Heaven's Fire Read online

  “Master Becket?” Rainulf said. “Thomas Becket—the king’s chancellor? That’s who commissioned this Bible?”

  “Aye. And the job couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m tired of this business, tired of living in two rooms over this shop. I want to move out of Oxford and raise goats and chickens. I’ve been wanting out ever since my husband died two years ago, but I couldn’t afford to leave. Now I’ll be able to.”

  “I’m very proud to be working on Thomas Becket’s Bible,” Corliss said as she latched her heavily laden satchel. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

  Rainulf thanked her, too, and they took their leave. Corliss noticed young Felice gazing at her rather wistfully as she crossed to the door. One of the young men—a large fellow with dark, curly hair—scowled at Corliss and gripped his penknife in a white-knuckled fist.

  “Bertram,” Mistress Clark admonished, “get back to work. You, too, Felice.”

  They left the shop and began walking down Catte Street, but Rainulf stopped in his tracks, his expression alert and wary. “Did you see that?” he asked, pointing across the street. “Someone ducked into that alley as soon as we came out.”

  “Who? Do you know him?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at him, but he backed up quickly, as if he didn’t want us to see him.”

  “You’re making much out of nothing,” she said.

  “I think not. You stay here.”

  “Rainulf—”

  “Stay here, he repeated. “I’ll be right back.” He crossed the street and disappeared into the alley.

  Corliss sighed impatiently and waited in the street. After a minute she felt a hand grip her shoulder hard and wheel her around. It was the dark-haired scribe, the one called Bertram.

  “Stay away from Felice,” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I saw how you were looking at her.”

  “Wait, you’ve got it all—”

  “Just stay away from her. Her and me are going to be married next year. I already arranged it with Mistress Clark.”

  “Does Felice know that?”

  “That’s none of your affair. She’s none of your affair. I love her and I’m going to marry her, and you’re going to keep your distance from her. Understand?”

  The panic in his eyes startled Corliss. Good God, he really is in love with her!

  “I’ve no interest in her,” Corliss assured him.

  Bertram backed up slowly toward the shop. “Just you see it stays that way,” he warned as he went inside.

  “My, my.”

  Corliss turned to find Rainulf standing behind her, arms crossed, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “It would seem you pass rather well for a man, after all.”

  “I told you!” she snapped as they began walking south on Catte Street. “Did you find your mysterious man?”

  “Nay. He eluded me. But I know he was there. Watching us.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  Rainulf speared her with a sideways glance. They walked in silence until after they came to High Street. “Why didn’t you sell her the book? She’d have given you almost eight pounds! You could have lived off that for a long time.”

  “‘Twas tempting,” Corliss admitted. “But I couldn’t bear to take money for something I’d put so much love and effort into. And I’m not looking to live a life of idleness. I want to work! I want to illuminate books.” She shrugged. “At least now I know that I can sell it if I ever find myself without resources.”

  He made a sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh. “I can’t imagine you ever being without resources, Corliss. You’re the most resourceful person I’ve ever known. The most remarkable, the most...” He paused on the busy street and looked down at her for a moment, then looked away, seeming strangely ill at ease.

  “Rainulf?”

  Presently his gaze refocused on her and he smiled, but it looked forced. “Have you ever been to an alehouse?”

  “An alehouse? Of course not!”

  He grinned and steered her by her arm diagonally across the wide avenue. “There’s a fairly unobjectionable one on Blue Boar Lane. Let me buy you a pint. Then we can go hunt you up a desk for your work.”

  Chapter 6

  “Exquisite.” Corliss whispered the word out loud as she walked in a daze from the shop on Catte Street to the house on St. John. That was the word Enid Clark had used to describe the completed signature, fully illuminated, that Corliss had given her. This is exquisite work. And it took you less than a week! I’m so pleased to have found you. Then she’d filled Corliss’s hands with money and given her another signature to work on.

