Silken Threads (30 page)

“What the devil...? Wait!”

Alice sprinted into Milk Street, but her
progress was aborted by arms wrapping around her and lifting her
off the ground.

“Not so fast,” Mistress Joanna said as she
carried Alice, kicking and flailing, back into the alley. “We need
to have a conversation, you and I.”

Alice struggled mightily, but the shop lady
had her in an iron grip. She carried her calmly up the alley,
saying, “Serjant Fox told me there was a little girl named Alice
running about dressed as a boy. That would be you, I assume.”

“Let me go!” Alice geared up her nerve to
say a bad word. “You bitch! Let me go!”

“I think not.”

Alice looked up as they crossed the croft to
Mistress Joanna’s back door. She looked toward the little rear
window, dreading what she would see. Sure enough, Graeham Fox was
there, watching her being lugged like a sack of turnips toward the
back door.

Mistress Joanna carried her into the house,
down a hallway, and through a leather-curtained doorway into the
little storeroom-turned-bedchamber. Serjant Fox was sitting on the
edge of his cot, his expression doleful. “Good morrow, Alice.”

“I’m sorry, serjant,” Alice said as Mistress
Joanna plunked her on her feet and gave her back her cap. “She saw
me. I can give you three of your pennies back, but I spent the
fourth.”

“Your pennies?” said Mistress Joanna.

Graeham Fox closed his eyes briefly.
Realizing what she had done, Alice felt her stomach constrict in a
knot of remorse. She pulled her cap back on, shoving her braids
beneath it.

The shop lady walked up to Serjant Fox.
“Your pennies, serjant?”

He lifted his crutch and pulled himself to
his feet. “Mistress...”

“I take it you paid this child to follow
me.”

He sighed.

“I might have known.”

“I needed to know where you’ve really been
going every morning,” he said. “And don’t tell me you’ve been
marketing, because you hardly ever bring anything back.”

“She went to the red and blue house!” Alice
offered, thinking he might let her keep the money he’d paid her if
she gave him the information he’d been seeking.

The serjant smiled slowly. “I thought that
might be it.”

Mistress Joanna gave Alice a look before
returning her attention to Graeham Fox. “You are sorely trying my
patience, serjant.” She wasn’t acting angry, but how could she not
be?

Alice swallowed hard. They were both mad at
her now
—
and at each other, as well. She’d mucked things up
badly. Digging the three remaining pennies out of her purse, she
held them out to the serjant. “Here. I got caught, so...”

“Keep them,” he said. “I don’t want them
back.”

Somehow that made her feel even worse. She
returned the money to her purse and edged toward the doorway.

“You could have simply asked me where I was
going,” said Mistress Joanna.

“Would you have told me the truth?”

Unseen by the shop lady and the serjant,
Alice pulled the leather curtain aside.

“That’s not the point.”

“Mistress...”

“I’m going to continue my visits to Ada le
Fever, but don’t think for a moment I’m doing it for you, serjant.
And don’t expect me to spy for you or report back to you, because I
won’t.”

“I understand,” he said, with a hint of
smugness. “But I also know that you’ve got far too much honor and
compassion to keep quiet if you suspect any wrongdoing on the part
of Rolf le Fever. You’d report to me rather than let any harm come
to his wife.”

Alice slipped through the curtain, raced up
the hall and out the back door. It banged behind her.

“Alice!” Graeham Fox called from inside.

She heard Mistress Joanna say, “I’ll go
after her,” but she knew she had too much of a head start to be
caught
—
not by a woman.

“Alice!” the serjant yelled through the
window. “Come back! Please!”

But Alice knew, as she sprinted away, that
she would never go back there, ever again. She’d caused enough
trouble for those people. No use sticking around to cause more.

* * *

“Thank you for seeing me, Brother Prior,”
said Joanna early that evening as she was ushered into the office
of Simon of Cricklade, Prior of Holy Trinity.

