The Good Wife of Bath

by Karen Brooks

  It pained me to see Lowdy’s face so pinched, her puny wrists jutting out the sleeves of a kirtle she’d long outgrown. Or her bony ankles peeking below her frayed hem. Milda had aged since we’d arrived, Donnet too. Always slender, Rose now had a grey pallor, as if she’d been kept in a dark cupboard her entire life. She’d also developed a moist cough. I liked it not, but we didn’t have enough money for medicants. Instead, we did what we could to restore her humours, but feared we were failing. Megge and Yolande had lost the weight they’d gained when they first came to me, though not their joy. Leda, bless her, while losing flesh, was still as bonny as ever, as was Wace, who fed greedily and grew. Up and running about, he needed more than his mother’s milk. He required bread and some meat in his broth. We all did. Drew, who had returned to us at Easter the year before, needed the odd caudle. The watery pottages we’d grown accustomed to were not enough – as Conal was forever reminding us. St Thomas’s foreskin in a purse, but that lad had two stomachs, I swear.

  As it was, though we spun what we could, when we could, mended clothing for any who needed it, sold whatever of our belongings were worth selling, we’d barely enough to buy milk, let alone pigeon or eels.

  Not only hungry, we were freezing.

  Firewood was salvaged from the woodpile in the corner of the Dean’s garden. We weren’t the only ones breaking the rules and climbing the fence at night and taking what we could.

  Beyond the walls, life went on. Gossip was rife within St Martin’s and news spread faster than Greek fire. What we didn’t hear we could rely on Geoffrey to tell us; his letters were frequent, his visits not so much, but his accounts always had a particular frisson as he’d borne witness to events himself or knew someone who had.

  I didn’t pay all that much attention to what Geoffrey wrote, what the criers announced or the rumours, not really. Made not a whit of difference who was on the Papal throne or ours for that matter.

  It’s funny how, outside the walls of St Martin’s, outside London – whether it was Westminster, the other royal palaces or Scotland and abroad – men were arguing, beating their chests, shaking their pikes, drawing their swords, claiming and losing power, fighting and dying, and for what? A ruler’s pride. Meanwhile, within the city, we ate, shat, argued, loved, traded, grew sick, lived and died.

  Aye, we died. And worried endlessly about where our next penny was coming from; how we could purchase wool, wood and food.

  Preoccupied with earning more and keeping my household alive, Geoffrey’s woes and those of the gentles seemed trivial to me. My girls needed purpose, Wace and Lowdy more than pottage, bread and stories by a weak fire. Drew had to regain his confidence and we all needed to create a future worth striving for. A future, that, despite Geoffrey’s optimism and the girls’ refusal to be crushed by our circumstances, looked bleak.

  Just when it appeared as if our fortunes might turn the corner, the Botch returned. It struck London with the force of an autumn gale, sweeping aside not only the elderly and infirm, but our youth. At first it was just vague rumours from the river. Talk spread that ships were leaving port even while the last of the winter seas heaved. Always a bad sign, in this instance it signalled the worst. One mad priest, who stood atop a box on the Cheap most days, raining doom and gloom upon all who passed by, began to shout about deaths outside the walls. How apprentice tanners and fullers and those near Moorfield and Smithfield were dying in vast numbers. It wasn’t until the whispers became the wails of the grieving, and the city’s usual smoke and stench reduced, that people began to listen. Crowds began to thin. Shopkeepers shut up, carts and barrows became scarce, as did produce. People began to buy in greater quantities, hoarding what they could as memories of the last Great Sickness returned. Back then, many who hadn’t fallen ill had starved. It wouldn’t happen again, folk muttered, using the last of their coin to buy flour, beans, fruit and meat to preserve as best they could. Those who couldn’t afford to come by supplies honestly, stole them.

  Who could blame them?

  Then the Botch came to St Martin’s. Two novices at the church of St Nicolas fell ill, quickly followed by some lay nuns at St Agnes. Our neighbour’s lad, a twelve-year-old cutpurse, was hale and hearty one day, bed-ridden the next and in the ground the day after.

