The Blacksmith's Woman

by R. R. Vane

  Beth pretended to be angry with Tom for the rest of the day, yet she was, in truth, beginning to see their life had settled into a course she had not envisaged. Certainly, there was deep lust between them, and her quim became wet whenever she thought of the delicious way he’d had her from behind and of the playful spanking she’d received. Yet, she had already perceived they were behaving towards one another more and more like man and wife. Tom had become able to guess most of her moods, and already knew the things she would enjoy and those which would tease her. He was mischievous and warm in truth, and that temper he professed to have was mostly sunny rather than fierce. He always threatened to take her over his knee for a harsh lesson if she misbehaved, yet the spankings she’d received ever since she’d entered his house, even the sterner one he’d delivered on the night after they’d first bedded, had been more teasing and playful rather than harsh. He seemed to have guessed only too well what kind of spanking she was ready to handle without resenting him.

  Today when he’d left the kitchen with that smug, self-satisfied grin upon his face after their lovemaking, she’d nearly forgotten he was not her true husband. Yet he never seemed to forget they were not wed, and always took care not to spill his seed inside her. And he was not her husband, which meant she might never get to bear his children one day. At first, this hadn’t mattered, but now it did, because Beth understood only too well she could now no longer envisage a life for herself without Tom Reed in it.

  She felt restless all day, and, when Declan had a moment of respite, she couldn’t help herself and went to sit by his side, to ask him those questions that had, for a while, been on her lips. She was loath to ask Tom those questions, but maybe Declan would help answer some of them.

  “What of the wife?” she asked abruptly, and Declan frowned at her, yet it was plain he understood only too well what wife she was talking about.

  At first, she thought Declan wouldn’t want to tell her, but the boy raked a hand through his red hair and sighed.

  “He never speaks of her, so you’d better not ask. It pains him still.”

  Beth widened her eyes.

  “What did she do?”

  To her, it seemed plain that Tom was not the one to blame for the failure of his marriage. She could find no fault with Tom, whatsoever, although not in a hundred years would she ever admit to him she liked each and every thing he did in this world.

  “You’re never to tell him I told you! She…”

  Declan paused, then winced before speaking.

  “She lay with his brother.”

  Beth opened her mouth, stunned.

  “What?”

  Declan nodded, with a shrug.

  “What did Tom do?” Beth asked with widened eyes.

  “What do you think he could do?” Declan said, shaking his head bitterly.

  Beth knew that punishments were dire for such offenses and she recalled the way Tom had shielded her from her own dire punishment from the guards. She reasoned Tom had been faced with two courses, that of denouncing his wife to the Church, or that of punishing her himself. She already knew Tom would have spared any woman from a gruesome punishment, and, even if he had taken the punishment into his own hands, he would have also felt compelled to give a measure of forgiveness to the miscreant. Yet Tom’s wife wasn’t here, which meant there’d been no punishment and no reconciliation.

  “They parted ways. And where is she? A convent? But he’d be free to marry if she’d truly taken the veil...”

  “She now lives with his brother,” Declan answered tersely.

  Beth shook her head in wonder, but then couldn’t help but sigh. The first time they’d met, Tom had let her have his hard-earned money even if she’d tried to steal it from him. Because this was how Tom was. Kind and giving. So instead of ruining the life of both his wife and his brother, he’d let them have their own happiness, at the expense of his own.

  “They’re far away from here, I assume,” Beth muttered.

  “I reckon,” Declan shrugged. “They left in the dead of the night with Master Tom’s blessing. He claims not to know their whereabouts, but I think he has an inkling where they are.”

  Beth nodded. Of course, Tom would protect them to the end, although it was plain they’d hurt him deeply.

  “What was she like?” she asked, before she could call back the words.

  Declan smiled faintly, with a shake of his head.

  “Not as sharp-tongued as you are, if that’s what you wish to know. Yet not soft-spoken either. Nevertheless, not at all as you are. Not always strangely cheerful. Sad.”

