Bath
The Year of Our Lord 1386
In the tenth year of the reign of Richard II
The next morning Geoffrey suggested we go for a walk. Alyson and I donned cloaks, boots, gloves, and all manner of protection, for it was bitterly cold and a light snow was falling. Geoffrey was determined to leave the house, so we obliged, taking the hounds. Jankin had not yet risen; no doubt he had worked until dawn again.
Once outside the walls, we trudged along the verge of the River Avon, admiring the ducks floating upon its slow-moving surface, waving to the few bargemen poling their goods to distant towns. Only when we drew parallel to Bathwick Mill did Geoffrey ask how I found my new husband. There were not many who would ask such a bold question and even less to whom I would give an answer. But this was Geoffrey.
I spared him the worst details, but admitted there’d been difficult times. Very difficult. Though Alyson didn’t say much, just gave little splutters and sighs to punctuate my responses, they served to put across her points clearly enough.
“Does he beat you often, Eleanor?” asked Geoffrey after a while.
I sucked the icy air in hard. “As often as I deserve it—or not.”
“He’s a man.”
“Does that excuse or explain it?” I posed the question I oft asked myself.
“It’s enough.”
“He’s hardly a man, Geoffrey, as you have pointed out. A choleric man-child more like.”
“Though he’s within his rights to maintain order in his household—” he halted, plucking a twig from a bush and twirling it in his fingers, “the sacrament does not permit him to be cruel.”
“He does not strike me through cruelty.”
Geoffrey glanced at me. “Why then? Do you not pay the conjugal debt?”
I gave a lopsided grin. “Frequently.”
He studied the ground, lost in thought. “He cannot love you if he strikes so hard he damages you, Eleanor. I can see from the marks upon your face, the way you hold your middle, and from your limp that you have sustained much injury to your person. Alyson too.”
She touched her nose.
“It is because he loves me that he does this, sir,” I said.
“Loves you? How do you know this?”
“Because if he didn’t, he would not strike me.” God’s bones! Why was I defending my husband? Because I had to defend my poor choice.
Alyson harrumphed.
Geoffrey shook his head sorrowfully. “This is not what I wished for you, Eleanor.”
It’s not what I wished either.
We walked in silence a while. The snow had ceased to fall, leaving the countryside blanketed in a glistening, pristine caul. Siren and Hera rolled and played in the freshly fallen snow, Rhea and Bountiful watching disdainfully. A lone child sat in a tree observing. Her bright cap and ruddy cheeks stood out in the bleak landscape. Up ahead, the monks’ fulling mill loomed. There were a few novices working, some common folk as well. Inside the open doors, we could see the cloth being stretched on the tenters, straining at the hooks. Others pounded the wool, eliminating the dirt and grease. They were so focused on their work, they failed to see us drifting past.
“I know in law and, indeed, in God’s eyes,” said Geoffrey once we were out of earshot, “a man may beat his wife providing the instrument of his punishment is not too big, but I think there are better ways to exact cooperation and, for certes, better ways to demonstrate love.”
Alyson made a small sound of agreement. I’d no reply. He was right. But what was I to do? I didn’t know how to stop Jankin, nor how to stop myself. It was as if, as Alyson once said, he appealed to a darkness within me.
Geoffrey and I had no more conversations about Jankin that day, though I suspected he and Alyson did. Invited to join her for supper that night, he begged pardon and left me and Jankin alone. Jankin wasted no time and retreated to his study. I spun for a short while, then, dismissing Oriel and asking her to take the weary dogs back to Wy, allowed Milda to ready me for bed.
* * *
The following night Jankin, who no doubt felt he’d showed great restraint previously, brought his work to the solar. We’d had a busy day. Geoffrey had spent it writing, while Alyson and I returned to the looms. We’d large orders to fill and were keen to get them done before the merchants from Brabant and Ypres returned once the winter storms receded. Jankin had given over his study to Geoffrey and gone to the Abbey.
The evening began well with many wines and Geoffrey regaling us about an incident at his local tavern involving himself and his friend John Gower.
We all laughed heartily before, with a dramatic clearing of his throat, Jankin begged our ears. I signaled for Milda to pour more drinks. God knew, we’d need them. My heart began to skip and my throat grew tight. Alyson picked up her spinning. Geoffrey appeared relaxed until you looked at his intertwined hands. His knuckles were white.
Jankin began with the story of a man named Latumius who owned an orchard. In that orchard grew a tree from which three of his wives had hanged themselves. His friend, a scoundrel named Arrius, instead of expressing sorrow or lamenting the man’s grief (assuming he felt any) asked for a cutting, so he could grow a like tree in order that his wife might meet the same fate.
Geoffrey laughed politely. I couldn’t even summon a smile.
Jankin then regaled us with stories of wives who, having killed their husbands as they slept, swived their lovers all night long, some beside their husbands’ corpses.
“A pretty woman who sards men is akin to a pig with a golden ring in its snout—she’s still a sow, no matter how she decorates herself,” he said smugly. “Imagine what an ugly old one must be like.”
I gripped the arms of my chair. Geoffrey gestured to Milda to top up his goblet, believing the recital over.
My husband wasn’t finished. Next, he gave a roll call of bad women—disloyal, deceitful murderesses, those who made cuckolds of their men. He declared wives made a deliberate effort to hate what their husbands liked, just to make their lives a misery.
