Chapter Twenty-Two
She couldn’t help it – she ran. She ran to the Heugh, tears coming in spite of herself. This was supposed to be her place of safety, but now Tom had died and Guy was back.
She slumped with her back to the stones of the little ruin, looking down on the busy work of the Priory continuing as if nothing was wrong, and tried to steady her breathing. It was warmer than it had been for the last few days, the sun steadily heating the ground.
‘Hello, Mary.’ He’d followed her up. ‘I thought you might have come here. I remembered you talking about your visits with your father years ago. See, I know you, Mary, I know how your little flittery mind works. Lucky that Jack suggested we meet on the island once I was free. He visited me in York Prison, which was more than you ever did, so I knew he was likely to be here. And then when I happened across Lady Margaret on the road to here, hearing about the ugly little scribe who’d done her book, I knew I’d find you. ’
She didn’t reply.
‘So am I calling you something else now?’
She stared at him but still said nothing.
‘I think you know what I want.’
‘There’s no money left, Guy, I spent it on travelling, on getting here, on feeding myself this last year.’
‘Well then I think you owe me, don’t you?’
She didn’t. It was her money, damn him.
He took a step closer, his eyes gleaming with a sudden spite.
‘Not told your Prior about any of this, have you? Not told him you were living as my wife, or that I was in debtor’s prison.’
She’d not told the Prior, no. But then –
‘Do you want me to tell him how we know each other, Guy? Aren’t you here with Lady Margaret? She’ll not be taking you to be her Lord’s secretary if she knows you were in prison now, will she?’
His sallow face grew red with fury, always the only sign.
He never raised his voice or readied his fists.
When he used them, his punches came from loose hands with terrifying swiftness.
He wasn’t like Jack and the masons, with their love of a good fight in the tavern.
His violence was sudden and unforeseen, with no build-up, no time for him to savour the moment.
She shrank back, her hands clawing at the stones behind her so she could find something, anything, to protect herself with. He caught the movement, of course he did.
‘Don’t worry, Mary, I’ll not be hitting you now,’ he sneered. ‘No, you’re right, I don’t want you to ruin my chances. But you owe me and you know I’ll never forget that. You’d better be thinking of how you can pay me back.’
‘I earned that money!’ She was the old Mary again, the one who did talk back, at least to start with.
‘Both of us earned that money, and what you earned was mine, my darling, or should have been. And if you’d given it to me like you should, I’d never have spent time in that stinking hole.’
‘How did you get out?’ She was curious.
‘All you need to know is I made some friends who wanted to help.’
He’d charmed someone, of course he had. She’d been charmed too to start with, thinking he loved her as well as her work. He had just seen her as a way of making money. But he’d misjudged her. Charm fades after a while, and the truth shows through.
She was angry now. ‘Who knows you’re here?’
‘Who cares?’
God, he could be stupid. She’d mistaken his sharp phrases for wit when they’d first met. Given him more than he should have.
‘Warham’s men.’
He gave her a blank look. Even now he had no idea of the danger they faced, the danger to her now that he’d followed her to the island, openly in the service of Lady Margaret.
‘Why worry about him? We did him a job, he paid us.’
‘You know what else we did.’
He shrugged, not caring.
He seemed sure that his explanation to Warham’s men would be the end of it, that after their excuses Warham would forget.
If she impressed the full danger on him, though, he would turn on her and use it to bargain with.
She’d be better to rely on his stupidity and hope it could help her for this time, at least.
‘I’ve other work we should do, Mary. I know you’ve promised some time to the Prior here, but you’ll be coming with me soon, you owe me.
And you’ll be writing a letter for me too, a letter of introduction for the Lord.
Your finest work, Mary, and I’ll know if you scrimp on it.
I’ve a name it’s to come from and all the details you are to put in it. ’
And with that, he started back towards the Priory, whistling, a man in his prime, with his fine clothes, with a fine place ahead of him. A man who had made himself anew, yet again, to be what people expected to see.
Linnet came slowly down the hill. If she was right, he wouldn’t say anything to the Prior.
