The Good Wife of Bath

by Karen Brooks

  There were five live-in maids to care for the animals, the oven, the fireplaces, to draw water from the well, churn the butter, collect the cream, brew, make maslin and other types of bread, sweep the fireplaces, change the rushes and all manner of tasks, including laundry. To my astonishment, not one of them was encouraged to spin, though they all knew how. There were boys and men to tend the sheep, the horses (Turbet had no donkeys until we arrived) and to keep the store of weapons clean. Aye, Turbet had an armoury of sorts where longbows were housed (there was even a butt for practising), two heavy swords and armour that had once been his father’s. A blacksmith leased the smithy. Mornings rang with the sound of his hammer striking the anvil. It was quite musical. There was also Turbet’s squire, Nicholas, who followed his master around like a brow-beaten puppy. I was saddened to learn that the young boy who’d struggled to hold Hereward and Wake had been dismissed with a beating. From Bath, his name was Peter. I could tell Mistress Emmaline was surprised I’d asked after him. The extra servants who’d been buzzing about the lodge the night before were, as Alyson suspected, hired not only to help prepare the house for my arrival, but to give a grand impression.

  By the time I’d finished the tour of the lodge, I was underwhelmed.

  There’d once been a chapel, but that had fallen down and never been replaced. The household went to St Michael’s Without the Walls and sometimes Within for service, depending on the day. Turbet’s lands, unlike Fulk’s, were divided into strips for the villeins to live and work upon, and pasture. It was expected I would visit the villeins if they were sick or with child or dying. As steward, Jermyn was responsible for collecting rents, listening to complaints and issuing fines or punishment at the regular manorial court. (As the months went by and the villeins became accustomed to me, I would hear what they thought of so-called manor justice, Jermyn, and even, on occasion, Turbet.) Jermyn basically looked after everything outside the walls of Laverna Lodge. With so much to learn, even if it wasn’t something I could or would oversee, I was determined to be a good mistress. God knew, I couldn’t be a good wife.

  After a couple of weeks, I tried to quiz Turbet about his villeins. He dismissed my questions and, because the servants were present, I didn’t press the issue. I tried again a few weeks later, as the snows began to melt and the scope of the pasture lands was revealed. I wanted to know what breed of sheep he preferred and what he felt about the quality of the wool. Hard not to think about these things when every single day, on top of my other tasks, I also spun and, now that Alyson and I had wool, weaved. Patient before others, Turbet evaded direct answers. But when the servants left the room, he came to where I was sitting with my distaff and spindle, the newly made thread fine and firm between my fingers.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever question me about the sheep. Don’t you ever question me about the villeins, or the land either. In fact,’ he said, leaning over so his face was only inches from mine and I could smell the malmsey on his breath, see the silver bristles limning his quivering jowls, ‘don’t you dare ask me about my business, do you hear? Remember your place.’

  I stopped the spindle and gazed straight into his eyes as, true to form, they slid away and he pushed himself upright. ‘But, husband, how can I help if you don’t tell me?’

  ‘Help me? You?’ He stared. ‘You’re serious?’ He began to laugh. A great affected belly-laugh. Alyson, her spindle turning, glanced in my direction. Milda paused in her actions. Waves of anger and humiliation washed over me.

  ‘Dear God!’ He made a great show of wiping his eyes. ‘Let me remind you that as a woman possessed of a simple, weak mind with no capacity for understanding, you don’t need to know anything. You’re not required to help me. You’re required to do one thing and one thing only, and that is obey your husband.’ He poured himself a drink. ‘What I do with the land, the sheep and villeins, doesn’t concern you. Don’t worry your –’ he’d been about to say ‘pretty’ but changed his mind, ‘head about such matters. All you’ll achieve is a megrim.’ He glanced at me as he resumed his seat. ‘Help me,’ he chuckled. ‘You could no more help than a babe wield a sword.’

  ‘Then why are wives known as helpmeets?’ I murmured. I didn’t have the courage then to confront him. Not when I feared he might slap me or worse.

