His vague discomfort had both amused and intrigued her. How, she wondered, could a man like Rainulf Fairfax have gone eleven years without succumbing to the temptations of the flesh? She pictured him in her mind—his impressive stature, his lean and muscular body, his fair-haired good looks, and those gentle and perceptive eyes the color of a stormy lake. Surely there had been women during those eleven years who’d tried to coax him into violating his vow of chastity. Yet, if she was to believe him—and she did—he had never done so.
Eleven years... She snuggled deeper into the downy mattress and pulled the sweet-smelling covers up to her chin, reveling in the finely woven linen, smooth as silk. ‘Tis a frightfully long time for a man to go without sex. It would be no hardship for her, of course, the act being more a matter of duty than pleasure for women; but men seemed to need a good tupping on a fairly regular basis, or they got cranky. Perhaps, despite his seeming virility, Rainulf Fairfax didn’t care for women—that way. Perhaps, like some priests she’d heard of, he preferred men and boys to the fairer sex.
Corliss squinted up at the expanse of yellowish damask overhead and contemplated that possibility. On the one hand, Rainulf had called her “attractive.” And last night, after they’d bathed, when she’d sat across from him wearing naught but his own thin linen wrapper, his gaze had more than once strayed downward toward her breasts. Mayhap, she thought sourly, he was simply astounded that a grown woman should have so little where others boasted so much. It would be the height of conceit to think he’d find her most unappealing feature alluring.
The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the handsome, engaging magister reserved his affections for those of his own sex. A pity...
Or perhaps not. The last thing you should want, she reminded herself, is for Rainulf Fairfax to lust after you. If he did—really did—could she resist him? And then what would happen to her precious freedom?
She closed her eyes and saw him as he had been that night in the rectory, after he’d built the great fire that was supposed to cure her of the yellow plague. Superstitious nonsense, of course; it was the hair of St. Nicaise that had cured her, not some absurd heathen sweating treatment. Yet it moved her deeply that he had gone to all that trouble for her. And he had looked so... untamed... when she’d awakened and found him next to her, bare-chested and sweating, his face flushed from the heat. He’d looked as if he’d just lain with a woman... and enjoyed it.
At least, that’s what she’d thought at the time. Now that she knew of his many years of celibacy, and his seemingly untroubled decision to remain chaste, she doubted that he had ever been with a woman; she doubted, moreover, that he had ever wanted to. This knowledge brought her some measure of relief, for she knew now that she could live here without fearing for her... virtue?
A little late to try and salvage that! Crawling to the edge of the enormous bed, she swept aside the curtains, startling a handful of little brown house sparrows gossiping on the sill of an open window—the source of all that merry chirping. They scolded her irately as they fluttered away, leaving the sun-flooded chamber completely silent. She sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, thinking, I live here now! This big bed, it’s all mine! She could scarcely believe her ears last night when Rainulf had given it to her—given her the whole bedchamber! But where will you sleep? she had asked. Where I’ve always slept—on a straw pallet in front of the fireplace. How odd, she’d thought, that he would eschew such delicious luxury for a straw pallet; but how lucky for her!
Crossing to the open window to breathe in the cool air, she gazed down at the rooftops of Oxford—many, like that over her head, covered with handsome oak shingles. There were even a few, over in the Jews’ quarter, made of lovely, rust-colored curved tiles, and one that looked like it might be slate! I’m a long way from Cuxham. She closed the shutters. Even the grandest dwelling in the village of her birth—Sir Roger’s manor house—was roofed with humble thatch.
Grateful to find water in the pitcher on the washstand, Corliss scrubbed her face. Then she used the chamber pot; there was a privy in the stable yard, but she didn’t want to venture outside in the daylight wearing just the nightshirt Rainulf had lent her. She rummaged in her satchel for her big whalebone comb and quickly tidied her hair. How wonderful not to have to plait it into those tedious braids, she thought as she stowed away the comb. She pulled the nightshirt off over her head, then retrieved a fresh shirt and chausses.
