Читать книгу The King's Concubine - Anne O'Brien - Страница 11

WHEN I achieved my escape from the Abbey, it was not by my own instigation. Fate took a hand when I reached the age of fifteen years and it came as a lightning bolt from heaven.

‘Put this on. And this. Take this. Be at the Abbey gate in half an hour.’

The garments were thrust into my arms by Sister Matilda, Mother Abbess’s chaplain.

‘Why, Sister?’

‘Do as you’re told!’

I had been given a woollen kirtle, thin, its colour unrecognisable from much washing, and a long sleeveless overgown in a dense brown, reminiscent of the sludge that collected on the river bank after stormy weather. It too had seen better days on someone else’s back, and was far too short, exhibiting, as I had feared, my ankles. When I scratched indelicately, an immediate fear bloomed. I had inherited the fleas as well as the garments. A hood of an indeterminate grey completed the whole.

But why? Was I being sent on an errand? A feverish excitement danced over my skin. A lively fear as well—after all, life in the Abbey was all I knew—but not for long. If I was to escape the walls for only a day, it would be worth it. I was fifteen years old and the days of my transformation from novice to nun loomed, like the noxious overflowing contents of the town drain after heavy rainfall.

‘Where am I going?’ I asked the wagon master to whom I was directed, a dour man with a bad head cold and an overpowering smell of rancid wool. Sister Faith, keeper of the Abbey gate, had done nothing but point in his direction and close the door against me. The soft snick of the latch, with me on the outside, was far sweeter than any singing of the Angelus.

‘London. Master Janyn Perrers’s household,’ he growled, spitting into the gutter already swimming with filth and detritus from the day’s market dealings.

‘Pull me up, then,’ I ordered.

‘Tha’s a feisty moppet, and no mistake!’ But he grasped my hand in his enormous one and hauled me up onto the bales where I settled myself as well as I could. ‘God help th’man who weds you, mistress!’

‘I’m not going to be married,’ I retorted. ‘Not ever.’

‘And why’s that, then?’

‘Too ugly!’ Had I not seen it for myself? Since the day I had peered into my water bowl I had been shown the undisputable truth of my unlovely features in a looking glass belonging to a countess, no less. How would any man look at me and want me for his wife?

‘A man don’t need to look too often at the wench he weds!’

I did not care. I tossed my head. London! The wagon master cracked his whip over the heads of the oxen to end the conversation, leaving me to try to fill in the spaces. To my mind there was only one possible reason for my joining the household of this Janyn Perrers. My services as a maidservant had been bought, enough gold changing hands to encourage Mother Abbess to part with her impoverished novice who would bring nothing of fame or monetary value to the Abbey. As the wagon jolted and swayed, I imagined the request that had been made. A strong, hard-working girl to help to run the house. A biddable girl … I hoped Mother Abbess had not perjured herself.

I twitched and shuffled, impatient with every slow step of the oxen. London. The name bubbled through my blood as I clung to the lumbering wagon. Freedom was as seductive and heady as fine wine.

The noisome overcrowded squalor of London shocked me. The environs of Barking Abbey, bustling as they might be on market day, had not prepared me for the crowds, the perpetual racket, the stench of humanity packed so close together. I did not know where to look next. At close-packed houses in streets barely wider than the wagon, where upper storeys leaned drunkenly to embrace each other, blocking out the sky. At the wares on display in shop frontages, at women who paraded in bright colours. At scruffy urchins and bold prostitutes who carried on a different business in the rank courts and passageways. A new world, both frightening and seductive: I stared, gawped, as naive as any child from the country.

‘Here’s where you get off.’

The wagon lurched and I was set down, directed by a filthy finger that pointed at my destination, a narrow house taking up no space at all, but rising above my head in three storeys. I picked my way through the mess of offal and waste in the gutters to the door. Was this the one? It did not seem to be the house of a man of means. I knocked.

The woman who opened the door was far taller than I and as thin as a willow lath, with her hair scraped into a pair of metallic cylindrical cauls on either side of her gaunt face, as if she were encased in a cage. ‘Well?’

‘Is this the house of Janyn Perres?’

‘What’s it to you?’

Her gaze flicked over me, briefly. She made to close the door. I could not blame her: I was not an attractive object. But this was where I had been sent, where I was expected. I would not have the door shut in my face.

‘I have been sent,’ I said, slapping my palm boldly against the wood.

‘What do you want?’

‘I am Alice,’ I said, remembering, at last, to curtsey.

‘If you’re begging, I’ll take my brush to you …’

‘I’m sent by the nuns at the Abbey,’ I stated.

The revulsion in her stare deepened, and the woman’s lips twisted like a hank of rope. ‘So you’re the girl. Are you the best they could manage?’ She flapped her hand when I opened my mouth to reply that, yes, I supposed I was the best they could offer, since I was the only novice. ‘Never mind. You’re here now so we’ll make the best of it. But in future you’ll use the door at the back beside the privy.’

And that was that.

I had become part of a new household.

And what an uneasy household it was. Even I, with no experience of such, was aware of the tensions from the moment I set my feet over the threshold.

