Chapter Nine #2
‘No,’ he said at last, ‘I can see you’re not sorry. Did he harm you?’
She laughed a little, but then took time to think about it. ‘He might have been going to, he said he’d found out my secrets.’
Tom raised one eyebrow. ‘Secrets? You, Linnet? Why, we all call you the open book down amongst the fishermen! Surely you don’t keep none from us.’
She made a face at his jest. Since she’d been on the island, she’d not said much to anyone, it was true, not even Tom.
Mostly their talks were of the day, the island people, what the monks were doing.
Sometimes he talked about the fish he’d caught, sometimes she talked about the manuscript work, both interested but ignorant of each other’s skills.
He pressed her. ‘What did he know about?’
She hesitated, then the words came out in a rush, the relief of talking about it for the first time.
‘I made indulgences.’ Tom looked confused so she explained further.
‘Rich men have them, a piece of paper promising them a quicker way into heaven if they pay good money for their sins, less hours in purgatory.’
Guy was talking, describing how beautiful he could make an indulgence, boasting of the quality of their inks and the neatness of his hand.
It wasn’t his hand though, it was hers. He always did the talking, but she did the scribing and the illustrations.
She wondered how much longer she would be content to let him take the praise for her work.
After two years, she was no longer taken in by him as she had been to start with.
‘Mary here does some of the illustrations, and she makes the ink, taught by monks!’ Guy pulled her forward like a dog he’d taught to do tricks, and she curtsied and smiled.
She took a curious look at this churchman, Warham, who had sought them out.
Most of their scribing work was for rich families, not the Church.
She’d asked around and knew he only had two livings, both small villages near Cambridge, but his clothes were richer than that would suggest.
Warham held up an indulgence for Mary and Guy to look at. She skimmed it quickly.
To Our Beloved in Christ… the infirmities of human frailty, fearing that by the delights of this world you are being swallowed up unawares as by the waves of a great sea… at the point of death you may feel a full remission and grace…
It went on for a full page of script, but she could see how it was phrased, the sins, the penance, the rewards. She thought of a border of little wavelets to pick up the ideas in the words.
Warham agreed to Guy’s terms. They would make him indulgences for three men of his parish who were ready to pay for their sins. And the money raised would go to his parishes of Cottenham and Barley.
After he’d left, Guy turned to her with excitement.
‘He came to see us here, in Ely, Mary. He could have gone to any of the holy houses or university colleges in Cambridge, but he came to us. He must have heard of our work, we’ll be able to put our prices higher if it’s known we’re working for a high-placed churchman. ’
‘He’s got two livings only,’ she protested, ‘not such a high-placed man. And he said he’d pay your price only if no one heard that we were working for him and if we never made indulgences for anyone else.
Why do you think that is? And what of that other scribe, the one that spoke freely of working for him?
I don’t think he died in a brawl, he was not the fighting kind. ’
She had felt Warham’s ambition though, burning off him like a hidden flame. This was a man who would be high-placed in no time, she knew.
Guy brushed away her concerns. ‘You always look on the bad side. Look at the prices he’s paying. Can’t you be happy at what’s happening?’
‘But why isn’t he using a Pardoner – like the other churchmen do?’
The Pardoners had great bundles of indulgences, ready to fill in the petitioner’s name and the price paid.
‘You know why, he doesn’t want any of that money going to a Pardoner, or back to Rome. The Pope has enough, what does he care about a small church here?’
So she said no more, and they delivered the indulgences to Warham. Despite Guy’s hopes, they heard no more from him for months, but then he was there, at their rooms in Ely again, this time with two servants flanking him.
‘Your work was fine, I’d like you to make some more indulgences for me. This time for the parish of St Mary’s-By-The-Sea, Cambridge, and leave the petitioner’s name off. I will get one of my servants to write it in later.’
Guy was delighted and soon lost in what grade of parchment, what prices they would charge, what illumination and what quality of ink. She wrote down the particulars and kept quiet, until Warham left.
