ONE MORNING IN MID-MAY, a month after she’d last seen Henry, Bellebelle rose before dawn. She put on a rose-colored kirtle, making sure the medallion of emeralds was tucked under her chemise and would not be seen. She wore it every day, right on top of Morgaine’s necklace of blue stones. She had thought touching anything of the wicked Fleming’s would be hateful to her, like holding a talisman of the Horned One. To her surprise, she had derived a curious strength from wearing it, almost as if it were a holy relic.
She broke her fast with bread and ale, then walked to the village green where she hoped to find a cart going to London. She was planning to see Geoffrey then continue on to Gropecuntlane and collect the money she had left with Hawke eight years ago. As always, the prospect of going to London excited her. In her heart she was really a city lass, the sights, sounds, and smells of London more to her taste than the dull country quiet.
Although there wasn’t a day she didn’t think of Henry, nor an hour that passed when she didn’t miss him, the pain had settled into a dull ache that was bearable. Bellebelle felt a slight twinge of guilt about going to see Geoffrey, but really there was no reason for it. After all, she hadn’t actually promised Henry she wouldn’t see her son. He had assumed she wouldn’t, but was that her doing? Besides, she had queen Eleanor’s agreement, didn’t she? That was what counted. When she thought about the queen a smile came to her lips. If she never saw her again, Bellebelle knew she had found a true friend; Geoffrey would always be safe in her keeping.
A cart rumbled by, and she persuaded the farmer and his wife to let her ride with them. She crouched down amid baskets brimming with red and green cabbages, strings of brown onions, fragrant bunches of leeks, yellow turnips, and baby carrots.
The farmer could not hide his interest. All too frequently he kept turning his head to look at her. The farmer’s wife, round and solid as a wine cask, eyed her with dislike and suspicion throughout the journey.
Bellebelle ignored both of them, her thoughts still turning on Henry. Sooner or later he was bound to find out about her secret visits to Geoffrey. Even the queen wouldn’t be able to protect her if that happened. Her heart jumped at the possibility. What would be the worst he could do? Make it impossible for her to see Geoffrey? Turn her out of the house and no longer provide for her? And if he did? Well, she didn’t have no wishbone where her backbone ought to be. Not anymore she didn’t. But she intended to be prepared—which was one of the reasons she was going to see Hawke.
The bells rang for Terce just as the cart pulled to a stop in East Smithfield near Tower Royal. Bellebelle thanked the farmer, then, ignoring his outstretched palm, deliberately put a silver penny into the goodwife’s hand. She was rewarded by an amazed smile and an invitation to return with them to Bermondsey. They would be leaving, said the goodwife, sometime in the very late afternoon between Nones and Vespers.
Bellebelle walked slowly toward the gleaming White Tower, its four turrets touched with fire in the morning sun. The goodwife’s whole manner had changed after Bellebelle paid her. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that folk were willing to overlook how they truly felt if money were involved. Once she had taken Geoffrey to St. Ethelred’s in Bermondsey for Sunday Mass. The priest had preached a sermon about how much easier it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Bellebelle had found that strange and still did. Anyone who lived in Southwark knew that money was akin to lifeblood. With it all things were possible; without it you might as well be dead. Even Geoffrey had not been able to explain the sermon to her satisfaction.
Later, when Bellebelle asked Henry about it, he had called it a parable, not meant to be taken literally. He had pointed out that animals always did peculiar things in Holy Writ. Still, it had puzzled her. If what the priest said were so, why had she never seen anyone with wealth, including Henry himself, try to get rid of it, like money was truly a bad thing to have? Did people not want to get into heaven then? If the parable about the camel was not meant to be followed, why did the priest bother to tell people about it? It made no sense.
Yet something about the tale, as in all the tales she heard in Holy Writ, found a response within her. Perhaps Holy Writ wasn’t at fault—but that hardly no one ever followed what it said. Now wasn’t that a thought to be going on with!
Geoffrey was pleased to see her and boasted of how he had almost finished learning the Trivium and would soon graduate to a study of the Quadrivium.
She had no idea what he meant, but he looked happy and confident, which was all that mattered.
“Are you lonely,” Bellebelle asked, “what with the queen and everyone gone to Normandy for the Easter court?”
“No. I’m too busy. I have Master Adelhart, the tutor, all to myself, and by the time Father comes back I’ll have learned ever so much more.”
“You must go now, Mistress.” The steward approached them, glancing anxiously around him.