  “Sad? He’d done something to make her sad, you reckon?” Yet Beth shook her head the moment she’d spoken the words. Tom was not a man to make a woman suffer. He was mischievous rather than harsh, and even when he felt he needed to be harsh, he was not unkind.

  “They made each other sad, I’d say,” Declan muttered with a shrug, rising to go back to his chores.

  For the rest of the day, Beth mused upon what had been said, yet, when night came, she did not ask Tom about any of it, although there were many curious questions lingering in her head. She resolved Tom would speak to her of them in his own time. For now she was at ease she was not the one to be keeping him from his lawful wife. And she understood there could be no reconciliation ever between Tom and his former woman. So Beth resolved to consider herself Tom’s woman in every way from now on. She would not ever part from him unless he asked it. She loved him – and it was not a thing upon which she thought with shame. Rather, she thought upon it with a strange, secret joy. Yet it was a joy mixed with concern and care for the pain Tom had been through.

  That night she was very sweet to him, and he ended up loving her quite gently. Yet he frowned upon her when they were done, when she attempted to lay her head upon his chest.

  “Something amiss?” he asked, perusing her intently.

  “No. Nothing. All is well,” Beth replied because it was indeed true she felt content with the way things had turned out in her life.

  He propped himself on one elbow to look at her.

  “You’re not scolding me or driving me out of my mind with your prattle. And, unusually, you’re not doing everything in your power to make me lose my patience… not misbehaving in any way.”

  She laughed.

  “What? Do you wish me to?”

  He cast her an assessing look, but then he smiled rather ruefully.

  “No. Not at this time,” he said after a while, now embracing her and settling her head on his chest.

  And as she fell asleep, Beth began to think that happiness was perchance not that hard to find. But in the next days she had occasion to see that hard to find it may not be, yet it was awfully hard to preserve.

  Chapter 10

  Tom began his morning with good cheer, yet soon he had cause to see his good humour vanish entirely. It was when talking to an old customer regarding a price for a pair of knives that he had cause to hear Beth clear her throat behind him.

  “A word I pray,” she said, and, as Tom turned to her, his customer gave a slight, mocking laugh.

  “Already keeping you upon a string, I see,” he said, casting a knowing smile at Beth.

  Tom did not like how the man presumed to speak of what he saw in front of him. Yet things were what they were, and he was well aware that all and sundry knew Beth was his woman now. Glancing upon Beth, he had occasion to see her face was suddenly set and determined.

  “In fact, I meant to remind Master Reed of the new price he set for knives. He used to charge ten pence, but now it is a shilling.”

  Several pairs of eyes fell upon Tom because all three apprentices were standing by, and had been able to hear the exchange. And Tom became painfully aware of the look of flustered puzzlement which had certainly appeared upon his face. He saw his customer’s mocking eyes and knew at once what the man must be thinking. Master Tom Reed was now letting his woman rule over him. He conjured up the tale the man would tell everyone who
would wish to hear. Tom Reed was forever doomed to be scorned by his women. His first had run off with another. And his second had already made herself his mistress in everything.

  “My serving woman is mistaken,” Tom found himself saying stiltedly. “It’s still ten pence for knives.”

  He fought hard to contain his dark anger when at last his customer took his leave. And he strived to keep his distance from Beth because he knew he was enraged with her. Yet the confounded woman wouldn’t let him be.

  “Wait!” Beth called, striding after Tom into the kitchen. “The boys have told me this man has been long taking advantage of your generosity! He’s well to do and can afford to pay a fair price. Besides, I did not like the way he looked upon us.”

  Tom’s jaw tightened.

  “I do not like to be belittled in front of my apprentices. Nor my customers,” he told her with a frown.

  Beth waved her hand.

  “It was not what I meant, and you well know it.”

  “Perchance. But that doesn’t change things. You overrode my word in front of all to see,” he said grimly.

