In the morning, he was gone. Fernan left a bag of coins next to the bed, and I was grateful for it. Downstairs, I found the alewife sleeping by the fire, and I roused her to ask for a drink. She had grown gaunt since I had last seen her, and her cough was ominously deep, a wet rattle. The woman gazed at me blankly with bloodshot eyes but did not stir. I told her to go back to sleep and helped myself to the bitter ale.
Snow had fallen in the night, and the sky was an empty blue. I ventured out for a walk and found the town to be more pleasant than I remembered, if only because its squalor was tucked neatly under a clean white blanket. Flags of bright blood on the snow advertised the fleshmonger’s shop; a gabble of trussed poultry floundered nearby. Chimneys puffed cheerily, and children tromped through fresh snow in the streets, shouting to one another as though every one of them were deaf. It was near Christmastide, and doors were decorated with pine boughs and bright ribbons. Few townsfolk were out, but those who were greeted me civilly. I took a deep breath of the wintry air. I could make a fresh start in Old Hilgate for myself and for my child.
When I returned to the alehouse, a plump, ruddy-faced woman was plying the alewife with a bowl of stew. She paused with the spoon in midair and squinted at me. “Good day to you. Are you the renter Alice was telling me about?” Her gaze swept from my head to my toes.
“Yes, my name is Agnes, Goodwife.” The woman was dressed in costly velvet, and I was acutely aware of my rough woolen dress and ratty cloak. At least the cloak hid my swollen belly. I was about to duck my head and curtsy, begging her pardon, when it occurred to me that she knew nothing about me. I stood tall and lifted my chin. “My husband and I just arrived. Forgive my appearance, I have not yet unpacked.” I gave her what I hoped was a charming smile.
The alewife turned her head, refusing the spoon. She moaned softly and slumped back into her chair, closing her eyes. The other woman set the bowl down.
“Welcome, then. I am Henny, the blacksmith’s wife. I am trying to get Alice here to eat a little dinner. Will you be staying long in Old Hilgate?”
“I am not sure how long.” I hesitated. “My husband is a messenger, and we were just married, so we have not yet decided where to settle.”
“A hearty congratulations on your marriage, and God bless! From where do you come?”
My heart raced. “Ellis Abbey, most recently. My husband is a ward and agent of Abbess Elfilda.”
Her broad face lit up. “Oh, were you a pupil at the abbey, then? That would explain it,” she said, presumably referring to my attire. “And you fell for the abbess’s ward!” She winked at me. “How wonderful! Who are your parents, dear?”
The woman had unwittingly helped with my deception, but I did not have a ready answer to her new question. I said the first thing that leapt into my mind. “They are Sir Roger Thorpe and Lady Thorpe of West Chillington.” These were Mary’s parents.
Henny’s eyes widened, and her hand flew to the base of her throat. “Oh! So you come from nobility, then!”
I blushed at my poorly chosen falsehood. “Nay, Goodwife, my father is but a baronet, so I am an ordinary commoner.” For good measure, I added, “My parents will not acknowledge me now that I have married in secret without their consent. They have cut me off entirely.”
“Oh, my poor dear, that is terrible!” She bustled over to where I stood and took my hands, looking at me earnestly with her watery blue eyes. “You are such a dear, modest girl. Look at you blush! If you need anything at all, you just ask me. You are most welcome in Old Hilgate!”
I squirmed and endeavored to direct her attention away from me. “How is the alewife?”
Henny shook her head somberly and dropped my hands. “Alice does badly.” She returned to the alewife and stroked her cheek. “You are going to eat the last few bites for me now, aren’t you, sweeting? We need to get you stronger.”
Alice opened her eyes and mumbled something that I could not hear, and Henny let out a barking laugh. “There is the spirit! We shall have you back on your feet by next week.”
Alice was not, in fact, destined to get back on her feet. Henny told me later that Alice had a wasting illness, consumption. The woman’s misfortune was compounded by the loss of her business, for the aleconner had barred the sale of Alice’s thin, vile-tasting brew. Worse, her only daughter had died the year before from drowning in the river, so she had no family to care for her. Without income from food or ale, poor Alice relied on the charity of her neighbors and the occasional room rental for her living.