Although Bellebelle had been there a fair while, she felt she had just arrived. She and Geoffrey always had so much to say to each other.
“I understand. I’ll leave now.”
“You know you’re not to speak of seeing your son, or ever show yourself while the king is in residence.”
“No. Never.”
“If you don’t mind—someone might see you and ask awkward questions.”
They were in a deserted section of the kitchen courtyard, and the few people she could see were paying no attention to them. But the steward was not satisfied until he had seen her safely outside the gates of Tower Royal. Poor man. She felt sorry for him, trying to follow two opposing orders—Henry’s and Eleanor’s.
Bellebelle passed through Aldgate and into the city proper. De Burgh’s head, still on the gate, could no longer be recognized; the ravens had picked it clean. Bellebelle knew she should feel pity for him, but she was glad he’d gone to his doom, and there it was.
On her left a group of lepers begged for alms. She dropped a few silver pennies into a filthy hand that was half-eaten away. The sight moved her to pity and gratitude that she was not in such a horrible state. There was the familiar sight of Holy Trinity Priory on her right, a small Benedictine convent and cemetery on her left, then the street of market stalls selling fresh strawberries, mulberries, plums, and cherries. From the next street over, a shoe-smith’s forge rang so loudly she thought her ears would burst; the sight of a barber carrying a basin filled with blood made her sick to her belly.
She turned off onto a narrow street intersected with many lanes, slipped into a sinkhole, then fell almost ankle deep into a torrent of filthy water running through the deep gutters. Snapping dogs and hollow-eyed urchins, crawling with vermin, preyed upon piles of garbage. Two ruffians shouting curses ran down the street, almost knocking her down. The overall stench was enough to put you off your feed for days.
But this was London. As much a part of her as her own bones and blood. She felt truly alive for the first time in—well, she couldn’t even remember how long.
Bellebelle found herself on Gropecuntlane without at first recognizing it, the street had changed so much in the eight years since she’d been here.
“Is this near Gropecuntlane?” she asked a man carrying a bucket.
“This is Gropecuntlane. Or used to be. Groppecountelane is what we calls it now.” He winked. “Come up in the world it has. Just like the tavern down the street.” She followed his pointing finger to where a brand-new sign had replaced the Blue Cock sign. “Lion and Eagle be the new name.” He eyed her. “From around these parts, was ye?”
“I was.” She looked at him unblinking. “I were a whore. On this very lane.”
He appeared startled, then smiled and passed on. Bellebelle felt foolishly pleased with herself. Such a relief to tell the truth straight out like that.
Now she looked around her wonderingly, hardly able to believe her eyes. To think this prosperous and respectable street was Gropecuntlane. The tavern seemed brand-new, freshly painted, with another small building added to it. The houses glistened with coats of red and blue paint. There was an alehouse now, and a new pie shop with a long line of customers right next to the cookshop. Her eyes returned to the scarlet sign with its rough likeness of a gold lion and eagle. The same tavern where she and Henry had met again, now bore his—and Eleanor’s—name. How he would laugh at that. She must be sure to tell him, she thought, before remembering, with a stab of pain, that she was no longer in a position to tell him anything.
She swallowed the tears that welled up, and stared at the top of the street. Also new were the row of stationary carts where people were buying wood, charcoal, and water. She began to walk slowly along the street, then stopped.
Where was the brothel-house? Sweet Marie, she was standing almost directly in front of it. The house was almost unrecognizable with its rich new color of blue paint, plum-colored hinged shutters, and fancy curlicues decorating the door casement.
Her heart beating like a drum—she was still fearful of the brothelmaster, she realized—Bellebelle knocked on the door. It was opened by a neatly dressed young man.
“Yes?” He eyed her up and down. “Applying for a position?”
“I be here to see Hawke.”
“Who wants him?”
“Just say—someone as would like to see him.”
“Wait here.”
After a few minutes Hawke appeared, filling the doorway. He had grown stouter. Scowling, he glanced down at her, his scar livid and fearsome as ever.
“Well, what you want, girl? Looking for a position, are you?” He was dressed like a man of means, in red leather boots and black tunic. A black velvet cap covered his hairless head and a heavy gold chain lay on his chest.
“We’re full up at present, but—” His wintery eyes narrowed. “Don’t I knows you from somewhere? Worked for me, did you? I never forgets one of me girls. Seems like … wait … it’s right on the tip of me—by the Mass, it’s Bellebelle, isn’t it?” He gave her a brief smile that showed rotting teeth. “Come in, come in.”