Janyn Perrers—master of the house, pawnbroker, moneylender and bloodsucker. His appearance did not suggest a rapacious man but, then, as I rapidly learned, it was not his word that was the law within his four walls. Tall and stooped with not an ounce of spare flesh on his frame and a foreign slur to his speech, he spoke only when he had to, and then not greatly. In his business dealings he was painstaking. Totally absorbed, he lived and breathed the acquisition and lending at extortionate rates of gold and silver coin. His face might have been kindly, if not for the deep grooves and hollow cheeks more reminiscent of a death’s head. His hair—or lack of—some few greasy wisps around his neck, gave him the appearance of a well-polished egg when he removed his felt cap. I could not guess his age but he seemed very old to me with his uneven gait and faded eyes. His fingers were always stained with ink, his mouth too when he chewed his pen.

He nodded to me when I served supper, placing the dishes carefully on the table before him: it was the only sign that he noted a new addition to his family. This was the man who now employed me and would govern my future.

The power in the house rested on the shoulders of Damiata Perrers, his sister, who had made it clear when I arrived that I was not welcome. The Signora. There was no kindness in her face. She was the strength, the firm grip on the reins, the imposer of punishment on those who displeased her. Nothing happened in that house without her knowledge or her permission.

There was a boy to haul and carry and clean the privy, a lad who said little and thought less. He led a miserable existence, gobbling his food with filthy fingers before bolting back to his own pursuits in the nether regions of the house. I never learned his name.

Then there was Master William de Greseley. He was a man who was and was not of the household since he spread his services further afield, an interesting man who took my attention but ignored me with a remarkable determination. A clerk, a clever individual with black hair and brows, sharp features much like a rat, and a pale face, as if he never saw the light of day. A man with as little emotion about him as one of the flounders brought home by Signora Damiata from the market, his employment was to note down the business of the day. Ink might stain Master Perrers’s fingers but I swore that it ran in Master Greseley’s veins. He disregarded me to the same extent as he was deaf to the vermin that scuttled across the floor of the room in which he kept the books and ledgers of money lent and reclaimed. I was wary of him. There was a coldness that I found unpalatable.

And then there was me. The maidservant who undertook all the work not assigned to the boy. And some that was.

Thus my first introduction to the Perrers family. And since it was a good score of miles away from Barking Abbey, it was not beyond my tolerance.

‘God help th’man who weds you, mistress!’

‘I’m not going to be married!’

Holy Mother! My vigorous assertion returned to mock me. Within a se’nnight I found myself exchanging marriage vows at the church door.

Given the tone of her remonstration, Signora Damiata was as astonished as I, and unpleasantly frank when I was summoned to join brother and sister in the parlour at the rear of the house, where, by the expression on the lady’s face, Master Perrers had just broken the news of his intent.

‘Blessed Mary! Why marry?’ she demanded. ‘You have a son, an heir, learning the family business in Lombardy. I keep your house. Why would you want a wife at your age?’ Her accent grew stronger, the syllables hissing over each other. ‘If you must, then choose a girl from one of our merchant families. A girl with a dowry and a family with some standing. Jesu! Are you not listening?’ She raised her fists as if she might strike him. ‘She is not a suitable wife for a man of your importance.’

Did I think that Master Perrers did not rule the roost? He looked briefly at me as he continued leafing through the pages of a small ledger he had taken from his pocket.

‘I will have this one. I will wed her. That is the end of the matter.’

I, of course, was not asked. I stood in this three-cornered dialogue yet not a part of it, the bone squabbled over by two dogs. Except that Master Perrers did not squabble. He simply stated his intention and held to it, until his sister closed her mouth and let it be. So I was wed in the soiled skirts in which I chopped the onions and gutted the fish: clearly there was no money earmarked to be spent on a new wife. Sullen and resentful, shocked into silence, certainly no joyful bride, I complied because I must. I was joined in matrimony with Janyn Perrers on the steps of the church with witnesses to attest the deed: Signora Damiata, grim-faced and silent; and Master Greseley, because he was available, with no expression at all. A few words muttered over us by a bored priest in an empty ritual, and I was a wife.

And afterwards?

No celebration, no festivity, no recognition of my change in position in the household. Not even a cup of ale and a bride cake. It was, I realised, nothing more than a business agreement, and since I had brought nothing to it, there was no need to celebrate it. All I recall was the rain soaking through my hood as we stood and exchanged vows and the shrill cries of lads who fought amongst themselves for the handful of coin that Master Perrers scattered as a reluctant sign of his goodwill. Oh, and I recall Master Perrers’s fingers gripping hard on mine, the only reality in this ceremony that was otherwise not real at all to me.

Was it better than being a Bride of Christ? Was marriage better than servitude? To my mind there was little difference. After the ceremony I was directed to sweeping down the cobwebs that festooned the storerooms in the cellar. I took out my bad temper with my brush, making the spiders run for cover.

There was no cover for me. Where would I run?

And beneath my anger was a dark lurking fear, for the night, my wedding night, was ominously close, and Master Perrers was no handsome lover.

The Signora came to my room, which was hardly bigger than a large coffer, tucked high under the eaves, and gestured with a scowl. In shift and bare feet I followed her down the stairs. Opening the door to my husband’s bedchamber, she thrust me inside and closed it at my back. I stood just within, not daring to move. My throat was so dry I could barely swallow. Apprehension was a rock in my belly and fear of my ignorance filled me to the brim. I did not want to be here. I did not want this. I could not imagine why Master Perrers would want me, plain and unfinished and undowered as I was. Silence closed round me—except for a persistent scratching like a mouse trapped behind the plastered wall.

