She was exhausted. Knowing that her man was taken from her, that the life she had planned and prayed for was denied to her, was a hideous shock, but now to have to suffer so much more, when all she was trying to do was alleviate the anguish of others, was still worse. She had looked to her friends and neighbors to support her in her tribulation, and they had rejected her.
“Can you tell us?” Baldwin asked.
“Yes, sir. Yes, I am well now, thank you.”
The knight studied her. He remembered her from before Quivil’s illness as a bright, cheery girl, one who was given to playing pranks when she was still running about the streets with her hair unbraided, who had taken on a solemn steadiness when she was betrothed, as if it was a more fitting demeanor for a wife-to-be. Her face still looked as if it was better suited to laughing than crying, but all pleasure had been wiped from it, as if by a malignant cloth.
Mary stared past him to the bailiff in the doorway. “It was men in the town. I come here every day to help Brother Ralph. There isn’t much for me to do, but I wanted to help all I could. It was the only thing I could do for my poor Edmund, him being so low after his disease. Well, who wouldn’t be low, knowing they’ve got this?” She waved a hand as if to indicate all the inmates and their disease.
“I’ve been coming since the day he was brought here, to dust and sweep, to help change the bandages of the sick men, and sometimes to sit up with the dying, like with the poor soul out there, Bernard, so poor Brother Ralph can get some rest.”
“She has been a tower of strength to me,” murmured Ralph.
“Poor Edmund had no one who could love him like I could,” she asserted defensively. “Who else could help him in his last months or years? Not even his mother would come here to see him, but I dared, because how could God strike me down for helping the ill? And if He did, then I would go to my grave knowing I’d done all I could for another suffering creature, and I would go to join my Edmund in Heaven.”
Baldwin nodded understandingly. He had a pleasant face, she thought. A little like the statue of Jesus by the altar. The attentive concentration in his face was attractive, and she felt her heart warming to him. Instinctively she felt she could trust him.
“Last night, the same as each day before, I left here at twilight to go home. I still live with my parents, sir, and it is a lengthy walk, so I try to leave before nightfall. It was when I got to the crossroads near the inn I realized I’d left my coat here. I ran back, but it meant that when I left the second time it was already dark, and as I went through the streets, some men called to me, thinking I might be about some other business.”
Her face darkened as she recalled the two figures leering and making suggestive gestures as they praised her strong, young body. A female out and about in the dark, they had said, must be after one thing and one thing only. One of them had shaken his purse before her, trying to tempt her into an alley with him. It was only when a passer-by had shouted that she worked daily at the leper camp that they had pulled away, disdaining her with curses as if she had invited their lechery.
It was only a short walk after that to where she had found Quivil and Rodde. The two were cowering by a wall, arms up to protect their heads from the stones, clods of earth, broken sticks and rubbish that were being hurled at them by the small crowd of jeering, swearing townspeople.
She had stood a moment, aghast, then run forward, beating with her bare hands at the men nearest, thrusting them from her path and kicking at all who refused to move. In a few seconds she had broken through the press, and was between the men and their prey. “What are you doing? Don’t you know these men are defenseless?”
One of the men had given a scornful laugh. “You want to protect them? I didn’t think whores took that much interest in their punters!”
“Who calls me whore?” she had spat, thinking it was one man speaking through his ale, but others had taken up the call. Although the lepers were safe now, the crowd was eager to attack another target. Mary saw that Edmund was slumped at the wall, blood dribbling from a gash in his cheek and another on his scalp, and the other leper was crouched at his side cleaning the wounds as best he could. “How dare you call me that!”
“I dare.” It was Jack, the smith. He stood with his arms akimbo, meeting her gaze steadily. “You think we’re all so stupid we don’t realize what you’re doing in the lazar house every day-well, we do! You say you nurse the men there, but how many do you service a day, eh?”
She had felt the blood rise to her face, the hot blood of injustice. That she could be accused of consorting with any man was foul, but to suggest that she was capable of throwing her body at the poor diseased souls of St. Lawrence’s when all she was doing was looking after them because no one else would, stung her into retaliation. She said nothing, but remained where she was for a long period, then launched herself forward, fists bunched and ready to strike.
The smith laughed with contempt. As she came close, he grabbed her flailing hands and held her fast. “What do you think, lads? Is she worth taking?”
“Not now,” another responded, jerking his head at the two lepers. “She’s damaged!”
“Yeah!” Jack sneered, his breath reeking of alcohol as he surveyed her. “Go on, stay with your friends, wench.” And with that he shoved hard. She stumbled, weeping tears of rage, tripped on a stone and fell at Rodde’s feet. He shook his head in sympathy, but couldn’t take her hand in front of the crowd. It was forbidden for a leper to touch a healthy person. When she looked again, all the men were dispersing.
As she came to the end of her tale, Baldwin patted her hand. “What then?”
“I was going to walk back here with Edmund and Rodde, but Rodde said I ought to go straight home. He said it wasn’t good for me to come here any more, that I would be in danger, that the mob might attack me for lewd behavior, that they could burn me for heresy. He refused to let me help him, but sent me on my way.”
