The Novice's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 2) Page 9

  I decided not to say more on the subject now, but it occurred to me for the first time that if Sir Anthony was as wealthy as he probably was, why had he not helped these relatives of his deceased daughter-in-law, in their time of need?

  Ahead of us the inn by the ferry came in sight. This gable end of the building, I now saw, was constructed of a magnificent pair of lofty cruck beams, which explained the height of the steep roof. There was a window at this end of the gable. That upper room must be very large indeed, though low near the eaves on either side.

  ‘This is where we had problems before,’ Jordain said. ‘The horse was frightened by the ferry, so I think it will be safest if you climb down from the cart, lest he panic and overturn it.’

  I jumped down and helped Juliana to the ground.

  ‘Pass me the child,’ I said to Mistress Farringdon, ‘and Juliana, help your mother. Look, there is the ferry coming over from Clifton now.’

  The two ferrymen were propelling the boat swiftly across the river, with only three people aboard – two women with baskets of vegetables, and a youth leading a nanny goat. They disembarked easily, then the ferrymen looked across and saw us approaching. I did not hear them groan, but the expression on their faces made their feelings clear.

  The horse was easier to manage this time, though still nervous. The Farringdons waited until horse and cart were safely aboard the ferry, then joined us in the bow, well away from the horse’s heels. Mistress Farringdon and Juliana had used the ferry before, but it was strange to Maysant, who kept tight hold of Juliana’s hand until we reached the safety of the further bank of the river.

  Once on the Clifton side of the Thames, the horse seemed to regain his courage, and moved along at a brisk pace. It was a heavy load for him now, but he was strong, despite his age, and accustomed to hauling Edric Crowmer’s barrels of wine. Whenever we reached a rising slope of the road, either Jordain or I would get down and walk, and Juliana joined us, to ease the burden for the horse.

  Back on the wider road leading from Dorchester to Oxford, we began to make better time, but stopped once to rest the horse and to eat the food we had brought with us. I wished I had thought to refill our flagon with ale at the inn by the ferry, but we were so occupied in persuading the horse aboard that it went quite out of my head, so by the time the cottages of Grandpont came into sight, we were all thirsty and eager to reach Oxford.

  As I hoped, Margaret welcomed the tired women with a good supper at our house, while Jordain and I drove the cart to St Mildred Street and unloaded their belongings.

  ‘We can but guess where everything should go,’ Jordain said, ‘but at least it will seem less bare.’

  ‘Table and stools and coffers and cushions here in the main room,’ I said. ‘The smaller table in the kitchen, I would think, together with all the cooking gear and the food. Beds and bedding upstairs.’

  It took us some time, especially as we had to puzzle over how the beds fitted together, but at last we were done, locked the door, and returned cart and horse to Edric.

  After Jordain and I had hastily eaten the food Margaret had kept hot for us, our whole party processed solemnly to St Mildred Street. I carried Maysant, who had fallen asleep again, at which Alysoun flashed me a jealous look, but Juliana took her by the hand and chattered to her all the way. At the door of the house, Jordain handed the key to Mistress Farringdon.

  ‘I am afraid the front is very patchy,’ he said anxiously. ‘It is the new plaster. It has not dried out yet.’

  Mistress Farringdon was not listening to him. I think she was holding her breath, and her cheeks had grown quite pink. She unlocked the door, then stood aside, as if waiting for someone else to lead the way.

  Margaret touched her gently on the shoulder. ‘This is your home, my dear. It is for you to welcome us, not ’tother way about.’

  Mistress Farringdon stepped over the threshold and the rest of us followed. There were brier roses in the garlands Alysoun and Margaret had made, and their scent drifted softly over us. Jordain and I had done our best, and although the room did not look fully lived in, it promised comfort and safety. For a long moment Mistress Farringdon simply looked about her, then she sank down on one of the stools and began to weep. Juliana knelt down and put her arms around her mother.

  ‘Please, Mama, do not weep. Why do you weep? We have a home now.’

