The Novice's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Then the smoke thickened and darkened a little, and she was sure. Despite the pain of the blisters, she quickened her pace. If there was a cottage ahead, inhabited by people who had lit a cooking fire, then she might be able to beg some food and discover at last why she had missed the way to Oxford.

  When at last the source of the smoke came in sight, she was disconcerted. What lay before her was not a cottage but a long wheeled cart, twice the length of any carrier’s cart she had ever seen, drawn by three horses harnessed one behind the other. It was neither open like a common farm cart, nor covered by a flat canvas cover like the ones used by those carters who worked the regular routes between towns. Along the wooden sides a series of tall hoops held up a painted cloth to form a curved roof, high enough for a man of fair height to stand inside. The ends were closed by flaps of the same cloth, and fixed wooden steps led up the back and front of the cart, for easy access to the interior.

  The smoke she had seen emanated from a fire cheerfully burning within a circle of stones beyond the back of the cart, where a woman in a dark blue cotte was just hanging a large iron cookpot over the flames from a tripod of supports. There were several men busy about the horses and cart, and a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen carrying a bow and a dead rabbit.

  Some kind of travellers, then. Emma hesitated. She needed help, but approaching such people, possibly vagabonds or renegade villeins, might be worse than remaining alone. Yet they were respectably dressed and there was nothing furtive about their appearance. The cart, moreover, had stopped beside what was clearly a road, toward which her riverside path was leading.

  As she hesitated, the woman looked across at her and smiled. It was a simple, friendly smile, in no way sly or threatening, and it made up her mind for her. After all, she had nothing about her worth stealing. Even the manuscript pages would have little value to such people as these. Drawing nearer, with Jocosa following cautiously at her heels, she saw that the cart was clean and well-kept, and – by all the signs – recently repainted.

  Travelling mountebanks, she knew, might use such a covered cart, going from fair to fair. She had seen such people before she had entered the nunnery, at Abingdon and Wallingford fairs, but their carts were generally decorated with symbols of their profession – the painted figures of jugglers and acrobats, perhaps a performing dog or dancing bear. The cloth covering this cart was decorated mostly with a simple pattern of four-petal flowers and trailing vines, cruder but not unlike the borders she herself painted on the pages of manuscripts. Here and there amongst the flowers there was the image of a lantern or a candle, and, in the very centre of the side facing her, a large sun, enhanced with a smiling face.

  ‘Mornin’ to ’ee,’ the woman said, immediately identifiable as a native of Oxfordshire. Not travellers from distant parts, then.

  ‘Good morning,’ Emma said, smiling somewhat tentatively. She did not want to seem like a hungry beggar, but the smell rising from the cookpot nearly caused her to faint from hunger. ‘I seem to have lost my way. I thought I could follow the river south to Oxford, but it is taking me ever further west. Can you set me on my road?’

  The woman eyed her speculatively, and Emma realised that her own educated voice did not square with her rough clothes, yet she was loathe to assume a false accent. It felt dishonest.

  ‘We be goin’ Oxford way, my dear, though not straight way. Osney first, then Oxford.’

  ‘Osney Abbey?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Not mountebanks then, for such would not be going to the abbey.

  The woman laughed at Emma’s puzzled look. ‘We’m candle-makers, my dear, off to make the monks their year’s supply.’

  So that was it! Travelling candle-makers. A group had come to Godstow last autumn, but not these people. Each group would have their regular customers and work their way around a local district throughout the year, living in their cart, although this was an exceptionally large one. This band must be doing well. The ones who had come to the nunnery were from Woodstock and possessed a much more modest cart, although their work had been skilled.

  ‘I see,’ Emma said, and smiled her relief. Candle-makers were respectable craftsmen. It would do no harm to ask for their help.

  The boy with the rabbit had joined the woman and was looking at Emma with unabashed curiosity. Jocosa sidled over and began to sniff the rabbit, which he had laid on the ground near the woman. Emma whistled her away.

  The woman was still eying her kindly. ‘Eaten anythin’ today, have ’ee?’

  Emma gave a rueful shrug. ‘The last of some stale bread and cheese. I confess, my dog and I are very hungry. I had hoped to be in Oxford by this.’ Then, ‘Jocosa, come here!’

