Beloved Enemy (14 page)

“It do be different. Me mam says I be christened Ykenai—a Saxon name, but folks all calls me Bellebelle.” She stuffed the rest of the pasty into her mouth and waved toward the far side of the bridge. “I be from Southwark.”

She finished eating, licked the crumbs from her fingers, wiped her nose with her forearm, then leaned companionably over the railing with him. Together they watched a group of boys tilting in small boats. Perched in the prow and holding lances, the youths skimmed across the water toward a shield hanging from a pole. They hit the target and fell into the river. Henry and Bellebelle laughed along with everyone else.

“I comes here every chance I gets,” Bellebelle said. “Whenever I can get me mam to take me.”

“Where is she now?”

Bellebelle gestured toward a group of women in gaily striped cloaks huddled together farther down the bridge. Henry noticed that some passersby shouted remarks at the women but he was too far away to hear what was said. One man even threw what looked like a dead fish at them.

“Why are they being treated like that?”

Bellebelle scuffed a worn shoe on the wooden plank; her eyes clouded over, her face grew flushed, and she did not answer.

Behind them a sudden commotion shifted Henry’s attention. Approaching were two of the soldiers he had seen earlier with a youth in tow, obviously drunk. They were driving him along with harsh blows and whenever he faltered or stumbled they kicked him with their heavy boots. The boy had tears running down his face.

“There’s no call to treat the wretch that way,” said Henry. “He’s too flown with ale to walk properly.”

“Them’s the king’s Flemings,” Bellebelle whispered. “Best stay out o’ their way.”

The accursed Flemings again. Henry stepped forward. One of the soldiers stopped, gave him an insolent stare, then pushed him aside. Everyone on the bridge scattered as far away from the soldiers as possible. Henry, feeling the first flush of rage wash over him, was about to stand his ground when he felt a surprisingly strong hand grab his arm and forcefully yank him back to the railing.

“Are ye daft?” The fear in Bellebelle’s voice was palpable. “This be London and the Flemings has a free hand. Ye can’t do nothing. No one can’t do nothing.” She paused. “But ye would’ve tried, wouldn’t ye?”

“One day it will be different,” Henry said between his teeth, swallowing his anger as the soldiers moved on. “Believe me it will. When I’m king of England there won’t be any need for bloody heads on the gates, and I will see justice done to poor creatures like that.”

Bellebelle nodded, looking at him in awe. “O’ course ye will, cause ye don’t have no wishbone where ye backbone ought be. Anyone can see that.”

He smiled at the odd phrase, noting that she hadn’t even questioned what he’d said about being king. “Thank you. I’d best be going. I’ve lost my companion and need to get back to Smithfield. Can you tell me how?”

Bellebelle gave him detailed directions then looked over the railing again, resting her chin on her hands. Henry squinted his eyes, staring into the water.

“I see the fish,” he said.

Bellebelle turned and gave him a radiant smile.

When Henry reached Smithfield, the bells were just striking Nones. William was waiting and so relieved to see him that he pounded him on the back.

“God’s teeth you had me worried. I looked for you everywhere. What happened to you?”

Henry shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

All the way back to Wallingford while William talked about his adventures with a would-be pickpocket, Henry thought about Bellebelle and London and the Flemings. There had been an odd feel to the city, something he couldn’t quite name. Certainly he’d never been aware of that feeling in the cities of Angers or Rouen. It was like—yes, he had it now—like a ship with no one at the helm.

When he was king, Henry decided, anyone who walked into London would know immediately that someone was in control, guiding the ship.

“T
HEY WANT YE NOW
, Belle.” It was the tavern keeper’s voice calling from inside the tavern.

Bellebelle, standing on the tavern steps, felt her stomach plummet. Why was she so fearful? After all, she had always known what was going to happen, had often felt impatient for it to be over. But now that the moment was here …

She stared at the streaks of white cloud that swept across a gray-blue sky, the fading sunlight glinting on the White Tower across the river in London. The end of a brisk February day, but just the beginning for her. A salt wind whipped across her face, bringing with it the sickly smell of rotting fish and slops that always hung over the Bankside in Southwark. Above her head Bellebelle could hear the dirty tavern sign, The Bishop’s Hat, creak and sway on its leather hinges as usual, but this afternoon it had a scary groan as well.

