“Ah, surely you’d not listen to villainous talk about me, sir?”
“That would depend on how untrue the talk was, wouldn’t it, John?”
“But you know I’m an honest trader, sir. I’d never break the town’s laws.”
“Really? By the way, did you hear about Isabella Gilbard?”
John forced his voice to sound casual, as if he had not only not heard of her, he was sure he wouldn’t want to either. “Isabella? No, I don’t think so.”
“I let her buy her freedom from my manor so she could marry. She was wed in June, but now I hear she has given birth to a bouncing boy-only three months later.”
“It’s a terrible thing when people behave like that,” said John, nodding his head sagely. “Young churls today don’t have the manners their grandparents had.”
“Quite. It means she was fornicating before she was married; before she bought her freedom. I suppose I shall have to impose the lairwite on her.”
John pursed his lips. The lairwite was the fine imposed on bondwomen who proved to have weaker morals than they should, and who gave birth without first going through the formal and necessary process of marrying. The fine could be enforced when the woman subsequently married in an attempt to conceal her incontinence. And John knew as well as the knight that there was another fine, the childwite, for the man who had made her pregnant.
But the fine was imposed on women who were unfree-serfs. It existed to prevent villeins from breeding large numbers of bastards who would then become a drain on an estate. And John was not involved with an unfree woman. He smiled up at the knight confidently. Baldwin seemed to have forgotten his presence for a moment, and was lost in thought, staring over the road at the new church. John was interested despite himself.
“But, Sir Baldwin, surely you wouldn’t pursue her now, not when you’ve already freed her?”
The knight turned slowly and studied him, and suddenly John wanted very much to be somewhere else. Baldwin was known to be kindly and generous, a man who treated all men with respect and courtesy, but now the knight’s eye was cold, his voice scornful. “John of Irelaunde, I am the Keeper of the King’s Peace. It is impossible for me to condone deliberate flouting of the law-by anyone. How would it look if I were to allow Isabella to commit this crime without punishment? Other criminals might think me an easy touch. Oh no, John. I have my office to consider in her case-and in others.”
“Well, Sir Baldwin, I’m glad I’ve never been guilty of such a crime,” John said lightly, but he avoided Baldwin’s gaze.
“You’ve never given birth to a child, you mean? Or do you mean you’ve never tasted the pleasures of illicit love? Are you so innocent, I wonder?”
John grinned weakly. The knight’s words were hitting too close to the mark, and there was a terrible certainty building in him that Baldwin had guessed about his nightly trysts. The direction of this conversation was not to John’s liking, especially when another thought struck him: if news had already come to Baldwin, the gossip in the town must have reached a level which could put him-and her-in some little danger.
It was getting late. John made some apology and scurried off homeward, all the way conscious of the knight’s stare on his back. It was a relief to slam his gate shut behind him. He rested for a moment with his back to it as if bracing himself against a sudden attack. The knight had unsettled him, that was a fact. “Sodding bastard! He was winding me up!”
And back down the hill, as soon as Baldwin saw the little man dart inside his yard, for all the world like a rabbit pelting into its warren at the sound of the hunter and his dogs, the knight’s face broke into a smile. He gave a loud guffaw, and had to lean on a fence while he laughed until the tears came.
“And now take the hint and leave the good wives of Crediton alone, you lecherous little git!”
Sitting before the door to the inn, idly watching the traffic in the street, Jack the smith raised another quart of ale and gulped.
With the slight breeze, he felt refreshingly cool after the searing heat of his smithy, and it was a relief to be able to sit and drink away his thirst, nodding affably to the townspeople as they passed. Few would ignore the smith, for he was an essential part of the town. When tools snapped, he mended them; when horses needed reshoeing, he made them; when cartwheels broke, he had to fit the new steel rims to protect the wood. In all aspects of life, there was little that didn’t require his skills at one point or another.
He finished his drink and collected his small barrel, newly refilled with ale, which he installed on his little handcart, and set off home. There were two chains he must repair, taking out links and replacing them with new ones, an old knife that needed a fresh rivet in its hilt, and he must forge a new axehead. It would take time to finish all that, and he hoped his apprentice was stoking the fires and getting the temperature up.
It was when he had only travelled a few yards, while he was reviewing these jobs, that he saw the man sitting huddled at the side of the road, clapper in hand and bowl before him, calling out to all passers-by. “God bless you, lady!” and “God save you, sir!” as the coins were hurriedly tossed to him, while the donors averted their gaze and hurried by.
Jack strode on, his face fixed firmly forward, prognathous features unmoving.
“Sir? Can you spare something for-”
“Not for you, pervert!”
“But we need food and drink, same as any man, sir. Couldn’t you-”
“Leave me alone! You sickening bastard, you should never have been born. You make me want to vomit-aye, and all others who are normal!”
The leper stared at him, and opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so, the smith reached down and picked up a large cobblestone, weighing it in his hand. The light of a kind of madness was in Jack’s eye, and the leper was suddenly afraid. He looked away nervously, certain that at any moment the heavy stone would crack against his head. There came a loud thud, and when he looked to his side, he saw the dent on the wall where the cobble had struck.
“Don’t ever talk to me again, or next time I’ll smash your skull!” Jack hissed malevolently, and walked on.
Neither he nor the leper noticed the man leaning against the wall of the inn. Neither of them knew he was a guard at Matthew Coffyn’s house-nor that he had overheard their argument. At the moment he wasn’t greatly interested in what had passed between the leper and the bigot, but if the guard, William, had one conviction, it was that any piece of information might become useful. He had docketed and stored the exchange in his mind before the smith was swallowed up in the crowds. 4
T homas Rodde leaned on his staff and rested while he waited. The old man at the gate had refused to let him enter until his master had agreed. It made Rodde give a fleeting smile. As if anyone who was healthy would want to walk into a leper hospital!
The sun was warm on his tattered tunic and robe. It was good to feel the heat. For so many months now he had been living in the north, where the sun was insipid compared to the south.
Thomas could remember hot, balmy days in the southern lands. He had gone there with his father several times when he was apprenticed to the craft, visiting places of pilgrimage in far-flung countries like Castile and Rome. But that was before he had become leprous: that life was over. Sometimes he recalled it with a kind of wonder, like a magical dream in which reality could be suspended for a while, but he tried to avoid thinking about how he had lived. There was no point: he was determined not to torment himself with wondering how things might have been, or how he might have developed. After all, he could easily have died in a foolish accident at any time. It was as likely as his managing to live to a ripe old age.