‘God bless you,’ I said, ‘for your charity.’
‘Yes,’ he smiled, ‘and well, it suited me these last few days to have a place certain fellows did not know of.’
My brain seemed still a little loose in my head and I had to place words like careful steps, for fear my tongue would begin running willy-nilly where it would. ‘I trust you will let me pay you, sir, for your trouble.’
‘As to that,’ he said, ‘there is no need. You have paid me quite handsomely already.’
His words made me uneasy and the smile he added, more so.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘You’re as pale as a robin’s egg. Let’s go out into the sun.’
We passed my landlady at the foot of the stairs. She waited for Talbot to go past. ‘New bedding is extra,’ she said to me.
‘What?’ he shouted back to her, opening the door to the street. ‘And do you charge extra too for rats and fleas? I believe you are farming them – the walls seethe.’
She shook her apron, ‘Go to, go to. You are a devil Edward Talbot.’
My legs felt feeble and I was glad of his arm at my elbow as he propelled me down to the river.
‘So, Jabez Foxe,’ he said, as we sat down by St Martin’s Gate. I started at the name, then remembered it was mine. He paused, amused. ‘You could have chosen better – but we’ll let that go. You are seeking someone.’
I nodded, glumly, watching the Severn swirl south. ‘I have lost days and days.’
Tears leaked out of my eyes and I turned my head to hide them. ‘Martha, Martha.’ I said to myself, ‘remember your doublet and hose.’ Swallowing, I turned to him. ‘Tell me sir, was I raving?’
He nudged me and winked. ‘It’s lucky for you I am not a judge. You as good as paid for the rope – it was well I kept the widow off those first two nights. Hour after hour you sobbed that your whole body was clotted with blood – cried that you were sorry and yelped if I came near you, as though I were a constable. I’m not very particular, Jabez, and we all have sins to atone for, but I hope if you murdered a man you had good cause?’
I stared at him in horror. ‘You could not think I would kill?’
He snorted. ‘How could I not think it? I barely know you. You’re a fresh young thing, but I’d wager it’s an overheated conscience made you ill. And you’re no stranger, I think, to a gaol cell.’
‘I talked of that?’
‘No, not to any purpose, but your ankles are marked by shackle scars.’
I lumbered myself up away from him and stood watching a barge unloading bales of cloth at the water’s edge.
Talbot walked up behind me.
‘What else do you know?’ I said. I didn’t turn round. If he had seen my ankles, what other parts had he seen? ‘Do you know what I am?’
‘What you are? You are Jabez, or George, or Barnabus. The name’s all one. I know you for a thief.’
I forced myself to turn round and look him in the eye. The same amused, keen stare. So, I thought, that much he knows. Enough to ruin me; yet he has not done so.
‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘shake hands. We are already in business anyhow.’
I raised my brows in a question.
‘The widow was ready to throw you out and so I paid her two weeks’ rent. Naturally, I had a little look around for reimbursement. Stop jittering, I left everything where it was, all but a dagger – and a little silver cross that has proved most merciful to both the widow and to me. There is a little left over, enough to pay for the first leg of our journey…’
‘Our journey?’
‘You mumble like a rotten-toothed mummer at a country show. You wish to travel north; you have money but are in need of a guide to help you find what’s lost. That is my business. It also happens that it suits me to go north, but just at present I am short of funds. You may be my assistant.’
I sat down again and stared at the wide brown water and tried to take in what he’d said. It would mean protection; I would not have to face the road alone again. I’d have a guide, one who knew not only how to unfold what was hidden, but how to thread a route together. All this flashed before me, but I was wary. It was too sudden. ‘No.’ I said. ‘I am grateful to you Master Talbot, and would very much like to engage your services as a scryer before you go, but as to travelling north with you, I would rather trust to myself.’
He grinned broadly. ‘I like you more and more Jabez-George-Barnabus – Master What’s-your-name. You don’t trust me. I don’t either, and the devil take me if I trust you. If you come with me I’ll scry for you, but only if you come. There’s a queue of creditors at my door and I find I am too nice to relieve you of the rest of your loot. With you or without you I’m off tomorrow. But have it as you wish. If you change your mind you may meet me at the Foregate by eight o clock. I won’t wait.’
