“Not this year. I have a date with the bishop of Lincoln Cathedral, but the distance is too great to travel in one day from King’s Lynn, though I will cross the Wash to make haste. By late afternoon, I shall be in Swineshead, a village north of King’s Lynn, in Lincolnshire. The town has only one inn, but it’s a very sweet place. You’ll meet with me there.” His voice thickened.
I knew not whether to make love or to die; the two were the same in this man’s mind.
“And you’ll show me your grandmother’s pink diamond?”
“What a memory!” He pressed his hot forehead to mine. “You remind me of her.”
“Was she a queen?”
“She should have been, but no, this diamond was on her coronation gown when she became empress of the Holy Roman Empire. I learned everything I know about rule from her.”
“What did she say?” What I meant was, was she a killer?
“About the barons. They’re like young eaglets, she said. When you train a predatory bird, you offer him bits of flesh; when he reaches, you cuff him hard and take back the flesh, then offer it again. That way they learn to associate you with largesses and punishment; they fear you.”
Yet this king asked for love. Or did he?
I shuddered. “What’s the Wash? Can I cross it?”
“Of course. A tidal inlet from the sea that makes King’s Lynn rich, for seafaring cogs can dock there. You’ll see.”
“Tidal inlet—is it dangerous?”
“There have been a few accidents—water is always dangerous. They have excellent guides who know the tides, the quicksands, the shifts. Perhaps you can attach yourself to my train and cross with me.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps I’ll take another route to Swineshead.” I was only beginning to see a plan.
He kneaded my cheeks. “God’s feet, Alix! I’ve had dozens of women, but always you . . .”
“It’s dark,” I reminded him.
“You want to bed now? I don’t mind a little blood if you don’t—I could put out these torches.”
“I was thinking of Winchester.”
“Winchester? God’s feet, yes!” Yet he fumbled under his robes.
“And the French are attacking.”
“Winchester. So I said. To chop off a few hands and feet!” He laughed joyfully. “Oh, Alix! Swineshead—I can’t wait!”
Before I could stop him, he clutched my cheeks in his two hands and kissed me on the mouth. His lips were soft as vair, seductive as Satan.
I lingered at the top of the stairs until I heard him ride out of the castle, then ran quickly down to the well. Behind a whipping bush, I shed my oversized tunic and my padding, and dropped them down the well. I now wore my familiar nun’s habit. With my wimple pulled low, I walked out of the first and second gates without incident.
Enoch wasn’t in our room at the church inn of St. Martin-le- Grand at the top of the hill, though I could see that he’d been sleeping on my mat, whereas he usually used the floor. At my insistence, Father Rupert told me that my brother had walked out on the breakwater to watch the waves in the wind, very much against his advice, for no one ventured on the breakwater in a storm. Yet I knew Enoch’s purpose—he was watching for the French. Leaning against the blow, I followed his footsteps.
I was afraid of what I might see, afraid of what I’d just left, and apprehensive about King’s Lynn, yet foremost in all the turmoil whirling in my fantastick cell was the fact that I’d just been kissed. I had no illusions about John’s intentions now or in the future, but the fact remained: I had been kissed. It was hardly flattering, considering the hordes of women who’d been kissed by the same lips, and yet—I had been kissed. How long had it been? Richard? No, Bonel. Another life. Illusion it might always be, but a kiss puts one in a different universe, the world of love. Did I so crave to bed with a man that I could dream on a snake’s embrace? Perhaps, for it was all I had. I forgave myself: everyone must feel so.
Mayhap the breakwater had served the Romans well when it was new, but now, a thousand years later, the sea overwhelmed the barricade. Familiar carrious gums foamed high and I trembled—the Drage foundered once again. Then I saw him, on the outermost stretch of the cement hook, waving and cursing at the sea.
“Enoch!”
My voice was swallowed by the furies.
“Enoch! Take care!”
He couldn’t hear me.
Using my hands for balance, I crept over the slippery rocks to the breakwater. I must reach him! I became drenched within two steps onto the slippery cement.
