15 The Sempster's Tale Read online

  Smiling at her, his hands on her shoulders keeping her from drawing more away, Daved said, “But I want to see you work-a-day. I want to see you every way.” He drew her near for another kiss as long as the first, and still holding her to him, gathered a handful of her hair, smelled it, and sighed, “Chamomile. Like summer sun.”

  She would have stayed leaning against him, weak with her happiness, but he set her back from him at his arms’ length and said, “Before we go further, I have two favors to ask of you.”

  ‘Ask, good sir.“

  ‘First, that I be allowed the favor of your company this day despite I came before my time.“

  ‘Easily granted. The favor is given.“

  Daved slipped his hands down to take hold on hers, and his merriment went out of him. “The second thing is somewhat more difficult to ask.”

  Holding to her smile despite her heart sank a little, Anne said, “Ask.

  Daved led her to the bed. Its curtains were still drawn between it and the streetward window so they would not be seen as he sat her on the bed’s edge and sat beside her, still holding her hands, his eyes searching her face. Her smile gone, Anne as intently searched his, clinging to the hope that surely he would not have been so happy when he first came if he was come, St. Clare forbid, to tell her something ill.

  Carefully he said, “I’ve kept you apart from my work. I wanted to, and there was never reason to do otherwise. Now I must do that otherwise.”

  He paused as if trying to find how to go on. Anne waited. She knew he and Master Bocking, his uncle, were merchants, partnered together and dealing in rich cloths and finer goods. He had spoken now and again of Bruges, Antwerp, Rouen, and St. Malo as places they went, but she knew nearly nothing else, not even whether his uncle was Jewish or had turned Christian in truth. She had met Master Bocking sometimes at Raulyn’s but hardly spoken with him, and Daved talked mostly of their travels—places seen, people met, inns both good and bad, weather out of the ordinary— things he might share with her easily—but hardly ever of his actual merchanting. Like his Jewish life, his merchanting was a thing that took him elsewhere, away from her, and Anne made effort to think of all that part of his life as little as might be.

  With his gaze fixed on her face, Daved said, still carefully, “I do more than only merchant, Anne. There are things I do that must be done… less openly.”

  She did not want to know, she had to know, and in almost a whisper, she asked, “What?”

  Daved let go one of her hands and reached inside his doublet to bring out a small leather pouch. He tossed it onto the bed beside them. It landed heavily but without a sound. “That is some of,” he said. “In there is a small fortune in gold coins for the duchess of Suffolk.”

  Anne drew back the hand she had stretched toward the pouch. She had never seen in all her life as much gold as must be in there, and with a different fear than she had had a moment ago she asked, “Why? Why do you have it?”

  ‘Because I’ve brought it secretly into England, and it must go, likewise secretly, to her grace.“

  “You brought it into England?”

  ‘I brought it.“

  ‘Secretly?“

  ‘Secretly.“

  He waited for her to ask more, but she did not. Not yet and maybe never. Too much of their time together could be lost in questioning what she did not need to know—too much of their time together, and maybe too much else if she knew more than he wanted her to know—and with a calm that surprised her she asked, “What do you want me to do with it?”

  Daved’s face lighted with laughter. He kissed her hands quickly, first one and then the other, and exclaimed from Solomon’s Song, “ ‘Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved; behold you are fair,’ my woman of valor, eishet chayil.”

  Anne leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth, as much to hold at bay what else he would say as for the pleasure of doing it. But though he shared the kiss as thoroughly as she gave it, when they drew apart he asked, “Raulyn has spoken with you about a nun who’s to come about the duchess of Suffolk’s vestments?”

  ‘A week or more ago, yes,“ Anne said; and what she would be paid for that work would keep her secure for the year and maybe longer.

  ‘So far as the vestments go, all is as he said. This gold is by the side of it. When the nun comes about the vestments, you need only give her this purse, just as it is. Raulyn has told her of it. You give it to her and it becomes her trouble and not yours or mine. Tell her there will be more…“

  ‘More?“ More gold than was already there, lying on her bed as casual as if it were not a fortune?

