.
“Cheer up, little serving maid,” he says, and winks at me. “It’s Cologne! Look!”
Bell towers rise above the rooftops, and a wall encircles the city. I can see the broad river, brown as a cow’s back, and the bridge we’ll cross. Just on the other side of it, I see what must be the guard tower.
“Thomas!” John Mouse calls, and dashes forward to rejoin his friend. They banter in Latin, swiping at each other’s hats.
Two huge draft horses pass us, each ridden by a farmer, and John bows to them as if they were knights in armor. Thomas says something to him, and the two of them hoot with laughter.
John Mouse was so grave when he defended my mistress. Now he is so full of fun. He is the only one of the company who speaks to me without giving me orders. I watch his black gown fluttering as he and Thomas leap about. When he turns so that his eye catches mine, he grins and my heart gives a little leap. His eyes are so bright and clear.
Suddenly, they grow wide and he grabs Thomas by the shoulder. “Petrus!” he hisses, and then, “Don’t look back.”
I catch my breath. The mercenaries.
“Gather close,” the merchant says, keeping his eyes forward. “Once we’re through the city gates, they won’t touch us.”
Dame Isabel and Bartilmew draw near me. The students and Dame Isabel’s husband are just ahead. Where is my mistress?
I steal a fast glance behind me. She strolls along, her face distracted, her lips moving in prayer, unaware of our danger.
I slow my pace to let her catch up, my heart racing as fast as my feet want to go. Finally, as she ambles alongside me, I take her arm. “Quickly, mistress, the mercenaries.”
She turns toward me, her brow furrowed. “No, child, we’re safe from them.”
“They’re right behind us,” I whisper fiercely, tugging her sleeve. “Hurry!”
Nothing I do will make her go faster. The rest of the company is far ahead of us now. Other people on their way to the city pass us, every footstep making me cringe, thinking it’s the soldiers.
Up ahead, crowds of people jostle their way across the bridge and through the city gates. Petrus and the merchant are almost there, the rest of the company directly behind them. Dame Margery goes slower and slower.
A horse-drawn cart rumbles by, and we have to duck out of the way, putting more space between us and the other pilgrims.
My whole body is taut, my fingers clenched around my knife hilt. Are they still back there? I dare not look.
As the cart passes him, Bartilmew turns and sees us.
He opens his mouth in a wordless shout. At the same instant, a hand reaches for one of my braids.
Without thinking, I swing my knife behind me. It hits something.
Someone yells.
I run.
Blindly, I push my way past two farmers. Feet hit the ground behind me, and hands grab at me.
The cart blocks the path. I splash through the puddles beside it, lifting my muddy skirts to keep from tripping.
Past the cart, past the horse, onto the bridge.
People turn and stare as I elbow my way through, my skirt held high.
My breath comes in ragged gasps.
Below me, the river. Ahead, the guard tower on the city gates. All around me, people, too many people in my path.
“Let me through,” I say, but no one does.
A voice growls behind me, a voice I remember. The mercenary.
I push harder. Someone plucks at my cloak. I duck beneath a man’s basket and dodge around a woman carrying a sack over her shoulder.
The guard in the tower shouts something down at me. I cross myself and dash through the gates.
My foot hits a stone and I fall hard, the heels of my hands hitting the mud, my pack slamming into my back.
Hands grab at my shoulders.
I twist to get away, but the hands hold me firmly.
I can’t get free.
“Stop. Go easy,” a man says, his words slurred.
Bartilmew.
“All is well,” he says, lifting me to my feet.
I look
wildly behind me, but I don’t see the mercenaries. My breath comes fast and sharp. Bartilmew holds my arms, as if he were calming a bucking horse. Then, carefully, he takes the knife from my hand. Without a word, he wipes the blood on the bottom of his boot.
Blood?
The mercenary’s blood.
I shudder.
Father Nicholas and the merchant, Dame Isabel and Petrus are all staring at me. Never in my life did I think I would be glad to see Petrus Tappester.
Bartilmew hands me my knife back, then steps to his mistress’s side.
Where is my mistress?
I look back again, but I can’t see her in the crowd clamoring to get into the gate.