  A letter arrived from Geoffrey. This time, I paid attention. It was true – all the chatter, the gossip. The countryside was rife with pestilence and while his tiny hamlet in Kent had so far been spared, he warned that London would not be and to act lest the sickness come to us. Little did he know, his warning came too late.

  Already, Westminster was closed to outsiders; nobles were fleeing to their country estates. The rivers were empty of craft and the roads given over to cattle and sheep. Weeds began to choke the cobbles, so few people braved the streets. Unlike the pestilence of years gone by, this one was plucking the bloom of youth, boys especially. Geoffrey urged me to protect our garden lest the reaper swing his scythe and cut my flowers.

  I began to fear for Wace, Conal, Lowdy, Rose, Megge and Yolande. I remembered when the Botch came to Bigod Farm, how swiftly even the most robust became sick and how quickly and painfully they’d died. The thought of any of my babes, Wace and Lowdy especially, falling victim to its cruel pain was like demons gnawing at my soul. I couldn’t sleep, I could scarce eat.

  I refused to let anyone leave the house, sent callers away, even those begging for aid. We stoppered up our ears to the cries of the sick and frightened lest we too catch their illness.

  Day after day, we sat in the kitchen, the solar, lay upon our pallet beds, staring at each other, the walls, out the window, listless, bored, hungry and always afraid. Not even spinning the little wool we had distracted us from our woes. The weeks passed and the weather grew warm then stifling hot. Stories were soon exhausted, card and dice games too. We grew sick of the sight of each other, uncaring of our clothes, not washing, dreaming of food. It was not a good time. The usual sounds of St Martin’s and life beyond the walls grew quiet then ceased altogether as others sought refuge within their own homes. Only the most foolhardy, desperate or brave ventured out, and then not to sell food, which was scarce, but either to steal it or candles, knives, nets, fishing equipment and all manner of tools so they might catch food and maintain light.

  Bells broke the silence, ringing out over London, earthly reminders of why we were hiding. From the window in the bedroom I shared with Milda, I would listen as a town crier, no doubt paid a pretty sum for the risk, stood in the empty square and announced the death toll. Not a morning went past that the number didn’t grow. The Grim Reaper reigned in London and, while we tried to wait him out, our supplies diminished, as did our resistance to the lure of the outside world. Left with no choice, I finally gave Donnet and Conal permission to search for sustenance. They took the last of our groats and went to the Cheap.

  They returned with weevil-ridden flour, sprouting beans, sour milk, days-old fish and some stringy coneys that Conal had managed to catch outside Aldersgate himself.

  We feasted like kings that night, careful to keep aside enough to last a few days.

  But when the pottage became little more than grey water, the milk churned into butter was exhausted, and Wace’s cries and Conal’s griping were intolerable, and all Lowdy wanted to do was sleep, her long black hair falling out in strands, her skin tight against her skull, I allowed Conal, Yolande, Rose and Donnet to go in search of more food. Summer was almost over. Where was its abundance?

  Nuts were found, berries too, as well as a pigeon, coneys and even some eggs Conal uncovered in abandoned nests. No doubt the mothers had filled empty pots. When Conal admitted he’d given some eggs and a coney to the women next door, I couldn’t object. I would have done the same and, anyway, hadn’t they suffered enough?

  But when, the very next day, Conal didn’t rise from his bed, his act of generosity became one of sheer folly.

  Unable to wake him, scared of the marks she’d found upon his chest and under his ar
ms, Yolande found me upstairs, still abed.

  ‘Mistress,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, rolling over. Sleep had eluded me. When I saw the expression on her face, I sat up.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Conal …’ she began, then started to cry.

  I was so caught up with Conal’s condition, keeping the others, especially Wace, Leda, Rose and Lowdy away, I didn’t notice how pale and slow Donnet was. Yolande too. By the time I did, it was too late for Donnet.

