The Mercy Seller: A Novel (v5)

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  “You are Anna?”

  She nodded, drawing in her breath sharply. Her bosom strained against the lacings of her bodice with the extra breath. He fastened his gaze on the boy behind her, who returned his look with a vacant, unblinking stare. The rest of the boy’s body twitched and jerked restlessly. A widow, she’d said.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” he said. “Was it recent?”

  “Are my papers not in order? You will see I have permission to sell in the marketplace as long as I don’t set up a permanent stationer’s shop.” Anxiety pressed her full mouth into a sharp line and deepened the fine furrows etching her brow.

  He felt immediate remorse for causing her anxiety—whether her license was fake or real was no concern of his. He rolled the paper up and bound it with the silken thread she’d loosened, handed it back to her. Just because she was from Prague should not make her suspect. Still, she might be a source of some information.

  “Your papers look in perfect order to me. But I would not be in any position to say. I too am a visitor in the city. I just came over to your stall to purchase a book.” He fingered two of the five books she had on display. Pilgrim guides, simply bound with an awl-punch tool and strips of leather, but transcribed in a fine hand. “Do you do the translations yourself? Or are they your husband’s work?”

  “They are mine,” she answered, pride in her voice. Then quickly added, “I’ve sold all of … all of Martin’s.”

  “You are a remarkable scribe,” he said, and meant it. Some of the copies were even illustrated with sketches of pilgrims, the opening capital on the first page sketched in startling detail. “I would like to purchase this.” And then he asked idly, as if it were of only casual interest, “I have also some interest in other English translations. Of a religious nature. Do you have any such? The writings of a master by name of John Wycliffe perhaps, or even the earlier works of William of Ockham?”

  “I do not sell those. They have been banned by the Church,” she said quickly.

  Perhaps too quickly.

  “The English Scriptures, then?”

  “I have only the Gospel of John. In the Vulgate Latin.” He could see her mind working, taking in the fineness of his garments, weighing the risk against the needs of her child. “I could transcribe a rough translation for you myself, perhaps, but I should warn you that possession of it is, or might be, against the law in France. I’m not sure. It was harshly dealt with in Bohemia.”

  A shadow crossed her face; her mouth twitched with some remembered pain. Heretics had been dealt with harshly in Prague. Some even executed. Perhaps she herself was a fugitive. He could let it lie. He could walk away. Get his information elsewhere. If such was indeed the case, she had suffered enough. God had punished her with the loss of her husband, punished her too with the idiot child.

  But he did not turn and walk away.

  “This is not Bohemia,” he said. “This is France. The French care more about fashion and good burgundy than heresy. I don’t need the whole book. Just a chapter or two. The first three chapters, I think.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?”

  Demain, the coachman had said.

  “The length of my stay depends upon many factors. Would you have time to do one or two chapters for me in a week’s time?”

  The cathedral bells tolled again. The child resumed his tonal whimpering. The bookseller turned to the child to hug him to her. “I shall think about it,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Then I shall return tomorrow for your answer,” he said.

  He walked away with his blood rushing in his head, wondering just what seeds he had sown for some future harvest. He did not think to consider whether it was the spying friar in his black cassock or the worldly mercer in his scarlet cloak who would reap that harvest.

  The boy hated the cathedral bells. The bells—other bells, yet the same bells—loud, thunderous clanging in his head, had been tolling the day his uncle left him on the edge of the bridge. He had known his uncle was not coming back. He knew it by the scraping sounds in his throat. By the shuffling of his footfalls as they faded. At first slow then fast fast fast thump thump thump.

  The clamor of the bells fear fear fear. Feeling again the sensation of his body edging ever closer ever closer skin scraping on the hot cobblestones feet dangling over empty air. Scooting beyond the lip of the bridge. With each bell tone ever closer to the river. Ever closer. He could not stop. Could not stop the jerking motions of his body. Could not stop the bells.

  His uncle was not coming back.

  Other footfalls on the bridge. Slowing. Pause. Then thump thump thump. Another bell tone clanging.

