A Mortal Bane

by Roberta Gellis

  “I am very sorry to seem so untrusting,” she said, slipping her hand through the slit in her skirt and finding the pocket tied around her waist, “but we see so few strangers in this house. Usually one client brings another.”

  The man shrugged. “A decent inn would cost two pennies, and the companions I would find in my bed—even those with only two legs—would be less pleasant.”

  Magdalene laughed. “I promise you will find no companion with more than two legs in any of our beds, and you may bathe if you like also. Your woman will help you. They are all equally skilled.”

  “For the price, I imagine they must be,” he remarked, but there was no sharpness to his voice, rather, a good-humored acceptance. “What I cannot understand is how such an establishment came to be in this place.”

  “That is easy enough to explain. The order of nuns that founded St. Mary Overy was very strict. The nuns would not permit men, except their priest, into their convent walls. When the order failed and the brothers took over the convent, they found a guesthouse outside the walls to be hard to manage. Moreover, a wealthy guest, who came often, found it inconvenient, so he contributed a sum that permitted the brothers to build a new and more comfortable guesthouse inside the walls. Since the brothers had no more use for this house, it fell back into the hands of the then Bishop of Winchester.”

  “And he felt that what the priory needed was a whorehouse sharing its wall?”

  Magdalene could not help laughing at the wry expression and tone. “It was not the current Bishop of Winchester who made the decision, so I never knew the man, but I can understand his problem. He could not rent to anyone who had a trade that was noxious or noisy, and in any case, there are few who would find this house useful or convenient, having no place for a stall on the road, two rows of small cells for sleeping, and no area fit for a workroom. And the building is too good to throw down. It is stone-built, with a good slate roof. Moreover, there are not many who could afford the rent for such a building—

  “Ah, you pay a good rent, do you?”

  Magdalene cast her eyes up to the ceiling and sighed. “Indeed we do, and—” She stopped speaking and cocked her head, then nodded. “I think that will be Sabina’s client leaving. He likes to get home before dark, and the light is almost gone. I will get some torches for us now.”

  She rose and took from the highest shelf several torchettes made of rounded blocks of herb-scented wax, each with a many-stranded wick, affixed to a wooden holder. These she set into iron loops on the walls, one at each side of the room and one near the door, before she lit them from the fire with a wax-tipped spill. As she moved about, she noticed her guest looking at the corridor with considerable interest; Magdalene turned away to take candles down from the other end of the shelf. If he expected to see someone who frequented the establishment, he was doomed to disappointment. All guests were shown out through the back door just so they would not need to pass any other client waiting in the common room. He seemed to realize this, because a second brief glance told Magdalene that he was smiling too, and had lifted his wine cup to his lips. A few moments later, footsteps came down the corridor. Magdalene set the candles into the holder on the table but did not light them and returned to her seat.

  “I am here by the fire, Sabina,” she said to the tall, slender woman who entered the room, “and we have an unexpected but most welcome guest.”

  “Welcome, indeed,” Sabina said, turning toward them and coming forward slowly.

  Magdalene’s gaze flashed toward the man and saw his eyes widen, but she was not sure what had surprised him. Sabina was very beautiful. Her skin was flawless, its delicate pallor almost luminous, and although her thick hair did not reveal its rich red highlights in the dimmer light, it still flowed in waves and curls over her back and shoulders down to her hips. Moreover, her short nose and her full lips, turned up at the corners in the bare hint of a smile, gave that loveliness a look of saucy merriness. Still, the man might have expected beauty for the price she had set, so likely it was the fact that Sabina’s eyes, although her head was turned in their direction, were closed. The doubt was settled when he jumped to his feet and extended a hand, not to take her arm, but to touch it gently.

  “Let me help you find a seat,” he said.

  Sabina smiled and raised her hand to take his. “Thank you, my lord. Not only are you kind, but you know how to offer help to a blind person. My seat is the one with the lute. Since I cannot embroider, I make myself useful in another way. Would you like me to sing or to play?”

