Honey Lane, London
The Year of Our Lord 1389
In the thirteenth year of the reign of Richard II
Wace was baptized eight days after his birth, and to my great pleasure, I was named godmother. The lad was mine twice over now. Because Leda knew so few decent men, and Wace needed two as godparents, she asked our weavers Pieter and Conal to step in.
When Leda was churched weeks later, in mid-November, it was a merry procession that went to All Hallows, bedecked in our Sunday finery, chattering and laughing as if it were Yuletide Eve. Followed by those in Honey Lane who could tear themselves away from work, as well as some curious passersby, we wended our way. Leda, carrying Wace, looked particularly lovely in a pale apricot kirtle and bronze tunic, her hair carelessly gathered under a cap, most tumbling down her back in golden cascades. Lowdy skipped beside her, reaching up to stroke Wace’s cheek. Directly behind us were Milda, Arnold, Drew, Pieter, and Conal, smiling and waving like they were part of a royal procession. Megge, Yolande, Rose, and Donnet brought up the rear; their joy and lively chatter made my heart sing.
To think, only a couple of months earlier they’d been selling their bodies. Now, they worked for me. They were all adept spinners and, as the amount of thread we produced increased and the range of colors used in the dying grew, we sold more. We weren’t making a fortune, but we were more than covering costs and able to feed ourselves. The girls looked so much better for eating regularly and not living with the constant fear of being beaten by violent customers or their pimp. I even managed to weave some cloth so the girls could make new tunics and Wace had fresh swaddling.
The sun struck our heads and made the rapidly drying pools of water on the cobbles shine, adding to the notion that God was sending His beneficence our way. Distracted by my pleasant thoughts, I narrowly dodged two shrieking hens running away from a stalking cat, almost colliding with a maid leading a donkey. I sang out an apology. Nothing would spoil this glorious day.
We crammed into the church. Father William invited us to light candles and place them before the altar of Our Lady. Once that was done and we assembled for him to say mass, we became impatient for the prayers and blessings to end as a great feast awaited us back at the house. Hips were nudged, arms pinched. Arnold reached over Leda’s shoulder to tweak the baby’s chin. Padre was a tolerant man and as keen to indulge in fine ale, Rhenish, the roast goose and eel pies, sweetmeats, and other delicacies as we were, so rushed the mass—nobody complained.
Filled with a pervading sense of goodwill, we spilled out of All Hallows, pausing to accept tokens for Leda and the child, stopping at the nearest tavern to enjoy a drink. I insisted on carrying Wace, holding him tightly. Careful not to overindulge (there was time for that), I was pleased to see Leda relishing being in the community she was yet to discover, and the other girls not only enjoying themselves after all their hard work of the last few weeks, but being accepted by locals. I’d been concerned about how folk on Honey Lane would feel about having former bawds living among them. It wasn’t as if we could keep it a secret. Seems one couldn’t fart in this place without someone smelling it. But so far, apart from one or two beldames lifting their noses and crossing themselves, and a few men knocking on the door, pennies in fists, seeking comfort, there’d been naught to concern me.
The general air of jollity wrapped us in its arms like the rare sunshine, so it took a moment to notice that not far past the tavern, our way was blocked.
A wall of backs brought us to a halt. Gradually, the laughter and general chitter died. It was replaced by the sharp crack of wood breaking, the ring of crockery smashing, and the wet sounds of something tender striking something hard.
’Twas then I heard Milda and my heart lurched. Along with Lowdy, the old woman had gone ahead to ensure the feast was ready.
“Nay! Nay! Not the yarn!”
I passed Wace to Leda and began to push through the bodies, then they suddenly gave way, parting like stalks before the plough.
On the road before our house was what was left of the looms. They’d been hewn with an axe. Huge, broken splinters, shards really, reached to the heavens, like the fingers of a dying man. The warp threads were separated from each other, drowning in shallow pools of filth in the central ditch. But it was the sight of all the thread and beautiful woven cloth that almost broke me. Torn from the loom, severed from the lower beam, it had been trampled into the muck. Yards and yards of thread were scattered, a field of scythed wheat that no one would ever gather.