The leather curtain that separated her bedchamber from the main hall began to part. “Someone in there?”
Luella! Clutching her clothes to her bare breasts, Corliss jumped onto the bed and yanked the curtains shut. “Uh...” She cleared her throat and consciously lowered her voice. “It’s Corliss.”
A slight pause. “Who? Show your face!”
Corliss poked her head out from between the curtains and forced herself to smile at the scowling housekeeper, who held her broom with both hands, as if ready to swing. “Corliss. From last night?”
“Oh. You.” Luella lowered the broom. “Father let you sleep there?” She grunted and shook her head. “Figures. Come on out of there, then, and let me make up that bed.”
Corliss shrank back and pulled the curtains closed, then began furiously wriggling into her chausses. “I... I’m not dressed.”
Luella snorted with amusement. “I raised seven sons of my own, young man. You haven’t got anything that’d shock me.”
I wouldn’t be too sure about that, thought Corliss, with a glance down at her half-naked body. “Please, Luella. Leave me and I’ll dress quickly and then you can do whatever you need to.”
Luella sighed heavily. “All right,” she growled, leaving and closing the leather curtain behind her. “But make it quick!”
With more speed than she knew she was capable of, Corliss shimmied the chausses up over her small hips and tied the waist-cord, then tugged on her boots. She wrapped her breasts in a length of linen to compress them, then donned her shirt and tunic, just as Luella flung the curtain aside and stomped toward the bed.
“There’s some wine and bread out there if you want,” the old woman said as she briskly straightened the bedcovers.
“Thank you. Is Rain—er, Master Fairfax... is he—”
“Father’s been downstairs all morning, talking his ungodly gibble-gabble with all them so-called students of his.”
“All morning?” asked Corliss, appalled. She had never slept so late in her life, except when she had the pox. “How late is it?”
Luella grunted. “Too late for a healthy young man to be lying abed, that’s for sure. Father’ll be wondering how come you’re not down in the lecture hall with the rest of them.”
“I’m not a scholar,” Corliss admitted. “I’m looking for work.”
“Glad to hear it! They’re like packs of begging dogs, those scholars. Half of them’ll be up here looking for a handout afterward. Master Thomas and Master Brad will, at any rate. Idle young good-for-nothing...”
“Why do you still call him ‘Father’?” Corliss asked. “He’s not a priest anymore.”
“Hmph!” Luella punched the pillows up, one by one, and piled them against the headboard. “You can’t undo something like that just by wishing it so. Once a priest, always a priest. The idea... thinking he can just wake up one day and...”
Corliss stole out through the leather curtain while Luella griped and muttered. On the table in front of the fireplace she found a pitcher of watered wine, a loaf of crusty bread, and a wedge of cheese. She ate quickly feeling all the while like an impostor—which, in fact, she was. If Luella—or anyone else—knew her true sex, Rainulf Fairfax would be ruined.
Voices from downstairs drew her to the corner stairwell. She strained to hear the words from below, but couldn’t make them out, so she descended on silent, soft-soled feet to the bottom of the circular stairs.
The lower level, like the upper, was all one huge room. The windows downstairs were smaller and higher t
han those upstairs, and there was no fireplace; otherwise the two halls were much the same. Corliss had thought Rainulf’s living quarters austere, but his lecture hall was even more bare, containing but one piece of furniture—the lectern at the far end of the hall, at which Rainulf stood. The several dozen students crowded around him sat in the straw on the floor.
“And therefore,” Rainulf was saying in Latin, “it falls to nominalism to apply the test of reason to the mysteries of the faith, including that of the Trinity.” The magister noticed Corliss, and his demeanor changed, ever so subtly. He stood a bit straighter, seemed slightly more alert, more there. “Corliss.”
Every head turned and stared at her; she backed up into the stairwell.
“Don’t go away,” Rainulf said, stepping out from behind the lectern. “We’re done here.” To his audience he said, in French, “Those who are interested may hear more on this subject tomorrow morning. And tonight at St. Mary’s, we’ll debate the relationship between logic, physic, and metaphysic.”
