“Mostly my gear, sorry. Didn’t like to disturb him.”
He left her picking up Miles’s bloodstained finery. She ran her fingers pensively across a vicious tear before she laid the cote aside and stooped to retrieve the Trinity chain. No end of belongings had been kicked beneath the bed and a platoon of papers sprawled out from a satchel as if they were trying to escape. She pushed them back in and secured the strap. A scrunched-up document had ventured further than the rest, and, softly unwrinkling it, she carried it to the shutters.
Chinks of light showed her Latin numbered phrases! Some sort of notes—no, arguments! Arguments for making Gloucester king, written in her husband’s hand! You shall need to pause here. Estimate how this is received. If not, omit VIII and go to IX. Upon her soul, these were instructions for a speech! She bit her lip and stared at her sleeping husband anew. They tried to cut him off from the rest of us, de la Bere had said.
God have mercy! Margery was right. Miles Rushden was playing at kingmaking. Had the attack last night been made in opportunist vengeance by Hastings’s friends? Or did someone intend it as a deadly warning to Buckingham’s men if they continued to support Gloucester? Jesu! If ever the queen regained her power, these notes were sure evidence of treason. Wearily Heloise put the paper in her purse. She would burn it later. It was frightening how little she knew the man who lay there in such rare silence. With sadness, she carried Miles’s hand to her cheek.
“Changeling?” It was a weak, half-growl half-purr, but he seemed pleased to see her, or at least one eye and half his mouth was. “I—I have not the strength to pat you yet.”
“Oh, Miles.” Tears threatened but it was needful to be practical. “Shall I see the extent of what they have done to you?”
Let in, the morning light was not flattering as Heloise coaxed Miles’s bandage up. The edge of the stitching was clean but a fresh dressing would soon be needed. Fresh moonwort or adder’s tongue would no longer be available, the summer heat would have withered them, but powdered root of dragonwort or shepherd’s scrip ointment from an apothecary might serve. And a daily dose of crushed Solomon’s seal infused in wine would speed the healing and mend the bruising. She must ask for a crucible and trivet. “So you foiled the Devil last night.”
“I will not woo my appearance in a mirror yet.” His fingers fumbled to trace the rough edge of the wound but she swiftly barred further exploration. “Argentine was a good fellow to tumble out so late for me, and Harry’s physician—sober to his fingertips, thank God.”
“The scars will not show, they say. Lie back. Do you know who attacked you?”
He coughed and pointed to the leather bottle. She helped him take a swig.
“T-too many—oh, Jesu, leave it!—enemies now.”
“Stay calm. Let me see the other damage.”
“Spare my modesty! Ouuucch!”
The furrows in her forehead diminished for she had sufficient sensitivity in her fingertips to know that the leg bone had been broken cleanly and excellently reset against the wooden splente. Her wrist was clasped as she straightened.
“Did . . . did I have to go through this, changeling, to make you come back to heel?”
“Of course.” She kissed the purpled brow. Perhaps, after all, this was an answer to her prayers—God’s way of keeping Miles alive.
“You are so . . . so beautiful, Heloise. Do not run away anymore.” He lifted a hand to knuckle her cheek and she took it within the casing of her fingers, so close to weeping for sheer joy that he was still alive. “Your visions, my fey. . . .” He swallowed and stared towards the morning sky. “I am just a mortal and I forgot that. I have been trying to play God, Heloise, and He doesn’t like it. But I meant it for the best. I swear to you I acted within the law. I—”
“We will talk another time, when you are strong enough to argue.”
“No, now. Why, changeling? Why did you fly from me?”
She let go of his hand evasively. “Because you are a man of secrets. Because I believed, like a dullard, that you married me for other reasons.”
“I did. You have divine breasts.” The chuckle was painful. Serve him right!
“For your face?” Briskly, she examined the jar of ointment left by the physician with a professional sniff. “I believe I can do better. Is there an apothecary close by?”
“Several streets away. Pershall knows it. He will go for you if you smile.”
“I had rather see to it myself, sir. They may not have what I need. I will confer with your physician first.”