Beside me, a child held a shuttle in his hand, still twined with yarn. I resisted the urge to tear it from him and fling it at the thugs who, even as I watched, were throwing our belongings onto the street—jugs, mazers, decorative plate, bedding, a tapestry that had disguised a damp stain on a wall in the solar. Our clothes, shoes, pattens. Trays of food lovingly prepared by Milda and the girls were hoisted out the door. Ribbed dogs darted forward to grab a haunch of meat and run, pigs snuffled their way forward, ignoring what flew overhead or landed with dull thuds about them.
People whispered, others shouted.
At our appearance, and our evident distress, the mood shifted. Some began encouraging the men, raising their fists, pointing at me and the girls.
“Whores, they are. Not spinsters.”
“Sinners, the lot of them.”
“You should be ashamed to stand with them, Father,” shouted a burly man from the other side of the debris. “They are bawds and maudlyns, devil-spawn.” To his credit, Father William put an arm about my shoulders. I couldn’t speak. I feared if I did, it would unleash the rage burning in my breast and only cause more damage.
Folk began to dart forward and take whatever wasn’t completely destroyed. The goose carcass was swiftly removed, a swathe of cloth only partly dirtied in the ditch. A lone boot. The torn curtain from my bed. The goblets brought from Slynge House had already been pocketed by the men. Held back by Father William and Master Bordwrygt, Pieter and Conal, who knew better than to try and stop the brutes, nevertheless struggled against their captors. The girls began to weep.
Geoffrey had warned me something like this could happen. That as a feme sole who was neither widow nor wife, I would pay a hefty price for attempting to do business, for taking in women deemed sinners. I’d ignored him, thinking I knew better. I’d be inconsequential, I said, overlooked. What I didn’t reckon with was that my good intentions and small illegal business would be mistaken for another kind.
Once more, I’d gambled and lost.
My knees gave way and I slowly sank to the cobbles. Not even Father William could support my weight. Milda squatted beside me, her arms enfolding me. On the other side, Lowdy wrapped her thin arms around my neck, weeping. More bodies pressed against me. Leda, Rose, Donnet, Yolande, and Megge.
When someone struck a flint and threw smoking tinder onto what was now a pyre, I cried out. The men laughed, some cheered. Folk folded their arms and shook their heads. Whether at me or the wreckage, I couldn’t tell.
The men behind the demolition of my household poked the fire, pushing everything that was left into the flames.
“Who are these men?” I asked.
I couldn’t be heard above the crowd, the crackle of the fire. The heat was fierce, my cheeks burned.
“Why are you doing this?” I shouted at the nearest fellow.
“Isn’t it obvious, Alyson?” murmured Milda. “They are the guild, or sent by them.”
I struggled to my feet. “Nay. Nay,” I said, shaking off Milda’s arm as she tried to prevent me getting closer—not just to the growing conflagration, which would soon prove dangerous to the surrounding houses, but the invaders.
My fingers latched onto an arm. “Who sent you?” I demanded. A pimply lad with broad shoulders spun at my touch. In his hand was a rake—Drew’s by the look of it. “Are you from the guild?”
The lad’s eyes were small, hard, like river stones. He looked me up and down and sneered. “The guild? No, but they know what we’re doing. Done with their blessing.”
“Then who sent you?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head, but not before I saw the look he cast into the crowd at a tall, bald man with a scar running across his cheek and over his chin. A man, who, when he knew I’d seen him, saluted and threw back his head and laughed.
It didn’t need Leda’s gasp or to see Lowdy, Megge, and Yolande cowering for me to know who it was. Ordric Fleshewer. Behind him stood Bianca’s husband, his face triumphant. Blood marred his cheeks.