Henny brought daily meals for Alice, though she had a large brood of her own to feed. George, her husband, was the only blacksmith for many miles, and he did a brisk trade. They were one of the wealthier families in Old Hilgate, and George was both an alderman and a leading delegate of the parish guild. Both husband and wife were respected in town for their acts of charity. I came to know Henny as a genuinely good and generous person, and it pains me to remember that her knowledge of me was based in a lie.
I used most of the money that Fernan left me to buy three new gowns and a cloak. There was not much to choose from at the weaver’s shop, but I found serviceable wool. I instructed the tailor to create long, vertical seams and wide necklines, the sort of cut favored by guests at Rose House. The wool fabric was wrong for that style of dress, but the townsfolk of Old Hilgate knew nothing of the latest fashions. I paid for rabbit-fur trim on the hood of the scarlet cloak, which was an extravagance, but it seemed like the sort of thing a well-bred woman would do. Looking back now, from my place at the royal palace, I know how rustic I appeared, but at the time, I thought the clothes exceedingly fine.
To complete my transformation, I learned to wear my hair like the ladies from the city who visited Lady Wenslock. I folded my plaits on each side of my face and tied them with ribbons, or sometimes I bound them with crespinettes. Of course, unlike the ladies at Rose House, my crespinettes were unadorned by jewels. When I went out, I always wore a plain wimple, as would any respectable married woman.
By the time Fernan returned, I had already been introduced to a number of townsfolk as the newly married, estranged daughter of a baronet.
“My, my,” he said, dropping his snow-dusted cloak on the floor of our room. “I hear that you have come up in the world!”
“I did not intend to deceive everyone. It just came out that way.”
“Really, now, you just couldn’t stop yourself from lying?”
I felt my face grow hot.
“I don’t care. It makes things easier for me, actually. Where did you get the gown? It is rather . . . unusual.” He put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to turn in a circle. He flipped the plaited loops of my hair playfully as I spun.
“I had it made. I couldn’t afford better fabric.”
“You couldn’t afford? It isn’t your money, is it? How much did you spend?”
“Not much. I needed clothing.”
“Don’t think that you have landed in the lap of luxury. The coins I gave you must last the month. Use them to feed yourself, not to buy fripperies.”
I had only a few pence remaining, not enough to get by for weeks longer.
“What do you care about appearances anyway?” he continued. “The only reason the townsfolk believe you is that they are cloddish louts. I could pass off Perla as the king’s finest warhorse here. You have aspirations to climb to the lofty heights of Old Hilgate society? I suppose that is a grand aspiration for a laundry girl.”
I chafed at his harshness, but there was no advantage to provoking him.
“Have you had supper?” I asked.
“Yes, and I am spent.” Fernan sat heavily on the bed and flopped back, his arms outstretched. He hadn’t bothered to remove his boots, and dirty meltwater dripped from his heels, collecting in brown puddles on the floor.
“I shall bank the fire then and help you to bed.”
Fernan lay with his eyes closed while I readied the coals. Flickering tongues of the dying fire illuminated h
is handsome profile and lent his skin the rich luminosity of polished bronze. Whereas once his appearance would have stirred up a whirling cloud of trembling butterflies in my belly, I couldn’t help but notice that his top lip was too thin, the angle of his jaw too soft, his brow too prominent.
After undressing, I brushed my hair with lavender water and loosened my shift so that my swollen breasts swayed and strained against the sheer linen. Fernan did not open his eyes when I removed his boots, but when I pulled at his breeches, he propped himself up on his elbows. In the dim light, I thought that I detected hunger in the gleam of his eyes, and when he reached for my face and pulled me toward him, I knew for certain.
His desire ignited my own lust briefly; the response of his body to my touch was affecting, and his gaze told me that he wanted me. Still, his rough hands hurt my breasts, tender with ripening milk, and when he closed his eyes, he receded from me like the sun slipping below the horizon. It was not long before he gasped in a helpless spasm and lay heavily over me, panting, his breath hot against my skin. I pushed him away before he fell asleep. He left me slick with his sweat; I shivered and pulled the blanket to my chin.