“If you go slapping some . . . some mash of fermented toad tongues and ground-up newt turds on my sores, I shall not be answerable for my actions.”
“For you, sir, an infusion of arsenic in nettles strained through cheesecloth.” But it was a poor jest. “I will send up your manservant to guard your virtue.”
“Then go if you must. Wear your pattens and take Martin to squire you, but hurry back, and in God’s name, take care.”
It needed a north polestar to help her locate her groom; she should have used intuition instead of asking; the Red Rose servants all were at half-mast and the labyrinth of passages and bolt-holes would have thrilled the Minotaur.
With a borrowed basket on her arm, feeling useful and housewifely, Heloise finally set off along the cobbled thoroughfare hoping to circumvent the Flemings’ quarter. Not that she distrusted foreigners; it was more that they would be unable to assist her if she lost her way. Martin trustingly trotted behind her but, like any countrywoman, his mistress was soon flummoxed by the lack of signposts and close to admitting that the common belief that women had little sense of direction might be true. One instant there might be a nobleman’s house with a porter standing duty but turn the next corner and there was a narrow, beggarly street, beset with sinister alleyways and tightly shuttered casements. Gutters oozing their fermenting contents to pleasure the soles of passersby dismayed her further and Heloise heartily wished she had worn her pattens as Miles had advised.
They retraced their steps to the Red Rose and ventured east, ill at ease, but the Hanse shopkeepers nodded in friendly fashion. It was shameful to ask directions and the unfathomable river of words dismayed her, but she and Martin ended up with a flaxen-headed lad guiding them for a groat.
He chattered easily, insisting they observe the famous “London Stone” as they passed along Walbrook Street. Even if the stone had been there since the days of King Ethelstane (as the boy explained), Heloise was not impressed. Save for its iron casing, it looked more like the “pay on the nail” stones found in most marketplaces, and surely it was most inconveniently placed, too—close to the gutter, and a hazard to passing carts.
Their young guide led them on to a narrow tenement hard by Oxford Place, and when they showed reluctance to leave the main thoroughfare, he pointed out the apothecary’s pestle and mortar painted on a hanging sign.
The shop’s innards gave lie to its weathered, humble exterior and Heloise’s soul sang at the powdery odors and the bundles of drying herbs tasseling the beams and tickling her headdress. No dust velveted the orderly shelves and the variety of earthen-colored jars, labeled in spidery Latin, looked as clean and cheerful as a stall of monks on Easter Sunday.
The apprentice prattled as he weighed out the ingredients: was it not strange the coronation had been canceled a second time? And why? he asked, tapping his nose. Gloucester wanted his nephew’s crown. And what was more, these brawls between the retainers of great lords were bad for business: honest customers stayed home.
Heloise concealed her concern as she placed the tiny twisted bundles into her basket. London, it seemed, was as jumpy as a dog with fleas. So was Martin and he prevailed upon her to return to Suffolk Lane by a different route—along the broader Candlewick Street. Even there, the passersby glanced warily at any men-at-arms.
Would Miles be safer at his father’s London house? Was it like one of these? she wondered, staring up at the carved joists of the merchant drapers’ h
ouses. Then Martin of a sudden plucked at her sleeve.
Across the street, her veiled sister was speaking to Sir Richard Huddleston. The pair were standing beside a shop board showing no interest in either scarlet flannel or the Italian cotton underdrawers. Was it a chance meeting?
Cautioning Martin, Heloise slowed her step. Huddleston’s gap-toothed groom, waiting a few paces away with his master’s horse, was ogling the women shoppers. It was easy for Heloise to let a spotty apprentice pluck her sleeve and garrulously lure her to test his stall’s best worsted. Dionysia’s conversation looked earnest, certainly not one of dalliance, but it was ending. Huddleston bowed and swung himself into the saddle. Once he was out of sight, Heloise caught up with her furtive sister.
