Epic Historial Collection (61 page)

A note of kindness in Meg's voice made Aliena turn back. “Yes,” she said after a pause. “We're in trouble.”

“I saw you at the jailhouse. My husband is in prison—I visit him every day. Why were you there?”

“Our father is there.”

“But you didn't go inside.”

“We haven't any money to pay the jailer.”

Meg looked over Aliena's shoulder at the whorehouse door. “Is that what you're doing here—trying to get money?”

“Yes, but I didn't know what it was until…”

“You poor thing,” Meg said. “My Annie would have been your age, if she'd lived…. Why don't you come to the jailhouse with me tomorrow morning, and between us we'll see if we can persuade Odo to act like a Christian and take pity on two destitute children.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” Aliena said. She was touched. There was no guarantee of success, but the fact that someone was willing to help brought tears to her eyes.

Meg was still looking hard at her. “Have you had any dinner?”

“No. Richard got something in…that place.”

“You'd better come to my house. I'll give you some bread and meat.” She noticed Aliena's wary look, and added: “And you don't have to do anything for it.”

Aliena believed her. “Thank you,” she said. “You're very kind. Not many people have been kind to us. I don't know how to thank you.”

“No need,” she said. “Come with me.”

 

Meg's husband was a wool merchant. At his house in the south of town, at his stall in the market on market days, and at the great annual fair held on St. Giles's Hill, he bought fleeces brought to him by peasants from the surrounding countryside. He crammed them into great woolsacks, each holding the fleece of two hundred and forty sheep, and stored them in the barn at the back of his house. Once a year, when the Flemish weavers sent their agents to buy the soft, strong English wool, Meg's husband would sell it all and arrange for the sacks to be shipped via Dover and Boulogne to Bruges and Ghent, where the fleece would be turned into top-quality cloth and sold all over the world at prices far too high for the peasants who kept the sheep. So Meg told Aliena and Richard over dinner, with that warm smile which said that whatever happens, there's no need for people to be unkind to one another.

Her husband had been accused of selling short weight, a crime the city took very seriously, for its prosperity was based on a reputation for honest dealing. Judging by the way Meg spoke of it, Aliena thought he was probably guilty. His absence had made little different to the business, though. Meg had simply taken his place. In winter there was not much to do anyway: she had made a trip to Flanders; assured all her husband's agents that the enterprise was functioning normally; and carried out repairs to the barn, enlarging it a little at the same time. When shearing began she would buy wool just as he had done. She knew how to judge its quality and set a price. She had already been admitted into the merchant's guild of the city, despite the stain on her husband's reputation, for there was a tradition of merchants helping each other's families in times of trouble, and anyway he had not yet been proved guilty.

Richard and Aliena ate her food and drank her wine and sat by her fire talking until it began to get dark outside; then they went back to the priory to sleep. Aliena had nightmares again. This time she dreamed about her father. In the dream he was sitting on a throne in the prison, as tall and pale and authoritative as ever, and when she went to see him she had to bow as if he were the king. Then he spoke to her accusingly, saying she had abandoned him here in prison and gone to live in a whorehouse. She was outraged by the injustice of the charge, and said angrily that
he
had abandoned
her
. She was going to add that he had left her to the mercy of William Hamleigh, but she was reluctant to tell her father what William had done to her; then she saw that William was also in the room, sitting on a bed and eating cherries from a bowl. He spat a cherry pip at her and it hit her cheek, stinging her. Her father smiled and then William started throwing soft cherries at her. They splattered her face and dress, and she began to cry, because although the dress was old it was the only one she had, and now it was blotched all over with cherry juice like bloodstains.

She felt so unbearably sad in the dream that when she woke up and discovered it was not real she felt an enormous sense of relief, even though the reality—that she was homeless and penniless—was much worse than being pelted with soft cherries.

The light of dawn was seeping through the cracks in the walls of the guesthouse. All around her people were waking up and beginning to move around. Soon the monks came in, opened the doors and the shutters, and called everyone to breakfast.

Aliena and Richard ate hurriedly, then went to Meg's house. She was ready to leave. She had made a spicy beef stew to warm up for her husband's dinner, and Aliena told Richard to carry the heavy pot for her. Aliena wished they had something to give Father. She had not thought of it, but even if she had, she could not have bought anything. It was awful to think they could do nothing for him.

They walked up the High Street, entered the castle by the back gate, and then walked past the keep and down the hill to the jail. Aliena recalled what Odo had told her yesterday, when she had asked whether Father was all right. “No, he's not,” the jailer had said. “He's dying.” She had thought he was exaggerating to be cruel, but now she began to worry. She said to Meg: “Is there anything wrong with my father?”

“I don't know, dear,” Meg said. “I've never seen him.”

“The jailer said he was dying.”

“That man is as mean as a cat. He probably said it just to make you miserable. Anyway, you'll know in a moment.”

Aliena was not comforted, despite Meg's good intentions, and she was full of dread as she walked through the doorway into the evil-smelling gloom of the jail.

Odo was warming his hands at the fire in the middle of the lobby. He nodded at Meg and looked at Aliena. “Have you got the money?” he said.

“I'll pay for them,” Meg said. “Here's two pennies, one for me and one for them.”

A crafty look came over Odo's stupid face, and he said: “It's twopence for them—a penny for each.”

“Don't be such a dog,” Meg said. “You let them both in, or I'll make trouble for you with the merchant guild, and you'll lose the job.”

