The Serpent’s Tale

“Yes.” The girl sank back. “Yes.”

“Who is Master Warin?” Adelia asked again.

“But how can I go on without him?”

We do, Adelia thought. We have to.

Allie had hitched herself over to replace Ward by pushing him off and settling her bottom on Emma’s boots. She put a pudgy hand on the girl’s knee. Emma stared down at her. “Children,” she said. “We were going to have lots of children.” The desolation was so palpable that for the other two women the firelit room became a leafless winter plain stretching into eternity.

She’s young, Adelia thought. Spring will come to her again one day perhaps, but never with the same freshness. “Who is Master Warin?”

Gyltha tutted at her; the girl had begun to shake. Stop it now.

I can’t. “Emma, who is Master Warin?”

“Talbot’s cousin. They were very attached to each other.” The poor lips stretched again. “‘My wait-and-see Warin. A careful man, Emma, but never did a ward have such a careful guardian.’”

“He was Talbot’s guardian? He handled his business affairs?”

“Oh, don’t worry him with them now. He will be so…I must see him. No, I can’t… I can’t face his grief… I can’t face anything.”

Emma’s eyelids were half down with the fatigue of agony.

Gyltha wrapped a blanket round her, led her to the bed, sat her down, and lifted her legs so that she fell back on it. “Go to sleep now.” She returned to Adelia. “And you come wi’ me.”

They went to the other side of the room to whisper.

“You reckon Wolvercote done in that girl’s fella?”

“Possibly, though I’m beginning to think the cousin-cum-guardian had a lot to lose when Talbot came into his estates. If he’s been handling Talbot’s affairs…It’s starting to look like a conspiracy.”

“No, it ain’t. It was robbery pure and simple, and the boy got killed in the course of it.”

“He didn’t. The robbers knew.”

“No, they bloody didn’t.”

“Why?” She’d never seen Gyltha like this.

“A’cause that poor girl’s going to have to marry Old Wolfie now whether she likes it or don’t, and better if she don’t think it was him as done for her sweetheart.”

“Of course she won’t have to…” Adelia squinted at the older woman. “Will she?”

Gyltha nodded. “More’n like. Them Bloats is set on it. He’s set on it. That’s why her wanted to elope, so’s they couldn’t force her.”

“They can’t force her. Oh, Gyltha, they can’t.”

“You watch ’em. She’s a high-up, and it happens to high-ups.” Gyltha looked toward Heaven and gave thanks that she was common. “Nobody didn’t want me for my money. Never bloody had any.”

It did happen. Because it hadn’t happened to Adelia, she hadn’t thought of it. Her foster parents, that liberal couple, had allowed her to pursue her profession, but around her in Salerno, young, well-born female acquaintances had been married off to their father’s choice though they cried against it, part of a parental plan for the family’s advancement. It was that or continual beating. Or the streets. Or a convent.

“She could choose to become a nun, I suppose.”

“She’s their only child,” Gyltha said. “Master Bloat don’t want a nun, he wants a lady in the family-better for business.” She sighed. “My auntie was cook to the De Pringhams and their poor little Alys was married off screamin’ to Baron Coton, bald old bugger that he was.”

“You have to say yes. The Church says it’s not legal otherwise.”

“Hunh. I never heard as little Alys said yes.”

“But Wolvercote’s a bully and an idiot. You know he is.”

“So?”

Adelia stared into Emma’s future. “She could appeal to the queen. Eleanor knows what it is to have an unhappy marriage; she managed to get a divorce from Louis.”

“Oh, yes,” Gyltha said, raising her eyes. “The queen’s sure to go against the fella as is fighting her battle for her. Sure to.” She patted Adelia’s shoulder. “It won’t be so bad for young Em, really…”

“Not bad?”

“She’ll have babies, that’s what she wants, ain’t it? Anyways, I don’t reckon she’ll have to put up with un for long. Not when King Henry gets hold of un. Wolvercote’s a traitor, and Henry’ll have his tripes.” Gyltha inclined her head to consider the case. “Might not be bad at all, really.”

“I thought you were sorry for her.”

“I am, but I’m facing what she’s facing. Bit o’ luck she’ll be widowed afore the year’s out, then she’ll have his baby and his lands…yes, I reckon it might turn out roses.”

“Gyltha.” Adelia drew back from a practicality unsuspected even of this practical woman. “That’s foul.”

“That’s business,” Gyltha said. “That’s what high-ups’ marriage is, ain’t it?”

Jacques was kept busy that day, bringing messages to the women in the guesthouse. The first was from the prioress: “To Mistress Adelia, greetings from Sister Havis, and to say that the girl Bertha will be interred in the nuns’ own graveyard.”

“Christian burial. Thought you’d be pleased,” Gyltha said, watching Adelia’s reaction. “What you wanted, ain’t it?”

“It is. I’m glad.” The prioress had ended her investigation and managed to persuade the abbess that Bertha had not died by her own hand.

But Jacques hadn’t finished. He said dutifully, “And I was to warn you, mistress, you’re to remember the Devil walks the abbey.”

There lay the sting. The nuns’ agreement that a killer was loose in Godstow made his presence more real and added to its darkness.

Later still that morning, the messenger turned up again. “To Mistress Adelia, greetings from Mother Edyve, and will she return Mistress Emma to the cloister? To keep the peace, she says.”

“Whose peace?” Gyltha demanded. “I suppose them Bloats is complaining.”

“So is the Lord Wolvercote,” said Jacques. He grimaced, wrinkling his eyes and showing his teeth as one reluctant to deliver more bad news. “He’s saying…well, he’s saying…”

“What?”

The messenger blew out his breath. “It’s being said as how Mistress Adelia has put a spell on Mistress Emma and is turning her against her lawful husband-to-be.”

Gyltha stepped in. “You can tell that godless arse-headed bastard from me…”

A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Emma was already wrapping herself in her cloak. “There’s been trouble enough,” she said.

And was gone down the steps before any of them could move.

Inside the abbey, the various factions trapped within its walls fractured like frozen glass. A darkness fell over Godstow that had nothing to do with the dimming winter light.

In protest against its occupation, the nuns disappeared into their own quadrangles, taking their meals from the infirmary kitchen, their exercise in the cloister.

The presence of two bands of mercenaries began to cause trouble. Schwyz’s were the more experienced, a cohesive group that had fought in wars all over Europe and considered Wolvercote’s men mere country ruffians hired for the rebellion-as, indeed, many of them were.

But the Wolvercoters had smarter livery, better arms, and a leader who was in charge-anyway, there were more of them; they bowed to nobody.

Schwyz’s men set up a still in the forge and got drunk; Wolvercote’s raided the convent cellar and got drunk. Afterward, inevitably, they fought one another.