“A murrain!” snapped Dionysia and then calmed. “I suppose even veils are useless against one’s family. Stop looking so outraged. We were talking about the skirmish last night, and, no, I was not flirting, I would not dare covet him, and he was on his way to Cold Harbrough. Mayhap I shall go back to the Red Rose with you.” She coiled her arm through her sister’s. “At least you shall lend me respectability, for now you are come there, I may come thither also. God’s rood, I have done with slinking in and out of Harry’s dwellings like an alley she-cat just to save old Gloucester’s blushes.” It was tempting for Heloise to scold her but better to be a crutch than a whip. “And, sister dear, you shall be the first to know that Duke Harry declares he has quite fallen in love with me. I did not intend it but I really am growing wondrous fond of him. Look at this!” She spread her fingers to display a voluptuous sapphire.
“Didie! We shall have every cutpurse in London after us.”
“With you for protection, sister! Harry has told me of your exploits in Brecknock. How you threw flour at some loathsome footpad and broke his knees. Very impressive. I did not know you had such courage.” So Miles had told the duke some details of their adventures that night. That pleased her. “And talking of kneecaps, how is your ill-humored husband then?”
“Tender.”
“Ha! Then I had best wait awhile before I make a dutiful call. Heloise, tell me, what is it like to be in love? Is it obligatory to blow hot and cold like August weather?”
“Now how would I know?”
“Because I can see where Cupid’s bolts have shot great holes in you. You are in love, Heloise Ballaster, and any ass can see that.”
EXCEPT MILES, WHO WAS CERTAINLY NOT AN ASS. MORE LIKE a ship dry-berthed for careening, which should have given Heloise plentiful opportunity to establish a monopoly of his time and a chance to understand him better. But, no, not a whit of it: the man’s bedchamber was as busy as the sweet water conduit at West Cheap with queues pumping him for this and that.
At times stretched like a spider’s windblown web, she was nurse, alchemist, secretary, and jongleuse through the days that followed, but not lover (he was not recovered sufficiently, though his eyes lied). She was frequently dispensable; whenever Buckingham’s council shifted to Miles’s bedside, the duke chivvied her from the bedchamber like a disgraced lapdog. Then her patient hit on the notion of sending her forth like a worker bee on his behalf to bring back gossip pollened from Crosby Place and other parts. In particular, he wished to know what was going on at Westminster.
With Martin and her maidservant for escort, Heloise took a boat upriver. The courts of justice were in session in the Westminster Great Hall so she joined the queue of pilgrims to St. Peter’s great abbey and lit a candle at St. Edward’s marble shrine. Like the other commoners clustering at the tomb of Henry V, victor of Agincourt, she longed to stroke his gilded armor, as if his fame might seep in through her fingertips, but a priest with a leather switch stood guard, daring any visitor to be so bold. At least the poet Chaucer’s modest grave in the abbey cloister might be touched and a prayer spoken for his cheerful spirit.
It was the new curiosity at Westminster that was drawing the greatest crowd. Cordoned by kettle-helmeted White Boar halberdiers in azure and murrey jackets, the abbey sanctuary contained the beleaguered queen. Modest lodging for a great lady used to a palace! Standing on tiptoe, Heloise stared up at the stern embrasures, hoping for a glimpse of King Edward’s youngest son or one of the princesses. Poor children, hedged in by weaponry, how they must yearn for freedom to frolic.
The captain of the guard was examining warrants. A man in physician’s garb was waved through and so were two brawny laundresses laden with pressed sheets. Was this slapshod security deliberate, to encourage recklessness and conspiracy? Goodness, she chided herself for thinking so suspiciously.
“Lady Rushden, this is unexpected.” Thomas Nandik, the Cambridge student, materialized at Heloise’s elbow as she led her servants down to the King’s Bridge Wharf. Clean shaven though little less swarthy, and with vertical scarlet satin ribbons ribbing his black broadcloth doublet, the scholar still wore a hungry visage like a dog waiting for scraps. “Perhaps I may escort you back to Dowgate?”
“Thank you, I—I have other errands yet, Master Nandik.”
“No matter.” His long loping stride kept pace with her swift steps.
She halted. “No truly, Master Nandik, I hardly think you will be interested in Rennes linen and Paris thread.”