“Why, look to mine as an exemplar. Eleanor loathes my work, don’t you, love? Yet it’s my duty to both educate and tame her, is it not?”
I begged Geoffrey not to respond. He coughed, which Jankin, thank God, took as agreement.
But when he started on that damn story of Clytemnestra again, something happened. White-hot indignation filled my head, made me clench my fists, clouded my vision. When he reached the part about her stabbing Agamemnon in the bath, I swear, a Lilith-sent imp possessed me. I leaped from the chair. Alyson lunged, but I tore my tunic from her hands.
I grabbed Jankin’s book and swiftly tore three pages from its midst. He called out in fury and shock. I pulled back my fist and punched him hard in the side of the face.
“That’s for Clytemnestra and all the other women you wrong with your poisonous words!” I screamed.
Holding the pages I’d removed out of reach, as he reeled from my blow, I ripped them into shreds then tossed them in the air. They fell, a poor parody of the flurries tumbling from the heavens outside.
There was silence. The fire crackled. Dancing shadows filled the room. I stared with wild eyes, my breasts heaving, my face a furnace. Jankin’s cheek was red where my knuckles had connected. It was beginning to swell.
My entire focus was upon him, daring him to act. It was as if no one else was in the room.
With a strangled yell, he propelled himself out of the chair, lifted his book high and brought it down with such force upon my head, I fell to the floor and rolled toward the fire.
Bright sparks exploded. My ears rang. I was vaguely aware of movement to my right.
Like a wild tiger, Alyson leaped on Jankin, her hands transforming into claws and raking his face. “You cowardly bastard!” she shrieked. “You’ve killed her. You’ve killed my Eleanor.” She grabbed him by the ears, bit his cheek. Blood spurted and Jankin’s legs buckled, bringing her down on top of him. She’d twined her fingers through his hair and began to beat his head repeatedly against the floor.
Geoffrey tried to pull her away. There were cries of pain, anger. I struggled to rise, the room moving in peculiar waves. Milda rushed to my side, desperate to help. Less than an arm’s reach away, Alyson fought Jankin. Astride him, she determined to punish him. Not just for this night, but for every word, every blow he’d ever inflicted. For the agony he’d caused me and in doing that, caused her too.
There was an unnatural flash.
Milda gave a piercing scream.
“No!” shouted Geoffrey, springing over us, just as Jankin plunged a knife deep into Alyson’s neck.
Blood spurted from where the blade jutted, spraying Jankin, Geoffrey, Milda, and me. Terrible gurgling noises issued from Alyson’s throat; her eyes were wide, disbelieving. She whimpered, her hands rushing to the hilt as she looked to me to undo what had happened.
I managed to get onto my hands and knees. Milda fell back on her heels in horror. I crawled to Alyson, who’d gone white as fallen snow, her hands trapped birds fluttering near the wound. I drew her off Jankin, who just lay staring, covered in blood.
Alyson’s face was a peculiar shade—stained with blood, yet so pale beneath it. Her eyes filled with terror as I dragged her onto my lap. Blood, hot and plentiful, pumped down her neck, over her breasts, pooling on my kirtle. Geoffrey knelt beside us. “No, dear God, no.”
I wanted to draw the knife out, but was afraid. “Alyson, Alyson, my love, my love,” I whispered, trying not to stare at the obscenity protruding from her neck, focusing on her eyes, those beautiful, spring day eyes, and smoothing the hair from her face.
Milda made a feeble attempt to stanch the blood with her apron. I pushed her gently away.
“What do I do?” I whispered to Geoffrey.
He was a picture of sorrow. Carmine spattered one cheek, his beard. It was everywhere. He tried to push against Alyson’s neck, around the blade, to stop the life flowing from her. It was hopeless.
Alyson tried to speak, her voice barely a sigh. Her eyelids were heavy. I pushed my good ear close to her mouth, but all I could hear was soft susurrations that resembled my name.
Eleanor . . .
“I’m here, my love, I’m here.” Sobs were stealing my voice. I forced them back. “I’m here.” I smiled at her through unseeing eyes, my tears dripping on her cheek. “It will be alright. We’ll fetch the doctor, he’ll tend your wound. Don’t worry.”
Alyson found my hand and gripped it weakly.
Her face was a palette of gray. Her lips had taken on a violet hue.
I bent closer. My nose streamed. My mouth was full, my heart overflowing. “Don’t leave me, Alyson. Please, God, don’t let her leave me,” I moaned.
Ever so gently, I pressed my lips to hers, uncaring of the blood escaping her mouth.
A great shiver racked her body. She gazed at me with a love so fierce and hot, it reduced my soul to ash. Then, my beautiful, patient, wise Alyson, my Godsib and most beloved, was gone.
Geoffrey was weeping. He closed Alyson’s unseeing eyes and caressed her soft cheek. “Sweet, loyal lady.”
Beside us, my husband groaned and stirred.
He killed her. Brutally took the person I loved more than anyone else on this cold, hard, thankless earth.
He raised himself on one elbow and, leaning close, studied his handiwork. “Is she dead?” There was no remorse, no guilt. “One less wicked woman for men to abide.”
There was a beat.
With a yowl of rage and grief, I pulled the knife from Alyson’s neck and plunged it into Jankin’s eye.
“Now you need never see our wickedness again.”