  She allowed him to seat her, although Magdalene knew she was perfectly capable of finding her stool and removing the lute from the seat without knocking it to the floor. And when he said he would like to hear her, if she was not tired, she laughed in a low, musical murmur.

  “We are not overburdened here,” she said. “If I were tired, I could have gone directly back to my room. My ears are keen. I heard that Magdalene was talking to someone. I came because I was willing to entertain you in any way you desire.”

  ‘Then I would like to hear you sing,” he said, and when they had decided on a song, he settled back to listen with clear pleasure.

  By the time the song was done, two other women had entered the room. They stood quietly by the table, and Magdalene grinned when she saw her new guest look from one to the other with astonishment. Each was as beautiful as Sabina in her own way, but totally different. One was tiny and as dark as a Moor. Magdalene had always assumed Letice’s parents must have been Saracen captives taken in the Crusade and brought back to England as slaves instead of being ransomed. Her skin was a warm olive-brown, her almond-shaped eyes black, and her hair a raven curtain that hung to her knees, so dark and shining that it shimmered with glints of green and blue. The other was her opposite, with milk-white skin stained with crushed strawberry on the cheeks; large, round, cornflower-blue eyes; and a pursed, cherry-red mouth. Her hair was golden and fell into curls and ringlets to her waist.

  When the song ended and the women saw the guest’s eyes on them, they both curtsied. “I am Ella,” the blonde said, coming forward with a broad smile. “I am so glad you could come.”

  The dark woman came forward, too, but said nothing, only nodded her head in greeting and took a seat beside Magdalene, reaching down for her sewing basket.

  “And what is your name?” the man asked the dark woman.

  “Her name is Letice,” Magdalene said, “and she is mute, so I am afraid she cannot make light conversation. However, she is a very skilled…embroideress and dances exquisitely. She is expressive enough about what is important here.”

  Letice looked sidelong at the guest under her long lashes, and her lips parted a trifle. “So I see,” he said.

  Magdalene chuckled. “I will go and tell Dulcie to bring our evening meal now. Why do you not go to the table with the women and speak with them a little. That should make your choice among them easier.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing can make a choice among three such beauties easier,” he said as he rose, but then he bent to touch Sabina’s hand. “That was a lovely song, Sabina. May I show you where the table is?”

  “Oh, she can find it herself,” Ella said in her little girl’s voice as Magdalene started down the corridor. “We are never allowed to move anything lest Sabina bump into it. She—oh, Letice, stop! You know Magdalene promised that I could light the candles tonight.”

  Magdalene heard Sabina replying, reminding Ella that she had nearly set her hair afire the last time, and then, as Ella began to whimper, suggesting that if she would allow Letice to tie back her hair, Letice would let her light the spill, but she must be very careful. Magdalene sighed with relief. There would be no need to explain to their guest that Ella was simple.

  She found, when she returned from making clear to Dulcie that there would be five at the table and nodding approval of the dishes the maid suggested, that she would not need to assure her guest that Ella was not being used against her will either. H
aving required the guest’s help to light the candles—as evidenced by his removing his hand from hers just as Magdalene entered the room—Ella frankly rubbed herself against him to display the virtue that made her so popular as a bed partner: her wholehearted and single-minded delight in sex.

  “Ella, my love, we do not urge ourselves on guests,” Magdalene reproved gently.

  Ella sighed and moved away. “But he is such a pretty man,” she said. “Sabina does not care how they look. She does not need to look at them.”

  Sabina laughed. “But I know how they look all the same, love. My fingers tell me. And there are so few who know how to help a blind woman without pulling and pushing at her. What is more, he has a lovely voice. So do not be a greedy little bird. We all want this one.”

  “Now, now, you will make the poor man blush,” Magdalene said just as Letice came forward and touched the tip of a pointed finger to the guest’s lips, following the gentle touch with an even gentler kiss. “Sit down, all. You are getting in Dulcie’s way.”

