would not be too angry at his tardiness.
Gianni’s passage was so hasty he did not notice Lucia was one of the people seated on the dais, or the enthusiastic manner in which she was describing to Stephen’s parents, Ralph and Maud, the new movements she and her young cousin had learned the day before. Stephen was sitting beside her, his silken muffler drawn across his mouth and chin as usual, nodding at her explanations and making the sign for each gesture as she told of them. Nor did Gianni observe that Stephen’s father was listening to Lucia with only an abstracted interest, a smile of self- satisfaction spreading across his face as his hand intermittently strayed to the full purse at his belt.
Fortune had smiled on Ralph when he had gone to the wine shop the day before with de Laxton. The place had been all that Miles had promised; the patrons, from the richness of their dress and distinguished air, had been men of means and the wine of superior vintage. There had been a variety of tables and games, and all the boards were of good quality and the dice unweighted-this last having been one of the first things Ralph checked. Even the prostitutes had the look of gentlewomen as they sat at tables near the back of the large room gracefully sipping wine from pewter goblets. Ralph had been very glad he had taken Miles up on his suggestion.
Play had been desultory at first as the regular patrons took the measure of the unknown knight de Laxton had brought into their company. After a few rounds of Hazard with three other players, Ralph had not gained any substantial winnings, but everyone was more relaxed in his company. The wine flowed freely and the conversation was genial.
It had been about an hour later that a man he surmised to be one of the wealthier merchants of the town invited him to play Bac Gamen. This game was a particular favourite of Ralph’s and one at which he excelled. It had not taken long for him to realise that his opponent was not a strategist and far too eager to bear his men off the board without taking advantage of the positions of the pieces. Ralph let him win one or two games, and a small amount of silver, and then, when he felt the moment was right, suggested they use the doubling counter. The merchant, flushed with his small victories, readily agreed. It was only a short time before Ralph won all but one lone silver penny from the pile in front of his opponent.
Noting the merchant had become increasingly distressed by his losses, Ralph decided to call a halt to the game.
“That was my last throw,” he said and laid down the leather cup that contained the dice.
“Damn your soul,” his opponent muttered in a threatening fashion. “You had scant more when you sat down and I staked against it.”
“And you lost,” Ralph replied flatly, “more than once.”
“I will give you a note of promise for another stake,” the merchant said eagerly, his fingers trembling slightly. “Just one more game,” he pleaded. “If I lose again, you will be that much the richer.”
Ralph stood up; the man’s overt display of desperation was distasteful. “I think not. The hour grows late and I am tired. I bid you good evening and wish you better fortune the next time you play.”
Turville felt a fleeting twinge of guilt for winning so much money from his richly dressed opponent, having often been in the position of losing more silver than he could afford himself, but his conscience was quickly assuaged by thought of the amount of money he had won. It would alleviate a large part of the financial distress he and his family were suffering. He had returned to the castle in exceedingly high spirits. Now, sitting at the table with his family and listening to his son describe his new accomplishments, his contentment was unbounded.
In the town, a scant hour later, iseult left the lodgings above the mint and, the maidservant in tow, went to visit her sister. Although she had been intending to visit Lisette for a good gossip about the silversmith’s arrest, all thoughts of Tasser’s incarceration had been chased from her mind by news that her husband, Simon, had given her that morning. She needed to discuss it with someone and hoped that her elder sister would prove a sympathetic listener.
Lisette was married to a harness maker and, with their four children and her husband, lived above his shop in a house on a side street just off Danesgate. Although she loved Iseult she, like their father, was shocked by her sister’s licentiousness and thankful to see her safely married to an upstanding man of good repute. Lisette’s relief had not lasted long, however, for a spiteful neighbour had been quick to repeat gossip about Iseult’s wayward behaviour with Simon’s employer. When Iseult knocked at her sister’s door that morning, she was greeted with a scathing glance, for Lisette was quite ready to take her younger sibling to task for her outrageous behaviour, but her anger was quickly dispelled when she saw the downcast look on Iseult’s face.
“Oh, Lisette,” Iseult said when they were ensconced in the tiny hall of the harness maker’s house, “Simon has just told me he has accepted the post of assayer at a mine in Tynedale. I do not want to go to some village in the wilds of Northumbria where there are only brutish miners and their bedraggled wives for company.”
“Has your husband said why he has taken such a drastic step?” Lisette asked, confident she already knew the answer to her question. When Iseult had taken off her cloak, Lisette could not help but note the handsome girdle her sister was wearing. It was made of exquisite embroidery decorated with tiny gems and had fine silk tassels with which to fasten it. Simon could never have afforded such a costly gift, so it must have been a present from Iseult’s lover. Was it any wonder her sister’s husband was seeking a way to remove his beautiful young wife from the close proximity of her paramour?
Iseult shook her head in her response to Lisette’s question. “No. Simon only said the position is a good one and he has a fancy to live farther north.”
Lisette regarded her sister thoughtfully for a moment. “Perhaps he is not telling you the true reason, Iseult. It may be he has learned of your adulterous liaison with Master Legerton and wants to escape the shame you have brought on him.”
Iseult waved her hand in dismissal. She was not surprised at her sister’s knowledge of her lover; she had never been overcareful of concealing her attraction to handsome men and, as far as her husband was concerned, she had no care that he suffered dishonour through her actions. “I have finished with Legerton,” she said airily. “He no longer interests me.”
Lisette, remembering how their father’s neighbour had lost affection for Iseult once he had tired of her body, gestured towards the belt Iseult wore and said caustically, “Is that expensive girdle his parting gift to you, then?”
Iseult looked puzzled for a moment and then, fingering one of the bright tassels lying in her lap, said, “Oh, no. This was Simon’s New Year present to me. Legerton only gave me a paltry brooch. It was not even solid silver, merely gilt.”
Her answer took Lisette by surprise. She had not thought Simon able to afford such an expensive piece of frippery. Despite Iseult’s unfaithfulness, the assayer must still love his wife a great deal if he was willing to spend a good portion of his income on such a costly present. She regarded her sister and thought how self-centred Iseult was, how she did not realise there was many a husband who would have denounced such a flagrantly unfaithful wife and meted out the punishment proscribed by law. How would Iseult react, she wondered, if Simon were to order her beautiful hair shaved off and then drag her through the streets of the town for all to see?
At these thoughts, Lisette’s patience finally snapped. “You should give thanks to God that Simon is such a caring husband, Iseult. Much as it pains me to say it, you behave like a harlot. I am ashamed to admit we share the same blood.”
Never before had her sister spoken so harshly, and Iseult stared at Lisette in dismay. Her discomfiture lasted only a moment, however, before her innate self-absorption resurrected itself. Rising from the stool on which she had been sitting and tossing back her head arrogantly, she said, “You have always been jealous of me, Lisette, and I see you have not changed. Since you are embarrassed to have me for a sister, I will not trouble you with my company any longer.”
So saying, she called for her maidservant and left the house.
In the mint, de Stow’s workmen had almost completed the manufacture of silver coins for the consignment ordered by Legerton. Helias had promised his employees that if the order was finished today, they could have a paid day of rest on Epiphany.
The air rang with sounds of industry as the hammermen struck the king’s image on the last few coins. The furnace had been allowed to go out, but the odour of molten metal still lingered. De Stow was busy inspecting the work his men had done, stacking the coins in neat piles of twelve ready for inspection by Simon Partager, who would reweigh them and use his touchstone to ensure the silver content was as required by the king’s
