The Sempster's Tale (10 page)

Frevisse was still left wondering. In her childhood travels with her wide-wandering parents she had seen such oddly made bread in only one place, a Jew’s house where her parents had sheltered during a bad stretch of winter weather. She had been too young to understand much, only that her father had sometime befriended Master Ezra and now was being befriended in return, and that for some reason their stay with him had to be kept almost secret, as if being there were something wrong. Later, when she was older, she had understood that Christians were not supposed to mix with Jews or Jews with Christians, each supposed to look on the other as unclean and damned. But of Master Ezra and his household she had only good memories, and few though those were, they included watching Master Ezra’s wife make the Shabbat bread.

Challah. That had been what Master Ezra’s wife had called it, and said, “So we have made it for every Shabbat since the days of Moses and maybe longer. Longer than Rome was, or Pharaoh in Egypt.” Her name was gone from Frevisse’s memory, but her words had stayed, along with the opening out of time they had given her. Time as a vast thing longer than Frevisse’s life, longer than more lives than she could imagine, back past the stories of Rome her father sometimes told her, back to all the stories from the Bible that she knew had taken hundreds of years to happen.

Because of that she had remembered challah.

But why was it here, on Mistress Blakhall’s table? To judge by her startlement, she surely had not meant it to be seen. Which meant it was indeed something more to her than merely bread. But she couldn’t be Jewish, not here in England where there were no Jews. Could she?

Chapter 6

Relieved to be rid of the gold, Anne had been enjoying the nun’s company until sight of the challah jarred her out of all pleasure. She had forgotten to ask Daved if challah could be treated the same as other bread after the Shabbat; had put it away in a stone crock in a corner of the kitchen only to forget about it yesterday, too, when he was here. What had prompted Bette to remember it and set it out for a guest? But of course it was only bread to Bette, and to Anne’s relief neither Dame Frevisse nor her man gave sign it was anything else to them, either. And anyway, how could it be?

Still, keeping up a quiet courtesy was become an effort, and Anne made no demur when Dame Frevisse said, “Pleasant though your garden and company are, I fear we should return to St. Helen’s before the day is later. When would be best for me to come back?”

Her man said, displeased, “You didn’t finish today?”

‘No,“ Dame Frevisse said calmly, untouched by his displeasure, keeping her questioning look at Anne.

‘Tomorrow in the afternoon should do well, if you will,“ Anne said, because Daved would likely bring more of the gold when he came tonight.

‘Tomorrow then,“ Dame Frevisse agreed and stood up, and Anne willingly saw her through the house to the front door and stayed on the doorstep after their farewells, watching her, followed by her man, to the corner.

Only as she turned to go back inside did she see Mistress Upton waving for her to come join her in a cluster of other women from along the lane. Expecting to be asked who her visitors had been, she went to join them, but Mistress Upton burst out, short-breathed with excitement, “Have you heard? About the bishop of Salisbury?”

‘No. What of him?“ Anne asked, trying to put a face to the name. Bishop Ayscough of Salisbury was King Henry’s confessor, a royal councilor, and among those around the king much disliked for their greed and ill-governing but not someone much seen in London.

‘He’s been murdered!“ Mistress Smith exclaimed almost triumphantly. ”Pulled from the altar while saying Mass and murdered by his own people!“

Anne gasped. “In the cathedral? When?”

‘This Sunday just past. Not in his cathedral, no. Just off in Wiltshire somewhere.“ Mistress Upton waved a vague hand at the wide, strange world beyond London. ”Brother Michael was preaching in Grey Friars yard today. I was just coming away from there when the word came spreading. It will be to the other end of London by now.“

‘It’s not just some rumor?“

‘No! It’s certain! It’s straight from Westminster. It’s put the cat into the dovecote there, for certain! That’s two bishops murdered this year. And the duke of Suffolk. Two bishops and a duke. Has there ever been the like? Where’s it to end? You have to wonder.“

Anne shook her head, in disbelief more than answer. Angry troops at Portsmouth, tired of being told there was no money for their pay, had killed the much-hated bishop of Chichester in January. Then there had been the duke of Suffolk. And now the bishop of Salisbury. And the rebels were returned to Black Heath. Mistress Upton’s question was only too apt. Where
was
it to end?

‘You should come again to hear Brother Michael,“ Mistress Upton was urging. ”He’s saying it’s the Lollards. That it’s them profaning against God and not enough being done to stop them that’s bringing all this on us.“

‘I shouldn’t wonder it was some of them killed Bishop Ayscough,“ Mistress Hopton put in.

‘At least there’ll be no talk of making him a martyr,“ her daughter laughed. ”He was no Becket, the greedy-guts.“

‘It’s what the world is coming to, I have to ask,“ Mistress Upton insisted. ”And why isn’t the king doing something to mend it all? That’s what I ask.“

Anne began to retreat, saying, “I must go help Bette with supper now.”

‘So who was the nun?“ Mistress Smith asked. ”More business for you?“

Still retreating, Anne said something about a new commission for vestments from a lady in Oxfordshire, avoiding mention of the duke of Suffolk and smiling as if she felt like smiling, but when her door was shut behind her the smile disappeared, and she went into kitchen where Bette was washing the dishes from their guests and the challah sat cloth-covered on the table. With no word to Bette, whose back was turned, Anne took up the challah, went out into the garden, broke it into small bits, and scattered it along the path between the garden beds. The sparrows were swooping down for it before she turned away.