“Belle! Gilbert be calling for ye and ye don’t want to cause no trouble. Not today.”

She pretended not to hear.

The tavern and adjoining brothel-house sat side by side on a small incline back from the street; from where she stood, over to the right, Bellebelle could just glimpse the priory roof of St. Mary Overie, where Morgaine had taken her to Easter service last year, and the tall spires of the parish churches of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret soaring toward heaven. Over to her left was the wooden bridge that spanned the river, then the Strand where the herring boats were moored, and beyond it the tidal stream where vessels from foreign ports rode at anchor.

Whenever she walked on the bridge, Bellebelle always looked for the boy, Henry, she had met two years earlier. He was the only person with whom she had ever shared the secret of her magic fish. Month after month, when she was able to persuade her mother or one of the other whores to take her, she had searched all over the bridge for him. But, to her great disappointment, she had never seen the boy again. Of course she was almost fourteen years of age, too old for such things now. In truth, the last time she had gone to the bridge, six months ago at least, she hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of the fish.

“Come along now, Belle,” Arnolf, the tavern keeper, called again. “I know ye hear me. No use putting things off.”

With a shiver of fear, Bellebelle turned and reluctantly entered the tavern, lit as usual by smoking candles. At night it was a fearful place, filled with rough voices, screams, and wild laughter. Daytimes, however, the tavern was usually quiet, except for the rattle and call of the dicing players crouched in a far corner of the room. This afternoon Bellebelle barely noticed the trestle tables and wooden benches with their handful of drinking men. She ignored the invitations of two sailors, peg-tankards of ale in their fists, standing at the long wooden counter that ran half the length of the tavern, and brushed aside the half-drunk patron who reached out to grab her.

“I hope all goes well, lass,” said old Arnolf, as he knelt in front of a row of wine casks resting on low wooden racks.

“Surely I’ll draw a fine one,” Bellebelle said, forcing a brave smile. “Gilbert says they’ll all be gentlemen of means.”

“Gilbert! He’s a brothelmaster, lass. Only a fool would believe the likes o’ him.” He shook his head. “Eh, you’d see the good in the devil himself, Belle.” Arnolf lowered his voice. “Means or no, there be noblemen as rough and vicious as them sailors, make no mistake. That knave ought to be whipped raw, selling off your maidenhead like it were a catch of herring. Eh, I suppose ye were lucky Gilbert waited this long.”

She did not reply, for Old Arnolf had voiced Bellebelle’s deepest terror. From years of listening to the whores she knew that some customers could be rough and hurtful. Especially the big, hulking creatures from the docks. The whores dreaded such men, but Gilbert, the brothelmaster, forced them to accommodate all customers. Except on one rare occasion, which Bellebelle had never forgotten. Her mother, Gytha, had refused to service a man because of the size of his member, saying it would kill her. Gilbert had beaten Gytha for not doing as he bade her, but Gytha said she would rather suffer the beating than the member.

Bellebelle pushed the horrid incident from her mind, walked slowly out the back door of the tavern, and lingered in the small dirt yard that separated the tavern from the back entrance to the brothel-house. She dreaded the moment when she would have to enter the downstairs room of the brothel and face an unknown group of customers who were there for the sole purpose of bidding for her maidenhead.

All the whores assured Bellebelle that she was wondrous fair to look at. The glances of the men in the brothel and tavern tended to make her believe this. But the men assembled this afternoon were of a different class, wealthy and more particular—or so Gilbert had boasted. Such men did not usually visit the Bankside stews of Southwark. What if none of them liked how she looked, and refused to bid? She was anxious to please, and skilled enough with what the whores had taught her, she felt certain, to satisfy. But if no one wanted her, Gilbert would not keep her on. How would she survive? She desperately wanted to succeed. How else could she ever realize her dream of—

“What in God’s name be keeping ye?” Gilbert stood in the doorway to the brothel-house. With a menacing glare, he crooked an impatient finger. “Get in here now and be quick about it.”

Bellebelle scuttled across the yard and followed Gilbert into the back room of the brothel. Inside, his face now wreathed in smiles, Gilbert slid behind a table. Facing him stood a group of ten men.