  Stop. Help me. The cries coming out of his straining throat. Bek bek bek. The more he’d tried to still his twitching limbs the closer they jerked to the edge of the bridge. Bek bek help me.

  Ripples in the water count the ripples one two three. Count the bells one two three. Ever closer.

  A clawlike hand had plucked him from the brink.

  Another hand, a soft hand, stroked his hair now, muting the echo of the bells.

  Now there were two to care for him. A one and a two. One. Two. Like the first two fingers on his hand. One. Two. Like the smooth stones in his pocket. The claw hand had taken his stones away. No. No. Bek. Bek. And Anna—he knew her name. A beat on the last—An na, An na had given them back. His stones. Two stones. He was looking for a third.

  Two stones. One flat. One round. Two hands. One gentle. Her touch light and smooth. Powdered river mud in summer. One gritty as coarse sand.

  Two voices. One voice guttural and low. The sound of the nighttime croaking of the river frogs. His uncle left him on the bridge to grapple under fallen logs for eels and fish. One voice like birdsong pitched low. Tones up and down a melody of half-tones. He sang with this voice.

  The old one her oldness in the loose skin of her hands left him behind. Tied him to the chair. Clung to her crying. Bek bek bek. His skin rubbing itself raw against the bindings. The red seeping out of his skin. Seep. Ooze. Seep. Ooze. And he could not stop it.

  But the young one carried him with her. He sat behind her in the little market stall. Her wide blue skirt his blurred horizon. Sometimes he peered past that horizon, watching people shift before his dim eyes like sticks wide thin short tall a parade of color a hidden melody of notes in their hushed and shouted talk. Picking out the tones from the voices he liked. Stringing them like beads singing their tunes in his head. He tried to hold his arms and legs still for her—An na the beat on the last An na An na—he sang her name over and over in half-tones to calm his flailing body. He could do it except for the twitching in his legs. Even when dogs barked and doors slammed he could do it. An na. An na. But not when the bells clanged.

  Too weak now to sing the An na in his head. All the music scattered. Falling beads. He listened trying to gather the notes again. There. A bass note. A beginning. He’d heard the same voice the same note a bass note—a base note—to build his melody on. He’d heard it for the last five days. Five days. Like the fingers on one hand if he counted the short one. Or was it six? Sometimes the short one twitched meanly counting itself twice.

  The bass note spoke again. He strained around the blue cloth of his horizon to see the singer. A tall stick garbed in cloth the color of the blood beneath his skin. Inside seeping outside. He sang to himself then paused to listen.

  A new melody in his head. An na’s medium tones playing against the low notes. He liked the sound of the notes together.

  The tones were perfectly matched.

  Anna’s heart beat faster as she showed the merchant from Flanders the first chapter of his commissioned work. He’d strolled by her booth every day, pausing to inquire about progress on the manuscript and to practice his English. That’s what he’d said, even though his English was perfect. After his second visit, she’d found herself looking for him, her eyes scanning the square for the scarlet cloak and admitting a flush of disappointment when she’d sp
otted one that turned out not to be his.

  Scarlet tunics seemed almost as popular among wealthy merchants as among Roman cardinals.

  At first, she had been wary of the merchant from Flanders—VanCleve was the name he’d given her that first day. His queries about the heretical texts had seemed too studiedly offhand, but with each visit she’d become more friendly with him. Heaven knew she needed a friend. The Gypsies would be leaving soon, and she would be alone. If this man from Flanders wished to be her friend even for a little while, what harm could come to her here in the marketplace? She enjoyed his company.

  And if she had any shard of distrust for him left, he dispelled it on the occasion of his sixth visit to her stall.

  The late autumn sunshine had given way to low-hanging clouds and a cold drizzle threatened. Anna spotted him across the square. He appeared to be watching her. She looked away, embarrassed, and when she looked back he was gone. But about an hour later by the town crier, just as Anna was thinking she would have to take Little Bek back to Jetta’s wagon before the drizzle penetrated the blankets his restless limbs threw off, Anna spotted the merchant again. He was making for her booth in a sort of half-run. Behind him a youth carried two tent poles and an awning.