  “I did not! I merely said we talked upon it. And you must see it’s better to…”

  “Better? Clearly, you knowing better how to conduct my trade than I do!”

  Beth heaved a sigh.

  “You do not like to keep the ledgers. And you do not care to concern yourself with coin. For the past weeks I’ve been doing it in your stead. So why feel belittled when I do the work you entrusted me with?”

  “This is just glib talk, and we both know it. You overrode my word.”

  In spite of what he may think of her, Beth had never been a liar. Not even when she’d nearly turned into a thief.

  “Fine. Aye. I overrode your word. Will it make you feel better to chastise me for it?” she said wearily.

  There was a silence before he answered, and Beth found she would have preferred his anger to the bitterness with which he spoke.

  “No,” he said tersely, and then fell coldly silent as he was pouring himself a cup of ale.

  Beth told herself she should feel content he was not the sort of man who felt he should chastise her whenever they did not find themselves in agreement. Yet she didn’t. In truth, she’d gladly have taken a chastisement instead of his cold contempt.

  “Fine,” she retorted. “But I’ll have you know, again, I do not think what you charge is fair. It’s way too little!”

  When he didn’t answer in return, just staring at her with a look of grim displeasure, she went on impassionedly, “That is not what my father would have charged in Winchester. And this is London! Prices are steeper in London!”

  He frowned at her.

  “It seems to me now you think yourself entitled to rule over my business,” he tossed at her in a bitter voice.

  “Aye, since it’s become plain to me you have no wish to rule it,” she countered.

  He said nothing, just staring at her with pursed lips and clenched fists. She shrugged, because she’d never been a woman to mince words, and she had vowed to be always truthful to him.

  “You work like mad, yet you gather next to nothing from your hard labour. Not for yourself and not for the boys who are apprenticed to you. You live from hand to mouth, although you are by far the best smith in London and toil harder than any man I know.”

  “Work is its own reward. I care for my work,” he countered with a set look upon his face.

  “I know you do. And so you should. Yet, have you thought of that day when you’re no longer able to work? What will happen then? When you’re old, or ill, or injured and you find you’ve not saved anything to rely upon in your hour of need? What then? Will you be begging in the streets?”

  She wished to tell him more, yet she was loath to share with him her whole sad story, loath to tell him how her prosperous household and their earnings had started to crumble away the year her father and brothers had been taken by the fever. How the priest’s malicious lies had forced her and her ailing mother to leave their home and livelihood behind in haste, taking with them next to nothing. How she’d nearly become a thief out of need.

  “You need to think of hard times! You know I’m right!” she pleaded instead.

  But Tom just cast her a dark, stubborn look.

  “Aye. Perhaps it is as you say. I live from hand to mouth, with no thought of tomorrow. It is the way I want it though. You speak of what will happen to me in my old age and you seem to mind. Yet I cannot bring myself to care for what will happen. My home… My trade… What good are they when there’s no true family? When I know there’ll never be sons or daughters who can inherit what I’ve worked hard to achieve? When my craft and the work I do is truly all I have to look forward to?”

  The words were spoken in an angry tone, seething with bitterness. And Beth felt her heart clench for him. Yet Tom was wrong to think himself so unfortunate. Couldn’t he see, while he may never have any children, the boys he’d apprenticed already loved him fiercely as if they were his own flesh and blood? And couldn’t he see, no matter how he felt, he already had her heart? That he would always have her heart?

  She opened her mouth to speak, but she was taken aback by the sheer fury in the next words he uttered. She’d never seen him so angry, not even that day in the Square, and she nearly recoiled in fear from the pitch-blackness that became his eyes.

  “Stop looking at me like that, woman! Stop looking at me with pity in your eyes! I will not bear your pity! And I need none of your meddling!”