  Jocosa was considering taking the matter of the rabbit into her own hands – or paws – though in her comfortable life she had never before been faced with meat contained in a covering of fur.

  ‘Ye’ll join us then,’ the woman said firmly. ‘Rabbit pottage. Jak here is a fine shot at a rabbit.’ She turned to the boy. ‘What are you about, leavin’ that on the ground to torment the poor dog? Go hang it up.’

  The boy Jak grinned, but obediently carried the rabbit over to the cart and hung it from a hook projecting from one of the sides.

  ‘I thank you, mistress,’ Emma said, then feeling that some return of courtesy was due, ‘my name is Emma.’

  ‘And mine be Aelwith,’ the woman said. ‘And here are the rest on us,’ she pointed to the three men who had unharnessed the horses and hobbled them so they could graze. ‘My father, Edwin, my man Thomas, and my brother Edgar.’

  Emma smiled and nodded to the men, who inclined their heads – politely but not servilely. ‘Jak is your son?’

  ‘Nay, he be Edgar’s son. His woman died in the plague, like my two girls.’

  Her voice was colourless as she said this, but from too much experience in the last years, Emma understood how much grief lay behind the simple words.

  ‘Is the lad coming with us?’ The man Thomas said, turning to his wife.

  She laughed. ‘’Tis no lad, surely, ye gummock! However she dresses, ’tis a maid.’

  Emma felt herself colouring. So much for her hope of passing herself off as a boy.

  Thomas frowned and opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. It was clear that he disapproved of a woman daring to dress as a man, but Aelwith had given him a warning look.

  ‘I thought ’twas safer,’ Emma said, apologetically, ‘to dress as a boy, travelling alone.’ She had no need to explain herself to these people, but she had warmed to the woman, who seemed a likely ally.

  ‘Aye, and a wise thing, my dear. Now come ’ee by and take some bread and ale while the pottage cooks.’

  The older man, Edwin, carried out five rough stools from the cart, and they seated themselves around the fire, the boy cross-legged on the ground, for – Emma suspected – she had been given his stool. Aelwith poured ale into wooden cups and passed out rounds of flatbread, the kind that can be cooked on the hot stones of a fire, for certainly she would have no bread oven in the cart. The bread was chewy, but fresh, with a good nutty flavour. Emma started to tear pieces off hers to feed Jocosa, but Aelwith laid a hand on her arm and shook her head.

  ‘There be plenty.’ She gave Jocosa a whole bread of her own and the little dog devoured it in a few bites.

  ‘I am afraid she has eaten very little these last days,’ Emma said apologetically, for Jocosa had sidled up the Aelwith in the hope of more.

  The woman laughed, and gave the dog another round. Then she gestured toward Emma’s feet.

  ‘Ye’ll be havin’ blisters, I’m thinkin’,’ she said.

  ‘Aye.’ Emma looked down at her feet, where blood and pus had soaked through the dirty bandages. ‘My sandals rub.’

  ‘Poor shoes for walkin’ in,’ Edgar said, speaking for the first time.

  ‘Ye shall ride with us,’ Aelwith said decisively. ‘A few days off those feet and that will heal. We’m goin’ your
way. And I’ll salve them for ’ee, like my fool brother’s hand.’

  Edgar grinned, somewhat shamefaced. Emma had noticed a bandage on his right hand, and the fact that he used his left to lift his cup and eat his bread.

  ‘You have hurt your hand?’ she said.

  He flicked a glance at his sister.

  ‘Burnt his hand at our last stop, makin’ candles for the manor at Swinbrook,’ Aelwith said scornfully. ‘Great gummock! Five and twenty, bin makin’ candles since he was six, and ought to know better.’

  ‘I expect it is very painful,’ Emma said.

  ‘Aye, that it be.’ Edgar seemed grateful for any sympathy in the face of his sister’s scorn.

  ‘Is it difficult to make candles?’ she asked.

  ‘A child can do it,’ Aelwith said. ‘A child with any sense and not an addle-pate. Fetch the bowls, Father. The pottage should be done.’