  ‘I do not weep for sadness, child,’ she said. ‘I weep for joy.’

  * * *

  Emma and Sister Mildred were sorting through the abbey’s supply of parchment, so that Emma might make a start on the new book of hours the following day. The little book room – which Sister Mildred liked to call a library – opened off the carrel in the cloister that was used as a scriptorium whenever the weather permitted. It faced south and made the most of the daylight, essential for judging colours correctly, as well as easing the tasks of ruling lines for the script and copying with precision and care.

  Emma felt more at ease with Sister Mildred than with any of the other nuns. It said something of the precentrix’s character, she felt, that she had kept her secular birth name, instead of changing it upon taking her vows. And yet she too had been an oblate, given to God when she was eight years old, and professed at twelve.

  ‘I think this will be enough,’ Sister Mildred said, tapping together the pile of parchment they had chosen from the cupboard of writing supplies, all the sheets matching in size, colour, and texture. ‘And here is a good supply of black ink for the lettering. You will not need the colours yet awhile.’

  ‘Do we have plenty of the carmine and the lapis blue?’ Emma said. ‘I was running short as I finished the other book. I should not like to skimp on the illustrations, when the book has been specially commissioned.’

  Sister Mildred lifted down the glass bottles from the high shelf where the colours were kept for safety’s sake.

  ‘You have the right of it, Sister Benedicta. I will order more at once from Oxford. They should be with us before you need them. There is enough here to make a start.’

  ‘And the gold leaf?’

  ‘Ah, now that I think is almost finished. When I was copying out the new anthem I used almost the last of it, for the capitals on each page. I will order that as well.’

  They put the parchment and the black ink on one of the open shelves, ready for Emma to make a start in the morning. Next to them she laid her straight edge and the thin metal stylus she used for drawing lines for the text, and she selected a dozen uncut quills from the general supply, while Sister Mildred locked the expensive coloured inks away again in the cupboard.

  If I had only to deal with Sister Mildred, Emma thought, and could spend my time making beautiful books, I should not be so unhappy here. But I must also be able to come and go as I please, to go forth from within these prison walls, out into the world.

  ‘Sister Mildred,’ she said hesitantly, not wanting to look the older woman in the eye. ‘Have you never regretted being given to God when you were a young child? You never had a chance to know the world outside, to decide whether that was the life you would have preferred.’

  Sister Mildred turned from the cupboard and hooked the key on to her belt, with the others she carried. She stepped round until she could look Emma fully in the face.

  ‘Child, I have never regretted it, not for one moment. How could I? Oh, I am not so unworldly that I do not know I might have had husband and children in the life outside. By now, perhaps grandchildren, too! But the joys of my life have been books and music, and where else could I have filled my days with them more fully than here in this beautiful place, amid the quiet buildings, the peace of the countryside, and the murmur of the river? As the lady of a manor, I should have been too much occupied with daily tasks ever to have spent one tenth of my time with them. And to devote one’s life to God and holy works, here in Godstow, how could I not be content?’

  She reached out and touched Emma’s cheek lightly.

  ‘But you, I know, are not
content. Perhaps you have already spent too long in that world outside to give yourself, body and soul, to this life.’

  Emma choked back tears. ‘Do you remember,’ she said, ‘the skylark that Sister Clemence kept in a cage?’

  ‘I do. Poor little thing, it died within the week. I fear she did not know how best to feed it.’

  ‘I do not think it starved. Did not starve of food, in any case. It died because it starved of freedom. Have you never watched a skylark, Sister Mildred, and heard it sing? They nest in the meadow beyond the abbey gardens, and they fly there, soaring up and up until you can hardly see them against the dazzle of the heavens. And then they sing. Oh, how they sing! Such music from such a tiny creature! Is that not a worship of God, one of His tiniest creatures filling the air with music?’

  She caught her breath.

  ‘It died because it was imprisoned and could no longer sing. I am like that skylark, Sister Mildred, and like that skylark, I think I shall die here.’