  When she protested she couldn’t afford such a luxury, he’d held up his hand to silence her and paid the youth out of his own purse.

  “It’s a pittance if it will keep you here so that I can enjoy your company for half an hour,” he said.

  Her instinct was to refuse.

  “It will keep the boy dry on rainy days,” he said, “and protect him from the sun on fine days. And think of my fancy tunic. You know a man of my standing can’t strut about the square in rain-spotted silk. It would not be good for the cloth trade.”

  He’d laughed when he said this last, as though he were making fun of himself. What he was really doing was making it easier for her to accept his gift. And how could she not? For the sake of Little Bek, if not her merchandise, which she constantly had to protect with oilcloths, wrapping and unwrapping whenever a prospective customer came by.

  “I shall consider it only a loan then,” she said as the youth pounded the tent poles into the earthen verge of the cobblestone square. “Until the gospel is finished. Do you want to see how it progresses?”

  He shrugged. “If you’re ready to show it.” She brought out the loose pages from a basket at her feet, grateful for the awning that protected them. “I’m sorry if the work is slow. But the days are getting shorter and the stationers’ guild has a rule about working by candlelight. They say it makes inferior work.”

  “Nothing inferior here,” he said, giving the pages a cursory thumbing.

  She was disappointed. He paid but scant attention to her careful work.

  “Little Bek is quiet today,” he said, handing the pages back to her.

  “He’s listening to us.”

  “Does he understand what we’re saying?”

  “It’s hard to know. He can’t talk. I think he just likes the sound of our voices. He likes music too. He is happiest when the organ grinder comes by. I have spent all my ha’pennies for a few tunes, but afterward he will hum them for hours, happily occupied. The words he sings are gibberish, like some fairy language. But he makes the most perfect little melodies from the notes he steals from the organ grinder.”

  “But he doesn’t like the bells.”

  “I think it’s because they’re so loud. Loud noises frighten him. Probably because he doesn’t see well. He doesn’t know where they’re coming from.”

  VanCleve reached into the pocket of his tunic.

  “I’ve brought him something,” he said. “May I give it to him?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He was already moving behind the table on which Anna’s books were displayed. He squatted down beside the boy and opened his palm, then put Little Bek’s hand over the smooth elliptical stone about the size, shape, and color of a robin’s egg.

  A broad smile spread over the boy’s face. Anna’s heart almost broke with the joy in that smile. Little Bek took the stone in his hand and beat it three times against the cloth of his pallet. A string of slobber fell from his grinning lips onto the cloth of VanCleve’s sleeve.

  “I’m so sorry,” Anna said, dabbing at the spot with a clean rag from her basket. “All over your fine robe.”

  “It matters not a pipkin’s worth. It’s just cloth. It’s been wet before.” And taking the cloth from Anna’s hand, he gently wiped the boy’s face. “Can’t wipe away that grin,” he said, satisfaction in his voice. He stood up, handed her back the cloth.

  “But how did you know?”

  “I’ve seen him playing with the stones. I thought he might like another. Three is a more perfect number.” He paused, watching the child for a moment, then looked up at her. “He can count, you know?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Didn’t you see the way he beat against the floor? Three times. And see, he’s laid them out in a row.”

  There was something about the mercer’s quiet compassion, or perhaps his dual powers of observation and reason, that reminded her of her grandfather. She blinked back unexpected tears, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “There’s some intelligence there,” he said. “I’ve read about others like him who have capabilities far beyond what the rest of us have. Some gift from God to compensate them.”

  Anna could have hugged him. Not only for his kindness but for his confirmation of something she had long suspected. She might have hugged him, if they’d been standing in her grandfather’s little town house in Prague and not in the square of a city in a foreign land. If he’d been one of the students who came to study and translate the Wycliffe texts. But they were not. And he was not. He was a stranger in a strange land, and she’d seen enough of the world since leaving Prague to be wary of strangers.