He clapped me on the back and turned back towards the gate and the city walls. It was only then I noticed that he too had a slight roll when he walked.
20
There was a fine early morning drizzle and so I waited under the jetty of a new-built baker’s shop and watched the stream of people passing in and out of the city. How many, I wondered, wore false faces for the world as I did, as to a degree I’d always done. Being a boy now I could squat on my haunches on the public road and did not have to find a stool to prop me. In the grey light what I was about to do struck me as far beyond folly – me, a married woman, putting my trust in a man half the city thought a trickster. Was I a gull, flattered by his interest? No, I told myself, it wasn’t that; he had been open in his bargain with me. I waited.
A clock struck a quarter after eight; there was no sign of Talbot.
After he left me by the river the day before, I had gone back to check my possessions. He had told the truth about that, at least. Nothing was gone but the dagger and the silver cross. It seemed apt after all I had done that I should lose them. I spent part of the afternoon sewing the rings and the chain severally into the lining of my shoes and doublet; the sovereigns I distributed likewise. Then I wrote a letter to Owen at the Cathedral school in Hereford, sketching my story, or the parts that would not accuse me if another read them. It seemed important that at least one living soul knew what I was about.
Talbot was right at least that I should be moving. The widow did not shed a tear at the news, but followed after me up the stairs, grumbling about the fresh bedding wasted, that she would never have let me a room if she had known I was confederate with that rascal Talbot.
‘I’ve enquired after him. He’s a courtesy man. None of the respectable inns will let him at the door. And when he’s not fleecing the coat off a stranger’s back he’s taking gold for conjuring and such like. He’s the devil’s kin. You’ll part with him boy, if you love God and hate trouble.’
I sat on the bed and waited for her to cease. It seemed she would rattle on till Judgement Day with her tiresome prattle, but after all a coin quieted her. There was some justice in what she said. He’d as much as admitted he lived like a seed that waited for the wind to blow him where it would. There was a restlessness about him, a recklessness – I had marked that much already. Perhaps, he had seen an echo of the same in me, but it was only an echo surely, of a voice in me long since quieted. Jacob had stilled me; he was a clear deep pool where things retained their proper shape, only purer, rinsed by the clarity of his gaze and thought. In his eyes I could settle, I was not forever shifting, yearning. Talbot would unfix my thinking. Even as a boy it would not be proper to travel with him. I could feel how he would wrap me round with words; he would tempt into doubt and risk.
I drifted into sleep with a decision made; in the morning I would find a boat going north to Shrewsbury. Once there I would hire a horse and find out if there were another scryer who could help me, and if all failed and Jacob was gone south again, I would follow after. And if, a whisper did not need to say, if he has left on the journey to his long home what then? Then I will be like Orpheus, I thought, and cross the black river into
hell itself to petition his release and I would not look back, but trust him to plant his footsteps in my own till we were safe on our own ground again.
I dreamt that night that we were back in the apple orchard that slopes down from the stable yard towards the village. It was a day I remembered, not long after we had moved to Hope, when our days were gilded with newness. We had no ladder so when we had picked the fruit within reach Jacob bent for me to climb up. All the summer blazes were in the red-flecked apples and the air was thick and sweet; drunken wasps licked out the windfalls. Hold steady, I said, and pulled myself up so that I stood barefoot on his shoulders. With his hands circling my ankles and a bough to brace my waist I tossed the apples one by one to a boy who hopped at Jacob’s feet to take my place. Someone got out a fiddle and Jacob tapped his foot to make me sway and laugh. I am at home, I thought, delighted; this is what it is like to be happy. Then, perhaps it was the boy, perhaps the mush of apple on the ground, but Jacob lost his footing and my feet slipped. It can only have been an instant, he wheeled round to catch me as I fell – a second too late; I slipped through his arms and fell forward on the grass. The fiddler stopped at the sight of the girl falling out of the tree; I heard the sudden hush – but there was nothing broken. I laughed and clambering up, brushed down my skirts; Jacob pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth and the pickers cheered.
