The Dread Wyrm

by Miles Cameron

  She was standing by the door to her alcove when Blanche came by. Blanche curtsied—the laundry was formal enough.

  “I worry for you, lass,” Dame Ross said. She looked in the basket.

  Blanche shook her head. “No mending for the queen.”

  “Any trouble?” the Laundress asked.

  “No Galles in the corridors. The queen’s new ladies were a treat though.” No palace servant ever spoke slightingly of any member of the upper classes—not directly. It was all tone and eye contact, nothing that could be reported or punished.

  Goodwife Ross narrowed her eyes. “Anything I should know?”

  “Lady Agnes suggested that I had no business in the queen’s chambers. And me in my livery!” Blanche spat her words with more vehemence than she’d intended.

  The Laundress pursed her lips. “I see,” she said.

  Blanche dropped a short curtsey—the bob of the working woman. “I’ll be about it then, ma’am,” she said.

  Goodwife Ross dismissed her with a wave. The goodwife was aware—in the vaguest way—that Blanche “did something” for the queen. That was sufficient for her.

  Blanche took her basket into the steamy main laundry. The moment she upended it on the sorting table, her life as the queen’s messenger vanished to be replaced by her usual life.

  “Blanche! There you are! Be a sweet and fetch us a cup of water?” asked rheumy old Mother Henk.

  “Blanche, you promised to teach me stem stitch!” begged young Alice.

  “Blanche, there’s a mort of fine sewing waiting in your basket and I’ve all I can do keeping the King in braes,” snapped Ellen. Ellen was the other upper palace laundress who wore livery and was allowed to collect laundry in the public rooms of the palace. Like Blanche, she was young, pretty, and had worked in the palace since she’d been a young child.

  By that point in her work day, Blanche was delighted to collapse onto one of the backed chairs that the fine sewers used while mending. From the pockets under her kirtle, Blanche fetched out her prize possession—her sewing kit, with a pair of steel scissors made by Master Pye himself, a pair of silver thimbles, a dozen fine horn thread winders full of threads—white linen, white silk, black linen, black silk, and this season, red and blue for the livery.

  Ellen was putting thread on her winders. Thread came from the dyers in skeins, and sewing women and tailors had to wind it onto something of their own. Blanche owned two beautiful thread winders—a tiny one of ivory that had been her mother’s and another of mother of pearl from far off Ifriquy’a. Both were at home.

  “If the King wears his hose any tighter,” Ellen said and shook her head. Laid across her lap were a fanciful pair of hose, one leg alternating diagonals of red and blue, the other leg solid scarlet with a patch of superb gold embroidery. The hose were in the latest style that joined at the top, and they had torn in the crotch.

  “He’s too old for these tight things,” Ellen said. A year ago, open criticism of the king’s taste in clothes would never have been uttered. Blanche felt disloyal just listening.

  Ellen frowned, aware of her transgression. “I only mean…” She paused. And looked down at her scarlet thread winder. She finished it off and then loaded her blue.

  Her thought was unspoken, but they didn’t need to share it. Blanche knew that Ellen’s criticism was not for the King, but for his new lover, a red-headed girl of seventeen. Lady Jane Sable. Her name was never mentioned in the servants’ halls below. She seemed to inspire in the King a sort of ferocity to pretend he was young, and his pursuit of youth—hers, his own—had led to a loss of royal dignity that all the servants felt reflected on them.

  Lady Jane was herself not so bad. She was well-bred enough to be careful; she was cautious about the king’s reputation, and she was polite to the servants. But she had her own waiting woman, Sarah, and her laundry never came to the laundry. Sarah ate in her mistress’s rooms and never came into the great hall below stairs where the servants dined and many slept. The lady’s father was already the leader of the pro-Galle faction of Albans.

  Blanche began to repair the queen’s shifts. She had patiently run up half a dozen new ones that suited the queen’s changed shape, working at home with her mother, and now even the new shifts were having their carefully felled side-seams pulled.

