Bone of Contention

by Roberta Gellis

  Florete repeated “Cocking chambers?” and looked surprised. “How could you think I would suggest a cocking chamber for that William’s purposes?” Then she shook her head and laughed shortly. “I forgot you were gone by the time I added the back chamber.”

  Magdalene raised her brows and Florete shrugged and went on, “Well, you know we never used the garden. This is better than a stew but not like your house, where noblemen are cozened with talk, tidbits, and wine if a woman is not ready.” A note of bitterness had come into Florete’s voice.

  Magdalene uttered a single bark of laughter. “And you are likely to make a powerful enemy if the entertainment is not sufficient or his lordship doesn’t like to be reminded that his sword is not the only one that dips into that sheath. Do not envy me too much.”

  The tightness in Florete’s expression relaxed and she shrugged. “To each her own joys. But anyway that’s what I did with the garden. I built a room where a man could be really private—if he were willing to pay.” She shrugged again. “I learned from you that a whorehouse is a good place for meetings that should not be taking place. I get some of those. I get some wild parties. I also get men who desire to dress as women, who desire to be together rather than with a woman, who want several women who will permit unnatural acts, preferably all at once.” She sighed. “All kinds.”

  Magdalene’s face lit with hope. “Oh, let me see. If the room is suitable and I can be assured that no one else will have it for the week I am here…”

  They got out of the bed and Florete led the way to the back of the corridor. The heavy door was suitable to protect the back way into a house. However, instead of opening on a lane or a yard, the door opened into a long, narrow, but surprisingly pleasant room. To the left was a large bed with curtains looped back. Past them, Magdalene could see a small hearth in the corner and an open window, large enough to let in light and air but well barred against intrusion. The room had other windows, all barred, two in the back wall and another in the wall to the right. A second bed stood against the right-hand wall.

  In addition to the beds, there was a chest under the window in the left wall, a single, high-backed chair with arms, and perhaps half a dozen stools arranged around the room. A tall candlestick with a thick, very white candle stood beside each bed, and brackets for torchettes were fixed to each wall. One could have, Magdalene could see, as much or as little light as one chose.

  “How much?” Magdalene asked eagerly.

  “A shilling a week,” Florete replied, then bit her lip as Magdalene merely looked surprised without answering. “I wish I could offer it for nothing or ask less, but—”

  “Less?” Magdalene exclaimed, “But you are asking far too little already. You must make double that by renting the room by the day or night in ordinary times, and you could make double or triple that while the city is so crowded.”

  Florete grimaced. “Yes, if I wanted a troop of men-at-arms in here. Can you imagine the havoc they would wreak with my women and my business? My boys are good boys, but they could not manage a troop of armed men. That is why the room is empty.” She seemed to hear what she had said and closed her eyes and sighed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “You can have it for nothing, Magdalene. I am growing so hard that even what I owe you grows dim in my mind.”

  “And so it should,” Magdalene said, putting an arm around the woman. “You owe me nothing for a simple act of Christian charity. And even if there were a debt, it is not the kind that can be paid for in coin.”

  “I know it.” Florete put her cheek against Magdalene’s hand, which lay on her shoulder. “It was my life you gave back to me when you picked me out of the gutter—”

  “Perhaps,” Magdalene interrupted sharply, “but that has nothing to do with a fair rent for your room.” She gave Florete a brief hug and released her with a laugh. “Likely I will not be paying for it anyway. I am reasonably sure William will make good.” She looked around the room again. “Three shillings for a day and night is fair… Yes, I will give you a pound for the whole week. That would be more than your regular fee, but for this time it is not unreasonable.”

  Florete blinked back tears. “You have not changed. You could have taken my offer and told your William that the price was a pound for the week. He would never have known—” She stopped, catching her breath a little at the horror on Magdalene’s face.

  “Never! I would never tell William a lie, not a small one about money or a large one in which my life hung in the balance.” She shivered.

