The Ruins of Lace

by Iris Anthony

  I did remember.

  I just hadn’t done it in time. For not two days later, I created the last of the petals and felt the last of the scrolls form underneath my fingers. I was done. The sheer exhilaration of it prickled my scalp. I was done. Done! But…what would happen now?

  I set my bobbins to dancing, forming a pattern that was no pattern. They looped and dipped and twisted without creating anything at all. I needed time to think. I stayed up all night trying to decide what to do. But I had no choices. Not really. I was done with the lace. But there were still five more days before Heilwich’s visit.

  Chapter 16

  Heilwich Martens

  Kortrijk, Flanders

  How was I going to save Katharina? I had only a week. Less than a week if her secret was discovered on Monday. That night, after I returned to Kortrijk and after I had banked the fire in the kitchen, I sat down on my pallet and counted the money I had saved.

  The coins had not grown in number since I had showed them to the Reverend Mother. I had added one to them, but then I had given one to that urchin, Pieter.

  I felt a desperate panic. Which was followed by the impulse to pray the rosary. But what good would that do? How could that save Katharina?

  What I needed was money.

  More of it than I had.

  But what could I do? How could I come by more?

  I supposed…I could do what I had done for the other coins.

  Sighing, I covered my head with my apron and then pressed my forehead to my knees. Had it truly come to this? To helping De Grote? After I had told him, once and forever, I would never work for him again?

  My hands began to tremble as I thought on it. About how terrible it had been that first time, digging up the coffin Father Jacqmotte had buried just the morning before and opening it to hide a length of lace inside.

  At least De Grote hadn’t hacked up any of that body. Sometimes he ordered a corpse’s chest be cut out so lace could be rolled up and placed there instead. But that first time, he’d only lifted the dead man’s arm and tucked the lace inside his coat.

  Such a horrible, horrible night.

  The char girl caught me not once that next morning, but twice, staring into the fire at nothing at all. And when I went outside to go to market, I found I carried not my basket, but my broom. And I was gripping it with the same fingers that had helped to dig up a coffin.

  I had turned around and taken the broom back to the kitchen, and then I’d sat down on a stool in the cellar and peered at my fingers in the dim light.

  Opened them.

  Closed them.

  Tried not to remember what they felt when they had touched the dead man’s coat. That feeling ate at me. It soured me. And right there in the cellar, I fell to my knees and retched. Again and again and again. I retched until I tasted only bile. And yet again until there was nothing left but a guilty conscience and a wicked soul.

  If only I had been able go to confession.

  But I never would. How could I confess to…to…doing what I had done? What words could I use? What could I possibly say to induce a priest to pronounce forgiveness?

  I let someone else prepare Father’s meal that afternoon. He wouldn’t have wanted to take the food from my hand. Not if he had known.

  I deserved no mercy from God. Not after that.

  Dómine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum. Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof. Forgiveness was too great a gift for a soul like mine.

  Oh! I did not wish to do it. I did not want to go to De Grote again.

  Besides, he must have found others to do the work I had done. There must be dozens like me in the city. I imagined there was one of me at each of the parish churches. There had to be. Lace was that important.

  I did not want to do it. Not after I had promised myself I wouldn’t.

  But De Grote might be my only choice. Blind as Katharina was, she’d be no match for those men who loitered by the abbey’s gate. They’d snatch her, and bed her, and what could be done then?

  •••

  I made my rounds the next day, taking soup to the aged, rags to the poor, and medicines to the infirm. I cast a careful eye about as I walked. If I had to do it, if I had to go to De Grote, it would be nice to know there was a body ready to fall into a coffin. If I decided to do it, whom could I count upon to die?

  There was Annen, the weaver’s wife. She would drop a babe any day now, and her last two had died ere they’d had a chance to breathe.

  “Annen Moens!”

  “Heilwich.” She put a hand to her back and stretched in a way that reminded me of a sapling. “How is Father Jacqmotte?”

  “Same as always. But how are you?”

  She took a great breath of air into her cheeks and then blew it out in a huff. “Sick unto death of breeding.”

  “But it’s to come soon?”

  She smiled. Or perhaps it was a grimace. “Any day.”

  “Make sure you send someone to fetch me.” Just in case. Just in case I decided to go to De Grote.

  She nodded.

  I continued on to the Lievens’s. They had a daughter in poor health, and the week’s wet weather was sure to have set her back. Knocking once on the door, I lifted the latch and pushed through.

  Elen Lievens came at me, smiling, hands extended. “Look at our Zoete!”

  I looked.

  “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”

  Truly miraculous. The girl who for so long had lingered abed was bent over the fires, stirring a kettle as if she never intended to stop. As I gazed upon her, she lifted her head. “It was the borage.”

  “The what?”

  “The borage conserve you brought last week. The jar you said was blessed by Father Jacqmotte.”

