“The days are growing shorter. These long twilights will soon be over,” Finn said.
Was there a note of regret in his voice? She, too, hated the thought that these pleasant evenings would end, but she could not say so.
“Already, the harvest has begun,” she said, stabbing at the cloth with her needle. “It’s difficult to find laborers. Shameful. They go about from harvest lord to harvest lord seeking the best wage and have no shame to leave the rye and barley rotting in the field for the sake of a shilling.”
“For the sake of a shilling? I’d say more for the sake of their families. For the sake of food and clothes and shelter.”
“If they’d remained tied to the land where they belonged, they’d have no want of food and clothing and shelter. Ask Agnes. Ask John and Glynis and Simpson and my dairymaids and crofters if they want for the necessities.”
“Aye, my lady, but a man must have more than necessities. He must have a dream. Besides, not all the rich are as beneficent to their tenants and servants as you.”
“Rich. You think I’m rich. If you only knew how I’m squeezed between king and Church.
He waved his quill to indicate the environs of the manor. “You have land. You have fine clothes. You have servants. And all the food you can eat. The mother who doesn’t have a crust for her hungry child can’t understand such poverty.”
She was not offended. She had learned it was his way to speak his mind bluntly.
“Sir Guy says there is to be a new tax levied by the crown,” she said. She raised the scarlet thread to her lips and snipped it with her teeth, then tied a French knot in the end. “But at least this time it’s a poll tax: a shilling per head. Mayhap, I can scrape up three shillings for Colin and Alfred and me.”
“And Agnes and John?”
“They’re to pay their own out of the wages I give them.”
“You give them wages?”
She read approval in his smile.
“I had to start paying them after the plague took most of the able-bodied men. It seemed the prudent thing to do. I couldn’t afford to lose them. I can’t think Agnes would ever leave Blackingham, though John might. Anyway, the sheriff says they should pay the tax out of their own wage. Sir Guy said it’s much fairer this way. A flat tax. Everybody pays the same. Rich and poor.”
“And you call that fair! What about the crofters who get no wage? Only what they can scrounge out of the dirt they rent from you and the other landholders. A man with six children and a wife will have to pay eight shillings. He couldn’t earn that much in a season.”
Sir Guy had said nothing about that. She’d been so relieved that she had not thought to question him further. She felt a heaviness descend on her. She knew where her laborers and crofters would come when they could not pay. They’d come to her, and she’d have to find the money somewhere. But what about the others? she wondered. What about the ones who hired themselves out daily, who would pay for them? And the ones whose landlords could not be moved to pay, what would they do?
“Well, maybe it’s not such a fair tax, after all,” she conceded.
“Not fair, and it will not work. Even poor people have their limits. If you push them to the wall, where they have nothing left to lose, then they will become fearless. Already there is a rumbling against the archbishop of Canterbury.”
“What has he to do with the king’s tax?”
“He’s been appointed chancellor by John of Gaunt. Be sure, it’s the two of them who’ve cooked up this scheme to replenish a treasury plundered by the French wars. Otherwise some of the wealth of the abbeys might be siphoned off. But it’s a devil’s bargain. Too much greed there by half.”
Was he talking about king or Church? To whom did his loyalty belong? But she did not ask.
“I know something of the greed of both,” she said, thinking of her lost pearls—the ones that had disappeared into the priest’s pocket—and wondering if they adorned the dainty neck of some French courtesan or that of the bishop’s mistress. A little sigh escaped. Whichever, they were lost to her. And they had been her mother’s.
They sat in silence for a while—the only movement in the garden the quick scratching of the quill against the paper. The breeze no longer fluttered the leaves on the roses. The light had shifted, casting long shadows. The hawthorne and the sundial painted dark stripes across the garden. She put away her needle. She did not want to squint at her work like an old woman.
“Will Alfred be harvest lord?” Finn asked.
He, too, was giving up, returning the manuscript and pens, the little pouch of charcoal to the leather satchel that looked something like a shepherd’s scrip, only larger.
“No. He can’t be harvest lord. It would not be seemly for him to have such direct contact with peasants. He is noble born.”
Why did she not like the sound of her own voice as she said this?
“I see,” Finn said.
“Simpson will be harvest lord. He will, of course, report to Alfred.”
“And Alfred to you.”
“Until he’s of age.”
Finn carefully stored his sketches and his nibs in the leather scrip. Kathryn, taking that as her cue, rewound the scarlet skein and replaced the needle in its case. Finn gestured toward the wide fields that stretched out beyond the hawthorne hedge.
“Blackingham is a noble heritage. Your husband did well by his heir.”
“Blackingham belonged to me,” she said, too quickly to hide her irritation. “Roderick did little but squander the income from it to impress his friends at court.”
Finn’s furrowed brow lifted to his graying hairline.
“I just assumed—”
“My father had no sons. My mother died when I was five. I cared for my father until he was old. One day he brought Roderick home and said that I should marry him. That Blackingham must have a master.”
“Did you love him?”
“I loved my father dearly.”
