by Iris Anthony
He folded trembling hands atop the table where he was sitting. “Do you think you can do it?”
Could I? My cousin’s lack of choices had ensured I had none. I had no choice but to do whatever was necessary to avoid being caught while I smuggled lace into France.
“You will have to be discreet.”
I was the soul of discretion. None had ever guessed I had once been an urchin and a thief. Nor had any ever accused me of being a murderer. I had left that life far behind me, and now I was being asked to return to it. Everything within me cried out against it.
But the voice of Lisette cried louder still.
I could not blot the image of her face from my mind. Nor the sudden and terrible grief I had experienced since her absence. It was complete and overwhelming. Become a thief for her? A smuggler? I would descend even into the depths of hell if I had to. There was nothing left to lose now. “I will do it.”
I would do anything.
•••
The estate was sold to a man who had always coveted its abundance of fields and its enviable situation overlooking the river. He was short and stout with a well-trimmed beard that pointed toward his ample girth. But the golden embroidery of his coat was overly ornate. The great floppy hat he wore was far too large for his head. He was a man who went to the greatest and most obvious of lengths to boost his reputation to vaunted heights. Though he was one of the province’s tax administrators, there was nothing noble about him save the robes he had purchased to go along with the position. He had bought what others had, at one time, been born to. At least people like my father, one of old King Henri’s finest warriors, might have aspired to noblesse d’epée, a nobility gained in the fires of war and tested in the heat of battle. But the only test this provincial official had ever undertaken was to check the doneness of his meat or the fitness of his purse.
Someone, somewhere, ought to have laughed at me. How earnestly I was defending a whole level of society of which I had never truly been a member!
The man took me aside after my cousin had given him the keys. “My daughter always pined for you, young Lefort. Good thing I always told her to look to our interests elsewhere. Had I let her marry you, where would she be now?” He stepped close enough that I could smell the garlic he must have eaten for dinner the day before. “The truth of it is, I’ve a chance at a position in the King’s own household.”
Had he let her marry me? He flattered himself to think I would even one day have asked for her hand. But there was nothing to be gained now in vexing him. “I’m sure she will soon find a man well suited to your position.”
He chuckled, a hand to his belly. “I hope those pretty manners of yours will keep you warm and fed.”
The man bowed to the viscount. “A title without lands, and lands without a title. I wonder which one of us it is who’s gotten the best of our arrangement?” His laugh left little question as to which of us he thought it was.
•••
The official had given my cousin gold for the humiliation. We counted it as we sat in the house of the town’s physician. We had prevailed upon the man to offer the viscount lodging while I journeyed to Flanders to obtain the count’s lace. The viscount separated out one lone coin and pocketed it, and then he deposited the rest into a leather pouch and handed it to me.
I hesitated in placing the purse into my pocket. “You should keep more for yourself.” If anything happened to me on my journey to buy the lace, I wanted him to have some sort of hedge against penury.
“The one thing I need is the one thing it seems I cannot have. Least not until after your return.” His eyes were tired. His voice had gone old.
Lisette. She was the only thing that had ever brought light into his eyes and laughter to his voice. I wanted her, too. I hid the coins in a gusset of my doublet. “I shall return just as swiftly as I can.”
He closed his eyes, nodding. Then he opened them and looked up at me, a warning in his gaze. He had me bring him a coffer he’d carried from Souboscq. From it he pulled a pair of pistols and pushed them across the table toward me. “Guard yourself. There are so many dangers…so many bandits on the roads these days…”
I took them, though I feared far more than highwaymen. I feared those who had the power to toss me back into the life from which the viscount had taken me. I feared the reach of the King’s men and the power of Cardinal Richelieu. They could fine me six thousand livres, which I did not have. They could confiscate the viscount’s title, and they could exile us all from the kingdom…if they did not execute my cousin first.
I had earned a fair bit as a child by gambling. Even now, far removed from those days, I felt a sad confidence in giving myself no better than even odds. “That money will keep you, then? Until I return?”
“Don’t worry yourself about me.” He reached out and clamped a trembling hand around my forearm. “The next time I see you, you will be with Lisette.”
I could only nod and hope Fate would be kind. That I would, in fact, be seeing him again, and that I would be able to retrieve Lisette from the count.
“Perhaps while you’re gone I should write a letter to the Marquis of Eronville to tell him what his son has done to us.”
I gripped his hand in my own, kneeling beside him. “And give him reason to turn you over to the cardinal? You must say nothing! The count cannot harm her. Whatever his reasons, he needs the lace too much. The best way to guarantee her safety is to leave her exactly where she is.”
•••
It took five days of hard riding to reach Flanders. Once I crossed the border, I went on to the city of Kortrijk. After securing a room at a lodging house, I opened the count’s letter.