“Not at all.” Brother Simon circled his desk
and gestured Joanna into one of two high-backed chairs facing each
other in a corner of his office. He sat in the other, adjusting his
black, cowled habit so that it lay smooth over his lap. “When I was
told it was Graeham Fox who had sent you, I knew I had to see you.
I haven’t seen the boy since he left here eleven years
ago...although I don’t suppose he’s a boy any longer.”

Brother Simon’s office, austere yet
strangely elegant, suited him perfectly. The prior was old, very
old, with snowy hair beneath his skullcap and translucent, softly
fissured skin. Yet, despite a slight palsy in his head and hands,
his movements were smooth and graceful, his back straight, his gaze
astute
—
and kind, which served to put Joanna at ease even
though she’d never set foot in a monastery before, much less had an
audience with its chief administrator.

The prior turned to the young monk who’d
escorted Joanna into his office and said, “Spiced wine, if you
please, Brother Luke.”

Brother Luke nodded and retreated from the
chamber, closing the door softly behind him. The prior sat back in
his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sorry Graeham couldn’t come
himself. A broken leg, you say?”

“Aye, the work of robbers.”

Brother Simon shook his head. “This can be
an unkind city.”

“He asked me to convey his best wishes, and
that he’s planning to visit you before he returns to Beauvais next
month.”

“I’d like that.”

“The reason I came here,” she said, “is to
ask for your help in locating a child.”

“A child. One of my boys?”

“Nay, ‘tis a girl
—
though she
dresses like a boy for safety. She’s orphaned and homeless. Her
name is Alice, but she goes by Adam.”

A soft knock sounded at the door. “Come,”
said Brother Simon. The young monk entered with a tray of warm
spiced wine in a ewer, which he poured into wooden goblets before
taking his leave.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said the prior as
he handed a goblet to Joanna. “I like my wine heated even in the
summer. Old men need all the warmth they can get.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Joanna lifted the
goblet to breathe in the exotic blend of cinnamon and cloves and
good red wine.

Brother Simon took a pensive sip. “I’m
afraid I don’t quite see how I can be of help in this matter,
mistress. We’re a very insular community here. If you need
assistance in searching the city for the child, you’re best off
notifying the ward patrol to keep an eye out for her.”

“I did,” she said, “before I came here. But
she’s a slippery little thing, and she looks like a thousand other
ragged young boys. The reason I came to you is that she sometimes
sleeps in the stables here.”

The prior’s eyes lit with amusement. “Yes,
the brothers tell me they often come across waifs asleep in the
empty stalls. I’ve ordered them to be undisturbed.”

“If they find a child of about nine or ten
in a ragged red cap, Serjant Fox and I would very much appreciate
being informed. And if you could manage to detain her...”

“I don’t think that should be a
problem.”

“You might be surprised,” Joanna said, but
she felt a rush of relief at his easy cooperation. “I live on Wood
Street, the first house after the alley near the corner of
Newgate.”

The prior took another sip, eyeing her over
the rim of his goblet. “And were does Serjant Fox live?”

“With me.” A wave of heat consumed Joanna’s
face. “That is, he’s renting my storeroom. While his leg heals. He
sleeps there.”

Brother Simon nodded, almost smiling; Joanna
knew he suspected that their relationship wasn’t innocent. “I find
it hard to think of Graeham Fox as a soldier. I spent fourteen
years trying to prepare that boy for a career in the Church. He was
bright enough, certainly, one of the cleverest boys we’ve ever had
here. Always poring over books in our library.”

“He still reads a great deal.”

The prior nodded sagely. “‘Tis a favorite
pastime of people who enjoy solitude
—
or have simply grown
accustomed to it. Graeham was never one to rely on others, for
companionship or for any other reason
—
most unusual in a
place like this, where the boys tend to run in packs. Not Graeham.
If he needed something done, he did it himself. If he was bored, he
found ways to amuse himself.” A spark lit his eyes. “There’s a door
in the city wall within our property
—
did you know
that?”

“Nay.” The only openings in the wall that
Joanna knew of were the seven well-guarded gates.