“I didn’t mean your father. I meant Roderick. Your husband. Did you love him?”
The red-breasted thrush had departed. The sundial was now in complete shadow, its last mark having been passed.
“He gave me two sons,” she answered.
“That’s not what I asked you.” His voice was husky. “Did you love him?”
She shrugged, got up from her seat and picked up her basket of thread.
“Love? What is love between a man and a woman? Groping, panting in the dark—the satisfaction of carnal lust.” Like Roderick and his faceless doxies, she thought. Finn had gotten up, too, and was standing uncomfortably close. It was hard to get her breath in the still August air. She took a step back, then added, “Love is what a mother feels for a child. Love is what our Lord felt for us on the cross.”
“Love is many things. Takes many forms. That greater love you mention, it’s also possible between brothers, between friends. It’s even possible between a man and a woman.”
The garden was perfectly still in the gathering twilight. His voice was so low, it did not even disturb the small space of air between them. Was he talking to her? He might have been talking to himself, or some remembered other. It was hard to tell.
In silence, they crossed the small stretch of grass that separated the garden from the solar. As they reached the entrance, he looked thoughtful. “Would you like to come with me to my chamber?”
She didn’t answer for a minute. He’d caught her completely off her guard. It seemed to be a gift with him. She felt flushed, as with the heat waves that woke her sometimes in the night or attacked her at odd times during the day. She was sure her face was flaming.
He grinned. “Colin or Rose will probably be there. Neither your virtue nor your reputation will be compromised. I would like you to see how my work progresses. You seemed to have taken an interest in it once before.”
She was tempted to cut him off with a short remark for his smugness. But she was curious. She suspected he was up to more than Saint John.
And she would like to see some of the sketches she’d watched him make colored in their brilliant hues.
“I suppose. As you say, no harm will come to my reputation. After all, I am your landlord in a sense, and therefore entitled to inspect your quarters at my discretion. As to my virtue? I can assure you, Master Finn, that it would not be cheaply bought.”
The illuminator threw back his head and laughed with a rich, hearty chuckle. The wind from his laughter caused the rushlights in their sconces to flicker. Shadows frolicked around them for the briefest moment, breaking the gloom of the twilit staircase.
“My lady, I’m shocked that you might think I have designs on anything other than your companionship. At the current price of papal forgiveness, the sin of fornication far exceeds my purse,” he said, pulling a clown’s exaggerated frown that made her laugh. “Alas, celibacy—and platonic friendship—is all I can afford.”
But as she followed him up the stairs, she reminded herself that friendship bore its own price, though in a different coin. Even the cost of that might strain her resources.
There was something far too appealing about the illuminator. Kathryn decided this after she had spent a pleasant hour in Finn’s chamber, watching while he shaded the sketched redbreast in brilliant hues of deep carmine. She had never met a man quite like him. She liked everything about him: the extraordinary patience he showed with his daughter, the tidiness of his work space, his quick intellect, and the sea-green color of his eyes and his easy laughter and the way his fingers held his pens and brushes, almost caressing them, as he plied his art with swift, curving strokes. Even the easy way he drew her out—too easily—sometimes causing her to reveal more of herself than she wished. All of this made him a very dangerous man. A man to be avoided.
And yet the more she tried to avoid him, the more he seemed to be in evidence, encountering her en route to her chamber, or on her way to the kitchens, or even in the kitchen garden, where she’d gone to gather fresh lavender for her bath.
“Agnes has favored me with one of her special cinnamon custard tarts. It’s big enough for two. We could share it on this bench, here in the herb garden. A summer picnic.”
The man was a devil. How did he know of her fondness for cinnamon custard tarts?
“I have no fondness for cinnamon, Master Finn. Thank you anyway.” And she walked away, her mouth watering at the tempting smell of spicy sweetness, walked away from the invitation in his smile and left him sitting on the garden bench alone, with only his custard tart for company.
The next day he accosted her in the rose garden. His sudden appearance startled her, making her jab her palm on a thorn. He apologized prettily, lifting the injured part to his lips. She snatched her hand away hastily, feeling her face flame like a silly maid. He looked a little startled.
“I was on my way into the woods in search of berries for a particular shade of purple. It’s such a fine day, I hoped you might lend me your company,” he said.
Lend, as though it were something he’d have to pay back. And he carried no bucket or scrip for gathering berries.
“Thank you, but no, Master Finn. I shall… be far too busy.” Did she stammer? She looked past him, trying to hide her embarrassment, trying not to be sucked in by the disappointment in his eyes. “I’ll be busy for several days. Making an inventory of the buttery and the pantry.”
But she felt guilty when he was gone. An occasional walk in the woods between friends, what harm could come from that? But she knew what harm. She could feel it in the heavy pounding of her pulse. Surely it was not healthy for a woman of middle years to have her blood rush through her veins in such a fashion!
His proximity, his popping up at odd times made her very nervous.
But his absence likewise made her nervous.
For the next four days she did not see him. She inquired casually of Agnes.