  Corliss fingered the pouch on her belt, heavy with silver coins and the little reliquary, whose good fortune had not failed her yet. She sprinted up to the big stone house, threw open the door, and bounded up the stairs, filled with a heady excitement. So this is what freedom feels like!

  Thomas sat with a tankard of ale at the table in the main hall, looking a good deal more disheveled than usual. His sandy hair was unkempt, and his shirt hung loose over his chausses.

  “Corliss!” He stood abruptly and nervously finger-combed his hair. “Back already? It’s not even noon.”

  Cappas, tunics, belts, and boots lay strewn about the floor. “This place is a mess,” Corliss said, setting her satchel down on the chair attached to her big desk. “Where’s Luella?”

  “Out marketing. Uh, Corliss—”

  “I’ve got good news, Thomas!” She crossed to the leather curtain and swept it aside. “Mistress Clark liked my—”

  “Corliss, wait!”

  Someone moaned. Corliss froze on the threshold of her bedchamber, listening. Low, masculine murmurs...

  A woman’s voice, from behind the drawn curtains of the big bed: “Do you like it like this?”

  The man gasped. “Oh, yes! That’s it. Yes!” Corliss recognized Brad’s English-accented voice.

  There began a muffled rhythmic squeaking of the ropes that supported the huge mattress. The yellow damask curtains shifted in time to the sound.

  Corliss turned to find Thomas behind her, grinning sheepishly. “Don’t be mad. We’ll share her with you.”

  “What?”

  The squeaking stopped. A plump female hand reached out and parted the damask, revealing the couple within. The woman—a frowsy blonde—was on top, her front-lacing kirtle undone and gaping open. Brad lay beneath her, cradling one enormous breast in each hand; he muttered a low Anglo-Saxon curse upon seeing Corliss.

  The woman’s gaze swept Corliss from head to foot, sizing her up. “You’ll have to wait your turn, love. And it’ll cost you tuppence. Ahead of time.” With that she yanked the curtain closed, and the bed promptly recommenced its steady rocking.

  “I don’t believe this,” Corliss told Thomas as he led her into the main hall, reclosing the leather curtain. “That’s my bed. Mine!”

  Thomas shrugged as he tucked his shirt into his chausses. “We can’t bring wenches back to our rooms. The landlady won’t permit it.”

  “Does Rainulf know you bring them here?”

  Thomas blanched. “Nay. He’d never allow it.”

  Even through the leather curtain, Corliss could hear the increasingly hectic creaking of the bed.

  “Of course he wouldn’t!” Corliss said. “He’d be outraged if he knew. He’s got a reputation to maintain, Thomas. He could be ruined if people found out that kind of woman has been here. Did anyone see her come in?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Brad released a satisfied groan, and then the creaking ceased.

  “You don’t think so?” Corliss spat out.

  “Don’t be angry,” Thomas pleaded. “And please don’t tell him. Come on—be a sport. You can have her for free. I’ll pay the tuppence myself.”

  “I don’t want her.”

  “Don’t be too hasty.” Thomas grinned. “Alfreda is very... talented.”

  “I’m not interest
ed. Just get her out of here.”

  He adopted a conspiratorial air and lowered his voice. “She’s got a very clever mouth, if you know what I mean.”

  Corliss had no idea what he meant.

  Her ignorance must have shown on her face, for Thomas said, “Have you ever even bedded a woman?”

  Corliss felt heat sweep up her throat and suffuse her face. “Of course.”

  Thomas eyed her knowingly. “No, you haven’t. A sad state of affairs, I’d say.” He located his purse among the discarded clothing and shook two pennies into his palm. “But one easily remedied.”

  The leather curtain opened and Brad stepped through, tying his chausses. He nodded to Corliss. “She’s waiting for you.”

  “She’ll have a long wait,” Corliss said, backing up.

  “Come on,” Thomas urged, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the bedchamber. “It’s my tuppence! Give her a go!” As an aside to Brad he added, “He’s nervous. It’s his first time.”

  “Truly?” Brad laughed and took her other arm. “You could do worse than lose your virginity to Alfreda. She knows every trick there is.”

