Figures in Silk

by Vanora Bennett

  “The king’s done you proud,” Dickon said easily as she locked up. “You deserve it.”

  Was that the beginning of a farewell? She stiffened.

  “Now, I’ve been on the road since dawn,” he went on, eyes finding hers, laughing into her soul, dispelling her fears. “You probably don’t know this, but there are no good taverns for miles up the Great North Road—just cheap bread and stinking cheese for farmers bringing their flocks to town. I couldn’t face going in. So I’m hungry.”

  She let herself begin to laugh. (Another question for later, the hopeful part of her noted: Where’s he been coming from? Why the Great North Road?)1 “But this place,” and he pointed at the sprawling tavern opposite, “has the best cook in Westminster.”

  She waited, trying not to hope too painfully.

  “I often come here when I first reach Westminster. It’s a good place to sit a while when you’ve been away. Find out what people are talking about. I like that.” He grinned mischievously. “I sometimes even stay my first night here. Recover from the journey.

  They treat my horses well. And they have good beds. Clean straw. No fleas.”

  He raised an eyebrow; an invitation. “Aren’t you hungry after your long walk?”

  “ No food for an hour,” the innkeeper said, wiping his hands on his trousers as he came out. His broad face was red. He grinned at Dickon. “But it’s your favorite: beef stew.”

  From the kitchen, Isabel could smell onions frying. Dickon said easily, “We can wait.”

  She saw the badge on the purse he paid from. It was embroidered in silk: a white boar with a golden collar.

  This tavern looked clean and bright. There was fresh sawdust on the floor. The windows were open, and bunches of gillyflowers in cups on the tables caught the light. There were a few other customers—a monk in black, sitting morosely alone by the door, nursing some private grievance and a large ale; two ladies in their middle years, in the dark velvets of the respectably rich, chatting quietly at the back over a jug of ale and some slices of bread and cheese and cold meats. The hot food being prepared smelled inviting.

  “I’ll fetch something to do from my bag,” Dickon said. “Cards, or a game.”

  He slipped out into the street; the entrance to the bedchambers where he’d put up must be outside.

  The innkeeper brought a jug of wine and cups while Dickon was away and Isabel was settling herself at a quiet table in a window. He half looked at her as he poured, ready to talk if she did. It was her chance.

  “So he’s a regular,” she said tentatively. “Dickon?”

  “Mm.” The man set the jug down. “He comes and goes.”

  She tested: “With the Duke of Gloucester . . .”

  “That’s right,” the man replied. “Stays when the duke’s at the palace. A night, sometimes two; till they find him quarters there.

  He says it’s because my beef stew’s so good.” He beamed and retreated.

  Isabel thought about the expensive embroidery on Dickon’s purse.

  Dickon returned, a dark blur of energy, with a bag. He sat down at the table opposite her. A delicious tremulousness was coming over Isabel. What would they talk about, she and this stranger? Her tongue was sticking against the roof of her mouth; she couldn’t meet his eyes. All the questions she’d been meaning to ask had flown out of her head.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then they both began at once.

  She said: “The flowers are pretty.”

  He said: “I so nearly kissed you last time.”

  Unable to stop, she said, “Though I like roses better.” Then,“What?”

  His eyes were glowing into hers like coals. “I didn’t want to spoil it. You had other things on your mind.” He grinned that wolfish grin. “It was better just to go.”

  Her cheeks were on fire. She should have looked away. But she didn’t. She went on staring back, with the wondering start of a smile; knowing she was lost, but not caring.

  Perhaps he’d embarrassed himself too. He drained his cup and shook out pieces from the bag. Chess, she saw, staring down now, catching her breath. It was lucky Will had taught her a bit.

  It was a relief to have something to do with her hands. She moved one piece. Moved again. She was getting her breath back.

  Then she stared. He’d just moved a fers, the weak vizier piece.

  She knew the rules: it could only go sideways, one square at a time. But he’d moved it right across the board.