  They stood close together beneath the sheltering awning with the cloud and mist closing them in, narrowing the place into an intimate room. She had to resist the urge to reach out and touch VanCleve’s scarlet sleeve, to feel the arm beneath it. Unconsciously, she arched her back, smoothed her hair with her hands as if trying to tame it. Something stirred in her woman’s part, something sharp and quick as a lightning surge, almost like a pain. She could not look at him. She turned her flaming face away, pretended to straighten the books and pamphlets on her table.

  “Do you have children, Monsieur VanCleve?” A man such as he must surely have a wife and children, strong sons to carry on his business.

  “No, I am … alone … I am unmarried.”

  “A pity,” she murmured, trying to quiet the fluttering of her pulse. “I mean, you seem to have a fondness for children.”

  “Suffer the little children, our Lord said.” He smiled. “He had a fondness for them too.”

  Behind her Little Bek beat his stones against the floor. One, two, three, muted beats against his pallet. The mist changed to rain and dripped from the edge of the awning.

  “I hope you live nearby,” she said. Then felt her skin flush lest he mistake her meaning. “I mean only that I would not want your fine clothes to be twice wet in one day.”

  He laughed. “I have a room on the other side of the cathedral. In Rue de Saint Luc. Do you live close by?”

  “I am staying with a band of … pilgrims, but they will be moving on soon. I plan to stay in Rheims through the winter. The custom is good here.”

  “There may be rooms in the place where I am lodging.”

  “I’m only a widow and a poor bookseller. I could not afford the same as a wealthy merchant.”

  “The house is simple, but clean. And reasonably priced. I shall be happy to inquire of the landlord if you like.”

  While she was hesitating, groping for an answer, he added, “Let me help you gather your books and we’ll go now. You and the child will both be soaked if you try to manage alone.”

  And before she could protest, he had packed her books into the
basket at her feet and lifted Little Bek into his arms. “Here,” he said, handing her the basket. “We’ll make a run for it. The second house on the other side of the cathedral.”

  He had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth before he darted off across the square, carrying Little Bek wrapped in his furred cape.

  There was nothing Anna could do but wrap her shawl around her frizzing hair and follow.

  EIGHTEEN

  Most is wrought for Frenche man

  But what for him that no French can?

  Seldom was by any chance

  Praised the English tongue in France.

  —FROM CURSOR MUNDI, 14TH CENTURY,

  AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  As it turned out, the landlord of the little daub-and-wattle house in Rue de Saint Luc did have an extra room to let. Anna looked at it at the urging of VanCleve—at the urging too of the pounding rain that had set in. The room was clean and cozy. It boasted a wooden bed with a mattress of real down, a settle with a chest beneath it and a bright embroidered throw over its back, a dresser topped with a pewter bowl and pitcher for washing and a small polished bronze mirror poised above. A glazed window leaded in small squares leaned out slightly over a bit of garden. A charcoal brazier warmed the room.

  She looked at the little chamber longingly, fighting a sudden wash of regret. It was so like her pleasant room at the head of the twisting stairs, the room she’d left behind in the little town house in Prague. “I can’t afford such luxury,” she said, shaking her head.

  VanCleve laughed. “You haven’t even asked how much it is. How do you know you can’t afford it? It’s close by. You’d probably do enough business in the extra hours spent walking—you said what, six, eight furlongs?—to pay the rent. I’m sure the landlord would make the best possible deal to a young widow with a child.” His glance included this rotund little man who squinted at Little Bek through nearsighted eyes.

  Anna scolded herself for not telling VanCleve on that first day that Little Bek did not belong to her. But his false perception had served at the time to reinforce her story of widowhood, a story she had made up along with the forged documents to gain license to sell her books in the marketplace. Now it would be awkward to explain. And though the stranger from Flanders had shown them kindness, how did she know he would not turn her in for being other than what she said, a widow carrying on her husband’s lawful trade? Anyway, he would be leaving soon. A week or so, he’d said.