The Wicked and the Just

by J. Anderson Coats

  “We could,” Evilbeth drawls, “if we were novi and didn’t know any better.”

  “I fancy a honey wafer.” I leap to my feet and throw my linen blindly onto the bench. There’s a tiny metal sound like my needle coming loose, but I pay no heed. “We have them all the time, so I’m sure there’s a big pile in the kitchen. Gwinny!”

  She shambles out of the shadows, tripping over her hem. She looks worse than usual, stains on her new gown and big dark rings around her eyes.

  “Fetch the honey wafers from the kitchen,” I say in slow, careful words. “Bring lots, because we always have enough to spare. And bring the wine. We’re thirsty.”

  Evilbeth is smiling. My hackles go up like angry crows.

  “That’s your marvelous maid?”

  “Yes.” I cannot find my needle, so I pretend to stitch with small violent stabs.

  “And of course she’s one of them.”

  I’m burning to demand what business it is of hers, but I’m to be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy and my father will flay me where I stand if I’m rude to any of the honesti.

  Especially a Coucy.

  “I should have known.” Evilbeth snorts. “Novi.”

  “How can you trust one in your house?” Aline shudders. “Are you not worried she’ll steal? Or break things?”

  “The king would have the Welsh live cheek by jowl with us,” Emmaline puts in, drawing her needle clear. “Within the walls and full privileges as burgesses. My father says there are already Welsh burgesses in Harlech.”

  Evilbeth sniffs. “It’ll never happen in Conwy.”

  “A Welshman was supposed to live in your house, Cecily,” Emmaline says. “Dav-ith something. Petitioned the king and everything. That’s why your father was admitted so hastily.”

  Gwinny appears at the door, a plate of honey wafers balanced on her arm. In her other hand is a pewter mazer.

  I can smell the honey wafers clear across the workroom. My father is still bemoaning the cost and swearing I’ll not see another drop of honey till my wedding, but it’s worth every penny because I am Croesus today.

  As Gwinny approaches, I gesture to the coffer I lugged in from the hall and arranged before the benches, as if it’s always there for the piles of honey wafers we always have.

  Gwinny bends to set down the mazer and the platter of wafers tips. They’re sliding, the whole pile, toward the gritty floor that never did get scrubbed with sand.

  “No!” I lunge for the platter but instead catch Gwinny’s wrist. She startles and corrects too much and the wafers fly like leper bread, scattering at the honesti girls’ feet.

  Evilbeth brays donkey-laughter and Aline cackles like a hen. Even Emmaline is tittering behind her hands.

  I stare hard at the floor. At the wafers scattered there like fat straws.

  All the honey in the house. Every drop.

  “Gwinny, you clumsy ox!” My voice is high and choked. “I should have you cartwhipped! Look what you did!”

  “No matter,” Emmaline says cheerfully. “There are more wafers in the kitchen, right? She can just fetch another plateful. Here, Margery can pour the wine.”

  Gwinny studies her dirty bare feet, begging to be kicked and slapped into martyrdom for making a fool of me before these viperous honesti who built this vile town but haven’t the manners God gave a goat.

  Evilbeth snorts. “Novi and their airs. This little baby ought to unpack her dolls and go back to the nursery.”

  “Gwinny,” I finally manage, “pick up the wafers. Margery can pour the wine.”

  As Gwinny kneels and collects the wafers, Evilbeth prods her shoulder with one slippered toe and shakes her head.

  “Worthless,” Evilbeth mutters, then narrows her eyes at me. “I’d dismiss a servant of mine on the spot for something so disastrous.”

  If I were really the lady of this house, I’d dismiss Gwinny in ten different ways and kick her rump on the way out. But as long as Mistress Tipley stands for her, and my father stands for Mistress Tipley, I’m stuck with them all.

  I shake out my fists. I swallow till I’m fairly sure my voice will come out level. “Gwinny, I’ll fetch the wafers from the kitchen. Give me the tray. You are excused for the day. Off with you.”

  She goes, and I make it to the rearyard ere angry tears get the better of me. I lean against the house and sob and hate Evilbeth as hard as any good Christian dares.

