Figures in Silk

by Vanora Bennett

  Although Jane had kept some of her family ties to the City whose existence surrounded her, and had even gone to the trouble of having herself declared a Freewoman of the City of London at the same time as Isabel, on Isabel’s twenty- first birthday, so that, in principle, both sisters now had the right to trade as well as advantageous access to justice and London government, Isabel’s skeptical expression when considering Jane’s courtly ways sometimes made Jane feel an alien in her own hometown. So now Jane tried to restrain the dance of her hair and veils and arms, the glitter of gold on silk; but at the same time she wasn’t too worried if Isabel did find her affected today, because once Isabel found out what new miracles Jane had managed to arrange, she’d . . . she’d . . . Jane couldn’t even quite imagine how her still- faced, watchful- eyed sister would express her extreme joy. But that she’d feel it there could be no doubt. She knew Isabel worried about Will too.

  Will Caxton was always bothering Jane about his books. He had an insatiable hunger for patrons. Jane had done her best.

  She’d got him the official title of king’s printer, and although his new calling earned him only a fraction of what his old Mercery dealings had brought him, he was as happy as a lark translating books and writing prefaces and running his print shop and mess-ing about with his foreign foreman Wynkyn and their strange, clanking machines. (His print machines had been good cover for Isabel, now that the parts of the twenty silk looms, deviously imported in pieces over a period of several years, so that their purpose couldn’t be guessed at in the port of London—Jane admired the way they’d done that—were all propped up along the walls of the silk- house workshop, ready to be assembled. Anyone not con-versant with the silk trade, and in Westminster there was no one 2 but Isabel who was, might just be fooled into thinking these were parts for more outlandish print machines at the Caxton house next door.)But poor Will still worried all the time about money. Jane thought Isabel probably would, in the same way, if the Claver silk- weaving venture ever got going—even though silk was a more reliable source of income than the printed word. Worry was the price everyone would have to pay for putting their heart into promoting these risky new manufactures. Even now Will was back in England, where he’d thought buyers would flock to him for his books, it was often hard to shift stock. He still had piles of the early ones, for which he’d chosen such bad dedicatees; he didn’t seem to have the knack of finding good protectors for himself.

  The first book, the chess one, which he’d printed in Bruges, he’d been foolish enough to dedicate to the king’s second brother, the Duke of Clarence—who, as any Londoner could have told him, if he’d bothered to ask, had no time for books anyway and was a petulant, unstable, vengeful, dangerous fool into the bargain. If it hadn’t been for Jane’s introductions and praise in the right quarters, Caxton’s business might easily have got into serious trouble right at the start.

  Once Jane had started helping him, Caxton had acquired some influential friends. Jane had had a word with Dorset. Within weeks, Caxton had been permitted to dedicate books to the most bookish of the Woodvilles, Dorset’s uncle and Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s brother, Earl Rivers. Rivers was now the governor of little Prince Edward and his brother and spent a lot of time with them at Ludlow, on the Welsh border, where the Prince of Wales’s house hold was formally based. Caxton and the learned Earl Rivers had developed a book lover’s friendship, and Caxton had won several commissions to print the earl’s translations. He’d even been allowed to present a book to the little crown prince himself—he’d chosen the story of Jason, the boy king threatened by his Herod- like wicked uncle Pelias, who usurped the throne while pretending to be Jason’s protector. With a further nudge from Jane, Caxton had included both boy princes in the flowery dedication he’d been allowed to make to the king of his account of the crusade of Godfrey of Bouillon.

  Just to be sure Will Caxton had friends among the Woodvilles’ enemies, Jane had also made sure that Will Hastings received a book dedicated to him—a Mirror of the World ordered by Hugh Bryce, the goldsmith, Will Hastings’s deputy at the Royal Mint. So Caxton should have been nicely set up.