When Fernan left again the next morning, there was a new bag of coins by the bedside.
After I whitewashed the walls of our chamber and bought a trunk to store our few belongings, I had little to keep me occupied. At first, I was elated. I had not often been bone-weary at Rose House, but my time had not been my own. Like the stones in the church walls, the sheep that gave wool, and every blade of grass underfoot, I had been the property of the abbey. To wake in Old Hilgate with no master, no duties, to be entirely unaccounted for—it was a miracle.
The joy of idleness wore thin after a few lonely weeks. I spent some time with Alice, helping her to bathe, emptying her bedpan, laundering her linens. The woman’s caustic humor and lack of self-pity appealed to me, but she hadn’t the strength for company. I couldn’t even interest her in my cooking, which was understandable, since my pottage was barely edible, and Henny brought such delicious food.
Restless one day, I decided to visit Henny at her home, a half-timbered house remarkable for its large size and costly tiled roof. She greeted me at the door with a child on her ample hip and a sword in her other hand.
“Oh, Agnes, come in!” Henny said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over shrieking children and clanging from her husband’s smithy, which was located directly behind the house. A wave of heat spilled from the doorway into the wintry air.
I must have looked startled by the sword, because Henny held the blade out for me to inspect the decorative work and said, “I do the etching for George. Isn’t this coming along nicely? This is meant to be a vine of roses here, around the feet of the lion. Come in, come in!”
Shyly, I stomped the snow from my boots and stepped inside. Fires crackled in two hearths at opposite ends of the expansive hall. The warmth was welcome after a frigid morning above the alehouse. Alice’s fires often died, and I did not want to spend money to keep one lit in my chamber.
“We are always in the midst of shambles,” Henny said. “It must seem like a sty, but our humble home welcomes you. Here, sit!” She dropped the sword on a table with a clatter and patted the bench. It had apparently been her workstation before I arrived, for there were bowls of acrid liquids, rags, brushes, sharpened sticks, and globs of half-melted wax crowding the table’s surface.
“Take off your cloak,” Henny said. “You may leave it anywhere.”
The tot on Henny’s hip patted and poked at her mother’s large breast.
“You had your milk for today,” Henny said, though the child was too young to understand. “It’s time you learned to eat meat!” To me, she said, “I’m too old for babies. Thought little Tom was the last, then this one came along. But you are the sweetest fauntkin, aren’t you, lovey?” Henny kissed the girl’s plump cheek and sat beside me with a sigh. “You look like you’ve got one on the way. Say good-bye to that pretty figure. This is what a dozen childbirths will do to you.” She pointed at her broad waist. “Have you had dinner? Stay, and I shall feed you with this horde of savages.”
“You are too kind,” I said. “You have enough mouths to feed.”
“So one more makes no difference. Besides, you should enjoy Bessie’s cooking. She’s my eldest. Deaf and dumb, but cleverness in the kitchen will get her a husband someday, I don’t doubt. Her black pudding is the best you will ever have. She is such a good girl. Marion, have you met her? From the house on the corner? Her daughter is Bessie’s age and gives her no end of grief. Lazy as an old sow. An old sow in heat. She goes snuffling after boys when she should be minding the shop.”
“It seems that everyone in town has a shop.”
“A body has to make money. I suppose you have a dowry and your husband’s income.” She lifted a reddened, chapped hand and examined her broken nails. “I wish I could be a noble lady, just for a day.”
I folded my own hands in my lap so as not to draw attention to them.
Three little children dashed into the hall and chased one another around the table, yelling and laughing.
“Quiet!” Henny shouted. “Charlie, I will box your ears if you knock over my supplies!”
They continued to yelp but ran away again. Henny sighed. “Savages, truly.”
“Do you have a stall on market day?” I asked.