“Dame Margery,” I say. “I have to find her.”
“No,” Bartilmew says.
“But I left her. The soldiers—”
He shakes his head.
I can’t just leave her. I turn to push my way back through the crowd. Bartilmew catches my shoulder. As he does, Dame Margery comes into view, one of her arms linked through John Mouse’s, the other through Thomas’s. Their faces are grim as they pull her along, but she smiles as if the king has asked her to dance.
As they near us, she says, “I told you we were in no danger. The Lord protected us. He said he would.”
I open my mouth, then clamp it shut. Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s why I’m still alive.
The crowds push us forward into the city. We stop where the way widens out. I am too dazed to hear what the merchant and Petrus are saying. I watch, barely comprehending, as the students tear off down the street, their gowns rippling behind them like wings. The merchant points and says something before leading his packhorse in another direction.
The rest of us set out for the English hospice.
High walls rise around us, cutting off the light. From every direction, people push past, all of them speaking words I can’t understand. The aroma of cooking meat mingles with the smell of rot and waste. I dodge around a steaming pile of horse dung.
No matter how wide I open my eyes, I can’t take it all in. I can’t take anything in. All I can do is remember the hand catching my braid, the feel of my knife hitting flesh. Everything seems so dark. I want to crawl into a safe corner somewhere and sleep.
I hardly notice when we enter the hospice. Following Dame Margery into the sleeping room for women, I place our pack on a cot to claim it.
“We’ll want something to eat,” Dame Margery says. “The kitchen is through there.” She gives me a little push toward a doorway.
I go through it and step into a courtyard. The smell of wood smoke and frying onions tells me the way.
Stopping just inside the door, I watch the fire dancing on the huge hearth. A boy comes in another door, staggering under a load of logs, his torn and filthy leggings protruding from under the wood. He drops the logs beside the fireplace, brushes off his ripped tunic, and goes out again.
At a long wooden table, a small bald man scoops millet from a huge bag on the ground into a kettle. He looks up and sees me. “New pilgrims?” he asks. “How many?”
I count on my fingers and say “Six,” before remembering myself. “No, seven.”
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he says.
He never says another word as we cook the millet into a porridge with oil and onions. As I stir, the fire warms me, and I feel my fear dissipating, my breath steadying, the life coming back to my limbs.
When it’s finally time for bed, I join my mistress on my knees to offer a long and heartfelt prayer. After my Paternoster and my Ave Maria, I beg Our Lady to preserve me from the demons who bedevil us in nightmares.
She must hear me. I sleep like the blessed dead.
We stay three days in Cologne. On the first day, my mistress and I, Dame Isabel and her husband, and Bartilmew, Father Nicholas, and Petrus Tappester all go to the cathedral together.
When I first went to Lynn, to work in Dame Margery’s house, I thought I was in a city, it was so big. I thought the square towers of St. Margaret’s church rose as high as a building could. On market days, more people crowded the square than ants in an anthill, all dashing about, calling to each other, buying and selling, carrying baskets of vegetables and hens, loaves of bread, bolts of wool, pies and apples, cod and carrots. Never did I think there could be so many people.
Until I came to Cologne.
I’m not the only one who is impressed. Even Petrus Tappester keeps pointing and saying, “Look at that!”
When we get near the cathedral, we can see the scaffolding covering one side, a pile of stones and rubble below it. A few men sit in the scaffolding, but none of them seems to be working.
As we get nearer, I look up at the walls. They reach so high they make me dizzy. Carved figures gaze grandly down, and we try to identify our favorite saints by their symbols. In a stained-glass window in St. Margaret’s back in Lynn, the saint holds a book and stands atop a winged dragon. We walk all the way around the cathedral, dodging legless beggars and friars and men who want to sell us pilgrim badges, stepping over muddy ditches and piles of stones and piles of dung, but I can’t find St. Margaret. Nor do I see St. Guthlac of the Fens or his sister, St. Pega. I can’t even find St. Audrey. I am in a strange and foreign place if they don’t even know my saints here.
Then I see St. Michael looking solemnly down at me, his scales in one hand, and I feel safer.