I woke with the scent of apples still around me and the touch of Jacob’s lips so present that I closed my eyes to sleep again and find them, but the dream had gone. There was only the sounds of the street and the boarders lumbering down the stairs for breakfast. The dream was clear – this was a smaller risk than venturing alone; it was a chance to leave at once. I would meet Talbot after all, I thought.
The half hour sounded. It seemed Talbot had thought better of it. I waited so long the baker cursed me for deterring trade and I was obliged to buy a pie. Carts and carriages came through the gate, but no hobbling scryer. I would have to go alone, after all. When, at last, the rain let up I stepped out and turned to wave a farewell to the city. He was there, in the shadow of the gate, watching me, on the back of a piebald mare. From his stillness I think he had been there a good while, too. Seeing that I marked him he gestured at the chestnut by his side.
‘Get up,’ he said.
‘You have horses!’
‘We are both of us lame, of course I have horses. You owe me a gold sovereign. It would be more, if I had not been lucky. They belong to an associate of my brother Tom.’
I was astonished at this confidence that I should join him, when only yesterday I had refused his company, but I already knew him well enough to keep silent, being sure I would get only riddling answers. Once again, I wondered at my being alongside this man; a look would tell you that he was no gentleman, but not a poor man either. The lace at his cuffs and neck sat oddly on him; it was altogether too dainty for his face. He looked at people on the road with no regard to rank; whoever caught his eye he met their gaze and it was they who looked away. I remembered how he’d twisted the bully’s ear in the tavern. What must it be, I thought, to go through life without cowering? I was done with being fearful.
It felt good to be in the saddle, ambling through the suburbs above the smatter of mud and the hawkers and the mingling thieves. A lady went past on a white palfrey; her clothes were as fine as a countess’s and her servant wore livery. Ah lady, I thought, you might have a silk feather in your cap, but your legs are crooked up sideways while mine rest either side of my horse’s easy flank. I smiled warmly at Talbot as he stared after her, appraising her worth.
‘What is my horse’s name?’ I asked.
‘Juno, which makes her a jealous mistress.’
‘Which makes me Jove,’ I said.
‘The king of the Gods, and not yet a whisker on your chin. Come, we will stay in Bewdley tonight, at the house of a friend of mine.’
‘But that is barely more than a dozen miles. Can we not go further?’
With a quick lunge he seized my reins, pulling poor Juno to a jolting halt. All his good humour was gone; his face had an angry flush.
‘I plucked you back from death, peasant. Remember that. And a word to the constable while you lay sweating about the glimmer in your bag and those fine legs would have been in chains again.’
He put his horse to a trot; I waited a moment, watching his square back, his thick neck. I must, I thought, be careful.
We stayed in Bewdley for four days, at the house of a ropemaker – John Smallbone – a rough man, whose wife had died two years before. He had two male servants, as gruff as himself; neither he nor they concerned themselves with the children, a boy and a girl, as filthy as the rushes we slept on in the hall, scuttling under the feet of the men and boys running the sisal along the rope walk. When he noticed them, Smallbone bawled at them for being idle, useless things; they took care to keep a distance from his hands. One afternoon the boy was not quick enough; Smallbone discovered him sat with his book among the peas he’d been sent to pick. The clout sent him reeling onto the dry earth and split his lip.
Smallbone turned to Talbot. ‘Sometimes I think his mother must have opened her purse to a mincing player. What are you,’ cuffing at the boy’s tears, ‘some little whoreson, got by a milky priest? One thing I can’t bear the sight of, that’s effeminates.’
Talbot smiled narrowly and I said nothing, standing behind Smallbone’s immense back. I’d seen how his lip curled at the span of my hand when I took his in greeting. ‘Got yourself a catamite, Kelley?’ he’d whispered, so that I could hear.