  “No!” Corliss howled as they drew her into the chamber and toward the bed. The curtains were open. Alfreda reclined against the mountain of pillows, yawning, her breasts still exposed, the skirt of her kirtle raised up above her stout white thighs. She held her hand out and Thomas put the two pennies in it.

  “Come to Alfreda, love,” the whore coaxed tiredly, her arms extended.

  Thomas and Brad pushed her onto the bed and closed the curtains around her. A ripe scent comprised of cloying perfume and unwashed flesh filled Corliss’s nostrils. Alfreda reached for her. She scrambled backward, turned, and tore the curtains open. “Get her out of here now, or I’m telling Rainulf!”

  The two young men gaped at her. “He’s serious,” Brad concluded.

  “Leave now,” Corliss said, jumping down, “and never bring another woman here, and I’ll keep quiet. Otherwise, Rainulf finds out everything!”

  Thomas and Brad exchanged a look, and then Thomas said, “We’d better get going, Alfreda. It seems young Corliss is determined to remain pure and unsullied despite our best efforts to corrupt him.”

  “I’m keeping the tuppence,” Alfreda announced as she retied her kirtle.

  Thomas sighed. “And welcome to it, my dear.”

  When they were finally gone, Corliss whipped the quilts off the bed and stripped the sheets for Luella to wash when she returned. As she struggled to tie them into a bundle, a knock came at the front door. Muttering an oath—something she’d never once done while she still wore kirtles—she kicked the wad of sheets across the bedchamber, then pounded down the stairs and opened the door.

  A man stood there—a large man, hunched beneath the satchel on his back, in coarse braies and a short hooded cloak with a pointed cowl pulled down low. With his head partly bowed, and that cowl, his face was lost in shadow, despite the glaring noon sun.

  “Yes?” Corliss said testily.

  The man nodded slightly without raising his head. “Good-good...” He hesitated, as if struggling with the words. “Good day, m-mistress.”

  “Mistress?” Her scalp tightened. “Why do you call me mistress?”

  The man stood unmoving for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “Y-you seemed like... th-that is...”

  He hadn’t once looked at her. “Raise your head,” she said. “Look how I’m dressed. Do I look like a woman to you?”

  The man hesitated, then slowly raised his head—very slowly, as if lifting a heavy burden. As the sunlight played over his features, Corliss stilled a gasp. His broad, fleshy face was deeply pitted, all over, with hundreds of pockmarks—the worst Corliss had ever seen. He looked like one of the grotesques in Mistress Clark’s pattern book—an imaginary creature surely inspired by the ravages of leprosy. In fact, she might have thought this man a victim of that disease rather than the pox had his scars been deeper and more irregular.

  She bit her lip, contrition gnawing at her. Had the hair of St. Nicaise not protected her during her own bout with the yellow plague, she could have ended up looking like this man. Beneath his disfigurement, she reminded herself, he was just a man like any other—a peddler, judging from the satchel on his back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been rude. I was out of sorts and I took it out on you.”

  She saw surprise in the peddler’s eyes, as if kind words were foreign to him. What must it be like to go through life regarded as less than human? On impulse she asked, “What’s your name?”

  He paused. “My r-real name, or”—his expression became grim— “what-what-what” —he shook his head in evident exasperation over his stuttering— “what they c-call me?”

  God only knew what vile nickname the people of Oxford had thought up for this poor creature. “Your real name.”

  “Rad,” he said presently.

  “Rad,” she repeated. “I’m pleased to meet you, Rad. My name is Corliss.” She nodded toward his satchel. “What have you to show me?”

  The peddler thumped his big satchel down and opened it, pulling out a large blue cloth, which he spread out on the ground at her feet. On this cloth he arranged a dizzying display of goods, some new and some clearly secondhand: battered pots and pans, fireplace pokers, spoons of all sizes, small bolts of cloth, skeins of colored silk, kid slippers, fur-lined gloves.