  “You’re cheating!” she said, lifting her eyes to his, so delighted at the sight of his that catching him out seemed a plea sure. “I saw you!”

  But he only grinned and whistled through his teeth. “Ahh,”

  he said easily, “no, I’m not. I’m just playing the new game.”

  She opened her eyes wider. “Tell me,” she said, not sure if he was just teasing her, but too gloriously happy to care if he was.

  He did, sitting back, crossing one leg casually over the other knee; he knew all about it. In Spain, he said, after the fighting Queen of Castile had gone on her crusade against the Moors, they’d started playing a new game of chess, full of powerful women. The piece Isabel knew as the fers was called the queen now, and had gained the most powerful moves on the board. A chess queen could move anywhere—as far as she wanted, in any direction. Using the queen well was a player’s key to winning, and the best way to kill the other side’s king—the aim of the game.

  “It’s all the rage, this new game,” Dickon said, showing her his move again.

  “At court,” she replied innocuously; and he nodded, too absorbed to notice he was being drawn out.

  Then he looked up, with more mischief curling his lips. “Another new rule—you’ll like this,” he said. Under his gleaming eyes his voice was a caress. “I called you a pawn once, remember?

  Said you had no other choice but to move forward, one step at a time?”

  She nodded. Remembering, fondly; thanking God that dilemma was over, and she was here.

  “Well,” he said, “in the new game, a pawn that manages to move all the way across the board—eight spaces—and gets to journey’s end at the other side, becomes a queen too.”

  She grinned back, reflecting his plea sure. “So, if I just keep going, I can be a queen?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “Even if there’s already a queen or two on the board?”

  He nodded again, baring his teeth and laughing down at her.

  “There can be as many queens as you like in this game,” he said cheerfully. “As many queens as there are pawns—as long as the pawns are ambitious enough, or lucky enough, to go the full distance.” He laughed. “Just like life at the court of King Edward, really,” he added. “Wouldn’t you say? We only have one official queen, if you don’t count the captive queen from the other side who’s in the Tower—Henry’s French queen. Let’s not. She’s finished. But look at all the pawns rushing at the king now: all those mistresses, running round court, sucking up favors, new queens and queenlets in the making.” He twinkled at her. “Your sister’s one,” he added. “The merry one, I believe.”

  He seemed to know the court. Might he really know Jane? She found the thought distasteful. She tried not to let it show.

  But she stopped thinking about Jane and everything else when he touched her hand; a butterfly brush. It could have been accidental. “Now you’re on your way too,” he whispered, and the smile softened. “You’ll be the Queen of Silk.”

  She could feel his hand, almost; it was still resting just next to hers on the board. She could imagine the warmth of it; if she moved hers a fraction, they’d touch again. Very softly, she sucked in air between her teeth. He’d knocked over a piece and not noticed. He’d stopped thinking about the game of chess too.

  “Here we go!” the innkeeper warbled into the charged silence.

  “Mind yourselves! Stew’s up!” And he and his serving girl bore down on them with big bowls of stew and spoons, banging and cl
attering, ignoring the furtive retreat of hands, clearing off the game and arranging food in front of the diners.

  Dickon just laughed. Isabel was flustered, but he didn’t look in the least abashed. “Best beef stew in town,” he said, and slipped the innkeeper another coin. “Thank you, Hamo.”

  They ate. The innkeeper retreated, but Isabel was now aware he would be somewhere nearby, waiting to come out and clear the platters. She kept her hands on the spoon and bowl in her lap.

  “I like it here,” Dickon said, breaking bread into his soup. “No questions . . . no one snooping behind the tapestry. It’s like being on the road. Free.” He laughed, and put steaming wet bread neatly in his mouth. “Except that the food’s better.”