  Just because I had said it didn’t mean it had been true. Father Jacqmotte was too busy to bless every jar and vial I waved in front of his nose. If anyone had done any blessing, it had been me. I’d sprinkled some holy water on it while I’d been cleaning in his office. “I’m so…glad.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Elen left my side and went to press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.

  I left soon after.

  I argued with myself the length of the street. But I came to no other conclusion than this: I did not want to go to De Grote. But I might just have to.

  Chapter 17

  Denis Boulanger

  The border of France and Flanders

  If I only knew which people smuggled lace across the border, then I would stop them.

  Men and women. Children and dogs. The very young and the very old. That was who the lieutenant said I should look for. Well…there they were, all of them, in the crowd standing before me, waiting to cross the border. Where was it the lieutenant said lace was hidden?

  Loaves of bread.

  I looked the crowd over once, twice, before I spotted a woman carrying a loaf of bread beneath her arm. As she saw me look at her, she covered the bread with her cloak.

  I gestured her over.

  Her brow furrowed as she put a hand to her chest.

  I nodded.

  Her cheeks paled, but she detached herself from the line. Several children followed, like goslings, behind her.

  “I need to examine your bread.”

  “Please, sir. It’s all we have.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to.” I took the loaf between my hands and tore it into two pieces. No lace there. But maybe…a piece of lace could be very small, couldn’t it? And it didn’t have to hide in the middle, did it?

  I tore each section apart and then tore each of those sections in two again. As I divided the bread into smaller and smaller pieces, one of them fell into the mud at our feet. “I’m sorry! I mean…I am…truly.�
�� The bread had been torn into pieces so small it was obvious there could be nothing hidden inside. I moved to give them all back to the woman, but as I did, one of the children jostled me, and they slid from my hands into the mud.

  The children stared at me with piteous eyes. One of them began to cry.

  “Don’t—please—”

  The woman had knelt in the mire and was picking up the pieces, brushing the mud from them with trembling hands as she sent dark looks up at me.

  “I’m sorry. Here. Let me help.” I picked up the rest of the pieces and handed them to her. She placed them into a kind of sling she formed with the tail of her cloak.

  When I rose, the lieutenant was standing right beside me. “Found any lace yet?”

  “Non, chef.”

  “Well. You’ll have to try harder, then.” He nodded toward the side of the shack where an old man was standing, propped up by a crutch. “They’re hollow sometimes.”

  “Hollow…?”

  “The crutches.”

  “Oh. Oh!”

  I approached the old man and held out my hand.

  He fumbled in his coat pocket and then pulled out a document.

  “Non. I mean—I need to see your crutch.”

  “My crutch?”

  I nodded.

  He leaned against the wall, puzzlement etching his brow, but he handed the crutch to me.

  I glanced back toward the lieutenant. He put his fists together and wrenched them apart, as if he were breaking something.

  Ah! Now I understood. I put one end of the crutch to the ground and then came down on it hard with my foot. It cracked but didn’t quite break clean. I gave it another stomp.

  “My crutch!” The old man had come away from the wall and attached himself to me, trying to pull me away from the crutch, though he couldn’t quite manage it.

  I fished it out of the mud and looked at the broken ends. Nothing but splinters. I examined the piece that fit under the arm. Nothing there, either. It was just a crutch after all.

  “What have you done?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?” He was looking down at his foot, which was wrapped in a rag. A very dirty, very bloody, very holey old rag.

  “I don’t know. I’m very sorry…I—”

  “How am I supposed to walk?”

  I backed away from the man, apologized once more, and then went to look for the lieutenant. I found him, finally, on the other side of the line. He was looking at me, and he was laughing.

  “A word of advice, Denis Boulanger.” He linked his arm with mine. “Come with me. Let me show you a trick.” As he walked us to the front of the line, all the people grew silent. He marched us up to a hunchbacked old woman who was leaning on a cane.

  I had a bad feeling. At the very bottom of my stomach.

  “All you have to do is—” He grabbed the cane away from her without warning. Her hands flew up as she gave a cry and landed face-first in the muck. “See there? That’s the trick. The smugglers won’t fall. They’re only pretending to be crippled or lame. They’ve still got their balance. Those who fall? Well…they’re not the ones. This old hag isn’t one of those we’re looking for.”

  “But—”

  “That’s how it’s done.”

  The woman was churning in the mud like a windmill. The harder she tried to free herself, the more she seemed to swim in the filth. And now the crowd was laughing at her.

  “If that’s the way it’s done, then I don’t want to do it.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” He had already started up the steps to his shack. “You’ve work to do! Lace to confiscate. Besides…it’s all in fun.”

  I might have held out a hand toward the old woman, but I felt too guilty. And then someone in the crowd hissed at me. At least, I think they did. Shamed, I ran to catch up with the lieutenant. As I jogged up the steps, cartridge box slapping at my side, I thought of those poor children. Of the man I’d left without a crutch. Of that old woman having nothing but clothes soiled by mud to show for her encounter with me. Finally, I caught up with him. “I’d rather have my orders.”

  “Your orders?”