  Then I take the platter into the kitchen, pick off the debris clinging to the wafers and stack them artfully back on the platter. They look a little mushy, but these girls deserve no better.

  I splash water on my face, take a breath, then carry the tray back to my workroom.

  My father had better appreciate all I’m doing for him.

  Black Reese of Trecastell has turned up badly beaten near Llanfair, one of the very places he used to haunt to rob innocent travelers on the king’s highway.

  One of his arms hangs limply from the shoulder and his right leg is broken in two places. His tongue has been cut out and his face is swollen and purple. He draws breath in short raspy bursts when he’s not coughing up blood.

  Of course my father must relate this over supper. I push my trencher to arm’s length.

  County court conducts an inquiry. The bailiffs say they released Black Reese the very day Nessy Glover returned home, but the Welshry cries foul and demands that the porter of the city gates be called as an oathgiver to confirm the bailiffs’ account of Black Reese walking out of the gatehouse in the same condition he went in.

  The sheriff reminds them that Englishmen are not required to give evidence against other Englishmen when accused by Welshmen.

  The bailiffs scoff that such a beating could come from any cudgel and that tongues could be cut out by any blade. Highwaymen make enemies of all, say the bailiffs, and such an accusation defames the borough when there’s not a shred of proof.

  That’s when a Welshman seizes the plaint roll from the clerk and rips it to pieces, and the whole of the Welshry begins raising a row.

  The sheriff shuts down the inquiry on the spot, and when he reopens it the next day, every man of the castle garrison stands behind him in a glowering, white-tabarded wall.

  Black Reese dies halfway through the inquiry, but with his tongue cut out he wasn’t able to make oaths anyway. After deliberating for half an Ave, the sheriff rules misadventure and fines the Welshry for presentment, since Black Reese was one of theirs.

  For the next se’ennight, my father does not ride the Welshry in search of handmills. He says he’s feeling poorly, and he recuperates while honing his blade and carving a grip into the blackthorn cudgel that surely should have gone onto the midden after Nessy Glover’s safe return.

  Ned calls. He’d take me on a walk around the city walls. I turn my best Salvo-eyes on my father and he grunts his permission. While we wait for Mistress Tipley to wrap her bulk in her voluminous cloak, Ned thaws my father’s icy scowl with an amusing tale of three Welshmen who attempted to arrange a buy-naught in the Conwy market. People were too frightened to refuse paying the market-penny, though, and someone turned them over to the bailiff, so the three poor wretches ended up rattle-and-drummed into the strait up to their necks and left there for two whole days.

  My father is smiling by the time we depart.

  Ned sets his usual stiff pace, which I can now easily match. Mistress Tipley is left well behind us, puffing and heaving in a most unflattering way. We turn up High Street and head toward the twin-towered gap in the wall that rises twice and thrice my height.

  “The Water Gate,” Ned says, smiling in that knee-melting way. He strips off one glove and whistles with two fingers. A head bobs above us, then a rope ladder tumbles down. “You’ve not seen Caernarvon till you’ve seen it from the walls.”

  The hemp fibers are wet. And slimy. And the ladder sways like a three-wheeled cart and I’ll fall and break my neck.

  “Oh. You’re frightened.” Ned’s face falls. “That’s well enough.
I just wanted . . . Never mind, it’s naught.”

  “It isn’t naught!” I crane my neck to catch his hangdog gaze. “Please tell me. Please?”

  Ned glances at me sidelong through a windwhipped lock of hair. “It’s just that I come to the Water Gate whenever I need some peace. And I wanted to share it with you because you’re the only girl who . . . But I’d never see you frightened. Not for anything.”

  Something dear to him, and he’s sharing it with me. And only me.

  I seize the first rung. The ladder smells like pulp and brine. I take a deep breath and look up, and up and up.

  A heavy hand falls over mine.

  “I think not.” Mistress Tipley pulls me away from the ladder and faces Ned, hands on massive hips. “You first. I’ll follow the child up.”

  Ned shrugs. “As you would, mistress.” And he shinnies up the rungs of rope like a squirrel.