His audience stood around and chatted for a few minutes as they swatted the straw from their black robes. Rainulf strode through the milling crowd and came straight to Corliss, with Thomas and Brad tagging behind. “A pity you missed the lecture. I think you would have enjoyed it.”
Corliss gave a sheepish little laugh. “Do you think I would have understood it?”
He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Better than most of these fellows.” His breath was warm on her ear; little shivers of pleasure skittered through her body.
I’m such a fool. If Rainulf knew how she reacted to his touch, he’d surely laugh, unmoved as he was by the charms of her sex.
“What are your plans for the day?” Thomas asked her.
“Another visit to Catte Street,” she said. “Late yesterday, someone told me about a widow named Enid Clark who’s got a copying shop. They say she’s looking for illuminators for a big job.”
“Brad and I are going in that direction,” Thomas said. “We’ll walk with you as far as St. Mary’s.”
She was about to say yes, but Rainulf’s furrowed brow stilled her tongue. “I’ll accompany Corliss,” he told the boys. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and have some breakfast?”
Thomas and Brad eagerly took him up on the offer. Corliss emptied her satchel of everything except her Biblia Pauperum, slipped the little reliquary into her belt pouch—for luck—and set out with Rainulf for Catte Street. The weather had cleared up overnight, but the roads were narrow avenues of mud—until they came to High Street, which was more of a grand, wide avenue of mud, teeming with people. Many of them—not just academics, but townspeople!—waved to Rainulf, and he waved back, often greeting them by name. Everyone in Oxford seemed to know and like the handsome Magister Scholarum.
Corliss loved the controlled pandemonium of Oxford, so different from Cuxham’s unchanging sameness. There was an atmosphere of lively expectation here, a sense that anything was possible—that one could unravel the mysteries of the universe if only one applied one’s mind to the task. The very air here crackled with intellectual curiosity; it buzzed all around her, infusing her with its fervor, making the blood run swifter in her veins.
To the west, rising above the overhanging shops and town houses, loomed the great square tower of Oxford Castle, the city’s most prominent landmark. In that direction also stood dozens of market stalls, many clustered around St. Martin’s Church, where the townspeople worshipped. During the week she’d spent in Oxford, Corliss had seen how the city’s residents avoided the scholars. From all appearances, they despised them, despite the outrageous profit they made from renting them their rooms and selling them their food and drink. This antagonism struck her as odd and foolish. The scholars, after all, were what made Oxford so special; the merchants should welcome them with open arms, not overcharge them and treat them with contempt.
Corliss was not so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice Rainulf’s pensive silence. He’d been out of sorts ever since they’d left the house. “Why didn’t you want Thomas and Brad to come with me?” she asked as they crossed High Street.
Rainulf tossed a coin into the cap of a mendicant scholar begging outside St. Mary’s. “I’m afraid to let them—or anyone—spend too much time with you.”
“You’re afraid I’ll be found out,” she guessed. “That I’ll give myself away somehow.”
At the corner of Catte Street he paused, frowning down at her. “It’s exhausting to have to hide one’s true nature for any length of time, Corliss. Believe me, I know. One day you may slip. You may say something, do something... and you will be found out. You must take no chances—none. ‘Twould be disastrous for me.”
“For me as well,” she pointed out, sounding more petulant than she would have liked. “I only adopted this disguise to protect myself. If it fails, I’m at Roger Foliot’s mercy.”
“Aye, and from all I hear, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Do be careful,” he cautioned, briefly laying a hand on her arm.
Her heart quickened at his touch. Fool! she chided herself. “I will.”
They turned the corner and began walking north along Catte Street. “A few years ago, none of this was here,” Rainulf said, indicating the businesses lining the street—parchmenters, writers, scribes, binders, and booksellers—with a generous sweep of his hand. “All the books came from the monasteries. Now most of them—most that are used in Oxford, at any rate— are made on Catte Street. There’s a similar district in Paris...”