A glint on the ground catches my eye, and I reach for what looks like a little piece of sky fallen to the earth. It’s a blue glass bead. I wipe the mud off it and let it catch the sun.
“What do I do with it?” I ask Bartilmew, who is standing beside me.
We look around, but no one seems to have lost anything.
“Keep it,” he says.
“Are you sure?”
He nods and I slip the bead into my scrip, where I can hear it clinking against Cook’s metal cross and the pebble Rose gave me.
Around the corner, on the broad cathedral steps, a one-armed boy with a rag tied around his eyes calls for alms in a reedy voice. Beside him, a man in a ragged tunic points out the Paternoster beads and souvenirs he has placed on a cloth spread on the ground, his voice competing with the boy’s. Two smiling jugglers keep eight red and black balls in the air between them, joking loudly to each other, until a priest comes out of the cathedral and shoos them away. I want to follow and watch their merry fun until one of them darts a sharp eye at me and holds out his cap for coins. When I shake my head at him and show my empty hands, he scowls and makes as if to rush at me.
My heart is still pounding as we walk through the huge door and into the cathedral.
I blink in the dimness. Candles flicker behind massive stone columns. I stumble over a woman who kneels in prayer, then follow the crowd forward. Like us, they’ve come to see the shrine of the Three Kings.
A deacon points people to a place behind the high altar, and we join the line of pilgrims shuffling around the shrine. It looks like a little golden church with tiny people carved into its sides, just the way statues surround this cathedral. Father Nicholas points out figures of the Virgin and Child and the emperor, who kneels to them. The emperor of what? I thought there were only the king and the Pope and then God.
When I stop to peer at the emperor, someone steps on my heel, so I have to move on. Once we’ve passed the shrine, we come to a little stall, right there in the cathedral, selling souvenirs. Everyone in our company buys a metal badge with the Three Kings’ heads on it to sew on their leather pilgrims’ hats. Everyone except Bartilmew and me. We have no money, but neither do we have hats.
As we prepare to leave, I look around for my mistress. She is speaking English to a priest, who nods and smiles at her. I stand beside them, waiting for her, but she has launched into a long story—one I’ve heard many a time—about the way the Lord speaks to her. Finally, ducking my head submissively, I break in to say, “Beg pardon, Dame Margery, we’re going now.”
She looks down at me as i
f she doesn’t recognize me. “Go along. Father Geoffrey will see me back to the hospice.”
She turns her back and walks away.
where are the others? While I’ve been waiting for my mistress, they’ve gone on without me. There are so many people in the cathedral, all I can see are people’s backs. I scan the crowds, but it’s so dark in the cathedral that I can’t find anyone I know. If I get lost here, I’ll never find my way back to the hospice. A knot of fear seizes my stomach.
Then I see Bartilmew glance back, candle flame lighting his face. Pushing my way past priests and pilgrims, I run to catch up with the group. As I come alongside Bartilmew, he gives me a nod.
On the way back to the hospice, we pass the university district, where narrow streets of mud run past booksellers’ shops and wine merchants and taverns, where sly-looking women in low-cut bodices leer at Petrus and Bartilmew. A man goes by pushing a cart with a little oven in it. Black-robed students crowd around him like ants to buy meat pies. My mouth waters at the aroma, and I wish I had coins of my own.
Outside one tavern, students form a circle, some standing, some sitting on stools. They crowd around a table where one student lies on his back while another pours wine from a flask into his mouth. The crowd chants something. The chanting grows louder and faster, and some of the students begin pounding on the table in time with the words.
I stand watching until Bartilmew tugs at my cloak. “A drinking game,” he says, disapproval in his voice as he hurries me along to catch up with the others.
The students cheer loudly, and I turn back to watch. The drinker has just stumbled up from the table when Bartilmew jerks my arm and pulls me out of the way—a stream of muddy brown liquid splashes into the street. I look up to see a woman emptying a pot from an upstairs window.
I’m shocked. In Lynn, we never emptied the night bucket from the windows. We always carried it to the street, and sometimes I even took it all the way to the ditch in the middle of the street. People in Cologne aren’t very clean.
The Book of the Maidservant Page 6