  I ignore Mistress Tipley and seize the ladder boldly, even through the stink of wet hemp will be on my hands till Christmas. Hand over hand I climb, clinging tight and not looking down. The ladder does sway like a three-wheeled cart, but I do not fall.

  Ned helps me onto the wall. There’s a walkway that runs behind the notches an armslength wide. The wind off the strait whips my hood back. He holds my hands longer than he needs to, rubbing my palms with his thumbs.

  Caernarvon is below me now, rooftops and roads and patches of green all bound by the thin gray wall. Beyond are fields bristling with winter wheat, and farther away are dark purple jags where the mountains meet the sky.

  The town does not look solid from up here. It seems naught but a jumble of toothpick thatch and parchment wall that I could grind beneath my heel while it begs for clemency. Or I could put my arms around it and protect it, like a child with a block castle when the dog walks by.

  Mistress Tipley is still climbing the ladder. Her face is white as lye and her eyes roll around. She clings to the rungs midway up, as if the whole town is sinking.

  “I can see why you like it up here,” I say, and silently celebrate that my words don’t come out choked or stuttery and I don’t sound like God’s greatest fool. “You have such a view of everything.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people have no liking for the walls,” Ned replies, leaning on the stone in a way that lets our elbows touch. “I’m pleased you’re not one of them. I didn’t think you would be. You’re too clever and brave.”

  My father thinks I’m restless and headstrong. The lady de Coucy thinks I’m crude and dull. But Edward Mercer, burgess and honesti of Caernarvon, thinks I’m clever and brave.

  “There’s where I want to go, though.” Ned gestures across the strait. “Anglesey. That’s where the money is. That’s where the grain is.”

  I parse his meaning. I want to seem clever. “We don’t grow enough food here, so if you have extra grain over there, you could sell it at the Caernarvon market. You’re a burgess, so there’s no toll.”

  Ned grins at me, and hot shudderies clamor in my middle. Thimbles, but he is fair to look upon.

  “Got it in one, demoiselle.” He smiles slyly. “You know, a lot of men have no liking for clever girls. Me? I’ve no liking for girls who have vapor for brains.”

  Behind me, Mistress Tipley is struggling near the top of the rope ladder and Ned turns to help her onto the wall walk.

  Now that she’s here, Ned keeps a proper distance, but I can still feel the warm circle of touch on my elbow where he leaned against me. He is still speaking of Anglesey grain, but he often glances past Mistress Tipley and winks.

  I am clever enough to know what this means, and betimes I am even brave enough to wink back.

  MUCKING the byre when I hear hooves on turf and a clatter in the yard. Hooves are never good. Hooves mean they’ve come.

  Seize Mam’s pallet and heave. It slides backward and my knees pop and stab pain. She stirs, groans, flails. Drag Mam on her pallet into the byre, just behind the woven wall.

  Make it almost to the hearth ere the doorway curtain is torn away. Three men, and they must stoop. Stand my ground behind the firepit, chin up.

  “Householder.” One has a roll of parchment that he holds up to doorlight and squints at.

  “Gruffydd ap Peredur.” Never give them more than they need, and besides, know better than to tell them that Gruffydd is my brother and not my husband.

  English peers at his list. “In arrears. The total owed is a shilling and threepence. The amount collected in June, threepence. Your man owes his king a shilling, sweeting.”

  They’re leering, all of them, and they’re treading in their heavy boots right where Mam’s pallet was.

  Lick my lips. “Fivepence we have.”

  “Movable goods assessed in the summer of the king’s twentieth year: one cow, a dozen sheep, a pig, a set of bed linens, a cauldron, and a pewter spoon.” English scans, lip curling. “Take the cow.”

  One produces a rope, strides to the byre, loops it about the cow’s horns. When he leads her out, she nearly steps on Mam.

  “And where’s the fivepence, sweeting?”

  I almost tell him how high he can hang himself. Just for that surge of righteous bravado that goes to your head like claret and puts the moment squarely in your hand.

  Then I remember June. What that moment will cost.

  So I kneel. Pry up the hearthstone. They’re hovering. Crowding in. Hot and sweaty and damp.

  Se’ennights of scrubbing and burned forearms. Fingers like bones from cold water, scaly and red as the Adversary’s.