Enoch was now staring in my direction—he’d seen me. He called something I couldn’t hear, then pointed to the horizon. Watching him, I fell! Not into the pounding tide, but onto the concrete. For a moment, I just lay there, too surprised to move. Then, dragging a trail of blood where I’d skinned my leg, I sidled forward. I lay on my stomach, clutched the slippery cement edge. Enoch pulled me upright. “Cum, ye mun see!”
He cavorted like a fish on its tail down the breakwater to the corner, then along the parallel strip that disappeared at every wave.
“Can’t you tell me what you see?”
He pointed to the French fleet in the distance. Blue ships in full sail stretched across the horizon as far as the eye could see, like so many clouds blowing along the surface.
“Where are the English?” I shouted aloud.
“Quhar be the king?”
I didn’t answer, for I was following his finger. At our feet on the rocks piled around the breakwater, dead bodies were pounded by the waves. Young boys, many hideously wounded, all drowned—the Brabantian routiers John had paid in advance. What good would money do them now? All had open eyes fast losing color, all wore the red tunics of England, none was armed. But it was their mouths that fascinated me. Open, hardly one set of teeth among them, lips puffed and fast turning blue, they looked like blowfish. Yet those same lips had once been soft as vair. Had they kissed other lips goodbye?
“Quhar’s the king?” Enoch repeated.
I told him. “It looks as if he’ll lose.”
“He ha’e lost befar ond cum back lak a cat. Did ye ha’e success wi’ yer plan?”
“Aye, come back to the inn; I’ll tell you.”
By the time we reached solid land, the Roman lighthouse burned steadily. We climbed our hill slowly in the pouring rain. Father Rupert greeted me suspiciously because of my habit, but I paid no heed. Our room was tiny, pitch dark, and it had no windows.
“Ich mad a bit o’ haggis yif ye’re hungry.”
“No, thank you.”
I sat on the mat as he ate. “Enoch, we must save Leith!”
He choked. I told him what John had said.
“He doesna want her to inherit Wanthwaite?”
“It’s a long story. Just tell me what we should do.”
In short order, he’d summoned a runner to go to Wanthwaite. Gruoth and Dugan were ordered to take Leith to Scotland at once.
To Inverness, he told me, in the Highlands, far from the border. Though I felt sick because I would never see her again, I was also relieved. I didn’t want another Theo.
“Now you, Enoch. He has orders out for your head because of the assassination attempt. I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
“He won’t catch me. Tal me yer plan.”
Though I knew he might challenge me about having rubies in my possession, I told him the truth: Bonel had gifted me with two rubies (no point confiding my whole cache) that turned out to be pink diamonds. I had a rendezvous with John in King’s Lynn.
“Quhar?”
I explained. “The key is the Wash, Enoch. Just what Lord Robert demanded, a natural disaster.”
“Waesucks.”
The plan needed much refining, I warned, as I had only a sketchy notion of the layout.
“I’ll go first. By the time you come, everything will be settled.”
“A month,” he said slowly. “Mayhap I con gae to Scotland mysel’.”
“Aye.
Do it.”
He touched my shoulder. “Quhat aboot ye, Alix? Be yer lif in daunger?”
“Yes, he plans to kill me,” I said. “Only he wants to bed me first.”
19
Someone pulled my tunic. “I ha’e a bow-wow!” a small boy announced.
“He manes dog,” a woman lying on the wet sand scolded.
“Aye! His nam be Blackie!”
“He be yallow,” the woman said.
“Here he cums now!”
An emaciated yellow hound loped around our fire.
I remembered Wolfbane. “There’s no friend like a dog.”
“Dogs mun eat,” the woman pointed out.
“Boot not princes!” A small girl now tugged on my tunic.
“That be my sister,” the boy explained scornfully. “She doesna know nofink. She’s a babby.”
“She be four,” the mother said, “and he be six.”
They both appeared to be about two, so emaciated were they. I wondered how old the mother was.
“A prince doesn’t eat.” I smiled at the girl. “Princes live on love. Nevertheless, I have a few morsels of bread in my sack that we can all share.”