  Florete stared at her then shook her head. “Your life must get very complicated if there are two men to whom you are pledged.”

  “Why?” Magdalene laughed. “I never said I wouldn’t tell Bell a lie. I tell him what it is best for him to know.” She sobered. “And I do not tell William more than he needs to know either. I simply never tell him a lie.”

  Chapter 4

  19 June,

  The Soft Nest, Oxford

  With the most urgent problem of lodging settled, Magdalene asked Florete for a messenger. She produced a reasonably clean, nice-looking boy of about twelve, left on her hands by one of the whores who had died. Diccon was a clever boy, she said, tousling his hair affectionately, and accustomed to carrying messages.

  That seemed to be true enough, for he nodded at once when Magdalene told him Father Etienne’s description of the house in which most of William’s captains were lodged. “In the small lane that goes off the road around the castle,” he said. “The armorer’s shop or the mercer’s?”

  “Oh that silly man,” Magdalene sighed. “He didn’t say, only that it was the largest house in the street.”

  The boy grinned and nodded again. “That’ll be the armorer. Who gets this?”

  “Lord William of Ypres, but I doubt he will be there. I believe he himself is lodged in the castle. Ask for Sir Niall Arvagh or Sir Giles de Milland. If not them…”

  “Any knight in Lord William’s service?”

  Diccon’s eyes were knowing. Service in the whorehouse had made him quick to recognize the difference between gentry, merchant, and peasant. He would not mistake a common man-at-arms for a belted knight. Magdalene nodded to his question, only cautioning him to make sure that Lord William’s men were still lodged in the armorer’s house or that Father Etienne had not made a mistake when he identified the place. Not that delivering the note to the wrong person would be a disaster. It said only, “I am lodged in the Soft Nest on Blue Boar Lane. Magdalene.”

  She then told Diccon to wait for an answer but to leave at once if he were told there was no answer. And when he turned to go, she touched his shoulder and gave him a farthing. His slightly widened eyes and broad grin showed both surprise and pleasure with such largesse. Few of the women in the house would pay him; to their minds they had better uses for their money than paying for service from a boy who already got his food and lodging free, but a grateful and willing messenger might be valuable to Magdalene.

  Her most pressing duty done, Magdalene began to settle into the Soft Nest. She arranged for the care of her horse and mule with one of Florete’s men, who told her the animals could be kept in a shed in the small overgrown space that was left of the garden behind the house. There was some grazing there, and he’d bring them water. He also offered to bring in her traveling basket and canvas carryall.

  Magdalene noticed his eyes on her, fixed on her face at first and then traveling downward to take in her dress. He looked away, then back, and his mouth set in a dissatisfied line, showing he had marked her as beyond his touch. Still, hope springs eternal and he said he was very ready to do any service she requested. Magdalene thanked him, but to make perfectly clear that she would not, like many whores, trade sexual favors for work done, she gave him a penny, telling him to buy fodder for the animals, and to keep any amount that remained after the transaction.

  He hesitated for just a moment, glancing sidelong at her unveiled face, then sighed, took the coin, and went out. A moment later she went
to the common room to speak to Florete, who was presiding at the entrance. Magdalene wanted a table for her room so that William and whoever he was meeting could sit and talk. There was nothing like having one’s legs under a table to discourage men from leaping up and launching blows at each other.

  That was easily arranged, but Magdalene was heartily annoyed when two men in the act of paying over their fees both immediately chose her and began to quarrel over who should have her first.

  “Neither!” she snapped. “I do not work here. I am long retired and I have come to collect a woman for my house in London.”

  “Retired?” one of the men said, laughed, and reached for her. “Not with a face and body like that.”

  Magdalene pulled away as Florete said, “No!” The man bringing in Magdalene’s baggage set it down and reached for his club, which was leaning against the table. Florete’s other man stood up. Magdalene slipped by them and retreated to the back chamber, once more cursing her own beauty.