In that moment I was a coward. I admit it. I closed my eyes.

Still nothing.

So I squinted, only to find my gaze resting on the large bed with its dust-laden hangings to shut out the night air. Holy Virgin! To preserve intimacy for the couple enclosed within. Closing my eyes again, I prayed for deliverance.

What, exactly, would he want me to do?

‘You can open your eyes now. She’s gone.’

There was humour in the gruff, accented voice. I obeyed and there was Janyn, in a chamber robe of astonishingly virulent yellow ochre that encased him from neck to bony ankles, seated at a table covered with piles of documents and heaped scrolls. At his right hand was a leather purse spilling out strips of wood, another smaller pouch containing silver coin. And to his left a branch of good-quality candles that lit the atmosphere with gold as the dust motes danced. But it was the pungent aroma, of dust and parchment and vellum, and perhaps the ink that he had been stirring, that made my nose wrinkle. Intuitively I knew that it was the smell of careful record-keeping and of wealth. It almost dispelled my fear.

‘Come in. Come nearer to the fire.’ I took a step, warily. At least he was not about to leap on me quite yet. There was no flesh in sight on either of us.

‘Here.’ He stretched toward the coffer at his side and scooped up the folds of a mantle. ‘You’ll be cold. Take it. It’s yours.’

This was the first gift I had ever had, given honestly, and I wrapped the luxurious woollen length round my shoulders, marvelling at the quality of its weaving, its softness and warm russet colouring, wishing I had a pair of shoes. He must have seen me shuffling on the cold boards.

‘Put these on.’

A pair of leather shoes of an incongruous red were pushed across the floor towards me. Enormous, but soft and warm from his own feet as I slid mine in with a sigh of pleasure.

‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked conversationally.

My pleasure dissipated like mist in morning sun, my blood running as icily cold as my feet, and I shivered. A goose walking over my grave. I did not want this old man to touch me. The last thing I wanted was to share a bed with him and have him fumble against my naked flesh with his ink-stained fingers, their untrimmed nails scraping and scratching.

‘Yes,’ I managed, hoping my abhorrence was not obvious, but Master Perrers was watching me with narrowed eyes. How could it not be obvious? I felt my face flame with humiliation.

‘Of course you are,’ my husband said with a laconic nod. ‘Let me tell you something that might take that anxious look from your face. I’ll not trouble you. It’s many a year since I’ve found comfort in a woman.’ I had never heard him string so many words together.

‘Then why did you wed me?’ I asked.

Since I had nothing else to give, I had thought it must be a desire for young flesh in his bed. So, if not that …? Master Perrers looked at me as if one of his ledgers had spoken, then grunted in what could have been amusement.

‘Someone to tend my bones in old age. A wife to shut my sister up from nagging me to wed a merchant’s daughter whose family would demand a weighty settlement.’

I sighed. I had asked for the truth, had I not? I would nurse him and demand nothing in return. It was not flattering.

‘Marriage will give security to you,’ he continued as if he read my thoughts. And then: ‘Have you a young lover in mind?’

‘No!’ Such directness startled me. ‘Well, not yet. I don’t know any young men.’

He chuckled. ‘Good. Then we shall rub along well enough, I expect. When you do know a young man you can set your fancy on, let me know. I’ll make provision for you when I am dead,’ he remarked.

He went back to his writing. I stood and watched, not knowing what to do or say now that he had told me what he did not want from me. Should I leave? His gnarled hand with its thick fingers moved up and down the columns, rows of figures growing from his pen, columns of marks in heavy black ink spreading from top to bottom. They intrigued me. The minutes passed. The fire settled. Well, I couldn’t stand there for ever.

‘What do I do now, Master Perrers?’

He looked up as if surprised that I was still there. ‘Do you wish to sleep?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose we must do something. Let me …’ He peered at me with his pale eyes. ‘Pour two cups of ale and sit there.’

I poured and took the stool he pushed in my direction.

‘You can write.’

‘Yes.’

In my later years at the Abbey, driven by a boredom so intense that even study had offered some relief, I had applied myself to my lessons with some fervour, enough to cause Sister Goda to offer a rosary in gratitude to Saint Jude Thaddeus, a saint with a fine reputation for pursuing desperate causes. I could now write with a fair hand.

‘The convents are good for something, then. Can you write and tally numbers?’

‘No.’

‘Then you will learn. There.’ He reversed the ledger and pushed it toward me across the table. ‘Copy that list there. I’ll watch you.’

I sat, inveterate curiosity getting the better of me, and as I saw what it was that he wished me to do, I picked up one of his pens and began to mend the end with a sharp blade my new husband kept for the purpose. I had learned the skill, by chance—or perhaps by my own devising—from a woman of dramatic beauty and vicious pleasures, who had once honoured the Abbey with her presence. A woman who had an unfortunate habit of creeping into my mind when I least wished her to be there. This was no time or place to think of her, the much-lauded Countess of Kent.

‘What are those?’ I asked, pointing at the leather purse.

‘Tally sticks.’

‘What do they do? What are the notches for?’

‘They record income, debts paid and debts owed,’ he informed me, watching me to ensure I didn’t destroy his pen. ‘The wood is split down the middle, each party to the deal keeping half. They must match.’