Inside everything looked clean and freshly painted, with green rushes on the floor—unheard of in her day. Bellebelle followed him down the narrow passage into the chamber she remembered so well. This too had been painted, and now boasted a large polished oak table set with several pewter goblets, a silver pitcher, heavy pewter candlesticks with tall white tapers. In one corner stood two iron-banded chests, and there were several cushioned stools scattered about. Hawke pointed to a stool. Bellebelle sat down, her fingers laced tightly together.
“Marry, but I expected to see you back here years ago.” He actually seemed pleased to see her. “You looks sweet and toothsome as ever, but I would have taken you for a country lass in that garb. Come back to work, has you?” He stood over her, arms folded across his chest, head cocked to one side, lips pursed.
“No. I be finished with whoring for good.”
“Shame. I could sell the services of the king’s former whore for a bloody fortune, I could.” Hawke walked over to the table and poured himself a goblet of red wine from the silver pitcher.
“So’s you once told me.” Bellebelle shook her head when he offered her a goblet.
“Speaks right proper now, I notice, don’t you?” He peered at her. “Found out about you, did he?”
Bellebelle nodded and glanced down at her fingers.
“Now you can’t say as I didn’t warn you. But he probably would’ve grown tired of you anyways. It’s the way of the world, and that’s a fact. Men always wanting new furrows to seed. But you lasted nigh on eight years, a long time for Henry Plantagenet from all what I hear about his lecherous ways. Even has a son by him, don’t you?”
“How’d you know all this?”
“You been gone too long, girl.” Hawke wagged a playful finger at her. “The brothels and taverns hear everything first, remember? Lion leave you well provided for? Reckon he must have or you’d be wanting work.”
“I’ve got a bit put by. Won’t starve anyways.”
Hawke snorted. “You always did have a head for money, Belle. But you let your heart be master just like all cunts does.” His eyes grew speculative. “Come for what you left then, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
Hardly daring to breathe, Bellebelle watched while he walked over to one of the iron-bound chests, squatted on his knees, unlocked it with a large rusty iron key, opened it, and lifted out a stained leather pouch, the same one Thomas Becket had given her in the tavern so long ago. He shook it and Bellebelle could hear the coins jangling. She closed her eyes and let out her breath in a long sigh. Thank the Holy Mother, Hawke had not played her false.
“There’s more here than you left,” he said, lumbering to his feet. “I borrowed your money so’s I wouldn’t have to go to Hakelot the Jew and pay usury. Want to count it?”
She shook her head. “I trust you. Why’d you need it?”
“Expansion, naturally. I bought the tavern next door, see, and the cookshop, put up the money for the pie shop as well, and have half-interest in the alehouse too. Of course, someone else has the running of them.” Hawke eyed her curiously.
“You be a woman of means now. What’re your plans then, Belle?”
“I don’t rightly know—yet. Me son, Geoffrey, going to be educated by the canons of St. Paul’s, then a career in the Church, so he don’t need me no more.”
“I should think not. His fortune’s made, I’d say. You’re free as a bird then, and still got your looks. Who’d a thought it, eh?” He shook his head in wonder. “Born under a lucky star you were, Belle, and that’s a fact. Thought about your future at all?”
“I was thinking that if I puts all me money together I might have enough to—” She stopped.
“To what?” Hawke prompted her. “Enough for a marriage dowry, mayhap? Plenty of men overlook you being a whore with enough silver to help them forget.”
“Never want to have a husband. Not for anything. Don’t need no one to care for me.” She paused. “I wants to do something for me-self. Something of me own. That no one can take away.”
Hawke gave a short laugh. “You don’t want much, do you? Eh, it’s a weary old world, Belle, for the likes of you and me. None of us gets what we want, and most of us settle for what we do get, and that’s a fact.”
Bellebelle was reminded of the conversation she had once had with Morgaine on the steps of the brothel-house in Southwark. What she had wanted then—to get out of the stews, to belong to only one man, to feel safe—had all come to pass. Some of it at least. Although not quite in the way she had imagined.
“Perhaps nothing ever be like you dreamed it would be,” she said slowly, “once you has it. That be what you mean?”
“Aye, that’ll do. You getting wiser with your years, girl, I’ll say that for you.”