  Fortunately no harm came of the incident, but it demonstrated clearly that she would be deprived of one of the pleasures to which she had looked forward. It would be impossible for her to sit with Florete and gossip about old friends and old clients. She occupied herself with cleaning the bed and the chest while Florete’s man brought a small trestle table down from the attic. When he had set the tabletop over the trestles and moved the stools around it, he went out, casting a single longing glance back at her.

  Magdalene cursed and then sighed as she took clean sheets from the bottom of her basket and made the bed by the left-hand wall, hung her gowns from pegs, and moved her undergarments to the chest. She felt a trifle guilty at using the man, but not nearly guilty enough to give him what he wanted. And she had issued fair warning by paying him, she reminded herself.

  Before she had finished unpacking, Diccon returned to report that he had given Magdalene’s note to Sir Giles de Milland. Sir Niall Arvagh, her first choice to carry her message to Lord William, was not at the armorer’s house and was not expected at any particular time. Diccon giggled. Sir Niall was out courting a local girl.

  Interested, for she liked Sir Niall, who had a quick wit as well as a skilled sword, Magdalene probed for information. Several men had come in together, Diccon said, and when he had asked for Sir Niall and explained he had a message from Mistress Magdalene to be carried to Lord William, Sir Giles had explained why Sir Niall was away and that no time was set for his return.

  Diccon had then handed over his message, but he had heard one of the other men make some pointed remarks about Sir Niall’s good luck.

  “And that was all you heard?” Magdalene urged.

  Diccon looked at the floor and admitted the men had paid no more attention to him and talked among themselves after he had handed over the message. Then he fell silent. Magdalene chuckled. More likely, she thought, Diccon had deliberately hidden himself in a corner to listen, but she was even more interested and produced another farthing. Diccon grinned.

  “She’s Loveday of Otmoor,” he said. “That’s what they called her, and said she was an heiress in the king’s ward.”

  “Lord bless me,” Magdalene murmured. “What is Niall doing courting an heiress in the king’s ward? Stephen will want her for one of his highborn paupers.”

  “Nah,” Diccon stuck in. “She’ve not got enough for that nor’s born high enough.”

  Magdalene’s brows shot upward. “Now how do you know that, you little limb of Satan? Out with it! You’ve had two farthings of me, and the next thing you’ll get is a whipping.”

  “I was going to tell you,” he said indignantly. “The man said a king’s clerk told Lord William about this Loveday. Another said—I didn’t get his name either—that the clerk was looking for Lord William’s favor and thought the girl would do for one of Lord William’s men since she wasn’t grand enough for the king’s cronies. That man sounded a little sour, and Sir Giles snapped at him. He said the reason Lord William sent Sir Niall was because he remembered Sir Niall came from Murcot, which was not far from Otmoor.”

  Now that it was brought to her mind, Magdalene also recalled that Murcot was possibly half a league north of Otmoor, but she was reminded again of William’s acuteness. It was as if he kept the placement of every vill in the kingdom in his mind. Magdalene frowned. She could not call to mind any manor called Otmoor.

  “That’s all I heard, honest,” Diccon said.

  Magdalene wrinkled her nose at him. “I doubt it,” she replied, but then smiled and asked, “Where do the women get dinner?”

  “Cookshop just up the street near the Carfax, but they eat late. Busy time here at dinner hour. Men like a bit extra in their time off.”

  “And the cost of a meal?” Magdalene grinned at the boy, who had hesitated. “I’ll be going out myself tomorrow. If you lie to me, I’ll skin you.”

  “Two farthings for the ordinary,” he said sullenly.

  “Good enough. That sounds right.” She handed him a penny. “Get two dinners and you can have one.”

  The boy’s eyes brightened. “Ale or wine?” he asked. “I gave you the price with the drink.”

  “Ale.”

  Magdalene shook her head as Diccon ran off. Likely the meal was only one farthing and the drink a second, but he hoped to get away with giving her the higher price by pretending he thought she would want a drink. It showed his cleverness, however, and Magdalene felt that two farthings was a cheap price to pay for the information she hoped to extract and with no one the wiser about her curiosity.