  That night Emma slept in more comfort than she had known for more than a year. The well-filled straw palliasse she was given was probably Jak’s, but he had chosen to sleep outside, under the cart, with an elderly hound who had emerged from the cart while they were eating the pottage. He had sniffed Jocosa, decided she was no threat, and subsequently ignored her. The weather was still cool in the aftermath of the storm, so that Emma was glad of the rough blanket she was given. Aelwith had gently smeared her own salve over the festering blisters on Emma’s feet, and ordered her to keep them open to the air and avoid walking as much as possible. It had become clear by now that Aelwith, who barely reached her husband’s shoulder, was the undisputed leader of the candle-makers.

  The interior of the cart was roomy, and ferociously neat, with partitioned sections for sleeping, and for cooking when it could not be done out of doors. The front portion contained the candle-making equipment, which, Edwin explained, would be unloaded and set up for a few days at each stop, either in a yard or an outbuilding.

  ‘Not safe in the cart,’ he explained, when Emma asked. ‘A fire for meltin’ the wax, and the vats of hot molten wax. One spill and the whole cart would burn to ashes.’

  ‘But you have a brazier for cooking.’

  ‘Hardly ever use it. Only when ’tis rainin’ or snowin’ so hard ’twould put the fire out.’

  This gave Emma pause for thought. This travelling about during the summer in the comfortable cart seemed pleasant enough, but it would be a hard life in winter.

  After they had eaten that first day, they had travelled on in the direction of Osney, intending to reach the abbey on the following day. Sitting on the driver’s bench beside Edwin the next morning, obediently keeping her feet open to the air, Emma asked how she had managed to go so far astray in trying to reach Oxford.

  ‘Ah, ’tis the river, see,’ the older man explained. ‘That old Thames, he’s a tricky bastard, always changin’ course and splittin’ and joinin’, till ye’d go wild, tryin’ to make out where un’d go next. Ye wasn’t followin’ the main stream, see, but one o’ them branches. It joins up later, but it wanders about first.’

  Emma nodded. The boats that came up to Godstow from Oxford must follow the main stream of the river, but when she was swept away, she must have been carried into one of the side branches. Already they had crossed one rickety wooden bridge, over what was probably the branch she had been following. It seemed there were more ahead.

  When they were drawing near the abbey as evening began to set in, Emma made her way to the back of the cart, where Aelwith sat spinning. There never seemed to be a moment when her hands were idle.

  ‘You have been so kind to me,’ Emma said, ‘is there nothing I can do to help?’

  Aelwith looked at her and pursed her lips, though her fingers continued to twist the yarn.

  ‘Edgar is no use to us until his hand mends. Ye could learn to make simple dipped candles. It might save us a day here, afore we go on to Oxford. We’m to go to Exeter College next.’

  ‘Do you think I could make them well enough?’

  ‘Aye. Not the big moulded altar candles. They’ve to be perfect, for they light God’s altar. But the dipped candles, wax or tallow, they’re for ordinary use. ’Twon’t come amiss if some are lopsided.’

  She spoke with perfect seriousness and Emma at once determined that her candles would not be lopsided.

  ‘If you can teach me,’ she said, ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Aelwith smiled at her. ‘Ye’ll soon learn, my dear. Come the mornin’, I’ll have you makin’ them, easy. Edgar and I learned as children. My man came to it late. He was a carpenter to trade, but there was not enough work for him and his brother both, so after we wed, he joined us. He learned quick enough.’

  ‘Abbey ahead,’ Edwin called from the front of the cart.

  Emma picked her way carefully forward, past Jak, who was curled up asleep. Her feet were gradually healing, but they were still painful. She looked out over Edwin’s shoulder. Thomas and Edgar were walking with the horses. Ahead of them, Osney Abbey stretched out. A vast place, it was, more like a village than an abbey, beside which Godstow, itself far from small, seemed hardly more than a toy. Beyond the perimeter wall, Emma could make out some of the monastic buildings, and rising above all was the abbey church with its enormous tower.

  ‘A fine sight,’ she said.

  ‘Aye.’ Edwin nodded, reining in the horses at the gate. ‘They say the bell – Great Tom her’s called – is the loudest thing nearby Oxford.’

  As if to prove him right, the abbey bell began to ring. The cart trembled and Emma could feel the vibration through her feet, echoed by a tremor in her breastbone. It was impossible to speak, impossible to hear, impossible to think.

  Great Tom was ringing for Vespers.