  ‘I would risk only so much at a time, not all the gold at once,“ Daved said, and Anne tightened her hold on his hands.

  She lived with the smothered fear that if aught ever happened to him when he was away, she would never know why he never came back to her, but that was a fear for all those days and nights he was not with her. There shouldn’t be fear now, not when he was here with her and safe. But he had said there were “things” he did. There were other secrets, then, not just this gold, and if he had to be this careful of this gold, had to keep it so secret here, then fear was here, too, and…

  Pleased to hear her voice steady, she asked, “Does Raulyn know of the gold?”

  ‘He knows.“

  So Raulyn was part of Daved’s other secrets. How much more was there about Daved, about Raulyn, that she didn’t know? How much more was there for her to fear?

  That was probably something she would do better not to ask; and she took the pouch and went away with it to the chest beside the door, slipped it well down inside a back corner, under folded table linens and the small box that held her few documents, closed the chest’s lid, fingered its key out from the ledge hidden behind the chest’s right front leg, locked the chest, and put the key into her small purse hanging from her belt.

  Behind her, Daved had risen to his feet but stayed beside the bed. Anne returned to him, put her hands on his waist and stood looking up at him as he looked down at her, both of them searching into the other’s eyes before he asked, “No other questions?”

  ‘No questions,“ she said quietly. Because, still, what mattered most to her was that he was here.

  Chapter 5

  By evening Frevisse knew that her own and Master Naylor’s alarm over the rebels’ return was shared by almost no one else. Even among the nuns in St. Helen’s, there was less worry over the rebels than anger at the king and his nobles. As one nun declared, “The king will have to make an end of them now. They’ll not be given a second chance.”

  ‘They shouldn’t have been given a first chance,“ an older nun snapped. ”What ails the king, to let them away the way he did?“

  Dame Juliana joined in the talk excitedly, but Frevisse listened with an unease that shifted from worry about the rebels to worry at the deep-set discontent against King Henry. Anger at his present failures was one thing and not good, but that anger looked to be grafted now onto already deeply rooted discontent; and if discontent was this deep inside St. Helen’s, how much worse must it be among other people? King Henry VI had come to the throne at nine months old, had been king now for nearly twenty-eight years, ruling in his own right for the last fourteen of those, but the great hope that he would reign as his father, famed Henry V, had reigned had faded over the years as he let too much of his power slide away to a few favored lords.

  Mainly the duke of Suffolk.

  Unfortunately, Suffolk’s willingness to power had not been matched by ability to wield it to anyone’s good but his own and that of his near followers. Even before this present uprising, the government had been foundering, deep in debt and with a war in France that Suffolk had seemed determined to lose and a French queen—of Suffolk’s choosing— who had yet to birth an heir to the throne. And now Suffolk was dead, and neither King Henry nor any of the nobles around him had taken up his place and power. As the slack handling of the rebels all too clearly showed.
r />   But Dame Juliana’s only worry about it all—said when she and Frevisse were alone in the cloister walk the next morning while St. Helen’s nuns held their daily chapter meeting—was that Master Naylor would insist they leave. “Simply because he’s afraid of trouble that isn’t going to happen,” she complained.

  Frevisse made a wordless sound that meant nothing, unable to say that, whatever Master Naylor might want, they had to stay until Alice’s business was done.

  ‘It would be shame, too, to leave without seeing more of London than we have,“ Dame Juliana sighed.

  Frevisse sharpened to that and instantly encouraged, “Why not, while I see to this matter of the vestments, see what you can of London?” Making it easier for her to meet alone with this Mistress Blakhall. “I doubt the Tower, the Thames, or St. Paul’s have changed over-much since I saw them years ago. Let me see to the vestments while you see more of London, before Master Naylor decides we should be away.”

  ‘We can’t go out without each other,“ Dame Juliana said doubtfully.

  ‘There are surely nuns here would go with us both.“ And when the time came, a St. Helen’s nun would likely be easier to leave aside than Dame Juliana would be. Planning rapidly how to work the day to her own ends, she added, ”I’ll take Master Naylor with me. That way he won’t be grumbling at you about everything.“ And because he would be less trouble to her than young Dickon, overeager to know everything ”Dickon can go with you, along with another nun and some nunnery servant to be your guide and keep all well. Yes?“

  ‘Yes,“ Dame Juliana agreed happily.