  A hairbrush caught her eye, and she knelt down to examine it. “Oh, how lovely.” It had stiff boar bristles and a handle of intricately carved ivory.

  “It’s n-new,” Rad offered.

  “What do you want for the brush and these ribbons? Oh, and this piece of lace.”

  He squatted down so they were eye to eye. “Four-p-p-pence for the lot.”

  “It’s worth sixpence if it’s worth a penny,” she said. “You’re just being nice to me. What else have you got in that bag of yours?”

  “N-nothing as f-fine as that.”

  “No?” Leaning over, she peered into the open mouth of the satchel and saw the glint of steel. “Knives, I see. You’ve certainly got a lot.”

  “You-you-you n-need knives?” he asked.

  “No, Rad, thanks just the same. Perhaps if I had a kitchen of my own, but I’m really just a guest here. Master Fairfax has been kind enough to take me in—”

  “What have we here?”

  Corliss squinted up to see Rainulf standing over her, silhouetted against the bright sky. He was staring fixedly at the huge collection of knives. She stood and held out the brush for him to admire. “Look—isn’t this pretty?”

  He glanced at it briefly, then turned his hard gaze on the peddler, who proceeded to gather up his wares. “How much?” the magister asked, withdrawing his purse.

  “S-sixpence,” Rad said without looking up.

  “Here.” Rainulf withdrew the coins, but Corliss grabbed his wrist.

  “They’re my things. I’ll pay for them.” She retrieved the sixpence from her pouch and gave it to Rad, who stowed it away without looking at her.

  “Be on your way,” Rainulf told the peddler.

  Corliss glared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Arms crossed, he watched Rad pack up his things and shamble down the road.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked.

  “I might ask the same of you.” He frowned at her purchases. “Ribbons? Laces? A lady’s hairbrush? Do you want to be found out?” He stepped through the doorway and stormed up the stairs.

  He’s right. She ran her fingers over the carved ivory, the dainty strands of silk. She’d been indiscreet. What would he say if she knew Rad had called her “mistress?” She pondered the situation as she slowly climbed the stairs to the main hall. He may have been right about the ribbons and such, but still he’d been unforgivably rude to Rad. She would never have expected such discourtesy from Rainulf Fairfax. Perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she thought.

  Rainulf stood at a window
and gazed out at the rolling pastures beyond the north wall of Oxford. He heard Corliss come upstairs and go into her bedchamber, presumably to put away her new things. Presently she came out again.

  “You had no right to talk to Rad that way,” she said. “He meant no harm. He’s just a peddler trying to make a living.”

  “How do you know?” he challenged, turning to face her. She stood there in her tunic and chausses, with her feet apart and her hands fisted at her sides, ready to take on the world. She looked amazingly like the young man she pretended to be. Only Rainulf knew otherwise—and Father Gregory, of course, to whom he confided everything. And now, perhaps, this Rad.

  “Really, Rainulf. First it’s shadowy figures in alleyways. And now, every person I befriend becomes suspect—”

  “You have no business befriending people like that peddler.”

  “Why? Because of how he looks? I can’t believe you, of all people, would judge a man on the basis of—”

  “You should know me better than that, Corliss. His appearance means naught to me. And it should mean naught to you, but in fact, you seem to assume some innate goodness in him because of his misfortune. Life isn’t always like that. People who’ve suffered can be evil, too. Certain kinds of suffering can even bring out wickedness in those of weak character.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Rainulf. The man is harmless.”

  “No one of that size is harmless.”

  “He’s simple-minded... I think.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.” He strode over to her and grabbed her upper arms. “All you really know is that Sir Roger has sent someone to find you. Someone who will not only return you to Cuxham, but do serious harm to you in the process. You ought to have more sense than to expose yourself to strangers this way. You’re making yourself too visible, Corliss. You lark about on your own, in all precincts and at all hours. This morning Father Gregory told me he saw you last night with a group of scholars outside St. Mary’s, listening to that hothead, Victor, gripe about the townspeople.”