  I squared my shoulders. “Oui, chef.” If the job entailed torturing the good citizens of France—and Flanders—then I didn’t want to do it. I’d rather do…anything else.

  “Fine, then.” The lieutenant strode before me into the room and came out with my orders in hand. He shoved them into my chest so hard I nearly fell off the step as I grabbed at them. “You know what your problem is?”

  “Non, chef.”

  “You’ve no imagination.”

  No imagination. I saluted and turned to leave.

  “Last chance, Denis Boulanger. That’s your last chance to become a real soldier. Don’t squander it.”

  •••

  I left the lieutenant and walked down the steps. Held up the orders so I could read them.

  Signy-sur-vaux. I was being sent to guard a gunpowder manufactory.

  I felt heat rise to my cheeks; my heart sounded as if it were beating in my ears. I was being sent to Signy-sur-vaux? Not many people even knew that village existed. Still fewer even knew its location, nestled as it was to the east against a bend in the river Vaux. Signy-sur-vaux was in the exact center of nowhere at all. It was a pimple on a flea’s ass.

  Pimple on a flea’s ass.

  That was one of my father’s favorite phrases. My father in Signy-sur-vaux, the village where I was from. The village where I had been born and had lived until just six months ago. How was I going to explain to my father I had been sent straight back home? It had taken me a year to convince him I wasn’t meant to follow in his trade. Now, I would have to tell him I wasn’t good enough to be a soldier, either.

  No imagination?

  The lieutenant was wrong. I could imagine exactly what my father would say. Every word. Every gesture. Every look.

  Signy-sur-vaux.

  The lieutenant might as well have sent me to purgatory.

  I spat at the shack then watched as it splatted against a board and rolled over itself all the way to the ground. I spat again. Then I turned to watch the border.

  A farmer was leaving Flanders for France. Was he smuggling lace? He didn’t look the type. I heard him speak. Not his words, I was too far away. But I heard the sound. It was guttural. Flemish, then. And the Flemish didn’t smuggle the lace in. Not according to the lieutenant. The French did.

  It was all so confusing. Why didn’t people just do what they were told? Why did they have to lie and cheat and steal? And smuggle? What was wrong with obeying the King’s law?

  The guard pointed to a chest that was sitting in the cart. The man shrugged. Said something. The guard climbed onto the cart and gestured for the farmer to open the chest. Once the clasp had been unfastened and the top lifted, the guard began to empty it. A sheaf of papers. A silver cup. A packet of what turned out to be seed.

  A purse.

  The Spanish guard seized it. He loosed the strings and emptied it onto the straw that lined the bottom of the cart. Stared at the coins that fell out, and then dove at one.

  Two.

  Three.

  Bastards. That’s what those Spaniards were. The Flemish I’d come to know were nice enough, in spite of what the lieutenant thought. It wasn’t their fault they were ruled by Spain.

  The guard jumped down from the cart and then dropped the three coins into his own purse. They were probably French, coins that were forbidden in the Spanish Netherlands, but coins a man might need if he were to journey to France…where Spanish coin was forbidden.

  What a mad world this had become. How was the man supposed to do business in France if he had no French money?

  I spit again.

/>   I shoved off from the wall as the man walked toward me, toward the lieutenant’s shack. With the smell of herring and the sound of the sawing of bread coming from the shack, I knew he’d be waiting a while. The lieutenant relished his morning meal.

  Chapter 18

  The Dog

  Rural Flanders

  It had happened, just as I had dreamed it would. I had been muzzled, lace had been wrapped around my body, and now I was dressed in Legrand.

  I was almost free.

  “Run fast, Chiant. Run hard.” My bad master opened the door before me, shoving a foot beneath my behind.

  I sat down hard upon it.

  There was something out there. I could smell it. Something lurking in the forest just beyond the path.

  The master lifted his boot so swiftly it plunged me out into the dirt beyond the doorstep, onto my nose. “Run! Vas-y!”

  I took one step forward. Stopped. Lifted an ear. Took a listen…and…yes. Just there. By that big tree. Under the hoot of the owls there was a cough. A whispered word.

  “What do you wait for? Go!”

  I took another step forward. Lifted an ear. Heard…talking. Footsteps. People advancing through the night. I whined.

  “So now you do not wish to leave me? Now, with the most expensive lace you have ever carried? I should have beat you more! I should have fed you less!” His foot glanced off the tip of my nose.

  I had not seen it coming! I yelped.

  Cries came from the forest, and then the shadow of something emerged from the trees. Two shadows. Two men. “Stop!”

  The bad master picked me up. “C’est foutu!” He began to withdraw back into the house, but then he stopped. Set me down. “Run, Chiant. Run like a brook. Make it to France. Go!” He pushed me away with a shove.

  “The dog—stop him!”

  The shadows separated, one running toward me, the other toward the bad master.

  “Stop!”

  “What do you need, friend?” The master spoke even as he kicked at me. “I am but a poor farmer.”

  I stumbled away, beyond the reach of his foot.