  Chapter Five

  Lady Amilia turned over the pages of the book of hours thoughtfully and with apparent care, but nevertheless I watched her anxiously. Her nails were somewhat long – a privilege of the aristocracy, spared any manual work – so when she ran her fingers over the illuminations I held my breath, for fear she might score the rich colours or rip the gold leaf. I had intended only to hold it up for her to see, not meaning her to finger it, but she had simply taken it out of my hands without a by-your-leave. One does not remonstrate with a member of the noble classes. At any rate, not if you wish to make a sale.

  ‘My husband sent for the bookbinder – what is his name? – to discuss the repair of some volumes which had belonged to his grandfather, and mentioned that I wished to purchase a finer book of hours than the one I use at present. The fellow said that you had one for sale here in Oxford, so I felt I must come and examine it.’

  ‘I very much regret, my lady, that this particular volume is not for sale.’

  She had reached the final pages, so I removed it firmly but tactfully from her hands.

  She looked affronted. ‘But surely not. That was not what the fellow said. The bookbinder.’

  I did not like the way she spoke of Henry Stalbroke as if he were some worthless churl, bound to service on her husband’s lands, but I kept my tone deferential and polite.

  ‘I am afraid it is already bespoken, my lady.’ I did not explain that it was I who had bespoken it for myself. ‘However, the same artist has just begun work on another book of hours which will be just as fine as this. Possibly finer. If you wish, I will reserve it for you, and let no one else even see it.’

  She pulled a face. She was young, rich, pretty, and spoiled, her husband’s third wife, and accustomed to getting her own way.

  ‘And if you wish,’ I added persuasively, ‘I can make a note of any particular features you would like to see included. A perpetual calendar? A table of saints’ days? Your favourite prayers? And we can specify whatever binding you desire. Perhaps another colour of the leather? A deep purple?’

  She was wearing a gown of deep purple, a particularly expensive dye, only permitted to the highest ranks in society. I knew she would relish the same colour in her book of hours. She would carry it ostentatiously, another adjunct to her wealth.

  When she left at last, after much discussion, I returned Emma’s book of hours to its safe high shelf, and flung myself down on the stool behind my desk. Walter and Roger both gave me knowing looks.

  ‘I feel like a prostitute,’ I said in disgust. ‘That woman would no more value a priceless book than, than . . . a pig! But we shopkeepers must bow and scrape to the nobility.’ I glared at them. ‘And there is no use your looking at me like that. I must earn enough to pay your wages.’

  ‘It does seem a shame, though,’ Walter said. ‘If the new book is to be as fine as the first. It should go to someone who will value it at its true worth.’

  I sighed. ‘I know. I agree.’ Then I brightened. ‘Perhaps I can persuade Em . . . er . . . Sister Benedicta to insert a few mischievous jokes into her illuminations. Something too subtle for Lady Amilia to understand. That would be some consolation.’

  ‘Best not get the novice into trouble,’ Walter said.

  Of course, he was right.

  ‘In any case, I shall need to see her, Sister Benedicta, to explain all these things her ladyship wants.’ The thought cheered me. ‘I shall ride out to Godstow in the next day or two and consult with her.’

  There was, however, a good deal to do before I could make the journey. With all the work on the house in St Mildred Street, and the trip to Long Wittenham, I had been neglecting the children’s lessons. In the hot weather I did not expect them to spend as much time as usual at their books, but they could not be neglected altogether. Alysoun had pointed out that the students of the university had a long break from their studies.

  ‘All summer long, Papa, from the end of Trinity Term to the start of Michaelmas. Should we not have a break from our lessons too?’

  She was making but a token protest, for I knew she enjoyed her lessons.

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but the students are set work they must complete even during their break from university lectures. Great volumes they must read, translations from Greek or Hebrew they must prepare, the many philosophers they must peruse and summarise. I remember when I was a student I seemed to study all summer long, except when I was needed to help with the hay-making and harvest.’