‘Clever,’ I observed, picking up one of the tallies to inspect it. It was beautifully made out of a hazel stick, and its sole purpose to record ownership of money.

‘Never mind those. Write the figures.’

And I did, under his eye for the first five minutes, and then he left me to it, satisfied.

The strangest night. My blood settled to a quiet hum of pleasure as the figures grew to record a vast accumulation of gold coin, and when we had finished the accounts of the week’s business, my husband instructed me to get into the vast bed and go to sleep. I fell into it, and into sleep, to the sound of the scratching pen. Did my husband join me when his work was done? I think he did not. The bed linen was not disturbed, and neither was my shift, arranged neatly from chin to ankles, decorous as any virgin nun.

It was not what I expected but it could have been much worse.

* * *

Next morning I awoke abruptly to silence. Still very early, I presumed, and dark because the bed curtains had been drawn around me. When I peeped out it was to see that the fire had burnt itself out, the cups and ledgers tidied away and the room empty. I was at a loss, my role spectacularly unclear. Sitting back against the pillows, reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed, I looked at my hands, turning them, seeing the unfortunate results of proximity to icy cold water, hot dishes, grimy tasks. They were now the hands of Mistress Perrers. I grimaced in a moment of hard-edged humour. Was I now mistress of the household? If I was, I would have to usurp Signora Damiata’s domain. I tried to imagine myself walking into the parlour and informing the Signora what I might wish to eat, the length of cloth I might wish to purchase to fashion a new gown. And then I imagined her response. I dared not!

But it is your right!

Undeniably. But not right at this moment. My sense of self-preservation was always keen. I redirected my thoughts, to a matter of more immediacy. What would I say to Master Perrers this morning? How would I address him? Was I truly his wife if I was still a virgin? Wrapping myself in my new mantle, I returned to my own room and dressed as the maidservant I still seemed to be, before descending the stairs to the kitchen to start the tasks for the new day. The fire would have to be laid, the oven heated. If I walked quickly and quietly I would not draw attention to myself from any quarter. Such was my plan, except that my clumsy shoes clattered on the stair, and a voice called out.

‘Alice.’

I considered bolting, as if I had not heard.

‘Come here, Alice. Close the door.’

I gripped hard on my courage. Had he not been kind last night? I redirected my footsteps, and there my husband of less than twenty-four hours sat behind his desk, head bent over his ledgers, pen in hand, in the room where he dealt with the endless stream of borrowers. No different from any other morning when I might bring him ale and bread. I curtseyed. Habits were very difficult to break.

He looked up. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Too much excitement, I expect.’ I might have suspected him of laughing at me but there was no change of expression on his dolorous features. He held out a small leather pouch, the strings pulled tight. I looked at it—and then at him.

‘Take it.’

‘Do you wish for me to purchase something for you, sir?’

‘It is yours.’ Since I still did not move, he placed it on the desk and pushed it across the wood toward me.

‘Mine …?’

It contained coin. And far more, as I could estimate, than was due to me as a maidservant. Planting his elbows on the desk, folding his hands and resting his chin on them, Janyn Perrers regarded me gravely, speaking slowly as if I might be a lackwit.

‘It is a bride gift, Alice. A morning gift. Is that not the custom in this country?’

‘I don’t know.’ How would I?

‘It is, if you will, a gift in recompense for the bride’s virginity.’

I frowned. ‘I don’t qualify for it, then. You did not want mine.’

‘The fault was mine, not yours. You have earned a bride gift by tolerating the whims and weaknesses of an old man.’ I think my cheeks were as scarlet as the seals on the documents before him, so astonished was I that he would thank me, regretful that my words had seemed to be so judgmental of him. ‘Take it, Alice. You look bewildered.’ At last what might have been a smile touched his mouth.

‘I am, sir. I have done nothing to make me worthy of such a gift.’

‘You are my wife and we will keep the custom.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I curtseyed.

‘One thing …’ He brushed the end of his quill pen uneasily over the mess of scrolls and lists. ‘It would please me if you would not talk about …’

‘About our night together,’ I supplied for him, compassion stirred by his gentleness, even as my eye sought the bag with its burden of coin. ‘That is between you and me, sir.’

‘And our future nights.’

‘I will not speak of them either.’ After all, who would I tell?

‘Thank you. If you would now fetch me ale. And tell the Signora that I will be going out in an hour.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And it will please me if you will call me Janyn.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, though I could not imagine doing so.

I stood in the whitewashed passage outside the door and leaned back against the wall as if my legs needed the support. The purse was not a light one. It moved in my fingers, coins sliding with a comforting chink as I weighed it in my hand. I had never seen so much money all in one place in the whole of my life. And it was mine. Whatever I was or was not, I was no longer a penniless novice.

But what was I? It seemed I was neither flesh nor fowl. Here I stood in a house that was not mine, a wife but a virgin, with the knowledge that my marriage vows would make absolutely no difference to my role in the household. I would wager the whole of my sudden windfall on it. Signora Damiata would never retreat before my authority. I would never sit at the foot of the table.

A scuff of leather against stone made me look up.