“He was in the kitchen yesterday for his usual glass of perry. But today, I think he took his daughter into Aylsham to the market. They left at dawn. Did ye need him for something? I’ll tell him to seek ye out.”
“No. No. Just curious. I had not noticed him about. That is all.”
Agnes said no more but cocked an eyebrow in her direction and gave a little half-smile.
Kathryn decided to ignore the gesture.
By two of the clock face on the sundial, Kathryn felt very listless. Ridiculous. It was almost as though she missed him. The house felt hollow. Her footfalls had a lonely, whispering echo she’d never noticed before.
She went into the solar and sat in the window seat, her embroidery in her lap. On a small round table beside the window someone, Colin probably, had left a book. The Vision of Piers Plowman. The English book. It reminded her of Finn. She picked it up and began to read, struggling with the awkward spellings. It did not flow like French. Why would anyone choose the West Midland dialect as a language for poetry? And the content. It reminded her of Finn, also, with its alliterative talk against pardon and penance and prayer.
A shadow crossed the lines of text. She looked up to find Finn standing in the doorway, watching her, the look on his face unreadable. Her heart danced against her ribs. She took a deep breath to calm it.
“My lady, how well met and fortunate.”
She closed the book, covering the title with her hand.
“ ‘Fortunate,’ Master Finn? To encounter a lady in her own chamber? And how ‘well met’?”
He smiled, but the smile was small and uncertain and did not reach his eyes. “Fortunate to find my lady not otherwise engaged. Well met because I am in need of another pair of eyes.”
“Is there some problem with your eyes? Agnes can recommend a tincture of—”
He laughed. This time the smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “No. My eyes are good enough to see beauty when it presents itself.”
She felt the color creep up her neck and into her face. She would have willed it away if she could.
“I say well met because I am in need of your opinion. That is, if you can spare the time. My daughter usually advises me. But she ran off somewhere as soon as we returned from the market.”
“Advises you? How so?”
“About the colors. If the hues are too bright. Or whether too subtle. But I should not intrude upon a busy lady’s stolen moment with her book. It would be too great a sacrifice. Perhaps Rose will be back soon.”
He turned to go.
“Wait.”
She would regret it later. She knew she would. But she could not stop herself.
“Giving up such a book is no sacrifice at all. I find the English you so highly recommend a tedious language. It has little music to recommend it. I will look at your work with pleasure. Though I don’t know of what value my uninformed opinion might be.”
He wheeled around as though jerked by some invisible string on which she had just tugged. Or was it he who did the tugging?
“Shall I bring the pages to you here? I’m not sure that they are completely dry.”
“Yes. No. I mean … I will look at them in your chamber. That way you will not have to risk damage to them.”
Kathryn, Kathryn, you invite trouble, a small voice inside her head said.
But her heart said something else entirely.
By late September, the days had shortened. Finn now sat with Lady Kathryn in the warm sunshine of the garden at midday instead of late afternoon. In the late afternoon, they preferred the privacy of his quarters. She inspired his work—and much more besides. The golden light of autumn angled through the window, pouring over his worktable and slicing across the bed, where the pair lay tangled among the crumpled linens. How had he not thought her beautiful that night when he first sat at her board? Was it because she was so different in form and face from his Rebekka?
Finn disengaged himself gently from her embrace and got up from the bed. Her arms trailed off him like water. “I have to work now, my lady,” he said, laughing, “while I still have strength enough to lift my tools.”<
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She lay back on the feather pillows, her arms behind her head, in open invitation. All that silvery hair spilled in a mass across the pillow, its dark streak winding like a silk ribbon around the pink nipple of her breast.
“Your tool, sir, seems to lift itself,” she said.
He laughed, feeling the hot blood inflame his face also. “Then I shall have to put it away and choose another,” he said, pulling on his breeches. He bent to plant a kiss on her forehead. She arranged her mouth in a pretend pout as she wrapped herself in the crumpled sheet and followed him to stand behind his shoulder, watching, waiting for the light to fade.
She had been right when she said her virtue did not come cheaply, he thought. He had purchased it at a very great price. He had the sense that their union had changed him in some profound way that he had never before experienced with a woman, and that he would never be the same again. She had taken him inside herself, and now he was no longer himself but a part of her. She had swallowed him completely, consuming his body, mind, and soul with the fire of her own. But it wasn’t just her passion—though he had been surprised by that, had not guessed at its depth and breadth until he kissed her that day she first came to his room to see his sketches—not just the way her body melted into his, but the way her spirit seemed to reshape to merge with his. Sometimes, it was almost as though she could read his thoughts and he hers. And his artist’s gift, which lay at his core like a seed, he could not shield even that from the heat of her. On the illuminated page his lines and forms leaped from their narrow margins, the murky hues murkier, the brights more brilliant, the knotwork more intricate, twisting, twining like her female mind. His gift no longer his, but shared. And if he could not keep this from her, what of his secret? How long before she divined that, too? But he must keep it; he must protect her from it, for she had become the source of his creative energy and the object of a love he had not felt since he laid his wife in the grave sixteen years ago.
The Illuminator Page 10