“No, dove, my Georgie works on commissions,” Henny said proudly. “I miss shop work sometimes. My father was a fishmonger, and I liked seeing customers. Father said a blatherskite like me was bad for business; I kept people chatting too long. I have always had a mouth on me. You seem like the quiet sort, dignified. Sometimes I wish I were like that too, but you can’t change how God made you.”
“Perhaps I should open a shop.” A thrill ran through me as I said the words. The idea of making my own money was intoxicating.
“It’s not easy work, child,” Henny said doubtfully. “And there isn’t much a lass can do. Become an alewife like Alice, that’s about the only choice. Mind you, we miss having a real brew house in town. There’s old Hal’s place, but he just brews on the side, and he charges a king’s ransom for the stuff. I’d rather make my own. Or rather, Bessie and Meg make our own. Such good girls.” Henny absentmindedly shifted the whining baby to her lap and bounced her. “There was a young widow, years ago, who made a delicious brew. Alice, bless her heart, never came close to as good. She always charged a fair price though. Alice may speak sharply, but she is virtuous, and under her rough ways is a heart of pure gold. The widow I told you about, well, she was a pretty one, and the men nursed their ale all night and mooned after her. Now that I think of it, you look something like her, though you are much taller, and your hair is more of a mousy color. She ran away with a carpenter from the city. It was quite a scandal, for they said he had another wife. You should have heard the gossip! The wives here were happy enough to say Godspeed to that little vixen. Though I don’t know. Wasn’t her fault she was so pretty.”
I let the subject fall, but the thought of making money consumed me after our conversation. Brewing could give me freedom.
When Fernan returned, I presented my plan casually while I bathed his feet. “How would it be,” I asked, “if I earned a few shillings while you travel?”
Fernan’s leg jumped involuntarily as I scrubbed a sensitive spot on the sole of his foot. He liked me to scour his callouses, but he was ticklish.
“What?” he said disinterestedly.
“I thought that perhaps I could convince Alice to let me revive the idle brewery and regain the license to sell ale.”
“Mmm.” He closed his eyes, and after a pause he murmured, “Brewing is bad business. Prices are fixed by the king. When the cost of ingredients gets too high, brewers lose money.”
“Alice made it work.”
“Barely, by the look of things.”
“I wish to give it a go.”
“Hire yourself out. That would be secur
e income.”
“My labor would pay mere pennies. If I had my own shop, I could make this a real home for us.”
Fernan snatched his foot from my hands impatiently and sat up. “If Alice wants to put you to work, that’s fine with me. Just don’t expect me to subsidize your little adventure.”
I remained kneeling, expecting him to return his foot to the basin, but instead he looked at me in silence for a moment and then grabbed the hair at the back of my head. With a firm hand, he dragged my face close to his. “Don’t look at me like such a worried rabbit,” he said with a smile. He bent closer and kissed me. Even as I felt smothered by his wet, demanding mouth, his familiar scent drew me in. I was not sure that I wished to be free of him.
Alice was easily convinced to let me try to reclaim a license to sell ale. Her life had become a trial, and she relied on the aid of friends and neighbors to get through each day. A tenant who could keep a roof over her head was welcome. “The work is unpleasant, unblessed, and unprofitable,” she told me, “but I am exceedingly glad to have you pay the rent, lass.” There was fondness in her voice if not in her words.
The difficult part of my scheme was learning how to brew. Even with instructions from the alewife, it took me some time to make a passable batch of ale. The malted grains left in the brewery had gone to rot, and she did not have a kiln, so I was forced to buy expensive barley that had been malted at Cothay Manor. Fernan would be angry, but I planned to make the money back. I could not rebuild Alice’s business without spending some money first.
When I tried the hand quern, it took me a whole day to grind enough grain for one batch, and then Alice told me that I had damaged the husks too severely, so I had to begin again. The mashing, however, was the hardest part. Knowing how much scalding water to add to the mash and how long to continue mashing is something that can only come from experience. The first four batches I made tasted nothing like ale, and the fifth was oversweet. By the sixth batch, however, I had a decent drink.
All the Ever Afters Page 12