Fury washed with sorrow swept over me. Before I could do or say anything more, Ordric signaled his men. The youth before me threw the rake in the fire. Men turned and vanished into the crowd. Already people began to back away as the flames rose higher, threatening the house and its broken shutters, from which so much had been thrown to the ground.
Dismay changed to cries of fear as tongues of flame came too close to the thatch.
The call went up. “Fire!”
Master Bordwrygt, bearing a great hook, shoved his way forward. From the opposite direction, folk appeared with sloshing buckets of water.
What was first a spectacle involving the destruction of a wanton’s property became a matter of life and death. The crowd swiftly dispersed, but most returned with hooks, blankets, besoms, anything to beat the flames. More buckets appeared, a line was formed and wound all the way out to the conduit on Cheapside.
The joy of the morning was forgotten. My wits returned and I ordered Leda and the other girls back to the church, entrusting their care to Father William.
“But, Wace’s crib, his swaddling—” began Leda, her eyes larger than ever, her beautiful skin covered in smuts.
“It’s too late for that. Go. Go,” I demanded, pushing her in the back. “Make sure Wace is safe. Lowdy too.”
“What about you?” she asked. “You cannot mean to stay.”
“Not for long,” I said, determined to salvage something, anything. Already flames were licking the lower window, crawling up the front of the house to tease the shutters.
I studied the house, wondering if it was possible they’d overlooked something, that they hadn’t destroyed everything.
It was only then, God forgive me, that I thought about Drew, Arnold, and the hounds. Why, the boys had returned with Milda and Lowdy, promising to untie the dogs. We’d secured them before going to church.
“Milda.” I grabbed her hand. “Where are Arnold and Drew? Hera and Siren?”
Her eyes shifted to the rear lane. “I haven’t seen them since we got here—”
I flew from her side, pushing through the line of buckets, past the men using their hooks to grapple down the thatch of the surrounding houses and ours. The dull thuds as huge sections struck the cobbles was both reassuring and sickening. Already the bonfire was a smoldering mess. It was the house that posed the greatest danger—to the entire lane.
Smoke obscured my vision, tears filled my eyes as I coughed my way inside, holding my apron over my mouth. The rear gate was open. I rushed through. The fire hadn’t taken here . . . yet. In fact, apart from the dense smoke and the noise of the flames and shouting men, it would be easy to believe it was someone else’s problem, that fire was a distant threat.
“Arnold! Drew!” I cried and then doubled over coughing.
“Hera, Siren!” Their empty ropes were still tied to the shed. That gave me hope, even as the ominous silence signaled doom. The door to the shed was ajar, a black chasm that beckoned me forward. I hesitated.
It took a moment to become accustomed to the darkness, the thin slats of light that severed the black. Smoke swirled, surrounding me. I was an apparition.
It was the smell that caught me first. Sharp, metallic. Afraid what I’d find, but knowing I must search, I continued forward, arms outstretched. It was my toes that discovered them. My boots struck something soft. I bent ever so slowly, a mole finding its way. My fingers landed on Arnold, then Drew, before they slid in blood.
So much blood.
Suddenly, the blood I’d seen on Bianca’s husband made a dreadful sense.
I lifted my hands until a thin ribbon of light illuminated them. Ripped from my aching throat, the scream was like no sound I’d ever made before.
* * *
Some time later, when the fire was extinguished and the neighborhood engulfed in a pall of reeking gray smoke, I sat before Father William’s hearth wrapped in a shawl, a mazer of ale in my shaking hands.