‘We’re on our way, Mary. He will tell his friends now, and we’ll have so much work to do we’ll be able to move to better rooms and—’
She stopped him. ‘Don’t you see, Guy? St Mary’s-By-The-Sea, Cambridge?’
‘What of it?’
‘There’s no sea in Cambridge. He is having us make forgeries. He’ll sell these indulgences in other places and take all the money for himself.’
‘I worked it out, Tom, you see. He needed money, Warham, I mean.
He had two livings but I could tell he wanted to be more than a country cleric, he was hungering after power and influence and he had none.
His family were nobody special. I asked around, he had no one to talk for him at court, but he was well-respected all the same.
‘He could talk a problem through, and some of the Cambridge college masters would call for him for advice and scripture learnings. I think he knew if he could get the money together to go to London, to seem like he were someone, then he could advance.’
‘And these papers you made for him? They would do that?’
‘Yes, an indulgence is for a rich sinner. But Warham was keeping some of the money for himself, I’m sure of it. It was safer for him to do ones for the false churches, no one would come looking for the money for those.’
She paused then, thinking of the time he’d come back when Guy was out. She’d said he wasn’t there but Warham said he knew it was her hand who did the scribing, her who knew how to follow a hand previously written out, and he’d given her something else to do. Not to tell Guy.
‘A family tree, a lineage,’ she told Tom. ‘His brother had married into the St Ledger family, and he wanted me to draw him up a new one. Only this time it was his mother who was a St Ledger, to show he was a nobleman and worthy of the King’s attention, if it were asked.’
She’d done it – of course she had – but she had been fearful of what it would mean.
She realised she’d been talking for a while, remembering those days, and Tom was looking at her, nodding slowly as he worked out what she’d done.
He didn’t look disturbed by it though, and she wondered who else had confessed their sins to him, lulled by his steady gaze and calm air.
She’d not mentioned Guy though, it embarrassed her to think of how she’d been smitten with him, and then hurt by him.
The dread of the men coming for her swept over her again and she realised she was being foolish.
Why had she talked about it? Warham had said that he would know if she spoke of this ever, that he would find her and he would make sure she was imprisoned for forgery.
Not what she’d done for him, but some other charges he would fabricate.
She’d got her own protection against that but she didn’t want to put it to the test. He was a powerful man now, often down in London she’d heard, with the ear of the King and now Master of the Rolls.
He’d never said anything about the other scribe, but the men with him had mentioned it, laughing and winking at her, so she knew the lesson she was being asked to learn.
Her biggest fear was Guy though. She knew he thought she’d stolen from him, and he wasn’t one to forget or forgive. She was sure he must still be in the prison in York, but when might he get out?
Here on the stone wall, in the warmth of the sun and Tom’s interest, she’d eased her conscience for a while, but for what? Now she’d said more than she meant to.
Tom realised she was saying no more, so went back to his food. One of the reasons they were friends was that he knew when to leave her to her silences.
They were friends, she knew, and it was possibly the first time she’d had a friend.
Guy had been a lover, then an irritation and a danger; her father never treated her kindly, not even when she was a grown woman, and she’d been too wary to get close to others when she’d been Mary.
Since running the last time, she’d been too busy hiding, staying out of sight.
‘So where were you before here?’ he asked. ‘Was it like this?’ He waved at the sea and the sky, the view from their perch on the wall.
She thought about Ely where they’d spent the most time. The town huddled at the foot of the cathedral as it soared above the Fens, the wide marshes, the small paths and roads and the knot of houses and hovels.
‘No,’ she said at last, ‘nothing like here. It was inland, away from the sea, although there was plenty of water about, but the fishermen only caught eels.’
Tom nodded seriously. ‘Good money in eels. So which is better, here or there?’
This time she didn’t have to think at all. ‘Here!’ She just hoped she would be able to stay.
Back in the Scriptorium, she got down the heavy annals, undisturbed since the last entry when Brother Alfred had been sent away, and carefully entered Oswyn’s death ‘by flux’.