What could be said about a man whose writing flowed in an even, measured script? Who began each line at the same point along the right edge of the paper and ended at the same point along the left? I would have thought such a man rational, reasonable. A man of self-restraint. But this writing didn’t match what I knew of him. He of frivolous taste and a deficit of virtue. But there now at the bottom: that absurdly large, scrawling signature. Here was evidence of such a man.
In any case, I could not detest him more than I already did. I read past all of his pleasantries until I found the information that mattered.
•••
The item can be attained through the abbey in Lendelmolen. You will contact Arne De Grote, a purveyor of liquors. His store is located on Leiestraat near the market in Kortrijk. He will arrange transport of the item into France.
•••
I set out north for the abbey the next morning and was soon glazed with rain. Though at first I traveled through hills, those quickly flattened. A road had been raised across the flat plain of Flanders. It wound between marsh and pond, marsh and field, marsh and ditch. This was a land wrung from the sea, and yet its earth still had not dried. It oozed water in a dozen different ways, and the hooves of cows and sheep constantly trampled dirt that had thrust itself from the sludge back into the mire.
The air was scented with salt, earth, and manure. Myriad windmills churned the mist with their enormous sails. They spun restlessly, almost silently, giving out only a faint phhwoof-phhwoof when I passed close enough to hear it.
It ought to have been an easy ride, but the horse struggled to keep its feet on the slippery clay. What might have taken two hours took four. And by the time I arrived, the rain had soaked through my hose, wetting my skin. I looked less like the nobleman I had nearly become and more like the urchin I had once been.
After the prosperous bustle of the city of Kortrijk, the humble town of Lendelmolen looked as miserable as I felt. Its houses were little more than rain-shedding hovels, its aspect colorless and rude. Even arriving as I was in the middle of the day in the rain, I might have been entertained by any number of prostitutes. As I declined their offers, I dodge
d a fish seller shouting his wares, and a woman shrieking at her son. It was with great relief that I spied what had to be the abbey’s roofline over the top of a high stone wall. I followed the wall until I saw a gate. Nearby several unprincipled-looking men had gathered. At my approach, one of them broke from the others and came toward me. “Are you staying in town then, stranger?”
In this part of the old French county my language was still spoken, but I had difficulty understanding his accent. And wanting to tell no man my business, I tried to ignore him.
“Tell me where you’re staying.” He jogged alongside me. “I can get you a lace maker. One just turned out of the abbey. She’s practically still a virgin.”
One of the other men jeered. “If you can wait a few days, I’ll get you a real virgin. My cousin works in there.” He nodded toward the gate. “Says there’s bound to be one put out before long.”
“I’ve not come for that.” I tried to direct my horse around the man, but he stepped into my path.
He leered. “But you could stay for that, now, couldn’t you?”
I dug my heels into the horse. He pushed forward, knocking the man in the shoulder.
“Here now! There’s no need to be rude about it. If you don’t want her, we’ll sell her up to Brussels or Amsterdam. But why let those city folks have all the fun?”
I dismounted quickly and pulled at the bell.
The nun who opened the gate looked in every direction but mine.
“I am here to see about some lace.”
She nodded, her protruding eyes grave as her chin disappeared into her wimple. She opened the gate to me.
I followed her to an arcaded building.
She stopped me at the door with a raised hand. “Sister Margriet will show you to the treasury.”
A second nun stepped from the arcade and led me onward.
A snapping fire and glowing candles lit the treasury. Vividly colored tapestries decorated the walls, and finely woven carpets lay on the floor. Souboscq had once been similarly ornamented. I had not realized how much I missed those luxuries until now. I presented my purse to a nun who was seated behind a large counting table. She nodded at me as she took it.
“I would like a length of your finest lace. Six yards.”
She raised a brow, though she did not stop unfastening the thong from the pouch. She poured the money onto the table and counted it. Once she had separated the coins into piles by weight, she consulted an accounts book. “Six yards…our best lace maker is at work on a piece of some length just now. It should take her only two more weeks, perhaps a few days more than that, to complete it.”
“Two weeks! But I had hoped—” How naïve my hopes seemed now. How naïve they must always have been. “I had hoped I could collect it now.”
“Now?” She said it with no little disapproval, as if doubting I had all my wits about me.
“I had hoped…”
“It is not possible. It will take at least two weeks more.”
At least two. I would have to count on three, then. Add a week for the return journey, and it would be a month before I could rescue Lisette from the count.
•••
The liquor merchant’s shop was located on Leiestraat just as the count had said. I entered the store and addressed myself to the clerk working the counter. “I am here to see Arne De Grote about arranging transport for a length of lace. Across the border.”
The store’s lone customer had halted in his steps. Now he turned toward me.
The clerk’s cheeks flamed and then went ashen. “You have the wrong De Grote.”
“De Grote, purveyor of liquors? On Leiestraat near the market?”
The clerk was waving his hands as if he didn’t want anything to do with me. “These foreigners! They come to the city, and they cannot even properly speak the language. They don’t know what they’re saying!” The clerk was mocking me, but he was making a mess of what had been a relatively tidy counter.