“That showed some good sense…and some stupidity,” Baldwin muttered. “What if you had been attacked again on the way home? He should have asked someone to escort you. Anyway, let us hope that this is an end to the violence. Mary, I am sorry. I will speak today to the smith and tell him plainly that if there’s any other disturbance, he will be in the jail before he can pick up a stone to throw. As it is, I’ll have him on a charge for slandering you and causing a riot. That should cost him several pretty pennies!”
“And what about poor Mary?” cried Ralph. “Go on, girl, tell the knight the rest. Tell him what happened when you arrived home!”
Mary’s gaze dropped to her hands once again, and she allowed her face to fall into them. She wasn’t weeping now, for she felt so exhausted with her crying that there was no energy left with which to fuel her grief. All she had was with her-there rolled up in her kerchief by the door. First she had lost her husband, but now she had lost everything else. It truly was too fabulous a disaster for her to fully comprehend.
“Sir, since last night, I have been trying to understand Jack and the others, and I had almost forgiven them, for any man might make a fool of himself after too much ale, but it is hard, so hard, after what they did…” Her eyes brimmed once more, and she had to sit quietly to bring herself under control. “Sir, my father wasn’t home when I arrived. He often visits the inn at night. I was sitting with my mother when he returned. He had been accosted in the street by this man Jack and others, and they had told him that I was no better than a slut. They said I wasn’t wanted in the town any more, and they would make me leave, and my family too.”
“They dared to do this?” Baldwin growled, glancing at the monk.
“They said they would burn my parents out of the house unless I left, with us all inside it; they said there was no place in Crediton for a woman who consorted with lepers.” She lifted her eyes to meet the knight’s. “So all I have is here. I have left my home so that my parents and brothers and sisters can live in peace. What else could I do?”
“Eno
ugh, Mary,” Baldwin said, and stood. His face was composed, but there was a tightness in his voice as he spoke. “This Jack will answer to me for what he has threatened. You need fear no more from him or from his friends. I will see to them-now!”
He swept from the room, pushing past Simon in his urgency, and it was not until he had reached the chapel’s main door that the hurrying monk managed to catch up with him. “Sir Baldwin? Please, wait one minute.”
“What, Brother Ralph?”
“Don’t go and persecute one man for his stupidity! Wait until you can consider his case more calmly. There’s no point in creating even more bad feeling in the town than already exists.”
“I think there is. If a young woman like Mary can be forced from her home with nowhere to go, there’s every need for these cretins to realize their fault!”
“I agree that she must be cared for, but don’t go rushing at them like a bull at a gate. For one thing, I have to ask myself whether it would be sensible for her to stay in the town after this.”
“Meaning?”
“All I mean is, she is so good a nurse, and so devoted to her new calling, that it might be better for her to leave the town anyway. If she remains here, she can only ever be a cause of strife. Wouldn’t it be preferable that she should go somewhere else where she would be appreciated? I think she would be ideally suited for a life of prayer.”
“You think she might go to a convent?”
“I think she might be happier there. She would be safe from further comment from the uneducated, safe from slanders and lies, and could dedicate her life to helping others in a hospital.”
“And the town would have its boil lanced.” Baldwin threw a wrathful glower eastward, back toward the columns of smoke over the hill. “And bigots would have succeeded in driving away a poor girl to no purpose.”
“Better that than a hothead should fire her house and burn her and all her family.”
“Better that one innocent should suffer than many?” Baldwin muttered, his lip curled, but he gave a short nod. “I despise your argument, Brother, but I find it compelling. Yet I will still visit the smith and make my views known. I’ll not have him poisoning this town. And I won’t have lepers beaten in the streets, either.” 19
A s the sun climbed higher, and cast its rays into his yard, John had to close his eyes against the glare. It was too painful, with his head throbbing and pulsing in time with his shattered leg.
After struggling for what felt like an age, he had finally got himself into some kind of shape. It had been hard, for to tie the old walking stick and besom handle to his leg, he had needed to bend, and each time he did so, a fresh wave of nausea washed over him. Each time he was forced to snap his eyes shut and keep absolutely still for a few minutes, until the sensation passed, and each time he must open his eyes and continue.
One bandage he had reserved for his head. Where the club had struck the right of his skull, there was a growing lump, and there was a smaller one on the opposite side as well. He had to give a twisted grin as he tightened the band round his forehead, thinking that at least the constriction hurt both sides of his skull equally; he wouldn’t be unbalanced when he tried to move.
He had found a staff, a good elm branch which he had been saving to axe into kindling, and gripped it hard. Gritting his teeth, he cautiously eased himself upward, the sweat breaking out at his forehead and chilling his back under his shirt. It was cool enough without his coat, and this moisture made him shudder as if he had the ague, but with set expression and firmly locked jaw, he set the staff to the ground and took a step.
The grating of smashed bone almost made him faint. His headache returned, thudding as hard as if a man was beating him again; his stomach roiled. The world swirled before his eyes, and he had to shut them, but then all his concentration could focus on the exquisite agony, and that was unendurable; he had to open them again.