  Blanche pulled a small seam-ripper—a razor sharp knife with a rebated point, just a few inches long, and another product of Master Pye’s superb eye and hand—from her basket and began to open a side seam.

  “Blanche!” called Goodwife Ross. Blanche rose to her feet, dropped her sewing into the basket beside the chair and rushed to the Laundress, whose commands were not to be ignored. She still had her little knife in her hand—it was precious, five days’ wages’ worth of steel and it would slice through her pockets in a heartbeat. She tucked it behind her ear.

  “Blanche, I need you to run a message to Master Cord’s down Cheapside. And ask where our spring linen order is. I’m that vexed and I misremembered this morning.”

  Indeed, the whole establishment ate fine white linen the way a newborn suckled milk, and Master Cord’s later delivery was playing merry hell with the laundry.

  Blanche bobbed a curtsey.

  “I’ll have Ellen finish the shifts,” Goodwife Ross said.

  Blanche shook her head—one tiny sideways motion to indicate disagreement was allowed in senior staff. “I’ll take it home, if’n it please you, ma’am.”

  Goodwife Ross nodded her strong approval. “Good. Ellen has her hands full. Fetch your basket and skip along.”

  Blanche stepped back into the seamstress’s room and re-packed her basket.

  Ellen sighed. “A nice spring day? I’d like to be sent with the errands.”

  Blanche frowned. “Goodwife worries about ye, Ellen.”

  “I can handle myself,” the young woman said. But where Blanche was tall and broad shouldered, Ellen was doll-like and slim as a reed. The strength of Blanche’s arms and hands was legendary among the pages and squires to whom she’d taught a few manners—even before the Galles came.

  “None of us can handle the Galles,” Blanche said. “Are you careful when you walk out? Never the same route twice?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Ellen said, and laughed. “May I please have another cup of milk?” Both girls laughed. “But Blanche, ain’t you a Galle?”

  Blanche nodded. “My pater was, sure enough.” Blanche de Roeun, a town in Galle, once. Now she was Blanche Gold.

  Ellen shrugged. “So there are some good Galles.”

  Blanche frowned. “Some? These are a blight. Galles is lovely folk, Ellen. Think of the Count D’Eu!”

  Ellen smiled. Both girls admired him. “Well, if you’ll not tell me how to walk and suck eggs, I’ll not twit you with your Galles.”

  Blanche grinned. “Sorry, sweet.”

  “You be careful,” Ellen said.

  Blanche kissed her on the cheek. “Always careful, my honey.”

  She was out the door of the laundry, under full sail as Ellen, a shipwright’s daughter, liked to say. Blanche did not generally enter or leave the palace in broad daylight. She came so early in the morning that the squires weren’t up, and she left when they started drinking. But she’d hurt one of the Galles—and she knew that they had her marked.

  Past the water-gate corridor.

  But the main hall corridor up the stairs was crowded with gentles. She knew from the bottom of the steps, just from their shoes—mostly long-toed poulains—that she was looking at Rohan’s crowd; a dozen Gallish knights and squires. The worst.

  She froze, her foot on the third step.

  “There’s a pretty slut,” someone said above her.

  “Thighs as white as her name, I’ll bet,” said another.

  She knew them all, even if they didn’t know her. Rohan was the very worst—the centre of the poison, so to speak. His eyes crossed hers.

  She dropped her eyes and passed back a step.

  “The
king!” someone shouted, and all the courtiers stiffened. That would mean that the King was passing from his apartments to the great hall. Courtiers lined the corridor, hoping to be recognized and spoken to.

  “Jeffries! Malquil!” Rohan said quietly, his voice calm and even. “See the bitch on the steps? She’s the queen’s lap-dog. Maybe her she-whore. Take her and give her a dose of manhood, eh bien?”

  The two men he’d named turned and started down the steps. Neither was a Galle. Both were Alban squires dressed as Galles, in skin-tight hose and very short doublets. The taller of the two came down two steps at a time and cut her off from the right hand turn.

  Blanche didn’t panic, although two strong men scared her. She turned left, into the water-gate corridor, hoping for some loitering staff, but the corridor was empty.