  But Jane knew he’d got stuck on the translation of The Golden Legend that Earl Rivers had ordered from him back in the autumn. He’d spent too long on it: a labor of love he couldn’t bear to hurry. She didn’t like to imagine the poor man, running low on funds, too scared to ask for an advance, scratching himself all over, rumpling up his hair in that unattractive way he had whenever he got worried. So she’d found more help.

  In her parlor, with its wonderful pearl- encrusted hanging showing Judgment Day, Jane politely pressed exotic fruits and cups of wine on her guests, and listened with affectionate pride while Isabel told the story of meeting the princess, and tittered at Isabel’s account of the queen’s fearsome pacing, and bowed her head modestly and prettily when Isabel thanked her, less laconically than she usually did, before breaking her news.

  “Will,” she breathed, her gaze as sweetly honeyed as her breath, enjoying his happy- to- drown look: “I’ve got you two new commissions. Good ones. Very good.”

  His eyes opened wide. So excited and relieved that she knew she’d guessed right about his being hard up.

  “The Marquess of Dorset would like you to print him a curial,” she said, pleasurably drawing out the next phrase; “he has the text ready.” She knew Will would be most thrilled of all to hear that; a prepared text meant this would be a quick job, probably even quick enough to pay what ever bills were pressing. Will began to burble something; his face was pink under hair that looked more salt than pepper these days—soon, Jane thought sadly, if inconsequentially, it would be quite white.

  “And when you’ve done that, do you think,” she continued with exquisite politeness, “you would have time to translate the Book of the Knight of the Tower into English . . . and print it”—it was cruel to pause now, but she couldn’t resist waiting so she could be absolutely sure she had both listeners’ full attention—“for Her Majesty the Queen?”

  The reaction was just what she’d hoped—Will kissing her hand and laughing with such delight and relief that he was practically sobbing, and Isabel so astonished that Jane had done something so practical for Will, not to mention getting a commission from the woman who hated her most at court (though it should be obvious that she’d gone through Dorset, as usual), that she forgot to look half as quizzical as usual.

  Jane found herself quietly watching her sister, as she often did, for some telltale sign of love. A token around her neck, perhaps; a mark on her skin. Or just a blush. But even today, when Isabel was smiling with more warmth than usual, there was nothing.

  She’d never say this to Isabel, of course, but her most secret hope was that her little sister would be distracted from her money- making by falling in love and marrying, and give the whole thing up. She’d like to see her sister married and happy with children one day soon. She’d like to see Isabel lose her self- contained look; see her tired out with happiness instead.

  Sometimes she thought she’d like that for herself, too, one day; sometimes when she surprised other women gazing at the babies in their arms, two faces locked together in a look of shared, complete absorption, she’d feel a pang of loneliness she couldn’t explain, even to herself. But it wasn’t the time for her now. She was too well established as she was to think of changing her life. Edward needed his escapes to her; she couldn’t imagine a life without his visits. And too many of her own people in the City needed her to be with Edward. Especially her father. Even if John Lambert had long ago given up hope of becoming Mayor of London, the greatest dream of his life, he’d consoled himself in recent years with his new ambition of dying a country gentleman. It had been a blow, of course, when his entire team of ex- apprentices left his silk house within days, each one implausibly claiming to be going home to the provinces to care for sick parents. Jane had felt indignant with Isabel for a while: there were so many other silkwomen she could have chosen to hi
re away from their masters, after all; and their father had been so bewildered. Still, she could see why Isabel had chosen that revenge. John Lambert hadn’t been kind to her either, and they were both so stubborn there was no talking sense into either of them about their feud. So Jane had looked for other ways to help her father. The king, with a bit of gentle nudging from Jane, had repaid John Lambert for his loans with a gift of 2,000 acres in the West Country, confiscated from the Lancastrian Courtenay family. Jane’s father had started to find himself enjoying his new manors in Devon and Somerset, enough to want more. He needed Jane right where she was. So Jane carried on from one carefree day to the next, doing one small favor here and another insignificant kindness there, going hawking or staying at home playing cards with her guests, without worrying too much about tomorrow. Edward would give John Lambert a knighthood soon. And what ever happened, she thought, God would provide for her.