“On the contrary, my lady.” The earthy eyes understood the excuse, knew she disliked him, but the wretch insisted on waving up a boat for them and helping her aboard. “I think we should get to know each other better, my lady. I would do much to earn your favor.”
“I am not sure why.” She shifted in the stern to avoid his thigh.
“Can you not read my mind?” His meaning was perilously plain. A perdition on the creature! If only Martin and her maidservant were not facing the other way.
“Do not belittle the power you have over others,” the scholar murmured, blatantly setting his hand upon her knee.
“Go your way.” His hand edged round her waist, making a stealthy foray for her breast. Biting her lip angrily, she halted that adventure, but the odious creature bent now so that his breath prickled her neck.
“I needs must come swiftly to the precious nub of the matter though I would rather have couched this more circumspectly. I know you have a special gift, my lady, and I envy you. Despite all my charts and texts, even if I were to spend the rest of my life studying the magic arts, I will never master the forces that are already at your command. Oh, madam, if Rushden has not yet broken your maidenhead, the two of us can unleash a force on Midsummer Eve that will make us rich beyond our dreams.”
“Are you insane?” Have carnal knowledge of this creature in the midst of some sordid pentangle! His lewd glance made her blushing flesh crawl further. “I have no inkling what you are babbling about, Master Nandik. Now unhand me and, not that it is any of your business, I am a wife in every sense of the word and glad to be so.”
“More’s the pity, then. I should have warned you earlier to keep yourself unsullied.” The earthy gaze was sour now. “Like taking a life, the breaking of a virgin’s hymen releases a power that can be driven against one’s enemies.”
Miles, when she later told him privily, did not know whether to roar with laughter or risk his leg and hobble down to punch the villain.
“It is not amusing,” Heloise repeated with a shudder and in compensation was coaxed up to nestle in the crook of his arm.
“No, it is not,” he agreed. “Do you feel safer now?”
“With you tethered to a lump of wood? Oh yes, safe as . . . as a lamb baaing defiance at a full-grown wolf.” She had been going to say as safe as the treasury had been in Lord Hastings’s hands, but that bone was best avoided.
Miles chuckled. “To think that I might have driven an arcane power released by your— Mercy! You cannot strike a sick man.”
“Watch me!”
“Hmm, what a beggar the fellow is! Can you not use your gift to drive some fear into our necromancer’s mind so he will hoof it back to Cambridge?”
“Certainly not.” The encounter wi
th Nandik had taught her something: she must never use her gift for evil—to control others.
“Perhaps you should test your powers a little. Could you, for instance, make me sneeze? Try!”
“Sneeze?” She giggled and sobered. No, her gift was not to be squandered, but she was happy to pretend. “Is it working?”
“No,” he purred, staring back. “I am having an entirely different reaction somewhere else. Bar the door, if you please!”
Heloise’s eyes widened. “You cannot possibly—”
“Hmm, difficult, I grant you, but not impossible. Nothing else is fractured. It may require some resourcefulness on your part.”
She pensively slid the bar down into the slots and swung round. “I am not sure I am in that humor,” she murmured to torment him, but his lazy smile was already willing her towards him. “But perhaps . . . yes, I think I am going to enjoy this.”
“So am I.” His voice was a low masculine purr. “Unclothe yourself, delight of my heart!”
Despite his imperiousness, it was she who had him totally at her mercy. She withdrew her feet from her little leather slippers and set her right foot upon the bedsteps and with slow grace eased up her satined hem to uncover her garter, which she tardily untied and cast at him before she rolled down her wool stocking with a fine and tantalizing care.
“Is it the pain in your leg that keeps making you groan?” she asked wickedly, and seductively removed her other garter.
“You witch!” It was a gasp now. Slowly she removed her headdress and shook her silver hair to swing about her waist. Then she slid her inner sleeves down, unleashed her tasseled belt, and let it snake around her skirt with a slither to the floor, and finally she eased her gown inch by inch upwards.
“Ha! I make a better job of this,” he scoffed laughing as she was forced to seek his help.
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