From upstairs there was the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor; the ceiling rattled. Hawke gave an impatient sigh.
“By Christ, now what? Someone always be causing trouble.”
He walked to the door. “Best look into it.” He gave her the pouch. “You’ll find your money, like I said, and a bit extra for the use of it. I’m not a wealthy man, mind, but I pay me debts proper.”
Above, there was another loud noise. A female voice from one of the back cubicles shouted for quiet. From directly above, someone raised a drunken voice in song followed by a squeal of laughter. Bellebelle smiled at the familiar sounds that called up memories of Southwark, of Gytha and Morgaine. She rose and followed Hawke slowly to the door.
“Might build me an inn next,” Hawke said. “Somewhere outside London. After all, country’s at peace, thanks to the king, and growing all the time; trade’s increasing back and forth across the Channel. Means more travelers, which means more inns be needed, which means more customers wanting service, right?”
Bellebelle nodded. As Hawke opened the door for her, two young whores ran down the stairs and brushed by them.
“We be off to the cookshop, Hawke,” said one, over her shoulder. “No more customers to service. Won’t be long.”
Bellebelle watched them walk down the street talking and laughing. Something was different about them. What was it?
“They just left without asking you, Hawke. And weren’t wearing no striped cloaks!”
“Bloody whores don’t know their place, no more, they don’t. That’s ’cause of the new ordinance come out.” He raised his scraggly brows. “You mean you don’t know?”
“No.” Bellebelle was still staring at the whores in bewilderment. “What ordinance?”
“Well, it’s mostly meant for the Southwark stews ’cause most of the brothels be located on the Bankside, but I follows the new rules for brothels and whores just to be on the safe side.”
“New rules? I don’t understand.”
“Well, let’s see what I can recollect exactly. ‘That no stewholder … should let or stay any single woman, to go and come freely at all times when they listed. No stewholder to keep any woman to board, but she to board abroad at her pleasure …No single woman to be kept against her will that would leave her sin …’ It goes on with how much money I can take from the whores, how the whore has to lie with a customer all night if he pays, the bailiff has to inspect the stew every sennight, no married women or nuns to work here, and so forth. Marry, but there be over thirty items. Protects the whores and the customers too. Even I gets protection long as I be licensed.”
“You mean that whores don’t have to live in the brothel-house? They can leave whenever they wants?”
“Aye. That be part of it. Not like the old days, Belle, and that’s a fact.” He grinned. “Want to change your mind?”
“No.” Bellebelle felt a lump in her throat. “The king did this?”
“Aye. His council recently approved it, and the ordinance just been issued.” Hawke grunted. “Best see to the trouble upstairs now. Fare well, girl.”
“You too, Hawke.”
Bellebelle walked down the street in a daze. Her heart felt so full she thought it would burst. All those things she’d told Henry about her life in Southwark and Gropecuntlane—to think he’d actually listened, then gone and done something about it! She could hardly believe what Hawke had told her. At the top of Gropecunt—Groppecountelane now, she must remember that—Bellebelle turned for a last look. The tavern, the brothel-house—all behind her now. For good. She felt like singing aloud.
She passed the Strand, looked with a smile at the bridge bustling with foot-traffic, and walked back toward Aldgate. She passed the cemetery, then slowed her pace by the Benedictine convent. The bells from St. Paul’s rang for Nones. If she didn’t hurry she’d miss her ride with the farmer back to Bermondsey. Not that it mattered, she could always find another cart and driver to take her. There was no rush to return.
The convent had a small garden in front enclosed by a low wall of weathered gray stone. Odd, she’d never noticed that before. A nun in black habit was on her knees pulling out weeds. She smiled at Bellebelle, who came to a halt. The walk leading up to the convent door was paved with uneven flagstones scrubbed clean. Although located right in the heart of London the convent was very quiet, with a kind of soothing stillness.
Bellebelle had never been in a convent yet it felt so familiar, as if she had always known such a place without ever having been aware that she knew it. Impulsively, she turned up the walk. Elfgiva would say she was well and truly daft. Hawke would too. Even Henry would be astounded—but he would see the justice in it. Geoffrey would understand. So would Queen Eleanor. Even Morgaine, if she were here. Bellebelle knew she had enough, more than enough, for an ample dowry—and not for a husband. She smiled.
She had been avoiding this step all her life, Bellebelle realized, only to have come full circle. She had found what she had always been looking for, only to recognize it for the first time.
She had come home, safe, at last.