by Linda Sole
‘Marta…’ the wailing cry reminded her that the child was waiting to be fed. Hurrying inside, she shivered. It was cold out and there might be snow before nightfall.
*
Rubbing her bread around the wooden bowl to soak up the last of her broth, Marta smiled with satisfaction. There was nothing like a full belly to make light of your troubles. She and the child would not starve for a day or two and perhaps she could find something else to sell tomorrow. She was about to make a drink from berries and nettles she had stored in her larder when she heard a sound – the shop door had opened and someone was inside. Her heart beating wildly, Marta crept towards the door that connected the front room with the kitchen. She picked up an iron ladle from the table, then opened the door prepared to fight to defend herself.
‘Hello…’ A tall man with a beard and fair hair that fell to his shoulders in waves was standing in the middle of the shop, looking about him with interest. He was dressed in the short tunic and hose of an artisan, his boots of leather and good quality. He did not wear the capuchon that most folk adopted and that made him different, the kind of man that would turn heads. He smiled and nodded to her. ‘Good evening, mistress. I saw your chest outside and came to ask how much you want for it?’
Marta hid the ladle behind her back, feeling foolish. She had forgotten the chest as she prepared and ate the supper she and Mary had shared.
‘I’m not sure what it is worth. What will you pay me for it?’
‘Would fifty silver pennies buy it?’
‘Fifty silver pennies?’ To Marta it seemed a fortune. With fifty silver pennies she would be able to buy food for weeks. ‘Yes, I would take your price. Show me your money and then take it.’
‘It is very fine work, mistress. Who made it?’
‘Why do you ask?’ Marta’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. If he did not know who had made the marriage chest he must be a stranger and it was best to be wary of strangers. ‘It was my brother. He has gone now.’
‘I am sorry for your loss.’ The man came closer. Marta saw that his eyes were blue and when he looked at her she felt a flutter in her stomach. She had not seen a smile like that in a man’s eyes since Eric died of a fever, and for a moment she did not realise that he had misunderstood her when she spoke of her brother being gone. ‘Is this where your brother worked? It is a fine workshop for any man.’
Marta looked round the large from room. She hadn’t seen it as being particularly fine. It was as it had always been since her childhood, the lower walls of thick grey stone and the upper chamber of timber and plaster made from wattle and daub.
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she said. ‘I don’t use it now. I’ve trouble enough to keep the kitchen fire going.’
The man’s gaze narrowed in thought. ‘Is the workshop for hire, mistress? I am looking for a place to stay and work for the winter. I have travelled from the north and thought to ply my trade in Winchester for a few months.’
‘What is your trade, sir?’
‘I am William Hern,’ he said and came towards her, offering his hand. ‘I am a craftsman, as your brother was, God rest his soul. Leather goods are my trade, mistress. Shoes softer than you have ever worn, a tooled girdle or a saddle for your horse; I can turn my hand to anything if it is made of leather.’
‘Oh…’ Marta thought ruefully of her boots, which had worn through at the soles. ‘Do you mend boots?’
‘I can mend boots and shoes but I prefer to make new ones.’
‘I have no money to buy new shoes.’
‘Would you let me rent this shop from you?’ Will asked, looking about him with interest. ‘I do not know how long I shall stay. It depends on how successful my business is in this city, and on other things…’
‘I am not sure people will buy from you here.’ Marta frowned. She must tell him the truth, because he would learn it soon enough. ‘My brother is not dead. He was accused of murder and he ran away. They came and searched the house but he was not here. Folk still blame me because he was my brother.’
‘Was he guilty of the crime?’
‘I think he may have killed a man but I know nothing for certain,’ Marta said. ‘If you do not wish to stay here I shall understand. But I hope you will keep your word and buy the chest.’
‘It is just what I need to keep my tools in,’ Will told her. He took a leather pouch from inside his jerkin and opened it, pouring silver pennies onto the workbench. Counting fifty silver pennies, he handed them to Marta. She took them and slipped them into the bag that hung from her waist. ‘I shall pay you five silver pennies a week for the workshop, mistress. Is that fair?’
Marta had no idea whether it was fair or not but it would keep her and Mary from starving. She could save the money for the chest for the future.
‘I am happy to accept your offer, sir. I have a little room at the rear of the kitchen, which you and your wife may sleep in at nights while you pay me rent for the shop.’
‘I have no wife, mistress,’ Will said and smiled at her. ‘I shall give you six silver pennies a week and take the room for myself. If you are in agreement I shall fetch my things from the inn and bring them here. Tomorrow I shall start work and then we shall see. This will be a good place for me while the weather is cold, but if there is no trade then I may move on in the spring.’
Marta watched as he brought the chest back inside the shop, then nodded and went out again. Making her way back to the kitchen, she thought of a place to hide her money. Will Hern seemed honest but she no longer trusted anyone. Those fifty silver pennies would last her a long time, and perhaps she might find work once the weather became more clement.
NINETEEN
‘Where is Iolanthe?’ Anne asked when she entered the child’s nursery and found she was not there. She had just come from the stillroom, where she had been making lozenges that sweetened the breath and stuffing herbs into pomanders to freshen the chests of bed linens and garments that had been washed and dried on bushes in the walled gardens. ‘I thought she was a little sickly this morning and would rest in her bed until I came for her.’