  As the maid stepped through the corridor door and went to lay five large rounds of stale bread on the table, two at each long bench and one at the head, the man handed Sabina to a bench and sat down beside her. Ella, pouting only a little, sat on the other side of the table, while Letice went to the shelves and took down five cups, three knives, five spoons, and a ladle. She placed the ladle at Magdalene’s seat and left no knife at the guest’s or Ella’s; he had his own, and Ella would not touch a knife.

  Dulcie returned with a pot of stew and a pasty, which she placed by Magdalene’s position at the head of the table. Meanwhile, Magdalene had brought a crock and the polished pitcher from the wall shelves and proceeded to pour ale for her women and herself, and wine for the guest. Then, before she sat down, she served everyone a portion of thick stew, which she dumped on the trencher with a slice of pasty beside it. Letice cut up Ella’s food and there was a short silence while everyone tasted the meal, broken at last by the guest’s compliments on the fine ragout.

  “Dulcie is a good cook,” Magdalene said. “She came to me from a cookshop in Oxford. They could not keep her because she could no longer hear the orders. To me, her deafness is not important. In some ways it is a nuisance to have to shout or use gestures, but on the other hand, she cannot overhear what might be better unheard.”

  “That is a comfort to some, I suppose, but not to me,” her guest said. “There are very few who would be interested in anything I had to say.”

  Oh dear, Magdalene thought, this is a man who is concealing an important purpose and is not accustomed to doing so. A more practiced deceiver would never have denied a need for secrecy but laughed and agreed that all men had secrets. Magdalene kept her eyes on his face, careful not to glance at the pouch on its broad strap, which he had not set aside with his cloak. That pouch. Did it mark him a messenger?

  “No, no,” she protested, laughing lightly. “Every man has things of interest to say. If you tell Sabina how lovely she is, she would hang on every word, I am sure.”

  “And that would be a kindness,” Ella put in, “because, you know, she cannot see herself in a bowl of water or a plate of polished brass.”

  “You are a sweet creature to think of that,” Sabina said to Ella, “but I am sure our guest has more amusing subjects to talk about.”

  ‘Truly, very little. In fact, I would be happy to hear any news of England, since I have been absent for some time. It is clear that the king is not in London. Has there been more rebellion that has carried him out to the field?”

  “No, thank God,” Sabina said. “I do not know whether you were here when the Scots came down into Northumberland, and even to Yorkshire, but a great battle was fought at Northallerton, which was a victory for the English.”

  Magdalene wondered, as Sabina told of the battle of the Standard and how it was Queen Maud who had traveled north to negotiate a truce, whether their guest could be a royal messenger. He certainly seemed interested when Sabina said the king was at Nottingham and assured him the news was reliable and had come to her from a well-informed client. But the man did not dress like a courier, nor was his bearing that of a man accustomed to wearing armor.

  Almost as if he had heard her thought, the guest said he was glad to hear the country was at peace, because he had some traveling to do, and without asking directly, he drew from Sabina the information that King Stephen would likely be fixed at Nottingham for a little while. The king, Sabina added in explanation, was examining the treaty Queen Maud had made with King David of Scotland. Letice tapped her knife and spoon together and everyone except Sabina turned to look at her. She made a few gestures; Magdalene nodded.

  “Someone told Letice that what is delaying the king’s confirmation of the treaty is the dissatisfaction of the barons of the north.”

  “They are the most affected,” the man said, but his eyes were on Sabina’s hand as she walked her fingers over the table toward her cup.

  Wondering if he were feigning lack of interest, Magdalene enlarged on the theme. ‘The barons do not like the terms, which might give the Scots some advantage if the treaty were to be broken, particularly because the truce arranged by the pope’s legate last November did not hold. But since Waleran de Meulan’s twin brother, Robert of Leicester, was involved with the queen in the making of the treaty, it is likely that Stephen will approve it anyway.”

  The man shrugged. “It is the business of the English and the Scots,” he said, making his indifference clear. “What is of more interest to me is that Letice can say what she needs to say, even without a voice.”