  The fact that I had enjoyed those times of quiet reading up in my garret room of our old farmhouse was not something I wished to bring into the argument. Of course I had also loved the warm summer days swinging a sickle in the hay meadows, or stooking corn to dry before threshing. Sometimes in this town life I missed the countryside. If we were able to visit my mother during this summer, I would lend a hand to cousin Edmond with the harvest, though this year we would have missed hay-making.

  Alysoun and I came to a compromise. We would hold our lessons on Saturdays only, outside in the garden, and I would find some more entertaining Latin for her to read.

  ‘I am sure Master Caesar was a very important soldier,’ she said primly, ‘but, Papa, I have had quite enough of all those soldiers marching about in France and having battles and sieges.’

  She was right. Although the Gallic Wars were excellent reading for a young scholar, being written in a clear, straightforward style, they were hardly likely to interest a lively six-year-old girl. There were some funny animal fables we could study, not in the purest Latin, but a better choice for summer reading.

  As for Rafe, he was still reading in English, and practising his writing. Less argumentative than Alysoun, he accepted that lessons were as much a part of life as meals and bedtime.

  Work in the shop also occupied much time, now that our labours at the house in St Mildred Street were finished. Although I am no professional bookbinder, when I first began to work for Humphrey Hadley in the shop which was now mine, he insisted that I should learn at least the basic skills required for the making of a book. I spent a rather unpleasant, smelly month working for Dafydd Hewlyn, learning the many stages in the preparation of parchment. Afterwards, the two months in Henry Stalbroke’s workshop were a joy. I found I had a natural aptitude for assembling and stitching the pages of a book, then creating a cover from boards and leather, tooling and embossing the leather before putting the whole volume together, tinting or gilding the edges of the pages, and for some books, attaching clasps to hold a sometimes bulky volume together.

  Of course I would never pass muster as a master bookbinder, or even as a journeyman, but I enjoyed exercising my modest skills from time to time in repairing the cheap student texts, like the ones I had just bought.

  As a boy, I was sent by my father to be taught to read and write by our parish priest, who had himself attended Oxford. He was a patient man, but he demanded high standards of penmanship, so that by the time I myself became a student at the age of fourteen I had a true
scribe’s hand. Indeed, had I not married Master Hadley’s daughter, he would have employed me as one of his scriveners, along with Walter, who already worked for him then. And although I could draw a simple decorative initial, or the border for a page composed of flowing vines and small flowers, I had not the skill to portray people or animals, while my buildings always looked as though they were about to topple over, a fault I could never see how to correct. I was therefore all the more in awe of Emma Thorgold’s artistic talent.

  Stitching and rebinding the broken student books, and catching up with the children’s lessons, kept me busy for the best part of a week after Lady Amilia’s visit to the shop. If I was to consult with Emma – Sister Benedicta – about the new book of hours, I must needs ride out to Godstow soon, before it had progressed too far.

  ‘Not today,’ Margaret said, when I broached the subject one morning. ‘I need your help today.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘In what way?’

  ‘I have looked out some spare dishes and kitchen pots that we do not need, and I have a salted side of bacon and a crock of dried peas. It is too much for me to carry by myself to St Mildred Street.’

  I nodded. I had noticed that most days Margaret managed to visit the Farringdons and always took something with her, either to furnish the house or to augment their sparse supplies of food.

  ‘I am coming too, Papa,’ Alysoun said. She was packing ends of cloth into a basket. ‘Juliana is going to show me how to piece squares together to make a pretty coverlet.’

  I opened my mouth to point out that her aunt had offered to teach her, no more than three months before, and was refused with scorn. Margaret raised her finger to her lips and shook her head. I suppressed a smile. It was a matter of some contention between my sister and me, for she thought Alysoun did not need lessons in Latin and mathematics, while I had no wish for her to be brought up with only housewifely skills. On the whole, Alysoun favoured my view, although she enjoyed cooking with Margaret, especially if there were something sweet to nibble. I did not mind if Alysoun spent time sewing with Juliana today. The older girl was intelligent and well lettered. A little needlework could do no harm.