‘Why does he call you Kelley?’ I asked later as we were lying down to sleep in the hall – there was no spare chamber.
‘It was my name.’ Talbot answered, offering nothing else.
The second evening they were locked in conference. Other men arrived. Through the crook of an open door I saw Talbot arranging papers on a table, Smallbone holding a candle over them, his small eyes gleaming. Afterwards they went to the tavern. I was not asked, nor did I want to be; there was a whiff of conspiracy about it. It was a market day and the streets were busy; both men came back with skinned knuckles, Smallbone a bleeding cheek, both were loud with ale and the breaking of noses. I had seen such giddiness in men at a cockfight; it was no better than the slaver of a dog. However long I spent in breeches I would never learn it.
Early the next morning I left Talbot to his snoring and walked out over the arched bridge to the other side of the Severn to look back at the town climbing the hill on the western bank. Every street laid out to view, as though it held no secrets. The sun rose behind me and threw its glitter on the houses so that for a brief while it seemed that they were made of gold.
‘It is just that the place is new,’ Talbot said at breakfast. ‘A score more years and it will be as stained as a drab’s skirts and its golden mornings as tainted.’
He rubbed at his cheek; it was swollen. ‘You were fighting last night,’ I said.
‘It was a choleric night.’
‘What?’ he said, when I made no reply, ‘do you disapprove? Are you my keeper now?’
‘I am eager to be gone, that’s all. If you are bound over for brawling … Never mind. It’s none of my business.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t, Jabez-George-Barnabus. Perhaps I have changed my mind anyhow; perhaps I may stay here and go into business with our gentle host. Smallbone is a clod and a stinking one at that, but he knows how to turn a profit. He says he has a merry widow of a sister with a comfortable purse.’
I didn’t laugh at the joke: tavern talk, cunts and money. I looked at him across the table, there was something disproportioned about his face – it was as though his eyes had been mistakenly fitted to a ruffian’s nose and jaw. He watched me now with a kind of gleeful cruelty to see how I would respond.
‘I wish you joy of her,’ I said. ‘And your fine noose-maker of a brother.’ I stood up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To prepare Jun
o. There is no use in my delaying if you are staying put.’
Before he could answer a servant appeared at the door and gestured to him. ‘My master wants you,’ he said.
As he followed the servant out of the door Talbot turned to me. ‘The horse isn’t yours to take,’ he said.
The horses at least were tranquil and well-rested. I had half a mind to seize my possessions and saddle up, but then I noticed the ancient manservant watching me.
He grinned with all of his four teeth. ‘Thinking of flitting with the horse, was you? Wouldn’t if I were you. My master would pound you to a paste and Kelley, Talbot that is, would put a curse on you to make you hobble on both legs.’
‘I’ll go when I please,’ I said, but my voice had a quaver in it that betrayed me. The truth was that I did not feel strong and the prospect of following the road alone frightened me. I pressed my face into Juno’s warm flank and smelt Jacob’s hay-rich smell. Oh, how I missed him! Every lonely day. I was a fool to think that I would find him, and this was a fool’s journey, but what could I do? I could not go back now if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to. Could I ever live so quietly again? First I must find him; there would be time enough then to think about a future. I must find him. I would tramp north until the mists and the mountains dissolved me into a voice, crying on the wind.
By the afternoon I had recovered myself. If Talbot had resolved to stay I would buy Juno from him; he would not refuse gold. I sat down under a walnut tree and for the first time in days I read the book I had taken from the Steward. The stories twisted together like Smallbone’s rope. I read how a king of Crete’s wife made love to a bull and bore a monster that the king, Minos, shut away in a labyrinth more finely wrought than a spider’s web, feeding him young Athenian men until Minos’s daughter Ariadne fell in love with one of them; she showed him how to leave a trail of linen behind him to lead him out of the maze. I leaned against the crevassed bark and looked up at the sun playing through the leaves. Poor Ariadne, who saved her prince, but had no safety rope to help herself when he was fickle. I didn’t notice Talbot approach until his shadow fell across my legs.
The Good Wife Page 15