  “Sometimes,” Magdalene replied, “but only to those who know her well. I have been thinking about teaching her to read and write—”

  “Teaching her to read and write!” the man echoed, looking shocked. “What for? And who would teach a whore such things?”

  So for all his courtesy, he has a churchman’s attitude toward women, Magdalene thought. “What for?” she repeated. “To ease her spirit. So when she is bursting with a thought and cannot find a way to say what is in her heart, she could write it. And who would teach her? I would.” She laughed aloud at his expression. “From whom did I learn? Why, of course, from a churchman who did not wish to pay me in coin. I have found it a useful skill.” Then she laughed again. “I am sorry that you cannot read him a lecture on the evil of teaching deep mysteries to such fallible creatures as women, and whores at that. He is some years dead, poor man. He kept his purse strings drawn tight, but I liked him anyway.”

  “Because he did not think you weak and fallible?”

  “No, because he knew what I was and found me no worse, if no better, than the rest of humankind.”

  He shook his head, smiling. “I cannot complain that what he did would not much help to save your soul when I am here—which surely will not help to save mine.”

  “That is easily amended,” Sabina said, faultlessly using her knife to spear right through the chunk of meat on the last piece of gravy-soaked bread. “If you are troubled, you have only to follow the path in the back garden to the gate in the church wall. It is just on a latch. You can go through, around the apse of the church, and into the north door. Cross in front of the altar to the south door, which leads into the monks’ quarters, and I think you will find a bell that will summon a priest.”

  “How convenient,” the man said, his full lips twitching. “Is the offering expected as high as the price here?”

  Magdalene shook her head. “I, who have been treated with forbearance, can ill afford such a jest. The prior of the monastery is a gentle man of tender conscience. He has never been here himself and I believe him of a perfectly pure life, but I imagine that he writhes with the pain he thinks such sinners must feel and wishes to provide relief. If bad conscience draws from those who sin among us a substantial offering, well, it is not exacted by the church.”

  Before he could answer, Ella said suddenly, “One of the brothers told me I was excom-com-communicate an
d damned. He was very angry.” Tears stood in her bright eyes. “Is that terrible bad?”

  “For some, it might be,” the man answered gently. “I do not think it applies to you, my child.”

  ‘Thank you,” Sabina whispered in his ear. “She is truly an innocent. She does not understand the demands of her body, only obeys them. And I do not believe she has the power to control herself any more than an infant can control its bowels.”

  He squeezed her hand, and found Magdalene was smiling at him. He raised a brow. She nodded. He smiled at Letice, leaned across and touched Ella’s cheek.

  “Perhaps next time,” he said to her, and then turned to Sabina. “Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded, smiling.

  Ella and Letice retired to their rooms almost as soon as the door of Sabina’s chamber closed behind her and her client. Magdalene took her embroidery, pulled the candles close, and sat working for some time to make sure that the new client would take no undue liberties with her woman. There was no indication that the man would turn nasty, but anyone who arrived without a recommendation from a known client made Magdalene uneasy.

  There was something else about the man that made her uneasy. She was certain he was foreign, and his interest in the whereabouts of the king implied that what he carried in the pouch might be for or of interest to King Stephen. Normally, what she and her women learned from or about their clients, except for public news, was kept secret. They might discuss it among themselves, but they did not sell information or spread it with gossip. However, Magdalene was indebted for many favors and kindnesses to William of Ypres, and William was being supplanted in King Stephen’s favor by Waleran de Meulan. So, should she send William news of this man’s coming?

  She sighed and raised her head, blinked smarting eyes. She did not know his name or even from where he came, though from his accent, she suspected Italy. Would her information be of any value? She blinked again and rubbed her eyes. She was, she decided, too tired to think the matter through and there was no need to do anything until morning. Possibly by then, Sabina might have learned enough, or the man himself might say more during breakfast. Finally she rose, walked silently down the corridor, and pressed her ear to Sabina’s door.