London - Edward Rutherfurd [211]
“Maybe.” The brothelkeeper was cool now, and deadly. He stepped closer, and she could smell the stale food on his beard. “But I can call the bishop’s bailiff and throw you out of the Liberty within the hour. You’ll get no work after that.”
And that was just what must not happen.
“I’ll do it then,” she finally said. And she turned, and forced herself to smile at William Bull.
The wooden staircase went up the outside of the brothel for two storeys, on each of which there were three chambers, which had been subdivided into pairs of cubicles by wooden partitions. Stepping in at the second storey, Joan and the merchant entered a narrow passage between wooden walls. It was dark. A few paces down the passage there was a little internal flight of stairs, hardly more than a ladder really. Feeling her way, she began to mount them.
Joan’s room was an attic set in the gable of the house. Though very small, at least there was no cubicle beside it, so no banging and grunting would be heard. There was a little window, the upper part covered with parchment to let in light, the lower with a stout wooden shutter. When she had opened the shutter that morning, and felt the cold, damp air on her face, Joan realized that she could see straight across the river and even, over the rooftops of Blackfriars, catch a glimpse of the top of Newgate. It had comforted her to think that she could see the place where Martin Fleming was.
The rushes on the floor had not been changed in months and they stank. She had managed, however, to persuade the brothelkeeper to give her fresh ones to put down, though he had grumbled at the expense. It was, therefore, as such places went, a reasonably pleasant little attic into which the merchant, breathing a trifle heavily after his climb, was led.
The bed was a mattress stuffed with straw. It lay in the middle of the floor. Joan dropped her shawl. She had not yet acquired the striped garb of her trade, but was simply dressed in a plain, long-sleeved undergown of linen, over which was a sleeveless smock with a pattern of flowers. She took the circlet off her head and her hair fell loose. She looked towards the window, stepped across and pushed the shutter open. A hundred yards away, the river was moving sluggishly. Her back to the merchant, she realized that she was trembling slightly. Had he noticed?
In her mind was only one thought. How can I delay him? Wasn’t there, even now, some way out?
“You are really a virgin?” His voice behind her.
She did not turn round, but nodded.
“Are you frightened?” The merchant’s voice was gruff. But did she detect a hint of awkwardness in it? A trace of guilt? She turned.
He had taken off his cloak and was already undoing the buttons on the chest of his tunic. Evidently he meant to get on with the business in hand. She looked at his broad, hard face. Was there any sign of kindness there?
“It won’t be so bad,” he said.
And then it occurred to her. There was, after all, just one way in which her awful situation could be turned to advantage. It was a very small chance, but if she was bold – perhaps, just possibly, he might cooperate.
She mustered all her calm.
“I want you to do something,” she said. He looked down at her. Then she told him.
“You want what?” He was staring at her with stupefaction, but she did not flinch.
“Let me explain,” she said.
It was an hour after noon that a single, robust figure, grinning from ear to ear, bounced out of the old royal palace, bounced to his horse, bounced into the saddle and rode off towards the city, with the ancient Abbey of Westminster looming behind him.
In the year 1295, the Abbey of Westminster presented a most curious appearance, for when pious King Henry III had decided to rebuild it, he had made one unfortunate miscalculation. Notwithstanding the huge sum raised by the Jews, or the pawning of the jewels that Henry had