The dog almost snapped my hand off; the brother, sister, and mother were too hungry to eat. Then, to my horror, the little girl put her hand down her neck and presented a spotted yellow toad with three red lines between his eyes.
“May I hold your prince?” I asked. The toad hopped from my hand. “Oh, sorry, he got away!”
The toad disappeared in the weeds surrounding our island; the little girl burst into tears.
“Hush ye, Mary-Tilda, there be many mar whar he cum from,” the mother said weakly. “They live in the marsh.” She closed her eyes.
“Your mother’s sleeping,” I said gently.
“No, she be daid,” the boy replied.
The little girl burst into tears, and I reprimanded the boy for frightening his sister so—but he was right! The woman was dead! Didn’t breathe! Did she need water? A wrap?
“She’s daid, dearie.” Lonabee took my shoulder. “Naught fer ye to do—we’ll take care.”
“But the children!”
“Oh, they willlna mind.”
Indeed, the little boy was petting his dog while the little girl dug in the sand.
I was aghast. Would Theo have behaved so if our fates had been reversed? Would Leith?
Lonabee turned me toward her. “That be their third m’am, yif I count rightly. Their real mother died whan little Mary-Tilda war born.”
She then explained that our work of sifting sea salt from the sand gave us a short life expectancy; therefore, the women had formed their own guild for orphaned children. No child was ever left motherless.
At one level, I was dumbfounded at their generosity; at another, I wasn’t surprised, for everyone belonged to guilds in this strange city, and the guilds were dedicated for the most part to workers. The largest group, the seaman’s guild, owned the Guildhall where King John would dine shortly.
Still, no matter what the custom, the salt guild was the only organization owned and run entirely by women, at least that I’d ever heard of. And it didn’t just look after orphans; women set the price for our sea salt, which was much prized overseas, set their own wages, looked after the sick and feeble among them, functioned in fact as a family is supposed to. I had found the work the very first day I’d arrived in King’s Lynn, and I was fast getting rich.
Rich, and so far healthy. Generous as our guild might be, the fact was that we had so many deaths that it was hard to keep sufficient workers. At this moment, the next “mother” of the little boy and his sister was already leading them away. The dog followed.
I went back to sifting sand.
It had been easy to find work in King’s Lynn precisely because the death rate was so high among women. Oh, I daresay that men suffered as well—many perished in the Wash or at sea—but I was witness to the women’s woes.
Old-timers called King’s Lynn simply Lynn, which in Celtic (“lin”) meant island. Actually, the present city lay on the east side of the Ouse River and was made up of three islands, not one. Before it became King’s Lynn (King John had given it a charter that spared it of taxes), it had been known as Bishop’s Lynn and was owned by the Church. Under both auspices, it was really a seaport. The “three” islands were only one island at a time. Sea storms comparable to what I’d experienced on the Drage inundated the city almost daily. Not only did the sea bring storms, but the whole area was inundated with fresh water, which also engendered moisture. Natives might say that King’s Lynn lay on the banks of the River Ouse (sometimes called the Purfleet), and indeed that was correct; great flat boats brought flax and iron for export. The rivers Nar and Gay also joined the Wash; these three rivers brought grain from the interior to send overseas.
By some strange coincidence, the three islands that made up the town were hit by storms in sequence, never all at the same time. Therefore, we women would go to a corner meeting place to learn which island was the most dry that day. We then worked on the “dry” island, where brine oozed at every step; this created the lucrative trade of gathering sea salt.
Going from one island to another as gales shifted the sea, we put “dry” sand into small jars—large jars were too heavy to lift—and waited for the brine to rise to the top. We then skimmed off the bubbles and heaved white scum into a kettle over a flame. Everyone liked to stir the kettle, for the fire was warm; we took turns. Once the water had boiled away, we put the dross on a screen to sift for the salt. We had two wagons to transport our salt to waiting ships, where the women bargained with rough foreigners. The women, kind as puppies to one another, were tough bargainers with the seamen. We owned our own salt, had organized our own guild, and wouldn’t sell our labor cheap. Furthermore, the women divided their profits absolutely evenly. We might appear poor, might succumb to the climate, but we took care of ourselves as best we could.