Rainulf continued on in this manner as they walked, describing the rise of the great centers of learning and the corresponding demand for books: textbooks and sacred books; books of theology, philosophy, logic, and astronomy; tales of ancient battles and tragic romances; law books from Bologna, medical books from Salerno; books by so-called pagans and infidels, banned for centuries in Paris, but displayed proudly and openly in the bookshops of Oxford’s Catte Street.
He’d slipped into the role of teacher, Corliss realized. It was so natural to him that he didn’t even seem aware of it, seemed hardly to notice that he wasn’t making conversation, but presenting a lecture. His eyes glittered as he delivered his discourse; his whole countenance seemed to glow with an inner light. She smiled sadly to herself. Teaching was in his blood; it was fundamental to who he was. How could he think of giving it up?
The used-book shops seemed irresistible to Rainulf, and he insisted on visiting nearly every one. The proprietors all knew him, and would lead him to whatever volumes they’d managed to acquire since his last visit—all either locked in cages or tethered by chains to heavy reading tables. He made two purchases: a fairly new copy of The Antidotarium by someone called Nicholas of Salerno, for which he paid the staggering sum of sixty shillings; and a rather shabbier Ars Medicinae by one Constantinus Africanus, which cost half as much.
“They’re for my sister, Martine,” he explained. “She’s interested in the medicinal uses of herbs. I’ll be visiting her and Thorne soon. She’s expecting their first child, and I promised I’d try to get to Blackburn before the birth. I’ve only seen her once, briefly, since I returned from pilgrimage. We’re due for a long visit together.”
Corliss didn’t ask how soon he’d leave, or how long he’d be gone, although the questions rose to her lips. Nor did she ask if she could remain at the big house on St. John Street during his absence. She had no claim of any kind on Rainulf Fairfax or his home, and she’d best get used to that fact.
“There it is,” she said, pointing to a large, two-story shop with the legend E. CLARK, SCRIPTORIS painted in graceful red lettering over the open door. To one side of it was nailed a thick parchment poster displaying specimens of eight different scripts, all flawlessly penned.
Rainulf indicated that she should precede him into the shop. Swallowing hard, she dusted off her tunic and walked inside. At sloped writing desks next to the windows sat two young men and a girl, hunched over their parchment. Each had a penknif
e in one hand and a quill in the other, with which they were industriously copying the text from books propped open with lead weights. All three looked up at her as she entered. The youths nodded in a preoccupied way and returned to their work, but the girl—a fragile honey blonde of perhaps fourteen—stared at Corliss, her quill poised in the inkhorn. Corliss smiled at her, whereupon her cheeks stained scarlet. She looked down momentarily, then shyly returned the smile and looked down again.
“Felice!” barked a woman from the back of the shop.
The girl started and jerked the pen out of the horn, spattering her half-finished page with ink. Groaning, she slumped in her seat. “Sorry, Mama. I think it’s ruined.”
Her mother sighed. “Try to scrape it off. That took you all morning to do. May I help you, gentlemen?” Her gaze lit on Rainulf. “Ah, it’s the Master of Schools himself. What can I do for you, sir?”
“You can spare a few moments of your time for my friend, mistress.” Guiding Corliss with a gentle hand on her back, Rainulf urged her toward the woman, who wore the wimple and veil of a respectable widow; beneath it peeked out hair like polished bronze. The vivid green of her kirtle emphasized her emerald eyes; she was an older version of her daughter. Like the others, she was busily reproducing an exemplar held open on her large and elaborate desk.
Taking a deep breath, Corliss said, “Are you Mistress Clark?”
“I am.”
Corliss took her Biblia Pauperum out of the satchel. Enid Clark laid down her pen and knife and held her hand out. Corliss hesitated, noticing the woman’s ink-stained fingers.
“It’s dry,” Mistress Clark assured her as she took the book out of Corliss’s hands. Her eyebrows rose when she opened it and began reading. “English?” She studied it carefully, taking her time and peering closely at every intricate illustration.
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