I was not the only one occupying the narrow space. Detaching himself from a similar stance, further along in the shadows, Master Greseley walked softly towards me. Since there was an air of secrecy about him—of complicity almost—I hid the pouch in the folds of my skirt. Within an arm’s length of me he stopped, and leaned his narrow shoulder blades on the wall beside me, arms folded across his chest, staring at the opposite plasterwork in a manner that was not companionable but neither was it hostile. Here was a man adept through long practice at masking his intentions. As for his thoughts—they were buried so deep beneath his impassivity that it would take an earthquake to dislodge them.

‘You weren’t going to hide it under your pillow, were you?’ he enquired in a low voice.

‘Hide what?’ I replied, clutching the purse tightly.

‘The morning gift he’s just given you.’

‘How do you—?’

‘Of course I know. Who keeps the books in this household? It was no clever guesswork.’ A sharp glance slid in my direction before fixing on the wall again. ‘I would hazard that the sum was payment for something that was never bought.’

Annoyance sharpened my tongue. I would not be intimidated by a clerk. ‘That is entirely between Master Perrers and myself.’

‘Of course it is.’ How smoothly unpleasant he was, like mutton fat floating on water after the roasting pans had been scoured.

‘And nothing to do with you.’

He bowed his head. ‘Absolutely nothing. I am here only to give you some good advice.’

Turning my head I looked directly at him. ‘Why?’

He did not return my regard. ‘I have no idea.’

‘That makes no sense.’

‘No. It doesn’t. It’s against all my tenets of business practice. But even so. Let’s just say that I am drawn to advise you. Don’t hide the money under your pillow or anywhere else in this house. She’ll find it.’

‘Who?’ Although I knew the answer well enough.

‘The Signora. She has a nose for it, as keen as any mouse finding the cheese safe stored in a cupboard. And when she sniffs it out, you’ll not see it again.’

I thought about this as well. ‘I thought she didn’t know.’

‘Is that what Janyn told you? Of course she does. Nothing happens in this place without her knowledge. She knows you have money, and she doesn’t agree with it. Any profits are the inheritance of her nephew, Janyn’s son.’

The absent heir, learning the business in Lombardy. ‘Since you’re keen to offer advice, what do I do?’ I asked crossly. ‘Short of digging a hole in the garden?’

‘Which she’d find.’

‘A cranny in the eaves?’

‘She’d find that too.’

‘So?’ His smugness irritated me.

‘Give it to me.’

Which promptly dispersed my irritation. I laughed, disbelieving. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

‘I take you for a sensible woman. Give it to me.’ He actually held out his hand, palm up. His fingers were blotched with ink.

‘I will not.’

He sighed as if his patience was strained. ‘Give it to me and I’ll use it to make you a rich woman.’

‘Why would you?’

‘Listen to me, Mistress Alice!’ I was right about the patience. His voice fell to a low hiss on the syllables of my name. ‘What keeps its value and lasts for ever?’

‘Gold.’

‘No. Gold can be stolen—and then you have nothing.’

‘Jewels, then.’

‘Same argument. Think about it.’

‘Then since you are so clever …’

‘Land!’ The clerk’s beady eyes gleamed. ‘Property. That’s the way to do it. It’s a generous purse he gave you. Give it to me and I will buy you property.’

For a moment I listened to him, seduced by the glitter in his gaze that was now holding mine. His nose almost twitched with the prospect. And then sense took hold. ‘But I cannot look after property! What would I do with it?’

‘You don’t have to look after it. There are ways and means. Give me your morning gift and I will show you how it’s done.’

It deserved some consideration. ‘What would you ask in return?’ I asked sharply.

‘Clever girl! I knew you had the makings of a business woman. I’ll let you know. But it will not be too great a price.’

I looked at him. What a cold fish he was. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘I think you have possibilities.’

‘As a landowner?’ It all seemed nonsense to me.

‘Why not?’

I didn’t have a reply. I stood in silence, the coins in my hand seemingly growing heavier as I slowly breathed, in and out. I tossed the little bag, and caught it.

‘We don’t have all day.’ Greseley’s admonition broke into my thoughts. ‘That’s my offer. Take it or leave it. But if you think to keep it safe within these walls, it will be gone before the end of the week.’

‘And I should trust you.’

Trust had not figured highly in my life. This strange man with his love for figures and documents, seals and agreements, who had sought me out and made me this most tempting of offers—should I hand over to him all I owned in the world? It was a risk. A huge risk. The arguments, conflicting, destructive of each other, rattled back and forth in my brain.

Say no. Keep it for yourself. Hide it where no one can find it.

Take the risk! Become a landowner.

He’ll take it and keep it for himself.

Trust him.

I can’t!

Why not?

My exchange of views came to an abrupt halt when the clerk pushed himself upright and began to walk away. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

And there was the final blast of the voice in my head. You can’t do this on your own, Alice, but Greseley can. This clever little louse has the knowledge. Learn from him. Use it to your own advantage.

Well, I would. ‘Stop!’ I called out.

He stopped, but he did not return; he simply stood there with his back to me.

‘I’ll do it,’ I told him.

He spun on his heel. ‘An excellent decision.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘A few days.’

I held up the pouch. Hesitated. Then dropped it into his outstretched palm. I was still wondering if I was an idiot. ‘If you rob me …’ I began.

‘Yes, Mistress Perrers?’ It caused me to laugh softly. It was the first time I had been addressed as such.

‘If you rob me, Master Greseley,’ I whispered, ‘I advise you to employ a taster before you eat or drink in this house.’