“It’s close to one end of the boys’ dorter.
The justiciar lets us keep it
—
on condition we lock it at
night
—
because it provides access to a field we maintain
outside the wall. Graeham somehow found a way to unlock it. On hot
summer nights he would often steal out of the dorter when everyone
else was sleeping and use that door to get out of the city. Then
he’d walk the mile or so to Smithfield and go swimming in the
horsepool. ‘Twas the type of thing a group of boys might do for a
lark, except that Graeham did it regularly, and all alone.”

“He told me about the horsepool,” Joanna
said. “I don’t think he realizes you knew about it.”

“He who lives long sees much,” the old man
chuckled. “There is little that’s happened at Holy Trinity over the
half century I’ve been here that has escaped my notice,
mistress.”

“You said you tried to prepare Graeham for a
career in the Church. Are you disappointed he didn’t become a
cleric?”

“Actually, I’d always hoped he would take
monastic vows, but I would have been content if he’d entered minor
orders. At one time, he intended to, but...” He shrugged and set
his goblet down. “I should have known he’d find another path. He
never felt a sense of belonging at Holy Trinity. The other boys
respected him, but they never quite accepted him as one of their
own. I think it was because he’d grown up here and had no other
home. They didn’t quite know what to make of him. I know many of
them suspected he was in a position of privilege, granted special
favors, that sort of thing
—
entirely untrue, of course, but
the rumors did their damage.”

“He was brought up here from infancy, he
said. That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Aye, but given the circumstances...” The
prior spread his hands. “His father was in quite the quandary. He
contributed generously to the priory in return for the boy’s
upbringing, of course, but that wasn’t why I agreed to it. I hated
to think what might have become of the infant if we didn’t take him
in. Babes born under those circumstances ofttimes simply
—
”
Brother Simon’s expression became grave “
—
disappear.”

“What circumstances? Was he...”

“You don’t know? I assumed...” The prior
shook his head disgustedly. “Forgive me. The older I get, the less
circumspect I become. I tell my boys that the best part of wisdom
is discretion, but ‘tis a lesson I’d do well to relearn.”

She captured the old prior’s gaze and held
it. “I’d like to know, Brother Prior.”

“Then you’d best ask Graeham,” he said.

* * *

Should I?
Joanna wondered as she
walked home in the gathering twilight. And if she did, would he
confide in her?

Their relations had been strained following
Saturday’s row, but had gradually warmed over the past six days.
She’d tried to cultivate her anger toward him, to nourish it into
an ongoing undercurrent of vexation, but like her brother, she
found it difficult to hold a grudge.

She couldn’t even manage any real wrath over
his sending Alice to follow her this morning. What could she
expect, after having lied to him about her morning excur-sions? And
wasn’t she lying to him still, about Prewitt? How could she hate
him when she’d been so baldly dishonest to him?

She wished she
could
hate him. It
would be better by far to detest Graeham Fox than to think of
him...the way she often found herself thinking of him. He was a
distraction she couldn’t afford, especially while she was trying to
come to a decision about Robert. St. John’s Eve was a mere five
days away.

As Joanna made her way to Wood Street, a
steady rain began to fall. She was glad she’d worn her mantle, but
sorry she hadn’t thought to substitute wooden pattens for her
leather slippers, which were soaked through by the time she got
home. She entered her house through the back door, having left the
latch string out, and kicked the sodden slippers off in the
hallway. She’d assumed Graeham was in the storeroom, but when she
crossed the lamplit salle to hang up her wet mantle, she saw him in
the shop, leaning on his crutch over her embroidery frame.

He seemed to be studying something in his
hand, although she couldn’t see anything there. The rushes crackled
beneath her bare feet as she approached him; still, he didn’t seem
aware of her until she entered the shop, and then he spun around.
“Mistress.”

“Serjant.” She looked at his hand; he had
her leather thimble on his little finger.

Following her gaze, he sheepishly pulled the
thimble off and returned it to the basket. “Did you get to speak to
Brother Simon?”

“Aye. He was most cooperative. He’ll send
word if Alice shows up in the stables.”

Graeham nodded distractedly as he reached
for a cup of wine he’d set on Joanna’s work table. He brought the
cup to his mouth and drained it, his movements slow and deliberate,
his gaze slightly unfocused.