The Swanne, Southwark
The Year of Our Lord 1406
In the seventh year of the reign of Henry IV
My father would oft remark that the day I was born, the heavens erupted in protest. Great clods of ice rained upon poor unsuspecting folk, and the winds were so bitter and cold, those who could remained indoors. Any sod who couldn’t, risked death in the fields along with the shivering, miserable beasts. He didn’t tell me to arouse my guilt, but to remind me to hold up my head and stand proud. I may have been born the daughter of a peasant, but it wasn’t every day a lass could say she made her mark upon the world.
I came into being on the 21st of April 1352, a day henceforth known as “Black Saturday” and not because the woman who’d carried me the last nine months died moments before I arrived, casting a ghastly pall over what should have been a celebration.
The story I grew up with was that my mother’s fate was very nearly my own as, even in death, her womb refused to expel me. It wasn’t until the midwife, seeing the rippling of her stomach as if some devil-sent spawn was writhing within, understood the Grim Reaper had not yet departed the room. He was awaiting another soul to carry forth. Wishing him gone, she snatched his sacred scythe from his gnarly hand and ripped open my mother’s body and, amidst blood and swollen entrails, pulled me forth like a sacrificial offering of old.
My father, hearing the screams of dismay and fear, forwent the sacred rules of the birthing chamber and burst through the door. Determining that the shade of blue coloring my flesh, while it looked fine upon a noblewoman’s mantle, was no color for a babe to be wearing, hoisted me off the bloodied rushes where the midwife had dropped me and, ordering her to cut the umbilicus, swung me by my ankles, slapping my flesh until it turned a much happier puce.
Only then did I bawl—loud, long, and lusty.
The midwife promptly fainted; my father gathered me to his chest, laughing and crying while I hollered noisily, competing with the raging storms outside.
It was decided then and there (or maybe this is something I invented later) that though I was born under the sign of Taurus, I was a child of Mars—a fighter who stared death in the face and scared him witless. Papa declared, and the midwife—who came to at my screams—concurred: the moment I burst into life, the Reaper picked up his robes and fled the room. He even forgot his scythe.
But Mars was not alone when he blessed me with the blood and spirit of a warrior. Oh no. For while Papa, unaware Mama had died as he tried to soften my cries and sought for something in which to swaddle me, Venus, Mars’s wanton bride, peered over his shoulder. Because she liked what she saw, she leaned forward and placed the sweetest of kisses upon my puckered brow. Not finished, she turned me over and pressed one each upon my peach-like buttocks as well. In doing this, the goddess of love and ruler over all Taureans thrice blessed me with her own deep desires. Desires that lay dormant for many years until they gushed forth, destroying all in their path.
God was preoccupied tending to my mother’s swiftly departed soul and Papa’s grief. His distraction allowed the pagan gods to claim me—Mars and Venus, Ares and Aphrodite—Roman or Greek, I’m partial to both.
Christened Eleanor, it was the name I wore for many years before fate forced me to change it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, something I’m inclined to do and pray you’ll forgive me.
The years went by and the Wheel of Fortune turned until it forced God—who I swear until then barely acknowledged my presence, for He never heard my prayers—to notice me.
Before my monthly courses began to flow, my father passed from this earthly realm leaving me in the care of the woman who had elevated him beyond his wildest dreams. The Lady Clarice, a formerly wealthy landowner whose entire family and many servants died during the Botch, hired my father, by then an itinerant brogger who brokered wool for a living, as steward of her neglected sheep and fallow lands. Papa proved worthy of my lady’s faith, increasing her holdings and the quality of her flock. Eternally grateful, or so she said, she made my father promises that, upon his death, she failed to keep. Foremost was that she would care for me if he died—unless you count being taken into service at the manor as caring. I was ten years of age.
Before handing me over to the housekeeper, Mistress Bertha, my lady imparted some words of wisdom. She told me I’d but one gift, the most valuable thing a woman could own. Misunderstanding her meaning, I waited eagerly for what she was about to bestow. Turns out, I was already in possession of it. My lady was referring to my queynte—my cunt. But, she made sure to emphasize, it was only of worth if it was untouched, pure and virginal. Then, it was an opportunity—something to be used to one day better my situation by marrying well. I was ordered to protect my maidenhead as the Crusaders did the walls of Jerusalem (though, one presumes, with more success).
From here on, said Lady Clarice, my body would be under siege—from the attentions of men and, much worse, the naturally lascivious thoughts a woman possessed and which I admit were already beginning to take up a great deal of space in my head. According to Father Roman, the village priest, women were the gateway of the devil, insatiable beasts who devoured hapless men with their longings. I recall looking at May, my rather plain and plump friend and fellow-maid, thinking the only kind of man she’d devour would be the cooked kind. Regardless, we women were all cast in the same lustful role, high born, low born, and anywhere in the middle. Even me, only recently thrust from childhood.
Rather than God, it was the man I thought of as The Poet who saved me from falling victim to my naturally lewd nature. At least, that’s how others tell it—especially The Poet. In fact, he’s always taken credit for my story.
I call him The Poet because that was how he was first introduced to me. Later, I came to know him as someone possessed of many guises: a wondrous spinner of tales, a wine-merchant’s son, a Londoner, John of Gaunt’s lackey, a diplomat, a watcher, a cuckold, even an accused rapist. Eventually, I would come to know him in a very different way.
Regardless, he was the man who took my tale from me and became its custodian. I want to believe he meant well in committing me to verse, that he sought to rewrite my history in a way that gave me mastery over it. Mayhap, he did that. He also protected me from my sins—not the lustful kind. Despite what you may think, bodily desire doesn’t make the angels cower. Rather, in writing my tale, The Poet sought to shield me from the consequences of my darker deeds by distracting those who would call me to account. For, while folk are titillated and shocked by his portrait, they don’t see me. In retrospect, it was a clever maneuver. I never thanked him properly. Perhaps this is what this is—a delayed thank-you as well as a setting to rights of sorts. I confess, there are some versions of me he crafted I quite like and may yet keep. We’ll see.
Alas, he’s gone, and I’ll never really know exactly why he portrayed me the way he did, with boundless avarice, unchecked lust, vulgarity, overweening pride, and more besides.
The Poet equipped me with every sin.
Betraying my trust in him, using my secret fears and desires, he exposed my weaknesses—my strengths too—and turned them into something for others’ amusement. Oh, amused they were—and still are, for I hear them discussing the wanton Alyson, the Wife of Bath, and her many flaws. Mind you, they’re a little afeared as well, and I don’t mind that so much. Either way, he’s dead (may God assoil him), and it’s time for me to wrest my tale back and tell it in my own way. As it really happened. And, when my story is complete, you can judge for yourself whose version you prefer: the loud, much-married, lusty woman dressed in scarlet who traveled the world in order to pray at all the important shrines yet learned nothing of humility, questioned divinity, boasted of her conquests and deceits, and demanded mastery over men. Or the imperfect child who grew into an imperfect woman—experienced, foolish, and clever too—oft at the same time. Thrice broken, twice betrayed, once murdered, and once a murderer, who mended herself time after time and rose to live again in stories and in truth—mostly.
All this despite five bloody husbands.
All this, despite the damn Poet.