  St. Helen’s prioress, when asked, agreed to it all as readily, saying, “Dame Ursula can accompany you, Dame Juliana. A day’s long walking will do her good. For you, Dame Frevisse, I think Dame Clemens will best satisfy. She has family near St. Paul’s. She’ll know the way to Kerie Lane and then can visit them while you see to your business.”

  Even Master Naylor made no great objection to their plan, and when all the morning Offices and midday dinner were done, Dame Juliana set out one way with Dame Ursula and Dickon and an older servingman, while Frevisse went her way with Dame Clemens and Master Naylor. Merry at the chance to visit her family, Dame Clemens led them toward St. Paul’s, slanting from Bishopsgate by way of Broad Street to the Stocks Market and across to Poultry and along it into Cheapside, talking happily the while. Frevisse tried to match her good humour at least outwardly and ignore Master Naylor stalking silent behind them. They were not yet to St. Paul’s when Dame Clemens said, “Here’s Gutheron’s Lane,” and turned rightward into a street not even a fourth so wide as Cheapside. The sky instantly lessened to a narrow band of blue between the houses overhanging the street with their out-thrust upper floors. In rainy weather they would give shelter to anyone walking there and today gave welcome shade. They were none of them so grand as those along Cheapside but all were well-kept, and people called out ready greeting to Dame Clemens from shop and doorstep as she passed before she stopped beside one house’s yellow-painted door and said, “Here’s my family’s place. That’s Kerie Lane just there.” She pointed across the way to another, narrower lane. “Mistress Blakhall’s house is the blue door on the left side along it. You’ll not miss it.”

  Frevisse had never found being assured she could “not miss it” certainty of anything, but she thanked Dame Clemens, and with Master Naylor still following her crossed to Kerie Lane, where Mistress Blakhall’s blue door, with a sign of silver scissors on likewise blue hanging above it, was indeed easy to find. The wide shutter covering the shop window was still closed, but the top half of the door was swung open into the shop’s shadows, and at Master Naylor’s loud knock an old woman in a brown gown and with a clean, white apron and headkerchief hobbled into sight from somewhere beyond the shop. As she peered out across the door, Frevisse stepped forward and said, “Mistress Blakhall expects me, I think. I’m here about the vestments for Lady Alice.”

  ‘My mistress will be pleased to see you,“ the woman said, bobbing a curtsy and opening the door.

  The shop was a single open-beamed room the full width of the narrow building, with a closed aumbry with locked doors against one wall, and a tailor’s wide wooden table for the cutting of cloth, although there was no sign there had been any tailoring of late.

  Then a woman who must be Mistress Blakhall herself came through the doorway at the shop’s rear. She was a moderately made woman, in a quiet blue gown with a simple, rounded neck and plain, straight sleeves, with no flourish to her white veil and wimple; but the gown was of finely woven linen, its skirts falling in full and graceful folds to her feet, and her veil was of starched and crisply pressed white lawn. If what she wore were of her own making, she displayed well both her tailoring skill and quiet good judgment.

  Frevisse said, “I’m Dame Frevisse. I’ve come on the Lady Alice’s business.”

  Understanding beyond the outward meaning of that flickered in Mistress Blakhall’s eyes, but she only said, making a deep curtsy, “My lady. You’re most welcome here.”

  ‘It’s my pleasure,“ Frevisse returned, which was, strictly speaking, untrue.

  Looking past Frevisse to Master Naylor still outside, Mistress Blakhall asked, “Will it please you to come in, too?”

  Her servant-woman did not give him a choice, beckoning at him briskly, saying, “No need to loiter there in the street. Come you in. You can keep me company in the kitchen the while they’re at talk.”

  ‘We’ll leave you to Bette, sir,“ Mistress Blakhall said; and added to Frevisse, ” If you’ll come upstairs, please?“

  Frevisse had quick sight of the kitchen beyond the shop— a cleanly kept room with a wide-hearthed fireplace against one wall, a well-scrubbed wooden table, several stools, and a window and back door opening to a garden’s greenery— before she gathered her skirts away from her feet and followed Mistress Blakhall up the steep stairs into a pleasant chamber that was plainly where Mistress Blakhall mostly lived.