  Hand over the packet of coin. Se’ennights, and it’s gone in an eyeblink. Tucked into a fine wool tunic and bound for the English king’s coffers. From him it came and to him it goes.

  “Tell your man he’ll have a chance to get his cow again when what’s due the king has been paid,” English tells me. Then they swing up on their horses and disappear, the cow trundling peaceably behind.

  Tomorrow she’ll be in some Watched field. She and all the other cattle taken against their king’s tax. Past her I’ll walk to the brat’s, barely looking, for even intent is enough to land you on the gatehouse floor.

  All that coin still owed, and back they’ll come at Easter.

  God only knows what they’ll see fit to take next.

  EVEN ere I open my eyes, I know what day it is. Despite the dim light, I can make out the plinking of a lute and the high, shrill notes of a whistle beyond my window, and the whole house smells like roasting goose. It’s Michaelmas!

  I leap out of bed and wash, then I slide through the curtain into my father’s chamber and check the bunting hanging from his window.

  This far up, I can see over the rooftops of Caernarvon, row after row, all the way to the city wall and into the green beyond. The first hints of gold morning are broaching Saint Mary’s, and the thatch roofs light up like firebrands.

  Heavens, but for all its barbarism, this place is not without beauty.

  Down below, in the yard out front, Mistress Tipley and Gwinny have laid out our largesse already. There are trestles with rows of steaming custards and piles of small birds in pasty crust for the fairgoers to help themselves. It will all be gone by Tierce, but we’ll be the talk of Shire Hall Street for the sheer volume of food we’ve provided.

  I go belowstairs and into the yard. At the trestle, Gwinny arranges fried lamprey in neat rows. Her cheekbones leap out of her face and her hand lingers over the meat, almost a caress.

  No tenant at Edgeley ever looked so raw.

  I comb my hair behind my ears. “Have something, Gwinny. Whatever you want. It’s Michaelmas.”

  Gwinny hovers a hand over the pasties stuffed with spiced meat, easily the costliest and richest dish on the trestle. Then she cuts her eyes to me.

  I nod cheerfully.

  Without ceremony, Gwinny eats the pasty in two bites and licks her fingers. It’s gone so fast I almost bid her take a second one. When I turn toward the house, her hand flashes between the table and her apro
n, but I say naught and head inside.

  My father is rosy with ale and it isn’t even Tierce. He bids me perch on his knee and pours pennies into my hand.

  “Take Gwinny and go have fun, sweeting,” he slurs, “but stay out of trouble.”

  I plow outside and grab Gwinny by the sleeve ere he sobers up enough to realize just how much coin he gave me.

  In the street, I loose Gwinny’s sleeve and we regard one another. Her bad humor will completely ruin my Michaelmas, but if she goes back to the house, my father will notice. He’ll be upset that I’m roaming the city alone. And he’ll come find me, drunk as Noah, and make a scene that will leave me twice humiliated before the honesti girls and him before Court Baron for disturbing the king’s peace.

  I sigh and gesture toward the road, and Gwinny looks as pleased to go as I must look to bear her company.

  In High Street, we enter the fair proper, a solid wall of liveliness that chokes the wide street with stalls, carts, beasts, and children. There are baskets and woolen elbows and horse’s rumps and glory but it’s the Michaelmas fair!

  And I have a handful of silver burning a hole in my palm.

  I am in a better humor already.

  I buy a big wedge of pandemain and slurp down mulled wine, giving Gwinny whatever I cannot finish. The treat seems to put her in a better mood, which cheers me all the more. I pet the silks and fondle the brocades and watch a trained monkey mimic a knight, a bishop, and a fine lady. I buy a new needle and a tiny packet of cloves and I’m eyeing a fine copper cloak pin for my father when I catch sight of a wretch I’d hoped never to see again.

  On the corner, oozing among hawkers and dirty-footed shepherds, is Levelooker Pluver. The one who seized Nicholas and made me infamous before Court Baron with false charges.

  Pluver wears a fine orange surcote and a tall floppy hat wrought in yellow. It looks like turds of butter. He’s tormenting a ragpicker, rooting through the poor wretch’s rags and dumping them into the mud.