And he could hang before she’d follow him anywhere again.
She might have to write him that letter though, a good way to make sure he would be gone maybe.
He’d need to be putting on a good face for Lady Margaret. Oh God. That pampered baggage again.
The Priory was in confusion, prayers for Brother Aldus in one corner, preparing lodging for Lady Margaret in the other.
The Inspector was staying in the rooms next to the Prior’s parlour so they had to clear out an old guest chamber for her off the outer courtyard, and make it fit for a Lady or she’d be sure to complain.
Linnet took advantage of the busyness to find Luke and urge him to make the dose.
He was halfway through the receipt for it.
He handed it to her curtly and she took it to Isabelle who she could barely rouse enough to drink it.
She spooned it into the child’s mouth, who didn’t even grimace at the taste, a limp rag doll of a child for now.
She left her in the kitchen with Ann who barely glanced up from the furious cooking she was doing for all the guests.
Linnet took refuge in the Scriptorium as Luke came back in. He had been working steadily between prayers and whatever else Godfreyd had him doing. His work on the Gospels was going well but she saw he had a habit of not quite finishing a line with the right spacing.
‘You need more space here, see?’
‘I think it looks better without that space. Isn’t it the choice of each scribe how to lay it out?’
She rolled her eyes and explained, yet again, the difference between a scribe’s own hand and the needs of those that would be reading the page in time to come.
How a word running on could change the sense, even make a mockery of God’s words.
He didn’t admit to his fault but he did begin to keep the spaces as she’d told him.
As always, the scribing calmed her and cleared her mind. As she returned to her illumination, she pricked out patterns for the margins, thinking about what she needed to do.
Guy wanted his money. She’d thought they were partners, they worked together.
But that day, the one when they came for him for the money he’d spent and the money he’d owed, she’d realised he truly was the man who hit out.
The one who liked inflicting casual pain.
Who thought of her not as his Mary, his partner, but his thing, his skilled but senseless thing.
The dull shock of realising she’d not been seen as she truly was, giving way to a burning anger.
He’d shoved her towards the men, said he’d not known what she’d done, that she must have been stealing, that she was the one who owed the money – tried to get them to take her not him, but they’d not been fooled.
She’d frozen, not able to speak up for herself as he casually hit her on the back of the head, tore her dress to show what a skinny, ugly thing she was, how the men could do what they liked with her if they’d leave him alone.
Despite his efforts, he’d owed too much for them to be distracted. Eventually he had told her to get the other coins that he owed, and she’d played dumb until he’d been taken away. It had not taken much play-acting. She was numb at the way he’d thrown her out like a scrap to be used instead of him.
She would never give him the money and she would never go with him again. He wanted this place with Lord Edmund, it would be perfect for him. Betraying her would betray himself, unless he could make them believe his lies. He could easily lie, but so could she. She would have to watch and wait.
As if in answer, her little finger set up its familiar ache. She knew he’d never harm her scribing hand, not now he needed her to write that letter for him, but the fear remained, what if his temper got the better of him again.
Meanwhile she would try to avoid Lady Margaret. She must be keen to be with her husband after all this time. It could only be a short stay.
So what else could she do for now? Nothing. That was the simple truth of it. Only hope Guy blundering about the country hadn’t brought more trouble after him.
Everyone heard Lady Margaret arrive. She had complained for the entire ride over to the island.
Why wasn’t there a better road, why was there a flood half the day, why hadn’t the Prior come to the mainland to accompany her?
How lucky she had been to come across Guy just as they were to take a dangerous route through the forest. Without his guidance, who knew what would have happened to her.
She was sure her husband would be very content to have Guy as his personal secretary.
She was so clever to have seen the need for him.
Her maid kept quiet, her head down, trying to get them across as soon as possible.
The Beale boy, one of the younger two, Linnet thought, who took them across looked in awe of her, and had taken them a truly direct route for once, but his face darkened at the lack of coins at the end and Linnet knew that there would be a lot more mud to come when Lady Margaret returned to the mainland if he had anything to do with it.