  Frevisse guessed she much worked here, too. An embroidery frame stood near the wide southward window, and while Mistress Blakhall crossed toward a small table set with a pewter pitcher, pewter cups, and a cloth-covered plate, Frevisse went to see what work she had on the frame. Her soft exclaim, though, was for what she saw beyond the window, and Mistress Blakhall, coming with a filled cup in one hand and a plate with sugared borage petals and small ginger cakes in the other, said, “It does startle, doesn’t it?”

  ‘It does,“ Frevisse agreed. She leaned outward to look up and farther up at St. Paul cathedral’s central tower and soaring spire, huge and graceful against the sky, with no clutter of buildings between to lessen the power of the sight.

  ‘In winter,“ Mistress Blakhall said, ”when the sun rides low, the spire’s shadow slides across the roofs like a sundial’s shadow across the hours.“

  And when the cathedral’s bells rang out for any reason, the glory of their ringing must crash down over the rooftops louder than thinking, Frevisse thought.

  But today, at this early afternoon hour, they were quiet, and at Mistress Blakhall’s gesture, Frevisse sat on the seat below the window, took the offered plate and cup, and then, while Mistress Blakhall returned to the table for her own, leaned over to see the work on the embroidery frame. On the square of heavy linen held flat and taut by a strong cord laced back and forth through its edges and to the frame was lightly drawn St. Mark’s winged lion in a ten-inch roundel. The background was complete, done with a stitch that Frevisse knew was quick and easy. But she also knew, from sorry experience the misguided times she had tried to learn needlework, that however quick and easy a stitch might be, whoever plied the needle and thread could still do it badly and this work was done very well. Besides that, the lion was outlined with a thin black backstitch and the first gold thread curved into the flare of its mane, held in place by stitches of linen thread brought through from the underside to catch a small loop of the gold and hold it in place invisibly. Nothing more than t
he first curl of the mane was done but it was enough, and Frevisse looked up with willing respect at Mistress Blakhall waiting on the other side of the frame and said, “It’s beautiful work. Were you taught in France?” Because the opus anglicanum—English needlework so beautiful it had for centuries been desired by popes and given as royal gifts among kings—had lessened over the years into barely more than ordinary, and this was not.

  Mistress Blakhall’s eyes brightened. “You’ve seen French needlework?”

  ‘I was twice at school in French nunneries, and I’ve seen Parisian work.“

  Smiling, Mistress Blakhall sat down beside her. “My teacher was from Paris. She married someone of the duke of Exeter’s household and ended here, teaching girls who—” Mistress Blakhall tried for a French way of speaking. “—‘have the fingers of pigs and the eyes crossed, they see so poorly what they do so badly.’ ”

  Frevisse laughed, then nodded at St. Mark’s lion. “You at least must have pleased her.”

  ‘She did finally say she’d not mind admitting I was her student.“

  ‘It was praise truly earned.“ Frevisse looked around the room, and thinking of the little-used shop downstairs, asked, ”Do you have your workshop elsewhere? Or do your women work at their homes?“

  ‘Save for another woman I sometimes hire to work plain repeating patterns for borders, I do all my own work.“

  ‘You’ve no apprentices?“

  ‘None at present. When my husband died, he had none because we were still working to establish ourselves as makers of church vestments and altar cloths and banners and such.“

  ‘His skill as a tailor joined to yours,“ Frevisse said.

  ‘Just so.“ Mistress Blakhall’s smile was tender with remembrance. She was young but had lived enough to have lost youth’s blandness; her face was the more comely for having years of life and love and memories behind it, and her husband must hold a dear place in those memories because she still smiled as she said, ”Matthew always said he was only a plain tailor doing plain work, and I’d laugh at him because his ’plain‘ work was so far beyond only ’good.‘ Near the end he even had a commission from as far off as Lincoln, from a canon willing to pay for an excess of gold thread to have what he wanted.“