‘There’ll be no need, mistress.’ From his bland smugness, he thought I was making empty threats. I was not so sure. A good dose of wolfsbane masked by a cup of warmed ale would take out the strongest man. I would not care to be robbed.

The purse vanished into Greseley’s sleeve, and Greseley vanished along the corridor.

Would I live to regret this rash business dealing? All I knew was that it created a strange, turbulent euphoria that swept through me from my crown to my ill-shod feet.

Fool! Idiot girl! I berated myself with increasing fury over the following days. A sensible woman he called you. A business woman. And you let yourself be gulled! He knew how to wind you round his grubby fingers!

By God, he did! By the end of the week I knew I had seen the last of my morning gift. Greseley was elusive, exchanging not one word with me and avoiding my attempts to catch his eye. And when my impatience overcame my discretion: ‘What have you done with it?’ I growled in his ear as he slid onto a stool to break his fast.

‘Pass the jug of ale, if you please, mistress’ was all I got by way of reply. With one gulp he emptied his cup, crammed bread into his mouth, and left the room before I could pester him more.

‘Stir this pot,’ Mistress Damiata ordered, handing over a spoon.

Later that day he was sent into the city on business that kept him away overnight. How could I have been so ingenuous, to trust a man I barely knew? I had lost it. I had lost it all! I would never see one of those coins again, and my misery festered, even though I was kept hopping from morning to night. My mind began to linger lovingly on the effect of that large spoonful of wolfsbane on the scrawny frame of the clerk.

And then Greseley returned. He wouldn’t get away with ignoring me this time. Was he suffering from guilt? If he was, it did nothing to impair his appetite, as he chomped his way through slices of beef and half a flat bread, undisturbed by my scowling at him across the board.

‘We need to talk!’ I whispered, nudging him between his shoulder blades when I smacked a dish of herring in front of him.

His answering stare was cold and clear and without expression.

‘Careful, girl!’ snapped the Signora. ‘That dish! We’re not made of money!’

Greseley continued to eat with relish, but as I cleared the dishes, he produced a roll of a document from the breast of his tunic, like a coney from the sleeve of a second-rate jongleur, and tapped it against his fingertips before sliding it into an empty jug standing on the hearth, out of the Signora’s line of sight. It was not out of mine. My fingers itched to take it. I could sense it, like a burning brand below my heart.

At last. The kitchen was empty. Janyn closed the door on himself and his ledgers, the Signora climbed the stairs to her chamber, and I took the scroll from its hiding place and carried it to my room. Unrolling it carefully, I read the black script. No easy task. The legal words meant nothing to me, the phrases hard on my understanding, the script small and close written. But there was no doubting it. He had done what he had promised. There was my name: Alice Perrers. I was the owner of property in Gracechurch Street in the city of London.

I held it in my hands, staring at it, as if it might vanish if I looked away. Mine. It was mine. But what was it? And, more important, what did I do with it?

I ran Greseley to ground early next morning in the kitchen with his feet up on a trestle and a pot of ale beside him.

‘It’s all very well—but what am I expected to do with it?’

He looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘Nothing but enjoy the profits, mistress.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It doesn’t matter whether you do or not. It’s yours.’

He was watching me closely, as if to test my reaction. I did not see why he should, so I said what I wanted to say.

‘It does matter.’ And in that moment it struck home how much it meant to me. ‘It matters to me more than you’ll ever know.’ I glowered. ‘You won’t patronise me, Master Greseley. You will explain it all to me, and then I will understand. The property is mine and I want to know how it works.’ He laughed. He actually laughed, a harsh bark of a noise. ‘Now what?’

‘I knew I was right.’

‘About what?’

‘You, Mistress Perrers. Sit down, and don’t argue. I’m about to give you your first lesson.’

So I sat and Greseley explained to me the brilliance for a woman in my position of the legal device of ‘enfeoffment to use’. ‘The property is yours, and it remains yours,’ he explained. ‘But you allow others to administer it for you—for a fee, of course. You must choose wisely—a man with an interest in the property so that he will administer it well. Do you understand?’ I nodded. ‘You grant that man legal rights over the land, but you retain de facto control. See? You remain in ultimate ownership but need do nothing toward the day-to-day running of it.’

‘And can I make the agreement between us as long or as short as I wish?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I suppose I need a man of law to oversee this for me?’

‘It would be wise.’

‘What is this property that I now own, but do not own?’

‘Living accommodations—with shops below.’

‘Can I look at it?’

‘Of course.’

What else did I need to ask? ‘Was there any money leftover from the transaction?’

‘You don’t miss much, do you?’ He tipped out the contents of the purse at his belt and pushed across the board a small number of coins.

‘You said I needed a man of law.’ He regarded me without expression. ‘I suppose you would be my man of law.’

‘I certainly could. Next time, Mistress Perrers, we will work in partnership.’

‘Will there be a next time?’

‘Oh, I think so.’ I thought the slide of his glance had a depth of craftiness.

‘Is that good or bad—to work in partnership?’

Greseley’s pointed nose sniffed at my ignorance. He knew I could not work alone. But it seemed good to me. What strides I had made. I was a wife of sorts, even if I spent my nights checking Janyn’s tally sticks and columns of figures, and now I was a property owner. A little ripple of pleasure brushed along the skin of my forearms as the idea engaged my mind and my emotions. I liked it. And in my first deliberate business transaction, I pushed the coins back toward him.