  She moved.

  They were almost at her shoulders. She screamed—loud and long—hoisted her skirts and ran.

  Everyone north of Cheapside knew how fast Blanche Gold was. Her legs were very long, and she knew how to use them, and the straight corridor offered no hindrance. It was almost completely dark, but she knew it intimately, at least for the first twenty yards.

  She side-stepped the old fountain base. One of the squires didn’t. She was five paces ahead of them now. Their long-toed shoes and skin-tight woollen hose laced to their doublets were not made for running, and her palace shoes and bare legs were.

  A childhood of playing in these corridors, and Blanche had options.

  She went left, towards the water gate. Now she was against the outer walls, and shafts of light crossed the corridor. She took the turn at speed and allowed herself to strike the outer wall lightly with her shoulder.

  She could hear their poulains slapping on the floor.

  She hadn’t dropped her basket, and as she slowed for the gate, she used it to cushion her impact with the far wall. Then she went down the sharply angled steps, worn by two thousand years of use, and she was already surrounded by the strong, muddy river smell.

  She moved as fast as she could on the slippery steps, praying that there were guards at the bottom and that the gate was open.

  The Virgin was with her as she prayed, and there, on the narrow dock, were two of her least favourite guardsmen, both portly and both known for their roving hands and shifty eyes. She’d never been so happy to see them.

  “Eh, Blanche!” said the nearer.

  She smiled. “Ned!” she said.

  The first of the two squires emerged onto the dock.

  Blanche flicked her eyes at the squire. He was already hesitating. His friend emerged from the water gate, rubbing his thigh.

  Ned wasn’t slow. He grunted and shifted his weight—just a half step. But his obvious intention was to block access to the dock.

  “No one but livery on the dock, less’an you have a king’s writ,” Ned said.

  His partner grunted. They both had good brown poleaxes that shone in the spring sun, a rich ruddy brown. They were both in the new livery, and the squires were not.

  The nearer squire drew himself up. “I mean to have a word with that slut,” he said. “I think that she… stole from me.”

  He stepped forward, and Ned placed the point of his poleaxe at the squire’s nose. “Best take that up with the Laundress. That’s Goody Ross, last corridor but one.”

  “Do you know who I am?” the man asked.

  “Can’t say I do,” Ned said, managing to side-smile at his partner. “But I know I’m a King’s Guardsman and you ain’t.”

  A water taxi—a small boat poled by a grown man—saw Blanche and began to pole up the side channel to the water gate, eyes hopeful.

  Blanche shot the squire a reproachful glare. “Which the Laundress sends me to Cheapside,” she said. She spat into the dirty water. “I don’ steal.” She locked eyes with the man. “I’m the queen’s laundress, sir.”

  He shocked all of them by grabbing for her.

  Ned tipped him in the water.

  Blanche didn’t stay to see the end. She skipped into the approaching boat as two more foppishly dressed men appeared on the dock.

  “Take her!” yelled the other squire, the one rubbing his thigh.

  The man in the water surfaced. “You’re dead!” he shrieked.

  Blanche settled into the stern of the boat. The waterman’s expression showed nothing. “Where bound, mistress?” he asked.

  She couldn’t afford to be taken all the way to Cheapside—it would cost a full day’s wages.

  They were already clear of the walls of the palace, and she could see four big round ships anchored to the river bank on their side.

  “Venike,” the waterman said. “All the way from Ifriquy’a, if you will believe it.” He sighed. “Now that’s navigation, mistress.”

  There were big crowds there—small boats all around the tall Venike ships, and then crowds on the shore and an impromptu market.

  “Boat following us, mistress,” the waterman said. “He has oars and I don’t. He’s going to overtake us.”

  Blanche looked back into the sun-dazzle of the water. She could just see a boat, its oars whipping furiously. In it were two men—maybe three.

  “Can you land me by the docks?” she said.

  “No place for a decent woman,” the waterman said. “You in trouble?”

  Blanche nodded.