Now his see-sawing vision steadied a little, and he could swallow heavily. Before he could lose his determination, he moved another step. This time he let out a shout of anguish as his foot caught on a stone and the feeling shot up his leg and into his heart. Eyes wide, he tottered, the breath sobbing in his throat.
And he took another step.
Baldwin set their pace back into town, and it was an angry canter. He had given Simon and Edgar no time to talk to him, but had climbed onto his steed and moved off as soon as they had come to the gate, and the others had needed to hurry to keep him in view.
The knight was no fool, and had no intention of intervening in the normal hurly-burly of Crediton’s life, but this was something different. The town was generally among the quietest in the kingdom, and he knew that other officials of the King looked upon him with a certain degree of jealousy for having not much to do; but if something like this wasn’t nipped in the bud quickly it could grow an evil fruit whose harvest would be death. It was a miracle that the two lepers hadn’t been killed the night before, and still more that the girl hadn’t received more than verbal abuse. If such behavior was permitted to go unchecked, it could only result in violent disturbance, and it was Baldwin’s duty to see to it that no such thing happened.
They rode fast along the street scattering the people, until they came to the hall where Godfrey had died, and here Baldwin slowed. He had a strange presentiment, and he turned his head to look at the hall. There were a few people in the garden, tending to the vegetables, and behind them he saw Putthe standing in the doorway, no longer wearing a bandage, but leaning against a doorpost as if he had a headache while in the broad daylight.
As Baldwin watched, he saw Putthe’s mistress appear. The servant moved aside respectfully, and the knight noticed his slow and careful movement. His head was clearly still giving him pain. Then Baldwin found his attention taken by the woman at Putthe’s side.
She stood happily, tugging on gloves while she kept her eye on the gardeners. In the bright sunlight her hair sparkled as if an ethereal fire was upon it. She noticed the knight and gave him a curt nod of her head, then spun around and stalked back inside.
“Looks like she’s on her way off for a ride, eh, Baldwin?” Simon said from his side.
“Yes. It does, doesn’t it?” said Baldwin. “Simon, we have been taken in by that woman.”
“Taken in? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you see her behavior just then?”
“She was haughty, no question, but so what?”
“I think you missed the most important issue. We shall need to speak to her again.”
And with that the knight clapped spurs to his horse and rode off; if possible, in Simon’s opinion, more angrily than before. The mystified bailiff glanced at Edgar, who gave a shrug as if to indicate that there were times when he gave up trying to understand his master, and chased after.
Cecily was in no good mood when she stalked out to the stables. Her mare, which she had ordered to be ready half an hour before, was not yet saddled, nor was the stallion for her companion and chaperone, one of the grooms.
Of course, she accepted that it would take time for the normal routines to reassert themselves, but that was no reason for simple tasks not to be carried out. It was as though the servants were trying to be-she could think of no other way to put it-willfully incompetent. She made her feelings clear to the head groom and struck the stableboy holding her mare with her crop to make him hurry. The only way, she knew, was to make sure that the staff all knew who was paying their wages from now on. Cecily was no longer the darling little child of the master, the pretty ornament who suffered so much from her bullying father. She was the mistress of the estates and all the money Godfrey had amassed.
The mare was led to her, the lad sullen as she climbed up the stone blocks and mounted. Looking coldly at the boy rubbing his shoulder, she set off through the gates and into the road.
It wasn’t that she was hard-she wasn’t-but my Lady Cecily of London was no fool. From now on she must shift for herself. She was of
age, so she was safe enough from interfering cretins who wanted to protect her from the world by uniting her to any man who might show an interest, but Cecily knew that she was about to become known as the most eligible woman in middle Devon, and confidently expected to receive calls from various well- or less well-intentioned buffoons in tight hose and smart tunics, all of them displaying qualities such as a lady should require: money, horses, dogs, farms, and access to the best society. Cecily’s trouble was, she wanted none of them.
She was a shrewd woman. Brought up a pampered young girl in London, she knew the value of polite circles, and didn’t esteem them highly. To her, a pretty husband with a good-looking leg in hose was as handy as a bucket with no base. She had no use for either.
No, Cecily knew her own worth, and she knew full well that she would soon become the source of intense speculation, but she must reject all offers. And to do that she must show an ability to see to her own affairs. Only by seeming strong could she remain free. She must make sure that the staff were all kept on their toes. That was the way to guarantee that she had a free hand to continue with her scheme. She couldn’t fail to meet the requirements of the oath she had made to the stern-faced leper from the north country.
That thought made her eyes glisten, and her companion, noticing her wiping at them, called out anxiously, “Mistress? Are you well?”
He was used to her fluctuating moods, and had been warned by old Putthe that she could change her temper more swiftly than a coursed hare could change direction, but he was unprepared for her fury.
“Of course I’m all right! Do you think I’m some weakly slut who can’t cope with a little dust in her eye?”
He had thought she was thinking about her father. Until his death she had been so quiet always, so meek and obedient to the tyrant who was Godfrey, the stableman had assumed the tear was a sign of feminine sadness. Her biting contempt was as unexpected as it was cruel, when he had only been trying to offer his sympathy. He resolved to keep silent for the rest of their journey.
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