“All right, all right, no need for threats,” he said grumpily. He pointed to an archway in the stone wall to their right. “Bartholomew is that way.”

Meg said: “You'll need a light.” She drew two candles from the pocket of her cloak and lit them at the fire, then gave one to Aliena. Her face looked troubled. “I hope all will be well,” she said, and she kissed Aliena. Then she went quickly through the opposite arch.

“Thank you for the penny,” Aliena called after her, but Meg had disappeared into the gloom.

Aliena peered apprehensively in the direction Odo had indicated. Holding the candle up high, she went through the archway, and found herself in a tiny square vestibule. The light of the candle showed three heavy doors, each barred on the outside. Odo called out: “Straight in front of you.”

Aliena said: “Lift the bar, Richard.”

Richard took the heavy wooden bar out of its brackets and stood it up against the wall. Aliena pushed the door open and sent up a quick silent prayer.

The cell was dark but for the light of her candle. She hesitated in the doorway, peering into the moving shadows. The place smelled like a privy. A voice said: “Who is it?”

Aliena said: “Father?” She made out a dark figure sitting on the straw-covered floor.

“Aliena?” There was incredulity in the voice. “Is that Aliena?” It sounded like Father's voice, but older.

Aliena went closer, holding the candle up. He looked up at her, the candlelight caught his face, and she gasped in horror.

He was hardly recognizable.

He had always been a thin man, but now he looked like a skeleton. He was filthy dirty and dressed in rags. “Aliena!” he said. “It is you!” His face twisted into a smile, and it was like the grin of a skull.

Aliena burst into tears. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing him so transformed. It was the most dreadful thing imaginable. She knew instantly that he was dying: the vile Odo had told the truth. But he was still alive, still suffering, and painfully pleased to see her. She had been determined to stay calm, but now she lost control completely, and fell to her knees in front of him, weeping with great racking sobs that came from deep inside her.

He leaned forward and put his arms around her, patting her back as if he were comforting a child over a grazed knee or a broken toy. “Don't cry,” he said gently. “Not when you've made your father so happy.”

Aliena felt the candle taken from her hand. Father said: “And is that tall young man my Richard?”

“Yes, Father,” Richard said stiffly.

Aliena put her arms around Father, and felt his bones like sticks in a sack. He was wasting away: there was no flesh beneath his skin. She wanted to say something to him, some words of love or comfort, but she could not speak for sobbing.

“Richard,” he was saying, “you've grown! Have you got a beard yet?”

“It's just started, Father, but it's very fair.”

Aliena realized that Richard was on the edge of tears and struggling to maintain his composure. He would feel humiliated if he broke down in front of Father, and Father would probably tell him to snap out of it and be a man, which would make it worse. Worrying about Richard, she stopped crying. With an effort she pulled herself together. She hugged Father's appallingly thin body once more; then she withdrew from his embrace, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose on her sleeve.

“Are you both all right?” Father said. His voice was slower than it used to be, and it quavered occasionally. “How have you managed? Where have you been living? They wouldn't tell me anything about you—it was the worst torture they could have devised. But you seem fine—fit and healthy! This is wonderful!”

Mention of torture made Aliena wonder whether he had suffered physical torments, but she did not ask him: she was afraid of what he might tell her. Instead she answered his question with a lie. “We're fine, Father.” She knew that the truth would be devastating to him. It would destroy this moment of happiness and fill the last days of his life with an agony of self-reproach. “We've been living at the castle and Matthew has been taking care of us.”

“But you can't live there anymore,” he said. “The king has made that fat oaf Percy Hamleigh the earl now—he'll have the castle.”

So he knew about that. “It's all right,” she said. “We've moved out.”

He touched her dress, the old linen shift that the verderer's wife had given her. “What's this?” he said sharply. “Have you sold your clothes?”

He was still perceptive, Aliena noted. It would not be easy to deceive him. She decided to tell him part of the truth. “We left the castle in a hurry, and we haven't any clothes.”

“Where's Matthew now? Why isn't he with you?”

She had been afraid of this question. She hesitated.

It was only a momentary pause, but he noticed it. “Come! Don't try to hide anything from me!” he said with something of his old authority. “Where's Matthew?”

“He was killed by the Hamleighs,” she said. “But they did us no harm.” She held her breath. Would he believe her?

“Poor Matthew,” he said sorrowfully. “He was never a fighting man. I hope he went straight to heaven.”

He had accepted her story. She was relieved. She moved the conversation off this dangerous ground. “We decided to come to Winchester to ask the king to make some provision for us, but he—”

“No use,” Father interrupted briskly, before she could explain why they had failed to see the king. “He wouldn't do anything for you.”

Aliena was hurt by his dismissive tone. She had done her best, against the odds, and she wanted him to say
Well done
, not
That was a waste of time
. He had always been quick to correct and slow to praise. I ought to be used to it, she thought. Submissively she said: “What should we do now, Father?”

He shifted his sitting position, and there was a clanking noise. Aliena realized with a shock that he was in chains. He said: “I had one chance to hide some money away. It wasn't much of a chance, but I had to take it. I had fifty bezants in a belt under my shirt. I gave the belt to a priest.”

“Fifty!” Aliena was surprised. A bezant was a gold coin. They were not minted in England, but came from Byzantium. She had never seen more than one at a time. A bezant was worth twenty-four silver pennies. Fifty were worth…she could not figure it out.

“Which priest?” said Richard practically.

“Father Ralph, of the church of St. Michael near the North Gate.”