  She thought she understood. She started telling him about her year in the selds, as a girl in brown; how none of her wealthy friends (or her father) had seemed even to see her when she wasn’t wearing the bright silk uniform of the rich; how becoming invisible to them had been lonely at first, but how putting on the clothes of a humble worker had shown her another life too. How she’d started liking the lively, mischievous tenement talk of the poorer silkwomen, whose world she’d never imagined while she lived at her father’s, but who had been there under her nose all along. She said: “So I know what you mean about being on the road, and free. I’ve found a way of feeling free myself.”

  He nodded. She liked the absorption with which he listened.

  “A good lesson,” he said. “I had my ups and downs during the war; it served me well to know how to fade into the background from time to time. It can save your life to be anonymous. Your Mistress Claver is an intelligent woman if she’s taught you that.”

  “I’m grateful,” she acquiesced, almost surprised at the word, at the affection in her voice. She wiped her bowl with bread. “I suppose that’s why my Mistress Claver is a better merchant than my father,” she finished thoughtfully. “Even though she’s a woman, and won’t ever get to be a liveryman of the Mercers’ Company, or alderman, or Mayor of London, or wear the uniforms and have the power my father wants. He only sees the display. But she looks beyond. Sees people’s faces, their skills, their hopes, their souls.

  Sees what they can do, or could do if they got half a chance. Not many people do that in the City. No one else looks after the poor silkwomen like she does. You wouldn’t get my father or his friends writing petitions to Parliament for them. So no one else gets the rewards either. You know, she’s actually richer than my father; though you’d never guess it to look at her, all bundled up in her old gowns.”

  He laughed comfortably.

  There was a pause. He pushed his plate back. She felt braver now that they’d found things to talk about. In what she hoped was a casual voice, she asked: “So did you marry the girl you told me about? The one your brother was against?”

  She thought, from his stillness, that he didn’t like the question. Every fiber of her being was willing him not to nod.

  But when he nodded, she wasn’t surprised. Not by his answer; the silence had told her already. Only by the quiet sadness stealing into her, as if a cloud had covered the sun.

  She tried not to let it show. She made herself smile, and went bravely on. “And was your brother angry?”

  He looked up with a sudden flash of charm, as if grateful to be forgiven, and grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Very.”

  She felt for her purse. She knew she should leave. He was married. The meal was over. But she couldn’t quite make herself get up. Not yet.

  “It worked out well,” he went on, perhaps sensing she was 1 thinking of going, and trying to spin out the moment. “She’s an heiress. I’ve gained half her father’s lands. I’m a big man in the North now. It’s a good enough match not to worry what my brother thinks.”

  She found the purse, clutched at it. “Children?” she whispered, tensing, ready to rise.

  He shook his head. “Poor girl,” he said lightly. She thought he meant his wife. “No.”

  She stood up and bowed, smiled formally. “Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “I should be getting back.”

  He looked downcast. Picked up the jug. “There’s still some wine?” he said, asking a wistful favor.

  She shook her head and gave him the same regretful smile.

  Took a first step away.

  A voice in her head was telling her there was no need to behave like a jilted bride. Nothing untoward had happened. She’d eaten; she’d enjoyed a conversation. She spent half her life talking with married men like William Pratte and widowers like Will Caxton. There was nothing wrong with that; it was the point of in dependence. And this was someone she’d wanted to meet again. A stranger she had struck up an instant friendship with. It was part of the strange good fortune of today that she’d found him now.

  She paused. Felt radiant relief at the simplicity of it. This didn’t have to be all. Turned back to where he was still sitting, still looking at her.

  “I’ll be here a lot,” she said. “Perhaps we could have dinner again, next time you are?”

  He nodded. “I’d like that,” he said slowly, and she could hear the plea sure in his voice. “Tell each other our stories. . . . I’ll walk you out.”

  In half a dozen steps they were outside, blinking in the1 sunlight, standing next to the open side door, through which she could see a staircase. They paused; perhaps both thinking of how to say good- bye. It was Dickon who put a hand on her arm, but it was Isabel who acted. She felt a jolt like fire go through her flesh.