  She obtained her money’s worth, for she invited Diccon to join her while she ate. He was enormously pleased and relieved, which made Magdalene suspect that half or more of his meal might disappear down other gullets if he were caught with it. She began by remarking that Florete had told her how crowded Oxford was and asking if Diccon happened to know who was already in the town.

  The knowledge that he was safe and could eat and drink in peace oiled his tongue. He not only knew who was in the town, but by virtue of being used to carry messages, he knew where most of the great lords were lodged. He also knew who among them were friends and who were at odds because of the behavior of the men-at-arms of different meinies to each other. And there were others, he said, who were supposed to be friends—the men would greet each other civilly—but the way they looked at each other told a different story.

  He mentioned the earl of Chester, and asked if it were true that Chester ruled like a king on his great palatine estates bordering Wales and cared little for King Stephen. He mentioned the lodgings of meinies of the earls of Surrey and Warwick, Pembroke and Leicester. Magdalene bit her lip; she remembered that the king had told William to send his men home because there was no room for them, but all those earls were relatives by blood or marriage of Waleran de Meulan.

  Diccon named others, but they were mostly the king’s own creations and had little weight or influence beyond the king’s will. Absorbed in her anxiety for her friend and protector, she ignored the boy’s light voice until he said, “They’re all asking about the bishops of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely. Seems there’s a house kept empty for them on Castle Street but they haven’t come. Men are betting that they’ll seal themselves into their castles and wait for Robert of Gloucester to come.”

  “Who is betting that?” Magdalene asked sharply.

  “Oh, Lord Waleran’s men mostly. Surrey’s men bet against them. They said the bishops have to come ‘cause Gloucester ain’t ready yet and they need to look innocent ‘til they join him.”

  “But Surrey’s men are just as sure the bishops are in league with Gloucester as Lord Waleran’s men?” She frowned. “Are you making this up, Diccon? Where would you hear such talk?”

  “In the common room,” Diccon said indignantly. “They act like me and the girls are deaf. If they have to wait because there are too many for the private rooms or their favorite girls are busy, Florete sells wine and they drink and talk. They could take the common girls, bu
t they don’t.” A look of cunning crossed his face. “Sometimes I wonder if they come to talk to each other more than they come for the women.”

  It was certainly not impossible, Magdalene thought. William was clever, but he could not be the only one who realized a whorehouse was a place where men would come in contact and yet not be seen actually visiting each other’s lodgings, or gathering in groups in the street. A whorehouse was a good place to spread rumors, too. And Magdalene did not like either of the rumors. If the king took away the bishops’ offices either for defiance or for some other cause, who would manage the country? Who beside Salisbury and his son and nephews understood the exchequer? The sheriffs were all Salisbury’s appointees. Who else would they obey?

  Finally Diccon had no more to tell and Magdalene let him go. She repeated the significant pieces of information to herself to commit them to memory so she could tell William, although she doubted anything would be new to him except that the Soft Nest was being used as a place of meeting. And then she wondered if he knew even that, and had summoned her for that reason.

  Even as she arranged what she must say in her mind, she felt uneasy and restless, as if she should be doing something more than sitting in a chair. She looked at her hands, resting idly on the table, conscious that something was missing—and then she burst out laughing and let out an exasperated sigh. In the chaos of getting ready to leave, and with Bell in her bed and taking up all her attention her last night in Southwark, she had forgotten to pack her embroidery.

  The windows showed it was still light, and Magdalene was about to go out and buy herself the wherewithal to work when Florete came to the door. Business would be slow for a little while, she told Magdalene, if she were allowed to leave the door open so she could watch the men come and go in the corridor, she would like to stay and talk over old times. Magdalene was only too happy to accommodate her, and the two women exchanged gossip and renewed a friendship dimmed by time and distance.