  He stomped away angrily, without sparing her another glance, and Beth was left to stare after him. She heaved a sigh, already having come to know Tom Reed and being well aware his temper may flare at times, but that he was ultimately a man able to see reason. He was in pain. Yet she felt certain she could make him see his fate was not as grim as he thought it to be. He might not return her love or wish to heed her advice. Yet, in her heart, she already knew he’d grown to care for her in his own way.

  Tom walked away angrily, feeling a dark mood descend upon him, although his day had started out so well. And he found himself retracing his steps to the place, he realized now, he’d not visited in several weeks. It was the furthest corner of his garden, a little patch where he’d planted a linden tree. No cross marked the grave, though a grave it was still, the grave of his almost son.

  And Tom recalled that night of rain and wind, when he’d stood in the birthing chamber, hearing his wife’s screams of unspeakable pain and witnessing her terrible suffering, unable to do anything to soothe it. He’d been able only to watch what was being done. At last they’d taken the child out of her in pieces, because no other way was found that could save her. That night he’d paid the barber surgeon who, not two hours before, he had raced like mad through the city to fetch for his wife. And then he’d paid the midwife who had been unable to save their unborn babe, but who had done all she could to save Joanna’s life. Then, while Joanna lay in her exhausted slumber, he’d taken away the remains of the dead babe to bury at the back of the garden. He’d already known too well no priest would bless the grave of an unbaptized child, so he’d said a prayer and had fashioned a blessing of his own to say over it. He’d then gone to sit at Joanna’s bedside, fervently wishing for her to live through the night. And Joanna had mercifully lived, yet a piece of her had died that night, and he supposed that, the very same night, a piece of him had also died, although it had taken a long time for him to acknowledge it had been so.

  For him it had been nevertheless easier, because he’d always been able to find comfort in his work. And then Declan came to be apprenticed to him, and he soon grew fond of the boy, a thing which, now that he looked back, must have truly pained Joanna, whose suffering in all this had been far greater than his. In the beginning, he’d been unable to understand why Joanna would resent the boy, but by that time, things had already grown strained and silent between him and his wife.

  He’d tried at first, in his own way, but perhaps he hadn�
��t known the right way to do it. He’d stayed away from his wife for a long time, loath to share her bed and endanger her life. She had already miscarried twice before she’d borne this third child to full term, but the first two miscarriages had been in the very early days of her pregnancy and she hadn’t been harmed or too grieved by them. Yet this third pregnancy had nearly claimed her life, and Tom was not as foolish as not to understand what the midwife had attempted to tell him, when she’d come to look upon her recovering patient.

  “It isn’t that her womb can’t quicken. It’s not that her hips are too narrow or that her body isn’t hale. Yet I have seen this often. It might simply be that she’ll never be able to bring a live child into this world even if her belly swells and she carries it the full time. Yet you’re both young, and God may show mercy upon you. Prayer and pilgrimage are bound to aid you! Have a care though, bedding is to take place only after you’ve given your woman proper time to heal!”

  “But… will she be fully healed? She suffered so much,” Tom had muttered, white in the face.

  “I cannot tell you such suffering won’t happen again if she gets with child. Or that a new childbirth won’t claim her life. It’s all in God’s hands,” the midwife had said with a sad shake of her head.

  So Tom had refrained from bedding his wife, even long after the time required for healing had passed. And then he had resolved that, no matter the penance the Church might see fit to bestow upon him, when he did, he should not give her his seed. His wife had nearly died along with their child, and he felt loath to endanger her life like that again. Yet even after he’d made this resolve, Joanna had no longer seemed to want him in her bed. One bitter night, she’d plainly told him she thought him fully responsible for what had happened. It had been certainly because of his lustful ways in bed. It was not for naught that the Church decreed that coupling should be restrained. Their loving had been too lustful, and their sin had now been punished by God Above. Tom had in vain tried to reason with his wife, telling her that, if this were really true, then most people on this earth, which included parents and siblings and friends and neighbours, would be all terribly punished for such sins. Yet it had been to no avail, and he had not pressed on, thinking that time would heal Joanna’s fresh wound.