  It was no surprise the story of my offer was repeated over dinner a few nights later when a group of merchants, including a man named Mervyn Slynge and his ward Kit someone-or-other came to dinner. Master Slynge was a respected Bath wool grower and his ward a handsome young fop with chestnut curls and a faint moustache. What I said became a source of great hilarity; the redder I blushed, the harder the men laughed.

  The only person failing to find amusement was Master Slynge. He eyed me over his goblet and, as I fought not to cry and wished the floor would swallow me, I could have sworn, gave a great big wink.

  Milda, who’d been such a boon at Bigod Farm, proved herself again at Laverna Lodge. Though she disapproved of Mistress Emmaline’s housekeeping, she determined to make a friend of her. They could oft be heard gossiping in the kitchen or, as the weather grew warmer and the snows began to melt, the birds to nest and sing, in the garden. When she wasn’t spinning, she was also popular with the other maids, helping them with their chores. Milda was able to gauge moods and the temperature of the household, report back if I was doing something deemed foolish, dangerous, or even, on occasion (rare, I admit) wise. She’d already proven her worth at Bigod Farm and as a travelling companion when we went to Canterbury. Now I couldn’t imagine life without her.

  I quickly picked up what was required of me as Mistress Gerrish. I’d always known there’d been another wife, many years ago. What I didn’t know was she died from a strange wasting illness, languishing in her bed for over six months before she passed away. The household didn’t talk about what happened, it was forbidden. Nor did they mention Turbet’s two children: a son and daughter. I discovered their existence quite by accident when I was exploring the attic and found some worn-out children’s toys. Milda learned the daughter was married to a merchant in York and the son was based in Calais and something to do with the Staple there. When I tried to ask about his children, Turbet responded sharply.

  ‘They’re none of your business.’

  I remember the incident clearly. We were in the Great Hall. It was Candlemas, a day when all women who had borne children brought a candle to church and celebrated the Holy Mother Mary. We’d not long returned from St Michael’s. I’d invited Father Elias to join us. Master Mervyn Slynge and Kit were present, along with some other merchants and their wives. Master Mervyn was seated across from me. At the tone in Turbet’s voice, everyone had fallen silent, casting looks in our direction.

  Hurt by his answer, embarrassed he could speak to me so before guests, I bit back. ‘Since I don’t have my own to be concerned about,’ I said quietly, ‘it’s natural I’d be curious about yours.’

  He’d slammed his fist on the table. ‘Natural? There’s nothing natural about you, woman! You’ve too much to say for yourself. Curiosity is the devil’s itch and curse you for always wishing to scratch it!’ Leaving his food uneaten, he marched from the hall. Nicholas waited a moment, then dashed after him. Alyson reached for my hand under the table. Father Elias shot me a sympathetic look and began to fill the uncomfortable silence with observations of the recent plantings in the lodge’s gardens (I had managed some improvements there, at least). Mervyn Slynge signalled for the musicians to keep playing.

  I did learn his children’s names: Tamsyn was the daughter, Perkyn, the son. But after a few months, I gave up trying to find out more; I even ceased to ask my husband about his business, much as I wanted to question him about the debts we seemed to be accruing faster than you can say ‘usurer’s ledger’. Confronted with reminders of monies owed whenever I ventured into Bath, it wasn’t as if I could pretend there wasn’t a problem. Not to mention the many folk who braved the winter snows after we were first married to try and co
llect what was owed to them. Only later did I find out these various shopkeepers and merchants were relying on what I had brought to the union to pay them.

  Months later, they were still waiting.

  I pushed this to the back of my mind as I did so many other things in those early days, especially as weaving came to dominate my life. Turbet had been insistent that both Alyson and I not only work the looms, but train other women, men as well, to weave to our standard.