  Chapter Nine

  I had never driven Rufus so hard. Whether Jordain and Philip were close behind me or not, I neither knew nor cared. By the time we reached the North Gate, I realised that the horse had nearly foundered, so I held him back, though everything in my heart cried out for me to hurry. That devil Malaliver was going to loose his alaunts on Emma, I was sure of it. They would rip her apart, then he would have some plausible excuse – it was an accident, his men had exceeded his orders. He might even hang one of his men to demonstrate his good faith, but it would all be too late. Too late.

  I tried to think clearly. Malaliver was determined to rid himself of Emma so that he could claim her inheritance; I was sure now that there could be no doubt of this. Yet even Philip had not been entirely certain of the niceties of the law. If Emma’s grandfather died and she inherited before taking her final vows, then the property was hers and went with her to the nunnery, provided she became a nun. If she took her final vows before her grandfather died – which seemed to be what lay behind Malaliver’s plan to force her to become a nun, then I thought – or so Philip had implied – she would not inherit and Malaliver might be able to claim the inheritance through kinship by marriage, though his claim could be disputed. Her only blood kin were the Farringdons and they were on her mother’s side, no kin of the Thorgolds.

  Jordain and Philip caught up with me as I entered the North Gate, and we forced our way along Northgate Street.

  ‘That horse of yours is nearly done,’ Philip said.

  ‘I know,’ I said, feeling guilty. ‘I needs must take him straight back to the Mitre. You must go to the Castle without me. If the sheriff is not there, ask for the deputy sheriff, Cedric Walden. He will not ask too many questions, and he has the good sense to act swiftly when necessary. Be sure he understands that Malaliver intends to use alaunts against the girl. That is as good as murder.’ My voice cracked, despite my efforts to stay calm.

  ‘What shall you do?’ Jordain asked. He reached out and caught hold of my reins to detain me.

  ‘I shall return Rufus and hire another mount from the Mitre,’ I said, ‘and I had best warn my family that I may not come home today. I mean to ride with the sheriff if I can catch up with him, and then continue the search for Emma. Surely she cannot be far.�
� I said it as much to reassure myself as to convince them.

  Jordain released my reins. ‘The sheriff will stop Malaliver,’ he said.

  ‘If he is not too late,’ I said grimly.

  ‘Aye.’

  I twisted in my saddle. ‘Philip, after you have been to the Castle, can you draw up the document for Emma’s grandfather to sign? I think I must ride there tomorrow, whether we have found her or not. Once we have evidence that Sir Anthony approves Emma’s departure from the abbey, I think it will be difficult for anyone to force her to take the vows.’

  Philip nodded. ‘I will do so.’

  ‘However,’ Jordain said, manoeuvring his horse past a street vendor of hot pies, ‘once the maid is out in the world and free to inherit, does that not mean that she stands all the more clearly in Malaliver’s way? Will he not have even more reason to wish her dead? In the abbey, she is unhappy but safe from him. Out of the abbey, she is in danger every minute of every day.’

  I ran my hand over my face. Jordain was thinking more clearly than I was.

  ‘You have the right of it,’ I said hoarsely. ‘All she would be thinking of was escaping before she was forced to take her vows. I do not suppose she has ever thought about the Thorgold property and Malaliver’s intentions.’

  ‘Is she so naïve?’ Philip said.

  ‘Nay, I would not say so,’ I said, ‘but she is young, and I do not think she cares much for wealth. She has not lived with her grandfather for some years. I suppose she must know that all the rest of her Thorgold family is dead, but perhaps she has not considered how that affects her.’

  At Carfax I turned Rufus into the High. ‘You must hurry to the castle. And Philip, I will come to Merton first thing on the morrow for the document.’

  They headed in the opposite direction, down the slope of Great Bailey to the castle, while I made my way to the inn, at a gentle pace to spare the horse. Once there, I unsaddled Rufus myself, rubbed him down, and gave him a substantial feed of oats, by way of apology. The stable lads at the Mitre were good fellows, but they did not know how hard I had ridden Rufus. Yet all the while I was burning with impatience. Having ordered another horse to be ready for me when I returned, I ran all the way down the High to my shop, to the astonishment of those I passed, and of Walter and Roger when I burst in, out of breath.