  Conal and Donnet died within two days of each other. Milda and I nursed them and, putting Megge in charge, sent the others upstairs.

  As I bathed Donnet’s and Yolande’s hot bodies, listened to their hoarse and terrified whispers, I silently railed at God.

  This was meant to take boys! Our youth. Conal is seventeen, a man. Yolande nineteen and Donnet a woman of twenty-three. How dare you, sir. How dare you.

  I bargained with the Almighty. Promised that if He would save them, I would reform my ways. I would admit who I was, own my part in Alyson’s death and Jankin’s injury and ensure justice was served. I would take whatever punishment He meted out and the authorities as well. I even swore, after Conal died in my arms, crying for his mother, his sandy hair matted to his forehead, his eyes sunk into his head, spewing and choking on whatever malign fluid was filling his chest, that I would give my life to Him. If only He would spare those I loved.

  For I knew, as I cradled these dear, sweet souls who trusted me as if I was indeed their mother, that they were the family I’d always wished for. They were my children, as if I’d carried them myself. Had I not helped shape them into the men and women they were becoming?

  Aye, and through my weakness, my inability to heed sound advice, I’d sent them to their deaths as surely as if I’d brought the Botch to the door and invited it in.

  When Donnet, the last to die, drew her final breaths, I looked into those bloodshot grey eyes filled with the knowledge of her impending death, and stroked her hot cheek.

  ‘Mistress,’ she whispered. ‘I want to thank you.’

  ‘What for?’ I asked softly. A slow tear rolled down my cheek and splashed onto hers.

  ‘For saving me from what might have been. For the happiness.’

  I choked. Saving her? Why, I’d sent her straight into that devil-moulded Reaper’s arms. I began to shake my head, struggling not to weep, to beg her not to leave me. I’d no right. Not anymore.

  Pressing my lips against her fevered face, I whispered, ‘Rest in peace, my lovely, and know you’ll soon be with your wee son. Then you’ll know happiness.’

  ‘My boy,’ she whimpered and tried to smile.

  She closed her eyes, coughed once or twice, then was gone.

  I don’t know how long I cried, only that at some stage, Milda came and lifted me to my feet.

  ‘We have to prepare her, Alyson. We cannot leave her. It is too dangerous. Come, love, come. Help me.’

  I did as I was bid. Already, Conal had been bathed and wrapped in his sheet, which we used as a shroud. Together, Milda and I said the last rites, having heard them often enough to know what to say even if the exact meaning eluded us. If midwives could do it for babies, then surely the Lord, if not the Dean, would forgive us this presumption.

  Milda and I remained downstairs with the bodies that night, calling up the stairs to let the others know what had happened. Beneath this roof, the Botch was host. A song of sorrow serenaded us throughout the night. The next day, Conal and Donnet were taken from the house and buried in the churchyard. I wondered when Milda and I would become ill.

  Determined not to let any more of my soldiers fall in this one-sided battle, we remained in the small room downstairs for the next few weeks, placing food on the bottom stair, water and milk and even ale as well. We didn’t allow any to share a room with us until we were certain the threat was no more.

  Mayhap, the Lord answered my prayers – in part at least. Much to my astonishment and delight, Yolande recovered.

  When we finally emerged, all of us sallow-faced, gaunt and blinking, into the early autumn heat and iron-heavy skies, we were sombre, yet also determined to let the deaths mean something. To work harder than ever to reclaim our lives and business. To succeed this time and never, ever endure another season like the last, no matter what it took.

  They say one’s loss is another’s gain. I assume that excludes lives taken – or I sincerely hope so, even as I suspect heaven keeps a tally. God has to be a businessman, doesn’t He? There must be an advantage to the suffering He metes out – for Him at least. Else it makes no sense. A growth in church numbers, more sons and daughters sacrificed to holy vocations. Additional pennies in the coffers, spent to glorify His name. Otherwise, how can one account for the sorrow and hardship?