‘He came,’ Griselda said, a sour look on her face. She had arrived at the manor in mid winter, painfully thin and near starving when she knocked at the gates of Malvern House. They had taken her in, given her a bed in a little cell behind the kitchen and fed her. She repaid them by keeping an eye on Iolanthe when Anne was busy, for she was too old to do physical work, but all their kindness had not improved her temper. ‘He would take her with him, mistress, though I did tell him she was sickly.’
‘I dare say she cried and he could not resist taking her. I expect he will make something to ease her and sweeten it with honey.’ Anne smiled at the old woman. ‘You should not fear him, Griselda. I know his looks do not favour him, but my husband is a kind man.’
‘Your husband…’ Griselda sniffed. ‘Have you never heard what they say of him in the village, mistress?’
‘What do they say?’
Anne was puzzled. She never left her husband’s house without him. Indeed, she seldom left her home, apart from that visit to the fair. Nicholas had stayed close to her side that day and she had spoken to no one but peddlers and merchants, who had come from all parts of the world and knew nothing of her or her husband. For a long time after the birth of her child she had not even considered going outside the house, though in the summer she had spent hours in her garden, where she grew gillyflowers, roses, sunflowers, poppies, clove-pink and lilies, also simple herbs.
Sometimes she craved the company of others, especially when Nicholas was busy, as he had been since the night he had been attacked. Indeed, he had been seldom in the house and she had wondered if he might be avoiding her. Yet his manner was always protective and generous; it was just that he was never alone with her these days and she missed the companionship they had shared as she recovered from her illness. Her husband’s servants seldom looked at her. They spoke only when she asked them a question, but they obeyed her orders and
treated her with respect. She did not wish for more but something was missing from her life, though she could not name it. Only Griselda spoke her mind openly.
‘Please tell me. I sometimes think it strange that we have so few visitors and those that come often visit after dark.’
‘Have you never wondered what he keeps in those jars? The special ones he hides away in secret chambers?’ Griselda’s beetle black eyes almost disappeared in the folds of loose skin above and beneath them. She was very old and, having escaped death for one more winter, feared nothing. ‘Ask him why he keeps bits of dead people and what he does in his private rooms.’
‘Oh, I know about the jars,’ Anne said. ‘Nicholas studies human anatomy so that he can discover the secrets of life and death. It is not sorcery or yet necromancy, Griselda. By studying the organs of those who have died, Nicholas hopes to learn things that will help cure the living. It is not sorcery but science and other learned scholars make similar studies.’
‘God save us!’ Griselda crossed herself. ‘It is dangerous to meddle with things that cannot be understood by ordinary folk. These matters belong rightly to God. People whisper that Nicholas Malvern is evil, that he can bring back the souls of the dead and that he keeps them in torment in those jars. They say he consorts with the Devil and sleeps with dead women.’
Anne laughed softly. She had no fear of the bits of dead people that Nicholas kept in jars, though she had a secret dread of the book of sorcery that he kept hidden. Wandering into his chamber when he was cutting open a human heart once she had been curious, asking him what it was and what he was doing.
‘This is a human heart. It is what makes us breathe and live, Anne. Without it we are nothing.’ He raised his fine brows at her. ‘You are not frightened? It does not fill you with fear or loathing to see what I do here?’
‘No, Nicholas. I am merely curious. You would not eat the remains of humans?’
‘Certainly not this poor man.’ Nicholas smiled oddly. ‘He died in most unpleasant circumstances of a disease we know little off as yet. Come, look at this other heart - this is the normal organ of a man that was hung for murder. Now look at this diseased heart. It is much enlarged and there are deposits of fat in the tubes that fed it with blood. Why do you think that should be?’
‘I do not know. Do you know, Nicholas?’
‘No. I have only just made the discovery. I am curious as to the reason for the enlargement of this poor man’s heart, because he was young when he died, no more than five and twenty. If physicians could discover the reasons behind this phenomenon it might save lives, do you not think so?’
‘That would be a wonderful thing. Do you think it will happen?’
‘I do not think it will happen in my lifetime, Anne. There is too much superstition and bigotry to allow the proper research. I keep what I do here secret because if it came to the ears of certain churchmen I should be accused of necromancy and sorcery and brought to trial. They would condemn me as a heretic and I should be hung or burned for my crimes.’
‘Your crimes?’ Anne looked at him uncertainly. ‘You do only good, Nicholas. What crimes have you committed? These body parts…their owners were dead before you cut them up?’
‘I have never deliberately taken life, Anne. Yet what I do would be seen as a fearful crime by many. Even the fact that I dare to question is a sin. We are taught to accept that life and death is God’s will and we have no choice but to accept it. The nuns and monks do what they can to alleviate suffering it is true but they believe that whether a man lives or dies is in the hands of God. A few look for cures in secret but we have to be careful and dare not speak openly of our discoveries for fear of being condemned as blasphemers or worse.’