That done, and leaving Bette to the kitchen, Anne went upstairs, meaning to work on the St. Mark lion while the afternoon light held, hoping the needlework would keep her from other thoughts. From dead bishops and challah and the time to wait until Daved would be here tonight. Surely one of needlework’s comforts was that work as fine as for the lion kept her from too much thought, even of Daved. The underside couching she was using needed high skill, while to lay the gold to the lion’s shape so the beast did not simply lie flatly on the cloth but seemed about to move out from it with life of its own was another skill all of its own, and both of them requiring care rather than hurry.

She had made good progress, was pleased with her work when time for supper came, and afterwards she and Bette sat together in the garden, talking a little about their day’s visitors and the Suffolk vestments and Bishop Ayscough’s death, before Bette asked, “What of Mistress Grene’s boy? Has he shown himself yet?”

‘Not that I’ve heard, no,“ Anne said, with the guilty thought that tomorrow she would
have
to go and see Pernell. ”But surely he’s back by now,“ she added hopefully.

‘Otherwise he’s been gone too long, even for a boy’s jape,“ Bette said. ”And his mother so near her time, too.“

Anne’s guilt grew. Too taken up with Daved, she’d given neither Hal nor Pernell enough thought.

‘You don’t think maybe he’s gone to join the rebels, do you?“ Bette asked.

‘Hal?“ Anne laughed. ”Not Hal.“

‘Um,“ Bette said, unconvinced.

They sat then in silence for a while longer until, with the blue evening shadows deep around them and St. Paul’s spire gold against the sky with setting sunlight, Bette said she’d go bedward now. Anne helped her lay out her mattress and blanket on the kitchen floor, undid her headkerchief for her and helped her out of her over-gown and to lie down, Bette grumbling all the way about stiff fingers and stiffer knees. Anne knew the grumbling was to cover the arthritic’s pain; knew, too, that Bette feared what would become of her when she could no longer work at all, despite Anne had promised more than once she’d always have a home with her. Bette had been part of Matthew’s life, and Anne meant never to dishonor his memory by failing Bette in her need, but she also knew how fears could be stronger than assurances and likewise knew she was failing Bette in a different way by not bringing in a girl to help her—someone young enough for Bette to train but too young to be a threat of soon succeeding her. The trouble was that someone else here would be someone else to know about Daved, and Anne did not want that. Daved. Even his name was like the beating of her own heart. She would never make more chance-ridden the little they had. Not for Bette or anyone.

With the hearthfire covered and Bette still mumble-grumbling, Anne closed and barred the kitchen door and window, shutting the kitchen into night-darkness, and went into the equal darkness of the shut and shuttered shop, needing no light to find her way to the long-legged stool set beside the door where she could wait in quick reach of the latch. She had dressed well for the nun’s visit, had no need to change for Daved, and so was left with only the waiting. And thinking. What she most wanted to think on was Daved— to close all else but him out of her thoughts—but instead found herself thinking about the waiting.

Waiting now made up so much of her life. But there had been other waiting, too, and in the way thoughts had of going where they would, she found herself remembering the hours of waiting and praying beside Matthew’s bed through his last illness. Praying first that he be healed, and then— when that was past hope—for his easy passing out of pain.

That had not been given, either, and since then prayer had come less easily to her. Not because her faith was less, but because she doubted how much use her prayers were. God’s will was God’s will, and what good were prayers?

She had not said that to anyone. Most certainly had not said it to her priest. She had bought Masses for Matthew’s soul; still went to church on Sundays and holy days and some saints’ days; still made confession and Communion at Eastertide; had even confessed her sin of lust, naming no names, and faithfully did penance for it two days a week by fasting. Since her longing for Daved was unabated and she gave way to it whenever he was here, she didn’t know how much good that penance did her soul and did not want to know, because knowing would make no difference. She would have Daved while she might and, when she could not, then make what fuller recompense she could.

And, despite herself, she prayed that recompense would be long in coming.

So here she sat in darkness waiting for him. Worried because he wasn’t yet here. Afraid, as always, that something had happened to him. Knowing the day would come when he would never come to her again, that time would come when even these little whiles of him would end and she would maybe never know why. Life held so many perils, and more perils for him than for most because he was a merchant and traveled, and more beyond that because of his deadly secret. And there was always illness. And he might decide he loved his wife after all, or at least owed her the duty of faithfulness.

Anne’s hands in her lap clutched tightly to each other. Mostly she kept away from thought of Daved’s wife. Like her own marriage to Matthew, Daved’s marriage had been made for him, but he had been hardly fifteen at the time and not even met his wife before their wedding but, “There’s nothing against her,” he had said the one time he had talked of her. That had been before he and Anne first came together, when he had been warning her about himself. “She sees well to everything that’s ours when I’m gone. When I’m with her, she sees well to me. But for no one’s fault, except maybe mine for being gone so often and long, there’s never been more than duty between us.”

Because she and Daved had both known where their talk was going, what they both intended before they were done, Anne had been able to ask, “Do you… bed her?”

Gently, steadily, Daved had answered, “I do all a husband’s duties. It’s her right.”

‘Will she know about me?“

‘I will not tell her, no.“

But this woman whose name he had never said would be the one told if anything befell him. She would be the one able to grieve for him as his widow if, God forbid, he died. And Anne—whether she ever learned his fate or he simply never came back to her—would never be able openly to grieve at all. No matter what their love, all she could ever be was one of the secrets in his life. And the secrets in his life were beginning to frighten her more, the more she knew of them. This secret shifting of gold for one. He was very at ease with the secrecy of it. How much of such things did he do? That Raulyn was part of it still a little surprised her but…