  But Isabel—there was no reason for her to wait. And Jane had an instinct that there was more to Isabel’s trips west so many times a year than the agonizingly slow progress of the silk- weaving venture really justified.

  Part of it Jane understood. It was obvious Isabel wanted time away from that old dragon Alice Claver, who as far as Jane could see still treated her clever, competent, loyal ex- apprentice with the kind of suspicious mistrust not even a thief deserved. Jane was delighted to help deceive the stout old brute by pretending Isabel was with her whenever Isabel asked her to. But she couldn’t help hoping there was more to the trips than that. She wanted them to mean there was a love story somewhere in Isabel’s life.

  That was why, the last time Edward had spent the night with her, she’d hit on the French gowns alteration idea. She’d broached it at just the right moment, too: after she’d teased him, when he’d pushed the blankets of her bed away and revealed his increasingly well- upholstered stomach, and she’d put her head happily on it and her bare arms around it and whispered, mischievously, “Still a fine figure of a man!”—which he was, considering he’d turned forty and enjoyed his pleasures so flamboyantly—and he’d laughed until his gut rippled, and grinned down at her in his indulgent way, and pulled her back up to him. It was in the middle of the kiss that followed that she’d realized what she needed to ask—to get Isabel all the free time away she could need.

  Jane looked with satisfaction at her sister, who was talking with such animation now to dear old Will. “I’ve told them I’m going to spend Friday nights at the silk house from now on,” Isabel was telling him, at the tremendous speed she favored when she was excited, “so I’ll be right next door. We could have dinner at the tavern, often; and perhaps even eat together in the mornings, if you can spare the time, before I come back to London. I’ll be taking the boat, for now; no horses yet; it’s too early to hire servants, until we know when the silk teams will be here; I don’t want to take yours too often . . .”

  There was a bit of color in Isabel’s usually pale cheeks, Jane thought; but nothing to suggest anything more than excitement at the idea of actually sleeping at the silk house—which must make the idea of the silk- weaving venture seem more real for her.

  Nothing to suggest a hidden love.

  Jane smiled wistfully at them. She didn’t mind the possibility that Isabel might be hiding something from her; not if it made her happy. If Isabel did turn out to have a secret in Westminster, Jane thought, trusting in God to make everything come right in His own time, she’d tell her sister about it whenever the moment was right.

  Goffredo hadn't come back by Passiontide. Nor had Dickon.

  But Isabel’s pleasant new routine of weekly visits to the princess, dinners at the Red Pale with Will Caxton, and Friday night stays at the silk house was well enough established for her to have grown used even to the place’s lonely nighttime creaks and scuttlings.

  She couldn’t go for the usual fitting on Good Friday itself, so, unusually, she went the following Tuesday instead, April 9, once the churches were glorious with flowers and the Lenten shrouds thrown back and people with roast lamb in their stomachs had lost the meatless scratchiness of March and got roses in their cheeks instead.

  She hardly noticed the balminess of the breeze. She let the river slip by unwatched. She was happily preoccupied with the task ahead: discussing with the princess the placement of tassels and the commissioning of new laces and points for a pair of crimson damask sleeves embroidered with fleurs- de-lys, which would also need unpicking and reworking. With white roses, perhaps?

  It was only as she got off the boat at Westminster that she realized something was wrong.

  There were more people out and about than usual, all sorts—men- at- arms, house wives, monks—and there was an air of panic about them. Rushing about like ants whose home has been trod-den on, she thought curiously. What’s got into them?

  Then the bells began. Abbey bells. One booming, gloomy note, over and over again. It went right through her head.

  Half- deafened, she trotted into the gate house to ask. There was a fat woman outside, holding a grocery basket, sobbing.

  The gatekeeper’s hat was off . He looked frightened.

  “Someone’s died,” Isabel said: a kind of question.