  The waterman looked back. “I’ll slow ’em for ye.” He smiled. “For a kiss.”

  Blanche looked at him and smiled.

  The waterman poled furiously, and the two craft passed downstream. Blanche couldn’t tell which was faster.

  The waterman passed under the great stern of the Venike flagship, towering above them like a church, with windows and windows like a great house. In the stern gallery, a Venike man-at-arms in full harness pointed a warning finger at them, but Blanche waved and he waved back.

  The waterman put the prow of his little boat ashore so that Blanche had only to give a brave leap and she’d be on the port stairs, where the poor came to wash.

  He stepped nimbly over the centre seat. “Kiss!” he said.

  She handed him a silver farthing, and then, an honest maid, leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  He smiled. “Honest coin, fair maid.”

  She grinned and leapt over the bow, made the steps without slipping, and ran up the steps.

  At the top, she turned—deliberately—into the thickest part of the crowd. The Venike had a special privilege, and were allowed to set up a market wherever they pleased. The tables they had laid over barrels were covered in goods worth a fortune—worth ten fortunes. She caught the flash of ivory—whole tusks, and the dead white tusks of the unnatural Ummaroth. She saw silk and inlaid wood and silver.

  She passed along the back of the packed crowd of nobles and merchants at the tables. She wore royal livery, she was pretty, and she had a lifetime experience of moving through crowds.

  She was also becoming aware that the portside market was full of Galles. For the first time—as she saw heads turn—she began to be truly afraid. It was all a game until they caught her, and if they did it would be horrible. Ruin, damnation, pain and humiliation and outrage.

  And always the girl’s fault.

  She never let herself think about it, but now, in broad daylight in the king’s capital surrounded by predators, Blanche found herself angry.

  But her choices were narrowing. She cursed her own courage, that had led her to turn away from the laundry and head for the water gate. She was about to reach Waterside, the slum of warehouses and brothels and sailor’s taverns just north of Cheapside. A place she would never, ordinarily, have gone, day or night.

  She looked back one more time, eyes searching for one familiar livery, one friendly face—one of the Queen’s knights or squires. There were few enough left, but even a King’s Guardsman might help now.

  No one. Not even a clerk in the Random livery. The Randoms were known to be loyal and discreet…

  Her r
oyal livery made her too obvious. She could see the heads turning, could feel the intensity of their regard. Gallish voices called back and forth.

  Blanche turned into the mouth of an alley. She walked past the body of a dead cat and hoped it wasn’t an omen. Garbage—mostly vegetable matter—lay in heaps, and her good palace shoes squelched through it.

  Her anger grew.

  “Voisi! Voisi!” voices shouted at the mouth of the alley.

  She ran.

  Ten yards in front of her, the alley split, running to either side of a brothel that stood like the prow of a ship, called, with devastating originality, the “Oar House.” From the very point of the corner hung the sign, a pair of oars crossed with an erect penis thrust suggestively between them, in case anyone missed the sign’s meaning.

  Blanche knew where she was. She turned left and continued to run. Any of the pimps hereabouts would trip her up just to see what happened—so she was careful and kept to the middle of the street.

  Catcalls and whistles followed her.

  She turned at Sail Maker’s Lane. She was tending towards Ellen’s father’s shop—and at the same time wondering how much these men would dare.

  Ellen’s father was not the man to save her.

  But deliberation takes time, and she heard pounding feet.

  She turned again, into the alley that ran parallel to the sail lofts where big ships paid to dry and mend their canvas.

  An arm barred her progress—she slammed full tilt into it and fell, basket flying.

  Panic bubbled close.

  “What’s your hurry, my pretty?” said a lout. He wore old parti-colour in a southern livery and had a club in his belt. He squinted at her.

  She rolled, fouling the whole of her best livery in the watery slime of human and animal excrement of the alley. But she got a hand on the handle of her basket—

  A hand grabbed her left arm in a vise of iron.

  She screamed. Knowing it was probably the wrong thing to do—that it might attract more predators. But her courage was cracking, and she knew what was coming.