  She shivered. She couldn’t stop herself. She whispered, “Come,”

  and pulled him through the door, looking back at him and laughing, and he was laughing back at her, and before she knew what was happening they were in interior shadow again, behind the door, on bare boards, with stairs leading up and a shaft of light beaming down, and he was kissing her.

  She was looking for her linen. The bare room—just a bed and plaster walls and pale oak beams and Dickon’s bundle against the wall—had been neat an hour before. They’d turned it into a wild rumple of sheets. She could smell new straw in the mattress.

  She smiled, remembering. The heat of it half embarrassed her now. She’d had no idea, no idea, she thought tenderly; it hadn’t been like this before. She picked her shift out of the mess and pulled it on. Dickon was asleep. She softened at the sight of him, loving the dark line of muscle and skin against the cloth.

  “Soon, again,” he’d murmured, sliding off her. “My kindred spirit.”

  “You’re married,” she’d whispered back, snuggling into him.

  “We can’t. I shouldn’t have.”

  They’d both known she meant yes.

  Lives changed, she thought now, without being shocked at herself: people died; wives changed. No one need know for now.

  There was always hope for tomorrow.

  She’d wake him up. She looked around. With delight she saw his knife lying on the floor, by the crucifix he’d found time to take off in the rush for the bed, on his open missal.

  She lifted up the knife. The handle was metal and cold: metal inlaid on bone. She laid it flat on his forehead.

  He came awake, startled; then, seeing her so close, leaning over him, pale red- gold hair falling over his face, laughing at his shock, his face melted into relieved happiness. He pulled her down on him. “No surprises,” he muttered, kissing her ear as he whispered into it, “you had me worried for a moment.” But he didn’t sound angry to have been teased; and now he was too absorbed in touching her skin with his lips, sliding his mouth slowly down her neck, to talk at all.

  She leaned over his head to drop the knife back, still laughing.

  His tongue was exploring her collarbone. She shivered in anticipation.

  But she couldn’t just let the knife go; not onto an open book. It was plain, but it must be expensive. It would get damaged lying open. So she let the knife clatter onto the boards; she reached a hand down to shift the crucifix and close the book. And she sa
w the three words written on the open page: Loyaute Me Lie.

  Loyalty Binds Me. She knew that motto. She embroidered regalia; she knew them all. Dickon’s tongue was teasing at the edge of her shift now, but she pulled away. Sat up.

  He looked surprised. “I know,” he breathed, “you have to go.

  But not just yet . . .”

  “Your prayer book has the Duke of Gloucester’s motto written in it,” she said baldly.

  His eyes flickered. He sat up too.

  “Yes,” he said, equally baldly. “It would.”

  He hadn’t really hidden anything, she thought, with her head whirling. She’d seen the purse with the badge. She knew he was here, not at the palace, enjoying a moment of anonymity. She knew he owned land in the North. She knew his name was Dickon.

  She just hadn’t guessed that made him Richard of Gloucester. The king’s brother.

  He should have told me, she thought hotly. Then: Why? He didn’t have time. I seduced him.

  The next thought that came clear from the whirl pool in her head was pure sadness. It was only a few minutes since she’d been putting on her shift and hoping, sinfully, as she now realized, that his wife might die; that, having inherited her estates, Dickon might . . .

  She shook her head. She couldn’t even finish the thought. The foolishness of that hope, remembered now, made her close her eyes and feel sick and hot.

  Then came shame. She could hear his voice, when they’d been downstairs, and it was saying, mockingly, “Look at all the pawns rushing at the king now: all those mistresses, running round court, sucking up favors,” and “Your sister’s one . . . The merry one, I believe.”

  She didn’t want him to think she was one of them. However cringingly pleased her father might secretly be at his daughter’s relationship with the king, Isabel despised the easy life it allowed Jane to lead. She always would. It had nothing to do with the Bi-ble’s strictures against fornication; it was more that Isabel couldn’t respect or understand idleness. She didn’t want to be known as a woman whose life’s work was charming favors out of important people so she could go on prettily doing nothing. She didn’t want to be like Jane.