So, it wasn’t lack of money that drove me to the Guildhall this rainy night.
The handsome Guildhall, built of solid flint laid in cunning patterns, was located on High Street; a friend called Mistress Huldabert took me to meet with Master Whitfrock there, a friend of hers. She pushed the large door open without rapping and led me through the dim wooden dining area that smelled of spices, and had one taper burning at the far end beside a closed door. Mistress Huldabert pushed through this door as well and signaled that I should follow.
I paused to wring my wet shawl, then followed her into a brilliant, noisy kitchen. Young boys sprawled against the walls, jugbitten as mice. Two scullery maids were collapsed on a pile of grease, and I hoped they were jugbitten as well. What else could excuse their open bodices? Grown men in the center of the chamber, definitely jugbitten, pissed on the floor and argued loudly about a pastry. In the center of this group, a massive man with a red face and protruding gut shouted above all the others. Mistress Huldabert pulled on his smeared apron.
“Master Whitfrock, I brung ye the Frenchie I tald ye about!”
After several attempts, she dragged the bibulous cook to my side. He rubbed his eyes.
“If it please you, sire, I need extra coins. And it looks as if you could use another scullery maid.”
He pinched my cheek. “Are you from Aquitaine?” he asked in thick langue d’oc.
Yes, Marie-Franoise from Poitiers.
He blinked bleary eyes several times.
“Ye be a lady!” he declared in French.
“Yes, Lady Marie-Franoise from Poitiers, though my title means naught in England; in Poitiers, I worked as specialty consultant to Queen Eleanor’s kitchen.”
“In the kitchen?” His eyes rolled. “How many ovens?”
“Eighteen.”
He fell to his knees and grasped my hand. “You want to work for me?” He seemed on the point of weeping with gratitude.
“Yes, milord, if you have . . .”
“Have you worked with lampreys?” He poi
nted to giant wooden tubs.
“Aye,” I lied brightly, though my stomach chilled when I heard the lampreys thrash against the wooden sides.
“And sharks?”
“Aye.” Another tub rocked as the sharks turned.
“King John is said to enjoy sharks’ fins.”
“King John?”
“Yes, oh yes, the king is coming and he . . . do you know him? Queen Eleanor’s son?”
Unfortunately, I did not.
Outside again, I thanked Mistress Huldabert profusely for her help, which she dismissed as nothing, and indeed it was nothing in King’s Lynn. The people here were much punished by the heavens, but that didn’t stop them from being the most loyal and kind populace on the earth.
I climbed slowly in the dark to the attic I’d rented. The house rocked in tonight’s gale; we’ll not work tomorrow, I thought. Rain entered the slats of my ceiling, and, though I was soaked through, I was looking forward to my pile of furs in the center where it was driest and a crust of bread I’d hidden in a tin against the rats. Groping in the dark, my hand was grasped by another’s. Enoch had arrived.
“Waesuucks, ye’re lak ice!”
He rubbed sticks and produced a spark on top of a flat rock; in a short time, I was eating hot haggis. Then a methier of whiskey. I began to feel human.
“Be werry quiet,” he whispered. “Lord Robert be sleepin’—he’s that weary.”
I choked on the haggis, and he had to pound my back.
“What’s he doing here?”
“’Twas his idea—ha’e ye forgot?”
His idea? Lord Robert was too frail for this climate. No point in arguing tonight, however. When I was sufficiently warmed, Enoch and I began to whisper. Aye, I had a plan, two in fact, for King John was like a witch’s cat, full of lives; aye, there was a role for Enoch and I supposed Lord Robert in both.
“I’ll show you the layout tomorrow. I won’t be working.”
“Nay, ’tis Sunday.”
I’d forgotten—now I hoped for clement weather. I swallowed a lump. “How is Leith?”
“She be happy ond safe.” He hesitated. “She seems to knaw she’s hame—she is a Scot, ye knaw.”
The Prince of Poison Page 29