‘You are now my man of law, Master Greseley.’

‘I am indeed, Mistress Perrers.’

The coins were swept into his purse with alacrity.

And where did I keep the evidence of my ownership? I kept it hidden on my person between shift and overgown, tied with a cord, except when I took it out and touched it, running my fingers over the wording that made it all official. There it was for my future. Security. Permanence. The words were like warm hands around mine on a winter’s day. Comforting.

I did not dislike Greseley as much as I once had.

Plague returned. The same dreaded pestilence that had struck without mercy just before my birth came creeping stealthily into London. It was the only gossip to be had in the streets, the market, the alehouses. It was different this time, so they said in whispers. The plague of children, they called it, striking cruelly at infants but not the hale and hearty who had reached adult years.

But the pestilence, stepping over our threshold, proved to be a chancy creature.

Of us all it was Janyn who was struck down. He drew aside the sleeve of his tunic to reveal the whirls of red spots as we gathered for dinner on an ordinary day. The meal was abandoned. Without a word Janyn walked up the stairs and shut himself in his chamber. Terror, rank and loathsome, set its claws into the Perrers household.

The boy disappeared overnight. Greseley found work in other parts of the city. Mistress Damiata fled with disgraceful speed to stay with her cousin whose house was uncontaminated. Who nursed Janyn? I did. I was his wife, even if he had never touched me unless his calloused fingers grazed mine when he pointed out a mistake in my copying. I owed him at least this final service.

From that first red and purple pattern on his arms there was no recovery.

I bathed his face and body, holding my breath at the stench of putrefying flesh. I racked my brains for anything Sister Margery, the Infirmarian at the Abbey, had said of her experiences of the pestilence. It was not much but I acted on it, flinging the windows of Janyn’s chamber wide to allow the escape of the corrupt air. For my own safety I washed my hands and face in vinegar, eating bread soaked in Janyn’s best wine—how Signora Damiata would have ranted at the waste—but for Janyn nothing halted the terrifying, galloping progress of the disease. The empty house echoed around me, the only sound the harsh breathing from my stricken husband and the approaching footsteps of death.

Was I afraid for myself?

I was, but if the horror of the vile swellings could pass from Janyn to me, the damage was already done. If the pestilence had the ability to hop across the desk where we sat to keep the ledgers, I was already doomed. I would stay and weather the storm.

A note appeared under the bedchamber door. I watched it slide slowly, from my position slumped on a stool from sheer exhaustion as Janyn laboured with increasingly distressed breaths. The fever had him in its thrall. Stepping softly to the door, listening to someone walking quietly away, I picked up the note and unfolded the single page, curiosity overcoming my weariness. Ha! No mystery after all. I recognised Greseley’s script with ease, and the note was written as a clerk might write a legal treatise. I sank back to the stool to read.

When you are a widow you have legal right to a dower—one third of the income of your husband’s estate. You will not get it.

You have by law forty days in which to vacate the house to allow the heir to take his inheritance. You will be evicted within the day.

As your legal man my advice: take what you can. It is your right. You will get nothing else that is due to you.

A stark warning. A chilling one. Leaving Janyn in a restless sleep, I began to search.

Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Signora Damiata had done a thorough job of it while her brother lay dying. His room of business, the whole house was empty of all items of value. There were no bags of gold in Janyn’s coffers. There were no scrolls, the ledgers and tally sticks had gone. She had swept through the house, removing everything that might become an attraction for looters. Or for me. Everything from my own chamber had been removed. Even my new mantle—especially that—the only thing of value I owned.

I had nothing.

Above me in his bedchamber, Janyn shrieked in agony, and I returned to his side. I would do for him what I could, ruling my mind and my body to bathe and tend this man who was little more than a rotting corpse.

In the end it all happened so fast. I expect it was Janyn’s wine that saved me, but the decoction of green sage—from the scrubby patch in Signora Damiata’s yard—to dry and heal the ulcers and boils did nothing for him. Before the end of the second day he breathed no more. How could a man switch from rude health to rigid mortality within the time it took to pluck and boil a chicken? He never knew I was there with him.

Did I pray for him? Only if prayer was lancing the boils to free the foul-smelling pus. Now the house was truly silent around me, holding its breath, as I placed the linen gently over his face, catching a document that fell from the folds at the foot of the bed. And then I sat on the stool by Janyn’s body, not daring to move for fear that death noticed me too.

It was the clatter of a rook falling down the chimney that brought me back to my senses. Death had no need of my soul, so I opened the document that I still held. It was a deed of ownership in Janyn’s name, of a manor in West Peckham, somewhere in Kent. I read it over twice, a tiny seed of a plan beginning to unfurl in my mind. Now, here was a possibility. I did not know how to achieve what I envisaged, but of course I knew someone who would. How to find him?

I walked slowly down the stairs, halting halfway when I saw a figure below me.

‘Is he dead?’ Signora Damiata was waiting for me in the narrow hall.

‘Yes.’

She made the sign of the cross on her bosom, a cursory acknowledgement. Then flung back the outer door and gestured for me to leave. ‘I’ve arranged for his body to be collected. I’ll return when the pestilence has gone.’

‘What about me?’

‘I’m sure you’ll find some means of employment.’ She barely acknowledged me. ‘Plague does not quench men’s appetites.’