Upon finding Arnold and Drew in the yard, about to release the hounds, the men struck the boys with the hilts of their knives, their fists and boots, before they cut the dogs free. Scared, the dogs had bolted. Or that’s what one of Ordric’s men claimed in a tavern later that afternoon. Under no circumstances would the dogs have fled. They’d have fought to the death to protect Arnold and Drew. In my heart, I feared Houndsditch had two more bodies in its clogged waterway. As for Drew and Arnold, the blessed nonces had fought back, unarmed. There were scores to be settled. Had not Arnold and Drew, two servants, drawn knives on these same men weeks back when the girls left to join us? Arnold had taken a killing blow to the chest. In and up the knife had gone. He’d died quickly. Drew had sustained a wound to his shoulder and slashes, abrasions, bruises from boots and fists, and the greater pain of loss.
Upstairs in Father William’s bedroom, he was being tended by a physician who could be relied upon to be discreet. The same physician had sent to an apothecary for unguents to treat Pieter, Conal, and Milda’s burns. My hurts were not visible, but I knew they would never, ever heal. Like the wound of Alyson’s death, they would scar my soul.
There’d been some talk of raising a hue and cry, but what was the point? I was afraid if we involved the law there’d be too many questions. Didn’t matter that a pimp and his rascals had caused untold damage and death. Nothing would come of opening up an investigation, not when I’d so much to hide. Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool.
I said as much.
When Milda, Leda, and the others tried to disagree, it was Father William who stood by me.
“Mistress Alyson is right. ’Tis best to let sleeping dogs lie.” He looked at me meaningfully and I knew what he meant. No amount of seeking justice would prevent those able to administer it from turning against me and my illegal weaving trade.
Instead, I asked for pen and parchment and wrote to Geoffrey. Aye, I know what you’re thinking and don’t for a moment believe I didn’t think the same thing. He’d warned me that starting a venture as a feme sole, unmarried, not even claiming the status of a widow, would be a problem. When I boasted about rescuing the girls and how I was a godmother, he’d offered more cautions, saying my actions could be misread. My pride meant I ignored him. And look where that led.
I glanced around at what remained of my household. A few pallets had been erected in the sacristy. Lowdy was curled up beside Milda, Yolande shared another with Megge, while Rose, Leda, and Wace lay under covers on a third. Donnet was upstairs, sharing Drew’s care with me and Milda. We were a sorry-looking lot. The earlier gaiety was like a distant dream. The clothes on our backs and the few objects I’d managed to salvage were all we had left, those and the few coins I’d donated for Leda’s churching, which Father William generously refunded. He and his elderly housekeeper, Mistress Glenford, also fed us—not the fine fare we’d been anticipating, but a tasty pottage with maslin. I was beyond grateful.
Conal offered to take my letter directly to Geoffrey. Pressing the river fare into his palm, I bade him take care. Mistress Glenford bundled leftover maslin and some cold coney into a kerchief for him.
“If you find Master Chaucer,” I said, “I’ve asked him to accompany you back. If he’s not home, then return and we’ll seek him elsewhere.”
I prayed he’d be in Kent. Parliament wasn’t sitting, and while he’d made no mention of traveling, who knew where his role as a member took him.
Before the city gates closed that night, Conal was gone; Pieter went with him as far as the river.
It was a long time before sleep claimed me, and then it was brief, broken by Drew’s cries and my own nightmares. Once again, someone had lost their life through my wilful blindness.
And then there were the hounds . . .
I swore then and there it would never, ever happen again. In the flickering light of the candle, the huddled shapes of my girls, of Milda, Lowdy, and little Wace, were like monuments to my failures. Failures that were, if I was honest, mostly my fault, but also facilitated by men who couldn’t face a woman treading on what they perceived as their ground.
One day, I swore, I would find a place—a home, a business—for us all. I would build something that was mine and mine alone. Where we would all be safe and which could never be torn down by the spiteful actions of bitter men.
The irony that I turned to a man in my time of need was not lost on me; but I could no longer depend on my own judgment. Anyway, Geoffrey was hardly a man, not in the way others were to me. Did he not say he was foremost a poet?
Well, I was relying on those skills now, for, as a poet, he was capable of great feats of imagination. God knew, if I was to survive this city with my household intact, that was exactly what I needed.