“I am not accompanying Claudine to Paris. I go no farther than the docks at Southampton.”
Luke blinked. “You do remember that the queen is away? Why pass up a chance to see Paris? Take advantage of this free time, de Quincy. Trust me on this-of all the cities in Christendom, none offers a man as many opportunities to sin as Paris does!”
“I daresay you’re right. But there is a town that I find even more tempting than Paris,” Justin confided, and laughed outright at the baffled expression on Luke’s face when he said, “St Albans.”
CHAPTER 3
January 1194
LONDON, ENGLAND
A brisk wind had chased most Londoners indoors. The man shambling along Gracechurch Street encountered no other passersby, only two cats snarling and spitting at each other on the roof of an apothecary’s shop. The shop was closed, for customers were scarce once the winter dark had descended. Farther down the street, though, he saw light leaking from the cracked shutters of the local alehouse, and he quickened his pace. But the door did not budge when he shoved it, and as he pounded for entry, a voice from within shouted, “We are closed, so be off with you!”
He was not easily discouraged and continued to beat upon the door for several moments, to no avail. He was finally stumbling away, cursing under his breath, when he almost collided with a younger man just turning the corner. He reeled backward, would have fallen if the other man had not caught his arm and hauled him upright, saying, “Have a care, Ned.”
The face smiling down at him looked blearily familiar, but his brain had been marinating in wine since mid- afternoon and his memory refused to summon up a name. His new friend had a grip on his elbow and was steering him back toward the alehouse. He submitted willingly to the change of direction, although he thought it only fair to warn mournfully, “They’ll not let us in.”
“I think they will,” Justin assured him, turning his head to avoid the wine fumes gusting from Ned’s mouth. “Nell closed the alehouse tonight for Cicily’s churching. You know Cicily-the chandler’s wife? Remember she had a baby last month?” Ned was looking up at him with such little comprehension that Justin abandoned any further explanations. Rapping sharply upon the alehouse door, he said, “It’s Justin,” and when it opened, he pulled Ned in with him.
Nell was a tiny little thing, barely five feet tall, but when she frowned grown men cringed, for her tempers were feared the length and breadth of Gracechurch Street. She was scowling now at Ned, who instinctively shrank back behind Justin. “Passing strange, but I do not remember inviting this swill-pot to the churching!”
“Have a heart, Nell. All they’ll find is a frozen lump in the morning if he does not get somewhere to sober up.”
Nell grumbled, as he expected. But she also waved Ned on in, as he’d expected, too. Justin snatched an ale from Odo the barber and guided Ned over to an empty seat, where he settled down happily with the ale, utterly oblivious of the celebration going on all around him. Justin shed his mantle, exchanged greetings with those closest to the door, and went to get Odo another ale. Coming back, he acknowledged his dog’s enthusiastic if belated welcome, and wandered over to eavesdrop as Odo’s wife, Agnes, tried to explain to Nell’s young daughter, Lucy, what a churching was.
“… and after giving birth, she is welcomed back into the Church, lass, where she is purified with holy water and blessed by the priest. Afterward, there is a gathering of her friends and family, and Cicily has so many of them that your mama insisted it be held at the alehouse.”
“Mama said she was the baby’s…” Lucy frowned, trying to remember, her expression a mirror in miniature of her mother’s. “… the baby’s godmother!”
Agnes, a wise woman, detected the unspoken admission of jealousy and did her best to reassure Lucy that her mother’s new goddaughter was not a rival for her affections. “It is not like having a child of your own blood, not like you, Lucy. Nonetheless, it is a great honor to be a godparent. You ought to be pleased that your mama was chosen.”
Lucy did not seem overly impressed with the honor, but Justin felt a sudden stab of guilt. Agnes’s words reminded him that a godmother was only one of the benefits other children enjoyed and Aline would be denied. How could he and Claudine seek out godparents for a child whose very existence must be kept secret?
At that moment, he happened to see Aldred leaning against the far wall. The young Kentishman worked for Jonas, the one-eyed serjeant who was Justin’s sometime partner and the fulltime scourge of the London underworld. Justin began to weave his way across the common room. Aldred was hoarding a pile of Nell’s savory wafers and they staged a mock struggle over possession, which ended with several wafers sliding off the platter into the floor rushes. Justin and Aldred reacted as one, hastily looking around to make sure Nell hadn’t noticed the mishap.
Justin whistled for Shadow, who eagerly volunteered for wafer cleanup, and then followed Aldred toward a vacant space on the closest bench. Watching the revelries, Justin felt a quiet contentment, a sense of belonging that he’d rarely experienced. He knew that he did not truly belong on Gracechurch Street, but thanks to his friendship with Nell and Aldred and Gunter the blacksmith, he’d been accepted as if he did, and that was an unusual occurrence in his life. Even before he’d learned the truth about his paternity, he’d always felt like an outsider, the foundling without family in a world in which family was paramount.
But on Gracechurch Street, he knew these people, knew their secrets and their hopes. He knew that the cartwright’s brother was smitten with the weaver’s daughter, knew that Avice, the tanner’s widow, fed her children by taking in laundry and an occasional male customer when her pantry ran bare, knew that Aldred was besotted with Nell and Gunter still mourned his dead wife, and that his neighbors no longer looked upon him with suspicion, that they’d learned to trust him enough to take pride in knowing that one of the queen’s men was living in their midst.
The new mother, Cicily, was basking in the attention, and she’d just dramatically declared that her next child would be a boy since the first sight to fill her eyes upon leaving the church was a little lad. At that moment, there was a sudden, loud pounding at the door. Nell hastened over and slid back the latch. It was soon apparent to the others that she was arguing with the Watch, for snatches of conversation came wafting in with each blast of cold air.
“… curfew rung at St Mary-Le-Bow!”
“But we are closed to the public!” Nell protested. “My friends and I are celebrating Cicily’s churching.”
“… heard that one before… hauled into the wardmoot… huge fine…”
“Oh, Splendor of God!” Nell threw up her hands in frustration. “Justin, will you please come tell these fools that we are not open for business?” Ignoring his obvious reluctance, she swung back toward the Watch, arms akimbo, eyes snapping. “Hear it from the queen’s man if you doubt my word!”
Knowing Nell was not to be denied, Justin got to his feet and crossed to the door. With a reproachful glance toward Nell that was utterly wasted, he stepped outside to talk to the Watch. Returning soon thereafter, he muttered that the Watch was satisfied and grabbed Nell in time to stop her from opening the door and shouting a triumphant “I told you so!”
Conversation resumed and once it had reached a festive level again, Aldred elbowed Justin in the ribs and murmured, “So how did you ‘satisfy’ the Watch?” for he knew Justin well enough to feel confident that he’d not clubbed them over the heads with the queen’s name.
“How do you think? I bribed them,” Justin confessed quietly, and they exchanged grins, for they’d both learned by now that the less authority men had, the more likely they were to defend it jealously. But it was then that the banging began again, even louder this time.
“I’ll get it,” Aldred offered quickly, for Nell’s outraged expression did not bode well for a peaceful resolution. Before she could object, he darted to the door. “It is not the Watch come back,” he announced with palpable relief, and opened the door wide. “Someone is asking after you, Justin.”
The man was a stranger. He was clad in a costly wool mantle that told Justin he was no ordinary courier; so