  Just as our fortunes fell and required rebuilding, so Geoffrey’s rose. I guess I should have been thankful for that – and I was – praise be to God. The political business that had never really interested me involving the former (and now very dead) Lord Mayor, Nicholas Brembre, and the Lord Appellants, was well and truly over. When the King had come into his majority and assumed power the year before, casting off his self-appointed advisors and rewarding those he felt had been faithful to his cause, Geoffrey was among them. I don’t think anyone was more surprised than Geoffrey himself.

  Not only was he appointed Clerk of the King’s Works and given a decent salary to accompany such a grand title, but was sent across the counties to inspect and supervise His Majesty’s building projects. John of Gaunt returned from Spain, having failed to secure whatever it was he went there for, but upon settling back home, renewed his patronage of Geoffrey, which meant that, between projects, my poet could pursue his writing.

  Once the Botch passed, Geoffrey made a point of calling whenever he could, sharing his time between us, the Dean of St Martin’s, his friend John Gower and Westminster. It was from Geoffrey we heard more about the ongoing rivalries between the two Popes – now Boniface IX in Rome and Clement VII in Avignon. The latter was generally referred to as the Antipope. A church with two heads – like one of those oddities you paid a penny to see at county fairs. All I could think was that if God, the cardinals and the Pope couldn’t agree who was the prince of the church, the Lord’s emissary on earth, how were we supposed to? Surely, it couldn’t continue like that, with its great flock divided so. Geoffrey said I should keep those thoughts to myself and not share them with the Dean or Father Malcolm.

  Aye, the young novice who saw us settled in at St Martin’s and through the Botch and beyond, became both a priest and a good friend. Responsible for burying Conal and Donnet and administering last rites to Yolande (I insisted he retract them when she survived, but he explained that wasn’t necessary), he’d organised for mass to be said once we were able to assemble again, and even supplied some lovely beeswax candles. Geoffrey came to the service, gathering me in a tight embrace the moment he saw me.

  ‘You’re half the woman you used to be,’ he said, holding me at arm’s length, his eyes raking my admittedly much thinner body.

  ‘Only on the surface,’ I said, kissing him soundly.

  ‘I’m relieved to hear it.’

  While I’d wasted away, along with the household, Geoffrey had increased his girth and the quality of his robes. I guess having a royal position, even a minor one, called for decent cloth. I wished I’d the means to make it for him, and said so.

  It was then Geoffrey placed a small purse in my hands and, refusing to take no for an answer, insisted I keep it.

  ‘When next I come up from Kent,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring more. Don’t argue, Alyson. Consider this an investment. When your business is flush, you can return my coin with interest.’

  ‘So, it’s a loan then?’ I asked.

  ‘If that’s what it takes for you to accept it, aye.’

  Remember what I said about fortunes rising and falling? Fortuna must have decided she’d worked in Geoffrey’s favour long enough, for th
e additional money never materialised. Geoffrey was set upon by brigands and robbed – not once, but twice. The first time was on the road between Kent and London, on his way to Eltham Palace.

  ‘The second was at Fowle Oak,’ he said, examining with dismay the tear in his lovely green woollen robe. ‘What’s so bloody funny?’ he grumbled, downing a mazer as he sat in the kitchen.

  ‘It wasn’t Fragrant or Fair Oak?’ I asked.

  ‘There are no such places.’ He fixed me with a withering look.

  ‘Exactly,’ I chuckled. ‘Which just goes to prove God has a sense of humour.’

  ‘Aye,’ he agreed wryly. ‘A very twisted one.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  St Martin’s Le Grand, London

  The Years of Our Lord 1391 to 1394

  From the fourteenth to the seventeenth years of the reign of Richard II

  We limped through the reminder of the year, grateful that the winter wasn’t as benighted as the last. Even so, Yuletide was a sorry affair as the spaces around the table reminded us of those who were no longer with us. We gave half-hearted wassails, any cheer feeling like an insult to the others’ memories.