‘And my dower?’

‘What dower?’ She smirked.

‘You can’t do this,’ I announced. ‘I have legal rights. You can’t leave me homeless and without money.’

But she could. ‘Out!’

I was pushed through the doorway onto the street. With a flourish and rattle of the key, Signora Damiata locked the door and strode off, stepping through the waste and puddles.

It was a lesson to me in brutal cold-heartedness when dealing with matters of coin and survival. And there I was, sixteen years old to my reckoning, widowed after little more than a year of marriage, cast adrift, standing alone outside the house. It felt as if my feet were chained to the ground. Where would I go? Who would give me shelter? Reality was a bitter draught. London seethed around me but offered me no refuge.

‘Mistress Perrers.’

‘Master Greseley!’

For there he was—I hadn’t had to find him after all—emerging from a rank alley to slouch beside me. Never had I been so relieved to see anyone, but not without a shade of rancour. He may have lost a master too, but he would never be short of employment or a bed for the night in some merchant’s household. He eyed the locked door, and then me.

‘What did the old besom give you?’ he asked without preamble.

‘Nothing,’ I retorted. ‘The old besom has stripped the house.’ And then I smiled, waving the document in front of his eyes. ‘Except for this. She overlooked it. It’s a manor.’

Those eyes gleamed. ‘Is it, now? And what do you intend to do with it?’

‘I intend you to arrange that it becomes mine, Master Greseley. Enfeoffment for use, I think you called it.’ I could be a fast learner, and I had seen my chance. ‘Can you do that?’

He ran his finger down his nose. ‘Easy for those who know how. I can—if it suits me—have it made over to you as the widow of Master Perrers, and now femme sole.’

A woman alone. With property. A not unpleasing thought that made my smile widen.

‘And will it suit you, Master Greseley?’ I slid what I hoped was a persuasive glance at the clerk. ‘Will you do it for me?’

His face flushed under my gaze as he considered.

I softened my voice, adding a plea. ‘I cannot do this on my own, Master Greseley.’

He grinned, a quick slash of thin lips and discoloured teeth. ‘Why not? We have, I believe, the basis of a partnership here, Mistress Perrers. I’ll work for you, and you’ll put business my way—when you can. I’ll enfeoff the manor to the use of a local knight—and myself.’

So that was it. Master Greseley was not entirely altruistic, but willing with a little female enticement. How easily men could be seduced with a smile and outrageous flattery offered in sweet tones. He extended his hand. I looked at it: not over clean but with long, surprisingly elegant fingers that could work magic with figures far more ably than I. There on the doorstep of my erstwhile home, I handed over the document and we shook hands as I had seen Janyn do when confirming some transaction with a customer.

As I felt the grip of his rough clasp, I considered what I had just done. And how astonishing it was to me that an unpleasing face was no detriment to my achieving it. I had—as Greseley would say—a business partner.

‘You’ll not cheat me, will you?’ I frowned and made my voice stern.

‘Certainly not!’ His outrage was amusing. And then his brows twitched together suspiciously. ‘Where will you go?’

‘There’s only one place.’ I had already made my decision. There really was no other to be made. It would be a roof over my head and food in my belly, and far preferable to life on the streets or docks as a common whore. ‘Back to St Mary’s,’ I said. ‘They’ll take me in. I’ll stay there and wait for better times. Something will turn up.’

Greseley nodded. ‘Not a bad idea, all in all. But you’ll need this. Here.’ He rummaged in the purse at his belt and brought out two gold coins. ‘I’ll return these to you. They should persuade the Abbess to open the doors to you for a little time at least. Remember, though. You now owe me. I want it back.’

‘Where do I find you?’ I shouted, coarse as a fishwife, as he put distance between us, the proof of ownership of the manor at West Peckham stowed in his tunic.

‘Try the Tabard. At Southwark.’

That was as much as I got.

So I went back, where I had vowed I would never return, wheedling a ride in a wagon empty of all but the rank whiff of fish. I might own a manor and a house in London—I left both precious documents in Greseley’s care—but I was in debt to the tune of two gold nobles. Needs must. The coins did indeed open the doors of the Abbey to me, but they bought me no luxury. It was made clear to me that I must earn my keep and so I found myself joining the ranks of the conversa. A lay sister toiling for the benefit of the Brides of Christ. Perhaps it was the stink of salt cod clinging to my skirts that worked against me.

Why did I accept it?

Because the sanctuary it offered me was a temporary measure. I knew it, deep within me. I had supped in the outside world and found it to my taste. In those days of silent labour, a determination was born in me. I would never become a nun. I would never wed again at anyone’s dictates. At some point in the future, in Greseley’s clever hands, my land would bring me enough coin to allow me to live as a femme sole in my own house with my own bed and good clothing and servants at my beck and call.

I liked the image. It spurred me on as I scrubbed the nun’s habits and beat the stains from their wimples to restore them to pristine whiteness. I would make something of my life beyond the governance of others, neither nun nor wife nor whore. I would amount to something in my own right. But for now I was safe in the familiar surroundings of the Abbey, accepting the unchanging routine of work and prayer.

I’ll wait for better times, I had said to Greseley.

And I would wait with as much patience as I could muster. But not for too long, I prayed as my arms throbbed from wielding the heavy hoe amongst the Abbey cabbages.

I regretted the loss of my warm mantle.