  The head of Bath Abbey, John Harewell, also known as the Bishop of Bath and Wells, came to dine one evening, accompanied by his cellarer, a number of higher-ranked monks and the precentor, who took notes. They sat at the table in the Great Hall like a row of crows in their dark Benedictine robes, their hoods flung back, tonsures shining in the flickering light of the sconces and candelabra. The only exception was the bishop, who wore a white alb and cincture. The fine wool was a sight to behold. I longed to rub the cloth between my fingers, but durst not. Sitting opposite them were some of Bath’s leading wool producers and merchants – my husband, sitting at one end of the table, among them. I sat quietly at the other, terrified lest I be sent away. I needn’t have worried; the only person to notice me was Master Slynge, who offered a reassuring smile.

  Between them, the men discussed the prices of wool, everyone deferring to the monks, who had the largest flock and therefore the most wool. Keen to recoup any losses caused by the Botch, they were prepared to bend regulations. Turbet argued that prices should be raised. The bishop and one of the Bath merchants countered that if the price per bale was increased, then buyers would go elsewhere. Turbet said there were plenty who could afford to pay more, especially the alien merchants – he indicated the two he’d invited. From Flanders, they were a father and son. But if that happened, the monks argued, it meant regardless of what was paid to them, all the real profit would still go to the aliens (beg pardon, good sirs), when they sold the wool in their markets at higher rates, English wool being in such demand. And so it went, back and forth.

  Finally, it was agreed to raise the price per bale by half the amount Turbet initially proposed. The men shook hands and, after toasting a successful outcome, dispersed. Much to my surprise, Turbet told me to see our guests to the door.

  It took some time for everyone to get sorted and leave. I was bidding farewell to Mervyn Slynge, who was without the company of Kit this night, when I heard voices coming from the Great Hall. Not everyone had left after all. I waited until Master Slynge was mounted, then returned, stifling a yawn, eager to escort the stragglers out. I was keen for bed.

  Far from departing, the remaining men were thick in discussion. I recognised the two alien merchants and Master Kenton, the brogger. Instincts told me to stay in the shadows of the doorway.

  ‘You’re right,’ Turbet was saying. ‘I’ve no intention of selling our wool to any local markets. Instead, what I want is to negotiate private contracts with you, good sirs –’ He was addressing the aliens, Georg and Ludolf van Haarlem. Pale of skin and with long noses, they’d barely partaken of either the food or wine and hardly spoken until now.

  ‘This is what we’re here to do,’ said Ludolf. ‘Lock in a contract for the next few years.’

  ‘Few years?’ said Turbet, flashing that smile of his. ‘That’s a long time. The price would have to be right.’

  ‘We heard what price you’re preparing to sell your wool for,’ said the father, Georg. ‘We can offer more – providing you deal exclusively with us.’

  Sweet Jesu. Turbet had deliberately invited these men to the table so they’d hear the price the Bath growers were setting for their wool and then encourage them to raise it – for himself. Part of me loathed his cunning, the other part admired it.

  ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say,’ said Turbet and, with a wave of his hand, signalled for more wine to be brought to the table.

  I took that as my cue to leave. As I mounted the stairs, my mind buzzed like bees around gillyflowers. Here was my husband, a Bath wool grower and merchant, openly cutting out those he’d just agreed to work with cooperatively, so all our wool might sell and we’d profit handsomely. Could his agreement with the alien merchants harm the others? I hoped not. As the monks said, the extra coin made on their wool would aid St John’s Hospital. Help feed so many poor. For all my doubts about priests and monks, the ones at Bath Abbey and St Peter’s poured what they earned from wool and cloth-making into maintaining the infirmary, which looked after the elderly, the sick and poor as well as any pilgrims who passed through town, and those who came to enjoy the healing waters of the hot baths – something I was yet to experience. The hospital relied on tithes and donations to operate. Ever since the Botch decimated their ranks decades ago, there hadn’t been as many benefactors and so they were forced to find other means to survive. Hence the wool and cloth-making. If my husband were to disrupt their efforts, I wasn’t sure my soul could bear it. I knew Fulk would be rolling over in his grave. But who could I tell? Did I even want to, when, as Turbet’s wife, I would be perceived as complicit in his plans, even if I had no say?

  It was an interrupted sleep that night, filled with dark dreams.

