And so life had progressed, at first. Jane was entirely dependent upon her mother, as all children must be, and Mazeline was able to perform her duties to her husband’s satisfaction while still feeding and watching over this new life which was so entwined about her own. She adored their little baby, longing for those moments when the child would suckle. And as Jane grew larger and larger on her milk, so Mazeline looked forward more urgently to holding her to feed, up until the time when Jane was just over two years old, when she suddenly rejected the breast. Mazeline still looked on that date as the beginning of her misery, because it seemed to her that it was then that Jane first began to look to her father for everything, rather than Mazeline. Mazeline had never felt so lonely as she did in the days after that initial rejection.
But there was little she could do now to retrieve her daughter’s love. This man had stolen that, just as he had taken her pride. It was in order to gain some affection, to try to renew some confidence in herself, that she had allowed herself to be seduced by Reg. Not that she could ever tell Jordan that he was being cuckolded. Some men might flash into a rage and kill their spouse and her lover on hearing that she had been unfaithful, but Mazeline knew full well that her own man would not merely kill.
Taking a lover was dangerous, as she knew. But at least Reg faced the same danger in taking her. Either of them could be murdered by her man for their infidelity. With any luck, Jordan would never know of their secret trysts. Just now, with the ale dripping down her face and trickling from her nose and chin, mingling with the blood from her eyebrow, she didn’t care. It felt to her as though at least for the last few weeks she had been loved by a man for whom she could feel affection.
Poor Reg. In the street yesterday he had seemed so shocked to see the other bruises. She only hoped she could save him from seeing her like this: so forlorn and destroyed. There was nothing left of her self-respect. All her life was pointless, other than Reg’s love. And her hatred for her husband.
‘You should go and dress that scratch,’ he said.
She remained standing where she was a moment. There was no affection or shame in his tone. She had failed him, so he had corrected her. That was an end to the matter. He knew nothing of guilt. Guilt was for weaklings, he had once said.
It was the knock at the door that made her move at last. She drew her eyes from him and went to the door, ashamed to be seen like this, but knowing that she must go. He would not tolerate her leaving the door unanswered, and he wouldn’t go to it himself. That was a woman’s work when his bottler was away.
‘Mistress,’ Agnes said, looking her up and down with some surprise. ‘Is your husband here?’
Mazeline was so filled with hatred, she could not speak, but merely pointed, and then stood staring after this latest woman to have stolen her man’s love from her.
Chapter Nineteen
Baldwin had hardly left his hall when Ralph received the call from his neighbour.
It was some months since he had moved here, and in that time he had assiduously tried to foster good relations with the others not only in his own street, but in the castle and in Goldsmith’s Street too. In those three places was much of the secular wealth of the city, and it was crucial that he should be on favourable terms with all the people who lived there. After all, a physician might spend the same time and effort on a beggar as on a lord — the difference was, the lord could pay better.
At first, he wondered who she might be, and then, when she was announced, he immediately thought of the attractive woman who lived down the road. From memory, Mazeline le Bolle was delightful, with flashing eyes and high cheeks framed by very dark hair, but today she was all but unrecognizable. She stank of ale, and some still dripped from her sodden tunic, while her hair was bedraggled and matted, clinging to her face and throat. Blood was seeping thickly from a long cut over her right eye, and the left was coloured with the after-effects of a punch, easily identifiable by a physician who had experience of the stews. In the case of Betsy or one of the other girls he’d have assumed she had been attacked by a client; a charitable man might have thought that the wife of a notable member of the community had been assaulted by some felon in the street — but Ralph was not a charitable man. He had seen enough of violence to know that most married women who arrived at his door with cuts and bruises had not needed to leave their own houses to win them.
From the look of her, she was not yet recovered, and Ralph immediately set about putting her at her ease. He brought up a chair, muttering pompously about good-for-nothing servants who never bothered to help when an honoured guest arrived, and then called loudly for his bottler, hissing at him from the doorway to fetch a little of his burned wine. He bought this strange liquor especially for clients who needed refreshment to calm their nerves. It was rare and expensive, and he had to buy it from the monks at Buckfast, but it was worth its weight in gold.
It worked well this time. The bottler, who like most of Ralph’s servants was well acquainted with the specific requirements of the physician’s trade, waited at the door for Ralph to collect the tray, rather than entering immediately. Ralph put a large measure into a mazer for her, reckoning that a large sycamore bowl was safer in shaky hands than a gold or silver goblet. He passed it to her, and looked away while she sipped the warming drink. From experience he knew that it would take a few moments for the drink to take effect, and when he heard the first sniffle he turned to her and studied her again.
Yes, he knew her. She was wife to that man three doors along the road, the big, bluff fellow who was always the first to buy wine in the tavern. Jordan le Bolle. The man Sir Baldwin de Furnshill suspected of involvement in organized prostitution, and possibly the attacks on Anne and Mick. This was his woman, and usually a marvellous-looking lady at that. She too had plainly been attacked, although not seriously in his estimation. There were no obvious lacerations in her breast or on her hands to indicate defence against a knife attack. Nothing like that. But she had suffered a lot of ill-treatment, clearly. The poor woman looked as though she had been forced to endure a great deal of torture over some weeks.
‘You cannot find decent staff, can you?’ he essayed with a bright smile, which faded quickly as she burst into tears.
‘It was a little hurtful, I confess,’ Baldwin said as Jeanne and Edgar packed up their few belongings. ‘I had hoped that my assistance might be desirable to the good Coroner.’
‘“Good Coroner”?’ Jeanne repeated with a raised brow. ‘Your tone has changed towards him, husband. Is this not the man you thought of as a mere political agent, dangerous to know and still more dangerous to befriend?’
‘Well, that is as may be,’ Baldwin responded a little huffily. ‘But he has not tried to force his opinions down my throat, nor has he attempted to persuade me that treachery to the King is justified. It is strange, though, because I thought he would do so — he tried to bring up the subject almost as soon as he first saw us here, if you remember.’
‘Perhaps it was your subtle refusal to discuss anything of the kind?’ Jeanne said mockingly.
‘I was intentionally blunt.’
‘Rude,’ Edgar corrected from the far end of the room.
‘When I want your opinion, I shall ask for it,’ Baldwin declared loftily.
‘Anyway, it was after he saw that widow that he lost interest in politics,’ Edgar continued imperturbably.