Chapter Nineteen #3
The monkey was thin with patches of fur missing. He looked ill. Isabelle held out an apple core she’d been saving and he took it with tiny human hands and began nibbling on it daintily, for all the world like a bishop at a feast, Linnet thought.
As people began to gather, they crowded around the monkey and he dropped the apple core and jumped onto his master’s head, sullen now.
The kind man of a few minutes ago vanished as he began to shout a string of commands, pulling sharply on the string to make the monkey dance and collect coins from those watching.
Linnet and Isabelle moved back out of the way.
They came to a stall selling cakes, toasted and full of spices, even the smell was warming in the cold air. Linnet sighed. She took out her purse and counted out a couple of coins and Isabelle bought them each a cake.
‘Let us carry the purse, Linnet, I can do it.’ Isabelle wasn’t quite whining but she was clearly tiring of the people and the noise.
‘No, the Prior gave me the coin and he’ll be expecting a good account of how we spent it. We can’t lose it.’
Isabelle paused.
‘We’ll say last night cost a little more.’ Linnet was used to working accounts, a penny here, a penny there, it made life more agreeable.
Isabelle looked reassured but as they finished the cakes, she seized Linnet’s purse and ran off laughing.
It took Linnet a few minutes to swallow the last mouthful of cake. She started after Isabelle. It would be time to move on after this, enough market time now.
She rounded a corner expecting to find the child taunting her with the purse but Isabelle was sitting on the ground, stunned and gasping for breath. No purse.
Damn! Damn! Damn! And this was another reason she didn’t like markets.
Isabelle was almost weeping with rage. ‘He tripped me up and just took it.’
‘Who was it and where did he go?’ Maybe they could still catch him and get it back.
‘I dunno, do I? I don’t know these folk. And he just – he just went.’
Probably a regular cutpurse then, he wouldn’t be able to believe his luck when he came across a young girl waving money around like a queen.
Linnet helped Isabelle up, although she wanted most of all to just sink down in the mud beside her. They had a few coins left – she was not so green as to keep all her money in one place – but not enough for tonight’s lodging and not enough to explain their expenses to the Prior.
Isabelle showed little remorse, hanging on to her fury at the thief. Linnet would have liked to have seen some at least but none was forthcoming and she had to think what they could do next.
They wandered back into the market. The commotion around the monkey man had died down, he’d thrown a brightly coloured scarf over a basket and Linnet supposed the monkey was in there. She hoped he’d been able to finish eating his apple core.
The people were now thronging around the ballad singer, who was telling his bawdy tales and promising an utterly filthy ballad for later. Isabelle didn’t look startled, she’d probably heard worse from the fishermen and the stable boys on the island.
The ballad singer was young, barely twenty, but with the confidence of a man twice his years. He only had a few ballad sheets though, which he was trying to sell. No buyers, not before he’d sung; they were scrappy bits too, and not worth that price. It gave Linnet thought.
She pushed to the front to catch his eye.
‘Ah, we got an eager woman here – husband away is he? Want some attention from a fine young man, ready for a good time?’
The crowd roared, but Linnet frowned and made a discreet money sign at him.
He may have been new to his craft but he recognised when someone wanted to talk about money.
Then he quickly turned to a blushing hulk of a farm boy, telling him it was time for him to be ploughing the lovely ladies around him as well as the fields.
As the laughter rose, the ballad singer called for quiet.
‘I’ll be here a little after noon, so bring your coins for the dirtiest stories you’ve ever heard – the more coins, the filthier they’ll be!’
Jumping down from the stone he’d been standing on, he came over to Linnet.
‘What are you after then, mistress? Not my stories, I reckon then?’
‘I see you’ve only got a few rough sheets for sale, and you’ll never sell them at that price.’
‘Maybe after they’ve heard the songs I might,’ he said, but they both knew that was talk.
‘I can help you. I’ve got some paper and inks with me and I’m a scribe travelling through.
We’ve time before your songs. You pay for me and the child to have some pottage in the tavern with some warm ale and I’ll do you some copies.
I’m fast and good and you’ll be able to get twice what you pay me for them. ’
She showed him a couple of pages of her work she had with her and he nodded in recognition of her skill.
The size of the crowd had been encouraging. The ballad singer tried to bargain for a bit but he wasn’t used to it and Linnet got more or less what she’d wanted.
They went to the tavern and he got them the drink and a table for eating. Isabelle fidgeted a bit but was soon warmed by the drink and even fell asleep for a while.
Linnet got out her pens and plain ink, and the paper she’d taken from Lady Margaret’s desk. She knew the Lady would have missed jewels or silks but she’d paid no attention to the paper and she would never use it herself.
The songs were dirty, but nothing Linnet hadn’t seen or heard before. She put her head down and worked fast, becoming more oblivious to the hum and chat in the tavern. She made ten good copies and then playfully added a grinning man and a fine lady in the margins of a couple of the sheets.
When the ballad singer came back that afternoon, she persuaded him to give her more for the two with pictures and the price they’d agreed for the rest. She woke up Isabelle and they started out of the tavern.
Linnet hoped they had enough time to get to a nearby monastery before dark and then it would be a long walk for the last day and they’d be home.
The people were still thronging around the stalls, buying and selling and quarrelling, as Linnet and Isabelle pushed through. The bats were starting to flitter in the darkening sky. Isabelle still looked very tired, too much for a long walk.
She considered quickly what was for the best. If they slept another night here and started early, they could get to the shore near the island by the end of daylight tomorrow, and the place they stayed last night had been clean and warm.
Isabelle revived a little when Linnet told her they’d be staying and they turned back to the market where people were beginning to pack up. Linnet bought a broken meat pie for them for half the price from earlier in the day.
The ballad singer saw them eating their pie. He was red-faced and sweating, he’d been singing and shouting and jesting for over two hours. He called them over. ‘I sold all my sheets, you’re not bad for a woman at that scribing. Want to do me some more?’
Why not? They were here for the evening anyway. He asked her to do more of the pictures on the sheets and they settled back in at the tavern again.
Isabelle befriended the tavern kitten, playing with a piece of torn skirt and letting her spring at it, on and off.
It was peaceful, most had left for the day not wanting to spend any gains on another night’s lodging.
The remaining drinkers looked pleased with their day’s work and were counting coins, or drinking away what they’d made.
Linnet let her mind wander back to George, the marriage and the life she’d refused. And for her own satisfaction, she gave the man she was drawing something of George’s face, and the woman Lady Margaret’s.
They walked out into the night air, colder than ever after the warmth of the tavern, back to the house they’d stayed in before. They were too late though, and she was full, sorry to turn them away but she had not an inch of space left.
Linnet had a thought so they carried on down to the harbour. As she had hoped, some of the boats were overturned on the sands, so they crept under one to use it as shelter. She stopped up the gaps with stones and mosses and it soon grew warm enough for them to stop shivering.
Isabelle was off asleep straight away but Linnet couldn’t seem to quieten her mind. She counted the money she’d made and what she owed the Prior. She should have some left she could keep.
As she was falling asleep, voices outside the boat woke her up again. Two men talking, stumbling a little on the pebbles, low voices, stopping for a piss, she thought.