Chapter Eighteen
It took Guy a week to wear her down. He began with long speeches, talking about how their skills were wasted, how there was no shame in owning that.
Then little bursts of violent impatience, veiled threats and finally begging her.
Tears rolling down his fine-featured face as he implored her to think of him, of his debts, of how they could start again once they did this one thing.
Mary thought it was probably the lack of sleep that had made her give in. She was so tired. Kept up late by his raving and ranting, woken early by his cheerful descriptions of how their life would flourish soon.
Once she had capitulated, it all happened very quickly.
He’d already got them spaces on a cart going to Bishop’s Lynn, a promise of money later for the carter’s trouble.
She wondered sourly if he’d have gone by himself if she’d not agreed.
And it must have been tiredness that had her laughing at the thought of him, dressed as a nun with his scratchy hand churning out indulgences, simpering at the good merchants and gentry.
Maybe it was partly her pride, if they were to sell forged indulgences, she wanted them to be so good that none would tell they were not the real thing, not some pale thing that Guy would scratch out.
She travelled as Mary, changing into the nun’s habit when they arrived.
‘I’ll call you Sister Maude and I’ll play the part of a pardoner.
’ Guy was all charm now, now that it was going his way.
She hated the name Maude, it sounded ugly and plain and a boring woman to boot, but it was close enough to Mary, if he slipped up.
She stayed in the room he’d paid for, while he worked his way around the inns and taverns, spreading the word of indulgences for sale, a holy woman who travelled to write them.
It wasn’t long before they had their first customers, and she was soon too busy to think further of the sin they were committing, or the danger they were putting themselves in.
When they worked for Warham, she could tell herself that as a man of God, he would be absolving them of sin.
Working for Guy there was no such assurance.
A fussy woman who wanted an indulgence for her sin of greed insisted on meeting Sister Maude, and they were sat in the inn, with Mary keeping her head down and quiet, Guy doing all the talking, the woman warming up to his chatter, and some of the lines of worry leaving her face, when Mary saw Warham’s men come in.
They recognised Guy at once, and could see the indulgence in front of him, ready to work on for the woman who was talking freely now, confessing her sins all over again to Sister Maude.
Mary tensed but they didn’t come over, just drew one finger across a throat.
Guy hurried the woman up, took her coin and they left.
‘We have to stop now,’ Mary hissed as they hurried down dark streets to their room.
‘He’ll know, he’ll come after us.’ They had promised early on not to write indulgences for anyone else, only for him.
Let alone doing them and selling them themselves, and keeping all the money.
If there was money to be made, Warham wanted it all.
Guy had blanched at first, but the ale he’d drunk had emboldened him. ‘They won’t do anything without Warham’s orders. He’s not in the town, we’d have heard if he was. We can finish off then leave. Mary, we don’t have to go back to Ely, we can move away and he’ll not find us. You worry too much.’
She knew that wouldn’t be it, but hoped that Warham was too busy in London with the court to come after them. Guy didn’t know about the family tree she had written out for Warham too, the proof of his nobility, that last step he had needed to get into the room with those in power.
The fire was long out by the time Linnet and Isabelle woke up, the thin morning light coming through the gaps in the door as a maid came in, yawning, to sweep the floor.
Isabelle’s pleas for a bite to eat before they left were in vain, and they quickly went, following St Oswald’s Way, the coast path.
It threatened rain all day and the wind was savage.
After an hour or two of tramping on shingle and mud, they moved a bit further inland to get some protection from it.
Isabelle tired more easily today, but Linnet forced her on.
If they could get to Alnwick, they could stay at the monastery at Hulne for no cost.
‘What were that pedlar talking ’bout last night that made you feared?’
The question startled Linnet. She was thinking about nothing but the walking, but it was clear Isabelle had been fretting about it for some time.
‘I just didn’t like him, that’s all.’
‘Did you know him afore?’
‘No. We don’t all know each other on the mainland, Isabelle.’
The child actually looked perplexed at that. She walked on for another few miles in silence, thinking about it.
‘Why ain’t you married, Linnet?’
Had the talk about the prisoner’s wife stuck in Isabelle’s head then?
‘I never wanted to. My father wanted me to marry a groom at an inn in Durham.’
‘Did he smell bad then?’
Linnet laughed, thinking back to George. He smelled of the horses, but that was a clean smell really, hay and sweat.
‘No, he didn’t smell but I didn’t want to be married to anyone.’
She allowed herself a moment’s dream, seeing herself helping him with the stables, selling eggs, perhaps a child or two.
But no scribing. He’d said no wife of his would do that book stuff.
He was one of those who thought writing was next to magic, to be feared if it happened in the wrong place, outside of a church or a court.
She remembered the dismay she’d felt when her father said he didn’t care about her wishes, didn’t want her to keep scribing.
She had learnt to write and read by chance but this was not part of his intent for her.
He was going away, he would be busy and couldn’t take her with him.
Not that she’d wanted to go, but she’d not wanted to get married either.
Well, she’d chosen a life where she could write, even if some of it had been wrongful.
Her mind wandered as she did, fighting with her father again all those years ago, the moment when she realised her skills had not been part of his plan, just an accident he’d not been bothered to attend to, remembering his anger at her lack of gratitude, and her anger at his lack of care for her.
The child, still hungry, had gone on ahead and was now carefully picking a mushroom or two to eat from the dank roots of the trees.
At the monastery they were taken in by a stern cellarer who gave them solid but plain food, yesterday’s bread and half a cup of yesterday’s soup.
‘It tastes so much – more – when you’ve been walking, don’t it?’ Isabelle was eating with real pleasure.
Linnet smiled, yes. Walking did make everything better, even yesterday’s food. She asked the cellarer if there’d been any pedlars recently but he just shook his head, eager to get on with more worthy work than feeding travellers.
They had a better place to sleep this time, with a soft stuffed sack to rest on and some water to wash with, although Isabelle whined when Linnet scrubbed her face.
‘You’ll have to look proper for the Lady.’
The magic words, ‘the Lady’, did it and Isabelle sullenly accepted.