  As winter melted into spring and March arrived in a flurry of wind and rain, Lent preoccupied us. I refused to dwell on my growing concerns about Turbet and his plans, except to keep an ear to the ground. Anyway, by the time the bells sounded for none each day and I sat down to weave, I was so tired, I doubt I could have given them sensible consideration. As Turbet continually reminded me, was I not the ‘weaker vessel’? A mere woman? When it eventually dawned on me that I should have been insistent, specifically about how Turbet’s decisions would affect the sheep and property I’d brought to the marriage, it was too late.

  While I was fraught and distracted about the kind of man my husband was and the situation I found myself in (and had brought Alyson and Milda into), Turbet was frantically enjoying my assets, and not the physical kind. Turns out his worldly goods didn’t amount to nearly as much as he liked everyone to think. He lived well beyond his means on the strength of his first wife’s dowry, and he, a knight’s youngest and disappointing son, had grown accustomed to doing so. Everything I owned became his not only to manage, but to divest himself of as he felt necessary.

  Turbet not only thought it necessary to break up my pastures and turn the land into small strips, placing tenants in poorly built cottages to work it, but to sell off parts of it as well. It was quick coin – used not to reduce debt, but to enable him to spend more. Foolishly, he then brought my sheep into his own flock, uncaring that the land he possessed could only hold so many and the sheepfolds were too small.

  Too late, I learned that while Turbet could sound as if he knew what he was doing when he talked business, like his sometimes charming demeanour, his lavish clothes and dinners, the large house and stables, it was all for bloody show.

  A show that needed a young wife with land, sheep and funds, and the attentions of false friends and cunning bargains to keep it all running.

  FOURTEEN

  Laverna Lodge

  The Year of Our Lord 1371

  In the forty-fifth year of the reign of Edward III

  I was married to Turbet for over a year before I finally heard from Geoffrey. It wasn’t that he’d ignored me, as I’d begun to believe, but rather that my letters had chased him across various countries, always arriving just after he’d departed.

  The King had sent his newly minted diplomat to France, and from there to accompany Prince John of Gaunt, the King’s third son, to Aquitaine. My letter found him on the day Gregory XI became Pope. Geoffrey had sat down in his lodgings at Avignon immediately to respond.

  He wrote two letters that day – one to the King informing him of the outcome of the Papal elections, and another to me, which arrived via Father Elias.

  By the time Father Elias came to the lodge to read it to me, winter was once more on the wane. Yuletide and the Feast of the Epiphany had been the most miserable I
remembered. Not only had my husband arrived home drunk on Christmas Eve with a bunch of merchants he’d invited from London, but that duplicitous brogger, bloody Master Kenton, tagged along. The only welcome person as far as I was concerned was Mervyn Slynge. I tried not to let the fact Kit accompanied him affect me. That laughing popinjay could go to hell and stay there as far as I was concerned.

  Immediately after Christmas, my husband left on a long trip, which was just as well, for I was heartily sick of his constant barbs.

  But back to Geoffrey’s letter.

  Apart from his travails and service to the King, Geoffrey thought to answer my question of whether or not I should marry Turbet Gerrish. Though he knew his response would arrive much too late to be of use, in typical fashion, he still saw fit to proffer advice, such is the way of men that they must be heard even when what they have to say is beyond useless.

  Naturally, he warned me against wedding Turbet.

  When Father Elias relayed that bit, Alyson arched a brow and gave me a pointed look. I ignored her. May Geoffrey’s balls rot in his breeches. What was the point of saying anything if not to arouse my ire? My regret? To prove himself right and me wrong?

  I stormed about the solar, and if there’d been something to throw, apart from a decorative crucifix upon the wall or one of Turbet’s cherished armaments, I would have hurled them out the window.

  When I’d finally calmed enough to hear the rest of Geoffrey’s missive, he also said if I did marry Gerrish, then I would make the best of it and seek to learn what I could from a man who knew how to extract the most from those around him. Did he know the man extracted coin the way a pardoner did confessions?