“De Grote smuggles lace?” the customer inquired.
“Smuggle lace? Why would he? Doesn’t he have a fine business already? He sells only the best of liquors!”
The man frowned, shrugged, and then left the store without making a purchase.
The clerk waved me toward the counter. “Hush! Do you want him to hear you?”
“Who?”
“De Grote!” The clerk nearly yelled the name, face flushed once more.
I blinked. Who could understand these people? I straightened myself to my full height, stiffened my shoulders, and glared at him. “Yes. I suppose I would like him to hear me. I came to speak to him, after all.”
“Then keep your mouth shut.”
“It’s not forbidden to speak of Flemish lace in Flanders.”
“But no good can come from talking about it when there are mercenaries who haunt the city looking for smugglers!” The words came out in a hiss.
I felt my own face blanch. I could not afford to be apprehended. I must not forget that no matter the status of lace on this side of the border, King Louis had outlawed such trafficking. The King brooked no defiance and, above all, he was just. If I were caught, he would not care about my circumstances or Lisette’s plight. “Where is he, then?”
“In the back.”
“May I…?”
The clerk gestured in that direction with a vicious sweep of his chin.
•••
After stepping around casks and bottles in varying shapes and sizes, I knocked on the only door I could find.
“What is it?” The question was asked in none too kind a voice. “Klaas? Is that you?”
“It’s not Klaas.”
There was a momentary scrape of wood against wood, the sound of a heavy footfall, and then the door was wrenched open. “If it’s not Klaas, who is it?” A man stood there, glaring at me from russet-colored eyes. Lace frothed beneath a precisely trimmed beard. Lace cuffs showed beneath the sleeves of a fine brocade doublet.
“Is it…De Grote?”
“Nee. It is not De Grote, because I am De Grote. It’s you.”
Feeling more than a little foolish, I nodded. “I am Alexandre Lefort.”
“And who are you, Alexandre Lefort? What do you want?” The words were almost a whisper.
“I’ve been told to speak to you about a…commission.”
His face relaxed. He smiled. Swept his arm wide in a gesture for me to enter. “Then please, come in.”
“He asked for you up front, De Grote.” The voice came from behind me: the clerk’s voice. “He asked about…you know…”
De Grote looked from the clerk back to me. “About what?”
“About…” The clerk mouthed the word “lace.”
De Grote turned to me. “You said the word?”
I nodded.
“Did anyone hear him?”
The clerk shrugged in a helpless sort of way. “Otto Stroobants.”
“Quickly—have him followed. See he goes home without getting me into any trouble along the way.” The orders were given in a hiss.
The clerk turned to go, but De Grote stopped him. “Does he buy much?”
The clerk turned back. “Who?”
“Stroobants.”
The clerk inclined his head. “A couple of bottles every month or two.”
De Grote folded his hands atop his froth of lace. Sighed. Shook his head. “Well. If there’s any trouble, if I have to do anything with him, it won’t cost us much in business.” He waved the clerk away, pulled me by the arm into the room, and shut the door. “About the lace.” He took a seat behind a counting table.
“I saw the abbess at the abbey in Lendelmolen just this morning.”
“And?”
“She said it would
take two weeks, at least, for my lace to be finished.”
“Good. Fine. When it’s finished, bring it to me. I’ll have one of my dog runners get it across the border for you.”
“Dog runners?”
“I’ve a terror of the beasts myself, but I’ve never lost a length. I’ll need your money now, though, in order to do it.”
I pulled the purse from my coat and placed it into his hand.
He hefted it and then sent me a quizzical glance. After tugging the string loose with a finger, he poured the coins onto the table. “It’s not enough.”
“Some for now, to guarantee your services. Some for later, once the work is completed.” I had divided my remaining money among two pouches.
“That’s not the way I conduct my business. If you want me to help you, then you give me the money—all of it—now.”
I don’t know why I should have been surprised the count had suggested doing business with someone so similar to himself. Heeding the lessons learned from bitter experience, I decided not to ignore my instincts. Sweeping the coins back into the purse, I resisted an urge to blot away the cold sweat that had formed above my lip. I wrapped the thong around the pouch, knotting it once. Twice for good measure. “Unfortunately, this is not the way I conduct my business.” I nodded and then turned on my heel and moved toward the door with the insouciance of the urchin boy I once had been, he who didn’t care what others thought about him or what they might do.
I was expecting to be called back at any moment, but I reached the door without eliciting one word from the man. So I stopped.
Nothing.
Put a hand to the doorknob.
Nothing.
Turned it.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Damn, damn, and damn! I’d been so sure he would acquiesce. What was I going to do now? De Grote was my only contact in this city, and it was quite clear I couldn’t hope to smuggle the lace across the border by myself. If he wouldn’t take my commission then…? I opened the door. Stepped through it.
Nothing.
All was lost.
•••
“Wait.” The word was spoken with a sigh of resignation.