“Here she be,” Gilbert said in the oily voice he reserved for the customers. “Take off ye clothes, girl, but keep ye chemise on.”

Her heart pounding, Bellebelle averted her eyes from the men. With shaking fingers she took off her worn black shoes and woolen stockings, aware of their lustful gaze watching every move. She forced herself to repeat silently her mother’s constant words of admonition: “Lust is naught to be feared, but used to ye own advantage. When ye don’t see it, then ye needs worry.”

“As ye can see, Bellebelle here be a vision of unsoiled loveliness, a virgin pure as a nun,” Gilbert was saying to the men. “But the lucky gentleman as wins her maidenhead won’t be disappointed, that I promise ye, for she be a virgin with a lifetime of experience. Her mam be me finest whore and the girl’s been in training, so to speak, since she been born.” He gave a lecherous wink. “Learned her trade with her mother’s milk.”

“You mean to say she’s known nothing but the brothel-house?” There was no mistaking the shock in the man’s voice. “What a terrible fate for the lass.”

“That’s right, nor never likely to know nothing else neither. As for a terrible fate, well now, I daresay that be a matter of opinion. She might be dead: I could’ve thrown her to the dogs to eat, or dumped her into the river, but I kept her out of the goodness of me heart.”

And for the coins ye be about to pocket, Bellebelle wanted to say as she slowly pulled the faded blue gown over her head. If Gilbert had a heart she had never seen hide nor hair of it.

Shivering in her faded chemise, Bellebelle paraded back and forth in front of the men.

“All right now, ye’ve all had yourselfs a good look,” Gilbert said. “Let’s see the money first and then we’ll open the bid.”

While the men, arguing among themselves, emptied their purses onto the table, Bellebelle crept to a corner of the room and sat on a stool. She did not want to hear herself being auctioned off like a catch of herring, so she forced herself to think of something else.

From as far back as Bellebelle could remember, she had always wanted to better herself: by which she meant, if anyone had asked, that she did not want to lead her life in the same manner as her mam had done. Her earliest memories were of Gytha sprawled half-naked across a wooden frame bed, reeking of ale and weeping, complaining of how bad her life was. On those rare occasions when Gytha lay alone, Bellebelle would creep into the bed under the dirty gray blanket of unwashed wool and wind her tiny arms around her mam’s neck in an effort to comfort her. More often, however, Gytha was joined by a succession of strangers, men who heaved and grunted over her unresisting body, then threw several coins onto the bed before putting on their clothes and leaving. They rarely paid attention to Bellebelle silently curled up on a straw pallet in the corner.

Her mother’s chamber was her place of business as well as their home. It contained a large frame bed, rickety oak table, two scratched wooden stools, and a chest, also of oak, which held their few belongings. In addition there was a charcoal brazier, an iron cauldron of water, and a heap of worn linen towels that always looked dirty.

One night that Bellebelle would never forget, a comely man clad in a black cloak fastened at one shoulder with a heavy silver clasp, noticed Bellebelle in her corner. He reached into the purse fastened to his jewel-studded black belt then bent to give her a silver coin.

“Here,” he said in a kindly voice, lifting the tangle of black curls from her dirt-streaked face as he stared into her large, dark-blue eyes.

She had never seen such a well-favored man before in the brothel.

“What a beautiful rose to bloom in such a dungheap. No lowborn country lad sired this gosling, I’ll warrant, nor foreign soldier either, if I’m any judge. Do you know the father, Gytha?”

“Oh, aye, a fine gentleman he were, my lord, a Norman like ye-self,” her mother said, a note of bitterness creeping into her voice. “She be his spitting image. Even he could see that. Promised he’d care for the babe, and for a while he come back regular to see her. Sent money for her keep when he couldn’t come hisself. Then he come no more. Never ’eard from him again.”

“The country’s been beset by civil strife these many years,” the man replied. “Did it never occur to you he might be dead?”

Gytha shrugged. “Either way he be gone. As for beauty, what’ll that get the lass, eh? A life in the stews is all, same as me. Better she were born dead, I say.”

“May God forgive you for that.” The man gave Bellebelle a sweet smile as he crossed himself. “Perhaps He has a different future in mind for her. What are you called, child?”