  The man crossed himself and shivered. “God rest his soul. He only had a cold,” he mumbled confusedly.

  “Who?” Isabel snapped. But even as she asked, she realized she knew; and with the knowledge came dread at all the unknown possibilities this death might bring—a dread so intense that she almost burst into tears like the fat house wife outside. By the time the gatekeeper had composed himself enough to mutter two words—“The king”—Isabel was on her way out.

  She had to get back to London. Jane would need her.

  10

  "All I can say,” panted Anne Pratte, half running along beside Isabel—who had nodded curtly when she’d seen the white- headed silkwoman hovering by the Ludgate jetty, but hadn’t slowed down, because she was trying to avoid acknowledging that Anne Pratte was waiting specially for her even if no other explanation was likely; because she didn’t want to get caught up with the Catte Street women now; because she wanted to get to Jane’s as quickly as possible—“is thank the good Lord that Goffredo isn’t going to be back for a while with his people. Because this is not the time. Not at all the time. Now, do slow down a bit, dear, would you? I’m all out of breath.”

  Isabel sighed and stopped. Anne Pratte’s little chest was heaving so much she’d put a frail claw of a hand to her throat. But it didn’t make Isabel soften as much as she was meant to. She knew Anne Pratte was using her fluffiness as a weapon. Alice Claver must have sent her out to bring Isabel home. “I can’t come home with you now,” Isabel said firmly, though less firmly than she’d meant to. “I have to go to Jane.”

  Isabel’s heart was pounding. She’d spent the entire trip back imagining Jane, alone in her room, listening to the bells; with her future gone, with no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one to tell her what was happening. Imagining Jane’s pain made her feel dizzy. Bereft.

  She had to shout above all the other voices, and the bells. There were bells ringing everywhere, the same slow one- note lament being bashed out from every belfry, so loud and discordant and ominous you could go mad from it. No one had known the king was ill, but now everyone was whispering. He’d caught a cold fishing. He’d had a fit thinking about the king of France. His death brought utter shock. It was pandemonium everywhere you looked: markets closing hours ahead of time; shutters going up against the midday sun on the windows of houses; youths scurrying home under mounds of bolts and bags and bundles of goods; a crowd of citizens shouting at St. Paul’s Yard, some in their ill- fitting military harness, with straps hanging loose and bellies hanging out; and every church doorway up Ludgate Hill a smaller buzz of panic and people. No one able to see whether this news would rupture the delicate webs of agreements they’d made of their peaceable lives; everyone fearing the worst.

  Anne Pratte’s face fell. She looked p
iteous. “Have the apprentices closed down the shops?” Isabel asked. Reluctantly, Anne Pratte nodded. “Is everything properly shuttered and boarded?”

  Isabel asked. Anne Pratte nodded, even more reluctantly. “Are all the girls in, and is there supper for everyone?” Another woebegone nod. “Well, then, you’ll be fine. You’ve got it all in hand. Go back. I’ll come as soon as I can,” Isabel said.

  “But, dear, you can’t wander round on your own in all this,”

  Anne Pratte quavered. “Alice would never forgive me if I let any harm come to you.” She stopped as if struck by an idea. “I know!”

  she exclaimed brightly. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” Isabel said.

  Anne Pratte gave her a birdlike, considering stare. Isabel stared levelly back. The Catte Street women would, once they stopped panicking, probably want to know how Jane was faring, she thought. Isabel smiled down at Anne Pratte, but firmly. “Tell Alice I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.

  They’d reached Old Jewry. Isabel banged on Jane’s door, only half listening to Anne Pratte’s meek “All right, then, dear,” and retreating footsteps. But as she was let into the courtyard and turned to hand the boy her reins, she realized Anne Pratte was going no further than the Prattes’ own home over the road, to wait out Isabel’s visit.

  Jane was sitting in her great hall, on a stool, up against the edge of the window, leaning her cheek on the leaded panes, still in bright skirts, watching the crowds.