‘I have always thought it wrong we should be expected to follow the church’s interpretation of God’s word blindly and without question. Do you not think that is for the priests’ benefit more than God’s, Nicholas?’
He looked at her curiously. ‘You have thoughts that could cause you to be tried for blasphemy, Anne. Has your memory begun to return?’
‘I know certain things that a few months ago I did not know. There is no longer a black hole in my mind, Nicholas. I understand how to make simple cures and preserves, things I must have learned at my mother’s knee.’ She picked up a jar and took off the lid to look at the herbs inside. ‘This is Arum Maculatum, and this one Hawthorn, in this pot you have Hypericum, but I do not know this…’
Nicholas looked at the contents of the pot and nodded. ‘It is Echinacea purpurea – from the purple coneflower. It helps with a fever to ease the sweating I have found.’ His gaze narrowed. ‘What else do you know that you did not a few months ago?’
‘I can sew and embroider, play the harp and my lyre, which you so kindly bought for me. I can calculate, read and write – but I do not remember anything of my life before Iolanthe was born.’
‘If you are remembering certain things the rest may come.’
Nicholas had looked so strange when he reassured her. Anne had felt that he was almost afraid of her recovering her memory. Why should that be? Had they quarrelled before she became ill? Did he believe that she would blame him for her suffering?
She had soon dismissed such disloyal thoughts. Her husband’s love for Iolanthe was so strong, so warming that she could not believe him capable of cruelty. She was not sure whether or not he loved her, because he had not attempted to touch her intimately or even to kiss her since that night when she had seen hunger in his eyes.
Anne understood the relationship between husband and wife. It was one of the many things she did not need explained to her. Nicholas was not a handsome man but she liked his face, which was long and thin, his skin very pale, apart from the livid red scar on his left cheek. She thought it was a burn scar and wondered how he came to be so disfigured. What had caused those deep welts on his back? She conjured a picture of him in her mind, detailing his features. His nose was a little hooked, which sometimes gave him a hawkish look, and his lips were thin. She knew the servants thought him ugly and perhaps he was to some, but she saw beneath to the beauty of his soul. Nicholas was a good man, a sensitive man – and she believed she was learning to love him.
Had she loved him when they married? She had asked him about their wedding and their life together but he only smiled and took her hand, telling her not to worry.
‘It will come to you one day. Far better for you to remember rather than I should tell you my side.’
Anne accepted his reticence. She was happy enough spending her days caring for their needs as a family, ordering the servants and overseeing the cooking and preserving of soft fruits in the summer and meat that must be salted into barrels for the winter. Her happiness came from the simple things, from her embroidery, her child, who she was teaching to ask for what she wanted rather than just pointing.
‘Iolanthe wants…’ were the most used words in the child’s vocabulary, perhaps because her father spoiled her. Anything she wanted he fetched for her, almost as if he were a hunting dog trained to retrieve Iolanthe’s possessions. He was her devoted carer and her loving father, showing her such tenderness that it brought tears to Anne’s eyes to see them together.
If Anne wanted more because of something that Nicholas’s kiss had aroused in her, she did her best to hide it. No modest woman could beg a man to come to her bed, and since Nicholas had recovered from his hurts there must be a reason why he abstained.
When the moods of sadness came upon Anne, she knew that she was mourning for something she had lost but she did not know what it was that she missed. Here in this house she had all that she could need or want so why did she sometimes have this terrible sense of loss, an aching in her breast that made her feel her heart might break?
Why in the middle of the night did she sometimes wake to hear a child sobbing? So many times she had gone to Iolanthe and found her sleeping, and yet the child cried. Had she lost a child when Iolanthe was born? Had one lived and the other died
? Was that the secret that Nicholas hid from her?
This was not one of her sad days. Anne smiled as Griselda nodded by the fire. She doubted whether her strange friend would live many more years. At least she could spend the rest of her days in peace and safety, because there was nothing to fear in this house – nothing other than the superstition of ignorant minds.
TWENTY
‘Forgive me for calling on you unannounced,’ Prior Peter said as he walked into the chamber where Nicholas Malvern sat writing in the huge leather-bound journals in which he kept the recipes for his cures and various notes. ‘Your servant told me I might come up.’
Nicholas was nursing Iolanthe, holding her on his lap while he wrote. She had been grizzling when he found her in the nursery with the old crone but as soon as she felt his arms about her she stopped, and was content to nestle against his warmth as he worked.
‘You are welcome, Prior,’ Nicholas said and rose, holding his child carefully in his arms as he went to shake hands with his visitor. His eyes searched the man’s face for any sign of the fearful disease that had brought the prior here once before. ‘Did the medicine help you?’
‘The boils have gone and the discharge has ceased. I feel well again, sir – and I have come to thank you. Some of my fellow monks have developed a similar disease. I wondered if you would give me more of your cures so that I may help them.’
‘Yes, if their symptoms are the same. I shall examine you first, if you will permit me – and then we shall talk.’ At that moment the door opened and Anne entered. She looked startled to see that they had a visitor and that he was a man of the church. ‘Ah, Anne, my love,’ Nicholas smiled. ‘I was about to summon a servant. As you can see, I have a visitor.’
